by Sharon Page
“But what happened to you? Who were you as a mortal? You didn’t choose to be a vampire, did you?” She fired her questions out in a tumble, one atop the other. Anything to keep him talking to her. To postpone the moment he would bite her or ravish her. “I want to know. I know I won’t survive this night. But I need to…to think of things. All I have left is curiosity.”
Zayan’s black straight brows jerked up at that. He laughed. The sound was as smooth as the deep velvety night, like the ripple of a nighttime breeze through the trees. The other vampire, Lukos, had a lusty throaty laugh, one that implied he was thinking very rude thoughts.
Miranda shook her head. Why did she think these things?
“I have lived for almost two thousand years,” Zayan said dispassionately. “I was a Roman general. My name, in my mortal world, was Marius Praetonius. I took most of Europe in the name of Rome. I was celebrated, worshipped. Your fiancé might have read about me in his schoolbooks.” Lines were suddenly carved at the side of his mouth as he smiled more deeply.
I sense a great power about you…. You intrigue me….
Miranda heard his deep voice in her head, felt it in her entire body, the way music would vibrate through her. She heard it and went ice-cold. Could he guess that she had special powers—a power she couldn’t even understand? That she possessed some kind of magic? She shivered. What would that mean? Would it spare her life? Was any of what he had told her true?
“Of course it is true,” he said in answer to her thoughts. “What do you think—I’m some insignificant slave who concocted a fancy tale?”
She recoiled from the sudden anger in his voice. His lower lip thrust out, in the way her brother would do when she had caught him making some foolish mistake, such as gambling.
Vampires were once mortal men. That is the critical thing to remember when hunting them. Aunt Eugenia had told her that over and over again.
She remembered her response to Aunt Eugenia: I am a gentlewoman. I am supposed to even fear the power of mortal men.
But Aunt Eugenia scoffed at that. A woman is as powerful as she believes she can be. The words had almost made Miranda laugh—she painted watercolors, diligently perfected her embroidery, strolled the gardens with a dainty parasol. How could she be powerful? But she had wanted to believe her aunt. And Eugenia’s words had a strange power attached to them. As though, by thinking them, they could give her greater strength.
Zayan stretched his arm along the back of the seat. It was such a masculine gesture—such a normal, human one—that it caught Miranda by surprise. “Does knowing who I once was make you more willing to kiss me?” he asked, amusement heightening the allure of his looks.
She fought the instinctive tug of feminine admiration at his chiseled jaw, full lips, at even the crinkles at the sides of his mirror-like eyes.
“Of course not!”
“Wise girl.” Across from them, Lukos had propped one booted foot on the velvet seat of the coach. “He’s a vampire. He’s taken the blood of thousands of innocent women and children.”
She froze, horrified.
“As have you,” Zayan growled. He was watching her, his gaze hot and intense. “I would like to know what you are. Not a normal, flighty, empty-headed woman of society, are you?”
Miranda twisted her bound hands. Her entire body tensed, but she tried to look rather stupidly at Zayan. “Of course I am just an empty-headed, ordinary woman.”
But he held her gaze, seeing through her, she was certain, with his mirror-like eyes.
She had slid along the seat to put as much space between them as she could. But he reached out and caught hold of the bindings at her wrist. With two fingers, he tore the cloth. She wrenched her arms apart, fighting at the fabric, even as he unwound it.
Oh. Her hands tingled as feeling returned.
Zayan reached for her hand. “Isn’t a kiss on the hand the way a proper English gentleman begins his seduction of a lady?”
His hand clasped hers; his fingers threaded through hers. Like a perfect gentleman, like a man she might have dreamed about, he raised her hand to his lips.
“No, don’t do this.” She could not bear a mockery of courtship before she was killed and her blood taken. “No, I know nothing of magic. I didn’t even really believe in vampires!”
