by Multiple
“She’s going to be all right,” he muttered to himself, still feeling bone-deep relief. Yet he walked to the door in conflict. The doctor had said not to bother Beth until morning, but he worried about leaving her alone … at night. So vulnerable. At the same time, he wanted to tell the authorities about the woman in the woods and he was uncommonly nervous about Lady Ariel and what she might be doing.
Beth won, of course. He couldn’t leave her where Fanton might soon be lurking, so he retrieved a wingback chair from the front parlor. He carried it to her door, set it down, settling in for the remainder of the night. Once the quietness soothed his body into relaxing, his mind wouldn’t forget the evenings perplexing questions.
“Who is Christian Blacknall?” he muttered. “What is he?” Whatever they were, and Adam knew the Blacknalls were not human men, they seemed to have a code of morality about them. “Men who many times look like men but are not men?”
He tugged a hand through his hair, shrugging in the chair, remembering the last sight he had of Christian Blacknall. The man’s handsome face had looked fiercely primal. Adam knew he would sound insane trying to tell anyone about the things he’d seen that night. Something, however, inside him wanted to keep Christian Blacknall’s secret. All the Blacknalls had helped them. They’d saved Beth. He wondered what she’d seen, and what she’d think once she had calmer thoughts.
It appeared to him Lord Trinity had intimately saved Beth’s life. From what? What kind of man could rip apart a human body like the one he’d seen? Yet now he knew there were other than men that walked the earth. He worried his fingers over his temple as his thoughts just made more confusion and less answers.
“What leaves you sitting in a chair in the hall, stepbrother?”
Adam’s body jerked from being startled at the sudden voice. His gaze leaped upward to see Fanton wearing pristine eveningwear, standing two feet in front of him. Bloody hell, how did Fanton get so close to him without him hearing?
“Fanton,” Adam expelled, quickly standing as he watched Fanton look as though he were barely sniffing the air, while his gaze latched onto the door behind Adam’s back.
“Who is in there?” Fanton’s eyes gleamed toward the closed door.
“Where have you been, Fanton?” Adam demanded, angrily.
It seemed hard for Fanton to turn his interest away from the door. “At a whorehouse, if you must know,” he answered. His voice was a lazy drawl as his black eyes slowly turned to Adam. “After Lady Ariel couldn’t tear her thoughts away from you or Beth, I became bored and left.” Fanton seemed a little taller or broader … he definitely appeared to have more glossy perfection about him, as he added snidely, “I tell you, that is why I never attend society events. They are so trite and wearisome.”
Adam frowned, barely able to keep from grinding his teeth. “Were you in the garden tonight, Fanton? At the ball?”
Fanton’s gaze instantly sharpened. “No, stepbrother, I cannot think of one reason I would be in the gardens.”
An outright lie, Adam thought, because Lady Ariel placed him there at least for a few moments. Why would Fanton lie if he were not hiding something? Adam decided he didn’t want Fanton to know the full of what had happened that evening, so he held back.
“Beth’s turned her ankle,” he said watching Fanton’s reaction, which oddly turned into a smug look. “The doctor’s been around and she will be fine with some rest.”
“And you’ve just decided she needs a guard outside her resting place … in her own home?” After slinging his barb, Fanton adjusted his tailored evening jacket.
Bastard. Adam knew Fanton was toying with him and they both knew it, but neither would reveal themselves to say it. “It should be obvious I’m here to help her should she need assistance in the night.”
Fanton frowned with a gleam growing in his eyes. “You are always such a dutiful brother to little Beth.”
“At least I would never leave her unattended to an event I’d escorted her to,” Adam replied tersely.
Fanton stepped closer with a new fierce look on his features, and Adam nearly stepped back with the power he could feel emanating from him. “Be careful, Adam. It’s not wise to provoke me.”
Adam tensed his posture, attempting glare for glare. “What’s happened to you?” he demanded. “You’re not the same ever since our parents died.”
“Killed themselves, you mean.” Fanton spat the heresy as though he enjoyed the thought and didn’t care his father had died.
