TWO

WINE MOON

Wine and wisdom go hand in hand
But not while our foes stand
Lord we beg this humble boon
Let us drink of their blood soon

Let us drink of you, Lady bright
Filling our eyes with second sight
Bring us wisdom and let us know
How to bring great kings to woe

Seattle, Washington, August 1 (Lammastide)

Thunder seized the rafters of the Anderson family’s Victorian mansion in the Upper Queen Anne area of Seattle and shook them until the century-old timbers bowed and nearly cracked. Skeletal fingers of cold rain rapped the windows, impatiently demanding entrance.

Death wanted in very badly, and Michael Deveraux, the reigning warlock of the Northwest, was doing all he could to open the door.

Or rather, to burn that door down, he thought. By the Horned One, I will burn that sucker down. I threw the runes. I read the auguries. They all said the same thing: that tonight’s the night I, Michael Robert Deveraux, will conjure the Black Fire.

And I’ll destroy the House of Cathers with it, once and for all.

Reeling with anticipation, he shut his eyes and made fists against his chest, fingernails gouging his palms. His heart thudded hard and fast like a battle drum; his hot Deveraux blood ran molten through his veins.

It can mean only one thing: It’s time for the Deveraux to take over. After centuries of sucking it up and pretending we’ve accepted defeat, we’re going to steal the ball and make that touchdown. We’re going all the way. Because baby, we got game.

Oh, yeah—the boys and I got game.

This morning at the Dark Hour—3 A.M.—he had opened his Book of Shadows to the Rites of Lammas Night to prepare for Ritual. Lammas was hallowed; it was the Eve of Harvest. In the old, pagan days, the wheat and grapes had been blessed, the day sanctified to the Goddess. But in the world Michael worshiped—the mystical Greenwood, home of the Horned One—it was a night for harvesting power . . . and the lives and souls of enemies.

Michael’s sons were due home at eleven to participate in the Rites. Now it was nine o’clock, two full hours ahead of schedule. Not wanting to tip them off to the fact that there would be no simple Lammastide for them this year and less than eager to have them present for what he was doing in its stead, he had forbidden them to help with the preparations. Eli had been fine with that—he had no problem letting his father and brother carry the burden of magic use, as long as he continued to reap the benefits in the form of money, women, and cars—but Jeraud had thrown a full-blown tantrum. He had argued violently, slammed things around, glowered and sworn and made a lot of very foolish threats that Michael had ordered him take back for fear of suffering the consequences. Then, mustering all his authority, Michael had told him to get out, backing up the dismissal with the threat of more harmful magics than Jer could even imagine—which had infuriated Jer all the more.

Jer knows something’s up. I should have given him more credit, made a better attempt to hide my work. I’ve been keeping lots of secrets. Well, once tonight is done, he’ll understand that I had to keep my focus. I don’t need any distractions. If only he were more like Eli—just plain greedy and simpleminded. No wonder Sasha tried to take him away with her when she left me.

Michael opened his eyes, smiling grimly at the droplets of blood that had beaded on his palms.

I don’t need to share all my power with my ambitious boys. Eli would kill me without a second’s hesitation if he thought he could get away with it. Well, the old man’s got a lot of years left in him. Centuries, I hope. So watch your back, kids. One step in my direction and I’ll annihilate you.

“Are you watching, Duc Laurent?” he said aloud. “You’re finally going to get what you’ve wanted. I’m going to burn the witch tonight. So forgive and forget, all right? Tonight’s the night for Black Fire, and I’ll need your help. Your power.”

There was no answer. The phantom spirit of Laurent de Deveraux, the noble warlord of the family and dead these nearly seven centuries, had not communicated in any way with Michael for nearly six moons. Michael knew the Duke was livid with him for binding the witch to him “in spirit and heart”—in other words, for beginning an affair with Marie-Claire Cathers-Anderson. During the ancient fertility festival of Imbolc, Michael had put her in thrall, the Lady to the Lord as in the old days of witch and warlock together. His hope had been to harness the power that was said to erupt when Cahors and Deveraux were joined.

It was a good idea, he thought. And it was fun, even if the union didn’t result in a magical upgrade, as I’d hoped. So that part of the story must have been simple legend, as Laurent insisted it was.

He shrugged, wondering if the Duke was watching him. Michael had learned the hard way that his spectral kinsman had his own methods of surveillance. Too bad she has to die, but at least it’ll make Laurent happy. He’s been pissed off ever since I started up with her.

