The Trelayne Inheritance

by Colleen Shannon

  The laughter was back in his mellow voice, like golden sunshine warming honey. “Ah, I just empirically proved, I aver, that you don’t allow most men to touch you so.”

  “You’ve all but admitted you’re not a normal man.” This was indubitably the oddest ballroom conversation she’d ever had. And quite the most enjoyable verbal skirmish she’d ever dared..

  “I admit nothing save that I find you powerfully attractive.” There was a rueful note in his voice that made her laugh.

  “You make me sound like an ailment.”

  His eyes went forest green. Fascinated, unable to look away, she watched his pupils expand until they consumed the color, consumed her composure, her breath.

  Her being.

  “You are exactly that, Angelina Blythe. A fever, a hunger, an itch. A dream I take into sleep and bring back into day to haunt me there, too.” He pulled her lower body tightly to his own. She felt the thrust of what felt like a quite normal male into her abdomen. “Come home with me, Angel. Cure us both.”

  She should be terrified he could read her so well. He’d neatly described her own symptoms where he was concerned, too. But his ‘cure’ could lead to a far deadlier sickness. If he were the Beefsteak Killer, what would stop him from doing to her as she’d almost seen him doing to that poor girl?

  Stopping even her pretense of swaying to the soft tempo of the waltz, Angel pushed him away. She ached as she did so, but she knew she had no choice. This man, no this being, for only a creature of the night could be so magnetic and yet so charming, reading her thoughts and dreams before she knew them herself. She was alone, she was afraid, but suddenly she knew that not matter what this man was, she had to share with him a bit of her soul. By choice, not because he demanded it or cheated it out of her.

  “No,” she said simply. “Home is something I’ve wanted all my life. But I can’t find it in anyone’s arms until I find it within myself.”

  On some dim level, Angel realized the music had stopped and that the other guests were staring at them. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sarina start toward them. Alexander caught her arm and pulled and back. She was, yet again, causing a scandal for her uncle, but for the moment, she didn’t care.

  But she’d let him in and now, man or vampire, he took ruthless male advantage to pry deeper into her being..

  “And where is home, Angel? Blythe Hall? America? Or somewhere else far away. Somewhere else where you can escape the truth you claim to seek.” He bent until his green eyes bored into not just her mind, but her heart, where it hurt. Those secret places she could scarcely bear to touch, much less allow others to trespass upon. Her mother, her loneliness, her own fear of what she’d find when she learned why her mother had left England.

  “Is it the Beefsteak Killer you seek? Or is he just a distraction to give you can excuse not to look where truth darkens instead of illuminates.”

  His words hurt so much because they were true. Her hand had flown out to strike him before she realized it. She saw his head jerk to one side, she saw her hand imprint appear redly on his cheek. And for an instant, when he bared his teeth at her, she saw fangs….

  But then he’d whirled and stalked out onto the balcony, his steps as soundless as usual. He climbed onto the rail, his arms extended like a giant bird, and leaped into the night. He was gone.

  But he burned into her consciousness as surely as the sun he often reminded her of.

  Jerkily, her eyes bright with tears she refused to shed, Angel skirted the staring looks and whispers, making her way to the door. Sarina, bless her, clapped her hands.

  “La, are we such a dull lot as to be voyeurs? Dance, my dears. Dance!” The orchestra struck up a lively country dance and the floor was soon filled.

  Outside, on the landing, Angel looked at the stairs leading to her room, but with a will of their own, her feet trekked down, not up. Beakers, that’s what she needed. Solutions, formulas, boring notes. Tangible reality instead of amorphous feelings.

  Some hours later, that’s the way Sarina found her. Still in her lovely blue ball gown, though she’d had courtesy enough to wear an apron, mixing a beaker in which she’d isolated yet another blood sample.

  Sarina set down a tray of meat, cheese, bread and fruit and brought Angel a glass of ruby red punch. “Red and blue don’t go well together.”

  “Which is why I’m wearing a white apron, Sarina. I shan’t get blood on your frock.”

