by Sharon Page
That voice. She recognized it. Her heart threatened to leap out of her chest. Miranda twisted to meet the hard gaze of James Ryder—the vampire slayer who wanted to kill her.
4
Rescued
“It’s no use. She will not take my milk anymore. She doesn’t even want blood.”
Althea Yates, Lady Brookshire, heard the frantic desperation in her voice. How could she be so helpless? So useless? She did not know what to do. Her child wouldn’t eat, no matter what she tried. She had consulted with midwives, wet nurses, experienced women, and vampires, too, and nothing worked.
Her maid hurried away. Althea heard Nan’s rapid footsteps on the stone floor of the ancient castle’s corridor. The frightened girl would be fetching Yannick and Bastien, Althea guessed.
If her daughter didn’t eat, surely she would waste away.
Althea licked away the tear that dripped to her lip. She could cry. She may be a vampire, but she could cry. But what would tears solve?
She gazed down at baby Serena, known as Serry, so as not to be confused with Serena, Lady Sommersby, Althea’s very best friend. Althea smiled at soft, puckered lips that blew tiny bubbles, and at the fragile, translucent lids, and the dark lashes that lay along small cheeks. One thick lock of downy blond hair lay along her daughter’s cheek. She guessed Serry must look as both her husbands had when they were infants—since both men were blonde.
Was Serry immortal, as she, Yannick, and Bastien were? Althea didn’t know. No one could tell her that. But now that her little daughter was nearly three months, she would not eat.
“Please, little one, please take some food,” Althea whispered.
She clasped the tiny hand. Her daughter’s fingers curled around Althea’s baby finger and clutched her tight. Serry had been so strong when she was first born. So healthy. For the first few days, her daughter had drunk from her breast with gusto, had always wanted to feed. Her breasts had swelled large with milk, and she’d known the most intense pain as the milk flooded in.
Right now, her breasts were beginning to ache again. Just the thought of feeding set them off. The pain would get more and more excruciating because Serry would not take her nipple and would not take her milk. Her breasts would become engorged and rock hard, and then, even though pain shot through her when she just touched her bosom, she’d have to ruthlessly massage the fluid out herself.
And soon it would stop coming in altogether, she’d been told.
Althea stroked the soft cheek. “Please, Serry, you must eat.” But the tiny fingers released their grip. “You are going to waste away. Please, please, please.”
Althea, the maid came in a panic. Bastien’s worried tone reached her through her thoughts. Within a heartbeat, he strode into her bedchamber. His golden hair was loose and drifted over his shoulders. Even in darkness, she saw the stark fear in his eyes. He glanced to her bared bosom, her breasts huge and full, her hands working painfully to make the milk pour down her chest, where it soaked into a linen towel.
It gave her strength to share the burden. “I don’t know what to do, Bastien! I don’t know how to make her eat. I don’t even know what to feed her.”
“Yannick has sent for Lady Draycott.”
“Serena’s mother, Eve?” One of the oldest vampires—the first Eve created by God for Adam, but Eve had then been rejected by Adam and had long harbored hurt and pain.
“She bore a vampire child,” Bastien reminded her.
“But her daughter Serena was not fully vampire at birth. And Eve has already refused to help me. Yannick forbid her to come to this house because of her cold refusal.”
“If she can help you now, he’s willing to forgive.”
“She won’t help now. She will not change her mind. There’s nothing we can do. We are going to have to watch our child die. I can’t stand it!”
“No! It won’t be like that. I vow that it won’t.”
She knew Bastien—one of her two husbands—possessed great strength and bravery, but in this he was as powerless as she. “The truth is, Bastien, no child of two vampires has survived before! The vampire queens finally admitted this to me after letting me think I could bear a child. They believe we can’t breed.” Her daughter was a warm bundle in her arms. Was she condemned to watch her just fade away? Was Serry condemned to die? Was this payment for the fact that she, Bastien, and Yannick had defied death?
