Bloodlust

Chapter Nineteen

I'm thrown into the Presidential Rooms, strangely lackluster despite the extravagance of the Palais de l'Élysée. "I particularly enjoy the wolf art you've installed," I muse, turning to smile at Gabriel as he locks the door, assessing the room as I turn in a tight circle.

He leans against the dark wood, nothing of the charming politician in his eyes. Only the predator remains. "So you are Nadya Telemun."

"So say some," I say, shrugging nonchalantly. "Who's to say I am?"

With a sigh, Gabriel removes a silvery object from inside his coat. Reacting instantly, I grab the wooden stake from the air as it whistles by me, the gun it came from smoking hot. Dropping the sharpened wood, I tsk at the werewolf. "You wound me with your pathetic weapons."

He glares. "What do you want, bloodsucker?"

"Bloodsucker?" I raise an eyebrow - my left one, if you were wondering. It's my better side - and add, "If you're to insult me to death - again - you're failing miserably."

With a small smirk, he lifts a shoulder. "Sortez, les garçons!" [translation: come out, boys!]

From the shadows of the room melts men and women of all different shapes and sizes. They are unremarkable, utterly forgettable - save for the bared canines that glisten in the moonlight. Thankfully, the crescent moonlight. "Did you think we did not know you were in Paris, bloodsucker?"

"Well, I'd hoped you'd know. I didn't kill that man in the street for nothing."

Gabriel blinks. "What?"

I roll my eyes in response. "I am an old friend to the streets of Paris, as I'm sure someone has told you." I wave my hand dismissively at the growls of the werewolves surrounding me. "I'm curious, what made you think my action was not calculated? You are all here for a reason; it's just not the one you thought it was.

"I have come to offer you a deal, one I think is very fair considering you were planning to kill me. Don't deny it, Gabriel; why else would you have brought the fiercest of your pack to the Palais on the night of your greatest victory?"

Silence reigns. It's undeniable that I've caught them. If they choose to kill me straight aways, they'll never know why I came here. If they let me live, there's the possibility of death. I almost smile at that. I've long wondered what it's like to be afraid of death. The mythos of finality fade with every year you live past what is believed to be nature's end.

"We shouldn't trust her," snarls a man behind me. "She's a vampire."

"But she's also ancient," counters a woman to my left. Her blond hair glows against the dark backdrop of the room and her blue eyes shine. "If she's planning something, it may be worth knowing."

"Gabriel, that's a risk we can't take," hisses the man.

I keep my gaze on Gabriel, assessing him. He fidgets uncomfortably under the gaze of his fellow wolves, so different from the arrogant and cocky man he becomes under the stage lights of a debate stage. "She has an insatiable bloodlust. She's a Ripper, we know that," urges another man, this time to my right. "Put her down, Gabriel."

"Am I a Ripper?" I ask mildly. "Maybe I'm just hungry. And sloppy."

"Kill her."

Hesitation is prevalent in Gabriel's face, as is indecision. "No," he says at last, lowering the gun, though his finger remains poised on the trigger. "I want to know what she wants."

I smile, a thing of edging terror and tilted to inspire fear. "Good choice. I would've loved to try some werewolf blood, but a good choice on your part." I tilt my head. "I doubt you would've enjoyed the alternative."