Love Charms (153 page)

Chapter Six

"Maiden?"
Trinity questioned. He'd felt her body fall limp over his shoulder. Sweat
strafed his temple with the effort he used to refrain from jerking to a
standstill, to lick the blood he could smell like a lover's scent, husky and
cloying in a cloud around them. Yet he realized she was too delicate to carry
as he was. He stopped his near-running pace and lifted his senses to the
immediate surroundings and then the woods beyond.

 The foul
creature that hunted human women, and strangely not for their blood, he
thought, was gone from the woods. The monster's last bloody corpse was to the
east of where he stood and his own horse was straight ahead. Trinity felt his
younger brothers' attentions were elsewhere and that was good, because this newest
dilemma of one virgin's blood scent might be hard for any of the Blacknall
brothers to resist.

Resist they
would … of course. Nevertheless, why put all of them through the agony that one
of them could endure. And he was enduring. Church, he was certain, was not far
away. Perhaps his brother had conjured an idea of what they were going to do
with a young society miss. A very naked society miss, completely out of her
gown.

He steeled
himself. It was becoming easier, or perhaps he was becoming stronger. The
tempest of desires that attacked him was not the violent cyclone it had been.
He would choose, and he chose not to bite and feed upon the warm and delectable
woman in his arms. It was as if maturing from puberty into manhood. Youngsters
found it hard to control their lustful intentions; a man did not.

He'd lusted
after and he'd bedded women in his long years. Always retaining a minute
control to do nothing more than that. When he engaged, if he did at all, he
picked older women. Widows whom he could ply with drink, so they might not
really remember the rougher sides of their sexual encounters. If they happened
to question a more animalistic tone, he simply wiped those thoughts away from
them.

In essence it
had become tedious to control and a bothersome event, to the point he'd not
even tried to form a liaison in well over …

"A
year," he snapped, with dawning incredulousness. By god, it had been
that
long.

Trinity drew an
irritated breath at himself as he lifted the lady off his shoulder. He bent one
knee to kneel as he lowered the woman to the ground, but he supported her with
his bent leg. Her head lulled forward, then to the side, and finally caught
arched backward. Dark tendrils of her thick black hair fell away from her
flushed face.

He saw several scratches
on the cleavage of her lily-white breasts. The maiden was ethereal, her skin
was so ivory, and he saw a cut on her pale slender neck. He forced himself to
glance quickly over to another on her delicate cheek. All those abrasions had
stopped oozing blood. However, the one that raised his hackles and made him
suck in a controlled breath was seeping with sluggish determination over the
hand and fingers he used to support her back.

It was where the
monster had slashed her as she ran. He'd heard her pain at the moment of the
attack. Somehow, as he'd lifted her off his shoulder, his hand had reached
beneath his jacket against her bare skin. His hand settled just above the lace
on some style of short-corset she still had on, and his hand was pressed against
the gash, which was oozing blood.

He dared not
move his hand, as desire like the molten center of a wildfire swept through his
empty soul. It told him if he touched his unique saliva to the laceration on
her human flesh the bloodletting of the wound could slow. It reasoned with him
that if he bit her luscious neck, he could stop himself after only a few draws
and she wouldn't be harmed.

"Don't kill
me, I
beg
you, my lord."

Trinity's
stalking gaze left the tender and dark cove between the virgin's legs to lift
to her pleading gaze. The retort of denial was upon his lips, but it stuttered
to a halt when he saw his free hand, not supporting her back, was clasped over
her delicate throat. He was shocked that he'd not realized he'd arched her
throat and started to turn it to the side. He was riveted … realizing
tragically she might be too much of a temptation for him.

"Please,"
she pleaded with enlarged pupils of fear as her small hands touched his chest.
They pushed ineffectually.

"Do not
plead with those pretty lips," he said in a low, almost tender tenor, as
he looked deeply into her eyes and his breath blew across her face. Her body
trembled, but her eyes remained sharp, and once again, confusion furrowed his
brow.

"I cannot
mesmerize this temptation," he muttered, loosening his fingers over the
warm and fragile column of her neck.

