Dawn Thompson (24 page)

Joss had had no idea until that moment that he was under the legendary Gypsy’s tutelage. The realization thrilled and frightened him all at once. He did as Milosh bade. Scarcely breathing, he listened to the howling wolves, his ears pricked for any inflection, any pitch in the mournful sounds that might speak to him.

“What do you hear?” asked Milosh.

“We are surrounded,” Joss said. “They twitter like children.”

“Can you urge the horse to climb any faster?”

“Titus is not a carriage horse,” Joss said. “It pains me to use him thus, but I will try.”

Snapping the whip over the horse’s head did little to coerce the animal to pick up its pace on the steep, slippery upgrade. What it did provoke was a bevy of shrill complaints from the thoroughbred, which only served to agitate the wolves. Nonetheless, Titus finally reached the summit, dragging the wounded sledge to level ground.

Nearing the stables, Joss called out to Otis. Meanwhile, both he and Milosh climbed down from the crooked seat, which shuddered and groaned with their lifted weight. Trudging through the drifted snow, Joss had nearly reached the open stable doors when a huge gray wolf charged through, all but knocking him down. Its thick, hackle-raised fur was matted with blood, its eyes blazed red like two live coals. Taken by surprise, Joss backpedaled, lost his balance and fell, splayed out in a drift beside the stable doors as the animal streaked past so closely he could smell the strong metallic odor of the blood that decorated it, and the feral musk of its exertion.

Milosh quickly hauled him to his feet, but Joss shrugged free and ran into the stable calling Otis at the top of his voice. No answer came; neither did the horses greet him with their familiar complaints, sensing something untoward in him as they always seemed to do. That chilling reminder harkened him back to the reason any of this was happening: his thirst for the knowledge of who—of
what
—he truly was. But now was still not the time to theorize. The stabler’s name froze halfspoken on his lips, his eyes focused through the bleak lantern light inside. Only two of the six horses stabled
there were standing, and the straw-strewn floor was running with blood.

Joss’s eyes flashed toward the loft. No lantern was lit there. All was in darkness in Otis’s quarters. With Milosh at his heels, Joss ventured farther in, unable to keep his knees from shaking. Hope still moved him, though he knew what he would find as he stumbled past the savaged horses’ stalls. Otis lay beyond in the haymow, his throat torn out and his body sprawled in the blood-fouled hay.

Groaning, Joss sank down on his knees beside the stabler. His eyes misty with tears, he reached to close Otis’s eyes, and gave a lurch as Milosh gripped his shoulder with a firm hand.

“You know what you must do,” said the Gypsy.

Joss stared at him through glazed eyes as if he were a stranger.

“He will rise undead,” Milosh reminded him.

“And the horses?” Joss murmured.

Milosh nodded. “They will rise to serve their new masters. We must prevent this. That is your second lesson.” A sickle hung on the stable wall alongside the tack room. He strode over and seized it. “Here,” he said, extending it. “Your stabler first. Do it now while he lies thus. It will be harder once he wakes. I see your anguish. I know how difficult this is for you. Remember, I had to do the very same to my beloved wife, who was increasing with my child. It was to save them. Take this! Do not let your trusted servant rise undead to hunt you like the others!”

Just then the howl of a nearby wolf pierced the stillness, and Joss staggered to his feet. He shoved the Gypsy’s outstretched arm away. “It isn’t over. Cora!” he
gritted through clenched teeth, in a vain attempt to hold his fangs at bay. Then, bolting out of the stable with a crashing disregard for Milosh or Titus in his path, he ran slip-sliding through the snowdrifts toward the Abbey.

Cora yanked the draperies back, releasing a shower of dust motes, her eyes trained upon the stable below. She could hear the terrible snarls, and the screams—a man’s screams—high-pitched and desperate, even at her distance through the frozen windowpane. Frantically she yanked the bellpull, meanwhile pacing before the window. Tears welled in her eyes. Those horrible screams had all but stopped her heart, and she covered her ears to shut out the sound, but she heard it still. Something unspeakable was happening in that stable. Had Joss returned? Was that him screaming? She yanked the bellpull again. Why didn’t someone answer?

