Love Charms (151 page)

"Lord
Fanton, you must come to the ball and dance with me," she said, with husky
temptations in her voice. He smiled as he circled the room, circling closer to
her.

He began to
wonder how fast she could run … then he wondered whether she could really
scream well. In some far corner of his mind that acknowledged such things, he
was surprised. The urge was rising again so quickly. He reassured himself it
was simply the irresistible temptation of a noble bitch flaunting herself at
him. He'd never tried one of those before.

And, she was
offering …

Chapter Three

"Ariel,
please stay away from Fanton," Beth remembered pleading with her only
friend. Then she'd declared aloud to Ariel, damned the consequences should
anyone overhear and it get back to Fanton, "He is
not
a good
man."

That had been
thirty minutes ago, and Ariel had gaily laughed and patted her hand, declaring
everything would be all right. Ariel had danced off with Adam, and Beth had
thought she was safe. However, Beth discovered now she was gone, leaving Adam
holding two glasses of punch Ariel had asked him to fetch.

"I've been
around the room once, Beth, and she's not in the ballroom," Adam declared,
setting the punch glasses down on a nearby table. He turned back to her, while
swiping a thatch of sandy brown hair out of his eyes. "Damn," he
cussed lowly.

"I am so
tired of trying to warn her away from him, Adam. And she will not listen and
simply take my word for it," Beth said with frustration heating her words.

"I
know," Adam replied, looking down on her. "There comes a time when we
should just …"

Beth gazed up at
him as he left the sentence hanging and in her mind, she finished it.
Give
up and she will do what she will do.
But instead she said, "I will
look for her in the ladies’ retiring room."

"And I will
circulate through the upstairs," Adam offered.

Beth touched
Adam's arm. "We will meet back here. One of us will drag her back here if
we have to."

Beth watched
Adam's smile as he started away, saying back to her, "We will find
her."

She watched Adam
with a worried gaze as he climbed the elegant staircase at the Valtimer
mansion. Immediately she decided she couldn't keep putting Adam in the middle
of the situation she had with Fanton. She turned toward the conclave of ladies’
lower-level retiring rooms.

"After I
find you, Ariel, I shall break off our friendship this very night," she
muttered. She would do something she'd not considered for a very long time. She
would give up her doomed search for a husband and she would apply to teach at a
school for girls.

"That will
take me out of your reach, Fanton," she continued beneath her breath. It
would leave her brother, so full of potential, an unfettered life to live to
his desires and not be worrying about her constantly.

***

"Come, Lady
Ariel, walk with me in the gardens under the full moon," Fanton drawled,
massaging the lady's slender neck from behind, with wisps of her blond hair
curling over his moving hand.

"But he is
such a gentleman, and he's gone to fetch me punch. I really should wait."

Fanton thought
she spoke without any true conviction as his fingers tightened on her neck and
he felt her begin to pull away from his hardened grasp.
No, no, noble slut.

"Wait,"
he called. "There is a new game gentlemen and ladies play who are courting
that I want to teach you," he offered quickly, forcing a touch of teasing
into his voice.

He felt his
lady-prize stop withdrawing as she leaned closer to him. "Courting
game?" she asked, now nearly breathless. He was so brilliant and she was
such a slut, he thought, as his sharp gaze traversed the ballroom. No one would
notice them. A moonlit walk was normal among these weak society fools.

"Come, I
will show you."

Then, as easy as
that, he had a high-society whore out in the deserted gardens at night … all
alone. He could feel no one else walked the gardens but he and the woman of
such low virtue beside him.

"The game
is you shall run ahead and I stay to count, until I reach twenty, then I will
come to catch you and if I'm able to catch you, you must forfeit a kiss to
me."

"A courting
game, Lord Fanton?" she questioned with such hope in her voice, he nearly
chuckled.

"Of course,
my savory treat. You and I …" He left the rest hanging for the blond slut
to pick up, as he knew she would.

"For a kiss
then," she said brightly. "If you can catch me!"

