The Papillion Prophecy:
Hierarchy
By
Madelaine Montague
(C) Copyright by Madelaine Montague, May 2009
Published by New Concepts Publishing
Smashwords Edition
Cover art by Eliza Black, May 2009
ISBN 978-1-60394-311-6
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
The excitement that had been pumping through his veins since he’d made his discovery turned to uneasiness as Bill Duncan waited for the man at the enormous Louis XIV desk to acknowledge his presence. He’d never stepped inside the High Lord’s mansion before, never been invited to, and he discovered that being surrounded by such opulence unnerved him almost as much as the man sitting at the desk across the study from him.
He yielded to the urge to gawk since Caleb Westmoreland seemed unaware of him, scanning the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, filled with leather bound volumes, that lined most of the walls, he tipped his head back to stare at the paintings on the ceiling. Like the walls and ceiling of the main corridor he’d been escorted down when he’d arrived and requested an ‘audience’, ornate moldings formed a pattern overhead that created ‘frames’ for each of the depictions—which seemed to be scenes from mythology if the fantastic creatures were anything to go by—battles.
Frowning, he probed his memory for any reference to the scenes and finally gave up on identifying them aside from the fact that, to his admittedly untrained eye, they at least appeared to be the work of a master.
They couldn’t be, of course, he told himself, not one of the old masters. The mansion wasn’t that old—not that he knew much about it’s history, but America wasn’t that old so it couldn’t be. Reproductions, he decided, although he couldn’t remember anything like the paintings from his art appreciation classes.
He supposed he should’ve made an attempt not to sleep through them.
When he finally returned his attention to Caleb Westmoreland, a jolt went through him. Caleb was studying him, his gaze hooded. He’d seemed completely absorbed in the paperwork on the desk before him only moments before. Now, he lounged almost negligently in the matching Louis XIV chair that looked almost more like a throne than a chair, his attitude as still and watchful as a cat studying a mouse and trying to decide whether to eat it or toy with it a while.
The uneasiness that had wafted through Bill before returned, intensified by the realization that there was every reason for the impression. After several long, heart-stopping moments, Caleb lifted one hand from the arm of his chair, curling his fingers in a summoning motion, a silent command to approach that made Bill’s knees feel suddenly weak and spawned the urge to flee instead.
Casting an uneasy glance at the closed door behind him, Bill ordered his feet to move and approached the desk, wondering a little wildly if he should bow or kneel. He discovered he couldn’t do either, which was fortunate since it finally occurred to him that Caleb not only did not demand that sort of abeyance, he forbade it—at any time. It was just the sort of thing that could attract unwelcome attention and Caleb Westmoreland was as ruthless in protecting his privacy as he was in business.
After studying him for several unnerving moments, Caleb gestured to the straight-backed chair before his desk. Almost as if mesmerized, Bill followed the gesture, stared at the chair blankly for a moment and finally wilted into it, wondering abruptly if it was wise to have approached Westmoreland in his lair.
The sunlight spilling into the room through the French doors in the west wall intensified the impression of a great cat, picking up the pale streaks in Caleb’s tawny hair and making his golden eyes, cast in shadow, glow briefly with an unearthly sheen that sent cold fingers of dread creeping along Bill Duncan’s spine. Caleb’s hard mouth curled after a few moments in a cold smile. “Cat got your tongue?”
Bill thought for several moments that he would wet himself. He swallowed convulsively, opened and closed his mouth several times, and searched a little frantically for his facility of speech, wondering what idiocy had possessed him to think he might wrangle with Caleb Westmoreland for a reward for his discovery. He’d be lucky if he left the mansion in one piece—if he was wrong!
He realized a little sickly that he had almost no proof whatsoever of his tale, none that couldn’t be disputed.
“I saw her!” he burst out finally, unable to bear the suspense any longer.
If he hadn’t been staring at Westmoreland in pure terror, he wasn’t certain he would’ve noticed the sudden tension in seemingly every muscle. As it was, the sense of a great cat preparing to pounce washed over him in a chilling tidal wave.
Westmoreland seemed to force himself to relax. Reaching for the silver letter knife on his desk, he picked up the ornate blade and began to turn it idly in his hands, studying it as if he’d never seen it before. “Her?” he prompted after a few moments.
“She had the mark,” Bill said shakily, wondering if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he had Westmoreland’s full attention again.
His tawny brows rose toward his hairline, emphasizing the deep widow’s peak on his brow. “The mark?”
Bill nodded jerkily. “On her right wrist … just as the prophecy described.”
Caleb sat forward, placing the letter knife carefully on his desktop. “Am I to assume you left her waiting in your car?”
Bill felt his face heat to the point that it felt like it would go up in flames and then chill so abruptly he felt faint. “Uh … no,” he whispered in a choked voice.
Caleb forced himself to relax. Sitting back in his chair once more, he settled his elbows on the arms of his chair, laced his fingers together and propped his chin on the steeple he’d formed, studying the man seated before him and struggling with the urge to leap over the desk and choke the life out of him. The smell of the man’s fear incited his wrath as much as the intrusion and the suspicion that had begun to settle inside of him that the fool had thought to scam him. “Meaning you lost her?” he murmured in a rumbling growl of displeasure.
Bill found himself gabbling in his efforts to excuse and explain at the same time. “I only caught a glimpse of her. It was on a crowded city street. I couldn’t … grab her!”
Anger surged through Caleb. He tamped it with an effort, narrowing his eyes at the man. “Then I’m at a loss to understand what you’re doing here.”
