Page 1 of The Vampire's Guide to Wooing a Curator
Prologue
Paris, 1817
Jonathan Drake clutchedthe slippery fabric of his silk shirt and staggered out of his coffin onto the bare earth beneath the house his nest had chosen as a daylight haven. The air thickened, making every breath a struggle. He clawed at his throat, expecting to find some manner of restraint, but there was nothing.
“Calm, brother,” a familiar voice said.
He wrenched his head around. A blurry figure stood in the doorway. He blinked until the shape transformed into his elder sister, Helena. The pressure around his throat eased. His sister wore a dusty, woolen frock coat and the loose, voluminous trousers known as Cossacks. It was the kind of outfit she wore to go riding in the park, but that didn’t make sense. The last thing he remembered was the lid of his coffin closing over him. If he’d slept through the day, it must now have been past midnight. Except the dirt was marred by thin lines where sunlight had crept through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, and from outside, he could hear the chatter of birdsong.
The sun wasn’t setting; it was rising.
“What happened?” he asked. His voice was raspy, as if he’d been shouting for hours.
“We had to put you to sleep.”
He rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Why?”
Before she could respond, the events of the previous day came back to him in rapid flashes. The woman who had turned him into a vampire, Marguerite de la Valencia, standing in front of the six vampires she had made, wearing a long, black dress and veil, as if in mourning. The chaotic shouting of his nest siblings after she’d declared she’d been dying. A desperate scream erupting out of his throat as his brothers had dragged him into the basement and shoved him into his coffin.
“No,” he said as his hands shook. “No, it’s another trick.” His maker was an expert strategist, helped in no small part by her ability to see the future. She’d once encouraged a vicomte who had slighted her to invest a fortune in theCompagnie des Indes, only for the stock to plummet in value weeks later, leaving her enemy in ruins. If she’d chosen to leave the nest, there had to have been a reason.
Helena’s jaw trembled. “She ran out of time to find her mate, brother. Her visions told her that atrophy would kill her.”
“No!” He poked her in the chest. “Do not repeat that damn mate atrophy story.”
He wasn’t sure what their maker intended to accomplish by frightening her nest into believing they had to scour the world for their fated mates to avoid eventually lapsing into a fever and dying. She’d even connected the bloody cough that vampires commonly developed fifty years after being made to her fictional ailment, calling it a symptom of the first phase of atrophy.
Given how dramatically Marguerite had declined over the last year, he was forced to concede the illness was real, but her claim that forming a telepathic mating bond was the only cure couldn’t have been true. He’d spent hundreds of hours desperately willing the bond into existence between him and his maker, to no avail. If she wasn’t his fated mate, then he didn’twant one, because he’d never love anyone more than he loved Marguerite.
There had to be another way.
“What are we going to do?” Helena whispered. She clasped her hands over her face and let out a sob that extinguished Jonathan’s growing panic and anger.
He wrapped his sister in his arms and squeezed. “I don’t know.” Despite not being the youngest member of the nest—that position belonged to his sister Lucina—he knew he’d suffer the most from Marguerite’s departure. Lucina was hardly likely to miss their maker because she still resented Marguerite for taking her humanity. In contrast, his older siblings had benefited from their maker’s wisdom for decades. Unlike him, they no longer needed her guidance.
His eldest brother, Marcus, appeared in the doorway. His black, linen suit jacket was half-unbuttoned, and there were deep bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He shoved a hand into his right breast pocket and then held up two cigars.
Jonathan’s mouth was suddenly as dry as ash. He patted Helena on the back before gently pushing her away. When she noticed Marcus, she dipped her head, muttered something about checking on Lucina, and rushed out of the room.
“Helena means well,” Marcus said. He strolled closer and held out the cigars. Jonathan plucked one and pressed it between his lips. Unlike his brother, he didn’t immediately light it. He’d smoked like a chimney when he’d been human, but he’d yet to become accustomed to how much stronger tobacco tasted as a vampire. That was one of the many ways Marguerite had been helping him. He remembered how she’d laughed the first time he’d lit up a pipe, only to erupt into violent coughing. It would take time, she’d said, to reacquaint himself with the flavor. Then she’d taken the pipe from him and puffed on the mouthpiece. The smoke that had gently curled out of her noseand mouth had made his eyes burn, but he’d forced himself to blink until the sensation had faded. The approval that had lit up Marguerite’s eyes that night had made him feel warm for the first time since giving up the sun.
And now she was gone.
He clenched his teeth around the cigar, causing the wrapper to dissolve into a bitter, pulpy mass.
Marcus exhaled a cloud of smoke. “How do you feel?”
Jonathan grunted. “Ifeellike my heart’s been ripped out of my chest.” He dropped his cigar, then ground his heel over it until the leafy interior became indistinguishable from the dirt. “When the sun sets, I’m going after her.” He’d get on his knees and beg their maker to return if he had to.
“I can’t let you do that.”
The red-hot coals of Jonathan’s anger that had cooled with Helena’s tears roared back to life, and he was swinging his arm before he knew what he was doing. It was foolish because Marcus was much older and stronger than he was, but he felt as if he’d explode if he didn’t dosomething.
Jonathan’s fist connected with Marcus’s face, splitting the older vampire’s cheek open. Marcus didn’t recoil or attempt to fight back as the gash stitched itself back together. When there was no longer a trace of the injury, he tugged off his cravat and held it out. “Wrap this around your hand.”
Jonathan stared at the scrap of white fabric. “What?”
Marcus cracked his shoulders. “It’ll lessen the impact on your knuckles.”
