Blood Deep (22 page)

The wolf bounded to her and she held her breath. Her chest thundered. She scrambled back but bumped the tree. “N-no.”

Sniffing the air, the wolf moved in closer.

11

The Chain

Stay utterly, completely still.

Miranda whispered the warning softly to herself as the wolf cocked its regal head and looked at her. The animal’s dark, liquid, beautiful eyes solemnly held hers. Reflective eyes with a hint of violet.

Lukos.

The fog sucked in around him, covering him like a white blanket; then it shimmered. In moments, he stepped out of the thick mist, his hair long and loose, his body—naked.

He had pursued her. Though she was a captive again, Miranda felt a surge of relief.

She had not seen the moment of transition, and it seemed so impossible that the fearsome wolf had transformed into this man.

He held his arms wide in a sign of welcome and she stepped forward into his embrace.

He gathered her to his broad, warm chest. Her fingers curled against him, and she gave a shuddering sigh as his arms tightened. He was a vampire, but his caress was loving and gentle, even as it promised strength and power.

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She should not feel safe held against him. She should feel fear. But she didn’t.

His hand skimmed up to her neck, settling around the nape.

He pulled her into his kiss. Possessively, his mouth took hers. It was a fierce joining, with none of the languorous tongue play he’d indulged in before. This was the kiss of a man who believed he owned the woman he was kissing.

Miranda pulled back. “Did you kill him?” Considering Ryder had wanted to rape her, take her power, and kill her, she should not feel the spurt of concern for him. But she could not help herself. She was not a ruthless woman.

Lukos’s hand closed around her shaking wrist. “Come, angel, I’m weakening in the daylight and we have to go.”

Though she wanted nothing more than to run, Miranda held back as he tried to pull her forward. “No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?” He growled like the wolf he had been. “I just rescued you from a lunatic who wanted to rape you, then kill you. Come with me, Miranda.”

“I cannot.” She quickly told him of the children who had died and the one she had saved. “Ryder said the Society wants to destroy me and told me that I might be creating vampires.

But I know I am not. I have the power to save these children, to save their families from the worst grief. The Royal Society just assumes my power must be evil. I believe it is good, and I intend to prove it. I have two more children to rescue.”

“You will not.” Arrogance showed in his up-tilted chin, in his flashing eyes. “There is too much risk.”

She abruptly turned away from him and began to march through the woods, moving from tree to tree to fight her way through the mist. She was following the path of her feet, all the while asking her heart to guide her to the next child.

“Stop,” Lukos bellowed. “I am not going to let you get yourself killed.”

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“Why should it matter to you? I found the small boy that you fed from. I saved him—”

“What young boy?” Shouting behind her, he sounded genuinely perplexed and frustrated. “I have not fed from a child.”

She didn’t stop. She ran so crazily her hips bumped the trees, and her feet slipped on wet roots and fallen branches. “Then perhaps Zayan did,” she yelled. “Or perhaps you are lying. You turned the servants of Blackthorne’s castle into mindless drones and fed from a woman in front of me. I am not going anywhere with you, Lukos.”

He grabbed her arm—he’d caught up to her—and gave a strong tug. She fell back against him, sprawling, of course, against the wall of his chest. Her breasts lifted with her hard breathing, a combination of exertion and anger.

“That slayer will return. I did not kill him, Miranda. And when he does, if I am still out in the daylight, I won’t be strong enough to protect you from him. Hell, if I am actually
out
in the light, I’ll be burned to a crisp.”

She jerked away from him. He let her move from his chest to face him but didn’t release her wrist. His long fingers easily encircled her. “It’s daylight now!” she exclaimed. “How can you survive in it at all?”

Lukos tilted his head, his hair spilling over his bare shoulder.

She could not see how he did not feel cold in the mist. It was condensing on his skin. He rubbed droplets off his chin with his free hand. “It’s the fog, I think. I woke and found you gone, and felt a compulsion to come here. Somehow I was led directly to you. And the fog kept the light from burning me. It doesn’t protect me from the weakness I feel in daylight.”

