She hadn’t expected to be drawn to Julien Weaver herself. She knew what he really was. Predator. She was no sheep. She couldn’t let herself be mesmerized by his aura of ultra-alpha male. But, oh, he was a handsome boyo!
* * *
She thought he was handsome. Julien was quite pleased at the impression he’d made on the copper-haired maid. He smiled, his fangs extending a bit as he did so. He wondered how she’d react if she turned and saw a vampire in the moonlight. Would she scream and run? The chase would be pleasant. Assuaging her fear even more so once she was caught in his embrace.
What else did she think of him? he wondered.
He wasn’t reading her thoughts as he followed silently behind her and the chattering footman, but he was closely attuned to her emotions. He was under no illusion that those emotions centered on him. As his emotions had centered on her from the moment he saw her.
He knew he was vain to think her deeply attracted to him from such a brief encounter, but he was Prime. He had no doubts about his sexual attractiveness, or prowess. He would bring this girl all the pleasure she could bear, and beyond. It would be a lovely interlude for them both.
He was delighted she ignored the mortal boy’s efforts to win her attention, but a hint of jealousy that the boy could walk so openly by her side curled inside him. It was not because he was a vampire that there was a divide between him and the girl, but because of the differences in their class.
Perhaps he should sweep her away like a lost princess in a fairy tale.
Perhaps he should get back to the house party before his absence was noted. After all, it was too early in the evening for trysts. The gentlemen had just barely finished their brandy in the dining room and joined the ladies waiting in the drawing room. There would be flirtatious chatter while the card tables were set up, and then the gambling would begin. The gaming would grow more and more serious as the evening wore on. The flirtations would proceed to liaisons. He had repeated this scenario for at least a thousand nights in his long life. Starting in the era of the Regency and on up until tonight. It was ever the same among the noble class. Though there were many not quite so decadent as the McHeaths, the festivities of a house party remained the same. As if it never occurred to them that there might be something better to do with their time.
The advantage of all these years of boredom was that Julien had won huge fortunes at the gaming tables. Most of the time he hadn’t even had to use his psychic gifts in the course of fleecing the men he played against. Most of the time it was easy to tell if mortals were bluffing or lying.
Thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the wise investments made by Family Weaver’s Matri and Elders he had been relieved of the need to be a professional gambler. Having gone into the spy game, Julien occasionally found himself making the same old round of noble house parties. He much preferred facing off with a Tribe Prime working for the Russians in the wilds of Afghanistan to his current assignment to this placid activity.
This is the last time, he vowed.
At least he had his new acquaintance—though they had yet to actually meet—to relieve the boredom of his assignment.
The girl wasn’t boring. Julien absorbed her lively humor, intelligence, and awakening sexuality as a type of heady perfume heated by the warmth of her flesh, the strong beat of her heart, the hot rush of her blood. He could sense all this, see it with his psychic vision, and he longed to hold her and breathe her in.
How odd that he should be so attracted so quickly. He knew there were incidents in vampire society where a Prime’s bonding instinct had been triggered by mortal women, but Julien didn’t personally know anyone this had happened to. He’d done his duty to sire children, but had never felt the urge to join a House harem no matter how lovely and sensual vampire females were. Did his destiny lie with a mortal?
“Nonsense.”
The word was whispered so low no mortal ear could detect it, but the girl whirled around anyway.
* * *
Chapter Three
“Shhh!” Grace demanded as Jimmy kept on talking.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She slapped his hand away when he touched her arm. No man was going to touch her but—!
She peered into the darkness. Her stomach fluttered, her heart raced, but she saw nothing. The bright moonlight would have showed if someone was there, wouldn’t it?
“Hello?”
No answer, of course, because nothing was there. Yet she had heard….
Nothing.
Was the thought her own? If it was, why did it whisper through her like an inner caress?
She turned back around and continued onward with a firm step. “What were you saying about the house having secrets?” she asked her companion.
“There are secret passages that lead to all the guest bedrooms on the second floor, and spy holes in the passage wall so the master can look in and see what nastiness is going on. Secret doors as well as peepholes into the bedrooms. All this was built by our master’s grandfather. The McHeaths have always been bad.”
“Rumors,” she said.
“I’ve been in them myself. I’ll show you, if you like.”
Grace smiled, with her head turned away from Jimmy. All her senses tingled with eager pleasure at this news. She almost felt as though she was sharing a sensual secret with someone else. She resisted the impulse to turn around again, telling herself nerves were making for an overactive imagination. Nerves, or a guilty conscience.
“No, thank you, I don’t want to peek in on my betters.” she told the footman. She sounded prim and disapproving, when she actually planned to hunt for the vampire’s room on her own. Better for her assignment, safer to keep the young man out of it as well.
But first, there was work to be done. They rounded a stand of trees and a three-story brick house set in a rose garden was illuminated by the moonlight, the Dower House. Normally, a dower house was the place where the widow of a nobleman settled after her son took over the title and estate. Grace guessed that Lord McHeath’s mother was dead—or was going to be very annoyed when she found out the use her house had been put to when she got home from a trip.
