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

by Michelle Willingham

  “I told you—”

  “You need to stop telling me.”

  He swallowed a growl. The others were already looking over at them. He picked up the bundle and tossed it to the nearest Guard member. “Dress.”

  He took Sybil’s hand and led her to the steps of a marble coffin. He pulled her down to sit beside him, the marble cold beneath her buttocks. “All right. So you went to the house. Why?”

  “I had this thought. You know how you need servants who can go out in daylight? Must they not have them too.”

  He frowned. “I would assume so.”

  “I could join their ranks. Let you in shortly after dark.”

  “No.”

  Vlad joined them dressed in shabby second-hand clothes, the brown jacket of which was too large around the middle and too short in the sleeves. He still looked regal.

  She explained her suggestion.

  “It is too dangerous,” Anton said.

  “Anton is right,” Vlad said. “You went inside once. If they recognize you—”

  She couldn’t help feeling just a tiny bit triumphant as she let her cloak fall from her shoulders. “Ah, but you see, no one ever looks twice at a servant.”

  Anton and the King took in the mud-coloured gown and large linen apron she had swapped for her dress.

  “You went in already,” Anton said, his voice and eyes hard.

  “To reconnoitre. There was one man on guard at the back. I carried in a bucket and he just waved me through.”

  Both men frowned. “After your last incursion I would have thought they would have been looking out for another attempt to get inside,” Anton said.

  She shrugged. “They obviously didn’t put my arrival at the front door together with my appearance as a servant at the back.”

  “So your plan is to go inside during daylight hours and then open the door to us at darkfall,” the King said thoughtfully

  “Yes.”

  “No,” Anton said.

  The King glared at him. “Give me a better idea.”

  The fury on Anton’s face said he did not have one.

  “Then let us work with what we have.” The King looked at her. “I don’t suppose you learned anything about the layout of the house while you were there.”

  “I did. They set me to cleaning the floor in the scullery. I am to lay the fires upstairs before sunset. I have a list of rooms.”

  “Well done,” the King said. “Let us tell the others and make our plans.”

  Anton again made a noise that sounded like a growl in the back of his throat.

  It struck a chord, low in her centre. He cared enough to want to protect her. But she needed to be more than a cosseted female afraid of her own shadow. She’d lived in fear for too long. She needed to vanquish her nightmares.

  Anton’s vampire side was outraged and he was having trouble keeping his fangs retracted as the King calmly discussed Sybil’s part in the attack set for darkfall.

  “What happens if she cannot open the door?” he asked his voice grating as if his throat was lined with gravel. “Do we leave her in there?”

  Several of the Shadows shot him a look of surprise. Their gazes narrowed on Sybil and they inhaled deeply. They would scent nothing from her. The bond was reaching out on his side, while she had no sign of shackles. Only when the bond was complete did it produce its own particular scent. A warning to other males.

  When Sybil turned her gaze on him he saw pain. A hurt he’d apparently caused judging from the way she looked at him. Anger, frustration fused in searing heat in his veins until he could only clench his fists or risk smashing Vlad in the face. That would be the end of him. And he must not, if he wanted protect Sybil. He clung to that last shred of higher reasoning.

  “Anton, please,” she said softly. “I will be fine. I will be careful.”

  He shook his head when what he wanted to do was strike out. “A fine lot of males we are, letting a woman do our work.”

  Zavier shifted uncomfortably, as if he too had similar feelings. Anton twisted the knife. “Perhaps we should have her lead us.”

  Vlad glared, though he must see he was on shaky ground.

  “May I have a word with you in private, Anton” Sybil said in a prim little voice. “If you will excuse us, your Majesty?”

  It wasn’t her voice that caught Anton’s attention, it was the blaze of anger in her eyes. The fury in her expression. He winced. A man looking to bond was supposed to woo the one he wanted, not infuriate her. But he would rather she was alive and free to leave than do what she was proposing.

  He gave her a terse nod. “As you wish.”

  Her back straight she marched ahead of him to the bottom of the stairs up to the nave.

  “You are not doing this,” he said, the moment they were alone. “Run. Get as far away from here as possible. You have told us where they are, let us do the rest.”

  She took a deep breath. Her eyes as luminescent as starlight. She blinked and they returned to normal. It must have been a trick of the light. “Anton, all my life I have lived in the shadows. Afraid to speak of what I see. Terrified of incarceration. Finally, I am no longer powerless. For the first time in my life I feel as if I have something important to offer and you want to take that away from me.”

  The words, the emotions rolling through the bond, were a blow to his gut. He couldn’t breath for the pain. Her pain.

  Knowing he was the cause of it was ten times worse than any pain he had experienced for himself. Even if it killed him, and it would if anything happened to her he realized with terrible certainty, he could not deny her the chance to come into her own. To break free of the chains of fear.

  “I didn’t know,” he said, ashamed of the way his voice broke.

  She stroked his cheek with her fingers. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

  He took her delicate hand in his, pressed his lips to her palm. “I’ll hold you to that. Promise you will run the moment it is done.”

