Love Charms (152 page)

Chapter Four

"You look
troubled, sir."

Adam turned
toward the deep voice behind him to find a blond nobleman regarding him, while
the man's voice reverberated through him even after the sound was gone. Adam
noticed the gentleman wasn't dressed for a ball but wore outdoor attire showing
a fit and muscular frame. The man regarding him with soulful, dark blue eyes
over a goatee that molded around his wide mouth was no noble fop laying about
on his title.

That the man
could tell his unrest simply by looking at him spoke volumes about his
distress, Adam thought, worrying a hand through spikes of his sandy hair. His
eyes continued to dart across the voluminous ballroom. "My sister,"
he uttered, showing his desperation by blurting his distress to a complete
stranger, "is missing." His hand scrubbed his jaw on the strident
note.

"And you
fear for her safety?"

Adam's gaze
darted to the man. A very comely man with a voice like warm, red wine. He
wasn't so very old as his first glance assumed. It was the man's trim goatee
that hid his younger, but very handsome, face.

"Yes,"
Adam hissed, and then without further comment or worry of rudeness he started
forward. He would try the kitchen.

"I'll help
you," the man's soothing voice sounded as he strode beside him.

"I've
looked everywhere." Adam lifted his hand and slashed it through the air
with frustration. "She is searching for her friend and now I have lost
her."

"We will
find them." The man's quiet confidence seemed to fill Adam's desperation
and soothe his rising panic.

"I'm, Lord
Adam Winslow." Adam glanced at his companion and nodded.

"Mr.
Christian Blacknall. Good to meet you. I wish the circumstances were
better." Christian Blacknall's hand reached across his chest and Adam's
met him halfway for a short, firm handshake.

Adam could tell
Christian was a nobleman, as he was, even though Christian was dressed in
casual traveling attire in the middle of an ongoing ball. If he found it
strange … Adam didn't let himself consider it, because he had worries that were
more pressing.

"There."
Christian pointed and Adam turned with him toward the kitchen.

What gnawed at
Adam was the fact Fanton was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you
seen a lady with black hair and a green ball gown?" Adam fairly attacked
the first kitchen worker he saw with hissed voice and glare. The lad was tall
and lanky, and he could not be more than sixteen. Adam's hand clasped the lad's
shoulder. "Have you?" he demanded. The lad seemed to stutter with no
words, but wide eyes that a gentleman was accosting him.

Then an older
man's voice said, "The boy knows nothing, my lord. No lady would be back
here in the kitchens."

Adam's gaze
jumped toward the voice of an elderly worker as he held onto the boy.

Christian
interceded, "Oh, good worker, we know a lady would not normally visit
here. But, sir, we fear this is not normal and we pray you could tell us or
anyone here if they have seen her."

Adam blinked and
the awareness of his agitation softened as his hand relaxed on the lad. He was
amazed at the quality of Christian Blacknall's voice … and his compelling
demeanor. He felt the man's warmth soothing him.

"Ah, my
lord, I'll ask around for sure." The elder kitchen worker turned away.

At that moment,
the lad looked up at Adam, and he whispered. "I did see a lady with long
black hair running in the gardens while I was taking a wee break."

Adam's gaze
jerked toward Christian's dark blue eyes. Christian nodded and Adam felt like
clasping him into an embrace. Suddenly afraid something might show on his face,
he tugged his gaze away, letting his fingers release the lad and he moved to
stride toward the back kitchen door.

The lad offered
a bit more in a much stronger voice as he moved away. "I didn't think much
of it, sir, as I saw a blond lady earlier doing the same thing. We thought it
was a new noble's daft, err … I didn't mean that! But a game or some
foolishness."

Adam barely
heard the end of what the lad said before he was out the back door of the
kitchens, striding into the night. The fact that Beth was running, and her hair
was down, scared him. Something was very wrong.

"Beth!"
he shouted, and then he began running toward the large, dark expanse that was
the gardens. "Beth!"

Adam felt the
aura of Christian sprinting beside him and once again he was glad for the man's
presence. Lights from the back of the mansion lighted the extensive gardens
into ghostly, glowing shadows as Adam realized Beth could be anywhere in the
large area. Suddenly, a darker shadow than the rest loomed in front of them and
Adam nearly went into a fighting stance, but for Christian's hand on his arm.

Christian's
voice halted him. "Lord Adam Winslow, it's my brother, Baptiste Blacknall,
Earl of Sterling."

Adam huffed a
labored breath from his desperate running as he looked at the man. He couldn't
make out the man's features very well in the gloom, but he did see the trait of
blond hair that appeared to run in Christian Blacknall's family.

"Christian,
it's this way," Lord Baptiste uttered, pointing toward the woods before he
started forward. "Did you find anything inside?"

