by Multiple
Alarm bells rang out in Marilee’s mind. A vampire sent to retrieve her? No way was that good. Her hand reflexively wrapped around the cross she never removed from her neck. She knew it wouldn’t harm the vampire, but what it represented gave her courage. However, being courageous didn’t mean being stupid. The best thing she could do was escape or at the very least go somewhere with people. The vampire might not act with witnesses around.
She turned to run and saw a tall chain link fence blocking her exit. “Oh, that’s just classic stereotype. Dumb blonde goes down a dark alley while being pursued by the big, bad monster and meets a dead end.” She stomped her foot and turned around to face her enemy, no other option left. It appeared she’d been cast in a B movie without her knowledge. The mask of anger on the vampire’s face stole her breath.
“The big, bad monster is the man who beat you, tried to rape you. Why do you insist on giving me that title instead of him?” He turned and took a step as if he were about to storm off, but quickly turned back around, closing the distance between them. “Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe you enjoyed it, craved his touch.”
She slapped the vampire’s face, heedless of repercussion. “You bastard! How dare you think I’d like such a thing!” Years of repressed rage rose inside her and she raised the dagger to strike.
One hand rubbing his jaw, the vampire raised his free arm and the dagger flew into his open palm. He winced as the hawthorn handle touched his skin and dropped the weapon.
Blinking, her mind unable to believe what she’d just seen, Marilee backed away, but the vampire snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “I’m sorry, Marilee. That was a cruel thing to say.” He raised his hand and she flinched, but after a brief pause, he merely wiped away tears she hadn’t been aware of shedding. “I do not like being looked upon as a monster when compared to that type of man.”
“Who the hell are you?” She reached out with her mind, trying to pull information but as was the case with most vampires, she couldn’t get anything. She no longer felt the panic-fueled need to run from him, though.
“Have you paused to think that maybe the danger you’ve felt all day was due to the man who tried to rape you?”
Irritated with his intrusion into her thoughts, Marilee released a frustrated sigh. “No. The hint of danger still lingers, and it’s lingering around you. Who are you? Why can you hear my thoughts?”
“I have the same psychic abilities you have,” he explained, stepping away and turning. “Come now.”
“I don’t come on command.” She stood with feet firmly planted, arms crossed before her chest.
The vampire turned his head toward her and grinned impishly. Her face heated. “You know what I mean.”
“It’s late, Marilee, and we have much to discuss. I’d rather not have that discussion in an alley in the dead of night.” He glanced around. “I may have been followed.”
Fear clawed at her insides, but still Marilee did not move. “You’ll have to give me more than that to make me follow you off to who knows where, vampire. What happened to Brenda?”
“She made me a very generous offer of her body, to which I politely declined.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “After implying I was homosexual she left with two men in an old, rusted pick-up truck. I imagine she’s sandwiched between them as we speak.”
Marilee’s lip curled up at that image she so didn’t want in her head and reached out with her senses. She couldn’t read the vampire’s mind but she could feel the truth in his words. Still… “Why won’t you tell me who you are?”
“My name is Khiderian,” he answered, his tone implying his frustration. “I’m a very old vampire with very little patience. Now, move.”
Marilee just looked at him, bristling at his tone.
“I can make you come.” His gaze held a hint of mischief, lending to the double entendre.
“Not in this lifetime, buddy.” Bending down, Marilee scooped up the dagger and slid it into her ankle boot. The sense of danger swirled around the vampire, but the little voice inside her that forewarned her of things to come told her he wouldn’t directly harm her. “I’ve killed vampires before,” she warned, just in case. “Don’t mess with me.”
“I understand how little you value my race.” He turned to lead the way to the mouth of the alley. “However, I was ordered to retrieve you and so I am. You should thank me for my help tonight, but I imagine it’ll be a cold day in Hades before you admit a vampire was more honorable than a human.”
“I could have taken care of that jerk by myself.”
“Not if you weren’t willing to kill or maim him because he was human.” He glared at her as they walked. “Some human life isn’t worth preserving. It amazes me that you would even consider sparing his but would kill a vampire simply because of his or her existence.”
“Vampires killed my grandparents.”
He stepped in front of her, halting her, as they faced each other. “And another vampire saved your life in that little town.”
Marilee gasped, remembering the vampire-witch who’d healed the damage to her throat after she’d been attacked by another vampire while helping Jake Porter fight a trio of the bloodsuckers who’d taken over her hometown. “How do you know that?”
“I was given your bio before I was sent to retrieve you.”
“My bio? What the hell are you talking about? Who sent you, and for what?”
“The Dream Teller,” he answered. “The witch who watches over all vampires. Jacob Porter has been captured, and you are the person who’s going to save him.”
Marshal of Hel Dorado
A Fevered Hearts Novel
Heather Long
"Looking for a wild west story that includes a sexy sheriff, supernatural elements, and story that keeps you on the edge of your seat? Heather Long's Marshal of Hel Dorado delivers that and more!" - Melissa Schroeder, author of the Harmless series.
