A Vampire's Claim (11 page)

But she was here, she was safe. Whatever she needed, he’d figure it out. A more complicated problem was what needed to be done about the dead men lying out around the burned-out Rovers. They were almost on the edge of Thieves’ Station property, though still about sixty miles from the actual homestead. The nearest place from here, if he remembered correctly, was about fifty more miles.

Fortunately, the Rovers had detonated in a relatively bare patch, and the wind had been down, so the fire had died out before it could become one of the devastating wildfires that could take out thousands of acres and attract too damn much attention. While the residual smoke might be seen by another station or settlement, her land was one of the rare sections that had a scattering of mountain ranges and rock formations amid the desert sections, so it might not prompt a radio call. However, if a mail plane or the Flying Doctor service passed overhead . . .

Cripes, eight dead men and here he was, trying to think of ways to conceal them. Maybe Elle was right. The kangaroos weren’t just loose in his top paddock. They’d soared over the fence and had gone walkabout.

“Danny,” he murmured quietly. “About the men.”

“Know.” Her eyes opened and they stared at each other. “We’ll send someone . . . clean up. After we get to station. Don’t like to think . . . dingoes. But might be for the best. The heat. No families.”

Though she didn’t say it, he suspected that was a personnel requirement for her. His gut tightened. “How long do you think it’ll be before you’re ready to travel, love?”

“Bored with . . . babysitting. Already?”

Despite the words, he didn’t see much in her eyes except exhaustion, and that weariness wasn’t merely physical. She was fencing with him out of habit, not real spirit. Putting his hand next to hers on the rock, he overlapped her smallest finger with his.

“You’re a braw lassie, as my Scots granddad might have said, but I’m not seeing you as the bat-in-a-cave type of vampire.”

“No?” She arched a brow, a gesture reassuringly similar to the confidence she’d shown in his arms at the pub.

“Nope. You’re more the lady-of-the-manor type, ready to spear the help with your fangs over a chipped china dish.”

Her eyes closed, her tongue coming out to lick her lips, which seemed to help with their movement. “Shows what you know. I’m . .

. pleasant boss . . . compared to other . . . vampires.” Her mouth thinned. “Except still . . . get killed . . . working for me.”

He slid his hand completely over hers this time, though lightly, and her eyes opened again. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. Good men . . . who deserved better.”

He knew when to keep silent and so he did, watching her as she appeared to drift off into a doze, tempered with the occasional jerk or painful shudder. Her lack of concern over authorities finding the bodies struck him as curious. But then, Thieves’ Station had been surrounded with dark rumors for some time. It suggested the landowners had a contingency plan for that—deep pockets or another manner of compelling law enforcement to overlook such things or downplay them, so they were treated as exaggerated local gossip, as he’d implied to Elle.

The current management is strongly opposed to me . . .

All these things should set off alarm bells, and they did. But when had the world—or his life—ever made any bloody sense, after all?

“Giant kangaroo.”

He saw her gaze was back on the wall. Twisting, he looked past the Rainbow Serpent done in white and red earth by a more recent aboriginal group, to a much older scratching that had used gold and blue as well. Lord, nothing wrong with her eyes. He had to leave her side to go make it out. It showed a group of stick figure men hunting a kangaroo that towered over them.

“Could be.” He ran his fingers over it. “Looks pretty old. They say kangaroos grew past ten feet, thousands of years ago.

Wombats were the size of that crispy Rover of yours.”

“Don’t believe it.” She studied the wall, obviously seeking things to distract her from the pain racking through her in short convulsions that had his own skin flinching in sympathy. “Things don’t survive . . . thousands years . . . by getting weaker . . .

smaller.”

“Depends, love.” He looked at the wasteland of her body, the beautiful face. Remembered how she’d commanded everyone’s attention just by existing, the second she’d stepped into Elle’s. “Sometimes seeming like less of a threat is the best survival technique of all. I suspect you were attacked because somebody decided you’re far more than a pretty face.”

