Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  Then, with Saloman at his shoulder and Elizabeth peering across the table, he turned the pages until he found southern Europe and the Mediterranean. With a snatched-up pencil, he followed the line south from Budapest, across the Mediterranean, through the island of Malta to Africa. Then, slowly, he brought the pencil back to Malta.

  Robbie. Robbie, are you there? This old site full of stones that they took you to, did it look anything like this? He sent the boy a mind-image of a Maltese prehistoric site he’d once visited in the dim and distant past. He’d wondered then if it was older than Saloman, although it had always seemed impolite to ask.

  Yes, that sort of thing, Robbie said excitedly. The stones were old, so old they seemed to speak to you.

  He’d said that before, which had made Maximilian think of some tribal stone icon in Africa imbued with magic, but this, this made a lot more sense. Why strike at the third world when you could hit the first with much more obvious impact?

  Then I think I’ve found you, Maximilian said.

  “Malta?” Elizabeth said doubtfully. She stood up and walked around the table for a closer look. “He’s in Malta? You can tell that just from standing on the roof of the Angel? Through some connection of stone and rock running across the continent and under the sea?”

  “Something like that.” He exchanged looks with Saloman as they both thought of the pattern of fault lines running around the Mediterranean. It was possible Gavril planned to open up another, splitting off from the main fault, to run right through the island. A tidal wave stemming from that could sweep through many shores with utterly devastating effect, not only killing thousands but damaging vibrant, important economies. The whole world would be affected one way or another. And even worse was the idea that they could move on and do it again.

  “They could kill most of humanity this way,” Maximilian said slowly. “Eventually… Reduce the numbers so much that they could keep the survivors as servants and pets to feed off. I saw something like that in Gavril’s mind, only it didn’t make any sense then. It was too jumbled and angry to come over as more than hatred and fantasy. Plus I didn’t know if he was just trying to throw me off the scent.”

  Elizabeth sank down onto one of the hard chairs by the table. “But—but this is unthinkable mass murder! Slaughter, genocide, even… I thought they just wanted to piss Saloman off.”

  “Oh, that would piss me off,” Saloman said coldly. “It’s Max’s job to ensure it doesn’t.”

  Maximilian nodded. For many reasons, most of which had nothing to do with Saloman’s displeasure, he had every intention of ensuring this disaster never happened.

  Still deep in thought, he was vaguely aware of Saloman and Elizabeth exchanging glances, as though surprised he accepted the responsibility so easily. He took a moment to say, “I was coming back.” And when they glanced at him, he added awkwardly, “When this all happened, I’d already decided to come back.”

  Saloman held his gaze. But it was Elizabeth who asked curiously, “Did the decision make you happier?”

  The question surprised him. Elizabeth, like just about everyone else, had always regarded him with wary suspicion. He certainly didn’t expect so trivial a thing as his happiness to concern her.

  “Sort of,” he said before he meant to. And then, because there was no reason for secrecy, because secrecy had been at the root of all the troubles he’d caused and suffered, he added with difficulty, “I was relieved. I knew I couldn’t hide any longer. But if you want the truth, most of me was scared.” So scared he’d got vilely drunk and let himself be overcome by far weaker vampires. If it hadn’t been for Mihaela, he wouldn’t be here.

  Saloman said nothing. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly how scared Maximilian had been.

  “Scared of what?” Elizabeth asked. “Of getting caught up again in the ambitions that made you betray him?”

  He wasn’t blind to the challenge in her rather beautiful hazel eyes. He heard the resentment in her voice quite clearly. Oddly, he was glad of these things, because they proved her love for Saloman. And because she spoke so easily of the guilt that had crushed his spirit and kept his mind and his tongue knotted up for so long. And yet she had no real idea what his return to the world necessarily entailed, nor the deep, corroding boredom with which he faced it.

  “Yes,” he said. “Of getting caught up again in ambition of any kind.”

  Saloman’s hand gripped his shoulder, and for the first time, he felt he could bear the kindness. Elizabeth’s eyes seemed to clear. She wasn’t exactly won over, but she sensed the truth behind his answer.

