The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1)(60)

Did a murderess deserve to feel free?

A new strain of music unraveled into the sky, its melody bright. Effervescent.

It beckoned to Celine, all but making the decision for her. Still she hesitated.

Then—as if he could read her mind—Bastien said, “Perhaps we should venture in the direction of the parade and walk with the crowd for a few minutes.”

Celine nodded, the gratitude plain on her face.

Maybe a girl destined for the gallows didn’t deserve to feel free. To drown her dark sorrows in something light. But neither did any young man who tried to force himself on a young woman.

And Celine still wasn’t sorry for what she’d done.





MéFIEZ-VOUS DU ROUGAROU




The crowd pulsed around Celine and Bastien, ebbing and flowing like a capricious tide. Cheers and wild laughter suffused the air, putting to rout the worst of her fears. Celine’s pulse thrummed beneath her skin, her blood rising in a heady rush. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel as if she were floating with the crowd, being carried on an errant wave.

She’d never experienced a more welcome distraction.

Bits of colored paper rained down around them, collecting in Celine’s hair and against Bastien’s skin before littering the ground. Music pounded into the sky, brass trumpets blaring, screeching through the night as if their joy could not be contained. Revelers gathered beneath eaves and along street corners festooned with vibrant streamers, many with their hands or arms linked, all sense of propriety lost beneath the light of the crescent moon.

A papier-maché tableaux car trundled down the lane, moving at a snail’s pace. Men clothed in jackets trimmed with golden epaulettes—as if they were foot soldiers in Napoleon’s army—laughed as they threw coins, painted buttons, and wooden beads into the crowd.

Each of Celine’s senses were aflame. The sweat and the smell of overturned earth mixed with powdery clouds of sugar to form its own unique fragrance. She soon found herself caught up in the commotion, her fears further dulled by the sight of the ongoing spectacle.

She whirled around, stepping back when members of a dancing troupe bearing torches pressed through the center of the crowd, their skirts spinning in a blur about their slender bodies. Shirtless, barrel-chested men with waxed mustaches and scandalously tight trousers performed acrobatic tricks in the middle of the street.

The chaos of the crowd threatening to separate them, Celine reached for Bastien’s hand without thought. He threaded his fingers through hers as if it were natural. As if the only thing that made sense amid the confusion was the touch of his skin to hers.

Celine drew alongside Bastien, her eyes wide-open, a smile threatening to take shape on her face. Swallowed by the sea of moving bodies, they were soon carried past a narrow alley-way where a young, well-dressed couple shared an ardent kiss in the shadows, as though they were the only two souls in existence, her fingers winding through his hair, his hands gripping her hips.

Her cheeks flushing, Celine averted her gaze. It was wrong to watch something so intimate.

To watch them. To want to be them.

“Faites attention!” a man yelled as the crowd made a sudden surge.

“Nom de Dieu,” Celine cursed as she almost collided with a stout man clutching an empty bottle of port. Bastien pulled back in a seamless motion, spinning them about, away from the budding confusion.

Before they could take in a breath, three young women turned the corner, pulling short a hairsbreadth from Bastien and Celine. Blue ostrich feathers fanned about their heads, their wide belts fashioned of satin and sparkling beads in an array of rainbow colors, their skirts constructed of layers of translucent tulle. Fabric rosettes covered the centers of their breasts.

The rest of their pale skin was bare.

Bastien laughed as the women harrumphed at a stunned Celine, rounding her with ease.

“Faites attention,” he whispered in her ear, his tone teasing.

She glanced over her shoulder—armed with a retort—when a tall figure wearing a terrifying mask lunged for them, the fur around its face trembling, its walnut-shell claws nearly grazing their shoulders.

Celine stifled a cry as she stepped back into Bastien, who wrapped a steadying arm around her waist.

The man in the furred mask angled his head to the sky. Bayed once. “Méfiez-vous du rougarou!” He drew out the last word into another howl, then spun about in an awkward dance.

Celine’s eyes went wide. Though her heart still pounded, a smile tugged at the edges of her lips. Bastien laughed, then bowed at the masked man, who proceeded to lope in another direction.

“Beware the . . . what did he say?” Celine tilted her head, struggling to be heard over the commotion.

“The rougarou.”

Celine blinked. “What is a rougarou?” she asked loudly.

“A creature of darkness meant to instill fear in the hearts of children.” Bastien sent her a lighthearted grin, his gaze glittering. “Half man, half wolf, it prowls the swamps and forests beneath the light of the moon, hunting for its next kill.”

Though he spoke in obvious jest, Celine could not ignore the strange pull in her stomach. Something inhuman had attacked her less than half an hour ago. The worst of her nightmares had become very real possibilities. Was this a creature of fact or fiction?

Bastien’s features softened with understanding. “Don’t worry. A rougarou exists only in our imagination.”