“I think I could learn much from your example,” Elijah admitted.

Hugo pushed his chair back from the table abruptly, and when he rose Elijah noticed that he was unsteady on his feet. That was a surprise. Although Hugo had partaken quite liberally of the liquor in his cup, Elijah had been under the impression that he did not normally drink less. He should have been accustomed to his generous nightcap, and yet he swayed as he crossed the room as if he were on the deck of a ship.

He returned with an intricately mosaicked wooden box, which he set down wordlessly in the center of the table, halfway between the two cups. With a long exhale, Hugo opened the box to reveal some worn, yellowed papers. Elijah stared at them, unsure whether he was meant to pick them up and examine them himself.

“I have a house, and not much more need of one. You need a house and do not have one.” Hugo’s gruff voice was blunt, but his blue eyes avoided Elijah’s as if he felt suddenly shy. “Keep searching among my neighbors if you like, but if you want it, this home will be yours upon my death.” He produced a fountain pen from one of his pockets, and Elijah stared keenly at it. Such pens, with a reservoir of ink hidden neatly inside of a metal casing, were rare—yet another unexpectedly interesting item in this modest little house. Hugo scribbled on the papers before him, then signed his name at the bottom of each page with a flourish. “I have not met a man in a long time that I would wish to consider my heir,” he mumbled when he had finished. “But I cannot stop thinking of the future, even now. And here you are....”

He trailed off, his eyes still fixed on the papers before him. Elijah understood that they were two of a kind. “I would be honored,” he told the old man gently, “and grateful. Eternally grateful,” he added, a little ruefully. If Hugo wanted his home—and his memory—to live on, he could hardly have chosen a better beneficiary. “But I hope that it will be a long time before we have the use of this remarkable gift. I would rather come to visit you here again, and often, if you will allow it.”

Hugo smiled and sat down heavily in his chair, although he was not a large man. “I would like that, too,” he said serenely, his gaze fixed on something in the distance that Elijah could not see. His lined face looked flushed in the candlelight. “But I think that the time for visiting is largely past. It has been very enjoyable, though. Very satisfactory.”

Elijah frowned and glanced down at his cup again. Was Hugo ill? Did he know something about his death that he had chosen not to share? His eyes moved forward to the signed pages between them on the table. He had made it his goal to own land, but now he felt deeply troubled about accepting it. As hard as it had been for the Mikaelsons to carve out a foothold in New Orleans, to find a friend had always proved even more difficult.

“I will use whatever time is left, then,” he promised, and a smile creased Hugo’s face. He poured them another glass from his bottle of liquor, which was already more than half gone, and Elijah raised his mug in a silent toast.

They talked well into the night. Their silences grew and lengthened as the hours wore on, and several times Elijah thought that Hugo might have dozed off. During these lapses, Elijah’s eyes roamed the room, taking in each small detail. He imagined how it would feel to have a home of their own again, a place as personal and lived-in as this one. Then the old man would rouse himself, and their conversation would resume. Hugo’s cheeks were still unnaturally flushed, and at times his mind appeared to wander, but he seemed to want their evening to continue, and Elijah was perfectly content to oblige him.

Finally, silence fell again, and to Elijah’s keen ears this one was deeper and more perfect than all the rest had been. The rainstorm had come and gone, and he could hear cicadas and bullfrogs outside. In the distance, the lazy spill of the Saint Louis River swept along. But inside the house, there was no sound at all.

Hugo Rey sat in his chair, one hand wrapped around his mug, but his eyes were empty and lifeless. The rise and fall of his chest had stopped, while Elijah’s attention had been diverted. He had passed, silently and peacefully, in his home and attended by a friend. Elijah knew that few humans were so lucky, but still, as he collected the papers from the table and returned to his horse he felt a painful twisting of regret in his chest.

CHAPTER NINE

THE ATTACK CAME at sundown. Cries went up from the sentries near the river first, and then Rebekah heard a second set of shouts rise from the woods to the west. The setting sun had turned the Saint Louis River into a long line of glittering fire, blinding the soldiers and confusing their line of defense. The attackers had chosen their approach well.

They looked human, but Rebekah knew better: A dead werewolf had been carried out of the camp the night before, and now his pack had come for vengeance. Soldiers called to her to stay in her tent as they ran past, and Eric shouted to Felix and pointed her way. His hook-nosed lieutenant immediately separated four men out from the ones running toward the battle to form a ring around Rebekah’s tent, keeping her safe within.

She wanted to tell them it wasn’t necessary, that she was better equipped to protect them than they her, but there was no point. Men would die who didn’t have to, but that was the nature of the world. She could hardly look out for their interests and her own at the same time, and so she waited patiently in her tent, listening to the brutal sounds of death all around it.

By the time it was fully dark outside, it was clear that the worst of the battle was pitched along the western edge of camp, and all of her guardians but Felix himself had left to join it. He had refused, sending the others to glory or death while he stayed behind, under orders.

Rebekah was restless. There were other things she could do than stay put, if only Felix would leave her alone. While the attention of the soldiers was elsewhere, this would be the perfect time to explore the forbidden reaches of the camp. The gruesome fate of the werewolf she had condemned weighed on her mind, and she needed to find out how much Eric knew. And, even more important, what his intentions were.

Rebekah had been inside the public chamber of Eric’s tent many times, but she doubted that he’d conduct an interrogation and an execution across his polished rosewood desk. Did he have a secret room that he was hiding from her? She’d previously assumed that his private chamber was a sleeping space, but now she wasn’t so sure. It was time to find out, and to see what else Eric kept secreted away.

The werewolf would not have revealed anything intentionally, but Eric was too clever by half. He was an impressive man all around, really: intelligent and generous and obviously well respected by his men, even after such a short time in command. It frustrated Rebekah that the same qualities that made him so agreeable to spend time with also made him more of a danger to her kind. If things had been different, Rebekah could see herself falling in love with a man like him.

Eric knew what he wanted from life and how to take it without resorting to cruelty, setting him apart from the men she’d been surrounded by for most of her interminable life. If she was honest with herself, Rebekah knew she was having trouble combating her attraction to Eric, even in spite of her very reasonable suspicions about his activities. In her heart she hoped that his tent would reveal nothing nefarious, and she’d be able to let her feelings of affection grow without fear...as if she had ever been so lucky.

She peeked through her tent flap’s opening, ready to make her move across the barracks to Eric’s headquarters. Felix was prowling the perimeter and saw her immediately. He was obnoxiously devoted to his job, but as long as she was stuck with him as her “protector” she decided she might as well use him.