“No one else would have you?” she guessed tartly, reminding him without quite saying so that he’d not exactly been welcome in her house, either.
“Our father hunts us,” he explained, and the edges of her teeth bit down on her full bottom lip. “He will not rest until we are dead. We fled here, and were met with suspicion and open hostility. The witches were generous enough to accept our presence, but the werewolves made no such allowances. They saw us as their natural enemies, so that’s how I treated them. I couldn’t let them drive us out, Vivianne, that was all.”
Her face had softened, just a little. “But then nothing has changed,” she argued, although it sounded halfhearted. “You—we—are still natural enemies, are we not?”
He saw his opening and pulled her close to him, feeling the race of her heartbeat against his chest. “Are we?” he murmured, bending down so that his breath stirred her hair. “If you and I can find common ground, I’m sure that the rest of our kinds can be persuaded to do the same. We could lead them by example into cooperation and coexistence. We could create a legacy of peace that will be a beacon to the world.”
He almost had her, he could see it. If he kissed her now, she would respond. Her lips were parted, wet, waiting. But she’d come to regret changing her mind so quickly, he knew: She would distrust this kiss and doubt her judgment if he pressed too hard. Making her wait would be smarter. Let her think about him, miss him, want him...and compare him to that fool Armand every time the stupid werewolf opened his mouth.
When Klaus won her, he would win her completely.
He reached down and lifted her unresisting hand to his mouth, completing the more formal kiss she had denied him earlier. He could feel a faint trembling in her skin, and he smiled to himself as he released it. “I think my five minutes have passed,” he murmured. “I will not trouble you any more tonight. Just know, Vivianne Lescheres, that if you allow me, I will give you the world.”
He turned and left before she could answer. He felt suddenly inspired to take up his painting again—he knew exactly what the last canvas was missing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELIJAH SUSPECTED THAT the edges of the city would be the most likely spots. Witches and werewolves had eyes everywhere in the center of town, and the new residential neighborhoods were too orderly and visible for a purchase to go through unnoticed. But the outskirts, where the city faded into the bayou and the untamed forest, were still a half-wild paradise and the perfect place for a vampire to call home.
He rode out at night, while Klaus sank ever further into his lovesick misery and Rebekah gallivanted around with the French army. One of the Mikaelsons had to keep an eye on their true purpose and, as usual, the task had fallen on him.
Where the houses and shops gave way to patchy fields and makeshift farms, Elijah rode, surveyed, and occasionally made the most discreet of inquiries about land for sale. He had not yet met with any success, and in fact had been chased away by several suspicious residents. But he only needed to be lucky once, and he had a lot of ground left to cover.
There were still traces of the setting sun in the sky, but candlelight glowed in several spots, dotting the stretch of land he intended to ride over that night. One man, stooped and white-haired, was still outside, struggling to lash a wide piece of canvas over some barrels stacked at what Elijah judged to be the very edge of his land. There were full, heavy clouds on the horizon, and after watching him for a moment, Elijah rode toward him.
“Can I help?” he called when he was close enough, and the man spun around.
“You can stay where you are,” the man suggested sharply, and Elijah saw that, while his face was lined and tired-looking, his blue eyes were sharp and focused with intelligence. The house behind him was modest but in good shape, and he had kept his land clear of the forest that encroached on three sides. This was not a man who would drift into his old age in a featherbed, surrounded by fat great-grandchildren.
Elijah dismounted to put them on somewhat more even footing, and held up his empty hands meaningfully. “I am sorry to startle you,” he said softly. “I have been searching for a place near here to settle with my family and saw you working so late, that’s all. It seemed as though you could use an extra pair of hands.”
“An extra everything is more like it,” the man admitted, sizing up Elijah’s broad shoulders. “I should have made moving these into the cellar a condition of the trade in the first place, but I thought it would be just as easy to throw on a rain cover if I needed it.” He smirked wryly. “I was mistaken.”
“I can move them for you, if that would be better,” Elijah offered—in for a penny, in for a pound. It couldn’t hurt to have a friend among the homesteaders out here, and the man’s uncomplaining attitude toward a task that was most certainly beyond him was charming.
“It’s a two-man job.” The man looked at the barrels. Elijah realized that he meant he wasn’t one of those men, as he wouldn’t be able to lift his side of a barrel. It didn’t matter, since Elijah was much stronger than an ordinary man, but he hurt for the old man’s wounded pride all the same.
He walked to the barrels, tipping the nearest one into his hands and lifting it easily. “It is,” he agreed. “So please show me the way and open the cellar door for me. I’d rather not hold this any longer than I need to.”
The man looked incredulous, then delighted. There was a noticeable spring in his step as he crossed his little patch of land, making for the stump of what had once been an impressively massive oak tree. He pulled at an iron ring in the ground beside it, and a section of turf swung upward, revealing a gaping hole below. The cellar had been hollowed out beneath the spreading roots of the tree, and Elijah felt carefully with each foot for the next uneven dirt stair while balancing the large barrel against his chest. The next four trips went just as smoothly, and then the man closed the trapdoor behind them and wiped his hands on his trousers.
“The name’s Hugo Rey,” he grunted, his voice thick with emotion, holding out his right hand. Elijah tried to remember the last time a human had offered to shake his hand and couldn’t.
He accepted the gesture warmly, and gave his name—his real name, to his own surprise—in return. “Can I do anything else for you while I’m here?” he asked courteously, rather hoping that Hugo would take him up on the offer.
“You can join me inside for a drink, son,” the old man told him firmly. “That was hard work you’ve just saved me, and the least I can do is provide hospitality in return. You must be thirsty after all that lifting.”
Normally, the inadvertent invitation to feed would have whetted Elijah’s appetite, but the thought of hurting Hugo didn’t even cross his mind. “It would be my pleasure,” he agreed sincerely, and together they made for the house in the center of the field.
It had grown dark and rain was nearly at the doorstep. Hugo set about lighting candles and clearing odds and ends from the rough-hewn kitchen table. Bits of hardware along with paper covered in lists of figures and painstakingly precise drawings were swept away before Elijah could put his finger on what they were, and he refocused his attention on the stocky earthenware cups that Hugo set out in their place.