Lord of the Night

by Robin T. Popp

  “What are you afraid of,” Carrington goaded them. “Get her.” They rushed her, but Kacie held her ground. When they were within range, she swung her sword as Erik had taught her. It should have been easy. She was armed and they were not, but she was slowed by her injury and they, being vampires, moved faster.

  Afraid she might not last much longer, she searched for an opening and found it. With a quick forward drive, she sank her blade deep into the chest of the nearest vampire. As he dropped to the ground, his companion closed in. Instinctively, her fist shot out, catching him in the jaw, knocking him back.

  “Idiots,” Carrington swore, coming for her himself. She tried to pull her sword from the fallen vampire’s chest, but before she could, Carrington tackled her to the ground.

  She fought with all her strength, beating at whatever she could reach with her fists, twisting her body in an effort to throw off her attacker. When she felt his fangs sink into her throat, blind panic hit her.

  She screamed over and over until the constriction of her throat cut off the sound. With it went her air, but not her will to survive. Kicking and struggling, she continued to fight until consciousness slipped away.

  “Kacie.”

  Arms tried to lift her but she fought against them, crazed with the need for self-preservation.

  “Kacie, it’s Erik. Look at me.” Gentle hands held her face and slowly she realized she was no longer pinned to the ground. A distorted image swam before her eyes and she blinked away the tears until Erik’s face came into focus.

  “Erik?”

  “Yes. You’re safe now.”

  She clutched his arm and looked around. There was a body lying nearby and it took her a second to realize that it wasn’t her father’s. She wasn’t five years old. She was an adult and had fought enough vampires that she shouldn’t be this terrified.

  The five-year-old voice in her head said differently, but she hushed it and forced herself to take another look at the body. It was the vampire she’d killed. Another lay nearby. Only Carrington was missing and she guessed he’d gotten away.

  “You’re safe now,” Erik assured her while searching her face. “Do you think you can stand?”

  She trembled with delayed reaction and the thought of standing seemed beyond her capabilities.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he said, still squatting before her.

  As soon as she complied, he placed his hands about her waist and stood, lifting her with him. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she fell against him.

  “You’ve lost some blood,” he told her, holding her close. “Let’s stand here a moment and let the dizziness pass.”

  Too weak to argue with him, she laid her head against his chest. She thought she should probably feel self-conscious or angry or maybe even embarrassed. Instead, she felt safe. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she pressed herself against his solid warmth.

  She heard his quick intake of breath but ignored it as she fought to pull herself together. As if he understood, Erik simply held her.

  “We should get back to the castle before the one who got away comes back with reinforcements,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “Do you think you can walk?”

  She nodded and he slowly loosened his arms around her until she was standing on her own. Moving over to the body of the vampire she’d killed, he retrieved her sword. He wiped the blade and sheathed it for her and then, taking her by the hand, led her from the scene.

  Kacie was tired. It took almost all her energy just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Unfortunately, walking didn’t command all of her attention—the man holding her hand did.

  She never would have thought him capable of such tenderness—especially to her. It was no secret to anyone that she despised him. He was a vampire. And yet . . .

  Sneaking a glance at him from the corner of her eye, she saw his attention was focused on their surroundings. Worried that vampires might, even now, be sneaking up on them, she snapped to attention, suddenly aware of where they were.

  Instead of heading for the wooded path back to the castle, they were walking along an alley. Halfway down, Erik stopped in front of a garage door. Letting go of her hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a key that he fit into the lock.

  Kacie gaped at him in surprise. When he saw her face, he actually smiled.

  He lifted the door and Kacie looked past him. Inside, she saw a black BMW 325i. It looked virtually new. “Is this yours?” She asked, astonished.

  He shot her an amused look. “No, I just go around taking whatever I want.” She didn’t say anything and he rolled his eyes at her. “Of course it’s mine. I loaned it to the man who owns the shop in front—or rather, Gerard loaned it to him on my behalf. His mother lives in the next town. She’s getting on in years, so he likes to check on her every now and then. His car is old and does fine around town, but it’s not so great for the longer trips, so I keep mine here and let him use it when he needs to.”

  She stared at him, stunned at his generosity. “That’s really nice of you.”

  He frowned. “It’s not like I’m a monster. Besides, I don’t need it. I still have my other cars back at the castle.”

  He walked her to the passenger side and opened the door. Once she was seated, he closed the door. There was something on the floorboard and she tried to nudge it aside with her foot.

  “What do you have down there?” She asked as he climbed behind the wheel.

  He leaned over and took a look. “Oh. I forgot I’d put that there.”

  “What is it?”

  “About a hundred meters of steel cable,” he said, popping open the glove box. Kacie could just make out the key, lying inside, before Erik took it out and inserted it into the ignition.

  She looked down again, but couldn’t see much in the dark. “Why is it here?”

  He turned the key and started the engine. “It’s for my Hummer, if you must know. I just had a winch installed on the front and this is the cable for it.”