Bill gulped several times. The demands he’d rehearsed on his way over flitted through his mind but he decided not to push his luck. The comment prompted a memory to surface, however, and he dug shakily into his pants pocket and produced his cell phone. “I got a picture,” he said hopefully. “Uh … I think.”
Interest flickered in Caleb’s eyes. He extended his hand in demand and Bill shot up from his seat and dropped the phone in his palm. Caleb studied it a moment and finally removed the memory chip, plugging it into the port of his laptop on his desk. His long, thin fingers danced over the keypad, scrolled the mouse and then he settled back in his chair, staring at the image he’d pulled up on the screen.
His expression was unreadable and Bill felt his discomfort increase. Crane though he might, however, he couldn’t see the scene to ascertain whether he’d actually gotten the photo.
Caleb felt his pulse leap as the image popped up on his screen. The image was a three quarter view from the back, however. Apart from the fact that the woman had a very nice ass and a glorious mass of curling brown hair that hung down her back to her narrow waist, he could tell damned little about her. The shot had been snapped as she lifted her hand to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind one ear, turning her head just enough to give him a partial profile. She had a distinctive jut to her chin that seemed indicative of determination, a long, straight nose with just the hint of a roman hump on the bridge, and high cheekbones. Her mouth was narrow, her lips on the thin side, but there was a hint of a laugh line along her cheek that seemed to belie the sternness of her mouth and pugnacious chin.
An odd sense, almost of breathlessness, hit him as his gaze settled on her wrist at last. There was no mistaking the symbol, as blurred as the image was with the movement of her hand, and it was precisely where the prophesy had described it.
The realization sent his entire being into an unaccustomed flurry of chaos.
She was here … now … in his time and his city.
The realization was staggering, almost impossible to fully grasp.
There was no mistake. The prophesy was unfolding.
He would sire the child that would unite the supernaturals.
She was to be his.
He lifted his head to stare at the man across from him. “Find her. If I discover that this is some sort of scam you hatched to line your pockets, you may live long enough to regret it.”
* * * *
Not for the first time, Bronwyn wondered what had possessed her to move to the city as she stared down from her third floor apartment window at the clogged streets below her, but then she knew why she’d come—hopefulness and nagging memories of Nanna. Shaking her head at her thoughts, she moved away from the window and headed over to the miniscule kitchen area of her apartment.
She didn’t belong in the city, she thought irritably as she opened her small fridge and stared at the contents with little interest. She was hardly a country girl, and yet the small town where she’d spent the majority of her thirty years barely qualified as a town, much less a city.
Truthfully, she hadn’t even fit in there—she’d been borne a square peg in a round peg world—but there’d at least been the comforting familiarity of faces and places she’d known for years. She would never have thought she’d actually miss Greenville when her life there had hardly been pleasant, especially her childhood.
Guilt smote her at that disloyal thought. The children had made her childhood a misery, especially after her ‘best friend’ had blabbed about her ‘secret’ and everybody had started calling her a freak, but her grandmother had more than made up for that.
It was the lack of anything to do, she told herself irritably, unwilling to revisit the incident that had created most the problems she’d had. She’d always been a loner. She wasn’t lonesome. She was just blue because she was bored.
She needed a job, but it was beginning to look doubtful that she would find one. She’d spent too many years ‘self employed’, helping Nanna run the boarding house and then running it herself after her grandmother died, and apparently that was a definite turn off to would-be employers. Not that she was desperate in the sense that she would starve if she didn’t land a job soon. The sale of the boarding house she’d inherited from her grandmother, added to the already comfortable liquid assets of her grandmother’s estate and the money she’d put away herself over the years had left her well enough off to afford some down time without feeling a huge pinch. She was hardly rich, or even well to do. She certainly couldn’t afford to simply ‘retire’, but she was alright money-wise and would be for a good spell.
It was the time she had on her hands that bothered her. She was too used to working from the time she got up in the morning until she went to bed at night. There were just so many hours a day that she could devote to pounding the pavement in search of a job. Eventually, she had to return to the cramped little apartment she’d leased and stare at the four walls … wondering what the hell had possessed her to leave Greenville and head out on what was almost certainly a wild goose chase.
Of course, Nanna had rarely been wrong. She wouldn’t have had such a reputation as a psychic if her predictions didn’t generally come true, but Bronwyn couldn’t help but wonder if the future Nanna had seen for her was more in the nature of hope than fact. Maybe her grandmother had just thought she needed inspiration? That, if she was convinced a move to the city would bring her face to face with her destiny, she would make it happen?
On the other hand, the stranger had arrived and offered to buy the boarding house out of the blue just as her grandmother had said would happen. Years too late, in Bronwyn’s opinion to make it likely she was going to find the man she was destined to be with and have that mythological family her grandmother had said she would, but that part had certainly come true.
Deciding finally that nothing in her fridge appealed to her, she closed the door and ransacked her cabinets. Nothing in them appealed to her either, and she finally returned to the living room area and flopped on the ragged old couch that had come with the ‘furnished’ apartment.
She was hungry and there wasn’t a damned thing in the apartment that appealed to her.
Because she was sick of eating alone in the damned apartment, she thought irritably!
Getting off the couch, she paced to the window again to stare out. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun had already dropped behind the skyscrapers. It would be dark soon. The traffic only seemed to have picked up, however. It wasn’t really safe to go out, alone, at night in the city, but she was a grown woman! Surely it would be safe enough if she used common sense and steered clear of the worst areas of the city?
Her decision made, she left the window, marched purposefully to her small bedroom, and knelt down to scratch through the box that still held most of her clothing. She was going out to eat, she decided, and when she’d eaten, she was going to check out the nightlife. She was thirty years old! If she was ever going to sow her damned oats, she was running out of time!
