Page 108 of Samhain Savior
No answer, just more pitiful French whimpering, and I wondered how a little man like him had managed to capture the attention of not one but two beautiful women.
“Answer him!” Mex snapped, and Baptiste sniveled, his chin wobbling before he replied.
“My love. My precious love. Her name,” he paused for effect, and I wondered if all colonial-era men were so melodramatic. “Her name was Genevieve Dubois.”
“Oh, you stupid son of a bitch,” Mex said, shaking her head and laughing manically. “You unbelievably stupid—what the fuck were you thinking?”
“Her beauty, it could shame the sunrise. Her lips were ripe as cherries. Her skin as soft as—”
“Yeah, alright,” Mex said, shaking her fist in the suit jacket again before she abruptly let go, breaking our connection and leaving me gasping. “That’s enough of that bullshit.”
“What did you do?” Archer asked, incensed, as his arms came around me from behind, holding me upright when the loss of Mex’s magic would have left me crumpling tothe ground. If I had thought I was tired after the consecration ritual, it was nothing compared to the bone-deep exhaustion that swept over me now. “I wasn’t done questioning him.”
“Believe me, you were done.” Mex stepped away from the coffin, dusting her hands off like she’d touched something undesirable. “That sad sack of shit was about to write an epic poem to his mistress, so I sent him back. Let him write it in the ninth circle, with his face in a lake of ice.” Turning to look at Archer, her eyes back to their usual deep brown, Mex added, “He gave us a name, and that was all we needed anyway.”
“You know her? Genevieve Dubois?”
“Yeah. I know her, alright.”
“So she’s alive?” I asked, wondering how that was possible.
“In a manner of speaking.” Looking around, Mex took in the tomb, once again sneering at its opulence, before she shook her head and crossed her arms. “Genevieve Dubois is the Vampire Queen of New Orleans.”
Chapter fifty
Archer
Standing on the street, I stared up at the overstated mansion, taking in the deep double balconies supported by fluted columns and decorated with black shutters. Easily the grandest home in the entire Garden District, the Dubois Estate was exactly that: a huge house on a ridiculously sized property, practically dripping with excess. Reminiscent of the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, it was large, lavish, and completely fucking silent.
“Where is everyone?” Delilah asked from beside me, her tired voice quiet in the eerie stillness as she absentmindedly clutched the two pendants hanging around her neck.
The five of us were on the sidewalk, Corson standing with his back to the house, his eyes scanning the street for any oncoming threats. Mal was perched in a tree above us, his keen raven eyes seeing even farther than Corson’s. Iwould know if there was a threat, if someone was coming toward us, but still, I couldn’t settle, the itch at the back of my neck near constant as I waited for the next attack, the next potential threat to my mate.
Clenching my jaw, I slipped one arm around her waist, holding her to me just because I could. Drinking in the delicious taste of her joy at my touch through the bond, I narrowed my eyes as I took in the lush gardens, the perfectly manicured hedges and expertly tended rose bushes looking like something you’d see in a magazine. Over it all, the live oaks hung, their branches spreading to the far corners of the property, Spanish moss draped across them like a lover.
“I thought you said this place belonged to the Vampire Queen,” she asked, her eyes narrowed at the huge home that rose up before us. “It looks deserted.”
“It’s still daylight,” Mex offered, sounding annoyed. Giving her a look, I curled my lip threateningly, a silent warning that she had better watch her tone when it came to talking to my witch. Rolling her eyes in response, Mex offered me a smile that was exceedingly fake, then continued her explanation, this time with much more patience. “This house is filled with vampires, I promise you, but they are likely all sleeping at the moment. But trust me, come sundown, this place will be a hot spot for every sinner intown. Genevieve hosts a party nearly every night, opening her doors to the most depraved of supernaturals, welcoming them to her den of iniquity with open arms.”
“And the neighbors don’t mind?” Delilah frowned, looking at the other houses on the street, each of them grand—although not quite as grand as the one before us.
“Neighbors?” Mex laughed. “What neighbors? Genevieve and her hoard own every house on the block. She uses this one as her very own palace, but the others are all hers, as well.” Blowing out a breath, Mex turned, resting her back against the detailed iron fence that surrounded the property, still hung with faded strands of Mardi Gras beads. “Genevieve got a taste for the high life when she spent time as a courtier for Marie Antoinette and she never lost it.”
I bit back a smile as Delilah’s eyebrows rose, the shock on her face evident.
“Really?” she gasped, eyes alight. “She was one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting?”
“That’s the story. But I guess she got tired of playing second fiddle to the young queen. She fled the country about the same time the Queen lost her head and eventually settled here. She has spent the last two hundred years being an absolutely insufferable pain in my fucking ass.” Mex finished, and I couldn’t help but smirk at thevenom in her words. “We’ve had to break up more than one feeding frenzy on the streets of New Orleans. These fucking bloodsuckers get to partying and next thing you know I’ve got four dead tourists on my hands and the human authorities breathing down my neck.” Casting another angry glare at the house Mex huffed. “We’ve come to an agreement. She keeps the craziness confined to her property, and I let her keep her fucking teeth.”
“Vicious,” Vine muttered, his eyes on the mansion. “I like it.”
“How do we even know the relic is in there?” Corson, always pragmatic, grumped.
“It’s in there,” Delilah assured him.
“How do you know?” he pressed, and I shot him a glare.
“I know because I canfeelit,” she said confidently, one hand toying with the other half of the Key dangling from her neck. “Like a whisper on the wind. It’s there, in the back of my mind.” Closing her eyes, Delilah tipped her head back, and I could feel the energy she pushed out, her magic reaching toward the house, searching.