"What is
this way?" Adam demanded, grabbing the back of the twill fabric on
Christian's jacket as he rushed forward with the two men.
Why were they
here?
The question began to chant loudly inside Adam's skull. "And
what were you looking for?" he demanded.

"His sister
is out here, Baptiste," Christian's voice uttered as Adam wondered about
both men's sure movements through the murky woods. As it was, he had to hold
onto Christian's forearm to guide him through the dark tangles of branches and
underbrush. He halted his retorts, listening to the two odd men.

"There are
two
out here then," Lord Baptiste expelled as a statement more than a
question. "Trinity seems to sense the one still alive, but you can smell
the blood of the other."

"Blood!"
Adam exclaimed, feeling more fear stabbing him as one glowing shot of stark
moonlight broke through the fog and tree branches overhead. He saw Lord
Baptiste turn his gaze back to them.

Lord Baptiste
expelled sharply, "You'd best prepare him, if you insist on involving him.
’Tis bloody."

Adam could swear
he heard an animalistic bass snarl come from Christian's direction, but then
Christian said, "He'd be out here with or without us. Better with
us."

Adam was
startled at the yellow, animal-like glints he'd seen in Lord Baptiste's eyes in
that one moment when he'd looked back. He wondered why these men were out in
the woods as if they knew some deadly deed was occurring and knew it before it
had happened. However, most of all, the thought of something bloody up ahead
terrorized him.

"Beth!"
he began to shout. "Beth!"

"Here,"
Lord Baptiste called, coming to a halt ahead of them. "But be
prepared," Lord Baptiste growled, halting next to Christian as he looked
back at Adam.

 
They are
yellow beast eyes
, Adam thought in alarm, nearly backing away from the
entity that was Baptiste, who had growled his words like an animal.

"Control
yourself!" Christian shouted, and Adam watched Baptiste's features contort
as Baptiste stretched his neck toward the moon, then back down again.

"’Tis the
blood," Baptiste snarled.

"I know,
brother," Christian uttered, grabbing Baptiste's shoulder. "Fresh
blood is the hardest. But we will resist."

Hardest what
,
Adam wondered? Resist what? He growled himself in scared frustration and plowed
between both strange men, until he saw what was on the other side of Baptiste.

"Oh Lord,
no! Oh Lord!" Adam cried, crumbling to his knees in horror before the
bloody and torn apart remains on the forest ground before him that had once
been a woman.

"Lady
Ariel!" he cried at the blonde hair he saw, but more the tattered pieces
of lavender silk.

Chapter Five

Beth didn't know
how she stayed upright, but the vicious and snarling voice kept howling at her
to, "Run!"

It came from her
left side, and then it stalked her from the right side. Suddenly it snapped
right behind her and she could feel scalding hot breath wash over her bare
buttocks. She knew the beast was playing with her. It meant to kill her. Its
intentions loomed over her like its black shape. The more she screamed and
panted, the more the monster howled and she was running out of breath and
strength.

She could barely
see through the wildness of her long hair to keep from running head long into
trees. Branches jabbed her flesh. The fact her gown was torn from her body,
along with her petticoats, leaving only a half corset covering her waist,
mortified her as much as terror gripped her.

She was going to
die.

Trinity caught
the flashes of alabaster skin off to the left and in front of where he ran
through the brambles. The woman's screaming had stopped many minutes ago, and
he had to guess the foul beast hunting her had nearly run her to ground.

He veered his
headlong sprint towards the glimpses of pale flesh he kept catching sight of
through thickly-grouped trees surrounded by scattered bushes. His timing to
reach the young woman before the vile monster leapt to kill her was too close
to think he'd make it. The threatening roar he released was of a maddened
vampire reverberating through the night air. The abhorrence would recognize his
thundering challenge.

He heard the
woman cry out … in pain this time. Instantly he smelled blood, as he bellowed,
"No!" Then his large body crashed through a small opening in the
foliage.

He realized too
late he was moving much too fast to halt his forward motion, when suddenly the
woman was there … as if pushed forward toward his unchecked momentum. He only
had seconds to react and he grasped her against his body. Her long black hair
whipped around them as he turned to take the brunt of an inevitable fall. He
landed on his back with the woman piled on top of him. Then he heard the
triumphant howl of escape from the foul beast fading into the distance.

Trinity held
tight to the voluptuous young woman as he arched his back and shouted his anger
at losing his chance to kill the abhorrence. "I
will
find
you!" he bellowed.

He became aware
of the woman screaming as she thrashed on top of him. More powerful than her
ineffectual attempts at breaking his hold, while she screamed shrilly into his
ear, were the scents of her fresh blood, choking him. It was a quality of blood
scent he'd
never
inhaled before.

