Blood Ties

by Jessica Marting

  But it would be worth it, if his blood saved Ada.

  “Of course it is,” Weston said. “Both my late employer and myself kept everything in that house and his practice spotless.”

  “Of course he did. I apologize.” To Max, Pilcher said, “You’re certain about this?”

  Max nodded and stripped off his shirt.

  “Lie on that divan,” Pilcher said, pointing to the well-worn piece of furniture in the corner. “I won’t lie to you, Mr. Sterling, this is going to be painful. Would you care for a dram?”

  Max took a deep breath and forced himself to look away from the transfusion equipment. “Scottish whiskey, if you have it.”

  “That can be arranged.” Pilcher called for Seecombe, who quickly produced a bottle and glass. Max knocked back a couple of fingers of the whiskey, but the fiery liquid didn’t quell his nerves.

  Pilcher held up one spiked needle. His hand trembled slightly, and Max had an unsettling feeling that the doctor was nervous. But his voice was steady when he spoke again. “Let’s begin.”

  Chapter Nine

  Her throat was raw. Water. I need water.

  Water sounded good right about now. Maybe it would help with the nausea.

  Water and a blanket. And a proper bed, something better than the board she had to be lying on right now. Even her modest accommodations on the airship to Dresden were better than this, and she shared a room with three other travelers on that voyage.

  She licked her lips, tried to speak. But her throat was too dry, and her voice wouldn’t work. Her wrist screamed in pain when she tried to shift her position.

  No matter. She would go back to sleep, and when she woke up, she would get that glass of water and a blanket.

  ****

  “She’s waking up.”

  “She woke up before, and went right back to sleep.”

  Ada heard the rustling of fabric and Max’s voice, and forced herself to open her eyes. Her voice was barely more than a croak when she tried to speak. “Where am I?”

  Max sat on a chair beside whatever uncomfortable bed she lay in, face pale and drawn. An unfamiliar man sat next to him. “Excellent,” the man said. “Your color is much improved, and from my examinations you seem capable of making a recovery. But you’ll never have the full use of your left hand again, I doubt.”

  “Recovery?” she said in a small voice.

  She remembered Edward Quinn’s flashing red eyes, the terrifying realization that she was going to die when her stake missed—again—and the son of a bitch jumped at her, fangs sharp.

  She hadn’t staked him. She failed. But she was still alive. She knew she was. She would not be in this much pain if she died, so what the hell happened?

  “Quinn,” she said. “What happened to him?”

  “I staked the bastard,” Max said.

  Ada forced herself to sit up, wincing at the striations of pain from her set and bandaged wrist. At least her wrist was still attached and the doctor hadn’t amputated anything. Max quickly rose and helped her. A wave of nausea crested over her and her head protested the move, but she took deep breaths until the feelings passed. “Your first kill,” she said, forcing levity into her voice. “Maximilian, I’m proud of you.” She felt something stiff wrapped around her neck and raised her hand to it, feeling the bandages there. “Oh, damn. Not again.”

  “How do you feel?” asked the other man, speaking for the first time.

  “Like I’ve been in a hell of a fight with a vampire and lost, which is exactly what happened.”

  “You received a transfusion of blood from Max,” the man said. “Three days ago.”

  “What?” Ada didn’t know which was more alarming: that she received and survived a transfusion, or that she slept away three days.

  “You would have died without it,” he said.

  That bit of news didn’t surprise Ada. “Who are you?” she asked, sidestepping his explanation.

  “George Pilcher. I’m a physician and Searcher. Seecombe and Sterling brought you here after you were attacked by the vampire you were hunting.”

  “And you gave me some of Max’s blood,” she said.

  “I don’t know if you’re aware of the risks of transfusion, but you and Max are a successful case,” Pilcher said. “It’s a pity I won’t be able to write about this for a journal.”

  Ada didn’t care about journals. She was alive, albeit she still felt terrible. But that would pass.