“Dev.
Dev.
”

He’d gone to sleep with his rifle and knife close to hand, so he had the latter tight in his grip when he came up out of a murky dream, responding to the urgency in her voice.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes, turned to her. During the past six hours, after periodic awakenings where he’d told her stories about the bush and a variety of other nonsense to help her drift back into a doze, the open meat of her back had begun to scar over. But she was still shaking. Putting his hand on her forehead, he found she was burning up, literally so hot he had to remove his hand.

“What’s happening, love?”

“Sun poisoning . . . the vampire version of it.” She closed her eyes, apparently to manage a hard spasm that rocked her against the stone. It passed as if she’d been rolled by a wave and was bracing herself for the next one. “I need a little blood now, for strength to fight it. From your arm. Don’t . . . let me take too much.”

Her tongue was also healing, for her voice, though low and hoarse, was much clearer, and her lips looked less bee-stung. Nodding, he straightened up and leaned over her, taking his wrist toward her mouth.

“No.” She recoiled, her hands curling into claws. “Cut . . . drip it in my mouth.
Don’t
let me have your arm.”

Frowning, he did as bade, making a shallow cut on his forearm and then positioning it over her mouth. It wasn’t as easy as letting her put her lips on him. The blood kept rolling down his elbow, but most dripped onto her tongue or splashed her lips, where she could lick it off.

After she’d had about half a cup, she nodded and turned her face back toward the rock. A couple of last drops hit her cheek, making her flinch. “I don’t like you seeing me this way,” she said. “My mouth open, like some gaping fish.”

He hadn’t thought about it that way at all. He was humbled by it, how she turned her face up to him, golden lashes fanning her cheeks as she parted her lips, her delicate tongue twitching, waiting for the sustenance from him.

“Don’t be daft, love,” he said. Holding pressure on his wound to help it clot, he put his other finger to her cheek, collected the blood on it. Her gaze turned back to him. She might have been about to warn him again, but he put the bloodstained fingers to the corner of her mouth, teased her with it. Watching him in a curiously immobile manner, as if she were trapped in a suit of armor—

and perhaps that wasn’t inaccurate, hampered as she was by so many healing burns—she parted her lips. He stroked the bottom one, her fang so close it scraped his knuckle, causing a flicker in her eyes.

“This will get bad,” she whispered. “Worse before it gets better. You ever treat anyone in a fever delirium, Dev?”

“Once. My boy, Rob, he caught something. Tina and I took care of him. Thought we were going to lose him for a bit there.”

“Tina. Your wife?”

He nodded, a short motion, and her expression softened. “A nice name. I bet she was pretty, delicate. But strong of heart. Loved you.”

“Better than I deserved,” he said gruffly. “Love, don’t—”

She shook her head. “ ’S okay. The fever, it will be like that. But I’m going to be a hell of a lot stronger than your boy. You’re going to look like a slab of blood-soaked beef, and I’m going to be a starving shark. You need to leave. Go somewhere else for a while. A half day maybe.”

“Ah.” When he sat back on his heels in that comfortable manner bushies and blackfellas had, as if they could squat for days, Danny found it unexpectedly calming. “What if I give you some blood, about every hour or so?”

“You’ll get weak.” She shook her head.

“But you’ll heal faster, get you back to yourself.”

“You need to go,” Danny said stubbornly. Even though an idiotic part of her wanted him to stay. She didn’t want to be alone during this.

He studied her. “You’re not the best liar, love.”

“I don’t need to lie. I’m not the noble type, remember?”

“Maybe not entirely. But your chances will be better if you have a blood source.”

“You won’t leave.” She realized it from the set of his jaw.

“No.”

Danny bit back a sigh. “If you change your mind, I won’t think the worse of you.”

“Well, on something like that, it’s not your opinion that counts, love.”

She didn’t need to second-mark him to guess what was going on behind those sea green eyes. She let her own narrow. “You’ve nothing to prove. I’m not your family. I’m a vampire that took you to my bed. Treated you like my slave.”

“And I let you. I wanted you to, Devil help me.” He bent down to her, ignoring her hiss of warning, bringing the rich smell of his life and heartbeat close. “Maybe I want you around to do it again.”

“Back up,” she said unsteadily. “Dev, I mean it.”

