Even so, he felt a shock when he grasped her arm, as if the blood she had lost had been replaced by an electric current. The torn, stained fatigues she wore couldn’t conceal her athletic but very womanly figure. When she looked at him again, her eyes were defiant and lit with a strength of purpose even her extreme weakness couldn’t extinguish.
“Who...are you?” she whispered, blinking in the darkness.
“Easy,” Kane said. “You’ve lost a great deal of blood.”
Blood. His hunger was stronger than ever before, but letting it get the better of him now was out of the question.
Alfie crouched beside him. “’Ow’s the lass?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kane said. He cupped the woman’s chin in his hand. “Do you understand me? Moving will only make it worse.”
She looked at Alfie. “Are you...human?” she asked.
Kane exchanged glances with his friend. As a rule, vassals didn’t take on the distinct appearance of older vampires. Only once they became Freebloods—vassals released by their lords—did they begin to resemble mature white-skinned, white-haired Opiri, though the process could be slow. Kane and Alfie might almost have passed for human, except for their night-black fatigues, and he doubted she could make out what they were wearing.
“We’re here to help,” Kane said.
“We can’t stay ’ere,” Alfie said under his breath. “The poor lass shouldn’t ’ave ta suffer this place no longer.”
Alfie was right. Kane slipped one arm behind the woman’s back and another under her knees, lifting her easily. She stiffened again, but her resistance didn’t
last.
“We got ’alf the night left,” Alfie said. “Them others she was with won’t be travelin’ after sundown. We might catch up with ’em before daylight.”
“And what do you think they’ll do if we show up with one of their own in this condition?” Kane asked grimly. “They’ll assume we did it, and I’m still inclined to go on living. We can follow them, but we’d better make sure she can walk into their camp under her own power.”
He glanced down into the woman’s face. Her eyes, framed by long auburn lashes, were closed again. She hardly weighed anything in his arms, and her heart was beating as fast as a frightened bird’s. The wounds in her neck were raw and red.
Kane looked away from the pulse surging beneath the skin of her throat. “We’ll get as close to her team as possible without attracting their attention,” he said, “and find someplace where she can recover.”
“Wonder if they went ta that ’ouse we saw,” Alfie said. “That’d be a good place to ’ole up if they decided to wait.”
“If they didn’t try to rescue her, they wouldn’t have had any reason to stop at all.”
“If they got enough wounded, they might have. Worth a try, ain’t it? The ’ouse ain’t too far north o’ ’ere.”
“All right. I’ll move on ahead. See if you can find the lady’s jacket and boots, and catch up with me as soon as you can.”
He started down the hill, the woman limp in his arms. Alfie caught up with him fifteen minutes later.
“Couldn’t find the stuff,” the Brit said. “Either the blighters took ’em, or they left ’em far behind.”
Kane knelt, brushed the melting snow aside and laid the woman down gently. He removed his boots and slipped them on over her feet. They were two sizes too large, but at least she would be protected until she was with her own people.
He lifted her into his arms again, and he and Alfie continued toward the house. When they descended the final slope, which blended into the valley floor, they headed north, weaving their way among small stands of oak and low-lying brush.
As they neared the house, Alfie, who had taken point, raised his hand. “’Umans,” he said. “Some definitely wounded.”
“Then we’ll stop here,” Kane said. There was just enough cover to keep him and Alfie from getting badly burned, and the area was level enough to provide a decent resting place for the woman.
He eased her down to the flattest patch of ground, removed his field pack and fatigue jacket, and balled the jacket under her head. Alfie shrugged out of his own jacket and laid it over her.
“Her wounds are worse than I thought,” Kane said, glancing at the fresh bloodstains on his shirt. “She’s hemorrhaging.”
“Poxy blighters,” Alfie said, his bulldog face going red.
Kane could think of a few more vicious insults. “They meant to kill her—slowly,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Question is,” Alfie said, “’ow soon’ll the bleedin’ stop?”
