Wicked After Midnight(48)

I couldn’t put down the duke’s note, couldn’t stop reading the cold words that turned me from a thinking, feeling woman into a commodity. Even after six years in Sang, I still hadn’t internalized the general sentiment that women were things to be used and, when they’d outlived their use, discarded. Women had practically no rights here, unless they had a father or a husband to stand behind them—or a big-ass sword to swing at whoever threatened them. The caravan was better than most places, thanks to Criminy’s liberal worldview, but here in Paris, I was on my own. And I was practically chattel.

I had no idea what Madame Sylvie had planned for me, whether she had any control over my destiny and my body—or whether she thought she did. This duke could likely own the lot of us if I made him too angry. The shit would probably hit the fan in the morning, but what did I care? My answer to the duke was already in motion, out of my hands, and if Sylvie didn’t like it, I would find another cabaret and teach them the groundbreaking, scandalous dance I’d just invented.

I undressed, turned down the lamp, and slid between the rich coverlets. The bed was luxurious compared to what I was used to, the feather mattress cupping me like angel wings under blankets as soft as melted butter. I stretched and writhed and stared longingly at the window. I’d noticed since becoming a Bludman that lust and hunger were painfully intertwined. When I hadn’t had enough blood, my thoughts grew dark with needs I’d never known on Earth. And when I couldn’t stop thinking about a guy, I couldn’t stop thinking about his blood and staring at the little vein in his neck. The last guy I’d dated had been poor Luc. He’d been hot, but his daimon blood hadn’t appealed, and neither, I’d soon realized, did his personality. I’d wanted Marco Taresque and had spent more than a few nights in my wagon car thinking about what it would feel like to drink the knife thrower’s blood while he traced my body with the points of his daggers. But Marco had been too old for me and then rightfully claimed by Jacinda, and my hungers had cooled.

The caravan meant two vials a day, one show a night, very little lust. A simple life.

Now I was again at the mercy of a hunger that didn’t quite fit. I wanted Vale, but I didn’t trust him, and I couldn’t drink from him. Still, something in me kept watching the curtain billow from the open window anyway, hoping to see his pointed boot slip over the sill, bottle in hand and eyes on fire with mischief. Was it foolish to think his kisses could sustain me?

Something had been bothering me all along, some restless sense that I had forgotten something important. I went over every look, every word in my conversation with Vale. I could never sleep when something evaded me like that and had sprung from my bed after midnight more than once to Google an actor’s name or pull up a thesaurus online back on Earth. I couldn’t stand being eluded.

And that’s when I remembered it. Vale had said that he had news. I’d glossed right over it in my excitement over the show, and he’d never returned to the subject. News about what? He had to mean Cherie, but he hadn’t said her name. I leaped out of bed and went to the window as if he might be lurking outside, waiting for me.

Of course, he wasn’t. That was just stupid.

As I slunk back into bed, the thrill that had lit up the night vanished. I’d been so self-obsessed that I’d forgotten the entire reason I was here. I had let Cherie down again. There wouldn’t be a third time. Despite what I’d told him, Vale could have all the pecks on his cheek he wanted, if only he would bring my best friend back.

* * *

The next morning, an unmarked package arrived at the duke’s doorstep. Underneath the beautiful wrapping that I could only describe as Tiffany blue despite the fact that there was no Tiffany’s in Sang, the duke found a box. Inside that box, packed carefully in bunched tissue paper, was a cow’s tongue.

I am not a piece of meat for your amusement.

Hope this charm is to your “taste.”

La Demitasse

By lunchtime, a new card had arrived, tripling his price.

When Madame Sylvie delivered it herself, demanding to know what I had done to inspire him so, I laughed and threw the creamy paper into the fire.

“I told him he couldn’t buy me. At any price.”

She tapped her foot, shook her head. “Someone will find your price, ma petite. That, or they will take you and tell you what you are worth after the fact.”

I grinned, showing her my fangs. “Let them try.”





13


Everything had changed overnight. After Madame Sylvie left, fed up with my feral and cocky attitude, Blaise appeared with a teacup of warm, fresh blood and a nicely folded napkin. An apothecary’s glass jar sat beside it on the tray, filled with notes. Apparently, this was the preferred way to win a cabaret girl’s attention, and I went through them one by one, sorting them into little piles on the silky bedspread.