"You'll see."
Gabrielle brought over a white rabbit trimmed silk velvet cloak and laid it around Juliette. She hooked the clasp at her throat and arranged the hood carefully over her curls. "There are holes here for your arms," she showed, "so you can stay covered when you need to reach out."
Emma picked up the wrist loop of Juliette's train and handed it to her. "You'd better get going."
"Thank you," Juliette mouthed. Returning her gaze to Tristan, she accepted his arm strolled to the door.
* * *
Juliette’s eyes were still bright after the long drive back from the opera. The entire ride had been spent recounting their favorite moments of “The Valkyrie” and discussing Plácido Domingo’s performance. The evening had gone by much faster than either wished. Sneaking in through the kitchen, Tristan loosened his silver silk cravat.
As they passed into the hallway toward the stairs, a woman’s voice in the living room called out, "How was your night?"
"We had an amazing time." Tristan, with Juliette’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, stifled a grin. "We're heading upstairs to talk more about the show. See you in the morning."
"Good night, everyone!" Juliette grinned broadly at the six members of Tristan's family spending time together playing a long game of Risk and ignoring a late-night infomercial.
Ash’s voice carried to the hall. "I'm sure they're going to just talk."
"They'd better." William loudly cracked his knuckles.
“Sit down, Will, they can do what they want.”
"Listen to Ash and shut up, William!" Tristan hollered as he and Juliette rushed up the stairs and to his room where a bottle of chilled wine and two glasses were waiting for them on a table near a roaring fire. “Leave it to Gabrielle to plan a nightcap for us.”
Juliette flicked his nose with her forefinger and turned around. "Please unbutton the back of my gown so I can get more comfortable?"
Soft as a feather, he ran his fingers along the chains over her skin until he saw the little lobster clasps on the chain and unhooked them. Juliette leaned her head back and gasped. "Are you cold?"
"Uh, yeah, cold. I'll be right back." She held her gown up and swiftly pulled something from Tristan's dark-paneled bureau, then headed to her room.
Tristan yanked his cravat and vest off and laid them across a plush chain. His drawer slid open quietly. He shoved flannel and silk pajamas out of the way, searching for his blue cotton sateen set. Quickly he removed the rest of his tux and pulled on the bottoms. The top wasn’t there.
"What are you looking for?" Her voice startled him and he gazed back. She had come in and sat near the head of his bed without him hearing, wearing the missing top.
"I just found it." His fingers ran around the edges of the collar.
She grinned, holding her bottom lip in her teeth. "I'll give it back if you like, if you unbutton it."
Longing vibrated through him. He placed a hand on the side of her face and leaned forward. Her lips eagerly met his and her arms pulled him closer. He kissed her cheek, jaw, and lightly nibbled her earlobe, smiling at her low groan. Again his mouth covered hers. Tristan rolled her beneath him. One of her legs wrapped around his waist. The force of his body bearing down on her startled him out of his action. He put an arm beside her head and pushed himself up and away, to lie beside her.
"I'm sorry, Juliette. We can't do this. We have to--"
"Stop?” Juliette pressed his palm against her rapidly thudding chest. “You're good at that, you know. You're two for two."
Tristan pulled his hand away dropped his head to the pillow. "I'm sorry. This isn’t your fault. I've taken a personal pledge not to become intimately involved with someone until it gets serious. I don’t respect who I used to be."
"What do you mean?" Juliette propped herself on an elbow and stared down at him.
"I've been far from chaste. The last woman I was with ended up heartbroken when we inevitably broke up. My conscience won’t allow me to do that again."
Juliette sighed. "When? Not if? Are you trying to sabotage your relationships, Tristan? Do you want to keep me in the friend zone? Why?"
The back of his fingers caressed her cheek. "I want more, but I must hold back right now."
The sight of her crestfallen face crushed him, and he pulled her close to him, laying her head on his shoulder. "Juliette, there are things I can't get into and can't tell you if you asked. Please trust me, okay?"
