The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(9)

There they all stand, from all parts of the world and all walks of life. Each of them a lion in their own right. Two of my blood brothers, three of my blood sisters, and one half fey.

Gangly Nigel Fitzroy, the vampire responsible for my death, remains glaringly absent from this twisted tableau.

Rage riots through me. I swallow as it burns through my veins, my teeth gritted in my skull. Everything around me sharpens. Becomes clearer, like a point of light in a haze of darkness.

It is not an unwelcome feeling. I want to lose myself to it. To abandon all sense of logic, caring about nothing but destruction. There is purity in such a sentiment. Reason in its simplicity.

I roll back my shoulders and take in an unnecessary breath. When I gaze about the space once more, my sight fixes on my uncle, his golden eyes shining through the shadows like those of a panther.

Nicodemus studies me, his face hewn from marble. A single devilish whorl of black hair grazes his forehead. “Sébastien,” he says. “Do you know who I am?” He analyzes me as he would one of the many winged specimens in his collection. Like a butterfly with iridescent stripes, a long metal pin stabbed through its abdomen.

Again the rage spikes in my chest. “Were you truly concerned I would not remember you, Monsieur le Comte?” I expect my voice to sound gruff from disuse, but the dark magic rounds its tones, making a rich melody of it.

No trace of relief flashes through Nicodemus’ features, despite the proof that my mind survived the change. “It was a distinct possibility. You were dangerously close to death when I began turning you.” He pauses. “And it is always a gamble to mix mortal blood with that of an immortal ancestor, as you well know.”

I do. I blink back the memory of my mother, who was consumed by madness. Poisoned by grief. Obsessed with the desire to be unmade and return to her mortal form. I say nothing in response. Those remembrances serve no purpose now, except to goad my anger.

“How do you feel?” Nicodemus takes a step forward. Everything about him—from his slicked hair to his shining shoes—epitomizes the look of a gentleman. The kind of gentleman I aspired to be from boyhood. But there is an odd hesitancy in his question.

My uncle is not one to waver.

It puzzles me. Unwilling to show him any sign of my own confusion, I say the first thing that comes to mind. “I feel powerful.”

I expect my brothers and sisters to laugh at the triteness of my reply.

“Are you not . . . angry?” Odette’s voice is gentle. “I know this is not what you—”

“No,” I lie without even considering it. “I am not angry.”

More silence.

Madeleine blurs toward me, then stops short as if catching herself, her palms held in a placating manner. “Do you have any questions? Anything you need? Il y a des moments où—”

“I believe I understand the general gist of things, Madeleine.” I suppress another wave of wrath, bitter amusement quick to take its place. “Drink blood and live forever.” I grin at my immortal family, then straighten my stained cuffs.

“Stop it,” Jae says, the two syllables cracking through the darkness like warning shots.

Madeleine glares at Jae, attempting to silence him with nothing but a glance.

He is unmoved. Unapologetic. “Be angry,” he grits out. “Be sad. Be anything but this.”

I quirk a brow at him.

“Afraid,” Jae clarifies. “You are so afraid, I could cut your fear with a knife. Slice it to ribbons.” With his chin, he gestures toward Odette. “She can wear them in her hair.”

I swallow, struggling to hold fast to my smile. Weighing whether or not to attack Jae.

He is quick to respond to my unspoken challenge. Like a ghoul, Jae glides forward, his greatcoat swirling around him. He draws two blades from hidden sheaths in his jacket. Twirls them once, daring me to answer his silent threat.

I stand straight, my hands curling into fists, the fire purifying me from the inside.

He’ll win. Of that there is no doubt. But I won’t tuck tail and run. I’ll come at him until he’s forced to cut me down. Maybe if he cuts me deep enough, I will find what remains of my humanity. Or maybe I will simply succumb to another one of my uncle’s lessons: destroy or be destroyed.

Afraid? Jae thinks I’m afraid? Let him see what fear truly is.

Just before I make good on these promises, my uncle claps his hands like a judge with a gavel, demanding order. It almost makes me laugh, for Le Comte de Saint Germain is anything but the proper gentleman he wishes the mortal world to see.

Nicodemus is renowned in all circles of the Otherworld, as much for his wealth and influence as for his brutality. He was there at the beginning, when vampires and werewolves resided in castles carved from ice, deep in a forest of perpetual night. When blood drinkers and shapeshifters lived among their fey brethren, like the gods atop Mount Olympus, toying with humans for nothing but sport. He cavorted with the nymphs, the goblins, the ogres, the phoukas, and the sprites far apart from the mortal world, in a place of endless winter known as the Sylvan Wyld. Nicodemus still remembers a time when they did not hide their elven nature, but instead basked in it. Until—in their quest for power—the vampires allied with the werewolves and made a great error in judgment: they attempted to trade their most precious commodity with humans.

Their immortality.