Immortal With A Kiss Part 11

Where was my fear? Where was my skill? Ah, but I was filled with a sense of well-being, exalted and immobilized at it came toward me, freed from the horror of what I had done. The cautious voice I'd heard in my head a moment ago was but a faraway whisper now.

Let me show you something beautiful.

The first touch was a lance of pleasure, taking me to my knees. I sucked in sharply as a second shard of sensation bit into my body. My bones had no substance, and I melted into a heap on the ground.

There was no one around me, just the wolf still two dozen or so paces off. I stood, panting in reaction. What had I just felt?

Then again, an invisible hand traced a light pattern up my back, riding the ridges of my spine. I cried out, spinning about-but no one was there! I felt it again. Underneath my clothes, my skin rippled as though my naked flesh had been lightly brushed with the gentlest fingertip.

Even as my body responded, my mind recoiled. I hissed in a breath as it-whatever it was-cupped my breast, then pinched me. I tried to cover myself but nothing I did stopped the feeling of being touched so intimately. I moaned loudly in desperation to be free as greedy unseen fingers slid up my thigh. This thing's insidious touch was everywhere, yet there was no one here with me, nothing around save the wolf who calmly watched me with its translucent eyes, solemn, mysterious.

This was the vampire, it had to be-but why did I not see it? The Dhampir was supposed to be able to see vampires in their invisible form and yet I saw nothing. I was alone, as wave after wave of the unwelcome pleasure stole over me. Stole into me.

Give yourself to me. To the pleasure I can bring.

I thought I heard my name, shouted from far away. I could not tell if it were spoken by friend or foe, but I could not answer in either case.

Here is my servant.

Out of the woods strode a figure. Confident, smiling, tall and lean. I blinked, and recognized the Irish boy. His face was blank, hardened so I barely recognized him. What was he doing here?

"Help me," I said.

He seemed shocked. "What?" He took a step forward, confused. "Don't you want it?"

I shook my head violently, wheeling away from him when he extended his hands to me. I scratched hard at my body, nails digging in to where my flesh tingled. Tears spilled onto my cheeks, but my voice was locked in my throat. I remembered the feel of the rats. This touch was a thousand times more repulsive than their devouring mouths.

When I looked up again, the Irish boy was gone.

I heard shouts nearby and I opened my mouth to call back, but only gasped as a terribly invasive feeling breached my thighs. My voice gone, I folded into a protective coil onto the ground.

Let the coward flee.

The wolf began to pace in agitation. I reached out to it with my mind, hoping to make contact with it, which was what I'd done before in Avebury when confronted by vampire minion wolves, but I could not concentrate.

"Emma."

Was that someone calling to me? Or merely my imagination? I could not tell. I mewled in desperation, twisting feebly, ineffectively, to escape the sensations of a lover's hand.

The seductive voice cooed to me: Do not resist.

I began to pray, muttering fragments of prayers I'd memorized in Latin. Immediately, I felt a reaction ripple through the air, and for a moment I was free.

I heard him: No!

"Get away," I managed.

A low chuckle was my only response, and I felt a touch so intimate I split the air with a wail of rage and disgust. My hands went to where I felt him-it-and clawed to get it away.

"Emma!" I heard my name called out again, louder now. The grip that held me trapped let up slightly, only to renew when I strained against it.

"Emma!"

That voice! I was delirious. I had to be. In my desperation, my mind had gone to him. But he was not here. He'd abandoned me long ago.

The wolf snarled, his haunches bunching as voices grew closer behind me. A form darted past me, and as I lay on the ground, I knew I was hallucinating. The man I saw was neither of the slight, boyish build of Sebastian, nor of the large-framed Father Luke. Slender, athletic, he sprinted past more swiftly than any mortal man. I only got a glimpse of dark hair, and a face set in grim lines.

The world spun, and I felt as if I'd been tossed down a towering cliff. This new cruelty far surpa.s.sed anything I'd endured so far. My heart broke, finally, completely, and I began to cry, openly, loudly, in great convulsions.

