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As she moved, ever closer, that gossamer fabric flaring around her as if it were caught in a strange wind tunnel within the hotel room, he felt the strangest uncertainty. It was Yvette, yes . . . Yvette, yet she was different At times, there would be flashes of something else, and he would think, that isn’t really her face. It isn’t really Yvette’s face, and yet. . .
Paul, I need you.
Where are you?
Silly boy, come closer, closer. I need you, open your arms to me, Paul, help me, Paul, save me, Paul, let me love you, ask me to love you. I am close, and afraid. Can you really forgive me, Paul, can you welcome me to you ?
He wasn’t sure if there was a sudden burst of wind at the windows, or if he had left them open, and imagined the chill gust of wind.
Perhaps not.
I’m cold, Paul, so cold . . .
So, yes, my love, come, and I will warm you.
Greet me here, I can come no farther. Come, Paul, please, I need your arms around me now, I need your warmth.
She was so near. He was sleeping, he thought, and it was a divine dream. He saw some ethereal part of himself rise to meet her. She was there, framed in the falling dusk, that shimmering fabric still all around her.
Come, Paul.
The breeze swept away the slender threads of material. Yvette, his Yvette, yes, she was there, she had come to him, because she had been lost and afraid and lonely, and now she knew what was to be found in his arms.
He hesitated suddenly, coming forward. Because he had that strange feeling again. Yvette, and not Yvette. A flash of something now and then that was so confusing. The face, in certain fractured sections of time, seemed to be that of someone . . .
She was real. Flesh and blood and real. He could see the pulse beating at her throat. He could even see the moisture as she wet her lips. She was cold, she did need him, her breasts were swollen, the nipples hard. He started to reach for her.
He blinked, wondering how she could be so very real in a dream. How he himself could be standing where he was, and feel the floor beneath his feet, when he was sleeping on the couch. Of course, it was a dream. The balcony was high above the ground. But she was here. And real, real, real . . .
He stretched out his hand.
He touched her flesh . . .
He trembled because he could feel her. He could pull her to him, bury himself against her, smell her, taste her, drown in the woman he loved, such an expert, so much more experienced than he, and though he resented it at times, she was such a lover that he felt time and time, he could die in her arms.
Yvette, oh, Lord, Yvette . . .
Paul. . .
The draperies began to blow in the breeze, surrounding her, wrapping around them both. His trembling fingers reached for her, through the line of the balcony doors. His hands came around her waist. He began to pull her to him.
“Paul!”
It was the woman. Her shout was loud, anxious, warning.
He turned, a sudden anger filling him. Here was Yvette, naked and waiting and wanting him, and she was interrupting. His dream would fade, his beautiful love would vanish.
“Paul, get back! Quickly!” she commanded.
“Too late!” Yvette called to her.
He turned back to Yvette. Yes, of course, this interloper didn’t matter. He had only to hold more tightly to Yvette.
“Come in, come in, come to me, Yvette!” he cried.
He heard a throaty laugh.
And then he saw her face. Really saw her face.
And he began to scream.
“One of these . . . one of these . . . right here, in this area,” Jacques explained to Lucian. They were poring over the map of the area that lay on the desk. Jacques had X’s marked in various places. “It’s so hard to remember now where everything lay. . . it was an occupation, of course, and so much of the city survived, yet here, in the countryside, so many places were abandoned after the war . . . left to rot and ruin. And so many men didn’t come back. Families left, never to return. The chateau survived, of course, and here is the Dupre house, which still stands as it was. . . there is a new development here, but as you moved into the country farther and farther here to the outskirts . . . there was some heavy fighting, and much was lost, and to this day, the ruins remain. And many of the places were hundreds of years old. If only I had followed more closely at the end . . . but you see, I was ill then. By the time it was all over, really over, I was in such a fevered state that I wound up in the hospital, I was in a coma, I met my wife. . . and I moved to America. There were years when I couldn’t come back, and with the illness, there were so many years when I believed that everything in my life, the war, the camp, and anything else that occurred, had been a nightmare. So now . . . ”
Lucian laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve remembered everything when it has mattered,” he told Jacques.
