CHAPTER THREE

 

Tristan didn’t normally like to use his telepathy to deliberately manipulate humans, but there were some instances in which he found it to be a necessary evil.

“I really appreciate your help,” he told the pharmacy assistant with a smile.

“It’s no problem at all, Mr. Noble,” she replied, color rising in her cheeks as she handed him a white paper sack. “Two thirty-day bottles of bupropion.”

As a physician, he couldn’t write prescriptions for himself, but he could pretend to be Brandon. When he’d handed the assistant his driver’s license, he’d used his power to trick her into seeing Brandon’s name on the laminated card, not his own. The illusion had been so perfect, her persuasion so complete, she hadn’t looked twice or doubted his identity once.

On the way back to the clinic, he thought about stopping by Karen’s house, to try to explain things, make amends by her somehow. The trip into town hadn’t taken more than an hour, round trip, including a swing through Starbucks on the way back for a Venti bold with a double shot, no room. The coffee was hotter than hell, and he sipped at it warily along the drive. As he tried for a drink while maneuvering along the winding, rutted gravel road leading up to the Morin compound, he hit a particularly deep pothole that rocked the Jeep on its suspension, sending a hot splatter of coffee down the front of his face and coat, splashing onto the leg of his jeans.

“Shit!” Driving with one hand, letting the Jeep weave precariously close to the shoulder of the road, he shoved the paper cup into the nearest console tray, then raised his hips, trying to pull the soaked denim off his skin before it scalded too badly.

In doing so, he cut his eyes off the road momentarily, no more than a few seconds. When he glanced back up through the windshield again, he saw a car pulling out of one of the side drives ahead of him, merging unexpectedly onto the compound’s main road.

“Holy shit!” He slammed on his brakes. The wheels of the Jeep abruptly locked, sending the heavy truck skidding sideways in the gravel. It bounced heavily over the shoulder, sending more coffee splattering, and crashed grille-first into the broad trunk of a venerable pine tree. The airbag deployed, slamming into his torso as it abruptly inflated, stunning the breath and wits from him.

With a groan, he blinked dazedly, watching pinpoints of light sparkle and dance in front of him against a backdrop of heavy white nylon. Already, the airbag was deflating, growing lax in front of him, and he reached for his seat belt.

“Shit.” He was shaking uncontrollably, adrenaline surging through him. As he glanced through the side mirror, he could see the car he’d damn near hit and bit back another groan.

“Shit,” he muttered again, because his grandfather was getting out of the black Mercedes sedan, slamming the door furiously and then stomping toward Tristan’s Jeep.

“Hey, Michel.” Bracing himself for what he felt sure would be an ass chewing, he opened the driver’s side door and stumbled out. His neck and back felt stiff and sore, and he wondered if he’d suffered whiplash at the impact.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Michel demanded, his brows knitted deeply, his hands balled into fists. “You could have killed us both!”

“I’m sorry. I just looked away for a second. I was trying to—”

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling.”

“What?” Tristan shook his head, still somewhat dazed from smacking face-first into the airbag.

“Why isn’t your cell phone on?” Michel snapped.

“It is…” Tristan began, reaching for the clip on the waist of his jeans where he customarily holstered his phone. To his surprise, it was empty. He racked his brain back through the morning’s events, then realized… “I left it at home.”

“You’re supposed to be at the clinic.”

“I was there. I had to run an errand in town. I’m just on my way back now.” It occurred to Tristan that even though Michel was wound up about something, it had nothing to do with their narrowly averted headlong collision. His grandfather’s eyes were round, his pupils enlarged, his scent tinged with the heavy aroma of adrenaline and anxious sweat. “What’s going on?”

“I thought something was wrong,” Michel said. “I thought something had happened to you.”

Tristan managed a laugh, convinced that he’d struck his head harder than he’d first suspected and that he was having some kind of auditory hallucination. What the hell could’ve happened? he wondered. An overdose of boredom?

At this, the cleft between Michel’s brows deepened. “You’re supposed to be at the clinic,” he seethed again. “Eleanor could have fallen or cut herself. What if she’d started to hemorrhage? I would have needed you to bring me the clotting treatment.”

Eleanor Noble, Brandon’s grandmother, had been diagnosed three years earlier with what Michel called autoimmune-specific disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. It was a congenital disease unique among full-blooded Brethren. Michel had long hypothesized that the disease was the result of centuries of inbreeding among various Brethren clans, a practice dating as far back as the fourteenth century, when their ancestors had lived in medieval France. Though the Brethren Elders had tried to take great care to prevent direct blood relations from intermarrying, there had been no way to prevent it completely in such a closed breeding environment. It was extremely rare, affecting about one in every thousand Brethren adults.

