by Sharon Page
Miranda peered out of the window. If you are there, Lord Blackthorne, run for your life.
She hated herself for bringing doom to him. She might belong with vampires and demons, but Blackthorne did not deserve to die.
She’d fallen in love with him through his wonderful, lyrical, passionate letters. How could she be bringing such danger to a man she loved?
Could Lukos and Zayan read her thoughts—her most private thoughts? Fear that they were privy to her plea to Blackthorne made her head jerk up. Lukos’s mirror-like eyes met hers. A wicked grin showed his fangs, and he cocked his head. The oddest look crossed his face; it was as though he was waiting on her invitation. He wanted her, she could recognize his lust, but he wasn’t simply getting up and taking what he wanted.
Shivering, she shook her head. She was furious. They might say she belonged with them, but she didn’t. She didn’t. They were demons at the core, willing to kill and destroy. She could never be like that.
Miranda hugged her chest with her arms, and with a shrug, Lukos turned his attention to the window. That amazed her. Why would he leave her alone when he wanted her? Both he and Zayan were now behaving like well-mannered gentlemen.
Fingers of cloud slid across the first turret of the castle, an imposing construction of tooled gray stone. She had read gothic novels, the horrid novels. Blackthorne’s castle looked like the sort of eerie mausoleum that would be filled with ghosts and should be forever tainted by evil deeds.
She shook off the fancy. It was a fortified home, a place of refuge. People had, no doubt, died in it, both violently and not, but it was Blackthorne’s home, and it should have been his sanctuary. And she was taking that from him by bringing vampires.
The carriage rattled relentlessly onward, taking her demonic escorts to Blackthorne’s refuge. Rumors about Blackthorne had swirled through the London ballrooms, passed behind the fans of experienced matrons, beautiful widows, and unmarried ladies who skirted the very edges of propriety.
“They say that he no longer comes to town because he was so hideously wounded,” the women would whisper. “He knows no lady will love him—he is terrifying to behold—so he hides in his castle. And since he knows he can never have a bride, he has embraced the darkest, most scandalous erotic practices….”
“Orgies involving dozens of women.”
“A dungeon filled with shackles in which he would imprison maidens of the nearby village. He would take their innocence and pay their families for their silence, and the girls would never return home….”
Staring at the castle through the jiggling window, Miranda could almost believe the foolish rumors. But she didn’t. The matrons were angered that Blackthorne eschewed London society, and the haute volée adored nasty, titillating gossip. Surely such a madman would reveal himself in his letters. But what she had seen in his letters was a man who longed to have someone to talk to. Someone to treat him as human…
She had understood what he’d felt.
“So you intend to marry the man who keeps this place?” Elegantly sprawling across the seat opposite, Lukos grinned. His hair streamed down along his face, coasting over his high cheekbones. The lock of black with the white streak brushed across his sculpted lips, making him look more of a fallen angel than a brutal demon.
She’d hoped to. She couldn’t hope for that anymore. She looked to Lukos and remembered feeling bold and daring just hours ago, when she’d—she’d sat on top of him. Now, she felt empty and forlorn. Even though her heart pattered at his handsome face and his teasing tone, she now remembered exactly what he was: a demon. Her stomach was her barometer here, and it felt full of knots. “Please don’t hurt Lord Blackthorne,” she whispered. “He doesn’t deserve to be killed just because…because I decided to come here.”
“You ask me to willingly spare a strong, healthy meal?” The grin widened and her stomach gave a great dip, but in the next moment, Lukos’s smile faded. His expression became one of weariness. “Sweetheart, he will fight us. He will not just welcome us into his home. We will have to force our way in.”
“But why?” she cried. “Why do you have to come here? Can’t you take the carriage and continue? Isn’t that enough?”
“Not any longer.” Lukos’s deep growl rumbled over her.
