A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1)

by Deborah Harkness

“That’s why I want you to take a sample from me,” I said patiently. Confusion passed over his face. “I’ve wondered my whole life what the Bishop blood was doing as it pumped through my veins. Everyone who knew about my family wondered. Now we’ll know.”

A pair of vampires brushed by. One touched me briefly, and Matthew’s hand was lightning fast as he laced his fingers through mine. The contrast between us was so striking, his skin so pale and cold, and mine so alive and warm in comparison.

I crossed to the window and looked down, only to see Matthew looking up. I waved. He smiled, put his hands in his pockets, and turned back to the lodge, slipping into the night’s darkness as if it belonged to him.

Matthew was waiting for me in the lodge at half past seven, immaculate as always in a monochromatic combination of dove and charcoal, his dark hair swept back from his uneven hairline.

We walked the remaining distance, Matthew relaxing into the darkness with every step as if in the company of an old friend.

He was like a mischievous boy on a treasure hunt, pulling me along. We ducked through a cracked door black with age, and Matthew switched on a light. His white skin leaped out of the dark, and he looked every inch a vampire.

It was all perfectly, quintessentially Matthew.

“It’s like a disease. I can’t keep the curiosity at bay when you start reminiscing.” “I know. It’s one of the difficulties a vampire faces when he spends time with a witch who’s a historian.” Matthew’s mouth was bent in a mock frown, but his eyes twinkled like black stars.

He lifted my hair away from my neck and let it fall through his fingers as if it were water. I shivered at the touch of cool air on my skin.

“I love your hair,” he murmured. “It has every color imaginable—even strands of red and black.” I heard the sharp intake of breath that meant he had picked up a new scent. “What do you smell?” My voice was thick, and I still hadn’t dared to meet his eyes. “You,” he breathed. My eyes floated up to his. “Shall we have dinner?”

“Do you wonder what it would be like for me to taste you?”

I drunk from two glasses of wine? Drugged? What else would explain the feeling that I couldn’t break free? “It’s not only your scent that pleases me. I can hear your witch’s blood as it moves through your veins.”

“Did you know that a witch’s blood makes music? Like a siren who sings to the sailor, asking him to steer his ship into the rocks, the call of your blood could be my undoing—and yours.”

“Matthew,” I breathed around the catch in my throat. I closed my eyes, expecting to feel teeth against my neck yet unable—unwilling—to move.

“Be still,” he said, voice harsh. “I might not be able to control myself if you step away.” He’d warned me in the lab about the relationship between predator and prey. Now he was trying to get me to play dead so the predator in him would lose interest in me. But I wasn’t dead.

Matthew was a creature of instinct now. But I had instincts, too. “I’m safe with you.” I formed the words with lips that were freezing and burning at the same time, unused to the feeling of a vampire’s kiss.

“I’ve seen courage like yours before—from women, mostly.” Matthew continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Men don’t have it. Our resolve is born out of fear. It’s merely bravado.”

“Witches and vampires aren’t meant to feel this way. I’m experiencing emotions I’ve never—” He broke off. “I know.” Carefully I leaned my cheek against his hair. It felt as satiny as it looked. “I feel them, too.”

“I’m going to Woodstock to go hunting,” he said casually. “Good hunting, then,” I said, equally casually. “It doesn’t bother you at all to know I’ll be out culling my own deer?” Matthew sounded taken aback. “No. Occasionally I eat partridge. Occasionally you feed on deer.” I shrugged. “I honestly don’t see the difference.”

Matthew’s eyes glittered. He stretched his fingers slightly but didn’t let go of my hand. Instead he lifted it to his lips and put a slow kiss on the tender flesh in the hollow of my palm. “Off to bed,” he said, releasing my fingers. His eyes left trails of ice and snow behind as they lingered not only over my face but my body, too.

Matthew lifted my hand from his arm and began to pack up his belongings. “We’re leaving.” “No we’re not. We are not leaving until we get that manuscript.” “Were you listening?” Matthew said hotly. “He threatened you! I don’t need this manuscript, but I do need—” He stopped abruptly.

“Threaten her again and I’ll kill you on the spot.” Matthew’s voice was calm, but a passing tourist’s frozen look suggested that his face betrayed stronger emotions.

“Stop fighting me.” He sounded amused. “You’ll get tired long before I do, I assure you.”

“We can do this all afternoon if you want,” he murmured. “But I honestly can’t recommend it. My reflexes are much faster than yours.”

“But that’s not true, is it?” he said, running his lips and cheek gently against my hair. My blood started to sing in response. Even I could hear it. He laughed again, this time with satisfaction. “I didn’t think you believed it. I just wanted to be sure.”

“You are the most exasperating creature I’ve ever met.”

