Phoebe shook her head, intrigued.
“To be a vampire you must choose life—your life, not someone else’s—over and over again, day after day,” Ysabeau said. “You must choose it over sleep, over peace, over grief, over death. In the end, it is our relentless drive to live that defines us. Without that, we are nothing but a nightmare or a ghost: a shadow of the humans we once were.”
36
Ninety
10 AUGUST
Phoebe sat in Ysabeau’s salon, amid the blue and white porcelain, the gilded chairs, the silk upholstery, and the priceless works of art, and waited, again, for time to find her.
Baldwin strode into the room, his navy suit harmonizing with the room’s color scheme. Phoebe had picked her dress to stand out, however, rather than blend in. It was a bright shade of aquamarine, a color that symbolized loyalty and patience. It reminded her of her mother’s wedding clothes, and Marcus’s eyes, and the color of the sea when it returned to the shore.
“Baldwin.” Phoebe thought about rising and found she was already standing, offering a cheek to the head of her husband’s family.
“You look well, Phoebe,” Baldwin commented after he’d kissed her, his eyes surveying her from head to toe. “Ysabeau hasn’t been mistreating you, I see.”
Phoebe didn’t acknowledge his remark with a response. After the past several weeks, she would walk across deserts for Ysabeau, and was keeping a silent record of every slight uttered against the matriarch of the de Clermont clan.
Phoebe intended to settle those accounts one day.
“Where are your glasses?” Baldwin asked.
“I decided not to wear them today.” Phoebe was battling a headache, and every time the curtains blew she winced, but she was determined that her first long look at Marcus was going to be without any interference. When she’d seen him at the Salpêtrière, she had been too distracted by her father’s condition to pay any attention to her mate.
“Hello, Phoebe.” Miriam entered. She was not in her usual black leather and boots, but in a flowing skirt. Her long hair fell around her shoulders, and her neck, arms, and fingers were covered with heavy jewels.
“Excellent. We can get started,” Baldwin said. “Miriam, do you consent to your daughter’s decision to mate with Marcus, a member of my family and the Bishop-Clairmont scion, son of Matthew de Clermont?”
“Are you actually going to go through the entire betrothal ceremony?” Miriam demanded.
“That was my plan, yes.” Baldwin glared at her. “You wanted it to be official.”
“Wait. Don’t we need Marcus to be here before we go any further?” Phoebe asked. “Where is he?” Her anxiety rose. What if Marcus had had second thoughts? What if he decided he didn’t want her now?
“I’m right here.”
Marcus stood just over the threshold, wearing a blue shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers with a hole in one toe. He looked handsome and slightly mischievous, as he always did. And he smelled divine. Freyja was with him, though Phoebe had to tear her eyes away from her mate to give his aunt a proper hello.
“Hello, Phoebe,” Freyja said, beaming. “I told you we would make it.”
“Yes,” Phoebe said, her eyes fixed on Marcus. Her throat felt dry, and she had to struggle to get that single word out.
Marcus smiled. Phoebe’s heart thumped in response.
Her senses clicked into overdrive. All she could hear was the sound of his heart beating. All she could smell was his distinctive scent. Her thoughts were only of Marcus. Her skin yearned for his touch.
And just like that he had her in his arms, his lips pressed to hers, the clean scents of licorice and bee balm and pine surrounding her along with a hundred other notes she couldn’t yet recognize or name.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear. “And don’t even think about changing your mind. It’s too late. You’re already mine. Forever.”
There were congratulations and champagne and laughter after Phoebe formally chose Marcus to be her mate. None of it made much of an impression on her, however. Phoebe had waited for ninety long days to announce her intention to irrevocably attach herself to another creature. When it came time to do it, however, all she could do was stare at Marcus with rapt attention.
“You have a bit of red in your hair,” Phoebe said, removing a strand from his shoulders. “I’ve never noticed it before.”
Marcus took her hand and kissed it, his touch electrifying. Phoebe’s heart skipped a beat and then felt like it was going to explode. Marcus smiled.
That tiny crease at the side of his mouth—she’d never noticed that before, either. It wasn’t a wrinkle, exactly, but a light depression in the skin as though it remembered precisely how Marcus grinned.
“Phoebe. Did you hear me?” Miriam’s voice penetrated Phoebe’s consciousness.
“No. That is, I’m sorry.” Phoebe tried to focus. “What did you say?”
“I said it’s time I left,” Miriam replied. “I’ve decided to go back to New Haven. Marcus isn’t going to be much use as a research partner for the next few months. I might as well be useful.”
“Oh.” Phoebe didn’t know what she was supposed to say. A horrifying thought occurred to her. “I don’t have to go with you, do I?”
“No, Phoebe. Although you might want to sound a little less anguished at the prospect of spending time with your maker.” Miriam looked at Ysabeau. “I’m trusting you with my daughter.”
Seeing Miriam and Ysabeau facing each other, one light and one dark, was like watching two primeval forces of nature struggling to achieve balance.
“I have always looked after her. She is my grandson’s mate,” Ysabeau assured her. “Phoebe is a de Clermont now.”
“Yes, but she will always be my daughter,” Miriam replied with a touch of fierceness.
“Of course,” Ysabeau said smoothly.
Finally, Miriam and Baldwin left. Their hands tightly twined, Phoebe and Marcus saw them to their cars.
“How much longer do I have to wait to get you alone?” Marcus whispered, his mouth pressing lightly into the sensitive skin behind her ear.
“Your grandmother is still here,” Phoebe said, struggling to remain composed even though her knees felt bendy and after their separation she wanted nothing more than to spend the next ninety days in bed with Marcus. If it felt that good to have him kiss her neck, what was it going to be like to make love?
“I paid Freyja to take Ysabeau and Marthe to Saint-Lucien for lunch.”
Phoebe giggled.
“I see that meets with your approval,” Marcus said.
Phoebe’s giggle turned to laughter.
“If you keep laughing like that, they’ll suspect we’re up to something,” Marcus warned before swallowing her laughter in a kiss that left her gasping for air.
After that, Phoebe was pretty sure Ysabeau and Marthe did more than suspect what would happen when they descended the hill to Madame Laurence’s restaurant.
By the time she and Marcus were finally, completely alone, Phoebe had had time to get nervous about what was about to happen.
“I’m not very good at biting yet,” Phoebe confessed as Marcus drew her toward his room.
Marcus gave her a kiss that left her dizzy.
“Do we exchange blood before or after we make love?” Phoebe asked once they were inside and the door was closed and locked. It was a very stout lock, she noticed, probably fifteenth century in date. “I don’t want to do it wrong.”
Marcus was on one knee before her, sliding her knickers out from underneath her dress.
“I’m so glad you didn’t wear trousers,” he said, shimmying the aquamarine linen up to expose bare flesh. “Oh, God. You smell even better than you did before.”
“I do?” Phoebe stopped worrying about what she was supposed to do long enough to thoroughly enjoy what Marcus was actually doing with his mouth and tongue. She gasped.
Marcus looked up at her with the wicked expression that only she saw. “Yes. Which is completely impossible, because you were perfect before. So how could you be more perfect now?”