  “Edward Quinn is dead,” she said slowly. “Truly dead this time.”

  “I didn’t expect to stake him myself,” Max said. “But now that it’s over and you’re going to recover, I’m glad I did.”

  “He murdered your uncle,” Ada said. “Staking him is just part of my job description.”

  “It won’t erase what he did to James or Cerys Hughes, but at least he can’t turn more people. Or eat them.”

  “It’s a never-ending cycle, Max,” Ada said. “I told you they’re clever bastards. Help me out of bed?”

  Max lifted her off the bed, which she saw now was nothing more than a table. No wonder she was so uncomfortable. Her makeshift bed and the bandages around her neck and wrist made for a stiff body. When she tried to stretch her muscles, she found that she still wore her corset, and her dress was bloodstained and smelled of sweat. She added a bath to the list of things she wanted immediately.

  But the item at the top of that list was right in front of her, the lines of worry erasing from his features as he gazed down at her, whole and healthy. Or almost healthy.

  “I want to go home,” she said.

  The words escaped her before she could think them through. She was thousands of miles from home, an ocean away from it. But she wasn’t thinking of New York. Home was wherever Max would be.

  His eyes lit up with understanding. “Let’s go, then.”

  ****

  Seecombe was kind enough to take them home in his battered steam cab, a vehicle, he explained, that served the Searchers very well. It managed to get her and Max back to the London headquarters, helping to save her life.

  She owed the London branch a debt she didn’t think she could repay. She disliked being a novelty to them, but the dislike she harbored after initially meeting them had let up a little. She would never fully thaw to their antiquated ways of running the Searchers, but they did know what they were doing.

  Weston had a maid arrange a bath for her as soon as he laid eyes on her, and sent another one to a shop to replace her clothing. She removed her ruined dress as soon as she could, mindful of her broken wrist. She left her clothing, including her undergarments, in a pile in her bedchamber’s fireplace. She gingerly removed the bandage circling her neck, gaping in the room’s polished looking glass at the black sutures holding the vampire bite closed. It was bad, the worst she’d ever had, and it would leave a noticeable scar that no amount of holy water could remove.

  Edward Quinn hadn’t meant to just drain her. He wanted to make her suffer. And in those terrifying moments before she lost consciousness, she remembered feeling the worst pain she ever experienced. The fear had been paralyzing and all-encompassing, nothing she’d ever felt before. But that attack only served to strengthen her resolve to continue her work.

  Vampires must not flourish.

  She stepped into a bath as soon as she could, relishing the feel of hot water washing away dried blood and sweat, working carefully around the bandages on her wrist. She dunked her head under the water, scrubbing her hair with soap using her uninjured hand. It smelled fresh and masculine, like Max.

  A knock sounded on the door. When she popped her head back up, the object of her thoughts had opened her bedchamber door a crack and peeked in.

  “You don’t have to knock,” she said, stretching out in the water. She crossed her ankles and perched her feet on the edge of the tub. “I think we’re beyond the knocking stage. Come on in.”

  He did, and she noticed how his eyes raked over her naked form. He sat on the bed, wat
ching her.

  “I could use help scrubbing my back,” she said, holding the soap out to him with her free hand.

  She sat up straight and pushed her wet hair out of the way. Max fished her washcloth out of the water and massaged her back, his strokes slow and sure.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like I’m going to live. It’s a good feeling to have.” She turned around to face him. “Max, I can never thank you enough for saving my life back there. Twice, really.” She stretched out her legs, mindful not to splash water to the floor. The hammered brass bathtub was deep, but not so much that she wanted to ruin the carpets.

  “I think I was more frightened of the blood transfusion than I was of Edward Quinn,” Max said.

  “I’m really glad I wasn’t awake when you had to make that decision,” she said.

