Page 9 of The Shadow Bride (The Scarlet Veil #2)

Chapter Nine

Petite Menteuse

His blood surges into my mouth, thicker and faster than expected. Hotter. It streams down his throat and shoulder, across my chest, until it paints both of us scarlet. I don’t stop, however. I can’t stop. Though tears pour down my cheeks, though he thrashes against me in shock and horror, spluttering incoherently, I merely thread my arms beneath his shoulders and drag him lower, closer. Easing my access. “C-Célie—” He seizes my waist and attempts to pry me away. “Célie, stop —”

I hardly feel his efforts. His hands could be a gentle caress. Indeed, as his blood fills my body, it becomes startling easy to hold him. To keep him with me forever. Mine. The thought rises like a snarl—and perhaps I do snarl, my teeth sinking deeper—because Jean Luc scrabbles at my nape now, my hair and nightgown, desperate to find purchase. And his fear —I can sense it, scent it, sharper than blood magic and just as potent, even inebriating. It floods the entire alley until I might drown in it, and my jaw clamps instinctively in response. My tongue works frantically. Wasting it. I am wasting his lifeblood, but I cannot control the flow, cannot do anything except bear him to the street and trap him between my knees, pinning his useless hands to the cobblestones. Because I need more of it.

I need more .

Before I can properly adjust my bite, however, my ribs erupt in agony.

“Let him go !” Brigitte’s calloused hands replace Jean Luc’s, and she screams, tearing at my arms before sliding his silver Balisarda through my ribs once more. Twice. Three brutal strokes. Though I choke, snarling and twisting away from her—delirious with pain, burning —my hands refuse to relinquish him. My teeth remain in his throat, even as his movements grow slower. Weaker. Brigitte lifts his Balisarda to strike again, her eyes crazed with fear. The scent only goads me further. “Get away from him! I said get ”—she grits her teeth with effort, still swinging wildly—“ away !” She hacks at my arms now, merciless in her assault. “Help! Help! ”

In a sickening circle of life, however, Jean Luc’s blood heals my wounds as soon as they open, and Brigitte’s sobs soon join my own. “Help!” Her shrieks split the dawn like an axe. “Someone please help us! Please! ” In one last, desperate bid to free him, she swings the Balisarda high, higher, before embedding it in my neck.

Pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt rends my body in two.

Because this time, she leaves the blade half-buried in my flesh, and I feel every inch of it as I turn, slowly, to face her.

Lethal purpose pounds through my chest as I wrench the Balisarda away, as I toss it to the ground and rise to my feet. Though the wound doesn’t heal instantly, vanishing like the others, the skin still knits itself back together. It leaves an angry puckered line.

Too late, she realizes her mistake. Her eyes widen when my lip curls. Her breath catches when my vision sharpens, bleeding red, and—after a split-second deliberation—she darts up the alley in an obvious attempt to lure me away from Jean Luc. And I will oblige her. Oh yes. I will give her exactly what she wants, and I will relish watching that bright, cold light leave her eyes as she dies to protect him. Blood roars in my ears. Though her gaze darts frantically for a means of escape, there is none.

If she runs, I will catch her, and already my knees bend in anticipation, my entire body trembling, tightening, because I hope she does—I hope she runs.

As if in slow motion, she turns to do just that.

And I attack.

It takes less than a second for arms of iron to wrap around my chest, pinning my own to my sides. His scent engulfs me next—rich, decadent—and heat coils tight within my belly in response. Michal. And now I am the one thrashing in vain, seething and snarling against him, helpless to move until he frees me. I should’ve known he wouldn’t leave. I should’ve known he’d interfere—

“Hello again, pet.” His voice drips with apathy, and he shakes his head, heedless of my efforts to snap his shin with my heels. “We really must stop meeting like this.”

“Let me go,” I snarl.

“As much as I’d enjoy watching you eat your fiancé, I don’t care much for the mess it’ll leave behind.”

“I hate you—”

“I know you do, Célie.”

I shudder convulsively at my name on his lips. And I hate my reaction—I do. I hate him . With a vicious curse, I writhe and twist, driving my elbows into his ribs. Attempting to create space, to loosen his grip. My skin tingles intolerably where he touches me, and—and he cannot be here. I told him to leave . Though Jean Luc presses a hand to his throat to stanch the bleeding, the scent of his blood still entwines with the delicious scent of the vampire behind me, the scent of fear. My head spins with it all—each scent more potent than the last—until I am mindless in his arms, delirious. Until all I can hear is the sluggish beat of Jean Luc’s heart and the rapid beat of Brigitte’s.

