He looked amused. “Rosalind, you’re not the sort to stake an unarmed man, vampire or not.”
Devil take it, he was right. I didn’t know what to do, though it should have been painfully clear. Instead it was just painful.
“Since you won’t stake me, you might unlock me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I rather like you as you are.”
He half-smiled. “Please.”
I tilted my head, curious despite myself. “What would you do were I not here?”
“I knew you’d come,” he admitted. “But I chain myself every morning, just in case. I’ve warned the housekeeper and the maids not to disturb me, but I can’t rely on their discretion. Not when I first wake. I’m not … safe.”
“How do you set yourself free every night?”
“The key is there on the edge of the washstand.” I hadn’t noticed the second washstand, complete with shaving brush and mirror. “Once I’ve … drunk … I can reach it, but I’d rather not contort myself if I don’t have to. The landlord won’t be pleased if I break another bed.”
I eyed him warily and reached out to pluck the iron key off the nail. It swung on a white ribbon. I held it up, considering.
“I think not,” I said finally, sinking into a chair and crossing my ankles demurely. I wrapped the silk ribbon around my wrist. “I think, my lord”—I emphasized his title scathingly— “that I should rather like some answers from you.”
He watched me carefully, as if I was the dangerous one. “And would you believe those answers, Rosalind?”
“Let’s see, shall we?”
“Answer my question first.” He sat on the edge of the bed, smiled wickedly. “Did they give you the Helios-Ra tattoo?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I beg your pardon, how do you know about the League? Or our markings for that matter?” It still rankled that because I was a woman they’d refused to give me the sun mark that every other hunter received when they took their oath.
He read my expression correctly. “They didn’t, did they? Of course not. Did they tell you why?”
“Some tripe about the dangers if I should marry someone outside the League,” I replied, disgusted.
He snorted, equally disgusted. “And it never occurred to anyone that Helios-Ra men marry women who aren’t from a League family all the bloody time?”
“Exactly!” Is it any wonder I love him, Evie? “But wives aren’t supposed to ask questions,” I added acidly. I arched a brow at him, trying to appear more collected than I really was. “Now I really must insist, sir, that you tell me how you know so much about us?”
He folded his arms, looking remote and aristocratic. The candlelight made daggers of his cheekbones. He might have been made of moonlight and marble. “I was born into a hunter family, Rosalind.”
I gaped at him. “Impossible. There aren’t so many families in London that we don’t at least know them by name.”
“I spent most of my youth with my mother’s people in Scotland,” he explained. “They are the hunters, not my father, the earl. He doesn’t know about any of it.”
I exhaled forcefully, mind spinning. “I can scarcely believe it. Why did you never come to London and join the society? They have a house here after all, for the members. Well, for the male members,” I added bitterly.
“I was going to do just that,” he confirmed. “I’d planned to come down to the city with all manner of pomp and circumstance.”
“What happened?”
“I went to France on my Grand Tour,” he answered drily. “And I chose a singularly bad alley to stumble down very late one night.”
“But you survived.”
“If you’d call it that.”
“That’s why you never took your oath.”
He nodded sharply. “And why my mother kicked me out of her house and bid me disappear.”
I was trying not to feel compassion and sympathy for him but failing miserably. I’d lowered my crossbow without even realizing it. “What did your father say?”
“My father thinks we had a quarrel. My mother remains in Scotland and refuses to visit town while I am here. My father is perplexed but finds life easier without my mother and so is not questioning either of us too closely. This family rift suits him.”
Compassion or not, I couldn’t lose my focus entirely. “I’m sad for you, of course,” I said. “But it can hardly excuse you for trying to kill Lord Winterson.”
He snorted. “I saved his miserable life.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He jerked a hand through his hair. “You must. You’re the only one who could.”
“Explain it to me then.” I wasn’t convinced but I needed to hear the rest of his story.
“One of the hunters is a turncoat.”
