Blood Wicked

by Sharon Page

  She drove her knee up but something stopped her, pushed it down. It had to have been his hand, but she hadn’t seen it move—his hands were still braced beside her head.

  Icy fear rippled down her spine. The cut no longer hurt. She put her fingers to her cheek, took them away. There was no blood. But the wound hadn’t scabbed over. Her skin felt perfectly smooth. There was no sign there had even been a cut.

  “As perfect as I imagine you were to start with,” he said softly.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Vampire. I can heal. I can move so swiftly you will not see it. Some of the benefits, of which there are, sadly, very few. Now tell me about my brother. You saw what I did to him.” His chin jerked toward the unconscious butcher. “You had better start talking to me.”

  His mouth became a harsh line. The silver eyes narrowed, and she knew she was looking at a man who could become very cruel when he wanted to.

  She’d seen enough of that to know. She knew men. Other courtesans always had their eye on the prize: they looked at the jewels. Vivienne had always looked at the gentleman’s eyes as she received his gift. What was there? Joy? Pride? Guilt? The look a man got when he was preparing to run? All gifts were bribes. Either to ensure a woman was thoroughly snared, or to buy a man’s way out of trouble. She had survived, flourished, rescued herself because she wasn’t a courtesan who stared at her own face in the mirror. She looked at the man.

  That was how she knew when a man was angry. Or when he was stripping off his masks, letting his cruelty show. Preparing to be violent.

  “Let me go. Please,” she begged, even when she knew how futile it was to beg a man. “I don’t know anything about your brother. I have to get to an apothecary’s. My daughter is sick, she is dying. Please, won’t you just let me go?”

  He shook his head, the selfish bastard. “I can’t, my love. Not until I find out the truth.” His gloved hand closed roughly around her arm.

  “She’s dying, you bastard!” she shouted at his handsome face. “Dear God, let me go.”

  “I’ve discovered God is not very dear, love. And I can’t let you go.”

  Sheer panic gripped her. Then boot soles clicked sharply on the cobbles and she saw another man enter the mouth of the alley, framed by the meager light. “She’s telling the truth about her daughter, Heath. I can tell.”

  “Can you, Julian?” Her captor’s voice was tight and filled with suspicion.

  “I saw it in her thoughts.” The blond man was completely serious even though she knew he must be speaking utter rubbish. No one could read thoughts.

  “She is really afraid for her daughter’s life, Heath,” the man called Julian went on. “And she is telling the truth: she is on her way to an apothecary’s.”

  “Indeed.” Heath, the man who had her captured, spoke so coldly it made her shiver. “All right, I will escort you to get your medicine, then take you home. After that, we can have a little discussion.” His eyes looked cold as ice shards.

  Suddenly his words penetrated. “Go with me! But that’s impossible.”

  “No, love. It’s your only choice.”

  “Heath—”

  “We will help the fair lady with her task, Julian. I believe she needs our protection.”

  “And the investigation?”

  “Can wait for a little while. I think a sick daughter is more important.”

  “You are supposed to be working for the council, not helping some damsel in distress by healing her child.”

  Vivienne gaped at Julian. She could see now he was a tall, handsome man in his early twenties. With pale blond hair, and large eyes, and the beauty of an angel. But his eyes were reflective, too. She swung around to the other man. Heath. “You could heal my daughter, like you healed the cut on my cheek?”

  “I don’t know. There are some things even a well-meaning vampire can’t cure. Let’s get the medicine first, my dear, and then get you home to your child.” He turned to the other man, Julian. “If I can heal a young mortal girl, I have to do it. All you have to do is keep it quiet from the council.”

  Vampire. He must surely be mad to think he was Nosferatu. They were the stuff of faery stories, tales meant to frighten people. Vampires did not really exist.

  But he had done three completely impossible things with her. He had effortlessly heaved an enormous man down an alley without even disturbing his hat. He had made her wound disappear with his tongue. He had moved so quickly she had not even seen him.

  How had he done it?

