Blood Deep

by Sharon Page

  He gave her a devil-may-care grin. “Love, call it what it is. Fear. I’m bloody afraid we’ll be destroyed if we walk out this door.”

  “By the vampire slayers?”

  He shook his head. Already the fog was seeping in through holes in the roof, and between cracks in the stacked and mortared stone. And the fog was scarlet again. “By this mist.”

  “The mist that you believe Zayan controls.”

  She saw him snap his fingers and summon a white light that whirled around him and became a linen shirt and trousers. His silence meant there was something he did not want to reveal.

  “Does Zayan control it?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know. I thought Zayan had summoned it, I don’t know if he controls it now. But it is drawn to you, Miranda. It wants you.”

  A shiver rippled down her spine. “Perhaps because I saved the children…No, that makes no sense. It led me to the children. It helped me save them.”

  He raked back his hair. “I think it wants your power.”

  “But what is it?” Then a thought struck her. “You were taught by Lucifer to control the weather. You could bring a fog to engulf a village, couldn’t you?”

  “I could. But I didn’t, angel.” Lukos scrubbed a hand over his square jaw. Around them, the blue light rippled, shimmering like a giant bubble. “I wonder if this has nothing to do with Zayan—if it is Lucifer’s work.”

  It was like being dropped in cold water. “How would Lucifer know about me?”

  “He knows about any being with power, love. He will have sensed you.”

  He spoke calmly, while her heart thumped against her ribs as though trying to get out. Lukos grasped her hand, threaded his fingers between hers. “We have to escape this place. Stay at my side, and you should be safe inside the shield.”

  Hours ago she would never have dreamed she would have gripped Lukos’s hand and trusted him. Making love to him had made her believe she could. The pure delicious intimacy of sex had made her feel they had a bond—a deep bond. We belong together, he’d said. But was she letting her heart rule her head?

  She had to keep that head level and thinking clearly. He told her Lucifer would know about her power. And he had admitted he’d served at the devil’s side. He could be intending to capture her for Lucifer—

  Thunk. The doors of the barn swung open—controlled by a snap of Lukos’s fingers. Miranda could see nothing but swirling mist. It seemed to rush toward her; then it struck the blue shield. Something shrieked, and that scream vibrated through her entire body.

  Lukos stopped and she stayed at his side, holding his hand. The fog rushed back and forth in front of them like a living being. Shadows took shape—into the round hollows of eye sockets, the holes where a nose should be, the wide “o” of a screaming mouth. In the fog, she saw a screaming face, a woman’s face.

  And as she screamed inside the shield, the face disappeared.

  “Come, love,” Lukos urged.

  “But to where? How can we escape this?”

  He halted. “Slayers nearby.” Another wry grin touched his beautiful mouth. “I can even hear the stretch of the crossbow strings.”

  Crossbow? “It must be Mr. Ryder—”

  “No, this slayer is also a vampire. And one I sired.”

  One he sired? She couldn’t have heard him properly. Just as she was asking, “How can a slayer also be a vampire?” a female voice cried, “Dear heaven, it’s Lukos!”

  The fog suddenly retreated with a whoosh of air that tore at their blue shield. It exploded and flew away on the wind. Helplessly, Miranda reached out to it, as though she could catch it and bring it back. With the fog gone, she saw they stood in a field, with the stone barn at their backs, and a few yards ahead was a copse of trees.

  In front of those trees stood two men and a woman. Each held a crossbow, with arrows loaded, and the silver points were trained on Lukos’s chest.

  Vampire slayers.

  This morning, when she’d been horrified to find the servants behaving like drones and she had saved the life of the child with the wounds in his neck, she would have been relieved to see vampire hunters. It would have meant rescue and safety.

  Lukos turned to her. A strange scent came to her, a sickly sweet smell, and she saw two men flanking the vampire slayers. They held lanterns and a strange smoke wafted out of those.

  “It’s called solange,” Lukos muttered. “The smoke created when the oil of the plant is burned drains the strength of vampires.”