That much I could vouch for. I’d overheard as much during the ball as I crouched behind the armoire at the top of the stairs.
“You don’t look shocked,” he remarked.
“I’m not. Do go on.”
“That turncoat has hired a vampire to murder Winterson, thus scapegoating every vampire in the city and sending the League into chaos.” He smiled solemnly, without an ounce of humor. “It would be a bloodbath.”
“And who is this person?”
“I cannot say. He hides his face. I would recognize his scent I suppose, but I’ve yet to come across it in a singular setting. Balls and theaters are too … crowded. The smell of blood and warm skin is staggering.” His fangs lengthened and I’m not even certain he noticed.
I noticed. I lifted the crossbow again warningly. He bowed his head, like any noble at court.
“And the vampire he hired?” I prodded.
“I killed him,” he answered darkly. “I won’t let him, or the rogue hunter, start a war.”
“At Vauxhall,” I murmured. “You staked him at Vauxhall.”
He met my eyes. “So it was you.”
“Yes.”
“You are beyond reckless,” he said.
“As I am proving with every second I sit and listen to you.”
His smile was crooked this time, and intimate. Warmth tingled in my belly. I wagged the stake at him again. He chuckled before turning serious again. “I meant to lead the hunter into a trap, to reveal himself and still keep Winterson safe. I could only do that by pretending to at least try to assassinate Winterson. Even so, the traitor is more clever than I’d like. He sent someone else to do the same job.”
I stood up as regally and confidently as I could. “Then I must stop him.”
“You can’t stop him alone, Rosalind. Not even you.”
I hated that he was probably right.
“If you unlock me, I can help you.” His eyes glinted like iron.
I titled my head. “You might drain me dry right here on your fine rug.”
“You might put an arrow through my heart before the shackles are loose.”
“I might.”
But I knew I wouldn’t. I trusted him, despite everything. Don’t judge me too harshly, Evie.
I approached him cautiously, the key swinging from the ribbon at my wrist. “When do we go?”
“Tonight.”
June 25, 1815
Dearest Evangeline,
This is the last letter I will write.
You will scarcely believe what I am about to tell you. And hopefully, you shan’t believe any of the rumors you are sure to hear. I do not think you would ever believe me to be a traitor but I should hate to chance such a thing. Too many will curse my name as it is. No one would believe the truth even were they to hear it. Except you. No one must ever know what I am about to divulge. Not the League, not my friends, and not my family.
The annual summer hunters’ ball was held last night at the Helios-Ra town house headquarters. You will have heard all about it by now. It started as quite the lavish celebration. Dante and I were dressed in our finest. No one would ever have thought us anything but another fashionable couple courting through waltzes and cham
pagne. Even at a hunters’ ball, no one suspected that the hairpins I wore were ebony and sharpened to perfect killing points. They will insist on seeing me as a willful child and nothing else, I see that now.
The ball went on as balls do until everyone was flushed from too much drink. Dante and I prowled the outskirts of the dance floor and eventually made our way outside. I shan’t tell you how many couples were in a shocking state in the back gardens. No one noticed us at all.
However, we noticed a single light burning in the attic.
It was odd enough to have us investigating. The house was so crowded, the orchestra and the chatter so loud one could hardly hear one’s own thoughts, never mind a scuffle in the farther reaches of the town house. We took the back stairs as fast as we could. The door at the top of the landing was locked. Footsteps tracked through the thick dust at our feet. I couldn’t hear any sound at all but Dante seemed certain we were in the right part of the attic. He snapped the lock with a single sharp twist. The door swung open and we crept inside. We needn’t have bothered with the subterfuge.
Lord Winterson stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped together. He turned to look at us, nodding graciously. The door shut behind us and when I whirled at the sound, a hugely muscled guard stood there glowering. The back wall was painted with crosses and hung with garlic, as if they were evergreen boughs at Christmas time. I admit I was baffled. This hardly looked like an assassination attempt on Winterson.
