gut-clenching scream paused Viviane from her preening.
Accompanying the coachman’s hideous cry rose snarling, growling, and—Viviane’s bile rose with recognition— the sound of tearing at human flesh.
The horses stirred, tugging at their restraints and jostling the carriage. The commotion stopped. The snow muddled the clod of retreating hooves. The coachman must have cut loose the team of two.
Why release their only means of transportation? She would never make Paris now, and most importantly, not before dawn.
Instinct prompted her to assess her clothing. She wore a satin underskirt that could be used as a hood to protect her head, if she needed to start walking. Gloves covered her hands and wrists, and she did have a leather mask that covered all but her eyes.
The letter Henri Chevalier had sent her weeks earlier crinkled against her breast where she’d tucked it between her chemise and corset. He’d written in expectation of her visit this spring. The mention of Constantine de Salignac had almost kept Viviane from making this trip. Henri had intimated Lord de Salignac, leader of the esteemed tribe Nava, desired her hand in marriage as a means to strengthen tribal bloodlines.
The abominable suggestion now distracted her. Viviane would marry no man, even if he were a tribe leader. Salignac could only have his eye on her because she was bloodborn. She did not care to be any man’s chattel.
The fact Henri had patroned her for two centuries following her parents’ cruel deaths and yet had granted her great freedom had probably spoiled her.
Better spoiled than enslaved.
“I will never arrive in Paris to even face the presumptuous Salignac if I do not extract myself from this detestable situation.”
A low growling snarl set her heart racing.
With her shoulders crushed against the tilted carriage wall, Viviane now listened attentively. Tearing flesh sounded as if a dull blade was cutting through leather. It wasn’t an awful sound, save for the context.
More growls trickled dread up her chest and thudded at the base of her throat. “Wolves.”
But fear did not follow. Fear was for the weak, those lacking in discretion regarding their personal boundaries.
Shoving the blanket away, Viviane flinched at the sound of a pistol and then gripped the broken windowpane.
The wolf barked. It must have been hit. She concentrated and listened. Heartbeats. Two of them. Neither was human—which left herself and the wolf.
If it were not badly injured the animal would next come for her.
“I am not prepared for death tonight. I suppose I must see to this matter myself. Curse the bloody animal for my shoes!” Her shoes were new, and the velvet matched the color of a rich chocolate. A former lover had carved the porcelain roses that dotted the toes.
Stepping up and pushing open the door set the carriage to a wobble. The warning creak of wood and snow indicated she had made a wrong move.
Viviane pressed herself against the seat and groped for a hold on the padded fabric walls as the carriage fell completely to its side. The landing snapped her head against the windowpane.
Outside, the mournful whines did not cease. Wolves in France were abundant, but someone had once told Viviane there were as many lone wolves as there were those who traveled in packs. Pray this one was a lone wolf.
The struggle out through the door facing toward the sky was difficult with the hindrance of skirts and corset. Her long dark hair, which she had unrolled from the curling papers an hour earlier, impeded her movements as heavy curls slapped her face and got caught under her elbows.
Perched upon the carriage side—which was now in position to face skyward—Viviane’s breaths clouded before her. Snow crystals falling from overhead branches sparkled in the darkness.
Divining the warm scent of human blood, she could not see carnage from this angle.
Jumping into the loose snow beside the overturned carriage, she landed with a curse. Snow sifted over her face and under her skirt. Her night vision proving quite fine, she sighted the coachman. His neck had been torn. Blood soaked his dark wool greatcoat, jabot and face. One hand extended above his head, loose fingers still held the pistol atop a bloom of bloody snow.
The wolf limped and wobbled, stepping on three legs, and collapsing in the snow. It had taken a bullet in the shoulder for the bloodied brown fur.
“Be gone with you!”
The creature dodged the fist of snow Viviane tossed at it. It snarled, baring fangs.
Viviane bared her fangs.
Mourning yips echoed across the countryside. She couldn’t risk a pack discovering her alone with little means of protection.
Stalking through the deep snow, and losing one shoe in the process, she gained the wolf. It was large, perhaps as long as she from head to knees, and strong of muscle. Thick black fur streaked the brown. It would certainly make an excellent trim to a woman’s gown or hat.
“A fine replacement for my ruined shoes.”
Blood spurted from the bullet wound near the animal’s neck. It would bleed to death.
Not quick enough for her peace of mind.
Grappling the beast’s head securely, Viviane twisted it under her arm and along her side, making sure to pull up so the skull moved sharply away from the neck. An alchemist who studied dead bodies had once told her that severing the spinal cord caused instant death.
The wolf dropped lifeless to the ground.
Viviane wiped her bloodied hands in the snow. Glancing south, she sighted whiffs of smoke curling from dozens of chimneys. Paris. The comfort of a warm home and Henri Chevalier, her loving patron, called.
“So close,” she muttered. “And now I shall have to walk. Without shoes.” She heeled off the remaining shoe. It would hamper. “Insufferable wolf. You got your just.”
Picking up the coachman’s pistol, she then rummaged through his coat pockets, finding two balls, powder and a short iron ramrod. Making quick order of reloading, she tossed aside the ramrod. She may need to fend off another wolf. The pistol would give Viviane the advantage of distance but once.
Bending over the coachman, she pressed his eyelids closed. “Rest in peace.” She thought to make the sign of the cross over his body, but the detail seemed bothersome.
Pistol in hand, Viviane tromped through the snow. The wolf—she paused, struck by what lay on the snow where once the four-legged creature had been.
“Sacre bleu.” It was—a werewolf.
A man, bare and bleeding at the neck, lay sprawled where she had snapped the wolf’s neck. In human form he was called were. Dark glassy eyes sought hers. Alive yet, despite what she’d thought a spine-severing move.
“I did not know,” she offered, nervous suddenly, whipping her head about to scan the periphery. No wolves lurked nearby.
The were’s eyelids shuttered. His head sank into the snow and his muscles relaxed with death. Blood spilled from his mouth to stain the scrap of white fabric he’d torn from the coachman’s neck.
Minneapolis, modern day
RHYS HAWKES MOVED THROUGH the Irish-themed pub with a swaying stride. It was past midnight, but O’Leary’s stayed open until two. The owner, not an Irishman but rather a German who’d married into the family, granted him carte blanche. The high-tech, temperature-controlled cellar was always open for Rhys to select a bottle of wine, whiskey, or to relax in the cool darkness after a long day at Hawkes Associates.
More than just a bank, Hawkes Associates stored treasures, housed certain volatile objects of a magical nature and offered the various paranormal nations, Light, Dark, Faery and otherwise,