Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  And then Saloman’s wrist was on his lips, and blood was dripping over them, trickling down his chin.

  “Drink,” Saloman commanded, and he gasped. He tasted blood, the blood of life, raw and repelling, even while he sucked it in from some instinct he hadn’t known he possessed. He drank from Saloman’s veins, and Saloman smiled and watched him, stroking his hair like a father with his sick child, before he returned to the wound in Maximilian’s throat and they drank from each other in the Ancient cycle of life.

  The pleasure of that astounded Maximilian, the push and pull within his veins, the giving and receiving, the sharing of blood. It was as if Saloman explained that and so much more, without words. At any rate, it was too much to take in at once.

  Saloman licked the wound in his neck to heal it and firmly took back his wrist. Maximilian reached for it again, blindly, but Saloman pushed him back onto the pillows. “Enough for now.” And again, although the Ancient’s lips didn’t move, Maximilian heard the words.

  The bedroom door flew open, and Giacomo strode in. “Is he worse?” he demanded, and Saloman smiled.

  “No. I think he’s doing better.”

  Two nights later, Maximilian had cornered and killed the nobleman who’d murdered him. It did him good to see the terror in the young man’s eyes. And when he’d drained him dry, he went to Caterina’s palace, entered by her bedroom window, and made love to her all night.

  After which he’d never seen her again.

  Six hundred years later, lying in this very different woman’s body, he remembered Caterina not with longing or regret but with acceptance. He had to accept everything he’d done that he couldn’t change. He had to take on the struggle or walk into the sun.

  With Mihaela, he was enjoying the struggle. Whatever they’d found together and for however long it lasted, for now she was his.

  He’d begun to know her. And he was aware that what had passed between them today and tonight was not enough. She would wake with new guilts and doubts, about him and about herself. The fallout from that had to be minimized. And so when her breathing evened and she fell into the deepest of human sleeps, with regret he gently disengaged from her warm, soft body and rose from the bed. He covered her with the sheet and blanket, and she turned her cheek into the pillow with a sigh of contentment.

  Maximilian smiled ruefully, reminded of watching her sleep on the island while planning to leave her there. This time, he only went as far as the other room, where Mihaela’s computer sat open on the bed she’d used the night before. Her phone was still connected to it.

  He lowered himself onto the bed and woke the computer. Modern technology was new to him; its development had largely passed him by. But Saloman and Dmitriu had both embraced it with enthusiasm, and in their company, he’d picked up enough.

  All the photos of the document Mihaela had found had downloaded. He clicked on the first, magnified it, and began to read.

  It was fascinating stuff. Astonishing stuff for human researchers to have discovered and, frankly, much of it was new even to him. When he finished the document, he went back to the beginning and read it again with more care.

  “What are you doing?”

  He’d known she was there. He’d sensed her waking and heard her shifting in the bed as she stretched and rose. Imagining her naked body performing even such mundane tasks sent all his borrowed blood to his nether regions. Excitement galloped as she padded across the floor and arrived in the doorway, but he enjoyed the anticipation of waiting for her to speak first. Besides, what he was reading was complicated as well as fascinating.

  Her voice was sharp, as he’d known it would be. Suspicion, still close to the surface, reared its ugly head.

  He turned his head unhurriedly.

  She had a towel wrapped round her body, the ends clutched together over her breasts. Pity.

  “I’m reading the document you photographed last night. It’s very—enlightening.” He stood and watched the blood flood up from her chest into her neck and face. He smiled because his nakedness affected her, and that fed his own galloping arousal. “Your mother had stumbled across some people who were affected by earthquakes before they happened and was researching the effect of seismic upheaval on them and other psychics. I think she had some vampire test subjects, though she doesn’t call them that. She and your father were collaborating on the project, because obviously his seismic knowledge was vital to her research.”

  “I need to read it,” she said, a shade of desperation in her voice as he began to walk toward her. Her eyes flickered over him, downward to the region of his erection, and he saw her swallow convulsively before she dragged her eyes back to his face.

  “We have time to go over it, to work out how to stop them. One of the sidelines your mother pursued was the way the presence of certain people affected not just seismic activity but the strength of other psychics.”

  “That’s weird,” she said breathlessly. She was frowning, and he had the impression it was in an effort to focus her mind on what he was saying rather than on his person. He liked that.

  He came to a halt in front of her. “She claims seismic activity acts as a catalyst for certain psychics, boosting some link between them and allowing the sum of the whole to be greater, if you like, than the individual parts.”

  “So Gavril has Robbie and the combined psychic strength to disturb the earth,” she said very quickly, as though determined to hold the threads, to get the words out. “And then, somehow they can use the earth’s disturbance to boost their strength even further and make the earthquake bigger? A huge, vicious circle, a loop that could go on forever…”

  “It could,” Maximilian agreed. “But we won’t let it. You’re very beautiful in the morning.”

  “And you’re very”—her gaze flickered lower again—”lively.”

