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He smelled blood.
Drake tried to stand but his leg gave way, and he dropped back to his knees. Serena. He had to protect Serena. Rage ran through him like a hot river. From his position, half-crumpled on the floor a few feet from the door, he smelled the hunters as they poured into his room. He could smell their blood. His fangs lengthened, his body screamed to attack, but he was weak.
He had to fight both the vampires and the hunters to protect Serena.
Through blurred vision, Drake saw Sommersby. Bow sight held to his eye, Sommersby fired again. The arrow sailed and ripped through Lukos’s heart, but the demon staggered to his feet and pulled both arrows out of his chest.
An arrow through the heart couldn’t kill him?
Where was Serena? Drake saw her stumble toward Lukos holding a vial. No! He fought to stand as crossbow bolts shot across the room, missing Serena’s head by inches. Were the bloody hunters trying to hit her?
Two hunters—Russex and Williams—jumped on Lukos, slashing with stakes, but he threw them off with one twist of his body.
Serena!
Drake got his footing—just as she tossed the contents of the vial at Lukos.
“Aargh! Witch!” Lukos jumped back as the water splashed at him.
Drake stared in astonishment. A stake through the heart had done nothing, but he feared water blessed by the church?
Staggering, Drake launched across the room, making a wild backflip to land at his maker’s side. Fangs bared, he went for Lukos’s throat, the way he’d learned to kill with a dagger on the streets. Drive in and rip forward. Pull out the windpipe, the jugular, and destroy.
As his fangs punctured Lukos’s flesh, the blood filled his mouth and flooded his senses.
Lukos
clawed his naked body, the sharp nails ripping easily into his chest and his belly, but his fangs were
seated deep, and he held on.
Pleasure surged as he sucked down Lukos’s blood. Then a searing stream of light and heat hit his chest and sent him sprawling back on his floor. His maker had hit him with magic.
Sommersby ran at Lukos, sliced with his drawn sword—
Lukos gripped it before it hit his throat. For a mortal, that blade would have sliced off fingers, or a hand. But Lukos, unhurt, easily wrenched the weapon from Sommersby’s hand and lifted it.
Drake stuck his foot out as Lukos charged at his partner. All the weapons in the room, the magic, and what saved Sommersby’s life? That Lukos tripped over Drake’s foot as he drove forward with the sword.
As the demon stumbled, Sommersby threw himself to the right, landing hard on the wood, grunting, rolling toward the bed.
The blade flashed. Drake launched up, without bloody well thinking, and he found himself face-to-face with his maker, who now brandished a sword that would slide through his neck like a silver knife through fresh butter.
I offer you the power you have always yearned for and you throw it away. You cannot claim
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Serena. You are not destined to father a superior race. You are garbage.
The blade swung. One of Lukos’s vampires flew forward, shouting, and Drake saw Serena give a grim smile from behind. She’d used his trick of tripping an opponent, and before Drake could flash an answering smile, the golden-haired vampire fell against Lukos, who turned with a roar of fury. He moved to swat the vampire away, and the blade took off a hand. The disciple fell to the ground, clutching the wounded arm to his chest. Blood now bathed Lukos; his white clothes were soaked in it. With a cry of rage, Lukos kicked the wounded slave out of the way.
Drake leapt over the bed and grabbed a burning stick of kindling from the fireplace. The flame scorched his hand but was quenched by his grip until only the tip flamed like a small torch. But as he ran toward Lukos, something drove through his shoulder.
Stunned, he looked down at a protruding arrowhead. A hunter had shot him. He sprinted forward—it would take a few seconds for a reload.
He lifted the burning log and launched it toward Lukos’s eyes. It twirled once in the air, flames streaming back. Lukos moved with impossible speed, and the burning wood struck the bed hangings. It lodged in the folds, and with a whoosh, flames spread through the gauzy fabric. As though blown by the breath of God, the fire roared instantly up the hangings and crossed the canopy.
He heard a sound behind him.
A damned hunter ready to shoot.
Drake spun around. Sommersby stood there, a crossbow trained on him, aimed at his heart.
There would be no way it would miss.
