Broken Soul

This discussion was going to be harder than I had expected. He had been in love with Batildis. And if vamp emotions were anything to go on, he likely still was. Wrassler said something French that had my name in the middle, and Grégoire said something back. Wrassler nodded me to the chair by the bed and stepped out of the way, allowing me to see the rest of the room, which was filled with tables and chairs and knickknacks and art from centuries of living.

Grégoire, wearing a blue silk dressing gown, was on the huge wrought-iron bed. The frame was shaped with fleurs-de-lis at every angle, an ornate, exotic structure that made the iron look like lace. He was lying back against a stack of pillows, blue silk linens over him and beneath him. Curled up beside him, a happy smile on her face and a smear of blood on her throat, was Amy Lynn Brown, a new scion who had come from Asheville along with Adelaide Mooney. Amy was the kind of person who would disappear into a crowd in a heartbeat, nondescript, brown everything, and on the surface, mousy. But Amy was famous. Her blood brought scions back from the devoveo in record time. It was brilliant to have the injured vamps drink from her, and from the smile on her face she wasn’t averse to helping out in any way required.

Grégoire was vamped out from feeding but as Wrassler moved toward the doorway, his fangs clicked up into the roof of his mouth and his eyes bled back into the famous blue irises. His skin was pink from the blood he had taken and he licked his lips. “Thank you, Amy,” he said. “When I am more myself, I shall court you and shower you with gifts. You are a treasure to drink from, your blood like the finest wines of my home country.”

Amy blushed, bobbed her head, and skedaddled. Grégoire didn’t move, which was not a good thing; nor were the cold eyes he turned to me. His scent was flowery and soft, like the seashore and spring blossoms, but underneath it was a trace of frustration, like creosote in the sun. Grégoire looked like a fifteen-year-old human kid in the big bed, but the vamp had fought and debauched his way all through Europe for centuries. He was not a fanghead to take lightly or to treat as anything less than a dangerous predator.

“Um . . . are you still paralyzed?” I asked. Great. Fantastic greeting, Jane.

He let a silence build between us, as he scrutinized me, his face neither soft nor forgiving, his body unmoving and more dead than usual. “I can move my head,” he said at last, and I flinched at the words. He slid across the pillow, mussing his long blond hair against the blue silk. “I am able to move my left foot and toes,” he said, the covers wiggling in demonstration, but his gaze not wavering. “My left hand is also much improved.” His fingers wiggled. “And other bodily functions have returned in full. But I am still paralyzed, yes.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I didn’t intend to hurt you so bad.”

“You were perhaps planning a love tap?”

“Ummm . . .”

“I know you are not human, Jane, but I was not aware of your speed, nor your strength. They are secrets worth hiding, and will be of use when you face the Europeans. And my kin,” he finished, emphasizing the last three words.

“Yeah.” I took a breath. “About your fam—”

“Sadly, you will face them alone,” he interrupted, “if I am not well recovered. And even with your speed and trickery, you will not survive, not against Peregrinus and his Devil.” I wasn’t adept at reading Grégoire, but I thought I detected a bit of satisfaction in his tone at the thought of me dying. “It would have been better had you shared your secrets with Leo and with me, that you might be better trained and your gifts better utilized. You have kept a great weapon from us. Why?”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Remorseful enough to share your blood that I might heal the faster?” I didn’t reply and Grégoire gave me a smile that contained stony gratification. “Sorrow is a wasted emotion when not supported with actions to repair the wrong. You did not answer my question. Why did you hide this when you know we face such a danger?”

I shrugged and sighed. “Would you believe me if I said I just discovered I could move so fast?” His expression said he wouldn’t. “It’s true. I was raised alone from the time I was five years old. I didn’t have teachers. I don’t know how to use all the abilities of my kind. I’m still learning. And while I knew I could move fast, I seem to be getting”—I lifted a shoulder—“faster.” Which sounded woefully inadequate. Because, even if I knew all that another skinwalker could teach me, I’d still be floundering with the abilities that my Beast gave me. Couldn’t share that. Nope.

“A singularity? You have never met another of your kind?”

I looked at the doorway. Wrassler had left us alone but the door was open. I stepped to the entry and closed the door. Grégoire’s eyes were narrowed when I turned back, and he held a long, slender knife in his left fingers. I figured knives were never far from the vamp’s hand, even a hand that only partly worked. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said, sounding cross. “But I don’t want this getting back to Leo.”

Grégoire’s pale blond eyebrows went up. “You think I would keep something from my master?”

“Only if it was necessary. And this is necessary.” I sat on one of the small chairs, one made when humans were Grégoire’s size, not my six feet in height. My knees rose high and I felt ridiculous, but the position made Grégoire pause, and he flipped the knife, holding it in such a way that he couldn’t throw it in a single move. But he didn’t put it away either. I smelled a fresh scent in the room, overriding the smell of vamp blood, slightly acrid, and I eyed the blade. Poison? That was ducky.

“Leo knows that Immanuel was killed and eaten by a black-magic user. The thing that posed as Leo’s son and heir for decades was a skinwalker, like me. But he had gone off the deep end.” At the confusion on Grégoire’s face, I said, “He’d gone crazy. When skinwalkers get old they lose mental stability and do what Immanuel did. They eat humans. Immanuel is the only other skinwalker I’ve seen in”—I shrugged, not knowing how to finish this—“in ever.”

“Leo knows this?”

“He knows some of it. He sent me the bones Immanuel collected. But he doesn’t know everything. Like how fast I am. Or how strong.” Or that I can now bend time. Yeah. Not that either.