He told himself
he would only play for a little while … this time. He would simply show himself
how easy it was. Nothing more. He looked at the large glass-paneled doors to
the ballroom. They were closed, but light spilled out onto the stone patio. He
could hear the music and laughter as his gaze turned to the pale, moonlit gardens
and beyond into the dark woods.

How easy this
was. He'd never realized.

"I am
counting," he declared. "One. Two."

"Oh, Lord
Fanton!" she exclaimed. "Don't start yet. I am going. Oh! Don't look
which way I go."

Fanton turned
his back as if he were a dutiful courting puppy and he heard the swishing
skirts of his prize as she skipped away. He looked up at a sliver of the full
moon trying to peek through the fog, counting aloud for the twit's benefit as
he wished the bobbing slut were Beth instead.

His mind began
to fixate on how he would adore chasing his plump Beth deep into the dark
woods, while he rolled his shoulders, shedding his evening jacket. Better yet,
he would strip Beth of the fancy silk she wore, ripping the material from her
lush curving figure, before he let her loose. Then he would stalk her pale,
naked body. His cravat came loose and he tugged at the collar of his pristine
white shirt. He would watch Beth's fat breasts and wide hips as she would try
to run from him. But no. She was not fast enough to escape his power … his
strength. He would run her down. His Beth would try. Oh, she would struggle so
hard trying to stop him. She would attempt to fight him with her frail limbs
against his powerful strength. She would try to leave him. Yet he would never …
ever
let Beth leave him again!

Shrill sounds
suddenly pierced Fanton's hearing. He snarled on the edges of a manic roar,
looking down at the blood washing his hands. His body shook as he wildly looked
around. What had he done? How had he come to this? Again!
So
soon.

***

Beth heard a
blood-curdling scream split the night air. It seemed to come from the woods
behind the Valtimer mansion.

 "Ariel!"
she cried, lifting her skirts to begin running down the patio steps into the
garden and beyond toward the woods. She'd lost her, and then she'd lost Adam
too. He'd never returned to their rendezvous spot inside. She'd considered the
gardens outside. It was the only place she hadn't searched.

"Ariel,
where are you?" Beth cried, darting her gaze back to the closed ballroom
doors. No one would hear her cries with the music and the doors closed. She
would be all alone. "But I cannot ignore her need!" Her gaze returned
to the hag-shaped woods as she ran toward them. Did she really intend to go in
there?

A wrenching
scream split the cold night air in front of her from deep within the haunted
woods, and her steps faltered. "Adam, oh God, Adam, I wish you were
here."

Beth clutched
the small pearls on the necklace at her collarbone as she tried not to cry out in
fear. On the scream’s heels came a more frightening sound. It was like no sound
she'd ever heard, and it brought her rushing steps to a halt right at the edge
of the eerie, blackened woods. She couldn't tell the direction of the sound
that was either terrible agony or heart-wrenching terror. Could it be an
animal? She didn't know of any animal that could possibly sound like it had.

Her gaze
skittered about the menacing woods. What did she know of night predators? Then
thoughts rushed her.
Except for Fanton
. He was an evil creature of the
night. She couldn't help herself; she called out, "Ariel! Ariel!"

Instantly, she
wished she'd not cried out her presence. Her eyes leaped to the right, turning
her body, then to the left. "I'm not going into those woods," she
hissed with a frightened whisper.

She tried to
assure her quaking conscious that by daylight the woods before her would look
harmless and innocent, perhaps even inviting.

"Not as if
haunted by demons," she whispered on a fierce note. Then, the sound of a
woman's wretched weeping crept from deeper in the woods. It was to the right of
where she stood in her dew-soaked dancing slippers — or was it straight
ahead?

"Ariel?"
Beth hissed with a louder whisper as though some evil wouldn't hear her lowered
voice, as opposed to the high-pitched pressure seeking release as a scream. Her
entire body trembled with more than the cold night air against her bared
shoulders and arms in the sheerness of her now damp ball gown. She shuddered
with the need to go into the woods, but the fear to do so pulled her back.