Until all I can see is scarlet upon the cobblestones, down my front. It coats Michal’s leather sleeves now too.

It makes them slick.

“Y-You’re him ,” Brigitte stammers, her face white as she stares at us. “Captain Toussaint told us about you. He said you’re the one who stole her away, who turned her—”

“I suggest”—Michal jerks his chin toward the Tower as she searches frantically for the Balisarda—“you take the good captain and leave, telling no one what transpired here. Vampires have no quarrel with huntsmen.” I can almost hear his eyes flash as he adds, “Yet.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, leech .” In lieu of a Balisarda, Brigitte hurls the word like a weapon. “The Chasseurs will have heard me. They’ll be here any moment, and you and that succubus will get what you deserve—”

“Don’t be foolish, Brigitte.” His teeth grind as my nails claw at his forearms, shredding leather and linen and skin. Drawing fresh blood. His blood. The scent of it breaks over me like a wave. It further lubricates his sleeves. “As we speak, my cousin is waiting outside to compel your precious brethren to return to their rooms. It turns out no one heard your screams after all.”

Brigitte trembles all over now, yet with a shout of triumph, she swoops low and snatches Jean Luc’s Balisarda from the shadows near the steps. “Then I’ll kill you myself,” she says. “I’ll drive this dagger straight through your cold, dead heart.”

My gaze snaps upward at that. Unbidden, a low and guttural sound tears from my throat—a sound I’ve never made before—and I twist again to face her, slipping beneath the slick fabric of Michal’s sleeves. For a single, glorious second, nothing stands between me and Brigitte. I start toward her too swiftly for my mind to follow, to make sense of the sudden fury licking up my spine.

Before I can tear out her throat, however—before I can feast —Michal appears between us. When I snarl again, attempting to dart around him, he sidesteps, and I crash into his chest, too slow to counter him. Brigitte seizes the opportunity to lunge at his back with the Balisarda, but he swats it aside with rapidly thinning patience. When it skids—useless—behind me, Brigitte regains her senses and retreats to Jean Luc’s side.

I glower at her from behind Michal, hissing softly.

She drops to her knees in response, looping her arms under Jean’s shoulders and attempting to drag him backward. Away from me.

A mistake.

It’s like someone else has taken control of my body. All I can see is her hateful face, her hands on Jean Luc, and none of this makes sense. He doesn’t belong to me—I know that—yet the scent of his blood, the scent of Michal , nearly cleaves my body in two with wanting. My spine actually bows with hunger, with pain , and I lunge, baring my teeth, snapping at them—

Michal’s arms wrap around me once more, and he lifts me from my feet as still I strain forward, sobbing now. Vaguely, I realize he speaks low and fast at my ear, but I hear only one word. “Célie,” he breathes. Over and over and over again, he says my name. Just my name. Célie. As if he knows I’ve gone somewhere he cannot follow, and he won’t stop until he drags me back. “You don’t want to kill them. Not truly.”

“You don’t know what I want,” I snarl.

“Oh, but I do.” He still refuses to let me go, holding me tight and fast against him. “Your senses have heightened. Everything feels sharper, brighter, better as a vampire, but the pain feels more intense too. Your teeth are aching . Your head throbs. The scent of his blood has become a heartbeat in your chest, and you can’t hear anything except that frantic drum. You want to rend her limb from limb for touching him because he belongs to you .”

I shake my head vehemently. A liar.

A liar, a liar, a liar .

Just like that, I wriggle through his arms—completely out of control—but as before, he appears in front of me. This time, however, he forces me against the alley wall with a hard forearm against my chest. His slippery surcoat has vanished, leaving behind only a shredded black shirt. His collar fell open during our tussle; his cravat lies crumpled and forgotten upon the street. If possible, his disarray makes him feel all the more menacing—wilder, somehow, and darker, like a primeval god looming over me.

“Enough, Célie,” he says with unnerving calm. “Unless you want to bury your fiancé and his new friend, you need to stop pretending to be human. Whether you like it or not, you’re a vampire now, and vampires are a predatory species— the predatory species.” His black eyes bore into mine, insistent and immovable, and I know—I know —that his patience has reached its end. “We cannot survive on morality.”

The words crumble the last of my resolve.