  “Are you never lost for a response?”

  “It seems to be a family trait.”

  “Not this night. Alexander is sleeping it off as we speak.”

  Angel continued her mixing.

  “If you’re going to be dull and choose research over revelry, at least get tipsy while you’re at it.” Sarina took a hearty swallow of wine from her own glass, taking her own advice, as Angel could clearly see.

  Strange. She’d never seen Sarina tipsy before. Angel eyed the glass Sarina offered, but turned back to inscribe another note. “I need to keep a clear head.”

  “Why? Your clear head seems to be getting you into more trouble than behaving impulsively.”

  Angel tossed her pencil down. “I came to Oxford with a clear head. Or so I thought.”

  “Do you regret that?” Sarina’s blue eyes were so kind, so sympathetic, that they brought a lump to Angel’s throat.

  “No. You’ve been nothing but kind to me.”

  “Unlike the men of the area?”

  Looking industrious, Angel picked her pencil up again. How did one tell one’s aunt that she was quite likely married to a vampire? One didn’t.

  “One way or the other, I’m going to teach you that frivolous pursuits quite often lead to serious progress.” Laughing, Sarina offered Angel a beaker. Filled with ruby red punch.

  Angel smiled reluctantly at the ridiculous sight. “I hope you rinsed it first.” But she accepted the beaker Sarina offered.

  “I took a clean one from the cabinet. To progress. Of the heart and mind.” Sarina clinked her crystal goblet against the pedestrian beaker.

  Angel could hardly refuse to drink, so she sipped. Surprised, she licked her lips and sipped again. “This is very good. Normally I don’t like such concoctions.”

  “It’s a very old recipe rumored to have started in Alexander’s family with a Crusader.”

  Angel was too busy drinking to pay much mind to the explanation.

  Sarina smiled and took the empty beaker. “Would you like some more?”

  Tempted, Angel forced herself to shake her head. “I have too much work to do.”

  “Can I help?” Sarina looked around, unable to disguise her little grimace of distaste. “I can…sweep. Or dust. I’m sorry for the filth, but Alexander won’t allow the servants down here.”

  Angel hid a grin over her notebook. She tried to picture Sarina using a broom. The mind boggled. “I shall contrive, thank you. But if you’ll excuse me, I really need to concentrate.”

  Sarina propped her knuckles on her hips. “Are you saying I talk too much?” At Angel’s speaking look, Sarina smiled reluctantly and let her hands drop. “Oh, all right. Really, you and Alexander are of a piece. You can both be frightful bores where your work is concerned.” She walked to the door. “But I’ll send a servant down with more punch for you.” She left, satisfied she got the last word.

  Somehow epiphanies and punch went together. Over her third glass, Angel realized that she could test these prosaic samples until judgement day, trying to figure out–and prove–that the composition of a vampire’s blood was different to that of a human. And progress not at all toward her goal.

  Holding her beaker filled with lovely red liquid up to the candlelight, Angel squinted through a rosy reality. As usual, Sarina had been right. Progress was sometimes made through frivolous pursuits. Angel lowered the beaker and glanced around her drab surroundings. She was looking in the wrong place.

  To wit…if there was a mystery to be solved surrounding blood research in the Oxford a
rea, where she had every reason to believe vampires were as thick as thieves, she didn’t need to know what a human looked for in blood composition; she needed to know what a vampire looked for.

  Why had Max taken a sample of her blood?

  Angel drained the last of her punch, the tiredness she’d finally begun to feel magically washed away. She should be afraid at what she contemplated. At the very least, she should be cautious.

  She felt neither. Strangely enough, save for that moment when he bent over the girl’s blood-drained corpse, Angel had felt no fear of Max. He threatened her virtue, her sleep, her independence, but not, at least to date, her life. Whipping off the apron, Angel blew out the sconces. This time, her eyes didn’t even need to adjust to the total darkness. She could see. Instantly. Not just shadowy outlines of chairs and tables. But the brown wood and spindly legs of the stool next to the wall.

