Alder did not bother to feign amusement. “You’re certain of where this inn lies? Quite certain?”
“My friend, I have me very hand on the pulse of Edinburgh—indeed, of all of Scotland! Many a tale is told in my rooms and on me own pillow, no less. If you’re wishin’ for a bloody adventure, take the dark path into the Leamhan. But I warn you, you’ll not likely come out the other side the same condition as you went in.”
“That is very much my plan,” Alder murmured.
The whoremonger frowned. “What say ye?”
“Naught.” Alder leaned back in his chair and smiled at the whoremonger, a bit more relaxed now even though his hunger gnawed at him more impatiently than when the obscene man had begun his tale. Alder sipped from his all but forgotten mug. It was so very pleasant to be able to drink mortal refreshments once more, even if they did not satisfy him completely. His senses were so keen he could taste the faint tang of the brewer’s sweat in his fine, sweet drink.
Alder noticed that the inn where he and the detestable human had passed the evening was now all but deserted at the late hour, and the patrons had left for their own pallets or to the upper floors with their evening’s entertainment of the flesh. Alder could smell the depraved beings in the rooms above his head like so many roasted chickens tied up in sacks—only waiting to be brought out and consumed by the famished.
And Alder was starving.
But before the feast proper, a well-deserved prelude…
The whoremonger seemed to notice he and Alder were alone at that moment, although foolishly, it seemed to please the man rather than frighten him. He looked casually over each shoulder, then pinned Alder with a greasy smile.
“It seems we are without company, my strange and inquisitive friend. Shall I call a whore for you to take or have your desires been satisfied by me own grand presence?”
“I do find myself rather loath to be alone this eve,” Alder said, returning the man’s smile.
“Ah, so I reckoned,” the whoremonger chuckled and made to move his watery mass from his chair. “For you, and only you, I shall summon that fine knot of arse and send her to—”
Alder cut off the man’s words by reaching out and grasping his forearm. The moon’s own howl rang in his ears until he was nearly deaf with it.
“What would you answer should I request your company…friend?” Alder all but whispered.
The whoremonger paused and then a sick smile slid across his face as Alder stood and moved to stand just over him.
“Well, now, I would say that I don’t usually turn that way, but for a wealthy and comely friend like yourself…” He let the sentence trail away and licked at his thick lips as his eyes crawled up Alder’s body. “I am more than a mite curious at what lies beneath those fine, tight breeches.”
Alder easily pulled the man’s bulk from the chair and locked his arms tightly around the mortal’s shoulders. The whoremonger gave an almost feminine sigh of desire, and Alder knew his base presence was affecting the lowlife. The more evil and depraved the mortal, the easier prey they made. Like all the others, the whoremonger had a hunger.
So did Alder. And he could not resist speaking once more to the man.
“Do you wish to know,” he whispered into the greasy hair behind the man’s ear, “why it is I seek the Levenach, whoremonger?”
“Aye,” the man moaned, his need making him limp and dazed in Alder’s embrace. “Tell me.”
“The mortal man who sparked the battle between the vampires and the witches—’twas I.”
The whoremonger stiffened slightly and struggled to shake his head, his warning instinct of impending doom coming much too late to save him. “Nay—that battle was one hundred years ago,” he whispered.
“Indeed,” Alder agreed, and let his lips peel back from his fangs, at last stretching his mouth luxuriously. “And I am no longer mortal.”
Chapter Three
Beatrix felt resigned two nights later as she prepared to open the White Wolf for trade. She had spent the Sabbath in rest and reflection—between batches of ale in varying stages of brewing—and had decided to trust her father’s word.
She was Levenach. And she would wait.
The Leamhan around the inn had been peaceful and still since her last vampire kill, so although she would be forced to hunt tonight to preempt any attacks on the forest folk, she was heartened by the serenity she now felt. Especially since last eve, when the ancient Levenach well had once more reverted to showing her only images of the inn’s namesake running on swift feet over some unknown land, and no longer behaving like a human.
