Bound By Sin (A Cin Craven Novel)

by Jenna Maclaine

  “Ah, lass,” he coaxed. “What else have we got to do?”

  I cocked one eyebrow. “So you want it rough, do you?” I asked, reaching out and grabbing a fistful of his dark blond hair. I pulled his lips to mine. “All right,” I said in a soft and deadly tone. “Just try to keep up.”

  CHAPTER 39

  It was raining when we arrived in Corinth, and had been for some time. The ground was a quagmire beneath my feet and the hem of my hooded cloak, which served to cover the beacon of my scarlet hair, was soon sodden with mud. As a result, it took us longer than I would have liked to cover the twenty or so miles north to the battlefield. There was no mistaking it when we reached our destination, though.

  The sharp tang of gunpowder still permeated the air and the smell of blood and death hung all around us, a cloying scent filling my nostrils. The dark magic stirred within me, but this time it was easy to push back. As a vampire, I should have found the smell of so much blood intoxicating, but I could only think with disgust of the tragedy of so many lost lives.

  “Careful,” Michael whispered, pulling me up short before I walked headlong into a group of soldiers on patrol.

  The flash of Confederate gray uniforms through the trees at least signified that we were on the correct side of the lines, though how we were to find Adrien Boucher amid fifty thousand Confederate troops was beyond me. We’d verified in Atlanta that Boucher had boarded a train bound for Chattanooga, but it was strictly guesswork that he’d ended up here. A location spell would have been helpful on more than one occasion over the past three days, but to cast it required possessing an item that belonged to Adrien. It was something I should have thought of before we left the island but my head had been too wrapped up in other concerns, a fact that I was kicking myself for right now.

  Michael grabbed my hand and we silently skirted a stand of what appeared to be blackberry bushes in order to avoid the soldiers.

  “How are we going to find him amid all this, Michael?” I asked, detangling my cloak from the bush’s thorny branches.

  “We keep moving, quickly and quietly, until we pick up his scent,” he replied. “I think we can skip the more densely populated camps and search only in the outlying areas. Boucher will want his privacy.”

  I shook my head. “It’s glory he wants.”

  “That will come later,” Michael reasoned. “Right now he can’t risk anyone seeing Ares pop in or out of that urn.”

  We had travelled a couple miles, slipping from shadow to shadow, when we came across something I had not expected to find—two vampires feeding on a fallen soldier. The woman stood when she sensed our arrival, but the man continued to feed. I heard the soldier moan and I started forward.

  “No, Cin,” Michael whispered, grabbing my wrist. “This is no concern of The Righteous.”

  “But they’re killing that boy,” I argued.

  Michael pursed his lips and sadly shook his head. “They’re scavengers. They feed on the dying in places such as this. The boy is dead already. They’re simply putting him out of his misery.”

  I turned back, noticing now what I had not before. The young man had several bloody marks on his uniform, apparently bullet holes. He might have lived had those been his only wounds, but his legs had been ripped apart by cannon fire. At best a field surgeon would amputate both legs and hope he lived. But I was a vampire and I knew exactly how much blood one could lose before dying. Michael was right: the boy could not live, not with those wounds. I looked back at the woman and nodded slowly. She inclined her head to me and an understanding passed between us. This was mercy, not murder. It was a distinction I knew all too well.

  “Let’s go,” I said, turning back to Michael. “I grow weary of this place.”

  The rain had finally let up and I promised myself that the first thing I was going to do when we got back to civilization was have a hot bath. It took another hour of slogging through the mud to find Adrien and Ares, but find them we did. While Claire was fighting for her life back at Kenneway, the man who professed to love her was sitting around a rebel campfire, swilling ale with the bastard who had poisoned her! I was so furious I could have happily sucked the life out of both of them on the spot.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy?” I announced loudly as we walked out of the shadows.

  Adrien’s eyes widened and he leaped to his feet, grabbing the urn and clutching it to his chest.

  “Ares, kill them!” he commanded.

  The war god, now clothed in a Confederate uniform, looked up at us. “I would not harm Claire’s kin,” he replied.

  “I’m giving you an order,” Boucher barked. “Kill them!”

  Ares rose to his feet, looking down his patrician nose at Boucher. “You may control the urn, but I am Ares, god of war. You do not control me. Never forget that.”

  Adrien’s panicked gaze darted from Ares to Michael to me. I smiled and Adrien ran, sprinting away through the woods like the devil himself was chasing him.

  “Go after him,” I said to Michael. “If he escapes with that urn then all this has been for nothing.”

  My husband laughed. “Give me five minutes and we’ll be on our way.”

  I turned to Ares. “You have some nerve,” I spat. “Do you even care what Claire is going through right now?”

  Ares gave me an arrogant look. “It was a good day at war,” he replied. “Claire will understand.”

  “You imbecile,” I said with a shove to his very muscular chest. “Did you stop to think for just one minute that Claire would have never given up control of that urn willingly? Especially to the man who had kidnapped her? Or were you too busy playing the great god of war to give a thought for the woman you claim to love?”

  Ares narrowed his eyes. “You are angry and scared. What has happened to Claire?”