  Feeling, finally, as if she knew her way around and truth was guiding her, Angel left the lab, locking the door behind her. She made her way upstairs. Rustling silk was not the thing to wear when one invaded a vampire’s lair.

  Somewhere in her things she still had a boy’s garments, remnants of her tomboyish childhood. She only hoped they still fit. As for the wisdom of what she was about to do, well, perhaps the wine had made her overly bold, but at least if he discovered her she had an excuse. One he’d given her this very night.

  He’d invited her to his home, hadn’t he?

  From an upstairs balcony, the Beefsteak Killer watched as Angel rode out of the stables. She was dressed in such tight-fitting garments that any respectable man would have a difficult time resisting her. The girl had no idea of her own power over men, Max in particular. She really was a sweet child, that delightful rational streak almost enough to counterbalance the darkness of her own nature.

  Almost.

  But soon enough, the heritage she couldn’t escape would evidence itself as the changes she was undergoing would in all likelihood be completed in Max’s bed.

  To date, all was going according to plan…tonight was truly the beginning of the end for Maximillian Britton, the last of the tenacious Trelaynes. He’d be trapped, finally, in a lure even his almighty self righteousness wouldn’t be able to resist.

  Once he had sexual congress with Elaine’s daughter, he would be a vampire in deed as well as name. That righteous, flaming sword he carried would be turned upon him when he finally forsook the vows he’d made when he became a Watch Bearer.

  Finally, he’d be weak enough to kill.

  The killer heard footsteps approaching and quickly dissolved into mist, filtering over the balcony into the night.

  As Angel rode through the gates some time later, the clouds gathering in black mourning over the Trelayne Estate parted before a gush of wind. They emitted an eerie fog that had no form or substance as it trailed, not on the wind, but through it.

  As if it could control even the elements.

  But as the clouds drifted over the crenellated roof of Max’s estate, the white mist took form. Scabby fingers clawed through the heavy underbellies of the clouds and began to reach for the ground.

  There, they took amorphous shape again, harmless mist dripping on leaves and window panes at ground level.

  Waiting. For the invitation that had been inevitable the moment Angel set foot on English shores.

  Thinking there was no spring like an English spring, Angel stepped right through the heavy mist that had collected before the doors and windows of Max’s home. She tried numerous lower floor windows but they were all locked. Finally, she picked up a rock, wrapped it in her kerchief, and used it to break a casement. The crunch of glass sounded devastatingly loud, even muffled by the mist as it was.

  She looked around guiltily, but saw nothing stirring. Protecting her hand from the glass with the kerchief, she reached inside and opened the window. Automatically, she locked it behind her again, though the precaution was ridiculous since she was the invader.

  Her night vision was so strong now that she caught every pattern and nuanced shade in the tasteful room. Really, for a vampire, Max had a taste for light and airy decor. One of many odd things about him..but not as odd as this.

  She stopped, surprised to see a large cross on the wall. Then she remembered Max’s claim that he had no fear of crosses or religious icons. But then, she had no idea what decor a bona fide vampire preferred.

  Visions of black velvet and scarlet silk adorning a bat-winged bed danced in her vivid imagination. She tried to picture Max in such a suite.

  He wouldn’t be caught dead in such a place. Perhaps undead…

  A nervous giggle escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth, wishing she hadn’t had so many glasses of that strangely delicious wine.

  She made her way to the door as quietly as she could.

  Now where would he situate his lab?

  Awakening from a sound sleep, Max sat upright in bed, feeling her more than seeing her. Even in his dreams, she was a powerful presence.

  She was here.

  As expected. From the moment he saw her face when he took her blood sample, he’d known she’d have to investigate why for herself. He tossed back his covers, wondering what to wear for the strange meeting to come.