  “A Hummer?” She was surprised because in the past, his tastes had always run to sports cars.

  He gave her another look before steering the car out of the garage and stopping. “Yes. A Hummer.”

  He got out long enough to close the garage door and then they were driving through the streets of Hocksley until they reached the long winding road that would eventually take them to the castle.

  “Why are you smiling?” he asked after a few minutes, reminding her that he had no trouble seeing in the dark.

  “I never thought of you as the Hummer type.”

  “Really? I know I shouldn’t ask, but exactly what type did you see me as?”

  She hesitated. “After tonight, the type who rides a white steed,” she said softly.

  Too embarrassed to see what his reaction might be, she looked out the dark window. Neither spoke again during the ride to the castle and, thirty minutes later, they pulled into the drive.

  The old stables had been converted into a garage years ago, but rather than park there, Erik drove around to the door that led into the back of his apartment. After he shut off the engine he sat there quietly, and Kacie knew he was listening for the sounds of vampires. Just the thought that there might be some lurking in the dark, waiting for them, had her looking about nervously.

  “Let’s go,” he said after a moment. She quickly got out of the car and followed him into his apartment.

  She didn’t breathe easier until the door was closed and locked behind them. She stared at it as Erik walked off, knowing it was the only thing between her and the vampires outside. She wondered if it would hold under attack and, tentatively, placed her palm against it. It felt solid enough. Satisfied, she turned around.

  Erik was nowhere to be seen. Logic told her he was there somewhere, but after her recent scare, logic wasn’t playing a big part in her thought processes. As fear threatened to pull her back into its grip, she hurried through his apartment, looking into each room
she passed.

  She finally found him in his bedroom.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, stopping in the open doorway just as he was taking off his shirt.

  His back was to her, but at the sound of her voice, he turned. She gasped out loud and hurried forward. “Oh my God. You’re hurt. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “They’re just scratches.”

  “You’re a bloody mess. They should be cleaned before they get infected. Let me help you.” She held the edges of his shirt away from his skin as he finished taking it off.

  “Thanks.” He sounded surprised that she would help him and that made her feel bad.

  “The first aid kit is in the kitchen, right?”

  “Yes—in the cupboard.”

  “All right.” She started for the door and then noticed that he wasn’t following her. “Are you coming?”

  Bare-chested, he followed her to the kitchen and showed her where the kit was located. She batted aside his hand when he started to reach for it and took it down herself.

  Setting it on the counter, she opened it and found everything she needed. Taking out a cotton ball and antiseptic, she studied his scratches, considering how best to clean them. His heavy breathing caused her to glance at his face, which was unusually pale. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

  “I am not about to pass out,” he growled at her.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Then why are you as pale as a ghost?”

  He looked like he was going to refuse to answer her, but then he heaved a labored sigh, clearly not wanting to tell her what was bothering him. “If you must know, I haven’t fed tonight and standing this close to you when you’re covered in blood isn’t easy.”

  “What?” Alarmed, she put a hand to her neck, shocked that she could have forgotten her own injuries. “Why aren’t I dead?”

  “It takes a long time to kill a human by drinking their blood,” Erik told her, his eyes burning bright. “He didn’t get more than a taste before I . . .” He trailed off and she didn’t press him for details of the fight. She didn’t want to know.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “You’re not drinking the tea,” he said accusingly. “If you had, I wouldn’t have had to save you.”

  “The tea?” She glanced at the cotton ball in her hand, not wanting to see the disapproval on his face.

  She’d forgotten about the tea. As children, they hadn’t been allowed to drink the special Winslow family brew and she’d moved away from home at about the age she would have started. “I forgot about it.”

  “You really should start drinking it, just in case.”

  She nodded, glad he wasn’t going to lecture her about it. She already felt stupid for not remembering.

  The “tea” was made up of the crushed, dried flowers and leaves of a hybrid plant developed centuries ago by the Winslow family. They called it le fleur de vivre. When consumed by a human, enzymes from the tea filtered into the bloodstream, making the blood toxic to vampires. A vampire who drank the blood of a human who’d had the tea within the last twenty-four hours usually died after a couple of swallows.

  For the humans who drank the tea, there was an interesting side effect, which the family went to great lengths to keep secret. For reasons no one had, as yet, discovered, consuming the tea significantly slowed the aging process. For this reason, children were given the tea only under extreme conditions.

  Kacie brought her thoughts back to their current situation. “Don’t you have bags of blood around here or something? I don’t want you to lose control and eat me.”

  His gaze snapped to hers, darkly intense, and she felt herself blush at her poor choice of words, but she refused to look away. She half expected him to come back with some inane quip like he’d be happy to eat her, but he simply said, “I’ll take care of it later, thanks.”

  “Fine.” She pointed to a chair. “At least sit down.”

  It was a sign of how weak he really was that he didn’t even try to argue with her, but lowered himself into the nearest chair while she gathered the supplies and brought them over to the table.

