She dug her heels in the aisle’s carpeting. “Give me Lucifer.”
He bowed his head and gripped the aisle runner with his burning fingers.
“Stop, Radu, please. I can’t live if you die,” she murmured into his ear.
Finally, finally! With a rush of cloves, Lance arrived, his invisible wings beating out Radu’s flame. She renewed her efforts to force him off holy ground.
He curled his fingers over her strained wrists but her husband did not say what she wanted to hear. “Let go. He must do this.”
Glenath spoke, her tone pinning everyone in place. “The barrier yields to those firm of purpose. Let him approach and tell of his need.”
Valerie’s strength gave out at their words. She fell backwards and landed on her rear. Something cool and wet landed on her chest. She wiped at it with her fingers and stared in horror at the blood there.
“No, no,” Lance whispered. “Just tears. Not Radu. Wait. Just watch.”
Valerie cradled her hands against her breastbone. All her instincts, all her love demanded she do something, anything.
Radu stared at Glenath and shook his fist, extinguishing the last small flames lit in his flesh. Valerie winced at the sight of the bones of his knuckles showing though the flakes of burnt skin.
His terrible scorched voice demanded, “I wish to worship.” He glanced back at Valerie. His eyes were lucid and bright in the ravages of his face. She swallowed.
“It will kill you,” she answered simply, ruthlessly. “I will not let you die.”
Flames flickered on the edge of his tongue. “I have faith in mercy,” he whispered. “Don’t you?” He caught the Bishop’s arm, his hands barely more than bones.
“I do. I believe.” Glenath set the Host and cup down on the floor and looped one arm under Radu’s burnt shoulders. “I will administer to him.”
She touched the burnt vampire’s cheekbone, his skin completely charred now. Only his willpower combined with his age kept him alive. Any other PNC would be dust. How could she let him die?
How can you not believe in mercy of the One you yourself experienced? Lance asked her.
Glenath held Radu tight. “May all that is holy help us tonight.”
He fell limp in her arms.
The flames winked out, one by one, leaving his once graceful body a charred mess. She brushed gently at the blackened skin and blinked tears away from her lashes.
Love demanded you face what you most feared would hurt you. She never expected it to happen so literally, though.
The sanctuary was utterly silent.
Glenath got up and tugged on the front of her jacket. Valerie gathered Radu into her arms and stood. The congregation stared in slack-jawed shock. As Valerie carried the body toward the door, the Patriarch rose. He put his hand on Glenath’s shoulder.
“Today, we have the chance to accept what God has created. Today, we have the chance to change the world. I say we accept this challenge, prove ourselves worthy of the price this man paid to come here. The barrier only yields to those who crave the presence of holiness. Let us honor this,” he said in his accented voice
“Is he … dead?” a quiet voice piped up from the center of the room. It was Chad.
“I don’t know,” Glenath answered. “He wasn’t alive to start with.”
Her dark humor startled everyone. A cameraman gave a nervous chuckle even as he angled in for a better shot of Radu. The news crews jockeyed for position around Valerie as she carried her burden toward the paranormal side.
“Can I see him?” Chad asked, surprising Valerie.
She nodded. He pushed through the crowd.
Chad stared, precious seconds ticking away.
“He looks like a burnt potato chip,” Chad declared. He touched Valerie’s shoulder. “Is it true? Lucifer is in there with him?
“Yes,” she answered.
“Then he was like an avenging angel,” he muttered. Lifting his head to face her, he demanded, “Can he be good?”
“He’s trying,” Valerie shifted him in her arms. “And I think that counts for something in this world.”
Chad slid his finger under what was left of Radu’s top lip and inspected his fangs. They gleamed in the camera lights. He shuddered and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I wanna see if he can do it.” He turned his back on them and disappeared into the throng.
“Take him to my house.” Glenath ordered Valerie “He hasn’t crumbled yet. There is hope.”