“I’ll still never believe that,” Adam responded hotly.
“You can’t believe your mother would do such a thing? Stab him in the neck,” Fanton gloated with a hiss. “I’m fucking glad he lived long enough to stab her back,” he spat.
“No!” Adam shouted, and his anger raised his fist toward Fanton’s sneering face. “He killed her!”
Adam thought he was going to have the rash opportunity to smash Fanton’s face as his fist swung toward it, but suddenly Fanton’s hand was there. Fanton snatched his swinging fist, stopping the force of his punch as easily as if he were holding a small child back.
Impossible, Adam thought, as he groaned at the crushing pressure Fanton squeezed over his clenched fist. Fanton pushed with unbelievable strength and a sneer of white teeth. Adam was forced backward, disbelieving the power as he toppled against the chair, pushing it to the side, then his back hit the door with a thud.
“Fanton,” Adam gasped at the pain and immense pressure that seemed to build around him. He saw Fanton’s eyes with flashing red centers as Fanton growled an animalistic sound. Adam knew Fanton was set to kill him as his littlest finger snapped beneath the crushing pressure of Fanton’s hand. Adam bellowed in pain, fighting not to let Fanton push him to the ground.
Abruptly, through the haze of pain clenching his eyes, he saw a beam of sunlight fall across the side of Fanton’s face. It was dawn and the light was streaming in from the hall window. He was going to die at dawn!
Suddenly, Fanton shouted a horrendous groan and stumbled back, releasing him. Adam clutched his hand as he bent at the waist in pain, but still looking up at Fanton in horror.
“What are you?” Adam shouted fiercely over his pain.
Fanton was glaring at the ray of sunlight across their path as though it were a vile thing. Then he turned his body, gathering his cloak around himself, and stalked away.
Chapter Ten
Trinity had an hour before dawn to survey the site of the freshest murder and the surrounding woods for clues about the killer. He could walk by daylight; however, it was uncomfortable and he preferred not to ride in sunlight. Therefore, the grey edges of dawn found him standing over the bloody remains of the woman killed in the woods. One would think the blood would taunt him, but his thoughts were relentlessly on breasts of temptation and thighs of desire never before touched by man or beast.
“Hell,” he muttered, rubbing a rough hand over the bristle on his hard jaw. He was cunning and strong enough to take anything from humans. Even their lives. That was the point. He was the predator and they were the prey. He’d learned that well at the command of his Sire. He could still see the faces and hear the screams. Hundreds of them. So helpless. The women and the children were especially hard. The mortal dredges of him that remembered being human were disgusted and deeply saddened by the powerless ones he’d killed.
He and his brothers had been so young, as their vile stepfather turned each one of them into vampires. One by one — and they’d been very afraid of him. That fear of him had overcome their loathing to hunt humans for him to feed upon.
Their mother hadn’t realized when she’d married him what he was. He’d used every temptation he could conjure to tempt her for the sole purpose of getting his hand on the four little boys. He coveted them to feed upon at first, until they grew to be strong enough to turn into vampires that would hunt for him. After the first year of marriage, their mother was dead and there was no one left to save them.
Trinit
y growled at his memories, wondering why they taunted him now, intertwining with his thoughts of Lady Beth Winslow. Perhaps it was because of what could have been. She was the kind of woman he would have married in his long-lost human form. She had sweetness and curves to tempt him until old age. He wondered if he had bound her to him now. Had giving her his blood turned her fate? It worried him. He didn’t want to corrupt her.
“No,” he snapped, he would protect her. Somehow, he would keep her safe … from himself.
Throwing away his confused thoughts, Trinity crouched down to study the edges of the murder site. He could see where the foul one had dragged his fresh kill into the small clearing. More room to work. He wondered if human men could do such a thing, while speculating about what the monster’s point was. There was too much blood left for a vampire and it didn’t make sense the monster could be a vampire. Vampires wouldn’t tear their food apart in such an animalistic way. This was passion of some kind. A deeply abhorrent lust.
