by Multiple
“Please, please, Trinity,” she pleaded against his lips, not knowing what she pleaded for, but her feverish body needed it.
Trinity was lost. There was no hope he could hold off any longer as Beth’s ripe lips pleaded with him. He could feel the heady need of her arousal shifting around him … grabbing and pulling him in. He seized his erection with one hand and set it to her wet entrance, melting with heat.
He moaned as he braced on both hands trying to steel his resolve to make love to his wife, but no more, as he growled his intentions. Beth’s nails dug into his flanks and he pushed forward as a tremor of pleasure wracked his body and he flung back his thick hair, while his body arched.
The head of his shaft was within clenching liquid heat and his fangs punched free, lengthening, as his eyeballs grew hot. A snarl snapped from his throat as he strained. Through the haze of lust and control he was exerting over himself, he felt Beth’s nails scrape his chest as she whimpered.
His gaze focused sharply on her face, afraid she was in pain or fear. But no, she was lost in desire and just the look on her passion-ravaged face had him rumbling his intent as he thrust forward.
“No!” Beth cried, screaming in his ear.
Hot blood filled his nostrils as his erection pounded striking throbs, while buried deep in Beth’s clenching core. “No!” he roared along with Beth as the vampire beast rolled up inside him.
Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.
“Let me go. Let me go,” Beth’s voice whimpered and begged.
He felt Beth’s terror through his blood lust as he kept his shaft seated and unmoving, while he battled. Fuck! He’d not considered the innocent’s virgin blood seeping between their thighs so hot, wet, and luscious. He hissed with his mouth opening, set to strike.
“Trinity, please,” Beth cried.
Then he was on the ceiling. His back flat against it as he looked down on her, splayed naked and weeping.
“Run,” he roared, guttural and inhuman.
Beth squealed in terror, rolling off the bed as he held himself with every ounce of willpower he possessed. She ran to the door managing to grasp her nightgown as she fled. Then she was out the door, flinging it open and running.
He roared again with the force he used not to follow her, but the lowly, foul beast inside him shamed him to his core as he fell upon the bloody sheets.
Chapter Twenty Five
Father Christian checked his pocket for the letter his new sister-in-law had entrusted to him. He felt the packet as he used his other hand to bring his stallion to a halt outside the mansion he understood was Lord Adam Winslow’s residence, when he wasn’t at the university. He’d already been to the university trying to deliver his sister’s letter and found Lord Winslow, unusually, was not in residence. This was his last hope of finding Lord Winslow because he didn’t know the gentleman as well as he would have liked.
“Of course that is foolish,” he muttered. It was bad enough he was a vampire let alone a rector, and if his brothers ever found out his fondness for men … “I must deliver this and leave quickly,” he sternly instructed himself, trying not to remember all he found attractive about Lord Adam Winslow.
He was heartened to see several stallions out front, which proclaimed someone was in residence and his task could be accomplished quickly. It seemed, besides his hopeless infatuation, he had another looming problem, which was the ball Church had set for the next evening. A ball which Church was demanding he attend, to choose a lady to court. He knew, even though he was a cleric, he had a duty to keep up the pretenses of actually being human and a viscount, whether he could stand it or not. To Church that meant the brothers had to appear to society’s matrons as if they cared to find a lady to bring to wife. Luckily, Church stopped short of demanding they actually marry and allowed them broken engagements after lengthy times of being affianced. His turn was here.
Christian dismounted his stallion and he bent to tie up the reins. “If only Trinity and Lady Beth had come back to London,” he muttered, walking toward the front door. Their new marriage would have been enough for the pretenses to hold for the eligible bachelors of Blacknall.
Shaken from his pensive thoughts, Christian halted, brought up short by the scent of fresh blood flooding over him from beyond the front door, where he was set to knock. His fangs snapped outward, lashing past his bottom lip … and it took several seconds of full concentration to make them recede.
“There’s blood, and a bit of it,” he uttered, looking over the door.