"You’ve always shown yourself to be trustworthy, so I’ll take your word. I hope you'll have enough trust in me one day to confide your secrets. I hope these walls you’re putting up all over the place don’t end up ruining our friendship. You’re one of the most important people in my life, but I shouldn’t be led on and let down."
Tristan grabbed the bed coverings with his free hand and tucked them around Juliette. Reality sank in. The longer he followed his heart, the more hurt she’d be. He kissed her forehead and grabbed her hand, holding it to his chest. Come morning, action must be taken to end it. The walls must be strengthened and patched. But for the moment, he was determined to remember everything about the one night they had to sleep close.
14. Truth
Several layers of blankets overheated Tristan. He woke in a sweat and darted upright. He scanned his room and found Juliette curled up in a plush velvet armchair, engrossed in the book in her lap. Her damp hair hung in a braid down her back, and her violet-sprigged sundress trimmed with white lace was an odd choice considering the unseasonably cold and stormy weather outside. The gold and sapphire pendant lay at the base of her throat. Absent-mindedly she picked at a muffin on a plate, occasionally putting a small bit in her mouth. The truth could no longer be ignored.
With a big sigh, he pushed the blankets back, stepped into his private bathroom, and quietly shut the door. Once out of the shower and dried off, he plucked a fresh pair of boxer briefs and a clean pair of slacks from their drawers, kicking himself for thinking it could have been a good idea to share the mansion’s upper floor, even with separate bedrooms. The privacy was too intimate for his comfort. He opened the wardrobe door, grabbed a cobalt blue silk sateen shirt, and pulled it over his shoulders.
"You hair is wet.” Tristan’s fingers fumbled with the buttons.
"I didn't know what time you'd be awake and I, um, needed a shower this morning because of…because my make-up got smeared and..." The book slid from Juliette’s lap. “What’s wrong?”
His heart grew heavier by the second. "Listen, Juliette, I've been making a mistake with you."
Her pallor paling more than usual, she glanced up. "What? How do you mean? I-I'm a mistake?"
Tristan kneeled in front of her to close the distance. He took her chilled fist in his hand. "Juliette, no. I went wrong letting you think something more could happen between us. I move every five or six years, and I can't…Juliette, I can’t put you through that, and eventually witness you growing old without me, and dying."
"What are you talking about? How would you watch me get older if you don’t get old with me? Why do you move so often? What's going on, Tristan? Is all of this part of something illegal? Is that the secret?" She yanked her hand away from his and fumbled with the ribbon around her neck.
"I…” No answer formed in Tristan’s head. “Juliette, we can't be together. I…" The touch of Juliette’s fingers against the back of his hand distracted him. She pressed the pendant against his palm.
"You should have thought twice before you led me on." The thick words nearly stuck in her throat. She turned and fled to her room, slamming the door behind her.
* * *
Juliette’s tears soon dampened the pillow. Embarrassment for her glee the night before warmed her cheeks and sorrow for her lost hope pained her heart. After her energy had been spent, he heard a light knock. Juliette didn't answer.
The door opened a crack. "Juliette, it’s Emma. May I please come in?"
"Yeah." Juliette wiped her cheeks with her
palms and sat up, legs crossed.
Against her chest Emma held a thick, dark-covered album. "My brother told me and Gabrielle some of what happened, and I need to tell you something important. We weren’t going to let you in on it, but you’re involved. I’ve never had to explain our family's situation, and I’m not even sure how to start. So here.”
The album pressed heavily against Juliette’s lap. She opened the hard front cover and flipped, unseeing, through the firm pages. It was full of miniature paintings from the late 18th century, to daguerreotypes decades later, ending in sepia photographs. "What's this?"
"This is Tristan's book of his life."
Juliette raised an eyebrow and studied an early painting of a young man with Tristan’s features dressed in a blue ensemble. “Costume party?”
"We're not normal people. We are…”
A stretch of silence followed. Juliette glared at Emma. “Mafia?”
Emma settled on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. “No. We're upiórs, Juliette. What this means is we are immortal, can turn into animals, and need raw meat to live. Gabrielle was born in 1683, Tristan in 1793, and I was the third, in 1832, on down to Jareth in 1890. No one new since then."
