Page 18 of The Assassin and the Libertine
My eyes flew open and I jerked upright—mistake. Blinding pain rioted through my brain. I clutched my head and fell back on the bed with a curse.
“Merde,” came the voice again. “Don’t try to get up yet. The doctor said you would be weak for some time.”
I took stock of my surroundings and the confusion only made my head ache more.
“Daphne?” I rasped. My parched throat felt like sand.
“I’m here, Étienne,” she said. “What do you remember?”
Things were fuzzy. I tried to piece together my remaining memories, but everything seemed unclear.
“Where am I?”
I closed my eyes to block out the pain. I was in a bed somewhere. The room was dark and cool, and smelled like damp earth and stone.
“You’re in my wine cellar,” she said. She came to the side of the bed and tipped a glass of water to my lips. I drank deeply.
“Should that mean something to me?” I grumped, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I felt several days’ growth of beard. “I don’t remember much right now, so I’d be much obliged if you filled in some of the blanks.”
She busied herself at a small table by my bedside and returned with a shallow porcelain bowl filled with—it couldn’t be.
“Whose blood is that?” I asked, surprisingly concerned given my weakened state.
Daphne’s pale cheeks and tight lips expressed her disapproval without words.
“I haven’t murdered anyone on your account, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said tartly.
Questions formed in my brain, but the smell of the blood made me ravenous. I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d fed, but considering I felt like I’d been run over by a stampede of horses, I assumed it had been a while. Normally I preferred to drink from the thigh veins of women in the throes of passion, but I supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“It’s warm,” I remarked, taking the bowl from her.
She sniffed haughtily. “Well, of course it is. My cook kept it at the proper temperature. I assume you don’t eat it—drink it—cold.”
My fangs distended and I drank from the bowl voraciously.
Never had I tasted anything so delicious.Good God.Rather than quenching my burning thirst and alleviating the painful hunger, I felt a bigger, more desperate need—lust. The desire for sexual release and more blood—no, more ofthisblood.
It must be because I haven’t fed in so long,I thought, unsettled.
Already, I felt strength returning to my muscles. The ache in my head began to ebb.
Daphne took the empty bowl from me and set it back on the table. She crossed to one of the dusty crates, grabbed a bottle of wine, and uncorked it with practiced efficiency. She let out a shuddering breath and raised the bottle to her lips for a long swallow. She tilted the bottle in my direction, offering me a swig. I declined.
“Daphne, are you all right?”
With the sharpness of my supernatural senses coming back to me, I finally noticed her disheveled appearance. She wore a plain day dress of navy cotton that had smudges of dust and blood on it. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and several blonde curls escaped her lace cap. She’d been watching over me.
She cast me a withering look and chugged from the wine bottle again. When she was down a quarter of the bottle, her shoulders relaxed a bit and she came back to sit in the bedside chair.
Clearing her throat, she pointed at me accusingly.
“Now that you’re not dead—or undead—re-dead?—you have quite a lot to answer for, Monsieur.”
“I’m listening,” I grumbled. Not like I had any choice in the matter. I was still too weak to leave and belatedly I realized I was naked beneath the covers.
She got up and strode anxiously around the room, like some kind of wildcat in a cage. I wondered how long it had beensince she’d slept. She put the bottle to her lips again, but merely sipped at it this time.
“This is a fine Bordeaux.”
