Hunted (Belle Morte Book 3)

Chapter One

Roux rolled her eyes. "Right, like I'm just going to walk out of that door and abandon you."

If the donor system was unsalvageable, if the vampires' place in society had been revoked, then Roux wouldn't be able to do a thing. She wouldn't be able to help Renie, and she wouldn't be able to follow her wherever she might end up going.

But she couldn't think like that. For ten years vampires had been the ultimate celebrities. The sudden explosion of death and violence that had occurred in England's most famous vampire House had rocked the country, but Roux had to believe people wouldn't forget that not all vampires were like that. For every vampire that had joined Jemima and Etienne, there were many more who had fought to protect their way of life and the humans in their care. Roux hoped that the human population remembered that, and didn't turn on all vampires for the crimes of a few.

Renie turned, reacting to footsteps that she heard long before Roux did. Edmond Dantès glided up to them, his dark hair spilling around his shoulders, and his shirt open at the neck. Something soft and warm bloomed in Renie's eyes as she looked at the vampire she'd fallen in love with, and suddenly Roux felt a bit like a third wheel. She looked around for Jason, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Ever since the House had been reclaimed, Ysanne Moreau, Lady of Belle Morte, had been working with human authorities in an attempt to fix the damage that Etienne and Jemima had wrought, but any progress had been kept under lock and key.

Until today.

Ysanne had announced a House meeting for that morning, undoubtedly to answer the many, many, many questions that everyone had, and to finally let her people know if they actually had any sort of place left in the human world.

Renie had arrived at the dining hall early because the tension had simply got too much for her.

"How are you feeling, mon ange?" Edmond asked, cupping one palm to Renie's face.

"Nervous," she admitted. She shot Roux a quick grateful look. "Roux's been helping me keep my mind off it, though."

Usually Edmond would have considered that his job, but he'd taken it upon himself to make sure that everyone who was meant to be at the meeting knew that they needed to be there soon. Renie wasn't the only one chewed up by nerves and anxiety. Edmond might have turned down Ysanne's offer of becoming a Lord of one of the Houses – a replacement for either Charles or Henry, both of whom had died in the attacks – but someone still needed to make sure that Belle Morte and its inhabitants continued to recover, and Ysanne couldn't be everywhere at once.

"We might as well go in," Roux said.

No one else was here yet, but the alternative was to hang around outside the dining hall, waiting for everyone to turn up.

"Are you joining us?" Edmond said.

"Of course I am."

Edmond frowned and started to say something, but Roux abruptly cut him off. "No, no, no, don't even think about it."

"You don't know what I was about to say," he said.

"I can take an educated guess." Roux narrowed her eyes. "You were about to tell me that I'm not invited to this meeting because I'm not a guard or a vampire, but you can forget that. I'm as much as part of this as anyone."

"I'm not sure Ysanne will see it that way."

"Tough. I fought for this House too, and I'm not being cut out of anything now," Roux said.

She wanted to be there for Renie, to give her maximum moral support, but she also wanted to know what was going to happen. Renie and Jason weren't the only people she cared about – she wanted to know that Edmond, Ludovic, Gideon, Caoimhe and all the other vampires who'd survived the battles were going to have a future. She wanted to know that Ysanne herself was going to have a future, and although she didn't work at Belle Morte or live there permanently, she had a right to know what was going on.