A Most Peculiar Season Series Boxed Set: Five Full-length Connected Novels by Award-winning and Bestselling Authors

by Michelle Willingham

  “No,” Ester said, slowly. “I have a strange feeling you are important. Sent by the gods.”

  Sybil looked at Anton who shrugged and lifted his hands from his side. “Healers.”

  Ester narrowed her eyes at him and he gave her a wry smile.

  “I will do what I can to help you, but your path will not be easy.”

  A shiver trickled down Sybil’s spine. “I didn’t even know what you people were until I met Anton.”

  “You have always known,” Ester said her voice softly mysterious.

  Another shiver. Her blood felt sluggish as if it had turned to ice. She wanted to deny it, but in the face of those cool clear far seeing eyes... “All right. I have always known there was something not quite right with me. But that doesn’t mean I can help you against people you cannot see. What do I do? Point at them one by one? How will that help?”

  A frustrated sigh escaped Anton. “I wish I had the answer.”

  “I need to look deeper into our history,” Ester said. “In the meantime, you have to go. Now.” She wagged a finger at Anton. “I was on the trail of something when I heard that you had charged into the cave with a human and had been placed under house arrest. I had to leave what I was doing to come to your aid.”

  Anton took her hand and kissed it. “I should have known I could rely on you.”

  Sybil fought the urge to get between them and shove the Healer away. Jealous, when she had no right. Just because he had... She felt her face go hot. What they had done meant nothing. It wasn’t as if they could be together. They were completely different races, species even, if what she understood correctly. Still, she couldn’t help the tinge of acid in her voice as she said, “Are we going to dally here until more soldiers come?”

  “She is right,” Ester said with a faint smile. She whisked out of the door and they heard the key grate in the lock. They were locked in? She looked at Anton. He shook his head. Seconds later the sound came again and Ester let them out.

  Sybil followed Anton into the corridor. Their guard was leaning against the wall a rather beatific smile on his face.

  “Will he be all right?” Sybil asked.

  “Yes,” Ester said. “Hurry.”

  They followed her down a narrow corridor, like an alleyway between tall buildings. Like the alleys leading to mews above ground only there were no carriage houses, only high walls. The alley branched left and right and now and again and between the buildings she could see wider thoroughfares with lamps, much like the streets above ground. Slowly there were fewer and fewer offshoots and the alleyway became so narrow it forced them to travel in single file. Sybil tried not to think about being below ground. Tried to pretend it was simply a night with no moon. Forced herself not to think of the great weight of earth and buildings above her head. She clamped her jaw shut to prevent her teeth from chattering.

  At the next fork they stopped at what looked like a tunnel. “We are in the oldest part of our City,” Anton said, taking her hand in his since they were facing total darkness. “There are no lights in this quarter since we abandoned it for Mayfair. It was built in the time of the crusades when Mondavia was overrun by the Moors. I will be your eyes. I promise I won’t let you fall.” His eyes glowed brighter.

  Strange as it seemed, she quickly became used to the feel of his guiding hand in the small of her back and his large warm hand holding hers. And though the tunnel did turn and twist much as before, she never once felt as if she might stumble. He brought her to a stop.

  “St Paul’s,” Ester said from somewhere just in front of them. “Wait here.”

  As they stood waiting, Sybil became aware of her ragged breathing and the damp earthy smell of the tunnel and another scent spicy and clean. Anton. She wanted to lean against him, beg him to come with her. But he couldn’t. He had his duty to the King. And besides, she was only here, because she could be of use. The same reason she remained in Orrick’s household. Once her use was over he would have no use for her either. But he had given her a great deal, knowledge of what she was, and an amazing sensual experience.

  Even as the heat of embarrassment curled around her she knew she would treasure the experience for the rest of her life. The feeling of being a desirable woman. Yes she owed him a great deal. Perhaps when this was over, he would allow her to give him pleasure too. Her body shivered at the thought.