Suddenly,
something rushed toward her through the woods, breaking branches to the right
of where she stood. She screamed in terror, grabbing up her full skirt and
fleeing into the woods toward the left. Instantly, her long hair lost the
battle to stay on top of her head. It tumbled down, like a black shawl, over
her shoulders as her full skirts hindered her attempts to run through the
underbrush of the forest.

A malevolent
sound barked out of the night air, making her gasp. An evil chuckle followed.
The threatening sounds seemed to be right behind her as she shrieked and ran to
the left. Her gaze jerked over her bare shoulder trying to see. She thought she
saw a hulking, dark shape rushing toward her and she panted in fright, turning
to the right, trying to evade it.

Something
snatched at her gown, tearing the silk easily. The attack was like icy talons
of evil intent, ripping silk. She screamed, stumbling to a halt with tearing
material all around her. Her dark, heavy hair was as wild as a swirling shroud
everywhere she turned in a frantic circle trying to evade the malevolence
attacking her.

"No! No!
No!" she screamed with each turn as she tried to clutch pieces of her gown
back.

She felt the
charged breath of death fill her nostrils with a blast of heat singeing her
throat.

"
Run,
"
an ungodly voice roared.

Beth screamed
and cried as she ran forward, clutching her pale, naked breasts. She'd seen
fangs and red eyes as the animal attacking her howled with inhuman potency. It
was a harrowing nightmare she prayed to live through as she ran with terror,
and the monster chased closely behind her.

***

Trinity guided
his black stallion to a halt beside Church's pure white stallion. "I
wasn't asking for help yet." Trinity's voice was low as his yellow-rimmed,
blue eyes flashed toward Church. His voice was modulated so perhaps his
brothers, Christian and Baptiste, wouldn't hear as they settled their horses a
bit behind them.

"I'd not
keep those two on a leash long and let you have all the fun," Church
replied, his voice level as he nodded toward their two siblings. Yet Church's
voice, even devoid of inflection, held a multitude of command. Perhaps it was
because he knew Church so well, Trinity thought, releasing his irritation as a
lost cause. He simply didn't care for his brothers miring themselves in
foulness when they'd already lived through such malevolence at their Sire's
hands. He wanted it to be his mantel to now take on and leave them free.
Trinity shifted in his saddle. In the end, it might be an idiotic desire he had
for his brothers, who were vampires after all, yet he couldn't rid himself of
it.

"I've no
problem sending them back." His voice was gravelly as he sneered and held
his stomping stallion steady.

"It's brothers
Blacknall, not
brother
Blacknall." Church glared at him with a
stubborn tilt to his masculine face; a face most humans would call menacing
even through its compelling handsomeness.

Trinity sighed,
looking out into the pitchy woods in front of them. He wondered why he trained
so hard to take on most of these burdens, and then Church refused to allow him
his head in these matters.

"There's no
blood-scent," Baptiste advised them.

"I don't
detect a thing," Christian added.

"Not even
the smell of the hunt," Church finished.

Then, Trinity
saw all three of his brothers' gazes turning toward him.

"I feel
her," he spoke softly, looking to the west.

"Her?"
All three brothers spoke as one, in varying degrees of acerbic puzzlement.

Trinity's eyes
narrowed into slits and he nearly let out a foul snarl. Let them wonder, he
thought. He wondered. But he'd felt her the moment her terror had ripened.

"West,"
he snapped, turning his stallion into a sudden gallop. Let them wonder and keep
up. He had no time for their questions. Questions he couldn't answer.

A hard gallop
later, Trinity knew they all now smelled the blood of a fresh kill as he halted
his stallion and swung down from his saddle. The moment his boots touched the
ground he began to sprint forward.

"Trinity,
where are you going? Wait!"

Trinity looked
over his shoulder at Baptiste, giving him a sharp growl, but not stopping his
forward run. He knew the woods were a swatch of forest behind a long
cobble-stoned lane of noble-owned mansions on Kings Row. The tract of woods was
wide and eventually yielded into a large park by the Rothberry Road.

His thick,
dark-blond hair whipped about his head and upper shoulders as he ran. He could
track straight for the fresh blood, or he could race toward the terrified
woman, who was still alive.