  Wetting the cotton with antiseptic, she bent over and did her best to reach the scratches on his chest, but it was nearly impossible to do while standing over him. Frustrated, she knelt by his side and was able to clean a couple of them, but to get to the rest of his chest, she had to practically lie across his lap, which was more than a little embarrassing.

  Finally, seeing no other option, she tapped him on the inside of each knee until he spread them apart. When she risked looking at him to see his reaction, he raised an eyebrow at her, making her blush. “I can’t see what I’m doing, do you mind?”

  “Not in the least,” he said, opening his legs wider so she could move between them. Once there, she dabbed at one of the scratches and Erik hissed. “Ouch, that hurts.”

  She thought about blowing on it to ease the pain and then decided he was already enjoying the situation too much. “Don’t be such a baby.”

  To her surprise, he laughed. “Nice bedside manner. Ow.” He flinched and leaned back to get away from the cotton ball she held in her hand. “You did that on purpose.”

  “I did not. Now hold still. I have to clean these.” She reached out to treat another deep scratch, but he leaned to the side and grabbed her hand instead.

  “That’s good enough.”

  She frowned at him. “No, it’s not. If I don’t clean them, they’ll get infected.”

  “So?”

  “So?” she said in disbelief. “You could d—” She stopped talking, embarrassed.

  “I could die? Been there, done that.”

  It was a harsh truth and she pushed it aside for the moment. “Take your hand away, please,” she said in her firmest voice. “I’m going to clean these because if they get infected, they could leave nasty scars.” And that would be a real shame.

  “Fine.” Surprisingly, he sat quietly while she finished treating each scratch. On one of the deeper gashes, he winced despite her effort to be gentle. It reminded her so much of the night before—of how she’d felt while he was stitching her arm. It made him seem more vulnerable to her; more human.

  With a start, it occurred to her that he had been human—once. “What was it like?” she asked hesitantly. “Dying.”

  He watched her work, silent for so long that she was afraid he might not answer.

  “It was different,” he finally said with a slight smile. “No angels singing. No white light to lead me to Heaven. Just a demon from Hell, ripping out my throat. One minute, I was praying for death and the next, I was waking up with this terrible, gnawing hunger for blood.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically. “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like.”

  “Worse than the hunger was the guilt afterward,” he went on. “You see, when you first wake up, the hunger is everything. It’s not until the hunger is sated that rational thought returns. We—Michael, Sedrick, Ty, and I—have ways of helping a newly created vampire to ease them through that transition—using animal blood—but back then, well . . .”

  Kacie had a mental image of Erik rising for the first time. “You’re talking about the people who died?” She asked gently, remembering the stories she’d heard.

  “Not people, Kacie. Family and friends. They came to mourn my passing. I repaid them by killing them and turning them into vampires; progeny destined to be monsters until someone could destroy them, permanently.”

  He fell silent and she watched the emotions play across his face.

  “Close family and friends?” she asked.

  He stared at her. “Does it matter?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” she apologized because he was right. It didn’t matter if the people he’d killed had been close or not.

  He heaved a sigh. “That’s where a lot of the guilt comes from,” he admitted. “Because it shouldn’t matter, but in a small recess of my mind, it does. I can’t begi
n to explain the depth of my regret for killing anyone, but there’s a part of me that’s relieved I killed distant cousins and townsfolk instead of my brothers or close friends. That’s the guilt that’s hard to live with.”

  She knew him well enough to realize how the weight of that guilt must seem crushing at times. Wanting only to comfort him, she laid a hand across his cheek. “I’m so sorry.” At the rough feel of his whiskered jaw, awareness shot through her.

  Needing something to distract herself, she pulled away and picked up another cotton ball to finish cleaning the scratches. As she did, she was very conscious of Erik—the man—and couldn’t help but notice the contours of his chest. He was by far in better physical shape than any man she’d ever known—even Ben. In fact, if she let herself forget that he was a vampire, he was pure sex appeal. Embarrassed at the direction of her thoughts, she glanced up and found Erik watching her. The intensity of his gaze took her breath away.

  Mentally shaking herself, she cleared her throat and stood up, needing both the physical and emotional distance. “How old were you when it happened?” She asked, trying to distract herself. “The attack.”

  “I was twenty-five.” His voice sounded huskier than normal and it teased her senses, making her want to crawl back between his legs again and tempt fate.

  “My age.”

  He smiled. “Back in the mid-1600s, you were lucky if you lived long enough to see thirty-five, so twenty-five was considered old. My brothers and I were basically past our primes.” He smiled. “These days, when you’re twenty-five, you’re just starting your life.”

  “What about your parents? Were they alive when . . . it happened?”

  “My father was, but not my mother.” His eyes took on that haunted look again. “She’d died a couple of years before.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, filled with empathy.

  He glanced up at her and gave her a sad smile. “I haven’t thought about my family in a long time.”

  She squeezed a small amount of ointment on her finger and applied it to each of his scratches. “What’s the story with Michael? You say he was your best friend, but I don’t ever remember seeing him around.”