Ten feet away, on a red velvet sofa footed with birds’ claws, Marie-Claire lay unconscious. She was sprawled on her back with one arm over her head, her profile silhouetted against the red velvet. She was wearing a black satin bathrobe and bloodred ruby earrings. Her toenail polish matched her earrings, but her mouth was red from kisses, not lipstick. At forty-two, she was still incredibly beautiful, with heavy lashes and full, exquisite lips. What will it be like to watch her flesh blister and crack, her lips disintegrate, her eyes boil away?

Enticing Marie-Claire had been easy, and he liked to think he hadn’t really needed his magic to accomplish it. Michael Deveraux knew that he was incredibly good-looking. Like his children’s, his appearance was exotic, very French, with deep-set, soulful eyes that women loved to gaze into, and a chiseled face with a square, cleft chin. That fact that his nose was a little too narrow made him intriguing—one of his conquests had said it made him look “deliciously cruel.” He liked that. A lot of women were drawn to cruelty, mistaking it for strength.

With his loose, black curls, his trim beard, and his lean body, honed to edgy bone and sinew from hours of working out, he knew he had been a temptation to Marie-Claire ever since they had met at their children’s preschool. Though her witchly powers had lain dormant then, he had felt the call of blood to blood. He knew at once that there was more to this lady than a pretty face, a French name, and a certain selfish drive that he found utterly charming.

After that first meeting Michael had rushed home and descended into the Room of Spells, the heavily fortified hexagonal chamber he’d had built into the heart of his two-story Art Deco house. He’d put on his sorcerer’s robes of red and green and summoned his patron with blood and smoke. First had come the sulfurous odor that always made his eyes water, and then the charnel stench of the grave. Then the cold frost of Charon’s ferry, parting the veil, had descended upon the chamber. Michael’s breath had joined with the mist that rose from nothing and diffused through the frigid room. The dipping of the oars became his own heartbeat.

From the darkness the phantom had taken shape—the ghostly skull and skeleton at first all that was visible, followed by decayed flesh and dust that hung loosely on bone and leathery muscle as the revenant stepped from an invisible boat. According to his faded portrait, the Duke in life had been even more handsome than Michael. He claimed that once their House was again ascendant he would “carry myself as a full man,” as he had said in medieval French—a language Michael had dutifully learned in order to communicate with him. Neither of Michael’s sons spoke it . . . because neither of them knew about Laurent.

Laurent, Duc de Deveraux, had declared that he was as intrigued by Marie-Claire Cathers-Anderson as his descendent was, and together they had consulted with various demons and oracles to find out more about her. Michael had asked Jer’s help in searching the Net for information on genealogy, heraldry, and French peerage, for he felt certain that the Cathers family had once been noble. It was in her bearing and speech—even, it seemed to him, in her very scent.

Now he walked over to her, looked down at her. He bent, ran one fingernail up the side of her neck, tracing the large vein that he could feel pulsing slowly just beneath her skin. He smiled.

For over a year Michael had investigated this mysterious woman, whose appearance was striking in much the same way as his—ebony hair, black-brown eyes, her face a perfect oval, her skin seashell-smooth and pearly. She was tall and graceful, like the Deveraux men who lived in Lower Queen Anne. Indeed, for a time he wondered if she were a Deveraux herself, the family name perhaps lost through marriage at some point in the past.

During that year—those thirteen moons of the Coventry calendar—Michael had spied on Marie-Claire, had watched her with her daughters and her husband. He sent falcons to circle their gabled rooftop, observing from afar through their eyes with a scrying stone. On his visits to their mansion he had hidden glasses of cursed water in various rooms, through which he could eavesdrop on the family’s conversations. He felt he knew them intimately . . . and he wanted to know Marie-Claire even better. And when Michael Deveraux wanted a woman, he usually got her.

Then had come the revelation: After that year, Laurent had told Michael the story of the Cahors and the Deveraux, informing his descendent that he had known before Michael had even met her that Marie-Claire’s maiden name, Cathers, was what had become of the ancient French name Cahors. Through time and forgotten family history, the “Cathers” had no idea that they had once been the Cahors, one of the noblest witchly houses in medieval France, and the bitterest enemies of the House of Deveraux.