Serena raced forward, knowing she had only a second to stop Jonathon. Fire blazed across the canopy, and the hangings fell like flaming wicks to the sheets. Smoke raced along the ceiling in gray-white wisps and billowed through the room. She ran through it, screaming, “Jonathon, no!”
“You betrayed her, you bastard.” But Jonathon hesitated, and she knew that meant his heart ruled his mind. She had a chance.
“Jonathon! Drake didn’t betray me.” She sputtered in the smoke. It wouldn’t hurt the vampires, but in a few more breaths, she would collapse. So would Jonathon and the other hunters.
Jonathon swung around to face her, lifted the bow, and fired. Serena froze as the arrow whistled to her—in that blink of an eye, she trusted. She didn’t move. A scream came from behind her, followed by the thud of a body—a vampire.
She screamed as someone grabbed her shoulders, then almost collapsed in relief as she saw it was Drake.
You have to get out.
She saw him glance toward the window and knew what he meant to do. He would shatter it so they could escape. But it must be dawn—Drake would be escaping into daylight.
Lukos blocked the doorway, and there was no other way but the window. The heat singed her face, the inside of her throat, with each breath. Her lungs felt as though a fire burned inside them.
“Look out!” Jonathon shouted.
Drake leapt back, pulling her with him, and she saw the bed canopy sway. Burning embers rained around them. Before her horrified eyes, the flaming canopy toppled inward, sending out billows of choking black smoke.
Tears poured from Serena’s eyes, and it was agony to open them. She realized Lukos was gone, leaving his disciples dead on the burning bedroom floor. But the fire now raged in front of the door—they couldn’t get out that way.
She heard Jonathon order the hunters to escape, saw men shoulder the fallen and try to drag them to freedom. Jonathon was at her side. She was coughing now, as was he.
Drake shouted, “Take her out of here now!”
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She tried to protest; she screamed in Drake’s mind.
But what about you?
Jonathon was at the window. The curtains were a line of fire, but Jonathon ripped them down, and the others stamped at the flames with their boots. Sunlight poured in.
She tried to find Drake in the smoke but couldn’t see him. Had he ran through the wall of fire at the door? He wouldn’t survive it.
Fear for Drake paralyzed her. She couldn’t move. Then Jonathon kicked a hole through the windowpanes.
Serena turned helplessly back to the door—but Jonathon grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the shattered window. She leaned forward and desperately sucked in the cool night air. The air would feed the flames; the breeze would send it racing through the rest of the house. The smoke began pouring out of the window around her, and the ground below seemed to spin before her eyes.
They were the last house in the row, and a small clump of bushes lay below the window. She knew she could jump out a window! She’d jumped off Sommersby’s balcony to escape Drake.
Jonathon grabbed her waist. “Serena, wait—”
There was no time for dawdling, for second thoughts. She pushed back Jonathon’s hand and jumped. As she plunged down through the night air, she cried
Drake!
Jonathon awoke to find himself in bed—in a borrowed nightshirt. Crisp white sheets tangled around his legs and hips, and sunlight peeked around closed drapes.
Where in hell—?
He was lying on his stomach, and as he flipped onto his back, he hissed with the pain. But he wasn’t in hell now, he realized. Last night he’d been in hell—in the battle with Lukos, in the middle of a fire. Now he was safe. The sting of his bare skin reminded him his back was riddled with claw wounds. During the attack, one of the vampires had shredded his clothes while clawing his back. At least the wounds to his skin were superficial. Now he had bandages wrapped around his back and around the blistering on his neck where some burning fabric had landed.
Despite the grogginess in his head, Jonathon forced himself to sit up. He heard the click of the door’s latch and glanced up in surprise. His throat dried. Serena stood in the doorway, dressed in a clinging silk ivory wrapper, with her raven hair tumbling free. His heart hammered as she walked into his room.
“Thank heavens you are still alive,” she said, and she looked guilty.
He sat up abruptly. “I’m fine.”
“You shouldn’t have risked your life for me.” She shook her head, dark curls dancing. “I went there with Drake Swift willingly.”
Jonathon stared at her pale, strained face, not comprehending. Serena was angry he’d come to rescue her?
