Page 59 of Purchased

I suppose this could be one of the places one would take a lady of the night to if one had no other place to go.

This could go quite badly if it is not handled well. We were on the verge of trespassing, and with Beatrix being on the gate, they could argue that we had trespassed.

The penalty is likely a fine, but we could be arrested. Given what we have both done on our pack lands, this little crime feels like nothing, but that doesn’t mean anything in this tight historical alley.

“She’s my fiancée,” I explain.

“No, I’m not,” Beatrix pipes up at precisely the wrong time. “He hasn’t asked me to marry him.”

“I haven’t?”

“No!”

“You’re right. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”

I go down on one knee before the gendarmes.

“Beatrix, will you marry me?”

There’s a brief moment of confusion and excitement and then I see her expression clear.

“No,” she says. “Of course not, not now I know you’re a criminal.”

The gendarme curses at me.

“Get up, idiot. The two of you are trespassing. Name and address, please.”

“Armand de Lune, Chateau Loup de Lune,” I say.

They exchange looks. They see the way we are dressed, the way we speak, especially the way I speak, that there is some money behind us. That could go either way in terms of their thinking. Some gendarmes are noble beings, but others take full advantage of their authority.

This again starts to feel like a potentially concerning situation. The pack does not know where we are. I brought no retinue. I brought no backup of any kind.

“And your name?” he asks Beatrix.

“None of your fucking business.”

“Her name is Beatrix de Lune,” I say with a glare to her as I will her not to make this worse.

“You said she’s not married. Where is her ID?”

I feel the interaction sliding sideways at a pace I am absolutely not comfortable with.

“I can show my ID, and…”

“No, we need her ID.”

I am not worried about myself, but I am absolutely worried about Beatrix. They have her backed into a corner.

And that is when all hell breaks loose.

This time I see her capacity for killing up close, near enough to feel the blood spatter. I feel arterial sanguine essence splash my face, my neck, cover my clothes, saturate my shirt.

Stopping her is impossible. The second gendarme tries to run, but she bounds to him and dispatches him by grabbing him by the neck and shaking him as hard as she can. There is less blood this time, but he is just as dead.

She flows into her naked, feral human form and grins wildly. “Historically accurate, no?”

There isn’t time to panic or even chastise her. “We’re going to need to dispose of these bodies.”

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