The Witch and the Vampire

by Tricia Schneider

  She could rest for a moment. Only a moment.

  “It’s been longer than a day since you’ve eaten.”

  It was not a question. There was no need to lie to him. She nodded, and then regretted such action for the swirling that had been about to settle resurfaced. She groaned, placing a hand to her head to stop the dizziness. Was she on a boat now? It certainly felt as though the waves were tossing her to and fro.

  “How long have you traveled?”

  “Two days,” she whispered.

  He grunted. “And you didn’t stop in all that time to find nourishment?”

  “Only to change horses. I feared he might catch me if I dallied.”

  “Who?”

  “My great-uncle,” she said. No need to keep secrets from him now. She knew his darkest secret and had inadvertently placed him in danger because of it. She lifted her eyelids, testing her vision, as the dizziness began to fade. They were back in the library. The books, encompassing every spare space on the shelves, greeted her eyes, and she found the comforting urge to reach for them. Before she could chastise herself for her greed, she looked to her right and saw Sebastian. He knelt on the floor by her side, his worried gaze searching her face. The sight of him there stirred something within her. She wanted to reach out and run a finger across his cheek, to trace the strength of his chin. The concern she saw in his eyes warmed her and brought her comfort. For so long, Melora had been surrounded by men who did not care for her welfare. Who wanted her only to satisfy their own selfish means, either financial or lustful.

  Sebastian may not care for her personally, having not laid eyes on her before this night, but she found pleasure in finding he cared whether she had eaten. Whether she had spared a moment to rest. How would it feel to have his lips on hers? She felt his breath on her cheek and flushed with sudden embarrassment.

  A second later, he leapt to his feet and backed away from her as if she had scalded him. Horror lit his features as he stepped slowly away. Humiliation flamed within her. Had he seen her thoughts written so clearly on her face? Did he think she might voice her sudden desire?

  Before she could utter an explanation for her wayward thoughts, Harrison entered the room carrying a tray with food heaped upon it. Bread, cheese, and fruit piled high, placed on the table nearest the sofa. Her mouth watered at the sight. Had it been two days since she had last been satisfied with a full meal? It felt more like two weeks.

  “This should do you well, Miss Merriweather,” Harrison said, smiling gently. His cold demeanor had melted away, and he slid the table closer to the sofa so she need not reach so far.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, embarrassment surging forth again that she had become such a burden to them. Fainting like she had… She had never fainted in her life, and in one night, twice!

  “No trouble, miss,” he said. “No trouble, at all.”

  Sebastian cleared his throat, gaining Harrison’s attention. “Perhaps a bottle of wine for Miss Merriweather,” he suggested. “And I have need of a fresh shirt, as well.”

  Harrison’s head bobbed up and down. “Indeed, sir,” he muttered. Then with one last glance at Melora, he stepped nearer to his master and leaned into his ear. His hushed words were unknown to her, even as she strained to hear them, but the unease that flickered across Sebastian’s face as he looked in her direction told her what Harrison whispered. He had unwanted guests to deal with in the salon.

  “I see,” Sebastian said, and Harrison stepped back. With a nod, Sebastian added, “I’ll have need of that shirt.”

  Harrison nodded and quit the room.

  Sebastian tried not to bring attention to his wound. He had re-buttoned his shirtsleeve to hide it, but the blood that remained seeped through, staining the snowy white fabric a deep, dark crimson. He kept the arm tucked slightly behind him so she might not see it directly. He did not realize there was no need to keep it hidden.

  “I saw your arm,” she said, as she struggled to a sitting position. “You don’t need to hide it from me.”

  “Clumsy fool,” he mumbled. “I spilled some wine.”

  She smiled. There was not a glass to be found in the room.

  “I know what you are,” she clarified. She steadied herself as another wave of dizziness assaulted her, then slowly subsided. She broke a piece of bread and chewed it slowly, savoring the taste on her tongue. A piece of cheese soon followed and, with the combination, she closed her eyes and nearly groaned with pleasure.

  Good God! She hadn’t realized she was starving.

  She hesitated when the silence lengthened. She glanced at Sebastian to see him staring at her, an expression of desire in his eyes. He tried to hide it. He looked away when he realized she’d found him watching her, but it was too late. She had seen the heat in his gaze.

  “I…uh...” She stumbled over her tongue, wanting to fill the silence with sound other than her suddenly erratic breathing.

  “You’ve had a tiresome journey,” Sebastian said, rescuing her from her stupidity. “I’m certain you’ll feel better in the morning, after a full stomach and a good night’s rest.”

  Melora grinned. “You think I imagined it all? No, I know quite well you’re a vampire.”

  Sebastian smiled, and she was struck by the beauty of it. His face fairly glowed with lips curved upward. “Your head. It’s not uncommon to imagine things after a head wound. They are sometimes tricky things.”

  Trying to withhold her eagerness to shove a whole piece of bread into her mouth, she paused to break off another small bite. If she had been alone she would have attacked that plate of food like a wild savage, but since she had an audience, she tried with trembling fingers to remember her manners.

  “You should bandage it,” she urged, eyeing the spreading stain. “Do vampires risk infection?”