Sufferers of the disease eventually came to exhaust their platelet supply, the chief component that allowed for blood clotting and coagulation. Normally a healthy individual’s platelets were replenished regularly by the bone marrow, but in Eleanor, this process had become irregular, sporadic, and ineffective. Without regular infusions of new platelets and a synthesized clotting factor that Michel’s medical research company, Pharmaceaux International, had developed, Eleanor would eventually bleed at the slightest injury or touch.

“Do you understand how serious that would have been?” Michel demanded of him, his face flushed angrily.

Of course I understand. Tristan bit back the sharp reply, furrowing his brows. I watched my mother die from the same goddamn thing.

“She could bleed to death,” Michel supplied—even though, as the one who’d presided over Lisette’s funeral service the day before, he was perfectly aware of Tristan’s all too personal familiarity with the disease.

“I’m sorry.” Angry, embarrassed, and most of all, ashamed—because he liked Eleanor and would have been beside himself with grief and guilt if anything had happened to her—Tristan looked away. “I wasn’t gone long, Michel. I swear. I just—”

“You were supposed to be at the clinic.” Michel fairly spat the words this time, jabbing his forefinger in the air at Tristan’s nose with forceful emphasis. “No place else.”

“There was nothing going on,” Tristan argued, bristling. “I thought it would be all right. I’m sorry, I said. It won’t happen again.”

For a long moment, Michel stood there, looking for all the world like he was toying with the idea of punching Tristan. Then he turned, stomping toward the Jeep. “You’re goddamn right it won’t.”

As Tristan watched, Michel opened the driver’s door, leaned inside, and snatched his keys from the ignition.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Are you kidding? You’re taking away my keys?”

He started to laugh and Michel shot him a withering glare. “These aren’t yours,” he said, holding up the keys, letting them dangle in the air between them. “They’re mine. I bought and paid for them.”

At that, something in Tristan snapped. His day had been nothing but a topsy-turvy, bewildering maelstrom of miserable, conflicting emotions, and all at once, he’d had enough. “Yeah. I know. You never let me forget it, do you? Just like you never let Mom—or anyone else—forget we were both only here by your say-so, your goddamn okay.”

Michel had been walking back toward his car, but his footsteps came to a crunching halt now in the loose gravel. His eyes narrowed into furious slits as he glanced over his shoulder. “Quoi?” he asked quietly, almost incredulously, reverting in his rage to his native French. “What did you say to me?”

“You heard me.” Squaring off against his grandfather, Tristan bared his fists. “Tell me something, Michel. How long did it take for you to decide which one got your precious clotting treatment—Eleanor or my mom?”

Only Eleanor had received the regimens of clotting factor. Although she and Lisette had been diagnosed within weeks of each other, Eleanor’s had come as the result of her husband—Michel’s best friend—Augustus contacting Michel by mail for help. Lisette had already been at Lake Tahoe, already in the Brethren medical clinic by the time Augustus and Michel had been able to smuggle Eleanor out of Kentucky. By the time Eleanor had arrived among the Morins, Lisette had already suffered the massive cranial hemorrhage that had incapacitated her.

“I would have helped your mother if I’d been able,” Michel told him.

Tristan managed a laugh. “Bullshit. The clotting serum might have stopped the bleeding in her brain in time.”

“Tristan,” Michel said, his furious expression faltering. “There was nothing I could do. Even if we’d been able to somehow stop the bleeding, she still wouldn’t have—”

“You don’t know that,” Tristan snapped. “You didn’t even try. You probably thought she had it coming. Hell, I know most of the rest of the clan did.”

Michel’s mouth drew down angrily again. “That isn’t—”

“What?” Tristan cut in. “True? Of course it is. Why don’t you just admit it for once? You thought she was a whore.”

Michel’s hand flew so quickly, Tristan didn’t even see the blow coming. His grandfather slapped him hard enough to snap his head to the side, leaving a bright, aching spot high on the crest of his cheekbone.

“Don’t you ever say that about your mother again,” Michel said in a low, angry voice. “And don’t you dare presume to tell me what I do or do not think.”

Tristan’s birth father, Arnaud Morin, had been Michel’s son. Lisette had been married to Arnaud’s brother, Phillip, but the two had enjoyed a short-lived but apparently passionate fling together. Arnaud had committed suicide, leaving Lisette to deal with the fallout once the affair had been discovered.