As Valerie carried her baby brother inside, Glenath turned to the congregation. “There will be prayers held tonight. And for now, go in peace and contemplate the nature of forgiveness.”
Valerie sat vigil over Radu’s still form. His charred body did not collapse into dust and bones like a usual dead paranormal. But neither did he wake. He simply lay on the worn brown leather sofa, wrapped in a faded quilt. The faint scent of beeswax and basil wafted throughout the front room.
She rubbed her blurry eyes and adjusted her butt on the rocking chair.
“Come on, wake up,” she muttered for the fiftieth time. Just like the other forty-nine times, nothing happened.
Glenath stood from behind the desk, her knees cracking. She skirted the hundreds of books scattered on the floor. Lance raised his head from the computer. Glenath and Lance had scoured each book, every website, looking for clues for Radu’s condition. Her husband claimed he had no knowledge to share, so they were stuck with the limited, incomplete resources of humans.
“I’m beat. I’ll be in my bedroom.” Glenath pushed away from the stacks of books.
How she could rest at this time? Valerie stood and paced the room again.
She checked on the beeswax candles Glenath had lit. Their holy scent gave her no comfort. Pizza sat cold on the desk.
Lance shifted his gaze between Valerie and the still figure on the sofa.
“Do you smell roses?” he asked his woman.
“What?”
Lance glanced at the man on the sofa. “Look at him.”
Valerie approached the sofa, her entire body shaking in fear.
Glenath woke, her heart pounding. A terrible, awe-inspiring pressure filled her chest. Something momentous was happening.
She didn’t even put her shoes on. She just ran down the hallway in her striped socks, her excitement making her light-headed. It certainly wasn’t the years of smoking. She skidded through the doorway and stopped. Tears prickled in her nose.
Valerie stared at her as though she’d touched a ghost.
“Val?” Glenath whispered.
“Bishop, come here.”
The air in the room hummed with possibilities and the lush scent of roses. She tiptoed in. “What is it?”
She held up Radu’s hand. His skin was smooth, whole, and shone with health.
Glenath caught her breath. “Mercy exists. It really does.”
Valerie gripped Glenath’s arm. “And Lucifer?”
“On the Wheel. He is no longer trapped by his own past, as well.” The Bishop heaved an exhausted breath. “It’s over.”
CHAPTER 21
The cool, rounded edges of the river rocks pounded into the grounds of the Chinese Garden promised “a foot massage with every step.” It was thought to stimulate the chi and encourage health.
Su needed all the chi she could get. She rocked back and forth on the shady walkway, pressing the sore points on the ball of her foot into the mosaic-like designs.
Her mother would be arriving at the Chinese Garden in fifteen minutes. For once, Su did not insist on the Japanese Garden, which was larger, but lacked places to sit and converse. For once, Brigit did not insist on a darkened Irish bar with sports screens all over the walls.
For the first time in their lives, they had found a neutral ground in tea, moon cakes, and graceful furniture.
Su leaned her arms against a railing. Dragonflies hummed over Zither Lake, and small red fish darted in and out of the fading lotus flowers.
“It’s ve
ry peaceful here,” her mother said.
If it hadn’t been broad daylight, Su would have believed her mother to be a vampire to move so quietly.
“Yes.”
A group of schoolchildren ran across one of the bridges, screaming about the fish.
Brigit gave her frosty smile. Su awkwardly extended her hand. Her mother shook it with her normal firm grip.
“You read the journals,” Brigit commented, her stance and tone completely neutral.
Su’s mother was renowned for her ability to hide her thoughts and feelings. Su internally winced at how she must have been responsible for some of that repression.
“I swear I didn’t know. Why didn’t Grandpa say something?” Su burst out.
Brigit held her hand up, palm out in a stop gesture. “My father had many positive qualities. Being able to admit he was wrong was not one of them.” She shrugged. “Shall we have tea and discuss inconsequential things?”
CHAPTER 22
Istanbul
As a human, Vlad Dracul II destroyed armies and criminals, bringing peace at a sword’s edge. At the end of his mortal life, he defied Death itself to complete his revenge against the Ottomans.
