A Vampire's Claim (34 page)

He’d almost let himself get taken by sentiment. Punishing himself, as well as his newest kill, he gutted the man there, a quick movement, leaving another blood trail. They couldn’t keep the kids off this much blood, they were too hungry. He was wagering they were like hounds in truth. Give them too much scent, too much to eat, and they’d be useless for tracking for the rest of the night. He’d bought himself the first day, he was certain of it. He’d say the coast was clear, but he’d learned a long time ago not to measure it that way, because the gods sure as hell didn’t. It was simply about surviving.

Rising, he looked down. Though he didn’t want to, he left the spear in the vampire girl, just in case. He had a lot of ground to cover by dawn, a lot of traps to set for the men that would come after him in daylight. They thought they’d exhaust him. Two could play that game.

Danny?

Dev. You’re hurt.
Her concern reached him, almost made him want to laugh, but he was afraid any sound that came out of his throat right now would be unrecognizable. He used his mind instead, wondering if she would hear the raw savagery of the beast boiling inside him.

When it’s time to take out Ruskin . . . you and me, we’ll both take him. That bastard and I aren’t going to draw breath in
the same world, not if I have any say about it.

Then he turned, disappeared in the forest, emptying his mind again.

15

A
NY guilt Danny felt about giving Dev the third mark vanished after that first night, when he’d been stabbed and his shoulder dislocated. If he survived this, he’d discover near invincibility and an even greater ability to heal, once the mark had a chance to settle in. But as she’d hoped, his wounds already clotted and injuries knitted faster than an unmarked human’s, and his new strength compensated. The problem was, as the number of hits mounted, it would get harder for his body to manage the process without her blood to assist him.

And the number had grown. He’d managed to go to ground during the daylight hours. Charles’s men had no luck finding him at all, but they’d also become more cautious. Dev took out three of them with carefully laid traps. Two legs were broken. One man plummeted to his death into a gorge, while another was bitten by a nest of poisonous infant snakes. When night fell, the children, who found their hunger and focus restored after Ruskin had them all savagely flogged, were after him again. Danny paced the verandas throughout the night, dwelling in the background of her new servant’s mind. Dawn found another child and two more of Ruskin’s men dead. Dev was proving that bush craft made a vampire’s powers irrelevant. If she hadn’t been so worried about him, she’d have been overcome with fierce satisfaction on his behalf.

The Region Master was livid. She made sure she was sitting in the library, a book open in her lap, looking relaxed and bored, when he returned to the station right before dawn. She gave him a pleasant smile that bared her fangs before he stomped off to his room.

When she’d retired to her own room, though, she put her head to her knees, pressed her fingers over her eyes. Tonight, Dev had taken a gunshot wound in the shoulder, a deep tear across his abdomen from one of the children, another boy. They’d gone over the side of a steep hill together, rolled down rock, scrub and tree. When the child’s head had hit a trunk hard enough to crack it open, Dev had finished the job before the boy’s wits and vampire healing could revive him; otherwise that would have been the end of her bushman.

He’d had no sleep, spending all his spare time setting traps to slow them, planting weapons close to hand he could use. A mixture of tactics learned from the aborigines and as a soldier. He
was
tired, beyond exhausted. But the third mark gave him endurance.

Army training kept him moving, thinking. And the rage that was all his own provided combustible fuel. Hovering in the back of his mind, she wasn’t sure if he was even coherent anymore, or if something else had risen, as feral and mindless in its focus as the vampire children’s bloodlust.
One target, one mission.
By dawn, except for his strategies, that was the only thought in his mind.

And the tone she heard was dangerous, almost unnatural. But she stayed silent, merely tracking his movements and condition, because whatever had altered inside him was keeping him alive. She’d deal with what it was when three days were over.

She made herself sleep through daylight of the third day, but she was restive. Ruskin had his men fanned out all along the plain around the front of the station, watching any approach. How in the hell was that fair? How could Dev get past the fence? She wanted to check his whereabouts when she rose, near dusk, but he’d done that still thing with his mind, shutting her out. She could push harder, because he couldn’t keep her out if she was determined to get in, but she wouldn’t be a distraction. If he needed her, he would let her know. She didn’t even check for his geographical location, not wanting to give anything away with her expression, surrounded by enemies as she was.