Maybe never. There didn’t seem much hope of binding the wounds; the cleanest part of Kane’s shirt was mud-splashed and filthy, useless as a bandage. Alfie’s was no better. The rest of her people might push on, too, if he and Alfie waited too long, but if the woman moved too much, the bleeding would only increase.
“There’s one thing we can do fer t’ lass,” Alfie said softly.
Kane didn’t answer. He knew exactly what Alfie meant, and the prospect sickened him. The woman would be terrified. She might wish she’d died instead.
He bent over her, bringing his face close to hers. “Can you hear me?” he asked.
Her lips parted. They were full, ripe for kissing. Vassals were generally converted “young” enough that they still remembered what it was like to kiss, to feel passion. To love.
He drove the thought out of his mind. His body was reacting too powerfully to hers, to her blood, desire and hunger intermingled. At the worst possible moment.
“Yer mind seems to be wanderin’,” Alfie said, his gruff voice lightly mocking. “Better try again.”
Kane clenched his teeth and drew back. “Can you hear me?” he asked her again.
Her eyes opened. Vivid green, like the springtime that seemed a distant memory.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I can’t restore the blood you’ve lost, but I can ease the pain and stop the bleeding.”
Without warning she bolted up, and he was forced to pin her to the ground. The wounds on her neck began to bleed even more.
“Won’t ’elp ya ta struggle, lass,” Alfie said, settling a little distance away. “We jus’ wanna get ya back ta yer own folk.”
The woman stared directly into Kane’s eyes. “You’re like them,” she said hoarsely.
“We’re not rogues, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “We don’t hunt down humans and tear into them like animals.”
She tried to rise again, without success. “Where are the other rogues?” she asked.
“Two of them split off a quarter mile back, but they aren’t anywhere near here,” he said, speaking to her as he’d once spoken to frightened soldiers in the trenches of the First World War.
“I don’t...believe you.”
“You don’t have much choice,” he said. “If we let you go, you’ll collapse in a matter of minutes.” He hesitated, trying to make her understand. “We’re deserters, like the rogues. But we aren’t interested in joining a mob of killers. We’re heading west, toward the coast.”
“Those others...were Freebloods,” she said. “Are you—”
“Vassals,” Kane said, hating the word as much now as he had when Erastos had revived and converted him.
“’At’s what we’re tryin’ ta change,” Alfie put in. “Kane ’as an idea that the farther we go from the Bloodmaster, the less ’e can control us.”
“But that isn’t important right now,” Kane said. “All that matters is saving your life.”
Her clouded gaze was bleak. “Why?” she whispered.
He didn’t bother with explanations, none of which she would accept in any case. “What’s your name?” he asked.
Her voice cracked in a desperate, throaty laugh. “What difference does it make?” she said, as if to herself. “Fiona. Fiona Donnelly.”
“Shoulda known,” Alfie muttered, shaking his head. “Irish.”
“My name is Jonat
han Kane,” he said. “But I go by Kane. My companion is Alfie Palmer.” He glanced at his friend. “Alfie, hold her down.”
The big Brit moved slowly around to the woman’s head. He put meaty yet gentle hands on her shoulders. All her muscles tensed, but she had grown too weak to fight.
“Her skin’s cold,” Alfie said.
“She’s going into shock,” Kane said. No time left. He bent over, pressing his lips to Fiona’s neck. Blood flowed onto his tongue, stretching his control almost to the breaking point.
Closing his eyes, he ignored his cravings and altered a small but very potent chemical in his body. He couldn’t convert her; no vassal was capable of that. But the chemicals could seal a wound, and vassals were often set to healing the injuries of serf soldiers. No Bloodlord wanted his slaves to die, at least not until they had given too much blood to be of further use.
Fiona’s eyes widened, then closed to slits as the chemicals did their work. They numbed her flesh and began the process of coagulation, stimulating the platelets and proteins that would seal the wounds from within.
Gradually her rapid heartbeat began to slow. The bleeding stopped.
