Dawn Thompson (25 page)

Moving in mindless oblivion, Cora matched the rhythm of his thrusts, riding the slick, moist dew of an unexpected climax, matching his pleasure sounds moan for moan as if they spoke with one voice until all the breath left her lungs in one guttural groan. She shuddered in his arms, every cell of her body engulfed
in icy-hot waves of silken fire that took her breath away. He had frozen inside her, his breath coming short; but the moment he moved, she gripped him with her sex as orgasmic contractions riddled her again, and she milked him dry as he erupted inside her, filling her with the lava-hot rush of his seed.

Cora burst into tears. So
this
was what it was supposed to be, this achy ecstasy, this all-consuming fire that left her barely conscious and completely whole, sated, pleasantly flushed—limp in the powerful arms that crushed her so close their hearts beat as one. His broad chest heaving, Joss withdrew himself and gathered her into his arms. Carrying her to the bed, he laid her down, climbed in beside her, and gathered her against him beneath the downy counterpane.

Brushing her tears away, he searched her face in the hearth light. “I
have
hurt you,” he said, his voice like gravel.

“N-no,” she said, low-voiced. “It is just that . . . that . . .”

“That what, Cora?”

“Is it always supposed to be like . . . like
this?
”

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

“I never dreamed . . . I never imagined it to be anything like . . . like this!”

His moist eyes were smiling as he took her lips in a gentle kiss. There were no fangs now; they had vanished. His mouth was soft and warm, his skilled tongue searching. But it was short-lived. Cora knew why. His sex had begun to tremble to life again against her thigh. He dared not risk the fangs returning. If only she knew what it meant. It was clear that he didn’t know the answer himself, only that he must fight against it. She
would not mention it. Not now. Not while she still glowed from his passion. Not while her whole body still tingled from his love. She clung to him as if for dear life, and said no more.

Joss was a man with a mission, and he was proud of his accomplishments thus far if he did say so himself. He had broken through Cora’s defenses and showed her what it meant to be loved by a man. True, it was not exactly as he’d pictured, and he still worried that he might have hurt her, though she said not, but he knew she had finally lived in his arms. He had felt her wetness, like liquid silk sheathing his sex. He had thrilled to the tug of her contractions again and again until she drained him dry. Right and wrong, sensibility and propriety did not enter into it; the only thing that mattered was proving to Cora that all men were not like the savage sort that had taken her virtue. Yes, he was proud of himself. It was a start, and despite the worst possible circumstances.

That she had even let him near her after running the way she had was a miracle. He still had the deadly fangs that had driven her away. What had turned her? It was an entirely different Cora who’d run from the Abbey into his arms through the drifting snow with no cloak or mantle and clung to him as if her very life depended
upon that embrace. That was what had encouraged him. Whatever it was, he would not question it. He was grateful.

It was early. Soon it would be time for dinner. Raised up on one elbow gazing down at her so peacefully asleep beside him, he didn’t have the heart to wake her. She needed sleep more than she needed food; that could come later. Toying with a handful of her long, lustrous hair, he raised it to his nose and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Roses. A soft moan escaped him as he caressed the locks, but it was a luxury he could ill afford. He’d lingered too long already. Guilt pangs gripped him of a sudden. He’d left Milosh to deal with Otis. He needed to find the Gypsy and set it to rights. Yes, this was supposed to have been his chore, his lesson, and he’d failed before he’d begun. Was the Gypsy trying to make a vampire hunter of him? Why? His own parents had never attempted that. If Milosh was, there was a reason. Joss didn’t want to speculate as to what it might be.

He heaved a ragged sigh and left the bed with a sinuous motion. He didn’t want to wake Cora. He didn’t want to leave her either, but that he must do. Outside, the wolves were gathering. Their howls rode the wind. Their nagging menace filtered through the frozen windowpane and thick velvet portieres shutting out the night, but not their bestial voices. He would have Parker keep watch outside the master bedchamber door . . . just in case. A close eye upon Cora, he dressed himself, looped his greatcoat over his arm and tiptoed out into the corridor. It was going to be a long night.

