“Oh.” Faith clasped her hands. “This is so romantic.”
Channing rolled his eyes and snorted. “I give her clay and empty shelves and she is in ecstasies.”
“And I’ll come home wet from wandering the moors and curl up against you as the sun sets, and you’ll wake to find me there next to you.”
“Now who is being romantic?”
Faith remembered something he’d said earlier, when she was tumbling over her words, confessing Minnie’s sins. “You love me!”
“Now she listens,” he grumbled to himself.
“But that’s wonderful.”
“No, my Lazuli, it’s not.”
“But I love you.”
“I know.”
“That’s not a very nice response.”
“My sweet, I have loved before and it went badly for me. I’m afraid my loving you will go badly for you.”
She was staunch in her defence of him. “Never!”
He sighed. “You do not know the half of it.”
Channing shook his head. She really was a most aggravating female when she set her mind to something – how could he not adore her?
“Sit down a moment, please, Lazuli, and let me try to explain. It’s not easy. This is not a topic I enjoy discussing.”
Faith nodded and he knew she understood. She’d not wanted to talk about her lost child and neither did he. In this, they were alike. Yet she’d mustered the courage to do so, and he owed her for that. Plus, he couldn’t let one small mortal female outmatch him in bravery.
Faith said nothing, only looked at him with wide blue eyes, sympathetic and patient. She crossed her white hands in her lap and sat in the bay window exactly as he had imagined her. He wanted to return to wolf form and lie at her feet; things were so much simpler when he was a beast. She would run those small hands though his fur, lightly, reverently, as she had only moments before.
He had to chase that future if he truly wanted it. He had to earn it.
“I was a sculptor before the bite. Not a particularly good or famous one, although I might have become so, given a different life. I lived in Paris for a time, there is – was – a great sculptor there, Pajou. You’ve heard of him?”
Faith shook her head.
“It was a long time ago. I was barely twenty when I met Odette. She was so beautiful. This fair, frail creature with flaming hair and big green eyes. I loved her rather madly, as only the young can really love. We married and had a child.”
He paused, gathering his courage. A name he had hadn’t spoken in decades. “Isolde was this bright, vibrant little fairy girl. So much energy and life. Odette was not a good mother, always sickly and sad. I suppose, initially, I was attracted to the darkness in her – this tortured soul appealed to the artist in me. She spent a great deal of time in bed after Isolde was born. So, it was mainly the two of us, father and daughter. I would have Isolde with me in the studio while I worked.”
Faith held still, barely breathing, eyes big and fierce on his face – as if she might hold him together with her will alone.
He thought he was doing well so far. His voice was firm. His delivery crisp. “We were so young. I thought Odette would change. And she did improve a little. She began to eat more, smile occasionally. Sometimes, she even touched Isolde, like a mother ought. But then Napoleon happened. At first, he had so little effect on us. A poor artist and his family, even a British one living in Paris, knows so very little of politics and armies. But you feel it when a country goes to war, even if you aren’t facing it directly. The whole place catches fever, like marsh sickness. Still, I thought we would be fine. I thought: it’s Paris. We had this little apartment on the bank of the Seine – the bedroom window opened out over the water. I thought, if anything, the danger would come from outside, from my own country’s invasion, and then I would merely claim to be British and all would be well.”
Now comes the difficult part. “Isolde was three when the vampires tried to recruit me. The hives—” He paused, took a breath. “The hives in France, they don’t obey the same rules as here in England. They still don’t legally exist. Back then, they were barely tolerated, living on the fringes of society, preying on blood whores. They waved immortality in front of artists, much as they do here, but drones had no safety via patronage or indenture. Apparently, they’d been watching me, and they knew I had artistic skill. I refused, of course. I had Odette and Isolde to consider. Vampires don’t like to be refused.”
Channing sat down at that, abruptly, and looked at his hands, trying to get his words in order. It was too much to sit next to her, so he chose an armchair nearby instead.
Faith, bless her, said nothing, merely continued to watch him, curious and supportive and loving.
I hope that look does not change. Please don’t let it change.
“The war was in earnest and everything was in chaos. No one was watching the vampires. No one was hunting them anymore. The Templars were off killing mortals for a change. This one queen, well, she really wanted me, and so she took me. Right off the street when I was out trying to find bread. She kept me trapped in her rooms. Feeding off me, trying to get me to – you know – although that a man can refuse to do. It wasn’t very long. At least, I don’t think it was. A month, perhaps, maybe two. But it was long enough for Odette.”
He paused, worried about how best to say this worst bit.
“She waited for me, you see. Even though she’d lost all faith in me. Perhaps she thought I’d abandoned her and returned to England. Or perhaps she’d word that I was still in Paris, being kept by a vampire queen, and thought I’d volunteered. But she waited for me to return. So she could look me in the eyes when she jumped.”
Faith gasped and closed her own eyes. “I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault, it’s not—”
He interrupted her, slogging on. “She took Isolde with her. Right out the window and into the Seine. I wasn’t fast enough to stop her. I dove in after, but I never found them. I never found either of them. And Paris was burning.”
Faith looked at him with such sympathetic eyes. He knew she understood what held him back from her, from trusting a woman. She said the only thing she could. “It is not the same, but I do know what it is to lose a child.”
He nodded.
“What did you do?”
He gave a pained smile. “I left Paris for London, joined the Coldsteam Guards as a raw recruit – a fathead artist who’d never held a gun. I fought three wars, ended up in Iberia under the Fifth Coalition. Caught the eyes of the Alpha of the regiment’s allied pack. Lord Vulkasin thought I had such fire in my blood. He didn’t know I simply didn’t care about dying. He found out I used to sculpt. So, when the bullet came that should have killed me and it was a nighttime rush near to full moon, he offered me the bite. I took it. I thought letting go of most of my soul would make everything better for my heart. Turns out it simply makes everything harder.”
Her eyes were earnest on his face, willing him to go on.
“Werewolves, we may be undead, but we feel just as much. We love just as deeply, but it’s right there under our skin. It’s closer, more vibrant, lodged into flesh and bone rather than heart. It hurts, all the time, whatever you feel, even love, simply hurts. So, I gave it all up.”
Faith tilted her head. “You had another reason for taking the bite, didn’t you?”
How can she already know me so well, after so short an acquaintance?
He nodded. “Revenge. After the wars ended, I returned to Paris and killed the vampire queen who’d kidnapped me. It took some planning.” He gave what he knew was a toothy smile. “I allowed her to trap me, cage me, treat me like a dog. I bided my time for one small slip. Stupidly, she kept me in her inner chamber, where she slept. Her pet, she called me. I still” – he paused, shivering – “cannot bear to be called dog.”
Faith’s voice was soft and fervent. “I will never do so.”
He’d handed her a weapon and she’d turned it into a vow.
“She did slip one evening, as I knew she would. Full moon and she didn’t bar the cage properly. Foolish vampire. Deadly mistake, as it turned out. I ripped her head off. Not easy with a queen. They taste awful and their skin is quite tough.”