  “So what changed?” she asked shrewdly.

  Maximilian’s lips tugged upward. “I learned a little about courage. From a human.”

  The human he’d left in Scotland for no reason, as it turned out, since by the time she’d caught up with him, he’d been no nearer to finding Robbie. Ignoring the light of curiosity in Elizabeth’s face, he said abruptly, “What would the hunters do with the boy?”

  Elizabeth blinked. “Return him to his family, I suppose. Or arrange some other safe home, whichever is most suitable. Why?”

  Maximilian turned away, gathering up the atlas. “He could be a powerful weapon.”

  “The hunters don’t use children like that!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  He spared her a glance. “Don’t they?”

  Her mouth, opened to protest, closed on silence. She looked curiously stricken, as if she’d never thought of Mihaela’s or any other hunter’s training like that before.

  Maximilian said, “Hunters are chosen from the survivors of vampire attacks or from witnesses. It’s always been that way. The protection, the counseling, and ultimately the training they receive is very similar to brainwashing.”

  “I never found that at all!” Elizabeth protested. “They looked after me.”

  Maximilian shrugged. Humans, even the best of them, could be ridiculously blind. “You kept escaping them. You weren’t too afraid to live without them.”

  Saloman said, “As détente develops, there will be no need of weapons between us. We work with the hunters on this.”

  It should have appalled Maximilian. Instead, a deep, fierce excitement rose up in him. And he knew that even without Saloman’s command, he’d have taken Mihaela with him this time. He’d found he couldn’t stay away from her. And after all, he’d promised to tell her where Robbie was.

  He’d left her at the Angel, but he could find her again very easily now that he’d marked her. And the need to do so was overwhelming.

  ****

  It wasn’t the sort of building he’d have associated with her: a bright, modern apartment block in a pleasant, leafy part of the city. But her scent was so strong here, it had to be her home. It was after midnight, and the block was quiet, mostly in darkness.

  No light burned in Mihaela’s second floor flat. But although he could see no sign of her, he could smell her: her strong, sweet hunter blood; the clean, herbal scent of her hair and skin; something too elusive to name that was pure Mihaela. He thought, concentrating on her, on the steady beat of her heart and her even breath, that she was asleep.

  Did she sleep naked? Or in some skimpy piece of silk that would emphasize her curves and the lithe flexibility of her strong, succulent body? The stolen blood in his veins pumped faster. He wanted her. Wanted her so badly that he might not be able to jump for the inconvenient hardness in his jeans.

  He’d lived for decades, centuries, without a woman, and yet, after a few hours with her, his sexual need was so urgent that it was a constant pain.

  It didn’t have to be Mihaela. He knew he could convince any woman he chose. Glamorous, beautiful human women who knew exactly how to please a man and could easily be taught to please a vampire. Powerful vampiresses, even Angyalka, would be happy to oblige him. But somehow, none of them, friend or stranger, had the allure of the damaged hunter. And he knew she needed the release too, eager, passionate and sensual as she was. Oh yes.

&
nbsp; Maximilian jumped.

  The sill was narrow and the window locks strong enough to make him exert himself to burst them open. Nevertheless, he was inside two minutes later, closing the window behind him. The apartment was silent. No sounds of modern life, like television, computer or radio. No sound of human movement.

  He was in a bedroom—not Mihaela’s. It was too bare and unlived-in, although there was a picture on the wall, and a small vase of artificial flowers on the chest of drawers.

  He crossed the room to the half-open door and walked through to the hallway, which was carpeted and painted white like the bedroom. He wandered into the room opposite—a larger, comfortable space with a big sofa and two armchairs. A dark wood dining table was folded away in a corner. A vase of fresh-cut flowers adorned the window sill. A television stared at him blankly, and a laptop computer had been abandoned on the coffee table, but apart from an empty coffee mug balanced on the arm of one chair and a pair of smart shoes half-hidden behind the door, there was no mess. It was a clean, comfortable, uncluttered room, a little like a homely, family-run hotel. It made him uneasy, unsatisfied, because there was nothing of Mihaela here. He could almost have believed he was in the wrong apartment.

