Vampire, Interrupted (22 page)

“Don’t touch me. Leave me alone.” The words were wooden rather than panic filled as they should have been. She felt disconnected, empty.

Julius let his hands drop, but didn’t back off. Instead, he said calmly, “I can explain.”

Marguerite stared at him, waiting. She wanted him to explain. She wanted him to have an answer that would fix everything so that her heart would stop breaking…and so she waited, giving him that chance, but he hesitated, and then said almost helplessly, “No, I can’t.”

Marguerite sucked in a breath, staring at the man she’d found such pleasure with. She’d thought he was her lifemate, had foolishly allowed herself to love him, to dream of a future together. But nothing was as she’d thought.

She knew she wasn’t Christian’s mother, which meant that she just looked like his mother. She looked like a woman Julius had obviously loved deeply and whose picture he’d kept near at hand for five hundred years. It was Jean Claude all over again, she realized and felt her heart crumbling to dust in her chest.

He reached for her again, but this time Marguerite struck out, slapping him sharply across the face. Julius stilled, eyes glowing black. He didn’t try to stop her when she walked around him and pushed her way through the others to leave the room. She could feel their eyes following her as she walked upstairs.

Marguerite went straight to her room, closed the door behind her and just stood there for a moment,
the silence crowding around her…and then the chittering began in her brain.

“You look like Christian’s mother,”
it taunted.
“Julius must have loved her dearly to still have her picture. She was his true lifemate, you just look like her.”

“He can probably read you and was simply saying he couldn’t because he wanted you…because you look like his lifemate.”

“Every time he made love to you he was thinking of her.”

“Every time he touched you, he was touching her.”

“It’s not you he wants at all. You’re just a stand-in.”

“It’s Jean Claude all over again.”

She should leave, Marguerite thought numbly. She should go…somewhere. Find someplace where she could be alone to lick her wounds and think. She moved away from the door and peered around the room, her eyes landing on the bed. Memories of their lovemaking immediately rose up in her mind, making her long for his arms around her, his lips on hers, him inside her…

Maybe it would be different than it had been with Jean Claude. Maybe…

Cursing, Marguerite hurried to the closet to find something to wear. She dressed quickly, paused to take a shaky breath, and then peered around the room. She needed to get home, but didn’t have the energy or any desire to pack. She’d leave her clothes, she decided, they’d just remind her of Julius anyway.

She started to cross to the door, but then paused. The men were in the living room. There was no way she was going to be able to slip downstairs and out the door without their notice.

Sighing, she glanced around. When her eyes landed on the dark curtains on the opposite wall, she crossed to the window and drew open the heavy material. Sunlight immediately splashed into the room and she took a step back, her eyes lifting to the sky. The sunlight was blinding overhead. Her gaze slid to the digital clock on the bedside table to see that it wasn’t even one o’clock yet.

No wonder she was exhausted, she’d had hardly any sleep at all, Marguerite thought absently as she peered down at the narrow alley behind the townhouse. It was an easy jump to the ground and would save her running into Julius on her way out and possibly being stopped.

Marguerite glanced back toward the bedroom door as she thought of Tiny, but she was rather hurt that the mortal she’d come to think of as a friend hadn’t followed her upstairs to be sure she was all right, and, instead, had stayed with the Nottes. It felt like betrayal to her.

Her attention shifted back to the window. While the building was terribly old, the windows were new, probably installed for energy-saving purposes. Marguerite released the lock and slid the window open. She cast one nervous glance skyward, climbed to sit on the window sill with her legs dangling outside, and then pushed herself off. She landed on the stone below with a small jolt, her knees bending to ease the impact, and then started to stand up straight again.

“You’ll explain and do it now! Marguerite deserves that much at least.”

The faint words were spoken in Tiny’s angry voice and she turned her head, and then ducked to the side
as she realized she’d landed in front of the kitchen window and the men were now entering the kitchen.

And Tiny was confronting Julius Notte on her behalf, not conspiring with him, she realized. The fact almost sent her marching back into the house to collect the mortal and take him with her, but Marguerite decided against it. She really didn’t want to have to face Julius again. She’d call Tiny on his mobile as soon as she got somewhere with a phone and have him meet her.