  There were illusionists in London. Could he be one of those? No. He had actually done those things. They weren’t tricks.

  And after she got her medicine, he expected her to take him home. To let him inside, so he could ask about his brother.

  Heavens, what if his brother was one of the men she had been forced to seduce? One of the five peers who had mysteriously died afterward?

  Julian hesitated. “All right. I had a young sister who died of scarlet fever. I would have given anything to save her. Try to help this girl; I won’t tell the council.”

  It sounded as if the younger man should be in command, but Heath obviously was. And Heath suddenly grasped her by the elbow.

  “Come, my dear. Lead the way. Julian and I will ensure you get there safely.”

  And Vivienne knew, once again, she had no choice but to let a man take charge and obey his command. But she’d learned a thing or two. She would let him believe he was in control, until she had her chance to break free.

  No sign hung from the front of the shop. No name was painted upon the dirty window. But through the layers of grime, a few bottles could be seen. One lamp burned low, which meant Mrs. Holt was there.

  Waiting for her, no doubt. Vivienne had never seen anyone else come in.

  She stopped and turned to her rescuer. Heath had frightened away two other ruffians who had approached her. She might not have reached here at all without him. “You will have to wait outside. I do not know if Mrs. Holt will serve me if you come in with me. And I have to get this medicine.”

  “Why wouldn’t she serve you? I’m an earl. I’m not accustomed to shopkeepers wanting me to stay outside.”

  An earl. “Oh dear God, please.”

  “And I believe you intend to slip out the back.”

  “Oh,” she sputtered. She shoved him aside and stalked toward the door. His boots cracked sharply against the floor behind her. A tiny bell tinkled. And the door in the back opened, and Mrs. Holt shuffled out. “You are late, my dear. What has kept you?” The woman peered from behind tangled curls of gray-brown hair. “Ah, I see what has. Well, my lord, you may wait in the corner.”

  Mrs. Holt knew this man was a peer. She shivered, but charged forward. “I need Sarah’s medicine.”

  “Of course.” Cackling, Mrs. Holt took the vial out from a small glass-fronted case behind the counter. It was the same size as the others. Only three days’ worth of doses.

  “Could you not give me more? Please, please. I’ll pay anything.”

  Gnarled hands pulled a shawl tighter. “Three. Or none at all.”

  “What is the price for the next one?” Like a canny whore, Mrs. Holt always demanded to be paid in advance of the drug. Equally intelligent, Vivienne had refused at first. Then Sarah had gotten so sick with a fever that climbed and climbed. Sarah had been about to die. And Vivienne had raced back here and promised to pay any price for the drug.

  Mrs. Holt had not asked for money or jewels. Instead, she had demanded Vivienne seduce the young, handsome Earl of Matlock.

  The woman had to be mad. But that night, distraught with fear for Sarah, Vivienne had put on a revealing gown, had found the young man in Covent Garden, and she had dazzled him until he couldn’t remember his own name. She had vowed she would never be a courtesan again, but she had seduced a man she didn’t even know, and their first encounter had been up against the theater wall.

  Mrs. Holt had given her enough of a dose for one day. And outlin
ed the “arrangement” they would have. If Vivienne slept with the man for a month, Mrs. Holt had promised, she would be given enough medicine for three days at a time. At the end of each vial, if not more often, she had to take her lover to carnal ecstasy—the price for the next allotment.

  It seemed madness. What possible payment could this be?

  What could Mrs. Holt gain from her sexual adventures with a string of young gentleman?

  But she had done it. Now those men—the five men who had been her lovers—were all dead. And an earl wanted to know what had happened to his brother.

  She wished she knew what the medicine contained. But she had taken it to a dozen apothecaries in London, and none could determine what was within it.

  Mrs. Holt inclined her head. “The price is the same as always.”

  “Who—who will it be?”

  Mrs. Holt glanced at the man waiting in the corner. And crooked her finger so Vivienne had to move closer. “His name is Lord Blackmoor,” she rasped. “This particular man will be very hard to seduce.”