  “You are cold,” he said, pulling her close. “We should have brought you a cloak.”

  Before she could deny it, Ester reappeared holding a candle in one hand and a huge black key in the other. She frowned at them, but did not comment.

  “Where is the key kept?” Anton asked.

  “I will show you before we leave,” she said.

  “Where is the door?”

  Ester turned to the wall and passed her hand over a blank looking wall in an odd pattern. A keyhole appeared. “Good gods,” Anton breathed. “Black Arts?”

  “A deep warding left over before the Wars. Someone must have decided the King was worth the risk. I assume you have memorized what I just did?” She put the key in the lock and turned it. The wall slid back revealing a set of white marble steps within a darkened chamber. The faint light of the candle revealed a gilded coffin against one wall. “St Paul’s crypt?” Sybil whispered. Her voice echoed off the walls.

  “You will find the key to come back behind the first statue of an angel. The pattern is the same only in reverse,” Ester said. “Follow the stairs upwards, they will lead you into the nave, or up onto the roof,”

  “The roof,” Anton said. “Now there is an idea.”

  “What are you thinking?” Sybil asked.

  “From up high, you might be able to spot them and point them out.”

  “Go,” Ester said. “I cannot be missing when the guard is found. Do what you can, please, Sybil. A great many innocent lives are depending upon you.”

  The weight on her shoulders increased ten-fold.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “PUT YOUR ARMS around my neck and I’ll carry you up.” Anton said.

  She hesitated. “I can walk.”

  The instinct to toss her over his shoulder caught him by surprise. As did the pain at her lack of trust. Why should she trust him when he’d behaved like a rutting beast? Like a dominant male of his species? She was far too gentle a creature, too weak to understand such feral behaviour.

  Self-doubt writhed in his belly. He took a deep breath, calling on logic. “I would not ask it of you, but we have little time left. Dawn is but an hour away and it will take you a good fifteen minutes to climb to the top.”

  “All the way to the top?” She sounded surprised.

  “I won’t let you fall,” his voice grated across his throat at the thought of holding her in his arms.

  In a sudden rush of movement, she lifted her arms, casting them around his neck as if committing herself to some fearful act. As he picked her up, cradling her, she squeezed her eyes shut. “Warn me before you put me down.”

  He ran up the stairs in less time that it took to take two breaths, and out into the night. Smoke from thousands of coal fires hung over the city. Down below in the streets he could see people moving around. Not so many at this time of night.

  “We are there,” he said quietly.

  Cautiously she opened her eyes and looked about her. “So quick.”

  “We move much faster than humans.”

  Now why did he have to remind her he was not like her? Out of pride? Or to remind himself to keep his distance? Or was it that he resented that they could never think about being together? He set her gently on her feet. “Take a moment to adjust.”

  A nod and a squaring of small slender shoulders had him admiring her all over again. And wanting to lay his claim. He didn’t have a claim. Could not. He was under sentence of death. And the date for that event had just drawn a whole lot closer.

  “When you feel ready, try to look down.”

  Taking a deep breath she stepped up to the parapet and l
ooked over. She squinted into the dark. “I can see people. Like ants. But it is hard to tell one from another. No! There! See the man in the odd looking robes. That is one of them....I think.”

  Disappointment flooded through him, tasting of ashes. Not his disappointment. Hers. The sharing of emotions was part of the bonding ritual. Was it possible they could actually.... He looked inside himself. Cobwebby tendrils had formed, twining around themselves, but there was no sign of a bond between them, which meant soon the tendrils would begin to shrivel and die.

  And he would no doubt suffer some pain. He shoved the thought aside. “What troubles you?”

  She hesitated.

  “Tell me, Sybil.” The use of her given name gave him a warm sort of pleasure in the centre of the web. His head started to throb with a confusion of messages. Her confusion?

  “He’s too far away to be certain. I am sorry. I am not being very helpful.” She sounded distraught.