Parker was already stationed outside the master suite, where he could stand guard and hear the door if anyone came. The faithful valet retained a penchant for anticipation—the mark of a valuable servant.

With the burden of one worry lifted, Joss went first to the toile suite, but Milosh wasn’t there. Shrugging on his coat, he wound his muffler around his neck—not for warmth but for protection. He hadn’t forgotten what Milosh had told him about Sebastian, though he hadn’t seen a bat since the nightmare began.

The rear door was still unlatched. Just as he’d thought, the Gypsy was still outside; Milosh would have locked it if he’d reentered the Abbey. All at once fear gripped Joss like an iron fist in the pit of his stomach. Milosh should have finished by now. The wounded sledge was still standing where they’d left it, though Titus had been unhitched. There was still a faint glimmer of light coming from the stable, and Joss bounded over the drifts past the paddock and burst inside. It took a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the light. The stable still stank of the carnage that had taken place there earlier. The straw beneath his feet was fouled with blood. He followed the slick trail back out into the snow. All the savaged horses save one, and the beheaded stabler, had been dragged outside behind the paddock and piled in a heap that was slated to become a pyre by the look of it. Milosh was nowhere in sight.

Chills riddled Joss, and he shuddered visibly. Bracing himself against the wind, he trudged back inside the stables. His heart began to pound, and the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His hackles were raised. That never happened in his human incarnation without good cause. Something was not as it should be. It seemed as if Milosh had been interrupted before he could finish his chore. And what sort of strength did the Gypsy possess that he could haul horse carcasses on his own? Joss couldn’t imagine.

Feet crunching straw spun him around, but there was
no one there, though he saw the straw tamp down where a man’s boots were leaving footprints. They were carrying toward him. Whatever invisible creature stalked him had a distinct odor, sickening sweet, like mold, dead funeral flowers, and rotting meat. It rose up in his nostrils and choked him.

Sebastian?

Another wave of chills crawled along Joss’s spine. His lips parted, making way for the fangs that had begun to descend. Disembodied laughter echoed from the exposed beam ceiling. It rang in the darkened loft, where last night at this time Otis had been climbing into his pallet bed at the end of the day. That bed was empty now. It would no longer receive the faithful stabler.

The footprints were coming closer. Joss backed away. He could hardly fight what he couldn’t see. Besides, he had no weapons against the undead at hand. His parents kept holy water in the study. How could he have come here without it?

You cannot fight this entity all on your own,
Milosh’s voice echoed in his mind.
With or without holy water.

Milosh? Thank God!
Joss’s mind replied.
I thought
—

Clear your mind,
Milosh interrupted.
Your enemy is soon close enough to read your thoughts.

Emboldened now that he knew Milosh was safe, Joss glanced about, looking for somewhere to retreat. There were plenty of empty stalls now, but one would box him in and he backed out toward the open doors, hesitating on the threshold. All at once the stable filled with blood-chilling laughter, and from the footsteps there appeared a towering creature surging to fill the span—half man, half bat, whose ugly head scraped the exposed beams above. Long fangs dripping blood gleamed in the lantern light, and its wingspread stretched from wall to tack-hung
wall. The foul stench it gave off filled Joss’s mouth with bile.

The laughter came again, and with it the thunder of hoofbeats as the savaged horse that had lain dead minutes earlier rose up and galloped out into the bitter night. Another burst of laughter filled the span, and the creature before Joss shriveled from its gargantuan form to an ordinary bat, soaring past and away after the horse, but not before sinking its sharp talons into Joss’s muffler and carrying it off like a trophy. The last thing Joss saw as the phantom horse galloped off into deep, starless dark, was the bat sawing through the midnight sky above it, the muffler still caught in its talons, flapping in the wind like a standard on the field of battle.

Joss turned back, searching the stable for some sign of Milosh. His mind called the Gypsy’s name. He dared not speak aloud then; it wasn’t over.
Where are you?

There was no answer, though outside the wolves’ voices echoed from all directions. Joss spun toward the snow-swept tor, his eyes narrowed. The wind was growing stronger now, whistling past him, seeming to mock his frustration.