  The carpets and curtains were all muted shades, the walls all white. Only the pictures on the wall supplied splashes of color. At least they were good, whether abstract or more traditional, both tasteful and passionate, and the first he’d glimpsed of Mihaela in her own home.

  Mihaela. His curiosity satisfied for now, he followed her scent to her bedroom door. Excitement galloped, holding him in a surprisingly urgent grip. He’d kept his emotions dormant too long; they wanted to erupt now, and he reveled in the possibilities that he’d run from for so long.

  Although he fully expected to indulge in a little intoxicating persuasion, he had no desire to frighten her. He turned the handle of the door slowly and pushed it open as he walked into the dark room. He’d even opened his mouth to call to her, softly, to warn her of his presence, when the door suddenly swung back with severe force, crashing into his head.

  But not to shut him out. Taking advantage of his astonishment, his assailant jerked the door forward again, wrenching the handle from his grip, and something flew at him. His back was against the wall, a hard forearm across his throat, and a lethal wooden stake whizzed toward his heart.

  Mihaela’s large eyes stared into his with cold, implacable hatred.

  So the grappling would happen a little earlier than he’d intended. It amused him, even though he had to move as fast as he ever had to knock up her hand and save his own existence. But even before he touched her, he saw recognition dawn in her face. She even tried to halt the force of her murderous thrust. She couldn’t, of course. It was Maximilian who knocked it out of her hand in a movement she could have only seen as a blur.

  A sound of anguish seemed to be torn from her throat as she leapt back, staring at him through the darkness that was no hindrance to him.

  “No! No! No!” she uttered, her hand clutching at her hair as if she’d pull it out by the roots. Her mouth twisted; her eyes flashed with fury. That, he expected. What threw him was that the hatred was still there, exemplified a hundred times. “You’re in my house! You total, utter bastard! Get out of here, get out!”

  She flew at him like an angry witch once had in his youth. Without the stake, she made use of her fists and feet and knees, and they were all fast, hard, and well-aimed. He threw his arms around her and dropped to the floor, using his body as once before, to pin her there while he captured her hands and held them above her head.

  Christ, she was beautiful, and so desirable it made his heart, his whole being ache. Her eyes spat and sparkled with fury; her chest heaved deliciously as she panted for breath and strength to resist. She wore only a T-shirt in bed, it seemed, for he could see the outline of her breasts and even the peaks of her nipples quite clearly. And beneath the rucked-up garment, from the hips down, she was totally naked.

  Desire surged. He wanted to take her at once. Push into her and absorb the storm of her anger in pure, glorious passion. But he didn’t. Because he suddenly realized the sparkles in her eyes were unshed tears, and that one had already escaped to roll down her right cheek and disappear into the mass of her black hair.

  “Get out,” she whispered. “You’re in my home.”

  “So what?” he said, baffled. “You were in mine.”

  “It’s not the same!” The tears coursed down her face like twin rivers. Her head jerked from side to side, as if desperate for somewhere to hide.

  Human tears. He could barely remember them. Tsigana had wept sometimes, for effect, but her tears had never carried the vast sea of emotion that exploded with Mihaela’s. Her pain engulfed him, and yet there was a strange, fascinating beauty in her weeping that made him ache.

  He moved, kneeling and drawing her unresisting body with him until she lay in his arms, her head against his shoulder. He still held both of her hands in one of his, tucked against his cheek, for he didn’t put it past her to lash out at him again. Unable to help himself, he put his lips to the side of her face and tasted the damp saltiness of her tears. As much her essence as the blood he’d taken from her in Scotland.

  Her fingers dug into his but not trying to hurt now. He doubted she was even aware of it. Slowly, as he kissed her tears and held her, she calmed.

  “My home is my—haven,” she muttered at last. “If vampires know of it, they never come. You did, and now I have nowhere. I have to start again, and nowhere is safe.”