Besides, she wasn’t likely to meet the man Nanna had said was her destiny holed up in her cramped little apartment!
* * * *
Bronwyn had felt like a country bumpkin when she’d been turned away from two different restaurants because she didn’t have a reservation. After standing on the sidewalk indecisively for a few minutes, wondering if she should just give up and head back to her apartment, she’d finally decided to try one more before she gave up. It was a tiny place, and busy, but the smells coming from the kitchen were divine and the host hadn’t looked down his nose at her as if a roach had approached him and asked for a table. He’d smiled, told her to wait and left. Wondering if he was just trying to snub her a little more subtly than the last two, Bronwyn waited and was rewarded when the man came back and took her to a tiny table in a corner near the kitchen.
She supposed it was a very undesirable table, but she didn’t mind being near the kitchen. The brisk traffic in and out of the kitchen made it impossible to feel ‘alone’, occupying her with something of interest while she was waiting for her food. The food, French cuisine, was fabulous and her waiter was friendly.
When she asked him if he could recommend any night spots within walking distance, he hovered by her table long enough to name off nearly a half dozen and give her a description of the places from the music to the crowds that generally attended them.
Feeling considerably cheered by his friendliness, her full stomach, and the two glasses of wine she’d had, she left the restaurant with a sense of anticipation and excitement she hadn’t felt when she’d left her apartment earlier. A tiny bit of guilt hovered at the fringes of her mind as she set out. It almost seemed ‘wild’ and ‘decadent’ even to consider going to a nightspot—especially alone—when she’d never done anything like that before.
It wasn’t as if Greenville had had much of a nightlife!
They had a grand total of three watering holes, all of which catered to the country and western crowd—and she’d never been much for country music. Then, too, there’d been her reputation. Not that she’d had the chance to form a bad one on her own, but the rumors from school had followed her and those had been enough to make her a target for wagging tongues and young men bent on counting coup.
She shook the thoughts off as she came at last to one of the nightclubs the waiter had mentioned that had piqued her interest. He’d said it was an upscale club that catered to a ‘slightly older’ crowd as opposed, he’d added hurriedly, to those that were predominantly attended by the barely legal.
She’d tried to take it philosophically. She thought she looked good for her age, but she didn’t delude herself into thinking she looked like a teenager. There was no sense in getting insulted about the truth, especially when she knew he hadn’t intentionally insulted her.
He’d succeeded in depressing her, but she’d managed to set it aside and focus on trying to enjoy her evening.
She thought she would’ve been a lot more depressed, in any case, if she’d gone into a club and found that everyone there was barely twenty.
The line outside the club made her a little uneasy. True, there seemed to be almost as many men and women lined up to go in that appeared to be in their mid-to-late twenties or early thirties, but most of them seemed to be wearing black leather or at least black clothing. Her pink halter-top and blue jeans made her feel almost as out-of-sync as she would’ve felt if she’d discovered the crowd was mostly teens.
She stood in line debating whether to stay or leave until she finally reached the front. The bouncers, she saw, were also dressed in black—finely tailored black suits that set off their muscle bound physiques wonderfully. The woman taking the cover charge stared at her for a moment and flicked a questioning look at the two bouncers.
Feeling her belly tighten with nerves, Bronwyn glanced questioningly at the two men, as well. She discovered the man who’d been stamping everyone’s hand as they went in was studying her clothing. “I’m not dressed for the club?” she asked uneasily, withdrawing the bill she’d held out to the woman.
He tilted his head, scanning her length again. “You haven’t been here before.”
Bronwyn felt her face heat. Nothing like sticking out like a sore thumb! “I just moved to the city a few weeks ago,” she said apologetically. “It’s ok. I’ll leave.”
He blocked her path. “Did I say you weren’t welcome?” he murmured, a faint smile curling his lips. “I’m just wondering if you know what you’re getting in to here.”
Bronwyn blinked at him, blushing harder. “The waiter at Chateau Marseilles suggested I might like it if I liked rock music.”
His dark brows lifted. He flicked a glance at the other bouncer. “I’ll tell you what … I’ll let you go in and have a look around since you’re new to town. If you like it and come back, we’ll take your money.”
Bronwyn smiled back at him tentatively. “I don’t mind paying,” she assured him.
Shaking his head, he took her hand and lifted it, the stamp poised in the air. Instead of stamping the back of her hand, however, he caught sight of the edge of her tattoo and turned her hand over, studying the small design on her inner wrist.
Surprised and a little embarrassed, Bronwyn studied his expression, trying to decipher what the frozen look on his face might mean. She couldn’t imagine what there might be about the tattoo itself, however unique it was, that he’d find so fascinating. Everyone else she’d seen in line had had more than one tattoo and all sorts of piercings.
For what seemed an eternity, he stared at it and finally seemed to shake himself. Lifting his head, he studied her piercingly. “Cool tat. Where’d you get it?”
Discomfort wafted through Bronwyn. She shrugged. “I was born with it, actually—well mostly,” she admitted. “I know. It’s weird. All the kids at school teased me about it. Nanna said I shouldn’t let it bother me. I should be proud of it … because it was so unusual, you know. Anyway, she tattooed the twining vine around it and added the head of the unicorn. She said it was a family symbol from way back when the family had a coat of arms.”
He frowned. Almost as if he wasn’t aware of it, he traced the pattern in the center of the twining vines with the tip of his index finger. “You were born with this?” he murmured, his voice sounding strange.
Bronwyn shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah—weird, huh? It almost looks like a sun and crescent moon, doesn’t it?”
