The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(28)

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

“I think . . .” She hardened her voice to ward away the tremble. “I think I should return home now.”

Michael nodded without question, tucking her protectively beneath his arm before leading them away.

Celine’s head pounded, her fingers pressed to her temple. Her vision blurred along the edges, then caught on the wheels of a carriage as it splashed through a nearby puddle. The water silvered, then darkened, and for a beat of time, Celine saw a pair of steel-grey eyes rippling across its surface. Then they vanished like smoke in the wind.

Michael steadied her. Grounded her. With his help, Celine hurried down the lane.

What was happening? To whom was she begging?

And who was the faceless boy with the bloody ring?

A soothing voice warmed through her mind, its accent foreign. Deep. It bid her to relax. Lulled her, like a song sung from a mother’s lips. She allowed it to settle around her thoughts, her pulse starting to unwind.

She welcomed it. Anything was better than these sharp stabs of agonizing fear.

Wasn’t it?





BASTIEN





There is a moment that forever marks your life as before and after.

For a vampire, I suppose this moment is obvious. But I do not wish to be defined by the loss of my humanity, any more than I wish to be defined by the countless faces I am forced to wear each day. The face of the obedient son. The benevolent brother. The cool-headed leader. The vengeful vampire. The lost soul. The forgotten lover.

The trouble with wearing so many faces is that you forget which one is real.

I’d rather my life be defined by the things I should have done. The words I should have spoken. The moments I should have savored. The lives I should have protected.

I should have walked away from the ring that night in the swamp two weeks ago, just like I should have turned away the instant I saw Celine walking along the opposite side of Rue Royale.

But I hungered for more of her, even from a distance.

I knew it was Celine the moment before I noticed the flash of her brilliant red dress. The night I first saw her months ago, I was struck by a line from a poem Boone often recites in the glow of a full moon:

She walks in beauty, like the night . . .

At the time, I found it ridiculous. Idiotic to think of poetry when confronted with a pretty face. Poetry was the stuff of foolish fancy. And I was not a fool.

I think of that poem often now. In my delirium after the fight with Cambion in the swamp, the last two lines ran through my head in an endless refrain:

A mind at peace with all below, / A heart whose love is innocent!

I am neither at peace nor innocent, no matter how much I may wish it. Such things are the demesne of mortals, not of demons. In moments to myself, I still feel the inky poison from Cambion’s claws burn beneath my skin. It would have killed a human within seconds. Perhaps I should feel gratitude that it did no more than incapacitate me for a single evening.

Jae takes hold of my left arm in an ironlike grip. “Bastien.” It is a low warning.

I know he has seen Celine strolling toward us on the opposite side of the street, her arm looped through that of my childhood friend Michael Grimaldi.

Boone draws closer, grinning like a shark, his eyes bright. “Let’s visit Jackson Square and ogle the silly tourists playing the Minister’s Cat.” He jostles my shoulder with his. “We can save those murderous looks for fairer game.”

I shake them both off, my eyes locked on the pair striding ever closer.

Jae stands before me, blocking my view. “If you don’t leave, I will have to remove you by force.”

“Try,” I whisper, stepping closer. “Since I feel I’m owed at least this moment of grace.” I echo Odette’s words from the night I was first turned.

Another moment. And another. My life is reduced to nothing but these stolen moments.

Boone crowds us. “If Bastien stays to the shadows, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him seeing her from a distance.”

Jae glowers at him. I use the distraction to slip into a nearby space between two narrow buildings. When Jae and Boone shift into position behind me, I tilt my Panama hat lower on my brow and continue watching Celine and Michael walk down Royale.

At first, it is not anger I feel. Rather it is a singular kind of pain. One lanced by amusement. I stole a kiss from the girl Michael fancied, those many years ago at cotillion. Fitting that I should stand by and watch as he steals the heart of the only girl I’ve ever loved.

Michael speaks to Celine as if they share a secret. In return, she offers him a smile, and even from a distance, I can see how much it lightens his soul. He leans closer, and the demon inside me wants to take him apart like a clock, piece by piece, cog by cog. It is the same demon that almost killed Cambion in the swamp. The one my uncle wants to take control, no matter how much I might wish to be rid of it once and for all.

Michael’s fingers flex at his sides as they struggle to overcome an unspoken emotion.

Only a fool would deny the obvious.

Michael Grimaldi is in love with Celine Rousseau. It is in every word he speaks, every glance he spares, every tilt of his head toward hers.

I swallow the anger, the tendons in my knuckles pulled tight.

Though I have been forged in fury, I have no right to dwell in it.

I need to unmake this anger. To unmake who I have become. To seek out Sunan the Immortal Unmaker, whose name has haunted me since I first heard it in Cambion’s thoughts.