The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(69)

Jae took in a single breath, taking in the collection of scents around him. Letting his trained ears absorb all signs of movement, tracking his brothers and sisters as if they were his next targets. Bastien was the one to worry about the most. He was young. Strong. Unpredictable. Jae had not forgotten how Bastien had cracked Boone’s skull like an egg the night he first woke as a vampire.

Once Jae took stock of his surroundings, he ducked into an alcove, then blurred toward the ceiling, angling for higher ground. Grasping an exposed beam, he watched the scene unfold below him, splinters fraying under his grasp.

“Jae,” Bastien said.

The single syllable reverberated to all four corners of the cavernous warehouse.

Bastien continued. “Don’t fight us.”

Figures blurred between the piled sugar sacks, causing more sweet dust to curl through the night air. Jae remained silent. Unmoving. Waiting for a path to clear toward the exit. Scanning the ceiling for a possible egress.

“I only wish to know what Lady Silla wants with Celine,” Bastien said. “Please, brother. Help me.”

Tension banded across Jae’s arms. Lady Silla must have revealed more than Jae’s treachery. She must have confessed that Celine was her daughter. Jae could not fathom why she would do that. It was clear his brothers and sisters knew he worked in service to the Lady of the Vale. But did they know the terms of their arrangement? Had she told them how Jae struck a bargain with her to obtain the location of Mo Gwai’s hidden lair?

Jae waited. Listened, every muscle in his body taut.

He’d given up so much in his life. But he’d received much in return. Perhaps it was enough that he surrender now and accept his fate. He’d known this day would come eventually.

Motion stirred in Jae’s periphery.

“He’s on the ceiling,” Madeleine said. “That’s where I would go first.” She stepped into a beam of waning moonlight. “The corners. Preferably the darkest one.”

Jae’s fangs began to lengthen. She knew him too well.

Two vampires and one ethereal began closing in on Jae.

His options were narrowing with each passing moment. Though he loathed the thought of harming any member of his family, he could not allow them to capture him. He doubted they would ever resort to such a thing as torture to wreak their revenge. But Nicodemus would.

And Jae had sworn years ago never to suffer the agony of torture again.

He locked in on Arjun as the half fey moved closer. It was unfair, but Arjun’s mortal father put him at a distinct disadvantage. He was not as strong. Not as quick. And the half-breed was, after all, the one with the power to immobilize him. Better to eliminate that possibility.

Jae caught himself. It had been an age since he used that particular epithet, even in his head. It took him back to the time he’d spent in the Vale, vying for Lady Silla’s attention. The fey of the Summer Court had always been obsessed with pure bloodlines. Jae himself had seen the kind of torment they inflicted on the ethereals who dwelled among them. The way they jeered at the so-called half-breeds, making sport of their pain. Mocking their inability to heal as quickly or run as swiftly.

Nevertheless, Arjun was the one Jae would attack first.

Moving soundlessly, Jae extracted one of the small silver daggers from inside his shirtsleeve. Set his sights on Arjun Desai. And slid from the shadows, moving quicker than a bolt of lightning across the sky.

Vampires do not see the world with the encumbered eyes of a human. They see it in minute detail, as if they were afforded a small eternity to examine it. A focused vampire is the deadliest creature known to man or beast.

Even then, Jae almost missed what happened next.

Madeleine glided into his path, anticipating his motions as always. Jae changed tactic, but Madeleine was there, attempting to disarm him. They struggled, her hands wrapping around his wrists. He tried to pull back, but Arjun leapt toward them, a hand outstretched to freeze Jae where he stood.

Jae twisted away, the knife in his hand pointed at an odd angle. Bastien shouted but it was too late. The solid silver blade embedded in Madeleine’s body like a hot knife through butter. Time stopped. Something lurched in Jae’s chest. Something that had been silenced for nearly a century.

It was the sound of his dead heart breaking.

Madeleine pulled the blade from her skin with a wince. Blood dripped from the dagger’s silver edge, down toward its ivory handle. It stained the front of her dress before the wound attempted to knit itself together. It failed, and the blood began spurting from her chest in a torrent, buoyed by the dark magic that had set it on its immortal course so many years ago.

She offered him a weak smile, a trickle of crimson dripping from her mouth.

Then Madeleine collapsed in Jae’s arms.





BASTIEN





Jae surrenders without protest. All his weapons are turned over at once. He does not attempt a struggle. Nor does he say a word in his own defense.

Because Boone is the most fleet-footed of us all, he bears Madeleine through the streets of the Vieux Carré, moving faster than sound. When Jae, Arjun, and I arrive at Jacques’, the second floor is bedlam.

The moment Hortense sees Jae, she attacks. “Fils de pute,” she screams, her fingers tearing at his face, her nails drawing blood. “I will rip out your dead heart and feed it to the pigs! I will make a meal of you,” she cries. “I will drink you dry until you shrivel into a husk at my feet.” It takes the strength of three vampires to keep her from ripping Jae to pieces. Still Jae does not try to defend himself.