by Nancy Gideon
“I’ve come for my wife.”
STUART JUMPED UP and swung to face the intruder. His stricken expression told Louis everything at once. Howland was behind the attempt upon his life.
“You seem surprised, Doctor. Did you doubt that I would return for her?”
To his credit, Howland drew himself together with commendable courage. He faced down his nemesis unblinkingly, without a trace of apology. “I was hoping you would not. For her sake.”
Louis bowed slightly. He admired the man’s love for his daughter, and he wouldn’t blame him for the extremes he’d taken to protect her. But it wouldn’t stop him from taking back what was his. “You have underestimated me.”
“Apparently so. Pembrook?”
“Sent on that journey you’d planned for me.”
Stuart didn’t back down or relax the barrier his own body placed between his child and the fiend that would take her. “And would you do the same to me?”
“With no trouble at all, Doctor, except there are two reasons to refrain.”
“And they are?”
“You are Arabella’s father.”
“And?”
“You might yet cure me.”
A silence fell between the two men. Louis didn’t advance, but his mere presence proved intimidation enough. Wesley was dead, killed by this very creature. Arabella had been close to death, and even now was in the unnatural being’s thrall. Howland didn’t need to look behind him to know her features would be wrought in rapt devotion. She would willingly return to the heart of danger. Stuart needed no demonstration to know Radman could slay him in the blink of an eye. Yet he chose restraint, possibly for the reasons he cited. So Stuart became more physician than father for the moment.
“Why come to me for my help when you spurned it to return to what you were?”
“That was not my choice. I went to one of my kind to offer salvation and his gracious refusal brought me back to this state.” He put a slender hand to the side of his throat as if even now he could feel wounds upon that smooth surface. He’d been attacked by one of his own.
Stuart believed him. No man would pretend that degree of reserved anguish. It played upon the angles of Louis Radman’s face like the etchings of long-suffering and extreme fatigue. A sort of resigned agony one might adopt when hearing they had a terminal disease.
“You can help me, Doctor,” he said with a poignant quiet, but Stuart shook his head.
“No. I want no more to do with you, Radman. It is too dangerous.”
“To do nothing is too dangerous.” And Louis nodded toward Arabella, who had not taken her eyes from him, whose gaze was absorbed with him, alone. He let his control over her notch out a little with a soft psychic call to her. She gasped faintly and started to rise up. Howland caught her by the shoulders in an attempt to restrain her. Her struggles were weak at first, then stronger, as if imbued with unnatural energy. A determined energy.
“Let me go,” she cried, trying to claw her way out of her father’s concerned embrace. “Louis!” The glazed somnambulance of her eyes had become fever-bright with frustration. She panted with effort, almost snarling in anger at her failure to get free.
“Enough, Radman. Stop it.”
And Arabella slumped back against the pillows in a heavy swoon. Stuart quickly checked her pulse, finding it fast but stronger.
“You see, Doctor, we are one, Bella and I. Joined by God and by another unholy union. You cannot keep her from me. She would crawl to answer my call. She would lie to you, deceive you in any way she could, even kill you to get to my side. She would use her last breath to protect me. To help her, you must first help me.”
“You are a foul creature, Radman, using her this way when you would claim to love her.”
Louis’s expressionless facade never altered, but his response was edged with deep emotion. “I am no monster. If I were, you would not be breathing. What I do is as much for her as it is for me.”
“Nonsense,” the doctor sneered. “What you do is for you. You are a selfish thing, obsessed with continuing beyond your natural lifetime off the blood and lives of others.”
“No. No. I want mortality. I want a natural span of years, and I want to live them out in peace with your daughter. Help me. Continue with the treatments. Start over, if you must. Cure me of this curse so I can be again the man she married. The man she... loves.”
“If you will let her alone. If you will let her stay here with me.”
Louis stiffened at those terms. He knew Howland was only thinking of Arabella’s safety, and if the situation had been other than it was, he would have agreed. But he couldn’t.
“No. She must be with me. There are other forces at work here. Other dangers. You cannot protect her from their power. Only I can.”
Howland went very still and thoughtful. “You speak of those who turned against you.”
“An evil you cannot imagine. Let me take her and protect her. I swear to you, she will not be harmed by me.” Stuart hesitated. He could feel Louis’s sincerity, but would grand intention overcome the fiend’s urge to feed? Finally, reluctantly, he stepped away from his daughter’s bedside and watched with a grim displeasure as Radman crossed with his silky stride to assume his place. Arabella rose up with the cry of her husband’s name, her arms outstretched to receive him. Complete devotion softened Louis’s features as he gathered her to him and held her tight.
“Bella, il mia ragazza, il mia amore, I’ve come to take you home with me.”
And she nodded into the curve of his throat, trustingly, as if he’d never come close to killing her. The feel of her in his arms stirred through him so sweetly, leaving him vulnerable in a way he’d never been before. Arabella, who’d become more precious to him than life, his slave who had in fact enslaved him. He could close his eyes and feel her thoughts, revel in the warmth, the love, as if it was a great blanket of care he could wrap about himself when the chill of the world would intrude. They were one, and he was as much exposed in heart and mind as she. He could control her, yet she ruled him. That simple. And so satisfying. He didn’t want to let the moment go. He’d been aware of Howland leaving the room and knew now that he’d returned, but the doctor made no attempt to interfere. He stood graciously aside in silence until Louis lifted a sincere gaze to regard him.