  Vivienne lifted a brow. She had yet to find the man who could resist her. She knew every erotic trick there was. Once upon a time, she had wished she could engage in them for love. But all that mattered now was Sarah. She slipped the vial into a secret pocket inside her bodice. “I am very, very good at seduction. Where will I find this gentleman?”

  “Oh, this one you won’t find, dearie.”

  Vivienne gritted her teeth. “Then how do I seduce him? Mrs. Holt, do not play with me, not with Sarah’s life at stake. If she dies, I—” Her heart screamed with pain. She was tired of this witch’s games. She hated this woman who controlled her like a puppet by dangling Sarah’s life in front of her eyes.

  “He will find you. I believe, in fact, he already has.”

  2

  He had been transformed into the undead by drinking a quart of blood from a stranger’s neck, had been given a demonic curse, and condemned his brother to endless darkness, yet this almost knocked Heath off his feet.

  The voluptuous blond woman was supposed to seduce him, as payment to this old crone for the vial of medicine. And the blonde was the seductive beauty he had seen in the pool with Raine. The one who had slithered down his own body in the reflection and taken him into her hot mouth.

  With his heightened vampiric senses, he’d heard the entire conversation from the corner. Heard the blonde’s cool, crisp voice become angry, desperate, frantic, frightened. And the old woman answer her, brimming with power, confidence, and the damn perverse amusement he’d discovered permeated the demon world.

  The old woman wasn’t mortal. She could shield her thoughts from him.

  Just as the blond beauty he’d rescued could. He’d tried to open the gates to her mind and read her thoughts, but he had seen nothing but a void. Which meant her thoughts were blocked to him, and apparently not to Julian.

  None of this made sense. But as the blonde shoved past him and ran out the door, Heath had time for one swift glance back at the apothecary’s mistress. She smiled at him, a smile that flashed surprisingly white teeth. He moved to her in the blink of eye, but when he reached her untidy counter, she was gone.

  What did this woman know about him? Obviously a few things. Why else would she warn he would prove hard to seduce? After all, he carried a curse—one that prevented him from ever gracing any woman’s bed twice.

  He’d heard the blonde ask what the price would be this time. Did it mean she had seduced other men for the medicine? Was it too mad to speculate she could be the one who seduced and killed the five peers? That his two quests were connected?

  “Let me go!”

  He jerked around as the blonde kicked wildly at Julian’s shins. He had to intervene. Julian, the pup, didn’t yet know his own strength, and he’d grasped the woman’s arm so hard, she had dropped to her knees. The younger vampire was white faced and looked ready to rip out his own heart in remorse.

  Heath stalked out the door, letting it slam in his wake. He could return to the apothecary later. “Let her go, Julian. And love”—he turned to the blond woman—”don’t try to run. I warn you it will be a futile gesture. I’ll catch you again. Easily. You told me you’re desperate to return to your daughter, so I’ll take you there. In my carriage.”

  Her chin went up, but her eyes flicked around, seeking escape. Her mind was still eerily closed to him. And he didn’t know why.

  “I have a carriage. I do not need your help.”

  He bowed before the trembling blonde. The woman must know she had no way out, but was only looking more fierce as a result.

  “This has nothing to do with help, my dear. You may not have noticed, but you are now my prisoner. Until I get the truth out of you, I’m not letting you go.”

  Her eyes widened with fury, snapping at him with blue fierceness. The same eyes he had seen in the reflection. “And who in hell do you think you are?” she demanded, all explosive fire.

  He didn’t play with fire anymore. He moved in the night, eternally cold, eternally dark, eternally deadened. “Ah, little one, you have no idea how apropos your question is. But haven’t you guessed? I’m Blackmoor. The man you are supposed to bed. Now, tell me who you are.”

  The girl in the giant bed looked fragile. Like one of the porcelain dolls his daughter had treasured.

  Heath knew pain again, a swift, sharp slice of it. He knew what it was like to lose a child. Meredith. His daughter. Someone he had vowed to keep safe forever, to protect from everything. When he’d first held his little girl in his arms, he had vowed she would never even have anything to pout about.

