Текст книги "Первородные: Восхождение"

Автор книги: Julie Plec

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

SOONER OR LATER, Rebekah knew that she would have to face her brothers. The harmony she had with Eric had stretched on blissfully, but it couldn’t last forever. She was still an Original, with ties and obligations. And he was still a human, with all the dangerous vulnerabilities that entailed. Eric was ready to become a vampire, but she couldn’t change him in New Orleans, and they could not leave until she made things right with her family.

Eric had managed—barely—to contain his frustration, but she could still sense it. He had been forced to accept her judgment, since he couldn’t deny that he didn’t understand the complexities of being an ancient, immortal vampire. But she could see how the rules annoyed him, and how eager he was to leave and be free with her.

But it was time to visit Elijah and Klaus, in order to set her future in motion.

She heard a strange wailing sound as they approached the house, as if an animal were crying out. The protection spell must finally be in place, she realized. Her brothers would be safe behind its barrier....And they would have been warned that a guest was coming: Eric.

Sure enough, as they reached the front porch, the door banged open. “Sister,” Klaus greeted her broadly, extending his arms to indicate the entire quadrangle of land around them. His muscular frame filled the doorway, and his amused smile gave way to a dangerous gleam in his pale eyes. “You have returned to our happy home at last.” Klaus was still mad at her—weeks later—for their encounter in his hotel room, and now she had walked Eric straight into the lion’s jaws.

“Not now,” Rebekah hissed, pushing him aside and dragging Eric through the door, and Klaus followed gamely. With Klaus in this kind of mood, she’d need a cooler head to mediate.

Elijah was at the rough-hewn table, and he put down his set of papers when he saw her. She was relieved that there were no lingering traces of the terrible attack he had suffered. Then he saw Eric’s uniform and jumped up in surprise. “You have returned our cousin to us,” Elijah guessed, his brown eyes darting from Eric’s to Rebekah’s and back again. “We had heard her husband was killed in the woods, but—”

“He knows,” Rebekah interrupted, unwilling to cope with layers of lies. It had not been easy to explain the wagoner to Eric, but he understood that the price of immortality was blood. “He knows everything.”

Klaus and Elijah went completely still, staring at her as if she must be joking. “He knows what?” Elijah asked incredulously, and his serious face pleaded with her to go back to being the wagoner’s widow, or to show him that this was just some further deception.

“Perhaps I should give you a little time with your family,” Eric suggested, and beside his composure, her brothers looked to her like a pair of thugs. Rebekah nodded, and he gently disengaged her hand from his arm, passed Klaus without flinching, and returned to the solitude of the front porch. Rebekah steeled herself for what was next.

“My dear sister,” Klaus shifted his weight to block the doorway, “it seems you have been keeping things from us. Elijah, do you remember ‘Tell the good captain everything’ being part of her plan?”

“She didn’t mean everything,” Elijah insisted stubbornly, still trying to read Rebekah’s expression. “Explain yourself, Rebekah, because at the moment it sounds like you’ve betrayed our deepest secrets to the humans you were meant to recruit.”

Put that way, it sounded even worse. She decided in that moment that her brothers didn’t need to know about Eric’s brief involvement with Mikael. It was going to be hard enough to convince them not to kill him as it was. “It’s true that I have abandoned my mission,” she told them, keeping her chin resolutely high. “And I have also revealed our deepest secret, but only to one human, not all of them. He already knew of our kind, and desires—more than anything—to become a vampire. And I love him, and intend to do as he asks.”

Klaus made to follow Eric outside. Rebekah intercepted him, taking a hard blow to her stomach before Elijah pulled them apart. “He’s a liability now,” Klaus snarled, baring his fangs at Elijah in turn. “I’ll kill him and stake her. Get out of my way, brother, or I will be forced to question your loyalty along with hers.”

“Loyalty,” Rebekah scoffed. “To our family’s cause, or to you, Niklaus? How are things going with your little witch?”

“That’s over,” Klaus replied, his eyes darting away from her for the briefest moment. “You have no right to even speak of her, traitor.”