  He staggered and had to lean back against the stone wall. He had to turn against it as daylight began to burn his cheeks. The men fingered the triggers of their bows. Miranda threw herself forward, directly in front of Lukos, between their weapons and the vampire’s heart. “Wait, no! Stop!”

  She saw the raised eyebrows of the two men—one with dark brown hair, the other with pale blond locks. A startled “o” formed on the woman’s mouth.

  Black haired and small, with a face filled with grim determination, the woman slayer took a step forward. “What madness is this? He is a vampire. Get out of the way, you silly fool.”

  But Miranda didn’t. She flung her arms out to the sides to make a better shield. “Put your weapons down,” she begged. Earlier, she had been determined to cause Lukos’s and Zayan’s destruction. But Lukos had helped her save children’s lives. And she’d made love with him. She could not do that, then step aside and let him be killed. She was lost already. She’d had sex with him once and had fallen in love.

  “Miranda, angel, come back here,” Lukos roared. With magic, he pulled her back against him, her heels dragging in the dirt. At the same instant, two bolts of red light fired past her on either side. The streaks of light hit the men and sent them sprawling back. Lukos’s arm wrapped around her waist. “We’ll fly on the wind.”

  They soared up, and as soon as they left the ground, the mist whirled in once more. Miranda looked back. The men were standing again and they were at the woman’s side. The female slayer had dropped her crossbow to her side. Her other hand rested on her stomach. Miranda saw what the voluminous skirts had hidden. She was very pregnant.

  The fog rushed in around the three vampire slayers, and Miranda heard their cries and saw them thrash helplessly in it. The woman’s scream pierced through the mist.

  Miranda turned her head to speak to Lukos. “We have to go back. The fog has done something to them.”

  “Go back to get shot? Those were the slayers who imprisoned me. They’d kill me in an instant. I am not going back.”

  She clawed at his arm, which gripped tightly around her, just below her breasts. “Then let me go.”

  “Stop trying to push my arm away. You’ll fall, you foolish chit.”

  “That woman was pregnant. I can’t let the fog hurt her and her unborn babe.”

  With the wind whistling in her ear, she heard his voice in her head—in the most intimate way they could communicate. How do you plan to stop it? Even I can’t. There’s nothing that can be done for Serena.

  Serena. He knew the woman’s name. Her Christian name, which implied an astonishing level of intimacy with someone who wanted him dead. She may be your enemy, but the baby is an innocent.

  And Miranda can never turn her back on an innocent.

  Derision and anger laced his voice, and it only infuriated her. Yes, mock me. Hate me for being mortal and emotional, and for wanting to save lives.

  To her astonishment, he suddenly banked and turned in the air. They were going back.

  “This is madness,” he shouted into the wind. “They belong to the Royal Society. They aren’t here to rescue you from vampires, love. They are here to destroy me and take you.”

  But still he was taking her back. Because she wanted it.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

  A dark shape swooped before them—a winged creature of shadow and mist. A red glow surrounded the giant wings. It rushed at them, and a forked tongue flicked out at them from between m
assive jaws. Small bolts of lightning shot from its red glowing eyes and streaked past them.

  The damned red mist again. Miranda knew she should be terrified. Instead, she was just fed up.

  Lukos had to dart from side to side to avoid the lightning bolts, and Miranda’s stomach plunged to her toes. They would whirl and spin, so one minute she could see the ground, then the creature, then the sky. Fog surrounded them and it seemed to paw at her. It was now blisteringly cold, like hundreds of frozen, clammy hands grasping at her.

  “Repel this beast with me,” Lukos growled by her ear. “I think we can combine our magic and do it.”

  “But I don’t know how to control my magic.”

  “Ask with me for the force of the wind to strike the creature and send it back.”

  “Oh, of course.” She had no idea how to do what he asked, but she tried.

  A sudden gust of wind hit the creature and sent it careening away through the mist. But, with a howl, it flew back at them.

  Think of shielding us, Lukos urged.

