Philip Marshall, Earl of Greyhaven.
I took a step closer, feeling distant from everything except that face, as if I were underwater. The paint was still moist in one corner, gleaming wetly. This portrait had been done recently, hung before it was fully dried and cured.
I didn’t know what to think of that. I felt my lips lift off my elongated fangs, felt a growl rumble in my chest. At first I thought it was Charlemagne. It took me a moment to realize the pained sound was coming from me. I curled my hands into fists, willed myself not to explode.
“Isabeau?” Logan stepped closer, concerned. “What is it?”
Magda insinuated herself between us, forcibly pushing Logan out of the way. “I’ll take care of her,” she told him darkly, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“I’m fine,” I murmured, barely recognizing my own voice. It was hoarse, but soft as water. I forced myself to turn my back on the wall of portraits, even though I felt Greyhaven’s painted eyes boring into the back of my neck. I needed time to think. It was obvious to me, even without the warm tingle of the amulets around my throat, that something was going on.
“Let’s go,” I said, refusing to meet either of their gazes.
Chapter 9
Logan
I led Isabeau toward the antechamber my parents had reserved for private meetings. She seemed paler, her fingers tightening in her dog’s gray fur, as if searching for comfort. I didn’t think she even knew she was doing it. But I’d noticed. Something in that portrait gallery had spooked her. But I knew however many times I asked her, she wouldn’t answer me.
So I’d bide my time.
For now it was enough to deal with the image of Solange making out with Kieran in a dark corner of the hall, where they thought no one could see them. Between Solange and her hunter and Nicholas kissing Lucy, Isabeau was going to think we did nothing but grope and flirt.
Which sounded just fine to me, but I didn’t think she’d oblige.
“Dude,” I snapped as Kieran’s hand strayed under the hem of Solange’s shirt. The cast on his arm was sharply white against his black clothes. The fact that he’d hurt that arm saving Solange was the only reason I wasn’t currently yanking him right off her. “That’s my sister.”
Solange peered over Kieran’s shoulder. “Go away, Logan. You’re just jealous because you have no one to kiss. Hi, Isabeau.”
I could kill her. She was just getting me back for the princess comment from the night before. And Isabeau would scare easier than a doe in hunting season if she thought for one second I wanted to feel her lips under mine. I narrowed my eyes warningly at Solange. “Shouldn’t you be at the meeting?”
Kieran pulled away, having the grace to flush just a little. I didn’t like the tempo of his heartbeat, or the direction his blood was flowing. “I have to wait for my friend Hunter,” he said. “This is her first time in vampire territory and I promised I wouldn’t go in without her.”
Solange kissed him one more time just to annoy me, and then went to the antechamber.
“I begged Mom and Dad for a cat,” I muttered at her back. She tossed me a grin over her shoulder, hearing me perfectly, as I’d intended. I grinned back.
“Helios-Ra really are allowed in the royal caves,” Isabeau murmured as we trailed after Solange. She and Kieran gave each other a wide berth.
“It’s crazy.” Magda shook her head.
I shrugged one shoulder. “My parents want to do things differently. Dad’s big on treaties.”
“And your mother?” Isabeau inquired.
“She’s big on making grown men cry,” I replied dryly.
Isabeau’s smile was brief and crooked and practically had me drooling. “I like her already,” she said. She let go of Charlemagne. “I could use a moment,” she said softly. “Are we expected right away?”
I glanced at the pocket watch hanging from my black jeans. “We have a good half hour. I just said that about the meeting to get Kieran off my sister’s face.”
“Are they betrothed?”
I nearly choked. “I sure as hell hope not. They’ve only known each other a couple of weeks.”
“Ah.” She and Magda exchanged a girly glance I had absolutely no desire to decipher. I decided to pretend I hadn’t even seen it.
“Did you want a tour of the caves?” I asked, to distract us all.
“Oui. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all.” I held out my arm, the way they do in period-piece movies. It would have been smooth too, if Magda hadn’t glowered and shoved her way between us.
