Immortals After Dark 05 - Dark Needs at Nights Edge

advantage.
    What were the women of his time thinking to allow him to go unscathed? She wanted to fan herself with the cards she appeared to hold. “So ask your question,” she absently said.
    “Were you survived by any of your family?”
    “Non. I never knew my father. Maman died when I’d just turned sixteen. I was an only child.”
    She dealt again. He had an ace showing, and she had seventeen. Dealer holds. “Merde,” she snapped when he flipped a ten of clubs.
    He asked, “Why didn’t you know your father?” When she hesitated, he repeated her words: “Any question whatsoever, truthfully and completely.”
    “I didn’t know him because he was a scoundrel. He was rich, a scion of Nîmes, France, and my mother had been a young servant in his home. He was married, but he still seduced her. When she revealed to him she was expecting his child, he told her, ‘Take the voyage to America, and I’ll follow right after my divorce. We’ll raise the baby there as a family.’ But he never came. She waited for him—stranded here, pregnant, and without enough money to return.”
    “Maybe he died on the crossing. Who knows what could have happened to him?”
    “Non, he sent maman a pittance that only served to let her know she’d been duped—a potential scandal decisively removed from société’s eyes. To her dying day, she thought he would come for us, so she never remarried.” Though there were certainly proposals in her line of work—some even legitimate.
    Néomi had been unable to comprehend how Marguerite could turn away opportunities for a better life when they were offered to her, opportunities for a French émigrée dancer and her bastard to get out of the Vieux Carré.
    In Néomi’s mind, if a woman was silly enough to wait for a man to save her, then she didn’t get to be choosy about which man it would be.
    Marguerite’s life had taught Néomi well. She’d vowed never to be in that situation, dependent on a man.
    She dealt once more. She had nineteen, while he had a jack of hearts showing. “Hit,” he said. She did. “Hit again. And once more.” He flipped his cards over. Jack, two, three, six.
    Her lips thinned. This card game wasn’t working out as she’d planned. She’d hoped to find out about his past and how he’d gone a lifetime without sex—not to get interrogated.
    “Twenty-one the hard way. I win again. If your mother didn’t remarry, how did the two of you live?”
    “She worked.”
    “That’s not a thorough answer.”
    “She was a burlesque dancer. I grew up in lodgings above the club.”
    He raised his brows. “This explains much about you, and your lack of modesty. But with your looks”—his gaze dropped to her breasts, then swiftly back up—“why didn’t you follow in her footsteps?”
    She gave him a bland smile. “Who says I didn’t?”
    He looked aghast. “But you were a ballet dancer!”
    “Not always,” she murmured.
    “You can’t leave it at that.”
    “Then win this hand.” Twenty to her and seventeen to him. I win.” Finally. And if he was going to dig into her past, then... “Why aren’t you more loyal to your family?”
    He narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to question my sense of loyalty?”
    “Oui. Actually, I just did.”
    “I was in the Kapsliga for eighteen years. Then they turned on me. I fought side by side with my brothers for over a decade—they made me a monster.”
    “Why do you feel like you’re a monster? I wish you didn’t view vampires the way you do. You’re growing on me”—I’m infatuated with you—“and I think your brothers are honorable men. The fact that you are all vampires is incidental.”
    “Incidental. My beliefs boiled down to one word.” He fingered the edges of a card. “If you saw me in the midst of bloodlust, you’d think me a monster. Now deal. I’m keen to get to my questions.”
    She dealt. “Ha! I win. Why are your three brothers... different from you? Why did they never drink from the vein?”
    “Sebastian prevented himself by becoming a hermit, staying away from any temptation. The oldest two joined an order, an army called the Forbearers. Their first law is never to take blood straight from the flesh. Though now I’ve heard they’re allowed to drink from their immortal Brides.”
    “The Forbearers are King Kristoff’s army, n’est-ce pas?” When he nodded, she said, “Why didn’t you just join up with your brothers?”
    “Kristoff’s a bloody Russian!” he