“Really, Klaus? And what have you done for us, except for meddle in the affairs of the witches and werewolves, and put us all at risk in the first place? And as you seemed determined on bringing everything down on our heads, I found something more. Something real.” She turned to Elijah, hating the tears that sprang to her eyes. “I love him,” she repeated. “And he loves me. He asked me to marry him before he knew what I was, and now he feels I’m the answer to his every prayer. I am going to turn him, and I am going to be with him. I’m sorry to tell you this way, but no matter how or when I say it, it will happen.”

Klaus lunged for her again, but Elijah held him back. “Rebekah, what you want is impossible,” he reminded her gently. “We have made significant progress with the local factions in your absence, but the fundamental rules of our presence here remain unchanged. If you make a new vampire, there will be hell to pay.”

“I know,” she whispered, and she saw Klaus stop struggling. He watched her intently, and although she spoke to both of her brothers, he was the one she wanted to reach. “There is no future for Eric and me here, and so we will have to leave.”

“Leave,” Klaus breathed, as if he thought he must have misheard. He shook off and straightened his collar, the motion practiced and automatic. “Leave? After everything we have done in the last few weeks—did you know how seriously Elijah was injured in the fight to stay here?”

“I found him and brought him home,” Rebekah reminded them, and Elijah’s jaw softened a bit. “I wish that I could always be there when you need me. Both of you,” she emphasized, laying a careful hand on Klaus’s sleeve. “I promised to be with you forever, but forever has still barely begun. I know we will meet again, but I can’t stay here with Eric. And you have built too much to leave now.”

“It’s just the way it is, then,” Klaus sneered. “Circumstances have gotten in the way of your vow—oh, well. When I fall in love, I’m a dangerous madman who needs to be brought to heel, but you’re just some starry-eyed romantic whose abandonment we’re supposed to accept.”

“You want other things, Klaus,” Rebekah reminded him. “You want power and admiration and notoriety in addition to love, and you will not be happy without all of them. My life is the only thing I have truly wanted since it was ripped from me. I have longed for the love I should have had for centuries, and finally, I have found it. Outside is a man who loves me, who never wants to be without me.”

Perhaps having heard her, or perhaps simply impatient with waiting, Eric reappeared, standing squarely in the doorway. He looked fearless, ready for any blow that might come.

“I am sorry to meet you under these circumstances,” Eric told the Mikaelson brothers. “I was under the impression that Rebekah had no living family when I proposed to her, or else I would have courted your approval first.”

“What an odd turn of phrase,” Klaus remarked, one eyebrow raised. “You said living...and you did not say ask.”

“I did not,” Eric admitted, ignoring Klaus’s ruse. “Your sister knows her own mind. She loves you dearly and would rather go with your blessing, but I will not demean our love by pretending that she can’t live without your permission.”

Klaus looked wrathful, but Elijah chuckled. It was a low, strange sound in the tense air of the house, and Rebekah wondered how many times she would get to hear it again. Because she knew, before Elijah stepped forward to clasp forearms with Eric like a brother, that they were going to let her go.

As if Elijah’s reserve had been the last thing shoring up his own anger, Klaus’s glower dissolved into a rueful smile. He nodded grudgingly toward Eric first and then Rebekah, who impulsively threw her arms around him and held him tightly. He kissed the top of her head the way he had when they were children, and she stretched onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek in return.

“We should drink to your happiness,” Klaus said, smirking suggestively at Eric’s throat before stalking into the dining room to pour some whiskey into four glasses.

They drank and talked until the sun was low on the horizon, its red final rays drifting in through the homespun curtains. Once the tension between them was settled, Rebekah realized with a bittersweet pang that her brothers and Eric got along well. She could tell that Elijah liked him, and Klaus was considerate and well-behaved enough that she understood he was signaling his approval. If only they could have stayed here.

“This does not need to be forever,” Elijah reminded her when the green glass bottle on the table between them was empty. “We have a voice here now, and we will use it. The witches’ prohibition against making new vampires cannot stand eternally. In time they will waver, and we will send for you.”

