by Multiple
Trinity heard Church announcing, “The lady’s brother is close.”
“Adam!” his maiden cried with her humid breath, warming his throat.
Trinity bent both their bodies forward to reach out and grasp the cloak Church had thrown him. He lifted the cloak and his gaze rose to Church who stood off several hundred yards. With his predator’s night vision, he could clearly see Church’s fanged sneer. Church worked his head to the left, then right, arching his neck fighting for control. Trinity understood that even staying at a distance, away from the maiden’s unusual blood temptation, was not really helping.
“Please, can’t I go to my brother, my lord?”
“What is your name, maiden?” Trinity tried to speak softly as he brought the cloak over her. He dared not move his hand from her back, until he could release her for good and flee away from her.
“Beth Winslow,” she whispered, clutching her hands to the cloak and pulling it around her shivering body.
“Then, Lady Beth, if you put your arms around my shoulders I will take you to your brother.”
This time he watched Beth do it without any hesitation and strange feelings curled into his chest he’d not felt before. Later he would be astounded at his control, but for the moment, he felt everything about the woman he carried in his arms as she held onto him and her warm temple caressed his jaw line, while her hair fell over his back.
“This way,” Church called. “We are close.”
Beth embraced him tighter as he strode forward and his exceptional eyesight caught glimpses of the back of a well-lit mansion.
“What if someone sees me,” Beth exclaimed, turning her face into Trinity’s strong neck. She didn’t know what to think or do. She was nearly afraid to ever let go of Trinity. She felt him stop as he held her close.
“Bring him here,” Trinity called.
She was so grateful he’d rescued her, when he didn’t know her. “Thank you,” she offered, with her voice soft, but tight. Then hot tears began running down her cheeks.
“Maiden? … Lady Beth?” His deep voice was questioning, but she was too choked to respond.
Then she heard, “Beth!” It was Adam’s voice. She tried to call his name, but her crying only worsened.
“By God! What have you done to her?” Adam demanded.
He rushed forward, however he was stalled by the look alone of the tall, blond-haired man holding his weeping sister in his arms. Adam quickly placed the man as another Blacknall brother by his build and blond hair. The light was better from the back of the mansion, just beyond the edge of the woods, and he could see this brother better. He hoped he’d never have to cross the man because he looked dangerous. His face was etched in stone and pinpoints in his irises glowed with a red embedded in unearthly yellow.
As much as the man made him pause, this Blacknall held his weeping sister. His heart nearly broke. Beth looked to be in quite a state with her black hair unbound and trailing over her and the man that carried her. Adam could tell by her bare shoulder and feet that her clothing was also in wild disarray. If he’d not seen the mangled body of innocent Lady Ariel earlier, he’d believe the blond brute holding Beth had ravaged her.
Not even danger over the lethal qualities of the Blacknall holding his sister was going to stop him from trying to bring her to safety. He stiffened his spine, and he walked toward Beth. It appeared this Blacknall looked as strained as any man he’d ever seen.
Adam cleared his throat as the man’s glassy and unnatural eyes studied him. “I will take Lady Beth now,” Adam demanded with as much authority as he could muster into his voice.
“In a moment,” the brute uttered and the aura surrounding him intensified.
“Now, listen here!” Adam replied hotly, starting forward with his arms stretched outward.
“Do not try it,” the man snarled, and Adam swore he looked every bit a savage beast.
“Wait! Trinity means her no harm.” Adam stopped his determined advance at the sound of Christian Blacknall’s voice as he learned the name of the blond brute holding his sister.
“Christian, stay away!” Trinity shouted, and Adam turned to see Christian still coming toward them. “She’s bleeding, Christian! And there is something unnatural about the effect,” Trinity uttered.
“Bleeding!” Adam yelled, with alarmed question. “Beth, come here now!” he yelled, while fairly leaping toward her. Strong hands grabbed him, pulling him back from the snarling Trinity, as his sister screamed and cried.
“Nay, Lord Winslow,” Christian begged him. “Please listen, we only want to help, but you must help us!” Christian exclaimed.
