“Drink all you can of his blood,” Jezebel said, pushing me over onto the goblin’s body. “Hurry. The blood will solidify quickly.”
I did as she said. I’d drunk only a few minutes when no more could be drained out. I got to my feet shakily.
“Sit before the fire,” Jezebel said, helping me to her chair. “You need to rest.”
I lay there and she covered me with a blanket. Before I knew it, I was asleep.
* * * *
Blinking my eyes, I awakened. Where was I?
I felt a soft tongue on my inner thigh, then warm breath. The blanket on my lap was moving.
I ripped it off to see Jezebel crouched between my thighs. She gave me a smile, then licked my already stiffened penis.
I let out a gasp. Before I could do more, she took the tip into her mouth.
“No,” I said, finally finding my voice. I went to push her off and instead fell out of the chair onto her, landing on the rug.
Jezebel let out a moan, rubbing her body against me. Instantly, all my desire for her rose up in me, and I bit into her throat. She let out a gratified scream and clutched me close, her hips moving insistently against mine.
I might have killed her there that night easily. The only reason I didn’t was that I was already full of goblin blood, and was able to retain some control. After drinking from her only a few moments, I pulled back.
“You should have told me how to kill it.”
She smiled up at me, touching my face in a gentle caress. “I couldn’t bring myself to. He was my ex-husband, you see.”
I gently pushed her hand away. She caught it, bringing it down between us.
“Feel me,” she breathed. “I want you, Devlin. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you. Take me.”
“No,” I said, rolling off her onto my back. “We’ve been over this.”
Jezebel straddled me, just as she had in the dream. I was so surprised I didn’t push her off. She moved on me quickly, stroking my engorged penis with warm slippery flesh.
“Don’t you want to be inside me?” she whispered. “Where it’s warmer still?”
I opened my mouth to protest and she leaned closer, her taut nipple brushing my lips. With a cry, I latched onto it, biting deep. She moaned, pushing her upper body close even as she slid her hips rapidly, trying to get me inside her.
I rolled over onto her, pinning her lower body so she couldn’t move. I began thrusting lightly against her, driving her wild as she begged and screamed for me to enter her. In a few seconds, I came roaring, my semen spattering her stomach.
I got up from her, and grabbed a nearby blanket, wiping myself off.
Jezebel sat up, her face angry. “What the hell was that, lover?”
“I’m not your lover, as I’ve just proved,” I said arrogantly. “When next we visit, Quentin will sate you as he usually does.” I grinned at her. “I wouldn’t want you to be left discontented.”
Jezebel got to her feet, and stormed to me, her hand raised to strike me. I caught her neck easily in my hand, squeezing hard. Her eyes bulged.
“Do not play with me,” I snarled. “I was nearly killed tonight by that monster. A few words from you would have prepared me.”
“I just...I just wanted...to be with you...alone...”
“I am alone with you, my dear. How are you enjoying it so far?”
“Please,” she gasped. “Please, I just wanted you.”
I let her go abruptly, making her stumble. “You’ve had all I can give you, more than you’ve a right to, Jezebel. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said faintly.
“Stay out of my dreams,” I demanded. “Or it’s your life.”
“I will,” she whispered.
“Quentin and I will visit you a week from now,” I said, dressing in my blood spattered clothes. “You will be ready, as you’ve always been before.”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said approvingly. “See you then.”
I walked out to find Rip waiting for me anxiously.
“I felt you take a bad wound,” he said. “But you are better now.”
“Yes,” I said tiredly. “Take me home, please.”
“Aren’t we getting jewelry?”
Shit. I covered my eyes with my palms, overwhelmed. “Yes, after. And you must sneak me in. No one must see me like this.”
Rip nodded. “Of course.”
* * * *
Rip teleported me into the garden. I had him go in, steal some of Danial’s clothes, and bring them outside, where I was washing up in the pond. Smelling of algae was better than smelling of semen.
“Were you seen?” I said as I dressed.
“No. No one is about.”
“I’m going to bed, it’s nearly dawn.” I cast a look at the lightening sky. “We’ll get jewelry tomorrow night.”
Rip nodded and vanished.
I squared my shoulders, walked inside, and opened my bedroom door to find Anna gone.
Chapter Sixteen
I was so shocked I blinked my eyes, and looked again. But she was still not there.
She always waited for me in bed, always.
I went looking for Levi. I finally found him cowering on the top of the cellar stairs, an empty bottle in his hand. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I closed my eyes and staggered unsteadily, because I understood what had happened.
I sat down beside him, before I fell. “When did they leave?”
“Just after dark,” he whispered. “She took almost nothing with her.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.”
I grabbed hold of him, and hauled him to his feet. “Where did they go? I know you know!”
“I don’t!” he whined. “I told them not to tell me! I couldn’t stop them by force, knowing you loved them both—”
I shoved him hard down the stairs. I heard Eva cry out and run to his side, but I paid little attention. He would heal.