Bea skipped down the stairs and into the common room with purpose, replacing dried warding herbs over the door and window frames with fresh, potent bunches, and shooing the cats into the kitchen.
“Go on—you know how they like to make targets of the pair of you when they get into their cups.” But it was said with a wry smile.
The Leamhnaigh could not be blamed for their behavior. They were innocent, and must remain so for very good reasons. Should they learn the truth about the creatures stalking them, should they even think to take the old legends as truth, their realities would shift, change, and then Beatrix Levenach as well as witches throughout the highlands would have more to fear than the bloodsuckers.
It was up to Beatrix alone to end the vampires’ reign, once and for all. She didn’t know how that was to be accomplished, but she would do as her father—and the very blood in her veins—requested, and wait for the white wolf to arrive.
She let the smile linger over her face as she gave the stew a final stir and then reentered the common room to unbar the door. Dusk was falling through the fog, and the folk would be thirsty. Beatrix was thankful her inn and her presence would provide them a safe haven in which to pass the most dangerous hours of the night. It made her solitude feel a twitch more bearable.
She was only halfway across the floor when she heard the shouts from beyond the door.
Alder paced behind the fringe of trees along the woodland path, his long-sought destination directly before him, but the sunlight of late evening still too strong for him to take his human shape.
Yea, surely this was the place of the Levenach, for trouble was already afoot, and it was brought not only by his own—currently four—feet.
The faded timber and mud exterior of the humble-looking cottage was awash with the yellow glow of a score of torches, borne by a few more than that number of humans. Those which did not carry the sources of light wielded axes or thick staffs, and a pair of folk bore a long, cloth-wrapped bundle.
“Beatrix Levenach!” a man closest to the cottage shouted. “We summon thee, witch! Come and look upon what your wickedness has wrought and take your punishment, lest we set fire to your lair while you cower inside!”
The crowd roared in agreement and then seemed to wait for the door to open. When it did not, the appointed spokesman for the group continued his haranguing.
“Levenach! We have had enough! Your sorcery on our people has come to its end and we are here to finish your evil bloodline!”
Behind his thin fringe of trees, Alder paced, and flicked his black eyes to the pinnacle of the tree line and the orange glow of sunset that lingered there.
Don’t come out, Alder said in his mind. If she came out, the people were certain to kill her. A dead Levenach was of no use to Alder. Indeed, the last Levenach, dead by mortals, would mean Alder’s destruction.
He was the one who must spill her blood. He and no one else.
Don’t come out, he repeated.
The door to the inn opened, and Alder froze in his pacing as his savior, his nemesis, his destiny, stepped into the dangerous crowd of folk.
“What is the meaning of this?” the witch demanded, and Alder felt his pupils dilate as they took in the whole of the last living Levenach, his senses screaming out from the very power of her, even at the distance he kept in the sheltering tree line. His breaths shortened to stuttering pants,
the hair on his back bristled.
The damnable sunlight, weak and ruddy though it was, threw back sparks from her fiery hair and the whoremonger’s words whispered in Alder’s ear: as red as the Devil hisself. She was as tall as half the menfolk gathered around her, and her arms, cocked on her hips defiantly, appeared long and slim in their rough garments. With each swish of her plain skirt, Alder thought he could see silvery washes of tracing light.
And he knew a shiver of fear for his soul.
He was shaken from his stupor as the mob leader again took up his grievances.
“And yet another, Levenach!” the man shouted and gestured impatiently for the pair of folk bearing the long-wrapped burden to come forth. Several women lingered on the fringes of the crowd, and their wailings pierced the air around the man’s accusations. “You canna explain this away inna longer! Your blood-thirst has drunk of its last victim!”
“Who?” Alder heard her shocked whisper clearly.
“My boy!” a woman screamed and fought her way toward the inn. She was seized by a pair of folk before she could reach the Levenach woman. “My Tom! Only ten and six—not yet a man and yet you had to have him, did ye nae? Ye monstrous whore! Evil! Evil!”
“Nae,” the witch whispered, and Alder thought he could hear physical anguish in the word. “Nae Tom!”
