Dawn Thompson (23 page)

His chest heaved with shallow breaths, his heart thumped against her breast. They stood naked together in the drifting mist. Jon hadn’t fed: bloodlust was full
upon him, and he was aroused. Leaning back, he looked deep into Cassandra’s eyes, into the tears swimming there, into the desperation and the passion and the ardor in that beloved face. A bestial groan escaped him as he crushed her closer still. Cold sweat beaded on his brow, and he dropped his head to her shoulder.

“Tell me he didn’t . . . ,” he panted, his hot breath displacing her hair. “Tell me!” He felt her shake her head. Still, he could not look her in the eye for fear.

“But if you hadn’t come on when you did . . .”

Blood was pounding, thrumming, leaping in his veins. And the scent of it choked him. Then her scent possessed him—her honey sweetness mingled with that rich, metallic life force he hungered for; had hungered for since he’d first tasted her in the lower regions of White-briar Abbey what seemed a lifetime ago. His hips jerked forward in an involuntary motion as his sex leapt to life in a manner it had never done; elongating toward, touching her. The feather-light pressure of her lips against the wound on his shoulder was sheer ecstasy. His sex began to throb in rhythm with his rapid heartbeat until he could bear no more. Leaning back, he looked her in the eyes—those doelike eyes dilated black with arousal—and groaned again. All he could think was,
She is still Sebastian’s creature and he has nearly claimed her. He has nearly taken her from me
!

It was no use. He was beyond stopping. His hands roamed her body frantically, memorizing every inch of her soft, willing flesh; sexual desire and the ravenous demands of unstoppable bloodlust commanded him. He dared not meet both those demands and risk killing her. The pull of the combined forces would soon be beyond his control. He had to separate them and choose while he still could.

All at once he was seeing her through a blood-red veil. His sex was on fire. A low, guttural moan bubbled up in his throat as the scent of her blood rushed up his nostrils. Her arms were holding him close, her body moving against him, the pulsating vein in her throat but an inch from his lips. Fangs descended, the pressure as they displaced his canine teeth heightening the arousal like no other he had ever experienced. He dared not take her like this, not like this.

Her voice quavered as she called out his name and he was undone. He made his choice. His head thrown back, giving a cry not unlike that of the wolf he had just left behind, he swooped down, sank the fangs into the tender flesh of her throat, and drank to the pulse of the bloodlust that drained him dry of life and strength and all resistance. Cassandra made no protest. Groaning, she held his head, forcing his lips against her arched throat, calling his name to the rhythm of the pulsebeat pounding in his ears. And he fed upon her until her head finally fell back and the breath in her lungs left her body as she lost consciousness and hung limp in his embrace.

Jon gathered his wife up in his arms. His fangs had receded, and he threw his head back and loosed a groan that chased more birds from the trees as he cradled her close, rocking her in his arms, looking through tears of dismay toward the puncture marks on her alabaster throat in the misty moonlight. His heart was aching that he had put them there after such an adamant stand against it. And why he had was chillingly plain. It wasn’t because he feared one day her strength would surpass his own and leave him vulnerable. No, now she was no longer Sebastian’s creature; she was his. They were forever one in all but sexual consummation, and that would
come after the rite, when it could be done without the killing power of the bloodlust threatening her life. But it remained to destroy Sebastian so that the vampire could never again lay claim to her through blood.

Cassandra was so pale, so still. Had he gone too far, drained too much of her life? Snatching his greatcoat from the overturned cart, Jon wrapped it around her, yanked open the door of the vault, and carried her inside. A stone bench stood against the far wall at the foot of a coffin, and he laid her down on it, gently cocooned in the coat, and streaked back outside to the cart.

His heart hammering against his ribs, scarcely aware of the dull ache throbbing in his wounded shoulder, he snaked his buckskins and shirt out of the debris and tugged them on carelessly. Petra, still complaining, captured his attention, and he unhitched her from the cart. The minute she was free, the horse heaved erect and pranced off to graze nearby. Where was Milosh? Anger roiled inside him. If the Gypsy hadn’t gone off, this might have been avoided. Jon had trusted him to look after her.

