by Sharon Page
Miss Dare stood there.
He inclined his head. “Ah, you’re supposed to seduce me. Well, then, shall we find somewhere private?” In a dream, he couldn’t turn into a demon. Anyway, he couldn’t turn into one on the very first time….
“Why waste precious time hiding behind a tree,” she countered, saucy, sweet, tempting as the promise of eternal life when a man was dying in the dirt.
She rested her hand on his chest. And this time her body moved down first, while her hand slowly followed. It took him a minute to fully comprehend. She was sliding down his body, just as in the pool’s reflection. And all the men around him watched in astonishment.
“I want you. And I intend to claim you, my lord. Very publicly.” On her knees before him, she watched him. Her eyes widened, blue as sapphires, as the skies above Heaven, and she licked her lips. “I was warned you would be hard to seduce. So I had to think: how was I to tempt you into madness, when I was certain you’ve done everything?”
This was madness. This couldn’t be real. But she was gazing hungrily at his rigid cock.
“So I had to think very, very hard, my lord.”
He was very, very hard. Hard enough to be as thick as two short planks. He should have stopped her. The entire crowd had stopped—talking, walking, breathing—and watched. Watched her undo his trousers and pull them down, and bare his backside to the cream of good society. And he didn’t care. Didn’t care that his tensed buttocks were on display to all and sundry. He couldn’t because her fingers stroked his ballocks until he had to let his head fall back and growl to the heavens.
Then her mouth moved in for the proverbial kill.
Her wicked little tongue just rested against the crown of his cock. The barest bit of sensation, and it drove him mad.
“Now to pleasure you everywhere, my jaded lord,” she whispered.
He forgot to breathe as those lush lips parted and she took him in. His cock plunged into heavenly, unbelievable heat.
Then she sucked him. Sucked him hard enough to drag his brains out through his cock. He had to bow his head in submission, for her tongue was heaven and hell all wrapped up into one blissful package.
He could be the most controlled man when it came to sex.
Not now.
First he panted. Then he groaned. And as she took him to the hilt and licked and suckled him, he howled, like a wolf confronted with a big, blood-red harvest moon.
He heard the fast breathing of every man around him. He felt their envy like blades pricking his skin. He reveled in it. And she looked up at him, brimming with innocence. Hell, she was smiling around his rock-hard, swollen shaft, smiling knowingly.
He was her slave.
At this moment, if she’d asked for the moon, he would have started to build an impossible iron bridge.
God. Then he was on the brink. Knew he couldn’t hold back. Hastily, he took her hand and stopped her pleasuring him. He cupped her cheek and eased her back.
Her smile fell. “But you didn’t—”
“Not yet, Flower. I think you should be the one to come first.” He pulled her to her feet and dropped to his knees before her. His turn to supplicate before his goddess. He shoved up her skirts and two quivering cream-white thighs confronted him. Along with gold nether curls, already damp with her arousal.
He grasped her bottom and jerked her abruptly to him, burying his mouth in those springy curls, burying his face in her sweet-scented, eager little quim.
She tasted so very, very good.
He gave her one lick with his tongue before her hands gripped his head and she pushed his mouth hard against her. She screamed in ecstasy, jerked and jolted helplessly, and ground her juicy quim into his face.
His orgasm took him at the same instant. Took him and made him shout, jerk, and howl as his heart and soul seemed to burst, as his cock most definitely exploded, and the climax whipped him thoroughly and left him collapsed and gasping on—
The floor.
Vivienne cried out. She jerked up in her bed, covers tumbling away. She was dizzy with pleasure, her heart racing, her lungs fit to burst.
The dream had been so very real she could taste Heath’s earthy flavor on her lips. And she had truly climaxed.
Then she knew, even before she looked. The bed was empty beside her. He had gone.
“Well, Flower, I definitely was correct about you. You are no ordinary courtesan. No wonder every peer in London was mad to have you.”