“Aye!” the mob leader shouted, shaking a torch at the Levenach. “Ye’ve lied to us, fed off’n us long enough, Beatrix Levenach. And now we will put an end to it!”
“Dunstan, surely you doona think that I—”
“What else are we to think, I ask ye?” the thick man—Dunstan—charged. “And unmarried woman, carrying on as if she were a man of business, a chief even—”
“But my betrothed—”
“He doesna exist!” Dunstan sneered. “For years we swallowed yer lies and those of yer father. The old tales are just that—stories. You nae more protect the Leamhnaigh than does the Devil hisself.”
Alder shuddered at the words, a sharp, frozen fingernail between his shoulder blades.
“And now you’ll pay for the lives you’ve taken. I know how to put an end to a witch,” Dunstan threatened, shaking his torch at her again. He looked over his shoulder at the group of forest men gathered behind him, their own torches growing progressively and ominously brighter as the sun sank slowly, too slowly. “Take her, and light the inn!”
The crowd shouted encouragement as the Levenach was taken roughly in hand. Alder saw her lips move, whispering words too low for even his sensitive ears to hear. A spell of some sort, perhaps, but if it was, it had no effect on her captors. Alder looked to the glowing treetops again.
Three more minutes. Two, mayhap…
“Light it!” Dunstan insisted again while the folk who held her dragged the Levenach to a gnarled old elm spread wide in the clearing before the inn. As they drew closer to his hiding place, Alder could feel the power of the Levenach throbbing in rhythm to his own shuddering heartbeat.
The folk charged with destroying the inn stood before it without action, as if hesitant to approach the humble building. But the inn’s fate was of no concern to Alder—he knew the Levenach’s moments on earth could be counted on one hand.
He looked to the glowing treetops again. A feral whine escaped his throat.
“Doona do this, I beg of you!” the Levenach screamed. “Dunstan, I am the Levenach! You are sworn to—”
“Doona threaten me with yer curses, witch!” the mob’s leader growled. He jerked her by her fiery hair. “The Leamhnaigh will be free from yer evil when we toss yer wicked corpse upon the burning coals of the White Wolf.”
A pained yip escaped Alder’s throat.
“Nay!” the Levenach shrieked and thrashed her willowy body side to side as a length of rough rope was produced and a crude noose was wrenched over her head. Alder felt his own throat constrict, his scar burn.
He could not wait a moment longer, sunlight or nay.
Alder crouched low, his white muzzle nearly touching the dirt. A squealing growl came from him as he shuddered, shuddered, then sprang from the tree line.
Chapter Four
I’m going to die, Beatrix said to herself in disbelief as the noose fell over her collarbone and then scratched itself tight around her throat. Someone behind her—it wasn’t Dunstan, as he still stood before her, glaring triumphantly—tied her wrists together.
Nothing had worked. The warding spell, the escape spell, the discernment spell—it was as if she sang a pretty lullaby to a group of savage sheep. Her father, the legends and prophesies—the well itself—had all been wrong.
She was going to be burned to death. And then the Leamhnaigh and all the highlands would fall to Laszlo and his vampires.
Tom’s mother fought her way to the fore of the crowd, and even in her own mortal fear, Beatrix’s heart wrenched for the poor woman, and for her sweet son, dead by the fang.
“Look, look!” The woman tore at the rough covering that shrouded her boy until Tom’s face, gaunt and white and shriveled, was revealed. His brown eyes, forever holding their fear wide, gaped at Beatrix. A strangled cry wheezed from her throat at the sight of the two black puncture marks on the young man’s neck. Whoever had fed upon the boy had drained him like a piece of winter fruit.
“His should be the last face your damned evil eyes look upon before you burn in hell, witch,” the woman gasped, and then spat in Beatrix’s face before collapsing in a half faint in the arms of one of her neighbors.
“I didna,” Beatrix whispered the plea to the crowd. “I swear it!”
“Would you light the fucking place?” Dunstan shouted, and the rope began to tighten around Beatrix’s neck. She rose onto her toes as her breath was cut off.
