“You can try,” I whisper without glancing toward the half fey.
It’s foolish for me to bait an ethereal. Arjun’s touch could immobilize me. Leave me at my siblings’ mercy. But I am more focused on what will follow, should he bother to make the attempt.
They cannot corral me forever.
“I know you think yourself unafraid,” Arjun says. “That we should all fear you instead.”
I say nothing, though a twinge knifes through me.
“My mortal father used to say that anger and fear are two sides of the same coin,” Arjun continues. “They both make us behave outside our nature.”
“Or perhaps they simply distill us down to our essence. Maybe this is my nature now.” I glower at Boone, who raises his arms like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man.
“I don’t believe that.” Boone’s voice is hoarse, but gentle. “Not for one minute.”
Madeleine blurs closer, pausing to my left. “Sébastien.” Her tone is laced in warning. Her teeth begin to lengthen, commanding me without words to stand down. “Don’t do this, mon enfant.”
Mon enfant. My child. Madeleine is the closest thing to a mother I have known since my own mother perished ten years ago. Nevertheless I ignore her, the bloodlust raging through my veins. The desire to kill and consume of utmost importance.
Tulle rustles to Madeleine’s right. “Écoute-moi, mon petit diable,” her sister, Hortense, commands in the singsong of a medium conducting a séance. “Nous ne sommes pas vos ennemis.”
“Listen to her, brother,” Boone says, his hands inching toward his temples. “Our enemies are real. If we waste time squabbling among ourselves, there’ll be nothing left for the true fight to come.”
The rational part of me knows Boone is right. But I respond by tightening my grasp until he can no longer speak. The plaster around his head starts to powder, causing a shower of white dust to descend on his cherubic curls.
Another flicker of movement. “Let him go,” Jae demands, taking hold of my right shoulder. Each of his words is the point of a dagger at my back. “Now.”
“Do you still think me afraid?” I level a cool gaze at the assassin. One meant to convey nothing but contempt.
His scowl deepens.
It is all a lie. Everything I’ve done or said to this point is for show.
I am afraid. Deathly afraid. From the moment I first understood what had happened to me. But fear cannot be all I know. I will not let it be all I know.
Jae remains silent. My fear threatens to eclipse all else. I stoke my anger until it burns everything else away. The color leaches from Boone’s skin, the ink in his eyes swirling, spreading until the whites are completely black. His fingers turn into fists.
I know he is preparing to fight back. I should release him before the situation worsens. But the wrath continues flowing down my arms, surging through my stomach, burrowing into my bones. It makes me feel powerful. As if I am in control. I do not want to lose this feeling. I cannot be afraid. I cannot be weak.
What kind of beast surrenders to its basest nature?
The kind with nothing to fear.
So be it.
I squeeze tighter, feeling the bones in Boone’s throat begin to splinter in my grasp.
I don’t see Madeleine move until she has shattered my wrist with a single swipe of her arm. I roar and fly backward, slamming into the far wall. My body lands in a position of defense, crouched like a panther. Toussaint coils at my feet, his fangs bared, daring any of my siblings to tread closer.
I clutch my injured hand, feeling the crushed bones knit back together like torch fire through tinder. The sensation should feel marvelous, for it is further proof of my indestructibility; instead it only emphasizes my monstrousness. The utter loss of my humanity.
All the while, no one moves. Madeleine stands guard before a fallen Boone, who grips his throat and coughs, blood spewing from his lips. His eyes flash as Madeleine bares her fangs at me and hisses through her teeth.
Beside her, Arjun waits with his hands in his pockets, his monocle swaying from its gold chain. Hortense hovers behind Madeleine, her lips forming the beginnings of a smirk. Jae stares at me, his expression like that of a disapproving father. Odette looks . . . sad.
“It is as I suspected,” Nicodemus says. A casual observer might believe he is troubled by this turn of events, but I know my uncle far too well. He did nothing to stop me from injuring Boone, nor did he attempt to intervene when the rest of his progeny moved against me in force. There is a gleam in his amber eyes. One of supreme pleasure.
Nicodemus wanted to see what might happen. I suspect he is thrilled to witness how strong I am. How invincible his immortal blood has made me.
With Nicodemus Saint Germain, everything is a test.
I ignore the world around me, squeezing my eyes closed.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
The smell of the blood beyond the window taunts me again. Surrounded as I am by other vampires—my brothers and sisters—I know I cannot break free and sate my hunger. Though I have attacked one of their own, still they take on the mantle of responsibility. Still they fight to save me from myself.
