Dawn Thompson (31 page)

Swirling snow hissed against the windowpane. No sound had ever seemed so lonely. The glaring brightness of the morning hurt Cora’s eyes and she narrowed them. She hadn’t slept, and they wanted to close. She longed to stay awake to welcome Joss. He would come to her soon. They needed to talk, but the bed seemed so inviting, its eiderdown featherbeds waiting to receive her weary body.

She shed the towel and took up Joss’s silvery dressing gown. Despite that she’d worn it for days, it still held his scent, and she wrapped herself in it and climbed beneath the counterpane to wait.

As dawn broke, events outside took another turn.

The dawn comes quickly,
Milosh said, his wolfish head raised to the heavens. He and Joss had paused beneath a spreading holly tree to catch their breath. All around, the snowcapped tor was strewn with the evidence of their night’s labor. The snow was crimsoned with the blood of dead vampires both man and animal. Their thick fur coats were likewise streaked and spattered with blood, which looked black in the darkness.
Is there a way up to those turrets . . . a way that wolves can climb?

Joss snorted.
Through the tunnel,
he said, shaking the snow from his thick gray coat.
We can climb the old tower stairs from there. I did it many times as a boy. Why?

You will see,
Milosh said.
Show me quickly. First light comes any moment.

Together they leapt up to the second-floor tunnel and raced along its narrow confines to the secret room, but they did not stop then to dress. Joss led the white wolf up the rear stairs, along a narrow, roughly hewn passage so thick with mildew and dust their foot pads slipped and nearly sent them tumbling down to the bottom several times before they reached the Abbey roof and padded out onto the narrow, snow-clad ledge that wreathed the span between turrets.

Milosh sniffed the cold dawn breeze, faced south, opened his throat and howled into the predawn darkness. It was a different sound than Joss had heard him make before, and it rocked him to the core. Spinning, the white wolf howled to the north, west, and east before facing him.

Look!
Milosh said, nodding toward the fells, where a swarm of bats sawed through the air just as the sky began to lighten.
Sebastian.

Is it over?
Joss said.

The white wolf leaked a throaty snarl.
Over?
he said.
It has only just begun. He takes shelter from the light of day. He will return at dusk for the final battle. No, take no comfort from his momentary weakness, or from the others who flee first light. Those who take refuge from the dawn shall grow stronger . . . and more dangerous for the respite. Come! Do as I do. Raise your voice with mine.

To show our strength?
Joss queried.

No, young whelp, to bring reinforcements. We are the Brotherhood, remember?

Cora hovered on the edge of consciousness. That she shouldn’t be sleeping the day away bothered her conscience marginally; she was never one to nap in the daytime, but the bed was so warm and comfortable, the fire so soothing to sore muscles, Joss’s silver-gray brocade dressing gown releasing his evocative scent. It seemed stronger somehow than she remembered it earlier, and she moaned softly, stretching beneath the counterpane. The satiny fabric slid over her naked body beneath with the motion. It felt cool against her hot skin, and she ran her hands over her breasts, along her waist, the curve of her hips, and back up again, lingering on her belly before sliding over the hardened buds of her nipples poking through the brocade.

What a delicious dream. Joss had been with her—holding her—igniting her senses. How else could she smell his scent, feel his presence, his thigh leaning against her, the featherbed beneath her sagging with his weight until she rolled down the incline made by his body right into him.

Cora’s eyes flashed open.

“Was I in your dream?” Joss murmured. He was seated on the edge of the bed beside her, one arm across her body, his other raised, his hand smoothing her hair out on the pillow.

Cora vaulted upright, her eyes still glazed with sleep. No wonder his scent was so strong! “W-what time is it?” she stammered.

“You’ve slept half the day away,” he said. “I hated to wake you, you were so exhausted . . . but I had to. We need to talk, Cora, before the sun sets.”