She had come from Italy to the Carpathians for answers, had forced them all to travel into these remote mountains in search of hope, and had found…nothing.
Bastien was on his knees in front of her. He laid his large, strong hand on his daughter’s stomach. Even though they could not be certain whether Yannick or Bastien had actually been Serry’s father, both men considered themselves to be. And she considered them both to be. It didn’t matter who had actually given her Serry. She belonged to both men. And they were both loving and devoted to their child.
“She is so innocent and so beautiful. I can’t bear to lose her,” Althea whispered.
He looked to her in shock. Perhaps he believed a mother never gave up hope. “We won’t.”
“Unless we can find someone who can perform miracles—”
“We will.”
“Who would perform a miracle for us, Bastien? We’re vampires.”
Warm and comforting, his hand stroked her cheek. His thumb brushed away her tears. “Sweetheart, that does not make us unworthy of miracles. I promise you that.”
Mr. Ryder gripped her arms tight and dragged her away from the boy and his sobbing, frantic mother. Miranda sank her heels into the dirt and clawed at his arm. “Stop! Don’t you see the boy is dying?”
Ryder wore a long greatcoat of deep burgundy, and a tall beaver hat was tipped over his pale blond hair. “Indeed,” he drawled, “I saw him fall in front of the carriage.”
Good god. Miranda stared up into the slayer’s deep blue eyes. There was no compassion in them, only triumph because he’d captured her. She remembered again the words he’d spoken to her in the park the day before she’d run away….
You are a demon. Or a witch. Only an evil, otherworldly being can possess the power of magic. And as a slayer, it is my sworn duty to destroy you.
She’d fought fear of this insane slayer then and she could do it now. “You have to let me go to the boy, Mr. Ryder. I can save his life, and he is only a child.”
He hauled her another step away and her boots skidded. She didn’t have the strength to resist. His breath, scented with the smoke of a cheroot, washed over her. “It’s too late. Bringing him back to life will only ensure that these simpletons will tear you apart.”
“But you only want to kill me. What do I care how I die, if I can give that child a chance to live?”
“It is my duty to ensure that these people do not know what they have amongst them.”
She didn’t even know what she was. Ryder spoke as though he knew, but all she could think of was the dying boy. And something Ryder said sliced through her fear. “You said you saw him fall,” she accused. “Couldn’t you have stopped it? Or saved him?”
“The little wretch had tried to pick my pocket.”
He’d let the child fall beneath a carriage. “And that meant you wouldn’t raise a hand to stop a death?”
“It brought you to a halt, didn’t it?”
Horror hit her like ice water. “You let an innocent child be crushed just to capture me.”
Who was worse—the vampires or the vampire slayer? She was caught in a nightmare, where every man around her was a villain.
Mr. Ryder pulled her to him, grinning, and she stumbled against him. Her knee flew up, for she’d seen maids protect themselves from arrogant, lecherous men this way. She slammed right between his thighs.
“Christ Jesus!” Mr. Ryder let go of her arm. His face distorted and he howled in pain. His hand clamped between his legs and he sank to his knees.
Thank heaven! Miranda darted away, almost falling over the uneve
n ground. She should run for her life, but she couldn’t do that. Instead, she shoved aside a curious man who stood holding his tankard of ale and raced toward the fallen little boy.
Heat. Overbearing heat. Ironic that he had once served Lucifer, but he found this taproom, with its roaring fire and tightly packed human bodies, as hot as an oven. Lukos’s enhanced senses choked on the stench of human sweat, foul breath, stale ale, and even urine, which implied that some of the drunken crowd either relieved themselves in a corner or let it dribble down their legs.
But he also heard the thrumming of blood and the pounding of strong, healthy hearts. God, he hungered. He hated taking blood—he had seen so much spilled on Wessex battlefields a thousand years ago, that it had sickened him to be like a scavenger searching for stupid prey. His father had told him that power was what elevated men above beasts. For him, it was what had made him into one.