Thoughts of Adam Winslow being harmed gripped him and he lifted his curled fingers away from the door before he could actually knock. Christian stepped away from the door, looking up the face of the building. There was a balcony. He could leap to it or go around to the back of the mansion. Whichever he did, he wasn’t going through the front.
A second later, with unexplainable speed, he was at the back of the mansion and he saw the destruction of a back patio door. As he stepped closer, his boots scrunched on broken glass.
Blood.
His nose caught the scent at his feet, before his eyes did. Someone had been harmed breaking through the patio doors. When he crouched to touch a speck of blood with his finger, bringing it back to his tongue to taste … he knew instantly who it was.
“Cull,” he snarled low, but he also nearly gagged at another foul taste mixed in the blood.
Beyond the strange flavor tainting the blood, he and his brothers had been dealing with Cull too long for him not to recognize his kindred. His sharp nose and blood-expert eyes detected blood from a different source, this blood stronger and more poignant. He leaned forward, touching the blood from the edge of a piece of glass, then bringing to his lips.
What he tasted jerked him to his feet with more than recognition and overwhelming worry. “Adam!” he exclaimed. It had to be the most delectable blood he’d ever tasted.
He found Adam within mere seconds after that, lying crumpled on the ground in a stony wash out in the fields beyond the manicured lawns of the mansion. Christian didn’t have time to wonder how Adam ended up in the wash, looking like a broken, life-sized doll.
“Adam,” Christian implored, kneeling beside him, trying to control his panic as his hand already stroked Adam’s bronze-tinted hair. Fear clutched him. Adam looked dead with his head tilted back and to the side at a crazy angle.
Christian hissed at the bite marks on Adam’s neck. It was messy and savage. More brutal than any vampire’s strike needed to be. Christian realized he was praying as he bent over Adam’s blue-tinged lips and glassy, sightless eyes.
“Please have life,” he begged, feeling not one tingle of breath from Adam touching his lips. He jerked Adam upward, raising him into an emotional embrace, as he cried, “You must live!”
His need flung outward and he knew his brothers must feel his torment as he squeezed Adam’s body to his chest. Adam’s head fell forward and to the side as tears began to fall from Christian’s eyes.
“No! God no!” he cried.
He knew the signs of a gluttonous and vile vampire feeding on a human unto death. If there’d been but a shred of life left in Adam he could save him. He beat Adam’s back once … twice, without mercy. Until …
“Praise God!” Christian bellowed, laying Adam down, and then he ripped a vein in his wrist open. His black blood instantly spurted forth and Christian frantically laid his wrist to Adam’s blue-tinged lips. Before he’d felt a small gasp, a flutter.
“I knew I felt it,” he cried smashing his knuckles across the tears in his eyes. “Drink, Adam,” he begged. “Dear God, just swallow once.”
Christian watched the blood fill Adam’s mouth. “Please,” he pleaded, rocking his body with the agony filling it. “Please!” he shouted.
The blood began to drip from Adam’s unmoving lips and Christian broke down with his face pressed to Adam’s chest. “Oh dear God, I pray this man finds peace.” His voice broke as he began the benediction of Last Rites through h
is growing sobs.
But as was the way when a vampire turned a human to their kind, the poor human flesh convulsed, and suddenly Adam’s chest heaved beneath Christian’s face.
“Adam,” Christian cried, rising to turn Adam’s upper torso onto his lap, and then he grabbed hold of him, lifting him against his chest to hold him as tightly as he could.
The transition from human, to death, and into a vampire, was inhuman agony and torture until the body was reborn into violent convulsions.
“God help me,” Christian pleaded, praying his brothers would find him quickly, because Adam would not survive daylight the second he turned.
As Adam thrashed beneath his unnaturally strong embrace, Christian wept for his own weakness. He’d not been strong enough to simply let Adam die. He’d ripped the choice from Adam, who may never forgive him.