Meet Sam Kane. The oldest brother, the steadfast son, the confidant marshal – he’s never met a problem to hot to handle.
When the spirit fever struck a town, a village, or an outpost, it left few—if any—survivors. The white man blamed the Indian, saying they used their mojo on them. The Indians blamed the white man for angering the spirits. The survivors knew it didn’t matter. The Fevered were forever changed.
In the book that started it all:
Sam Kane is the oldest brother, the steadfast son and the confident marshal. He's never met a problem too hot to handle until a gang behind a string of robberies across the territory set their sights on his town. Now with the bank's gold inexplicably missing from a locked safe, the town hunting the elusive thieves and a passionate redhead with a fiery secret in his jail, Sam has his hands full.
Scarlett Morning Star lived in seclusion in the mountains of West Texas most of her life. She longs for adventure, but with seven very protective older brothers, adventure is hard to come by. When she tags along uninvited on their latest escapade, she is left behind during a bank robbery and finds herself in the custody of the very sexy town marshal.
The town wants to lynch her, the marshal wants answers and her brothers want her back, can Scarlett keep it together or will her explosive secret burn them all?
Her life. His badge. Their fight.
Marshal of Hel Dorado
Copyright © 2011 Heather Long
All rights reserved. eBooks are not transferable and can not be given away, sold or shared. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, faxing, forwarded by email, recording or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, as this is an infringement on the copyright of this work. Brief quotations within reviews or articles are acceptable.
Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imag
ination. Any resemblance to a person or persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
First electronic publication: November 2011
Visit Heather Long on the Internet at http://www.heatherlong.net
Fevered Hearts
Series so Far
Marshal of Hel Dorado
Sam & Scarlett - Summer of 1850
Brave Are the Lonely
Cody & Mariska - Winter of 1850
Micah & Mrs. Miller
Micah & Jo - Spring/Early Summer 1851
A Fistful of Dreams
Buck & Delilah – Winter 1851
Raising Kane
Kid & Evelyn – 1852
Wanted: Fevered or Alive
Jason & Olivia - 1852
Dedication:
For my girls, each and every one of you.
Acknowledgements:
Every book is a labor of love, commitment, sweat and tears. This book in particular began as a novella and began to sprawl like the old west. I guess you really can't take the Texas out of the girl. Thanks to Patti who read every chapter, to Ruthie who couldn't wait to meet Sam, to Jaime who is dying for more Cody and Kid and to Kim who is a great critique partner and cheerleader and finally to Nikki who answered every question...even the stupid ones.
March 21, 1831
Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas
“Read it back to me.” The officer stood at the window, his ramrod stiff posture a gift of his West Point education. An education that had left him ill-prepared for the past week’s horrors.
“Yes, sir. Beyond the walls of Leavenworth, plumes of grayish-black smoke paint the Kansas skies. Per orders, the fort gates were sealed when the fever was discovered. Three soldiers, all enlisted, were sickened and left to be tended in the town. The disease ravaged townsfolk succumbed to nearly the last man. Of those that survived, many took their own lives, maddened by grief. The disease steals the children first, families with five and six children, buried them all, before they too succumbed. Per orders, we allowed the Indian, Quanto, to enter the town. He tended the sick and burned the dead. Soldiers put the town remains to the torch today, scorching the earth and the hellish spirit fever with it. Of Quanto, there is no sign. But the watchman reported seeing him ride south with the morning light, a small bundle in his arms.”
“I did not dictate that last line.”
“No, sir. But it’s here in the reports.”
“Strike it from the record.”
“Sir?”
“Private, I am not in the custom of repeating myself. You have your orders.”
“But what if there was a survivor?”
“No.” The colonel returned to his observation of the smoking rising, a poor substitute for the funeral his people deserved. “Spirit Fever leaves no survivors, God rest their souls.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter One
The town of Dorado swelled like a festering boil fifty miles west of nowhere in the Texas territory. Founded during the conflicts with Mexico in the early 1830s, the town’s insular nature and heavy ranch population defended it in the subsequent battles, though many of its sons lost their lives in the battles of the Alamo, Nacogdoches and Rue Hidalgo. Following Zachary Taylor’s Mexican invasion in 1846, the nation of Texas submitted to the United States, and gained entry to the Union as a state. Dorado didn’t much mind the independence, the annexation to the United States or the war with Mexico. Life in Dorado continued much as it had with Anglo ranchers, Tejano residents and even a portion of the remaining Caddos, Comanche and Woppatoma tribes getting along peaceably.
Since the town was incorporated in 1833, the Kane family served as the town’s official law enforcers. The ranchers agreeing to the laws set forth by the town ombudsman Jebidiah Kane. Jebidiah’s four sons continued his work, with the eldest, Sam serving as the town Marshal. Marshal Kane had a fair reputation in the county. He kept a firm hand on the goings on, kicking the drunk hands back to their employers for discipline, listening to the complaints of the Church ladies every Sunday picnic, keeping a stern eye on Miss Pontfour’s bordello and her six girls, all the while, making the rounds of the town.