With all her strength, she tore at the window latch, but it was frozen shut and wouldn’t budge. Straining her eyes toward the stable below, she saw the sledge heave to a stop beside the doors, saw Joss’s tall, muscular form silhouetted against the snow as he leapt out with Milosh close behind. It wasn’t him that she had heard screaming after all. Her heart gave a tumble of relief in her breast, and her breath released audibly. Yet
while the dreadful screams had stopped, whatever had caused them was still inside that stable, and now she screamed herself, at the top of her voice, pounding on the glass with both her tiny fists.

“No! Don’t go in there!” she cried. “I beg you, don’t . . . !” Why wouldn’t they look up? Why didn’t they hear her?

All at once a huge streak of gray fur and muscle sailed through the open stable doors. It came so close to Joss that he lost his balance and fell on his back in the snow. Cora screamed again. She could bear no more. She couldn’t stand here helpless and do nothing. She’d darted toward the door just as a knock came upon it, and she threw it open to find Parker on the threshold. The look of him wrenched yet another scream from her throat. He was as white as chalk, and what little hair he had was fanned out about him in wild disarray. From the lurch he gave, she knew she’d frightened him more than he had frightened her.

“Steady on, miss,” he said, heaving to catch his breath. “Young master has just now come. All will be well.”

“All will be well, is it?” she shrilled. “Someone has just died down there! I heard his death screams. I saw the wolf!” Snorting in exasperation, she shoved him aside and ran out into the corridor. Flying over the landing, she raced down the back stairs and out into the now moonlit snow, the valet’s cries behind falling upon deaf ears.

She hadn’t taken her wrapper, and the cold hit her hard, taking her breath away. Gripping chills all but crippled her, racing along her spine. Her footing was anything but sure as she tried to negotiate the drifts
that had piled up beside the rear door, but she didn’t have to struggle far. She had scarcely taken three steps when Joss seized her, crushing her against him in trembling arms.

“Thank God,” he murmured. “What are you doing out here? Where is Parker?”

“H-here, sir,” the valet said from the doorway. “I-I couldn’t hold her, sir.”

“I saw you fall,” Cora sobbed. “That wolf! I thought . . . I was afraid you . . .”

Parker started to trudge toward the stable, but Joss’s quick hand arrested him. “No, stay away,” he said. “Go back inside. Milosh is seeing to it.”

“Seeing to what?” Cora asked. “I heard screams. What’s happened?”

Joss swept her up in his arms and rushed her through the back door. “Close that,” he charged Parker, “but leave it unlatched for Milosh.”

“Is it Otis?” the valet queried, his voice thin.

Joss nodded. “And all but two of my horses,” he said. “Are the others all right?”

“Grace is abed. She grieves still,” Parker said. “Amy is tending her, and Rodgers is helping Cook in her absence.”

“Good!” said Joss, having reached the landing. “Do not leave the Abbey for
any
reason. Pass the word to the others. We are surrounded. They will lose their strength at dawn, those that can bear the light of day. Let neither man nor beast into the Abbey day or night. The undead take many forms.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“We need to talk, Parker,” Joss said from the second-floor landing. “Later . . . make yourself available.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Cora tightened her grip about his neck as he carried her to the master suite. His heartbeat was thumping beneath the heavy-caped greatcoat. He smelled clean, of citrus and musk, and of the cold north wind. She inhaled deeply, nuzzling closer.

Entering the master apartments, Joss kicked the door shut behind them, carried her into the bedroom and set her on her feet. Cora scarcely breathed. His eyes were wild, feral things boring into her, searching her face, her body, raking her from head to toe, memorizing every contour, every line of her face and body.

His hands were trembling as he unwound the muffler from his neck and discarded his multicaped greatcoat. Then she was in his arms again. Neither spoke. There was no need. He reached out and removed the combs that held her hair in place, and it fell in a cascade to her waist. His fingers threaded through it, smoothing it over her shoulders, then cupped her face. His hands were cold, so cold, but that wasn’t what caused the icy-hot chills that turned her spine to jelly and molded her body to his, and it didn’t prevent what felt like molten fire from coursing through her loins. Such feelings should flag danger, but they didn’t. The look in his quicksilver eyes so dilated with desire riveted her unmercifully. He had the power to seduce her with a glance, to possess with a smile. This time, she let him.