He swallowed audibly, flicked a quick glance at her and finally stamped the back of her hand. She noticed the hand that held hers was shaking ever so faintly. “Yeah. It almost does.” He turned from her and jerked his head at the other bouncer. “Marco—why don’t you show our guest around, huh? And tell Clyde and David to get out here. I need to talk to the boss.”
“Oh! I wouldn’t want to put anyone out!” Bronwyn exclaimed in dismay, glancing around uneasily at the line behind her and noting with faint alarm that the crowd had grown steadily longer since she’d been holding up the line and that most of the people in line were glaring at her.
He released her hand. “Marco would love to show you around. Wouldn’t you, Marco?”
Marco, a handsome blond who looked to be in his early twenties, grinned at her. “Hell yeah!”
Bronwyn couldn’t help but chuckle when he winked at her audaciously, but she still wasn’t comfortable about anything that had transpired. Since she was even more discomfited to find herself the center of so much unwelcome attention, though, she allowed him to draw her inside and out of view of the crowd that had begun to grumble loudly about the hold up at the front of the line.
She found herself in a huge foyer that looked more like the entrance to a grand hotel than a nightclub. She sank into the thick, dark red carpet on the floor with her first step and felt like she was walking through cushy quicksand as she crossed the floor. A huge chandelier and wall sconces lit the room with a soft golden glow. Thick, wine red velvet curtains covered the double doors that obviously led into the main area of the club and explained why the music was muted enough that very little spilled outside the club.
Settling a hand lightly on the back of her waist, Marco directed her toward the two men standing on either side of the double doors. “Stephen wants you two outside,” he said to the men when they reached them, jerking his thumb in that direction.
They glanced at each other, making it clear that the order came as a surprise, but strode away without question. All the sounds of a wild party—muted by the thick carpet and drapes of the foyer—hit her as Marco opened one of the doors and ushered her inside. She noticed that even the backs of the doors were covered in velvet—upholstered actually to create a sound barrier.
The familiar hand Marco had placed at her back slipped upward to her shoulders as they entered. “A drink first. What would you like?” Marco asked, his lips so close to her ear that his warm breath sent a shiver through her.
Bronwyn was tempted to decline. She’d already had two glasses of wine and that was more alcohol that she usually drank. With a mental shrug, she dismissed her qualms. There was no getting around the fact that she had a buzz already, but, by her calculations, she’d been walking and waiting in line at least an hour. It wouldn’t hurt, she decided, to have a mixed drink as long as she nursed it.
She tipped her head up. “Suggest something,” she said, smiling mischievously at her own daring.
The look Marco gave her made her little heart go pitter-patter. His blue eyes seemed to glow with an inner heat. A slow grin curled his lips. He chuckled. “Don’t tempt me,” he muttered, ushering her toward the other side of the room where she discovered there was a long bar.
* * * *
Constantine was lounging on the long couch in his office when Stephen arrived. A young woman was curled up on the floor at his feet, stroking his thigh. A second, completely naked, was sprawled on the couch beside him, her knees bent, her thighs spread wide. The naked girl was stroking her clit, her eyes closed, her face slack with pleasure.
Constantine was watching her from beneath hooded lids, but as Stephen entered, he turned a cool look upon him. “As you can see, I’m busy,” he murmured.
Stephen froze in his tracks but resisted the urge to beat a retreat. “You’ll want to hear this,” he said with more confidence than he felt.
Constantine lifted one tawny brown. “You sound very certain, day-walker. Convince me.”
Stephen swallowed convulsively. “She’s here. She just walked right up to me at the door. I told Marco to look out for her.”
Constantine frowned, but he tensed, abruptly sitting upright. “She?”
“The lady,” Stephen said shakily. “Your lady!”
Chapter Two
A mixture of disbelief and more excitement than he’d felt in centuries swept over Constantine. Flicking the woman off of his leg, he got to his feet slowly. “It could be nothing more than some vampire wannabe … someone who’s heard of the prophesy and thinks to profit from it,” he muttered to himself, then flicked a piercing look at Stephen. “Show me.”
Stephen swallowed a little sickly, but he couldn’t have evaded the hand Constantine stretched out if he’d tried and he knew better than to try. He was one of Constantine’s favorites, but no one who crossed him—or attempted to—remained in favor long.
Blinding pain shot through his head as Constantine pilfered his memories, pausing so long to study the incident at the door that Stephen fell to his knees when he was finally released, curling into a tight ball as he struggled with the urge to vomit.
Constantine was peripherally aware of it, felt a momentary pang, but no more than that. As fond of Stephen as he was, he’d learned long, long ago not to allow himself to grow too attached to a day-walker. They were pathetically weak, their life spans so fleeting that allowing himself to feel any fondness at all was welcoming pain to himself, and he’d never been particularly fond of pain—especially not when it was avoidable.
Striding to the door, he left Stephen to recover and dispose of the women. They would be disappointed that he hadn’t fed on them, but they’d get over it. They always did … and they always came back.
As early in the evening as it was, the club had already begun to fill by the time he reached the main salon. Regardless of the half naked bodies gyrating on the floor, however, his height gave him the advantage of being able to scan the room quickly and spot his quarry—or at least Marco. Frowning when he didn’t see the woman, he strode across the dance floor, oblivious of the day-walkers and his brethren alike as they parted before him, clearing a path.
Relief flickered through him when he saw that there was a woman standing at Marco’s elbow, and then wry amusement at the touch of panic that had seized him when he hadn’t spotted her at once. She was a tad shy of medium height—maybe a little more than a tad—but he dismissed it along with the brief, wry reflection that he might have known she wouldn’t be just to his taste—call him old fashioned, but he’d always preferred the tall, buxom feminine form. And spotted, he didn’t doubt, if the gleam of red highlights in her woefully common brown was any indication. There’d been nothing in the prophesy to suggest she would be ‘perfect’ … only that she was the one … the first.