She turned to Zayan, who sat imperiously beside her. His face was set with the stillness of a statue, lips drawn into a hard line, ruthlessness in his silvery eyes. Even in the close confines of the carriage, it was as though he were looking over the sea of his troops to the battlefield.
Miranda reached for the door. The forest sloped away on either side from the narrow, winding dirt road. She could run through the trees. The vampires would chase her, but it would buy her time to think of some way to protect—
The door handle suddenly grew burning hot. With a squeal, she pulled her hand away.
Zayan’s lip curled in impatience. “I don’t have time to let you flee. We need to have the castle under our control before dawn.”
“But why? You must know you can’t keep it.” She squared her shoulders, infuriated by the amused quirk of Lukos’s lips. “You will be attacked by more people than the mob that came with torches—people who will fight with every weapon they have. You will end up being destroyed.”
Warmth curled over her cheek, cupping its curve. It was like the brush of a man’s finger, but nothing was there. It was magic conjured by Zayan, and she sat rigidly, fighting the way her skin heated at the phantom caress. Her fingers still hurt from the heat Zayan had unleashed on the door handle, and she would not let his magic defeat her will.
The carriage creaked up the path. Stones scuttled out from the wheels. The horses strained to make ground.
“You don’t belong with Blackthorne,” Zayan said. “You belong with me, Miranda.”
Lukos stretched his long limbs. She saw the graceful movement of the wolf in the way he almost shook out his legs. “No, sweetheart, you will belong to me.” A feral gleam came to his eyes as he looked to Zayan. “I intend to claim her, Roman, and I’ll rip out your throat to do it.”
The soft magic stroking of her cheek ceased.
She glanced out the window again. The rough path had left the trees behind and had opened out onto the rocky hill. The turrets of the castle seemed to be hanging over them. Its bulk blotted out the stars.
“Rip out my throat, dog?” Zayan snarled in return. “I could blast you into dust where you sit.”
The castle wall loomed ahead, the gates thrown open. Blackthorne told her that he could leave his door wide open at night and no one would walk in. Every one feared him—the entire village, and most of England. No one can see past disfigurement, he’d written. They see scars and think the man inside is scarred. Scarred, healed badly, and ruined forever.
She had to do something before they crossed through the gate.
“Stop!” she screamed.
The carriage continued on, but the bickering stopped, and she had to turn her attention from the window and the gate that was only yards away, to face the vampires. Her chest rose with her frantic breaths.
“If you promise to stop, to leave Blackthorne alone,” she cried, “I will let you both do what you want to me. If you want to compete for me, if you want to do carnal things to me and try to seduce me, you can. I won’t fight. But we must stop. And turn back. On the way down, you can…”
“We can what?” Lukos prompted.
“You are in no position to bargain,” Zayan said arrogantly, and she saw one of the gateposts fly past the window as the horses were urged to greater speed.
“Then I’ll fight,” she spat out. “With every weapon I have.”
But she knew what she had to do. As soon as they reached the main door, as soon as there were servants about, she would have to sound the alarm.
Even if she died.
Lukos inhaled a long breath as the wheels crunched on gravel. “The heavy perfume of whores, it permeates the place.”
Miranda gap
ed at him. Could he really smell that? Was it true? She could smell only the damp in the air, the loamy scent of wet earth, the tang of her sweat and other indecent things….
“Heartbeats…but not many.” Zayan stroked his blunt, strong jawline. “There should be more in a house of this size.”
Her heart sank. Blackthorne had revealed in his letters that he kept only a handful of servants, and most were old. The younger ones were driven by curiosity and that infuriated him. How could a few elderly servants stop vampires? She was going to be responsible for all their deaths too.
Zayan’s hand settled on her shoulder and she jumped at the sudden tingling sensation as his fingertips rested on the skin of her neck.
It was not a reaction of fear…
It was one of heat and awareness…her traitorous body responding to his magical allure.
“Keep our secret and no one will be hurt.” His voice was cold and without emotion.
