Blood Deep (16 page)

The carriage continued on, but the bickering stopped, and she had to turn her attention from the window and the gate that was only yards away, to face the vampires. Her chest rose with her frantic breaths.

“If you promise to stop, to leave Blackthorne alone,” she cried, “I will let you both do what you want to me. If you want to compete for me, if you want to do carnal things to me and try to seduce me, you can. I won’t fight. But we must stop. And turn back. On the way down, you can . . .”

“We can what?” Lukos prompted.

“You are in no position to bargain,” Zayan said arrogantly, and she saw one of the gateposts fly past the window as the horses were urged to greater speed.

“Then I’ll fight,” she spat out. “With every weapon I have.”

But she knew what she had to do. As soon as they reached the main door, as soon as there were servants about, she would have to sound the alarm.

Even if she died.

Lukos inhaled a long breath as the wheels crunched on gravel. “The heavy perfume of whores, it permeates the place.”

Miranda gaped at him. Could he really smell that? Was it true? She could smell only the damp in the air, the loamy scent of wet earth, the tang of her sweat and other indecent things. . . .

“Heartbeats . . . but not many.” Zayan stroked his blunt, strong jawline. “There should be more in a house of this size.”

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Her heart sank. Blackthorne had revealed in his letters that he kept only a handful of servants, and most were old. The younger ones were driven by curiosity and that infuriated him.

How could a few elderly servants stop vampires? She was going to be responsible for all their deaths too.

Zayan’s hand settled on her shoulder and she jumped at the sudden tingling sensation as his fingertips rested on the skin of her neck.

It was not a reaction of fear . . .

It was one of heat and awareness . . . her traitorous body responding to his magical allure.

“Keep our secret and no one will be hurt.” His voice was cold and without emotion.

“If you were a general, you’ve killed thousands in battle.

You’ve killed probably thousands more as a vampire. I don’t believe you.”

“If you race in there and tell everyone what we are, what will happen?” Lukos leaned across to her. “You will be locked up, and we’ll take the castle with ease. I would not leave you in a prison, my sweet, but I will take this castle for my own. With bloodshed or without.”

“Without? You mean you would spare Blackthorne and his servants?” Miranda could read nothing in Lukos’s silvery eyes, but his brow lifted.

“You can take us across the threshold. Otherwise, we tempt them outside and destroy them one by one. The choice is yours, angel, not mine.”

“The hand that strikes people down will be yours!” she shouted. But she knew that she was the only one who could stop violence and death, so that did make her responsible for innocent lives.

The carriage halted with creaking wheels and the jingle of the traces playing into the windswept quiet.

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There were no servants about, and her coachman and outriders began to unload her trunks and unfasten the horses. Here the wind raced over the barren rock and snapped around the sides of the tower to whirl and eddy in the courtyard. Her bonnet was gone and her disordered curls were tossed over her face.

What must she look like? Mussed hair? Dirt from the inn’s yard streaked her face; she felt the crusts of it on her chin and forehead, and the itch of sweat irritated beneath her corset.

Any servant looking at her would dismiss her in an instant.

But Lukos had already strode to the large oak door and he’d rapped on it loud enough to waken the dead. She had to race forward, with Zayan at her side.

The castle door was flung wide and a grizzled face leaned forward to examine them. The butler wore black, which made him appear as thin as an arrow. Moonlight caught the silver in his thinning gray hair. “The master is not at home.”

Miranda both sagged in relief and gagged in fear. She’d come all this way, she’d read the yearning for her in Blackthorne’s last letter, and he was gone?

Lukos’s silvery eyes glinted. In the shadows, his lips drew back to reveal his fangs—

“No!” Miranda lurched forward toward the butler. She had to make a choice. What to do? She either convinced him to let her and the vampires cross the threshold, or she screamed out what Zayan and Lukos were.

The old eyes peered at her. She prayed he couldn’t see well enough to realize she looked as though she’d been dragged through a hedge.

“I am Miss Miranda Bond. I have been corresponding with Lord Blackthorne for several years and I came here . . . at . . . at his invitation.”

