Lyon (30 page)

“Lie back,” he instructed softly. Eyeing the bowl, she hesitantly obeyed. Once she had, he set it on her midriff and bade her hold it there. Its glass was cool against her palms, but the mixture inside warmed her belly.

Transfixed, she watched his hand take the spoon and languidly begin to stir. The scent of cinnamon wafted to her, and a moment later the spoon lifted and hovered over the bowl, dark batter dripping from it in slow, viscous plops. He moved it toward himself as if planning to have a taste.

The muscles of her abdomen contracted, hard, as rivulets of creamy warmth dribbled low on it, then lower still, between her legs.

At the odd sensation, she half sat up on one elbow to look at him, and the bowl wobbled.

“That's one punishment, for later,” he cautioned, without glancing up from the batter's drizzle. When she didn't look away, his brow rose and he found her eyes. “Would you care to make it two?”

Her lips curved smugly as she lay back. “It's not much of a punishment, when the recipient enjoys it.”

The spoon went back to replenish its contents, then she felt the back of it come against her most private flesh, frosting her.

“We'll see how far we can take it then,” he suggested.

The spoon's handle came to her, prodding slightly, drawing along her furrow like a slender plow, until her moist pink heart lay open and vulnerable to his artistry.

“We'll see if we can find where the line is drawn between punishment and pleasure,” he suggested, his tone rife with a carnal knowledge he did not yet share.

With the precision of a master, he began painting her in a leisurely fashion with the sweet, chocolaty colorant she'd prepared. Now and then, he dipped the spoon into his palette—the bowl she still held for him.

And all the while, he spoke to her, telling her how he was looking forward to tasting her concoction, and how his brothers and the guests he'd invited to the upcoming assembly would likely enjoy doing the same.

Something brushed her clit, oh so lightly, and she moaned. The spoon plunked into the bowl, abandoned. His voice drifted to her through the spicy air, a dark, suggestive whisper of things to come.

“Your pudding is warm,” he told her. “And I haven't yet dined tonight.”

Broad hands took her thighs lifting them over strong shoulders, so her heels dangled at his back. Her fingers clutched the bowl and she took a harsh, indrawn breath, waiting. The other girls in Paris had spoken of this rare pleasure with longing, for it seemed most paying customers did not offer it.

The clock tick-tocked, far slower than her heartbeat.

Then that beautiful mouth of his settled on her mouth that could not speak for itself, and he began to feast.

And much, much later, for dessert, he fed her mouth peaches, and then bananas.

As he remembered she liked.

“C
'est magnifique
!” Juliette stepped back from the ice sculpture and smiled at its creator. It hadn't been an easy matter to communicate what she wanted to this Italian sculptor who had never before worked in ice.

A statue of the wine god Bacchus, it would be the crowning touch to the festive table that would sit in the center of the gathering to be held in Lyon's ballroom in a few weeks. Until then, it would be kept in this cave for cooling as he continued to work on it.

“
Si. È magnifico
,” the grizzled man agreed shyly, beaming in self-congratulation. He glanced beyond her, put his hat on, and ducked his head to go. “
Scusi
.”

Still smiling, Juliette turned.

“
Bonjour, Juliette
.”

She stared, blanching at the sight of Monsieur Valmont.

He stepped close and pinched her chin between his thumb and index finger, holding her face to the light to examine it.

“Tell him to go,” he murmured. The Italian had hesitated behind him in the opening to the cave, sensing undercurrents of trouble.

She yanked away from him, reminding herself she was no longer his terrified, addicted puppet. Then she felt something cold and hard at her rib. A pistol.

“Tell him, or he dies.” His voice chilled her.

Looking reluctantly to the sculptor, she bid him a convincing farewell, and then watched him go.

“Lyon has gone to meet you in Florence,” she told Valmont. “Why did you come here instead? Your solicitor's letter to us indicated—”

“Did you fuck him?”

“Who?” But she understood his question and knew the answer to it could be easily read in her face.

To her shock, tears formed in his eyes and he brushed them away. “It was mine, and you gave it away. I had uses for it. I meant to make a trade. But no—you couldn't keep your legs together long enough.
Putain
, just like your mother.”

“But you've agreed to the divorce, your solicitor said. You were going to sign papers in Florence. Today.”

“You're not the only one who can trick wealthy men,” he said smugly. “Do you know what your lover agreed to in exchange for you?”

