Rene felt his cell phone ring, thrumming from inside his hip pocket, rousing him begrudgingly from sleep. He tried to ignore it, but the vibrations continued, pulsating against his groin, aggravating him.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered, opening his eyes blearily. He blinked in puzzled surprise, the cell phone forgotten, as he found himself lying face-to-face with Tessa in bed.
What the hell…?
For a moment, his sleep-addled mind couldn’t quite process what he was seeing. It took him a moment to realize where he was, and it wasn’t until he tried to move his left hand—sending immediate, sharp pain shooting up his arm—that he remembered everything that had happened in the last twelve hours.
Well, almost everything, he thought, momentarily paralyzed by his proximity to Tessa. She rested on her side, her face close enough to feel the soft press of her breath against his face with each exhalation. Her eyes were closed, her dark lashes curled against the high arches of her cheeks. Her hand was draped against his uninjured one, her fingers between his. He could feel the warmth of her body filling the narrow margin of space between them; he could smell her, a light, floral fragrance, the hint of her perfume.
He hadn’t slept with a woman since Irene. He’d taken plenty of lovers, of course, more than he could count or keep track of, but he’d either left after fucking them, or, in the case of the prostitutes he used for feeding, they would leave him. He hadn’t shared his bed for anything but sex with anyone in almost forty years.
I’d forgotten this, he thought, gazing with fascination at Tessa’s hand, their intertwined fingers and running the pad of his thumb lightly against her knuckles. How good it feels.
He drew his hand slowly away, watching a slight crease form between her brows. She murmured in her sleep, something incoherent, and then her expression softened, relaxing once more.
She was a beautiful woman. He’d thought that all along, from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Although she’d originally struck him as being stubborn as a mule, he was beginning to realize that this was just a front she presented, some kind of emotional shield. Judging by everything he’d learned about the Brethren, both from her and her brother Brandon, Rene didn’t blame her for putting defenses like that in place.
They sound like a bunch of sadistic control freaks, no better than a pack of dogs, he thought. Was your husband like that, too, pischouette?
Things with me and Martin weren’t like you and your wife¸ she’d told him. The way you were in that picture—happy, in love…I wouldn’t even see Martin most of the time. And when I would, it was because he wanted sex or…
Or what? he wondered again, and he drew his hand up between them, brushing the back of his fingers lightly against her cheek. What did he do to you, pischouette?
At his touch, Tessa woke with a start, her large, dark eyes flying open wide, her breath cutting short in a gasp. “Oh!”
“Il est bien,” he said quietly, with a smile. It’s all right. “Good morning, sunshine.”
She blinked at him in groggy bewilderment, then sat up, tucking her hair behind her ears. “What…what time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Almost eight thirty.” He rolled slightly, fishing his cell phone from his pocket to glance at his caller ID “Looks like Lina and your frère just arrived in town.”
“Oh.” Tessa nodded, scooting quickly toward the edge of the bed and standing. She seemed visibly uncomfortable at having been caught lying so near to him, and drew her arms about herself. “That’s good.”
“You’re almost rid of me, then,” he said, and she looked at him, puzzled. “You want to hitch a ride with them the rest of the way to Tahoe, no?”
“Oh.” Her eyes swept the room. “I…I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now.” She glanced at him. “Do you? I mean, with your hand the way it is. You can’t drive.”
“C’est vrai,” he said as he sat up. That’s true. He’d fed well enough that day between the young waitress in Boerne and the kid at the rest stop that his accelerated healing ability had kicked into overdrive. The heavy nap he’d just taken had helped, too. The wound to his hand still hurt like all hell, but he could sense an improvement. He moved his fingers experimentally; earlier, such effort would not only have left him breathless with pain, but would have been difficult if not impossible, given the damage to bones, muscles and tendons.
“I guess you’re right,” he said, adding with a wry hook of his brow. “You sure that’s the only reason you’ve changed your mind, pischouette?”
She blinked. “What?”
It had been nice, waking up next to her; the sort of tender moment his life had been decidedly lacking, and he had been missing. He reached out and hooked his fingertips against hers, giving a playful tug. “You sure you just don’t want to stick close to me?”
She smiled, her mouth unfurling hesitantly at first, then widening as she relaxed, her posture softening, her cheeks blooming with shy, sudden color.
Mon Dieu, you are beautiful, Tessa, he thought.
“Admit it, pischouette. I’m growing on you, no?”
“Oh, yeah. Just like a fungus.” She laughed out loud, making no effort whatsoever to pull away from his grasp.
A half hour later, Rene and Tessa’s twin brother, Brandon, stood together on the landing outside of the motel room, gazing out at lights from the nearby interstate. Brandon and Lina had checked into a room on the first floor, and brought pizza to share for supper. The two men rested their elbows against the wrought iron railing and nursed a bottle of Coke apiece while Tessa and Lina stayed in the room, chatting together.
“Pizza just isn’t the same without beer,” Rene remarked, making Brandon laugh. He tipped the bottle back and swallowed a mouthful of soda. “Or at least a shot of whiskey to give this shit some flavor.”
