Blood Wicked

by Sharon Page

  He shook his head. He tipped his hand to smooth the line of his wrist and send the blood oozing faster. “No. All I need to do is touch the blood to her lips. She will take over from there.” Another rueful smile played over his mouth. “Like a babe at the breast.”

  But as he lowered his powerful body to sit on the edge of her daughter’s bed and flicked back his sleeve, Vivienne ran to the fireplace and grasped the poker. In her mind’s eye, she could see the leather apron–clad butcher flying through the alley. This would hardly stop Heath.

  But it was something.

  Heath murmured to Sarah. Vivienne couldn’t hear the words, but his tone was soothing. She found her grip loosening on her weapon. She shook sense into her head and held it hard. There had been gentlemen—cads and scoundrels who had pursued her to get close to Sarah. She was not naive.

  Heath held his wrist to Sarah’s lips. “N—” Vivienne began in protest, but to her amazement, Sarah fastened her lips to his wound. Her daughter’s eyes were still shut, but she drank fiercely. Suddenly Sarah’s hand shot out from the covers and gripped Heath’s arm to hold him there.

  Heath motioned Vivienne to come to him. Holding the poker, she did.

  “See how strong her grip is. Is it always like that?”

  “Heavens, no.” Vivienne’s tongue felt thick and clumsy. “She is always so weak.”

  “This is a good sign then.” He looked up at her. His auburn hair fell across his face, disheveled, red as flame. The sympathy, the hope in his strange, reflective silver eyes stunned her. She was a stranger to him. Why should he care about Sarah’s fate, about hers?

  And if he thought she had hurt his brother, why did he look at her so gently?

  Transfixed, she watched Sarah drink. It should horrify her, but pink began to bloom in Sarah’s cheeks. It had been months since Sarah’s skin had been anything but ashen.

  “That’s enough, little love,” Heath whispered.

  Her daughter’s eyes flew open, desperate and angry, and she clung to him harder.

  “No, Sarah,” Vivienne tried, “you must stop—”

  But Sarah ignored her. Heath spoke strange words. “Arnum aria enta.”

  It sounded like Latin, but nothing Vivienne recognized. Sarah dropped away from his wrist and fell back onto the bed. Her eyes were closed. But her skin, instead of looking parchment thin, actually glowed.

  “Is—is she all right?” Guilt and fear were a crushing weight on her heart.

  “She needs to sleep. She has to digest whatever it is in my magical blood that heals.” He stood, reminding Vivienne of his size. His head brushed the tasseled trim of Sarah’s bed canopy.

  “She looks so much better.” She hugged that hope to her heart, desperate not to lose an ounce of it. Before her tear-blurred eyes, Sarah’s face looked as pretty as it once had, instead of haggard and ill. Then her tears spilled. “The medicine never did that to her.”

  His sensual mouth twisted sardonically. “I suspect the medicine was only intended to keep her barely alive. Not to cure her.”

  “But why? I paid the price.” She gaped at him before she thought to brush away her tears.

  His gaze fixed on her wet cheeks. “And if Sarah was cured you would stop paying the price. A succubus steals part of a man’s soul each time she beds him. Mrs. Holt didn’t want you to stop.”

  “I am not a succubus. I do not steal men’s souls. If anything, men have taken mine.”

  “I don’t believe that.” He looked around. “You care too much for Sarah to have no soul. I think, if anything, men made your soul stronger.”

  That was utter madness. And she was about to throw fierce words at him, when he smiled lazily. He grasped the poker and tugged it out of her hand.

  “A woman with a weapon is always a dangerous thing. You know, there is a way to prove whether you are a succubus or not.” He ran a considering hand over his jaw. “For the details, there is a book I must consult.”

  “Then go and look at it. And leave me alone.” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course you did,” he said softly. “Now, you will have to get dressed. The men I’ve employed can watch the house, and I assume you have your servants watch over Sarah.”

  She glared at him. “I’m not leaving my daughter.”