Even though I almost crushed Boone’s throat in my fist a moment ago.
I look around the room. I search within me for something more. I find nothing. It is not gratitude I feel for my immortal brethren. Only despair.
Choking through a haze of bloodlust, I recoil. My chest heaving, I settle my sights on my uncle, who has not moved from his position beside the burl-wood table. Who continues to watch the scene unfold with a disconcerting gleam.
“Tonight, you will go with Jae and Boone to hunt,” Nicodemus says as if he were prescribing a tincture for a common cold. “They will teach you how to mark your victims. Then they will show you how to dispose of all traces, so that you do not put any of us at risk with reckless behavior.”
“No,” I reply. “I am not going anywhere with any of you.”
“If you refuse to learn our ways, then you will be forbidden from leaving this place,” Nicodemus counters without missing a beat. “I cannot risk you causing a scene.”
Disgust grips me for a moment. My uncle is more concerned with me drawing attention to our coven than he is about the plight of the humans in my vicinity. I could kill every last one of them and he would not care, provided I cleaned up after myself.
I make my decision without even considering it. “Then I will remain confined here.”
At least at Jacques’—ensconced in the tri-storied building my uncle owns on Rue Royale—I will not be a threat to any of the hapless mortals unfortunate enough to wander too close. Were I left to roam the streets of the Crescent City, that boy and his mother and every person nearby would be killed before I wasted a single breath reflecting upon the consequences.
Nicodemus’ cheeks hollow. He arches a brow. “And what will you do for food?”
I almost blanch. “Bring me what I require to survive. Nothing more.” If I sound imperious enough, perhaps he will not argue.
Anger clouds his expression. “That is not the way of it, Sébastien.”
“It is now.”
“The bloodsacs below should not—”
“Never call them that again in my presence,” I interrupt, incensed by the slur. One he never before used in my presence.
His eyes narrow further. “And what will you do then? You are only beginning to understand what you are. Will you crush them in your arms? Listen to them scream and beg for mercy? Or will you learn our ways and subdue their emotions, never forgetting to stay to the shadows?”
The revulsion in me grows. Already I am being taught to see mortals as lesser beings. Only last night, I wandered among them, a young man with the promise of a future filled with light. A boy with a soul. Now I am demon of the shadows, subsisting off stolen blood.
I don’t want to be reminded of the price paid for my immortality. The price Celine paid. The price I paid. “Keep them away,” I say. “If they don’t know what I’ve become, I want them nowhere near me.”
Nicodemus takes a step closer. There is danger in the way he grips the roaring lion carved into the brass handle of his walking stick. He thinks me weak.
Nevertheless I refuse to cow beneath his scrutiny.
“I can bring him blood for the time being,” Odette interjects. “It is no trouble to me. First thing tomorrow, I’ll put in an order for a new case of the Green Fairy’s finest.”
I glance her way, puzzled.
“A capful of absinthe prevents the blood from becoming too thick to drink,” she explains. “When blood grows cold or is left standing too long, it congeals.” She speaks in soothing tones.
Of course. A detail I never had occasion to consider. Nicodemus looks to Madeleine.
She nods in turn.
“Very well,” Nicodemus says. “But I will not permit this accommodation for long. You will learn our ways, no matter how much you may disdain them.” He points the end of his walking stick at my chest. “And you will obey your maker without question, as your brothers and sisters do, or you will be banished from the city.” With that, he exits the room in a swirl of darkness.
After a time in stilted silence, Odette sighs. Then a bright smile cuts across her face. “Charades, anyone?”
Jae grunts. “You are . . . tiresome.”
“And you are an incomparable wordsmith, Jaehyuk-ah.” Odette simpers.
“Don’t bait him,” Madeleine commands before their bickering can continue, her expression weary. “We’ve had enough of that for one evening.”
Odette crosses her arms, her lips pursing. “Le chat grincheux started it.”
“I was hoping to appeal to your better nature,” Jae says.
“Silly boy,” Odette snaps back. “You know I don’t have one.”
“Enough!” Madeleine says. She looks to me. “Sit, Bastien. You are due for a lecture, tout de suite.”
Hortense yawns. She throws herself on the closest chaise, pausing to cross her bare ankles on the edge of a carved tea table. “Ça sera un grand ennui,” she sings to no one.