Good old Lina. She was constantly riding his ass about how much he drank or how many pain pills he’d been popping. Never mind that after the miserable hangover he’d endured earlier that day, he didn’t plan on touching as much as a drop of liquor any time soon. He had asked Brandon for his Percodan back, but hadn’t taken any of the pills—and didn’t plan to, either. Not because he wasn’t in any pain, but because he’d decided he was sick of it—drinking or drugging himself to oblivion.
Weird shit happens when I do, he thought, remembering the press of the pistol against his temple, the sound of Irene’s voice, sleepy from the other end of the phone line, and the silken smoothness of Tessa’s thigh against his hand as he’d reached up beneath her gown. Too much weird shit.
So what really happened to your hand? Brandon asked in Rene’s mind.
Although Rene didn’t understand American Sign Language, Brandon had originally communicated with him either through the psi-speech he was using at the moment or handwritten notes. His broken hands prohibited this, however, and Rene reluctantly left his mind pretty much wide open to the younger man so they could converse, even though doing so made him uneasy. Not because he disliked Brandon, but because Brandon was an extremely powerful telepath, the likes of which Rene had never seen. He suspected Brandon was the likes of which none of the Brethren had ever seen before, either, and that was part of the reason they were so determined to hunt him down.
Rene thought maybe some among the Brethren, like Brandon’s grandfather or the Elders, might have been blocking Brandon’s powers in Kentucky. Now that the kid was away from them, free of their influence, his abilities seemed to be growing on a daily basis. Upon their initial introduction, Brandon had damn near rattled Rene’s skull, plowing past any mental defenses he might have had to keep his thoughts guarded. It wasn’t something the younger man had done on purpose, but Rene wasn’t keen on the idea of tempting fate—or Brandon’s fledgling ability to control himself.
I told you, petit, Rene thought in reply. We had a flat tire earlier today. I cut myself on the jack trying to change it.
Brandon looked at him, his brow cocked at a dubious angle as Rene regurgitated this paper-thin line of bullshit. He hadn’t told Brandon or Lina the truth because he hadn’t seen the point. There was nothing that could be done about it now, and both of them had enough weighing on their minds without adding to it. Rene had sworn Tessa to secrecy, too, and had considered it somewhat of a testimony to the tentative and affable peace that had been forged between them that she’d agreed to it, albeit reluctantly.
“I don’t like keeping secrets from Brandon,” she’d said, but there’d been a look in her eyes, a slight edge to her voice that had clearly imparted that she had before, and would this time, too.
So what else haven’t you told your brother? Rene had wondered. What other little secrets are you keeping, Tessa?
Brandon knew Rene was lying, and Rene knew that he did. They both also knew that if Brandon had felt so inclined, he could have just skimmed the contents of Rene’s brain and learned the truth for himself.
And there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do to stop him.
“I’m all right, petit,” he told Brandon, holding up his bandaged hand and wiggling his fingers—an act that was growing more easy and less painful by the hour. “Really. How about you?”
Brandon glanced at his own hands. It’s amazing, he said. This was the first day he’d apparently foregone swaddling them in bandages. It had been almost two weeks since he’d broken his hands, but already the bones had knitted back together, however fragilely.
It took months for my hands to heal in Kentucky, but they’re almost as good as new now. They still ache sometimes, and I can’t grip things very tightly… He mimed pinching his fingers together but stopped just shy of the tips fully touching. I can’t hold a pencil yet, but it’s getting close. He glanced up at Rene. Amazing.
“That’s what happens when you feed, petit,” Rene told him with a wink. Even though he could witness such seemingly miraculous healing in his own body, it still amazed him, too. “It accelerates everything—your metabolism, healing, all of that.”
Like Rene, Brandon was enjoying the effects of having fed twice in rapid succession. That kind of gluttony had heightened his healing ability just as it had Rene’s. Brandon had fed for the first time in his life from Lina. The second time, after he’d shattered his hands, he’d fed from Rene. It had been a desperate gamble to help him, one that had paid off; with only his father being Brethren, Rene had hoped there was enough human in his blood to benefit Brandon.
Rene took another swig of Coke. So tell me about this book your sister found, he said. This Tome thing of hers. What’s so special about it, anyway? She said you use it to play matchmaker, set up marriages and whatnot?
Not me. Brandon shook his head. The Elders. No one else is supposed to see the Tomes. They keep them under lock and key at all times. Each clan has its own. As for what’s in them, I don’t really know. I only got a quick look at the one Tessa found. She said you were going to help her translate it?
Yeah. Rene nodded. Or try to anyway. It’s written in French, at least parts of it. Some of it’s really old. Who knows what the hell language it is.
What I saw looked like your family tree, Brandon said. Which makes sense. That’s what the Elders use to arrange marriages.
“My family,” Rene murmured, then he turned so Brandon could read his lips. “So this makes it official, then? My family has one of these Tomes, so they must have been part of the Brethren at some point.”
