Undamned

Wales, 1065

 

“Are you tired, Adlais? We can stop to rest if you need to.” Her husband’s voice was soft and uncertain.

 

The young woman smiled. “No, Morcant, I can keep going. I am not as delicate as that.”

 

He pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say you were.” They walked a few more paces down the lonely hill road. “I will get us horses soon. My father is letting me do more of the work now. I should have more money—”

 

“Is that what worries you? No, Morcant, I am fine. You make enough money—which is not to say that you may not make more if you wish.” She blushed, not sure if she was saying the right thing. She had only been a wife for a month, and it still felt strange. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her husband. Well, she didn’t, but she thought she would one day. Soon, perhaps. Even though their fathers had arranged the marriage, she already felt fondness for him and thought he felt some for her. His father and hers had been friends for many years. When her father wanted to buy a certain plot of land and his father wanted to ensure Morcant would have the support of a wife and the ability to start a family soon, the match was made with little consultation of the parties involved.

 

Adlais didn’t mind. At eighteen, she was more than ready to take the task on—in theory, at least. But Morcant was ten years older than her, and she’d been casually acquainted with him when she was a child. It was a strange thing to know a person as a child knows an adult and then later be given to him as a wife with very little warning. Morcant was a blacksmith like his father, and she admired his strength and appreciated his kindness toward her.

 

Yes, she thought she might come to love him before long. He seemed to be a man worth loving.

On impulse, she reached out and took his hand as they walked. Surprise registered on his face, but the next moment he squeezed her hand and gave her a small smile.

 

As they approached a large shade tree, a young man stepped out from behind it.

 

“Oh!” Adlais gasped. Morcant tightened his grip on her hand. The young man grinned. “You startled me,” she said. He seemed to be her age, but Adlais didn’t know him. He was dark-haired with sharp eyes and a face that was attractive despite a slightly too-large nose. “You’re not from here, are you?”

 

“Adlais, let’s keep on,” Morcant said gruffly, tugging her toward him as he walked around the young man.

 

“I’m not,” the youth replied, “but I think I might stay a while. The view is ravishing.” It took Adlais a moment to realize that he wasn’t referring to the lush, green countryside that surrounded them. His eyes had never left her body.

 

“Oh,” Adlais said again, uncertain.

 

Morcant had never stopped walking and was now tugging her along more insistently as he tried to give the young man a wide berth. “If you don’t mind,” he growled toward the young man, “we’ll be on our way.”

 

Suddenly, the man darted a step toward them and snatched Adlais’s wrist. She cried out and tried to pull away. Morcant tried to pull her toward himself while reaching a threatening hand toward the young man with an angry shout.

 

“Ah-ah!” the man warned, at the same instant whipping a blade up to Adlais’s neck.

 

She cried out again, louder, and Morcant released her hand in shock. The young man took the opportunity to pull her back several paces away from her husband, toward the tree.

 

“Unhand her!” Morcant shouted, his eyes wild with panic.

 

“I will,” the youth said casually, wrapping an arm around Adlais’s waist from behind, “but not yet.” Adlais felt him press his face into her neck and breathe deeply, then heard him let out a low groan.

 

“Morcant!” she cried, but he stayed frozen in place, his terrified eyes locked on the knife at her throat.

 

“Don’t worry, Morcant,” the man drawled. “This won’t take long. You’ll be on your way soon enough.”

 

“No! You vile creature!” Morcant lunged toward them a full step, but froze again when the knife pressed into Adlais’s skin and she cried out.

 

“One more step and she’s dead,” the young man snarled. “I swear it.”

 

Morcant stood, quivering with rage and fear, even as Adlais begged him with her eyes to do something. But she couldn’t think what he could do, or what she could do to help herself. Her heart thundered with terror as the man shoved her toward the tree, keeping a hand tight on her waist so that she had to throw out her arms to stop from slamming her face into it, unable to step away from him.

 

“Morcant,” she pleaded, but he did nothing.

 

The young man bent down and whispered in her ear, “If either of you try something, my knife is a moment away.” She took a shaking breath and nodded her understanding. “Oh, but do feel free to scream if you want. No one’s close enough to hear you anyway.”