  Her obvious upset was throwing him off balance when he needed to maintain calm. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. Pressed his lips to her temple and inhaled her unique perfume. “It is all right, mignonne. Do not fret. We will go closer.”

  “They will attack you again.” She cupped his face in cool fingers. “I must go alone. ” She glanced up at the sky. “It will be light soon. If they are vampires like you, surely they must find shelter from the day? I will follow one. See where he goes and come back and tell you.”

  The thought of her getting close to those devils made his throat go dry. Hot rage bubbled in his veins. “No. I will return you home.”

  She stepped back, wrapping her arms around her waist. “You think your people will let me continue with my life as before, knowing I can see them?”

  His gut lurched. She had seen through his pretence that all would be well. “I will ask Ester to keep your secret and then get you out of London. Somewhere safe.”

  “How will you deal with them if you cannot see them or find them?”

  “Ester might find something helpful.”

  She smoothed his lapels. “And if not? Then we will have lost this chance and must wait another day. Let me follow the one I saw. I won’t get too close.”

  The protective rage inside him grew so vast, he shook with its power. And he knew. Whatever she was, the vampire in him had staked its claim. There was nothing tentative about it. It was done. The shock of it hit him like a fist to the solar plexus. Bile rose in his throat. This was far worse than any punishment Sergai could have devised. Death or torture would be preferable than putting the one he wanted to share his life with into harm’s way. He shook his head. “I cannot allow it.”

  Her expression went from worry to anger. “You have no say in what I do.” She stroked his chest as if to soften her words. “You can watch from above. You saw how they were. It was you they wanted. They took no notice of me at all.”

  If he did not do this, the chances were that all of his people would die one by one without anyone being able to do a thing. Or they would flock to Vilhelm, leaving Vlad the rightful King without a people. The scales were against him. As always.

  He cursed in the old language.

  Her eyes widened. “I am not going to ask you what you said, but I assume it means you are no longer objecting. We must hurry.”

  He swallowed his fear and rage. Buried it in ice. “Climb on my back. I’ll cloak us both.” He crouched down.

  She hiked up her skirts and clung around his neck. So light. So fragile. So human. “Hold on tight.”

  A few leaps took him down to the ground. They hurried along Cheapside, looking up alleyways as they passed.

  “There he is,” she said, stopping at one of the passages between the ancient tenements. “That is the one I saw from above.”

  He groaned. He could see nothing. Smell nothing. Hear nothing. He wanted to strike out.

  “He’s looking back,” she said in a whisper. “Go. Quickly.”

  Gritting his teeth, he released her from his cloaking and climbed the nearest building all the while never taking his gaze from the small woman sauntering along the stinking alley. Every nerve ending prompted him to go back, to haul her away, to crouch over her like a lion with a bone. His heart raced. His body shook so hard he could scarcely cling to the building. Gods, if this was the effect of a bonding, he didn’t much like it. He perched on the rooftop to watch.

  A man in a ragged jacket and workmen’s rough trousers loitering in a doorway leaned forward to watch her derriere as she passed him. Anton’s throat tightened. But the man didn’t start after her when she quickened her pace.

  Anton leaped from one building to the next, never letting her out of his sight for a moment. She was almost running through the twisting passages between the buildings. When she reached the Seven Dials, she stopped, staring at one building in particular. This must be it. Turn back, he willed. He started down the building, negotiated a particularly long drop and when he looked again, she had gone right up to a front door. Too close.

  Her body jerked, the door opened and she disappeared inside.

  Fear swamped him, brought him to his knees. Her fear. A dread so deep it froze him. He fought the horror and pushed to his feet. He had to get down there.

  He glanced up at the sky. He had ten minutes to find a way in, or find himself blind and starting to roast.

  The blurring of her vision made Sybil feel dizzy. Instantly she realized what it meant. The creature had stripped off his robe and cast it over a chair. She pressed a hand to her chest. “What? Where did you come from? What happened?” She certainly didn’t want him to realize she could see him robed or otherwise.

