Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Giovanni: Part One

Paris, 1794

The street outside Ysanne Moreau's window was dark and still, but beyond it, not too far away, someone was screaming.

Someone was always screaming these days.

Further in the city, the light of a fire stained the sky orange, and Ysanne turned away from it.

Giovanni came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and resting his chin on her shoulder. "Are you alright, belle morte?" he asked.

"No," Ysanne replied.

Maybe Giovanni's human ears couldn't hear the screams, but he'd lived with her in Paris for nearly thirteen years. He knew as well as anyone how the city had changed these last few years, descending into bloody, brutal madness as the Revolution took hold. He knew about the mobs and massacres, the butchery and slaughter, the blood that flowed thickly in the streets, but sometimes it seemed as though he couldn't comprehend the reality of it. The horror hadn't personally touched them yet, and so to Giovanni, it was an abstract thing, something he could watch from the safety of Ysanne's stately home.

Ysanne knew better.

"Giovanni," she said, and her tone of voice made him stiffen.

She turned in his arms, and gently pushed him back towards the bed they shared.

"Are we going to have this conversation again?" he asked.

Ysanne gazed up at him.

After Clotilde had turned on her all those years ago, Ysanne had returned to Paris, hoping to lose herself in France's most beautiful, vibrant city while she mended her broken heart.

Then Giovanni Agostini had walked into her life.

He'd only been visiting France, fully intending to return to Italy once he had seen all he wanted to, but he and Ysanne had fallen hard and fast for each other, and Giovanni had gladly given up his old life to stay in Paris with Ysanne.

Sometimes, remembering how her previous relationships with humans had ended, Ysanne thought herself a fool for once more offering up her heart to someone, but then Giovanni would smile at her, his eyes lighting up, and she'd forget everything.

She put a hand on his knee. "I love you," she told him, "and I need you to understand something. We are not safe here."

Giovanni started to turn away, but Ysanne grabbed his chin and held him there, forcing him to look at her.

"I don't think you understand the severity of what's happening. the king and queen are dead. The dauphin will almost certainly never again see the light of day, and we'll be lucky if there are any people of noble birth left with their heads after this all ends – if it ever ends."

"I'm not of noble birth," Giovanni pointed out.

"No, but I am."

"My love, belle morte, you are a vampire. You have nothing to fear from the mob."

Ysanne bit back a groan of frustration. She loved Giovanni with every bone in her body, but he could be remarkably dense sometimes.

"Vampires are not invulnerable. Even I could not survive the guillotine."

"No, but you wouldn't let them drag you there," he said.

"I might not have a choice. If I am injured, if there are too many of them, then yes, I might find my neck beneath the blade. Or perhaps they wouldn't even try to arrest me. Perhaps they would slaughter me in the street and mount my head on a pike like they did to the Princesse de Lamballe."