.

know?”

      Richard popped his head into the study. “She’s on her way, Salignac.”

      “Properly spiced, I hope,” he snapped.

      “Drank the whole bowl of opium,” Richard offered with his usual lascivious glee. “She can barely walk.”

      Constantine’s fangs descended in anticipation. Normally Richard waited until he’d been directed to prepare the evening’s repast, but for some reason Sabine had gotten into the opium early. She’d cast him a stabbing glance when he had greeted Mademoiselle LaMourette.

      Sabine had no right to jealousy, and yet rarely did his glossy-eyed kin ever show signs of fight over him. Pity.

      Sabine was his oldest and favorite. He had a few dozen female kin that he blooded regularly in hopes of eventually getting them with child. A mortal woman-made vampire required five to ten years of blooding from her patron before she could accept his seed and grow fruitful. Sabine had been carrying his child for five months now.

      Finally, some success.

      If she could give him a male heir, a bloodborn vampire to carry on his name, the tribe would be most pleased. His position as leader was tenuous. The ailing tribe needed new blood to grow stronger. Constantine had been named leader two decades earlier, and he’d expressed the dire need for the male members to gather as many female kin as they could in hopes of producing viable male bloodborn vampires. Yet nothing had come of it.

      His greatest hope rested upon securing Viviane LaMourette as kin. She was the diamond amongst the rubies. The only bloodborn vampiress in Paris, she was the key to his remaining leader of tribe Nava. Finally!

      Yet she asked him to give up his kin? A bold request.

      A petite blonde, wearing a gossamer night rail that revealed her tumescent belly, stumbled against the door frame. She grinned drunkenly at Constantine and brushed the loose hair from her face.

      He gestured for her to come to him. Candle glow exposed the road map of blue veins beneath her pale skin. She was growing more delicate as her stomach expanded. He made a note to find her a proper maid who would tend only her. He must not risk his child’s life.

      She collapsed on him more than sat. Though she was his favorite, he’d gone beyond desire for sex now that she was expanding. Still, her blood was the finest vintage.

      “You could not wait for me?” he wondered as he stroked the hair from her neck.

      “I thought I was your favorite,” she pouted. “I saw you leaning so close to that wolf slayer.”

      So she was jealous. “You are my favorite, Sabine.” For now.

      He kissed her neck, grazing a fang along the vein. No passion required, only hunger for solace. Ever polite, only a small cry from her. She clutched his jabot and cooed as he extracted the hot blood from her vein. Laced with opium, it relaxed him and dizzied his world. Made him forget things.

      He sucked the sweet wine of oblivion, yet she began to struggle. Normally she slipped into a weak reverie.

      Constantine caught Sabine’s wrist. “Settle. I am not finished.”

      “Oh!” Such a shriek could not be because of his ministrations. Sabine squirmed on his lap and slid off, landing on the floor, her head tucked. “It is like knives!”

      Licking the blood from his fingers, Constantine stopped and noted what he was doing. He was never so messy. Where had it come from …?

      A smear of blood across his lap trailed over the chaise longue. He startled. On the parquet floor, writhing in pain, Sabine bled from her loins.

      “Richard!”

      Jumping off the chaise and over his kin, Constantine wobbled to catch his balance. The opium hazed his perception. He wanted to recline and drift away, to annihilate the nasty foreboding Rhys Hawkes’s presence had embedded.

      “Hell, she’s losing it,” Richard hissed. He plunged to the floor and lifted Sabine by the shoulders. “What should I do?”

      “Get her out of here!”

      Unwilling to look upon the wailing female, Constantine turned and smashed his fist across the candelabra. Half a dozen tapers clattered against the wall. Flame ignited the English paper but quickly burned out. “Damn it. Will I never have what I desire?”

      RHYS HAD TO ADMIT THE HAWKER down the street offered excellent pheasant legs. Roasting for hours over applewood chips gave the meat a soft, sweet flavor. He set aside two cleaned bones on the paper they’d come wrapped in and started on his third.

      He preferred meat to blood. Or rather, his werewolf did. And though he was vampire right now—and vampires could not abide meat—the werewolf ruled his thoughts. He would regret this when the vampire retaliated during the full moon.

      But until then—his werewolf mind urged Rhys to tear another strip of savory meat from the bone.

      Setting aside the cleaned pheasant bone, Rhys scanned the copy of Journal de Paris he’d unfolded on the table, yet found he wasn’t in the mood to read about the queen’s curious involvement with a priceless diamond necklace.

      They’d been in Paris a week and William had not returned home. Montfalcon was young, strong and bold, yet he was also gentle and discerning.

      Rhys could not figure what would have led a wolf to take Monsieur Chevalier’s life, and that of his wife.

      Indeed, could it have been William? Certainly would give a man good reason not to be found.

      No, he was forming conclusions with little basis in truth.

      Nefarious deeds had occurred within the vampire and werewolf communities. Suspicion should point to the Order of the Stake, a covert organization of mortals intent on slaying all vampires.

      Mortals or a werewolf? Rhys would rule out neither.

      If she had been patroned by Chevalier, perhaps Mademoiselle LaMourette could provide some insight.

      “Oh, did I tell you?” Orlando said, interrupting Rhys’s thoughts as he grabbed another pheasant leg from the diminishing stack. “I learned something about the slain vampires last evening after you went off to stalk the vampiress.”

      He would hardly call it stalking. Mild interest, perhaps. “Yes?”

      “Seems they were a husband and wife, and … the vampire …”

      “Henri Chevalier.”

      “Yes, he patroned only his wife and one other vampiress. Viviane LaMourette.”

      “Yes, I know.”

      “But did you know —” the boy leaned in dramatically “— she is bloodborn?”

      Rhys sat back in his chair, stretching out his legs. Bloodborn female vampires were rare, a prize to snatch and hoard. If two bloodborn vampires were to procreate, the offspring would be very powerful.

      Lord de Salignac was bloodborn. Rhys was also aware tribe Nava was desperate for new blood. The tribe was in danger of extinction for a mere dozen or so males remained.

      “You are sure?”

      “A faery told me. And then I stole a kiss from her.”

      “You should be cautious of the Sidhe, Orlando.”

      “But you—”

      “Have a distinct relationship with their kind.” And not one he wished to cultivate. “A man unaccustomed to dealing with those who wield glamour had best stay as far from them as possible.”

      “I kissed her once. Besides, I’ve my eye on the mortal pretties who prance about the Palais Royal and lift their skirts to show their unmentionables.”

      Rhys shook his head. “Be careful there, too, boy.”

      So Viviane