  “You would have died without it.” His voice cracked, and a part of Ada wanted to cry with him. Why, she wasn’t sure. They made it out of Lord Greenstone’s house alive, with his vampire nephew destroyed. Objective complete, with the only casualty the one they were supposed to kill.

  “I could have died if you hadn’t. How are you feeling, what with losing some blood of your own?”

  “I was tired and unsteady for the first day,” he said. “I’ve been eating a great deal of liver on the advice of Dr. Pilcher. He wanted me to drink cow or pig’s blood to replace my own more quickly, but I refused. Liver is barely palatable as it is.” Max resumed washing her back. “I only started feeling like myself again this morning. I’m unsure how much blood Pilcher took.”

  “And no one knows why your blood worked,” she said. Her medical knowledge was slim. Everything she knew about bloodletting and transfusions came from what she and Max read in James’s journals.

  “It was a lucky shot in the dark. Pilcher said if the transfusion failed, you wouldn’t be here now.” Max set down the washcloth. “Do you need any more help bathing?”

  There was a teasing, suggestive note to Max’s voice, and it reassured Ada. She needed the levity, to feel a little more normal again. “No,” she said. “But I’ll need help drying off.”

  A low chuckle was his only reply, and she stood up, water sluicing over her body. Max had towels ready and wrapped her up, lifting her out of the water. He deposited her on the bed, and she flushed, remembering what happened the last time he was there.

  Judging from his dilated pupils and half-hooded eyelids, she knew he was thinking about the same thing. “You can’t tie me to the bedpost this time,” she said, looking at her injured wrist.

  “Some other time, then.”

  “Maybe I’ll tie you to the posts.”

  “A situation I’m amenable to, but not today.” He lay down next to her on his side, levering himself up on one arm to face her. That tired, drawn look he had been wearing since she woke up was fading, but he was still pale, and she suspected he might be weaker from blood loss than he was letting on.

  He traced her lips with his thumb, the motion stoking a flame that reminded her that not all of her body parts were injured in the fight with Edward Quinn. She broke the short distance between them and kissed him, her good hand running through his hair.

  She broke the kiss, pushing away her towel and sitting up. She fumbled with his shirt’s buttons one-handed.

  “Ada?” Max’s voice was hesitant. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not feeling well.”

  “I feel fine.” Maybe it was her near-death experience, maybe she would just never get enough of Maximilian Sterling, but she needed him now. Unless… “Are you not feeling up to this?”

  “Are you mad?” He lightly nipped her ear. “I always am.”

  He helped her with his shirt buttons, then his trousers. He was breathing as heavily as she was. Anticipation coiled low in her belly, a spring ready to launch. When his mouth found one nipple and gently bit it, a moan of pleasure escaped her.

  He ran his hand over her broken wrist, fingertips skimming the bandages. “Thank you for not letting them cut off my hand,” Ada said.

  “There wasn’t a bone sticking out, so there wasn’t a need for it. Is it bothering you?”

  “No.” Her left hand was her staking hand, her right always held the mallet. She knew it would be a little while before she could go back out hunting vampires again.

  Max’s fingers laced through those of her uninjured hand as he bent over her. His erection pressed against her belly, teasing her. The memory of their last time together in bed was at the front of her mind, her body demanding release.

  “Now,” she said impatiently.

  He dragged his cock against her skin, further inflaming her senses. “You’re always going to be demanding in bed, aren’t you? Begging me, pleading, demanding…”

  “Yes,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. “I suggest you get used to it.” She hooked her legs around his hips, urging him closer to her body. “Max, please.”

  He obliged her, sliding into her body in one smooth stroke. Without any further urging from Ada, he picked up a rhythm that had her panting, already closer to the edge than she thought possible.

  Her orgasm ripped through her, her cry muffled by Max’s lips crashing down on hers. Still not sated, another wave of climax washed over her, and Max’s rapid breathing told her he was close, too. He pulled out, and she immediately reached between their bodies, stroking his cock through his own orgasm.

