“All right,” the boy allowed. His eyes were growing heavy.
Kendrick thumbed the pages to the opening chapter. “‘In the far north of England, many years before King Harold forfeited his crown to William of Normandy on the field of Hastings, along the sea cliffs of the North York moors, where tiny becks wear their way to the sea, and storms rage, and the roaring waves beat upon the rocks and pull sailors down to drown among the selkie maidens and the mer-lasses of the deep, a small stone house-place had been reinforced against the elements, and that was where Sigestan was born one winter eve…’”
After breaking half the furniture in his sitting room and nearly ripping off the arm of the toady who had brought the news that the attempt against Kendrick had failed,again, Laurent stormed out into the streets still full of humans going about their business, oblivious that death walked among them.
Foiled! Again! Was the man a cat, that he had nine lives? Were the vampires he sent so incompetent? How hard was it to killone vampire?
“I do hate to say I told you so,” Gisela had said, when she’d arrived on his doorstep minutes after the little birdy who’d broken the news, “but I would be remiss if I let you continue in this crackbrained manner. Stop your ill-conceived attacks against Kendrick. They are doing us no good.”
“Disloyal wench,” Laurent had growled. “You would just give up? Roll over beneath this new master? A very easy posture for you.”
“It is not disloyalty to recognize when one is outmatched,” she had snarled. “And trying the same thing over and over isn’t wisdom. It’s stupidity. I worry for you, Laurent,” she’d gone on in a venomously sweet tone. “You spent too many years letting Bacchus do your thinking for you, and now I believe you find it hard to take up again.”
She had turned on her heel and stalked out, smoothly dodging the marble bust he had sent flying at her head.
Laurent made his way to the East End, where humans did not care about the poor disappearing. After slaking his thirst and relieving some of his fury on a dosser, he left the body behind in a dark alley and straightened his clothing, ensuring no blood speckled his waistcoat. As he dabbed his handkerchief against his lips, he caught a thread of scent on the air, and he froze.
Genevieve.
Hunting the scent, he stepped out into the street and scanned the crowds. No Genevieve to be seen. So why did he smell her? It was there, mixed in with the smell of the unwashed and coal and food cooking poorly and sewage in the streets.
His gaze settled on the pinched face of a woman, eyes down, walking past him.
Her.
He trailed her for two blocks until a convenient patch of darkness and alley mouth coincided. Then Laurent seized her.
“Shhh,” he said, hand over her mouth as she tried to scream.
He held her in place as she tried to fight him with her paltry strength, and he searched her. She smelled like Genevieve—why? Had she supped from this woman recently? Given her something? What?
He found the culprit in her pocket, a worn handkerchief spotted with dried human blood not yet laundered, but with the faded initialsGD.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, perfectly pleasant. He dangled the handkerchief in front of her. “Where did a human like you run into Genevieve? You can speak,” he added, belatedly moving his hand from her mouth to her throat. It was pathetically easy to abort her struggling escape attempt. Humans were no match for a vampire.
The woman’s eyes were so wide, he could see the whites all around the lovely, green irises. Fear rolled off her, but she didn’t open her mouth.
Laurent’s mouth pursed. “I will pay you for the information.” He jingled the coin in his purse. He wouldn’t; he never paid humans if he could help it, but she wouldn’t know that. “Simply tell me where you acquired this handkerchief and why. Perhaps you do not know her name; she is a woman with cropped, dark hair and a mouth full of upstart opinions. Pointed little nose and chin, pale. Only comes out at night.”
She could not hide the spark of recognition. She swallowed but still said nothing.
Laurent’s lips thinned. “Cat got your tongue?”
Genevieve was a do-gooder and a bleeding heart. She was trying to twist her way into Kendrick’s confidence, to get her fingers into the Ossuary. She had run into this woman at some point, and she had given her a handkerchief to staunch blood.
There was a connection here, and every connection was a leverage point of weakness.
He leaned closer to the woman and smiled. “You and I are going to become acquainted. And you’ll tell me what I want to know…eventually.”
That loosened her tongue. “No, please,” she begged, futilely fighting as he dragged her away.
“Too late.” He would find out what he wanted to know, and he would hurt Genevieve at the same time. Revenge did taste sweet.
Sweet like blood.
ChapterTwenty
Genevieve pulled herself out of the dark to the sound of Kendrick’s voice.