All the research and spying had been a test to see if Michael could learn the truth for himself. Michael had been embarrassed by his failure, but delighted to discover that Marie-Claire was a bona fide witch. That she had no idea of her powers was obvious, although she proved them time and again—by “knowing” who was going to call on the phone; by being in the right time and the right place in many instances. She found things people lost, and she had incredible magnetism toward money and good fortune. And she aged with extreme grace and beauty.

It was said that warlocks and witches together could create astonishingly powerful magics—and though Laurent had warned Michael not to go near Marie-Claire, he had promised himself he would have her . . . when the time was right.

I didn’t know then that he could spy on me. I thought he would never find out.

Michael had bided his time . . . for thirteen long years. During those years he tried another tack—encouraging his two sons to get involved with the Anderson daughters. Marie-Claire’s girls were twins named Amanda and Nicole. Like her mother, Nicole possessed an interior, if unrecognized, spark of magical ability, but Amanda appeared to be a blank—as mousy and passive as her father, Richard Anderson.

Eli had launched himself at Nicole, who, barely fourteen, had not been able to resist his allure. Eli was four years older than she, and when Marie-Claire demanded she put an end to their relationship, Nicole had taken it underground. Maybe the girl sensed the power that swirled just beneath the surface of Elias Alain Deveraux. Maybe being constantly expelled and jailed a couple of times made him exciting and forbidden. Back in the day, all his “crimes” would have been seen for what they were—high spirits and hot blood. But in these times, these overly civilized, unbelievably dull times, Eli had been classified as a “juvenile delinquent.”

Now seventeen, Nicole still saw Eli every chance she got.

Michael knew that his son’s dubious reputation only added to his own attractiveness—poor Michael Deveraux, a hot-looking, rich, single father whose wife had left him, now trying so hard to manage his career as a very successful architect while providing a home for his boys. It was a challenge to women who imagined themselves becoming his angel of mercy, taking on those motherless kids and spending all that money. . . .

So while he worked his way through the married women of Seattle and coveted the prize of Marie-Claire, mousy little Amanda had gotten the hots for Jeraud. Michael knew it from his constant spying, but Jer was oblivious to her pining. Jer had found passion elsewhere, with that nosy grad student Kari Hardwicke at the university. Michael couldn’t stand her. She wanted magical knowledge; she was after power. Besides, she was a slut.

But Jeraud-Luc could not be told what to do, even when it was in his best interests to obey. So he stayed with his grad student while Eli continued to see Nicole, just as Michael wanted him to. Though Eli was far wilder than his little brother, at least he saw the wisdom in doing what Dad said, if it could get him what he wanted.

And Michael saw to it that it always did get Eli what he wanted. Eli stayed controlled. But Jer . . .

Et bien, as Laurent likes to say. All that’ll be over as soon as Jer realizes I finally have the secret of the Black Fire. Then there’ll be no stopping the House of Deveraux.

The Cathers witch mother would die tonight, and the girls soon after. Michael’s experiment with uniting the two families was over, and the Cathers would soon prove more useful to him as sacrifices to the Dark Ones than as magical helpmates.

So, it’s time.

He bent to put on his elaborate hunter-green robe, decorated with eclipsed moons and bloodred falcon’s claws. There was power in the velvet and satin, and as he lowered the hood over his hair, his scalp tingled. Surges of what felt like electric shocks skittered from his forehead to his toes and back again. He flicked his fingers, sending luminescent green sparks into the air. An almost subsonic hum enveloped him, a bass backbeat to the driving rain outside. Then he turned to face Marie-Claire.

She and he, the two illicit lovers, had planned this night for almost a month. Her dull, weak husband was out of town and her daughters were both at a sleepover. The fact that the coast was clear was more evidence to him that this was going to be an especially memorable Lammas.

Not that she knew it was Lammas; he had never shared his magic use with her. He had simply tried to draw power from their sexual encounters. It had not worked very well. He had been surprised and disappointed. . . . It was said that in each generation of witches and warlocks, one of each family was the strongest. None of the combinations he had pursued and encouraged—himself with Marie-Claire; Eli and Nicole; Jer and anybody—had yielded a harvest worth cultivating. Michael wondered if, along with forgetting their legacy, the Cathers-Cahors magic had lain dormant for so long that its power had been significantly diminished.

But this night had augured well for bringing forth the Black Fire . . . if he, Michael, presented the God with suitable sacrifices. A witch, no matter how weak, was always a prize. Her soul would certainly be worth something in the underworld. . . .

