The Queen of Swords: A Paranormal Tale of Undying Love (9 page)

For a long time, he said nothing, leaving her dangling on tenterhooks. When at last he started to speak, his voice was thick with emotion. “I awoke in my own bed, remembering nothing. Sunlight stream
ed through the crack in the draperies—blinding sunlight. So impossibly bright it seemed as though the sun was right outside my window. Except for the amnesia, a bad headache, and a terrible thirst, I felt remarkably well. But strange too. More alive somehow. More attuned. Everything around me—common things observed thousands of times—seemed new and fascinating. It was as if I was a newborn bairn seeing the world for the first time.”

T
hen, the maid who’d been nursing him came in. As she leaned over him to check his temperature and the dressing on his chest, he caught a tantalizing scent that made his body react in distressing ways. His mind began to cloud, his mouth to water, his gums to burn, his libido to rouse.

S
omething snapped. Like a fiend, he pulled her down on the bed, climbed on top of her, and entered her with brutal force. His teeth pierced her throat, releasing a torrent of blood. She let out a gargling scream even as she cleaved to him like a frightened child.

“I could feel her heart
...beating as if it were my own. Her emotions became mine too. The terror of the moment and everything else she felt...including love. For her family and her friends and her sweetheart. I knew at some level I was taking her from them, that these people would grieve her loss, but I was powerless to stop myself.”

She
flinched, but kept her arms around him. “And this was...one of the people you killed?”

“Aye
.” He heaved a sigh. “A mistake I shall always regret.”

“And the other person?”

“He deserved what he got.”

His biting tone chilled her blood.
She started to ask about his second victim, but a knock at the door lodged the words in her throat.

“Cat? Is someone in there with
you?”

It was Avery, sounding suspicious.

“Oh, dear,” she whispered into his shirt. “What should I tell her?”

She meant the question for herself, n
ot him, but he answered anyway.

“Why not the truth? That
you’ve summoned a vampire and are keeping him prisoner for the weekend.”

She
cringed with shame. The truth sounded much worse aloud than in her head. Letting go of him, she scooted off the bed and padded to the door. “I’m alone,” she lied through it, tasting the deceit. “Doing research online. It was probably You Tube you heard.”

“Are
you smoking? You know it’s not allowed.”

“I’ll open the window
now that it’s stopped raining.”

There was a pause. “Are
you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Cat replied, wishing her friend away.

“Are you sure?”

Cat rolled her eyes.
“Positive.”

“In that case, good night, sleep tight, and don’t burn the place down, all right?”

Smiling at the silly rhyme, Cat bid Avery goodnight and took a deep breath, keeping her back turned on Graham. It had been a long and trying day and she was suddenly very tired. She needed to sleep now. But what to do about her guest?

Guilt lay heavy on her heart. She didn’t like keeping him
here against his will, but neither could she bring herself to release him. If she reversed the spell, he’d only run away—all the way back to Scotland no doubt in some chivalrous effort to keep her safe from Fitzgerald. And she couldn’t allow that until she knew it all. If she kept coming back, there had to be a reason. A spiritual reason. And she was determined to find out what it was.

R
esentments long stuffed down bubbled to the surface. She was sick to death of biting back her feelings and needs, of cowering in the corner, of always putting other people first. She wasn’t born a doormat; she’d been turned into one by other people’s cruelty and neglect. Her father’s coldness; her mother’s rage; the bully at school who’d almost raped her, then spread rumors she was a slag. His mates waited for her every day after school so they could taunt her and call her filthy names. Under their jeering, she’d grown smaller by the day until she became imperceptible. And she’d been playing small ever since.

But no more
, dammit. She was ready to come out of her sad little closet. To be seen. To start living.

Out with fantasies, in with flesh and blood.

She turned to him, ready to issue a command. The words fell away when she saw what he was doing. He was bent over the foot of the bed studying her abandoned tarot cards.

Chapter
7: The Unturned Card

“What’s all this?” Squinting down at the bed, he strained to make out what she’d been doing with the cards. Her spell had deprived him of his powers, including his night vision, making it hard to see much of anything.

“All what?”

“The tarot cards.”

He probably shouldn’t be surprised she read the tarot. Catharine had, though the older, French
Tarot de Marseille
, rather than the newer, English Rider-Waite.
Caitriona, whose mother came from Viking stock, had used the runes for divination and magick.

S
he’d begun the same three-card reading he’d done that morning. Coincidence? He thought not. For one thing, he didn’t believe in coincidence. Fate was a cruel mistress, but never an arbitrary one. She’d overturned The Lovers and The Devil, but had either left the third card unturned or done something with it. He glowered at the goat-headed baphomet he associated with Lord Fitzgerald. Its appearance beside The Lovers knotted his bowels.