A rustling from behind turned him around to face the portly form of a man emerging from the shadows at the back of the stable. Joss froze. It was Clive Clement.

“How did you get in here?” Joss snarled. “I gave you no leave to enter!”

“No,” Clement replied, “your man did. He barred me from the Abbey in your absence, but said that I might wait here in the stables for you to return. It was a costly invitation, that, and a foolish one. Had he admitted me to the house proper, I would have collected my son’s betrothed and been on my way. You have him to thank for your stabler’s untimely demise.”

Joss wasted no words upon the creature. Like lightning he leapt through the air—unprepared for his own strength and the distance of his leap, nearly twice that from the secret tunnel to the ground. It was the first time he had used a greater maneuver, and he hadn’t been aware that he had the power until he tapped it. Fangs extended, he collided with the vampire and took it down. He should have finished the job when he first felled the creature out on the moor. He had not known then what he knew now, that Clement was the bounder who’d taken Cora’s virtue, and so his rage was twofold.

Brute force ruled Joss. Seeing through a bloodred haze that always accompanied such passion, he rolled over and over on the fouled straw that carpeted the stable, grappling with the creature, his fully extended fangs poised to rip out the vampire’s throat; but so were the creature’s fangs extended toward him, just inches from his jugular. He failed to see the great white wolf poised above in the loft until it sailed through the air and slammed into them both. The impact broke Clement’s hold, and the vampire scrambled to his feet and out of the stable, the wolf’s snarls ringing in Joss’s ears. It padded to the stable doorway and stood its ground until Clement was out of sight.

Joss leaked an exasperated groan and pounded the straw beneath him. “Why the devil did you do that?” he thundered. “I had him!”

Again the wolf growled.
Had him, did you?
Milosh said.
You think with your heart instead of your head, young whelp, and it would have bested you. You must learn to think with the instinct, mind and soul of the hunter, Joss Hyde-White, or you will become the hunted.

Joss did not like the sound of that. “What?” he murmured, one eye upon the vacant tor, the other on the
white wolf surging back into the loft in a silvery streak of displaced energy that spewed the Gypsy into the shadows naked.

“I am saying that when your heart rules your head you are vulnerable to error and bad judgment. Never surrender your acumen to your passion. You were about to prove me right. In your haste to avenge your lady’s honor, you would not have tapped the powers that would have given you the edge. You would have been bitten, and I likely would have had to kill you. I had to stop you before it came to that.”

“But you let him get away!”

“He won’t go far. He wants the girl. The night is young, my impetuous young friend, and it is going to be a long one.”

Joss was silent apace. “What do you mean . . . ‘powers’?” he asked at last.

Milosh sauntered to the edge of the loft. He’d tugged on his trousers and top boots, and was shrugging on his shirt. “ ‘Gifts,’ if the term better sits,” he said. Snatching up his greatcoat, he leapt down with no apparent effort and faced Joss, meanwhile whirling the garment about him with flourish. “There is one gift you’ve just discovered, eh? I saw the astonishment on that handsome face of yours when you bridged the span between yourself and that creature in one stride.”

All this nattering was proving something Joss did not want proven, and he hung his head. Powers, gifts—it didn’t matter what he called them; they were more evidence that he was something he did not want to be:
vampir.

“Come!” the Gypsy said, clapping him on the shoulder. He stooped, picking up an oil can. “Bring the lantern. I must finish what I started earlier, and light the bonfire.
The flames will keep the vampires at bay for the moment, but not for long. Afterward we need to talk—in the hidden room by the wolf tunnel, where you took me when I first arrived, I think. What I have to say should not be spoken within the hearing of others.”

Joss nodded and said no more. Doggedly, he followed the Gypsy and helped light the bonfire. He was well aware that Milosh was studying him. It didn’t matter. This was too big a disappointment to hide. He had been hoping . . . Well, it didn’t matter anymore. A very real danger was threatening Whitebriar Abbey and all its inmates. That was the task at hand, and he would rise to the occasion.