Actually, the prophesy had no more than suggested that she would be the first. She might very well be the only, although how the prophesy was to unfold if that was the case, he was damned if he knew.
He shook his thoughts off as he reached Marco and their mystery lady. At closer range, he saw that she was definitely short, but certainly no midget. The top of her head reached his shoulder … almost, which meant he had a fine view of the top of her head. Her hair was certainly a medium brown—but luxuriously thick and full bodied with just the hint of a curl here and there—giving him the urge to burrow his fingers into the healthy mass to see if it felt as silky as it looked. Her plumpness, he saw, was a well-rounded, shapely figure compacted to fit an undersized torso—at least she didn’t seem to be a fan of the waif look. She’d tipped her head back to smile up at Marco as he reached them and he had a moment to examine the face that he’d tried so hard so many times to envision—and to feel an unaccustomed stab of possessiveness.
He was pleasantly surprised by her face which, although far from beautiful, was at least passably pretty. He paused to examine her features more thoroughly and decided to revise that to definitely pretty although certainly not in the sense of classic beauty. Her features weren’t symmetrical enough, or precisely balanced enough to earn that distinction. Her mouth was a tad too small for her face, her lips too thin. Her nose was a bit too long and her admittedly beautiful eyes too big for her small face, and the jut of her chin ended in a rounded little upturned ball that somehow made her look vulnerable and pugnacious at the same time.
And, although her skin was smooth and blemish free, she had a light sprinkling of the freckles he’d expected.
It was an intriguing, pretty face even if she wasn’t beautiful, he decided, relieved that if she wasn’t just as he would’ve liked at least he didn’t anticipate a problem bedding her.
“Boss!” Marco exclaimed, such a jolt running through him that he sloshed his drink down the front of his shirt.
Constantine studied him in frowning disapproval, both for the term of address—which he’d never particularly cared for—and the fact that he’d soiled his shirt, trousers, and left shoe as the liquid followed the path of least resistance. A fastidious man himself, he couldn’t abide untidiness.
His frown deepened as Marco set his glass on the bar and wiped the residue of liquid from his hand to the leg of his pants.
“This is Constantine d’Valdmir—the owner of the club. Mr. d’Valdmir, this is Bronwyn ….” He trailed off. Blushing faintly, he added apologetically to Bronwyn, “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your last name.”
Bronwyn chuckled huskily and Constantine felt a rush of desire that startled him. She was far more than ‘just’ pretty when she smiled, he decided absently, not entirely certain how that could be when she had a decidedly crooked smile that tipped higher on one side than the other and he’d always found anything asymmetrical … disturbing since it offended his since of balance.
And still he found himself responding to her laugh with a smile of his own.
“Williams,” she said.
“Enchanté, Ms. Williams,” Constantine murmured as he availed himself of her hand, realizing with a touch of surprise that he was enchanted as he leaned low to salute the back of her hand lightly. It was an opportunity to see her mind and he felt no compunction about taking advantage of it.
There was neither darkness nor light, but rather a combination of the two in a dizzying kaleidoscope of images that flew past him too swiftly for him to capture any until the image of an old crone abruptly filled his mind. The woman glared angrily. It took him a handful of seconds to realize that she was actually glaring at him. She’s protected, you lecherous sod! And not for the likes of you to use your powers to bend to your will! No man—or beast—can simply claim her and take her gift. I’ve seen to that. You must win her heart by giving her yours—if you’ve one to give. Only then will you earn her gift.
Constantine released Bronwyn’s hand abruptly, jerking upright.
He felt oddly drained and lightheaded from the experience, and supremely disconcerted. There was an odd buzzing in his head.
“Are you alright?”
Blinking, struggling to dismiss the curious sensations, Constantine stared down at Bronwyn’s concerned face blankly for several moments. “Witch,” he murmured.
The look of concern vanished. “What?”
Constantine forced his lips into a smile with an effort. “Which drink are you having?” he improvised.
She studied him a little curiously—a little suspiciously if it came to that—but finally smiled … at Marco. “I forget. What did you call it?”
Marco smiled a little uneasily, flicking a quick, apologetic look at Constantine. “A Golden Cadillac.”
“It tastes like a milk shake,” she commented.
Constantine flicked a hand in Marco’s direction. “You’ll want to clean yourself up,” he said coolly. “I will entertain our guest.”
“Oh!” Bronwyn exclaimed, dismayed, struggling with the uncomfortable sense that she’d somehow gotten Marco in trouble and further discomfited by the attention of the owner no less—as if she was some sort of celebrity—wondering if they’d somehow come to the erroneous conclusion that she was someone of importance. “That’s sweet, but completely unnecessary. I wouldn’t want to put you out. I probably won’t stay much longer anyway. I’ve almost finished my drink.”
Constantine took her hand and hooked it on the crook of his arm. “No trouble at all, I assure you. I understand that you’ve just moved to the city?” he asked as he led her away from the bar, headed in the direction of the quiet alcove table set aside for his use.
She looked back worriedly at Marco. “I didn’t get him in trouble, did I?”
“Do I seem like an ogre to you?” he asked lightly.
She thought it over—just a tad too long to for her response to be anything more than a polite lie. “No.”
“But?”
“I did get him in trouble. He was just being nice and the guy at the door told him to show me around anyway—and he was just being nice and I don’t remember his name.”