  They were silent for a few minutes, entwined in each other’s bodies, with only the sound of their breathing in the room.

  “How’s your wrist?” Max finally asked.

  It twinged, but it wasn’t unbearable. Ada hadn’t thought about it at all until Max mentioned it. “It’s fine. Do you think the bath water is still warm?”

  He stood up, pushing the damp towel off the bed. He gathered her in his arms and she let out a delighted squeal. “Perhaps. Let’s get in.”

  Epilogue

  Ada had never traveled in first class accommodations aboard an airship before, and her excitement at the available amenities would never cease to delight Max. She repeatedly told him that their trip to Dresden was everything she wanted it to be, and more. She found the cemetery where her ancestors rested—unstaked, she was sure to remind him—to pay her respects, and they stayed for ten leisurely days at a lovely hotel with automated bathtubs. There wasn’t any staff lugging water buckets to their room, a convenience Max wanted more of.

  And nary a vampire to be found in Dresden, at least according to Ada and her sensory ability. Still, they both carried stakes with them when they took in Dresden’s nightlife.

  Now, they stood on the dirigible’s upper deck, watching the waves of the Atlantic Ocean crash hundreds of feet below their vessel. They had eight hours or so before they made dock in New York City, after which Max was going to meet Ada’s family. She told him about her brothers, about the townhouse they all shared in the heart of the city, about the Searcher headquarters there. She sent cables to the rest of the Burgess clan and the vampire hunters, and their replies told of a friendly group of people looking forward to meeting him.

  “What are you thinking about?” Ada asked him. Her unruly russet hair was tightly pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck, but strands escaped to whip around her face in the wind.

  “You.” It was the truth, but there was more to it. He had been thinking about something else for a few days, and was unsure how to bring it up. There’s no time like the present, he told himself. “Actually, I was thinking about the time you told me you wanted to be a pilot.”

  “I wanted that a long time ago.”

  “But if you had the opportunity now, would you resume your lessons?”

  Her eyes widened. “It’s not practical at this point, Max.”

  “But if you could, would you?”

  “Yes,” she said, without any hesitation. “Immediately. Having an airship at my disposal would be a godsend, both for hunting vampires around the country and my own desire. I’ve al
ways loved flying.”

  “Would you accept an offer of lessons at the Academy of Flight?”

  She froze, lips a perfect round O of shock.

  “I’d like to accompany you, of course, once I complete training with the Searchers and I know my vampire kills aren’t flukes of luck.”

  “Max, it’s a generous offer,” she said, but he continued on.

  “It wouldn’t just be for you,” he said. “Captain Reed needs his adventures in America, and he needs a lady pilot to accompany him sometimes.”

  “So pilot lessons for me would benefit you,” she said, but she was smiling now. Smiling, but there was a light film of tears in her eyes that had nothing to do with the wind whipping around them.

  “Greatly.”

  “Oh, God, Max, it’s such a generous offer,” she said, bringing gloved hands to her mouth.

  “Say yes,” he urged her. “I want you to have this. For you, and to help save the world from monsters.”

  “Okay.” She took in a shaky breath of salt-tinged air. “When we get settled in New York, we’ll call on the Academy,” she said. She wiped tears from her eyes and threw her arms around Max, squeezing him with a strength that belied her size. “Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled by his overcoat.

  He stroked her hair. “You’re very much welcome. I wanted to give you a gift you would enjoy.”

  “But the trip…”

  “The Dresden holiday was to make up for the time you lost staking vampires. This is different. I doubt you would enjoy a gift of jewelry or furs as much.”

  She sniffled. “No, probably not.”

  His arms tightened around her. “I love you, Ada. I want you to have the opportunities you need to continue our work.”

  Her gaze held his. “I love you too, Max.”

  It was the first time either said those words, but he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  “You’re going to be a fine Searcher,” she said.

  He leaned down to kiss her. “As long as I’m with you.”

  The End

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