Lukos moved into the shadowy corner of the taproom. Here the patrons were slouched over tankards. Here were those seeking to drink their way to oblivion.
He offered another way to escape the mortal world—
A hand grabbed his buttocks.
He turned slowly, aware of heavy breathing behind him, aware of the smell of sex, cloying perfume, onions, and beer.
A woman sidled close to him, shoving her bosom beneath his nose, and her hand boldly caressed his arse beneath his cloak. Fear, need, and sexual hunger burned in her small black eyes. Her mouth was thin and deep lines bracketed it. Wrinkles surrounded her eyes, and her skin was dark and puffy beneath. Broken blood vessels covered her nose.
Her life had aged her. She was perhaps in her middle thirties, but she had been used up by mortal life. Lukos heard the labored beat of her heart. He could smell the sickness around her. Drink, disease, hopelessness—this woman was dying. She was selling her body for a little comfort, a little money, a little warmth and contact.
His lip curled. He would take her. “Come, love. Do you have a room?”
The prostitute shook her head. “I don’t rate one anymore. But I don’t charge much; you can take me in the corner outside. Or in the stable. It’s warm there.”
Lukos glanced around. The young barmaid cast him a saucy glance. All the women in the room were beginning to look at him. To want him.
But Lukos wrapped his arm around the waist of the woman cooing beside him. “Come, love, let’s find a place.”
She led him out of the low door and they left the heat for the cool air of the spring evening. He could feel the effort it took her to breathe. Her fist went to her mouth to smother a cough. He stopped her and drew her back in the shadows that had gathered here, at this corner of the building.
She tugged her bodice down so her full, white left breast jumped up over the tight fabric and her nipple puckered in the brisk air, long and chocolate brown. She was hauling up her skirts when he leaned in and blew his breath gently by her ear.
“You’re dying, love,” he said softly.
Her skirts stopped at the top of her stockings. Fearful eyes met his. “What on earth do you mean, sir?”
“Would you like to be strong again? Stronger than you’ve ever been? Strong enough to take any man that hits you and break his neck?”
She tried to pull away. He pushed her back against the wall. Scarlet cream smeared her lips and sat in circles on her wrinkled cheeks. Henna-dyed curls fell around her face.
He used to transform dying street urchins into the undead. He would do it with this woman. It amused him to save the damned, to give them strength in a world that left them powerless.
“Do you want revenge on those who’ve hurt you?” he asked. “Couldn’t you have had more than this, my love?”
She shook, staring at him. Captured by his gaze. But there was a core of strength in her, a yearning to survive—he felt it.
“I can give you a gift of everlasting life….” He licked her neck. His tongue almost curled at the taste of sweat, at the gritty feel of her skin.
“N-no, sir,” she managed, but she had no choice.
Lucifer had held him captive in a cell buried underground in rock for a thousand years, and then the earth had rumbled and shook and had split open before his eyes. He’d been free—free to feed, to search for his destined mate, to prepare for his revenge. It had been short lived. Within days he had been captured by Eve, the oldest vampire queen, and imprisoned again. This time with damned Zayan, the bloody ruthless vampire who had captured his sister Ara for Lucifer. Unfortunately, they’d been trapped in a sort of paradise, where it had been impossible for him to kill Zayan. He’d had no choice but to work with Zayan and combine their power to escape.
In the brief time he’d been free on the earth, Lukos had fed from mortal necks. Each time, he’d felt an intense rush of sexual arousal.
This time he felt nothing. Only an anger at the hunger that needed to be sated. Had imprisonment changed him? His slow heartbeat sped up slightly. Feed. You must feed or die.
Not die. He had too much to do first. He had a thousand-year-old prophecy to fulfill.
He wound his fingers in his prey’s dirty hair, jerked her head to the side, and sank his fangs into her flesh.
“Help me! Please help me! Help my son!”
Miranda sank to her knees at the side of the motionless boy. His anguished mother was crouched on the other side of him. She had her arms wrapped around her boy and was sobbing against his chest. People crowded in closer and closer, forming a tight circle of mud-splattered skirts and boots, but no one did anything to help.