* * *
“Iron these.”
Grace received the command a second after she walked in the servant’s entrance. A heavy pile of dresses were thrust into her arms.
“Though I don’t know why they want their dresses ironed when they’re only going to come off,” the maid who’d handed her the pile continued. She pointed down a dimly lit hallway. “Laundry room’s down there.”
“Ah, the glamorous life,” Grace murmured and trudged off under the weight to do her duty.
It was several hours before Grace got a look at any of the soiled doves she was serving. Her feet ached and she wanted to go to bed, never mind vampire seduction, but she was sent to carry trays of drinks around the sitting room where a late party was underway. Some of the gentlemen who were finished gambling and had not retired to their rooms with other men’s spouses had come to meet the alternative women provided for their pleasure.
The first thing Grace noticed when she entered the sitting room was that Lord Julien Weaver was not among the gentlemen present. Her emotions spun into a dizzying tumble of pleasure that he wasn’t patronizing the fancy ladies and disappointment that he wasn’t there for her to seduce—or even just look at. Frustration and impatience had their place in the mix of her feelings as well. She needed to get to the man and get him alone long enough to do the deed. Perhaps she should have continued with the original plan. Maybe she was only being arrogant and rebellious, deciding her way was the better one.
Well, she still had her trunk of fine clothes in the coach tucked away with Uncle Mungo in the stables, since her uncle had refused to leave. He said he wasn’t abandoning the plan, or her, for which she was grateful. Perhaps she could assume her other disguise.
In the meantime, she took a tray of full champagne glasses and made her way around the crowd
ed room.
The room was lit with candles, giving a sensual golden glow to bare shoulders and bosoms exposed by the deep cleavage of the women’s gowns.
She was tempted to tell the men to keep their sweaty roaming hands off the silks and satins she had so painstakingly ironed, but she stayed silent and invisible and made the rounds of the room.
Most of the women were surrounded by men, but two women, one dark, one fair, stood alone together in front of a tall, gold framed mirror. The mirror doubled the view of their delightful figures, but the pair seemed more intent on conversation than attracting customers.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” the dark-haired one whispered as Grace approached. Her gaze swept the room impatiently.
Grace noticed the taut nervousness in the woman’s posture, the hot brightness of her eyes. Most of all she was struck by the woman’s aura, which radiated a psychic fury bordering on madness.
Grace wondered what it was that could cause such agitation. A stolen piece of jewelry, perhaps? A match for the ornately carved wooden hairpin holding up her elaborate coiffure?
None of my business, she thought, and held out the tray to the women. The blond took a glass, the dark one waved Grace off. Grace gladly moved to other guests, eager to be away from the woman’s disturbed aura.
Dawn was approaching before she wearily made her way back to the main house. She was so tired she forgot about the secret passage until she was climbing the manor’s back staircase up to the maid servants’ dormitory in the attic. But an image of Lord Julien lounging naked on a soft bed, a red satin sheet barely covering his nether parts came into her tired thoughts to remind her of her assignment.
Tease, she thought, and imagined a masculine chuckle in her mind.
She stifled a yawn and went back down to the second floor to look for the secret entrance to the hidden passage.
* * *
Chapter Four
She would come soon. Julien felt the maid’s approach with all his being. She had responded to his suggestion—not a telepathic order. The choice to come to his room was hers, even if he had tried to persuade her with a sensual image.
It was a promise, he told himself. He wanted her as herself. He would ask rather than command. Nature had made him to be a predator, a ruler. Years of training and practice in the rules and culture of his people had taught him to control himself. He’d come to believe vampires—proper Family and Clan Primes—were more civilized than mortals.
He waited with all the patience he could muster. Instinct told him to open the hidden door and go to her. But that took away her choice, he reminded himself. She was mortal, mentally strong for one of her kind, but without the strength of mind and body of a vampire female. With a female of his own kind, if they were attracted they would hunt each other, strive for dominance, and the mating would be explosive, as violent as the female wished. They would take each other. But mortals were fragile. And his lovely copper-haired girl was an innocent, unlike the other mortals he had bedded. He needed to be careful, gentle.
He could hardly wait.
When he heard a faint sound behind the secret door he was there instantly.
* * *
“What the devil are you doing here?”
The angry shout stopped Grace mid-step. She was glad the darkness of the secret passage hid her as she saw the woman up ahead, silhouetted in the square of light thrown from inside Lord Weaver’s room. The woman’s dark hair tumbled down around her lovely face. She wore a tightly belted black robe, the silk material clinging in a way that suggested she wore nothing underneath.
The woman laughed, bright and bold. “Julien, my dear, everyone knows about McHeath Manor’s secret passages. I’ve used them many a time.”
I bet you have, Grace thought, with bitterness that had almost nothing to do with her assignment.
“Emmaline, I did not invite you here,” Lord Julien said coldly.
Emmaline ignored his obvious annoyance and stepped past him into the bedroom. The secret door closed and the lock clicked a moment later.