Constantine helped her into a booth and then slid in beside her. She scooted a little further … all the way around to the opposite side. A mixture of annoyance and amusement flickered through Constantine as he studied the wide-eyed, hunted look she sent him across the table. He lifted a hand. A moment later, a waitress appeared beside the table. “Bring the lady—Bronwyn—another Golden Cadillac. I’ll have a glass of my special blend.”
“Oh no …!” Bronwyn broke off in consternation when the waitress disappeared again before she could object. “I really shouldn’t have anymore. I’ve got a definite buzz going already. I may get lost on my way home if I have another,” she added jokingly to take the sting out of her rejection.
Constantine shrugged. “I’ll see you home.”
Bronwyn gaped at him, feeling her face heat. “That’s … uh … very kind of you to offer, but I was just joking. I’m sure I can find my way home.”
“And home is …?”
Warning bells went off in her head. “Oh, just a couple of blocks,” she said airily. “I love your accent, by the way, and your name is beautiful. Is it Spanish or French?”
Constantine smiled thinly. “Neither.”
The expressions that flickered across her face made him distinctly uneasy although he couldn’t, at first, fathom why until it occurred to him that he was clueless about her. Beyond that, he’d clearly failed to enthrall her, for he was as certain as he could be that that wasn’t adoration he’d read in her expression. Accustomed to being able to enthrall any woman who caught his interest and to read anyone with no more than a light touch and know exactly what made them tick, he discovered he didn’t like the sense of uncertainty that settled in his gut in a hard knot.
He frowned in displeasure but decided to take a different tact. If he couldn’t ‘read’ her—and he still found that highly disturbing—there seemed no alternative but to try to wheedle information out of her the old fashioned—day-walker way—questions and more questions. “What brought you to the city?”
Bronwyn’s face turned so red she felt a hot flash all over. She cleared her throat, scrambling for a lie that wouldn’t sound completely unbelievable. “I just … decided I was ready for a change.”
Irritation and amusement flickered through Constantine. Amusement won out. “You’re a very poor liar, Bronwyn,” he murmured caressingly, unconsciously reverting to the use of his voice to mesmerize her. “Maybe when you get to know me better, you’ll tell me the truth?”
Bronwyn felt her color fluctuate several times while she tried to think of a response to that. Foremost in her mind—beyond her discomfort that he’d immediately realized she was lying—was the implication that he wanted to get to know her better. Disbelief settled in her. He was so amazingly handsome—so sophisticated—he made her feel gauche and tongue-tied—and dizzy and breathless and terrified to open her mouth for fear she’d sound like the country bumpkin she felt like. Why in the world would a man like him have any interest in getting to know her?
He certainly couldn’t be laboring under the belief that she was in his class. He was clearly wealthy, well educated, and way, way out of her league.
Unless he had a fetish for unsophisticated ugly ducklings?
She found even that hard to believe, although it seemed more likely as a possibility than the anything else that came to mind. She could easily envision him with a starlet on his arm—or top model—women of wealth and amazing beauty.
Not that she actually was an ugly duckling. She was just average, though, light-years from beautiful.
She’d felt far more comfortable with Marco, she thought miserably, wondering if Constantine would think she was terribly rude if she made an excuse and left before the drink she hadn’t wanted arrived. “It was just … something I promised Nanna,” she said finally, uncomfortably.
He lifted his brows with interest, but before she could decide whether to add anything to that the waitress returned. Grabbing her wallet from her jeans, Bronwyn tried to pay for the drink. Constantine waved the waitress away. “You’re my guest,” he said almost chidingly. “Do the gentleman back home allow the lady to pay?”
Bronwyn grimaced. “For both drinks if she wants to,” she murmured, then dragged in a deep breath and forced herself to look him directly in the eye. “Nanna always said a lady shouldn’t allow a gentleman to buy her drinks, because he might not actually be a gentleman and he might get the idea that he was paying for something else.”
Constantine stared at her blankly for a moment and surprised himself by chuckling, although he was already beginning to suspect this ‘Nanna’ was going to be a serious roadblock to attaining what he wanted. “Did she? Who is Nanna?”
Bronwyn felt her throat tighten. “My grandmother. She died ….” She trailed off, trying to remember just how long it had been. In some ways, it seemed like forever. In others … it was hard to grasp that so many years had passed. She’d been shy of her eighteenth birthday by three months. She wasn’t certain if she would’ve remembered that, given her grief, except that it had become yet another of life’s trials. Fortunately, it had taken the county people months of arguing to come to a decision and by that time she’d turned eighteen and they couldn’t uproot her and plant in a foster home because she was underage.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Bronwyn looked up at him at that coolly delivered platitude. She didn’t expect him to understand or feel anything for her. She was a stranger after all, but she thought she would’ve preferred it if he hadn’t bothered when he clearly felt no sympathy. She smiled at him brittlely. “You’re not much of a liar yourself.”
Anger glittered in his cold blue eyes briefly, then disappeared. “It’s better to put such things from your mind.”
“Easier said than done.”
He shrugged, looked vaguely uncomfortable. “It gets easier with practice. Although it’s better still to simply avoid it by not getting attached to begin with.”
Bronwyn nodded. “It’s the price you pay for love. I’d rather suffer over it the rest of my days than not to have had her in my life. She was … special in so many ways. I can’t imagine, don’t want to imagine, what my life would’ve been like without her.”
He looked surprised and disbelieving. “If you could erase the memories and the pain with them, you wouldn’t?” he asked curiously.
“Not if it meant having to give up the memories.”
He frowned at his glass, turning the stem between two long, elegantly tapered fingers. “Stephen mentioned something about a tattoo your grandmother had given you. Do you mind if I see it?”