The voice came from her doorway. He stood there completely naked, leaning on her doorframe. Arm propped, ankles crossed.
She stared at him. “What are you talking about?” His face was flushed and he was breathing hard.
“You, my dear, are a succubus. And if you will excuse me, I have to return to my sleep. Which you woke me from, Miss Dare, with your luscious dream. You are not to go anywhere, love, until I’m awake and can join you again.”
3
S uccubus.
He had not told her what he meant by it, what the word even meant. No, brimming with arrogance, Lord Blackmoor had turned on his heel and vanished after tossing that word into her bedroom like a flaming cannonball.
Vivienne jumped out of her bed and snatched up a robe. She dragged it onto her naked body as she charged out into the empty hallway. The door to the servants’ stairs stood open. She raced up the back stairs in the pitch black. She missed steps, bumped her shins, and arrived at the top. She searched the attic rooms for him, finding one locked.
Damn. She’d run after him, but he had gotten here so far ahead of her, he’d had time to lock the door.
He was sleeping in a dark, ignored part of the attic. Faint snores came from the servants’ bedrooms that filled the rest of the space. She tried again to turn the knob. It didn’t budge. She rattled it. She didn’t dare pound on the door or shout; she’d wake everyone else.
This stranger had barred her own door to her.
She braced a foot on it and pulled. But it stayed shut. This was her door; why should it obey his blasted command? She had to admit defeat and trudge downstairs. Rage made her eyes burn, and sheer stubbornness held the tears back.
But, in the morning, when she tried to leave her own house, a rough-looking, thick-necked brute stopped her.
She stood on the threshold of her doorway, unable to take another step without walking into a wall of a man. She was afraid, but she tried to drown that with rage. “Who in blazes are you? And what do you mean, I am not to leave the house?”
He touched his cap. Never had she seen such enormous hands. “Orders from his lordship, ma’am,” he said. “I work for him. And his lordship insists you stay in the house until nightfall.”
Fury crackled. “This is my house. I am the voice of command here.”
The enormous man shook his head. “His lordship insisted this is for your safety, ma’am.”
She threatened the man with everything she could think of, from her pistol to a dozen years in New South Wales after he was transported, but he merely turned his enormous back on her and crossed his arms.
“I will have you bodily removed,” she roared at his back. People passed by on the sidewalk below, umbrellas over their heads to shield them from rain, all oblivious to the insanity of her situation.
“That would be a hard thing to do, ma’am. Lord Blackmoor hired me from my previous position as doorman in a gaming hell. I’m used to having to stand me ground.”
Wonderful. There was no point sending any of her servants out to deal with him. He was obviously accustomed to cracking heads.
Fuming, she stalked to the back of the house. Another enormous man stood there, smoking a cheroot. Within minutes, she learned “his lordship” had positioned men all around her house.
She stomped up the stairs, but quieted her footsteps as she retreated to Sarah’s room. Warm spring sunlight spilled in and a soft breeze batted lacy curtains. Her daughter was still sleeping. Vivienne settled onto the chair she kept always at the bedside.
How had this happened? A dozen years of pain and submission and saving and enduring, and she was back in a man’s power again.
At dusk, rain, soot, and fog all conspired to turn the East End sky black as coal, making it safe for a vampire to emerge. Especially one in a heavy, hooded cloak. Heath stopped in front of the apothecary and held up his hand as Julian, also cloaked, headed for the door. “Wait,” he warned.
He wanted to take a few moments and take in all the details of this place he’d ignored before.
Yesterday, his attention had all been on Vivienne. He had observed the apothecary only in his peripheral vision. Now, through the window, he saw dust, grime, and a jumble of ancient bottles.
He stepped back from the sidewalk. Fog billowed down the lane; the cobbles were slick and shining from the mist. Clopping hooves echoed from another street. The store was a narrow one, squashed between an empty building and a cobbler’s shop.
Julian rattled the door. “Locked again.”
