Nature of the Beast

by Hannah Howell

  “Though I am not as strong as I once was, I am perfectly capable of taking charge,” Lady Caryn replied. “We have good, loyal soldiers who will keep us safe and hardworking people who are joyful at being freed from de Bellemare’s tyranny. Lampeter is once again a fine place to live.”

  “’Tis Tis not only to run things that I am staying.” A muscle worked spasmodically in Bethan’s throat. “You know what Haydn is, Mother. I told you everything. He is a vampire. A creature of darkness and evil, like de Bellemare. I am shocked you would dare to suggest that I go with him.”

  Lady Caryn sighed. “I confess to knowing very little about his kind, but I do know one thing with great certainty. The Warrior of the North is nothing like Agnarr de Bellemare.”

  “He betrayed me!” Bethan cried. “I can never trust him, never look at him without feeling a crushing sense of loss.”

  “’Tis not too late. He loves you, Bethan. And you love him. Go to him. Quickly, before he leaves.”

  Shaking her head vehemently, Bethan turned away, hugging her arms around her waist, trying to control the tremors of emotions that shook her body. “Our feelings do not matter. I can never be a part of his world.”

  “There is a way.” Bethan looked over and saw a gleam of excitement in her mother’s eyes. “Haydn can transform you, he has the power to make you one of his kind. I asked Father William to check the book and he said ’tis possible for an immortal to turn another.”

  Bethan’s hands curled into shaking fists. She was well acquainted with the passage her mother spoke of, for Bethan had read it so many times herself she could recite the words from memory.

  “I shall be eternally damned,” she whispered.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I know not what to believe about God and salvation. I only know that while I was with de Bellemare, I lived in hell while on earth. And your Haydn was the one who released me from that hell. Surely that must mean something.”

  “Do not romanticize it. ’Twas a fight, Mother, between two enemies. Haydn emerged victorious because he was younger and stronger.”

  “Or had more to protect,” Lady Caryn insisted. “Agnarr de Bellemare fought to hold on to his power, but Haydn fought to keep you safe. Haydn fought for love.”

  Bethan shook her head. “It was revenge. De Bellemare destroyed Haydn’s parents.”

  Yet even as the words left her mouth, she knew she spoke but part of the truth. Haydn had defeated the Lord of Lampeter to save Bethan and her people. He had done it because he loved her.

  Lady Caryn reached for her daughter’s hand and held it tightly. “Even as a child you had courage. How I admired your spirit, your strength. So often it gave me the will to carry on when I believed in my heart that we were all doomed. I beg of you, reach within yourself and find that spirit. If not, you shall end your days a sad and bitter woman.”

  The uncertainty of her future wavered in Bethan’s mind. It was wrong, most likely sinful, to contemplate becoming an immortal and the very idea of it frightened her dreadfully. “How can I even consider consigning myself to such a fate, to willingly become a creature of darkness?”

  “How can you not?” Lady Caryn gave her a trembling smile. “For so many years you have fought for me, fought for our people. Now ’tis time to think of yourself. He made you happy, Bethan. Think long and hard before you toss away this chance at happiness, this gift of love.”

  Bethan pushed the doubts and fears from her mind and contemplated the feelings of her heart. She envisioned her days without him, the bleak years of loneliness stretching before her. A single sob escaped and Bethan covered her mouth.

  The aching in her heart propelled her feet forward, down the stairs, though the great hall, out the front doors, toward the stables. Rain began to fall, but Bethan ignored it, moving forward as quickly as her heavy skirts would allow.

  By the time she was within sight of the stables, the curtain of falling rain was thick and pounding, nearly blinding. Yet Bethan pushed herself forward, ignoring the pelting raindrops and the wind whipping at her gown, searching through the deluge for Haydn.

  Thunder rumbled and lightning split the sky and suddenly she saw him, in a blaze of light. He stood alone, in the open stable doorway. Powerful, proud, noble. Sensing her presence, he turned. Their eyes met and raw emotion seared her soul.

