The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(19)

Alcohol dulled Jae’s senses. And he would never again fall prey to even a moment of weakness.

Odette sidled toward the center of the room. She rested a gloved hand beneath her chin and examined the two vampires and the ethereal seated around the filigreed tea table. “Would you look at this pickle party . . .” Her eyes flicked left and right. “Where are Hortense and Madeleine?”

“Madeleine is with Nicodemus,” Arjun replied, studying the way the light from the oil lamp caramelized the liquor in his cut-crystal glass.

“Hortense is probably on the roof, singing to the moon,” Boone said.

Odette’s attention drifted toward the back of the chamber. Lines of consternation settled on her brow. Jae did not need to guess what troubled her. In the month since Bastien had been turned, she’d spent more time than even Jae trying to temper the worst of the newborn vampire’s proclivities. His fervent desire to drown all trace of his humanity in vice and sin.

No matter how much Jae and Odette attempted to sway Bastien from this path, the young vampire refused to heed their advice. Nothing would change tonight, of that Jae could be certain. At present, there was too much magic—too many unpredictable elements—in this room. It made Jae more uncomfortable than he cared to admit. Set his fangs on edge.

A loud cough emanated from behind him. “Is any esteemed gentleman interested in making some extra coin for barely an hour’s worth of work?” a shockingly tall young man asked, his long arms open wide, like a hawker of stolen wares.

Jae’s hands turned into fists.

Nathaniel Villiers.

“What is that greasy machaar doing here?” Arjun swore before tossing back the rest of his drink.

Villiers had been forbidden entry to La Cour des Lions six months ago. A half giant with a penchant for half-baked schemes, he’d tried to bribe Boone into selling him vampire blood, which supposedly granted its consumers lucid dreams when mixed with a precise amount of peyote. The concoction had become an increasingly valuable commodity in European circles, and Villiers had obvious designs on the American market.

“His mother was an honorable woman. The best giantess of my limited acquaintance,” Boone said with a disdainful sniff. “She’d unleash every ice bolt in the Sylvan Wyld on him if she knew what he’s become.”

Her eyes glittering with malice, Odette rested her arms akimbo. “Who allowed the overgrown scamp entry tonight?”

“Two guesses.” Boone tipped his head toward Bastien’s makeshift throne.

With a groan, Odette tossed up her hands in despair.

Jae sat back, his cheeks hollowing.

What could possess Bastien to grant Villiers admittance? Worse than that, it looked like the overgrown scamp in question arrived with a familiar trio of warlocks from Atlanta. Ones who routinely bamboozled the young scions of wealthy Southern families into “donating” a goodly sum of their inheritances to nonexistent charitable organizations.

Jae couldn’t decide what he hated more. Warlocks. Or Atlanta.

“Since when did we start letting their kind in here?” Boone said as he stared at the scheming warlocks, a muscle jumping beside the cleft in his chin.

“Two guesses,” Jae retorted before the door near the back of the room blew open as if a storm had entered the building. The next second, Hortense de Morny glided across the threshold, her arms wrapped in a cloud of cream-colored voile and her ivory skirts swirling about her. She stopped short when she saw Villiers. Inclined her head to one side.

“Non,” she said with a toss of her curls. “Je n’ai pas assez faim pour ?a.” Then she plopped down on the other end of the couch and reached for Arjun’s glass. After a sniff of its contents, she wrinkled her nose and looked about, her gaze settling on a carafe of blood and absinthe warming above a tea candle, positioned to Jae’s right.

“Pour me a glass, mon chaton,” Hortense chimed, extending an empty tumbler Jae’s way. “It’s the least you can do, after all.” Her aura seemed to simmer, like steam rising from a kettle.

Jae almost did as he was told. His arm stretched of its own volition before he caught himself and sent Hortense a frown.

She grinned like a lynx, her brows arching, the empty glass still dangling from her hand.

Jae hated how much Hortense resembled Madeleine in appearance, though the two sisters could not in truth be more different. Hortense had taken advantage of these physical similarities on countless occasions, cajoling Jae into doing her bidding with a simple bat of her eyelashes and an imploring expression.

Guilt was a powerful motivator, after all.

Odette rapped the back of Hortense’s hand like a schoolmarm. “That’s not for you.”

“Strike me again at your own peril, sorcière blanche,” Hortense said. With a glance toward the back of the room, she snorted once, a finger winding through a dark curl. “Anyway, you have enough problems maintenant.” She indicated Bastien with her chin. “Keep feeding him like a god at a banquet, and he’ll never learn how to fend for himself. It’s time he learned our ways. A whole month has passed.”

“Everything is still new to him,” Odette protested. “I want Bastien to learn how to survive on his own just as much as any of us, but—”

“You want the ne’er-do-well to learn how to survive?” Boone said, his voice low. “Then stop pampering him like a babe in swaddling.”