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The man bowed. “I am so sorry, my lady. Sometimes the master is driven to leave. We never have visitors. He left in haste.”

“Where did he go?” She spoke without thinking.

There was no answer. Either the servant did not know where Blackthorne was or he was loyal and circumspect.

“I do not understand,” she said. “How could you not know where he has gone?”

“It is not unusual, my lady. His lordship travels frequently.

He does not inform us as to where he travels, and we rarely know when he plans to return.”

So Blackthorne was safe, at least. But to vanish without telling anyone where he was going? And he did so frequently?

This was the gentleman she had wanted to love, this was the sanctuary she had wanted to believe in . . . and all she found was a mystery. “We shall have to go to the local inn—”

She saw Lukos’s hand raise. Oh, heavens no, he was going to use his magic to overpower the butler’s will—or perhaps kill him outright.

The butler gave an expansive wave of his hand to the large, tomblike foyer of the castle. “No, no, my lady. You are to be a guest at Blackthorne Castle, as are your companions.”

Guilt struck at the thought of what this hospitality was risking, but Lukos and Zayan were already across the threshold.

She hurried to walk in step as they followed the servant within.

“There,” she whispered. “You are guests here. You don’t need to hurt anyone now, do you? You won’t have to feed on anyone.”

Lukos was the one to turn, to smile down on her. Torchlight cast him in eerie shadow. “I’ll hunt beyond the castle walls to feed. For you, sweetheart. But what about when the slayer brings his mob to the castle gates, love? How will you explain that to Blackthorne’s gullible servants?”

Tapestries displayed the Blackthorne crest, two dragons of 130 /
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royal blue against a background of red and gold. Blackthorne had described his home with love, though he admitted a woman would find it a draughty disaster.

She glanced around. Just a week ago, she had dreamed of coming here and bringing warmth and light to Blackthorne’s world. And when she’d left yesterday, she was racing here to protect her family, and because she had nowhere else to go.

The butler carried a candle to light the way. The light flickered over tooled stone and was lost in the tall ceiling of the corridor. They mounted a sweeping stair, and she was caught between Lukos and Zayan, two raven-haired giants.

Along the way a maid was sent to bring other servants on the run, to light fires and bring bathing water, and to inform the kitchens.

“Your chamber, my lady.” An oak door opened to reveal a massive four-poster bed, an enormous fireplace, and heavily carved furniture.

She glanced from one vampire to another. Without a word, she hurried inside the room. As the voice of the butler moved on, she peeked out. Blast, her vampires were being given rooms by hers in the long hallway. She closed the door and turned the key.

Then took several frantic breaths.

Would they leave her alone in her bedchamber?

She hugged herself and went to the window. Small and paned, it gave out on a sheer drop to the forest below. She’d never survive that if she fell, and there was nowhere to climb. There was no route to escape.

A rap at the door, followed by a female voice. Miranda took the risk and opened the lock.

A gray-haired maid brought in a ewer of fresh, steaming water and a basin. Her trunks followed, brought by an aging footman and a man in a rough shirt and breeches. He must be a BLOOD DEEP / 131

groom or a gardener. They dropped the trunks, then rubbed their backs on the way out. The maid curtsied. “Would you wish me to begin hanging your dresses, my lady?”

“No, I want you to escape the house and go to the village.

It’s not safe to stay here. Take the other servants with you.”

She expected shock, but the maid looked at her blankly. “I will go and come back if you need me.”

Already, the vampires had the poor woman under control.

Miranda’s shoulders sagged. She wanted to command the maid to stay, but she had already hastened out the door. Alone, Miranda undid the few fastenings of her simple traveling dress—

now a dirty, crumpled mess. She pulled it off, over her head, but without a maid, she could not loosen her own corset laces.

She prayed that the weak, defenseless woman did not end up being a meal for Lukos or Zayan. She went to the ewer of water the maid had brought and threw the warm water on her face. It dripped to her neck and she rubbed there.

Now, away from the vampires, she couldn’t understand why she had ever thought she belonged with them.