  “Yes, you are—for a few hours. I have to go out. I want to get that book. Then I need to find my brother, and I need to find out who has been using you to drain the souls of England’s peers.”

  Vivienne could not even count all the dangerous things she had done within the last day. And now she was walking into a dark house with a well-built, muscular gentleman who called himself a vampire. She had no weapon, nor anyone to protect her. Servants surrounded her, but they were in his employ.

  He had helped Sarah.

  Heath had given her a miracle. And for that alone, she knew she had to do what he asked.

  The door thudded to a close behind her, the heavy sound echoing in the massive foyer of his town house. She froze at the sound, her hands clutching the sides of her cloak.

  “What is wrong, Miss Dare?” Moonlight spilled in from a skylight, glancing across his face like a sword’s blade. In the bluish glow, his eyes were silver. Unearthly. “There’s nothing to fear in my foyer.”

  Oh yes there is. You. “Why did you help my daughter when you believe I am capable of murder? When you suspect—wrongly—that I made your brother disappear?”

  “Your crimes are not your daughter’s crimes.”

  “Do you intend to let me go home to her?”

  “I want to find my brother.” He watched her carefully. “However, I don’t plan to take revenge. Revenge is a bloody useless thing to want and a dangerous thing to pursue.”

  She refused to show how much he scared her. “Do you have a portrait of your brother in this dark house? I should like to actually see the man you accuse me of seducing.”

  He paused. “I told you what he looks like.”

  “Yes. Like you only more attractive. I would prefer to see for myself.”

  With gentlemanly aplomb, he offered his arm. Given she was essentially his prisoner, the gesture seemed absurd. He felt no noble consideration to her. “Come,” he said.

  She sighed and touched him. Her hand slid along his forearm. Rock. Iron. Solid as stone. A sizzle rushed up her fingertips, then rippled in her tummy like waves in a pond. She’d never felt so giddy at a man’s touch.

  It must be the strain.

  “The gallery is this way.”

  She had to hurry to follow his long stride. They stepped through a doorway, into a black, silent space. She felt cold as he moved away. He whipped back the drapes and silvery light fell in.

  He raked his hand through his hair. She had survived by reading masculine emotions—all gentlemen revealed them. Men were far more expressive than women, and more honest about what they felt. Women only got into trouble because they tried to ignore what they saw. In Heath, she saw great pain.

  He pointed to a life-size portrait behind her. “That is my brother and me,” he said huskily. “He is named Raine.”

  Two young men stared down from the painted canvas. Heath was seated; she could tell at once it was he. The same sweep of auburn hair, but in the picture, it was caught back with a velvet bow. An identical proud nose and full sensual mouth, but his eyes were green. He sat back in casual repose but looked ready to leap out of the frame. His brother, Raine, looked thinner, more uncertain. His hands lay on the chair as though he was holding his brother and drawing strength from him. He looked very young. And despite their youthful faces, they wore elegant blue tailcoats, with pristine collar points and cravats.

  “This picture was painted a long time ago,” she observed. “Yet you have hardly changed.”

  “It was painted before my marriage. And I will never change, love. Never grow old. My soul has crumbled to dust. On the outside, you would never guess I was supposed to be dead. You would never see I was differen
t at all.”

  His marriage. He said it casually, but he had said nothing about a wife. “And your brother?”

  “He changed. He has aged since that picture. He only became a vampire a few months ago.”

  Vivienne stared intently at his brother. She tried to envision Raine looking older—more grizzled, more lined, more dissipated, or whatever ravages age had bestowed upon him. “I’ve never seen him. That is the honest truth.”

  “I believe you.”

  She jerked around. Shadows moved across him as though trying to caress his body. “Why do you believe me now?”

  “You’re angry. If you weren’t innocent, you would be scared. Now you are just getting frustrated with me.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Very. I don’t know what happened to your brother. And I don’t know why those peers died. Or what Mrs. Holt wants.”

  “You don’t believe you take their souls?”

