The Reluctant Vampire (11 page)

“To feed from them?”

Drina nodded. “It turned out to be a good thing all the way around.”

“How so?” he asked curiously.

“The women had always been on edge, fluctuating between being overly nice and snapping at me and each other,” she began, and then paused and wrinkled her nose. “Frankly, it was a bloody cathouse at times. But once I agreed to feed from them, some sort of balance was restored. They felt everyone was getting something, so it would all be all right. They relaxed, the house gained a much more pleasant atmosphere, the women even became like family rather than fighting all the time. It was nice,” she said with a reminiscent smile. “And, of course, I didn’t have to hunt at night anymore, which was handy. Everyone was happy.”

“Everyone?” Harper queried, and she chuckled at his wry expression.

“Well, everyone but my family,” she admitted on a laugh.

Harper nodded, not surprised. “I didn’t think your brother would be pleased to have his sister running a brothel.” He grinned and tilted his head, asking, “Did he call on Lucian for help with you again?”

“Of course,” she said dryly. “When his many letters and a personal visit to try to force me to sell the brothel and come home failed, Lucian was his next ploy. And Lucian even caught a ship and came all the way from the Americas, where he was living. He sailed into England to look into the matter.”

“And?” Harper queried, leaning forward with interest.

“He read me, read my girls, and then turned to Stephano and surprised us all by announcing that I was old enough to make my own decisions. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was proud of what I was doing for these women, and Stephano should be too, but whether he was or not, it was time he stopped interfering and let me be.” Drina lowered her head to hide the tears that had swum into her eyes at the memory.

Bloody things, Drina thought. She didn’t know why the memory of Lucian’s approval made her teary. It was ridiculous really. She stilled when Harper covered her hand on the table and gave it a comforting squeeze.

“He was right.”

Drina smiled faintly, and then sighed with disappointment when he withdrew his hand and picked up the wine bottle to pour more of the pale liquid into both their glasses. Setting the now-empty bottle down, he then glanced around, relaxing when their waiter immediately appeared at the table.

“So how long were you a madam?” Harper asked once the waiter had nodded to his request for more wine and slipped away.

She picked up her glass and took a sip before answering. “Quite a while, actually. The women all knew what I was, so my not aging didn’t matter. I was never seen entering or leaving the brothel without a veil, and I didn’t stay there all the time. I had a big brawny fellow act as bodyguard for the women on occasion so I could travel, and when I traveled, no one knew I was a madam.” She shrugged. “Of course, as time passed, some of the girls left, either to marry, or to work a respectable job. One or two saved every penny they made and set out to start their own business, but Beth, Mary, and several others worked until they got too old. Then I shut the doors and bought another, smaller, house, which I turned into a retirement home for the half dozen who remained.

“They were so excited,” she recalled with a soft smile. “It was far enough away that they could tell their new neighbors that they were retired widows or whatever they chose. They could be respectable, make new friends among the respectable matrons around them, and enjoy their waning years among the family they’d made in each other.”

“It sounds like a happy ending,” Harper said, smiling.

“It should have been,” Drina agreed, her own smile dying.

Harper stilled, concern entering his expression. “What happened?”

“I set them up, saw them settled, and then left to travel, promising to visit frequently. But it was almost two years before I returned.” She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t mean to stay away so long, but time slipped away from me.”

“It tends to when you live as long as we do,” Harper said, as if trying to mitigate the guilt he could sense in her words. “What happened to your girls?”

“Nothing until just before I returned. According to Beth, they made friends in the area and were all happily enjoying their new home and retirement . . . but then another immortal happened upon the women. His name was Jamieson. I don’t know if that was his first or last name. Beth just called him Jimmy.” Her mouth tightened. “He was rogue.”

“Oh no,” Harper murmured, reaching for her hand again.

Drina turned her hand over under his and their fingers closed around each other’s, and then she said wearily, “I don’t know if he was just passing through the area and came across one of them, read her mind, and saw her history with me, or what, but something made him pick them for victims.”

