“Where is the evil in that?” he whispered. “There is only joy and life.”
Curled into his shoulder with his arms around her, the silk sheets cool against her hot, sated body, she was almost asleep when her eyes sprang back open.
Dmitriu was wrong.
He hadn’t offered her immortality.
The knowledge sliced through her haze of happiness like a knife. It didn’t change anything. He still lay at her side, her lover, her companion. And she lay in his arms, like many who’d passed through his life before her. Like Tsigana.
No more than Tsigana.
Selfish, treacherous Tsigana, who might have been dazzled by him, might even have loved him in her own way, despite her faithlessness, but who had certainly tried to use him for her own ends. Tsigana, unworthy of immortality.
“Just like me,” she whispered.
He moved, turning to see her face, which she hid in his shoulder, though she couldn’t cover the wetness seeping from her eyes into his skin.
It didn’t matter. She could no more become a vampire than she could kill herself or him. She’d already acknowledged that, and it remained the truth. But only now, when she realized the offer would never come, did she understand how much it meant to her to be asked. To be more to him than Tsigana.
For this moment, this night, Elizabeth, I love you, he’d said. Just this moment. Just this night, and a few more.
He said, “There is no one like you.”
Slowly, she took her face away from his shoulder, ignoring her tears that he wiped with his fingertips, and stared at him.
He was right. There was no one like her. Somehow, she’d gotten uniquely under his skin. It crept upon her, not quite like a blinding light on the road to Damascus, but a revelation all the same. Whatever she was to him, or wasn’t, he wanted her as his companion, for however many nights and days there were for them. Because of that, she had the opportunity to do something for the world. What that might be was very hazy and might even be very distant, but that was all right too. She had time.
And he was worth fighting for, this wonderful, mysterious, unpredictable being. However long or however difficult the struggle might be, she could make him hers in the end, as she was his.
Epilogue
Dante sat slumped in his hotel room’s uncomfortable chair, watching the sun come up on a new day. From his window, he could still see the castle, the scene of his final defeat. His gambit for immortality had failed spectacularly, and with it, he knew, had gone his valuable position as Grand Master of the American Order of Vampire Hunters.
In an agony of loss and fury, Dante plucked at his shirt, pulling it loose from his neck. The bloodstain in the shape of Saloman’s hand caught his eye, the symbol of everything that had gone wrong with his life. Saloman had crushed him and taken the sword in which he’d placed all his spurious, stupid hopes. The meaningless, pointless sword that turned out to have only sentimental value to the most powerful vampire of all time.
Because it was given to me by my cousin Luk, whom I later killed.
Dante froze, his hand still holding the shirt away from his body to reveal the bloodstain. Saloman’s blood.
Elizabeth Silk had awakened Saloman, however unintentionally, with her blood, the blood of her ancestress Tsigana, who had “killed” him long ago. Saloman too had once killed an Ancient. And Saloman’s blood was on Dante’s shirt.
Springing to his feet, Dante found his phone on the dresser and scrolled rapidly down to the American hunter network before he pressed connect. Surely word would not yet have spread to remove him from his position as Grand Master. . . .
“Harry, it’s me—how are you? I need a snippet of information from you. The Ancient vampire Luk, who was killed by his cousin Saloman in the seventeenth century—where is he buried?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Treanor lives in Scotland with her husband and three children. She has been writing stories since childhood and considers herself very privileged still to be doing so instead of working for her living. Her previous e-books include Killing Joe, which was an Amazon Kindle bestseller. In the Awakened by Blood novels, she is delighted to be able to bring together her long-standing loves of vampire stories, romance, and Gothic fantasy. To find out more, please visit www.MarieTreanor.com.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next thrilling romance in Marie Treanor’s Awakened by Blood series,
Blood Eternal
Available in October 2011
When the earth moved, the vampire Saloman felt a surge of exquisite pleasure almost akin to sexual release. The tension in him snapped, broken by the rush of rare, intoxicating fear.
