by Morgan Hawke
His frown deepened. “Cross-country…? Then you didn’t pass through any of the towns?”
Thorn rolled her eyes. “Are you saying that the story of the dead walking at night is true?”
Brentwood looked her dead in the eye, and his mouth tightened. “There have been reports of attacks in just about every town in this region.”
Thorn’s brows lifted. True or not, hard-nosed and trigger-happy Brentwood believed in the walking dead. “All right, I’ll leave in the morning.”
Brentwood dropped his shoulders and released a breath and then turned to face the stairs. “This way, please.”
Thorn followed Brentwood up the kitchen stairs and then into another, narrower stairwell straight up to a cramped and shadowed hallway at the very top of the house, right under the eves. A miniature oil lamp on a small battered table at the far left was the only source of light in the hall. He pointed to a narrow blue door at the far right end of the hall. “Water closet.”
Thorn blinked. Did this mean they actually had indoor flushing toilets or just an indoor bathtub?
Brentwood led her to the other end of the tiny hall. He stopped at the table and pointed her up an even smaller stair, not much more than a ladder. At the top was a very small door. “Your room.” He handed her the tiny oil lamp from the table.
“Thanks.” Thorn climbed the narrow stair and opened the door into a room barely large enough for the carpet and the straw-filled mattress resting on top of it. A tiny circular window, shuttered of course, occupied the far wall, and the chimney spanned the right wall, so the room was actually warm. However, the ceiling was very low, and the slope from the chimney down to the left was very steep.
Thorn smiled sourly. A grown man would not have been able to stand upright comfortably, but it was perfect for someone as small as her and probably the only absolute privacy available in the whole house.
At the bottom of the stairs, Brentwood coughed softly.
Thorn turned around and smiled. “It’s perfect, thank you.”
Brentwood nodded. “Sleep well.” He walked away, headed for the staircase.
Thorn stepped into the room, closed the door, and investigated the feather pillow and the battered gray wool army blankets that had been tossed on the mattress. After last’s night’s cave floor, the straw mattress was going to feel like heaven. She shucked out of her clothes, tossing them at the end of the bed, blew out the tiny oil lamp, and burrowed naked between the blankets. She sighed.
Something moved under her blankets carrying the scent of wool, man, and midnight.
Thorn’s eyes snapped open. What the hell…? She twisted sharply in her blankets.
Powerful arms closed around her waist, trapping her. Warm skin pressed against her bare back, under the blankets. Breath brushed against her ear. “Ah, how pleasant.”
She froze. She knew that voice. She knew that scent. “Yaroslav?” She turned to look over her shoulder.
The vampire smiled less than a kiss away, the tips of his long teeth neatly hidden behind his full, pale lips. “Thorn.” In the deep shadows, his long hair was a curtain of black silk with two streaks of silver at the temples, framing a youthful and achingly beautiful face. He focused on her lips and leaned close.
“Whoa, hey!” She turned away, avoiding his kiss, and glanced about. The shadowed ceiling was sharply pitched and heavily thatched over bare beams. The moon was bright through a square and open window. She was not in her garret room but under some other roof. Hay crunched under the blanket spread beneath them. “What am I doing here?”
His lips landed on her throat, and his tongue swirled, raising shivers. “You have come to visit me in a dream.” Under the wool blanket, his long hard leg slid over hers, and the hot hard length of his erection pressed against her spine. Apparently he was naked. His teeth grazed her pulse.
She gasped and shifted in his arms. “This is a dream?” It had to be; it couldn’t be anything else, but it was so real. Heat pooled low in her belly and clenched with rising interest. He felt good, too good. It was fast getting difficult to think past the carnal hunger tightening within her.
Yaroslav sighed against her throat. “Is a good dream, no?” One hand slid up to cup the fullness of her breast and squeezed. His other hand swept down over the gentle curve of her belly, and delved between her thighs, encouraging her legs to part for his knee.
The hair rose on her body, and her nipple tightened deliciously under his palm. A moan slipped out of her mouth. “What are you doing?”