Dante’s nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. “You.”
Lord Winterson smiled coldly.
“You,” Dante repeated. “You hired me to kill you?”
Now I was even more confused.
“What on earth is this about?” I demanded.
“Miss Wild, I regret that you have become involved in this matter. I assume you are the one who wrote that touching letter warning me of deceit and violence against my person?”
“Er … yes.”
“And yet now you stand with a vampire.”
“Let her go,” Dante hissed.
“I don’t understand,” I said crossly. I supposed I ought to have been more frightened but to be honest, I only felt great vexation. As if everyone knew the plot of the story but me. And you know how I feel about being made to look foolish.
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Winterson said dismissively. “I knew there was a vampire in our midst, you see. I hired him to murder me that I might flush him out. But every time I got close, something scared him away. You.” He looked sorrowful. The light glinted off the diamond on his gold Helios-Ra ring. “You had such potential and now you’ve let yourself be seduced.”
I wanted to hit him over the head with his own walking stick. “Dante has done nothing wrong,” I declared in ringing tones.
“He’s a vampire, you silly girl.”
“One who thought he was saving your life.”
“Nonsense, he would have ended me had he the chance. And now he will be the night’s entertainment, a sad cautionary tale to dazzle the younger generation.” There was a pile of chains in the corner.
“I bloody well don’t think so,” Dante snapped.
“But you must die, surely you see that. You’re an abomination, boy.”
“You’re the abomination,” I said hotly.
Winterson glanced at his bodyguard. “Gag her.”
He took one step toward me but I was already leaping into the air. I landed some distance away, hairpin in my hand.
The bodyguard blinked. “Ladies aren’t supposed to do that.”
He was stronger than me, which was painfully obvious. He might have crushed my skull like a melon with one hand. But I was faster. I twirled and leaped around him until his breath huffed out and he went red with sweat. “Here now, no more games.”
On the other end of the attic, Winterson lifted his walking stick and a sharpened stake flipped out of the bottom. Dante danced out of the way. The candle flame fluttered. The return descent of the stick caught Dante’s chest, cutting through his jacket and through the skin below. Blood dripped onto the floorboards. Another blow and he stumbled, falling to his knees so quickly the candle tipped over.
The flame caught the tattered curtains and ate though the thin fabric. Another row of curtains caught almost immediately and the rotted wood of the windowsill began to smolder. Smoke poured into the room and I coughed. Before long there’d be no air left to breathe at all. I hurled a discarded vase at the glass, shattering it into pieces. Smoke and flames licked outside, kissing the roof. Someone down in the gardens screamed.
“We have to get out of here!” I yelled.
“Go!” Dante yelled back, clutching his seeping wound. It was too near his heart and weakened him. “Don’t wait for me.”
I ignored him, of course. Men are so silly sometimes.
Winterson shoved past me and before I realized what he was about to do, he and his bodyguard were safely on the landing. The door shut and I heard the ominous scrape of something being pushed against it to lock us in. Lord Winterson meant for us to die in that attic.
I had no intention of indulging him. I used a coat tree to break the other windows, coughing the black smoke out of my lungs. Dante pulled himself to the edge of the window and peered out. Guests were pouring out of the doors, panicking in their fine silk slippers and brocade frock coats.
“I can’t get us out of here in this condition,” he said as I crouched down beside him and tried to breathe clean air.
“I can get us out.”
“You can’t carry me, Rosalind,” he said. “But you can heal me.”
I stared at him.
“Please,” he whispered.
My fingers trembled but I held out my wrist for him. He clutched it as if it were fine pastry filled with strawberry cream. His lips were hot on my skin, the bite of fang was quick. The pain soon faded and a kind of pleasure swooned through me. He drank and drank, making greedy sounds. This moment was more dangerous than any power-mad earl with a stake at my heart. Dante could drink me dry, could give into the bloodlust and finish me here. No one would know. I would be part of the ashes of the burned-out house, a scrap of silk and bone for the inspectors to discover.