The doorknob rattled. Miranda jerked around.

The key turned in the lock by itself and the door opened.

Zayan leaned on the doorframe, his hands bare of gloves. He had discarded his coat. A white shirt, open at the throat, clung to his shoulders.

“Leave my bedroom.” She held her linen towel against her breasts, thrust up by the corset and covered only by a filmy chemise. Defiantly, she added, “I do not invite you across my threshold.”

“You climaxed with me. Your invitation has already been extended.”

She flushed. “That was when I was trying to save your soul.”

But he strode inside, to her bed, with an arrogance that was as heightened as his strength. He stretched out on her bedcover.

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His muscular legs easily reached to the end and his black boots hung over the edge.

“What do you want from me?” She strained to read his thoughts. She knew he wouldn’t answer aloud, but if he thought of it, she might hear it again. But she heard nothing. “You want my power, I know, but why? I can’t give it to you. I don’t even know what to do with it.”

Zayan levered up on his side, his eyes glittering in the flicking light of the fire and the candles. “You felt at your most comfortable having orgasms with Lukos and me. You felt finally alive, didn’t you?”

I need her love.

She heard that small hint at his thoughts, and it stunned her.

She did not know what to make of it—or the determined tone in which the words came to her. “I think I was controlled by the magic,” she said.

“Not true.” His grin slid over her from mussed hair and damp face down to her dirtied boots. “What you felt is what is truly inside you, Miranda. A passionate nature. A sensual soul.

A yearning to explore and to be free in sexual pleasure.”

“N-no,” she said shakily.

“A lie.” He sat up, and his face showed regret. “Blackthorne’s dungeons are littered with lace torn from ladies clothing, corset laces, and lost hair pins, angel.”

She felt as though punched in the chest. “I don’t believe you.”

“There are some mortal men who are much more wicked than vampires. Come with me. See for yourself.”

“I’m half undressed.” Again, she spoke without pause, without sense. Why remind him?

Zayan held up his cloak, and with a quick flick of his hand, it flew through the air, settled on her shoulders, and closed around her at the front. He led her to the end of the corridor, to a narrow, winding stair that plunged into darkness. She swallowed hard. He could see in the dark, but she could not.

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“I don’t wish to see Blackthorne’s dungeons.”

“Don’t disappoint me, Miranda. I believe you are courageous enough to face anything.”

She knew she had to be. It was just that she had one light in her life—Blackthorne’s love. She could never have him, but she did not want to extinguish that, too, and be left with nothing.

8

Dungeons

In flickering candlelight, Zayan pulled a whip down from its hook upon the wall and threw it to an octagonal table of wrought iron that stood in the center of the dungeon. He looked to her, his silvery eyes speaking volumes of sympathy, but Miranda was too stunned to find words.

She had never seen such things.

The dungeons consisted of three cells cut into the hillside rock. A large oak door stood open on each cell. Iron shackles hung off the walls and ceilings. Benches of odd configurations sat in the corners. She had no idea how a human body would fit on the odd seats and strange leather pads, and she was certain that half were intended to thrust a person’s buttocks into the air.

There were more than scraps of women’s clothing and scattered pins, there were journals complete with carefully rendered illustrations. The pictures had been annotated. She recognized the hand from the letters she had received. These were Blackthorne’s books. In them, he’d sketched his plans of what he intended to do with his female prisoners, adding his notes on 136 /
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what had worked and what had not, and how to make his tortures more arousing.

She dropped one of the books to the table. She was not certain what she felt. Horror. Disappointment. And after her erotic adventure with Lukos where he had been tied up, a sense of understanding that unnerved her.

She was stunned. But after what she had revealed as her fantasies, did she have any right to judge?

Zayan stepped in front of her. “You see, angel.” His voice was infinitely gentle. “He would have hurt you more than I ever would.”

Miranda crossed her arms over her chest. Anger boiled, and she wanted to take up the whip and lash it at the walls. “You would happily hurt me. You would drain my blood, and the only reason you haven’t is that I have something you want.”