Then someone cradled me in capable hands and lifted me into the air as if I were but a doll. I beat against the form, finding solid flesh this time, a human masculine breast.

It was by his scent I knew. It is strange how memory works. Had I been asked a day ago if Valerian Fox's skin held a particular smell, I would not have remembered. But the moment it hit my senses, I knew who held me. My disorientation was banished.

Was I incoherent, to think he was here, bearing me away from that unspeakable violation? This was a dream, a wish. He could not really be here now.

But I could feel him. A man's coat felt crisp and thick under my palm. When I turned my head, there was masculine roughness against my cheek. I felt the soft press of a kiss at my temple.

"She is insensate," he said. Again, his voice, floating over me like a soft rain. He twisted me in his arms, and I knew he wanted to look at me. I was afraid to meet his gaze. I was afraid this was nothing but a dream, and if I awakened, he would disappear.

I swallowed hard, braced myself, and raised my eyes.

The swarthy, saturnine face of Valerian Fox hovered for a moment in my vision, faintly out of focus, then suddenly clear. The strong, finely wrought nose, the elegantly turned mouth that could be cruel or sensitive according to his mood, the angular jaw, the heavy-lidded eyes-all these features that were so familiar, so utterly known. I was suddenly aware of relief, as if I'd been holding my breath for a long, long time and I could at last breathe.

"Emma," he murmured, touching my face. "Are you in pain?"

Pain? Memory returned, and I cringed. It had been worse than pain. It had been a foul perversion of pleasure. I shook my head, and he stared at me, confused. "You are bleeding," he stated.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

His features were softened with concern and tenderness. He spoke comfortingly. "Time later for that. There is blood all over you. Is it yours? Are you injured?"

I had little patience for talking about blood or injuries. I had a hundred questions that demanded answers. "I . . . I don't know."

"We shall get you to a doctor," he p.r.o.nounced, and turned to Sebastian with me still snugly in his arms.

Sebastian replied, "The doctor is a sod. I would not trust him with her, but there is a woman not far away, Serena Black. I purchased some draughts from her, to help the priest."

"Is she a healer?"

"The draughts did what she promised, that is all I can say."

I heard the grimness in Valerian's tone. "Then lead the way."

"Father Luke," I said. "Where is he?"

Sebastian explained, "He will bring the trap back to the school and wait for me to fetch him. Do not worry, I told him to have a care not to be seen."

I shook my head. Father Luke must be weakened-how could he be expected to perform such a task in his present state?

The matter was taken out of my hands as Valerian strode back through the woods with me in his arms. He was not strigoii vii, nor, in fact, any kind of vampire, but he had the blood of the vampire in him. It made him not immortal but possessed of incredibly long life and slowed aging, with abnormally sharp senses and superior strength.

Thus it was that he swung astride his great stallion while holding me, all with very little effort. We sped across the wide moorlands, Sebastian following.

I was numb, withdrawn. I did not want to feel and so I remained wooden in Valerian's arms when he bore me to the ground once we reached our destination.

"What is wrong with her?" Sebastian's voice inquired anxiously.

"She is in shock." There was a short pause, and the strain in his voice increased. "The blood is hers. She is covered with wounds."

I heard rapping at the door, voices speaking. From my well of paralysis, I heard a woman stridently order me to be brought inside. She told the men to leave, and Valerian argued. Then we were alone, she and I. I was in the hands of a stranger.

"I am Serena Black," she told me in a gentle Slavic accent. I tried to focus on her face, but my eyes were drawn by the glint of metal. She held a knife, the edge gleaming in the light. She brought it toward me and, with a flick of her wrist, she cut into the st.u.r.dy wool of my bodice and peeled away a blood-soaked strip. I cried out, clutching the shred to me. My hands, slick with my own blood, closed around her wrist. I could not be naked. I could not.

Her palm came down hard on my cheek, snapping my head back. The shock of the slap jolted me out of my hysteria. I lay unmoving under her ministrations, wanting Valerian. I wanted to feel him, hear his low, rumbling voice soothing me. But he had abandoned me again.