“I should think it was obvious.” He chuckled, and his fingers captured her swiftly hardening nipple. “Giving my love to you.” He pinched.
Fired sparked in her nipple and echoed down in her clit, startling a soft cry from her lips. Moisture slicked her thighs. She had to take an entire breath to recover her thoughts. “But I don’t recognize any of this.” She’d never seen this attic before.
His lips brushed against her ear. “Because this is my place of rest. You have come into my dream.” He cupped her hip to pull her snug against his erection and then palmed her feminine curls. A long finger investigated the tender folds to her body’s entrance. “Mmmm…you are becoming very wet, my sweet.” With the pad of his finger, he rubbed against the tiny nub of sensitive flesh.
Hot bolts of pleasure jolted her. Her back arched, and her soft cries filled the small attic. If he kept this up, she was going to come…. She grabbed for his wrist and some small part of her sanity. “Are we in a hurry?”
He chuckled and eased his wrist from her grasp. “Dreams have a habit of being short-lived.” His fingers once again began their demonic dance on her damp flesh.
She moaned. “Is that a yes?”
His tongue stroked against her throat. “It is a yes.”
She writhed under his hand. “Oh, I see….” A hole in the thatched ceiling overhead caught her attention. His “place of rest” appeared to be an abandoned house in a village somewhere.
There have been reports of attacks in just about every town in this region.
Alarm spilled ice water down her spine. She grabbed his wrist to stop his inciting fingers. “Yaroslav, wait!”
He gently twisted his wrist free of her hand and wrapped his arm around her. “No waiting.” He cupped her butt cheek in his other palm. “Sleep is fleeting, and I would have you before I wake.” He shifted against her back, his rigid cock sliding down along the seam of her butt to ease between her thighs. The broad, hot tip nudged at her moist entrance.
“Please!” She twisted sharply onto her back and grabbed his shoulder. “Just for a minute!”
“A minute is too long.” He rolled on top of her, resting on his forearms, and his head dropped with the clear intent to kiss her.
She pressed her hand over his descending mouth. “I have a question, damnit!”
He smiled, and his wet tongue swept across her palm.
It tickled. She yanked her hand back. “It’s important!”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Very well, one question.” His gaze narrowed. “Then no more of this waiting.”
She looked up at him. “Are the dead really walking?”
He froze above her, every muscle in his body stiffening. “Yes.” His brows dropped low, and his mouth tightened to a thin line. “It is a plague with no cure but fire.”
Thorn felt a chill sweep along her body. “You’re saying it’s true, that the dead are walking around eating people?”
“I am.” His lips curled back from his long teeth, and a growl rumbled in his chest. “This evil came to my mountain and destroyed my people. I was forced to burn my villages, my forests, and my house to the ground. There is nothing left on my mountain but ash.”
She stared, horrified. A forest fire had happened in a valley at the far edge of her mountains at high summer, years ago. The monstrous flames had lit the night sky for miles. The blackened and shattered ruins left behind had been the most horrible thing she’d ever seen. And he’d set an entire moun
tain on fire? Could this have been what she had seen in his dream? “My god…”
The hearts of the vampire’s eyes seemed to leap with flames. “This evil forced me to destroy everything I once called mine.” His sharp nails dug into her shoulders. “Now you know why I am here. I hunt the heretic sorcerer who cast this plague of evil, to destroy him!”
Thorn shivered hard. She knew hatred when she saw it. She frowned. “Wait a minute, a sorcerer?”
“Enough of minutes! Enough of questions!” His mouth came down on her parted lips. His tongue filled her mouth, seeking hers, kissing her with ruthless skill as though starved. He pressed the entire hard length of his body against hers, his cock urgently rigid against her belly.
Thorn moaned under the onslaught. Erotic hunger roared forth. Her nipples rose to hot, tight points, and her belly clenched with sudden ravenous appetite, forcing a gasp from her throat. She grabbed his forearms, digging in with her long nails.
