In a blur too quick for human eyes to follow, Stefan left the room, only to return a moment later, chamber pot in hand.
She grabbed it just in time.
He left again, returning with a damp washcloth, a dry towel, and a glass of warm water. She quickly wiped her face, then rinsed her mouth. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he said, grinning as he took the chamber pot and soiled linen and left the room.
Elena sighed. She didn’t know which was worse, throwing up, or doing so in front of Stefan.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured when he returned. “I guess vampires don’t throw up.”
“No. Not a pretty sight.”
“I suppose not. Are you sure Drake isn’t going to fight?”
Stefan’s gaze slid away from hers.
“Stefan?”
“He will not fight. Unless Rodin is defeated.”
Chapter 27
The atmosphere in the Fortress was subdued that night. Everyone knew about the upcoming challenge, though no one spoke of it openly. Even the sheep knew. But then, it seemed as if they always knew what was going on. Drake had often wondered about that. Did they have some sort of telepathy of their own? Or were they just in tune with what went on around them? He thought it more likely that they eavesdropped on what their captors said. They certainly didn’t learn anything from the drones, those poor, unfortunate humans who were little more than zombies.
Too keyed up to sit still, he prowled the corridors for hours before going to his apartment.
Katiya looked up when he entered their quarters. “Have you seen Andrei?”
Drake nodded. “He is shadowing Olaf. He told me to kiss you good night.”
She laughed softly, her cheeks flushing as Drake dutifully brushed a kiss across her lips.
“Did you see Florin?” she asked.
“No. He has wisely chosen to stay in his room. One of the drones is keeping watch outside his door, ostensibly to do his bidding. Ciprian is also watching over him, from a distance, of course.”
“And Rodin?”
“He is sequestered with Liliana.”
Drake paced the floor, then dropped into one of the chairs, his hands braced on his thighs. “I have a bad feeling about this whole thing.”
“You are not afraid Rodin will lose? He has defeated every challenger who has ever come against him.”
Drake nodded. Maybe he was worrying for nothing. Maybe it was being away from Elena that had his insides tied in knots.
“Listen,” he said, rising quickly to his feet. “I need to see Elena.”
“You are leaving?” Katiya asked, her eyebrows rising in disbelief.
“I will be back before dawn. If anyone comes looking for me, you do not know where I am.”
Elena had gone to bed early, only to toss and turn. A glance at the clock showed it was almost 2 A.M. Would this night never end? With a sigh, she closed her eyes, wishing Drake was there beside her.
“Elena?”
“Drake?”
“I could not go to sleep without kissing you good night.”
She threw her arms around him. “Oh, Drake. I hate it when we’re apart.”
He gathered her close, a sense of peace stealing over him as he inhaled the scent of her hair and skin, heard the familiar beat of her heart, tasted her lips with his own. Without his knowing how it had happened, she had become the most important thing in his life, his only reason for living. After five hundred years, he felt as if he had found the other half of his soul. Love, he thought, it was more binding than blood.
When she would have spoken, he silenced her with a kiss. It lit the fire between them as quickly as a match ignites tinder. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding tightly, while his hands caressed her back, her shoulders, the sweet curve of her thigh, the swell of her breast.
He growled something under his breath, and the next thing she knew, her nightgown and his clothes were gone and he was rising over her. There was no need for foreplay. She sensed the urgency within him, but it was as nothing compared to her own need. They came together in a rush, his mouth crushing hers, her fingers digging into his back, urging him on.
Just when she was certain it couldn’t get any better, she felt his fangs at her throat. She moaned softly as pleasure exploded deep within her, spreading outward like ripples in an ocean, until she was certain she would expire from the sheer wonder of it all.
His tongue laved her neck, and then he was kissing her again, carrying her over the edge of pleasure into ecstasy.
Elena sighed as she turned onto her side, her head pillowed on Drake’s shoulder, one arm across his chest, one leg sprawled over his. For this moment, he was hers, and only hers.
But it was a moment fated to end too soon. She sensed the change in him, knew he was getting ready to leave.
“Do you have to go so soon?”
His hand lightly massaged her neck and shoulders. “I promised to be back before dawn. The challenge is tonight at midnight.”
“Please take me with you. Can’t you hide me somewhere in the Fortress?”
“No. Have you forgotten what happened the last time I took you there? I will not willingly put your life in danger again.”
“I’m not afraid.” It was a bold-faced lie, but she was desperate to be with him.
“I will return to you as soon as I can.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, then kissed her slowly, deeply. “Stay close to Stefan.”
Determined not to cry, she sat up, watching him as he dressed, thinking it was a shame to cover that perfect masculine body, wishing he had time to make love to her again.
“Thank you, wife,” he said with a wicked grin. “I will fulfill that wish when I return.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
“Please do.”
Fully clothed, he bent down and kissed her again. “Do not worry. Rodin has never lost a battle.”
She nodded, but she couldn’t ignore the shiver of unease that speared through her when Drake vanished from her sight. Was it only her fear making itself known? Or a premonition of something worse?