“Dante.”
He swallowed slowly, like a glutton testing a fine wine.
And then he pulled away.
Smoke drifted between us, obscuring the blaze of his eyes. And then his arms were around me and he was hurling me through the open window, tossing me up onto the rooftop. I swung through the air, the shock of it compressing my lungs. I landed hard on the roof and slid and might have fallen entirely if he hadn’t followed, gripping my arm hard and lifting me to my feet. The shingles were already hot under our feet. The smoke ate the stars.
“Hurry,” he urged, and we ran, leaping onto the roof of the next house.
We finally hired a hack and are even now on our way to the docks and then to Spain perhaps, or the New World. Who can say? I know what you must be thinking. But Dante is a good man. And I love him. There is no place here for us anymore. Neither of us will ever be accepted. Already we are hearing tales of Dante, the earl’s son, who turned vampire and killed a house full of hunters with fire.
No one will believe us over Lord Winterson. He has told the world that I tried to kill him because I fell in love with a vampire and wanted to prove myself to him. You know this to be untrue. But think of the scandal. I could never remove the stain on myself and it would only harm my family were I to try. We have stopped only to plant an incriminating letter in Lord Winterson’s desk concerning details of the fire. We’ve also sent an anonymous note to the Bow Street Runners. After they are done with him, Winterson shan’t be fit to lead the Helios-Ra. It’s the best I can do. I might be able to return someday but I do not hold out much hope for that. Please tell my family not to worry.
And truly, I have everything I need. I am wearing a silk dress stained with dirt and soot and I have never felt prettier. I haven’t a penny to my name and I have
never felt wealthier.
Only know that I love you and think of you fondly and often. Do not fear for me.
Love always,
Rosalind Cowan
THE DRAKE CHRONICLES
On Solange’s sixteenth birthday, she is going to wake up dead. As if that’s not bad enough, she also has to outwit her seven overprotective older brothers, avoid the politics involved with being the only daughter born to an ancient vampire dynasty, and elude an anti-vampire league.
This sixteenth birthday isn’t looking so sweet …
HEARTS AT STAKE
Book 1
Kieran Black, an agent of an anti-vampire league searching for his father’s killer, is intent on staking Solange and her entire family.
Luckily she has her own secret weapon—her human best friend Lucy, who is willing to defend Solange’s right to a normal life, whether she’s being smothered by her well-intentioned brothers or abducted by a power-hungry queen. Two unlikely alliances are formed in a race to save Solange’s eternal life—Lucy and Solange’s brother Nicholas, and Solange and Kieran Black—in a dual romance that is guaranteed to jump-start any romance-lover’s heart.
BLOOD FEUD
Book 2
Isabeau St. Croix barely survived the French Revolution and now she’s made her way back to the living. She must face the ultimate test by confronting the evil British lord who left her for dead the day she turned into a vampire—that’s if she can control her affection for Logan Drake, a vampire whose bite is as sweet as the revenge she seeks.
In this second adventure—told from both Logan’s and Isabeau’s perspectives, the clans are gathering for the royal coronation of the next vampire queen—and new alliances are beginning to form. But with a new common enemy, Leander Montmarte—a vicious leader who hopes to force Solange to marry him and usurp the power of the throne for himself—the clans must stand together to preserve the peace he threatens to destroy.
OUT FOR BLOOD
Book 3
Hunter Wild is the youngest in a long line of elite vampire hunters, a legacy that is both a blessing and a curse at the secret Helios-Ra Academy, where she excels at just about everything. Thanks to her friendship with Kieran Black, Hunter receives a special invitation to attend the coronation of Helena Drake, and for the first time, she sees the difference between vampires that must be hunted and vampires that can become friends—or even more.
Corsets and Crossbows: A Drake Chronicles Novella in Letters Page 5