"Sure, Emma, you're all kind of like mini-vampire creatures. I don’t believe that." Juliette studied a small painting mounted on a stiff board page, of a young boy with dark, long curly hair and Tristan's smile. A world war era photograph many pages later showed Tristan, William, and Ash in military uniforms standing beside a plane. "This is just an elaborate hoax."
Emma continued without addressing the disbelief. "We aren’t vampires. Anyway, to conceal how we don't age like everyone else, we move a lot and start over. Tristan doesn't want to put you through this. He wants you to be happy with someone you can be stable with."
Juliette glanced toward the door. "Were they really even in Canada? What were they doing?"
Taking a deep breath, Emma spoke again. "Let me try to get this all out quickly. They searched for a group of people like us believed to still exist in Canada because we hope to join. We found out skin-shifters are hunting them.”
“What are skin-shifters?”
"They’re also called skin-walkers. If they wear the pelts of animals they kill, they take the form of that animal. Wolves are the most common. Someone like me would die with a single bite.”
“Like you?” Juliette made no effort to hide the skepticism in her voice.
“We can turn into animals, one each, and we can’t control what. I change into a golden eagle, and Tristan is a panther."
Juliette’s disbelief turned to uncomfortable confusion. Her scalp prickled as she touched the ring she wore. “Tell me more about this,” she quietly ordered.
“Skin-shifters live the length of a normal human life, and they're violent. They've always tried to make us extinct and almost did. Their numbers are on the rise because they can procreate like humans. However we are rare and are created by self-sacrifice. At first, we wanted to find the coven to ask if we could join them. But now we have to find them to let them know to watch for the shifters. Nate leads the local pack."
"Nathaniel!" Juliette's eye widened.
Emma nodded. "Nate found out about us, so Tristan and the guys bailed out and came back. Tristan got a hold of Gabrielle on the way back and told her to stay away from our home. This morning there was an explosion and our house is gone. They're saying a potential gas leak, but the timing…. It’s all over the news. We, um, Tristan, Gabrielle, Sunil, Will, Ash, Jareth, and I are presumed dead. Nate would kill you if he found you alive."
Juliette furrowed her brow. "Okay, but what if after all this, I still want to be with Tristan? And move and put up with the discomfort of people staring? And the skin-creature danger. I’m calling a bluff."
A knock rattled the door. "Come in!" Emma called out.
Gabrielle stepped into the room, taking a seat by the fireplace. Tristan paused in the doorway. He and Juliette stared at each other, his eyes red. Juliette stretched her finger out to him, her heart beating hard with a silent plea. After several long seconds, he closed the distance between them and accepted her hand. Rather than sit beside her, he kneeled on the floor and rested his weary forehead on her fingers.
"Tristan, what if I’m willing to move, if that’s what it takes to give us a chance?"
Chin to his chest, he shook his head. "I can't let you make that kind of sacrifice."
"Why can't my so-called sacrifices be my choice?"
In the armchair, Gabrielle sighed. "Tristan, I've had the chance to get to know Juliette the last couple months. She is an intelligent woman, and she would make a good decision. You’re ignoring your heart for a foolish ideal and self-martyrdom."
"Prove who we are, Tristan!" Emma pulled Juliette’s hand from his and held her ring finger near his face. "Let her decide. Respect her that much."
Gabrielle stood and swung the door open. "Emma, I think we should take our leave."
"All right." Emma winked at Juliette on her way out.
"Emma sure likes telling stories, but I’m willing to…what are you doing?" She gasped as he boldly undressed in front of her.
"Not destroying my favorite shirt. Watch me, and don't be startled."
Careful to keep her eyes on his, Juliette waited. All at once, black fur sprouted to cover his body, and a tail shot from his lower back. His face elongated as his bones contorted. Inch-long claws sprung out of massive paws. Just as smoothly, he transformed into his human form again and grabbed his clothing, redressing as Juliette stared at the foot of the bed, shuddering violently.