“The only reason you didn’t kick Mom out of the compound was because you found out she was pregnant with me—Arnaud’s bastard son,” he snapped at Michel.

“Those are your words, not mine. I’ve never thought of you like that,” Michel said. “None of us have.”

“Yeah, I could see how much the whole family gave a shit by how many showed up for her funeral yesterday. Counting you, me, and Mason, that made, what? A dozen? No, wait, three of them were Nobles, and two—Karen and Lina—were human.” Idiotically, he felt on the verge of tears again. Part of the stress he’d felt yesterday that had forced him into bed with Karen were the shame and dismay that came with the realization of just how empty his mother’s graveside had been. Staring at Michel, he pleaded, “Is that why you didn’t want me to marry Tessa Noble?”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Tessa. You weren’t in love with her, anyway. And she’s in love with your brother.”

“Rene’s my half brother. And he’s half human. He and Naima both. Does that make them better than me somehow to you? They’re bastards too, but hey, at least they’re half-breeds and didn’t spoil your otherwise spotless bloodline.”

Michel blinked at him, then shook his head. “Is that what you think?”

“Am I wrong?” Tristan shot back.

“I’ve never treated you differently than anyone else in this family.”

“Bullshit! I don’t see any of the other grandchildren trapped here like I am. Hell, you let everyone else in the clan come and go as they damn well please.”

“Trapped?” Michel bristled visibly at this. “Mon Dieu, you are the most ungrateful, self-centered, spoiled—”

Tristan laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’ve given you an education, a vocation, a home, a career—anything you could ever want,” Michel shouted.

“You don’t know what I want,” Tristan yelled back. “You son of a bitch, you’ve never even bothered to ask!” Without waiting for Michel to react or respond, he turned around and began to walk away.

“Keep your keys and your goddamn Jeep,” Tristan said without turning around. “If you’d given half the shit about my mother—and me—that you do about Eleanor, she might still be alive today.”

****

After Naima left, Karen moved methodically throughout her house, making sure all the doors and windows were locked. The idea that Jean Luc Davenant might still be out in the surrounding woods troubled her.

“Don’t be afraid,” Naima had said, trying to smile in reassuring fashion as she’d walked down the front steps. “We’ll find him.”

Don’t be afraid. Yeah, right. Karen sat at the breakfast bar in her bathrobe, her hair still damp, cradling a cup of coffee between her hands. Like Tristan’s, her house had an open first-story floor plan, with the far wall made of floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors. She’d always loved the view these provided, but now felt exposed and vulnerable.

A hint of movement among the trees along the periphery of the yard caught her attention. She cut her gaze to track it and spied a shadow-draped figure, oblong and indistinct, behind a cluster of pine trunks. Her breath drew to a halt, her eyes flew wide, her entire body growing rigid in her chair.

Michel thinks he’ll be back. And that he won’t be alone this time.

Naima’s warning echoing in her mind, Karen slowly lowered her mug to the countertop. Inching her hips sideways, she eased herself toward the edge of the seat, letting her feet drop slowly, deliberately to the floor. She kept her eyes glued to that strange shape in the trees as she made her way from the kitchen to a nearby linen closet. It’s just a trick of the light, she kept trying to tell herself. There’s no one out there. Naima was just here. She would’ve sensed it if Davenant was close by.

But Naima had speculated that the reason Jean Luc had been able to infiltrate so deeply into the Morin compound undetected the night before was that he was a Brethren. They were used to sensing each other in the area, to the point where they pretty much tuned out the awareness. Unless they probed more deeply, looking for something Naima called “unfamiliar mental imprints” with their telepathy, they might not realize immediately if there was a stranger among them.

Without turning her back to the windows, Karen opened the closet door. She reached inside, fingers groping blindly until she found the light switch, flipped it on. In the corner, she kept a loaded Browning .257 Roberts rifle. Her father had taught her to shoot when she’d been no more than ten, and she kept in practice.

Hefting the gun from its corner, she reached for the shelf where she kept her ammunition. As she loaded the rifle, she kept her eyes trained ahead, past the closet threshold and across the living room, out the windows and into the trees.

Is it moving? Is that a person or a tree branch? What if it’s Tristan?

“Good,” she muttered, chambering a round. “I want to shoot him right about now too.”

Feigning courage she didn’t necessarily feel, Karen boldly crossed the main floor of her house. She’d left a pair of weather-beaten hiking boots by the back door at some point, and stepped into them now, leaving them unlaced. Pushing open the sliding glass, she walked outside, feeling the crisp, chilly air immediately bite into her skin.