Cora’s breath left her body in a ragged sigh. She needed to know many things—wanted to know, but dreaded the answers to her questions. What had begun as hostility toward her mysterious host had somehow blossomed into love. The attraction had always been there. That was the reason for her first hostility toward Joss. She hadn’t admitted that to herself until now, as his soothing hands caressed her, and his hypnotic eyes, shuttered with desire, gazed longingly into hers. If she knew what was good for the both of them, she would snatch the new pitcher from its basin on the nightstand and crown him with it as she had before. She would cloak her true feelings and run for her life . . . and his. Joss Hyde-White deserved a whole woman, not a tarnished one. If she truly loved him, what
she
wanted didn’t matter. Albeit through no fault of her own, Cora had lost the privilege of expecting a happily-ever-after.

Tears closed her throat and pooled in her eyes. Better that she steel herself against what he was about to tell her. Better for them both.

“You deserve an explanation,” he said, raising her hands to his lips. “Once, I told you there was more to my parents’ story . . . and mine. It’s time I told it.”

He hesitated. From the look of him, he seemed about to change his mind, so Cora spoke up quickly. “Go on,” she said.

“I can only tell you what I know,” he said. “When I was a lad, I discovered that I could shapeshift into the body of a wolf. My father possessed the same power and mentored me, taught me how to exit the house without anyone knowing—anyone except Bates, of course. These things can never be done without the help of a servant.”

“And Bates wasn’t . . . afraid?”

“No; he knew my parents’ condition well, as he was here when it all began.”

“When they became . . . v-vampires?”

Joss nodded. “They were betrothed when Sebastian Valentin infected them. My father, being the second son of an earl, chose the church as his vocation. There is no greater reward for a vampire than corrupting a man of the cloth. Sebastian was one himself before he was turned; he was a bishop in Moldovia centuries ago. To hear Milosh tell, Sebastian was taken with ambition and easily turned. He became the exact opposite of what he’d been when he first set out in his vocation, as evil as his original instincts were good. Such men are the most dangerous of all when they become
vampir
. Jealousy drives them to corrupt others like them, others of the cloth. They obsess over it, which is why Sebastian is so driven to corrupt my father.”

Cora gasped, and Joss gently soothed her. “Sebastian was interrupted on both occasions, so my parents’ ‘making’ was incomplete. But he has dogged them to this day. The blood never forgets, Cora. Sebastian has tasted theirs, and he will not rest until he has killed my
father and taken my mother as his concubine. In their absence, he evidently has decided to settle for me . . . for now.”

“Your parents did not become Sebastian’s creatures,” she remarked.

“My parents resisted. They married and traveled to Romania to find help from the clergy there, where such things are commonplace. It was there, in Moldovia, in the Romanian Carpathians, that they met Milosh. If he has a surname, I have never heard it. He is a Gypsy, and a vampire himself, as I’ve already told you. He, too, resisted, and became the fearsome vampire hunter you see today.”

“How can he be a vampire and a vampire hunter at the same time?” Cora said.

“It seems odd, I’ll grant, but that is what my parents are as well—thanks to Milosh. Centuries ago, in Persia, he learned of a ritual that, when performed under the blood moon, would spare a vampire from the bloodlust, the feeding frenzy that causes him to crave the blood of animals and humans.”

“But they are still vampires?” Cora interrupted.

“Yes, they are. However, as long as they continue to repeat the ritual at intervals, aside from not aging they will appear as normal as you are, and harm no one, Cora . . . except the vampires they hunt down and destroy.”

Cora hesitated; what she must ask next could change their lives forever. “And . . . you?” she murmured. Had her voice really cracked?

Something moved him. His hands slipped away and he rose to his feet. Crossing to the hearth, he picked up the poker and began stirring the embers to life.
Cora followed him with her eyes, suddenly cold in his absence—how bitterly cold and lonely. She longed to reach out to him, to take him in her arms and soothe away the pain of what he was about to tell her. Whatever it was must be too dreadful to bear, much less put into words. His demeanor damned him, and she threw back the counterpane and slid her feet to the floor. Waiting.

“I was conceived after my parents experienced the blood moon ritual, possibly that very night,” he began, avoiding her gaze. “Conceived of two infected vampires, what could I be but one myself?”

Cora almost winced. Her instinct was to rush to his side.
Steady on, old girl,
she told herself. She must remain indifferent if she were going to end this, for both their sakes.