I needed to meet with Uther. He would help me decide what to do.
* * * *
We sat in his cave for a long time that day, after his man carried me to him wrapped in a thick blanket. We drank at least a bottle of blood, his laced with scotch. Uther always had a taste for alcohol.
“Technically, you can kill him,” Uther rasped. “But then you have to kill her, too. He’s a thief, and she’s an oathbreaker.”
“I do not want to kill her,” I said for the fifth time. “I want her back.”
“Why?” Uther said, taking a drink. “She ran off with your brother. Why would you want her back?”
“Because I love her,” I said passionately. “She is mine, Uther. She belongs with me.”
“Rene can find her,” Uther rasped finally. “She’ll look into her crystal, and find them. Rip can likely take you there, if he sees where they are in the crystal.”
I nodded. “Will you come with me?”
“For what?” Uther rasped, fixing me with his black eyes. “I’m not going to kill your brother, or hurt Anna. So what good would I be?”
“I need you,” I whispered softly. Then to my utter shame, I began crying.
Uther did not hug me, as I hoped he would, or tell me it was okay, as I also hoped. He merely waited until I had control of myself, and then he sighed.
“I’ll come with you.”
* * * *
That night, Rene found them for me. Rip took Uther and me there a few moments later. Together, we went to the door of the room they had rented.
I put my shoulder through it with a loud crash, and walked in to find Danial naked in bed with Anna. Her choker with my symbol was in a pile on the nightstand. She looked at me in shock, and then away, her face scarlet.
Danial met my eyes and to my disgust, he grinned. “So you found us,” he said with relish. “My God, it took you long enough. I thought I might have to stay with her here another night!”
I stared at him, my lips parted, because I could not believe this was my b
rother, the one whose welfare I’d tortured myself so mercilessly with over the years.
“Do you love her?” I got out somehow.
“No, of course not!” Danial said, giving me a wicked grin. “I don’t care for dull brunettes, as you well know. I’ve always preferred my women to be pretty—”
Anna let loose a sob, and bolted from the bed into the sitting room, slamming the door behind her.
“How could you marry a woman so unattractive? Could you not find one whose body had a face to match?”
I had up until that point stood there motionless, as I just could not believe what I was hearing, that Danial, my brother Danial, could be so cold. But I wasn’t the only one hearing his cruel words. Uther roughly grabbed hold of Danial, and threw him through the front wall. Danial snarled, crashing through to land out in the street in a naked jumble of legs and arms. Passerby looked up, saw us, and ran for their homes.
“Do not speak about her thus,” Uther hissed, his fangs bared wide.
Danial got to his feet, baring his own fangs. “I am speaking the truth, batman. It’s sheer relief to know I’ll not have to bed that cow again—”
Danial’s words cut off as he let loose a scream. Uther had slammed into him, sunk his fangs into Danial’s throat, and then ripped outward. Blood fountained out, and then spattered everywhere, as Uther bit deeper.
I remembered my battle with the goblin last night. Danial was struggling, but Uther was much bigger and stronger. He’d kill him here and now, if I didn’t stop him. As much as I hated him at this moment, he was my brother.
“Stop,” I said firmly. “Release him, Uther.”
Uther moved back, and let Danial’s body fall. My brother was breathing still, and his throat healed over quickly. He lay there covered in his blood with hate in his eyes, too weak to move.
“Take Anna home, please,” I said, my eyes not leaving Danial’s. “I’ll be there shortly.”
Uther spat on Danial, and then walked back inside.
“How could you do this to me?” I said softly, still staring at Danial.
“Do what to you?” Danial said, rolling on his side in the mud, and spitting out some blood. “We’re even.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“I had a wife,” Danial growled. “I had a son. I had a life, a good life, Dev! You ruined it! You took it from me!”
“I did not,” I whispered. “I didn’t know—!”
“You knew!” he screamed. “I went back to our village! I found out from our father that you knew that there had been attacks on that road! You knew we might be attacked! And you let us take that road anyway, because you wanted the renown of killing whatever it was that was making a legend for itself!”
“I didn’t know you and I…that this would happen to us,” I stammered.
“You did!” he shouted. “You wanted our father to be proud of you, it wasn’t enough you were the legitimate one, the golden son! You had to be a conquering hero! I have been paying the price for your pride and arrogance these past two hundred years!”
I should’ve apologized, or told him the past didn’t matter and punched him for being an asshole. Instead, I stood there and did nothing, because true or false, the guilt in my heart said he was right, that it was my fault and I deserved to suffer.
Danial got to his feet. “I am leaving France,” he said. “I am not going to be at your beck and call, brother. I’ve had enough of being a servant, or your student.”
“Where will you go?” I whispered.
“America,” Danial said, striding back inside.
I followed him. “With what? You have no money.”
“I have enough from my investments,” he said flatly, as he pulled on some clothes. “You also paid me to help you in the beginning, and I saved most of that. It’s enough to get far away from you, and that’s what matters.”
