The reflection I’d hoped for.
A dark-eyed Rom whose curls were long enough to tie with a velvet bow at my neck. I wore a white shirt with a straight, stiff collar. It was covered by a superbly tailored black suitcoat unbuttoned to reveal my gold waistcoat. I could feel the quality of my matching breeches beneath my hands. One clutched my thighs so tightly I might have given myself bruises had I not supped of immortality. The other held a black walking stick that matched the shoes whose gold buckles twinkled up at me as if to remind me of the event I had just deserted. The accessories whispered, Opera , while my white knuckles shouted, Danger!
My home filled the frame of my window like a painting.
So unreal, those three lovingly crafted floors of redbrick and mortar fronted by a broad brick stair. The door had been whitewashed, as had the window frames. Pink roses arched over the entryway. I found that strange, even though I had lived in the house all these seven years. It seemed to me that somewhere the home I had taken from a dead man should show black, like the corruption that oozed from my heart, filling my lungs with such vile hatred that sometimes the desire to maim, to murder, overcame all other thought.
But the brightness of the people within those walls stole all the shadows away. I did not deserve them. Not Berggia, nor his kindly wife. And never my dearest Helena, whom I would have chosen as a daughter even had she not been a helpless orphan when I found her begging on the streets the night after I vanquished the wolf who had tried to destroy her.
“Father!” Her scream, too faint for any but my ears, pulled me out of the moving carriage. Later I would castigate myself. Self-pity had blocked my senses from detecting her fear and pain. Else I would have leaped to her rescue sooner, would have burst through the door before Roldan could have done more than startle her as she sat in our flower-filled drawing room, reading from one of the many books she could never convince me to touch.
By the time I reached her, Helena was lying on the floor beneath the wolf, the bloody gashes on her arms and long rips in her skirts raising in me a fury such as I had not experienced since the deaths of my sons.
I knew, deep in my mind, that if I had been a human father I would have roared my rage, and perhaps even the chandelier would have shaken in response. But I had traded fire for ice, and now I was glad of the cold wind that swept through my murderous thoughts, forcing them into order, adding a thread of calculation that would make Roldan’s death more likely and infinitely more painful.
I strode forward and, grabbing the wolf by both his ears, yanked backward. His scream, high-pitched as Helena’s, brought a smile to my lips.
I took stock of my daughter. Shock had distanced her.
The hands that held her torn bodice closed shook like leaves in a storm.
“Helena!” I snapped. Her eyes came to mine, hurt that I would speak to her so given her terrifying circumstance. I steadied my tone, willing her to respond in kind. “My flintlock is in my desk. It is loaded with silver.” She nodded.
“Lock yourself in the study with it and shoot anything that tries to get in. Either Berggia or I will come for you when this is over. Do you remember the secret knock?” Her head bobbed again, but this time she seemed more self-assured.
“Then go.”
She rushed from the room, shoving the door closed behind her as if it were the gate to hell itself. Perhaps a real lady would have swooned, or at the least begged to stay under my direct protection. I had certainly tried to raise her in that vein, knowing full well the misery that accompanied a life led outside Society. But my ward had learned early that her world rotated on two axes, and if she meant to survive she must develop a backbone strong enough to hold her steady no matter which way it tilted. My grandmother had been such a woman. But I had never told Helena how my heart swelled when I saw her jaw jut and her shoulders lift, reminding me of the tiny woman who had fought bullies, bandits, and corrupt sheriffs to ensure my survival.
I lifted the wolf by his ears, forcing another squeal from him as I flung him against the wall. He recovered quickly, pulling himself up onto his enormous paws, growling so deeply that I felt the rumble shake the back of my chest.
He charged, the weight of his massive body making the floor quake under my shoes. I yanked my silver dagger, a constant companion since Helena had entered my care, from its cradle in the hollow leg of my walking stick. And then he was on me.
We toppled into Helena’s favorite Louis XIV settee, our impact throwing it backward, sending my dagger flying. My head slammed into the floor with a force that might have stunned another man. A real man. I did not even feel it.
Hooked fangs longer than my fingers slavered at my throat. I shoved my fist into the maw that they surrounded, gaining another yelp for my collection. Roldan