She shook her head, hoping to humor him until she could find a means of escape.

“I asked him for three things, none of which I thought he'd accept: First, an obscene amount of money. Second, that he desist in his efforts to combat the phylloxera for a period of five years—long enough for my business interests to thrive. And third, that he arrange, for my private entertainment, a hunt of his precious animals here on his land. And he agreed to
all
three conditions! Can you imagine that?”

“
Non,
you
bâtard
. I won't let you do that to him. I'll come back with you to Paris. Now.”

“But I no longer want you. He has taken from you that which I valued most. Made you impure.” Then in a bizarre reversal he said, “Do you want me, Juliette? Do you want your brother? It would be too bad of us. But perhaps if no one knew.”

With that, he rapped her on the head with the butt of his pistol and all went black.

When Juliette woke, they were in the woods near the river. She was lying on her back on the hard ground, and he was using her belly to pillow his head, and as a rest for the butt of the pistol he was training on various random targets.

Raising a hand to her hair, she groaned. It came away with blood from where he'd hit her.

“Ah, sweet sister. I rested my head on our mother's belly just like this when you and that other one were inside it. Did you hear me singing to you?”

When he broke into a soft bout of
Frère Jacques
, she tried to sit up, but found she was too woozy.

“I've never understood why
maman
gave you and Elise the magic,” he went on, abruptly ending his song. “Why not to me? I was a good boy.”

She pushed at him. “You're speaking gibberish.”

But he rambled on as if he didn't hear. “Papa hated poor
maman
because she cuckolded him to beget you. He punished her. Made her suck the pricks of men. Disgusting men. He told her it was her penance—that she would be made to suffer the whole time you were inside her. Nine months, it went on. And then he promised her that afterward, her babies would suffer in her place.”

She began to listen more closely. “How old were you then?”

“Just a boy of eleven. Too young to lose my
maman
.”

Swiftly her mind did the arithmetic. His mother had died in childbirth when Valmont was eleven. That would've made it the year—1804. The year she and Elise had been born.

“After she died, I took you there to the orphanage and kissed you both and put you in the basket. It was snowing. December. Almost Christmas. I knew my papa would kill you as you had killed my
maman
. I couldn't let you die. Not my sisters that I had kissed through my sweet
maman
's belly.”

To her horror, Juliette suddenly noticed he was aiming his pistol at a specific target now.

Not ten feet from them sat one of Lyon's ebony panthers. Liber or Ceres. She wasn't sure which.

Valmont's eyes narrowed as if he were about to pull the trigger.

“Don't shoot him.”

But the shot rang out even as she spoke. The cat flinched under its impact, then lunged toward the stream. She felt its pain, and pushed Valmont away. He was an excellent shot. He'd aimed to wound and would do so again and again, providing a slow, cruel death for his victim.

Valmont took aim yet again.

“Don't!”

His voice hardened and he grasped her wrist in a bruising hold. “I don't take instruction from sluts. You see, I've arranged a private hunt for just the two of us this afternoon. Your lover agreed, after all. And I know how you enjoy the suffering of animals.”

He took aim again.

“Wait!” She managed to twist away and gain her footing. “You say you want magic? I'll give you mine.”

He stood, his face lighting with greedy interest.

Reaching a hand into her skirt pocket, she grabbed a handful of the oatmeal she carried there to ward off evil. Perhaps for once its effect would work!

“Here! Magic, just for you!”

Whipping out her hand, she flung the bits of oatmeal into his face. He staggered back, appearing afraid for a moment that she might be casting a spell. Her trick wouldn't fool him for long, but it provided a chance to escape.

Since he was blocking her way to the forest, she whirled in the opposite direction. The river. Terror shook her, worsening when she saw that Lyon's cat stood on its bank. Even from a distance, she could see its eyes were glazed with pain. Panic had left her emotions unguarded, and its pain easily became hers. In an instant, her only choice was clear. She would not allow this innocent, beautiful creature—one of Lyon's favorites—to die.

Herding the cat before her, she entered the river with it at her side. Neither wanted to go, but they went. Together. Water surrounded her as she submerged, entering the cavities of her body and filling her up.

The swift moving current became the pump of her blood, the beat of her heart. The swirls and eddies styled her hair around her, in long, serpentine waves that coiled and uncoiled. She spoke to the panther in the language of the water, calming him, holding him, healing him. Making it easier to hide him and herself. Twin opalescent dorsal fins grew at her shoulder blades, ripping from her gown and fluttering like faerie wings to keep them afloat.