“No, no,” Jacques said unhappily. “There are many more dead now . . . many more dead. I wasn’t ready when I should have been. The old Alliance . . . ”
“The old Alliance faded years before your time, Jacques,” Lucian said. “You’ve done well. Look, we have been here, here, and here. And you are right—it is somewhere here. When there is a disturbance, I know it. And there are times when I need nothing more than concentration, and I can reach out and know exactly where someone is . . . I can enter their thoughts, bring them right to me. But Louisa isn’t alone—and she isn’t even the real danger. She is with someone who knows that I am still alive, and very aware. Very old, and powerful, and they are able to block a great deal. I have been able to follow Louisa, but I seem to get where she has been once she has left. She rose alone, uncertain, and traced her old paths first. Though she came into a new world, she went first to what she had known in the past. I believe she traveled first to the Louvre, and from there, she went out to Versailles. She was on her own, but not for long. She was back here. . . ” he pointed to the map, “and here. And I know now that their lair is in this area, where you have shown me the places that can be found in the overgrown forest areas. We have gone over much of it, and still, there has to be something that we haven’t discovered. You have done more than you can imagine, but we must find them quickly now, before she grows more powerful, like her mentor, because then, between them, they will have tremendous strength. ” Jacques stared at Lucian and let out a breath, his shoulders slumping. “I was just thinking of the old days. There was a time . . . ”
“A time when we would not have stood together so,” Lucian said flatly. “But that was before. When the world was different And there was a time, of course, when it was the disputes among my own that were brought before me, and when my kind were only handled by the old rules when they were so besotted with their power that they endangered us all. But that was the old world, and this is the new, and survival has become even more difficult War is open, and sides have been drawn. And so, Monsieur DeVant, we are together in this, as we were when we met”
“We are all strange bedfellows,” Jacques said.
“Live long enough, and the world is strange indeed,” Lucian agreed.
“The full moon is coming too soon,” Jacques said glumly.
“Yes, but of course. . . that gives us distinct advantages as well. ”
“It’s almost night,” Jacques said.
“It is night,” Lucian said. “Night again. ”
He frowned, stiffening.
“What is it?” Jacques asked anxiously.
“Something is wrong. ”
“Here?”
Lucian shook his head. “No, there is something very wrong. . . with my wife. ” He turned, long strides taking him to the door. “Tell Brent. . . never mind. Brent will know. Stay tight, stay in the house, let no one in—”
“I know this, of course,” Jacques said somewhat impatiently.
But it didn’t matter.
L
ucian was gone. He had been there, and then he was gone. Jacques wasn’t sure how he had left. He had blinked, and the man was gone. He sighed softly.
And it was then that the screams began to tear through the chateau.
“Tara, calm down, stop it!”
The serious shake that she received, and the fact that she couldn’t breathe, caused Tara to pause in her struggle, gasp desperately for breath, and meet Brent’s eyes, her own laced with hatred and determination.
“It’s Rick, Rick Beaudreaux,” he said.
As if that should mean something to her!
“My cousin—”
“He is one of us, one of us, Tara!”
She looked from Brent, who still held her in an iron clasp, to the other man. He was still breathing heavily, looking at her, wiping at the wounds she had inflicted on his face. He offered a grim smile. “I’m sorry we haven’t met. Really sorry. ” He cast Brent something of a reproachful stare. “But you were suspicious. You didn’t want to believe. And someone needed to watch your cousin. And it was rather amazing when I met her . . . I swear to you, I would guard her with my life . . . my life as it is. I have been guarding her. ”
Tara stared at him, still speechless, feeling as if her mind had been completely numbed, encased in ice, frozen to the core.
“Why isn’t she waking then?” Tara demanded, “She is there, still sleeping, she is there . . . almost as if she were . . . dead. ”
She hadn’t realized until that moment that Brent had let her go. She stepped back, rubbing her lower arm where it still hurt from the force of his hold. She looked from Ann, still an inert form on the bed, to the blond giant introduced as Rick, and on to Brent.
“Someone else has been to her,” Brent said.
“What are you talking about, someone else?” Tara asked angrily.
Rick started for the bed. Tara flew to it, standing between him and her cousin. “Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare touch her!”
Rick paused, ignoring Tara’s fierce hold on his arm. He pulled back the covers and shifted Ann’s hair.
“The marks, see the marks, Tara. I believe it must have begun some time ago. It was begun slowly and carefully. But someone else has gotten to Ann. ”
Tara saw the marks on her cousin’s neck. So tiny . . .