by Lily Harlem
“In the name of Benedict, what the hell have you just done?” Aimery said, pushing past Ryle to look at Sean. “Was it really necessary to kill him?”
“Yeah,” Ryle said with a languid smile. “Bastard was just about to take out our Bombay. Got what he deserved.”
Aimery glanced at me. “Her name is Beatrice.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant.” Ryle tossed Sean’s big body into the van. He landed next to me with his arms lying oddly and his head stretched back unnaturally. There were two black holes, side by side, on his neck. The tiniest trickle of crimson blood seeped out of one and ran in a skinny drip over his skin.
“Ah, fuck,” I squealed, scrambling to the door. “That’s really fucking freaky, you know. Anyone would think you were vampires.”
I willed my heart to steady, for it was trip-trapping alarmingly. Think rationally. Of course they weren’t vampires, and it was even more absurd to think that they were members of a worshipful company of vampires. My imagination had really got carried away this time. It was ridiculous.
I was ridiculous.
A tense silence hung in the air.
They both stared at me.
My God, they weren’t bloody denying it.
I jumped to my feet and despite shaking all over, I studied Ryle, looking for fangs. There were none.
Suddenly my peripheral vision started to blur, small black dots floated before me. I could hardly breathe, my chest was so tight, the air so cold. I grabbed my throat, wondering why it was constricting. Fear tore through me. I was going to die.
“Hey, hey, calm down.” Aimery reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s okay. Ryle was protecting you. You are perfectly fine.”
I gasped for air. A pitiful amount dribbled into my lungs.
“Shh, you’re making yourself hyperventilate,” he said. “Take it easy. You are safe. I give you my word. Nothing will or can harm you, I promise.”
“We promise,” Ryle added.
I dragged in a sudden, sharp lungful of air. It was harsh and frosty and nipped my throat.
“That’s it, nice slow, deep breaths,” Aimery soothed. “Good girl, you’re absolutely fine now. We’re here.”
My cheeks felt numb and my fingertips tingled. I wasn’t sure how long I could stand up. “I’m really glad Ryle came…when he did, but…” It was hard to get the words out. My air intake was limited and I didn’t know whether to shout or scream or break down and sob. “But that, seeing him… Shit.” I pointed at Ryle, who stood with his arms hanging loosely at his sides. “He looks like the blokes on that macabre tapestry hanging on the wall outside your office. They’re vampires, aren’t they? That’s what you are.”
“We are from an ancient order with customs and traditions I have yet to explain,” Aimery said, pulling me against his bare chest. “Ryle did what he needed to when he found himself without a weapon and a man about to hurt what is his.”
“His?” I was Ryle’s now? My knees were weak, my spine felt like dust and my vision was foggy.
I slumped and Aimery locked his arms around me and held me up. The support was welcome, as was his cinnamon, slightly soapy smell that replaced the metallic tang of blood in the air. His reassuring presence seemed to transport me from the horror, soothe my soul and make everything okay. In spite of the fact he hadn’t denied that he was a vampire, Aimery made me feel safe.
Shit, that word again. Vampire. My throat tightened and my belly lurched.
“Keep taking deep breaths,” Aimery murmured against my temple. “It is all okay now. You are quite safe.”
“Yeah, thanks to me,” Ryle said. “Where were you, Aimery?”
“I was bathing, it just took me a few seconds to pull on my trousers.” He rubbed his hand up my back and rested it protectively over my head, stroking my hair.
I hugged him a little tighter. He wore only suit pants and his skin felt chilly against my cheek.
“Well, your delay nearly lost us everything. It’s a good job I was keeping an ear to the ground.”
“Yes, it was.” There was both gratitude and irritation in Aimery’s voice. “But what the hell are you going to do about this mess?”
“Me?” Ryle sounded put out.
“Yes, you. You need to decide where you’re going to dump the body and then get on with it.”
The body.
Sean really was dead, then.
I lifted my head and looked up into Aimery’s dark eyes. “I…I didn’t like the bloke but…seeing him die, now dead…” I swallowed tightly. The terror of what Sean had nearly subjected me to made my innards clench.
“Shh.” Aimery smoothed his hand down my cheek. “He had what was coming to him. Ryle wouldn’t have reacted the way he did if this had been a good man.”
“He was going to bind you, take you out onto the heath, then rape you,” Ryle said, wiping his hand over his chin and smearing the blood further. “He would have murdered you once he’d messed up your body with those knives so badly you were no good to him any more.” He shrugged. “He got off lightly as far as I’m concerned.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, shuddering.
“Sometimes I have daydreams, like visions. I can see into people’s future if I try hard enough. That was how I knew he was tailing you. I’d been thinking of you and he popped into my mind. He was right behind you, pressing in tight and trapping you against the railings.”
I glanced at the body, shivered and thought how different this moment would be if it weren’t for the bloodied, animalistic man standing before me. There was no doubt in my mind Ryle had just saved my life. He may have weird vampire tendencies, and certainly seeing into the future was also pretty odd, but the facts spoke for themselves. The set of knives lying next to Sean was, thankfully, not going anywhere near me and I was on the whole unharmed.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Ryle grinned, a ghoulish, blood-smeared smile. “You’re welcome.”
