by Lynsay Sands
“They were so excited,” she recalled with a soft smile. “It was far enough away that they could tell their new neighbors that they were retired widows or whatever they chose. They could be respectable, make new friends among the respectable matrons around them, and enjoy their waning years among the family they’d made in each other.”
“It sounds like a happy ending,” Harper said, smiling.
“It should have been,” Drina agreed, her own smile dying.
Harper stilled, concern entering his expression. “What happened?”
“I set them up, saw them settled, and then left to travel, promising to visit frequently. But it was almost two years before I returned.” She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t mean to stay away so long, but time slipped away from me.”
“It tends to when you live as long as we do,” Harper said, as if trying to mitigate the guilt he could sense in her words. “What happened to your girls?”
“Nothing until just before I returned. According to Beth, they made friends in the area and were all happily enjoying their new home and retirement. . but then another immortal happened upon the women. His name was Jamieson. I don’t know if that was his first or last name. Beth just called him Jimmy.” Her mouth tightened. “He was rogue.”
“Oh no,” Harper murmured, reaching for her hand again.
Drina turned her hand over under his and their fingers closed around each other’s, and then she said wearily, “I don’t know if he was just passing through the area and came across one of them, read her mind, and saw her history with me, or what, but something made him pick them for victims.”
When she paused again, Harper squeezed her fingers gently in sympathy. Drina shook her head, and said tightly, “He installed himself in the house and turned them all the same night in one horrible blood orgy. I guess it was horrendous; screaming old ladies watching each other being bled, and then having his blood forced on them, followed by the convulsions, the agony, the screaming.” She shook her head, trying hard not to think about how it must have been for those women she had come to care a great deal for. She continued grimly, “One of the women didn’t survive. Her heart couldn’t take it, and she died during the turn. But Beth, Mary, and the remaining five survived.”
“The one who died may have been the lucky one,” Harper muttered, though she saw a haunted look in his eyes and realized she’d inadvertently reminded him of his Jenny.
Trying to pull his attention back from the ghost of his previous life mate, Drina quickly continued, “They woke from the turn confused and terrified, and were informed that now that he’d made them young and beautiful again, he owned them and they would do his bidding.”
“He wanted them to prostitute for him?” Harper asked with a frown.
Drina shook her head. “They were to lure mortal men to the house with the promise of sex. But once there, these men would be robbed and fed on until dead.”
“Christ,” Harper muttered. “He couldn’t think to get away with that. Someone would notice the sudden increase in number of missing men in the area.”
“Yes, of course, but rogues are generally suicidal and want to be caught and put out of their misery anyway,” Drina muttered.
“How did the women react to all of this?” Harper asked with a frown. “Surely they didn’t go along with it?”
Drina cleared her throat. “Beth said that none of them wanted to. That Mary stood up to him when he told them his plans.”
“Mary the mouthy one,” Harper murmured, apparently recalling her earlier words.
“Mary the mouthy one who was too brave for her own good,” Drina said quietly. “She told him they wouldn’t do it. He could go to hell and they were going to find me and I’d stop him.”
“Bet he didn’t take that well,” Harper guessed, sounding pained.
“He ripped her head off on the spot,” Drina said grimly.
“Oh, Christ.” Harper sat back in his seat with disgust, but still held on to her hand. If anything, his grip on hers was tighter, as if he was trying to infuse her with his strength to deal with the memory.
“The others immediately agreed to whatever he wanted at that point,” Drina said quietly.
“I wonder why,” he muttered dryly.
“So he sent them out to find men and bring them back,” Drina continued. “The moment they were away from the house, Beth tried to talk the others into fleeing. They could find me, she said. I’d fix this.” She sighed, feeling the pinch of guilt that she hadn’t been able to fix anything in the end.
“Did they listen?” Harper asked quietly, sitting forward again.
Drina shook her head. “They were too afraid. They didn’t know where I was, and he might come after them. She should go by herself, they said. They’d do what he said and wait to be rescued.” Drina blew out her breath, and turned her wineglass on the tabletop with her free hand. “Beth fled, but she didn’t know where to go to search for me, and she needed blood. She ended up returning to the original brothel to hide. She knew I hadn’t yet sold it, and couldn’t think where else to go. She hid inside for two weeks, feeding on rats, birds, and any other animal who got close enough to the house.”
Harper’s eyes widened incredulously. “She couldn’t survive on that.”
“No,” Drina agreed on a sigh. “She was in a bad way by the end of the two weeks, but his turning of her had been so traumatic and she had always been kindhearted, she couldn’t bear the idea of feeding on a mortal.”
“What happened at the end of the two weeks?” Harper asked.
“She stayed inside during the day, but ventured out at night in search of small animals and such. She was chasing a rat around the side of the house toward the street when a carriage passed. My carriage.”
“You were back?”
Drina nodded. “I was on my way to the new house, but I was thinking of putting the old one up for sale and just wanted to see what shape it was in. I wasn’t going to stop. I planned to visit the girls first. I just wanted to see how it looked and that it was still standing and hadn’t burnt down or something while I was gone. So, I had the curtains open to look at it in passing. Beth recognized me through the window and shrieked.”