“We will return,” Rebekah promised, and Eric pressed her hands lovingly between his own.

“We will,” Eric agreed. “And if we find another place in our travels where vampires are welcome and safe from hunters, we will send for you.”

The words hung in the air for a long time before Rebekah realized that there was nothing else left to say. Her brothers would throw their glittering party to cement their place in New Orleans while she left it. There was nothing to keep her, now that she’d said good-bye to her brothers. She and Eric could sail that very night.

Looking at her brothers’ faces, she knew that if she stayed even one more day, the guilt of separating their family would break her heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“MY LOVE,” KLAUS MURMURED, whisking Vivianne aside into an empty corridor. “Are you ready?”

She looked magnificent in a long silver gown that trailed away into unexpected shadows of lace. So far she had held up her end of their bargain, which required her to keep their secret while the Mikaelsons maneuvered for power. But the next steps would probably be harder.

“I have been ready since the morning after the full moon,” she replied. A peal of laughter filtered in from the main hall, and Vivianne’s head swiveled toward it for a moment. Beneath the powders, curls, and silk that made up her elegant armor, she was tense. “But they are all so happy tonight. I can’t imagine many of them will want to see my side, once I tell them.”

Klaus lovingly ran his thumb along the line of her jaw. “I am on your side, Vivianne,” he reminded her. “What the rest of the city does is of no concern to us as long as we are together.”

She swayed closer to him, her entire body seeking contact with his own. “I know you would rather fight your way out of a banquet hall full of enemies,” she teased, a smile playing on her lips. “But as you say, we are our own allies now. And so I will be your ambassador in this, and keep you safer than your own instincts would.”

“A bit,” he conceded with pretend reluctance. “I won’t give up all my fun, but it’s true that the Navarros have far more to answer for than your witches. If they are prepared to accept the new order, so much the better.”

He pulled her face up to his, kissing her in earnest this time. She responded eagerly for a minute, then set her hands on his chest and gently separated them. “Let’s wait,” she told him seriously. “Just until I have officially called off the wedding.”

“You want to be free of Armand, to tell him first,” Klaus interpreted.

“You understand, then,” she said, looking so relieved that he hesitated to tell her no. “Whatever else he is, he is technically my fiancé. It is only decent to tell him first, before making a spectacle of the news.”

A spectacle was just the sort of surprise that Klaus wished on Armand Navarro, but Viv looked resolute.

“Very well,” he agreed, “Tell him, then announce it to the rest, and we’ll deal with whatever comes. Things could get out of hand quickly if he has time to spread the news.”

“What’s the hurry?” she purred, wrapping her arms around his neck. “We still can have a few more minutes of peace.” Klaus folded her against him, inhaling the lilac fragrance of her hair.

“I knew you were a faithless whore, but to betray me with this thing?” Armand’s voice was thin and strangled. “How could you, Vivianne?” Vivianne gasped and spun around in Klaus’s arms.

While Klaus had kept half an eye on the door to the banquet, Armand must have approached stealthily from the other direction. He must have noticed that they were both absent and begun a calculated search. It was a dreadfully inconvenient time for him to have grown a mind of his own, and Vivianne looked absolutely stricken by the development.

“Armand,” she cried, straining forward while Klaus held her back. “I was going to tell you tonight. Within minutes. You should not have seen this.”

“Tonight?” Armand asked, his tone bitterly mocking. “And what about all the other nights you have spent ‘taking air’ in our garden, or sneaking out through your bedroom window? You never thought to tell me then?”

“You knew,” she breathed, shame flushing her cheeks to a deep red. “All this time, you knew.”

“I didn’t know it was him,” Armand spat. “I had nothing but gossip and rumors. No one knew you’ve been spreading your legs for a dead man.”

