by Raven Hart
“So he’s dying?” I could barely get the words out. Deylaud and Reyha were already with William when he made me. I loved them both more than I ever realized.
William leaned over his longtime companion. “Where is Eleanor?” he asked Deylaud. To me he said, “Look around.”
Deylaud moaned and rolled up into a tighter ball.
I checked the door in the basement and the tunnel beyond. No Eleanor.
“Why would she leave him here to die?” I asked.
William only shook his head and said, “Get him to the car. We have to return him to the house. Now.”
I picked Deylaud up and headed for the Mercedes. Iban went with me to open the back door and get him settled in as gently as we could. I stroked Deylaud’s head as if he was in dog form and whispered in his ear, “Hang on, buddy. You’re going to be just fine before you know it, or my name’s not smilin’ Jack McShane.”
Iban promised to stay with Deylaud while I went back for William. I walked to the edge of the basement, where the subflooring was not quite finished, and looked down into the dark expanse. I felt my eyes dilate to take advantage of the nearest streetlight and with my enhanced eyesight I could see William in the corner where Eleanor’s altar had been. The glass where she’d put her seawater was shattered, the bits glittering like deadly little stars in the night.
Beside the shards William stood with Eleanor’s silk shawl pressed to his face as if trying to drink in her scent for what might be the last time.
William
The shells were waiting for me, calling to me before I even touched the bone box where they were kept. The call was strong and urgent; with my chosen family in such disarray, the Vodoun connection in my blood rose up to protect me.
Lalee…help me defend your blood, or avenge it.
While we’d been chasing phantoms, Melaphia had insisted on rising and refreshing her altars. With Werm as her apprentice, she’d relit the candles and now worked her own magic on her knees with head bowed.
There was no time to question what had happened, who had done what to whom. I needed to find Renee. I left the others in the vault and stepped outside with the box of shells and one of Renee’s favorite books. Before the shells struck the stone I was flying over water, dark and cold. For a moment this startled me. My logic said it couldn’t be right. They’d left the boat at the harbor. Had they stolen another? Then I saw it, the sleek shape of the private jet charging through the thin clouds headed east over the Atlantic. They weren’t floating on water; they were flying over it. As in-substantial as an up-current of air, I felt the cold smooth surface of the metal before I passed through it and came face-to-face with Hugo. Without considering my lack of substance, I reached for his neck, intent on killing him first and worrying about questions later. The shock of my hand passing straight through his throat brought me back to my senses.
Because then I saw Renee.
She was seated at a table across from Will. While I watched, she laughed and scooped up the last trick of cards to win the game they were playing.
Renee, I called to her.
Whether because I’d gained enough power to make myself heard or Renee felt the pull of the shells in her ancient blood, she turned toward me. She wasn’t afraid. I could feel her calm assessment of the situation: She’d gone for a plane ride and expected to be home soon.
Will had said so.
As though he sensed her withdrawal, Will ruffled her hair, causing her to giggle. Then with his own brand of deadly charm he pulled her around the table into his lap. She laughed and hugged him.
“You won again, minx. I guess I’ll have to teach you a more difficult game to master. Unless you swear to let me win a few go’s.”
In the next seconds, I received another unpleasant shock to add to this interminable night. Renee gazed up at Will with such love I felt transfixed. Pure, idealistic, childish love, but love just the same. The presence of that kind of love trumpeted defeat to me. Not only had they kidnapped her physically, but Will had stolen her heart.
My gaze drifted beyond them for a moment and rested on Diana. She sat across from Hugo looking regal yet remote. The realization of her betrayal stabbed at me with icy knives. She’d obviously gone willingly along with this plan. She—
“I believe I’ll see how our convert is faring,” Hugo said, and pushed to his feet.
Diana’s eyes followed his movement but she didn’t speak.
Hugo made his way to a door in the rear of the expensively appointed cabin. His hulking stature looked even larger in the confined space of the jet. With his hand on the knob, he hesitated, then turned back to Diana as though looking for a reaction.
Diana’s features remained unreadable, but she spoke this time. “Do as you will.”
Hugo, intent on some plan, shrugged and opened the door. Unexpectedly, I felt a familiar frission of distress mixed with fear. I was drawn to follow Hugo through the door.
It was a bedroom with a luxurious king-size bed taking up a good bit of the space. And in the very center of that bed sat my Eleanor, she who must be obeyed, cross-legged and smiling. She was wearing her best business face, the one she’d used on important clients or enemies—not the one she’d shown to me. She might be afraid, but she was also smart and determined to survive.
I didn’t waste time wondering why she would betray me. I’d betrayed her first. But I did wonder what Hugo promised her that would be alluring enough for her to open my home to this scurrilous attack and to hand over Renee.
Hugo unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, then yanked it over his head. “Time to pay the piper,” he growled. “You’re free of him, like I promised.”
So that’s what it was. He’d told her she’d be free of her sire. He’d taken her away to hurt me, without explaining the consequences. And she’d gone.
He’s lying, I whispered.
