CONSTANTINE MET LYRIC at the door, and Vail lingered behind, assessing the situation. A week ago he would have rushed the bastard and staked him without a word.
But now? Constantine de Salignac wouldn’t know the pain he’d caused Vail or his mother, because he hadn’t known Vail existed. He did know Lyric, so it made sense to let her go ahead—bearing the bad news.
And while he clutched his fingers into fists, and fought to keep his heartbeats calm, Vail knew it wisest to play this carefully. At the least, he was thankful Rhys, Trystan and Viviane had not yet arrived. He wasn’t sure what seeing Constantine would do to Viviane, but suspected nothing good would result.
No moon lightened the sky. The estate grounds were deathly silent. And when he thought he should be tight with anger, standing at the edge of the vanguard waiting to inflict some damage, Vail realized he was surprisingly calm. It was Lyric. She calmed the incredible new power he had gained, and he liked that just fine.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Charish?” Constantine’s voice wavered as he stood in the entry hallway talking to Lyric. His tone was angry, but edged with a sadness Vail knew too well. “Who did it to her? Tell me!”
“Connor.” Lyric sighed and, with a glance at Vail, drew in a breath. “Constantine.”
“I asked Charish never to use that name,” he said. “Why would she tell you that? And who is this vampire with you? I thought he worked for Hawkes Associates. Lyric, your mother is dead!”
“Charish didn’t tell me your name,” she said, and, with an acknowledging gesture to Vail, added, “Vaillant did. Constantine, I know you’re upset about my mother.”
“And you are not?”
“I am. I’ve had some time to work through it. An amazing convergence of events has kept me from truly feeling grief. I know it’ll hit me hard soon enough. But right now, the most important thing is that I introduce you to Vaillant.”
“I can’t do this. If he means something to you—I just can’t.” Constantine caught his head in his hands and turned away, obviously stricken with the news about his dead lover. “She was my world.”
So his father could feel deeply about a woman? At first Vail wanted to shout at him, How dare you? When you harmed my mother irrevocably? And then a small part inside him could understand the pain the old vampire felt upon losing one he must have loved.
Had the centuries changed him?
Lyric held out her hand to Vail, not pleading, but merely waiting to see if he would take it. He could not resist her allure, the desire to connect with her, even knowing what she intended. Having her here with him, a liaison of sorts, made what he had to do easier.
He placed his hand in hers and joined her side. She kissed his mouth softly and gave him a confirming nod, which he nodded in return.
“Constantine, this is Vaillant,” she said to the sorrowful vampire who leaned against the wall, his arms slack. “Listen to me. You’ll want to know this man. He is your son.”
The older vampire turned. His eyes, a pale blue, not so bold as Viviane’s, locked on to Vail’s. And Vail felt the man’s intense and acrid scrutiny burn into his very soul.
“My son? That is…” Constantine looked Vail from head to his boots. “I have no children,” he offered sadly. “I have tried through the centuries to create progeny, but it was not to be. I don’t know where you get your information, boy, but I am sorry.”
“Rhys Hawkes told him,” Lyric said quietly.
“Hawkes?” Constantine looked to Vail for verification, his eyes narrowing cautiously. “Of course, if you work for Hawkes Associates. What lies has my brother been telling you?”
With an inhalation to draw in the bravery he knew he would need, Vail spoke, “You raped my mother, Viviane LaMourette. I am the result of that crime.”
Constantine’s jaw dropped open, exposing a chipped fang.
“You violated her in 1785.” Vail relayed the story Rhys had told him. “As a result of some pissing match against your brother. And then you imprisoned her in a glass coffin, bespelled her and buried her alive beneath Paris for over two centuries.”
“I…” Constantine clasped his chest. “She was found? Alive? When last I talked to my brother…”
According to Rhys, Constantine had defied Rhys only hours before Viviane had been found, hissingly telling him he’d gotten what he’d deserved. That was the last time Rhys had contact with his half brother.