Before either of them could answer—although Klaus certainly had a few things to say about that—Armand ran in the other direction, making for the lights and music of the party. Vivianne squirmed out of Klaus’s grasp and hurried after him. Klaus saw a few heads turn their way even before they emerged from the relative privacy of the corridor. He was losing control, but he could not intervene without doing even more damage.

Vivianne caught Armand’s arm just inside the brilliant pool of candlelight, where everyone could see Armand shake it off and slap her across the face. Klaus could have slit his throat on the spot for that insult, but he had promised to try to avoid a war. Quite a few eyes had turned toward the supposedly happy couple already. It was unlikely the brutal murder Klaus had in mind could go unnoticed.

The music faltered, and Klaus saw Elijah gesturing furiously to the band. Elijah had arranged a spectacular party, Klaus noticed belatedly. The room glowed with thousands of chandeliers and candelabras, and every bit of space was packed with flowers and vines. The music was lively, the wine flowed freely, and up until this unfortunate interruption, everyone had seemed to be having a good time. The musicians resumed their cheerful reel, if a bit shakier than before. Klaus stepped between Vivianne and Armand, ready to defend her from another blow if he couldn’t avenge her for the first one, but Vivianne was only getting started.

“We were never in love, Armand,” she shouted recklessly. “You coveted me, and I was willing to do my duty. But once I understood what you demanded of me, what you let your family put me through...I never loved you, Armand, but after that I could not even bring myself to respect you.”

Armand laughed coldly. “You lost your respect for me? It’s mutual, Vivianne. You have been smitten with this abomination since the night we announced our engagement, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not too concerned with your opinion of me.”

“If he’s an abomination, what am I?” she asked, and Klaus could see real despair on her face. He had not thought about the next full moon, but he realized that it must be always on her mind. “What did you make me?”

“Nothing you weren’t before.” Armand shrugged. “Nothing like what your undead lover will change you into.”

Klaus saw the light glitter off Vivianne’s eyes as they flicked toward him. Armand had touched on the one topic that still divided them. Vivianne was tremendously powerful now, but she was still mortal. She would want to become a vampire eventually, he was sure of it...but she wasn’t.

“He has asked nothing of me,” Vivianne retorted, showing no further sign that Armand’s blow had hit home. “He loves me for what I am, not for how he can use me.”

Armand’s laugh was bitter. “And when he does? Will you change your mind again, and slink around behind his back, too? I’m sure you will. It hardly matters what else you call yourself, Viv: That is what you are.”

She slapped him in turn, and now any pretense of a private argument had ended. Guests stared openly, curiosity and suspicion mingled on their faces. Vivianne noticed them too late and froze, caught in the glare of the attention. The music stopped, and this time it did not resume.

“They might as well all know now, Vivianne,” Armand remarked, letting his voice carry, twisting the knife. “I think this farce has gone on long enough.”

He stalked away, and the crowd parted to let him through. Vivianne and Klaus remained alone, exposed, with every eye on them. It was not the announcement he had hoped for, not by a long shot. If he had to fight his way out of the ball he would, and he would enjoy it thoroughly. But he cursed Armand for setting him up.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Vivianne began bravely, and though Klaus would have preferred to stand proudly beside her, he knew he had to separate himself, to look more like part of the audience than a player in this disaster. If they thought it was her choice, if they had missed some of Armand’s words or mistook their meaning, perhaps this still could be contained. “I want to thank you all for coming tonight, but I also owe you an apology. As you have perhaps guessed, Armand Navarro and I have ended our engagement tonight.”

Whispers became an angry buzz of conversation. Klaus deliberately avoided looking in his brother’s direction, as no good could come from seeing Elijah’s expression.

“Have you nothing to say, vampire?” Sol Navarro prodded, his voice deceptively mild.

Klaus had a great deal to say, but in a moment of inspiration he decided that Captain Moquet had already said it best that same morning. “She knows her own mind,” he said, wishing that Rebekah were here to hear him say it. “I am no part of this alliance—that is for you to sort out among yourselves.”

“No part of the alliance, but you cannot deny your part in ending it,” Sol countered, some heat creeping into his tone.