  She would never love anyone as much as she loved Haydn, would never want for anything, care for anything, need anything as much as him. Bethan swallowed hard, blinking back the tears she swore she would not shed.

  Haydn remained as he was, standing still and silent, his handsome face an impassive mask, the raging storm swirling around him like a tempest. Waiting. Waiting for her to come to him.

  “I want to hate you,” she confessed, shouting to be heard above the storm.

  He lowered his chin in the slightest acknowledgment. “You have the right.”

  “I want to hate you, yet I cannot. I deliberately avoided you and kept myself busy from dawn to dusk, feeling such exhaustion by evening that I could almost fall asleep standing on my feet. Yet when I closed my eyes at night, you were what I saw. No matter what I did, I could never escape it. And now…now far greater than my desire to hate you is the paralyzing fear that once you are gone, I shall never see you again.”

  “Come with me.”

  It took one small step to be in his arms. With a sob, Bethan clung to Haydn’s powerful frame, burying her face in the crook of his neck, letting his strength seep into her. “I want to be with you always, Haydn, wherever you go, however you live. Please, make me as you are, my dearest.”

  He stroked her damp hair and held her close. “I know my days will be bleak and barren without you. But I cannot ask you to sacrifice your humanity for me.”

  “I do it because I am selfish, because I love you.” Bethan lifted her hand, pressing her palm over his heart. “I do it for us, Haydn.”

  He sighed and leaned his head back. “Are you certain?”

  “I am certain of nothing,” she replied honestly. “Except that I love you. And that I need to be with you, to be a part of you. Though I have tried to deny it, you are so deep inside me, you touch my heart.”

  Haydn captured her face in his hands. “’Tis not what you have known, but we can have a good marriage, a solid partnership.” His face drew closer until his lips brushed hers in a gentle kiss. “I will do all within my power to ensure that you never regret this choice.”

  Bethan leaned into him, pressing herself firmly against his side. “Do it,” she urged. “Turn me now, before I lose my courage.”

  He pulled her inside the stable, toward a secluded corner, and she willingly followed. Shielded from any passing eye, Haydn gathered Bethan within the circle of his arms. His lips moved lightly across her skin and Bethan instinctively arched her neck to allow his mouth greater access.

  She felt his breath over the artery in her neck and she tensed, but he nuzzled and kissed her gently. Bethan’s fear began to fade and then suddenly she felt a sharp burst of intense pain at the base of her throat. Her body convulsed. She threw herself protectively forward, thrashing wildly, but Haydn had her locked in an iron grip.

  Sweet Mother of God, Bethan thought, trying desperately to find her breath. ’Tis a miracle that anyone can survive such a thing!

  The edge of her panic was distracted by the sound of an odd suckling noise. Slowly, the pain diminished and a languor descended over her entire body. She tried to reach up to touch Haydn’s face, but her arm felt heavy as a stone.

  “Is it over? I feel so strange,” she croaked out weakly.

  “Let yourself go, Bethan. I will keep you safe.”

  The sound of Haydn’s voice calmed her. Bethan sighed, feeling the shadows and darkness flood into her vision. Her eyes closed. She knew then that she was drifting away, leaving this life and heading toward another. Sighing, she gave herself over to the sensations, trusting Haydn to make it right.

  “Drink.”

  Responding to the com
mand, she obediently swallowed. The coppery taste of the warm liquid invaded her entire being, bringing forth a new strength and awareness.

  Bethan’s lashes fluttered, her eyes opened, and Haydn’s handsome, smiling face suddenly appeared before hers. Amazingly, a single tear streaked down his face.

  “Are you crying?” she asked as she reached out to brush away the moisture on his cheek.

  “With joy,” he assured her, staring deeply into her eyes. He gently stroked his fingers against the wound at her nape, then lowered his head to her lips for a slow, passionate kiss.

  Bethan eagerly responded, kissing him back with all the love and happiness that swelled her heart.

  Finally, she was at peace.

