She sank down on the bed and laid her hand over the bump under the sheets. Would Yannick come to her tonight? He must know she’d betrayed him. If he came at all, it would be likely to feed from her. To destroy her in cold, vicious vampire rage.
If she snapped the collar around his neck, she would be saving herself. If she staked him, it would only be because he was going to kill her.
She could justify betrayal in the name of self-preservation.
She flopped back on the bed, sinking into the lumpy mattress.
In all likelihood, the collar would do nothing to control Yannick at all. Bastien was free and it was her fault, all because she was no longer completely pure. All because she’d been too much of a coward to admit her sins.
She swallowed hard, her throat tight with guilt, remembered O’Leary’s shocked cry. “Christ Jesus! ‘E’s gone!”
Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 47
In the middle of buttoning her pelisse, Althea had jerked up. Who was gone? What was O’Leary shouting about?
Her feet had flown over the rough planking and she reached the door at the exact instant O’Leary and Father emerged from Bastien’s room. Father carried the thick shroud used to cover Bastien and protect him from light. The sun had just set.
“How in hell did he do it?” O’Leary roared.
Father’s left hand strayed to the corner of his spectacles and he adjusted them on the bridge of his nose. He frowned down at the shroud. “My first guess would be that the twin helped him.
But it makes no sense. How could the twin remove the collar? Unless—” Father shook his head.
“No, it’s impossible. It’s only now dark.”
In one mortifying instant, she’d guessed the probable answer. Bastien had escaped because she wasn’t an innocent. That was the reason the collar must not have worked. She must tell them. But her tongue had moved uselessly and she couldn’t utter a word. What difference would it make to confess? The damage was done.
It had been so easy to justify silence. It was so easy to justify betrayal.
“There’s no need to go up to the crypt then, tonight.” Father had raked his hand over his jaw. His shoulders had slumped with his failure.
Admit what you did
, she’d urged herself. But instead, she’d bitten her lip.
Father had turned to O’Leary, his back to her. “They’ll have to hunt. The newly resurrected one will need blood desperately. So, we’ll need more men to hunt them. Blast, it means letting the entire bloody village know who we are.”
Althea had walked around to be a part of the conversation, finishing the last buttons on her pelisse. “I will get the crossbow.” But could she use it? On Yannick? O’Leary would without a second thought, but she couldn’t. What was she going to do?
Father had held up his hand, the shroud balanced over the other. “Oh no, lassie, you are to stay here. In your room.”
Now she understood. He’d deliberately excluded her from the plan. And she was forbidden to leave her room? “That is ridiculous. I am perfectly capable of protecting myself while we hunt.” This was her mistake. She needed the chance to set things to rights.
“I want you in your room where you will be safe.”
“I
must
go! These village men have no experience and most of them will be drunk. And what about the collars?” She took an unsteady breath. Very likely she couldn’t put the collars on. She should suggest they find a truly good and innocent woman.
“Well, one wasn’t successful, was it, lass?”
She hoped neither man noticed her blush of shame. “How else will you subdue them?”
“Arrows tipped with a mild curare mixture. Even on vampires, it acts to paralyze. We need them controlled before you attempt to put on the collars. I’m not taking any risks—not now we know they don’t behave as I expected.”
Curare? On
Yannick
? She had launched forward and caught Father’s arm. “No, it could kill him!” The heart continued to beat even after poisoning, but the paralysis caused breathing to stop, and that meant death. She’d read papers from the Royal Society on it. It was damned risky.
He had stared down at her, his gaze surprised, and she prayed her heart wasn’t showing on Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 48
her sleeve. But dear god, she couldn’t let them risk destroying Yannick.
Father had frowned. “Not to worry, lass. I am the expert here. Experiment shows that curare does not kill vampires—in the right amounts—due to their slower breathing rate and the enhanced strength of their muscles.” He had patted her hand, “I don’t intend to kill him, lovey, not even by mistake. I need him.”
Now, alone in her room, Althea stared up at her dark ceiling.
Don’t come, Yannick
.