“If you were a general, you’ve killed thousands in battle. You’ve killed probably thousands more as a vampire. I don’t believe you.”
“If you race in there and tell everyone what we are, what will happen?” Lukos leaned across to her. “You will be locked up, and we’ll take the castle with ease. I would not leave you in a prison, my sweet, but I will take this castle for my own. With bloodshed or without.”
“Without? You mean you would spare Blackthorne and his servants?” Miranda could read nothing in Lukos’s silvery eyes, but his brow lifted.
“You can take us across the threshold. Otherwise, we tempt them outside and destroy them one by one. The choice is yours, angel, not mine.”
“The hand that strikes people down will be yours!” she shouted. But she knew that she was the only one who could stop violence and death, so that did make her responsible for innocent lives.
The carriage halted with creaking wheels and the jingle of the traces playing into the windswept quiet.
There were no servants about, and her coachman and outriders began to unload her trunks and unfasten the horses. Here the wind raced over the barren rock and snapped around the sides of the tower to whirl and eddy in the courtyard. Her bonnet was gone and her disordered curls were tossed over her face.
What must she look like? Mussed hair? Dirt from the inn’s yard streaked her face; she felt the crusts of it on her chin and forehead, and the itch of sweat irritated beneath her corset.
Any servant looking at her would dismiss her in an instant.
But Lukos had already strode to the large oak door and he’d rapped on it loud enough to waken the dead. She had to race forward, with Zayan at her side.
The castle door was flung wide and a grizzled face leaned forward to examine them. The butler wore black, which made him appear as thin as an arrow. Moonlight caught the silver in his thinning gray hair. “The master is not at home.”
Miranda both sagged in relief and gagged in fear. She’d come all this way, she’d read the yearning for her in Blackthorne’s last letter, and he was gone?
Lukos’s silvery eyes glinted. In the shadows, his lips drew back to reveal his fangs—
“No!” Miranda lurched forward toward the butler. She had to make a choice. What to do? She either convinced him to let her and the vampires cross the threshold, or she screamed out what Zayan and Lukos were.
The old eyes peered at her. She prayed he couldn’t see well enough to realize she looked as though she’d been dragged through a hedge.
“I am Miss Miranda Bond. I have been corresponding with Lord Blackthorne for several years and I came here…at…at his invitation.”
The man bowed. “I am so sorry, my lady. Sometimes the master is driven to leave. We never have visitors. He left in haste.”
“Where did he go?” She spoke without thinking.
There was no answer. Either the servant did not know where Blackthorne was or he was loyal and circumspect.
“I do not understand,” she said. “How could you not know where he has gone?”
“It is not unusual, my lady. His lordship travels frequently. He does not inform us as to where he travels, and we rarely know when he plans to return.”
So Blackthorne was safe, at least. But to vanish without telling anyone where he was going? And he did so frequently? This was the gentleman she had wanted to love, this was the sanctuary she had wanted to believe in…and all she found was a mystery. “We shall have to go to the local inn—”
She saw Lukos’s hand raise. Oh, heavens no, he was going to use his magic to overpower the butler’s will—or perhaps kill him outright.
The butler gave an expansive wave of his hand to the large, tomblike foyer of the castle. “No, no, my lady. You are to be a guest at Blackthorne Castle, as are your companions.”
Guilt struck at the thought of what this hospitality was risking, but Lukos and Zayan were already across the threshold. She hurried to walk in step as they followed the servant within.
“There,” she whispered. “You are guests here. You don’t need to hurt anyone now, do you? You won’t have to feed on anyone.”
Lukos was the one to turn, to smile down on her. Torchlight cast him in eerie shadow. “I’ll hunt beyond the castle walls to feed. For you, sweetheart. But what about when the slayer brings his mob to the castle gates, love? How will you explain that to Blackthorne’s gullible servants?”