  Kiss of the Vampire

  Eve Silver

  One

  London, November 3, 1839

  Swirling fog and mizzling rain settled about Sarah Lowell like a shroud, clinging to her hair and skin and clothes, a faint damp sheen. Her boots rang on the wet cobbles, her steps sure and quick, her heart beating a rhythm in time to her pace as she ducked through the dim alleys and twisting lanes, past wretched houses and tenements, and rows of windows, patched and broken.

  ‘Twas a dangerous route, one that carried her through the edge of St. Giles, north of Seven Dials—a route made all the more distressing by the dying moments of darkness and shadow that fought to stave off the first creeping fingers of the dawn.

  A part of her was attuned to the street before her, the gloomy, faintly sinister doorways, the courtyards that broke from the thoroughfare. And a part of her was ever aware of the road behind, dim and draped in fog and menace. Beneath her cloak, she closed her fist tight about her cudgel, a short, sturdy stick that saw her from point to point in the place she was forced to live. She never left her room in the lodging house on Coptic Street without it. With good reason.

  This was not a place for a woman alone, but she had no choice but to be here. Her choice lay in protecting herself. That she could do, though she had neither the means nor the inclination to own a pistol, and she had considered—and discarded—the possibility of defending herself with a knife.

  So a cudgel would do, and she prayed she never found herself in a circumstance where she would be required to use it.

  She suspected that surprise would be one thing in her favor should her prayers go unheeded. An attacker would have no expectation that she had strength in her small frame, but then, he would have no knowledge of the years she had spent by her father’s side, honing her muscles lifting and turning patients who could not do so for themselves. With her wide hazel eyes and her straight dark hair pulled back in a knot at her nape, she had a delicate appearance that was deceiving. Her father had always said she was sturdy in both body and spirit. She wished it had not taken his death and the desperate turn of her life to prove his assertions true.

  A muffled sound to her left made her spin and peer down the alley next to the darkened chandler’s shop. Her heart gave a terrible lurch in her breast, and her fingers closed tight about the cudgel as she dragged it free of her cloak. With a moan, a man stumbled toward her, then veered away to lean, panting, against the wall. Muttering and cursing with a drunken slur, he fumbled at the flap of his breeches.

  Turning away, Sarah paused but an instant to steady her nerves, then walked on, willing her racing pulse to settle. Perhaps it was the cold that made her shiver, but she thought it was unease that did the deed. More nights than not she felt as though unseen eyes watched her from the gloom, footsteps dogging her every move.

  Now, in the early moments before dawn, it was no different. The feeling of being watched, being stalked, oozed across her skin like a slug. She never saw anyone, though she took care to look over her shoulder often. But when she looked, there were only the empty street and hollowed doorways behind her.

  She quickened her pace and hurried on.

  “Almost there now,” she murmured, with yet another glance about. She dared not relax her attention, not even for a second.

  Her destination was Portugal Street and the old St. Clement Danes workhouse that now housed King’s College Hospital. There was talk of a new building, but for now there were some hundred and twenty beds split into several overcrowded wards that offered care to the sick poor.

  No one of wealth and means would step foot in King’s College. By choice, the rich would be seen to in their own homes, and because of it, they were more likely to survive. But the poor could not afford that luxury, and so they came to King’s College, and often enough they died.

  There were those who would argue that they would die regardless, and that the hospital offered some hope, however small. Sarah was inclined to favor that belief because, somehow, they did manage to save some.

  Still, she found it a horrific irony that King’s College was situated squarely between a crumbling graveyard and the abattoirs of Butcher’s Row, and she had her own well-guarded opinion that some doctors and surgeons here might be better suited to work in the slaughterhouses.

  At least there, death was the expected outcome.

  As the cheerless building loomed before her, she paused and glanced about once more. A shiver chased along her spine. There, near the graveyard, she swore she saw a black-cloaked figure, painted in shades of pewter and coal and ash, clinging to the shadows. Watching.

  Genuine fear touched her, with cold, slimy fingers that reached deep into her soul.