“I thank you for saving my life.” She bit her lip. What if she made him stay in the light? Would he weaken enough that she could escape him? If he did collapse, it would be her chance to have him captured.

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Heaven help her, she did not want to do it. “Please let me help those children.” She asked it without hope. Why would a vampire, who looked on humans as prey, care if she saved a child?

He raked his fingers through his hair. “I could take you against your will. I have been indulging you as we have stood here and argued.”

“And I had been indulging you by not driving a stake into your heart when I had the chance at the castle.”

Low and rich, his laugh washed over her. “Why did you not, angel? Why show me mercy after I fed on a woman in front of you—for the sole purpose of making you jealous?”

“That is the very question I am asking myself,” she retorted.

But his smile, that slow, almost vulnerable curve of his sensual lips, was making her weaken toward him.

“Come, let us go to your children, then.”

She stared. “You are willing to let me go?”

“I am willing to take you.”

She explained that she did not know which way to go, and that a force of magic she did not understand had directed her to the first child. He nodded, unperturbed. “I’ll follow.”

Once more a path seemed to carve itself through the thick white mist.

“The fog is moving,” Lukos observed.

“We must go quickly. This is exactly what happened before.”

She gathered up her skirts and ran for a few feet—then she stumbled over a root. The ground rushed up to her and her arms flew out. But before she smacked into the rough ground, she stopped. She hovered there, a foot above the rock-strewn, root-covered surface. Warmth sizzled around her, along with a soft yellow light.

Lukos had stopped her fall with magic. Her body floated higher; then she rotated in midair and was lowered gently to her feet. He’d used magic to clothe himself.

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“Take care,” he murmured. He wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her. A great gust of wind struck them from behind, a gust that lifted them into the air.

“W-what’s happening?” she gasped. She was rushing up toward the tops of the trees, with Lukos behind her.

“I can command the wind to carry me, and this time, I’ll carry both of us.”

The path through the fog kept opening for them as they flew. But tendrils of the mist struck her face and it stung like something caustic. Her eyes watered. She had to turn to Lukos’s chest to protect her face. The burning sensation did not bother him in the least.

Then through a break in the dense whiteness, she saw the tops of budding trees below and the roof of a house. She was so high above the ground, her stomach dropped to her toes. If they fell, they’d die, at least she would. But she felt an intrinsic trust in Lukos.

“If you have the power to control the wind,” she said into his big chest, “did you bring this fog here? Is it to protect you from daylight?”

Her skirts were fluttering around her, and they dipped and rose to follow the currents of the air. She clung tight to his arm, supported on the air.

“I didn’t bring this fog, angel, but I believe Zayan did. There’s a legend of a red-colored fog that brings evil and death with it.”

That would explain the deaths of the children, and the presence of the red fog around the wounded boy in the castle. She felt a spike of rage. If Zayan had brought it, and he had been responsible for all these children’s death, she would make him pay. She was not sure how, but she would.

Below, Miranda saw an old stone structure with a rough-looking cottage attached. An instinctive pull told her to go there.

Lukos steered them downward and she knew he had glimpsed into her thoughts.

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This time that didn’t unnerve her.

When she had been twelve and had saved Aunt Eugenia’s life, her aunt had warned her she must keep her power a secret.

Back then, she had just wished she could get rid of it. All her life she’d felt the same way—she had just wanted to be an ordinary girl.

But now the power felt like her responsibility, and she had to protect it. No matter what.

It was the sweetest sound. The cries of a frightened child, then the
shushing
sounds made by a loving mother.

And wonderful, thought Miranda, because this child had been laid out dead and the mother had wept for so many hours, she could no longer find tears. She felt a surge of happiness, but Lukos gripped her arm and pulled her back into a shadowy corner of the small room. Ringing sounds came from the smithy’s shop—in grief the father had gone back to his work. The mother gathered the child, and Miranda saw her eyes change from hopeful and happy to wary. Only now the mother was realizing that Miranda had performed a miracle. And she was now frightened.