Adam heaved panting breaths as he heard Trinity speaking with compassionate tones to his sister. “Lady Beth, do not be afraid,” Trinity said. “I will give you to your brother, but I need your help.”
Adam could hear Beth’s voice catch on her weeping as she tried to speak. “W-What is it, Lord Trinity?”
Adam looked at Christian whose face was turned away from him. Christian’s body felt like a taut wire beside him that might snap.
“When, Lord Winslow, takes you I need you to leave swiftly from here. When your brother takes you, he needs to take you quickly. Do you understand, maiden?”
Adam heard Beth’s voice whisper something, then louder, but still shaking, she said. “I understand, my lord.”
Christian gripped Adam’s arm tighter. “Lord Winslow, you must not tell the authorities we were here. We all must go quickly to protect you both.”
Adam’s gaze leaped up to Christian, who faced him now, and he saw luminescent yellow animal eyes and protruding fangs upon Christian Blacknall’s face. Adam couldn’t withhold his gasp, but Trinity was there, stepped up to him and lifting Beth toward him.
“Quickly,” Trinity barked at him.
All at once, surprising everyone gathered, a shrill feminine cry leaped forward, from behind where Adam stood with his back to the mansion. “Lady Beth! What has happened to, Lady Beth?”
Adam raised an astonished and loud sound as he started to turn toward a voice he knew, but never thought to hear again. Lady Ariel?
“Take her!” Trinity shouted, thrusting Beth into his arms.
“Lady Ariel,” Adam exclaimed, continuing to turn with Beth shuddering in his arms, while she strangled his neck, gasping tears. “How can you be here, Lady Ariel?” he demanded, wondering at the sanity of his mind with murders in the woods and unnatural men who sorely looked and half acted like beasts!
“What do you mean?” Lady Ariel asked with a shrill voice and her eyes darting over everyone. “I’ve been inside looking for you! What has happened to Lady Beth? Did that man attack her? I know him …”
Beth made a strangled sound into his shoulder as he gaped at Lady Ariel who backed away from them, while he tried to place what she was saying. He turned back to look at the Blacknall brothers, maybe for answers, as he questioned whether he’d seen the bloody remains of a woman out in the night woods.
They were gone.
Christian no longer stood beside him. “How could they do that?” Adam demanded into the night air, turning again in a complete circle as he held Beth tightly to his chest. How could they leave his side without a sound? Then, his gaze settled upon Lady Ariel who was running away, back toward the mansion.
“Damnation,” he cussed, suddenly realizing the new implications if Lady Ariel reached the mansion and blurted her story to anyone. “Beth, it’s all right, all right,” he soothed, trying to comfort her as he rushed after Lady Ariel, whom he shouted to as loudly as he thought he could get away with.
“Lady Ariel! Stop!” That didn’t work, so he tried, “Beth needs you!”
Chapter Seven
Trinity held his left arm out from his side as virgin’s blood dripped from the cuff of his shirt. He needed to feed and feed quickly before his hard-fought control snapped and he did something he would regret for eternity
“Baptiste has brought down a buck. It still lives,�
�� Church called to him from deeper in the woods. “Come, feed, Trinity. We will all feed and regain our purpose.”
Trinity sprinted toward redemption … this time, and as he ran, he tore his shirt off, throwing it aside. There was still blood on his hand and when he came across a small stream, he stopped to wash it off. Crouching, he looked at the blood drying on his hand and fingers, wondering how they’d all lived this long and not known virgin’s blood held such diabolical and monumental cravings for them.
Forcibly, he sunk his hand into the water, when all he wanted to do was lick the blood from his fingers. He growled, shaking his entire body, and then he used his other hand to wash and rub the blood away from his chest, arm, and hand. He felt Church’s presence and he looked up to see his brother standing across the small stream. Church’s face looked relaxed and his fangs were receded. Church had fed.
“Come, little brother, it’s not far.” Church inclined his head and Trinity rose from his crouch, stepping across the stream to stop beside his older brother. Church’s hand clamped his shoulder. “Well done, brother, you saved that woman.”