Though what was worse? If he stayed away and risked being poisoned? But if he came to her, he would force her to choose.
She shouldn’t have any doubts at all. As a slayer—a hunter—she should disable him without even a qualm. A hunter couldn’t afford to dwell in emotion and doubt.
What was that? The beat of wings? A whisper of sound different from that of rain striking leaves.
Neck arched, ears straining, she waited. For long moments. Long enough that her back grew stiff and her shoulders twitched from the tension in them.
She should be relieved he wasn’t coming, but instead, she felt sick deep inside. She dropped back on the bed and closed her eyes.
Angel…
Her lashes flickered. She must have fallen asleep. The weight of the blankets lay along her body. Was he truly here? Was she dreaming?
She opened her eyes to pitch dark. With no moon, there was no light at all—even the lamps in the Inn’s yard had been extinguished. Only the brush of air, the beat of large, graceful wings, told her he was there.
While he could see her and didn’t need light, she did. Althea sat up. “Yannick?” She reached for the table beside her, to light her stump of a candle.
But before she found the flint, the bed dipped with his weight beside her and fingers twined with hers, stopping her from striking her light. Long, elegant fingers. Cool.
“Yannick.” She whispered it again, a smile on her lips. A welcoming one that she truly felt even as her other hand searched for the collar. He was but inches away and she sensed him, but couldn’t make out more than a dark shape.
He caught her by the elbow as she touched the collar. Strong hands grasped both her wrists, not hard, not rough, but she couldn’t twist free. His scent washed over her, male skin touched by fresh rain. He lifted her hands over her head. She gasped as he eased her onto the bed.
No, love. Bastien.
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Bastien tightened his grip on Althea’s slender wrists as she struggled beneath him. In the dark, to his vampiric gaze, her face glowed, a delicate, pale oval. Vibrant wine-red hair streamed across her pillow. Emerald eyes flashed fire at him.
“Let me go!” Her bare right foot slammed into his shin. She followed with a kick and her left foot dug hard into his naked hip. He winced at the thud against his sensitive bone.
He ran his thumbs along the insides of her wrists. “I won’t harm you, sweetheart.”
The stubborn, willful wench arched up against his weight and strength. And gained an impressive inch off the mattress. “Then let my hands go.”
Admirably feisty. Bastien gave a cheeky grin. “Let me enjoy you like this for a moment more.”
Althea dropped back, lips trembling. But not on the brink of tears. More likely in anger. A flush colored her soft, satiny cheeks. Though she had little hope of fighting her way free, she twisted her wrists in his grasp.
He’d always loved a feisty wench. And after ten years of enduring living death, he craved this one.
“What do you want from me? Blood?” She spoke without a trace of fear, her voice soft, throaty. Lavender and meadow scents surrounded him, along with the tang of her excitement.
And that intrigued him. She wasn’t afraid.
“I’d never drink from my savior, sweetheart.” Even as he made the promise, his fangs throbbed.
Savior
softened her expression. The exertion had only heightened her fetching blush. Her firm, round breasts quivered with the quick breaths she sucked in. With her arms raised, her breasts stretched up toward his lips. Her nipples, plump and hard, tented her filmy white nightgown.
“I don’t believe you,” she whispered. Even cool and doubting, Athea’s voice purred, feminine and silky. Naturally so. She wasn’t attempting to flirt or seduce.
“I opened my eyes to see a goddess, love. At first I thought you were another dream. That you couldn’t be real. Sweetheart, I would never hurt the angel sent to free me.”
Her wrists stilled. She stopped fighting. “Why would you, a vampire, believe an angel had been sent for you?”
“No man looking at you would think you any other than an angel, my darling.” He released her wrists. Later, when she trusted him, he would introduce her to the games he most enjoyed.
She pulled her arms down to her sides. “You dreamed about me?” One hand slipped Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 50
furtively under the tangled bedcovers.
So, she hoped to distract. What did she have there? A weapon? Faster than she could blink, Bastien flicked back the sheets.