“I will take good care of her.”
“I know you will try,” Howland allowed. “Take this.”
Louis took the pouch with a curious cant of his head.
“The restorative powders,” Stuart explained. “The last that I have. Take a small amount and begin to build up your resistance again. I will make some more, and perhaps within the week, we will locate a suitable donor. I haven’t been able to find Reeves—”
“Don’t bother looking,” Louis drawled.
Stuart didn’t care to ask. “Some other avenue, then. Come by tomorrow night and we will start again.”
Louis looked at him, expression awash with humility, a look so human, so sorrowful, no trace of the haughty aristocrat remained. “Thank you, Doctor. You give me hope.”
“You keep your word.”
HOW IS SHE?
Takeo hovered at Louis’s elbow as he laid out a limp Arabella upon their bed.
“Weak, but recovering. We must take good care of her. Tomorrow you must see that she rests and takes in plenty of fluids to build back her strength. And you must be ever alert. You must protect her. Use all my power to keep her safe.”
Yes, my master.
Louis sensed his hesitancy and looked to him in question. “What is it, Takeo?”
And you—you will keep her safe, too?
An eloquent accusation if ever he’d heard one. Louis smiled ruefully and placed a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Yes, I will keep her safe.”
Takeo regarded him for a long inscrutable moment, then inclined his head briefly.
“Now, young friend, go rest. I will watch over her tonight while the devils are about. Have you... seen to Mr. Pembrook? He is one I should not like to meet as an immortal.”
He will not rise up to trouble us again. That was phrased with a fierce intensity. Takeo had been proved fallible by the crafty doctor’s tricks, and he chafed with the guilt that it could well have cost his master’s life. Reading those thoughts, Louis tapped him gently under the chin.
“We both made mistakes, Takeo, and we survived them. Do not dwell in the past. It is a lonely and unsatisfying place to be. I know.”
The boy nodded, and with one last look at his fragile mistress, he bowed and silently withdrew.
Once he’d assured himself that Arabella was resting comfortably, Louis changed from his restrictive garb into the fluidly styled trousers and tunic Easterners favored for freedom of movement. As the fabric settled along the surface of his upper body, he enjoyed a languid stretch, letting sensation ripple through him in smooth, supple waves. That power Gerardo had spoken of, and he was not immune to its seduction. Some things were impossible not to enjoy, like the heightened sensitivity that came with being a strong and sensual creature of the night.
He hadn’t been a particularly vain or manipulative man, but absolute power did tend to corrupt absolutely. He’d not been a saint. He’d caved in to temptation, to the dark wonder of what he was, but never without an underlying sense of guilt. How had he managed to retain that thread of humanity when Gerardo had cast it off with such obvious relish? His existence would have been much easier had he not felt that tug of conscience almost unknown among his kind. A simple thing to lose oneself in the throes of power. To be so elevated above the realm of man made for a contemptuous relationship with mere mortal beings. And he was admittedly arrogant. Yet there was something so admirable about the human spirit; he couldn’t resist its fascination. Even as they were drawn to the blackness in him, he was pulled toward their light. An odd coexistence. Even as he walked among them by choice, he knew himself to be a danger. Yet he could not remove himself into the company of his own kind. He found them so hard and callous, as transparent as the veil of humanity they hid behind. No mystery at all. Predatory beings, thriving off the hunger and the kill. A basic and ugly existence.
Beauty. Beauty and peace was what he’d found with Arabella. He looked to her, feeling it warm him even now in his cold, dead state. She’d been intrigued by the magic of the beast, but she’d loved the mortality of the man. Which would move her now? As a man, he’d been able to hold and love her without restraint, but he’d failed to keep her safe. There was no strength in humanity, only a pale nobility that protected no one. In his present form, he could indeed gift her with paradise and eternity. He could love her without end, without limitations. He could carry her to planes of sensual awareness far beyond the tender intimacy they’d enjoyed. He could show her the heavens. He could share everything that he was with her. He could open his heart and... and...
What?
What would he do if she couldn’t accept him as he was?
Chapter Eighteen
THE HOURS OF the night deepened, and with them, Louis’s strange melancholy as he watched over his bride.
He’d come to sit beside her on the bed, and his fingers played idly with a strand of her dark hair.
Would she love him now? Would the truth send her shrieking in horror? He was afraid to find out. Not much in this mortal world scared him, but this did. One frail creature’s scorn had the power to devastate. The longer he sat letting insecurity sway him, the more fretful he became. He looked at the powders Howland had given him. The key to his mortality. If a taste would stir the beginnings of rejuvenation, how would the entire amount affect him? He suddenly had no patience with Howland’s cautious steps. He wanted to be human when his Arabella awoke and beheld him. Then he could convince her that it all had been a dream and she need never know what he’d done.