"You look
like a man," she whispered, and her small hands uncurled from their fists
upon his chest. They flattened against his tensed muscles.

His own hand
lifted from her throat and lowered downward to graze over the curve of her
exposed breast with his curled fingers.

"Don't,
please!" she cried, clenching her eyes shut, while digging her nails into
his chest.

It came to him
that dressed, or rather undressed as she was, didn't make her any less the
innocent. He rarely moved in the circles with young society girls … and he
reminded himself that they were the purest form of untried.

Beth couldn't
believe the frothing of emotions claiming her. She had never once in her life
thought about a man touching her …
her
bosom. She might die. She
couldn't believe it had actually happened. The resulting ache that shivered
through her chest was agonizing in its pleasure, instantly wanting to make her
feel its throe again. Then it suddenly sent pangs lower into her core,
completely surprising her into a small moan. She desperately wanted to clasp
her hands between her thighs as her eyelids lifted.

"Maiden,"
the man who saved her, named Trinity, rumbled in a deep tenor voice.

He knew things
about that moan she did not, and for the first time since she'd been attacked
in the dark woods, she shivered with cold.

"Trinity!"
a man's voice shouted.

Beth gasped,
clutching her hands over her breasts, while trying to scrunch her lower body
beneath the bottom of the jacket, where it wouldn't go.

"Church!"
Trinity shouted above her, lifting his intense gaze above her head, even as he
pulled her closer to his strong chest.

"Is she
alive?" Church asked, and Beth could tell he wasn't coming closer to them.

"You cannot
sense her heartbeat?" Trinity asked, with his deep voice sounding amazed.

"Nay, just
smell the bewitching blood," Church called back. "But I've a cloak
here I'm throwing to you, brother."

Beth felt
Trinity lower his gaze to her, but she pressed her face into his neck. For the
first time she wondered who these men were.

"You are
more and more a mystery, maiden," Trinity said, and as he spoke, Beth
could feel the rumble of his voice through her hands pressed to his chest.

The shiver she
felt was beginning to turn into quaking of her limbs. After all the terror, her
mind was returning to the horrible predicament she was left in — nearly
naked, freezing, and with two men she didn't know. However unreasonable it
might be, this made her burrow even more into the embrace Trinity offered.

Trinity heard
Church announcing, "The lady's brother is close."

"Adam!"
his maiden cried with her humid breath, warming his throat.

Trinity bent
both their bodies forward to reach out and grasp the cloak Church had thrown him.
He lifted the cloak and his gaze rose to Church who stood off several hundred
yards. With his predator's night vision, he could clearly see Church's fanged
sneer. Church worked his head to the left, then right, arching his neck
fighting for control. Trinity understood that even staying at a distance, away
from the maiden's unusual blood temptation, was not really helping.

"Please,
can't I go to my brother, my lord?"

"What is
your name, maiden?" Trinity tried to speak softly as he brought the cloak
over her. He dared not move his hand from her back, until he could release her
for good and flee away from her.

"Beth
Winslow," she whispered, clutching her hands to the cloak and pulling it
around her shivering body.

"Then, Lady
Beth, if you put your arms around my shoulders I will take you to your
brother."

This time he
watched Beth do it without any hesitation and strange feelings curled into his
chest he'd not felt before. Later he would be astounded at his control, but for
the moment, he felt everything about the woman he carried in his arms as she
held onto him and her warm temple caressed his jaw line, while her hair fell
over his back.

"This
way," Church called. "We are close."

Beth embraced
him tighter as he strode forward and his exceptional eyesight caught glimpses
of the back of a well-lit mansion.

"What if
someone sees me," Beth exclaimed, turning her face into Trinity's strong
neck. She didn't know what to think or do. She was nearly afraid to ever let go
of Trinity. She felt him stop as he held her close.

"Bring him
here," Trinity called.

She was so
grateful he'd rescued her, when he didn't know her. "Thank you," she
offered, with her voice soft, but tight. Then hot tears began running down her
cheeks.

"Maiden? …
Lady Beth?" His deep voice was questioning, but she was too choked to
respond.

