Time for Eternity by Susan Squires Page B

was not aimed at him, but turned inward, toward her own lush breasts. He grabbed for her arm.
    Too late. She pulled the knife in with both hands. Black bloomed on her midnight dress.
    “No!” he breathed as she sank to her knees. He cradled her in his arms. He daren’t pull the knife out. The innocent creature had somehow dealt herself the perfect killing blow, up, under her ribs to her heart.
    “May God forgive me …” The last word burbled with blood that leaked from her mouth.
    “Cerise,” he choked. The light died in her eyes, leaving them flat and dull. “Cerise …”
    The very act of breathing was an effort. What had he expected? He was a monster. She was right about him. And he had no right to try to use her hope and innocence to save his soul.
    He gathered her in his arms and laid her on the great bed.
    He’d poisoned an innocent with his foul nature. She had taken her own life rather than spend even one night with him.
    His head sank on his breast. There was nothing for him here now. He drew his power. Companion! It shushed up his veins.
    The world went red. The whirling blackness rose up around his knees.
    He’d sought salvation in a young girl’s arms. What he’d gotten was certain damnation.
    Henri closed his eyes, slowly, against the memory. Now he never bedded innocents. Or stayed with any one woman long enough for her to know his secrets. A stable life of love and mutual respect was a dream that could never be real for him. His kind was not meant for the ties that bind. His own vampire mother had abandoned him at puberty when he came into his powers.
    Children were so rare for his kind as to be almost a miracle, and yet as soon as the children were full vampires their parents obeyed the Rule laid down by the Elders that vampires live only one to a city and essentially abandoned their children. That Rule was second in importance only to the Rule that forbade making a human into a vampire by sharing the Companion. After all, if vampires crowded into a city, or made other vampires, soon humans would discover them, and the tenuous balance between those who drink blood and those who give it would be broken. So, no connections for his kind were possible, human or vampire, ever.
    Not that he didn’t satisfy his needs. But he stuck to worldly creatures; widows, actresses who expected no more than what he was likely to give them—money, pleasure, and the illusion that their beauty would never fade. And he did give them pleasure. He knew how to do that. His own releases couldn’t really be called pleasure anymore but they kept his sexual demons at bay. And always, it was he that left them. In his nature he supposed. Or maybe he took revenge on the distaff world for his mother abandoning him. It was the way of his kind. He couldn ’t break that most harsh Rule of vampire nature, no matter his occasional longing for something stable to anchor his long years.
    It didn’t matter.
    What mattered was that he not pollute the world more than was absolutely necessary. He could not help showing some his nature. It was how he did his work, after all. But he could refuse to defile innocence. Now he had an innocent in his very house. He could hear her talking to the maid Gaston had remarkably procured. He’d have to think of some way to get rid of her. Quickly.
    Four
    As Gaston bowed himself out, Françoise found herself not in the lurid boudoir with gold -flocked fleur-de-lis wallpaper on a black background and red carpets she expected but in a very comfortable and stylish chamber. Gold leaf highlighted the intricate curves of delicate, white-painted furniture. A dressing table sat in one corner, a large wardrobe in the other. The bed was hung with sheer blue bed curtains and covered with a very becoming brocaded and embroidered quilt. Dozens of pillows were piled high against the headboard. The draperies were light blue, and the thick carpets were swirls of blue and taupe. The whole thing looked
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