  And now she was gone.

  All he had were memories, but they were laden with pain and guilt, like thorny briars twisted around his heart. Memories, for a vampire destined to live for eternity, were tenuous things that slowly drifted away.

  The blonde pushed past him, crossing the bedroom with soft, swift steps. She sat on the edge of the bed and tenderly stroked her daughter’s pale face. Real lines dragged at her lush mouth, not ones she had painted on. “Sarah? I have your medicine, dear. Let’s help you to sit up so you can drink it.”

  Heath folded his arms across his chest. Retreated into shadow. He’d sent Julian back to the apothecary after he’d learned the blonde’s address. So he was alone here with the woman, her daughter, and her sleeping servants.

  He watched her. Ariadne used to touch their daughter this way, with a mother’s unique combination of love and firmness. It hurt like blazes to watch, but he couldn’t look away.

  “No,” came the plaintive cry from beneath a heavy counterpane and snow-white sheets. “It’s horrid. Don’t want anymore. Hate it. Hate it.”

  Her mother tried for a soothing smile. But her lips wobbled. Tendrils of blond hair cascaded down her neck. She was a beautiful woman. At this moment, holding her daughter’s hand, she shimmered like an angel.

  “Well, we do not have a choice, Sarah.” He heard the sharp rise in her heartbeat. She was terrified for her child. “You must take it. To get well.”

  To stay alive.

  He could not hear the thought, but he could guess it. She hadn’t given him her real name when she had finally given it to him in his carriage. My name is—is Mrs. Tate, she had said. She had been too distracted, too filled with fear for her daughter to lie convincingly.

  On their way up here, he’d let her go ahead while he examined invitations left on a table beside the door. She was Vivienne Dare.

  He remembered there had been a beautiful courtesan known as Miss Dare. Bosomy. Elegant. Lovely. The type of enticing, voluptuous temptress who made a gentleman so desperate to get her, he would sell his soul to have her in his bed. Or, at the very least, bankrupt his estate.

  One night with her and a man was said to be addicted to her forever. No other woman could ever measure up. Heath had been married then, faithful to his wife, and he had been traveling the world. So he hadn’t paid much attention. But he could understand why Miss
Dare was said to be so addictive. She had a demon’s lure.

  Now she had a dying daughter. And from the look of the young girl’s elegantly appointed bedchamber, Vivienne Dare possessed fantastic wealth.

  So what had she wanted with Raine? She wouldn’t have gotten a soul from him. Or even expensive gifts.

  “Come on, angel.” Miss Dare helped her daughter sit up. She clucked and coaxed like a mother hen.

  He liked this view of Miss Dare. Her skirts were tucked beneath her generous bottom. In profile, her nose was an adorable little curve, her cheeks softly sculpted. Her mouth was truly enticing. It never stayed still.

  Miss Dare poured fluid from the vial to a silver spoon and replaced the stopper. Her daughter was an ethereal beauty. Long golden hair spilled around the pretty, faery-like face. She had big blue-green eyes, a button of a nose, and funny little pointed ears that made her look like a wee elf. But she must be at least sixteen, if not older. She was so thin, he’d thought her younger at first.

  Miss Dare wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Her face took on the lines of a mother’s sorrow, even as she forced another soft smile to her lips. “It won’t be so bad. A quick swallow. Then we’ll give you a cup of chocolate, and you’ll have something sweet to drink.”

  “Don’t … want … chocolate. Want … want sleep. Darkness. Please.” The girl clutched her mother’s arms. Stared up with blank, stricken eyes.

  He heard Miss Dare’s heart skip a beat. Whatever her daughter meant, she had not said these words before. And Miss Dare was scared.

  “Open up and one quick swallow and it’s all done.” Miss Dare slipped in the spoonful of medicine.

  The girl struggled. Sputtered. But, with maternal firmness, Miss Dare held her daughter’s jaw closed, so the child had no choice but to swallow. Then she put her palm to her daughter’s pale forehead.