Lynn Viehl - [Darkyn 08 - Lords of the Darkyn 01] Read Free

any hungry tourist who had wandered in through the old green doors. The owner, Madame Eugenie, prepared all the dishes herself, using the cheapest ingredients and as much garlic as she dared. She considered this blatant desecration of God’s bounty an economical measure as well as her patriotic duty.
    The tourists, ignorant cretins that they were, never seemed to notice. As long as they were served a plate close to overflowing, they happily handed over their euros.
    Only after dark did madame’s chef arrive to cook for the villagers who came to dine, and whose standards were French. The local residents could not be appeased by a stew of shredded lapin smothered beneath a montagne of carrots, the blandest of radishes glued by oleo to day-old black bread, or gallons of cheap Spanish wine funneled into empty, French-labeled bottles. If in a moment of madness Eugenie ever dared to serve such swill to her neighbors, they would consider it their patriotic duty to lock her and her staff inside the old restaurant before setting fire to the place.
    For these reasons madame was not at all pleased when her waitress Marie nudged her and nodded toward a tall, flaxen-haired stranger standing just inside the threshold.
    “ Zut , not a German at this hour. He must have run out of petrol. Unless he is an American.” Eugenie almost spit on the last word. To her, the only thing worse than the Berliners were those loud, nosy imbeciles from across the Atlantic, forever thumbing through their phrase books and mangling her native tongue. Or the ones who waddled in, their rotund bodies shiny with sweat and sunscreen, to demand to know whether she served low-fat this and sugar-free that.
    “Whatever he is, he’s handsome,” Marie said, and shifted to get a better look. “Such a big man, too. Look at those shoulders, and all that hair. It must fall to his waist.”
    “Et alors?” Eugenie gave the girl a hard pinch on the arm. “Forget his hair. Ask if he has a reservation. He will say no, and you will tell him to call for one tomorrow.”
    Marie rubbed her arm and said in an absent tone, “We do not take reservations, madame.”
    “Does he know this, you goose?” she hissed, and then saw it was too late. “There, now, because you are lazy and stupid, he is already sitting down. Go and see what he wants. If he asks for the cheeseburger do not tell me. I will choke him with his own hair.”
    Korvel stopped listening to the conversation between the women behind the bar and checked the interior of the restaurant. Only a third of the tables were occupied, most by couples and some middle-aged men. One delicate fairy of a schoolgirl sat picking at her food while her parents bickered in half whispers. Apart from sending a few uninterested glances in his direction when he had walked in, no one paid any further attention to him.
    As transparent as a bloody specter, but not half as interesting .
    When the young, smiling waitress approached his table his empty belly clenched, but years of self-denial quickly dispelled the involuntary response. He listened as the girl stammered through a brief recital of the evening specials before he ordered a bottle of a local Bandol and the vegetable soup. The wine would not satisfy his ever-present hunger, and if he attempted to eat the soup he would puke, but they would buy him a half hour of quiet and rest before he continued his journey.
    Or I could have the waitress and be gone in five minutes .
    He had no time or particular inclination to give his body what it needed: a woman. There had been a time when any woman would do, for no matter how different they were from one another, they all shared the same soft warmth, the same intense fragility. He had thought mortal women as lovely as an endless meadow of flowers.
    So it had been until he had fallen in love with Alexandra Keller. The only woman he had ever truly wanted for himself, now gone from his life and forever beyond his reach.
    For a time, being caught