Trinity wondered if that were true why he felt as though he’d marked or scarred the young woman for life. He ignored Church’s praise and he sprinted toward the blood he voraciously needed. Normally, he didn’t take animal blood as Baptiste, and especially Christian, did. Animal blood did sustain, yet wasn’t satisfying. Of course, Christian couldn’t find it within his faith to drink from newly dead corpses, Trinity’s preferred food. Christian never denounced him for it or the freshly-leeched blood he drank that their ally, Doctor Latham or others of his like, gifted them with.
Trinity reached the buck just as the last of its noble life left it and he knelt beside it offering a silent prayer for its sacrifice, which he was certain all his brothers might be surprised he did. He began to feed with a need harsher than he’d felt in a long time as he heard his brothers’ intense conversation above him.
“I’ve not come so close to losing my control in so long I’d forgotten what it felt like. Forgot the overpowering demand,” Christian admitted, with his voice sounding confused.
“I felt it once in the last year,” Baptiste said, surprising them all. “I think she was on a monthly and I strayed too close.”
“That’s never been a problem before.” Church’s voice was on edge. “Why didn’t you say something, Baptiste?”
“Damnation, Church, you know we never speak about women or sexual relations together. All we do is argue about it or don’t know how to handle it.” Baptiste glared at Church.
“You should tell us everything, especially something this important.”
Baptiste ignored Church’s rise of temper, saying, “I’ve thought about it ever since it happened and really the only conclusion I could come to was we’re reaching our prime as men beneath this damned vampire’s curse.”
Trinity wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, straightening his torso. “And men in their prime, physically, seek virginity, health, and youth above all else to spread their seed.” He practically snarled out the words as the trueness of it sank into his soul.
“So an innocent young virgin, freshly bleeding, shouted to our darker natures,” Christian said, then he added, “Then the murdered one was surely not a virgin.”
Trinity could feel his bloodlust retreating with his blood intake and feelings of fullness slowly seeped through his body. His maddening hunger was abating. As he stood to form a circle with his brothers under the full moon now escaped from the clinging fog, he still felt edgy with thoughts of a maiden named Beth.
“What we need to know,” Church said as he leveled a glare at each of them in turn, “is why none of us could track the murderer’s movements or blood?”
“But Trinity, was—” Baptiste began.
“I followed the woman,” Trinity injected. He felt the rise of his brothers’ curiosity over this. However, he was in no mood to discuss what he couldn’t understand.
Whether Church understood his complicated feelings or not, Church passed the question by, moving on. “We cannot scent every vampire.” Church shrugged his broad shoulders in the twilight. “None of us knew when our stepfather, Nikkos, was around.”
“Some of those women he forced us to bring to him …” Christian’s yellow-rimmed blue eyes looked as haunted as they all felt.
“Had to be virgins.” Trinity arched his neck with a growling voice.
“That adds another line of proof to my theory.” Baptiste remained the clear, scientific head among them. “They didn’t overly tempt us, then.”
Trinity slowly looked along the dense tree line. “So we have a murderer that could be a vampire or not.”
“But this monster tears apart its victims like an animal.” Church punched his fist into his palm.
“Some could easily accuse us of being animals.” Trinity sneered.
“You’re cynical to think such a thing.” Baptiste grasped his shoulder. “We’ve all conquered our baser inclinations.”
Trinity didn’t stop his leering cynicism as strange intuitions began to claw through him. Really, they’d never left his concern. He turned his gaze to the west. Why could he feel this one lone woman and her fears? Unable to ignore his concern, he suddenly started forward, becoming a blur with vampire’s speed. “I must go.”
“Brother!” Church yelled with a voice that wanted him to stop,
Trinity kept going, and then Christian was beside him. “Don’t try to stop me,” Trinity warned.
“Nay, brother.” Christian laughed. “Just take my jacket, will you?”
Christian tossed the jacket toward him, and Trinity caught it. “Thank you.”