“Alive and insane,” Vail confirmed, finding that the vitriol he feared would make him irrational did not emerge. That allowed him to speak calmly. “Viviane gave birth to two boys, who had germinated within her over the centuries.”
“Two?”
“Myself, and my brother Trystan, who is Rhys’s blood son.”
“But how is that possible? Two children from the same womb, yet different fathers?” The vampire breathed out and stumbled against the wall. “You tell me true? But why did not my brother? If you are my son… My son?”
Vail felt Lyric’s hand at his back and it strengthened him. Standing straight, he nodded. “Before he’d met Viviane, Rhys unknowingly promised his firstborn to a faery in exchange for the enchantment of his werewolf nature. When the Mistress of Winter’s Edge came for her boon, she chose me over my brother Trystan.”
“Cressida took you to Faery? You’ve grown up there? How long?”
“All my life. I’ve been in the mortal realm a few months. Since arriving, I have thought only to find you.”
“Truly?”
“And then kill you.”
Constantine nodded, accepting, and then a broad grin stretched his pale mouth. The man drew up his shoulders, exhibiting a shadow of the great tribe leader he must have once been. “Vaillant. That is a fine name. You, who are my son. Do you know how I have longed for a son over the centuries?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Vail said.
And it didn’t. He didn’t care what his father had thought of, strived for, or suffered over the years. None of it could ever erase the horrors Constantine had visited upon his mother.
“So you’ve come to kill me?” With a resolute nod, Constantine pulled a dagger out from a sheath behind his hip. He set it on the table beside him. “You would take away your only family, son?”
Vail cringed at the label. Constantine had no more right to call him son than he had to call him father. If anyone deserved the right, it was Rhys Hawkes, for his kindness and unconditional support.
He stepped forward, and touched the hilt of the dagger. Such close proximity to Constantine allowed him to sense the elder vampire’s heartbeats; they were slow and tedious. He smelled dusty, like something long forgotten in a dark corner.
Gripping the dagger hilt, Vail drew it up to inspect the blade. He eyed the flash of silver, but on the one side of the blade his father’s deep blue eyes distracted him. “They are the same,” Vail said softly. “Our eyes.”
“Boy,” Constantine said. “Take your revenge, if you dare.”
Vail held his father’s eyes just one moment longer, then flipped the blade expertly in his hand, caught it and placed it on the table.
He took a step back and nodded, confirming what he’d known all along but had never the sight to believe it. “This is not my revenge to have. You may be blood, but you are not family. You have been cruel and malicious to Lyric’s mother. You drove my mother insane. You have never accepted your own brother—”
“Because he is a bloody half-breed! An abomination!”
Vail winced at his father’s vehemence. For a moment he had hoped there was a chance, the slightest possibility of mutual acceptance, but it was not to be. “And what of your son who grew up in Faery and believes all vampires abominations?”
“You’ve been poisoned by the faeries! I, your blood father, am vampire.” He pounded a fist against his chest. “You, Vaillant, are bloodborn, the most regal and powerful of our breed. Come, my son.” Constantine held out his arms.
Vail felt the gentle pressure of Lyric’s hand upon his back. She wanted him to step forward to embrace the man he could not conceive of loving? Blood was one thing, but he’d meant what he’d said about family. Constantine was not. Lyric, Trystan and Viviane, they were his family. He knew that now.
A shout outside alerted them. An SUV parked in the yard, the headlights still on. Figures moved in front of the lights, and Trystan rushed inside but slapped his hands on the door frame and paused on the threshold.
The brothers exchanged glances. Then the huffing werewolf asked, “That’s him?” Vail nodded.
“Who is this?” Constantine demanded.
“It’s Vail’s brother,” Lyric provided. “Trystan Hawkes. Your nephew.”
“Viviane is in a mood,” Tryst said. “Rhys thinks it best to allow her to see him, but I’m not so sure, man. You didn’t kill him?”