Soft and full, Zayan’s lower lip touched the back of her bare hand. A jolt of warm pleasure ignited there at the brush of his mouth. He kissed her hand as no man had ever done before—a tantalizing play of mouth and tongue. She’d had no idea a kiss to her hand could make her blood rush madly through her. Could make her nipples lift against her shift.
But Lukos was not going to simply watch, she realized. He had moved to their side—he was on his knees. It startled her that a vampire, a demonic creature, would be on his knees for her. “I do not share,” he growled, looking like a defiant boy. “We could have her choose—”
“Choose!” she cried. “I’d never—”
“But we can both compel her thoughts,” Lukos continued, ignoring her outrage. “I propose a competition. An amusement for a long journey.”
The fiends were speaking as though she were not even there. And butterflies took flight in her belly at the word competition.
“No magic?” Zayan asked.
“Magic is allowed, but only for seduction, which will begin like this…”
Miranda held her breath. Lukos bent to her neck. She felt him approach. Her skin seemed to anticipate him, tingling before he touched her.
His lips brushed her, and she moaned with desire. What was wrong with her? Zayan suckled her fingers one by one, and the sensations left her dizzy. She could not fight the…the heated desire rising in her. They were competing for her, like she was a prize.
What if she touched them? What if she touched them as she did to others who had died? Could she bring them back? Could this mysterious power she possessed do that—to men who had been vampires for centuries?
Did she dare try? If she could change them, they couldn’t kill her.
The shade rattled away from the carriage window. Barely any light filtered in.
The sun had set. She had to try now. She did not have any more time, and this might be her only hope to live.
London, at that moment
“An innocent from a good family will cost you, sirrah.”
James Ryder drew out a handful of gold sovereigns and dropped them, one by one, into the greasy silk glove on the madam’s outstretched hand. “Gentlemen pay at least five hundred pounds for my virgins, sir.” She reached out to return his money.
Five hundred. He had it, but he hadn’t wanted to part with so much. There were houses where that handful of coins would buy him the use of every cunny in the house. That amount of money would let him do whatever he wanted to the girls.
But he wanted to dip his wick here. In this place that was the exclusive domain of earls and dukes. In this place where he could take the maidenhead of a woman he would not be allowed to address on the street.
Tonight, Miss Miranda Bond had evaded him. To ease his frustration, he had destroyed a vampire, and the excitement of battle now sang in his veins.
He wanted the best. And he could pay for it.
He caught the madam’s wrist. “That is a small gift for you, madam. I am willing to pay the price for quality.”
“Who are you, then, sir? You are not known to me.” She sniffed and looked down her beak of a nose at him.
How in bloody hell did she dare look down at him?
“I am a son of the Marquess of Hiltshire.” The truth, though he was a bastard son. He pulled out a wad of notes and pushed those into her hand, forcing her to drop the sovereigns on the gleaming parquet floor.
The coins clinked. Her hand squeezed around the money. She stared down, her hand-drawn eyebrows arched in surprise.
He made a move to pick up his hat and start for the door.
“Wait!”
He turned to see her stuffing the money between
her large, plumped-up tits, wadding the notes down below the scooped neck of her bodice, between the sweaty lumps of her flesh.
“I have a girl available. A vicar’s daughter, left homeless. She is most definitely a virgin. A true innocent, quite frightened and apprehensive, even though she goes willing to her fate for the welfare of her younger siblings. She was promised to the Earl of Huntingdon. She could, however, be yours, for one thousand pounds.”
Christ, it was a bloody fortune. But to steal the virgin who would have spread her thighs for the Earl of Huntingdon? It would be worth it. He wrote a vowel for the rest, and to his surprise, the madam accepted it.
No doubt, she thought he would return after he’d sampled the vicar’s daughter. He’d crave another virgin, just as her noble clients did. With a snap of her fingers, she sent a brawny footman to lead him to the bedroom. He found it empty. He sat on the edge of the bed but would not begin to undress until the girl was brought to him.