  “What you do here?” the creature gripping her upper arm asked, his French accent thick.

  She stared around a shabby, but clean, entrance hall. Oh dear heaven, she was actually inside their... their hideout. “I... um...” Think. Why would she have been on that doorstep? Telling him she’d been trying to read the number beneath the grime might not be the right answer. Or maybe... “Is this Lord Blakelock’s residence?”

  The young man glared at her from eyes that were dark and suspicious. “Why you follow?”

  Heart pounding, aware of the way his gaze kept sliding to her throat, she swallowed. She widened her eyes. “Oh, no. Not at all. I am looking for Lord Blakelock. He advertised for a companion for his wife.” As she talked she tried to take in her surroundings. The stairs leading upwards. The dark gleaming wood panelling the walls and the shining brass door handles. So different from what one would expect from the outside. No pictures. No natural light. She fumbled in her reticule. “There was an advertisement in the London Times. I am sure this was the address. Fifty-one Golden Square.” She waved a scrap of paper, a shopping list she prayed he would not ask to see.

  Another man entered the hall from one of the doorways. He wore a dark coat and white linen. His jaw dropped at the sight of her. “A human?”

  “Excuse me, sir?” she said fluttering a hand in his direction. “Are you the butler? This servant of yours doesn’t seem to understand English. I have an appointment with Lord Blakelock with regard to his need for a companion for his wife. Lady Blakelock. I have travelled all the way from Yorkshire. I apologize for my lateness. The coachman promised on-time arrival. Or at least within five minutes, but it arrived over an hour late at the Swan With Two Necks. The hackney driver told me this was Golden Square. But if it is, I was never more taken in. Lord Blakelock assured me that—”

  “Enough,” the man said in a voice close to a bellow. “This is not Golden Square. This is St Giles.”

  “St Giles,” she said faintly, pressing her hand to her heart. “Oh that rogue. That gull-catcher. I will speak to the authorities.”

  The man stared at her with narrowed eyes. His gaze flickered to his companion.

  She held her breath. Did he believe her? What would they do?

  Rage turned Anton’s vision blood-red. Panic filled his mind like scream and ate a
way at his insides like acid. He clung to the building’s parapet, feeling dizzy and sick. How was it possible he already felt so much of her emotion? He’d never heard of anyone having this strength of reaction during the opening manoeuvres of the bonding dance. He had to go back to St Paul’s. Find Ester. Get help. He took one step and doubled over in agony.

  Whatever was happening between them, wouldn’t let him leave. In fact, if he was reading it right, he needed to be closer.

  He glanced to the east, saw the dimming of stars. Better to be helpless on the ground with shadows to shelter him from the rays of the sun, than remain and sustain permanent damage. Or death. Once he could no longer see, one false move would having him hurtling to the pavement. Shadowed from people, if not from his enemies, he made his way down the facade of the tenement, the smell of human filth, rotting food, excrement, urine growing stronger the further he descended. Humans were pigs.

  Not all of them he amended. Not his human or Fae-mix or whatever she turned out to be. Not that she really could be his, but it gave him comfort to think of her that way.

  He tucked himself into the shadows of an alley from where he could see the house. He had to get in there. The door opened. Sybil staggered down the steps and onto the pavement.

  His heart leaped in his throat. Somehow she’d escaped. Head down, she scurried along the street. He grabbed her as she went past and bore her backward into his hiding place, ignoring her cry of protest.

  The moment her feet took her weight, he patted her down, looking for hurt. “Damn it, Sybil, what were you thinking to get so close?” he said, his whisper a controlled roar.

  “Yes, I am quite all right. Thank you.” She pulled in a gulp of air as if she hadn’t taken breath for the past five minutes and sagged against the bricks.

  “All right?” Anton roared. “All right? You were terrified.”

  She glared. “Don’t shout. I simply went inside to look around.” She shook her skirts out. “That is definitely their hideout.”