He wondered if Cull was missing another whore. He would have to ask him.
“Why play with Beth?” he muttered. The nature of that taunting hunt was as intimate as it was confusing. “It’s nearly as if you knew her, beast. You could have killed her at any moment before I arrived.”
Trinity stood, stretching his tall body. He circled the site with his sharp gaze magnifying each torn leaf and broken twig. He easily found the direction the murderer left and he searched to see if any small amount of his blood could be found. Perhaps the woman had scratched him or a branch had gouged him. One small drop of the vile monster’s blood left that he could taste and he would know him the next time they met, by instinct alone. There was none, so he followed the trail, noticing how well the murderer ran through the forest without colliding with large branches or falling over limbs. Night vision?
“It has to be,” Trinity muttered, stopping his search in one spot, where he could tell the murderer paused. “Humans do not have night vision,” he affirmed, looking around the area. “Here, the monster turned back.”
Trinity looked back toward the direction of the mansion where he knew Beth came from, while attending a ball. “Bloody hell,” he snapped. “He turned back for her.” Trinity looked around the area again. “He was leaving, but he turned back for Beth.”
The first edges of dawn filtered through the leaves overhead and he knew he had to go and leave further investigation until the next night. Nevertheless, he felt wildness pushing at him, making him edgy and straining his control. The foul beast that murdered women, ripping them apart for no other reason than some distorted and malignant passion, was connected to Beth somehow.
Moments later, he left the forest atop his stallion at a strong gallop. He was going to find his brother Baptiste, the scientist. He had questions his brother might help answer. Hence, when he arrived at Blacknall mansion, he went around back, specifically to avoid Church. He wasn’t ready for a question and answer parry with his older brother.
He left his stallion with the grooms. All servants at Blacknall estates were well-paid to not worry about any strange events they might witness. Over the years, it was proven money worked better than force to keep the staffs’ tongues silent about the affairs of the Lords of Blacknall.
Trinity didn’t turn toward the main entrance. He walked in the direction of the tower on the west side, and then he opened the heavy plank door to the dungeon beneath. Baptiste had taken over the dungeon for his private work when he wasn’t working at the Royal Society with an august group of scientists.
The curving, stonewalled stairs leading downward were dark with no light from oil or wick. Vampires didn’t need such trivial human confections. He could easily see his way as though it were an overcast day. The steps were many, and they curved in a circular fashion into the bowels below the mansion. Trinity noticed, as he neared the entrance to the main chamber, that it was glowing with light. That meant Baptiste had humans confined in the dungeon.
His brother forever leant his scientific studies to the many unique traits of vampires. Baptiste had proved many of the characteristics such as the process to create new vampires. All the brothers adhered to strict rules against it. As Baptiste learned about their growing traits such as night vision or how much blood they needed to survive, he increasingly returned to the plight of the feeders.
Feeders were hopeless human beings that some vampires used only to feed upon. They were enslaved but never turned. These poor people were mere shells of themselves, often emaciated of body and soul. Baptiste worked tirelessly trying to find a way to return them to their former health and wellbeing of mind. Trinity knew Baptiste had found the bodies of the lost souls easier to treat than their minds.
When he entered the chamber, he could sense two humans were about. His sharp gaze picked out a man crouched in the shadows on the far side of the chamber, past the tables and equipment of his brother’s laboratory. What halted his steps, though, was the woman perched on a high stool in the center of the workspace.
She was sideways to him in a thin rail of a dress with bare feet balanced on the bottom rung of a tall stool. Her hair was a glorious tumble of red hair, which was wild and long. It was so long it fell down her slender back to the top of the stool. She was overly thin and pale, making her easy to place as a feeder, and it gave her a fairy-like appearance.
Baptiste’s back was to the entrance as he worked over some resourceful laboratory equipment, and Trinity approached slowly, unwilling to alarm the woman sitting so trustingly out in the open. She finally sensed his approach, and when she turned her gaze to him briefly, he saw vivid green eyes before her gaze darted away. She was off the chair and down on her knees with her thin wrists raised upward to him as he stopped before her. Instinct told her he was a vampire and previous forced servitude propelled her to supplicate before him.