“I ended it,” Vivianne said, “although you have played your own part in that as well. I am done being a pawn in this conflict, and I will not sacrifice one more part of myself for it.”

Sol’s beady eyes narrowed, and beside him, Louis’s irises turned dangerously yellow. Vivianne stared them down, and then spread her hands wide to include the entire crowd. “Please continue to enjoy the party,” she announced in a loud, clear voice. “And I am sorry again for any damage my behavior may have caused.”

Deliberately, she turned her back on the crowd. From where Klaus stood, he could tell that her eyes were so full of tears that she must be barely able to see. Vivianne made for an exit, but Sol came toward her so quickly that Klaus had to throw himself in the big werewolf’s path.

“She has said all that needs to be said,” he warned Sol, but he heard Vivianne hesitate behind him. He willed her to just go, but she was proud and stubborn. She had been prepared to leave, but she would not flee.

It was what he loved about her, and it was also what could get them both killed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IT WAS HAPPENING all over again. A party full of witches and werewolves, a lovely young bride-to-be, and Klaus. Always, always Klaus. Elijah let himself fantasize for a moment that, when the fight inevitably broke out, he would simply kill his brother himself. It would make everything so much easier.

Rebekah should have been there—this debacle wouldn’t have gotten so far out of hand under her watchful eye. She would have diverted Armand, contained Klaus, and still had time to terrify the three servers who’d snuck out with one of the better bottles of wine.

But there was no time to think about what might have been. In the blink of an eye, Elijah inserted himself between Solomon and his brother. “Get her out of here,” he ordered Klaus. “Go.”

He could see that Klaus wanted to argue, but for once in his life he listened. He must really love that poor girl if he was willing to forego a fight to keep her safe. The two of them ran into the narrow corridor, Vivianne’s silver gown gleaming until they were finally out of sight.

In the hall, the chaos had escalated to pandemonium. Sol’s furious snout was just inches from Elijah’s own, and it took all of Elijah’s self-control not to bury his fist in it. “You tried to kill me once already,” Elijah reminded him, keeping his voice quiet and brutal. “I don’t think it’ll go any better tonight.”

Sol gritted his teeth, but backed off. “You played us for fools,” Louis Navarro shouted. “You came to us with all those fine words about peace, knowing that your brother destroyed the alliance behind our backs.”

“No one ever knows what my brother is up to until it’s done,” Elijah said. “I negotiated with you all in good faith, and I’m prepared to keep up my end of the bargain. I want there to be peace.”

“But now your brother has run off with our prize,” Sol growled. “And I want her to be returned to her rightful place.”

“Your prize,” Elijah repeated, rolling over a worrying thought. It couldn’t be true, could it?

Sol took another step back, unsure if he’d said too much. Elijah scanned the crowd to find Sofia Lescheres, wondering if she’d stumbled upon the truth before him. That small white wolf he’d seen...Those damned wolves must have convinced the girl to change. Her mother would never have allowed it if she’d known, but it was too late for that.

It dawned on him that Klaus must have already known about Vivianne’s change. Naturally, Klaus wouldn’t have bothered to mention something so important, busy as he was sneaking around with the one woman the entire city seemed to have a claim on.

“And why is Vivianne’s rightful place with you, Sol?” Sofia demanded, stepping closer to Sol. “She has no desire to marry your son, so why do you think she still belongs to you? What did you do to my daughter?” She was watching Sol’s face intently, waiting for him to say what she already knew.

“She made a pledge,” Sol argued, frustrated that Sofia was backing him into a corner.

“Obviously the alliance isn’t that important to her,” he went on, “or to any of you. If you don’t intend to follow through with your part of the contract, there is no contract.”

Louis grinned maliciously, and a crackle of energy rippled through the werewolves around him. Their part in this peace has never been more than halfhearted, Elijah realized—probably why they had been so willing to risk it. A war could break out right now, and they’d welcome it.