Eleanor jumped slightly. She’d heard me. Hugo hadn’t noticed, though, too busy unfastening his britches. Casually, Eleanor let her gaze wander around the room.
I haven’t released you. You’re mine. Hugo can’t interfere with our bond.
The chill of her precarious position must’ve reached her because she crossed her arms as though warding off the cold, hard truth.
Hugo, naked now, reached across the bed and tangled his fingers in the front of Eleanor’s robe. “Get out of this,” he ordered, dragging her across the sheets toward him. In one smooth motion she was naked and on her belly. Standing behind her like a stallion in rut, Hugo fumbled around between her legs, then drove his cock into her.
Where is he taking you? I asked.
I…don’t…know, she answered in cadence as Hugo pounded into her. Then out loud she gasped and gritted her teeth as he clamped his hands around her waist and pulled her upward to drive deeper. With powerful strokes Hugo grunted toward release like a dog with no consideration for his bitch.
As he came, he tightened his grip and bit her savagely on the top of her shoulder. Eleanor moaned in pain as he sucked and bit again—not to feed but to subdue. After what seemed like an eternity, even to me, she sighed in relief as Hugo, done for the moment, withdrew and allowed both of them to fall back onto the bed. But instead of letting her go he shifted one heavy thigh to hold her down until he was ready for her again. Eleanor, lying with her face pressed into the pillow, stayed perfectly still.
“Now everyone he loves belongs to me,” Hugo said. His fingers twisted Eleanor’s hair, forcing her to face him. When she only stared at him, he twisted tighter until she winced and tears sparkled in her eyes. “What do you think of that?” he asked.
“I think that means you win,” Eleanor panted. Then to me and the room in general she silently added, I was angry. I’m sorry.
Nineteen
William
I felt the shells shift and begin to reel me in like a kite blown too high into the wind. When I opened my eyes, Melaphia was sitting on the stone bench next to me, her expression colder than the winter
wind.
“Where is my baby?” she asked, never doubting that I’d found Renee.
I sat up as the shells rattled back into their box of bone. There was no sense trying to make the news better, no room for anything but the truth.
“She’s halfway across the Atlantic,” I answered. “With Will and the rest.”
Melaphia’s hands curled tighter in her lap. “Is she all right? Have they—”
“She’s fine, having a grand adventure so far.” I pushed to my feet, choosing my words. “Right now her loyalty is to Will. She loves him.”
Only then did Melaphia allow the tears she’d been holding back to flow. Recovering, she raised her chin, looking very like the queen she might have been but for her family’s connection to me. “You brought him to this house, to us.” She held me with her sparkling gaze. “What are you going to do to get her back?”
“Whatever it requires.”
“Do you swear it? Even if it means Will must die?”
I kneeled and took her cold hands into mine. “I swear.” I bowed my head and kissed both hands to seal the bargain.
Please read on for an excerpt from
The Vampire’s Kiss
the next book in
Raven Hart’s thrilling series
William
I stared across the frozen landscape and watched the flames lick at the mansion I had just set on fire, consuming it bit by bit, much as I had consumed its inhabitants. I’ve never been much of a flesh eater, preferring instead to drink a creature’s blood, as I am a man of refinement. But I can make an exception now and then.
My offspring Jack has been known to run down a buck from time to time, wrestling it by its antlers and delivering a killing bite to the jugular before feasting on its flesh. Only in season, of course. I believe it has as much to do with his ideas of southern machismo as it does with a sincere craving for the flesh of a living creature. Still, for decades it has kept at bay his lust for the human kill to which all we vampires are born.
Ultimately, my Jack is a civilized blood drinker who knows how to keep his baser needs in check. As do I, for the most part. But tonight is different. Tonight is special. I indulged in a kind of savagery I had not allowed myself in centuries. One by one I ripped out the throats of the vampires inside the now-burning manse, sampling the blood and flesh of each one in turn. And I enjoyed it.
My fangs to their throats, I bade each of them tell me the whereabouts of their leader. I heard the names of several cities, but I could smell the lies on the their lips, so I ripped out their throats. I severed the heads of some, and I even staked one with a spindle ripped from a wooden chair. I knew I would discover the truth before the night was done.
It was pleasing to vent my wrath on the small band of blood drinkers, especially since I’d been forced to come all the way to this wildest and most frigid part of Russia to find Renee. The ones who fled with her had not returned to their home, however. Hugo and his clan would not have wished to lead me to the rest of their “family,” or to expose them to the rotting disease they might all now be carrying.
Ironic that the pox had been developed on this very site as a form of biological warfare against we peaceful vampires of the New World. But the plague had escaped Hugo’s control, and one of their own—my son, Will—had been stricken half a world away.
As I reflected on these matters, one of the mansion’s magnificent domes collapsed upon itself in a shower of sparks, making a sound like the hinges on the gates of hell creaking open to collect its due. A figure scrambled out of the burning shell of what had an hour ago been an impressive example of Russian baroque architecture.
I had smelled a lone survivor of the carnage before I left the mansion, but it would have been too tiresome to ferret him out of the massive building with its surely inexhaustible variety of hiding places. I simply torched the place and waited for the rat to desert the burning ship.