  “I know not,” he said, turning away from her to face the fire.

  “I can help you.”

  He grunted, with a helpless laugh and a brief shake of his head. “I think not.”

  “I can. Your arm, at the least.” In that she could assist him, she thought with confidence. “I can help you heal faster. I’m a witch, you know.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding solemnly. “I know.”

  He sighed heavily and his shoulders slumped when he came to his decision about whether or not to trust her. Then turning, he came to her slowly, unbuttoning his shirtsleeve and pushing the fabric gingerly back.

  “It hurts like the bloody devil,” he muttered. He had the grace to blush slightly at his use of language. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. She’d heard worse than that. In fact, she’d used worse. Uncle Arden and his cronies never censured themselves when speaking around her and her sister. Disrespectful, to say the least, but she need not think of that now.

  He sat down beside her on the sofa, and Melora’s breath caught in her throat at the feel of his warmth seeping into her side. His very presence next to her set her to tingling, and though she tried to ignore it, she found her fingers trembling in anticipation of touching him. He held out his arm for her inspection.

  She tried to withhold her gasp of horror so as not to offend him. The wound had been ravaged, skin torn asunder to reveal a bloody hole on his inner forearm. As she looked closer, she could see tooth marks marring the skin, the place where his fangs had entered and pulled back. She cringed at the pain he must be feeling, and her heart went out to him for such self-mutilation. Did he despise himself so, to do this to himself?

  “It must look wretched to you,” he muttered, and she noticed he kept his gaze focused on the floor. “I don’t expect you’ve ever witnessed a vampire victim.”

  She tried to swallow past the lump in her suddenly arid throat.

  “No,” she said, the word coming out in a whisper. Though the wound seeped a bit, for such extensive damage there was very little blood.

  She took the pentagram from around her neck and slipped it through her fingers. Then she took his hand
in hers and pulled it to rest on her lap. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the spell, whispering the words so they were barely audible.

  With the pentagram, she looped the chain over her hands as she closed her palms over the wound, careful not to disturb the torn flesh, to cause him any undue pain.

  The warmth tingled from her fingers, and in her mind she saw her fingers glowing brightly with the healing spell. She used her power to push the healthy glow into his arm, spreading the spell over his wound, sending warmth from her fingers to him with barely a touch of skin against skin.

  His intake of breath signaled to her the success of the transfer, and she finished her incantation and removed her hands. His arm rested on her lap, and she was tempted to return her hands to him, to hold him there so she might explore his long fingers. She yearned to touch him again.

  “What did you do?” he asked, pulling his arm away.

  She cringed at the emptiness filling her lap.

  “Your wound will heal overnight,” she told him, turning toward him but not daring to look into his face. “For a simple bite, I’d have it done within the hour, but your damage was…extensive.”

  He grunted and nodded, slowly. “I give myself no quarter, I’m afraid.”

  “You mean…that was not a normal vampire bite?”

  He shook his head. “I was disgusted by my lack of control.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, gently. “You punished yourself.”

  His body tensed at the memory. Her fingers itched to reach out to him, to rest her hand upon his shoulder, to offer him any manner of comfort to erase the pain lingering in his eyes. She debated whether or not her attentions would be welcome, but before she could decide, he was standing again, walking across the room to stand by the fireplace. She bit back a frown at his absence.

  “I thank you,” he said.

  “I owe it to you,” she answered, gently. At his questioning look, she continued, “I know now you were holding yourself back. From my understanding, you need to feed once a month during the full moon. Despite the lack of moonlight outside due to the storm, I know what phase the moon has reached tonight. You were protecting me by feeding on yourself.”

  He sighed, running one hand through his hair. “I was foolish to think I could control the urges. Every month is the same. That’s what your father and mother were helping me with. They searched for answers to my questions. I needed to know if there was a way to subdue the blood-urge. To suppress the desire, the need to feed.”

  “They didn’t find any.”

  “No,” he said, with a quick shake of his head. “I doubt there is such a thing in existence.”

  “You haven’t given up your search?”

  “Not yet.” He paused, studying the door as if listening to something outside. “If you will excuse me, I need to find Harrison about my shirt. I’ll send him here to escort you back to your room for the night.” He walked with long strides to the door but paused when she spoke.

  “Wait,” she said, panicked that he was leaving her. She had to warn him, at the least. Tell him she knew who had come for her. He glanced back at her, not meeting her eyes.

  “Your new guests,” she told his silence. “I think they’re here for me.”

  He was so still. Like a statue. He studied her without looking directly at her. Her eyes narrowed.

  He never looked directly at her.

  “We’ll talk more later,” he said, at last, breaking the stillness and turning toward the hall.

  Before he could escape, she blurted, “What did I do?”

  He paused and turned halfway so she could see his profile against the darkness of the hall beyond.

  “What did I do to push you over? To make you lose control?”

  A soft groan escaped him, and his fingers clenched over the doorframe. He stayed there for a long time, and Melora began to wonder if he was going to refuse to answer. At last, he said, “I can smell your blood.”