“What was the card of things to come?”

“I don’t know.” She moved behind him. “I didn’t look.”

With a quick
backward glance, he asked, “Why not?”

“Beca
use I think I know what it is.”

She put her hands on his back, a distracting gesture to say the least. It was as if her touch was temptation itself. When she’d put her arms around him just now, his heart
almost stopped. Like the other two, she wore eau de violets, another of fate’s careful tricks.

“And I don’t want to know.”

He frowned. “And what is it, d’you think?”

“
Death
.”

He coughed in surprise.
“What makes you think that?”

She moved to the edge of the bed and sat down, but didn’t look at him. “Because it’s the final card
you
drew the day you met Catharine.”

The memory flooded back, as clear
as this morning. Catharine at the riverside cafe smelling of violets and desire as she surveyed the cards on the table.
Death can mean many things. Change, for instance, which is inevitable.
Swallowing, he shook his head to dislodge the scene. That time, unfortunately, the card’s meaning turned out to be literal. Now it appeared history would repeat, as he’d feared.

“Release me, Cathleen. I beg
you. For both our sakes.”

“No
.” She grabbed him around the hips. “You’ll only run away. And I need to know more.”

“Then turn the card
.”

“And if it’s
Death
?”

“
You’ll release me and I’ll go back to Scotland. And Lord Fitzgerald will never know you’ve returned.”

“No
.”

“Turn the card, dammit.”

“No! I don’t want you to leave me.”

He stiffened, heartsick. He didn’t want to leave her either, but what choice did they have? “Even if my staying results in your death?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

Diving onto the bed, he
seized the card while scattering the rest. She jumped on his back and tried to snatch it from his hand, but he played one-man “Piggy in the Middle” with her and the card. Holding it at arm’s length, he squinted at the image, straining to make out what it was. His effort was unaided by the lack of light and by her hair pulling, which hurt like the dickens. Bloody hell. She was so like his other Cats he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

He strained to focus on the shadowy image
, but couldn’t quite tell what it was. It did not, however, appear to be Death’s skeletal knight astride a white horse. Instead, he could make out a rainbow stretching across blue sky. As he combed his memory for a match, she started poking him in the ribs with her fingers, which, given his ticklishness, was insufferable.

“It’s not
Death
, you wee feisty witch,” he told her, squirming and laughing. “So will you kindly quit gouging me with your bony fingers?”

“It’s not Death?”

She poked him again, for good measure, presumably.

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know
.” There was an edge in his voice. “Something else. But your bloody monkeyshines are making it impossible to see. So, will you kindly get off so I can have a proper look?”

As she slid off him,
giving his bum a spiteful swat in the process, he pulled the card closer and studied the image. The rainbow was actually an arc made up of ten gleaming golden chalices. Below it stood a man and a woman—a married couple by all appearances—with one arm around each other and the other outstretched toward the rainbow. Beside them danced two joyful children. A home stood in the background’s pastoral setting.

“Well?”

“It’s the Ten of Cups.” Rolling onto his back, he continued studying the image.

“Oh?” She brought her face next to his to have a look. “Do
you think it means we’ll finally get to be together? To fulfill our destiny?”

“Destiny’s a cruel mistress, lass
, as I well ken. So be careful what you wish for, eh?”

She yawned as he handed her the card.

“Right now, I only wish to close my eyes and float away to dreamland.”

“Oh?” He was surprised, and
also a mite disappointed. The way she’d been touching him, he thought sure she had more in mind than sleeping. “Where shall I sleep then?”

“What’s wrong with where
you are?”

“It could lead to trouble.”

“Promises, promises,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

* * *

Broiling with need, he laid awake a long while before drifting into restless, dream-filled sleep. In one dream, Caitriona lay in his arms, smelling of violets, love herbs, cigarettes, and blood. He could feel her warm breath on his neck and her supple breasts on his chest. Seeking one with his hand, he teased the nipple until it grew hard. He pushed his other hand between her legs, finding wiry hair and damp heat. As his fingers played, she emitted a deep, satisfied moan, spurring his galloping desire.

“Kiss me
.” The breeze of her breath grazed his scalp.

Locating her face, he
captured her mouth and gave her his tongue. She drew it deeper, entangling it with her own. The kiss grew more torrid, his need more urgent. Groaning, he pushed hardness against softness.

She rolled him onto his back, broke free of the kiss, and began to unbutton his shirt.
A euphoric fog settled over his mind. She worked her way down the placket of his shirt, easing the buttons out of their holes. Reaching the waistband of his trousers, she tugged loose the tails before freeing the last two buttons. She pushed the shirt open, ran her hands over his bare chest, and pressed her lips against his navel, making his abdominal muscles spasm. He was achingly hard and his canines throbbed with the need for blood. She moved higher, kissing his stomach, then his sternum, then his clavicle, then his chin.