He pulled his mouth from hers, and his eyes blazed with heat. “I wish to think of nothing but the sweetness of your flesh.” He reached down to catch her thighs and pushed them up over his hips, spreading her. “I wish to hear nothing but the sounds of your pleasure.”
Startled, she grabbed onto his shoulders, her fingers tangling in the silk of his hair. “Yaroslav?”
“No more waiting!” He reached down to set his cock against the slick entrance to her body. “Now.” He grunted and thrust.
She arched under him, opening her body, welcoming the relentless push of his broad shaft.
He grunted and thrust deep, the hard length of his cock stretching her tender flesh. “Yes….”
She bucked hard, sheathing him all the way to the root, and gasped.
His hands closed tight on her thighs. He arched, withdrawing, and then thrust, and thrust…
She locked her legs around his hips and writhed against him, feeling his rigid cock moving powerfully in her depths. She moaned with the agonizing delight of having him within her.
He sighed against her right ear. “Yes, that is what I wish to hear.” His hands slid down her thighs to cup her butt, his nails digging in. He pulled, his cock sliding outward, and thrust back in brutally hard, then again, and again…
She bucked in his arms, straining to meet his pounding rhythm. She could feel every muscle in his back, ass, and thighs flexing as he took her with desperate violence. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever felt. A man upon whom she could unleash the full strength of her passions. A man she would not break.
Pleasure sparked with incredible speed and coiled tight with boiling fury in her core. She dug her nails into his back, and the scream built in her throat. She could see the blood running down his back from her nails. The sight inflamed her. Her gasps became cries as pressure and need rose to the explosion point.
His grunts became gasps. “Yes, Mother Night…yes!”
She writhed as her body came to the razor’s edge—and refused to fall. Damnit! She wrapped her legs around him and clawed his back with her nails in violent urgency. “Please…!”
He groaned but the amusement was clear in the sound. “Please, what?”
“Please!” She shouted and bucked hard. “I need it!”
He ground into her. “What do you need, love?”
She shuddered, tormented by the pleasure she couldn’t reach. “Bite me!”
His head lifted, and his bared teeth gleamed white. His head fell lightning fast. His teeth sank into her, and he slammed his cock into her with merciless strokes.
Fire exploded in her shoulder. She screamed with the bright hot pain of his bite even as her body flared with an overwhelming wave of clenching carnal heat that threatened to eat her alive. Lightning rushed up her spine and exploded at the back of her skull. Her body shattered from the inside in a release so profound it felt as though her heart had burst. She howled, shaking and clawing at the man holding her in his pitiless grasp.
He sucked on the wounds on her shoulder, growling, and then released her, licking his lips. “Mine.” He thrust into her, grunted, thrust again, and then held. He gasped, shuddering, his cock pulsing in her body. His eyes closed briefly, and then he threw back his head and screamed with a voice that was not even remotely human.
6
Thorn gasped, and her eyes snapped open with the echoes of Yaroslav’s feral scream in her ears. Panting for breath and soaked with sweat, she clutched the blankets, shaking. Her heart slammed in her chest.
Her gaze locked on the sharply pitched ceiling and then the brick chimney rising along the wall next to her. The vague sound of barking dogs echoed in the night beyond the shutters. She was back in the garret. It had been a dream. She smiled and shook her head. That had been one intense dream, and he hadn’t been kidding about being in a hurry either. She’d never in her life met a man that could get her that excited that fast.
She sat up on the straw mattress and groaned. Her entire body ached and trembled. She dragged a hand through her wet hair and sighed. She was sticky with sweat and stank of sex. She thought about changing to get herself clean, but she really didn’t want the appetite that came with it. Out in the wild it was fairly easy to grab a rabbit or two, but among humans it meant going down to the kitchen and rummaging for food.
Her brow lifted. There was a water closet at the end of the hall. She doubted that the boiler was lit, so the water would probably be ice cold, but it was better than nothing, and there might be a flush toilet available.