 

So she did. Even though she knew it was what he wanted, that for some reason her terror gave him pleasure, it was all she could do. As the strange man hiked up her skirt, she cried Morcant’s name. When the pain came, she cried it louder and louder. Even as Morcant made his own cries, lashed to the ground by the threat of the man’s knife, she yelled his name, then shouted it, then screamed it. It became almost a prayer, focusing her mind on just getting through this and getting back into her husband’s arms.

 

Finally, the man released her and shoved her back toward Morcant. He caught her, both of them weeping with pain and fury. He touched her face, kissed her, and then ran howling toward the young man, fists raised to strike.

 

The man turned, his hand darting out as he dodged Morcant’s blow. There was a strange moment of stillness, a look of surprise on the young man’s face. And then Morcant staggered back and looked toward Adlais with surprise of his own. When she saw the blood on his shirt, she screamed and ran to him. His knees gave out, and she couldn’t hold him up. He collapsed onto the grass, whispering words of apology to her.

 

“No!” she screamed. “No! Morcant!” She watched the life leave his eyes, weeping over her husband’s body, wailing his name at the indifferent countryside.

 

Adlais didn’t see the look of surprise on the young man’s face turn to curiosity as he examined his bloodied knife. She didn’t see him lick his thin lips or the grin that grew on them as he studied his handiwork. She didn’t see him step closer, circling behind her.

 

But she felt his hand in her hair, yanking her head back. And the blade of his knife as it slid across the tight skin of her neck. And she heard the man’s soft huff of pleasure the moment before she collapsed on Morcant’s body and joined him in death.

 

#

 

Wales, 1078

 

The human man raped a woman as she clung to her infant, and the vampire watched silently. It had taken him the better part of a year to find this man—and he was, the vampire could tell, only a man and not a demon as the locals believed. Ignorant country folk were always so quick to label anything unknown and frightening as a demon. The vampire should know; he himself had earned such a moniker. They called him Neidr—“snake” in the local tongue—and the vampire thought it suited him well enough. He was in need of a new name anyway.

 

This one they called Blaidd, meaning “wolf”, for a ruthlessness and brutality that had, in little more than a decade, become legend. When Neidr first heard the name whispered from the mouths of wary travelers in the night, he wondered if another vampire had, like him, traversed the channel from the continent in the wake of the Normans. But there were reports of this Blaidd attacking during the day, and Neidr’s curiosity was piqued further. If such a gloriously brutal killer truly existed among the humans, he had to see this for himself.

 

And now he saw. The man was like an animal. Like a beast. Even, yes, like a demon, though Neidr did not believe in such things. The way he ravaged the woman as if she were not one of his own kind, as if she were nothing at all, impressed and amused Neidr.

 

He almost felt bad for the woman, for the way she stayed quiet, only letting out small whimpers as she clutched her infant to her, protecting it, as if she thought the two of them would survive the night if only she didn’t fight. But as the attack went on, her passivity annoyed him. This scene would be so much more entertaining if she fought the man.

 

When the man was done, he released the woman for a moment, only to grab her by the hair and rake a blade across her throat. Once to kill her. Then again, just to watch her bleed. Even from his place beside the trees, hidden even from the moonlight, Neidr could see the wild look in the woman’s eyes as she realized her silence had been for naught. As she fell, the man snatched the crying baby from her arms. He looked at it for a moment, his head cocked, as if deciding what to do with it. Carelessly, he tossed the infant into the gutter along the road, where it splashed and sputtered and cried. Alone, cold, and possibly drowning, the child would surely be dead by morning, if not sooner.

 

Neidr laughed aloud at the pathetic, doomed creature.

 

The man called Blaidd crouched into a fighting posture, brandishing his bloody knife. Neidr strode forward, glancing from Blaidd to the woman’s body. “Walk away, old man,” Blaidd snarled.

 

Neidr laughed again and said in a hearty, good-natured tone, “Older than you know, my boy.”

 

His fearlessness confused the man, who didn’t attack even as Neidr walked closer. “I don’t believe you would let me walk away,” said Neidr conversationally. “I believe you’d kill me as soon as my back was turned, whether you think I meant to call for help or not.”

 

One side of Blaidd’s mouth jerked up at Neidr’s correct guess before the confusion stalled him again.

 

Neidr held his hands out to show he was unarmed and helpless. “You’re welcome to try.”

