“I know the way.” He cast his eye around the room. “I’d rather just slip out, if you can offer my apologies to your mama?”
Leaving the library, and closing the door silently, Connor headed towards the servants’ quarters. Crossing from the burgundy carpet to the oatmeal, he glided down the stairs and out of the entrance which led to the stables.
He pushed open the wooden slatted door. Collecting Sabre’s bridle from its hook, he edged forward to lay a calming hand on the horse’s nervously twitching glossy coat. In a lowered tone, he whispered to the stallion. The flared equine nostrils, blowing anxious gusts of air which plumed with condensation, told Connor the horse knew he had changed. His sure deft strokes over the gelding’s solid shoulder calmed the nervous shuffling of hooves, and stroking his hand over the brushed velvet of Sabre’s muzzle had the hypnotic pull of a rattlesnake.
“There you go, boy,” Connor said as the horse’s lips snatched at his coat sleeve. “I’m still your old friend, hmm?”
As he eased a cold breath of relief and gathered the reins in his hands, he heard voices in the garden. Beyond the scope of human ears, a couple were talking as they strolled some two hundred yards away along the path through the rose garden. Connor immediately recognized Lavinia’s scent, and that of Captain Rice. In the next moment, he abandoned Sabre, leaving the horse in his stall, and jogged quietly around the perimeter of the Hall until he had them in his sights.
His body sank into stillness as Connor tuned into the words of the engrossed couple.
“Lady Lavinia,” said Rice, “may I say, you are a very beautiful woman.”
Lavinia was young enough for the compliment to make her blush.
Connor’s eyes narrowed as her suddenly pounding heart rattled through his own chest, and the pain of hunger pierced him to the core.
Captain Rice stopped walking, and, catching hold of Lavinia’s wrist, he smoothly turned her back towards him. “You must know, My Lady, that I am attracted to you.”
Lavinia tilted her chin and looked up into his earnest face. “Captain Rice-” she began.
“Matthew, please. And before you speak let me just say, I don’t expect your love, not yet. But if you will let me, I would like the chance to earn it.”
Connor had heard enough. Ivy’s tear stained face came to mind and he burst into movement. The gravel of the pathway crunched loudly as he left the wet dew-soaked grass, and closed the distance towards the couple who were both now looking in his direction.
Connor absorbed the expressions on their faces with satisfaction. Captain Matthew Rice’s features tightened with anger. And Lavinia looked radiantly happy to see him. It was enough. He had left everything too late. He had nothing he could offer Lavinia, now, but he could save her from this snake.
Being dead sucks, he thought, because even before he finally got the chance to meet this Malachi, Connor had come to that conclusion. Somehow, I am dead.
“Connor,” Lavinia dimmed her smile, realizing that her heart was on her sleeve. “Reggie said you had already left?”
His gray eyes warmed. Finding out she loved him was a bitter-sweet moment of revelation as he inhaled the heady aroma of her skin, where the flush of attraction laid a fragrant scent.
Not taking his eyes from her face, Connor said, “How could I leave without saying goodbye? And in any case-” His focus snapped around to enjoy the annoyance twitching the tendon in Captain Rice’s tight jaw. “I wanted a brief word with the captain.”
Connor smoothly captured Lavinia’s hand in his and dropped a kiss into her palm, enjoying the sound of her breath catching in her throat. “If you’ll excuse us for a moment?”
He turned to face Rice, cutting off his escape and driving him back a pace. Rice had the sense to look nervous, and Connor’s eyes were drawn to the pulse thudding in the captain’s neck as his immaculately shaved chin tilted in defiance.
His expression hard, Connor dropped his voice and said conversationally, “You know, Rice, it is very bad form to make advances when you have another young lady... waiting for you.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Rice said, darkly.
“Oh, I think you do. Lady Lavinia may well be the better thing that you have your eye on.”
Rice’s eyes flashed when he heard his own words quoted back at him. “Maybe, it is you who has been slumming it. It is more your style, going back to your lower class roots.” Rice sneered as he imagined the barb had hit home. “I know your game.”
Connor chuckled. “Trust me, you have no idea what you are dealing with.”