My consciousness bobbed like a cork breaking the surface of reality, in and out. When I was awake, everything was faded, far away. When I was not, there was peace.

"The wolf did that to her?" Was that Valerian speaking? I had not dreamt him? "The gashes are many, but not terribly deep."

The woman's voice answered. "Her nails were clotted with blood. She did it to herself."

A beat of silence. "Why would she do such a thing?" When the woman did not answer, he continued, "Is there risk of fever?"

"But little. I will make her a draught to ward off infection."

"You are a healer then?"

There was a low laugh. The woman's reply, however, bore no amus.e.m.e.nt. "Have you not heard? They call me witch."

I heard breathing even before I opened my eyes.

She was there, in a chair drawn up close to my side of the bed. A lamp on the table between us cast shadows on her lap where she'd laid her sewing. She was watching me, and when my gaze lifted to hers, she leaned forward. "I am Serena Black," she said.

"I remember. The witch."

She smiled. Her mouth was full-lipped and her eyes, the same coal-black as her hair, were perfectly almond-shaped. Her look was very Slavic, with flat, high cheekbones and a small, sultry mouth. She was breathtakingly lovely. "Some say."

"Are you the Cyprian Queen?"

Her smile froze into a rictus. "No. I am not that."

I settled back. "I do not feel any pain."

She nodded. "It is best."

"Do you know . . . ? Do you know what happened to me?"

She stared at me, and fatigue pulled me back into the void before I got my answer.

When I woke again, she was still there. I sat up and asked for water, which she gave me from a pitcher and gla.s.s she had ready at my bedside.

"Your man will be back for you in the morning. I sent him away. He was underfoot, and I had no patience for it."

"He is not my man," I said in a rough voice. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"A day, perhaps." She lowered her gaze to where her hands were working swiftly with her needle. "What were you doing at the Woodc.o.c.k cottage?"

I blinked, confused. "Where?"

"Rose, and her baby. James said that the man who abducted his wife and child came back for them and now they are gone." She gave an expressive shrug, and did not seem overly sympathetic. Her gaze was sharp on me. "But I know what you did. I saw you. You and the other man, the one who came to me for the draughts to help his friend."

Cold dread flowered in my chest as I digested this. "You mean . . . you saw us?"

"Do not worry, for I know what you are. I am familiar with the Dhampir. In my country, such things need not be secret. But here . . ." Another shrug, and her needle began to move again.

"Your country. Where are you from?"

"The Ukraine. I am from the city of Odessa." She leaned forward. "Do you know what happened to you?"

I tried to think about the forest, but my head hurt too much. "I could see nothing. I can always see vampires when they are invisible to others, but there was nothing there."

"But you did see it. The wolf-you kept talking about the wolf in your sleep."

"The . . . attack . . . was different. It was like . . . it was as if an incubus were . . . Could it be some demon-?" I cut off, recollecting the book on witchcraft I'd found in Margaret's room.

"I did not see much. I did not get close. I cannot afford to be caught there. There is already too much superst.i.tion about me, because I am foreign."

"Why were you at the cottage?"

"The same reason as you. No, I am not Dhampir. I would not have killed it-what she had become. I thought perhaps the baby had not been made over, so I went with some protections for it, in case it was still living-garlic, salt, these things."

I winced as a clear image of the child came into my mind. "He had been."

"Yes. I know now."

I sighed, my thoughts slowing. I thought suddenly of Miss Sloane-Smith, who would be angry wondering where I was. "Did anyone send word to the school?"

"That other man, the little one with the fussy curls who knew to bring you to me. He came to me before, for tonics to help the opium sickness. He said to tell you that you are not to worry and that he will take care of everything. You are only to rest. Your man will be back for you soon."

I relaxed, but I said again, "He is not my man."

Her lush mouth pulled into a wry, knowing smile, but she said nothing. Picking up her sewing, she began to hum a lullaby. Despite my efforts not to, I slept again.

Chapter Thirteen.