Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Adele

Tuscany, Italy, 1804

The air was rich with the smell of mint and tarragon, fennel and rosemary, still warm from the sun that had only just gone down.

Ysanne Moreau leaned forward tossed some more wood onto the brazier, watching the flames flicker and jump, then she reclined on the heap of tasselled cushions that they'd dragged out from the stone cottage behind them.

Adele Desmoulins lay next to her, looking up at the stars.

The scent in the air wasn't the same as the pine and herbs and flowers smell that Ysanne had grown up with in Carcassonne, but it reminded her of her birthplace nonetheless, of a time when she had known what had her future held, a time when she had constant friends, and a constant family, albeit a dissatisfying one.

Those constants were all gone now.

A decade had passed since Giovanni had sacrificed himself to save her from a furious mob in Paris, and his loss was still a fresh, aching wound. For much of that time, she'd had Edmond, her dearest friend, and they had travelled Europe together, slowly trying to heal from everything they had seen and suffered. But eventually they had reached a crossroads. Edmond felt it was time to return to France. Ysanne still had no intention of ever going back.

A year ago, they had parted ways once more.

Ysanne had no idea how long it would be until she saw him again.

Alone in the world alone, she had travelled to Italy, seeing all the sights that Giovanni had told her about. Many of them she had already seen in her long life, but she wanted to see them again, as if through his eyes.

Finally she had settled in Tuscany, in a small stone cottage a few miles from the rugged line of the Apennines. It was remote enough that she wouldn't be bothered by other people, but close enough to surrounding villages and towns that she was never short of people to drink from.

She hadn't expected to meet another vampire here.

They all travelled around so much that they were lucky to ever run into each other.

Adele had also fled from Paris during the bleakest days of the Revolution, and she and Ysanne had quickly bonded, until Adele had finally moved into the cottage with Ysanne a few weeks ago.

"This day, two hundred and eleven years ago, I'd just have got married," Adele said, folding her hands under her head.

Ysanne stared at the fire.

Unlike most vampires, Adele had had a husband and three children when she was turned, and even more unlike most vampires, she had managed to stay with them. She continued to raise her children, even as they aged and she didn't, and when her husband, Alain, succumbed to the ravages of time, Adele had taken care of him, like Ysanne had once done for Artus. It was one of the earliest things they had bonded over. They both knew how it felt to watch the person you love wither and die, and be helpless to stop it.

"Do you still miss him?" she asked.

"I'll always miss him. He was my first great love, and even though there have been others since him, he was the one who gave me children," Adele said.

Ysanne picked at the tassels on the corners of her cushion. It had been so long since her own husbands had died, and she had suffered so much heartbreak since then. Did she still miss them? It was hard to think about them when her heart was still in pieces over Giovanni.

"Sometimes I think that being a vampire is a curse," Ysanne.

Adele twisted her head on her own pile of cushions, her forehead furrowed.