If Angels Burn (Darkyn #1) 5

Lucan's opinion of the doctor changed again as he saw her competent hands move over Thierry's broken body. She displayed no respect for Cyprien or his tresora, but she handled her patient with care and compassion.

Watching Cyprien touch Alexandra had stirred Lucan, but seeing her work aroused him. She was still human, only walking food, really, and yet there was a quality about her that drew him. He wanted to see her operate on Thierry and make him whole again. He wished he could again watch her inject the blood that was keeping her from turning into a monster like the rest of them. He needed to feel those strong little hands touching him, soothing him, healing him.

Alexandra Keller, he realized with sudden and utter distaste, radiated life and hope. The same way Lucan excreted death and despair. No wonder Cyprien was panting after her.

I have to get away from her.

When they left, he dropped into the room and went to the table where Thierry lay strapped down. The nurse came to his side.

"Poor Mr. Durand." She stroked the matted hair back from Thierry's face. "The doctor came. She's nice. She's going to help him now." She peered up at Lucan. "Would you like to talk to the doctor?"

"Not now, darling." Lucan guided her away from Thierry and back into her cubicle. "What was your name again?"

"Heather." She hopped up onto the desk and gave him a coy look from under her lashes. "You smell so pretty. Do you want to, you know, bite me again?"

"Very much." He folded the sleeve of her blouse back neatly and removed the large adhesive bandage she had over her wrist. He was still hard from watching Alexandra, and reached down to strip off her panties and release himself from his trousers. "You don't mind, do you, darling?"

The nurse's eyelids drifted down as she lifted her wrist to his mouth and spread her legs.

Cyprien left Mme. Durand with Alex in the examination room. "If you need anything," he told Alex, "Éliane will be waiting in the hall."

Liliette's shoulder and elbow had been dislocated and had healed out of place, so Alex had only to manipulate the joints to put them back to heal in proper alignment. Although Liliette had the Darkyn ability to spontaneously heal, Alex hated causing the old lady new pain, and said as much.

"Nonsense, my dear doctor." Like a fond aunt, Liliette patted her cheek with her good hand. "This is nothing compared to what I endured when I was imprisoned in Paris."

"You were in jail?" Alex couldn't imagine that.

"Three long, uncomfortable months." Her hand strayed up to fiddle with her pearls. "Happily, the Bastille had a plentiful supply of slow rats and stupid guards."

"The Bastille as in The Tale of Two Cities Bastille?"

Liliette's shock matched Alex's. "You read that imbecile Dickens?"

"I didn't want to," she assured her. "The teachers made me. In high school."

That seemed to upset the grand old lady even more. "They teach this? Do you know that he stole from Carlyle to write that wretched novel? As if plagiarizing a history book made him an authority on the Terror." She sniffed. "It was not, I assure, any sort of lyrical thing like the best of times or worst of times. It was nothing but years and years of endless butchery, especially for Kyn. Literary idiot."

"I really wouldn't know, madame."

"But of course, you—" She stopped and gave Alex a startled look. "Mon Dieu, you are not Kyn. You are human."

She had no intention of explaining what she was to Liliette or anyone. "It's okay; Cyprien filled me in on things and is making me"—what did he call it?—"a tree thing."

"Tresora."

"Right." Alex gently bent the older woman's arm at the elbow to check her range of motion. "So the revolutionaries, they went after you guys in France, huh?"

"They hunted us through our families," she corrected. "Rome commissioned Joseph Guillotin to find an efficient way to dispatch our kind. We discovered this only after he submitted his proposition to the Assembly in 1789, recommending decapitation as the standard form of capital punishment in France."

"Nice guy." If she witnessed the French Revolution, Cyprien must have been there, too, Alex thought. If they weren't all pathological liars, well, it boggled the mind. "Everything seems to be working okay now. Try to get some rest, and take it easy on your arm for the next twenty-four hours. I'll want to check it tomorrow."

"Doctor—Alexandra—I have something to say to you." Liliette put a gentle hand on her arm. "I love my nephew Thierry."

"That I could tell."

"I know you doubt what I say, but I did live through that time. I watched nearly all of my family and friends go under the blade. The only reason Marcel and I survived was Thierry. He escaped the mob, and he and Michael and our other Kyn, they came for us. They could not save everyone, you understand? There was not enough time. So they had to choose. There were people who had been tortured, whose minds…" Liliette looked suddenly very tired and old. "I pray you never have to make such a choice."

