Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Blackmail: Part One

Modern Day (set after Changes but before Gideon and Jason's wedding)

Over the last few months, Ludovic de Vauban had become very familiar with Roux's gasps. He especially liked the ones she made when either his hand or his head was between her legs. But the short, sharp sound she'd just made was not a happy gasp. It was one that made Ludovic's skin prickle with warning.

"What's wrong?" he said.

Roux sat on the edge of their bed, her back to him as she hunched over her phone. "Nothing," she mumbled.

"Roux," Ludovic said. He climbed across the bed, and Roux turned the phone so he couldn't see the screen.

"What's going on?" Ludovic said.

Roux looked up at him, and there was a raw look in her eyes that made Ludovic's heart clench. He hated seeing her upset.

"Okay, so I just got a message from this guy I used to date," Roux said.

"And?"

Roux stared down at her phone, a muscle in her cheek twitching. Then she shook her head and handed Ludovic the phone. He read the lines that filled the screen, and the unease that had started when he heard Roux's gasp, sharpened into real anger. He put the phone down before he could clench his fist and break it.

"He's blackmailing you," Ludovic said.

Roux made a shuddery little noise. "Looks like it. I guess it was only a matter of time before the cockroaches came out of the woodwork."

Before Roux had gone into Belle Morte, nobody had known her name – she'd just been one of many donors assigned to this mansion. But after she'd been unwillingly turned into a vampire herself, and had fallen in love with Ludovic, she'd suddenly found herself rather famous. Belle Morte had been flooded with requests for stories and interviews, and so far Roux had politely declined them all. Now, a man that she'd once been involved had sent her a brief, but clear message – that he was going to reach out to every media outlet he could and sell them stories about the wild sexual escapades he and Roux had used to get up to. Unless Roux paid him more for his silence than the media would pay him to talk.

"It's not even true," Roux said. Her shoulders were still hunched, her hands tightly gripping the bedcovers. "That guy was as vanilla as they come. Nothing but missionary, and not even good missionary. But he's making me out to be some kind of sex-crazed pervert."

The fire in Ludovic's chest burned even hotter. It would have been bad enough if this man had been blackmailing Roux with the truth, but the fact that he was threatening her with lies? Ludovic's fangs slid out.

"He's not getting a single penny from anyone in this house," he vowed.

"There was never any question of that," Roux said. "Even if I paid him off, it wouldn't stop him from selling his bullshit to anyone stupid enough to listen." She sniffed and squared her shoulders. "All I can do is suck it up and hope it blows over quickly."

"I'm not going to let someone spread lies about you," Ludovic said.

Roux kissed his cheek. "You know I love your protective side, but there's nothing you can do. I'm tougher than I look, remember? I can take it."

"That's not the point."

Roux snuggled against him, resting her head on his shoulder, and Ludovic closed this eyes, because sometimes, even after all these months, he still couldn't believe that she was his, that he'd found someone to pull him out of the darkness. 

"It'll be okay," she said, but Ludovic wasn't sure if she was saying that for his benefit or hers.

It didn't matter.