“You expected otherwise?”
“It was open last night, when we came with the courtesan.”
“Miss Dare,” Heath corrected. “She’s no longer a courtesan.” He drew out a slim lockpick and had the lock sprung in a second.
“I did it faster.”
“And clumsier. You left scratches on the plate. Scratches which may or may not have been noticed. We have to be careful about this, Julian. And quiet.”
“Why? If there are demons here, they don’t need sound to know they’re being invaded.”
“True. But the place smells empty.”
“I can’t smell anything but the stink of chamber pots and rot. Same as yesterday.”
“That’s how I know there’s no one—mortal or not—inside.” The door gave a soft groan. Heath moved through the dark to the counter. Behind it Mrs. Holt had dispensed Vivienne’s needed drug. On the wooden shelves, bottles were crammed in.
“I’ve already searched through here. What exactly are we looking for this time?”
Heath glanced up. Julian frowned at the counter, his lip curled in distaste.
“I want to know what Mrs. Holt is. What she wants. And who really is making magic potions in this chemist’s. There have got to be some answers to be found here. Let’s go to the back.”
Vivienne had been instructed to seduce him. Why? If he kept thinking about the mystery behind it, he wouldn’t slip and think about letting Vivienne kiss him, touch him, then finally, when he was about to howl with desire, mount him—
Hades.
A dingy curtain concealed a set of narrow, crooked stairs. Heath moved up them so swiftly, the steps had no time to creak. He found himself in the room in which the apothecary prepared medicines. On one side, a wooden counter ran the length of the tight space. Bowls and pestles littered the work-table. Faint light crept around the curtains and glistened on the surface, revealing stains, powder residue, and slick things that had long dried. Astringent scents filled Heath’s nose, along with the heavy smell of rotting flesh. There were barrels along the wall beneath the lowest shelves.
“Body parts,” he muttered.
“Christ Jesus!” Julian’s shout had Heath spinning on his heel. “They weren’t there before.”
As he spat out the words, Julian jumped back. A stack of enormous jars swayed, tottered, and Heath jumped over the table to reach them—
His hand caught them and steadied the pile. Eyeballs sloshed in a yellowish fluid. Julian pointed to the counter and grinned sheepishly. “Those weren’t there last night either.”
Heath noted a tag attached to one. DRIED ELEPHANT PENIS, it read. “Poor buggers.”
A stack of books rested at the end of the counter. Heath looked at the first, a treatise on herbs and plants for medical treatments. The next two were texts on human anatomy. Normal, acceptable books for a place that sold cures.
“There are three bedchambers beyond this room,” Julian explained. “The largest is at the back and is the only one being used. The other two are empty.”
“Many chemists are more successful than this one appears to be,” Heath mused. “Most raise families within their shops.” There was something wrong, something missing.… “Stairs.”
“Over there,” Julian said.
“No. I mean there should be stairs up to another floor. These narrow stores all have three floors. We’re only on the second, and I saw no stairs that led upward. So they must be hidden.”
He began tracing his way along the walls, tapping, until his fist made a hollow sound. The plaster appeared unbroken. So how did the door to the stairs open? Magic, obviously. With a spell he didn’t know. So he raised his boot and slammed it through plaster and laths.
Julian jumped. “Hades, I thought we were supposed to be quiet.”
Ignoring the younger vampire, Heath kicked a hole large enough to climb through. He found himself on the landing of another narrow stair. There was no sound, only the soft flutter of bits of plaster settling. Then he charged upstairs. The stair opened onto a room that took up the entire floor, decorated like a gentleman’s study with an ornate desk of black wood and large leather chairs.
It took only moments to know the room was devoid of demons or apothecaries. Heath searched the desk first. He ripped open drawers and found them also empty—except for the last, which held a heavy seal. He turned and lifted it to look at the pattern.