Though Ruskin had gone on the hunt at night, he’d assigned one of the younger maids to shadow her every movement, because she’d rarely left Danny’s side. Though she was quiet and solicitous, Danny suspected she was one of Ian’s doxies loyal to Ruskin.

Another one she’d probably have to load on a train out of here. The question was, would she be dealing with that by herself, as well as another burial detail?

The thought had her pausing in the hallway, pressing her hand to the wall to steady herself. No. He was going to make it back to her. She couldn’t contemplate what she’d do if she had to watch Charles and his men cut him down within feet of the fence line.

She wasn’t sure if she might not race out there, throw herself over him and beg for mercy, willing to do anything to spare him.

Which would seal both their fates.

“Marm?” The young maid’s soft voice was at her elbow, and she opened her eyes, focused on her. Pretty enough, with exceptionally intelligent, jewel blue eyes and dark hair.

“I’m fine.”
You little skulking rat.

She met Ruskin in the dining area. He’d ordered the staff—her staff—to lay out their breakfast an hour early so he could be in position for the kill he was sure would be his. Of course, she could tell he wasn’t as certain of that as he’d been two days ago.

He’d offered three days as a joke, thinking the hunt would be over in one night. It had never occurred to him a mere human could persevere against his pack that long. She couldn’t contemplate what he’d do to the children if Dev survived. Worrying about Dev was enough for right now.

Schooling her face into a neutral mask as she entered the dining room, she found the lingering smell of the staff’s breakfast, bacon and eggs, drifting from the kitchen. Ruskin glanced at her over his tea, his expression brooding. Aapti wasn’t present, but Danny had observed he often used the woman only for formality or for sex, apparently not having much desire for her companionship, at least here. He said nothing as she took a seat at the far end of the table from him. When the maid poured her tea, Danny resisted the urge to bare her teeth at her, send her scampering. The whole situation was intolerable.

“You order my staff about as if they were your own, Lord Charles,” Danny said at last. “You’ve had me watched as if I were your prisoner. I’ve indulged these things, because of the circumstances with Ian.” Picking up the cup, she examined the tea, then lifted her head to meet his dark, piercing stare. “But my patience is growing thin. I am part of your territory, but as you are well aware, you can only command me so far.”

“Really?”

For all her warnings to Dev, she’d counted overmuch on Charles’s devotion to the affectations of British courtesy, their mild savagery at best when offended. She hadn’t taken into account his level of frustration and how easily the vampire side of him could push it into violence.

He was up and around the table before she anticipated him. Seizing her by her throat and the front of her blouse, he swung her toward the wall, sending her crashing against it, her feet off the ground, so she stumbled when gravity brought her back to it. But he was already there, plowing a fist into her face. It snapped her head back, would have broken her neck if she’d been human. She heard the cry of the maid, was startled to see the young woman lunge forward, bring the teapot down on his head, the glass shattering and hot tea scalding down his back.

Charles turned on the girl and Danny shoved herself off the wall, throwing herself onto his back with a snarl. Her nerves, stretched over three days, had had enough. But the impact with the wall had disoriented her. She couldn’t get her balance back before he had her forced to the floor on her knees, arm wrenched back painfully and head driven to the rug, her hips high in the air as he straddled her, his thighs pressing either side of her body, holding her fast.

“You couldn’t get me removed as Region Master, you pretentious whore. It’s time you learned your place. You may be a born vampire, but you have no true leadership skills, nothing to offer the Council as a replacement but the fact of your existence and your pretty face. And believe me, while I might not be able to resolve the first without incurring unpleasant attention, I can fix the second.

There are ways to inflict scars on a vampire. So horrible you could never venture from home again, for nothing mortal could have such mutations and be alive. And then there is the way that males have been uniquely equipped to remind females of their place, though I’d hate to dirty my wick in such a foul cesspool.”

He knocked her knees apart and pushed the straining evidence of his cock against her, hard enough it felt like an invasion, though separated by both of their clothes. “I will leave when I am damn good and ready. Your mother was a whore and a thief, your father a dupe to her wiles. If you bait me further, I will prove the daughter is the same as the mother.”