Her fangs were lengthening, and when his gaze flickered, she knew he’d seen the red tinge coming into her irises. A man who’d obviously confronted predators before, he did a slow and easy rock back onto his heels, nothing quick or startled. God, he could get her worked up even when she was like this. And he shouldn’t have been any prize right now.

Crusted with sand and ash, a few scrapes and burns from getting too close to the Rovers, he smelled of smoke and sweat. But she couldn’t dispel the effect of his provocative comment, the way he refused to flinch, no matter what danger she threatened. As if it had a rope on it, her mind tugged her gaze to the slope of his fine chest beneath the open neck of the shirt, the muscled line of his arm, the way his forearm rested on his thigh, his hand loosely dangling. And since she’d gone that far, she might as well indulge in an appreciative look at his groin, the curve of testicles and that amazingly large cock, emphasized by the spread of his thighs.

She was in roiling pain, unable to even hold herself up on her trembling arms. But that wouldn’t be the case for long. Even now, the stirring in her lower belly was ratcheting up her bloodlust. She shoved it away, while she still had the sanity to do so, and chose anger instead. Because if he was doing what she thought . . .

“I am not going to be your bloody death wish,” she snapped. “Do you understand that? I will stake myself first.”

Anger flashed in his gaze. “It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? Rack off. Now.” She firmed her lips. “I don’t need you around for this.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. However, instead of saying anything more, he picked up the cloth he’d kept in the billy of water, wrung it out. As he wiped the cool dampness of it across her brow, he spoke low. “You’re sweating.” Then, even more quietly, “I won’t leave you like this, Danny. And you damn well can’t make me.”

The gentle stroking, at odds with his words, made her eyes close. “Bloody hell, Dev. I want the pleasure of you in my bed again, too. If you let me kill you, that’s not going to happen.”

“Well, when you put it that way. I’ll leave you to care for yourself, then. Even a man with a death wish will live another few hours if he thinks he might have one more naughty out of it.”

She smiled, her eyes still closed. “Worthless larrikin. All right, have it your way. Give me a little every hour, about as much as you just did. If I latch on to you at any point, you do whatever you have to do to knock me off you. The butt of your rifle might be best.

Shoot me if you have to. It won’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you when you’re already in pain.”

She opened her eyes then, forced herself up onto her elbows, hissed at him when he reached forward to help, arresting the motion.

Despite her pain, she made sure the command she injected into her voice was that of the woman who’d bound him to a bed, teased and tormented him for hours, who’d drawn pleasure from goading him to climax with the lash of his own whip. “Dev, there are only three things that can kill a vampire. Prolonged exposure to sunlight, cutting off my head, or a stake directly through the heart, which is much harder to do than most books and films tell it. Everything else will fix itself. In several days, any trace that I’ve been burned will be completely gone. But when a burn is this bad, there’s delirium first. I’ll be mad for blood, little better than a rabid animal. No rope in your pack will hold me.” She paused, considering. “Though it would slow me down. Ever done a hog-tie on a person?

Wrists to ankles to throat?”

“What?”

She made an impatient gesture. “If I try to get free, I’ll choke myself. It can weaken me, make me pass out. Though since I don’t need oxygen to live, lack of air won’t kill me.”

“I’ll just bind your wrists,” he said uncomfortably.

“Dev.” She forced herself to patience, though part of her wanted to scream. Perhaps this was why so many vampires liked having full, third-mark servants. No need to explain everything. Merely open that part of your mind and they’d understand. “The healing will continue, even under the rope. As I said, the question isn’t
will
I heal, but how fast. You’re right; regular blood throughout will help with that, but if you’re determined to stay, then you do it my way, damn it.”

Despite the ripple of raw pain that came with it, she turned to her side, staying up on one arm. The braid he’d tucked into a knot had loosened and now fell forward to brush against the curve of one breast, the pink tip of a nipple. As she saw his eyes follow it, she remembered how fascinated he’d been at the boardinghouse, when her hair was loose and reached the cleft of her buttocks.

She remembered how his shoulders had tensed, the muscles in his arms rippling against his bonds, conveying his need to touch her.

Bloody hell. Just the heady memory, combined with the pain, made her sway. Ignoring her warning once again, the stubborn idiot had his hands on her, steadying her. Saliva gathered in her mouth, wanting to tear into him.