He’d trusted once—bought a virgin and stripped down in preparation, only to find the brothel was more interested in stealing his money, beating him blind, then throwing him out. But the stupid madam and her brutes had not understood what a vampire slayer was capable of doing with a weapon.
Ryder drew out a cheroot. He moved to the fireplace and lit the smoke from the licking flames. The room was opulent, a sign that it did cater to refined tastes.
God, he was hard with anticipation. His John Thomas strained against his linens. His arousal made him restless, angry. He should be in pursuit of Miss Miranda Bond tonight.
But he knew where she was headed. He would be on the road after he’d had his little treat, and he would travel faster than her.
With a click, the door opened. He swiveled on the bed as the footman brought in a tall, slender girl who wore a ghastly gray dress. A dress she’d worn from her home, or a costume? Her face was plain—freckled nose, pink cheeks, ivory skin. Her lashes were as mousy brown as her hair, but her skin and hair promised to be peach soft.
No seasoned whore could clean up like that. This girl was genuine. Her spine was stiff, her fists clenched. “Do you want me to take off my dress, sir?”
She was doing this to save her family. That sent a rush of blood to his rod. She thought she was going to nobly sacrifice herself.
“Let me undress you, love,” he said. “I’m very good and I’ll be gentle. This will be enjoyable for you.”
Her back twitched.
She looked nothing like Miranda Bond—who was blonde, with large blue eyes. Miss Bond was stunningly beautiful. But she was flawed. She was a creature of evil. Something he had to destroy.
This poor sweet angel was someone he would nurture for an hour. He could barely afford the money, but he would be giving her a wonderful experience—a night with him would be far better than being thrust into by a drunken earl.
He undid his cravat and tossed it aside. She was standing at the doorway, kneading her skirts in her fists. “Let’s undress you, love. That changes everything.”
She frowned at that. “I don’t want to be…undressed.”
“It seems strange to you now, but you’ll enjoy it. This is what you were meant to do—give yourself to a deserving man.”
The vicar’s daughter gave a half-laugh, half-sob at that.
She had no idea what he was saving her from.
The wench smelled of a heavily flower scented soap, the soap the whores of this place must use. On one of them it would be sickening—on her it was poignant.
He would rescue her in this small way. He had the money. Why shouldn’t vampire slayers be as inventive as Bow Street Runners? He took private commissions, and for some vampires, he took payment to leave them alive. And to protect them, up to a point. Many vampires had amassed fortunes, using their power, strength, and the advantage of time, endless time, to become wealthy men.
What else would they do with their money than use it to keep cheating death?
Ryder stripped to his shirt. She was watching him, with her plain bodice rising and falling. “Take down your hair for me.” He wanted to watch the tresses fall as he kicked off his boots and took off his trousers.
She bent her head slowly, obediently. She pulled at the pins. In a waft of sweet fragrance, her long brown hair fell down her back.
He sprawled back on the bed, but she didn’t join him. “Don’t make me impatient,” he warned. “I’ve paid good money for you. I know you won’t see it—no matter what that bitch of a madam told you. Please me well and I’ll give you something special. Something for you to keep to yourself.”
She looked horror-struck, but she began to unfasten her dress. This was how he wanted Miss Miranda Bond to be for him. Taking her clothes off with shaking fingers. If he narrowed his eyes, he could imagine this pasty-faced wench was Miss Bond.
The Royal Society would not disbar him, or destroy him, if he went about killing Miss Bond in his own way. They needed him too much, needed him to do the dirty work. To carry out the secret assassinations, like this one. They needed him to do things like hunt down the seemingly innocent sisters of gentlemen and make their deaths look like accidents.
But he had seen what Miss Bond could do.
Two weeks ago, she had laid her hand on the chest of a child who had been run down by a carriage. The body had been mangled. The thing was dead.
But beneath her touch, the body healed. The lifeless eyes took in light once more. The child had been resurrected by just the touch of Miss Bond’s hand.
He hadn’t believed it.
But the gentlemen of the Society had assured him it was true. The damned woman could raise the dead.
