Bloodspell (The Cruentus Curse, #1)(40)

"The laws—" Christian began. She placed a hand against his mouth.

"Some laws need to be broken."

Christian kissed her palm and pulled her into his arms with a smothered laugh, giving in to the silent ache that had been his constant companion for weeks. He brushed the hair off her temple.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"For what?"

"For not running."

"A wise friend once told me, 'you are who you are.'" Victoria traced a line from the scar on the corner of his eyebrow across his cheekbone. "I know what you are, but I also know who you are too. And the 'who' is the part that defines us."

Christian stared at her with an enigmatic expression. "You are extraordinary."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Well, I'm not exactly normal either."

Despite her brave words, fear slunk around her insides. Though she refused to reconcile the thing she'd seen with him, a part of her knew that they were one and the same. Deep down, it terrified her. Memories of monsters with sharp teeth and red eyes skulking in the bowels of her closets filled her head. But that wasn't him, she told herself fiercely. She knew it wasn't him. Just as what she'd learned about herself, was not all of who she was. Still, she shivered.

"Who was the little man who served us?"

"That's Anton. He's my caretaker, you could say. His wife cleans and he also takes care of the gardens. They live in a small guest house at the far end of the property."

"Do they know?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Yes, I suspect so, after all, it's not like they see me eat food on a regular basis." Christian flashed his perfect white smile at his joke. "Don't worry, their family has worked for my family in France for years."

"So how old are you really then?"

"I was born in 1816, so you could say a couple of centuries give or take a few years."

"Omigod, a geriatric!" Victoria grinned, then sobered. "How did you—" She broke off, unable to phrase the question. Christian nodded; he didn't have to read her thoughts to know what she was asking.

"It's a long story. And you're tired."

"That's okay, I'm comfortable," she said, stifling a yawn.

Christian looked at her once with an enigmatic expression then started his tale.

"My father was Charles Beaumaris, the Duke of Avigny, a cousin to King Louis XVI. In 1792, my family fled France at the direction of Marie Antoinette for fear of assassination. They lived for a while in Austria, and then spent several years in Louisiana, New York, and Boston. Lucian, my brother, and I were born in 1816 in New York. My family returned to France three years after the abdication of Napoleon." Christian took a deep breath and continued, knowing he had just finished the easy part, the easy human part.

"Because of my family's connections with Louis-Philippe, who was then king, in the summer of 1835 my brother and I were kidnapped and tortured by the very same people who attempted to assassinate him later that same summer. We were nineteen. They wanted information on his whereabouts and beat us to within an inch of our lives, leaving us for dead in an alley. It was the last thing I remember then, waking up ravenous days later ... but not for food ..." He looked at Victoria almost apologetically. She motioned for him to continue. "The people who had found us were vampires. They knew who we were and at first, they were only going to take one of us, but in the end they turned us both."

"It was hard for me, but Lucian bore the mantle as if he had been born to their world. He reveled in the changes and became a willing servant of the blood. I did not. I could not. We were charismatic, young, and immortal. He wanted to conquer. I wanted to learn and remember what it was like to love, how to be human."

Christian opened his mind to Victoria as he delved into his memories and images flooded her mind. She was lost in the pictures of his past, no longer on the couch beside him but in a different world, a different time.

Dressed in riding breeches, boots, and a waist-coat with a smart riding jacket, Christian was a polished young man surveying his estate as a red-orange sun descended beyond a row of hills. The landscape rolled for miles, acres and acres of perfectly manicured gardens. A large L-shaped stone mansion loomed behind him.

Victoria felt herself gasp at its magnificent lushness. Fontainebleau, he thought to her. She watched the young Christian climb onto a skittish black horse that calmed the minute he whispered something into her ears. She sensed that the horse was afraid of the monster it carried, but it still gave in to its master's velvet commands.

In his recollection, a girl in a yellow dress approached him. "Your Grace, your brother Lord Devereux sent me to welcome you back home," she told him. Her face was flushed and the young Christian was clearly affected. He turned away but Victoria could feel his aching desire as fresh as it was then.

"Go," he told the girl. It was little more than a growl. "I do not want ... you."

"Please my Lord Duke, he will kill me should I return. Please." Her voice was beseeching as she pulled a yellow scarf from her neck. Blood flowed from a vertical incision already cut deep into her flesh. The smell buckled every restraint within him, just as Lucian had known it would, and he flew off the horse toward the girl in a single leap.

"Will my brother stop at nothing?" he snarled, bending the girl's neck to the side. He bent, drawn despite himself, a terrible change ripping through his body. It was only the terrified rearing of the horse beside him that made him snap out of the fog of hunger consuming him. Christian staggered back. "Tell Lord Devereux I said go to hell, and I shall be happy to join him there!"