Page 128

Losing my head completely, I leap at her, determined tosomehowhelp, but with a shrill cry of panic, she changes directions and plows straight into Reid’s shins instead. I skid to a halt a split second before following suit. Warily, he bends to pick her up with a soft, “Hello, Célie.”

“Reid! How are you?” I straighten at once, still shaking like a leaf, and force a tremulous smile. Before he can answer, I add hastily, “Should we—should we check her wing? Her feathers look a bit ruffled, like she might’ve—might’ve broken it or—”

But Reid shakes his head with a pained smile. “I think the chicken is fine.”

“Are you sure?” My voice climbs steadily higher. “Because—”

In that instant, however, Jean Luc seizes my wrist—right over Michal’s bite—and wrenches me around to face him, his face blazing with a thousand unspoken questions. Though I try not to flinch at the bolt of pain, I can’t help myself. Ithurts. At my sharp intake of breath, Michal, Odessa, and Dimitri instantly materialize beside me, and Jean Luc’s gaze darts from their otherworldly faces to my wrist and the obvious teeth marks there. To the blood now gently weeping between his fingers. His eyes widen and, almost instinctively, he tears the cloak away from my throat to reveal the deeper, darker wounds there. Jaw clenching, he wrenches the Balisarda from his belt.

“Jean—” I start quickly.

“Get behind me.” Voice urgent, he tries to pull me away from Michal and the others, but I dig in my heels and shake my head, throat tightening to the point of pain. He stares at me in disbelief. “Now, Célie.”

“N-No.”

When I twist to loosen his grip and retreat into Michal—whenMichal slides a protective arm around my waist—realization slams into Jean Luc with the force of a falling guillotine. I can see the exact second it strikes—he blinks, and his expression abruptly empties. Then it contorts into something unfamiliar, somethingugly, as he drops my wrist. “You let him— Hebityou.”

I clutch my wrist to my chest. “It doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

“No?” Though he tries to conceal his suspicion, a note of trepidation still creeps into his voice. “What does it mean, then? Did he—did he force—?”

“He didn’t force me to do anything,” I say quickly. “He was— Jean, he was hurt, and he needed my blood to heal him. He would’ve died without it. Blood sharing with vampires isn’t always— It doesn’t have to be—”

“Doesn’t have to bewhat?” Jean Luc’s eyes sharpen on my face, and cursing my own stupidity, I stare back at him helplessly. I can’t say the word. Ican’t. Still clutching my wrist, I pray harder than I’ve ever prayed before—to who or what entity, I do not know, as clearly God has abandoned me. “Célie,” he warns when the silence grows too long.

“It doesn’t have to be... sexual,” I finish in a small voice.

He recoils like I’ve slapped him. When whispers sweep throughout the crowd, his jaw tightens, and I brace, expecting the worst. “So it’s true,” he says coolly. “You really are a whore.”

A low, menacing noise reverberates from Michal’s chest. I can feel it all the way down my spine as I press against him, shaking my head again. This time in warning. I cannot allow Michal to attack Jean Luc, and I cannot allow Jean Luc to attack Michal. Because if either of them hurts the other, I don’t know what I’lldo, and because—because I deserve this anger from Jean Luc. I do. I deserve his hurt. And because as Lou and Coco once told me, a whore isn’t the worst thing a woman can be. Still— “You don’t mean that,” I tell him quietly.

He scoffs and gestures bitterly to the crimson gown beneath Michal’s cloak. “What else would you call it? For afortnight, the entire kingdom has been searching for you—fearing the worst,dreadingwhat we might find—and where have you been?” His knuckles clench tight around his Balisarda. “Entertaining the locals.”

At the last, his eyes flash to Michal, who chuckles darkly. “I’m not local, Captain, and how fortunate that is for you.”

Odessa elbows him sharply in the side.

Jean Luc glares between them for several seconds—disgust and unease at war on his face—before he turns to me and snarls, “Whoishe?”

My mouth parts to answer before closing promptly once more. How in theworldcan I explain Michal without revealing his secret to not only hundreds of gawking people but also an entire contingent of Chasseurs, who—most inconveniently—wield silver swords?

Sensing my hesitation, Michal steps smoothly forward.

“As I’m standing right in front of you,” he says in that cool, would-be pleasant voice, “it’s rather rude not to ask me directly. Surely any fiancé of Célie’s should know better. However”—Jean Luc’s skin flushes at the insult—“for the sake of ending this conversation as expeditiously as possible, you already know who I am. Célie has told you.” He inclines his head slightly, his black eyes cold and unblinking. “I am Michal Vasiliev, and these aremy cousins, Odessa and Dimitri Petrov. We’ve contracted Célie’s services in avenging the murder of my sister, who—I believe—is just one name on a long list of victims.” Straightening, he adds, “It should come as no surprise that Célie has already located your missing bodyandyour missing grimoire, both of which she found at Les Abysses while working undercover.”

The silence deepens at his pronouncement, and Ifeelthe eyes of everyone in the harbor fall to my crimson gown. “Michal,” I whisper, blinking rapidly. No one has ever—they’ve never eventhoughtabout me in such a way, let alone voiced it for hundreds to hear. It shouldn’t mean this much—he isn’t saying anything untrue—yet my knees still threaten to give way beneath the crowd’s curious gaze.

I will not break. I will not shatter.

“At this brothel,” Michal continues impassively, clasping his hands behind his back and strolling around me, “Célie discovered Babette Trousset isn’t dead at all, but alive and well. The blood witch faked her own death before stealing your precious grimoire and fleeing to the arms of her cousin Pennelope Trousset, who has harbored her in secret for days. Presumably, both women have been acting on orders from a man who calls himself the Necromancer. All of this, of course, Célie investigated while being quiteout of your sight.”

Jean Luc, who looked momentarily stunned at the revelation, seems to return to himself at his own shameful turn of phrase. “Because youabductedher—”

Before either can do more than sneer, however, Reid appears between them, still clutching the resentful-looking hen in his arms. To my surprise, he addresses neither Jean Luc nor Michal,instead gazing intently at me. “Are you hurt, Célie?” His eyes fall to the blood all over my dress, my wrist, my throat. “Are you all right?”

“I’m—”

As if he can’t hear me, Jean Luc thrusts the Balisarda back into its scabbard with brutal force. “What kind of question is that? Of course she isn’tall right. She clearly isn’t herself, and she hasn’tbeenherself for a long time.”