Page 52 of To Vanquish Darkness

“STOP SAYING MY NAME.”

Theo pulled back as if she’d slapped him. He stared at her, unblinking. “Hate me. You can hate me. But don’t doubt that what I’m telling you is the truth.” He snatched his hand away from the door. “I didn’t know it was you. Not at first. Not until I smelled your blood.”

Amalie scoffed. “It was that recognizable?”

“Yes.” Theo answered without hesitation. “I’d know it anywhere.”

Her throat grew so thick, she thought she might asphyxiate. Amalie turned the door handle. “I’m leaving. Tonight.”

“Do what you need to.”

“You won’t try and stop me?”

Theo’s eyes were cold. “No. But I can’t promise the other members of my coven won’t.”

Amalie’s eyes shot to the window. Dark. The sun had set after they’d left the rooftop.

Everything she’d seen, everything she’d learned since Theo appeared in her bedroom seemed to ignite and turn to ash. Amalie threw the door open and fled from Theo’s room with rage so hot and choking, she forgot all about the thread of light that grew inside her.

21

1824 BLOIS, FRANCE

Rachel pulled Florent closer, dragging the quilt higher to keep out the chill. It had been unseasonably cold the past few days, and her fingers and toes still ached from tilling the rows for tomato planting. But Florent always had a fire burning in Place Deaumont when he came to draw her from her room.

"Will it hurt?" she whispered.

Florent smiled against her cheek, dragging his lips along her skin as he traveled past her jaw. "I don't know what you should expect, but I don’t believe so."

"But you've fed before." Rachel hated the word. Even though she'd accepted what Florent was, she didn't enjoy ruminating on what it meant. That Florent had killed. That the stories she'd heard about creatures dragging women and children into the shadows painted him as the monster.

"Of course, I have." His breath tickled her skin. "But never with someone like you." Rachel's pulse jumped in her throat, and Florent let out a low groan. "You smell like heaven."

"I thought you couldn't sense my blood?" she ran a finger down his throat and traced his collarbone, threading her bare leg with his.

"When I'm this close, I swear I can." Florent's voice hummed against her skin, and Rachel drew a breath.

She swallowed hard, and despite her willingness, her palms grew clammy. "You're positive this won't harm me?" She'd already asked the question, but she had to be sure. Florent had told her the stories about her bloodline. About the guardians who were created to complete the curse. Solène's answer to Le Sombre's dark plague on humanity.

That, of course, hadn't been enough to convince her. Amalie and Bethany depended on her—she was their only living parent. But then she'd asked Oren about her father's things and they'd finally opened the crates Oren had taken from their old house and stored in the attic for the past ten years. Oren had supported their parents in their old age, just as he was supporting her then. She'd never considered that there could be something of worth in their inherited belongings.

It was when she'd opened the book that Oren told her the truth.

Florent brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek. "It won't harm you. Your blood was made for my kind. But it might sting."

Rachel nodded. She didn't mind if it hurt. She wanted to do this, to give him every piece of her. Florent had already given her so much—new clothing for the girls, money to add to her savings each week as the summer drew to a close, and companionship and pleasure every night when the lamps were snuffed out. Since Romane had left her, she'd never been so blissfully happy. Though she didn't have much, she knew how much Florent desired this, and she would give it.

She pressed her fingers against the back of his head, urging him forward. Florent ran his tongue over her skin, and she shivered, then gasped at the flash of pain.

22

1836 NORTHERN NORMANDY, FRANCE

Somehow, Amalie slept. She dreamed of her mother. Of the two of them finding each other in different lives. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes family, and once she held her mother in her own arms as a baby. She woke in the darkness coated in sweat wearing the same clothes from the rooftop.

It took a moment for the events in Theo’s room to connect themselves in her head. When they did, warmth spread through her chest. Her mother wasn’t gone. Not forever. She couldn’t have her now, but the thought that she existed somewhere was a salve on her broken heart.

The warmth was driven out as cold dread settled in her stomach.

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