 

Blaidd hesitated only a moment, then leapt forward. He slashed at Neidr with fury and artlessness, but Neidr simply stepped aside, knocked the knife from the man’s grip, and kicked him to the ground. Neidr had moved so quickly, Blaidd had not been able to react. He stared up at Neidr from the mud, fear beginning to edge out the anger in his eyes.

 

Blaidd lunged forward again with a shout of annoyance, diving toward Neidr, and the vampire again dodged the blow, this time twisting Blaidd’s arms behind his back, holding him in place. The man struggled fruitlessly in Neidr’s grasp, his movements growing desperate as he tried and failed to get away.

 

“I am not here to punish you,” Neidr said into the man’s ear, his voice smooth and calming.

 

Blaidd stopped struggling, his breath rasping and heart pounding. “What, then?”

 

Satisfied that Blaidd wouldn’t attack again, Neidr released him. “I had to see for myself if the stories were true. You’re a real menace, dear boy.” The word lingered lovingly on the vampire’s tongue. “Did you know that? They speak your name as if you come from hell itself.”

 

“I don’t care what they think,” the man spat.

 

“No, clearly not.” Neidr chuckled. “You’re above them already. Why should a predator care what his prey thinks of him?”

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I am called Neidr, as you are called Blaidd.”

 

The man narrowed his eyes. “What are you?”

 

Neidr smiled, allowing his true face to show itself. Blaidd started, but didn’t run. “I am also a predator.”

 

Blaidd staggered back a step. “What—what do you want?”

 

“A companion,” said the vampire. “A son. Long life and strength beyond reckoning is a dull, lonely business. And you, my boy, are highly entertaining.”

 

Seconds passed as the vampire’s offer sank in. A grin slowly spread across the man’s face. He walked forward to stand before Neidr and bared his neck for the vampire’s bite.

 

#

 

Wales, 1079

 

The last drunken customer stumbled out of the bar, and Hafren closed the door behind him. Another night feeding and watering a few locals and handful of travelers had drawn to a close. It wasn’t easy work, nor particularly pleasant, but it kept food in her belly and a roof over her head.

 

“How much tonight?” she asked as she wiped up the mess the last patron had made.

 

Cian shook his head as he counted the evening’s take. “Not as much as last night.”

 

“And no one wanting a room,” she mused, disappointed. They could usually count on at least one or two travelers paying for a room for the night.

 

When Hafren and her brother were nearly done with clean-up, the door opened and two men strolled in. Cian was nearest the door, so he greeted them. “We’re done serving food and drink for the night, but there’re rooms available if you want them.”

 

“No, I believe you will serve us,” said the older man. His clothes were finer than most around these parts. Wealthier than most, then. More used to getting his way, too.

 

Hafren could see that Cian was about to contradict the man, so she forestalled him with a hand on his elbow. “I’m sure we could manage a simple meal for these gentlemen,” she said. With her eyes, she indicated to her brother their guest’s fine clothes, and he nodded.

 

“Sure, we could,” Cian said. “What would you like?”

 

The older man smiled. “Your blood.”

 

Hafren’s hand clenched on Cian’s arm. “W-what?” Cian stammered.

 

The older man spoke slowly and clearly. “I am going to drink your blood.”

 

Hafren and Cian staggered back in shock as the faces of the two men changed. In the span of a second, their hair and eyes turned shining silver, their ears grew to sharp points, and long fangs appeared in their grinning mouths.

 

“Demons,” Cian breathed, clutching at Hafren, trying to move her behind him.

 

Despair and horror overwhelmed her. “Neidr and Blaidd,” she gasped. She’d heard the whispers, the rumors of monsters who roamed the countryside. But she thought those creatures hunted fields and roads. It was said they couldn’t even enter a person’s home. And this inn was her home. She never thought such monsters could find her here. She never thought they’d come looking like men.

 

“Indeed.” The older one struck quickly. He grabbed Cian, pulling him away from Hafren and, with the same motion, bit deeply into Cian’s neck. Cian struggled and cried out, but the demon was too strong and held him fast.

 

“No!” Hafren reached for her brother. The other silver-eyed monster grabbed her and pulled her away, toward one of the tables. He held her painfully, his claws pressing into her neck and ribs. A lean, hard body pressed against her back.

 

The demon bent his face toward her neck, breathing in her scent. “It’s been months since I’ve had a woman,” he said, his voice a low groan of desire.