  “Of course not. I don’t believe in magic—black, white, or otherwise.”

  “It’s interesting. You are a very jaded woman, but you are filled with hope. It glows from you. I can almost taste it exuding from you.”

  Hope. Vivienne flinched. Hope should not have existed for a girl whose mother was a tart, working for brutish whoremongers and living in grimy flashhouses. It should have been beaten right out of her. Yet he had given it to her.

  Hope had always been her little secret. That and determination. I will give us something better, she would say to her mother. And Mama would stroke her hair and let her say it over and over—until gin became a substitute for hope for Mama and she’d stopped listening altogether.

  “You said you were married. Where is your wife?”

  His eyes changed; they turned black. Pure black, as though his pupils had gobbled up all the color. “She died nine years after we were married.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Ten years. The tip of forever. I don’t want to speak about it. She is in Heaven and I’m in eternal damnation, where I belong.”

  “Why do you believe that?” She stepped toward him, but he retreated from the light.

  “We’re here so I can question you.”

  “Well, I have another question for you. What have you done to try to find your brother? There are men who can be hired to do such things—former Bow Street Runners. Private investigators.”

  “My brother is a vampire. Too hard to explain, even to those willing to do almost anything for money. I’ve searched London for him—and for you, because I saw you standing next to Raine in a reflection in a pool of water.”

  “That’s impossible. I’ve never been near him.”

  “It is a magical pool, high on the moors. It is said that it shows the face of the next person to die. In it I saw you and my brother.”

  “Surely you are joking. If you look into a pond, aren’t you going to see your own reflection?”

  “That is what happens to most people who do dare to try it. Then each one, according to legend, has died shortly after. Probably so damn nervous, they brought about their own deaths. And yes, when I looked in, I first saw my reflection. But of course, I’m not going to die. Then I saw you. You were reflected with me, as though you were … uh, standing behind me. Then my image vanished and I saw my brother. I could see, from the way he looked at you, that he cared for you and desired you.”

  “You believe this? Magical pools and wild predictions! You were probably foxed and imagined it all!”

  “Vampires don’t get foxed. Let us go to the library.” He held out his hand.

  Startled, she realized he intended to lead her through his house by holding her hand. She placed her hand on his forearm instead. To walk handfasted seemed too intimate. His auburn brow jerked up, but he said nothing. And stayed as quiet as his tomb-silent house as he led her through the darkness.

  Silent men had always made her nervous. Like the dark sky, some men became very, very still before they exploded into a storm. Drunk ones were the most frightening. Any man who did not blather like a fool when he got foxed was a man to avoid.

  What of a silent vampire? It unnerved Vivienne. Her half boots creaked upon floorboards, her breath huffed in the quiet as they walked through the house. Heath moved without any sound at all.

  “This is the library.” He left her in the pitch black, and she shuddered. A moment later, she saw a blue spark in the middle, smelled a waft of sulfur. A flame caught to one wick after another. Soon a candelabra glowed, and a brilliant halo of light fell over a long, wooden table. It threw light over Heath’s strong forearm and the glow turned his hair to red flame. Gilt lettering glinted as he walked along the shelves, which seemed to stretch endlessly into the dark.

  “What can you prove from these books?” There must be thousands of them. Tens of thousands. She’d had affairs with rich and powerful gentlemen. None had possessed so many books.

  He ran his finger along the titles, but held the light behind him. Apparently he did not need it to see. “That you are a succubus. Come here. Look at the books on this shelf.” He set the candelabra on the floor.

  The shelf in question was ten feet long. Books were packed side by side. She tentatively reached up. One of the volumes in front of her looked ancient. The other books gripped it so tightly, it would not come free. “These are all about that word you used? Succubus?”

  “A succubus is a female demon who appears to men in dreams, naked, beautiful, and carnally skilled. Flower, I suspect every vampire hunter alive has either written a book about succubi—or would like to.”

  A female demon?