I swallowed my bitterness and anger. “How long were you planning this?”
“Since the beginning,” he said, throwing things in a bag. “Since you told me there was someone you actually cared for.”
“How long, brother?”
Danial paused, and even though his back was to me, I sensed a sadness about him. “Tonight,” he said finally, turning his head a little. “Only tonight. She was not an easy conquest. I never had her blood, if that matters to you. She refused to let me take it.”
That was something, at least. “Does she love you?”
“No,” he said, again not facing me. “I don’t think she does. This was never about love, brother.”
He left without looking back, striding away into the night.
I stood there for a long time after he’d left, wondering how I’d thought for months everything was good between Danial and me. It had all been a lie, and I hadn’t even suspected. How did something like that happen?
And what of Anna? She’d broken her vow to me, after all I’d done to remain faithful to her. I felt like I’d been immersed in sunlight. The same was true of her, that she’d acted as though things were fine between us, and they really weren’t. How could she love me, and do that to me?
I felt betrayed. I felt absolute fury. And the first stirrings of what I would become told me to go out, and share my pain with others.
* * * *
I burned that house, and walked off, even as it set fire to other houses. I came upon a couple looking much in love, and killed them both, ripping their throats out, leaving them weakly moving in the gaslights as their lives emptied onto the ground.
I entered a house a block down, and killed a man sleeping alone, before he woke. I fed from him, and then torched his home too, also setting other homes alight.
I did that many times that night, sometimes drinking, but more often killing brutally just from the sheer desire for it. It was good that the fire brigade was well trained; else that section of Brittany might have been nothing but smoking ruins by morning.
Close to dawn, Rip found me and teleported me back. I was too exhausted to argue. When I stumbled into my chambers, smelling of smoke and blood, I found Anna waiting for me. She was not in bed, but dressed, sitting on a chair before the fire.
I thought her sure to recoil from me, but she came to me hesitantly. I let her lead me to the washbowl, and help me get clean. We said nothing to each other, as she wiped the smoke and blood off my body, and washed it out of my hair and beard. Finally, I was clean, and she took the dirty towels, and the soap, and placed them beside the bin and turned to me.
“Please forgive me,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I looked at her there for a second, and then I enfolded her in my arms. She began sobbing, and I held her, sobbing too, telling her it was all right, that I forgave her, even as she told me over and over she was sorry, that it had been a mistake, that she’d hated herself for being weak enough to believe that the lies he’d told her were true…
“What lies?” I asked gently, pulling back from her.
“He said you’d been with your new blood donor, Jezebel,” she whispered. “That you’d loved her as you drank from her.”
“That is untrue.” We’d come very close last night, of course, but I hadn’t actually done it. “I have been with no one but you.”
“He said you were going to relinquish me as you did Eva,” she sobbed, hiccupping a little. “That I wasn’t pretty enough to hold your interest—”
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” I said lovingly. “There is no one I know of that I desire more.”
Anna turned from me. “Devlin, please. I know what I am, and what I am not.”
“What you are is my Oathed One,” I said, picking her up, and taking her to bed. “What you are not is anyone else’s, ever, Anna, because I am never relinquishing you.”
“Promise?” she said, tears again in her eyes.
“I promise,” I said hungrily, and then I covered her body with my own.
* * * *
That night with her
was one of the best. We made love frantically, as we had not since the beginning, and I drank from her again and again, at her request. I didn’t wonder why she asked at the time, but she said she wanted me to, and that was enough for me. To my surprise, she did indeed get weak, but her body healed fast, without me sharing my blood with her. There was no scent of turning about her, and her blood remained sweet. Again, I thought it was destiny, and thanked God for giving us a second chance.
The next night, it was as if things the night before had never happened, save Danial was missing. Uther was there, being his usual gruff self, and Levi was also, being helpful, Eva at his side. Quentin was also there, to report on money matters.
“Your brother took some of your money,” he said, clearly nervous as to how I would take the news. “But he had access to all the accounts, Dev, even the more lucrative ones that were solely in your name.”
Danial had known lawyers. Now I understood why he’d made the effort. “How much is gone?”
“Fortunately, he cashed out only his own and your smaller investments, so most of your fortune is intact.”
“Fine,” I said with disinterest. “Remove his name from the rest.”
“Already done,” Quentin said, nodding. “I have another few papers for you to sign, to make that official.”
I signed them. We headed out after to get some refreshment, which failed to help our glum mood.
“I suppose I’m second again,” Quentin said grumpily, as we rode down my driveway in the carriage. “At least Louis will not bother us for a while.”
“Jezebel will be ready to see us in a week,” I said, trying to cheer him. Yet all I could muster for that creature now was annoyance and ill trust.
“Yes,” he said eagerly. “That’s good news. Things will be fine now, in time.”
I opened my mouth and then caught sight of my mansion in flames.
Chapter Seventeen
Immortal Confessions Page 19