The bad feeling was still there when she awoke in the morning—afternoon, she amended when she looked at her watch. It was a little after one thirty. Ten and a half hours left until Gerret challenged Rodin for control of the Fortress.
Rising, she went down to the kitchen. Too upset to eat, she drank three cups of coffee, then wandered out into the garden.
A good cry, she thought. That’s what she needed. But the tears wouldn’t come.
Feeling thoroughly depressed, she sat on the wrought-iron bench and stared at the fountain. What was Drake doing? Was he resting? What of Liliana? And Katiya and Andrei? How could any of them rest when Rodin was going to fight another vampire to the death?
She should be there. She had to be there. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Drake needed her.
She lost track of time as the certainty grew within her that she needed to go to the Fortress. Unfortunately, she had no idea where it was.
But Stefan knew.
She drummed her fingertips on the arm of the bench.
Stefan knew.
Eventually, hunger drove her back into the kitchen. She fixed a sandwich, ate it with a glass of milk while she warmed several pots of water on the stove.
When she finished eating, she bathed in the wooden tub. When this was over, she was going to ask Drake about having a bathroom installed in their bedroom.
Wrapped in her bathrobe, she went upstairs to get dressed, only to come to a halt in the doorway when she saw a large brown cat curled up on her pillow.
“Stefan?”
“Meow.”
She frowned. She had never seen Stefan in his cat form before. Why now? Moving to the bed, she sat on the edge of the mattress.
The cat rolled onto its back, inviting her to scratch his belly.
“I’m not sure Drake would approve,” she muttered as s
he rubbed the cat’s belly.
The cat purred loudly.
Elena stretched out on the bed, her hand still stroking the cat, who continued to purr, even after she had fallen asleep.
Elena woke with a start. What was she doing in bed? She had come up here to get dressed. A glance at her watch told her that had been over five hours ago. She frowned, remembering how she had found the cat in her bed. There was something supernatural about purring cats, she thought. They inevitably put her to sleep.
Rising, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater and went downstairs.
Stefan was waiting for her in the main hall.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“You were driving yourself crazy. I thought I would save you a few hours of worry.”
“Oh. Thank you. I think.”
“It will be over soon.”
“Where will they fight?”
“There is a clearing below the Fortress. They will meet there at midnight, with their seconds.”
“Just the four of them?”
“No. There will be four other vampires, summoned from other Fortresses, who will serve as witnesses.”
“So, it’s outside?”
“Yes.”
“Take me there.”
“No.”
Grasping his shirt in both hands, she shook him as hard as she could. It was like trying to move a mountain. “You have to take me! Drake needs me. I know it! Please, Stefan.”
“Dammit, Elena, do you know what he will do to me if anything happens to you?”
“Do you know what will happen to me without him?”
Stefan swore long and loud. Not all of it was in English, but some words sounded the same in any language, and she knew she had him.
He paced back and forth in front of the fireplace for a moment, then turned to face her. “All right,” he said. “I will take you. But you will have to stay out of sight. And after he kills me, I expect you to put flowers on my grave.”
“I promise.”
Moving quicker than her eye could follow, he wrapped her in his arms. “Hang on tight, Mrs. Sherrad,” he whispered in her ear, and then he swore again. “I know I am going to regret this.”
Elena closed her eyes as a familiar feeling of dizziness and nausea swept over her. There was the sense of flying through time, of freewheeling through space, and then nothing. When she opened her eyes, she was standing under a tree, wrapped in Stefan’s arms.
He smiled down at her. “You know,” he said, hugging her closer, “I could get used to this.”
“What?” She looked up at him, her thoughts obviously elsewhere.
“Nothing.” He pointed up the mountain. “Look.”
At first, Elena didn’t see anything. But, gradually, she saw flickering lights moving down the side of the mountain, slowly growing larger, brighter, until she could make out four vampires carrying torches. Behind them, coming single-file, she saw Rodin and Drake, and following them, two other vampires she didn’t recognize. All eight wore long black cloaks. And then, trailing far behind, she saw another dark shape that cut away from the group and quickly disappeared into the trees.
“Do not move.” Stefan whispered the words. “Try not to breathe.”
“Did you see the other vampire?”
Stefan nodded. “It was Liliana. She is not supposed to be here, either.”
Elena wrapped her arms around her waist. What if Liliana had seen them? Well, said a little voice in the back of her mind, what if she had? She couldn’t say anything without incriminating herself. That knowledge should have been comforting, but it wasn’t.
The vampires in the clearing were moving, spreading out. The four torchbearers formed a circle around Rodin and his opponent. In the bright silver glow of a full moon, she easily identified Drake. Taller than the others, he stood outside the circle, behind Rodin. The eighth vampire took a similar stance behind the challenger.
Rodin tossed his cloak aside and Elena saw that he wore a pair of black leather pants and boots and nothing else. His opponent was similarly attired. Each carried a sword. The long silver blades glinted in the moonlight.
Silver, Elena thought. It would make each cut doubly painful for the vampires.