“Lavinia is above your station that much I do know.”
“Lady Lavinia, to you.” A growl rattled in Connor’s throat and in a blur of preternatural movement his hand closed on Matthew Rice’s neck. The shocked white complexion of the captain’s face rapidly turned purple as his wind pipe creaked beneath Connor’s fingertips.
Connor was fascinated as he felt the blood capillaries bursting, and the heavy scent of blood coated his nasal lining. He swallowed his hunger, and leaning forward he could almost taste Rice’s fear.
“If you come anywhere near Lady Lavinia again, I will hunt you down and kill you.” Connor dug his thumbnail into the flesh of Rice’s throat and froze. A plump pearl of blood swelled before, touching the white starched collar of his uniform, it blossomed into a ruby red stain. Mesmerized, Connor licked his lips and swallowed hard as he ached to sink his teeth into the thundering pulse throbbing beneath his touch.
The constricted expression on Connor’s white face stuck fear into Rice’s heart. He stumbled backwards, sweat sprouting on his cold brow. Connor shoved him, and Rice collided roughly with a tree trunk, his teeth snapping smartly together as he hit his head, hard.
Connor did not speak. His icy glare sent shivers through Rice as he struggled to control his legs and lurched away.
Squaring his shoulders, and wiping the anger from his expression, Connor turned back to Lavinia.
She stood closer than he expected. Did she hear? See the fear on his face? But the moment he reached out a hand towards her, the crease of concern between her delicate brows dissolved.
“Walk with me, Connor.” The affection in her half smile caught him unawares, and without thinking, he found himself at her side offering his arm.
Lavinia’s fingertips trembled as they rested upon his sleeve, and as her warm palm branded his skin, a lava flow of longing flowed through him.
They walked the length of the rose garden in silence, moving into the dappled shadow of the arbor. The bare tree branches arched gracefully overhead, creating an intricate canopy where stray moonbeams scattered jewels of light along the shingle path.
Watching those same jewels play over Lavinia’s carefully composed features, Connor frowned as the heat of anger directed towards Captain Rice evaporated, and yet, heat still burned in his chest.
Arriving beside a bench carved in stone, he paused and urged Lavinia to sit beside him. Glancing down into her face, he saw a different woman to the one he expected. He realized that he had not considered her appearance in earnest for many months, years even, and that Reggie was right. She is no longer an adolescent.
Even at nineteen years old, there was wisdom in the worried depths of her copper-flecked gaze. The glint of melancholy in her eyes burned a hole in his heart as he admitted that he had been lying to himself. I love her, and now it’s too late.
“Lady Lavinia-” Connor paused when she sighed delicately.
“So, serious,” she murmured, “but really, there is no need. I love you, Connor. You know this, so there is little point pretending that Captain Rice, or any of the others, matter. But thank you for feeling the need to rescue me.”
His protests died in the face of Lavinia’s blunt certainty. Gazing back along the path, he laughed wryly. “If I am honest, for all my thoughts of protecting your virtue, I saw Rice off for my own sanity as much as anything.”
“Connor...” She turned to look into his silve
r-gray eyes, and the glittering sparks buried in their depths made her catch her breath.
Her frozen surprise made him jump to his feet. Dread crushed him, the kind that feared the veil would be torn from her eyes and reveal him as a monster. “I’ll take you back,” he said quickly, straightening his jacket and preparing to move.
Still sitting, Lavinia tugged on his hand until, slowly, he sat beside her once more. “Connor, I know there is something... different about you. I just want to say, you can tell me.”
“My future is uncertain,” he said heavily. Folding Lavinia’s hand into his cold palm, he watched a trail of goosebumps chase up over her skin. “I can say only this; I wish I had come to my senses earlier.” A rueful smile tugged at his lips. “Threatening Captain Rice is not exactly my style, but it is all I have at my disposal, because you are right, there is something different about me. I cannot make you a part of it. I’m sorry.”
“I will wait.” Her raised hand silenced his protest. “You cannot stop me. While there is hope, I will wait.”