His savage and
barely-controlled inner hunter snarled to life. Fangs punched past his lips as
twin weapons, gluttonous for the smell of pure virgin’s blood pumping from cuts
on the woman's struggling body. Ravenous hunger clogged his throat as he'd not
felt since he was a young and uncontrolled vampire. Then, before he had any
hope of exerting his willpower over the sudden monstrous cravings, his body
turned, flipping the woman onto her back. He landed, pouncing over her. His
fangs ready to strike, while the veins in his body throbbed for the blood he
could smell.

Why was her
blood so fucking potent?

The animalistic
snarl that lunged from his throat clashed with the woman's frightened sobs, and
her wide eyes gazed up at him with horror polished in their depths. Her small
hands pounded against his upper chest as her bare hips and legs thrashed, trying
to push his body off. His hard erection beneath his britches pounded for her
submission, ordering his hips forward to press the rigid length down into her
soft center, crushing her lower body's struggle to a halt.

The woman
whimpered in fear. Then she cried, "Oh no! No!"

The strangled
animalistic sound he made choked the woman's cried words into panting silence,
as if she believed halting any motion would make the vicious animal set to
strike her miss.

Beth couldn't
stand the predator's gaze of yellow eyes with red glints slashed in the
centers. She whimpered with sheer terror, jerking her gaze to the side,
clenching her eyelids. She'd seen the long white fangs and she'd heard the
animalistic snarls that came from the beast surely set to kill her. First, a
monster hunted her and now another apparition held her captive. Yet the
powerful menace against her felt like a man with hands, arms, legs, and a heavy
chest. She felt men's trousers along her bare legs, and she felt a jacket
fallen open over her breasts. Was it a man?

Why didn't it
strike
? her mind wailed, as her breath heaved. Was this the beast that
chased her? She thought not. But her questions and abject terror paled in
comparison when she felt a hardened length pressing into her core … and what
that foretold, nearly caused her to fall into hysteria.

"Don't
move!" The commanding voice was a tense baritone with the aftereffects of
a growl.

The appearance
of human words so surprised her panicked state, she jerked her gaze toward the
sound as her body quaked in reaction. Had someone come to save her?

"Don't,"
the beast above her commanded, "Move."

To hear the
semblance of a human's voice in the world gone so mad made her hopes flare
unrealistically. Yet they did all the same. She wanted to live.

"Trinity!"
a man's voice shouted from the forest surrounding them.

The beast's head
jerked upward to look over her head and away from stalking her with its blazing
and vulturous, yellow eyes.

"Stop,
brother! Don't bite her, Trinity!" the voice rang out from the distance.

Beth felt the
air she held suspended leave her lungs as her hands flattened on the chest
above her.
Bite her?
She cringed.

"
Virgin's
blood," the beast-man above her snarled viciously. "So potent you can
smell it.
Never
felt this hunger before!" His voice growled, making
her whimper and squirm against him with the intense need to run.

"Trinity!
Brother!"

"I
will
fight it, Church," her beast-man vowed, half snarled, half shouted as his
chest heaved into her chest. "Move away!" he yelled.

"For our
mother!" the voice, called Church, returned.

Beth didn't
understand anything that had happened that night. How could she end up nearly
naked beneath a primal man-beast? So many things were beyond the comprehension
of her innocent life. However, she did understand — or perhaps she wanted
it so badly to be true — that the man called Trinity, imprisoning her,
was trying to fight the urge to strike her. He couldn't be the one that had
chased her through the night forest because that presence held a livid and evil
malevolence toward her.

"I will
rise upward and give you my jacket," the creature called Trinity said. His
voice held strange inflections through the large fangs extending from his
mouth. It also seemed he promised the action as though to convince himself.

Beth tensed
more, trying to slow her panting breath, halfway certain he wouldn't win the
battle as he began to rise upward. Then, with his arms locked on either side of
her, he stopped moving, but his other worldly eyes didn't stop traveling. He
looked over her face, and then he looked downward toward her bare chest. She
gasped a squeal of embarrassment chasing her fear, as caution be damned, she
jerked her arms between them to cover her breasts.

"You are
very beautiful," his tense voice emitted lowly. His hand rose and she
would have flinched away, but his gaze held her immobile. His fingers touched
her cheek and they felt cold as he curled them and he stroked over the curve of
her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

"Please,"
she begged for her life, and the red glints in his eyes seemed to dull within
the yellow. His hand lifted to her temple and he did the most extraordinary
thing. He wrote a cross upon her temple with his fingers.

"For my
mother," he growled lowly.

Beth could feel
the incredible tautness in his body above her. He nearly quivered with
tenseness, and then he continued to rise off her lower body, until the cold
night air flashed across her nakedness.