He knew the design well. It was a thick cross decorated with curves and loops. The sight of it shot his thoughts back into his past. He remembered the flame of a campfire, howls of wolves, and the barking of frightened dogs. A man wearing furs lifted a brand from flame, and the raised cross had glowed red.
Heath remembered searing pain, the stench of his own burning flesh, as his sire’s servant had branded him while the ancient vampire placed the curse on his head.
“What is it?” Julian asked.
“Nothing.”
Now he knew how Mrs. Holt had known who he was. The vampire who used this room was his sire. Nikolai, the five-hundred-year-old vampire who had made him, who’d cursed him.
What was Vivienne’s part in this? As her payment for her medicine, was she supposed to unleash the demon in him?
Night had settled by the time his lordship bothered to come downstairs. Vivienne knew from stories that vampires had to stay out of the light and sleep in the day. But they slept in coffins. And vampires did not really exist.
She watched him with pursed lips as he prowled into Sarah’s room, all long legs and mobile shoulders. He appeared oblivious to the anger stewing inside her, the arrogant wretch. He was dressed in trousers and a shirt, but he moved on bare feet. Silent, graceful, stealthy.
He paused at the end of the bed and studied Sarah with his head cocked. He took a deep breath as though he scented something in the air.
Vivienne opened her mouth, but he spoke first. “Does she normally sleep so much?”
And with one question, he probed the deep fears boiling inside her. “She has never slept a whole day before. She must have been very tired—”
“She must be getting weaker and the medicine isn’t helping. That’s what you fear.”
She watched, hands fisted, as he approached Sarah. She flinched as he touched Sarah’s throat with two fingers until she realized he was checking the pulse.
“If I try to help your daughter, it will mean she will have to drink my blood. Are you willing to let me do that?”
“N-no. That’s preposterous—” She stopped. Doctors had come and had bled Sarah. And it had done nothing. “You licked my wound and it went away. Is that what would happen if Sarah drinks your blood?”
“It’s not as simple as that. I can’t feed her enough at one time to banish whatever this illness is. Not without taking the risk that I turn her into a vampire. I assume that’s not the future you envision for your daughter?”
“No!”
“Then we start slowly. A little at a time. She will build a tolerance. We should know in
a few days if it is working.”
A few days. “And do you intend to keep me a prisoner all that time?”
“I intend to keep you with me, Miss Dare. Until we find my brother.”
He might call himself a vampire, but he was as pigheaded a man as any of her protectors had been. But she couldn’t fight now. Or even protest her innocence. If believing she knew his brother kept him here to help Sarah, she’d hold her tongue. “That name you called me. Succubus. What does it mean?”
She had prided herself on the library she built, for she wanted Sarah to be well read. But none of her books defined that word.
He had been studying Sarah. He looked at Vivienne. “There is a way to prove what you are, Miss Dare. But it will mean you won’t be making love to anyone—in your dreams or out.”
“Your dream can’t have been the same as mine,” she challenged. “That’s impossible.”
A slow grin spread. “You dropped to your knees before me in Hyde Park.” He spoke softly so Sarah could not hear. “You sucked my cock until I was on the brink of climax. And what did I do then?”
She flushed. “You lifted me up to my feet and knelt before me and—”
“You see. The same dream. Was your climax as good in your dream as it was in mine?”
But he had left her then and drawn a blade out of the waistband of his trousers. A long, thin knife. He drew it along his wrist, leaving a dribble of blood.
The sight of it brought back vile memories. Her mother’s—Rose’s—blood dripping from her nose after she had taken a man’s blow. Vivienne shivered. Every maternal instinct screamed for her to protect Sarah. And to resist this man who had invaded her house, who was battering her defenses with something far stronger than violence. Hope.
With shaky fingers she touched her healed cheek. She had to try this. Was his promise any more far fetched than the crone’s medicine? Yet Sarah looked so small and defenseless. Was she betraying her daughter? With a heart heavy as lead, she asked quietly, “Should I wake her?”