“Come on,” Aimery said, tugging me away from the van and glancing left and right. “We shouldn’t push our luck. Get him the hell out of here, Ryle, and for crying out loud clean yourself up, you are always so bloody messy.”
“Sure thing.” Ryle peeled off his t-shirt and started scrubbing his face with it. “I’ll catch you both later, before chambers.”
Chapter Six
I was in a daze as Aimery led me along the icy street to the Worshipful Company of the Ancient Order. Through my fudged thoughts I wondered about the wisdom of heading into what I was now pretty damn sure was the home of vampires. But like yesterday, intense curiosity took over. Plus I was still pretty shaken and the tea and warmth Aimery had promised me was very inviting.
Instead of going the back way, as I had before, we went up the front steps. Aimery opened the door and urged me into a high-ceilinged hallway. The walls were sectioned in half by a wooden dado rail. Beneath was painted startling red and above the rail a pale cream. The floor was parquet and another huge door ahead was of the same dark, almost black, polished wood.
A woman sat at an empty desk. She was stunningly beautiful, immaculately made up and wore a scarlet blouse that matched her lipstick. She smiled warmly.
“Aimery,” she said. “So glad you remembered to come back for your clothes.”
“Very funny, Samree,” he said, his tone light. “Do you have the register?”
“Here.” She placed a thick leather-bound book on the desk and added a feather-tipped pen next to it.
“All visitors must sign into the Company,” Aimery said, gesturing to the book.
I hadn’t yesterday.
Something in Aimery’s tone told me not to mention that and I suddenly felt I’d been sneaked in before. Like I was special. “Oh okay,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to write because my hands were still shaking and I was bitterly cold.
Aimery must have sensed this for he opened the page and held the pen out to me, then he rested a hand on the sm
all of my back as I leaned forward to write my full name and date of birth.
“Mmm, you’re wearing an unusual perfume,” Samree said, her head twitching upward as though catching my scent in the air.
“Am I?” I asked, setting the pen down. I couldn’t recall adding any perfume when I’d dressed hours ago.
“She works at the market,” Aimery said, “as a butcher.”
“Ah, I see.” Samree nodded. “Yes. That explains it.”
Oh God, she was one too. The heightened senses of smell and constant curiosity about my scent gave it away.
It was all clicking into place for me, though oddly I didn’t feel afraid of Samree. Her smile was pleasant, her manner polite and Aimery was clearly at ease with her.
“Come, this way.” Aimery linked his fingers with mine and urged me through the next big door. “I was going to show you around today, but maybe later, right now I think you need to recover from your ordeal.”
I couldn’t agree more. I felt high on adrenaline and jazzed up on the enormity of my new discovery.
Vampires. Yesterday I’d kissed a vampire, more than that, I’d actually considered getting raunchy with him. Had I been dropped into an alternative universe right here in central London?
Wondering where my sanity had gone, I glanced around the vacant lobby I was now standing in. Surely I could find a shred of common sense amongst this madness.
Yes, I had it. “Do you think we should call the coppers?” I asked. “I mean Ryle was protecting me, if we just explained what happened…”
Aimery stopped at the base of a magnificent staircase and stared down at me. Over his shoulder a stone sculpture of a bearded man in a ragged cape glared at us. I couldn’t help but have a quick look for fangs in his snarling, marble mouth. There were none.
“The police?” Aimery repeated, frowning.
“Yes. I think maybe we should—”
“The Order would never allow the police to become involved.”
“But…?”
“We deal with our own problems here, Beatrice. That is how it has always been and always will be.” He turned and pointed at the statue. “That is Benedict. He is the founder of this company, a forward-thinking, modern man of his day.”
He didn’t look very modern. He looked like a caveman. “And his day was?”
“Long before the police force were even thought of, which is why nothing in his directives alludes to them. As far as we are concerned they do not exist, and one of my jobs here as executive lawyer is to smooth out any issues we have with them.”
“But they do exist.” I was gobsmacked. “They uphold the law in our country. I’ll admit I’ve tangled in a couple of dodgy dealings over the years, it gets like that on the market, but basically I’m pretty glad they’re there.”
His face darkened. “And did they come to your rescue just now on Smokehouse Yard when that evil thug decided he wanted to rape and murder you?”
“Well, no.”
Aimery sighed softly. “And who did?” He tilted my chin with his index finger, dropped his face so that his mouth was a whisper from mine.
“Ryle,” I said, resting my hands on his bare chest. His skin was smooth and hard, like polished wood.
“Exactly, and if he hadn’t been there I would have taken Sean out of the equation. I was less than a minute behind Ryle.”
“You mean you would have bitten him?” I was shocked at the thought of Aimery behaving in the same gruesome way Ryle had, but I was also oddly fascinated. Did Aimery have fangs?
“As a member of the world’s most ancient order, yes, I too could have drained the life from Sean.”
There was a sudden bang from a corridor to our left, like a door slamming, then approaching voices.
“We should hurry,” Aimery said, scooping me up into his arms.