It was the most
unheard of position she'd ever been in. She'd never so much as shown her ankle
to a gentleman. To be nude was horrifying as she laid there shaking with
mortification. Then a warm jacket fell on top of her and she snatched it
against her body … overwhelmed.

"Put it
on," the man's hoarse voice ordered from the darkness above her.

"I-I,"
she mewled, her body quaking.

"
Don't
make me touch your skin again," his voice demanded.

Then it seemed
to Beth as if her body was held by strings he pulled. She sat upright even
though she thought she couldn't. Next, her arms jerkily lifted to turn the coat
behind her and put her hands through the sleeves.

Her hair was a
rampant mess around her and half was caught beneath the jacket, but she didn't
care. She hurriedly buttoned it, to cover herself, buttoning from the bottom to
the top, but the last two buttons wouldn't close over her bosom. It seemed
extremely important to her that they should close and tears burned her eyes
again that she couldn't get them shut.

Trinity held
himself rigid against striking and taking the virgin's blood, even as it pounded
in his veins with the demand to do so. Never had the demand for a human's blood
been so strong. He'd never experienced a test as severe and he knew it was
about to get worse as he sensed the rapidly beating heart in the tender, nude
virgin at his feet.

He wanted to
howl as he lifted his face, flipping back heavy wedges of his long hair. He
breathed in the cold night air as his mind went through a mantra he used when
he trained his body to fight. A minute later, some of the tenseness left him as
he silently intoned the mantra. He
was
stronger than his urges. He
willed his fangs back and his fingernails to recede. He knew the yellow
predator in his eyes cooled.

"I will
not
be
a foul beast that hunts without morality," he rumbled from deep
inside.

He had to get
the woman out of the woods to safety. There were many problems with all that
had happened within the hollow hours of morning and the consequences of it all
touched his thoughts. Nevertheless, he focused on the immediate need, and he
wondered once he picked the woman up into his arms and he started to carry her
from the woods, where the hell was he going to take her?

Something about
it angered him and when he bent down there was fiercer growling in his voice
than he intended. "Grasp my shoulders. I will take you out of these
woods."

The woman made a
feminine yelp of fright and she scooted away from him with pale, shapely legs
showing and his hunting jacket losing the battle to cover her large, plump
breasts. At that moment, it seemed as though scattered moonlight through the
lifting fog chose her naked breasts to gleam upon. He could feel the hot blood
pumping through her veins, the virgin cove between her thighs, and his
erection's interested lust for her ripe, curving body. It posed a three-way
attack against his willpower. Why this virgin?
This had never happened
before
.

"I do not
have the prudent time to hold out and calm your sensibilities, maiden,"
Trinity snarled as he strode to the girl, and then he grasped her arms with his
superior strength.

"Just let
me go!" she cried, and then she squealed as he swung her upward and
planted her struggling body over his shoulder.

"And just
where would you go in these dark woods with that foul monster trying to kill
you, maiden?" Trinity mocked her ridiculous pleas as his wide hand clamped
over the creamy-textured flesh of her outer thigh.

His eyeteeth
pricked as the cloud of her temptations worked to overpower his resolve again,
and she responded with crying accusations. "You are the monster!"

Incensed with
more than fury, he growled like the beast he could be as he started forward
swiftly through the woods. "I've not hurt you, have I?"

The girl was
frantically trying to hold down his jacket over her bare ass upended over his
shoulder, while her other hand was clutched like a claw of nails through his
shirt and into his back.

Pain was good
,
he thought. It could make the un-dead feel alive. But as he rushed through the
forest carrying his bleeding, nubile virgin, a thought relentlessly scratched
at him. Why was the woman not affected by his bloodlust and his carnally
aroused allure? Normally, when a male vampire's lust became fixated with a
woman in close proximity, he exuded an appeal that enslaved and mesmerized the
woman he lusted for. It couldn't be stopped. If a vampire's shaft was hard, the
unwilling became willing.

He despised it.

Beth couldn't
believe the strength of the man that carried her. She wanted him to be a man.
He spoke like a man, so she made him a man. Not a beast. It felt better when
she decided he was a man named Trinity, and he was trying to help her.
Not
eat her.

Besides, all the
blood in her body had pooled into her head from the position she was being
carried in. It made her feel lightheaded as her long hair trailed down to the
back of Trinity's calves. His pants were lighter colored than her hair and on
different bounces of her body, she could see the black ends whipping against
the material as he strode forward.

It came to her
in snatches that she'd read a romantic tale once about a great warrior saving a
damsel and carrying her away over his shoulder. It had sounded so enthralling
at the time. However, in reality it was horrid and jarring and completely
breath-snatching as she moaned and felt a black curtain of unconsciousness fall
over her.