“You were in danger; I came to you.” He growled the words out. Were they the right words?
Or had he said the wrong thing again?
Silence stretched while she stared down, and he tried not to gape at her like a lovesick puppy.
A faint shaft of sunlight touched a tear on her cheek.
The tear caused him more pain than any of his wounds. Serena loved Drake Swift, not him.
She loved a demon; she preferred a vampire to him. She’d tried to stop him shooting an arrow through Swift’s heart. But Jonathon knew he hadn’t stopped for Serena. He’d stopped because he’d realized he wanted to murder Swift out of jealousy.
Wiping the back of her hand across her cheek, Serena paced to the curtains. She pulled them open with her back to him. “You came to rescue me because of her, didn’t you? Because of your fiancée.”
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No. He’d gone to rescue her because he loved her, but it was pointless to tell her that. Once she learned what really happened with Lilianne, she’d despise him forever.
But he had to tell her.
On the bed, Jonathon groaned and rubbed his jaw. Stubble rasped his palm and, despite his bath, his hand came away streaked lightly with soot.
“I killed her,” he said.
Serena turned, her hand on one of the drapes. Her dark brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “A vampire killed her. You tried to rescue her. You can’t blame your—”
“Don’t try to absolve me of guilt.” He watched her walk over to him, moving cautiously as though she were approaching a mad dog. “I killed Lilianne, and it’s the wretched truth.”
“Tell me why you believe you killed her,” she urged, softly, calmly, and she sat down on the bed at his side.
Jonathon breathed in the scent of her—rose soap, the tang of ashes still in her hair, the unique scent that was her skin, her breath, her life. A scent he couldn’t define but knew he couldn’t live without. A perfume that aroused him, that wrapped around his male senses, that spoke to his heart.
She was so near to him her skirts brushed against his borrowed nightshirt. Her hand covered his, smooth and warm. She’d been through hell and she was strong enough to offer comfort to him.
He couldn’t sit beside Serena and see her face as he told her the dark truth. He wasn’t that courageous. He got up from the bed and paced the carpet. He fought to control the bitter rage that welled up, and he tried to simply tell his story.
“Lilianne was not killed by a vampire, she was turned. It was my fault, of course, for she had followed me. She was an impulsive woman. Impetuous. She always demanded my attention. As much as it would infuriate me, I wanted a woman to want me, to need me, to make demands of me.
I believed it meant that she cared about me.”
“And she did.”
Jonathon glanced to Serena. He could read nothing in her gray eyes, in the flat line of her lips, in her guarded expression.
“I don’t know if she loved me.” He bowed his head. “I drove her mad—perhaps I was more a challenge than a true love. She wanted me to drive her about in Hyde Park, to pay her calls when I needed to do experiments in the day. She wanted me to bring her to balls at night, but I had to slay vampires. We had one thing in common. We both wanted a family—”
“Couldn’t you have stopped hunting for her? Taken time away from your experiments?”
“No. Any day I didn’t hunt, I allowed another innocent person to die. A child. A young woman with a whole life to live. Or a man who shouldered the responsibility of a family.”
“You said that Lilianne followed you? Why?”
Jonathon closed his eyes. “We became engaged—I asked her only because I’d hoped she would be content with an engagement for a while. I wanted to keep her, but I wasn’t willing to change for her. She wanted to force me to be passionate. She wanted to try to make me into the kind of man she wanted. She was falling in love with someone else, but she wanted to give me one last chance. She was desperate, and she acted without thinking.”
“She found me in Hyde Park—” He remembered the furious way he’d snapped at Lilianne as she’d darted out of the bushes. Then, with tears streaming down at his impatient demand that she go home, she’d slapped him and raced away.
Softly, he admitted, “When I found her, she was lying on the grass, pale as a ghost, with the mark on her throat. I thought she was dead. I should have—I should have decapitated her, so she couldn’t rise, but I couldn’t bear to do it to her.”
“And she was a vampire.”
With his back to Serena, he nodded. “I spent weeks tracking her down, following the stories of Blood Rose ©Sharon Page 2007 Email: [email protected] 116