Dawn approached, and he was too close to the earthquake’s center for safety, too isolated in these Peruvian mountains to be discovered should he become buried under an immovable fall of rock. Already he could hear the thunder of incipient avalanches and landslides, drowning out the lesser destruction of man-made edifices, but if he honed his supernatural hearing, he could just about make out the distinctive thuds of collapsing wood and masonry in the distant villages. The sounds of wreckage brought him a certain amount of satisfaction. The villages were already empty of life—he’d seen to that over the past couple of weeks.
Saloman was one of the very few able-bodied beings left on this mountain. Even the animals had fled, their instincts warning them that the Earth was angry. Unlike them, Saloman savored that anger, that knowledge of a unique power far superior to his own, a power before which even his strength could do nothing. And so he lay on his hard mountain ledge in the dark, reveling in his rare moment of helplessness, smiling up at the wavering black sky while the earth under him heaved and cracked, splitting rocks and trees, hurling down the flimsy village buildings.
He knew the risk, and he didn’t want to end his existence or to return to the tortured sleep of death. He didn’t want to leave this world. He didn’t want to leave Elizabeth. And yet still he had come closer than he should to wait for the Earth to shake—partly because he wanted to feel the massive power of it, partly because, like the rebellious boy he’d once been, he wanted to dare the danger.
It was an indulgence he shouldn’t have allowed himself. He acknowledged that as the ledge of rock split under his back, flinging him off the edge. At the last moment, he grasped onto the one stable corner, giving himself a modicum of control as he jumped the fifty feet or so onto the hard, jagged ground below—more from memory of the landscape than from sight, since the tumbling boulders and dust impaired his night vision.
By the time he’d found a flatter foothold, sheltered enough to prevent any more stones from landing on his head and shoulders, the quake had stopped. The mountain, however, hadn’t. It continued to spit rocks down toward him, and below he could hear them gathering pace and volume. By morning, the mountain would have changed its shape.
Fear was good. He was glad he’d come up here to remember what it was like to be afraid. Confront your fears, his cousin Luk had told him, even before Saloman had died and been reborn as a vampire. Luk had turned him, and had taught him well, just as if he’d known that Saloman would be the last of their Ancient race. Saloman had learned to face soul-destroying loneliness; he’d fought and defeated everyone who threatened him. There was no one left who could invade his mind and find him wanting—which had been his first and most intense fear, the one that had formed his boyhood and never quite left him. And yet he could think of his father now without pain or hurt or terror, and he knew that if it had been possible for them to meet again, he would not be afraid. He had no reason to be.
Saloman lay down once more, gazing up at the steady sky while the mountain rearranged itself with noisy, dust-filled aggression. He smiled, because no one else could possibly have done what he just had. No one had ever done what he was doing now.
Watch me, Elizabeth. I will prevail. The world will do my bidding. You can’t doubt it.
It was his own thought. He didn’t send it to her. He wouldn’t
even tell her about this; he would let her find out for herself. Perhaps he’d even go to her, so he was with her when she made the discovery. Hunger tore through him. Blood and sex and Elizabeth. A reward before the next stage began.
He sat up, unable to be still any longer. His lesson in humility had, in the end, fed his self-belief. Only he could have survived the earthquake from here; he alone could unite and direct the world. No one could stop him. And as the world learned his power, who would want to? He’d find his way down the mountain and drink some human blood before he began his journey across the world to Scotland.
But as he rose, a scream of rage and terror slammed into his mind. Saloman let out an involuntary cry, grasping his head in both hands to prevent the pain, the anguish, instinctively trying to squeeze out the howling voice that should have been mere memory and yet felt as real as the rocks sliding and crashing their way down the mountainside. The flash of impossible presence surged and then vanished as swiftly as it had come, leaving Saloman to drop his hands slowly from his face.