  He reached up, closed one hand over both of hers, and twitched the towel free. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Her small yet full, pert breasts rose and fell with her quickened breathing, driving his lust faster and harder. Her areolas darkened beguilingly, puckering in the sexiest of involuntary invitations. He let his gaze roam all over her, taking in her slender neck and the pulse beating so madly at its base, the pale, rosy skin of her shoulders, the strength in her taut arms and legs, the shape of her nipped waist, flat stomach, and slender, gently rounded hips. The dark triangle of hair between her legs, veiling the secrets he’d already tasted. He could smell her arousal, hear the thundering of her heart and the rushing of her blood in her veins.

  “We don’t have time for this,” she said shakily, catching futilely at the towel as it dropped.

  “There’s always time for this.” Deliberately, he stepped closer, backing her into the wall. Her nipples brushed against him as she panted. “You have all day to read the document, and we can still be on Gozo by nightfall.” He pressed his hips forward, pinning her to the wall, and she gasped. He didn’t blame her. The feel of her soft flesh against his erection was intoxicating.

  “Max—” she protested, but he couldn’t let her go down that road. He couldn’t let her brood and think about this too much. And so he lifted her leg, blatantly, and hung it over his naked hip, drawing her up on to her toes so that he could fit his cock between her legs and nudge the tip to her entrance.

  “Mihaela,” he returned, and bent and took her mouth with his. At the same time, he pushed inside her, savoring her moist, velvet heat, and she gasped, opening her mouth wide. He took ruthless advantage, plunging his tongue into her mouth and thrusting farther inside her. Bracing one hand against the wall above her head, he held her steady with the other and began to twist inside her with slow sensuality.

  “Oh Jesus,” she whispered under his mouth, and then she was kissing him back and her body was moving in rhythm with his. Little moans of pleasure escaped her as she used the wall and the grip of her thigh around his hip to lift and lower herself on his shaft. Her strong internal muscles gripped and massaged him,
leaving him in no doubt of her own pleasure or her desire for his. It drove him on, exciting him in ways he couldn’t remember before, until they were straining together, pushing, thrusting, undulating. Sweat trickled in delicious streams down her neck and between her breasts.

  He could have bitten her again, weakened her again, and God knew he wanted to gulp her taste in to feed the massive climax building in him. He contented himself with licking the sweat from her neck, and then kissing her mouth with hard, savage passion. He didn’t care whether it was her own teeth or his that drew the blood. There was only a drop, and it tasted divine enough to send him over the edge.

  Her hands were scrabbling in his hair, on his shoulders and back. In his fever, he ran his fingers wildly up and down her sides, around her draped thigh and between her legs. He felt his own cool skin and her burning flesh, joined under his fingers, moving and trembling together, and nothing in the word had ever been so sensually beautiful. She cried out at his extra touch, staring into his eyes.

  Her eyelids fluttered and closed to the sound of a long, low moan, and she collapsed between him and the hard wall at her back, convulsing around him, intensifying his own climax with hers. He kissed her some more, making occasional, forceful thrusts inside her, just to keep her—and him—up there as long as he possibly could.

  It was even a rare pleasure to watch her come down, which she did with a kind of slow, deeply sexy shuddering that echoed through his body from hers, causing delightful little aftershocks.

  When her eyes finally refocused on his avid gaze, he murmured, “Good morning, hunter.”

  Her eyes flickered at the reminder of what she was and what he was, but considering their current position with mutual sexual pleasure still zinging and sizzling between them, she had no room for guilt. Deliberately, he’d given her none.

  “Good morning, vampire,” she said throatily. “You didn’t have breakfast.”

  “I had a big supper. It was particularly delicious.”

  “I can’t believe I let you say those gross things to me.”

  “You mean you can’t believe you like them. Because they aren’t gross; they’re sensual.”

  She stared, accepting the truth for now, yet unsure that it was right. “I must be very depraved…”

  He moved lazily within her, pushing her into the wall once more. “Very. Enjoy it.”

  An instant longer, her wide brown eyes gazed into his. Then, with a little gasp, she jumped, wrapping both her legs around his hips, and pushed onto him in a wild, desperate fever. He obliged her, holding still and hard for her to ride on. It was exquisite, so much so that he couldn’t stay still for very long. He rammed her into the wall and let himself go, fucking her with wild, vampire speed.

  It didn’t take long. She screamed as she came, falling forward onto him with the force of her orgasm. Her internal convulsions made him shudder uncontrollably. He shoved into her once more, hard, and as his own climax hit, he had to hold himself upright by bracing both hands on the wall.

  “I could do this all day,” he murmured into her hair as her legs flopped bonelessly to the floor. “And then all night. Just to be going on with. But we have a child to rescue and a world to save from earthquakes.”

  It did no harm to be the one to bring back reality this time. But before he could truly enjoy watching her adjust, with reluctance as well as pride, Robbie spoke in his head, sounding both excited and secretive.

  Max? Max, are you there?

  I’m here. He released Mihaela, but she looked so lovely and so serious as she dragged reality back around that he bent and kissed her mouth.

  The other vampire came in last night. Just before I fell asleep. Gavril’s really happy. He says we’re going to do it tonight. Whatever it is.

  Mihaela’s mouth opened sweetly under his. Not such a sexual kiss as those she’d given in the last half hour, but deep and warm and delicious. Her taste was addictive.