His mission was to kill her. Ryder understood what the old men of the Society wanted to do—destroy that which they couldn’t understand.
And in return for murdering a lovely, twenty-three-year-old woman, he would have a mansion in the country. He would live better than his father, Hiltshire, whose estates were impoverished.
Hell, he would enjoy that.
All that stood between him and everything he’d always planned for was one little gently bred lady. One simple death and he would have it all.
His cock lurched against his belly at the thought. He reached out and clasped the hand of his vicar’s daughter, who now stood trembling in her shift. “Now, love,” he leered, “I’ll teach you how to suck me.” But first he pulled her to him, stuck his hand beneath her chemise, and gently worked his index finger up her tight, hot ass.
3
Touched
Chamber of the Scholomance
875 A.D.
Lukos awoke to find that he lay on a smooth stone floor in a lake of his own blood. It was encrusted on his neck, smeared on his freshly shaved scalp. The great gaping wound in his throat had somehow knitted together. It was still spongy and painful, but as he gingerly explored with his fingers, there was no longer a wide, open, bleeding gash.
Was he dead now?
His strength almost faded again as he struggled up to his knees, and he fought the lure of unconsciousness. Darkness surrounded him. It clung to him like grasping hands. Raw and cold, panic swept over him. Ever since he’d been a child, he has always awoken in the dark like this—sweating, frightened, terrified enough to run. He had hid these fears because it was his destiny to be a great warrior, but they rose up now, and made him whimper.
He was too old to make such sounds, like a child. And in the blackness, he looked around for the demoness. Had she left him for dead?
Slowly, he grew accustomed to the dark. And he saw her, curled up on a shelf of stone, watching him. A robe of dark crimson swathed her, and she stared at him with sorrowful eyes. “I am sorry, Lukos. But your eyes are next.”
He threw up his hands, but a sharp, searing-hot point slammed into his right palm. Instinctively, he pulled his hand away. This time the red-hot poker went into his eye. As he screamed in pain, something grabbed his arms and restrained him. He howled. He tried to fight. Some monster in the sh
adows had hold of him. He was raging against the grip, throwing his head wildly. The pain. God above, the pain—
But despite his wild struggles, the poker drove into his left eye, completely blinding him.
This would kill him.
Unless he was already dead.
Did the dead still feel pain?
He would have cried, but the searing heat had taken away his tear ducts along with his eye.
He smelled her. Over the stench of his own flesh, over the excruciating agony, he knew she had come to his side. She knelt by him. Her hands went around his bare shoulders, and in her sultry voice, she chanted. The soft, lovely sound flowed around him like a vivid light and took away the pain.
“You cannot see him, Lukos. It is not for you to see him until you have completed your apprenticeship.”
He laughed in anger and bitterness. “I’m blinded. I’ll never see.”
“You will. Lukos, he can give you ultimate power. He can easily give you sight.”
“What do you do now? Cut off my cock so I can’t fuck?”
“No.” The demoness’s voice was soft and soothing. “You have endured all that you must for now. I will take you to the chamber, and you will rest there. Tomorrow, you will begin to learn.”
Learn. With his eyes gouged out? His throat slit? Each breath was a torture, and he was rasping and wheezing like an old man. He’d run over corpses on the battlefield less wounded than this. “Am I dead?”
“You will be reborn, Lukos.”
She had opened his robe then and had taken hold of his cock. He had lost his eyes; he’d had his throat cut, but somehow she made his organ stand up. She straddled him, took him inside, and rode him. He could feel her slick heat engulfing his cock. He could smell her, smell the ripeness of their joining. He could feel her full buttocks slamming his groin. God, yes…
“You’re having sex with me—”
“No, I’m not. You are dreaming this, Lukos.” She slapped him. The sudden jolt of pain made his fantasy disappear. Instead of her creamy juices, he smelled the dankness of wet stone. Instead of warmth and pleasure, he felt sharp rocks beneath his knees.