She rose from the bed and wrapped the blanket around her. Nudity didn’t bother her one bit, but she knew for a fact Colonel Ives would have a stroke if she were seen by his men. For an entire breath she seriously considered doing it just to piss him off. She sighed and walked to her door. It wasn’t worth all the yelling and screaming. Not to mention that the colonel had a nasty habit of using a cane for discipline.
She opened her door and peered down the shadowed hall with eyes perfectly suited to see in full darkness. Nothing moved. The only sound was the wind rattling the window glass beyond the shutters.
Clutching her blanket, she padded down the hall along the wall. Floors tended to squeak when you walked down the middle. The door to the water closet opened into a good-sized room with a black-and-white-tiled floor and a claw-foot bathtub against the left wall. The right wall held a tiny two-spigot sink and beyond it, miracle of miracles, was a pull-chain flush toilet.
Thorn walked over to peer into the china toilet bowl. There was actually water in there. She marveled for a whole three breaths and then turned and eyed the tub with a pang of regret. She doubted there was enough hot water left in the basement boiler to use it.
She padded to the sink and twisted the spigot on the sink marked H. Warm water came splashing out with an incredible amount of noise. Someone must have used the hot water not too long ago if the water in the pipes was still warm. Not that she was about to complain. She shoved the cork into the drain to hold the water.
She grabbed the cloth hanging from the sink and the soap and scrubbed her entire body. The flower scent of the soap was a bit strong but not unbearable.
She used the toilet, just because she could, and pulled the chain. The toilet made horrific sucking noises, even louder than the sink, but as far as she was concerned, indoor plumbing was well worth the racket it made.
After wrapping the blanket back around her, Thorn stepped back out of the water closet. Outside beyond the shuttered windows, the neighborhood dogs were barking up a storm. There was fear and anger in their voices. She frowned. They were sounding an alarm. She concentrated on listening closely and realized she could also hear someone breathing on the stairs that led to the lower floor.
She froze and then took a deep, silent breath to sift through the aromas. She smelled masculine feet, body-warmed wool, some silk, sweat, and traces of expensive cologne, but the strongest scent was gun oil. If she’d been in wolf form, she would have detected a hell of a lot more, but this was good enough to let her know
that Max was standing barefoot on the stairs with a gun. She was pretty sure he was the only one in the house wearing that particular cologne.
What should she do? A normal human probably wouldn’t have noticed him. She sighed softly and tucked her blanket around her securely. Dealing with human limitations was such a pain in the ass. She stepped forward and moved past the staircase without looking.
Weight shifted, making the stair squeak loud enough for a battalion to notice.
Thorn looked toward the stairs. Yep, Max was there, all right, three steps down, in his shirtsleeves and wool trousers with the leather suspenders flopping at his hips, and he was barefoot. She didn’t see the gun, but his britches seemed to be sagging in the backside. That was probably where the gun was, tucked in his waistband at the small of his back. She smiled. “Oh, Mr. Rykov, did I disturb you?”
“Miss Ferrell…” He kept his gaze low and smiled, keeping his hands behind him. “My apologies. I was just coming up to use the water closet.”
Thorn blinked. With a gun?
Outside, the sound of the dogs got louder and more frightened. They sounded like they were barking right under the house. She frowned and turned toward the shuttered window.
“Something wrong, Miss Ferrell?”
Thorn shook her head absently. “The dogs…”
Max chuckled. “Oh, they’re barking because of the dead.”
Thorn turned back to look at him. “The dead?” Did he mean the walking corpses everyone had been talking about?
“Yes, Miss Ferrell.” Max looked to the side and smiled. “The dead are walking.”
Thorn scrambled for something, anything to say. “And people leave their dogs out with those…things?” She winced. That was not the brightest of comments.
Max snorted. “The dead seem to have no interest in eating dogs. Humans, on the other hand, they find quite irresistible.” He lifted his chin and closed his eyes. “The barking is right below us.” He smiled broadly with crooked teeth. “The dead will be banging on the windows very soon.” There was a strange scent mixed with copper rolling off Max.