Which is when he realized he had no time to analyze himself for sanity or injury. In a moment, he was going to be buried deep under an avalanche. Saloman hurled himself forward and leapt into the darkness.
Six thousand miles away, in a Scottish café, Elizabeth Silk caught her breath and shivered uncontrollably.
“What’s the matter?” her friend Joanne demanded, placing two large mugs of coffee on the café table before resuming her seat beside Elizabeth.
“Oh, nothing,” Elizabeth said evasively. There’s a vampire in my head. Or, at least there was for an instant. What would Joanne make of that? “Someone walked over my grave.”
The trouble was, it felt like Saloman, although her instant telepathic reach to him hit nothing. Not surprising. Although her abilities had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months, she still operated best with peace to concentrate, even when Saloman chose to receive her. Something had happened, she was sure, though whether it involved physical danger or emotional upheaval, she had no way of knowing. Once, she would have denied the possibility of the latter. Now she knew him better, knew him as a being of profound feelings, even though they were often beyond her ability to understand. If something had occurred, if he needed her . . .
Thrusting her unease aside, she smiled and lifted her cup to her lips.
“I meant in general,” Joanne said dryly. She was a short, eye-catching woman with purple-tinged frizzy hair and a razor-sharp mind. “You seem a bit glum.”
“It’s only ten in the morning and I was up until three.”
“Doing what?” Joanne asked.
“Writing. I think I’ve finished the book based on my thesis. I’ll send it off to your agent tomorrow.”
“He’ll be your agent too the day after,” Joanne said with a confident grin.
“I hope so. I’m finally happy I’ve struck the right balance between academic and popular—which is pretty important with a subject like vampires and superstitions!”
“You’re right there,” Joanne said, raising her mug in a toast. “Hats off to you. So, that’s out of the way—what now? Glasgow?”
“Ah. Maybe that’s why I look glum. I didn’t get the job in Glasgow.” It had been a rare opportunity, a permanent, full-time post at Glasgow University. Elizabeth had applied, knowing she would have to be stupid not to, and yet her heart hadn’t been in it. Perhaps this had come across at her interview.
“Idiots,” Joanne said roundly.
Elizabeth gave her a lopsided smile. “Thanks for the support. I wasn’t even certain I wanted it, so I’ve no right to whine about not getting it.”
“I’m pretty sure there’ll be a vacancy here at St. Andrews next year,” Joanne said. “What else is still in the pipeline for now?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Nothing truly inspiring. A college in London, part-time. And a maternity leave post at Aberdeen University.”
She hesitated until Joanne nudged her and commanded, “Spill!”
Elizabeth laughed. “Well, there’s a one-year appointment at the University of Budapest.”
Joanne sat up straight. “Budapest!”
“It’s more my thing, includes teaching a special course in the historic value of superstitions, and there’ll be research opportunities in other areas. Also, I do speak the language, more or less. . . .”
“And your man’s there,” Joanne finished with unnecessary relish.
Elizabeth felt her skin color, and took a hasty gulp of coffee to try to cover it. “Only sometimes,” she mumbled. “He travels a lot.” Then, since Joanne continued to stare at her, she lowered the cup and sighed. “I don’t want him to think I’m pursuing him.”
“He might like that you are.”
“But I’m not!”
Joanne blinked “Aren’t you? I bloody would be.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help laughing at her friend’s fervor. She still regarded the evening that she’d been obliged to introduce Joanne to her vampire lover as the weirdest moment of her increasingly bizarre life. Saloman had arrived in her flat without warning two months ago, while she and Joanne had been putting the world to rights in the sitting room over a bottle of wine. He’d come through the kitchen window but neither he nor Elizabeth had corrected Joanne’s assumption that he had his own key.
Joanne had watched their reunion with interest, clearly torn by conflicting desires to leave them alone and to discover more about Elizabeth’s mysterious lover. She’d compromised by subjecting Saloman to a half hour of penetrating questions—which he’d answered or deflected with equal amusement as the notion took him—and then departing earlier than she normally would.