  Her eyes widened. He stepped out into the hallway, and a moment later reappeared. “You may wish to lock your door tonight. I cannot promise my…restraint.” Without looking at her directly, he left.

  ****

  Sebastian groaned. In all the years of his existence, he had never met a woman who stirred his blood like Melora Merriweather. There was something about her that drew him. Something that tugged him, pulled him. Though he could not see her face clearly, only vague shadowy dashes of color, in his mind, she was a beauty beyond comparison. Her voice was music to his ears, every word like an exquisite symphony of sound. As their time spent together increased, so did his burning desire for her, both blood and sex.

  Oh, he wanted her.

  Badly.

  He acknowledged the length of time since he had enjoyed the pleasures of a woman, but he did not believe his abstinence had any bearing on the issue of his emotional response to her. Her spirit called to him, and he yearned to answer. If only she had come to him before his body was ravaged by this curse. If only he had found her when he was an innocent, a human.

  Life would have been so different for them both.

  He wanted her. But he could not have her. Not like this. He was a monster. He feared touching her, for that might lead to other things which he could not deny he desired, and that put the fear of God into his damned heart. What if he tried to kiss her and devoured her instead? What if he took a sip of that young, innocent blood and drained her dry? What if he lost control and destroyed that perfect beauty? How could he live with himself if such occurred?

  These questions and more pounded upon him as he progressed down the hallway, searching for any sign of Harrison. He was about to abandon his search when he saw the elderly employee, shuffling from the kitchens with a bottle and glass in one hand and a crisp, clean white shirt in the other.

  “Ah, Harrison,” Sebastian said with relief. “There you are.”

  “My apologies, sir,” Harrison responded. “There was a delay I felt needed attending to. One of your guests was found wandering the hallways. I put him back in the salon where he belongs.”

  “Well done, Harrison,” he praised. “Any mention of what they were doing out in the middle of a snowstorm?”

  Harrison nodded, slowly. “Caught in the storm, they said. Looking for shelter. I don’t trust them, sir. Not one bit.”

  Sebastian agreed. He was wary toward guests. He never attended the social circuit in these parts. Most of the locals viewed him as a recluse, which suited him fine. Any social contact he craved he found in London during the time he spent there looking for victims for his monthly feeding. There were rarely any brave enough to come knocking at his door here in the country.

  Harrison set down the bottle and glass and helped Sebastian remove the blood-stained shirt and replace it with the new one.

  “Does your wound require looking after?” Harrison asked, with concern.

  “Later,” Sebastian said, not offering any information about Melora’s skills. Though he trusted Harrison above all others, he would not part with her secret unless she wished him to. “I want to see these guests of ours first.”

  He had a bad feeling about this upcoming interview.

  ****

  After Melora finished the plate of food, she felt sated and drained. Her eyelids weighed heavily, but she forced them open. As she waited for Harrison to return, her thoughts turned toward Sebastian. Guilt plagued her for bringing such hazards to his doorstep. The more she thought on it, the more she convinced herself that Uncle Arden would take malevolent interest in Sebastian. Her uncle had become obsessed with his search for turning iron into gold. He had ransacked her father’s library, turning each volume inside out in his search for the precious spell that would relinquish its secrets to him. Alchemy had become all he could breathe…think.

  And therein lay the inherent danger for Melora and her sister, Lillian. As orphans, they were under their uncle’s custodial care. And as their guardian, he could choose who they married and when. Recently, Uncle Ar
den’s cronies had displayed an interest in the Merriweather sisters that proved to be profitable for funding his obsession. Lord Fitzwalter had offered the most for the honor of Lillian’s hand in marriage, and Uncle Arden had accepted on her behalf. Unfortunately, Lord Fitzwalter was older than even their great-uncle. and there were many dark rumors cast about his previous wife’s untimely demise. After hearing such gossip, Melora and Lillian had determined to try their luck with escaping their fate.

  They knew Aunt Petunia would offer refuge, but they were certain Uncle Arden would think the same and check there first. Their plan was to find a safe haven for a few days until they could be sure it was wise to journey to their aunt’s. It had seemed a clever course of action to take separate paths, until Melora began having dreadful dreams of Lillian’s life being in danger from a dark wolf and a man with green eyes. It was another reason she had been so desperate to find Caldwell House and enlist Sebastian’s aide. Melora feared for her sister’s safety.

  She glanced at the closed door.

  It was not right of her to bring danger to Sebastian, especially after he had shown her such tenderness. She knew he was a good man, despite being a vampire. She could sense the goodness within him. And she knew her parents would never have helped him if he were evil in nature.

  Melora stood and began to pace on the carpeted floor as she considered her options. If Uncle Arden found out Sebastian was a vampire, he might stop at nothing to get a sample of his blood. She was certain he had never tried vampire blood in any of his spells or equations, and she knew such a thing could prove powerful.

  Sebastian’s satiny voice penetrated her memory. She thought of his embrace when he had caught her before she collapsed from her exhaustion. She recalled the electrified tingles that erupted like goose flesh on her arms and legs when she had touched him. And the feel of his arm held in her lap as he trusted her, a stranger, with his secret, and her ability to heal him.