When she paused again, Harper squeezed her fingers gently in sympathy. Drina shook her head, and said tightly, “He installed himself in the house and turned them all the same night in one horrible blood orgy. I guess it was horrendous; screaming old ladies watching each other being bled, and then having his blood forced on them, followed by the convulsions, the agony, the screaming.” She shook her head, trying hard not to think about how it must have been for those women she had come to care a great deal for. She continued grimly, “One of the women didn’t survive. Her heart couldn’t take it, and she died during the turn. But Beth, Mary, and the remaining five survived.”

“The one who died may have been the lucky one,” Harper muttered, though she saw a haunted look in his eyes and realized she’d inadvertently reminded him of his Jenny.

Trying to pull his attention back from the ghost of his previous life mate, Drina quickly continued, “They woke from the turn confused and terrified, and were informed that now that he’d made them young and beautiful again, he owned them and they would do his bidding.”

“He wanted them to prostitute for him?” Harper asked with a frown.

Drina shook her head. “They were to lure mortal men to the house with the promise of sex. But once there, these men would be robbed and fed on until dead.”

“Christ,” Harper muttered. “He couldn’t think to get away with that. Someone would notice the sudden increase in number of missing men in the area.”

“Yes, of course, but rogues are generally suicidal and want to be caught and put out of their misery anyway,” Drina muttered.

“How did the women react to all of this?” Harper asked with a frown. “Surely they didn’t go along with it?”

Drina cleared her throat. “Beth said that none of them wanted to. That Mary stood up to him when he told them his plans.”

“Mary the mouthy one,” Harper murmured, apparently recalling her earlier words.

“Mary the mouthy one who was too brave for her own good,” Drina said quietly. “She told him they wouldn’t do it. He could go to hell and they were going to find me and I’d stop him.”

“Bet he didn’t take that well,” Harper guessed, sounding pained.

“He ripped her head off on the spot,” Drina said grimly.

“Oh, Christ.” Harper sat back in his seat with disgust, but still held on to her hand. If anything, his grip on hers was tighter, as if he was trying to infuse her with his strength to deal with the memory.

“The others immediately agreed to whatever he wanted at that point,” Drina said quietly.

“I wonder why,” he muttered dryly.

“So he sent them out to find men and bring them back,” Drina continued. “The moment they were away from the house, Beth tried to talk the others into fleeing. They could find me, she said. I’d fix this.” She sighed, feeling the pinch of guilt that she hadn’t been able to fix anything in the end.

“Did they listen?” Harper asked quietly, sitting forward again.

Drina shook her head. “They were too afraid. They didn’t know where I was, and he might come after them. She should go by herself, they said. They’d do what he said and wait to be rescued.” Drina blew out her breath, and turned her wineglass on the tabletop with her free hand. “Beth fled, but she didn’t know where to go to search for me, and she needed blood. She ended up returning to the original brothel to hide. She knew I hadn’t yet sold it, and couldn’t think where else to go. She hid inside for two weeks, feeding on rats, birds, and any other animal who got close enough to the house.”

Harper’s eyes widened incredulously. “She couldn’t survive on that.”

“No,” Drina agreed on a sigh. “She was in a bad way by the end of the two weeks, but his turning of her had been so traumatic and she had always been kindhearted, she couldn’t bear the idea of feeding on a mortal.”

“What happened at the end of the two weeks?” Harper asked.

“She stayed inside during the day, but ventured out at night in search of small animals and such. She was chasing a rat around the side of the house toward the street when a carriage passed. My carriage.”

“You were back?”

Drina nodded. “I was on my way to the new house, but I was thinking of putting the old one up for sale and just wanted to see what shape it was in. I wasn’t going to stop. I planned to visit the girls first. I just wanted to see how it looked and that it was still standing and hadn’t burnt down or something while I was gone. So, I had the curtains open to look at it in passing. Beth recognized me through the window and shrieked.”

Drina closed her eyes as she recalled the sound. She would never forget it. It had been an inhuman wail, full of pain, rage, and need. The sound had brought her head sharply around, and she’d spotted Beth standing there, pale and ragged.