But as a human, how could he guard against Bianca and Gerard when they came? And they would come. Because he’d defied and temporarily defeated them. Their vanity could not stand that. He never wanted to feel again as helpless as he’d been at their hands. As a vampire, he was their equal. As a man, he was nothing, a plaything to be crushed upon a whim.
So he tucked away thoughts of Howland’s powders at least until he settled upon a way to reduce the threat of his unholy peers. Until then, he would have to be content with his present state and risk Arabella’s damning disgust.
Drawn to sample the velvety curve of her cheek, he rubbed his knuckles along that sleek contour until the pain of longing swelled into intolerable constriction.
“Bella,” he called, and her eyes opened in obedience. He could sense her confusion and her uncertain fright, and he quickly overwhelmed it, swamping her with the heavy vampire charm that accompanied the bond he’d made with her. The effect was immediate and selfishly gratifying. Her eyes darkened with a surge of desire and her arms reached out for him.
“Louis.”
His conscience scolded that he was warping her tender emotions to suit his frail vanity. He knew he was, but shame couldn’t best his need to feel her devotion. It mattered not at all the minute he bent and felt her wrapped around him in frantic need.
“Bella, tell me that you love me.”
It was a command, an order that she was powerless to resist. So when she urgently whispered, “I love you” against his ear, it was as unsatisfying as it was rewarding.
“Show me,” came his next demand, and she was quick to shower his taut face and neck with hurried kisses. Her hands moved upon him with restless anticipation, and beneath that skilled touch he growled to life in hunger, passion, and desperation.... He caught her head between his hands, anchoring it still so he could plunder her mouth with deep, plunging overtures, and she responded with an eager passivity. When he stopped, she stopped, her lips parted damply, her eyes half closed and dulled by dreamy coercion.
And suddenly it angered him that she was a puppet within his control. None of the passion was real. He was manipulating it with his mind, with his wants. She would do whatever he asked, whatever he instructed, but she simply would not respond with the spontaneity he desired. Was that how things were to be between them, Arabella mindlessly submissive beneath his rule? At least she was his. He had her firmly at his side, always supportive, always protective, always ready to jump at his slightest command. He need never fear her abandonment or her distaste. She would be his eager servant. Not because she wanted it, but because he ordered it. She could not refuse. And with that power came a sudden wild need to channel it to its fullest degree, to drown in it like a greedy child who needed to feel love and acceptance at any cost.
“You are mine, Arabella. For an eternity you will be mine. And you will never look away in horror. You will never turn from me in loathing. You will love me. You will love me always.”
And he poured it on, the magic, the heat, the power, holding her mental faculties until she was gasping, crying out in a delirious frenzy. He continued to clasp her face between his palms, looking deep into her eyes, searching for some recess where genuine feeling might reside. Not finding it.
It wasn’t this shallow pretense he wanted from her. He’d valued her love because it had been given so freely. Taking it by unfair force seemed somehow dishonest and sorely disreputable. Not that he was above trickery. He was excellent at games of the mind. But to have the woman he loved clutching at him in a panting urgency without the remotest hint of self-awareness made him turn from her in disgust.
Not understanding his rejection, Arabella began a desperate pleading for his attention. “Louis, love me. Make me yours. I live for you. I would die for you. Let me die for you.” And she draped herself upon him, her head thrown back, her throat instinctively off
ered up in pale purity. He could feel the blood surging beneath that fair flesh. He could taste it as his mouth moistened and pain shot through his gums as his teeth altered into an animal’s fangs. And he grabbed her by the shoulders, jerking her against him.
“Yes, Louis. Oh, yes!” she sobbed in mindless rapture.
And the beat of passion and need thundered into a great driving crescendo where madness and ecstasy awaited. His lips burned against the arch of her neck, her body pressed against him, her bosom heaving, her hands imploring. His eyes rolled back in exquisite expectation, lip curling up, mouth widening, breath catching...
“No!”
He wrenched away, thrusting her back upon the bedsheets, where she was immediately scrambling after his return of affection. She was crying.
“What have I done? How have I displeased you? Louis, don’t turn away from me! Please, I cannot bear it! Please, you must love me.”
And carefully, cherishingly, he took her up in his arms, suppressing her wanton overtures with the tight clasp of his arms, calming her with the soothing accented cadence of his voice.
“I do love you, Bella. More than you can imagine. And you do please me. Nothing has ever pleased me more.”
“Then why won’t you take me? Why won’t you drink from me? Let me give you life, my love. That’s all I want.”
“Shhh, little one. You have no idea what you’re saying. Rest and recover yourself, and tomorrow we will talk. Tomorrow I will be braver and will not so shamelessly deceive you.”
“I love you, Louis,” she sighed, as she drifted off into slumber at his command.
“I hope so, Bella. I hope so.”
He continued to hold her, suppressing the scent and the sound of the live blood flowing rich within her. And when she was slack and warm in his embrace, he laid her back and covered her securely. Then he took the pouch Howland had given him and dumped the entire contents into a glass at the bedside. He slopped water into it, swished it once, and gulped it down before saner thought could prevent it. The fiend in him had almost escaped control. He couldn’t let that happen ever again. No matter what the consequences.