In its wake, a flood of bitter embarrassment rushes through me instead. It fills each crack in my chest until I might drown—in my stupidity, yes, in my recklessness , but also in my fear. I knew I would eventually need to feed. After living on Requiem with Michal and Odessa and Dimitri, how could I not? I knew what it would require to survive as a vampire, and truthfully, the blood itself never disgusted me. It still doesn’t.

Behind Michal, Jean Luc struggles to rise to his elbows, his eyes narrowed in disbelief—still seeking mine even as Brigitte tries to drag him away. He digs in his heels. I can hold his horrified gaze for only a second before looking away. Because the scent of his blood still stirs something inside me. Because my belly still clenches tight in response; my fingers still curl to claim him.

I delayed the inevitable because I didn’t want to hurt anyone.

And so I do not fight Michal any longer. I simply lift my chin, and I bare my entire soul. “I don’t think I can do this.”

It’s the hideous truth I’ve tried to avoid, the one my friends and family have always ignored because they love me—I am not enough. I never have been, and I never will be. At every turn, I have failed: to be a sister, a lady, a huntswoman, a fiancée. I even failed at being a Bride. Frederic won—he resurrected my sister—because I thought I could outwit him, could undo all his careful planning with nothing but hope and fairy dust. Of course I’d now fail at being a vampire too.

It seems everyone got their wish, after all, and how terribly disappointed they all must be.

I am still, tragically, Célie.

As expected, Michal doesn’t pity me. If possible, his expression hardens even further, and he releases me without warning to wrench up his sleeve. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. If you refuse to eat, you will kill someone—likely all of Chasseur Tower—and you’ll loathe yourself more than you already do.” Before I can stop him, his fangs descend, and he bites his wrist deep enough to draw blood. His scent punches through me like the blade of a knife. Its jagged edge stabs at my throat, my chest, my stomach until I hiss in delirious pain. He doesn’t care. “Your options are limited now, Célie. You can either feed from me, or if you prefer, I can show you how to feed from these two. I can even teach you how to compel away their memories—”

I shake my head before he can finish, ignoring the way his blood drips down his forearm. My jaw aches. “I won’t violate them like that.”

“She stuck a sword in your neck.”

“No, I—I took more from Jean Luc than I should’ve. She was just—just—”

“Célie.” Michal’s voice softens inexplicably as he brushes the damp, tangled hair away from my face. It brings his wrist closer to my mouth, and I clamp my eyes shut, refusing to breathe. Refusing to think . Because I cannot drink from Michal again. Not now, not as a vampire. To do so would be abhorrent, unnatural—intimate. So incredibly intimate. Though I cannot explain why, I know deep in my bones that something will change between us if I do.

As if to reassure me, he sweeps a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “You won’t hurt me.”

Don’t be disgusting , Mila once said. Vampires only drink from vampires in very nonfamilial situations.

I never asked what she meant, never dreamed such a thing would ever be relevant to Michal and me. And perhaps it’s the pain in my stomach—or perhaps I really am the worst sort of liar—but the consequences seem to matter even less now than they did before. I have already done the worst. I have already attacked someone I love—almost killed him in a fit of passion, or perhaps blind rage. Jealousy. Perhaps Odessa was right, and all emotions keenly felt as a vampire blur into hunger.

Eyes still closed, I seize Michal’s wrist just as the bite marks begin to heal. I cannot stand to look at them. I cannot stand to look at him —not as my lips close around his skin, not as my teeth sink deep where his have just been. His forearm falls away from my chest at the first pull of my mouth. It snakes around my waist at the second, steadying me when my knees give way. “Easy,” he murmurs, bearing us gently to the cobblestones.

But it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy at all.

The taste of his blood—nothing could’ve prepared me for it, and nothing can ever compare again. Immediately, I know I’ve made a terrible mistake, but if Hell itself descended upon us now, if revenants crawled from every grave, I wouldn’t be able to stop. It explodes on my tongue in a heady, arcane rush of heat, of magic , and by the third pull, my head threatens to spin from my shoulders. My body threatens to collapse. Still I keep my eyes closed, pulling him closer, drinking him deeper until white stars burst across the darkness of my eyelids. I suspected Michal to be stronger than the average vampire, but I’d never known how much .

It isn’t until I feel him flowing through every part of me—powerful, potent —that I realize he hasn’t told me to stop. He hasn’t pulled away. Indeed, he still crouches before me, stroking my hair and murmuring encouragement. Allowing me to take as much as I need. To... use him. “That’s it.” Another stroke of his hand. “Good girl.”