Somewhere in the center of my soul, a rusty chain began to unwind. It freed itself, link by link, from where it had rested unobserved, waiting for him. My hands, which had been balled up and pressed against his chest, unfurled with it. The chain continued to drop, to an unfathomable depth where there was nothing but darkness and Matthew. At last it snapped to its full length, anchoring me to a vampire. Despite the manuscript, despite the fact that my hands contained enough voltage to run a microwave, and despite the photograph, as long as I was connected to him, I was safe.

“A sedative.” His stern look encouraged me to pop both pills into my mouth, immediately, along with a gulp of water. “I’ve been carrying one since you told me you suffered from panic attacks.”

My body, for all its wrappings, fit against him perfectly.

I could still feel the chain that anchored me to Matthew, witch to vampire. With the links of that chain tight and shining, I slept.

his father’s scent was all over her. He’d done it deliberately, to mark Diana so that every vampire would know to whom she belonged.

In the bedroom, too far away for a warmblood to have heard, Diana stirred and cried out. Matthew sped to her side and gathered her into his arms. The protectiveness returned, and with it a renewed sense of purpose. “I’m here,” he murmured against the rainbow strands of her hair. He looked down at Diana’s sleeping face, her mouth puckered and a fierce frown between her eyes. It was a face he’d studied for hours and knew well, but its contradictions still fascinated him. “Have you bewitched me?” he wondered aloud.

After tonight Matthew knew his need for her was greater than anything else. Neither his family nor his next taste of blood mattered as much as knowing that she was safe and within arm’s reach. If that was what it meant to be bewitched, he was a lost man.

Were he not a vampire he wouldn’t have caught her faint, murmured words as she clutched both his ampulla and the fabric of his sweater, her fist resting firmly against his heart. “You’re not lost. I found you.”

She could hear his thoughts. Not all the time, not when she was conscious—not yet. But it was only a matter of time before Diana knew everything there was to know about him. She would know his secrets, the dark and terrible things he wasn’t brave enough to face.

She answered with another faint murmur. “I’m brave enough for both of us.” Matthew bent his head toward hers. “You’ll have to be.”

The leisurely rhythms of his vampire heart soon put me to sleep.

The floor shifted under my feet, and Matthew’s arm circled my waist, keeping me steady.

Matthew’s hand moved from my waist to the small of my back. He began to rub it with the heel of his hand, pressing into the rigid muscles until they started to relax.

“It’s a long climb, and you’re tired. Do you need me to carry you?” “No,” I said indignantly. “You are not going to sling me over your shoulder like a victorious medieval knight making off with the spoils of battle.” Matthew pressed his lips together, eyes dancing. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.” He did laugh, the sound bouncing off the stone walls as if a pack of amused vampires were standing in the stairwell.

“You’re so alive,” he said gruffly. “You should be with a man much, much younger.”

Apparently Matthew had raided my cupboards while I slept last night and been quite specific with his shopping lists.

Once it was in his mouth, he looked at his owner triumphantly. “Yes, I see that you are behaving like a prince,” Matthew said drily, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t behave like a devil at the first opportunity.” Balthasar’s hooves struck the ground in annoyance.

“Will you never wait until I help you?” he growled into my ear. “I can get onto a horse myself,” I said hotly. “But you don’t need to.” Matthew’s hands cupped my shin, lifting me effortlessly into the saddle.

“What kind of horse is Dahr?” I asked, noticing his equally smooth gait. “I suppose you’d call him a destrier,” Matthew explained. That was the mount that carried knights to the Crusades. “He was bred for speed and agility.” “I thought destriers were enormous warhorses.” Dahr was bigger than Rakasa, but not much. “They were large for the time. But they weren’t big enough to carry any of the men in this family into battle, not once we had armor on our backs, and weapons. We trained on horses like Dahr and rode them for pleasure, but we fought on Percherons like Balthasar.”

This vampire was used to giving orders that were obeyed instantly. He wasn’t accustomed to making requests and negotiating agreements.

Matthew in France was different from Matthew in England. He’d never lost himself in his work this way. Here his shoulders weren’t fiercely squared but relaxed, and he’d caught his lower lip in his slightly elongated, sharp cuspid as he typed. It was a sign of concentration, as was the crease between his eyes.

“The question of why you’re here—how we’re all here—really does consume you,” I said slowly. “I could see it on every page of Darwin’s book.” Matthew studied his wine. “It’s the only question worth asking.”

“What spell have you put on me?” He searched my face. “It’s not simply your eyes—though they do make it impossible for me to think straight—or the fact you smell like honey.”

“Not before the witch hears what I have to say. I have come to serve you with a warning, Diana Bishop. Relationships between witches and vampires are forbidden. You must leave this house and no longer associate with Matthew de Clermont or any of his family. If you don’t, the Congregation will take whatever steps are necessary to preserve the covenant.” “I don’t know your Congregation, and I agreed to no such covenant,” I said, still furious. “Besides, covenants aren’t enforceable. They’re voluntary.” “Are you a lawyer as well as a historian? You modern women with your fine educations are so fascinating.