"NO," THE VAMPIRE said.
Gabriel glanced up. "No?"
"No, de León, this will not do."
"Will it not?" Gabriel replied, eyebrow rising.
"It will not." Jean-François waved his quill as if vexed. "When last you mentioned her, this Rennier girl was but a novice sister in the monastery that trained you, and now I learn she became your wife? The mother of your child? It is my Empress's will to know the whole of your tale."
Gabriel reached into his battered britches, fished about under the monster's stare. Finally, he retrieved a tarnished royale from his pocket. "Here."
"What is that for?" Jean-François demanded.
"I want you to take this coin to market, and buy me a fuck to give."
"This is not the way stories are told, Silversaint."
"I know. But I'm hoping the suspense will kill you."
"You will take us back. Back to the walls of San Michon."
"Will I?"
The coldblood held up the phial of sanctus between forefinger and thumb.
"You will."
Gabriel stared for a long and silent moment. His jaw twitched, and he gripped the armrests of his chair so hard the wood creaked. It seemed for a second he might rise, might lash out, might let loose the terrible hatred that roiled deep and dark behind his eyes. But Marquis Jean-François of the Blood Chastain was unperturbed.
Gabriel stared hard into the vampire's eyes. Gaze drifting to the phial between those tapered fingertips. The bloodhymn was still sharp in him, but that didn't mean his thirst was sated. One pipe wasn't enough.
It had never been enough, had it?
Truth was, he didn't know if he was ready to go back. Unwilling to dredge up the ghosts of the past. They were hungry too. Locked inside in his head, the door rusted shut from long disuse. If he were to pry it open …
"If I'm going back to San Michon," he finally declared, "I'll need a drink."
Jean-François snapped his fingers. The door opened at once, that thrall woman waiting on the threshold. Her gaze was downturned, thin red braids draped across her eyes.
"Your will, Master?"
"Wine," the vampire commanded. "The Monét, I think. Bring two glasses."
The woman met the Dead boy's eyes, a sudden flush rising in her cheeks. She dropped into a low curtsey, long black skirts whispering as she hurried away. Gabriel listened to her retreating down a stone stairwell, glanced toward the now-unlocked door. Faint sounds of life drifted up from the château beneath—tromping feet, a snatch of laughter, a thin, warbling scream. Gabriel counted ten steps from his chair to the door. A bead of sweat trickled between his shoulderblades.
He saw Jean-François was illustrating the company of the Grail, now. Père Rafa in his robes, the wheel about his neck, the priest's warnings echoing in Gabriel's head. He saw Saoirse with her slayerbraids and hunter's stare, the she-lion Phoebe beside her like a red shadow. Bellamy with his rake's cap and easy smile, and at the front, little Chloe Sauvage, with her silversteel sword and freckled cheeks and all the hope in the world shining in her liar's eyes.
The vampire glanced up. "Ah, splendid…"
The thrall stood at the doorway, holding a golden platter. Two crystal goblets sat upon it, alongside a bottle of fine Monét from the Elidaeni vineyards. A vintage like that was rare as silver these nights. An emperor's fortune in dusty green glass.
The thrall placed the two goblets on the table, poured a generous helping into Gabriel's. The wine was red as heartsblood, its perfume a dizzying change from moldy straw and rusted iron. The second glass stood empty.
Wordlessly, Jean-François held out his hand. The silversaint watched, mouth running dry as the woman sank to her knees beside the monster's chair. Her cheeks were flushed, bosom heaving as she placed her hand in his. Again, Gabriel was struck by the notion that she looked old enough to be the vampire's mother, and his stomach might have soured at the lie of it all were it not for the thought and thrill of what was to come.
The vampire looked to Gabriel as he raised the woman's wrist to his lips.
"Pardon," he whispered.
The monster bit down. The woman moaned softly as ivory daggers slid through her pale skin and into the supple flesh beyond. For a moment, it seemed all she could do just to breathe, fallen into the spell of those eyes, those lips, those teeth.
The Kiss, they called it—these monsters who wore the skins of men. A pleasure darker than any sin of the flesh, more honeyed than any drug. Gabriel could see the woman was lost now, adrift on a blood-red sea. And awful as it was, a part of him remembered that desire, pounding hot at his temples, down between his legs. He could feel his teeth growing sharp, a needle-bright stab of pain as he pressed his tongue against one canine.
Under her lace choker, he spied the old bite scars at the woman's neck. His blood stirring as he wondered where else she might hide the marks of their hungers. The woman's head sank back, long tresses flowing down her bare shoulders as she pressed her free hand to her breast, lashes fluttering. Jean-François's eyes were still fixed on Gabriel, narrowing slightly as a tight gasp of pleasure escaped his lips.
But then the monster broke his unholy kiss, a thin, ruby string of blood stretching and snapping as he pulled the woman's hand away. Eyes still locked with the silversaint's, the vampire held the thrall's open wrist above the empty glass and the blood spilled, thick, warm, crimson into the crystal. The scent of it filled the room, making Gabriel's breath come quicker, his mouth now dry as tombs. Wanting. Needing.
The vampire sliced the tip of his own thumb on his fangs, pressed it to the woman's lips. Her eyes flashed open and she gasped, suckling like a starving babe, one hand pressed between her legs as she drank. When the goblet was full, drip, drip, drip, the vampire lifted the woman's wounded wrist. And like a forgetful host, he offered it to Gabriel.
"We could share her? If it please you?"
The woman's eyes flickered to his, chest heaving and fingers strumming as she drank. And Gabriel remembered then—the taste of it, the warmth of it, a dark and perfect joy no smoke could ever match. The thirst reared up inside him, a thrill pulsing from his aching crotch all the way to his tingling fingertips.
And it was all he could do then to hiss through clenched and knife-sharp teeth.
"No. Merci."
Jean-François smiled, licked the woman's bleeding wrist with a bright red tongue. Easing his thumb from her mouth, the monster spoke, thick and heavy as iron.
"Leave us now, love."
"… Your will, Master," she whispered, breathless.
The woman rose on trembling legs, steadying herself against the monster's chair. With the wound at her wrist already closing, she sank into a shaking curtsey, and with a final wanton glance to Gabriel, slipped from the room.
The door locked softly behind her.
Jean-François lifted the blood-filled glass. Gabriel watched, fascinated, as the vampire held it against the lanternlight, twisting it this way and that. So red it was almost black. The monster's lips curled in a smile, eyes still on the silversaint's.
"Santé," Jean-François said, wishing him health.
"Morté," Gabriel replied, toasting his death.
The pair drank, the vampire taking one slow mouthful, Gabriel downing his entire glass in a single draught. Jean-François sighed, sucking the plump swell of his lower lip and biting gently. Gabriel reached for the bottle and refilled his glass.
"So," Jean-François murmured, smoothing his waistcoat. "You were a fifteen-year-old boy, de León. A frailblooded Nordling brat, dragged from the squalid mud of Lorson to the impregnable walls of San Michon. They made a lion of you. They made a legend. A foe even the Forever King learned to fear. How?"
Gabriel lifted the goblet to his lips, downed it with a long gulp. A trickle of wine spilled down his chin, and as he wiped it away, he looked at the wreath of skulls tattooed atop his right hand. Those eight letters etched across his fingers.
P A T I E N C E.
"They didn't make a lion of me, coldblood," he answered. "Like my mama said, the lion was always in my blood."
He closed his hand slowly, and sighed.
"They just helped me turn it loose."