“Is the man you’re meeting here?” I looked around, too. But the only person I could see was a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a lavish red dress. She was far in the distance, no doubt having some romantic assignation before dinner.
“Have you seen the other quintain?” Kit pointed in the opposite direction, where a mannequin made of straw and rough burlap was tied to a post. This, too, looked more like a form of execution than a piece of sporting equipment.
I felt a cold, focused glance. Before I could turn around, a vampire caught me with arms that had the familiar sense of being more steel than flesh. But these arms did not belong to Matthew.
“Why, she is even more delicious than I’d hoped,” a woman said, her cold breath snaking around my throat.
Roses. Civet. I registered the scents, tried to remember where I’d smelled the combination before.
Sept-Tours. Louisa de Clermont’s room.
“Something in her blood is irresistible to wearhs,” Kit said roughly. “I do not understand what it is, but even Father Hubbard seems to be in her thrall.”
Sharp teeth rasped against my neck, though they did not break the skin. “It will be amusing to play with her.”
“Our plan was to kill her,” Kit complained. He was even twitchier and more restless now that Louisa was here. I remained silent, trying to figure out what game they were playing. “Then everything will be as it was before.”
“Patience.” Louisa drank in my scent. “Can you smell her fear? It always sharpens my appetite.”
Kit inched closer, fascinated.
“But you are pale, Christopher. Do you need more physic?” Louisa modified her grasp on me so that she could reach into her pocket. She handed Kit a sticky brown lozenge. He took it from her eagerly, thrusting the ball into his mouth. “They are miraculous, are they not? The warmbloods in Germany call them ‘Stones of Immortality,’ for the ingredients somehow make even pitiful humans feel that they are divine. And they have made you feel strong again.”
“It is the witch who weakens me, just as she weakened your brother.” Kit’s eyes turned glassy, and there was a sickeningly sweet tang to his breath. Opiates. No wonder he was behaving so strangely.
“Is that true, witch? Kit says you bound my brother against his will.” Louisa swung me around. Her beautiful face embodied every warmblood’s nightmare of a vampire: porcelain-pale skin, dusky black hair, and dark eyes that were as fogged with opium as Kit’s. Malevolence rolled off her, and her perfectly bowed red lips were not only sensual but cruel. This was a creature who would hunt and kill without a hint of remorse.
“I did not bind your brother. I chose him—and he chose me, Louisa.”
“You know who I am?” Louisa’s dark eyebrows rose.
“Matthew doesn’t keep secrets from me. We are mates. Husband and wife, too. Your father presided over our marriage.” Thank you, Philippe.
“Liar!” Louisa screamed. Her pupils engulfed the iris as her control snapped. It was not just drugs that I would have to contend with but blood rage, too.
“Trust nothing she says,” Kit warned. He pulled a dagger from his doublet and grabbed my hair. I cried out at the pain as he wrenched my head back. Kit’s dagger orbited my right eye. “I am going to pluck out her eyes so that she can no longer use them for enchantments or to see my fate. She knows my death. I am sure of it. Without her witch’s sight, she will have no hold on us—or on Matthew.”
“The witch does not deserve such a swift death,” Louisa said bitterly.
Kit pressed the point into my flesh just under the brow bone, and a drop of blood rolled down my cheek. “That wasn’t our agreement, Louisa. To break her spell, I must have her eyes. Then I want her dead and gone. So long as the witch lives, Matthew will not forget her.”
“Shh, Christopher. Do I not love you? Are we not allies?” Louisa reached for Kit and kissed him deeply. She moved her mouth along his jaw and down to where the blood pounded in his veins. Her lips brushed against the skin, and I saw the smear of blood that accompanied her movement. Kit drew a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.
Louisa drank hungrily from the daemon’s neck. While she did, we stood in a tight knot, locked together in the vampire’s strong arms. I tried to squirm away, but her grip on me only tightened as her teeth and lips battened on Kit.
“Sweet Christopher,” she murmured when she had drunk her fill, licking at the wound. The mark on Kit’s neck was silvery and soft, just like the scar on my breast. Louisa must have fed from him before. “I can taste the immortality in your blood and see the beautiful words that dance through your thoughts. Matthew is a fool not to want to share them with you.”