He murmured her name in that husky baritone that set her afire from the inside out. It crackled with longing. Her breath caught as his lips descended, before they ever touched hers. Partly because she remembered the fangs she’d seen spoiling that handsome mouth, but mostly because of the thrum at her very core. Whatever these feelings were, they would be denied no longer, as they’d been all tangled up in the horror she’d
felt when she feared for his life. She wanted him in a way that she never thought she could ever want any man, considering what had gone before. There was a palpable facet of desperation in their embrace, as if his very life depended upon it. It was contagious. There was no stopping now. Whoever he was, whatever he was, didn’t matter anymore; he had bewitched her.

They scarcely parted long enough for him to tear his boots off and discard his clothes. When her frock and petticoats joined the pile at their feet, she scarcely knew. They stood naked together, the hard shaft of his arousal between them. Gripping her hand, he curled her fingers around it.

“I am still in your hands, Cora,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. Clearly, he was making a valiant attempt to hold back his fangs. “I will never hurt you. I hope I have already proven that.”

Cora gazed into the moist onyx depths that desire had made of his eyes. How the firelight gleamed in them! He was clearly torn between raw passion and grief for the faithful servant who had been savaged to death in the stable below; she could see it. She herself had never felt like this, as if a raging fire were burning inside, a fire that would only be quenched by yielding to the same desire that drove him . . . and by comforting him. No, she had never felt like this before. Her past ordeal paled before all that was now happening. He had
not
hurt her. Somehow, she knew she could take him at his word that he never would, the fangs he tried so to hide notwithstanding. Though deep down she feared those fangs, the fiery ache coursing through her sex would not be denied, and she threw her arms around his neck, and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips.

Joss groaned as her fingers combed through his hair.
“You are sure?” he murmured, forcing their mouths apart. Cora thrilled at his obvious struggle to spare her the sight, the feel of those deadly fangs.

“I’m sure,” she whispered, and gasped at the suddenness of his response as he lifted her hips, guided her legs to encircle his waist, and entered her in one slow, tantalizing thrust.

Cora gasped again, and tears filled her eyes. There was no pain. She had steeled herself against the kind of pain she’d felt in the cruel, sweaty arms of the bounder who had taken her virtue. Instead, the warm, silken pressure of his life throbbing within her—filling her, paralyzing her senses of all save him—set loose a firestorm inside unlike anything she had ever dreamed possible. It was as if her very bones were melting.

The ache that tightened her moist sex was almost beyond bearing. The strength of him! And yet it was a gentle strength that defied description; Cora had never experienced the like. He was beyond stopping, and as volatile as their coupling was, she did not fear it; neither did she resist. To her complete surprise, she leaned into his embrace as he backed her against the wall and pushed deeper into her—into what was indeed virgin territory. Realizing that, she sobbed, and he stiffened against her.

“Have I hurt you?” he murmured, his hands roaming up and down the contours of her sides, along the indentation of her waist, over her breasts, his thumbs grazing her nipples as he caressed her.

Cora couldn’t speak. Clinging to him, she buried her face in his shoulder and shook her head wildly that he had not.

“What, then?” he said.

She felt the urgency of the member filling her, felt it pulsate, though he stood stock-still as his hands—those strong, skilled hands—cupped her buttocks again, moving her body in a circular motion in rhythm with the pulse beat of his sex, so strong inside her.

“Do you want me . . . to stop?” he whispered hoarsely. His hot breath puffing against her ear riddled her with gooseflesh. His lips were touching her throat—those
fangs
were touching her throat—grazing it ever so slightly, and yet she still did not pull away. He seemed to have no inclination to use those teeth, though in that wonderful terrible moment, as startling as the realization was, if it had been his intent to sink those deadly fangs into her flesh, she would have let him; she was that captivated by his ardor and his passion. The thrill riveted her from head to toe.

Still she dared not speak, but her body spoke for her. Joss was clearly avoiding her lips with those fangs, and she tightened her grip around his neck and searched his arched throat for the source of the pulsating rhythm beating in his blood when she kissed him there. Joss cried aloud at the touch of her lips on the corded muscles and distended veins, causing her to grip him tighter still. His pelvis jerked forward, and he plunged deeper into her, groaning as her body tightened around his member in an unexpected reflex that forced a cry from her lips.