How easily old habits returned. It was as though the past three years of denying herself this had never passed.

“I can wait as long as you can,” Valmont informed her. He'd apparently realized her ruse, come after her, and was waiting on the bank.

A few moments later, she heard him give a girlish shriek. As she watched through the translucent, undulating current, she saw another figure move beside him.

“Our paths cross again,” a voice said in greeting.

“How did you get here?” he demanded, obviously mistaking his visitor for Juliette. “You were just in the stream! Why is your hair dark? And not even wet?”

“When last you saw it, it was wet with my blood. You killed me. Remember? Until now, I knew only your face, but not your name. Now I have both.”

“Elise?”

Juliette could've told him it was Sibela, returned from her wandering. But she remained hidden, watching.

His face contorted. “Elise? Why will you not stay dead? Leave me be, won't you? You're always trying to tear me apart from your sister.”

Sibela went closer and gently pushed away the gun barrel he'd directed toward her. Then she stroked her hand upward and over it until she touched his wrist.

“I know you want Juliette, but take me instead. I understand you. I want you, my darling brother. All of you. Come to me. I offer forgetfulness. You long to forget, do you not?” Her hands were traveling up his arms now.

“Yes.” His voice had turned mesmerized and calm.

“Your father was a monster.” Her arms encircled his neck. “And you just a boy of eleven. Let me take away the hurt. The pain. With one kiss, I can take it all away.”

As Juliette watched from her underwater lair, Sibela drew close to him and her lips pressed his.

He stood calmly in her embrace, an insect in the web of a spider, as she kissed him. Her long tongue entered his mouth, his throat, and then reached deep to taste the heart of him. For a moment its beat stopped and in that instant, her soul shoved his aside and entered his body.

Stealing his breath, Sibela made it hers.

The female body she'd inhabited for the past three years crumpled to the ground. Seeing this, Juliette's blood stirred and warmed. Heated with a rush of adrenaline. Legs reformed. Eventually Human again, she swam to shore, pulling the cat with her.

Finding itself rescued, the panther leaped away. As if it had never been wounded, it shook the water from its fur, then dove into the forest.

Sibela was standing there, licking her new lips as if to taste her current host. Running her hands down herself, she shifted her shoulders in what appeared to be an effort to fully assume her new mantle.

“Is she dead?” Juliette ran to her sister's body. She glared at Valmont. “Did you kill her?!”

“Don't be so dramatic.” It was Sibela, speaking from inside Valmont's body and using his voice. “She only sleeps. Her body was mine for three years, and it will need time to readjust to life without me to direct it.”

Juliette's eyes searched Valmont's and her brows knit in confusion. “Sibela?”

She nodded. “Your Satyr engineered the idea of my taking this body as host, so that you might have your sister and be free of your erstwhile husband. He meant to bring Valmont here for me tomorrow, but since I came upon him now, things worked out the same in the end. Now that I'm divorced from your sister, I'm safe from Elseworld.
Ah!
It's good to be male. No more corsets or breastfeeding.

“Oh, and by the way, it seems I killed your sister that day in Burgundy. Or at least Valmont did.” She chuckled, delighted. “How easily I've assumed his body, that I would say ‘I' in that way.”

“Explain about the killing,” Juliette demanded.

“He was angry at Elise for keeping you apart,” Sibela told her, before digressing to say, “He is far more easily read than your sister, for I had little enough of this kind of information from her in three years, yet he is an open book. That will make it easy to transition into his life in Paris.”

“Help me get Elise to the house.”

Sibela readily agreed, and Juliette had a feeling it was more to test her new strength than to be kind.

“He's stronger than she was. How nice,” said Sibela, as she easily lifted Elise to carry her.

“Finish your explanation,” Juliette urged as she led the way.

“Yes, yes. On that summer day, he struggled with Elise when she came to thwart your tryst with him. And he ripped her dress in the process.”

Sibela flexed Valmont's hand where it clasped Elise's skirt, as if she remembered seeing that hand do exactly that.

“Her blue dress,” said Juliette. In a flash, she realized the blue swatch in Valmont's office had been a piece of Elise's dress. The dress she'd worn the day she'd been attacked!

“He gave a piece of it to his dogs and they tracked her scent with it. They meant to kill her, not you. You couldn't have done anything to stop them, even if you hadn't been locked in your transformation.”