  He hadn’t been able to talk her to his home since that night in his carriage, lure her here, or even tempt her here. But give her a logical reason to come…

  Grinning, he decided to wear only his most frivolous silk robe, a fine old Italian emerald green silk embroidered with dragons that had reputedly belonged to Casanova. He’d have the proper excuse that he dressed hastily to investigate the strange noises. Another thump came from downstairs.

  For a female half vampire, she really didn’t have the art of movement down yet. But that was just as well. When she fully realized her powers, his own would be in imminent danger. As human, he could safely bed her. Once she was under his spell, he’d be able to control her, stop her conversion.

  Help her as he hadn’t been able to help Elaine.

  As a vampire, Angel could threaten all the good he’d tried to do for the last hundred years. Max walked downstairs to meet her, thankful yet again that he’d managed to stop her from drinking Alexander’s old ‘family’ recipe punch. The secret recipe that gave it that lovely crimson hue was human blood. The iron reputedly even offered a silky, slightly salty taste that was pleasing to human and vampire palate alike.

  An elixir concocted in a lab by a vampire researching human blood. Not to aid in the mysteries of blood transfusion, which is the tale Alexander put about. His research was far more insidious than that. On the face of it, harmless, to investigate the components of various types of human blood.

  But not so harmless when one learned why: He investigated which types of human blood offered the greatest strength to those of the vampire persuasion. Only vampires knew that, just as humans addicted to alcohol were often more susceptible to their favored type of spirit, vampires also formed a preference for certain types of human blood. It varied with their own bodily chemistry.

  But, as Alexander had discovered, there was one type of human blood, one that every vampire enjoyed and thrived on.

  A universal type, as it were. The type that Alexander favored so far was mixed with wine, spices and fruit juice, and then served at the balls. It was rumored to empower even the weakest vampires.

  And it was deadlier than poison to vampires fighting their urges, even more lethal to latent vampires who didn’t know their own power. He must continue to be vigilant and insure that Angel never drank it, or the battle he helped her fight against her human half and her vampire half would be over before it began.

  There was no time to waste.

  Max pushed open the salon door.

  Two harsh realities hit him right between the eyes: Angel had broken into his home, leaving a large hole in the glass.

  And right outside, perilously near that hole, hovered a mist that had no form.

  But it had a name.<
br />
  The Beefsteak Killer.

  Max felt his fangs forming in a reflex action, but he took a deep breath and forced himself back to calm. Fangs would do him no good against such a menace. He stuffed two divan pillows into the hole, but that would only slow the killer down, not stop it In gaseous form, it could invade the tiniest nook or cranny.

  Then Max stalked back to the door, knowing that, like usual, Angel was the key to the battle begun over a hundred years ago. The Beefsteak Killer wanted her all vampire; Max wanted her all human.

  But in either form, Angel could offer the Killer the one thing sacred to every vampire, even the oldest, deadliest ones–they couldn’t enter hallowed ground unless invited. Max stalked straight past the cross prominent on his wall and made for the door.

  It shouldn’t be difficult to keep Angel too busy for such niceties as social invitations to undesirable guests. He’d meet the Killer on his own terms, on his own time, when he was strongest.

  When Angel was safe and his sacred promise to Elaine was fulfilled that no matter what it cost him, he would protect her daughter.

  Below stairs, Angel tried every door she came across. She found pantries, storage areas, even an ancient armory filled with weapons that looked more rusty than lethal.

  But no trace of a modern scientific lab.

  Could he perform such dirty work in his master quarters?

  Coming back out on the landing, Angel gulped and looked up the stairs. There was only one way to find out. She’d been trying to avoid this, she told herself. But that new boldness she’d felt since drinking the punch wouldn’t allow for such weak denial.

  She wanted to see him. Wanted to confront him in his own chamber

  To see for herself if he slept in a crypt on soil, or in an ordinary bed.

  Wanted to see him. Period.

  Her cheeks heating, Angel climbed the stairs toward his quarters.

  Max was four steps behind her, smiling as he watched her try to be quiet.

  And outside, the mist swirled inchoately, formless, but not faceless.

  Twin red glowing eyes glittered with both hunger and hatred.