The Vampire And The Highland Empath (7 page)

“He said it was not his place.” She carded her palms together, placing them primly in her lap. “So I am asking you.” She gave him the look of a woman expecting to get her way. Which sent a tingly fissure of delight into his belly.

She frowned when he didn’t immediately answer. “I know I’ve come through time.”

Slept through it more precisely. “Alex told you that?”

She nodded and a waft of sea water drifted from her wild tousled hair. He wanted to reach out and feel it between his fingers.

“What else did he tell you?”

“That ye’re at war. That this Hitlam—”

“Hitler.”

“Hitler seeks to use my gifts as a weapon.” Her tone sharpened with disgust. “Roque, does he also seek you as a weapon?”

The concern in her eyes speared straight to his gut, unraveling the hard wall he’d spent years in building. The dragon moved, scales rubbing across scales rumbled in his ears.

Her hand slipped to the puncture wounds at her neck. “Ye’re of the race of vampires.”
 

She’d put it all together. Roque stiffened. She would know vampires were born of magic that was dark, yet her features held no disgust. Or fear…and the hard shell coating Roque’s emotions cracked a little bit more. He very nearly told her about being a dragon as well.

“Yet ye’re also different than most vampires.” Her brows creased. “Why did ye bite me?”

Again, shock splintered his system. Vampire. To most people blood addiction was the only association they had with vampires. Monstrous, vile addicts that sucked people dry. Monsters. Yet here Edeen sat, not even considering that he had bitten her for his own personal high.

His heart swelled at the wonderment of her.

Dark lashes swept up, revealing intense green eyes and he realized she waited for an answer.

“To wake you.”

Her eyes narrowed, head tilted in a gesture of
go on
.

This wouldn’t be easy for her to hear, not with her brother’s part in it. “You didn’t travel to this century through a sorcerer’s rift.”

“Then how--?”

“You slept.”

“Slept.” A wisp of an incredulous smile lifted a corner of her lip. “For a hundred years. ‘Tis impossible.”

“Close to seven centuries.” His tone held the same weight as a grave marker.

Edeen’s shoulders stiffened. “Ye’re serious?”

Roque shifted up, ignoring the bracing ache in his side. Alex mumbled in his sleep. The man was a brilliant strategist, but could sleep through machine gun fire. He’d seen it.

Edeen rocked forward, her arms pressed tight against her stomach. “How? How is that possible?”

Roque leaned forward as well, so that his forehead almost touched hers. He spoke quietly to not awaken Alex. “We don’t know exactly how it was done. That kind of magic hasn’t been known for generations. Not since—“

Her head snapped up, nearly colliding with his nose. “Tell me.”

“From what we could piece together—mostly from legend and oral history that was finally written centuries later…” Questionable at best. “There was a battle on Crunfathy Hill between your brothers and a witch.”

“Aye.” Edeen’s heart rate was slowing. “Aldreth.”

He took her hand. It was cold. “The histories didn’t say.”

Edeen’s hand trembled. “She meant to force Toren, my brother a powerful sorcerer, to give her all his magic by blending with her and by extension the magic of our clan.” Her eyes swept up. “All magic would have darkened.”

He failed. Magic is darkness
, he didn’t tell her. Instead he said, “In the battle on the hill, something happened. You were hurt, put into a deep slumber that even your sorcerer brother could not undo.”

“The smugglers cave?” Now her pulse sped up. He could sense the blood pumping wildly through her thin veins. “He took me to the smugglers cave.”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t respond. Silence thrummed through the stale chilly air of the cave. Alex roused, shifting his head on the ruck sack. His neck would have a fine crick, but Roque wasn’t inclined to wake him just yet. His gaze tracked onto the bandages wrapped around Alex’s hands, at the redness of his skin and a jolt shot through him.
Dammit, Alex
. He knew exactly what had happened. Guilt thudded into his gut like a gavel.

“Your brother must have loved you very much.”

“Why do you say that?”

So much loss and vulnerability spilled through her tone, Roque’s heart shattered for her.

“He wouldn’t let you die.” Nor would he, he vowed, not knowing where the sudden sentiment came from. “Toren couldn’t wake you, yet he made certain you’d be safe, hidden, preserved within spells upon spells. It must have taken every ounce of his strength to achieve that.”

Edeen nodded, never doubting her brother’s devotion and Roque suddenly longed to know what that felt like, that surety of love.

Alex stirred again and they went quiet. “Is it breakfast yet?” Alex drawled, one eye cracking open and stretched his arms. Roque wondered how long he’d been awake and listening. “Cor, my neck hurts.”

Chapter Seven

There was no way around it. Roque had to use dragon fire to get through the bricks. Now that Geschopf’s bullet was out, he had the strength to do it, but…he glanced at Edeen.

Her features were scrunched, watching him intently, uncertain of what he was up to.

She was about to get an eyeful.

She accepted him being a vampire easily enough, which brought a new surge of tenderness just thinking of that, yet a dragon?

There wasn’t much hope for it. Besides she had already witnessed fire drift off his skin, though she had not brought it up.