“You should take the child to your husband.” Lukos spoke from the shadows, his voice deep and hypnotic. The sound of it wrapped around Miranda and she saw he had instantly taken control of the mother’s mind.

Staring at him, the woman backed away, her eyes blank. But she nodded. Once the woman and her child had gone, Lukos moved to Miranda’s side at lightning speed. “He’ll return wanting to kill you. The stupid man will think you bewitched the child.”

Exhaustion dragged at her. “What if I did? What if this is no gift at all?” She tried to swallow through a tight, dry throat. She had saved three children today—four including the young boy at the castle—but what had she really done to them? Had she BLOOD DEEP / 185

made them into something that was not human? And even if they were still normal and mortal, would the people of this cloistered little village see them as cursed or bewitched?

Lukos’s long fingers clasped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “It is a gift, woman.”

“It is witchcraft!” a male voice bellowed from behind the cottage.

“What is it with mortals that they will look a gift miracle in the mouth?” Lukos muttered. He took her hand and together they hurried out into the fog. It wrapped around them at once.

Light crackled inside it and Miranda jumped. “What was that?”

A jolt of energy like a small bolt of lightning hit her breast.

It held her, lifting her off the ground. Her limbs shook. Searing pain shot through her heart. It felt as though her heart were being pulled out of her chest. She couldn’t even scream with the pain; her arms went limp, her mouth numb.

“Zayan,” Lukos snarled. “He must be using this fog to drain your power, love.” He swept her into his arms, freeing her from the grip of the light. “We need shelter.”

Shelter proved to be a stone barn. Holding Miranda, Lukos ran to it, taking long strides through the fog that seemed to tear at them as they tried to fight through it. The mist shot sparks, she thought, like tiny fireflies sizzling toward them, pricking their flesh. Somehow he brought them to a stone barn—a tumbledown-looking structure, but it had heavy doors—and he hauled her inside.

He shut and bolted the two doors, throwing them into darkness. A whitish but gloomy light spilled in through holes in the ceiling. Miranda groaned. This could never be a sanctuary. But Lukos held up his hands, and instantly a brilliant blue light surrounded him. It expanded like a bubble and flew up to the wooden rafters above.

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fog can’t penetrate it.” He lay back casually, resting on the large pile of hay on the floor. “But I need to rebuild my strength.”

He held out his hand. His clothes disappeared.

Sprawled naked on the hay, all long, lean legs and sculpted muscle, Lukos looked like something out of a maiden’s erotic fantasy—the powerful groom awaiting to pleasure her in the haymow.

Miranda shied back. She couldn’t let fantasy seduce her into danger. “You want my blood, don’t you? How else will you rebuild your strength?”

“Angel, I need you to make love to me. If I’m to get us safely out of here, I need to be powerful. And some fierce and lusty sex with you will restore mine.” He crooked his finger.

“Without added magic this time, only the magic that our fucking will make.”

If he does not find his mate by the first spring equinox
after he has risen, he will be consumed by his own power
and burned to ash.

And the one whom he loves most will also perish. She
will die in a prison of Satan, her soul condemned forever in
torment, in sufferance for the sins of Lukos—

The rest of the Prophesy of Lukos—Manuscript found in
the Westwarden Barrow, Wessex, England, November 1818

Lukos heard her sharp breath at his words. Saw her shiver with desire and uncertainty as he’d growled
fucking
at her.

Strange that he would use that word with the one woman with whom joining would be so much more.

He had promised himself not to use magic. He knew, as she slowly approached him, she was doing it of her own will. His BLOOD DEEP / 187

nostrils flared, taking in the rich, earthy invitation of her desire.

She smelled so ready for him.

Sitting up, he embraced her hips when she was close enough.

Eager, impatient, he did use his power—to lift her skirts into a bundle of fabric at her waist so he could readily put his mouth to her wet quim. Slicking his tongue over her glistening lips, Lukos savored the taste he now knew and loved.