  “You don’t want me to stay? To turn me?” More hurt down the bond. The temptation was so damned great to keep her. So damned selfish, when logically he knew they didn’t have a hope in hell of being together. “I’ll come and find you when it is safe.”

  She looked at him for a long moment as if weighing his words and he felt her sadness and resignation. “Very well,” she said wearily. “If that is your wish.”

  They walked back to the group.

  Vlad squared his shoulders, clearly expecting bad news.

  “We will have to move quickly,” Anton said. “I don’t want Sybil exposed to danger any longer than necessary.”

  “We will protect her with our last breath.” Zavier said.

  The Shadow Guards slapped a palm against their chests in unison. “We swear it.”

  A pain pierced Anton’s chest at the misty look in Sybil’s eyes when she dipped a curtsey in acknowledgement of their pledge.

  Vlad opened his watch. “It is time.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ANTON COULD NOT keep himself from pacing up and down. The edge of her nervousness sent pains through his chest. The pull on his body, the urge to follow was driving him to the point of madness. Thank the gods she didn’t feel it.

  He struck his fist against the wall.

  “Anton,” a low voice said.

  He swung around to face his King, breathing hard, knowing sweat beaded on his brow, trickled down his spine. “Vlad.”

  His King looked at him with sympathy. “Anton. My friend. The bonding dance has you on a knife edge.”

  He grimaced.

  “She is a human. Remember your vow,” Vlad said, his voice fierce with anguish. “No family, no female, no bonding, for ever and aye.”

  Anton staggered, put a hand against the wall to steady himself. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “But you have taken that female.”

  “I didn’t ask for this. Didn’t seek it.”

  “And if you were any other vampire, or the past was
not what it was I would be happy for you.” The pain of the King’s words only added to his misery.

  Vlad continued. “Anton, even if Council and the people recognize me as their King after tonight, there will be those who will not see it as in my power to change your sentence.”

  Sergai for one. “I only care for her safety. Why not let her go, Vlad. After what she has done for us this night.”

  “I cannot break the rules for you or anyone else. We will descend into anarchy. Death or turning by another. Your choice.” His voice was implacable.

  A turned vampire had to be nurtured by the one who did the turning. The turned one remained tied to him or her for many years. It was the nature of the thing.

  Anton’s sentence denied him any form of family or bonding. All he had was loyal service as the King’s Blade. The job no one wanted. A male vampire seeing the female to whom he had bonded with another, male or female, would suffer greatly.

  And when he could no longer carry out his duties he would be imprisoned and left to die a very slow and painful death.

  “There can be no pardon, Anton,” Vlad said, softly, gently. “The judiciary has spoken. I am not above our laws. I am sorry.”

  Anton swallowed the roar of pain building at the back of his throat. But it didn’t matter about him, about his pain, it mattered about Sybil. He could only pray to the gods she managed to escape. But if not.... “Then we have to find someone willing.”

  Zavier and Godron moved closer. “What plot are you two hatching.”

  In the old days, that would have been close to a jest. He had Vlad had been inseparable as boys and Anton had been closer to Vlad the King than any other in his realm. Under circumstances such as these, it was a bitter irony.

  Vlad grimaced. “Anton has a request to make. He needs someone to turn the human woman assuming she and we survive the night. Our laws do not allow her to return to her people with the knowledge she has of us and it would be unfair to kill her after she has served me so well.”

  Zavier stared at Anton. “I thought you two were—”

  “He is chained to me,” Vlad said. “For life.”

  Zavier winced. “Ah. The sentence.”

  “I will do it,” Godron said quietly. His bondmate had died. A vampire only bonded once in his life, though he could love and make love to many. It was the nature of the beast. Up to now, everyone knew Godron had remained faithful to his dead mate. “If it would help,” the man said carefully, clearly understanding Anton’s pain.

  Anton should have felt gratitude, but could not bear the thought of another male being close enough to take her blood and feed her his.

  But it might be her only chance at life. His beast could not allow her to die either. “Everything within me revolts against the idea, but for her sake, I accept.”

  Godron nodded. “It will be done the moment we return to the Citadel.”

  The animal side of Anton roared in fury, rattled its bars, wanting to kill this male who would steal his mate. His fangs lengthened. He forced them back, bowed his head. “You have my gratitude, now and forever.”

  But even as he said the words, he knew what would happen. The moment Godron touched her would be the moment he would lose all hold on his humanity. He would be locked away to die.

  “She must never know,” he said. “Let her think I walked away.” The thought scoured at his gut and burned in his heart.

  Another approached. Paris, one of the most recent additions to the guard. A womanizing rogue by all accounts. Anton did not want him anywhere near Sybil. “It is time.”

  “We are ready,” Vlad said.

  “My King,” Paris said, “you must remain here. All would be lost if you were killed.”

  “No, my friend. I was a warrior before I was a king and who better than I to fight for my throne? We will prevail. We must.”

  Or Vlad would die trying.

  They gathered around their King. In unison, they slammed one hand against their leather covered chests. The sound reverberated off the crypt’s cold stone walls, loud enough to wake the dead. “Vlad. Until death,” they shouted.

  Cold filled Anton’s veins. In his case, death was certain. Once Godron turned Sybil, his beast would go completely mad.

