The Vampire Narcise (Regency Draculia 3)

Giordan paused with the glass halfway to his mouth and lowered it, watching. Waiting.

The cat's long tail twitched and it gave a low meow, as if to taunt him.

But there was a street-albeit a narrow one-five stories below, between his balcony and the cat's roof peak. That was far enough that Giordan wasn't overly affected by the feline's presence. This was just about as close as he could get to a cat now without becoming weak or even paralyzed, a fact that he despised.

His only friend from those years living hand to mouth, dirty and cold, had been a large, fat orange tabby with yellow eyes. When things had started to change, when he'd had two sous to rub together, and then four clinking in his pocket, and then eight and then they began to multiply faster than Giordan could believe, Chaton (a decidedly uncreative name to be sure) had been with him.

The night Lucifer visited, deep in Giordan's dreams-or perhaps they had been nightmares-Chaton had been curled next to him on the bed, purring. This was long after Giordan had bought his own well-appointed home, with the largest, softest goosedown mattresses he could find, after his incredible financial luck had taken hold. And so it was that, when Giordan awakened the next morning after a hazy, dark dream in which the Devil had promised him immortality and power and even more riches, the first thing he saw was Chaton.

And that, horribly enough, was also the last time he would pet or hold or come near the companionable feline.

For, along with life everlasting and the requirement of fresh blood to live, along with the Mark of the Devil like evil black roots on his back, Giordan had also acquired his own personal Asthenia. His Achilles' heel.

Each of the Dracule had a specific weakness, the proximity of which tightened the lungs and weighted the limbs, making one feel as if they were trying to slosh through water. The nearer it got, the more helpless one became until, at the mere touch of the item, one felt as if one were being branded.

Thus, Giordan, who'd given up death and age, had also given up his pet to become his Asthenia as soon as he laid eyes on Chaton that morning.

It was a sacrifice he bitterly regretted, a hundred fourteen years later.

He turned his attention from the blue-eyed cat, who'd positioned itself to watch him with an unblinking stare, and toward the east. Toward the roof of Moldavi's home, which would soon be lit by the pink icing of dawn.

Cezar owned a narrow house near the edge of Le Marais, but most of his living quarters were located safely under the ground. Giordan had walked through skull-lined catacombs well beneath the rue to find his host. The subterranean lair was radically different from where most Dracule resided, and he couldn't help but wonder about the reasons for it.

Security, most likely. To keep both him and his valuable sister safe.

Giordan took another sip and at last allowed his thoughts to go where they wished.

It had been two weeks since the evening she was here, the night things had changed. Since he'd fallen in love with her...just like that.

Ever since the moment she'd fed on him, her full lips pressed to his skin, her teeth sinking into his flesh, he'd known. He'd never felt such strong emotion. Such...completion. Such-

A raucous burst of laughter exploded in the silence, and Giordan turned as someone called his name.

"There you are," cried Suzette, a made vampire who'd shared his bed-and blood-on many occasions.

She and a small group of his acquaintances were just emerging from the door that led to the rooftop. They chatted gaily, bottles of wine and ale dangling from their fingers. And, of course, in their wake trailed two of Giordan's well-trained servants, available to set right anything that might go amiss.

"Whatever are you doing up here alone, darling Giordan?" asked Felicia, another sired vampire with whom he'd traded bodily fluids. She slinked her way over toward him, and Suzette merely rolled her glowing eyes and turned to the man on her arm. Jealousy was not one of her vices.

He smiled at them, his host smile, his not-quite-mirthful-but-very-friendly-one, and gestured out to the City of Light. "But I was merely waiting for you to join me. The view is lovely, no?"

"Not nearly as lovely as this," crowed a drunken Brickbank, one of Voss's friends. He was leering down Suzette's exceedingly low-cut bodice, which, due to the size of her br**sts and the way they were plumped up, had a deep, dark vee between them into which a man might slide his entire hand, sideways. Giordan knew this from personal experience, and although the thought might have tempted him in the past...tonight it did not.

"What sort of treat do you have planned for us this evening?" asked the Comte Robuchard, walking idly about the small space. "Some music perhaps? A blazing fire on which we can roast chestnuts?" He was one of the few mortals who knew about the Draculia, and who was invited to some of their activities. Paris was rife with secret societies, but the Dracule was one of the few that was truly underground and unknown, even by some of the upper class.

Ever the good host, Giordan pushed away his lingering thoughts of Narcise and immediately responded, "I thought perhaps I might jump from the roof tonight."

This suggestion-which he'd only just thought of-was met with squeals of delight and masculine roars of approval.

"That will be even more exciting than the night you danced among the flames in front of a crowd of varlets," cried Felicia. Her fangs had slipped free, and now they dipped into her lower lip as she smiled. "They thought they were witnessing the Devil himself!"

"It would be most exciting," Suzette agreed, her arm now slipped through that of a different one of their male companions. "Shall you do a flip, or merely swan dive from the edge?"

"Hmm," he said with a grin. "I must do something fantastic, no?" Giordan had begun to peel off his favorite coat of bronze brocade, and he tossed it to one of the ladies with whom he hadn't shared a bed. Loosening the ties at the knees of his breeches to give himself more freedom of movement, he looked down to the street below.

A fall or dive wouldn't injure a Dracule, unless, by some unhappy event, he or she impaled oneself on a piece of wood, through the heart. Or if some guillotine-like metal happened to be there on the way down to slice one's head from one's shoulders. Neither of which were the case.

Such a feat would, to be sure, frighten or startle any mortal who might witness it, but that was part of the thrill. This was no worse than a mortal riding a horse at full speed and leaping over a high fence: dangerous but hardly lethal unless something went wrong.

And nothing would go wrong for Giordan. He was an entertainer, not a fool.