“Fuck me, he’s gorgeous,” she’d informed Elizabeth at the front door. “No wonder you’re messed up.”
At the time, Elizabeth had jeered at the term “messed up,” for Saloman’s arrival had filled her with the complete happiness only he had ever brought her. But now, in his absence, she acknowledged her friend’s perception. She was messed up, and had been since she’d first met him. But if Joanne knew the truth—that Elizabeth’s handsome and charming lover wasn’t merely mysterious but the most powerful vampire who’d ever existed—she wouldn’t put the cause down to his looks.
Joanne said, “So you’re hesitating over whether to apply for the job? Apply now and worry later.”
Elizabeth shifted in her seat. “Actually, I’ve already applied. They’ve offered me the post. I just have to decide whether to take it.”
Joanne finished her coffee and set down her mug before rising. “Bite their hands off,” she advised, swinging her bag off the floor and onto her shoulder, to the imminent danger of the mugs, which undoubtedly would have been knocked to the floor if Elizabeth hadn’t seized them out of harm’s way. Behind Joanne, a passing waiter stared at Elizabeth, wide-eyed. She must have moved too fast.
“I’ll miss you, of course,” Joanned added, oblivious to the entire incident.
“No, you won’t. You’ll come to visit me or I’ll never speak to you again.” Which was another point against accepting. In Budapest, Saloman’s own city, there would be untold distractions from the world of academia—leaving love out of it, there were vampires and hunters and an inevitable conflict waiting to erupt that would place her squarely in the middle. Could she really hope to keep Joanne out of that?
But traipsing downstairs in her friend’s wake, Elizabeth couldn’t help feeling a secret leap of excitement at the prospect of moving to Hungary. Outside the Victoria Café it was raining, a fine, misty drizzle that seemed to exemplify the Scottish summer: dull.
“Well, back to the grindstone,” Joanne said, happily enough. “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”
“I said I’d do a favor for a friend—visit this wounded soldier in Glasgow.”
“Badly wounded?” Joanne asked sympathetically.
“Badly enough, but he’s pretty well recovered physically. Apparently he’s still traumatized.”
“Sounds like a worthy but fraught day for you, then,” Joanne observed, lifting her hand in farewell. She was clearly eager to get back to her books. Elizabeth watched her scuttle across Market Street with a feeling that came close to envy. Once, being lost in academia had been enough for Elizabeth too. And visiting an injured soldier would have aroused a much simpler compassion in her, without this guilty, nagging hope that because the British vampire hunters had asked her to go, he’d have something paranormally intriguing to say.
She was bored, she realized with some surprise. Achieving her doctorate had been satisfying; writing the book had been fun; research and teaching at some academic institution were still a necessary part of her ambitions, to say nothing about putting food on the table. Six months ago, desperately trying to keep her life stable and normal in the midst of unasked for and unwanted new responsibilities and dangers, she wouldn’t have believed this was possible; yet now, perhaps influenced by her earlier shiver of anxiety, she actually missed the menacing world of darkness and vampires, a world in which her mind and body could both stretch without hindrance, and succeed.
She missed Saloman.
With the sound of the vampire’s preternatural scream splitting his ears, Senator Grayson Dante knew it had all gone horribly wrong. Dante thought back to the accounts he’d read of Saloman’s awakening, taken from Elizabeth Silk’s testimony. She too had found an empty underground chamber, except it had turned out not to be so empty. She’d been bleeding from a thorn prick and surmised that it was the drops of her blood that had first made the dead Saloman visible to her. She’d mistaken him for a stone sarcophagus.
Dante crouched down and delved into his bag to retrieve the vial of blood. It was a tiny amount, distilled from the stain of Saloman’s blood left on his shirt during their last violent encounter. He couldn’t afford to waste any. He was sure this room was enchanted, as the outer cave had been, to deter visitors. But simply staring wouldn’t break through this spell.
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