Marshal Kane liked a quiet town, a controlled town—a place where the ladies could step out in the evening and the roughnecks knew better than to unstrap their pistols while within the town’s limits. The occasional drifter wandered through, intent on kicking up the dust, but a couple of nights in jail and the business end of Sam’s colt often resolved the issue.
That was what kept Sam in town on the moonless night, past nine when the saloon was shutting down and Miss Pontfour was sending the last of the ‘gentlemen’ callers home. Dorado rolled up shop by ten, shuttering the windows and dimming the kerosene lamps.
Riders from Laramie warned of a shifty group of bank robbers hitting gold shipments up and down the line. Despite the Compromise of 1850, the Union Army maintained a presence throughout the state and the Federal Gold Depository had sent a series of shipments to banks throughout Texas to handle their paydays.
Dorado had one bank and one shipment sitting in their vault. Most of the ranchers didn’t give a hoot about the Union gold, but Sam drew a paycheck from the Federal government along with the town elders. His tin star read Marshal, not Sheriff, even if he served both masters. So he watched the bank, leaning back in the shadows of the double story wooden structure that housed the town jail and his office, the brim of his Stetson low over his eyes.
The bank was set in the middle of Dorado’s rutted main street. A scatter of corrals and sheds made up the western end of the town while a cluster of frame houses huddled on the eastern slope. Miss Pontfour’s was tucked behind the saloon, where everyone knew its location but the town ladies could pretend it wasn’t. A livery stable, funeral home, gunsmith, barbershop, bathhouse made up the rest of Main Street in addition to a solitary restaurant favored by the ladies who didn’t dare step between the batwings of the saloon. Dorado even boasted a hotel, opened the year before, but the struggling hotelkeeper added a post office and lured in the stagecoach from distant Laredo.
The bank was silent. Run by an Easterner, the doors opened smartly at nine, closed for thirty minutes at noon, reopened at twelve-thirty and closed promptly at five, five days a week, no exceptions save Christmas. Sam watched the building, contemplating the cigarillos in his pocket. He could stand to smoke one with a cool glass of bourbon, kicked back on the porch of his office, but an itch between his shoulder blades urged him to stay put.
He’d set his younger brother to idling, playing the part of the marshal’s standard evening routine. A drink, a smoke, and a doze while his town rested. Dorado expected him to be there, so he put Kid in his place. In the dark, the younger man looked enough like Sam to fulfill expectations.
A flash of light, so brief, illuminated the shaded bank windows. Sam’s eyes narrowed, his hand dropping down to rest on the pearl handled colt. A second flash assured him that the first wasn’t a hallucination. The bank’s front doors stood closed. No one had approached them.
The bank didn’t have a back door or back windows. The only thing located in the back was the vault, shipped out in a train of long racks because of the weight.
A third flash of light and Sam moved, striding out of the shadows and across the rutted street, avoiding the horse pies scattered like litter by buckboard and buggy wheels. He stepped up onto the boardwalk, boots shushing silently as he made his way to the doors. Key in one hand, gun in the other, he paused to listen.
No more flashes of light and no sound greeted him. He slid the key into the lock and turned it carefully, motion as cool and controlled as he would use dealing with a spooked horse. The faint snick of the lock giving way seemed to boom loudly in the quiet night air, and Sam waited, but still no sound escaped the bank.
If not for the earlier flashes, he would be certain he chased summer lightening. But the itch between his shoulders was
a burning fire. Someone was inside Dorado’s bank. It was Sam’s job to deal with them.
Pocketing the key, he brought the colt up close to the opening and turned the knob. Careful as entering a lady’s bedroom, he peeked inside. Nothing moved in the dusky darkness. Sam allowed his eyes to adjust before slipping inside. He made his way through the front office with the slated windows and banker’s desk.
The rear vault was located in the backroom, secured by another door. Pressing close to the door, Sam listened. Whispered voices punched through the wood. He tested the lock and found it fixed, so he shuttled the key into the door handle and turned it gently, the lock surrendered. Stroking his finger over the trigger, Sam led with his gun again, dipping low as he pushed the door open.
The seemingly impregnable vault door stood closed, but the whispered voices that called through the wood were louder in here. Sam paced the edge of the vault slowly, peering around the corner. A flash of light burned his eyes as a body vanished through the wood. Standing at the edge of the vault, holding an oiled leather satchel was a slim figure. The flash reappeared and the figure passed it over, to a second man?
Sam frowned. Where the hell had the second man come from?
“Last one, I think, Rudy.”
More startling than the man’s sudden appearance was the slim figure’s distinctly feminine voice. Her sultry, low, throaty tone went straight to Sam’s britches and tightened them uncomfortably.
“You first then, Scar.” The man’s equally hushed voice was low, the consonants and syllables running together in familiar fashion.
“Take this out to the boys so they can load up. It’s hard to carry more than one thing at a time through. We need to make sure we have it all.”