Help me, Da, Beatrix said in her mind as her eyes closed.
A low, wet snarl whispered in Beatrix’s ear the instant before the commanding shout of “Release her!” seemed to echo from the very heart of the forest.
Beatrix’s eyes opened, and a reedy stream of sparkling air slithered into her straining lungs. For a moment, Beatrix thought that she had already died, and that now she looked upon the angel that would bear her to her ancestors.
He…glowed as he emerged from the blackening forest, walking with a purposeful but rolling gait that emphasized his lanky grace, lean muscles crowded beneath his alabaster skin. His hair was so blond as to be nearly white, long and straight as it flowed back from his high forehead and disappeared down his back. He carried no pack, no obvious weapon—the stranger simply stepped into the forest clearing that was more than two days’ travel from anywhere as if he’d just come from his own house.
His command had been for the Leamhnaigh, but his eyes, the irises as black as the Levenach well itself, were for Beatrix alone. He strode toward the crowd as if he would bowl them all over.
“I said, release…my betrothed.” Around Beatrix, the Leamhnaigh gasped.
And then he was before her, his sinewy hands pulling the noose from her neck effortlessly as the crowd backed away. His scent enveloped her, like the perfume of a garden of night flowers, and the smell of a half-burnt piece of firewood, smoky and exotic. He spun Beatrix around to address the ties at her wrists and she could not help but gasp when his fingers found her own tender skin, like rogue sparks.
Beatrix heard Dunstan challenge the stranger. “Your betrothed, you say?” The suspicion in his voice was unmistakable.
“Aye, Beatrix Levenach is to be mine.” She felt his cool breath at her ear. “My name is Alder,” he hissed.
“Alder!” Beatrix stuttered as the ropes fell away from her hands and she turned to face him once more. “Why did you not send word?”
“I was…” the man paused, his eyes flicking over the crowd with a sneer. “Unexpectedly detained. Forgive me. Had I known that you were to be set upon by such savages I would have hastened to your side without concern for other business.”
“Now just one bleedin’ moment.” Dunstan stepped toward the white m
an. “We doona know you from Jake, bloke, an’ yer interference with the witch here is unwelcome. She’s a killer, stalking good and innocent folk when they trusted her, murderin’ ’em in their very homes!”
The man calling himself Alder whipped around and the queer sound of a hollow roar echoed in Beatrix’s ear at the swift movement. It was little more than a blur.
“My name is neither bloke nor Jake, and if you should take one step closer to Beatrix Levenach, I will rip both your arms from your torso and beat you to death with them.”
A shocked look of disgust came over Dunstan’s ruddy face.
“My name,” the man continued, now addressing the entire stunned crowd, “is Alder…de White. Beatrix Levenach was promised to me these many…”
“Six,” Beatrix chirped.
“Six years past,” Alder picked up. “By her father—”
“Aye, me da, Gerald.”
The white man sent her a warning look. Enough. “Gerald Levenach promised his daughter to me six years ago. I have been delayed in claiming her due to…matters of my estate in England. A plague on you who would seek to do harm to the head of your clan family. What would Gerald say?”
Tom’s mother staggered forward. “She’s nae our clan head—she’s a witch! She’s killed my Tom!”
Alder looked to the corpse and then back to the woman, his voice growing low and thoughtful. “My dear woman, pray tell, do you think it reasonable that even a woman of the Levenach’s stature could overtake a boy of Tom’s size?” Beatrix had the strange feeling that she could fall right into Alder de White’s voice and be lost forever. She found herself leaning toward him.
“Aye, he was strapping,” Tom’s mother admitted, standing a mite taller in her grief. “But she is a powerful evil, that one, and Tom trusted her. We all did!”
One eyebrow rose. “Yes, I could see her evil power evidenced by the easy way in which she escaped her own imminent death. Did anyone witness the attack?” Alder continued, looking around the crowd. Beatrix noticed that many of the folk were also leaning toward the white stranger, their gazes thoughtful, rather detached.
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