Vail almost laughed. He did like where his brother’s head was at. “No.”
“So this is your half-breed brother,” Constantine said from behind Vail, not disguising the contempt.
“I’m one hundred percent werewolf,” Tryst said. “Want to test my talons, longtooth?”
“Tryst.” Vail shook his head subtly.
The werewolf was shoved forward into the hall as Viviane pushed by him and clambered into the room. Her azure eyes were bright and seeking. She held beauty captive in her pale skin and dark features.
No, Vail thought, I have my mother’s eyes.
He stepped aside to clasp Lyric’s hand and hold her beside him. He couldn’t know what was best for his mother right now, but if Rhys wanted to allow her this moment, he would not interfere.
“Viviane,” Constantine said on a gasp.
Rhys Hawkes stepped beside his werewolf son. The two exchanged tense nods.
“It is you.” Viviane, her long, midnight hair bedraggled, and the hummingbird pin hanging low near her shoulder, boldly stepped forward and slapped Constantine’s face. “Two centuries!”
Emboldened by his mother’s brave approach, Vail hugged Lyric closer to him. Finally, Viviane would be granted the revenge she deserved. He could never understand her suffering, but would stand behind her no matter the outcome of this bizarre reunion.
“You bastard,” she hissed at the cowering vampire. “I am not dead! Do you know I thought of what I would do to you every day I was imprisoned within that hideous coffin?”
“Viviane, I wanted you,” Constantine pleaded ineffectually. “You were cruel to me, ignoring my affections, my kindnesses, my gifts! I would have given you the world.”
The vampiress snarled and slashed her clawed fingers across Constantine’s neck.
Vail stirred at the blood scent. His brother growled lowly. Rhys held an emotionless expression.
“Yes,” Constantine offered quietly. He stroked a finger through the blood on his cheek and wiped it along a pant leg. “You must take your anger out on me. I deserve it. And yet, you’ve given me the greatest gift. A son.”
“Never for you,” she murmured. “He is my dark prince. Not yours!”
Constantine winced and bowed his head. “What can I do to atone for my crimes against you?”
“I want to win this time,” Viviane said, head bowed and eyes raging.
Vail sucked in a breath. He felt his mother’s rage swell in his heart and fill his lungs with a smothering heat. And he knew she had held that rage far too long; it was what had made her insane.
The vampiress shoved her pointed fingers into Constantine’s chest. The vampire howled and gripped the vampiress’s wrist. Viviane was too quick. She twisted her hand inside his body and yanked out a heavy mass of bloody muscle.
Vail pressed back Lyric when he felt she wanted to rush forward.
“I have your heart, Constantine,” Viviane pronounced coldly. She held up the pulsing muscle and squeezed. Blood spattered her face and Constantine’s. “I win now.”
“So you have.”
The vampire Constantine de Salignac ashed. His body, formed of ash in human shape before Viviane, hung there momentarily, then dropped into a pile.
No one had moved to stop her. Vail, every muscle in his body tight, released Lyric and slapped his hands to the wall behind him for support. He thought he heard Lyric whisper “Sorry,” but the thud of his heart drowned out noise.
Viviane turned and dropped the heart, which ashed before it hit the floor and dispersed in a gray cloud that settled upon Vail’s boot toes.
The vampiress’s bold stare sought everyone in the room, moving slowly from Lyric, to Vail, and then to her husband and werewolf son. She had destroyed her tormentor. A rightful death.
Reaching out, she gestured for Trystan to approach, and he did without pause. She hugged him to her chest. “My son. It is over.”
Vail swallowed, holding down his heart for fear it would dredge up a scream. He grasped blindly at his side, and Lyric’s hand slid into his.
Viviane’s bold blue eyes found his, and she smiled. It seemed genuine. Real. She smiled at him? A gesture with her free hand beckoned him forward.
Vail took a step. She wanted him to approach her? He rushed into his mother’s arms, beside his brother.
“My boys,” she cooed. “I love you both.”