I gasped and locked my hands behind his neck as I was lifted high. “Why?”
“You do not have the strength to be the center of attention.”
“Why would I be?”
He was striding up the staircase now, two steps at a time, and carrying me as though I weighed nothing. “It is a long time since other members have seen me with a woman, Beatrice. They will be intrigued to know what it is about you that has caught my attention.”
“And what is it that has caught your attention?” I asked as he passed through a small corridor toward another set of stairs.
“Do you even need to ask?”
Yes, actually, I did. “Is it my Bombay blood? Is that why you like me?”
“No, of course not.” There was genuine frustration in his voice. “Why would you even think that, Beatrice?”
“Because I thought you were helping me find Denny, and then you drank blood from my finger and kissed me.” I swung my legs, demanding to be put down. Suddenly it was all too much. “And then Ryle knew about it too and he was pretty damn vocal about saying he wanted a piece of me.”
Aimery ignored my wriggling. “Your blood group is merely a genetic predisposition, Beatrice. I am attracted to your loyalty, your bravery, the fact you clearly don’t mind working like a man yet you are a slip of a woman. There are a million things to like about you other than your blood group, and that is only after knowing you for a few brief hours.”
I couldn’t deny I felt the same about Aimery. There was a lot of stuff to like about him too, not least of which was his fantasy-inducing body. I stilled my wriggling. “I just feel really confused about everything, you know. And I think I’ve just seen Denny. In one of the houses back there where Sean attacked me, so maybe I should go and—”
Aimery shoved open the door next to the sinister battlefield tapestry and I realized I was back in his office.
“You saw Denny?” He allowed the door to slam but made no move to set me on my feet.
“Yes, through a window. He was…” I hesitated and stilled.
The silence of the room wrapped around me. There was no fire lit today, it was cool and quiet, dimly lit too, the curtains barely open.
“He was what, Beatrice? Tell me.”
“He was having sex. A, er, a blowjob.”
Aimery raised his eyebrows and a smile tugged at his mouth. “Ah, I see, and did he look like he was enjoying himself?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Then perhaps Denny doesn’t want to be found. If he is happy, in love and feeling satisfied.”
“But he would have told me if he’d met someone, I’m sure of it.”
As I spoke I became aware of my body pressing against Aimery’s. Through my coat my right breast was mashed against his firm pectorals, and his arms were scooped behind my thighs and in the small of my back. Thoughts of sex, sex with Aimery filled my mind and I had a sudden desire to be intimate with him like Denny had been with his lover.
I wanted to take Aimery’s cock into my mouth, toy with the tip and sink deep, so deep that he shoved his fingers into my hair and groaned wild and abandoned. The thought of hearing him like that, shaken from his pristine manners, laid open and bare-boned to pleasure was an aphrodisiac in itself.
He touched his lips to mine. “Perhaps Denny has found the type of love that is all-consuming. Maybe desire has taken over his world and he cannot think of anyone or anything else.”
I was a little breathless from the way Aimery was looking at me, with those bottomless eyes of his and all his concentration focused on me. Desire was beginning to take over my world. Confused thoughts, fears and questions slipped to the back of my mind. Aimery was all I could focus on.
“Have you ever felt like that, Beatrice? Like you just can’t think of anything but being with that one person, forever, for all of time?”
“No, no I haven’t.”
He kissed me again, hotter, deeper. His mouth was soft and supple against my lips and his tongue strong and confident but somehow restrained too.
I ran my fingers into his thick hair and kissed him back with urgency. It had been so long since I’d been in bed with a man and
never one like Aimery. He was vital and strong, self-assured and, and dare I admit it, a vampire.
“Mmm,” he said, pulling back and dragging in a deep breath. “Sweeter than morning rain,” he murmured. “But you need warming up.”
“Yes.” I could think of several rather delicious ways he could warm me up.
Still carrying me, he strode past his desk and using his foot nudged open another door.
“Blimey,” I said, staring at the large four-poster bed in the middle of the adjoining room. It was draped with medieval-style linens and piled high with tasseled pillows in shades of plum and gold. “Kind of snazzy to have a bedroom in your office.”
“I live here,” he said, finally setting me on my feet. “For me work is life.” He gestured to a roaring fire set in a huge stone hearth. “Please, warm yourself. I will make you a cup of strength-giving tea.”
I walked over to the fire, enjoying the pleasant heat that stroked my cheeks and the warmth that wrapped around my shoulders. There was also hotness blooming between my legs, the pleasant temperature of arousal.
“Here.” He was behind me, holding out a black mug. “I’ve made it sweet.”
“Oh, that was quick, thanks.”
He nodded over to a small white kettle on a dresser. “It boiled earlier.” He watched as I took a sip.
“So did you find anything out about Denny that suggests I really could have seen him nearby?” I asked, dragging my attention from his small, erect nipples. They looked so lickable and I could just imagine how they would feel brushing over the tip of my tongue.
“Everything will be cleared up at session this evening.”
“Session?”
“Yes, each evening the Order meets in the Grand Chamber and discusses the events of the day.”
“What, like before they go home?”