  They formed a protective circle around the King and strode up the crypt steps and out into the beauty of the dusk. The brief hour when a vampire saw the colour of the sky.

  Out here, the pull of Sybil was an impossible tug on his heart.

  His heart beat in time with hers. Fast. He tensed. The tendrils inside him vibrated wildly then steadied. She was all right. And something inside him whispered that she was waiting for him.

  Either way, it would be the last time they would be together.

  The hour before dawn dragged interminably while Sybil polished every scrap of wood she could find in the entrance hall. She’d laid the fires upstairs as ordered and then returned here, where she could be ready at a moment’s notice.

  Then, too soon, it was time. Wooden shoes clattered from several parts of the house, the nasal voices of young women laughing and chatting as they made their way out of the back door. Sybil followed them, and while the guard was busy checking the pockets of one of the girls, who was most indignant, she slipped into the pantry. The noise died down and when she put her eye to the crack at the door hinge she could see the guard stretching. After a short pause, he locked the external door and his footsteps disappeared into the depths of the house.

  Sybil left her hiding place on tiptoes, ready to run for the door if challenged. She picked up a chair and jammed it under the handle of the door that led into the hall, so no one could enter the kitchen and take her by surprise before running to the outside door and opening it.

  Anton was first in, his steely gaze sweeping her body, looking for injury.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  The rest of the men crowded into the kitchen. Quickly she explained what she knew of the layout of the house.

  “With me,” Vlad said. One of the men whipped the chair out of the way and they were gone. Anton stayed back, pulling her close looking into her face with frightening intensity. “Go,” he said. “Go anywhere. But keep away from the Citadel.” He pushed her towards the back door before turning and running after the King.

  Hand on the door knob, ready to obey, she stopped.

  Where would she go? Back to Orrick’s house? Would he take her back after her disappearance for days? Unlikely. Home to the village where she’d grown up? Forget Anton? Pretend all this had been a dream?

  No! She wanted to assist in this battle against evil. See it through to the end. She went to the dresser, pulled open a drawer and took out a carving knife.

  Carefully, she crept out into the hall. A cry came from upstairs. Slowly, listening for any sign of danger, she mounted the steps to the first floor. Noises, from a room at the end of the corridor. The noises grew louder as she approached an open door to what she recalled was a small drawing room. She peeped in. Anton was battling three men. While two of them attacked him with swords, the third backed away, towards a corner, towards a pile of shimmering fabric. The robes they wore to go outside.

  He planned to hide from view and attack Anton unseen. Grimly she gripped her knife. Anton had his back to the wall, but the other men must have also seen their comrade’s plan because they rallied, forcing Anton to turn his attention to them. He glanced over his shoulder clearly worried about an attack from the rear. A swift lunge from one opponent focussed Anton’s gaze and the third man used that second of distraction reach for the pile of robes. He fumbled around as if working by feel rather than by sight. Then he slipped into one of the cloaks, pulling up the hood. His outline became blurry, indistinct and then settled. It blurred as he moved, but she had no trouble seeing him as he crept towards Anton with a dagger raised above his head. The other two grinned baring gleaming fangs in an obvious taunt. They knew what their friend was about even if they could not see him.

  The cl
oaked one manoeuvred around Anton, presenting his back to Sybil. She rushed in and plunged her knife between his shoulder blades. A shock travelled up her arm. The sound made her feel sick and she sagged to her knees. The men fighting with Anton stared first at her and then at the blood leaking out from under the cloak around their fallen comrade. They bared their fangs. She stepped back. Terror filled her as their eyes glowed red.

  Anton came up behind them, slashed their throats and then plunged his dagger in each heart. He tripped over to the man she had killed with a look of shock. Sybil pulled the robe back while he flopped around, screeching. Anton sank his dagger into the creature’s heart.

  “I didn’t see him,” he said.

  “No.” She grabbed a handful of cloth. Her hand blurred. “This is one of the robes I told you of.”

  He stared. “I see nothing, but your hand has disappeared. It is amazing.”

  “There are more of them over in the corner.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Will it work for me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He strode to the corner, felt around with his hand. “I can feel it, but not see it. Help me.”

  She picked one up and draped it around his shoulders. His form shimmered the settled.

  He glanced in a mirror and staggered back. “Gods, all I can see of me is my head.” He turned towards her. “Can you see all of me.”

  “Yes.”

  He flung it off with a low curse. “Magic.” Noise of more fighting sounded above their heads. “I have to find the King. Warn him. If more of them have these things, he’ll have no chance against them.” He gave a sound half laughter and half despair. “I don’t suppose it is of any use asking you to remain here, or to go back to the kitchen, or to even leave here altogether.”

  She shook her head. “If there are more of them upstairs I can point them out to you.”

  He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling as if praying for help. “Promise you will stay back, out of the way. The last thing I want is your death on my conscience.”

  There was an agony in his voice she couldn’t quite understand. “I promise.”

  “Then let us see what we can do together.” He bent over the corpse, pulled the knife and wiped it on the man’s coat before handing it to her. “Don’t attack anyone, but use it if you have to defend yourself.”