  Each night, she felt the unnerving suspicion that she was being followed, but proof of her supposition was, for the most part, absent. This was only the second time that a form had actually materialized from the mist. Or had it? She stared hard at the spot, but could not be certain she saw anything more than a man-shaped shadow.

  Regardless, she intended to exercise every caution.

  She had come early for her shift this morn, determined to vary her schedule. Tomorrow, she would vary her route, as well.

  Reaching the safety of the hospital, she hurried into the building and made her way first to the nurses’ cloakroom, where she divested herself of her damp overgarment, then through the dim hallways to the women’s sick ward. There was a patient here she wished to check on, a woman who was so ill she had not been able to eat or drink or even void for two days. It was as though her body refused to carry out the normal functions of life. Sarah hoped she had taken a turn for the better, though she knew in her heart that would not be the case.

  She paused in the hallway near the ward. The only light was the eking dawn that filtered through grimy windows to steal across the floor in pale slashes. The sounds of suffering carried through the place, eerie moans and louder cries, a sob, the creak of a bed as someone shifted, then shifted again.

  Moving forward, Sarah stepped through the doorway. She dared not breathe too deeply. No matter how much lime wash was slapped on the plaster, no matter how many scrubbings with yellow soap the floors took, the smell—the metallic bite of blood, the raw-onion stink of old sweat, the harsh ammonia of urine—never quite melted away. These small battles might beat back the wretched stench for a time, but in truth, the war was long lost. The sick ward was forever infused with the vestiges of human misery.

  Her gaze slid over the beds. Each one was full. Some even had two patients crowded into a space meant to hold only one.

  In the corner was the bed she sought. Little light inched that far into the gloom, and Sarah could see only the outline of pale sheets. She took a step forward, then froze with a gasp.

  There was someone sitting on a stool at the far side of the bed, a man, garbed all in black, the pale ghosting of the patient’s partially upraised arm a stark contrast against the dark background offered by his coat.

  He held the woman’s wrist. Sarah could see that now.

  She must have made a sound that alerted him to her presence, for he raised his head. She saw only the faint highlight of his features, so deep was the gloom that surrounded him.

  “Miss Lowell.” His voice reached across the
space that separated them, low, pleasant, and though he was wreathed in darkness and she could see almost nothing of his face, she knew the speaker.

  Killian Thayne.

  Her pulse jolted at the realization.

  “Mr. Thayne,” she acknowledged.

  Neither said anything more, and Sarah remained where she was, frozen, strangely disturbed by the sight of the patient’s white forearm contrasted against the cloth of Mr. Thayne’s black-clad form.

  A moan sounded from behind her, drawing her from her frozen state with a jolt. “Water,” came a woman’s plea. “I am so thirsty. Please, water.”

  Sarah glanced about, and saw the night watch nurse curled in a corner by the fire, sleeping. She could not help but feel pity for her, a widow with three small children who, after working the day as a charwoman, came to sit the night through for a shilling and her supper, leaving her little ones with a neighbor, and paying her in turn.

  With a sigh, Sarah turned away to tend to the patient herself.

  When she was done, she looked back to where she had seen the surgeon, Mr. Thayne, sitting in the darkness. University-trained physicians were addressed as Dr., apprentice trained surgeons as Mr., and there was a distinct barrier between them, not only at King’s College, but at any hospital throughout the city.

  He was gone, the patient asleep, her head lolling to one side, her arm hanging across the far edge of the bed.

  Another patient called to her. Sarah hesitated, a feeling of wariness sluicing through her. Stepping forward, she almost went to the patient Mr. Thayne had been tending. Then she wondered what she was thinking. What could she do for her that he had not? The woman was sleeping now. Best to leave her undisturbed.

  Again, the patient behind her called out, becoming more insistent. Sarah moved to her side and offered a sip of water, and then noting the time, she made her way to the surgical ward.

  Only hours later did she learn that the patient in the corner had died in the silvered moments when night turned to day, discovered by the night nurse when she roused from her slumber.