“Another collar? How did you plan to put it on, sweeting?” He winked. “Did you plan to climb on top of me and pin me down to do the deed?”
Straddling her hips, he twined his fingers in hers and pulled her hand away from the metal circle. He kept his weight balanced on his elbow and his knees dug into the woefully saggy mattress. “Sorry to disappoint, Althea, but that collar does nothing to me.”
“Then Ya—his lordship didn’t free you?”
“No, sweeting.” Bastien had sensed Yannick’s presence since rising with the night. But he was free, gloriously free, for the first time in a decade, and he’d had other things to do with his first night than spend it with his saintly brother. His damned saintly brother who was willing to let him rot in a crypt rather than free him. How long had his twin been free? Had the lovely Althea freed his twin first?
Althea frowned, perplexed. “So you removed the collar yourself, Mr. De Wynter?”
“Mr. De Wynter?” Turning another question onto hers, he lifted those delicate fingers to his lips. Dropped a light kiss on their tips. The scent of her sang to him, a siren’s call. Ah, he adored the scent of a gently bred woman. So subtle and clean. How he loved to drink in those light, floral perfumes as he bent to sink his fangs into a maiden’s pretty neck. “Call me Bastien, sweetheart. I never stand on formality with women I make love to.”
Though his hand held hers, she tried to pull away. “I’m not going to—”
She didn’t finish but she didn’t need to. Jealousy stabbed in his gut. Sharp and quick, like the flick of a stinging whip. She had been about to call his brother by his first name. Had Yannick already made love to
his
savior?
“Did you free my brother?” he asked, his voice soft and seductive.
She shook her head. “He was freed almost immediately.”
Bastien fought to control his anger. How in Hades had Yannick got free?
“Dreaming of you kept me from going mad, Althea. Don’t leave me.” He shoved the collar from the bed. As it hit the plank floor with a soft thunk, he rolled onto on his back on the bed.
With a gentle tug, he pulled Althea to sprawl over him and he groaned in pleasure as her sweet weight landed. Quick as a wink, he grasped a handful of plump derrière and squeezed. “It was torture to waken at every sundown, unable to move. Not even enough to blink my eyelids. I thought I was to spend eternity that way. Do you know how magical it felt to look up from that damned tomb and see you above me?”
Her palm splayed flat on his chest. “But—” She stopped. “You saw me?”
“Yes, I could see you. Gazing down on me, as radiant as sunrise—and, yes, hell, I do remember sunrise.
She looked doubtful, but he meant every word. God, to be awake again and to be with her for real. He fisted his hand into all that lush, thick, soft hair. Pulled her down to his mouth, one palm full of soft bottom and the other full of fragrant, silky hair.
The way to seduce Althea was through her mind. Stoke her forbidden fantasies until she burned with need.
He felt her shift and buck up against his clamping hand.
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He let her go, praying she wouldn’t leave him altogether. His heart thudded and since he’d become a vampire his heart never raced. Alive or undead, he’d never been so tentative with a woman. They always fell so easily under his spell. He would charm and seduce, enthrall and flatter. Often all he had to do was command a woman to get into his bed. But he was uneasy here. Her loyalty to Yannick was a tangible thing that he could almost taste.
Something dropped from her nightgown and struck his cheek. A cross, dangling on the thin silver chain encircling her neck. Bastien shifted, catching the warm silver cross on his tongue.
He suckled it lightly, until she yanked it back. In the dark, he saw her look of horror.
But she didn’t leave the bed.
“Damn, but you are a true beauty,” he breathed. She ducked her head at the compliment and it seemed to trouble her more.
Her fair brows drew together. Her lashes dipped over her eyes. “I shouldn’t.”
Bastien was used to wiping clean a woman’s guilt. “Because of Yannick?” He cradled her cheek to reassure her. Heat—a flare of it, a spark like a strike across flint—leapt though his hand at the touch. “I know I’ve shared you with Yannick in the dreams.”
She blushed prettily beneath his fingers, a flush he could see easily with his predator’s vision.