 

Shivers of terror raced up her back. He meant to ravish her? It had happened before, when Cian hadn’t been there to stop some of their more aggressive customers. She’d lived through it and moved on. But this was no drunk farmhand. This was a demon incarnate. What would he do to her? What pain would he inflict that no mortal man could?

 

“Please, no,” she whimpered. Her eyes were still locked on her brother. Cian wasn’t struggling anymore, but she could tell he was still alive. The older demon dropped him on the floor, where Cian lay, still bleeding.

 

Hafren met her brother’s eyes, both sharing the same horror and grief and absolute certainty that they’d soon be dead.

 

With rough, eager hands, the demon holding her shoved Hafren down, bending her over a table, and roughly hiked her skirt up to her waist. He held her with one clawed hand on her neck, and she braced herself for the pain as tears of sorrow and terror leaked onto the tabletop.

 

She heard the demon grunting behind her, making small noises of frustration, but no pain came.

 

“Come on,” he growled. “Come on. What’s wrong?”

 

“What are you doing?” asked the other demon, the one who’d bitten Cian. He walked toward them so that Hafren could see him.

 

“What does it look like?” the younger demon growled. “Why isn’t it working?”

 

Hafren wondered if he was really saying what it sounded like he was saying. Surely a demon couldn’t be impotent.

 

“Ah,” said the older one. “I see I’ve forgotten to mention. That won’t work anymore.”

 

The demon behind her stopped what he was doing and stared at his companion. “What do you mean?”

 

“You’ve completed your transformation, Blaidd. Your body doesn’t work the way it once did. You’re stronger, faster, quicker to heal. But you won’t be able to enjoy women the way you used to.”

 

Hafren couldn’t see Blaidd’s reaction to this news, but she felt his grip on her neck tighten, pressing her face harder into the wood. He let out a howl of anger and frustration. And then, when he pulled her upright, she knew one brief moment of hope. Maybe if he couldn’t have her, he’d let her go.

 

He spun her around, pulling her close until his face, twisted with rage, was inches from hers. His lips curled, baring his fangs. “In that case,” he growled, “I’ll just have to think of some new ways.”

 

#

 

Spain, 1323

 

“Tell me, Blaidd,” said Neidr. “Why do you persist in something you know is futile?”

 

The younger vampire didn’t answer. He rubbed his naked body against the whore’s as if he could coax some sexual sensation into his unresponsive loins. With every minute that passed, he merely grew more irritated. The whore was colored red and purple from his hands and whimpering for mercy. Blaidd, who neither understood her language nor cared what she said, paid no heed to her words.

 

Neidr grew bored watching him play with the girl as a cat with a mouse. And, truth be told, he was a little sickened by Blaidd’s pathetic attempts. It had been well over two hundred years since his body had lost the ability to engage in sexual intercourse and still he kept trying.

 

It amused Neidr sometimes, when Blaidd would play with his victims in other ways, through inventive use of objects or other body parts. At such times, it was about the pain, the fear, the delightful terror his victims felt, and the reminder that he was the superior being. Such entertainments were part of what Neidr enjoyed most about having this companion. His son.

 

But this impotent rutting looked too much like weakness and failure, things which Neidr despised.

Blaidd backhanded the girl across the face, and she whimpered. Neidr thought Blaidd was punishing her for his inability to defile her. It was a strange, endless cycle of frustration and dissatisfaction which grew very tiresome to watch.

 

Personally, Neidr didn’t understand it. But then, he’d been turned into a vampire when he was still a boy, before he’d had the chance to experience a woman. Sex for him had always been an amusing entertainment to watch, the play of strength and weakness, powerful and powerless, whether between a man and woman or simply two men. But he’d never participated himself. Not in any sort of truly penetrative way. Nor had he ever particularly wanted to.

 

But Blaidd was a different person than he was, and it was part of Neidr’s job as his father to support his goals. “Don’t you think if there was a way to get the sexual satisfaction from a woman that you desire, you’d have found it by now?” he inquired.

 

Blaidd growled in frustration and squeezed the whore’s breasts. She screamed as his claws dug into her flesh.

 

Neidr hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe—and I don’t in the least know, as I haven’t searched—there is a way for you to gain some of this pleasure you seek. As your means of taking it has been removed, perhaps it might be given to you.”

 

His words made Blaidd stop and look at him. The whore tried to crawl away, but he held her by the ankle. “What are you suggesting?”