Warding his Porsche Boxer so that no one saw him drive to her home, he’d listened to the Grateful Dead, drumming his fingers on the dash, loving the irony of “Dead Man’s Party”—“walkin’ with a dead man over my shoulder”—figuring Laurent was somewhere with him, in spirit if not manifestation.

Once through Marie-Claire’s front door, he’d swept her into her bedroom—she had had no scruples about the fact that this was her marriage bed—feeling, somewhat to his surprise, remarkably tender toward her. This was their last time, although she didn’t realize it. She was going to be dead in a matter of hours, and he wanted to give her something to remember him by as her soul went screaming down into Hell, the home of all unrepentant adulterers.

He’d suggested they go into the living room, and she would have gone anywhere with him by then, even outside into the pouring rain. I’m that good. She loved cabernet; he’d drugged her glass of vintage wine while she wasn’t looking rather than bother with a spell. If tonight was going to work, he needed to save every bit of magical power he had. He hadn’t yet decided if he would let Marie-Claire die unconscious, or if he would wake her up so that she could feel the flames. Laurent would want her to suffer, of course—he could make points with the old boy that way.

Nobody can hold a grudge like my ancestor.

Now, as the storm slammed her house and the angels wept over her morals, he stared at her, stirred deeply by her loveliness. Then resolutely he opened his briefcase and pulled out his athame, handling the dagger with reverence and caution. The double blades were jagged and rough but very, very sharp, and they bore the stains of an enormous number of sacrifices. If the walls of my spell chamber could scream, that thunder outside would be a whisper in comparison.

Like all good—or evil—practitioners of the Art, he had forged his athame himself. Once it had been created, he had fed it his own blood. Marie-Claire had cried out in shock when she’d first seen the scars on his chest and upper thighs, never dreaming they had not been caused by falling through a plate-glass window when he was seventeen—which was what he’d told her—but by giving this magical knife the taste for rituals of torture and death.

In medieval French, he murmured, “I open this Rite with Deveraux blood,” and ran the left blade of the athame across his left palm. He hissed, drawing in his breath. He didn’t like pain, and he had never gotten used to how much pain the dagger could elicit when it was properly used.

As a zigzag of scarlet formed across the lifeline in his hand, a bolt of brilliant lightning lit up the room. Thunder crashed immediately thereafter, shaking the mansion to its foundations. The nightfire clearly illuminated each corner of the large room, showing the fine antiques that Marie-Claire loved to shop for, polishing her cheekbones with a golden sheen as she lay unmoving on the couch. As if she’d been X-rayed, each bone in her skull glowed through her skin. Her fingers became sticks of bone. At the arch of her graceful neck, the vertebrae sat one on top of another, clearly visible.

It’s a portent of her death, Michael thought. The Horned One is accepting her as my sacrifice.

“Do you see that, Laurent?” he murmured. “We’ve got the big guns on our side for this.”

With his unbleeding right hand, he pulled an ornate wooden box from his briefcase. Demonic faces with outstretched tongues glared at him from the centers of pentagrams, one per side. The Deveraux falcon was carved on top, holding a clutch of ivy in its mouth. Ivy was the living symbol of the Green Man, and of the warlocks who worshiped the Lord in all his guises. Let witches have their Lady, their Goddess. It was a fact of nature that the male was always stronger, always prevailed, no matter the battleground.

Michael carried the box to the empty fireplace—he had had some trouble talking Marie-Claire out of laying a fire, when the night clearly called for one—and knelt. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, silently marshaling his occult strength for what lay ahead.

Behind the bricks and mortar of the fireplace, the body of the falcon he had walled up alive three months ago rustled and stirred. Michael Deveraux was renowned for his tireless efforts to locate and preserve the grand old buildings of Seattle, and of his meticulous attention to period detail when he restored them. Indeed, he had proven to be a marvelous help to the Anderson family when they had decided to tear out the old forties’ fireplace that had defaced their Victorian home and return it to its earlier grandeur.

Seizing the opportunity—which he had, after all, helped to create with a few well-dropped hints about enhancing the original charm of their lovely home—Michael had offered to do the work himself. Richard Anderson had promised him a copy of his latest software in return. Michael had pretended to be happy with the exchange, although he couldn’t have cared less about data compression or whatever the hell it was Richard’s firm bought and sold. But as a result of their bartering, the number of charms and sacrifices Michael had installed inside that fireplace would astound most warlocks if they knew of it.