Every attempt to unify Europe had felt the Impaler’s influence. His battles were always the hardest fought, contained the cleverest tactics. Napoleon’s famous tactics were heavily influenced by his mysterious “Dark General,” commonly believed to be Dracula.
The revealing of paranormal beings, led by Dracula, was nearly enough to win World War Two for the Axis. Many military theorists speculate how the war would have ended if Vlad had been given his head. Every scenario imaginable has the world ruled by the stern grip of this vampire.
It is for the best Dracula died. Nations would truly tremble if he were alive today.
—Dracula: The Biography by Dr. Constance
Brodhacker
When Valerie Tate emerged from Vlad Tepes’s death, no one told her twice that a woman couldn’t do what she wanted. From war criminals to garden variety bullies, Valerie was the strong hand of retribution. She walked the most dangerous streets, stalked and killed those who preyed on the helpless. She never gave up in her relentless pursuit of her goals.
Which was why she was now wrapped in a seven by ten foot Turkish rug, wearing only red satin ribbon that bound her from her ankles to her eyes.
Tonight’s goal: pleasure. The scenario: Cleopatra being delivered to Julius Caesar in a carpet. Plutarch probably made the story up, but it had heated Valerie’s imagination since she first read it as a child.
The silk of the rug rubbed on her exposed skin like a woman’s soft hair. She was slung over John’s shoulder, a dead weight he handled with ease. Each of his steps jolted her skin against the lush surfaces of her enclosure. The friction set her body into a slow, luxurious undulation.
“Enter, Apollodorus,” Lance announced from behind closed doors.
She heard John turn the knob to their apartment’s front door.
“I bring you a present from Cleopatra VII Philopator, Caesar,” John said. He knelt and dropped the rug to the floor. With a mighty push, he unrolled the blue and green carpet. Valerie lay in the middle of the twining patterns, blindfolded and vulnerable.
In her youth, Valerie had been assaulted, terrorized with sex. Today, she would give her lovers everything she had.
Lance stopped her motion with what felt to be a genuine hobnailed boot. He would be a sucker for authenticity.
Her tormentors were dead, while she was alive. She would no longer resist allowing Lance or John to overpower her. She felt light, pliant, and eager to explore their desires with no limits, no fear, no holding back.
She was truly unleashed.
The note read, “Your castle awaits, my Queen.” A trail of candles wound her through his loft. Instead of ending in his bedroom as she had anticipated, they led her to Umar’s living room.
The glass and steel condo should have been stark and modern. Desert hawks didn’t like the cold, though. Red glass Moroccan lamps bathed the room in warm, passionate light. A cream-and-jade-colored oriental rug covered the smooth cement floor. Coordinating pillows offered comfortable reclining areas.
Tonight, though, the thing that really captured her attention was the low white structure in the middle of the room. The two low divans had been stripped of their cushions. An enormous pale green cover had been tossed over the top, creating the ultimate child’s fort.
The candles pointed to the opening in the front of the fort. Welcoming light from the tentlike structure poured onto the deep pile of the rug. Su bit her lip in pleasure at his playful seduction.
Driven by the unfamiliar yet sensuous sounds of Middle Eastern drumming, Su dropped her coat and purse, kicked off her shoes, and knelt down to peer inside the luxuriously appointed cave.
Even more cushions graced the interior. A small mother-of-pearl inlaid table held a glass of bourbon and a bottle of sparkling water. It was far more comfortable than their temporary haven under his desk.
The biggest surprise was Umar, dressed in a pair of soft silk trousers that draped perfectly over his hefty cock, revealing the curve as it lay against his thigh, and throwing the rim of his head as it pressed against his foreskin. Leather hawk’s jesses dangled from his wrists and ankles.
“Welcome to your domain, my Queen, my Light of the Universe.”
Su slithered into the tent and reclined upon some stacked cushions. He handed her the bourbon.