Bronwyn studied him doubtfully, but finally extended her arm across the table, palm up. Constantine stared down at the tattoo, feeling oddly breathless. He’d wondered if his reading had been clear, mostly because he had never truly believed he would see it. After a moment, he reached to trace the markings on her wrist that were indisputably ‘natural’. It might be nothing more than a strange sort of coincidence that she’d been born with a birthmark that so closely resembled a sunburst and then, just as coincidentally, freckles had formed on her skin in the shape of a crescent moon and stars. Anyone looking for designs in nature could find them if they looked long enough and hard enough—clouds that seemed to be the face of a woman—or dragon. The natural swirls and knots in a piece of wood that appeared to be a horse or a bird.
He didn’t believe that. In a sense, he supposed he wanted to.
He didn’t find the woman seated across from him undesirable—far from it, as surprising as that was to him—and yet she was so far from the woman he’d imagined all these centuries that he almost felt cheated. He’d expected her to be perfect in every way. He’d expected her to be the epitome of beauty in his eyes, he realized wryly—this very ordinary woman who was no more than just pretty, but whose smile made him want to smile back at her and whose laugh made him feel a strange stirring of warmth inside. This woman who could give him the one thing he had never been able to have for himself, no matter how great his powers had become over the centuries. This woman who was meant to give birth to the first vampire since their beginnings when the progenitors of the vampire race had emerged from their mother’s wombs, who would be more powerful than any who’d come before him, who would be a day-walker.
* * * *
Bronwyn wasn’t quite sure of how she felt about her evening once she’d returned home, partly because she was more than a little addled with the alcohol she’d consumed and partly because she was a lot addled about the men she’d met. She couldn’t deny that she’d enjoyed herself. She’d never had so much attention from so many good-looking men!
The pink halter, she decided happily, was a lot more flattering than she’d thought it would be!
Actually, she’d really liked the way it looked right off, but she’d been a little doubtful about it because she thought it might be too ‘young’ for her—and it was a lot more risqué than anything she’d ever worn before.
She’d felt ‘wicked’ leaving her breasts unfettered—because the thing was backless and she couldn’t wear a bra—but the odd thing was that she’d liked feeling that way.
Maybe she’d caught their interest because she’d appeared to be a bit on the slutty side? Or maybe it had all been in her attitude? Maybe, because she’d felt pretty and sexy, she’d come across as more attractive?
Shaking the thoughts, she dressed for bed and crawled in, staring dizzily at the ceiling when she discovered that closing her eyes only made the sense of floating intensify.
Marco and Stephen had both been good looking men, although Marco, in her opinion was by far the best looking of the two. Unfortunately, he also seemed to be the youngest. It had been dark inside the club, and there hadn’t been a lot of light outside, but she was pretty sure that Marco was probably barely legal.
In any case, she thought he was just trying to be nice. He had seemed to be flirting, but she thought that might just be his personality.
She didn’t know what to think about Constantine. Physically, he was pretty close to drop dead gorgeous in a completely classical sense. His facial features were almost too perfect, almost too symmetrical. It made her want to simply gape at him and at the same time more than a little uncomfortable to look at him. She doubted his physique was nearly as perfect as his face. He’d sounded European and they weren’t like Americans about such things. They weren’t constantly on a quest for physical perfection.
It was hard to convince herself of that when he’d looked so fabulous in that suit he’d worn, but then maybe the suit made the man and not the other way around?
Not that it mattered. He was way out of her league and even if he had been remarkably generous as a host she didn’t believe for a moment that he had any particular interest in her. She thought she’d probably looked as good tonight as she ever had in her life, but she knew her limitations and she didn’t doubt that they’d been very apparent to him.
Then, too, he didn’t look to be much more than thirty if he was even that. She hadn’t had much opportunity for experiencing interaction with men, but she’d had plenty of opportunities to observe and it seemed to her that all of the men, whatever their age, wanted the women who were eighteen to twenty-five. That had certainly been the case of most of the couples that had passed through the boarding house. Married or not, they almost inevitably went into ‘pointer’ mode when a young girl walked by and everyone else was invisible.
The thought prompted memories of her own attempts to date and her spirits took a nosedive.
Sighing, she punched her pillow and rolled over.
God! One mistake! And she was going to have to live with it forever, it seemed! Looking back, she wondered what had possessed her to confide her ‘deep, dark secret’ to her ‘best friend’. If she’d just kept her mouth shut no one would ever have known what a freak she was! But no, she’d just had to talk it out and Mary Ellen had just had to share that juicy tidbit with her cousin who’d had a mouth the size of Texas!
Trying to evade the memories of all the awful things that she’d endured as a consequence, she rolled onto her back again and stared up at the ceiling. The unwelcome specter of times past descended on her in spite of all she could do, however, and Johnny Patterson’s hazy image filled her mind. Oddly enough, she couldn’t really see his face clearly anymore—just that smile that had charmed the sense right out of her and her pants off.
She’d thought he was different, that he wasn’t like the boys she’d grown up with that had already been tormenting her for years. He was new to town, and she’d been stupid enough to think he hadn’t heard the rumors about her.
She should’ve known better. Nanna had tried to warn her, but she’d been ‘in love’. She hadn’t listened and she’d paid for her stubbornness with pain and humiliation—and not just the pain of losing her virginity to a boy that knew very little more about sex than she did, who’d been rough and careless enough she’d cried. Then he’d topped it off by getting pissed off with her because the rumors weren’t true. She didn’t have two pussies! He was outraged, actually—and then he’d gone back to school and lied through his teeth to the other jocks, telling them she did, and that he’d took her virginity twice! The lying snake.