And Michael’s cleverness had certainly impressed Laurent.

Ever since Laurent had told him the story of the Deveraux and the Cahors, Michael had tried to conjure the Black Fire. It was said that the secret of the Fire had died with Laurent’s son, Jean, and that if ever the Deveraux retrieved it they would rule all of Coventry, as was their cursed right. Laurent was as eager as Michael to draw forth the secret weapon; they had simply disagreed on the best way to go about it. Michael had been certain that allying their House with Marie-Claire’s family once more would unlock the shadowed spells. Laurent, hating whatever remnant of the Cahors the lady and her girls represented, would have none of that. In fact, he was certain that allowing the three women to exist could only hamper success.

We’ll find out soon if Laurent was right, Michael thought.

“I call upon my forbears and their powers,” he chanted in old French, placing his bleeding left hand over his mouth. “I call upon the Darkness. I call upon the Hunting Hounds to aid me in the chase. Avantes, mes chiens.”

The distant moaning of a tempest wind echoed through the room. The tip of the mound of ashes in the fireplace shifted very slightly. Michael continued to kneel, tasting his blood on his lips, and waited.

The keening grew louder. A chill breeze ruffled the hair at the back of Michael’s neck, and he smiled with anticipation. The Hunting Hounds had unleashed themselves.

“Mes chiens, mes fréres du diable,” he said boldly, calling to them. “Aides-moi.”

Then he lifted his hand from his mouth and held it up, much as one would raise the right hand to swear to tell the truth in court. The faint whistle became the fierce belling of huge canines, animals with devilish cunning and dark senses; were-creatures that sniffed out souls and light and devoured them whole, ripping to shreds any protective wards or talismans designed to prevent Michael’s ritual from achieving his aim.

A sigh escaped Marie-Claire. To his shock, she shifted on the couch, as if seeking a more comfortable sleeping position.

She shouldn’t be able to move at all.

“Marie-Claire?” he asked softly, carefully. She didn’t answer, but lay as pale and still as death. He wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing. “Laurent?” Michael called. “Is that you?”

Marie-Claire moved again. Definitely moved.

“Aides-moi!” Michael whispered beneath the supernatural howling, which then erupted into frenzied barking. As he gazed at the unconscious woman, the invisible hounds howled triumphantly. They had picked up the scent of something opposing him and weakening his focus, and they screamed with demonic glee as they coursed the hidden forests of his realm of power. Obstacles had presented themselves before, of course, especially during other spells. No warlock alive was without his enemies, and Michael, being ambitious, had many, many enemies.

Has Sir William heard of the plan to overthrow him? Has one of my allies in the Supreme Coven turned on me?

He would leave trespassers and invaders to the Hounds for now. If they caught something, he would deal with it then. In the meantime, he would try to continue as best he could, to outpace anyone or anything that was trying to stop him. The forces were in alignment now, and it wasn’t possible to change them.

He scowled in concentration as he held his wounded hand over the ashes. His rich, red blood dripped steadily and his heart caught up the rhythm as he began to chant in the ancient tongue of his ancestors. In his mind, he translated the potent words: I call up the Black Fire of the Deveraux, I conjure the Burning Night. It is our Hour. It is our Will.

It is my Destiny.

The paws of the dogs clattered over the freshly waxed wood floors of the Cathers mansion. They began to take form and shape. Vague, blurry shadows darted across the boards, racing through the furniture, pawing at the wallpaper. The elaborate crystal chandelier above the sofa swung back and forth like a buoy on Elliott Bay.

The dogs were definitely after something, and it was leading them on a wild hunt. Whatever it was, it was drawing near. Any moment now, it might materialize in this room.

Michael opened his eyes very wide and pressed his forefinger against the whites, opening his Sight with his blood. His vision swam with viscous pink, and beneath the mounting cacophony he heard the rustle of the dead falcon he had walled up in the Andersons’ chimney as it sought to join the fray.

He thought he saw the faint outline of a human figure, but he could not be sure. He squinted hard through the blood as the Hounds tore around the shimmering form, baying and shrieking like banshees. From his hand, his blood dripped steadily onto the wooden floor.

“Get thee from my sight,” he said, holding out his hand. “I banish thee. I send thee hence. I abjure thee, by the Hunting Lord.”