Kane straightened, rocking back onto his knees. “She’ll sleep now,” he said.
Alfie ran his hand over his face. “What’re we gonna do about us?” he asked.
The hunger, he meant. The hunger that the sight and smell of blood made a thousand times worse.
“You’re usually the one who sees the best side in any situation,” Kane said wryly. “Any suggestions?”
Alfie gave a gusty sigh and shook his head. “You want me ta go look fer a deer or somethin’?”
“No,” Kane said. “We should both stay here to keep watch.”
“Then it’s best we take our rest. We got nothin’ better ta do.”
Ravenous, wet and cold, as they had been so many times in the trenches, Kane and Alfie huddled back to back next to the woman, shielding her from the worst of the icy rain, and waited out the rest of the night. At dawn they moved into the denser cover of a nearby thicket and watched Fiona wake with the feeble sun.
* * *
Fiona opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was the watery sunlight filtering through the waxy leaves of the live oak above her. The first thing she remembered was the bloodsuckers roaring and staggering around, drunk on her blood.
And then the sounds of violence, followed by quiet and the murmuring of voices. A strong but gentle touch. Faces...
Nightsiders.
She tried to sit up, but a heavy, invisible hand shoved her back down again. Daylight had hardly affected the temperature, and the sky was still a dead, featureless gray save for the one place where the sun valiantly struggled to burn its way through the clouds.
A black fatigue jacket lay over her chest and shoulders, and a roll of sturdy fabric supported her neck. Her feet were encased in hugely oversize boots, and she dimly remembered the owners of the voices putting them there. Somehow they’d saved her from the rogues, and she didn’t know why.
No more than a few feet away, the intertwined branches of a small thicket rustled with something other than the wind. Two men huddled under it, curled in on themselves with heads and hands tucked against their chests.
Vassals. That was what they had called themselves. But they were still Nightsiders. They wouldn’t try to move until sunset. She could escape. All she had to do was find enough strength to get up.
She tried. The jacket fell onto the dirt behind her. Her muscles strained, and repeated waves of dizziness made her stomach heave. Even so, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and made it to her knees before the invisible hand reached out to smash her down again.
“Fiona.”
The voice. The calm baritone that had urged her to be still, to let him...
Her hand flew to her neck. It was tender, but she could feel nothing but a slight scar where the ugly wounds had been.
“Fiona,” the voice said again. Firm but easy, like that of a man used to command and too certain of his own masculinity to fear showing compassion. She stared into the thicket. The man emerged halfway, his face barely in the shadows.
He was unquestionably handsome, though there were deep shadows under his eyes and cheekbones—gray eyes, she saw, beneath an unruly shock of dark hair. He was barefoot, and wore only uniform pants and a shirt against the cold, a shirt that had obviously seen better days but revealed the breadth of his shoulders and the fitness of his body. A soldier’s body.
“It’s all right,” he said, raising his hand. The sunlight touched his fingers, and he snatched his hand back into the thicket. “The ones who attacked you are dead, but you shouldn’t move yet. Your body needs more time.”
“Kane,” she said. “Your name is Kane.”
He nodded. “How much do you remember?”
Too much, now that she was fully conscious. Pain, humiliation, growing weakness as the Opiri drained the blood from her veins.
“Why did you save me?” she asked.
Kane shrugged, but the big man behind him shifted so that his broad face showed over Kane’s shoulder.
“’E’s a ’ero,” the man—Alfie, she remembered—said with a good-humored grin and a thick Cockney accent. “’Eroes can’t ’elp ’emselves. They sees a lady in distress, they’ve got ta save her.”
Kane cleared his throat. “Not all of us are like them,” he said.
With an effort, she rolled onto her side. “You said you were deserters,” she said.
“We want freedom,” Kane said, his face hardening. “Just as you do.”