  Gently, he eased out the book and opened it. In the light she could see an image on the yellowed paper. A woman with flowing hair, large bare breasts, and fangs was straddling a human male. “This can’t be me. I don’t have fangs. I don’t bite men.”

  “I think you might. Under the right circumstances.” He moved behind her. His hard, taut thighs brushed along her bottom. She took a step forward, away from him. “A succubus steals a man’s soul when he climaxes inside her. The fangs are not necessary.”

  She took a deep breath. “If I was one of these, how could I have been born to my mother and lived my life in England? I am a normal woman.”

  His voice softened. “I suspect you are an extraordinary woman.”

  Madness, but she felt a quiver of pleasure at his flattering tone. She quickly quelled it. “I am ordinary.” Another picture leaped out at her. A blond woman had her mouth to a man’s throat and his member in her hand while he writhed beneath her in pleasure and pain. “I was not a succubus. I was a whore.” She hated saying the word. She heard the anger in it, vibrating like a blade of fine steel when it whipped through the air. “I was cursed, but not in the way you seem to think.”

  “I have to search a brothel tonight. You won’t understand why I’m right unless you go there with me.”

  Dear heaven, she never wanted to set foot in such a place. She had escaped being forced to work in a whorehouse by the skin of her teeth. “No.”

  He inclined his head. “You don’t have a choice. I am taking you with me. When we return, before dawn, I will feed your daughter again.”

  “You are wrong. I do have a choice—” She stopped. She knew what he would do. It was what any man would do to get what he wanted. Be vicious, ruthless. “You won’t help Sarah unless I agree.”

  He recoiled as though she’d hit him. “I would never use your daughter as blackmail. Never. I meant merely that I could do this—”

  A scream shot out from her lips as he came to her in a blurred motion and lifted her. The shelves raced by as she flew through the air, then flopped over his shoulder. His hand clamped firmly on her bottom.

  “There, darling. No choice. You have to know temptation without release. Until you experience that, you aren’t going to know what you are.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about. She hammered her hands on his back, wildly kicked her feet. He tightened his grip, and the most shoc
king erotic sensation raced from where his fingers pressed into her derriere. She should not be aroused by this.

  This was what men did. When they couldn’t win in any other way—not with money or words or power—they used their size and their strength.

  She could never let herself forget that.

  And she would never let herself feel hot and erotic and wanting at his touch. Not ever again.

  4

  Heath dangled a set of iron shackles in front of her eyes and Vivienne froze on the velvet seat of the carriage. Then she gathered her wits and her fury. “Just what do you plan to do with those?”

  He merely grinned. Naughtily. “I intend to subdue a rebellious succubus. I assume you’ve enjoyed some bondage encounters. Your skills with a riding crop are legendary.”

  Enjoyed. He truly had no idea. Through pursed lips, she warned, “I have tied men up. I never let them do so to me. Those are my rules and I never—”

  With a blur, he caught her wrist and drew her arm back with surprising gentleness.

  “Let me go! I refuse to be bound!”

  The only thing her fury succeeded in doing was to widen his grin to a completely dazzling smile. Deep, seductive lines bracketed his mouth. “You have a problem with trust.”

  “I don’t trust you—” She broke off as something soft brushed over her wrist. A long, sensual caress that sent her shoulders quivering foolishly and made the fine hairs on her nape tingle. “No, don’t do this. Please.”

  “You can trust me,” he murmured and the silky wash of his voice over her cheek brought a nonsensical flood of heat to her cunny. “I would never hurt you. But darling, I have to ensure you don’t run away.”

  The lock engaged with a soft click. What man with shackles in his hand would actually listen to a woman? And she was captured.

  The iron band was lined with velvet. It circled her wrist snugly enough to make her nerves explode with awareness but it wasn’t tight enough to hurt. These cuffs were obviously meant for erotic play, not enforcement of the law.

  And what had she done while he’d clasped it around her captured wrist, fool that she was? She’d whimpered with arousal. Instinctively she did trust him, after how gentle he’d been with Sarah.