"Me, either." Alex stuck her head out into the hallway, and saw Éliane talking to two of the guards. "Yo, Blondie. Madame is ready to go back to her room."

Éliane dismissed the guards and walked over to her. "While we have a moment, I would speak to you. You should be aware that Mr. Cyprien is in the midst of delicate negotiations at this time."

Alex guessed she was supposed to be daunted by this. She wasn't. "Does he need to borrow some antacid, or my calculator?"

"You do not realize how important this is. Michael Cyprien will soon be named seigneur." She made a broad gesture. "He will have power over all les jardins in the U.S."

"And?"

Éliane gave her a pitying smile. "He does not have time to dance attendance on you. He is only using you to gain favor with Tremayne, high lord of the Darkyn."

"The high lord, huh? Here I thought Mike was all hot for my gorgeous bod. I'm devastated." Alex yawned. "You can take Madame back to her room now, and go find that nurse."

The blonde drew herself up like a cat doused with water. "Do you know who I am?"

"You mean, besides a boil on my butt?"

"I am Michael Cyprien's tresora. We tresori have served the Darkyn since the fourteenth century, when the first of our kind swore an oath of loyalty to protect our dark lords. We are their eyes and ears; we keep them from harm and oversee their holdings. We assure no one discovers who they are, and we recruit other humans in positions of authority to protect the jardins." She made a contemptuous sound. "They do not know, as we tresori do, whom they protect, but we assure that they do as they are told. We have kept the Darkyn safe for centuries, and in return they grant us great wealth and power."

"I'm so happy for you." Alex tapped the floor with one foot. "Can I have a nurse now?"

"My own family, the Selvais, have served the master faithfully since he first rose. I am the thirty-fifth of my line to become tresora." Éliane patted the side of her hair. "Now that perhaps you understand better who I am, you will—"

Alex made a cutting gesture. "You're Renfield. I got it. Still need a nurse."

"I am explaining to you why I am not here to run errands for you."

"Look on the bright side." Alex patted her shoulder. "I won't make you eat bugs."

Marcel limped in after a fuming Éliane escorted Liliette back to her room. "My eye was burned out of my head. You cannot fix that."

Alex nodded toward his cane. "What about the limp?"

"I am cursed by God." He scowled and paced, spreading the scent of fresh-cut grass in the room.

She studied the line of his leg, saw how he rolled his hip. "God must have been really ticked off during the Dark Ages. Bring it over here."

He glowered and avoided her. "I do not trust leeches, or humans."

"Too bad, I've been hired at the group discount rate. And if you call me a leech again, I'll hurt you. Now get up on the exam table." She changed her gloves, and when she turned around, he hadn't moved. "I'm sorry," she said, very loud. "Did they do something to your ears, too?"

He trudged over and planted himself on the table, sweeping back the robe. Instead of the wounded leg Alex expected to see, he showed her something quite different.

She went and took his foot in her hands, and manipulated it gently. "No midtarsal mobility, transverse crease, displaced navicular, calcaneocuboid, and subtalar joints."

"What does that mean?"

"You weren't cursed by God, Mr. Durand. You were born with a clubfoot." Alex thought for a moment. "Under the circumstances, I should be able to perform an osteotomy of the distal part of the calcaneus combined with a plantar fasciotomy and posteromedial release. I'll need a couple hours to correct and rearrange your joints, maybe a little wedge of skull bone, and a whole lot less lip from you."

His one eye rounded. "You would do this for me?"

The man had a congenital birth defect that predated his growing fangs. Alex could fix that without a crisis of conscience.

"Sure." She stood and tapped his eye patch. "Want to show me what's under here now?"

He untied the black ribbon holding it in place. His eye and eyelid were missing, evidently violently removed but completely healed. The eye socket had rough edges, and it was easy to tell what were gouge marks and what were burn marks.

Alex tilted his head up and used a scope light to probe the cratered socket. "What did they use?"

"A knife and a poker heated in the fire."

She gently lowered the eye patch back into place. "You're right; I can't help you out with this eye. Your tissue will reject any type of prosthesis I try to implant. I'm sorry." She felt someone watching them, and saw Heather and Jamys hovering in the doorway. "Here's my next patient."