Page 85 of The Saint

Bastien and Pierre were still locked in an extensive conversation about art and politics while Delphine listened at the head of the table.

Godric had stepped into the sitting room and lit up a cigar by the fire, like his social meter had expired.

I joined him, taking the seat across from him.

He took a couple puffs to get the tip to burn and the smoke to rise in a cloud. Then he looked at me across from him before he reached inside his coat pocket and held out a cigar for me to enjoy.

“No thanks. I quit smoking.”

He returned it to his pocket and smoked in silence, his attention on the fireplace, his aura calm and borderline indifferent. He was very unlike his brother, a complete enigma.

“I’m glad you and Bastien are talking again,” I said, trying to take a stab at conversation.

His eyes shifted back to me, and he stared for a while.

“I hope you and I can have a relationship too.”

He smoked his cigar and continued his stare. “I’m not pleasant company, if I’m being honest.”

“Well, I already like you, so you don’t have to try to be pleasant company.” He’d already earned my love and loyalty when he’d shown up and shot those guys in the head. He’d spared me from a horror I wouldn’t have recovered from. Bastien wouldn’t have been able to go on either. Our relationship would be permanently altered.

He released the smoke from his mouth then a slight smile moved over his lips. “That makes it easy.”

I looked at the fire for a while, trying to find something to say to him, but he was harder to pierce than Luca. Luca’s front was justan act, but I could tell that Godric was exactly what he seemed. “I was wondering…if you would walk me down the aisle?”

His eyes immediately flicked to mine at the question.

“I don’t have any family. It’s just me.”

He let the smoke rise from his cigar as he held it.

“And I know you’ll be my brother, so…” I didn’t want to force it. Didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. Didn’t want to burden him with a job he didn’t want.

He was quiet for a long time, so long it seemed like he might ignore the inquiry altogether. “I can do that.”

“Yeah?” I asked, unable to restrain my enthusiasm.

He nodded. “Sure.”

21

BASTIEN

It was the night before the wedding.

Fleur wasn’t going to be staying elsewhere for the night, not when I didn’t believe in that traditional bullshit. I would fuck her before bed like usual. In the morning, she would leave and get ready in another part of the house, and then we would meet at the gardens to marry.

I spent my last night as a bachelor at my brother’s house, smoking with him in the drawing room, the two of us reminiscing with some good memories but mostly bad ones.

He sat with the cigar burning between his fingertips, in the dim light from the chandelier that hung overhead. “It doesn’t matter now, but where did you dump his body?”

I could tell that had been on his mind awhile. He just didn’t want to ask.

“Wrapped it in plastic and threw it in the dumpster outside my building.” I took a drag and let out the smoke like the cloud was packed with my sins.

“And no one noticed?”

“He’d only been dead for a couple hours by the time the garbage trucks came to empty it. And I wrapped him really well, so the smell was probably contained for at least a week afterward. By then, he would have already been in a furnace or a landfill.” It was ruthless and barbaric, to treat the man who had sired me with cruelty. But at the time, I hadn’t had many options. “It wasn’t intentional, just the resources I had at the time.” His grave in the cemetery was empty. The tombstone was a eulogy to a man who wasn’t even there.

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