Blood heated Rhys’s neck and he clenched his fists.
Over the years, he and Salignac had traded the role of tormentor against the other. Whenever Salignac found opportunity, he went for Rhys’s jugular. They got into rousing duels and malicious dupes. Constantine had even gone so far as causing the death of Rhys’s only loved one.
Rhys did not believe in an eye for an eye. Senseless violence proved nothing. Yet the seeds of such violence were always cracked open whenever in Salignac’s presence.
He took morbid delight in the idea of walking up to Salignac tonight. It had been a decade since they’d last spoken.
“Here’s something you’ll find of interest,” Orlando said. “Salignac is smitten.”
“Smitten? As in …?”
“In love. Or so the whispers tell.” Always so comically dramatic, the young werewolf fit into this false society with an ease Rhys would never possess. “Seems there is a beautiful vampiress who was left without a patron after Henri Chevalier’s murder. You know the females need to feed from a familiar blood source to maintain their life essence.
“The thought curdles my blood,” Orlando muttered.
Werewolves would never dream of drinking blood from humans, or consuming their flesh. It was abominable. Yet a werewolf bitten by a vampire would develop the gruesome need to take mortal blood.
“Salignac stumbles moon-eyed in the wake of her silken skirts,” Orlando reported. “The entire salon is abuzz with rumors he will patron her, perhaps even marry her. It is why no other vampire dares pursue her.”
“That is not love, Orlando.”
“Yes, but if ever an alpha existed in the vampire ranks, it is Salignac. If he strikes first, the other males cower. I hear the woman is indifferent.”
Rhys smirked. “A female not interested in Constantine? The illustrious leader of the failing tribe must be confounded.”
“Seems her former patron gave her unbounded freedom.”
Interesting. Rhys had never heard such a thing. Female kin were literal slaves to their patron.
“She attends the salon and boldly defies convention,” Orlando added. “She is wicked.”
“Wicked women are better left to other men to suffer their claws.” And yet, he’d never refuse a scratch or two, most especially one from an azure-eyed beauty.
“Perhaps so, but Salignac is relentless.”
Rhys had once been in love. With family. With the idea of serenity and an untroubled life. He still considered it on occasion, despite Constantine’s best efforts to excise that desire from his heart. The man had taken it all from him, and with a smirk and a nod.
“To each his own,” Rhys said.
Yet his tattered heart heaved to know Constantine was in love. And Rhys would ever be challenged to find a woman who could see beyond his darkness and into his heart. You are not right. The oath female vampires tended to pin on him with an indelicate stab. Not usually so quickly, though.
Hearing such words from the vampiress, issued with a biting cut, had been akin to pushing him facedown in the muck littering the streets of Paris.
The deuce! He did not require love. Lust suited him fine. And the sensual vampiress would serve that craving well.
Both men observed as a tall woman bowed before Lord de Salignac. Rhys noted it wasn’t a complete bow, rather forced actually. She did not deem Salignac worthy of her submission.
Though he could not completely see her face, long curls of raven hair paralleled a slender neck. And the hair was teased, coiled and pinned up with—
“Red roses,” Rhys said under his breath. It was the blue-eyed woman who had caught his eye.
“What’s that?”
“Can you see if there are skulls at the center of the roses?”
“In her hair? Can’t see from here. But don’t you adore how the women cinch their corsets so tightly their bosoms have nowhere to go but—”
“Orlando, watch yourself. Is that how you behave around women you do not know?”
“Yes.”
The boy’s innocence would get him in trouble some day. “You are yet a pup. To win a woman’s regard you must not be so vulgar.”
“And you are the master of wooing a woman? The last time I saw you with a woman—”
“I do not share all my liaisons with you, boy.” Nor did he discuss his affairs.
Rare was it Rhys left the country to seek amorous pleasures. The country women would not think to powder their hair or wrap themselves in ells of expensive fabrics. They appreciated the more rustic male, one whose appetites were fierce and less refined than the city fops.
“I’ve my eye on someone,” Rhys said. “And she will be in my bed soon enough.”
“Oh, yes? Which one?”
“The one with the roses in her hair.”
“Oh, but Rhys …” The werewolf swallowed audibly.
When Lord de Salignac lifted the woman’s hand to kiss, Rhys sucked in a breath. The vampire lord’s eyes closed. He lingered over her hand, inhaling her scent, consuming her in a breath.
Rhys knew that look.
“She is the one,” Orlando said. “Mademoiselle Viviane LaMourette. The one whom Salignac loves.”
Indeed. Rhys closed his eyes. He had chosen incorrectly.
And yet. Was it not his chance for love? Surely Constantine pursued her for one purpose, and that purpose did not require love.
A tendril of spite clutched Rhys’s spine. It was always there, forced up by Salignac. What satisfying vengeance to take away from Salignac the one woman he loved?
Decided, Rhys nodded once and drew up his shoulders. “I want her. I will have her.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Paris, modern day
“WAS IT LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?” Simon Markson asked Rhys as they walked through Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“Yes,” Rhys said, smirking wistfully as he recalled the foolishness of his youth. And yet at that time every cut to his person had felt like a blade directly to his heart. He had needed revenge. And the opportunity had been too perfect.