Tapestries displayed the Blackthorne crest, two dragons of royal blue against a background of red and gold. Blackthorne had described his home with love, though he admitted a woman would find it a draughty disaster.
She glanced around. Just a week ago, she had dreamed of coming here and bringing warmth and light to Blackthorne’s world. And when she’d left yesterday, she was racing here to protect her family, and because she had nowhere else to go.
The butler carried a candle to light the way. The light flickered over tooled stone and was lost in the tall ceiling of the corridor. They mounted a sweeping stair, and she was caught between Lukos and Zayan, two raven-haired giants.
Along the way a maid was sent to bring other servants on the run, to light fires and bring bathing water, and to inform the kitchens.
“Your chamber, my lady.” An oak door opened to reveal a massive four-poster bed, an enormous fireplace, and heavily carved furniture.
She glanced from one vampire to another. Without a word, she hurried inside the room. As the voice of the butler moved on, she peeked out. Blast, her vampires were being given rooms by hers in the long hallway. She closed the door and turned the key.
Then took several frantic breaths.
Would they leave her alone in her bedchamber?
She hugged herself and went to the window. Small and paned, it gave out on a sheer drop to the forest below. She’d never survive that if she fell, and there was nowhere to climb. There was no route to escape.
A rap at the door, followed by a female voice. Miranda took the risk and opened the lock.
A gray-haired maid brought in a ewer of fresh, steaming water and a basin. Her trunks followed, brought by an aging footman and a man in a rough shirt and breeches. He must be a groom or a gardener. They dropped the trunks, then rubbed their backs on the way out. The maid curtsied. “Would you wish me to begin hanging your dresses, my lady?”
“No, I want you to escape the house and go to the village. It’s not safe to stay here. Take the other servants with you.”
She expected shock, but the maid looked at her blankly. “I will go and come back if you need me.”
Already, the vampires had the poor woman under control. Miranda’s shoulders sagged. She wanted to command the maid to stay, but she had already hastened out the door. Alone, Miranda undid the few fastenings of her simple traveling dress—now a dirty, crumpled mess. She pulled it off, over her head, but without a maid, she could not loosen her own corset laces.
She prayed that the weak, defenseless woman did not end up being a meal for Lukos or Zayan. She went to the ewer of water the maid had brought and t
hrew the warm water on her face. It dripped to her neck and she rubbed there.
Now, away from the vampires, she couldn’t understand why she had ever thought she belonged with them.
The doorknob rattled. Miranda jerked around.
The key turned in the lock by itself and the door opened.
Zayan leaned on the doorframe, his hands bare of gloves. He had discarded his coat. A white shirt, open at the throat, clung to his shoulders.
“Leave my bedroom.” She held her linen towel against her breasts, thrust up by the corset and covered only by a filmy chemise. Defiantly, she added, “I do not invite you across my threshold.”
“You climaxed with me. Your invitation has already been extended.”
She flushed. “That was when I was trying to save your soul.”
But he strode inside, to her bed, with an arrogance that was as heightened as his strength. He stretched out on her bedcover. His muscular legs easily reached to the end and his black boots hung over the edge.
“What do you want from me?” She strained to read his thoughts. She knew he wouldn’t answer aloud, but if he thought of it, she might hear it again. But she heard nothing. “You want my power, I know, but why? I can’t give it to you. I don’t even know what to do with it.”
Zayan levered up on his side, his eyes glittering in the flicking light of the fire and the candles. “You felt at your most comfortable having orgasms with Lukos and me. You felt finally alive, didn’t you?”
I need her love.
She heard that small hint at his thoughts, and it stunned her. She did not know what to make of it—or the determined tone in which the words came to her. “I think I was controlled by the magic,” she said.
“Not true.” His grin slid over her from mussed hair and damp face down to her dirtied boots. “What you felt is what is truly inside you, Miranda. A passionate nature. A sensual soul. A yearning to explore and to be free in sexual pleasure.”