  “I don’t know,” I shouted. “That man you were so happily drinking with a few moments ago poisoned her to get to you. I should be there with her now but, no, I’ve just spent the last three days traveling across four states to get you back.”

  Ares grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled. “What do you mean Claire was poisoned? Is she—”

  My anger vanished at the look of torment in his eyes. I sighed. “I don’t know. When we left Pandora said that the drug could kill her, but she’s strong and I have every hope that she’ll pull through. You should be prepared for the fact that she’ll most likely lose the baby, though.”

  “We must return to her,” he demanded. “Now.”

  Michael came rushing out of the woods, a small trickle of blood coming from his lip and Ares’s urn held triumphantly in one hand.

  “I got it!” he exclaimed.

  I turned back to the war god.

  “Now that Michael has the urn we can return to Corinth and catch a train—”

  “There is no time for such foolishness,” Ares growled.

  With one hand he grabbed my arm and with the other he latched onto Michael. There was a blinding flash of light and I screamed in pain. Wind rushed over me at such a great speed that it felt as though I were caught in a cyclone. Everything went black and I was very certain that my guts would be jerked from my body at any moment. When the wind finally stopped, I fell to my hands and knees and tried not to throw up. I could hear Michael moan somewhere off to my left and I opened my eyes to try to get my bearings. What I saw before me was not the woods of Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee. It was Claire’s bedroom and the god of war was perched on the edge of her bed, holding her in his arms as she smiled over his shoulder at Michael and me.

  I turned to Michael, who was lying on his back next to me, blinking up at the ceiling.

  “I thought you told me he’d lost the ability to shift through time and space,” Michael said.

  “He had. But I do believe he’s just met one of the conditions of his release,” I said, smiling up at Claire, safe and sound in the arms of her lover. “He finally found something he loves more than war.”

  CHA
PTER 40

  I lay back in the tub, content in Michael’s arms. Kenneway’s bathroom had running water, though it wasn’t heated. I didn’t care. It felt entirely too good to be clean again. I let out a sigh, enjoying the cool feel of the water around us.

  Claire had recovered with no lingering effects from the drug, and the baby was fine. She’d been shocked to hear that we had been concerned that she would lose the child. Claire had known instinctively what the rest of us had overlooked in our worrying—that her baby was the child of a god and nothing as mundane as a human poison would harm it. Boucher had been fortunate in that regard.

  “When you took the urn back, you didn’t kill him, did you?” I asked softly.

  “You know I didn’t,” Michael replied.

  No, Michael’s honor would not allow him to do such a thing. Perhaps it was a good thing that I had not been the one to go after Adrien. My morals might not have held up as well. I respected our laws but there were times when the High King’s mandates were bloody inconvenient.

  “He’ll be back, you know,” I pointed out.

  “It’ll take him at least three or four days to get back here,” Michael replied. “We’ll likely be gone by then and Claire and Ares will be safe.”

  “What about everyone else on the island? I have to think of them too, you know.”

  Michael chuckled. “I think Lizzie’s proven she can take care of her own. Once Adrien knows Claire and the urn are back in Scotland, he’ll have no choice but to give up. There’s no way he’ll ever get into Glen Gregor, after all.”

  I thought Michael was giving Boucher entirely too much credit. I didn’t believe any of them would be safe, not while he lived.

  “About that,” I said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I explained to him about my conversation with Evangeline and the prospect that Claire might not be returning to Scotland after all.

  “I haven’t talked it over with her yet, but I think that if she wants to stay, I should let her. Even though I promised Raina I would bring her home.”

  Michael was quiet for a long time, thinking through the ramifications of what I’d just told him.

  “You want to kill Boucher,” he said flatly.

  “Actually, I rather thought I’d let Ares do it,” I replied.

  I could feel his body relax beneath mine. Michael had never killed a human but I had a dozen deaths to my credit. I knew he didn’t approve of taking a life, even Adrien Boucher’s, but he was nothing if not practical and I think he knew, deep down, that this was the way it would end.

  “My love,” Michael said, “you know that when Devlin and Justine come, we have to leave with them. Every day the blockade tightens and we can’t risk getting stuck here for the duration of the war. That could take years. If they haven’t come for us in four days, though, I’ll take Ares into Savannah and we’ll hunt for Boucher. I can’t guarantee he’ll come back here, but I think it’s more likely than not. But if we don’t find Boucher by the time the ship comes . . . whether she wants to stay or not, she’ll have to return with us, for her own safety.”

  I was about to agree with him when the bathroom door burst open. I rose swiftly to my knees and whirled around. Ares strode into the room, still wearing his Confederate uniform—or at least most of it. His gaze raked over me appreciatively before he turned his full attention to Michael. A little belatedly I snatched my dressing gown from the nearby chair, trying to cover myself as much as possible.

  “I wish to kill this man who hurt Claire,” Ares said. “Now.”

  Michael smiled up at me and shook his head.

  “Would you get him out of here?” I hissed.