Connor did something he had ached to do since he saw her radiant smile of welcome, he leaned forward and very gently stroked his lips over hers, begging for her to let him in. He deepened his kiss until it stole her breath, and the blade of hunger in his throat cut deep. When the yearning to taste her accelerated pulse almost overwhelmed him, he withdrew.
His whispered word of ‘goodbye’ hung in the night air as he vanished.
Moments later, Lavinia heard the thundering of Sabre’s hooves churning up the gravel. The stallion galloped away along the driveway as though demons clawed at his heels. Lavinia could only guess at the terrible things that were taking Connor away from her, and she sat in a storm of her own emotions.
“He will come back.” Deep inside, she knew she was changed, too, and he would come back to her.
Chapter 8
The horseback ride from Cranham Hall to the hospital took Connor along treacherous, tree-lined country lanes in pitch-black, which forced him to concentrate – not to consider his own safety, but that of Sabre. I may be dead already, but my old friend is not. Even so, by the time he passed beneath the yellow glow of the London streetlights, exhilaration sang through every fiber in Connor’s soul. He was an accomplished rider, but tonight, he became one with Sabre’s powerful frame. He felt every muscle of the stallion rippling beneath the black-velvet coat as though they were his own. Connor had never felt more alive.
Back in his room in the students’ quarters, Connor stripped mud-splattered clothes from his body. Pulling the solid oak wardrobe door open, he selected a shirt and pair of pants, avoiding looking in the mirror as he pulled them on. The merest flash of his reflection had been enough to tell him that his eyes glittered with gray ice, his skin, instead of being ruddy from exertion, was layered in frost, and his heart had at last stopped.
He could not resist testing for a pulse, and sure enough, there was none. It is time to find this Malachi and learn the rest. Leaving the chamber he had always thought of as his refuge, he headed out with the certainty of a heat-seeking missile.
The brick built surgical wing of the building was old, and cracked ceramic tiles lined the corridors. A horizontal stripe of glazed royal-blue tiles divided the iceberg-white expanse, perfectly placed at waist height, it disguised the marks where hasty porters scraped hospital trolleys along the walls.
Drafts haunted the ventilation shafts like ghostly whispers which chilled the air. And, the nurses on duty were grateful for the extra warmth of the shawls draped over their shoulders, provided as part of their uniform. In the eerie quiet of the hospital at the dead of night, Connor slipped along the antiseptic tainted corridors; his wraith-like shadow barely registered with the exhausted angels of mercy burning the midnight oil on ward duty.
His surroundings became the blur of a time-warp tunnel, but still Connor could not help but notice that everything looked as it always did, and yet, so very different. The crazed enamel surface of the tiled walls resembled a delicate filigree of exquisite lace, and they were not white, they were a lake of milk sprinkled with glitter.
Connor tamped down the pleasure at his heightened awareness, as he finally arrived at the top of the stairwell leading to the morgue. He slowed his pace. Making his feet touch down firmly on each tread of the cold quartz-dusted steps, he descended into the basement where the final door waited. Once he passed over the threshold, he would know his fate.
He pushed against the sheet of cold rubber-trimmed steel, stepped inside, and let the door thud gently closed behind him. He automatically lit the mantle of a gas lantern and held it above his head, scanning the room slowly.
The hairs on his nape prickled, and even though he could not see him, Connor knew Malachi was there.
Feeling foolish, Connor muttered, “Hello?”
In answer, a rhythmic tapping sound grew steadily louder, forcing Connor to set the lantern down on an empty instrument trolley and press his palms over his ears. He swung around, scanning the cold clinical space and combing the shadows dancing in the yellow glow of the flickering lamp. Imagining ghosts in every corner, he felt unfazed when Malachi materialized less than an arm’s length away.
Connor’s hands dropped to his sides, even though the scraping noise continued with a hypnotic rhythm.
Malachi’s aged, gnarled fingers caressed a glass vial encased in an intricately woven gold shell, suspended on a heavy gold chain hanging around his scrawny neck.
“What’s that?” The words were out before Connor could stop them.
Silence clung to the cold air as the tapping noise ceased abruptly.
“This is your salvation, or it will be, if you choose it.” Malachi’s colorless eyes raked over Connor’s face. “You know you are dying?”