And I feel better now. I do. As my eyes flutter open, I feel fuller, satiated, almost like myself again, except... different.

Fluid and graceful.

Strong.

He watches me with an inscrutable expression, his hand stilling on my hair when I finally lift my mouth from his wrist. His voice, however, is hoarser than before when he asks, “Did you get enough?”

“I...” My own voice sounds distant, dreamier, as I stare up at him, transfixed by his silhouette in the torchlight. “Yes, thank you.”

“And you’re... all right?” he asks quietly.

His eyes search my face with that same impenetrable intensity.

Too late, I realize how filthy I must look—hair wild and tangled, feet bare, my nightgown soaked with rain and mire and blood. His blood. I wipe it slowly from my mouth before tearing my gaze away from him. Another mistake.

The rest of the scene trickles in slowly at first. Though Michal has positioned himself to block the street, my senses have sharpened, and I do not need to see Jean Luc to hear that his pulse has steadied. His bleeding has slowed. His breath remains shallower than it should be, and Brigitte pants as she struggles to drag him to the door. The rapid, panicked beat of her heart, the slick sound of his clothes against the cobblestones—the sharp tang of his blood, so much blood —no longer fills me with rage, however. It no longer fills me with hunger.

No.

My entire body trembles as I push to my feet. Michal rises with me, still standing too close. Still shielding me from the street. “Célie,” he starts, placating, but I sidestep him swiftly. His blood rushes to my cheeks at the scene before me. It churns viciously in my stomach, threatens to rise.

The rain has stopped.

It leaves a river of scarlet in the street. My throat thickens at the sight of it.

I—I was not clean in my attack. I was not gentle.

“No,” I choke, starting toward Jean Luc.

“Don’t touch me.” As if waking from a trance, he stops fighting Brigitte now, scrambling backward, and the scent of his fear is a living, poisonous thing between us. In the full light of dawn, I can finally see why: his shredded skin, his mottled flesh, his glazed eyes and ashen color. “Just—just get away—”

I nearly tore out his throat.

Any strength I might’ve felt vanishes as I leap forward, seizing his Balisarda and dragging it down my forearm. “Please—” I fling the blade aside, thrusting my arm toward him desperately. “Please take it, Jean. It’ll heal you. It’ll make this—all of it just—”

All of it just what? asks a nasty voice in my head. Go away?

Any strength I might’ve felt slips like sand between my fingers as Jean Luc staggers to his feet, shoving my arm away and collapsing against Brigitte, who does her best to support his full weight. That strength heats and melts into brittle despair—because something like this doesn’t just go away . Something like this starts a war, starts a bitter crusade like the one we just ended. No. As if reading my mind, Brigitte sneers, her face red with exertion as she helps Jean Luc to the Tower. “We’ll hunt you for this. We’ll make you pay .”

“But I can fix—”

“You can’t fix this.” She reaches behind to pull open the door, struggling to heave him across the threshold. “Captain Toussaint is the only reason the Chasseurs haven’t burned your island to the ground.”

No no no—

Hysteria rising, I chase after them, addressing Jean Luc now, waving my arm beseechingly. “You could die , Jean Luc. Please, please, just let me heal you—”

“Like he healed you?” Voice faint, Jean Luc winces as Brigitte jerks him into the corridor. I still reach for him, determined to do something , but Michal’s hand descends on my shoulder just as my fingers start to burn. I snatch them away, tears welling anew at the blisters. At the smoke.

“You can’t follow them,” he says softly.

I whirl to face him, to plead that he somehow—someway—undo all of this. “ Why? ”

Why did this have to happen?

It isn’t Michal who answers, however. It’s Jean Luc. Tears track down his cheeks as he stares at me from the shadowed corridor, but his expression isn’t mournful. It isn’t sad. Instead his entire face screws tight with disgust. “Because the Church is holy. Evil cannot enter here.”

My eyes widen in hurt. In disbelief.

Evil.

“As you’ve refused our blood,” Michal says curtly to Jean Luc, “you should know that your healers can do nothing for those wounds. I myself do not care if you live or die, but Célie does. She is the only reason I offer this alternative—summon your friends instead. Blood magic can heal you if administered quickly.”

“Like we’d ever trust you —” Brigitte starts, but Michal swings the door shut in her face. Then he turns to me.

“Célie?” he asks, his eyes wary.

We must all go to the clock room eventually.

“Take me to Requiem, Michal,” I whisper.