  “I didn’t come to hurt you.”

  Her eyes closed, shutting him out. “You have hurt me.” Another tear squeezed between her thick, tangled black lashes. He kissed that one too. “Can’t you see that?”

  “No,” he admitted. “It was good on the island. I want you more. As you want me.”

  Her head pushed against him in anguish. “Not here. Dear God, not anywhere, not ever again.”

  He stroked her hair, pushing a stray lock back from her fine cheekbone. “I’ll be good tonight,” he promised. “Just one long, tender fuck. I won’t even drink from you, unless you want me to.”

  A shiver ran through her body. It might have been laughter or desire, or some weird combination of the two. “Why not? Because Saloman’s told you I have to go to Malta too, and I have to be strong enough?”

  He’d known Elizabeth would tell her. There was no need for him to be here. Beyond his own, ferocious hunger.

  “Weakening you was only ever a fringe benefit,” he said dismissively. “Do you really not know how much I want you?”

  Deliberately, he lowered her hands to his groin and spread them, palms down across his hardness. She swallowed convulsively. As if she couldn’t help herself, her hands moved, tracing his rigid length. Her fingers were firm yet light as they stroked him, unbearably sensual, shooting wildfire through every heightened nerve in his body. Then they paused. If he’d still had breath, he’d have held it. As it was, he tried to will her to unfasten his buttons.

  Instead, she pressed down hard, and he let out a groan as he almost climaxed in his pants like a teenager with his first woman. She actually looked surprised by his reaction and tugged her gaze free of him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said shakily. “You broke into my home. It’s like rape.”

  That caught him off guard. So much so that she could probably have crawled over to the fallen stake, brought it back, and killed him before he remembered even to shut his mouth.

  “My haven,” she repeated. Her fists curled and tightened around his shaft. He almost exploded, but Mihaela didn’t seem to realize what she was doing. “I don’t even bring men here, ordinary men—”

  “Why not?” he asked, trying to understand without letting loose the sudden surge of jealousy at the idea that she’d had other lovers. As of course she had. She’d been no shrinking virgin on the island.

  Her eyelids lifted once more, and she gazed right at him. “Because
they’re bastards too.”

  There was defiance in her eyes, as if she expected him to push her away. She even tensed as if preparing for an attack. He didn’t understand any of this. Perhaps he’d been isolated too long.

  “Then why do you screw them?” he asked with deliberate coarseness.

  It didn’t offend her. “For the same reason I screwed you. Because I wanted to. And then I never wanted to lay eyes on them again. Which is fortunate, since they felt the same way about me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  She frowned, trying to find his meaning, as if she couldn’t believe it was a simple compliment.

  He said, “You laid eyes on me again. And hands.”

  Heat flooded her body, shooting color into her pale cheeks as she snatched her hands off his crotch at last. Smiling because he couldn’t help it, he bent his head over hers and kissed her mouth long and tenderly, as he’d promised to fuck her. He made it sensual too, winding his tongue around hers and thrusting into her mouth with slow, aching strokes.

  She didn’t respond; not quite. But her mouth opened helplessly under his, and she began to tremble with the effort of remaining still under his mouth’s gentle assault. He slid his palm across her soft breast, over the thin cotton of her T-shirt, and held her there too. A tiny mewl escaped her. He flicked his thumb over her hard, peaked nipple and deepened his kiss.

  He could smell the intensity of her arousal. It fed his, which was fast galloping out of control. He knew it would take all his willpower now to stick to the one long lovemaking he’d promised. But he’d do it, and they’d both adore it. He’d see to that.

  He could do as he willed with her; she was pliant, trembling, and all but helpless in the grip of her desire. With only one kiss. With two, she’d be writhing in his arms, impaling herself upon him as before.

  But because of what she’d said, because of who she was, he had to hear her choose. He lifted his mouth from hers, loving the feel of her hot, rapid breath against his lips. “Give me permission,” he whispered, letting his lips flutter against hers. “Take me to your bed.”