Christian thanked God for his brothers and their intimate, otherworldly connection, because on swift stallions of white and black, Church and Baptiste came to his side. He could only wonder if the distance kept Trinity from feeling his need or did his brother sit worried, but impotent to help, from so far away.
“The brother?” Church questioned in a fierce tone, placing Adam as he halted his stallion and jumped down to race to Christian’s side.
Christian tried to control his emotions as they spoke at once. He said, “We must get him into darkness. There’s no time.”
While Church asked, “What’s happened here?”
Baptiste came forward and he threw his dark cloak over Adam. They all knew what transformation looked like and the cloak would help with the sunlight. Yet it wouldn’t cure the danger.
“I found him sucked dry … near death,” Christian said, holding strong to Adam’s thrashing body. “Something occurred at the mansion, there.”
Church looked toward the aged structure. “No matter, it’s the closest place.”
“He needs darkness now.” Baptiste said what they all knew. Baptiste’s form was as a blur of movement out of the corner of one’s eye. He’d gone to check the mansion for danger with his words left behind, “I’ll return shortly.”
Church crouched, then worked to grab each of Adam’s jumping legs, until he had them contained together. “Pray there is a good dark cellar,” Church said through gritted teeth.
Christian heaved with him, standing with Adam carried between them. Baptiste flared beside them, catching Adam’s midsection. “You won’t believe what’s about in there,” Baptiste said. “But it’s clear to a vast underground cellar.”
They took their burden by Baptiste’s direction and Christian saw the blood bath in the main foyer. Then, as they turned to go down into the bowels of the mansion, he saw the headless torso, flung partway up the main staircase. Just at that moment, an inhuman howl erupted from beneath Baptiste’s cloak.
“What evil has happened here?” Church’s voice rang out.
Chapter Twenty Six
Beth looked up as the maid entered the bedchamber where she was packing her belongings. Once again.
“Lord Trinity sends word your carriage will be ready to leave shortly, my lady.”
The maid bobbed a curtsy as Beth nodded her acknowledgment of receiving the message. She tried to force her hands from shaking as she continued to fold the dress she was packing. “Tell him I send him thanks for his courtesy. I will be ready,” Beth said, steadfastly folding without looking up as she spoke. Her mind was in turmoil compared to the actions she used. She’d not seen Trinity since the night before … when he’d flung his body to the ceiling
What greater evidence could she have that he wasn’t human? God, she’d been a silly girl playing with wickedness. Beth threw down the dress she’d folded and paced to the window, clutching a hand to her stomach. No one had ever told her the intimate time between a man and woman would be so painful.
“Will it hurt like that every time?” she asked. Her voice was as tight as her mind and belly, while her gaze focused on the carriage waiting below in front of the manor.
Suddenly to her attention, Trinity strode into view and she nearly stepped away from the window. Yet the part of her infatuated with her husband stayed and watched him. What turmoil … half of her desired him beyond compare, while the other half was terrified of him. Now.
She watched him checking the carriage horses’ harnesses. He had his dark-streaked blonde hair loose to the top of his shoulders. His hair looked as though he’d fisted his hand through it many times. He exuded a type of dark masculinity, which was much earthier than any men of the ton. He’d told her once he was now made to attract humans. She could certainly see that, and she remembered the feel of his muscular body beneath her hands.
His head turned sharply and she gave a small gasp, falling back from the window where his striking gaze was centered. Her heartbeat fluttered with fear and her fingers clamped to her mouth. Lord help her. What was she going to do?
Minutes passed and she realized she was dreading going down to the carriage. If it wasn’t for the worry she felt for Adam, inexplicably growing every hour since she’d had that terrible nightmare, she was uncertain if anything could propel her.
“This is nonsense,” she exclaimed, trying to bolster herself. She marched back to packing. Grabbing the dress and starting to fold it once again. “I’m a married woman now,” she told the dress with resolve. She thought of her parents. She’d been young when her father passed, but she remembered them together.