  She tried. She tried thinking of the blue shield, and she asked for safety and begged to be delivered from this nightmare. The blue lights reappeared. But the creature sliced through their shield with ease, and the blue bubble exploded into useless fragments. Lukos deftly plunged downward to avoid the beast, but the wing struck Lukos’s arm. The edge of it sliced through his shirt and blood spurted out into the air.

  The wings beat at them both. Magic, she shouted in her head, I need to send a bolt of magic to destroy this creature. Nothing happened. The creature circled around behind and she shouted “Lukos” in warning, but even though he tried to roll them away, the winged beast slammed into his back.

  They were falling—

  He was still holding her tight, but they were plunging through the fog, and the ground rushed at them, a sea of terrifying green.

  She saw the two male slayers running toward them. Toward the place they would hit the ground. But Lukos suddenly swooped, arcing away from the death that was hurtling up to her. Miranda screamed in surprise, but the wind sucked the cry from her lips. The wind slapped and tore at them as he tried to pull up from the plunge. They shot horizontally across the field; then he hit the grassy earth, and they both tumbled together.

  It seemed to take a lifetime before everything stopped moving.

  “Miranda, are you all right?”

  She was sprawled on top of Lukos. “Oh my god!” she cried. A branch had impaled his chest, at her side—on her right. It had not driven through his heart, but the pain must have been terrible. Yet Lukos merely lifted his brow in a wry grimace, then calmly pulled out the branch. The tip was bloody and, twisting his lips in irritation, he threw it aside.

  Her gaze locked on his. “Thank heaven,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure what she was thankful for. The fact they were alive? That the branch hadn’t pierced his heart? He had thrown himself to the ground first, to protect her.

  Miranda could not believe his strength. The way he’d pulled out the branch reminded her of what he was. A vampire, and an unfathomably powerful one. But one who wanted to keep her safe.

  Footsteps crunched through the grass as the slayers approached—they were still yards away.

  “You could escape.” Miranda had figured out the blunt truth. Without her, he could fly faster, or shift shape and run free.

  “I will not let you be hurt.”

  Then softly, through the rolling mist, Miranda heard a woman speak. “We must save her—if she cannot use her power on Althea’s baby, the child will surely die.”

  Lukos heard Serena’s voice—the voice of the woman he had thought was supposed to be his mate. It did not make the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up in anticipation and awareness the way Miranda’s did. Once he had thought that Serena Lark, the first child of a vampire and a fallen angel, would be the woman spoken of in the prophesy. The prophesy written by his father after, his father had claimed, he’d had a communion with God.

  He looked to Miranda and groaned. At once sympathy, uncertainty, and pain rose in her massive blue eyes. “They want me to rescue a child.”

  He’d felt a tumult of emotions in Serena’s words. Hatred for him had been the strongest, buffeting him in waves. As a demon, he could tap into a mortal’s emotions in the same way he could control their minds. But as he tried to reach further into Serena’s, Miranda shook his shoulder. “You must go.”

  “I am protecting you, woman, not the other way about. The child could be a trap. Or a way to find out what you can do before destroying you.”

  “It did not sound like that. She sounded truly afraid. I have to do it.”

  Miranda was struggling to break free of his grip and stand. The slayers would be upon them in an instant. He would not let the Royal Society take her.

  The bushes near them parted, and skirts appeared through the leaves. Lukos followed the view upward, until it stopped on a crossbow. It was the most intricate weapon he’d ever seen—it possessed forged pulleys and hinges to enhance the user’s strength. A woman held it. A gray-haired woman who wore a black pelisse, along with a black turban adorned with a long, white feather.

  “Release my niece,” the woman barked, and she leveled the sight line to her eye. She wasn’t afraid of him. He sensed she was ready to kill him, whether he let Miranda go or not.

  “Aunt Eugenia?” Miranda cried.

  He didn’t want to let Miranda go. But he was now surrounded. Two other male slayers stepped out from behind the woman Miranda had called “Aunt Eugenia.” And within moments, Serena, Drake Swift, and Lord Sommersby would find him.

