The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(7)

Francine nodded. “You are an angel, dear.” Tears welled in her eyes. “And I could never forget you.”

“I am no angel. Angels bore me. Give me a better devil any day.”

“You are an angel,” Francine insisted. “The most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” When Odette released her, Francine gripped Odette’s arm tightly, refusing to let go. Tears slid down her cheeks, confusion etching lines across her brow. “Please,” she said, “take me with you.”

“Where I go, you cannot follow.”

“I can if you take me with you. If you make me an angel like you.”

Odette tilted her head, the musings of the beautiful creature she was now warring with the beliefs of the mortal girl she’d once been. In her hands, she held the power to give life. To take it.

To savor it. Slowly.

Francine smiled at Odette, her gaze tremulous, her fingers still twined in Odette’s shirtsleeves. “Please, angel. Please. Don’t leave me alone in the dark.”

“I told you already, ma chérie.” With her free hand, Odette caressed the side of Francine’s face. “I am no angel.” With that, she snapped Francine’s neck. Felt the brittle bones break between her inhumanly strong fingers. Let Francine’s body slide in an inglorious heap, lifeless, to the cracked pavers at her feet.

She stood that way for a time. Waited to see if Francine’s God would smite her down. After all, Odette deserved it. She could justify her actions however she wanted. She could say she’d spared Francine the disappointment of a sad future. She could say it was a kindness. Some type of twisted mercy.

But who was she to offer mercy to anyone?

Odette waited, staring up at the moon, wincing away from the long shadow cast by the cross high above. No hail of fire and brimstone rained down around her. Everything was as it had always been. Life and death in a single breath.

“I’m sorry, ma chérie,” Odette whispered. “You deserved better.” She stared at her feet, letting regret roll down her spine toward her toes, to vanish between the cracks in the pavestones. What she’d done—this life that she’d stolen—it was wrong. Odette knew it.

It was just . . . sometimes she was tired of trying so hard to be good.

With a sigh, Odette began strolling away, her hands in her pockets.

“Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras,” she sang, the tune tinged with sweet sadness. “égorger nos fils, nos compagnes.” The echo of “La Marseillaise” filtered above, mingling with the smoke of Odette’s endless misdeeds.





BASTIEN





As a boy, I often dreamed about being a hero, like the ones from my favorite stories. D’Artagnan joining the musketeers, fearless in the face of danger. King Leonidas and his brave three hundred, standing firm against impossible odds. Odysseus on an epic journey, battling mythological monsters and saving maidens fair.

Then I learned that I lived among the monsters. And that such stories were often written not by the heroes themselves, but by those left standing to tell the tale. Perhaps there wasn’t much to recommend a character like d’Artagnan. After all, wasn’t he only ever lucky?

Luck is not a skill. Uncle Nico said this to me time and again, when I lamented being drilled in my studies in warfare, in marksmanship, in riding, in all the talents expected of a so-called gentleman.

Maybe I should have revered Athos, a paragon of mystery. Or Aramis, a lover of life. Or Milady de Winter, the shrewdest of spies.

In the end, the monsters did possess the better stories.

My eyes open with a start. Dust motes hover in the air above me, spinning about in the amber glow of a single candle. I watch them dance for a moment, studying each of their shapes as if they were stars in an infinite sky.

The infinite captivates us because it allows us to believe all things are possible. That true love can last beyond time.

Celine said that to me the night I first realized I had true feelings for her. It was no longer as simple as being drawn to her beauty, pulled like a tide toward the shore. It had become more than that. A comfort. An understanding. Some kind of magic.

I watched her dance a quadrille in the middle of a carnival parade. It did not take long for the melody to win her over, as music so often does. She missed many of the steps and did not care. The sight caught me unawares. It was not just because of how she looked. It was how she made the people around her feel. Her smile lightened those of her partners. Caused the men and women who reeled about her to laugh with abandon.

For a breath, I lost all sense of time and place. It was just her, a lone candle in a darkened room. But behind that beguiling smile I saw something more. A world of secrets, concealed behind a pair of haunted green eyes.

As a boy with secrets of my own, an ache unfurled in my chest. I knew at that moment how much I wished to share our truths. No matter that they both might be riddled with monsters. A week later, the word love teased at the edges of my mind. I disregarded it. Considered myself too world-weary to fall prey to the foolishness of young love.

I was wrong. Disastrously so.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. For ours is not a love story.

The ache around my dead heart spreads into my throat.

Enough.

I sense Toussaint before I see him. My entire body tenses as if coiling to spring. The giant Burmese python slithers over the tabletop, winding from my feet toward my head. I watch him move from where my family has laid me out on the table, like a body in an Irish wake. His tongue flicks the air in front of him, his yellow eyes narrowed, uncertain. He pauses on my chest, his head hovering above my sternum. I stare up at him. He glowers down at me.