He turned back to the bricks, gathering the fire to his belly, building. A tight vibration pressed against his head. The dragon roused within him. Bringing fire from his core was always a risk, especially when he tried to focus the generated heat in large bursts. Drawing so much fire forth all at once came dangerously close to letting the dragon free and he could never do that. Never transform. He learned that much from Geschopf, though it was not the lesson
Die
Schwarzen Klaue
had meant to teach
. Once transformed, he would become an untamed creature of nature, feral, acting from primeval instinct. Something Geschopf could shape and mold to his liking. He would no longer be himself. That was his greatest fear.

Carefully, he soothed the beast within, treading lightly around his core and fanned the flames, allowing the fire to pool inside his veins where he let it burst forth, erupting through his fingertips.

He shot a steady stream of fire into a line of mortar between the bricks.

Edeen gasped. He felt her shift back, felt the rhythm of her heart speed up. Alex’s pulse, also, picked up. Even with all they’d been through together, Roque rarely exposed so much of his fire.

Roque didn’t look back, a little hesitant of what he’d find in their expressions, so he poured his focus into his flame, drilling through the mortar with the precision of a light machine gun.

He moved from one line of mortar to another below that until, with nothing to hold them, the bricks fell upon themselves.

Extinguishing his flame, Roque still did not look back. Mortar dust and debris floated in the dark air.

Edeen’s blood pumped crazily, a fluttering punch to his gut.

He flinched when she moved to his side.

“By the rood, vampires have changed these past centuries.” Wonder filled the lush tones of her voice.

Alex chuffed out a laugh.

Roque’s gaze snapped to Edeen’s profile and something alien and tender curled around his chest. She looked at the broken bricks with something akin to awe.

Alex pushed the ruck sack between them, shoving past as he bent and stepped over the pile of bricks. “Shall we, then?” The handle of his Enfield revolver gleamed from the back of his waistband.

Glancing at each other, Edeen and Roque followed suit. They passed into some sort of storeroom basement. Large marked bags and boxes on shelves lined the walls, with more bins and smaller boxes atop wooden tables in the center of the room. One wall was made with shelving for wine and casks, though most the places were empty, the distinct indicator of wartime rationing.

Edeen stared wide-eyed at the assortment of goods.

Roque moved toward the stairs, motioning for Edeen and Alex to stay behind him. His keen sense of hearing picked up movement upstairs, lots of talking. Lots of heartbeats.

He waited at the top of the steps, listening at the door. Simple idle chatter. Edeen and Alex moved up behind him.

He cracked open the door and a riot of sounds and smells wafted over him. Spices, leather, paper. When he pushed the door open farther, all conversation halted.

Seven faces, waiting in queue at a small country store, ration books in hand, turned toward them

“Hey now,” the store clerk lifted her stamp. “What’re ye doing down there?”

Roque gave her a dazzling smile and she instantly cut off, her round face reddening. “There’s a hole in your cellar. Did you know that, luv?”

Her brows rose into her hairline. He had them all truly well and flustered. Edeen and Alex scurried past him toward the opposite door.

“You should plug that up again if you ask me, now shouldn’t you.” He smiled and rushed out the door into a bright afternoon. Roque lifted his face to the sunlight, the dragon within preening, absorbing the warming rays.

Beside him, he detected a small intake of breath from Edeen, the smallest fissure of wariness.

“’Tis no longer a meadow.” Her hand found his and Roque was inordinately pleased that she’d sought him for even a small reassurance.

He squeezed her fingers. Her gaze tracked around the whitewashed houses and black electrical lines that crossed above the hard-packed dirt street. A woman walked by and Edeen’s eyes went wide at the short tight skirt and nylons with the black seam running down the back, the rolled back hair. A lorry passed by, lifting a cloud of dirt and smelling of petrol, and her heart rate fluttered.

By all accounts this was a small seaside village, but all the modernizations must be miracle overload to her. She was taking it in remarkably well and a tendril of pride burrowed its way closer to his heart. Edeen was getting to him more than anyone had in a long long time—probably ever if he was truthful with himself.

Roque let his arm slip around her waist, offering what small comfort he dared without falling over the cliff until she leaned in closer. Such a miniscule action shouldn’t have the power to drop him over the edge, but there he was, breath stilling and sailing through the air.

“We need transportation,” he said to Alex, more to ground himself.

“Back,” Alex hissed, grabbing the back of their clothes and pulling them both back into the shadows of the store front.

Not questioning Alex’s order, they ducked behind a tall pile of cut peat at the side of the building. Alex angled his head to the right. “Two SS guys loitering over by the Tailor Shop.” Though they were in plain-clothes, they still stood out.

 
Are they…?” Alex’s mouth twisted. “Is that a
krampus
?”

Sure enough, at least one of the SS soldiers bore the leathery smashed-up goat-ish features and wild coarse black hair. His cap undoubtedly concealed angled horns.
 

Damn, Geschopf most likely had men stationed about the small village and along the country roadways, counting on the fact that if Roque and Edeen survived the sea, they’d have to come to the village for either a radio or transportation.

“Wait here.” Roque shifted to go take care of them.

Alex latched onto his arm. “Hey. Your I’m-a-big-bad-indestructible-vampire approach won’t work this time.”

Roque grinned. “It always works.”

“Not while they’re sporting those new bullets, it won’t.”

Roque stopped and rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Right, then. That is a bit of a disappointment, isn’t it?”