“I love your hair,” she said,
running her fingers through it.

His mouth burst into a
fang-revealing smile. “Do you?”

“Yes. Promise
you’ll never cut it.”

“I
shan’t. I promise.”

She kissed him, her mouth soft and luscious, once, twice, thrice.

“I want to be with you.”

“I want that too.”

Kiss, kiss, kiss.

“Then make love to me.”

Eyes still closed, he slipped his hands inside her robe. Goosebumps pebbled her skin as he caressed it. He got goose bumps of his own as her hand crept down his abdomen, her touch sweet and needful, but unsure. His breath caught when fingers brushed his fly and began to explore.

“
You’re big.”

“Aye.”

“Ouch.”

A wistful grin spread across his face. “It only hurts the first time.”

“In that case, I look forward to the second time.”

As a
n eerie
deja vu
swept over him, he opened his eyes. The room was lighter but still dark. He could smell cigarettes and violets and heard rain outside.

“Hello, sleepyhead
.” Her breath warmed his face.

He blinked hard to clear the cobwebs from his mind. Her face hovered, so close he could not make out her features.
Hair tickled his neck, his shirt lay open, and her hand rested atop his engorged member, a dangerous location. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.

“We should not be doing this.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

To his relief, she withdrew her hand.

“Because why?”

“Because I still blame myself for ruining Caitriona.” He could see her better now. “And suspect that might be the reason you keep coming back.”

The dent between her eyebrows deepened. “
You mean to punish you?”

“Aye.
Why else?”

“But I don’t feel the least bit like punishing
you.” She pushed higher on her arms. “I only want to please you.”

“
You’d change your tune if I took advantage and then abandoned you.”

“Are
you planning to abandon me?”

His brow creased.
“You know I am. Isn’t that why I’m still spellbound?”

Without answering, she crawled off him and turned her back to him like an
icehouse door.

“Tell me.”

Sitting up, he pushed back against the pillows, groped on the nightstand for her cigarettes, and put one in his mouth. “Tell you what?”

“How
you ruined Caitriona.”

He flamed the lighter.
“Why?”

“Because I want to know.”

He lit his cigarette and exhaled with a laugh. “So I should bare my soul, lay myself open, simply because you wish it?”

“I thought
you had no soul.”

Her words sliced his heart, drawing blood. He smoked the cigarette like it was his enemy, crushed it in the ashtray, and lit another. “
Would you have any whisky? Or is a drink too much for a lowly prisoner to ask for?”

“Fuck
you, Papillion.”

He assumed it a reference to convicted felon and fugitive Henri Charriere
, the subject of the book and movie, not the dog breed or an actual butterfly.

“
You can’t keep me spellbound forever, you know. And when you release me, I have no choice but to leave Wickenham. For both our sakes.”

“Because of
Fitzgerald. Not because you don’t care for me.”

She stated rather than asked it, but he still felt compelled to confirm. “Yes.”

“What if we could stop Fitzgerald?”

He snorted his incredulity.
“How do you suggest we do that?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Hope glimmered. “But you believe there’s a way?”

“
You don’t?”

He shrugged.
To be frank, he’d never given it much thought. He’d been walking the tightrope for so long now, it seemed as much a part of him as the bloodlust.

Rolling onto her back, she slipped
him a sideways glance. “If I get some whisky, will you tell me what happened after you killed the maid?”

He winced at the mention of the murder
. The guilt and shame of it still haunted him. That was perhaps the worst part of his curse—having the raw instincts of a beast coupled with the conscience of a man. It wasn’t always possible to control his vile urges, but he would always regret the evils they drove him to commit.

“
Aye.”

“Good.”

Climbing off the bed, she straightened her robe as she walked toward the door. She returned a few minutes later with a bottle of
Glenfiddich
and two low-ball glasses. She set the glasses on the nightstand beside him, filled one and took it with her back to her side of the bed. She then proceeded to prop herself against the headboard beside him, but with a foot or so of space between them.

Doing his best to ignore her inhospitality, he poured his own whisky and took a generous gulp.
Alcohol and nicotine took the edge off his cravings and he could use all the help he could get right now. As much as it galled him, her cold-shoulder also would aid his resistance.

“Okay
.” She tugged at her robe. To ensure she was well covered, presumably. “Ready when you are.”

He offered her nothing as h
e topped off his glass and lit another cigarette. If she insisted on treating him shabbily, he would repay her in kind.