An hour after sunset, Simon rode back through the gates of the Castle Charmot with Isabel cradled, still dozing, in his arms. “Wake up, darling,” he murmured as Brautus came to meet them. “We’re home.”
Isabel blinked, still so tired she could barely hold her eyes open. “Oh, dear.” Brautus looked like a thunder-cloud, standing on the steps with his fists on his hips.
“So at least you’re alive,” he said as Simon climbed down.
“Of course I am alive.” Simon lifted her down and started to let her go, but she swayed on her feet. “I’m fine,” she insisted as he scooped her up again.
“Of course you are,” he muttered, kissing her cheek as he carried her inside. Brautus followed.
Orlando was waiting in the hall with Mother Bess beside him. The wizard bent his head to his folded hands on the table as soon as they appeared, mumbling a prayer of thanks, but the old woman didn’t look relieved at all. “What have you done to her?” she demanded of Simon, as Brautus drew his sword.
“Brautus, stop,” Isabel insisted through a yawn. “It’s all right.” Simon looked rather stormy himself, she noticed, facing the captain with a challenge in his eyes. “Put me down.” He didn’t respond, so she gave his hair a tug. “Simon, put me down.”
He set her on her feet but kept a firm hand on her elbow in case she should wobble again. Brautus, old dragon that he was, looked ready to eat him alive, and he couldn’t blame him; in his place, Simon knew he would feel just the same. But he couldn’t afford to back down and beg forgiveness, not with Kivar so close and so ready to attack. All the way home, he had felt the ancient evil’s gaze upon them, watching from the woods, and whether this feeling was real or his fretful imagination mattered very little. Kivar would come. “Sorry, love,” he said, squeezing Isabel’s hand, his eyes still focused on Brautus.
“What’s that on your neck, then?” Brautus asked Isabel, looking at her no more than Simon was. They looked like a pair of angry he-wolves, squaring off to fight, and she, she supposed, was the bone they were disputing. “What did he do to you?”
“He bit me,” she answered, her tone matter-of-fact. “But I lived.” Still holding Simon’s hand, she turned and faced the hall, the others who were gathered there as always for the evening meal. “Sir Simon is my love and my choice,” she said. “He will be my husband.” She looked back at Brautus. “He will be lord of Charmot.” A murmur of wonder rippled through the room, and she held Simon’s hand more tightly. “Anyone who cannot bear his rule is free to go; I will do all I can to help you find a new home.” She looked back at Brautus and Mother Bess, standing together, an odd alliance indeed. “But this man will be my lord.”
“Congratulations, my lady,” Hannah said, coming forward to embrace her. “This is happy news indeed.”
“Aye, it is,” Kevin agreed. He glanced back at his grandmother, and from his expression, Isabel thought she must have told him much while they were gone. But still he offered his hand to Simon. “We will be glad to have Sir Simon for our lord.”
Simon smiled, a dozen conflicting emotions pulling at his heart. “Thanks, Kevin,” he said, taking the groom’s hand. He could see Orlando watching him in despair. This was just what the wizard had warned him might happen, just the distraction he had feared. Brautus was watching as well and looking no happier, watching Isabel. “And what about you, captain?” Simon said, letting her go to face him. “I have wronged you, I know, whether I meant to do it or not.” He looked at the old woman standing just behind him. “Those who call me a wolf are not completely mistaken,” he admitted. “But I do love your lady with all my cursed heart, and I will not give her up.” He offered his hand. “Can you let me have her?”
“Do I have a choice?” he grumbled. Isabel frowned, crossing her arms to resist the urge to reach out to him herself and beg him for her heart’s desire as she would have done as a child. Simon was not a treat or a toy; he was her love, and Brautus must accept him or decide that he could not. “Aye,” he said at last, clasping Simon’s hand. “I know I do not.” He pulled the vampire into an embrace. “But keep her safe, or I will be the one to vanquish the wolf.”
“I will,” Simon promised, more moved by this cold surrender than by the warmth of all the rest save Isabel herself.
“Excellent,” Isabel said with a laugh, and most of the hall laughed with her. They didn’t realize what had just happened; they only knew their spinster lady would be wed. “Simon, come,” she said, taking his hand and drawing him away from the crowd. “I have to show you something.”
“You should rest,” he answered. He touched the wound on her throat, now bruised to a black and purple welt. “Every time I think about it—”
“So don’t,” she cut him off, softening her sharpness with a smile. “That is what I want to show you.” She caught Orlando’s eye and waved him over, glancing at the crowd as it continued to disperse. “I think I may have found the way to help you more than you know.” She reached into her pocket as Orlando joined them. “You said when you first came here that my father came to you in a vision to send you to Charmot.” She looked at the wizard and smiled. “I’m assuming now that you were lying.”
“Yes,” Simon admitted. “I’m sorry, love—”
“As well you ought to be,” she interrupted, a glint of real temper in her eyes. “I mean to punish you for the rest of our lives for telling me such a lie. But in the meantime…” She handed him the druid’s map.
“What is this?” He had a vague recollection of Kivar’s trying to take something from her the night before in her room, but he had been too engrossed in trying to save her life to worry about what it was.
“A map to the catacombs,” she answered. “You said there was something at Charmot that could save you from your curse, and I took you to the catacombs because I thought whatever you were seeking must be there.” He was studying the map, a look of wonder on his face. “You and Orlando seemed to agree.”
“Where did you get this?” It was indeed a map to the catacombs, marked with the sign of the Protectors of the Chalice over the chamber where Sir Gabriel had made his study and a trail made in what his demon senses told him without question was his love’s own blood. “How did you know—”
“I didn’t,” she admitted. He handed the map to Orlando almost absently, looking now at her instead. “My father… he had made scrolls of his own, chronicles of the castle and notes on his study of the druids, and he marked each scroll in one corner with a code, symbols I could never read.” She explained how she had taken the scrolls from the study and how she had by accident discovered their secret. “I knew it must lead to whatever you and Orlando were trying to find,” she finished, suppressing a smile at the stunned look on his face. “Last night when you went to the churchyard, I finished it so I could give it to you when you returned.” She shrugged. “But we got a bit distracted.”
“Just a bit,” Simon agreed, smiling in spite of himself. In truth, he felt a little dizzy. All this time spent searching for the Chalice, he had barely believed it existed, believed he was doomed to be alone forever, a monster despised by all who knew him for what he really was. Now in a single day and night, Isabel had looked into the demon’s eyes and sworn her love, had fed him from her very heart and lived to love him still, had declared to all he was her choice, her beloved, vampire or not. And now, it seemed, she had given him the Chalice.
“So what is it?” she asked him now. “What are you trying to find?”
“It’s called the Chalice,” he answered. “According to Orlando, it can save me from my sins, make me a man again, not a vampire.” You are afflicted with death, my son, Kivar had said, not a curse. The Chalice is healing, not salvation. But Kivar was a liar.
“And you think it’s here?” she said, weak again with relief. “Orlando?”
“All this time.” The wizard was purple and seething with fury. “All these weeks spent searching, and all the time the key was hidden in your tower. Stupid, sil
ly girl—”