Sure looks that way, Brandon said. What I’m wondering is if they were, how did they get the Tome out of Kentucky? The books are kept at the dominant clan’s house. Each family doesn’t keep their own. Like right now, all of the Tomes are locked in my grandfather’s library.
Rene arched a curious brow. “You think my clan must have been dominant at some point, petit? That’s how they had access to the book?”
I don’t know, Brandon replied.
And if that’s true, then what happened? Rene wondered, closing his mind momentarily, his brows furrowed thoughtfully. This was a point that had been niggling at him, the way a mosquito bite will itch—just barely at first, enough so that you’ll reach for it to scratch, and from there, inexorably worsening until it’s absolutely maddening and you’ll claw your flesh open and raw. What happened to my family? Did they leave the Brethren willingly? Were they kicked out somehow? Either way—why?
Whatever the circumstances, obviously the Brethren had gone to some effort to make sure the Morins were forgotten. But when and why this had happened remained a mystery. Rene’s father, Arnaud, hadn’t offered him any clues. In fact, he had led Rene to believe they were the last of their kind anywhere in the world.
Did he not realize then? Did he not know? Whatever happened, was it before my father’s lifetime? Or did he know, and just lied to me about it?
As if he’d been reading Rene’s mind—despite the fact Rene had deliberately closed it—Brandon said, Makes you wonder how your human grandmother wound up with it, huh?
“My father must have given it to her years ago,” Rene replied. “When he came to find me. That was…1971, I think.”
The year after Irene left me.
“He came to our home in Bayou Lafourche,” he said to Brandon. “Maybe he knew I was there all along, maybe it took him that long to find me. I don’t know. Either way, I came home from this factory job I’d taken down in Houma, and there was this fancy car I’d never seen before parked in front of the house. I walked inside to find my mamère sitting in the living room, serving tea and store-bought gingersnap cookies on her best set of bone china to some slick-dressed salaud I’d never seen before, either. She introduces him as Arnaud Morin. ‘This here is your papa,’ she says to me, even though the guy on the couch doesn’t look much older than I did at the time.”
Rene took another long swallow of Coke, emptying the bottle, and wished his head didn’t ache at even the idea of adding a dollop of Bloodhorse Reserve. Could probably use at least two-fingers’ worth right about now.
“In retrospect, I think he must have done something to her mind, the way I do now when I go to feed,” he said, and he flapped his bandaged hand at his temple. “I sort of turn them off in a way. Make them do what I want, so they don’t make a fuss.”
Brandon nodded. The Brethren do that, too, except during bloodletting ceremonies. The rest of the time, it’s really low-key. They keep the humans subdued with their minds.
“I don’t know if he gave the book to her to hide, then made her forget about it somehow, but she never told me about it at any rate.” He glanced at Brandon. “When I read about him blowing his brains out two days later, I showed the newspaper to Mamère and she didn’t even bat an eye. It was like she didn’t even know who he was, like he hadn’t just spent half a goddamn day parked on her sofa not forty-eight hours earlier.”
Strangely, though, his grandmother at some point had written out a family tree of her own, one that had traced Arnaud’s side as well as her own, at least back to Rene’s great-grandfather. The dates had all been recorded correctly, which seemed to suggest that Odette had known about Arnaud’s heritage, what he was—and what Rene was. At least at some point, she had. Whether or not Arnaud Morin had walked out of the house that sunny afternoon outside of Thibodaux, Louisiana, and left those memories intact, Rene would never know.
“Maybe he never meant for me to find that Tome,” he said. “Who the hell knows. Either way, he didn’t do me any favors. All of my goddamn life to that point, I’d felt like I was different than everybody else…not quite in step with the rest of the world. Finding out the truth from him didn’t make much of a difference.” He glanced at Brandon. “I guess you know how that goes, no, petit?”
I used to, Brandon said. But I don’t anymore. Not since finding you and Lina.
Rene smiled, thinking of how good it had felt to wake up in bed with Tessa curled up beside him; right somehow. He had Brandon to thank for that, for the day only weeks earlier in which Rene had sensed the younger man outside of the dilapidated high-rise he called home. It had been the first time since Arnaud that Rene had experienced the peculiar, tickling sensation inside his mind that had alerted him to the presence of another just like him. Rene could still call the birds, just as he had when he’d been young, and he’d summoned them to him, sending them in sweeping paths around the building, seeing through their eyes as Brandon had walked away from the front entrance, his shoulders hunched against a steady rain. Brandon had been robbed and shot in a nearby alley, and would have been murdered if Rene hadn’t witnessed the crime in time to save him; if he hadn’t sent the birds swooping down at the gunmen, attacking them, driving them away. He’d brought Brandon inside and tried to nurse him back to health, a part of him so elated, he could hardly breathe. Like me, he’d thought, in dumbstruck wonder. Like me. Saint merde, this boy is just like me.
He could have been Rene’s brother, for all he’d known; a cousin or nephew, anything. It hadn’t mattered. He was like Rene and that was all that had counted. I’m not the only one after all.
Rene reached out and tousled Brandon’s hair with a fond smile. “You know what, petit?” he asked. “I don’t feel so alone anymore, either.”