It angered her that people would do nothing but gawk, but the packed crowd gave her a few seconds before Mr. Ryder could capture her again.
“Oh, Will. Open yer eyes, please, me wee lovey.” The mother’s sobs echoed in Miranda’s head.
She could not ignore a plea for help. She could not.
“Please move away from him for a moment. Let me see what is wrong,” she urged the mother, but the woman would not budge, and Miranda had to grasp the back of the woman’s rough gown and pull her away.
Bleary, tear-stained eyes looked up into hers. “He’s dying. Please…”
Miranda touched the boy’s throat. She felt no pulse. She slid her hand down to his small chest. She felt that sucking, hollow sense she got when someone had died.
“It’s too late, miss.”
She barely spared a glance at the morose-looking gentleman who’d made the pronouncement. Quickly, she babbled, “Oh, no. Children can deceive you. This happened to my wee brother—” As she let the words flow, she put her hand on the boy’s chest. She had to clench her teeth as the warmth of her power rushed through her, but she found her tongue again. “He’d fallen in the pond and we thought he was gone. We’d thought there was no hope, but then one of the grooms hit him on his back—” She pressed harder. The heat roared down her arm and her muscles jerked with the power. It shot into the boy’s body through her fingers.
“All this water rushed out of him, and suddenly he started sputtering and his eyes opened wide.” She kept lying. She had to make this not look like a miracle. “Before our eyes he had come right back to life—” Her hand hummed on top of the boy. This story was the true story of what had happened to Simon.
Miranda could feel this boy’s heartbeat—not through her fingertips, but in her soul. His pulse sped, then slowed, working erratically as the power surged through her.
What did everyone around her see? Could they guess what she was doing? Could they sense that she had a power that no one, not even she, could understand?
The boy’s heartbeat began to settle in the steady, fast patter of a small child’s. He would live. She was certain of it—so certain that the heat began to fade in her. The thrumming that filled her senses and screamed in her ears began to blissfully subside.
She saw the boy’s lashes flicker. His eyes were going to open.
Gulping in a breath—it felt as though she didn’t breathe while the power surged through her—she turned to W
ill’s mother.
“Did you send this boy to pick a gentleman’s pocket?” she asked softly.
The mother flushed. Beneath her tattered straw hat, she gave a surly, sly look. “We’ve got to eat.”
“But he’s just a child, and that thievery almost cost him his life.”
Resentment simmered behind the woman’s eyes.
Will’s eyes opened. Wide, clear blue, and darting about in fear and confusion.
“Oh, me wee lad.” His mother gathered him up and held him tight, and her straw hat tipped to the side. Tears ran down her pale cheeks.
Miranda didn’t doubt that Will willingly did his thieving. He probably felt the responsibility already for his family. She dug out some coins she’d slipped into a small pocket in her pelisse. She had only moments. She heard angry protests behind her. Mr. Ryder must be pushing his way through the crowd, and within moments he’d have her. Panicked, she looked around, but the circle had tightened as she performed her miracle, and already the story was spreading from mouth to eager ear—a boy had been dead and some unknown woman had brought him back to life.
Will was crying along with his mother now; he’d have pain, but that would fade soon. She put the money in his hand.
Strong arms grasped her shoulders and pulled her back. She cried out, but the sound was swallowed by the crowd, and the firm hand dragged her into the crush of people.
“Got you, you soft-hearted twit,” Mr. Ryder growled by her ear.
“Better that than a monster,” she gasped.
He was dragging her through the crowd again. She realized he held a pistol, which was making the sea of bodies open for him.
“That pistol is drawing more attention than my miracle,” she snapped at him.
The look of raw fury he gave her made her quiver. He yanked her along and she could see the gleam of lamps now, between the people, which meant he’d have her free of the crowd in an instant.
She could try to run. Would he shoot her? Or worse, would he try to kill her and hit someone else?