The figure raised its arms, and new, cold wind shot through the room.

Instinctively, Michael turned protectively toward the pile of ash on the fireplace, shielding it with his hands.

And in that moment, Laurent, Duc de Deveraux, appeared in his advanced state of decay at Michael’s side.

The empty sockets bore down on him; the slack mouth hung open in a grimace of fury. The phantom raised one bony arm and struck Michael across the cheek, the fragments of its brittle fingertips slicing open his cheek.

Michael fell back, more shocked than hurt, staring up at the Duke as the latter reached into the fireplace and grabbed up the handful of ash. The ancient nobleman cradled it against his rib cage, where his desiccated heart hung like a deflated gray beach ball, and shook his other fist at the man on the floor.

“Tu est rien,” the Duke’s voice echoed from the fleshless jaws. You are nothing.

Then, as Michael watched in helpless fury, the Hounds disappeared, the wind died, and the Duke and shimmering figure both vanished.

It was over. His spell would not work this night.

Angrily, he took off his robe and put it back in his satchel.

I’ll kill her anyway, he thought savagely. I’ll become the dutiful descendant, atone for my disobedience, and work whatever magic Laurent will show me. I’ll find the secret of the Black Fire if it takes the rest of my life.

I’ll strangle her in her sleep. Back in our day, witches who confessed were garroted before they were burned. She’s ignorant of her powers, making her somewhat innocent, so that should balance the karmic wheel. She has such a slender neck; it will be easy.

In the sudden silence, the phone rang like the shriek of a bird of prey. Marie-Claire’s portable phone had somehow wound up on the couch, though Michael hadn’t noticed it there before.

Rousing at once, she sat up and fumbled for it.

“Hello?” Marie-Claire said fuzzily. She glanced at Michael and mouthed, Did I fall asleep?

He nodded, holding his wounded hand, balled into a fist, behind himself. Apparently he had recovered his poise sufficiently, because she returned her attention to the caller’s voice; first she blinked, and then she frowned. She said, “What? What?” in a high, shrill voice. Her mouth worked silently for a few seconds—then her face crumpled, and she burst into tears. With a shaking hand she pressed the phone against her chest.

“My brother’s dead,” she wailed. “His wife, too. Jesus, Michael. . . .”

“Oh, my God,” Michael responded, and in her distress, she couldn’t tell that he was faking it. He held out his other hand. She left the couch and sank against him, shuddering, her ear pressed to the phone again.

“Holly. Of course.” She nodded as she spoke. “Of course she can. I’ll catch a plane.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Yes, yes, sure.” She ran a hand through her hair, and he put his arm around her to keep her steady.

“Let me call you back,” she said. “Yes. Thank you. Yes.”

She disconnected, then pressed herself against him, seeking reassurance. “Daniel,” she moaned. “Oh, Daniel . . .”

He gentled her; he was good with animals and women. He caressed her back and her wet, cold cheeks and kissed her furrowed brow. He let her sob for what seemed like forever, impatient with her but not showing it. He wondered if his sons were home, wondering where he was. This night was not turning out the way he had expected it to, not at all.

So, should I still kill her? he asked himself, gazing bloodlessly down at the bowed head, the riotous mass of shining curls.

Then she raised her head and said, “They want me to come get my niece. She’s an orphan now. She has no one else.”

“Your niece,” Michael said slowly.

She nodded. “My brother’s daughter. Holly.”

He showed no outward sign of the shock he felt at this news. He kept his voice low and his expression a model of compassionate detachment.

“I didn’t realize there were any other women in your family.”

At this, she heaved another sob. “She’s not a woman. She’s the same age as my twins.”

So there’s another Cathers—Cahors—female. Maybe she’s the one who inherited the family’s magical power. And if I ally her with our House, the Black Fire might burn bright for Michael Deveraux after all. . . .

“Then she’ll be coming to live with you,” he said slowly.

She looked at him in abject misery and said, “They want me to go get her. She has no one else.”

“Then you should go. She’s family.”

Her sigh was ragged and determined and resigned, all at once. “The funeral’s in two days. I’ll leave in the morning.” She raised her tear-streaked face up to look into his eyes. Her lips were moist and her body was pressed tightly against his.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered. “I couldn’t have handled being alone tonight.”

“Ma chere,” he said, brushing the damp strands away from her forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

And in that moment, he really was glad that he hadn’t murdered his mistress.

Yet.