“I’m coming too.”
I’d have to console myself with the hope that I’d seen Isabeau soften, even hesitate, as if she might actually have taken my arm. It was suddenly very easy to picture her in a gown with petticoats and ringlets in her hair and diamonds at her throat. It was just as easy to picture Magda with horns and a pitchfork.
“Let’s double back to the main hall and start from there.” I led them back, avoiding the portrait gallery. The hall bustled with activity, guards at every passageway. I took the one on the left, behind a tapestry of the Drake family insignia. Madame Veronique had sent it to us the night after Mom killed Lady Natasha. It was hand-embroidered and at least half a century old, with the royal mark of a ruby-encrusted crown along the top edge. Veronique had made it herself, long before Solange was even born. Apparently she paid more attention to vampire politics and prophecies than she’d have everyone believe.
“This tunnel winds around through most of the rooms,” I told them as we ducked into the narrow stone walkway. It was lit with candles in red glass globes hanging from nails in the ceiling and it had a simple dirt floor and damp walls. Magda looked at me suspiciously but I ignored her. “All these doors we’re passing lead to guest chambers.” I nodded to an iron grate locked over a thick oak door with heavy hinges. “Blood supply’s in there,” I explained. “In case of a siege. It was Mom’s first request.”
“C’est bon,” Isabeau approved. “We have something similar in our caves.”
“There’s a bunch of council rooms down that way, and a weapons store currently undergoing inventory.”
“It’s lovely,” Isabeau said politely. “But where are your sacred stories, your paintings? Blood has magic, surely you know that much?”
“We have tapestries,” I said, but I didn’t think that was what she meant.
“Is it true your mother took out Lady Natasha single-handedly?” Magda interrupted, as if she couldn’t help herself.
“Yes,” I said proudly. “Sort of. None of it would have gone down the way it did if Isabeau hadn’t arrived, just in time.”
“So you admit you owe us?”
“Magda, hush,” Isabeau said. “We all want to stop Montmartre. He’s too powerful as it is.”
“And a pain in the ass,” I agreed grimly. “Not to mention a cradle-robbing pervert. He’s what, four hundred years older than Solange?”
Isabeau glanced away. “I am technically two hundred years older than you.”
“Not the same thing,” I said quickly. “At all.”
Damn. If I tried, maybe I could shove my other foot in my gigantic mouth. So much for smooth. Magda grinned from ear to ear. I had no idea how to reclaim that lost territory. “I think we can all agree you’re nothing like Montmartre.”
Isabeau inclined her head, a glint of humor in her green eyes. “I do not want the crown,” she agreed. “No Cwn Mamau does.”
And the crown was pretty much all Montmartre wanted.
Aside from my little sister.
The thought made me grind my teeth hard enough that the noise startled Charlemagne. I relaxed my jaw through force of willpower alone. Then I realized I’d led us into a dead-end chamber. I’d been so distracted by Isabeau’s scent and the sound of her voice and the way her black hair swallowed the flickering light of a single candle, that I’d practically walked us into a wall.
Hard to believe, but before Isabeau
I’d had a fair bit of skill with the whole flirting thing.
She turned on her heel and I noticed she was smiling, a true startled smile, as if she wasn’t used to it. “Oh, Logan,c’est magnifique.”
Apparently she liked cave walls and the clinging damp of mildew.
And then I realized her fingertips were hovering an inch over a faded red ocher painting. It was so faint I’d never have noticed it. As it was, I could only really make out a handprint.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a Cwn Mamau sacred story,” she explained. “It’s older than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“From before the royals stole the caves from us,” Magda felt the need to add.
“Hey, I’ve only been royal for just over a week.” I felt the equal need to defend myself.
“Shhh,” Isabeau murmured gently, as if we were bickering children. “This is a holy place. Can’t you feel it?”