Rustling in the uppermost branches caught his eye. They weren’t alone; he knew it—sensed it. Disconnected sounds all around sent him reeling in circles looking for their source, but nothing met his extraordinary vision. Still, something malefic was near. Instinct plunged his hand into the upturned cart again. As if by a will of their own, his fingers closed around the handle of the cleaver. He grabbed a stake and mallet, Cassandra’s frock, and the lantern as well, which was still lit owing to the angle of the cart; had it been hanging on the other side it would have been crushed. He took one last look around and strode back inside. Not a minute too soon. The coffin lid
had been pushed aside, and a creature had climbed out. He was hovering over Cassandra, who lay unconscious on the bench. The creature turned, fangs exposed, making a hissing sound that ran Jon’s blood cold. Slapping the lantern down, Jon dropped the stake and mallet and lunged with the cleaver. Spinning for momentum, he lowered it with all his strength to the creature’s neck, severing its head in two fatal blows. Then, heaving the body through the crypt door, he stepped outside and raised his fists to the sky—to the tops of the trees that hemmed the graveyard fence, swaying with malevolent presence.

“
Sebastian
!” he roared at the top of his voice. “Send what you will. She is yours no longer. She is mine, do you hear? Mine!” He kicked the corpse at his feet. “Have back your creature and be gone! She is mine!”

Spinning on his heel, Jon strode back inside, slammed the crypt door shut, and sank to his knees beside Cassandra, rubbing her wrists to prompt circulation. She was breathing, and her heart still beat. Why wouldn’t she wake? She should have come around by now.

So much for this graveyard being safe
, he thought.
So much for all the revenants having been destroyed long since.
Had Sebastian anticipated that they would occupy this crypt and secreted one of his minions here who could tread on sacred ground? Surging to his feet, Jon looked inside the coffin. There was a resident skeleton with a severed head, so that was evidently the case. Milosh had warned Sebastian wouldn’t come alone.

Milosh
.

Who was Milosh? Jon’s hands balled into fists at the thought. The enigmatic Gypsy had a lot to answer for. Jon jerked the heavy coffin lid back in place, shutting the decapitated skeleton out of sight, and began to pace, taking
long, ragged steps on legs that trembled underneath him as he viewed his handiwork—Cassandra, lying so pale and still and lifeless on the hard stone bench. Kneeling down, he gathered her against him. Her body heat gave him hope, though her hands and face were cold as ice. Was this how undeath manifested itself? Had he killed her?

All at once a noise behind captured his attention, and he sprang to his feet and spun to find Milosh on the threshold. Rage narrowed his eyes and turned his features to stone—all but the muscles that had begun to tick along his broad jaw. He hardened his countenance, stiffened his spine, and wadded his hands into white-knuckled fists at his sides.

Something snapped. “
You
!” he roared.

Rushing the Gypsy, he delivered a shattering blow to the man’s jaw that sent him through the open vault door into the tangled snarl of vines and gorse, thistle and nettle, backpedaling into a listing tombstone that tripped him up. Jon went at him again as he fell backward over the headstone, with intent to haul him to his feet, but Milosh surged upright as though he hadn’t fallen and, with one hand fastened to the front of Jon’s shirt, lifted him and threw him through the gaping door up against the cold stone wall beside Cassandra’s bench. Jon struck it hard. Stunned, he shook his head to clear his vision. Unprepared for such strength, for he’d never seen this facet of Milosh, he hesitated before lunging again.

The Gypsy’s hand shot out and arrested him by the throat. “Save your fury for those we both fight,” Milosh said. “You cannot win a contest with me as you are—not before the Blood Moon Rite will your strength match mine. Only then will your power be such that you might attempt it . . . if you still want to, that is. I am hoping not.”

“You left her!” Jon snarled hoarsely through the Gypsy’s grip. “You said you would watch after her. I trusted you!” He swept his arm wide. “Look at her!” he choked. “Look! I think she is dying!”

Milosh let him go and strode to Cassandra.

“Do not touch her!” Jon charged, stumbling after him.

The Gypsy dosed him with a scathing glance that was itself enough to halt him in his tracks, and bent over Cassandra to examine her puncture wounds. Carefully he felt for a pulse in her neck and lifted her eyelid before standing back, arms akimbo, and facing him again.

“She is neither dead nor dying,” he observed. “She is in a state of shock from blood loss, which is to be expected. She will come round soon enough.”

Jon raked his hair back ruthlessly. “Why did you leave her?” he demanded.

“I didn’t.”

“You did. I saw you at the crossroads.”

“Ah. And when you saw me, what did you do?”