Well, that had just set them all on fire to have a piece of her! She could’ve been the most popular slut in the school if she hadn’t minded being used and discarded, but she’d learned her lesson—a painful one. She was probably the only girl in school who hadn’t had a single date throughout high school!
Even she hadn’t realized the ignorant morons had decided she had two pussies! How could she when all they did was leer at her, whisper behind her back, and snicker whenever they saw her? Once she knew, she also knew she wasn’t likely to get a date except some guy that wanted a gander at her ‘tofer’.
Shit! She should’ve guessed what that damned nickname meant--‘tofer’—two for one Bronwyn!
She threw the covers off and got up, heading into the bathroom to take a hot shower to try to relax. She’d been relaxed until the memories had come back to haunt her!
Stripping while she waited for the water to heat, she stared down at herself. Outwardly, there wasn’t a sign that she was different. She looked like anyone else. If only she hadn’t been so freaked out about it she’d felt the need confide in her best friend!
What girl wouldn’t be freaked out to discover she had two wombs and four ovaries, though? To learn that she was actually two people—with the organs of a twin that had never completely developed inside of her?
And she really was two people, because the tests they’d run on her had also revealed the fact that she was a chimera—She had all of her mother’s DNA and all of her father’s. Even her wombs were ‘different’ people!
If it hadn’t been for the trouble she’d had with her periods she might never have known—at least not until she’d been grown and might’ve been able to handle it better. Maybe then her entire youth wouldn’t have been blighted.
Or if she’d kept her secret to herself.
Or if her trust in Mary Ellen hadn’t been completely misplaced.
Or if she’d been able to leave Greenville and live somewhere else.
That thought gave her pause as she climbed into the shower and allowed the hot water to pelt the tension from her. She was living somewhere else! She finally had the chance to date without running the risk that all the guy wanted was to have sex with her because he thought she had two pussies!
Constantine didn’t know she was a freak! And there was no reason that she could think of why he needed to know!
Assuming, of course, that he actually had any interest in her.
Chapter Three
It was just as well that the following day was Sunday and the Club Rouge wasn’t open. It ate at Bronwyn half the day that there was no way she could visit the club and see Constantine again but, by the time the afternoon had rolled around, common sense had returned.
She didn’t know why Constantine had seemed to single her out, but, try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything he’d said or done to indicate he was actually interested in her. Relief and disappointment filled her when she realized that. She hadn’t made a fool out of herself by dashing back like a lovesick puppy! Thank god!
As disappointed as she was, her spirits didn’t plummet completely. Her rambling thoughts the night before had finally settled on something ‘big’—freedom. She’d been liberated from the black cloud that had hung over her almost her entire life—or at least seemed to. She was in the city and absolutely no one knew her! If she did meet someone, she could date without the nagging worry at the back of her mind that the only reason they had any interest in her was because of her plumbing!
Of course, she wasn’t naïve enough to think they wouldn’t also be interested in getting laid—it seemed a preoccupation of men in general—but she’d at least have some chance that they were interested in her as a person. She didn’t even mind that part. After all, it was a fact of life, and there weren’t going to be any children if she didn’t have sex!
In any case, she wanted to experience that part of life like a ‘normal’ woman. She wanted to know what it was like to be desired—as a woman, not a freak!
It was amazing how giddy that made her—and restless. She was thirty years old and she hadn’t had more than a handful of dates in her life! Because she’d discovered even long after school, her reputation still shadowed her. Even the few men she’d tried to date after high school, who’d seemed to be interested in her, weren’t. They were still chasing that dream of a woman with two pussies, were so preoccupied with it that they hardly even looked at her face!
She was free! She could do anything she wanted to. She could be as wild as she’d wanted to be when she was a teenager! She was single. She didn’t have a job, but she had money! She could party!
Instead of heading out job-hunting first thing Monday morning as had become her habit, she headed out to shop for clothes. The price tags gave her an unpleasant shock and brought her back to Earth. If she went wild in the clothing stores, she’d be penniless before she could spit!
She didn’t actually need a lot, she decided. Everyone at Club Rouge had seemed to be wearing leather, but, although she tried on everything she could find that would fit her, she finally had to accept that she just wasn’t ‘built’ for leather. It didn’t just make her look fat—er. It squeezed everything into the wrong places and made her figure look hideously lumpy. Aside from that, it was miserably uncomfortable and she didn’t think she would have much fun if she couldn’t get her mind off of how uncomfortable she was. She decided instead to buy a black dress. The skirt was short enough it didn’t seem to make her look shorter and squatter and it flared slightly around the hips, making her waist look nicely trim. The neckline, scooped low in front and even lower in back, wouldn’t allow for a bra, but she’d rather liked going braless. It made her feel more free.
The price tag gave her a tension headache and she decided to stop there and look for a pair of shoes that would set it off. The high spike heels really appealed to her—especially since they made her look tall—but she discarded the idea of buying them when she discovered she couldn’t walk in them without being in danger of a twisted ankle—stone cold sober. One drink, and she would bust her ass and then she’d really look sexy! She wasn’t particularly happy with the short heels she finally settled on, but she hoped the focus would be on the dress anyway—particularly considering what she’d paid for it!
Although she did splurge a little more on a new hair cut, after her ‘wild’ shopping trip, she decided to spend the rest of the week job hunting and was finally rewarded with a waitress job, mostly because the waitress she replaced had just walked out.
It didn’t pay that well, but it was sort of familiar, at least. She’d served the table in her boarding house—and cooked. She was sure she could handle it.
The new job required another shopping trip for uniforms and serviceable shoes, and, while she was at it, she bought a couple of pretty tops to add to her growing collection of ‘sexy’ clothes.