I felt the quality of the silence, the weight of stone pressing all around us. And if I concentrated, the very faint lingering traces of some kind of incense.
“This handprint here is the mark of an ancient shamanka. And here, these lines represent the thirteen full moons in a year.” She pointed out the drawing in such a way that I could actually see it clearly, see the faint lines solidifying, see the dance of torchlight from centuries earlier, smell cut cedar branches under our feet. A slight wave of vertigo had me tensing. I must have made some sound as I peered around, because she smiled that crooked smile again. “You see it now, don’t you?”
I nodded, turning to take in the cave drawings and the story they told. “Are you doing this?” I asked, stunned. “Andhow?”
“Simple enough for a handmaiden,” she replied. “I just had to find the thread of this shamanka’s story, the energy she left trapped in the painting.” She pointed to the outline of a handprint done in spatters of red. “That’s her mark.”
“So I’m not insane?”
“No,” Isabeau replied, just as Magda snorted, “Yes.”
“Watch,” Isabeau urged us.
A woman who I assumed was the shamanka shimmered into view. She looked about Solange’s age, but with several long blond braids and symbols on her face and arms in mud and some kind of blue dye. She wore a long necklace that looked like it was made of bones, crystals, and dog claws.
She scooped red ocher paint out of a clay bowl and smeared it on the walls. There was chanting but I couldn’t see anyone other than half a dozen giant shaggy dogs at her feet, and what looked like a wolf. Incense smoke billowed out of a cairn of white pebbles.
Everything sped up until the paintings were abruptly finished. There were dogs who looked as if they were breathing and moving ever so slightly, as if wind ruffled their fur. There were vampires with blood on their chins and a red moon overhead. There was a human heart, a jug of blood, a woman with a giant pregnant belly filled with squirming puppies.
“Cwn Mamau,” Isabeau explained in a reverent whisper. “The Hounds of the Mother.”
There was a religious feel to the artwork, simple and primitive as it was. The painted dogs lifted their throats all at once and let out a plaintive ululating howl that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.
And then everything went dark, except for a jagged scar of red light near the edge of the low ceiling, in the back corner. The ocher dog painted underneath it growled.
Isabeau drew her sword from its scabbard. The holy feeling inside the cave shattered instantly. I reached for my dagger even though I had no idea where the danger was coming from. I tried to step in front of Isabeau to shield her. She kicked my Achilles heel and I cursed.
“You’ll get yourself skewered on my sword,” she said distractedly, still staring up at the red light. It was throbbing now, like a broken tooth. There was something decidedly menacing about it.
“Isabeau, be careful,” Magda said tightly as Isabeau approached it. I stayed at her side despite the half hiss she threw my way.
“What the hell is it?” I asked.
“A warning,” she replied, lowering her sword slowly. “When I tapped into the energy of this place, I broke some sort of cloaking spell.”
“Cloaking spell?” I echoed. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s a standard charm,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. “You can buy them off any witch or spellsinger.”
“Witches and spellsingers,” I muttered. “I keep forgetting I woke up in some sort of a fairy tale.”
She shook her head. “Vampires who don’t believe in magic,” she said. “I’ll never understand you.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe in it,” I replied. “Just that I wasn’t expecting so much damn proof.” I didn’t even like the feel of the light on my face. I took a step back. “So what the hell was it cloaking?”
“A very good question.”
She poked it with her sword, as if she didn’t want to touch it either. Charlemagne growled once. There was a groaning sound and a pebble dislodged, then another and another. A broken boulder the size of a watermelon tumbled and hit the ground in a puff of dust. The weird red light went out, like a torch in a windstorm.
But not before flashing on a narrow, half-completed opening.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, grabbing the candle and holding it inside. The tunnel was long and dark and freshly dug through the limestone.
“Someone is planning an unannounced visit,” Isabeau said grimly.
“Montmartre,” I bit out.
“He is quite determined,” Isabeau agreed. “He will have many plans.”
I hefted the boulder back up and shoved it back into the tunnel, closing it off again.