  Michael rose from the tub and proceeded to shrug into his own robe. “Well, my friend, we can’t do that right now,” he explained. “For one thing, Boucher is in Tennessee. For another, you can’t be far from that urn, which means that I would have to pop back there with you and I have absolutely no intention of ever repeating that experience. And even if I did, you’ve been free for hours now and there’s a good chance of you getting sucked back into that thing and leaving me stranded God only knows where. However, Cin and I have come up with a plan I think you’ll like.”

  As Michael tried to usher him out the door with the promise of explaining said plan, Ares clapped him on the shoulder. “Very nice, my friend,” he whispered with a nod in my direction. “Are all the women in this family as wonderfully put together as ours?”

  “Out!” I shouted, and a very wet sponge hit the wall not two inches from his head.

  CHAPTER 41

  The next night Michael insisted on taking me and Claire into Savannah.

  “We’ll stay at the Pulaski House again,” he said. “We can drink our fill tonight and tomorrow night. During the day tomorrow we’ll talk to an attorney about our plans and see about purchasing the new seeds Lizzie needs.”

  Though I didn’t feel that feeding was a necessity quite yet, Michael was correct—it was wiser to do so now. For one thing, there was no possibility of running into Boucher in Savannah at the moment. Michael and I had talked over his plan to take Ares hunting for Boucher, and in the end we’d both decided it would be much better if Adrien came to us. Well, perhaps not better, but there would certainly be fewer witnesses.

  Not to mention we’re now experts at taking a body out to sea and sinking it, I thought grimly.

  So in order to avoid having to leave the island to feed when Boucher’s arrival was imminent, we made the trip now. Getting back into Savannah was still simple enough. Then again, we were traveling in little more than a fishing boat and hugging the coastline. I wasn’t sure it would be such an easy task for a large ship coming from the open sea. I worried for Devlin and Justine and wished there was some way to get a message to them that we were no longer in the city. They would undoubtedly come here first, having no reason to believe that Michael and I would be staying out on Devil’s Island.

  During the carriage ride to the Pulaski House, Michael and I pointed out some of the sights of the city to Claire. She didn’t have a vampire’s keen night vision so perhaps she didn’t enjoy the views as much as Michael and I did. I wished I could walk in the daylight just once more. I would have loved to see the city’s brightly colored flowers with their faces happily turned to the sun.

  When we arrived at the hotel Mr. Bennett seemed pleased to see us again. Probably because he’d just mentally raised the room rates after what had happened last time. His gaze moved speculatively over the three of us.

  “One room, sir?” he asked hesitantly.

  I looked across Michael to Claire, who glanced down at the urn she refused to let out of her sight, and then looked back at me worriedly. No, I definitely didn’t want to share a room with her and Ares.

  “Two rooms this time, Mr. Bennett,” I replied.

  “Very good, ma’am,” he said, his face blushing a bit.

  I thought it an odd reaction and I looked at Michael and Claire to see if either one of them had noticed it as well. And then I laughed out loud.

  “What is it?” Michael asked softly, with a glance at Mr. Bennett.

  “Nothing,” I said, putting my hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle. “I’ll tell you later.”

  I had come to feel a sort of motherly affection for Claire, being that I was technically almost fifty years her senior. Looking at the three of us as a stranger might, however, what I saw was my extremely handsome husband in the company of two young redheads who looked as though they could be sisters. I wondered just exactly what sort of man Mr. Bennett thought Michael was. What sort of women he thought Claire and I were didn’t bear considering. At least the clerk seemed embarrassed that such a notion would cross his mind.

  “Oh, and Mr. Bennett,” Michael said as the man reached to get our keys, “I think we would all feel more comfortable having rooms on the top floor this time. You know, beyond throwing distance.”

  This made Bennett turn bright red. “Of course, sir,”
he stammered. “Again, you have our sincerest apologies. I assure you that nothing like that has ever happened at the Pulaski House before.”

  Michael nodded. “I should hope not.”

  “I wish you’d have let me give you your room free of charge, sir. This time at least, please allow me to do so.”

  “Nonsense, Mr. Bennett,” Michael replied. “You and your hotel are hardly to blame for the random criminal act of some ruffian.”

  “Yes, of course, sir,” Bennett replied. “Well, if there is anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable—”

  “Actually, I should like to speak to the best attorney in Savannah tomorrow afternoon.”

  “An attorney, sir?” Mr. Bennett squeaked.

  “Oh, nothing to do with you or the hotel, my good man. It’s of a personal nature.”

  “I’ll be happy to make an appointment for you, sir,” he assured Michael.

  We all stared at him in silence.

  “Or I could have Mr. Owens drop by the hotel at your convenience.”

  Michael smiled. “That would be lovely, Mr. Bennett. Ta-ta!” he called over his shoulder as he escorted Claire and me to the stairs.

  “My good man? Ta-ta?” I said disgustedly under my breath.

  “He thinks I’m a bloody English lord,” Michael whispered back.

  Claire laughed heartily. “You know, other than being kidnapped, getting pregnant, having a lunatic poison me, and almost dying, I’m having a marvelous time.”

  I glanced sideways at her. “You’re an odd girl, Claire.”

  “I know,” she said with a smile. “But I’m all right with that.”