  He had sired Drake Swift. That was how he had sensed the slayers earlier. And he knew Swift would use the same instinctive connection between sire and vampire to find him through the fog.

  He was as good as dust.

  Miranda gripped his arm. “Don’t shoot, Aunt! I’m safe, and he is not what you think—”

  Her aunt took a step closer. “Let him go. Move away from him, dear.”

  In a split second, Lukos made a decision. If he let Miranda go with the slayers, he would lose his chance to get her power. He would not be able to destroy Lucifer before his time ran out.

  But now, his time had run out.

  He had to let her go. He felt her trust for her aunt; he could almost taste the love the woman felt for her niece. It was deep and rich. It was the love of family, the type of devotion he had felt strongly in Miranda. It reminded him of how much he had loved Ara.

  He had to let Miranda go to them and safety. Once he was blasted by a half-dozen crossbow bolts, he couldn’t protect her from the fog or the rogue slayer.

  What he wanted, more than anything at that moment, was to keep her safe. And that meant getting the hell out of there.

  One quick kiss to Miranda’s hand and he shifted shape. He used explosive power to do it, and the flash of light forced the slayers to fall back. His kiss had held enough magic to protect Miranda from the fierce glow. Then he became a wolf and streaked away into the shadows cast by the fog.

  Althea cradled her daughter to her bare breasts. She did it to keep the baby warm. She knew the tiny lips—lips rimmed now with blue—wouldn’t begin to suck. Serry’s eyes were closed, and her chest moved with slow, shallow breaths.

  Two lamps and the fire warmed the room and bathed it in gold. A counterpane of silk half-tumbled off her legs, where she stretched out on the chaise with her child.

  For hours she had tried to summon the vampire queens to her, to help her keep her baby alive. She could tell she was losing Serry. But the queens had not come, and even though she had projected pleas in her thoughts, she had received no answer.

  Outside the room, the few servants of Blackthorne Castle bustled about. The vampires had been gone when they had burst into the castle. Yannick and Bastien had released the poor people from the controlling spell cast by Zayan and Lukos, but they, in turn, had planted the lie that she and her men, along with Eugenia Bond, Ser
ena, Mr. Swift, and Lord Sommersby were the guests of Lord Blackthorne. No one, it appeared, knew where Blackthorne was.

  Althea had felt a pang of conscience as her demon twin husbands forced their will on the servants’ minds. Were they not as bad as Zayan and Lukos?

  No, they were not. They meant the people no harm.

  But was it simply because they were vampires that Serry was dying?

  Serena was the daughter of Eve—the first Eve fashioned by God after Lilith to be mate to Adam, and rejected by Adam. Eve had become a vampire, though Althea did not know how. But Serena’s father had been a fallen angel, not a vampire.

  There had never been a child born to two vampires. If she had known that vampires could not have children, she would never have let herself become pregnant. It was too cruel to give a child life for only a few short weeks, and force the poor thing to fight a losing battle every moment.

  “Althea?” Yannick stood in the doorway. “We have Miss Miranda Bond, and she is willing to try to save Serry. But she is afraid. She says she has only ever brought children back from the dead. And she has saved only mortal children. She doesn’t know what will happen.”

  But she heard it then—a long soft, sigh from her daughter. The body went limp in her arms. Her throat tightened and the tears rushed to her eyes, and she could barely force out the words. “She has gone, Yannick. She has died.”

  Yannick bent and laid his head to Serry’s chest. “No, there is still a heartbeat—but it is faint and she is barely breathing. It has to be…now.” He turned silvery blue eyes to her. “But Miranda Bond does not know we are vampires.”

  “I can do this. I know I have the power to do this.”

  But Miranda saw Aunt Eugenia frown as though in disapproval. They were standing outside Lady Brookshire’s bedchamber. “You do not know that. You have never tried to help a living person. You must not be overly confident, Miranda. Magic cannot be trusted.”

  Miranda swallowed hard. She realized Eugenia was telling her that her power might be more harmful than good. “I believe it is a gift. I have to.”