Her breath frosted around her face, and within seconds, her back teeth began to chatter. With a frown, Karen started across the yard, her boots clomping heavily in the thick carpeting of dried pine needles underfoot.

“I see you,” she tried to shout, but all at once, her windpipe felt like it had collapsed in on itself, shriveling down to a pin-hole circumference, and her voice came out hoarse, little more than a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again, hefting the rifle to her shoulder and narrowing her gaze down the sight. “Who’s out there?”

The grinding crunch of tire treads through gravel from somewhere behind startled her, and she whirled. An enormous black SUV, all glossy black paint and sparkling chrome trim, pulled down the narrow drive approaching her house—a Cadillac Escalade with a front vanity tag that read TOP DOC. The big truck came to a stop facing her, the engine rumbling to a halt.

Karen turned, looking back toward the trees, but the shadowy figure hiding there was gone. A lone, low-hanging bough swished in the slim space where she thought she’d seen it, as if stirred by an otherwise indiscernible breeze.

“Do you always take up target practice in your bathrobe?” a man asked with a laugh as he opened the driver’s side door and stepped out of the cab. Tall and lean, he wore his coal black hair combed back from his face, the slim hint of a goatee on his chin. Dressed in mirrored sunglasses, black leather pants, and a double-breasted wool overcoat, he looked for all the world like some kind of goth rock superstar or Hollywood actor stepping out for his latest premier.

“Mason?” Because she was too surprised and bewildered to react at first, she kept the rifle stock raised.

“Don’t shoot.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. In one, he held a paper sack with the words Lake Tahoe Bakery & Gourmet printed across the front. “I come bearing scones.”

****

As Tristan followed the road toward the small, two-room guest cottage in which Brandon and Lina had been staying, he passed Karen’s place. To his surprise, he saw his uncle Mason’s black Cadillac truck in the driveway, and thus cut a wide berth through the woods to avoid them. Despite this, he could smell her, the sweet, tantalizing hint of her fragrance wafting in the breeze.

Goddamn it, he thought, because he could feel his gums begin to throb at this, a low-grade but insistent ache. Had he thought on the drive home that he’d be able to just walk up to her front door without any problems? Talk to her—stand in front of her, for Christ’s sake—without the bloodlust ruining everything again? When had things ever been that easy where Karen was concerned?

Hunching his shoulders, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He meant to hurry on his way but blinked when he felt the paper bag with Brandon’s medicine.

I was able to keep it under control, Brandon had told him of his own bloodlust, and of using the Wellbutrin to curb his Brethren appetites.

I can’t take this anymore, Tristan thought, because even though he clung to his Brethren heritage with a fierce, nearly relentless sort of pride, he hated it too, hated being like his grandfather with a deep-seated, festering vehemence.

He drew the bag from his pocket, then removed one of the bottles. Popping the cap, he brought it to his mouth and tipped his head back, letting a mouthful of the pills tumble against his tongue.

Brandon takes two of these a day, three hundred milligrams, he said, to control the bloodlust, he thought. But like most antidepressants, it could take several weeks to build up enough of a therapeutic dose to feel any effects. If you were human, that is. With his accelerated healing abilities, as a Brethren, Tristan could also metabolize medications much more rapidly, and he hoped that by glutting himself on at least half the pills at once, he’d feel the calming effects on the bloodlust right away.

With a grimace, he choked the first bunch down, then glanced over his shoulder through the trees toward Karen’s house. It lay behind him now, but still, that lingering hint of her remained discernable to him, tantalizing.

Another handful, another wince, and another quick swallow, and he figured it would be enough. It has to be.

When he reached Brandon and Lina’s house, he saw a rental car idling in the driveway, the trunk open as Brandon lugged out an armload of overstuffed luggage. He caught sight of Tristan approaching and smiled, visibly puzzled to find him on foot.

Where’s your truck? he asked.

Long story. Tristan shook his head, dismissive. Hey, I’ve got a going-away gift for you.

He tossed Brandon one of the medicine bottles, keeping the other for himself with only the slightest hint of guilt. Because I need them too, he thought. More than anyone, Brandon would understand.

Brandon caught the bottle easily, one-handed.

I could only get you a one-month supply, Tristan lied, affecting the appropriate mental tone and facial affect of regret. But if you need more, let me know, and I’ll call in a prescription for you to a pharmacy down there, okay?

Brandon nodded, striding forward to meet Tristan, his hand outstretched. Thanks, Dr. Morin, he said. For everything.

No, Brandon. He accepted the younger man’s proffered shake. Thank you.