​

“A willing woman,” Neidr said. “I know it’s a foreign concept to you, but you do seem desperate enough to try anything.”

​

The woman looked between the two of them, eyes wide. She must have had some basic understanding of the language they’d taken to using, because she said in broken English, “Yes, I give you pleasure. I can. I pleasure you, you let me go?”

​

Her groveling made Neidr want to strangle her, but Blaidd gave her a considering look. “If you succeed . . . I may consider it.”

​

The woman nodded frantically, and Blaidd sat back on his heels, waiting to see what she could do.

​

#

​

France, 1692

​

“So this is what the king’s been spending his people’s money on,” Renaud Bourcier mused to himself. The baron had been too busy to attend court at Versailles since Louis had moved the capital here, but his wife and daughter had finally prevailed upon him to come. He had to admit, the palace was extravagant beyond all belief.

​

They had come from their home in the south of France just in time for a ball. Renaud didn’t know if this was a special occasion or one that happened every night. Those around him were certainly dressed in an ostentatious fashion—one which he, by law, was required to emulate—but their dull and gossipy demeanors bespoke a complete lack of any serious thought.

​

Renaud glanced around the Hall of Mirrors, dazzled by the many reflections of layered gowns, enormous wigs, and prominent bosoms. He had somehow lost track of his wife and daughter in the crowd, but located them now in front of one of the large mirrors which lined the hall. He made his way to their side, his irritation rising when he saw who they were conversing with.

​

“Monsieur le marquis,” he said to the older of the two men, inserting himself into the circle of their conversation.

​

“Ah, good evening, monsieur le baron,” said the marquis de Vitemort. “Your two lovely daughters are regaling us with the tale of your journey from home. We’re quite riveted.” The sarcastic smile on the man’s face was not lost on Renaud.

​

The baron’s back stiffened in annoyance, but neither of the two women had heard what the marquis said. They were both listening with rapt attention to the marquis’s companion, the compte de Sauvage.

​

“Only one is my daughter, monsieur,” Renaud said stiffly. “The baroness is my wife.” As, Renaud was certain, the marquis knew perfectly well.

​

The compte—a much younger man than the marquis, with a sharply handsome face—now looked at Renaud with derision and amusement. “Surely not, monsieur. They can neither one be long out of the schoolroom.”

​

The ladies laughed at this complement, and Renaud bristled.

​

The compte wasn’t finished. “I can hardly believe one such lovely young female could be the other’s daughter. Are they not the same age?”

​

Anger flared through Renaud. The man was taunting him and flirting with both his wife and daughter in the same breath. He considered calling the man out, but the compte was younger and fitter than himself, so Renaud dismissed the idea. “The baroness is my second wife, monsieur,” he explained instead with forced civility.

​

The compte had already turned his attention back to the women, smiling so knowingly at them that they blushed from his attentions. De Sauvage spoke to them in words so soft that Renaud could not hear them over the din of the ball, but his Louise and Marie laughed and smiled back at the compte in a not unwelcoming manner.

​

“My dears,” Renaud snapped. Louise and Marie gave a start, looking at him as if he’d only just arrived. “Please join me. There is a lady I would like you both to meet.” As he took one on each arm, he nodded to the compte and the marquis. “Forgive me, messieurs, but we must be going.”

​

“Not at all,” said the young compte, his eyes still locked with Marie’s. Renaud’s heart rate didn’t return to normal until he got his women far away from the rogue.

​

#

​

Renaud awoke to find his wife missing. A glance into the adjoining room informed him that his daughter was likewise not abed. Rather than calling for a servant, he put on his dressing gown and went out to look for them himself.

​

Not far from his rooms, he found a man strolling through the pitch-black corridors, despite the very late hour. Renaud thought for a moment that he was imagining things when it seemed the man’s eyes reflected like a cat’s the light of the candle Renaud carried. But as he got closer, the light illuminated the older man’s features. Renaud scowled. “You.”

​

“Ah, monsieur le baron.” The marquis beamed congenially at him. “Awake so early?”

​

Suddenly, Renaud recalled what had woken him: a soft rap at his door. And the marquis was now on his way away from Renaud’s rooms. “Where are they, de Vitemort?” Renaud hissed.

​

The marquis affected a look of complete ignorance. “Where are who?”

​

“You know damn well who. My wife and daughter are missing.”