“If the alliance is dead,” Elijah suggested, lifting his voice over the menacing thrum, “then I hope this time the witches will be smart enough to want us on their side.” If he could not have a peaceful city, then at least the vampires could have one of the factions at their backs this time. And if Klaus was set loose to resume his old hunting practices, the fighting would be quick.

“You?” a white-haired witch demanded shrilly. “What could you possibly have to offer us that would replace the good will of the werewolves?”

“The werewolves’ allegiance was never yours to begin with,” Elijah told the witches, although he kept a careful eye on the pack as he spoke. “They’ve gone rogue. All that’s left to do is decide whether you want to deal with them alone or with help.”

“They are only turning against us again because of you!” another witch shouted.

“Because of your brother,” another said. “If he hadn’t been in Vivianne’s ear, convincing her to break her word, we would still be celebrating tonight.”

That was probably true, Elijah reflected, but their happiness would have been short-lived. Klaus, as mind-numbingly selfish as he was, might have accidentally done the witches a favor.

“And yet the werewolves had already violated the terms of the alliance before the wedding could even take place,” Elijah declared, deciding it was time to reveal the truth—his ace card against the werewolves. “At the last full moon, they convinced Vivianne to take a human life, so that she would be more theirs than the witches’. They were not content with a marriage of equals—they wanted to own her.”

There was a renewed outcry, but this time Elijah let the cacophony build without trying to interrupt. Sofia Lescheres, pale, reached out to clutch at his arm. “So it’s true?” she whispered.

“I saw her,” he replied softly, and then he raised his voice again. “I saw her after she had changed, and the werewolves tried to silence me.” That was not exactly true, but it was close enough.

“You attacked me unprovoked!” a petite brunette werewolf cried, straining to be heard over the others. “You struck first.”

But it didn’t matter. Elijah’s version of events had already caught the imagination of the crowd. “There can be no peace if you made my daughter turn,” Sofia shouted back.

Elijah pulled Sofia back into the ranks of the witches, who closed around them protectively. Elijah could feel a strange energy in the air, and he saw some of the witches’ mouths moving in a steady, focused pattern. “This is who you thought you could ally with,” he reminded them ruthlessly. “These filthy, faithless creatures broke the contract and turned Vivianne, and wanted her to marry Armand against her will. They want to enslave you, not govern with you. There can be no peace in a city where they are allowed to live.”

“Enough!” Solomon bellowed, but before he could say more, a wineglass was hurled at his head. His eyes, and dozens of others, blossomed with murderous yellow, and Elijah could hear the deliberate chanting of the witches around him.

“Let’s go,” Elijah urged Sofia, who stared at him in shock and shook his hand off her arm.

“I’ll kill them all,” she hissed in a strangled voice, her black eyes wide and round.

This betrayal must be doubly bitter to her, a woman who had once loved and bore a child to a werewolf, never dreaming that one day his kin would return to claim her. Sofia had every right to her anger, but it would not do anyone any good if she died defending her daughter’s honor.

“Vivianne needs her mother now,” he said with urgency as snarls and screams began to fill the banquet hall. “Let me get you to safety.”

Ysabelle appeared on Sofia’s other side and grabbed at her arm, trying to pull her toward one of the exits. Sofia yanked herself free just long enough to cast some spell at a werewolf Elijah hadn’t even seen coming. The werewolf fell to the ground with a high-pitched whimper, and Elijah dragged both women—one much more willing than the other—to the door.

It was strangely quiet outside. The sounds from within the hall could almost have been the remains of the party. Witches and werewolves alike fled in twos and threes, but they did not linger or make any sound to draw attention to their exit. They simply lost themselves in the maze of moonlit streets, disappearing down cobblestoned alleys and over the walls of gardens.

Elijah relaxed his grip on the two witches, and Sofia slumped miserably against her sister. “I knew it was a mistake,” she sobbed. “But she thought she was one of them already. She wanted to trust that they wouldn’t hurt her, and I wanted that to be true.”

Ysabelle stroked her sister’s black hair and gave Elijah a pointed look. He understood—this was a time for family and he had his own family to attend to. He needed to find Klaus.