Freedom from the Bloodlord or Bloodmaster who essentially owned them. When Fiona had first been told about the vassals, men and women who had been converted in the century before the Awakening and through the years that followed, she had felt only pity and anger, as she did for the serfs who provided Nightsiders with blood. It had taken only a year in the field to rid herself of such illusions. No vassal could escape what he had become, and Kane’s kind, along with Freebloods, formed the majority of the troops who fought for the Bloodlords and Bloodmasters.
No matter what these men had done for her, they were still her enemies.
She braced her hand on the trunk of the tree and tried to stand once more, swaying as she pushed herself to her feet. The world spun. Arms caught her again, arms hard with muscle and stronger than any human’s.
Kane’s face was half in sun, half in shadow, and even as she watched the part exposed to the sun began to redden. He showed no sign of pain, but she knew his skin was burning. His hands were growing hot against her skin, almost scalding her.
She pushed him away. “Get back in the shade,” she ordered. “I won’t be responsible for your death.”
But he didn’t let her go. His face had begun to blister as he snatched up the fallen jacket, grabbed her wrist and dragged her with him, supporting her when she almost tripped in her oversize boots. Once he was in the shelter of the thicket, he pulled her down again, keeping his hand locked around her wrist.
“You’re staying here until nightfall,” he said. “Then we’ll lead you back to your people.”
“You’ve seen them?” she asked. “Where are they?”
“We found the bodies,” he said. “We tracked you and the rogues to where they tied you up. The others from your unit went on ahead.” He searched her face. “You’re their leader, aren’t you?”
“I’m a soldier,” she said brusquely.
“I’ve commanded men to the brink of death and over it,” he said. “I know when I meet someone who’s done the same.”
She tried to yank free of his hold. “I don’t want your help, ‘hero’ or not.”
Her biting words seemed to have no effect. Kane looked into her eyes, and she could see the red reflection shining behind the gray, framed by the ugly blisters on his face, which were just beginning to heal.
Why did those gray eyes have such a powerful effect on her? It was as if she ha
d known him all her life.
She dropped her gaze. “You shouldn’t have come out,” she said.
“I’ll survive,” he said. “But you won’t if more rogues show up.”
“Kane ’ealed you,” Alfie said, his voice serious. “’E gave ya what ya needed ta make the bleedin’ stop.”
Fiona remembered the touch of lips on her neck—not biting or rending, but gentle. The pain was gone.
She met Kane’s eyes again. “I’m grateful,” she said, “but I have a duty to my own people.”
He tightened his grip on her wrist. “I assume you’re Special Forces?” He went on when she didn’t answer. “I don’t know what your mission is, but you haven’t got a chance if your team keep going in the same direction they’re heading. If you make it past the bands of rogue Freebloods, you’ll be facing seasoned troops under the direct command of Bloodlords. And if they don’t kill you, they won’t bother to hold you hostage. They’ll make serfs of you.”
“We’ll get past them,” Fiona said. “Just as you did.”
“It weren’t easy,” Alfie said. “We got away ’cause we was scouts, and we could move beyond the lines.”
“You said the farther you go from the Bloodmaster, the less he can control you,” Fiona said. “I’ve never heard that before.”
“I believe it takes prolonged separation,” Kane said. “If we’re caught, we die. But death is better than slavery.”
She knew he meant it. He would sooner stand in the sun and be consumed than be taken. She respected him for that far more than she would have thought possible.
But she saw something else in his face, and Alfie’s. Hunger. Starvation, more likely. A slower death than any they would get from their master.
And still they hadn’t touched her.
“Let me go,” she said. “I can take care of myself if you point me in the right direction.”
Kane released her. “If you’re afraid,” he said coldly, “if you won’t accept my word, then go.”
Abruptly he retreated deeper into the shade, only his eyes visible. Fiona contracted her muscles and tried to stand. She could just make it, but only if she stayed completely still.
Afraid, he’d said. But she wasn’t. For reasons incomprehensible to her, these two men had saved her life and demanded nothing in return. They were enemies, but they deserved better than she’d given them.
Holiday with a Vampire 4: Halfway to DawnThe GiftBright Star (Harlequin Nocturne) Page 3