  We’ll be there, Maximilian assured Robbie.

  Gavril says the new guy’s just what we need and is worth at least four of the others, Robbie said happily.

  Does he have a name? Maximilian asked, moving his mouth on Mihaela’s in deeper exploration. She gave a little moan. He loved those little sounds she made. He wondered if he could take her again before she got down to the business of the research document.

  Ferdinand, Robbie said without a lot of interest.

  Maximilian paused. Mihaela, licking his fangs in a quick, teasing sort of way, paused too, as if she sensed his withdrawal. Maximilian sent Robbie a mind-picture. Is that him?

  Aye, that’s him.

  Mihaela drew her lips free, gazing up at him with a question in her anxious eyes. A question he didn’t know how to answer just yet. So he took her mouth back and kissed her some more while he told Robbie what to do.

  ****

  They took the car on the ferry from Valetta to the island of Gozo this time, and as Maximilian drove toward Xaghra, Mihaela wondered at the difference twenty-four hours made. For the first time, she felt she was working with Maximilian as a partner. And it was to do with a lot more than last night’s astounding sex. Or this morning’s wicked encounter that had never even made it to the bed.

  Mihaela’s whole body heated at the memory, and as if he sensed it—which he probably did—he glanced at her with a smile that in a human she might have called smug. In a smoldering kind of way. Maximilian, it appeared, was not averse to more sex.

  I have a vampire lover, Mihaela thought, stunned all over again. Maximilian is my lover.

  No one had hung around for more than a one-night stand before. Apart from Josh, who’d stayed for a week. The others had been mere couplings, a fulfillment of animal need. Only she’d never felt particularly fulfilled. Neither had she wanted to meet any of them again, not after her first experience as a teenager, anyway. And yet now, without her making any effort at all to attract or pick up, she had an amazing, skillful lover in this unique, strange, beautiful being.

  She knew she should add “dangerous” and “lethal” to these adjectives, but in truth she didn’t feel in any remotest danger from him. He could turn her bones to water, arouse her to the heights of fever, and make her scream with the intensity of the seemingly endless pleasure he could induce in her. But he’d never hurt her. Not once. Even in the throes of the most urgent passion. Even in Scotland.

  At the back of her mind, where she refused to go, she knew this couldn’t and shouldn’t last. When this was over, if she still lived, they’d leave Malta, and she’d return to being an official hunter. She couldn’t imagine seeing Maximilian again then. She couldn’t really imagine him wanting to. In some way, they’d saved each other with this affair. Somehow, she’d helped bring him out of the depths of his despair and isolation, and he’d reminded her of the importance of life, of her own life beyond hunting. And for now, that was enough.

  She had last night, a new understanding and closeness with the fascinating being beside her. And she had their shared mission to save Robbie and prevent the vampires using her parents’ research to cause devastating earthquakes. And Gavril would die, giving her closure on the first and greatest tragedy of her life. Tonight would end many things. And begin many more.

  Dusk was falling when he parked just inside the village. Mihaela picked up her bag of weapons from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. She checked her pockets for detectors and stakes, and got out of the car. The familiarity of the actions soothed and focused her.

  “Do you know where they are?” she asked as Maximilian joined her.

  “All together in the villa, with Robbie. We’ve time to check out a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like their escape route.”

  It made sense. If their plan failed and some of them got away, it would help to know where they were headed. They certainly wouldn’t be hanging around. Vampires could probably survive tsunamis, since they couldn’t drown, but they could be buried under rock falls and colla
psed buildings that even their supernatural strength couldn’t shift. But more than that, there was Robbie, their primary “booster.” If they were unaware that this exercise of his power would probably kill Robbie anyway, they were sure to have a plan to save him for the next attack.

  “How do we do that?” she asked doubtfully. It wasn’t the sort of information they were likely to give Robbie.

  “We follow their scent,” Maximilian said.

  In the gathering darkness, they walked through the village and up the hill to the temple site of Ggantija. Without warning, Maximilian flung one arm around her waist and jumped. She gasped as she found herself flying over the gate. He landed lightly, surefooted, holding her against him off the ground to protect her. But his mind was clearly not on sex or even flirtation at this point. He let her slide to her feet and walked on almost immediately.

  Am I piqued? she asked herself, only half-amused. She followed him among the stones.

  “If you can scent them, won’t they be able to smell you too?”

  He shrugged. “If they’re really trying, maybe. At this stage, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “Unless they up-sticks and move on with Robbie to the next place, the next earthquake, and we have to start all over again.”

  “We’ll always find them. And sooner or later, we’ll kill them.”

  “Sooner would be best,” she said grimly. “I don’t want Robbie with them any longer.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think it’ll take more than a scent of me to stop them tonight. They’ve been working toward it for too long. They’ll push on and rely on the damage they cause to take care of me. At least in the short term.”

  “I don’t see how we can avoid a showdown,” Mihaela agreed. “We need to snatch Robbie and kill them all. And if possible, discover if anyone else knows what Gavril does. Then, we have to retrieve the original of my mother’s document.”

  So much had already been decided between them. Maximilian halted and looked around him, turning a full circle to take in his surroundings.