The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(30)

émilie had found herself in a tomb of fire. She’d backed into a corner, her eyes burning, her hair beginning to smolder. When a lick of flame touched the sleeve of her dress, it had ignited before she could muster a scream. The fire had singed her skin, the blaze roaring in her head, her heart raging, begging to be set free.

Fear had overcome her. She’d breathed deeply of the fiery air, letting it burn through her lungs, praying for a reprieve.

She had not seen the figures moving through the flames until the last instant. Until she’d believed them to be angels sent from above. No human could move like that. With such grace and speed, even when threatened by the fires of Hell itself.

When she’d awoken, she’d been on the cusp of death, her body wracked with pain.

“émilie,” a gruff voice had said. “You don’t have much time.”

She’d struggled to open her eyes.

“You’re dying, but I can stop it,” he’d continued. “I can give you the power to cheat death.”

“U-Uncle?”

“No. I am not the coward who stood by and watched you die a fiery death. But I am here to give you what you wanted from him. What he refused to give to you.” The man leaned in until his mouth was beside her ear. “The power to overcome your weaknesses. All you have to do is nod.”

émilie did not have to think twice. The burns on her skin were raw. Every motion she made was excruciating, but she managed a single nod. The man bit her arm, and the pain that spread through her limbs caused her to lose consciousness. When next she woke, she was a werewolf. Meant to cast aside her worldly desires along with all her earthly loyalties.

From that moment onward, émilie was no longer a Saint Germain. The very utterance of the name caused hot anguish to race through her veins. The Saint Germains had brought her nothing but death and suffering, just as they had with the wolves, who’d lost everything for casting their lot with the vampires. In the end, her uncle—the one who was supposed to protect them all—had stood by and watched her die.

The sight of Nicodemus’ golden gaze staring up at her through the smoke had been etched onto each of émilie’s memories for more than a decade. It fed her. Sustained her hatred.

In the end, it was Luca and his family—especially his father, who had turned her—who gave her what she’d desired for so long. A place to call her own. They answered any and all of her questions. All the things Nicodemus had denied her, they gave without reservations.

And émilie had become one of them.

From Luca, she’d learned how vampires and werewolves had once lived in the Otherworld, in a land of perpetual night known as the Sylvan Wyld. He told her how the vampires and werewolves had consorted with one another to lord over the mortal domain. How the vampires had attempted to sell immortality to the highest bidder. How they’d all been banished from the Sylvan Wyld for the vampires’ actions.

How the vampires had eventually forsaken the wolves in their quest to achieve dominance in the mortal realm.

Over time, Luca professed his love. And émilie returned it, in her own way. She loved him for being her family. For always putting her first. But Luca wanted to marry her, and a woman like émilie was not meant to be contained. When she gave love, it was without restraint, to men and women alike. And whatever she offered was hers to give, to whomever she chose, whenever she chose to give it. Something men like Luca or her uncle or even her younger brother would never understand.

Wrath took hold of émilie, all but strangling the breath from her body. What was it about young men like Sébastien Saint Germain that blessed them with the nine lives of a cat? No mortal could have survived his wounds. émilie had been specific when she ordered Nigel Fitzroy to murder her brother that night in Saint Louis Cathedral. For everything their uncle Nicodemus had done to émilie in life—for all Bastien had taken from her—her little brother was not to breathe in the free light of day ever again.

If you must, separate his head from his body. But make sure he does not survive.

Those had been her very words.

She stopped short again.

If Bastien’s wounds were intended to kill a mortal man, that could only mean one thing. Nicodemus had turned the last living member of his bloodline into a vampire.

Which meant he’d broken his treaty with the Brotherhood.

A slow smile unfurled across émilie’s face. She should tell Luca at once. Let her erstwhile lover know that their decade of peace with the Fallen had come to an ignominious end. What followed would ensure at least several years of war between the vampires and the werewolves. And war was a time for great strides to be made, especially for the industrious.

Of which émilie was and always would be.

Since no one in life had drawn attention to her myriad talents, she would be the one to do it now. If a mediocre young man could crow to the world about his mediocrity, then why should a superior young woman not do the same?

Yes. émilie should tell Luca. It was past time.

But she wouldn’t. Not now. Not when she still had a winning hand to play.

Her grin widened. Her wolf spy had told her something else. Luca’s younger cousin Michael was falling in love with Celine Rousseau, the girl Bastien had died trying to protect.

Fortune truly did smile upon the bold.

A simple mind might think it sufficient to upset the balance between these immortal foes by telling Luca what she had learned. But émilie wished to wreak more than temporary havoc. She wished to destroy the very foundation. A foundation that put her in second place, no matter how much more gifted or worthy she might be to those lauded above her.