One of the torchbearing vampires moved to stand between Rodin and his opponent. “Rodin Sherrad, Master of the Carpathian Fortress,” he intoned, his voice carrying clearly in the quiet. “Be it known that Gerret Lynch, Master of the Irish Fortress, has come here this night to lay down a challenge for your lands and holdings. Do you accept? Or concede?”
“I accept.”
“Florin Korzha. Drake Sherrad. You have been chosen as seconds. Come forward.”
Drake and Florin took a step forward. Drake inclined his head, and Florin did likewise.
“All those required to be in attendance are here present,” the torchbearer said solemnly. “Let whatever blood is shed this night be done with honor.” And so saying, he returned to his place in the circle.
For a moment, it was as if the vampires in the clearing were frozen in time.
Elena shivered as a low, keening wind sprang up, rattling the leaves of the trees, causing the torches to flicker erratically. She looked up at Stefan. His eyes burned red as he stared at the scene in the clearing.
Without taking her eyes from the combatants, she asked, “Why is Florin’s last name Korzha if he’s Rodin’s son?”
“Only Liliana and her children carry his surname.” Like Elena, Stefan kept his attention on Rodin and his opponent. “His other children take their mother’s maiden names.”
There was no signal given that Elena could see, but suddenly Rodin and his opponent were moving. The ring of metal against metal was very loud in the stillness of the night. As the blades met, the wind howled through the trees.
Elena shivered again. She risked a look at Drake. His hands were clenched at his sides, his face like something carved from stone.
She turned her attention back to the battle. The vampires moved so swiftly, there were times when they were little more than a blur so that she couldn’t tell one from the other.
Power shimmered through the air as sword met sword. When the scent of blood filled the air, the two vampires parted, and Elena saw that the challenger was bleeding from a long gash in his left arm.
The two combatants came together again and again.
It was like being caught up in a nightmare. The wind howling. The blood in the air. The ringing of metal striking metal. The blazing red eyes of the vampires, the light of the torches casting eerie shadows on the ground.
It seemed as if the fight would go on forever when Rodin suddenly feinted left, pivoted in a circle, and drove his sword through his opponent’s heart. The other vampire fell backward, his sword dropping from his hand. Before Gerret hit the ground, Rodin’s blade swung again, cleanly severing the challenger’s head.
Retching, Elena turned away, her arms folded over her stomach. Stefan had been right. She should have stayed home.
From behind her, someone shouted, “Stop him!”
In the distance, Elena heard a scream filled with such pain, such agony, it raised the short hairs along her nape.
Beside her, Stefan hissed, “No!”
Afraid of what she might see, Elena glanced over her shoulder. Rodin lay on the ground, a long wooden stake protruding from his chest, exactly where his heart would be. A dark stain pooled beneath him.
In the blink of an eye, Drake had Florin by the throat.
And Liliana was kneeling at Rodin’s side, a look of horrified disbelief on her face.
One of the torchbearers drew a sword from beneath his cloak and took a step forward, clearly intending to take Rodin’s head.
With a wild cry, Stefan propelled himself across the field. Grabbing the sword from the other vampire’s hand, Stefan drove the blade into his heart, then whirled around, ready to fight the remaining vampires, if necessary. The three remaining torchbearers dropped their cloaks to the g
round. None of them carried weapons.
Elena stared at the grisly scene and then, slowly, lifted her gaze to find Drake staring at her over Florin’s shoulder.
Chapter 28
Elena knew a moment of fear when Drake’s gaze met hers. Eyes burning red, fangs bared, he stared at her over the head of the vampire struggling in his grasp. She wondered what had possessed the other vampire to stab Rodin from behind, but it was immaterial at the moment.
She had forgotten how frightening Drake’s vampire mien could be. With her, he had always been so gentle and tender, it had been easy to forget that beneath his courtly exterior there lurked a deadly predator who lived on human blood.
One of the torchbearers stepped forward. After pulling on a pair of gloves, he reached into the pocket of his trousers and withdrew a pair of silver handcuffs.
Florin ceased his struggles once the shackles were locked in place.
Elena remained where she was, her heart pounding with trepidation. She knew Drake wouldn’t betray her presence, but other vampires were arriving now, followed by a handful of drones. One of them picked up Gerret’s body and carried it away.
In the flickering light, Elena recognized some of the vampires as members of the Council. They formed a large, silent circle that encompassed Drake, Florin, Stefan, Liliana, and the fallen Master Vampire.
And then Liliana rose to her feet. Eyes blazing, cheeks streaked with scarlet tears, she picked up her husband’s sword. “Rodin, Master of the Carpathian Fortress, has been destroyed by treachery.” Her voice rang out in the darkness. “I seek a champion to avenge his death and return the Fortress to its rightful heirs.”
Every member of the Council took a step forward, as did Stefan and Drake.
Hidden in the shadows, Elena murmured, “No. Oh, no,” as Liliana offered the sword to Drake.
Liliana nodded. “As Rodin’s eldest son, I honor you with the task of avenging your sire’s death.”
With a nod, Drake took the sword from her hand.
“According to our laws,” Liliana said, “you may challenge Florin Korzha, or you may execute him for his treachery. The choice is yours.”
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