“I realized you had left Cassandra alone, so I came back straightaway.”

The Gypsy nodded. “Very soon the sun will rise upon the hour of the blood moon. Once you embrace that rite, if all goes well you will no longer feed. It will be too late for you to take her.” He shrugged. “You are a stubborn fool, Jon Hyde-White. I had to force the issue. I had no choice. You would not see reason. You say you saw me at the crossroads? That could have been
you
and
her
—and would have been—if you had not done what you did tonight and claimed this woman as your own. Sebastian Valentin must be destroyed, Jon, his disciples with him. That is paramount, and that is what I was about at the crossroads tonight—eliminating one of his minions. Cassandra
was never in danger. I knew what was happening here in the graveyard, just as I knew you would save her.”

“How could you?” Jon asked.

“That is not for you to question. Once you embrace the blood moon, you, too, will be endowed with such gifts. You will need those for the work that must be done. That is . . . if you are still committed to it.”

Jon hesitated. He was committed to hunting and destroying vampires, but one look at his unconscious wife made him wary of the Gypsy.

“I do not trust you,” he said, speaking truthfully. “I do not know you well enough, and there is something . . .” He trailed off.

The Gypsy nodded, his lips twisted in a half-smile. “I respect your honesty,” he said. “And on this one point at least we are on common ground. But you stand to lose far more than I. My distrust of you can only end in one way, Jon Hyde-White—exactly as it did with the woman at the crossroads earlier. I’d think upon that carefully, see to your lady wife, and get some rest. Soon we will reach the mountain peak where the ritual must take place. Believe me, you will want to be well rested for that.”

Cassandra woke with a groan to total darkness. Absently she ran her fingers over the puncture marks on the side of her throat. Jon had put them there. Fiery shivers raced through her loins remembering.

It worked!

It had been a dangerous gamble—even Milosh was leery, though he had finally agreed that using herself as bait to attract Sebastian might be the only way for her to convince Jon to finish what the vampire had started.

She took a ragged breath and sat up on the bench. There was no pain. But for the light-headedness and vertigo that made her unsteady when she tried to move, nothing seemed changed. Her extraordinary night vision, like that of a cat, showed her that she wasn’t alone in the crypt. Jon was asleep on the floor in the corner. He must be exhausted. He never slept at night—only during the day, when it was safer to do so. They were alone in the crypt, and she took another breath and gingerly rose from the stone bench.

Her frock lay folded neatly on the floor. Shedding Jon’s greatcoat, she tugged on the frock, tiptoed to Jon’s side, and gently covered him with the coat. She didn’t want to wake him yet; not until she was steadier, not until she’d steeled herself against the deception. Tugging the door of the vault open a crack, she peered out into the damp pre-dawn darkness. All was still in the graveyard. There wasn’t a breath of a breeze, yet the ground-creeping mist sidled in and out among the tilted headstones as if with a will and a purpose. Through the trees, she glimpsed the moon sliding low in the night sky. It was almost full; almost time. Another day, another night . . .

Cassandra nudged the door open a little wider. Milosh’s cart was standing upright again, its contents replaced as though they had never been disturbed. Petra was nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of Milosh either. It was just as well. Suppose he were to betray her? Jon mustn’t know what she’d done. She hated the deception, but what other option was there? He’d been adamant in his resolve not to take her blood, which had to be done before the blood moon ritual. Yes, if that mysterious rite arrested the feeding frenzy as Milosh promised, it would be too late; it had to be now, while Jon still had the urge to feed. She reasoned with herself that elsewise Sebastian’s hold would be irreversible. Why hadn’t Jon seen that? Nevertheless, the plain fact was that she had tricked him—something her conscience couldn’t bear.

Even at that, the plan had nearly backfired. She shuddered, recalling how close she had come to feeling Sebastian’s greasy fangs on her throat again. She’d known the vampire was hovering, waiting to finish what he had
started. She’d meant to stay within the confines of the graveyard while waiting for Jon to discover Milosh’s absence and return—and hopefully realize he must take her blood. It had been a dangerous game, and timing was vital, which was why she had nearly failed—she had misjudged the boundaries of the graveyard and strayed too close to the cart. She would never forget the terror that all but paralyzed her as Sebastian swooped down upon her with Jon nowhere in sight. She would carry forever the memory of trying to prevent the vampire from getting a grip on her with his sharp bat talons.