His direction was his horse and he heard Christian speaking loudly to him, “When you see to the lady’s welfare, see that the brother fairs well too.”
Trinity raised a hand aloft as he ran, in acknowledgment of Christian’s request. At least one brother didn’t find his sudden urges strange and unfathomable.
***
Beth felt pain stabbing across her back, and she didn’t understand how she’d not felt it in the woods before. Vicious eyes like the inky, black depths of a lightless pool flashed through her mind and she gasped, remembering the pain of the slashing cut. But after …
After that, she only remembered the dark and mystifying Lord Trinity. She shuddered against Adam as he carried her and he chased after … Beth tried to make her mind focus, but it was so hard and she desperately wanted to go to sleep. She wanted to hide from everything that was so horrible. If only the pain would let her sleep.
“Beth!” Adam looked down at Beth jostling in his arms. She’d gone limp and he could see her eyes were closed. He knew enough from classes he’d taken at the university to know she was still in physical danger. She was so cold, combined with shaking, and the presence of some wound he’d heard Lord Trinity speak of that could put Beth into shock’s clutches.
“Damnation!” Adam shouted. “If this is how you treat your friends in need, I’d not want your friendship. My god, Lady Ariel, she’s passed out and needs our help desperately!”
Adam gasped a labored breath of relief when he saw Lady Ariel finally stop running away. She’d nearly made it to the steps at the back of the mansion before she turned back.
“Thank god,” he heaved, slowing his pace slightly to intercept Lady Ariel as she hurried back to them. He could see Lady Ariel was shuddering in the cold night air in her inadequate ball gown and her once perfectly-styled blond hair had fallen about her bare shoulders.
“Beth!” Lady Ariel exclaimed with her small hand reaching up to touch Beth’s cheek. There were tears in Lady Ariel’s eyes. “She has to be all right.” She looked up at him beseechingly.
“She will be,” he reassured her, when for some odd reason he’d been so angry at her moments before. “We need our carriage. She needs a blanket and warmth,” he stated, starting forward again, and then he asked, “Were you with Lord Fanton? Is he still he
re? Gads, I hope he’s not taken the carriage.”
“He wanted me to play some silly game out in the gardens and it was so dark,” Lady Ariel said out of breath beside him, trying to keep up. “I-I,” she stuttered, and then she seemed to force herself to blurt, “I left him …” Her voice trailed off.
Adam came around the side of the mansion and he saw the line of resting carriages. Good god, he thought, how hard would it be to identify theirs? “A game?” he asked, distracted, as he looked at the line of dark carriages, trying without luck to pick out any defining characteristics. There had to be well over thirty.
“A courting game,” she answered breathlessly, stopping beside where he’d stopped. Her words jerked his attention back. It was too dark to tell, but he was certain Lady Ariel blushed. She hurried on, saying, “But for the longest time I couldn’t find you or Beth. I search the entire ball, but then a servant boy said you’d gone to the gardens … S-So I braved them again … for Beth.” Lady Ariel patted Beth’s shoulder. “Has he hurt her terribly?” she asked in an agonized murmur.
Adam had turned his eyes back toward the carriages again, distracted at Lady Ariel’s long explanation. He saw a carriage pulling out of line and a footman jumping off the back to come towards them. What miracle was this?
“He might have tried to kill her out there in those woods,” Adam muttered, glancing down at Beth limp in his arms. He really had no idea of the impact of his words. “I think this is our carriage footman. Come on.”
He heard the swishing of Lady Ariel’s skirts beside him as he once again hurried forward to meet the footman. His one thought was to get Beth safe, warm, and home in bed. Perhaps then, Lady Ariel could check Beth for any wounds. The murdered woman in the woods bothered him greatly. He had to tell the authorities, but Beth’s welfare was more important at the moment.
“The gentleman said to bring the carriage up fer you, my lord,” the footman announced upon reaching them. Adam didn’t halt, and the footman turned to walk with them.
“Gentleman?” Adam questioned.
“Aye, I didn’t catch his name, sir. He was tall with blonde hair and a goatee. Not dressed for the party though.”