The sun was beginning to warm the back of her head. Marguerite moved quickly away from the window to head up the alley.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?” Tiny asked, following Julius into the kitchen.

“I told you, I can’t,” Julius snarled, dragging the door of the mini-fridge open and then slamming it closed with a curse when he recalled that the blood was stored in the mini-fridge in the living room.

“The hell you can’t!” Tiny snapped. “You’ll explain and do it now. Marguerite deserves that much at least.”

“So do I,” Christian added grimly from the door.

“Perhaps it’s time,” Marcus said quietly.

Julius glanced at him silently, then sighed and dropped to sit at the table. He spent a moment trying to sort out where to start, then decided the best place to start was the beginning and said, “I met Marguerite here in York in 1490.”

“She
is
my mother,” Christian breathed, dropping into one of the other chairs.

“No, she isn’t,” Tiny told him apologetically. “She can’t be.”

“She is,” Julius corrected quietly and the mortal turned on him.

“If she met you before, why didn’t she say so? Why have you both been acting like you didn’t know each other? And why the hell would she agree to go hunting for Christian’s mother when it was her?” The mortal shook his head with disbelief. “You’re lying and you’ll have to do better than that. She sure as hell didn’t spend the last three weeks going half blind looking through archives for kicks.”

Christian’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “That’s true.”

“I’ll explain if you can both sit down and shut up long enough to allow it,” Julius said patiently.

Tiny scowled, but moved to take a seat at the table, then raised his eyebrows.

Nodding, Julius started again. “I met Marguerite here in York in 1490. Marcus and I came here to…er…”

“Carouse,” Marcus filled in dryly.

“Carouse?” Tiny asked with bewilderment.

“Gamble, lift the skirts of the prettier wenches and feed on the locals,” he explained and then shrugged. “We were young…er. Younger.”

Julius smiled faintly at the correction, but then continued, “I met Marguerite our second night here and that was the end of the carousing for me.”

Marcus shook his head at the memory and commented, “Spoiled all the fun.”

“Why doesn’t she remember?” Tiny asked, and when Julius turned a scowl on him, sighed and said, “Right. No interruptions. Go ahead. I’ll shut up.”

Julius nodded, and continued, “Marcus and I were hunting when we spotted her.”

“Hunting?”

“Looking for dinner,” Marcus explained when Julius sighed in exasperation at yet another interruption.

“You aren’t talking deer are you?” Tiny asked dryly.

Marcus shook his head solemnly and when the detective grimaced, reminded him, “There were no blood banks back then.”

“Right.” He sighed. “So you were hunting and spotted Marguerite.”

“She was beautiful,” Julius continued with a smile. “She had on a burgundy gown with the lowest décolletage a lady of quality would dare to wear, a matching cape, and this ridiculous little cap perched on her head that looked like a bird in its nest.”

While Christian remained silent, Tiny grunted, apparently not seeing the charm.

“She was on the hunt too, though she’d found her quarry and was leading him into a snickleway. I waited until she had finished her meal and then approached.”

“And was lost,” Marcus said mournfully.

Julius smiled faintly at the words, but his smile faded as he said, “She had been widowed twenty years earlier and had a grown son. She’d just moved into Martine’s home to live while Martine moved away for a bit to prevent anyone realizing she did not age.”

“Widowed?” Tiny asked with surprise.

“Her son’s name was Lucern,” Julius continued, ignoring him and the man held back his questions, though his confusion was plain on his face. “Fortu
nately, he was one hundred years old when she became pregnant with our child and there was no issue with carrying him to term.

“We were both extremely happy. Then, shortly before she was to give birth a messenger arrived. My father had been at the English court arranging a marriage for my sister, Mila, to her true lifemate, Reginald.”

“He was an English baron, still is I suppose,” Marcus told Tiny. “And Mila is short for Camilla. She and Reginald are Dante and Tommaso’s parents.”

When Tiny nodded, Julius continued, “Mila was visiting with Marguerite and me, but was now ready to join our father at court. Marcus and I escorted her to him.” He shook his head sadly. “I wish now I had left Marcus to accompany her alone.”