“What are you doing?” Magda asked.
“I don’t want them knowing we found their secret passageway until we’ve decided what to do about it,” I replied, rubbing my hands together to get rid of the dust. Frock coats don’t come cheap and I’d already ruined one hurtling through the woods being chased by bounty hunters and rogue Helios-Ra on Solange’s birthday.
“Oh,” Magda said, sounding reluctantly impressed. “Good point.”
“We should go back,” I said, waiting at the regular entrance for them to pass through it. I didn’t want them turning their backs on the secret tunnel, even knowing it was empty. “The tour is officially over.”
Chapter 10
Isabeau
Helena, Liam, Finn, and two others I didn’t know were waiting for us in an antechamber off a cave filled with bookshelves with glass doors to protect against the inevitable damp. An oil lamp burned on a table. Guards nodded at us when we passed through the doorway. I barely noticed. I was trying hard to retain my composure, to be the strong, dependable handmaiden Kala had trained me to be. This work was important, even if I didn’t feel suited for it. Even if the nightmare from earlier was circling in my brain again like carrion crows over a fresh corpse. Not to mention trying to decipher the unexpected dreamwalk with the cave paintings. Truthfully, I hadn’t expected it to work quite so well with a vampire as untrained as Logan.
Liam rose when we entered. “Isabeau,” he said warmly. Helena lifted her head from the piles of papers and books in front of her. Finn nodded to me once.
“Liam,” I greeted him, my voice carefully blank.
“I trust you slept well?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I apologize for the unfortunate event with the Hypnos,” he added soberly.
“As do I.”
“And I thank you for ridding our woods of Host and breaking the spell against our daughter.”
“You’re welcome.”
“We owe you for that,” Helena agreed. She shoved the books away. “Now can we please dispense with this courtesy dance and get down to it?”
Liam glanced down at her ruefully. “Love.”
She shot him an equally rueful look. “Sorry.” She turned to me. “I hope you’re not offended, Isabeau.”
“Not at all,” I assured
her. In fact, I was rather relieved to hear her say it. I was starting to wonder if that was part of reason I’d been chosen: not necessarily because of who I was but because of who Helena Drake was. Anyone else, Magda included, would have bristled and assumed she didn’t think Hounds worthy of the usual protocol. I understood she was too direct to bother with political games. It made me suddenly hopeful about the alliance between our tribes. We were sick to death of games and politics.
“I’m rather envious of you, actually,” she added.
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’d have loved to have chased a Host down last night. Instead it was all treaties and protocols and hyperactive guards.” She shook her head. “I’m going out hunting tonight, Liam, so you’d best get everyone to just deal with it.”
She didn’t seem like any mother I’d ever known. My own had been more interested in lace and dancing until dawn.
Logan grinned. “I don’t think queens are supposed to hunt, Mom.”
“Then I’ll take Isabeau with me.” She quirked a dry smile in my direction. “Then it won’t be hunting, it will be alliance improvements.”
“We’ll make a politician out of you yet,” Liam said.
“There’s no need to be insulting.” She sat back in her chair, her long black braid falling behind her.
“Mom, we found a secret tunnel,” Logan told her grimly. “Very new, off behind the empty caves on the other side of the weapons room.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Another one?”
He blinked at her. “There’s more of them?”
“Two that we’ve found so far,” she replied. “Your father won’t let me fill them with dynamite.”
“I’d rather not have the entire compound fall on our heads,” he said dryly. “I’ll take care of it.” He spoke into his cell phone at a discreet murmur just as one of the guards opened the door. Suddenly the room seemed too small and constricting. Hart, the leader of the Helios-Ra, strolled in with Kieran and a girl with long blond hair. Her shoulders were tight, her hand hovering over a stake at her belt. She wore the black cargos and shirt that virtually every other agent wore while on assignment. I looked for the vial of Hypnos powder they strapped inside their sleeves but I couldn’t find it.