“I didn’t even recognize her,” Drina whispered. “She was a plump, well-kept old woman when last I’d seen her, and this creature was a filthy, emaciated, young redhead. But I saw the glowing eyes and the state she was in and made the driver stop at once. I didn’t realize who it was until I stepped down from the carriage and she threw herself at me babbling insanely about headless Mary and the others.”

“I still didn’t understand what had happened. She was half-mad with blood hunger and wasn’t making any sense. I tried to get her to the carriage, saying I’d take her to the retirement house, but she went crazy at the thought and the only way to calm her down even a little was to promise I wouldn’t take her there. I took her into the old house instead, and then set out to get her blood.”

Drina shook her head. “It was an ordeal. She was repulsed and horrified at the thought of feeding on anyone, and I had to control both her and the donors. It was a slow process. She needed so much blood. I had to go out and bring back several donors one at a time, then control them both, keeping the donor from suffering any pain and unaware of what was happening, while also controlling Beth’s horror and making sure she didn’t take too much. And the whole time I was terrified that I’d simply have to kill her in the end anyway, that her mind was too far gone to be salvaged.”

“Was it?” Harper asked.

Drina smiled wryly. “It’s a funny thing about people. The ones who seem strong and mouth off the most, or bully others, are usually the ones most terrified and weakest inside. And the ones who seem quiet and speak their fears, appearing the weakest, are often the strongest under it all.”

“Yes. I’ve found that too,” Harper said solemnly. “So our Beth came out all right?”

She smiled faintly at his calling her “our Beth,” but nodded. “Yes. I kept bringing her blood donors through the night. Let her rest for most of the day, and then began bringing in donors again that evening and night. She was coming around by the time dawn arrived on the second day, but I insisted she rest and we would talk after. She slept straight through the day and most of the early evening, and I stayed and watched over her. When she woke, she was quiet and calm and much better. She told me everything.” Drina blew her breath out on a sigh. “I immediately set out for the retirement house. I tried to get Beth to wait at the brothel while I took care of it, but she insisted on coming with me.

“I should have insisted harder,” she said dryly. “I thought I would only have to handle the rogue, but in the two weeks since Beth had left, he’d infected the other women with his madness.

“Some of the things he’d made them do to the men they lured back to the house on his orders were . . .” She shook her head at the memories she’d read from their minds as she’d entered the house, a house that had been charming and comfortable when last she’d seen it, but was now a blood-spattered nightmare, littered with dead bodies, some of which had been rent to pieces. Her mouth tightened. “They weren’t salvageable.

“They attacked the minute we entered, which I hadn’t expected. I was remembering the women the way they’d been, but they weren’t those women anymore. He said attack, and they came at us as if we were strangers who meant less than dirt to them. Beth and I were outnumbered, but we were also at a disadvantage because we weren’t mad, knew these women, and they were like family. Or had been,” she corrected on a sigh, and then admitted, “I think Beth and I both would have died that day if council enforcers hadn’t arrived to save our bacon.”

“The council was on to them?” Harper asked.

“Yes, fortunately,” she said. “But it would have been hard for them not to be. There was absolutely no caution being used. A lot of men, women, and even children from the area had disappeared. Several of the missing had been seen following the women into the house. And the smell coming from inside was rather atrocious. They might as well have painted ‘Look here’ on the front door.” She shook her head. “The enforcers were apparently arming themselves in carriages across the street when we rode up and, as Scotty put it afterward, ‘traipsed in as if attending a tea.’ ”

“Scotty?” he asked, pouring them both more wine.

“He was the lead enforcer on the raid. Now he heads up all the enforcers in the UK,” she explained, and then grinned. “He was most put out with us that night.”

Tilting her head to the side, she mimicked a very bad Scottish accent, mangling it horribly with her laughter as she did. “Ye should ha’e sent a message round to the council to handle it, not danced in there yersel’es like a pair o’ idjits. Ye cuid ha’e got yersel’es killed, ye silly arses . . . And wid ha’e twoo had we no been here to pull yer fat oot o’ the fire.”