Then she heard,
"Beth!" It was Adam's voice. She tried to call his name, but her
crying only worsened.

"By God!
What have you done to her?" Adam demanded.

He rushed
forward, however he was stalled by the look alone of the tall, blond-haired man
holding his weeping sister in his arms. Adam quickly placed the man as another
Blacknall brother by his build and blond hair. The light was better from the
back of the mansion, just beyond the edge of the woods, and he could see this
brother better. He hoped he'd never have to cross the man because he looked
dangerous. His face was etched in stone and pinpoints in his irises glowed with
a red embedded in unearthly yellow.

As much as the
man made him pause, this Blacknall held his weeping sister. His heart nearly
broke. Beth looked to be in quite a state with her black hair unbound and
trailing over her and the man that carried her. Adam could tell by her bare
shoulder and feet that her clothing was also in wild disarray. If he'd not seen
the mangled body of innocent Lady Ariel earlier, he'd believe the blond brute
holding Beth had ravaged her.

Not even danger
over the lethal qualities of the Blacknall holding his sister was going to stop
him from trying to bring her to safety. He stiffened his spine, and he walked
toward Beth. It appeared this Blacknall looked as strained as any man he'd ever
seen.

Adam cleared his
throat as the man's glassy and unnatural eyes studied him. "I will take
Lady Beth now," Adam demanded with as much authority as he could muster
into his voice.

"In a
moment," the brute uttered and the aura surrounding him intensified.

"Now,
listen here!" Adam replied hotly, starting forward with his arms stretched
outward.

"
Do
not try it," the man snarled, and Adam swore he looked every bit a savage
beast.

"Wait!
Trinity means her no harm." Adam stopped his determined advance at the
sound of Christian Blacknall's voice as he learned the name of the blond brute
holding his sister.

"Christian,
stay away!" Trinity shouted, and Adam turned to see Christian still coming
toward them. "She's bleeding, Christian! And there is something unnatural
about the effect," Trinity uttered.

"Bleeding!"
Adam yelled, with alarmed question. "Beth, come here now!" he yelled,
while fairly leaping toward her. Strong hands grabbed him, pulling him back
from the snarling Trinity, as his sister screamed and cried.

"Nay, Lord
Winslow," Christian begged him. "Please listen, we only want to help,
but you must help us!" Christian exclaimed.

Adam heaved
panting breaths as he heard Trinity speaking with compassionate tones to his
sister. "Lady Beth, do not be afraid," Trinity said. "I will
give you to your brother, but I need your help."

Adam could hear
Beth's voice catch on her weeping as she tried to speak. "W-What is it,
Lord Trinity?"

Adam looked at
Christian whose face was turned away from him. Christian's body felt like a
taut wire beside him that might snap.

"When, Lord
Winslow, takes you I need you to leave swiftly from here. When your brother takes
you, he needs to take you quickly. Do you understand, maiden?"

Adam heard
Beth's voice whisper something, then louder, but still shaking, she said.
"I understand, my lord."

Christian
gripped Adam's arm tighter. "Lord Winslow, you must not tell the authorities
we were here. We all must go quickly to protect you both."

Adam's gaze
leaped up to Christian, who faced him now, and he saw luminescent yellow animal
eyes and protruding fangs upon Christian Blacknall's face. Adam couldn't
withhold his gasp, but Trinity was there, stepped up to him and lifting Beth
toward him.

"
Quickly
,"
Trinity barked at him.

All at once,
surprising everyone gathered, a shrill feminine cry leaped forward, from behind
where Adam stood with his back to the mansion. "Lady Beth! What has
happened to, Lady Beth?"

Adam raised an
astonished and loud sound as he started to turn toward a voice he knew, but
never thought to hear again.
Lady
Ariel?

"Take
her!" Trinity shouted, thrusting Beth into his arms.

"Lady
Ariel," Adam exclaimed, continuing to turn with Beth shuddering in his
arms, while she strangled his neck, gasping tears. "
How
can you be
here, Lady Ariel?" he demanded, wondering at the sanity of his mind with
murders in the woods and unnatural men who sorely looked and half acted like
beasts!