​

“Oh dear, are they? You know, now that you mention it, I did see them scurrying off down . . . yes, I believe it was that corridor. You don’t suppose they have arranged some clandestine rendezvous, do you? I hear such things are not uncommon in the palace.”

​

“Show me where they went,” Renaud growled. “And so help me, if I find either you or de Sauvage are behind this, I’ll gut you from groin to gills.”

​

“Your imaginative and biologically problematic warning is noted,” said the marquis as he led him down the corridor. Soon, they approached a door at the end of an otherwise vacant hallway. Light shone through beneath the door as if the room were full of candles.

​

The marquis put his hand on the doorknob. “Allow me.”

​

The door opened slowly and silently, just wide enough for Renaud to see what was going on inside. The vision that met his eyes froze him in place, his entire being overflowing with disgust and fury.

​

Light from candles and a hearty fireplace filled the room, throwing plenty of light on the large canopy bed and its naked occupants. A man reclined on the bed, his face buried in the bosom of the woman kneeling beside him. Renaud’s gut twisted. The woman was Marie, his daughter. Another woman knelt between the man’s legs with her face at his groin. Gasps came from one woman and wet, sucking sounds from the other.

​

Neither of the women appeared to have heard the door, but the man turned his face, still pillowed against Marie’s breasts, and looked Renaud straight in the eye. There was victory and mockery in the compte de Sauvage’s eyes. Renaud sucked in a breath to cry out his fury and kill the man who’d seduced his women, but a hand was suddenly clamped over his mouth, an arm wrapped around his chest, holding him in place.

​

Louise raised her head from the compte’s loins and wiped her mouth. “Shouldn’t it be hard by now? Am I not doing it right?”

​

Irritation flashed over the compte’s face. “It doesn’t matter. Keep going.”

​

“But even Renaud doesn’t take this long to get it up, and he’s much older than you.”

​

Marie made a sound of disgust, though her eyes were still closed in pleasure. “Louise, please. I don’t wish to know such information about my father.”

​

Louise giggled. “Neither did I.”

​

Renaud fought against the old man holding him—he was surprised the marquis had such strength in him. His struggles did little good, but the marquis had to release his mouth to take hold of both of Renaud’s arms, and Renaud cried out in wordless fury.

​

The women spun toward the door in shock, instantly grabbing for a sheet or pillow to hide their shame. The young compte grabbed both of them, pulling them nearly into his lap, preventing their escape. Folding his legs to sit upright, the compte held the two women around their middles, one in each arm, as a child might clutch toys. While Marie and Louise gaped at Renaud, their eyes full of fear and shame, Renaud watched the compte’s face change. The compte’s eyes became bright, his dark hair lightened to unnatural silver, his ears grew long and pointed like an animal’s, and—worst of all—long fangs erupted in the man’s grinning mouth.

​

“No!” Renaud screamed. The marquis shoved him forward into the room, still holding Renaud’s arms tightly, and shut the door.

​

Long claws from the compte’s fingers dug into the women’s bellies, and they both cried out. He did not release them. They struggled to get away, but the monster’s claws only dug deeper into their flesh. Bending toward Louise, the compte bit her, driving his fangs deep into her neck.

​

“Stop it! Monster! Release them!” Renaud shouted, accompanied by the women’s screams.

​

Both women continued to struggle, but the compte held them fast, as fast as the marquis held Renaud, and drank from Louise until her struggles grew weak. Only then did he release her, tossing her to the floor where she moaned and struggled to crawl further away. Then the compte pulled Marie into his lap, clutching her back to his chest. Holding her with one arm, he used his other hand to scratch shallow trails down the side of her breast, all the way to her hips.

​

“How I wish I could properly enjoy this situation,” the compte lamented, thrusting his hand down to cup Marie’s core. Then he bit her as well. As he drank from her neck, his eyes held Renaud’s.

​

Renaud cried out, pleaded with the beasts, begged them to release his wife and daughter. If only he’d never come to this godforsaken palace. If only he were still home instead of here watching this monster defile and murder those most precious to him. He screamed and thrashed and wept tears of fury and pain. None of it did any good.

​

Finally, the compte released Marie, letting her fall to the floor with her stepmother. The compte unfolded himself and got up from the bed, ignoring the dying women at his feet, and strode toward Renaud.

​

“Please,” Renaud said, weeping. “Release us. Let me get them help. Or kill me now and be done with it.”