Drina closed her eyes as she recalled the sound. She would never forget it. It had been an inhuman wail, full of pain, rage, and need. The sound had brought her head sharply around, and she’d spotted Beth standing there, pale and ragged.
“I didn’t even recognize her,” Drina whispered. “She was a plump, well-kept old woman when last I’d seen her, and this creature was a filthy, emaciated, young redhead. But I saw the glowing eyes and the state she was in and made the driver stop at once. I didn’t realize who it was until I stepped down from the carriage and she threw herself at me babbling insanely about headless Mary and the others.”
“I still didn’t understand what had happened. She was half-mad with blood hunger and wasn’t making any sense. I tried to get her to the carriage, saying I’d take her to the retirement house, but she went crazy at the thought and the only way to calm her down even a little was to promise I wouldn’t take her there. I took her into the old house instead, and then set out to get her blood.”
Drina shook her head. “It was an ordeal. She was repulsed and horrified at the thought of feeding on anyone, and I had to control both her and the donors. It was a slow process. She needed so much blood. I had to go out and bring back several donors one at a time, then control them both, keeping the donor from suffering any pain and unaware of what was happening, while also controlling Beth’s horror and making sure she didn’t take too much. And the whole time I was terrified that I’d simply have to kill her in the end anyway, that her mind was too far gone to be salvaged.”
“Was it?” Harper asked.
Drina smiled wryly. “It’s a funny thing about people. The ones who seem strong and mouth off the most, or bully others, are usually the ones most terrified and weakest inside. And the ones who seem quiet and speak their
fears, appearing the weakest, are often the strongest under it all.”
“Yes. I’ve found that too,” Harper said solemnly. “So our Beth came out all right?”
She smiled faintly at his calling her “our Beth,” but nodded. “Yes. I kept bringing her blood donors through the night. Let her rest for most of the day, and then began bringing in donors again that evening and night. She was coming around by the time dawn arrived on the second day, but I insisted she rest and we would talk after. She slept straight through the day and most of the early evening, and I stayed and watched over her. When she woke, she was quiet and calm and much better. She told me everything.” Drina blew her breath out on a sigh. “I immediately set out for the retirement house. I tried to get Beth to wait at the brothel while I took care of it, but she insisted on coming with me.
“I should have insisted harder,” she said dryly. “I thought I would only have to handle the rogue, but in the two weeks since Beth had left, he’d infected the other women with his madness.
“Some of the things he’d made them do to the men they lured back to the house on his orders were. .” She shook her head at the memories she’d read from their minds as she’d entered the house, a house that had been charming and comfortable when last she’d seen it, but was now a blood-spattered nightmare, littered with dead bodies, some of which had been rent to pieces. Her mouth tightened. “They weren’t salvageable.
“They attacked the minute we entered, which I hadn’t expected. I was remembering the women the way they’d been, but they weren’t those women anymore. He said attack, and they came at us as if we were strangers who meant less than dirt to them. Beth and I were outnumbered, but we were also at a disadvantage because we weren’t mad, knew these women, and they were like family. Or had been,” she corrected on a sigh, and then admitted, “I think Beth and I both would have died that day if council enforcers hadn’t arrived to save our bacon.”
“The council was on to them?” Harper asked.
“Yes, fortunately,” she said. “But it would have been hard for them not to be. There was absolutely no caution being used. A lot of men, women, and even children from the area had disappeared. Several of the missing had been seen following the women into the house. And the smell coming from inside was rather atrocious. They might as well have painted ‘Look here’ on the front door.” She shook her head. “The enforcers were apparently arming themselves in carriages across the street when we rode up and, as Scotty put it afterward, ‘traipsed in as if attending a tea.’ ”
“Scotty?” he asked, pouring them both more wine.
“He was the lead enforcer on the raid. Now he heads up all the enforcers in the UK,” she explained, and then grinned. “He was most put out with us that night.”
Tilting her head to the side, she mimicked a very bad Scottish accent, mangling it horribly with her laughter as she did. “Ye should ha’e sent a message round to the council to handle it, not danced in there yersel’es like a pair o’ idjits. Ye cuid ha’e got yersel’es killed, ye silly arses. . And wid ha’e twoo had we no been here to pull yer fat oot o’ the fire.”
Harper chuckled with her, and then tilted his own head, and asked, “Is being saved by Scotty and the other rogue hunters the reason you became one yourself?”
“Partly, perhaps. They were pretty impressive. But I think we mostly joined up to make sure that what happened to the girls didn’t happen to anyone else.”
“We?” he asked, and then his eyes widened. “Beth?”
Drina nodded. “She’s my partner. We joined together. Trained together. Were partnered when we finished training and work together still.”
“In England?”
“No. Neither of us wanted to be there anymore. For Beth, England was a bad memory. As for me, well, the whole incident had rattled me. I’d always thought of myself as immortal, and while that’s what we call ourselves, we aren’t really. But that night in that house was the first time I was made to face it.” She swallowed, and then explained, “When the enforcers crashed in, Beth and I were both pinned to the ground by the women, and Jimmy was about to hack off our heads. In fact, he was in the process of doing so to me when Scotty rushed him. It knocked him to the side and he only half scalped me, but it was enough. I stopped calling myself immortal that night. We are vampires.”