“They were happy,” she muttered, finally finished folding the dress, then putting it into a waiting valise. She didn’t believe her mother could have been false about the contentment that had exuded from her. How could her mother be content if there had been pain involved every time she and her husband were intimate?
“She couldn’t.” Beth let the knowledge settle in her mind. Then there was the blood … Trinity’s blood she’d tasted. Still craved. Once she’d tasted it, she’d known certain things and those vague intuitions spoke of bliss in sexual congress. Also sinking in, as though his blood fused with her body, were the merits of the man whose blood she’d drunk.
“So …” Beth paced to the door and back. “I must do something to halt these fears.” Still, the image of Trinity latched, impossibly, to the ceiling above her as his features twisted, while he roared for her to run was not an easy thought to expel.
Trinity paced by the carriage, unwilling to fetch his bride. By God, there had been a glimmer of hope to have and to hold a real wife. Nearly, he’d grasp something he’d thought impossible. Then …
Trinity made a frustrated sound, raising the carriage horses’ hackles, desperately wanting to punch something. What a bald-faced idiot he was to forget about the virgin’s blood. He cursed under his breath, and stalked to the back of the carriage. He had his stallion ready to ride, because he’d rather dare the length of full sunlight than travel inside the carriage with Beth. He tried to tell himself it was cowardliness and not worry over seeing fear reflected in her multicolored eyes.
“Hellfire,” he cussed again. He could intimately feel her fear.
“My lord, I’m ready,” Beth’s soft voice spoke behind him. He’d been so preoccupied, she startled him. Luckily, he was a master at disguising his emotions and his body didn’t even twitch. Then he turned to look down on her avoiding gaze. “I hope you will ride inside the carriage with me,” she said.
Trinity raised an eyebrow to this … everything about her, from her gaze not able to look at him, to her stutter, and to the tremor he could see in her hands told him the last thing she desired was to be locked in the carriage with him. His Beth was not unintelligent, so she must have a reason.
“As you wish,” He bowed slightly and she glanced at him, and then nodded. Unfortunately, he could be making a horrible mistake. He had no idea what to say to her or any clue how to go about assuaging her fears. Realistically, every one of her fears was based in fact.
He couldn’t tell her he’d not turn into a primal beast again at the th
ought of tasting her blood, nor could he tell her that he’d be any better at trying to make love to her. He just had no experience at sex when it counted … and this did count to him in every way.
With no answers, he forced himself to the carriage door to hold it open for Beth and she didn’t shy away from him when he took her elbow to guide her up into the conveyance. There came a moment when he thought about bolting … right before he stepped up into the carriage after her.
Beth nervously twisted part of the skirt on her sturdy gray traveling dress between her fingers. At least she wasn’t shivering anymore. What had she expected, that Trinity would pounce on her? She looked at him sitting across from her. They’d both been studiously gazing out opposite windows, avoiding each other for the last thirty minutes of the carriage ride. Even though they’d not spoken, being in the carriage alone with him had given her many insights. Her husband was as worried as she was. It furrowed his brow and added lines bracketing his mouth and it stole some of the intensity from his dark blue eyes,
She cleared her throat … she had to find a way to speak to him.
“It was your virgin’s blood.” Trinity’s voice was very low, and he didn’t look at her but at the seat beside her.
At first, Beth was startled by the suddenness and then intimacy of Trinity’s words. It took her a moment to comprehend. “Blood,” she whispered, leaving out, “Of course!” Still, she blushed. She was too new at talking about such things with a man.
Trinity’s rich, blue eyes centered on her. “I forgot to expect it. And, my lady, it is doubly hard for one of my kind to control both their blood lust and aggressive sexual desire at the same moment.”
Even though her cheeks were hot, Beth forced herself to continue looking directly at her husband. Desperately, she wanted something worldly to say and she wished she weren’t so naive.
“Of course,” she muttered, remembering the aggressive desire singing between their bodies, molding them together. It had been the most incredible experience of her life, until … “It hurt,” she pushed past her stubborn and embarrassed lips.