Page 69 of The Highwayman's Bite

“Oui. I am terribly exhausted.” When Aldric took the bottle of tonic from the bedside table, she favored him with a weak smile. “I am sorry to have been so much trouble to you. Doubtless you’ve never had to play nursemaid in your life.”

“You are correct in that assumption.” Aldric grinned as he held the medicine spoon to her lips. “But I regard it as a new experience. Something an old curmudgeon like me could benefit from time to time.”

Renarde chuckled as she fell back against the pillows. “Pish-tosh. You are still a young man. Perhaps instead of finding a husband for Vivian, we should seek a match for you.”

“I am a confirmed bachelor, I’m afraid.” Some Lord Vampires took female vampires as wives, either out of love, or simply an arrangement to keep Society from pestering them. Aldric preferred to avoid that sort of complication. “Now get some rest and I shall look in on you tomorrow evening.”

“Promise me you will not treat Vivian too harshly if she has been seduced by Rhys,” Madame Renarde said sleepily.

“I promise.” Aldric extinguished the lamps and left the room.

His mental exertions on banishing Renarde’s memories had drained him. He needed to feed again. After ordering his valet to fetch his coat, Aldric went out to the seedier part of the village.

A woman’s scream boiled his already heated blood and he bolted down the alley to find a man with a barmaid pinned against the wall, a bucket of slops overturned on the cracked stone cobbles. For a moment, he envisioned the besieged maid to be Vivian, and a red haze of rage distorted his vision.

With a roar, he seized the assailant by the scruff of the neck and yanked him off the barmaid. The woman squeaked in terror at Aldric’s blazing eyes and fled back to the safety of the tavern.

Aldric slammed the man against the grimy brick wall and tore into his throat in a fury. Hot blood gushed in Aldric’s mouth and he drank deeper than he had in decades, glutting himself on the last dregs of a wastrel’s life.

When the body went limp in his grip, Aldric hefted the corpse over his shoulder and wove through the alleys until he reached the wharfs. Technically, it was illegal to kill a human, except in cases of self-preservation, but if a killing was not discovered or proven, the Elders tended to look away.

Still, shame flooded Aldric. While he felt no remorse for killing a man who would force himself on a woman, his loss of control revolted him to the core.

The idea of Vivian being deflowered by a rogue vampire infuriated him more than he’d thought. But Madame Renarde’s words about Vivian falling in love with one alarmed him even more. The companion had urged him to hurry before it was too late, but there were two more nights before the ransom was due. If the situation was as ominous as Renarde perceived before she left Rhys’s lair, surely things had escalated further now that Vivian no longer had a chaperone. In fact, Aldric had the sinking feeling that the die had been cast.

Many centuries ago, in the glow of his mortal youth, Aldric had fallen under the potent, cruel spell of love. It was not a malady easy to recover from.

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