Cold. She was so cold, winded, her head swimming. Nothing made sense.
"Juliette?"
Slowly she turned to look at him, using every ounce of willpower she had to rearrange her face into a normal expression, as if she had not been shocked to her core. "Did you slip me drugs? I didn't just see that. Not possible."
"I'm going to go downstairs and let you think things over. Come down when you're ready, okay?" He stroked her cheek before backing out of the room.
Juliette sat on the bed a long time staring at the wall. Could she be hurt by these animals? She'd spent months with four members of his family, and they'd protected her. Tristan had been part of her life longer, and had done everything in his power to keep her safe and get her away from Nathaniel.
Seeking answers, she grabbed the book still beside her and opened to a painting on canvas mounded to the page. The man appeared slightly younger than Tristan, wearing a white cravat and vest and a fine black frock coat. He sat in front of an elaborate oriental tapestry. The year written beneath had faded to a deep tobacco color: 1814. The detailing in the portrait indicated an artist’s skill, and must have cost a small fortune.
She turned the page to an ink drawing and a tin photograph, dated 1839 and 1850. The paint on his emerald tie and cream vest had discolored in spots, though the coat was still dark and even. The fabric flared from his hips down and matched his top hat. In the photographic portrait to its right, he sat on a plush chair in a studio, leaning against a table, his pinstriped suit fit close. In his hand he held a pocket watch Juliette recognized as the one he always carried with him. She studied his face, ignoring the large, fake sideburns he wore. His eyes stared at the photographer with a fierce intensity, almost as if staring through time directly at Juliette.
Reluctant to leave the page, she flipped to the back pages of 20th-century photographs. Most of them also had other members of Tristan's family. So many familiar faces at various points in history forced her to believe Emma had told some truth. Nothing in her world made sense anymore.
* * *
Seven people waited in the living room in differing states of composure. Gabrielle, as always, sat perfectly prim and proper, in stark contrast to Emma's lounging across an armchair, head resting on one arm, her legs dangling over the other. She brushed her thick golden mane. Tristan leaned forward, his forehead in his hands. William glared at Jare
th pacing across the. At the large table, Ash typed on his computer. Nearby Sunil calmly read a book.
"Do you have to do that? You're going to wear a trench in the floor," William snapped at Jareth.
"How can you not now that she knows, Will? Our cover is blown! Why the hell did Emma have to tell her?"
Ash stretched his arms above his head. "Jareth, she's not the sort to go alerting the government."
"Nor would she want to hurt any of us," Sunil added.
"How do you know?!" Jareth furiously shouted.
"Shut up. You've never given her a chance!" Emma tossed her brush at him but missed.
"Stop this bickering at once!" Gabrielle spoke uncharacteristically loudly. "Jareth, we have no reason not to trust her. She loves Tristan and wouldn’t betray him."
"What?" Tristan’s head snapped toward her.
"If you can’t see it, you're blind.”
Emma pulled her legs off the arm of the chair to sit upright. "Jareth, she's suffered enough in her own life and doesn't want to hurt anyone else. She wouldn't leave Nate because she didn't want to upset him. Why do you think she'd do anything to harm Tristan or the rest of us?"
"Shh!" William perked up. "She's coming down."
Juliette passed the doorway continuing down the hall to the kitchen. A minute later, the kettle whistled, and the door to the informal dining room opened.
"I'm going to go talk to her. Wait here." Ash followed her.
* * *
Ash found her on the patio sitting on a wood bench, staring into the empty fireplace, and took a seat beside her. A mild breeze streamed over them. In the distance, a plane’s engine buzzed. He licked his lips. "I know we don't speak much, but I just want to tell you it's all okay here, you're in no danger, and if you need to talk, you can."
The silver spoon clinked against the side of her china cup. "This is a lot to take in. I'm dealing already with a whirlwind of emotions, and now I find out you're all upiórs. I’d never heard of them before this. What are you, Ash? Panther also?"
"A caribou. Another word for a reindeer. I don’t have Rudolph’s red nose though."