Grace stood rooted to the floor, totally flummoxed. She noticed after a bit that her mouth was hanging open, and closed it with an angry snap. Who did that Emmaline person think she was, waltzing into a man’s room without a by your leave?
Shameless! Grace thought, even though that had been her exact same intention. She knew she should turn around and march off to her narrow little cot in the attic. But curiosity—and, yes, jealousy—drew her forward. A tiny spot of light at eye level in the wall showed her where the peephole was. Grace hesitated before having a look. Peeking into a person’s private room was wrong, and possibly even sinful—but blast it all, it should be her in there. It should be her in Julien Weaver’s bed. Lady naked-under-her-robe Emmaline had barged in for no better reason than to be pleasured by what she believed was a virile stud of a man. Grace was here to acquire his stud services as well, but for a higher purpose. She wanted to blend his bloodline with her own. She’d been ordered to it, a strong spell had been cast to make sure she was ripe and fertile. The spell would only last so long. She had to have her way with Lord Julien Weaver!
She almost stomped her foot in frustration. In fact, her whole body shook with sensual frustration. Her insides ached with need. Need for the fine-looking man she’d glimpsed at dinner and who had been in her mind ever since. It wasn’t all about magic. She wanted to taste his lips, know what his body felt like pressed against hers.
She’d been so close to at least being alone in the same room with him. So close yet so far—
Blast it! She was at least going to have a look in to see what she was missing.
She heard the murmuring of voices as she carefully placed her eye at the peephole.
* * *
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” Emmaline pouted prettily and ran a hand down Julien’s chest.
She grasped his shirt front and drew him closer. The heat of her body, along with the scent of her blood, was exciting, but that was merely the automatic animal reaction of his Primal self. He had long ago learned how to control the vampire instinct that always wanted to take and dominate.
“I am always pleased to see you,” he answered the woman. “But not quite as much as usual here and now.”
She laughed softly, not hearing the danger in his tone.
Her fingers stroked his cheek, traced his lips. “Kiss me,” Emmaline whispered. “I love it when you kiss me.”
Emmaline knew how to arouse him. She certainly knew how to pleasure him.
Not tonight.
When he would have drawn away from her, Emmaline pulled open her robe, grasped his hips, and pressed her nakedness against him. The heat of her body went straight to his cock. His fangs grew.
The gasp which sounded in his mind was not his own.
He couldn’t stop the laugh, or the wave of amused pleasure he sent toward the girl staring in through the peephole. It drove her away in shocked embarrassment, of course. Her presence retreated from his awareness as she fled down the secret corridor.
He must let his copper-haired maid know that his amusement was not at her at all, but because he sensed that she cared what he did, that she was appalled by Emmaline’s erotic boldness, and because she wished she was as bold as the wanton aristocrat clinging to him.
Speaking of which….
Duty before pleasure. He was supposed to be telepathically hunting for a spy among the party guests. He put his fingers on Emmaline’s temples. Her mind was innocent, at least of any crime against the state. Her lust for him almost overwhelmed him.
Her hands roamed over him, opening his shirt, pinching his nipples.
It wasn’t simple carnal lust that filled him. The fire that flashed through Julien was pure hunger, the instinctive raw need for blood charged with female heat.
His fangs sank into the soft, sweet flesh of Emmaline’s shoulder. Tasting her brought him sustenance, giving her climax after climax in exchange.
He would
not take this mortal into his bed, not claim her body though that was what Emmaline would remember. Julien did not want the intimacy of sex or sharing his blood with anyone but his lovely copper girl.
* * *
Chapter Five
Grace hesitated in the hallway outside Lord Julien Weaver’s guest room. For all her determination to go through with her current plan, her palms were damp with nerves and her heart was racing. She was alone in the hallway, probably the only person on the floor as the guests were currently downstairs at breakfast. Even if anyone saw her loitering by the door, who took any notice of a servant? She still carried a metal pail and other implements for cleaning the ashes of last night’s fire from the bedroom grate.
This is no time for cowardice, she told herself. Onward into the breach—was that Shakespeare? Nothing ventured, nothing gained—that was certainly Granny McCoy.
She wiped her hands on her dull black skirt, squared her shoulders, and stepped forward. She gave a light tap on the door for form’s sake then turned the brass knob and went inside.
The room was dark, there being no windows on this side of the house. This was because of the secret passage, Grace knew, but there was also an ancient marble frieze taken from Greek ruins across the front of the house which was the official excuse for the lack of windows. It was supposed to be great art, but she didn’t see how naked men on horseback fighting each other was artistic. Fighting on horseback while naked just wasn’t practical, or comfortable.
Or safe.
Grace fought to suppress a giggle at the thought.
She closed the door behind her and squinted into the dimness. She was in. Now all she had to do was wait for his lordship to return. Not the most clever plan, perhaps, but there it was. Perhaps she would be waiting naked in his bed—but it would be many hours before the vampire returned from his revels among the aristocrats. What was she supposed to do until then? Besides, as tired as she was he might find her sprawled out and snoring, and that wasn’t very seductive, was it?
Stealing Magic (Vampire Primes) Page 2