“Damnation, Miss Irene,” Baptiste cussed, turning slowly.
Trinity knew Baptiste knew of his arrival and the young woman’s actions. It dawned on Trinity that it was some sort of test Baptiste was trying. The woman named Irene whimpered and began to shake so badly that her raised arms wavered. “Miss Irene, you do not have to kneel or offer yourself like this anymore.” Baptiste’s voice softened.
“I’d not take your blood,” Trinity offered. “Rise,” he added, thinking to help Baptiste’s cause. This only brought a wail from Irene as she rose high enough to scamper out of the laboratory and out into the shadows at the edges of the chamber.
“Ah, bloody hell,” Baptiste expelled as both their gazes turned to watch her. “She thinks you are rejecting her blood like it’s demeaning,” he said, and then he added louder out into the shadows. “Not like you are giving her freedom.”
Trinity shrugged, and pulled off the jacket he’d borrowed from Christian. “Do you have an extra shirt?”
Baptiste raised an eyebrow, propping his hip against the table he’d been working on as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You came here for a shirt?”
Trinity threw the jacket onto the table beside where he stood and he lifted his arms to stretch his tall body to the left, “For that, and some blood would be nice,” he said leisurely, stretching his limbs to the right. He added aloud for the benefit of Irene, “But not fresh blood.”
A little while later after he’d gotten a shirt and some of the stored blood they regularly received from doctors leeching patients, he and Baptiste sat on either side of a table.
“Dr. Latham said you’ve been giving them your blood.” Trinity inclined his head toward the two humans hiding in the shadows.
“So you left us so quickly to fetch Doctor Latham to attend to that innocent, Lady Winslow?” Trinity shrugged, holding his brother’s gaze. His brother’s returning half-smile was indulgent. “All right then,” Baptiste said slowly, “I’ve been administering vampire blood to several feeders.”
“And?” Trinity asked.
“And,” Baptiste emphasized. “I’ve notated a dozen effects.”
; “A dozen,” Trinity muttered, scraping his jaw with his hand, and then he uttered, “I gave my blood to her.”
“Lady Winslow?”
Trinity returned a temperate look. “It took her pain away, but …”
“She wanted more,” Baptiste finished.
“What have I done?” Trinity’s fist hit the tabletop rattling even the sturdy legs. He stood and paced away several steps, flinging his tangled blond hair back from his face before he paced back. “What is it about this one woman?”
He stopped before the table and watched Baptiste lean back in his chair with his gaze drifting toward Irene. “Some feeders I’ve given my blood to have had a different reaction. It’s as if they’ve become addicted to it, while all others only mildly crave it, but enough that’s easy for them to break the desire.”
“Some?” Trinity questioned with a harsh voice.
Baptiste turned his gaze too glare up at him, as he uttered, “One.” He grimaced, saying, “Just one.”
Trinity’s gaze jumped to Irene and she wailed, and then she ran out of sight into one of the cells. “Why?” Trinity asked with a crack in his voice.
“Even vampires need to find a mate. Perhaps, to someday procreate.” Baptiste’s handsome features looked like a battalion wall ready to defend his amazing conclusions.
“What?” Trinity shouted, on the edges of some beliefs he could barely believe or hope were true.
“No!” Baptiste exclaimed, standing, “I’ve not proven anything yet, just tossed out silly theories. It’s bringing Miss Irene’s mind back and I will break her of the addiction later.”
“Is she a virgin?” Trinity asked roughly, but in a calmer voice.
“Nay,” Baptiste answered, grasping the back of the chair to sit once again.
“But Lady Winslow tempted you. She tempted all of us.” Trinity returned to sit, slowly.
“Aye,” Baptiste nodded, “But while it was exquisitely tempting, it didn’t look to me to be even half as much as it affected you.”