“Yes, my loyal subject? You have a request?”
“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “A story that has no ending, a story of a man and his love for a woman.”
See how Valerie and Lance’s story began in Linda Mercury’s
DRACULA’S SECRET
A Kensington e-book exclusive on sale now.
Read on for a special preview!
CHAPTER 1
Portland, Oregon
Halloween Night, Present Day
His sun pierced her night.
Valerie Tate stopped dead at the sudden stabbing pain and clapped her leather gloved hands over her sensitive eyes. She’d been running full speed from rooftop to rooftop in an effort to bypass the clogged holiday traffic between her and her destination. Portland’s nighttime rain had merely cloaked her progress instead of slowing her down.
The flare of light, brighter than a magnesium bomb exploding in her face, now left her stunned, blind, and helpless. Anyone looking out over the skyline could see her. Not something she wanted.
She crouched, one foot poised over the lip of a building’s crown. One wrong step and she’d fall off. It wouldn’t be a fatal drop, but it would certainly slow her down. Better to risk being seen up here, prancing about like some crazed musical number, than sprawled out on the pavement in the middle of the Halloween crowd.
Valerie probed the skin on her face. Unlike contact with magnesium and direct sunlight, she hadn’t blistered or burned in response. Good. That would have ruined her evening’s plans. Much depended on her appearance not gathering too much attention.
Blood seeped from under her eyelids in response to the too-bright shine. Under the cover of her palms, she blinked away the achingly intense spots floating before her vision.
How could this happen? Once, a magnesium bomb had detonated next to her. Even as her skin peeled back, she had kept going. Nothing broke her concentration during a mission. Six hundred years of killing had taught her well.
Shock gave way to curiosity. Curiosity then unraveled her single-minded determination. She wiped the tears of blood off of her face and carefully squinted against the glare that surrounded the figure below. As her vision cleared, she saw him, surrounded by the aura that had halted her.
What was he, this man three stories below her, innocently checking his text messages on a silver BlackBerry? As her eyes adapted, she studied him with all her undead senses.
Not soap, not cologne, but his essence was the second thing that struck her. The aroma of c
loves, sweet and hot, rammed up her nose like a fist, overwhelming the car exhaust and excrement odors rising from busy Burnside Avenue. The fiery smell transformed her anger into something far more complicated. Hunger beyond blood clenched her stomach and parts below. Startled, she stood. She licked her teeth, swallowed her desire, and studied his face.
The endless Northwest autumn drizzle plastered blond hair to his skull. He glanced up from his little machine, obviously aware that someone watched him. To Valerie’s surprise, he found her, even up high with her black clothes against the black night.
She locked her knees against a shudder when she saw his blue eyes. Not any shade of blue, but the color of icy seas under the full moon. Even covered in worn jeans and a frayed but high-end sweatshirt, his broad-shouldered body made her mouth pucker, ready to kiss. A generous bulge in his pants caught her attention, lewdly contrasting to the brightness of his innocent shine.
It didn’t make sense. His perfect, confident posture and chiseled, patrician features marked him as the kind who should be swinging a tennis racket on some blue-blood tennis court.
Why this strong of a reaction to this man on this rainy night? She had sworn off sex for more decades than she cared to remember. Thousands of handsome, well-built, and brave women and men had passed in front of her over the years.
The most she’d felt was a few flickers of interest. Now, her thighs flexed against the hot kernel between her legs.
The headlights from a bus lit him up even brighter. And she saw his true nature.
A warrior, home from the front lines, sick of violence but caught in it. That eye-searing shine was not innocence, for lines of hard-won worldly knowledge bracketed his sensually shaped lips. Exhaustion creased the corners of those extravagantly gorgeous eyes and lived between his eyebrows. Instead of purity, he lit the night with the ferocity of his spirit.
He turned away from her to face the door of the building behind him, denial in every line of his body.
Valerie sucked in an unnecessary breath of cold, clove-scented air.
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