Tiny opened his mouth, no doubt to ask why, but Julius didn’t wait for the question and continued, “While I was gone, Jean Claude Argeneau had returned from the dead. Marguerite—”

“Wait, wait,” Tiny protested. “I know you didn’t want interruptions, but you have to explain this Jean Claude bit. What do you mean returned from the dead? Was he or wasn’t he dead? Can you guys die and come back? I don’t understand.”

Julius frowned. “Don’t you know about our people?”

“Yes, yes,” Tiny said impatiently. “Your ancestors are from what is now referred to as Atlantis. They were advanced scientifically, and combined nano technology and bioengineering to create little biters who run through your blood repairing and regenerating everything so you never age and never grow ill. But they use more blood than a body can create, so
you need blood. There were blood banks in Atlantis, but when it fell, your people were forced to flee and live among the rest of us more primitive types in squalor. Without blood banks, the nanos altered you to hunt and feed and survive off mortals.” He paused and raised an eyebrow. “Right?”

“I meant the healing part, not our history,” Julius said dryly. “But never mind, it is easier just to answer your question. Jean Claude was supposed to have died in the Battle of Edgecote in 1469, beheaded in battle,” he explained wearily. “And, no, immortals cannot come back from a beheading, we will not re-grow a head. Marguerite, as well as the rest of the immortal community, was led to believe that Jean Claude had died in battle and was gone. She lived as a widow for more than twenty years before we met.”

“But Jean Claude wasn’t dead?” Tiny asked with a frown.

“No,” Julius said. “I returned home to find Marguerite missing and I was raising a search party for her when Magda, her maid, stumbled through the gates with a newborn Christian in her arms. She said Marguerite had given birth to our son earlier that same night and gave the child to her, ordering Magda to kill him and bring his body to me in the home we’d shared…along with the message that she had chosen to return to Jean Claude, a lifemate but also her true love. She regretted ever becoming involved with me and wished never to see me again.”

Christian sagged in his seat, pain twisting his face, but Tiny’s reaction was the opposite.

“No,” he said firmly, leaping to his feet. “There is no way that happened. Jean Claude wasn’t Margue
rite’s true lifemate, she told me that herself. He made her life miserable. Some of the things he did to her…” Tiny shook his head. “And she would
never
kill a child, especially not her own. She loves her children. You’ve got the wrong woman.”

“It was Marguerite,” Julius said quietly, but acknowledged, “I didn’t believe it myself at first. I thought the maid must be lying, trying to cause trouble between us for some reason. But both Marcus and I read her and we saw the memory of Marguerite telling her to kill Christian and bring him to me and say those things. We
saw
.”

Tiny sank back into his chair, shaking his head with stunned disbelief. “But she wouldn’t do that.”

“We weren’t convinced either until she murdered the maid,” Marcus announced quietly.

“Murdered the maid?” Tiny asked with renewed horror.

Julius merely nodded and continued, “She was pushed down the stairs. After that I took Christian and fled back to Italy to keep him safe. I never set foot in England again until now.”

“And then that trouble happened in California and Christian insisted on going over to find out who had killed his cousin.” Marcus picked up the story. “We knew it would mean some interaction with the Argeneaus and tried to talk him out of it, but when he refused to be swayed from hunting down Stephano’s attacker, Julius asked me to accompany him to keep him safe.”

Marcus grimaced and said, “I was shocked when I first met Marguerite again and she didn’t appear to recognize me. I thought it was a ploy and read her
mind, but she really had no recall of me,” he said with remembered dismay. He shook his head. “Even more amazing was that she had no recall of Julius or anything that tied them together. There was a lot happening in California at the time, but I searched her thoughts when she was distracted and there simply was
no
memory of her ever being in York, meeting Julius, living with him, or having Christian.”

“How is that possible?” Christian asked quietly.

Julius exchanged a glance with Marcus, then sighed and admitted, “Marcus and I discussed that when the two of you returned from California and he told me all he’d learned. We think her memory has been wiped.”