He didn’t argue, merely squeezed her hand again, and Drina continued, “That was the first time in all my adventures that I actually feared losing my life. And it had the strangest effect. I suddenly wanted to see my family again, live close to them, spend time with them. But I didn’t want to leave Beth behind by herself. She was a baby vamp and needed training, and she had no one.” Drina shrugged. “We stayed to watch the house burn after the hunters were done inside, then went straight to the docks, and I booked us both passage on a ship back home to Spain. We talked on the journey, and more while visiting my family, and she decided to join as well. We joined the Spanish branch of the rogue hunters once she’d adjusted to being an immortal. We joined together, trained together, and as I say, we were paired up after training and are still partners.”
“She’s more than that,” Harper said quietly.
Drina nodded. “My brother welcomed her into our family. She’s like a sister and carries the name Argenis now.”
“A sister or an adopted daughter?” Harper asked solemnly, and Drina smiled.
“A bit of both I suppose,” she admitted on a chuckle. “But don’t tell her that, or she’ll squawk.”
He chuckled and she smiled and slid her wineglass away, but then said, “Well I’ve monopolized the conversation nicely. Your turn. I know you were a cook once and own a frozen-food concern now, but what else have you done?”
Harper grimaced. “Believe me, my life hasn’t been nearly as exciting as yours. It would bore you to tears.”
“I doubt it. And my life wasn’t all that exciting. It just sounds like it in the recounting.”
Harper snorted with disbelief, and then glanced around in question when their waiter appeared. The man smiled gently and slid a small leather folder onto the table before quickly retreating. Harper glanced at the folder and opened it to reveal a bill, then glanced around, his eyes widening.
“What?” Drina asked, and peered around as well. They were the only guests left in the restaurant. The remaining tables were empty and cleared and workers were quietly setting chairs upside down on the tables, she supposed so that the floor could be vacuumed.
“I think we’re holding them up,” Harper said, pulling out his wallet.
“It would seem so,” she murmured, glancing at her watch. “What time do they close?”
“Half an hour ago according to the waiter’s thoughts,” Harper answered wryly, setting a credit card in the folder and closing it.
“Oh dear,” Drina murmured, finding the man and casting an apologetic smile his way as she asked, “Is he very upset?”
“Surprisingly not. But I’ll leave him a big tip anyway to make up for it.” He pulled his phone out and was talking quietly to his driver when the waiter took the folder away. By the time he’d hung up, the waiter was back with receipts and slips for him to sign.
The waiter might not be upset by their staying so late, but apparently he was still eager to go home, she thought with amusement, as Harper quickly filled in the tip amount and signed the bottom. Not that she blamed him.
A cold blast of wind slapped at them as they stepped out of the restaurant, and Drina huddled into her coat, grateful she’d bought the long, heavier one today and wasn’t still wearing the lighter coat she’d worn to fly to Canada.
“The car should be along soon, but maybe we should stay close to the building for cover,” Harper said, urging her back toward the wall beside the door.
“It’s snowing,” Drina murmured, eyeing the flakes whirling wildly around them with a frown.
“Yeah, here I’ll block the wind.” Harper turned to face her and stepped up close, offering his body as a shi
eld.
“Thank you,” Drina murmured, fighting the urge to sway toward him.
“Where’s your new scarf?” he asked with a frown. “Did you leave it in the restaurant?”
“No,” she said, slipping her hands out of her pockets to catch the lapels of his leather coat and hold him in place when he started to pull away as if to rush back into the restaurant to fetch it for her. “I’m afraid I forgot it.”
“And your hat and gloves too,” he muttered, covering her hands with his gloved ones.
Drina smiled wryly. “I’m not used to needing them. Spain never gets this cold.”
“No,” he said, and then fell silent, his eyes seeming frozen on her lips.
Drina stilled, nearly holding her breath. She was sure he wanted to kiss her. When a moment passed without his doing so, she used her hold on his lapels to draw him nearer, whispering, “It’s cold.”
“Yes,” he growled. He released her hands and let his drop to slide around her back, pulling her closer still. “Does this help?”
“A little.” She sighed, squeezing even closer. She could hear his heart pounding, a quick tattoo, and slid one hand from his lapel to glide it up to touch his face and then onto his ear. Caressing the cooling skin gently, she whispered, “You’re cold too.” Then she leaned up on her tiptoes and blew her hot breath against his ear before whispering into it, “Does this help?”
Harper muttered something she didn’t quite catch, and then he turned his head and claimed her lips. Drina immediately slid her hands into his hair and let her mouth drift open, inviting him in. . and all hell broke loose. It was as if she’d torn away chains that had bound and gagged him. She found herself suddenly pressed hard against the wall behind her by both his hips and his hands at her shoulders, and then he was undoing her coat, his hands almost tearing at the buttons in his eagerness to reach what was inside. And all the while his mouth devoured hers, his tongue invading and exploring.