He came to Veronique's side and raised his eyes to meet those of the man he'd heard about for two hundred years. The man his wife had never stopped caring for, even though he had left her to fend for herself during the darkest days of the Black Death plague.
It was very difficult to be married to someone who was hopelessly in love with another.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Thierry nodded at the vampire and forced a semblance of a smile to appear on his face. His collar felt stiff at his throat, as if he was being choked by it. Veronique constantly accused him of being unfriendly to others they met in their travels through Europe, of being a miserable man filled with a festering darkness.
He had to admit, the woman was an excellent judge of character—except when it came to
Marcellus, that is.
Marcellus was a handsome man. Tall and imposing, with fair hair and skin, but with a charming smile—the ease of which Thierry admired—and an obvious taste for fashion. His clothing was perfectly tailored and expensive enough that the cost of it could have fed
Thierry's entire family for years.
His family. They'd all died during the plague. Four sisters, two brothers, and his mother.
Gone. His father had died years earlier, and as the eldest by five years, Thierry had taken on a parental role with his siblings. Yet, only he had survived.
Survived, he thought with bitterness. Yes. After two hundred years of life, survival was all that mattered anymore.
Veronique, he had to admit, was a beautiful woman. Hair as dark as night that she wore in the latest styles. She dressed in the latest fashions. Her wrists and neck and ears dripped with jewels—all of which Veronique had acquired for herself. Thierry didn't know how she had paid for such luxuries, but there was always money to spend. He had long since stopped questioning their resources.
Marcellus had invited them to a performance of the commedia dell'arte and then to dine in the vaulted cellar of a tavern near the river.
The tavern was filled with vampires—something that stunned Thierry. He'd never seen so many of his kind in one place before. He'd been a vampire for two centuries but he was still amazed that such a thing existed. Veronique had sired him into this life after the point he'd wanted to continue living. He had already made his peace before he'd been saved from the death and disease of the plague years.
Now he was to live forever. Much like the beings that surrounded him. They laughed and drank and danced and listened to the music in the tavern as if they were normal.
But they weren't normal. They were creatures who looked human but needed blood to survive. He ran his tongue along the sharp tips of his fangs. Veronique indulged her thirst frequently but he did not. He didn't care for the feeling of intoxication when he drank blood—the feeling of being out of control. He valued his control above all things.
"Don't be silly," Veronique always told him. "You should relish this second chance at life
I've given you."
"I do," he assured her.
He wondered if she regretted siring him. Or marrying him. He did care for the dark-haired beauty in his own way. After all, despite her self-involved actions and behavior, Veronique was not evil. She did what she could with the life she'd been given. As did he. She made for a fine companion and had taught him many things about being a vampire.
But he didn't love her.
He had loved his family, but they had been destroyed by the plague. One of his sisters had still been healthy when the villagers had taken her late one night and burned her body among the dead to prevent the spread of the disease. There had been nothing he could have done to prevent it. That was the night that Thierry ran as far away from his village as he could, only to end up in the same situation as his sister.
Veronique had saved him. She'd been hungry and he'd apparently looked appetizing enough for her to pull his half-dead body from the pile of burning corpses.
The plague had long since left Europe, leaving behind a path of death and destruction.
Thierry was still alive. Still breathing. His heart still beat, but now he had to drink the blood of others to keep it that way.
It was a monstrous life.
The only thing he had was Veronique. Yes, the woman who was now seated upon her sire and old lover's lap with his tongue down her throat. Thierry watched them from the shadows. Veronique hadn't even noticed his departure from the table.
She would be unfaithful to him. Thierry was surprised that the thought didn't bother him as much as it should have.
He watched as a man approached Marcellus to touch his shoulder and then whispered something in his ear. Marcellus nodded and disengaged from Veronique's embrace long enough to stand up, smiling as he left the table to venture outside. Thierry followed, keeping to the shadows, watching as Marcellus's easy smile faded to a tense but determined expression.
"And the man who told you this?" he asked the man next to him sharply after he'd taken the stairs to street level.
"A solid source. It is good, reliable information. They are almost upon us."
Marcellus's expression shadowed. "I only wish I had more time. There are arrangements to be made." His serious gaze then moved to where Thierry stood silently. "You there.
Perhaps you can be of help to me tonight."
"I didn't mean to overhear anything," Thierry said, feeling exposed and ashamed to be caught lurking in the shadows.
Marcellus's lips curled. "Of course you did. And I can't say that I blame you. After all, I have been preoccupying Veronique all evening."
"Are you apologizing for that?"
"No." His gaze was steady and unflinching and Thierry felt uncomfortable for a moment.
"What do you want from me, then?"
"Leave us," he told the other vampire, who bowed and with a glance at Thierry left them in privacy.
Marcellus pulled a chain out from under his collar. There was a key on the end of it. "If I ask you to do something for me, will you do it?"
"It depends what it is you ask."
The smile returned as he slipped the chain over his head and glanced down at the gold key.
"This is the key to my home near the city wall." He told Thierry the precise address. "I want you to take this key and let yourself into the house. Destroy the papers you will find there."
"Why?"
"Because tonight I shall die, and if those papers get into the wrong hands, many others shall die as well."
"I don't understand."
"No." He shook his head. "I don't suppose you do. I am a very good judge of people. I know those I can trust by looking into their eyes. Do you know what I see when I look into yours?"
Thierry didn't reply.
"I see a man who has suffered, and even though that which has caused your suffering has left, you still hold on to that pain. However, I sense that you are honest and honorable. I don't know how you came to marry Veronique, nor does it matter anymore."