He spat on her, and withdrew. In the time it took him to step back, Danny spun and launched herself onto him, taking them both over the table in an explosion of crockery and table arrangements. They fell together, rolled, and Danny ducked under his grip, came up with one of the chairs, swinging it to strike against his raised arm. They were Queen Anne chairs, beautiful carved pieces, but she wouldn’t mind driving a leg through his heart. She’d even have it repaired and sit on it for the rest of her life, a commemoration to its noble sacrifice.

But she didn’t duck fast enough under his next attack, and found herself sailing through the air again, hitting the back wall ten feet away and thudding against the side bar. The candle sconce tore her shirt, gouged a furrow down her back, but she rolled as he came at her, hit the wall, and had made it back to a defensive crouch when they heard the yelling.

“My lord.
My lord.
”

It was the note of it, fearful, full of apprehension, that had Ruskin’s head whipping toward the door and Danny blinking, seeking in her mind. Scrambling to her feet, she almost beat Ruskin out the door onto the covered porch, into the evening that had settled in, the sun disappearing for the day.

Dev stood, swaying, just inside the fence line. He almost blended in to the sand and scrub of the background, for he was caked with mud, sticks, spiny leaves and grasses plastered into it. Beneath all that, he appeared to be naked, devoid of even the one knife they’d let him keep. When he saw her, that void in his mind dissipated, like a dam of clay dissolving beneath a flash flood. He fell to one knee, but before he could fall face forward, she had him. On her knees, holding him up, his face pressed against her shoulder.

“He just rose up, there, right outside the fence, out of the ground, and walked in before we could do anything, my lord.” Ruskin’s lead man was babbling, terror in his eyes at the fury on Ruskin’s face.

When Dev mumbled, she turned her head to his. “What, Dev?” she asked. God, he felt good in her arms, even filthy and reeking of three days of sweat and blood, his own and others.

“Munaintya . . . no, maybe Yertabulti. Don’t want . . . to start over. Too tired.”

Charles turned on them. She shot her glance up to him, her eyes narrowing, body tensing. But he shook his head after a long moment, his eyes cold. Swiping at his bloody lips with the back of his hand, he gave her a look of disdain. “As I said before this started, you are not easily cowed, Lady Danny. I give you that.”

“You’ll give me more than that,” she said evenly. “My servant has paid your tithe. Declare our debt paid, as you promised.”

He barked a short laugh. “You will say ‘please,’ or you will get nothing. I will hear you beg, Lady Daniela, once, or I will have him killed here, and say he never made it.”

She stared at him. Dev muttered again, and this time Ruskin was close enough to hear it.

“Tell that . . . arrogant bastard . . . to bugger off.”

Ruskin’s eyes flamed, but Danny held up a hand, her jaw flexing. “Please, Lord Charles. You are a sporting man. Honor a worthy opponent. I am . . . begging you.”

Though savor it, you bastard, because I’ll never do it again.

“Very well. For a worthy opponent. I suspect he’s not one who easily allows a woman to hold the reins. You may regret marking him yet.” Ruskin held her gaze a long moment. “Your debt for Ian is paid, according to Council law. But you remember what I said, Lady Danny. If you cannot accept my authority, I suggest you skulk back to Brisbane and the Queensland Territory and cede this property to my holdings. Otherwise, I expect to see you with the other vampires at my territory meeting in Darwin in two months, offering your allegiance to me.” His attention snapped to his men, lingered on his lead man, whom Danny knew wouldn’t live to see another dawn. Ruskin would have someone’s blood for this. Perhaps if it was the lead man, he would spare the children his wrath.

It was a slim hope, she knew.

“I’ve had enough of this rustic place. We leave within the hour. Pack us up.”

As they moved off, Ruskin turning on his heel to return to the house, she felt a light hand on her shoulder. The dark-haired, blue-eyed maid who’d foolishly tried to come to her defense. “What did he say, marm?” she asked in a soft voice that reminded Danny of fresh daisies. “That first thing. About . . . Yerbulti?”