The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(96)

The window was no longer an option.

The fire surrounded her on all sides.

A fresh slew of tears coursed down her cheeks. She crouched toward the floor, seeking clean air, realizing the flames would close in on her soon, hoping the smoke would choke her before the fire burned her skin.

Something rustled through the flames. A blur of motion coming from above, descending as if from the attic.

The instant before émilie succumbed to the smoke and the despair, a set of clear, inhuman eyes—rings of blown-out black pupils surrounded by ochre—stared down at her as strong hands snatched her through the smoke.

When she woke, her lungs were burned. The skin on her right hand and along the right side of her neck was singed. It took her only a moment to agree to their terms. To agree to serve whoever had saved her. To honor the one who swore to put an end to her pain. Who vowed never to turn his back on her.

With every promise, émilie recalled the sight of her uncle watching their home as it burned. The relief in his eyes when Sébastien landed in the center of the fire brigade. How he turned away from the burning building. Away from her.

In life, Nicodemus had never concerned himself much with her welfare. In death, he left émilie to burn. He would burn everything to the ground if it meant saving his legacy.

Which was why émilie took it from him. Why émilie lied to everyone. Even the ones she purported to love.

She grinned up at Luca Grimaldi.

Everything émilie had worked for all these years was about to come to pass. She’d already made one part of Luca’s dreams come true. She married him. At her behest, they eloped and traveled to Europe for a honeymoon. One in which émilie had spent an inordinate amount of time speaking with some of the elder wolves in the Greek archives. The next part of Luca’s dream would never come to pass, though he did not know it.

émilie had no interest in having children. She never had. And the notion that she simply must in order to have value as a woman had always chafed her sensibilities.

One of the most lasting lessons her uncle had taught her was the weakness of love. It was something émilie had marveled at over the course of the last decade. Many of the men, women, vampires, werewolves, and other fey creatures she encountered were beings capable of great evil. Interestingly they were also capable of great love.

And so many of them loved their families with an inordinate amount of ferocity. Their loved ones were often their greatest weakness. It was for their families that they did their worst.

émilie wasn’t interested in that kind of weakness. In that kind of excuse.

She fought for herself and for herself alone. The family she had now was one of survival. She loved them because they gave her the strength of numbers. But her love was conditional. And she always made certain her conditions were met.

“The leeches are almost here,” a voice announced through the din.

émilie refrained from going to the edge of the deck to peer at the sight she’d longed to see for so many years. Instead she walked toward the bow, to the dais reserved for musicians. The electric lanterns glowed beneath her. Along the horizon, a faint light began to bleed into the night sky. The first signs of dawn.

Luca came to stand beside her. He reached for her hand. émilie wove her fingers through his. Something roared through her with the force of a summer storm when her brother stepped over the railing, a blank expression on his face.

Sébastien looked so much like their father. Handsome. Chiseled. Strong.

émilie almost flinched.

A lie. In the end, Rafael Ferrer had been weak. So very weak.

When Bastien saw her, he stopped, a look of shock and dismay on his face. In the blink of an eye, he schooled his expression into one of calculated ambivalence. A part of émilie was impressed. The little brother she remembered was far more ruled by the tides of emotion. He reached behind him to offer his hand to the young woman accompanying him.

Celine Rousseau, who disregarded her brother’s help and held the hem of her long skirts high before planting her booted toes on the deck. émilie’s gaze narrowed. Odette Valmont, Shin Jaehyuk, Boone Ravenel, and Madeleine de Morny moved into position as all the wolves formed a protective semicircle around émilie and Luca.

émilie removed her hand from Luca’s and stepped toward Bastien.

“I appreciate you responding to my invitation, Monsieur Saint Germain. Though I’ll admit I expected your arrival a bit sooner,” émilie said in a pleasant tone.

Bastien took in a breath as if he meant to speak, then stopped himself. Again émilie found herself admiring his restraint.

“I’m certain you wish to ask me how I came to be here, mon petit lion.” She grinned.

“I do,” he replied. “But does it matter?”

“I suppose not.”

“Where is Nicodemus?”

“He came to me of his own volition, just as you have.”

“I am not here because I wish to be here, émilie.” His piercing grey eyes cut through her. In another life, she might have been intimidated. “I am here because I was not given a choice.”

“You were given choices, Sébastien. You chose to come here to save our undeserving uncle, for reasons I am certain I will never understand,” she replied. “You could have left him to his fate, one he deserves more than most villains, to be sure.”