Connor’s tumbling thoughts – crowded with questions – slipped like grains of sand through his mind. While he fought to gather them and string them into sentences, they were collected by Malachi, who already knew everything he wanted to ask.
“Yes, last night, you were bitten, fed upon, and you, in turn, were fed.” Malachi cocked his head and waited. “Do you remember?”
Malachi’s words unlocked a door inside Connor, and his lost hours of last night arrived in an avalanche of sensation. He recalled walking the row of bodies, and finding his first specimen, Mr. Donaghue. He saw himself peering into the dead eyes of the bodies laid out on the metal beds until, flipping back the cold-stiffened sheet on body number eight, he had felt the sharp gaze of Malachi’s eyes dart through his brain like the stab of a red-hot needle.
He had jerked back, but a clawed grip had dug into his shoulders and whipped him through the air. He landed heavily on his back. The cold of the metal autopsy table had bitten through his cotton shirt in an instant, forcing a gurgling gasp from Connor as strong jaws closed over his throat. Fear had made his mind scream. His fingers tingled with hot ash as their blood supply was sucked away.
The screaming had continued on inside his head as a sharp cheekbone ground against his lifted jaw, and the whirlpool of his thoughts raced towards the black hole of unconsciousness. There was a moment of feeling nothing at all, and then thick paste oozed into his mouth and settled like a plug in his throat. He choked on the icy lava that trickled down inside his chest.
Connor’s eyes locked on the vial again as the memory made him gag, a suffocating feeling welling up inside him.
Malachi nodded. “Yes, it is immortal blood that is keeping you alive, for now.”
“Why? How?”
“Venom is spreading slowly throughout your system. It will penetrate each blood cell and attack the new cells your bone marrow makes, until your blood becomes so thick that your heart can no longer pump it around your body. At which point, your cells begin to die, and you die.”
Anger pulled Connor’s features tight as he spat. “So, what are you telling me? You have invited me here to gloat. Watch me die?”
“It is a test. I had not thought you would last this
long. But, you are strong, and your mental powers are impressive.” Malachi’s long bony digit tapped his temple. “Suicide is an easy out when you think you are going crazy.”
“Who are you? What the hell are you?”
Tilting his head to one side, Malachi arched thin eyebrows and etched deeper wrinkles into his forehead. “Some call me a ‘demon’, or a ‘blood drinking spirit’. I prefer the term ‘vampire’.” His fingers played over the gold casket around his neck, swirling the contents as he slowly removed the cap and said, “You don’t have to die, of course. But, time is running out.”
Connor’s mouth watered as the smell of blood drifted across the room.
“But only vampire blood, my blood, completes the transformation. Your heart has stopped, but your body will remain frozen in time, forever at the peak of the fitness you now enjoy, as long as you feed it and keep your tissue hydrated.”
Connor’s pupils swelled to black pools as the ruby-red vapors billowing through his cerebral cortex made thinking impossible.
Malachi lifted the vial to his own lips and downed the contents before facing Connor’s confusion. “Choose, Doctor Connor.” The blur of Malachi’s face sharpened into focus bare inches away, his pearl-tinted gaze boring into Connor’s brain. “But you can’t just drink, you have to feed. Only feeding awakens the survival instinct trapped inside you, and releases the monster who can satisfy your thirst.”
The curiosity gleaming in Malachi’s eyes transformed them to diamond-white as he placed the blade of his nail on the marble white skin at his wrist and, with a vicious stab, cut it open.
The thick brown blood oozed, holding its form in a grotesquely growing teardrop until a snarl broke from Connor’s throat and he jerked forward, gripped Malachi’s arm, and grazed his teeth over the stone-hard skin until his mouth filled with the vampire’s blood.
He drank, his teeth grinding away at the chalky flesh, scoring a set of grooves with each draft of blood he dragged out of the hard tissue. The growl in his throat thickened to a purr as his chest, lungs, and stomach began to tingle, and the synapses in his brain scattered a light show across his vision.
Death of Connor Sanderson_Prequel to Fire & Ice Series Page 7