“Go on, Joss,” she murmured. Thank Providence his concentration upon what he was saying was so intense he didn’t notice how she struggled for composure.

“An herbal draught is drunk, and Milosh believes that the effects of that draught in the blood moon ritual transferred to me at conception, giving me the benefits of the rite to some degree. It’s just that we don’t know how much of a degree.”

“What do you mean?”

Joss heaved a mammoth sigh and tossed down the poker he’d been toying with. “Until just recently, the only symptom I’ve had was shapeshifting into the wolf. I didn’t mind that. I actually enjoy it—the freedom of running in the wolf’s body. I know that sounds mad, but it’s true, Cora. I know that you’ve seen the fangs that appear when I am aroused, angry, or threatened. That has just begun, and so far there is no bloodlust when they do appear. Things are changing
in me. It’s the reason I went to London in search of my parents. I was hoping that they could shed some light upon the situation, but I was too late. They’d already gone abroad. But for that trip, I would never have come upon your carriage bogged down in the snow, and you would either have died or been infected like the others.”

Tears welled in Cora’s eyes. Yes, she loved Joss; there was no denying it. Her heart was breaking for him. All her noble resolve to spare him the tarnished offering of herself dissolved in those bitter tears. How could she leave him? How could she bear it?

She vaulted off the bed and rushed into his arms, but he stiffened and put her gently but firmly from him. “No,” he murmured. “Let me finish, Cora. You are in grave danger here. I have no right to subject you to this nightmare . . .
my
nightmare. I love you too much to ask you to share it.” She took a step closer. “No! Come no nearer,” he cried, spinning away from her advance. “Let me finish this while I still have the courage.”

“Finish what, Joss?”

“What I’ve started. Don’t you see? I don’t know what I am—what I might become—when I might change into a creature like the fiends laying siege to this Abbey. How long will it be before the bloodlust begins? Milosh as much as said I am probably immune to the blood moon ritual.”

“Why? What does he say?” Cora pressed.

“It’s what he doesn’t say that worries me,” Joss said. “What if one night the feeding frenzy comes upon me and I infect you? Do you think I could live with that? No! It must end here and now . . . while we still can end it. It never should have begun. I wanted to show you
that all men weren’t like that whoreson Clement. I wanted you to experience what it would be like to be cherished . . . I have done so. I did it out of love, which is how I do this . . . it is the only way, Cora.”

His image swam before her eyes. There was no stopping the tears that blinded her. Here she had made the decision to leave him, then couldn’t go through with it, and now
he
was ending it? This was the last thing she would have expected, and it rocked her back on her heels. He stood before her, clearly aroused by her nearness, the thick bulk of his sex straining against the seam of his buckskins, gritting his teeth to hold back the fangs that had already begun to change the shape of his handsome mouth. She suddenly realized what she was wearing—his dressing gown. It always had this effect upon him when she wore it.

No! She wouldn’t accept this. He was serious. He would never make love to her again. She would never again feel the ecstasy of him filling her, setting fire to her blood, to her body, to her sex. Her flesh was on fire now, throbbing like a pulse beat.

“You don’t mean this!” she sobbed. “How could you mean this, Joss . . . after all we’ve been through?”

“I’ve saddled two horses,” he went on, his voice like a whip, his jaw muscle ticking. He could not or would not meet her eyes. “I want you to get dressed and collect your things. I shall escort you to the kirk in the valley, where I shall arrange for a sledge to see you safely south before nightfall. The roads are now passable, and you can hire a coach for home.”

“Alone?” she shrilled. “That is out of the question. You must be mad!”

“Cora, we are besieged here! Before another dawn breaks, there will be a reckoning. We are surrounded by Sebastian and his ilk. You’ve heard the wolves howling—”

“Oh, yes, I have,” she cut in, waving her arms. “And you would send me out alone in that? You don’t love me, Joss. You must hate me to consider such a thing!”

“It is what must be . . . for the both of us. We are hopelessly outnumbered here. Milosh has summoned the Brotherhood. If all goes well they will arrive before dark. You cannot be here for the battle that will come.”