I stood in the shadow of a giant fir tree and watched him run, half-staggering from the structure, beating at his burning hair with his bare hands. He looked so comical that I briefly thought of letting him live; there were certain advantages in leaving an individual to tell the cautionary tale to others.
But I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable tonight.
I was on him in an instant, dragging him down to the snow-covered ground. I forced his head around to face me, nearly breaking his neck in the process, and let him see my fangs, which still held shredded bits of his comrades’ flesh.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Vanya.”
“Where is your master, Vanya?” I asked him. “Where has he gone?”
“I don’t know,” he whimpered. “I swear it.”
“What good is the oath of the damned to me? Besides, you do know where Hugo and his mate are. I can smell it on you like I can smell your terror.”
“You’ll just kill me anyway.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Know one thing for certain. If you don’t tell me you’ll be dead sooner than if you start speaking the truth.”
I saw the decision in his eyes. “London,” he said.
A less powerful vampire would not have known if he was lying. But I knew in my blood and in my bones that this was the truth. Tightening my grip on him, I pressed his throat to my mouth almost like a lover and delivered a killing bite that half severed his head. I left him staring sightless at the stars.
“London,” I breathed, feeling myself smile for the first time since my beloved Renee had been kidnapped.
It would almost be like going home again.
Jack
“Ta-dah!” Werm stretched out his skinny arms and twirled around the abandoned shell of a room as if he were showing off the Taj-ma-freakin’-hal. The one bare lightbulb overhead illuminated a dingy, dirty hovel with peeling wallpaper and rat’s nests in the corners. I didn’t need my super-duper vampire sense of smell to tell me that some of the homeless people of the city had been making it their home. Or at least their toilet.
I looked at my little fledgling vampire friend in his usual getup of black leather and silver bling. His hair was an inky black, thanks to the modern miracle of Miss Clairol. “This is where you want to start your own goth bar?” I asked. “With my money?”
“It’s perfect!” He gestured to one side of the room. “We’ll have the bar over here, and back behind me we can have the stage.”
“Stage?” I wondered just what kind of shows Werm’s weird friends could come up with. Probably something like those crazy performance art pieces you hear about coming out of New York. I could see in my mind’s eye one of Werm’s little pals stuffing dimes up his nose while he recited the Gettysburg Address.
“Yeah, we can get some bands, some spoken word artists—”
“Whattaya mean ‘we,’ white boy?” I was planning to be a silent partner only. Silent as in never setting foot in the joint if I could help it. I had only agreed to the loan to help Werm get on his feet financially and keep out of trouble. In the movies, vampires never seem to have to make a living. Welcome to the real world. Besides, idle hands are the devil’s workshop, as my poor sainted mother used to say. And when the idle hands belong to a bloodsucking demon to begin with, well…
“C’mon, Jack,” Werm wheedled. “You’re gonna love this place once we get it fixed up.”
“There’s that ‘we’ thing again.”
Werm continued to ignore my skepticism and splayed out his hands in front of him. “This is going to be the most happening place in town. Everybody who’s anybody is going to want to hang out here. I’ve hired a decorator who knows just what I want.”
Being a country music fan, I thought about that song, “I’m Going to Hire a Wino to Redecorate Our Home.” I wondered what a bar would look like after Werm’s goth friends got finished with the decorating. A funeral parlor, most likely. Not altogether inappropriate for a vampire, I reckoned. After all, Werm would be settling his coffin in the cellar of this place if this was w
here he wound up. His society parents were on the verge of kicking him out of the house.
“Aren’t you getting the cart before the hearse?” I asked him. “You’ve got to get the thing built out before you decorate. Did you get bids from that list of contractors I gave you?”
“I did better than that.” Werm beamed. “I have a great idea about how to get the work done around here and save money at the same time.”
Werm and “great idea” were not exactly two things that went together hand in hand. “Lay it on me,” I said. “I’m keen to hear this.”
“I’m going to hire Eleanor’s whores to do the work. Think about it. They’ve been unemployed for weeks, and this will let them make some money and help keep them off the streets.”
“That’s the craziest damn fool idea I ever heard! They’re used to being on the streets. They’re whores. If they could do carpentry and drywall, they wouldn’t have to be whores.” I wasn’t expecting an awesome display of brain power from Werm, but dang.
“Just because they’re whores doesn’t mean they can’t learn. If they ever decide to go legit, they’ll need to know a practical trade. If they applied themselves they might even learn to do something high class.”
“You can lead a whore to culture,” I told him. “but you can’t make her think.”
“I know what your problem is. You’re thinking of stealing them away from Eleanor. Maybe I should call you ‘Jack, the Killer Pimp.’” Werm busted out laughing. “I can just see you in a purple suit and a hat with a big feather in it.”
“Laugh it up, fang boy,” I said. “Babysitting a bunch of homeless hos is not as much fun as it sounds.” I’d had to find temporary accommodations for five working girls while Eleanor’s house was being rebuilt at William’s expense.