The Vampyre Legal Chronicles - Daniel: Book: 3 (16 page)

Anais clung to the cloistered ceiling,
her vampyre in control of her every move.

She'd followed the dark-robed vampyre who'd attacked
Charlotte.

Even travelling as fast as she could he'd sped away, a dark
blur, lost to her.

Now she watched events unfold below as a portal opened in
the vast central space and line after line of humans and vampyres entered, as
if of their own free will, to leave this world for another.

Where
were they going?

And then her eyes went wide as Eleanor Pattullo stepped
through the portal into this world. The dark witch wore black leather. Her
skull protected by a helmet of metal the color of silver and a matching breast
plate.

Anais watched as the witch moved to converse with another
dark-robed vampyre of the Order. Now Eleanor's eyes searched the space.
Abruptly her head lifted to the cavernous ceiling.

Anais's heart leapt to her mouth, but she kept absolutely
still hardly daring to breathe, tucked behind a beam in a dark corner.

She watched proceedings through her lashes.

And then something happened that she'd never have believed
possible if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. When the space was clear of
people, the portal began to dissipate and the building shuddered and rumbled,
Eleanor was handed first one naked toddler and then another. She placed them on
the floor right in the centre of the building. Boys. Little boys. They simply
sat utterly still with heads bent, as if their eyes were on the floor.

Then Eleanor did another quick scan of the space, turned and
stepped through the portal.

It vanished with a strange pop that resonated in her ears.

And now the building stood still and silent.

Even the storm outside seemed to subside.

Heart pounding in her chest, Anais made a rapid descent and
raced across the stone floor to the children. One was pale skinned with blonde
curls that badly needed a wash. The other was his polar opposite; dark skinned
with black spiky hair that was matted. They stank to high heaven.

Neither of them looked at her and she wondered for a
heart-stopping moment if they were dead. But no, they were breathing. Their
little chests rising and falling in a perfect synchronicity, which was chilling
to see.

Her hand reached out to touch the dark one.

His soft skin was icy.

He lifted his head.

Her hand flew to her mouth to stop her cry of utter dismay.

Dear God
.

He had no eyes.

A wave of pity, utter fury and a need for revenge filled her
heart, her head.

'Why?'
she asked her vampyre.
'Why would anyone do
such a thing to an innocent?'

Her stunned vampyre had no answer.

"Anais?"

She whirled around to find an armed to the teeth Ezekiel and
Marcus racing to her side.

Caught in his arms, she whimpered as the very breath was
squeezed from her lungs, feeling safe for the first time in what felt like
weeks instead of hours. But she pulled away from him and dropped to the floor
to kneel in front of the little children.

"Look what's been done to them, Marcus." Her voice
broke and at last the tears came. "Look what's been done."

Ezekiel now lifted both boys, his dark eyes going like icy
slits as he studied them.

"Traumatized. We need to get them out of here."

"Are Charlotte and Gia safe?" she asked a stony
faced Marcus.

He turned to her and those vivid blue eyes went soft.
"Aye. James and Charlotte have returned home and Gia is waiting for
us."

Abruptly the storm again rose outside as hail battered the
stony ground.

She closed her eyes and swayed on her feet.

Then she was in his arms and he was striding through the
dark and dank hell that was Dyunik Monastery.

"Take me home, Marcus."

***

Daniel moved with speed, stealth and
caution through the monastery, using the sound of the wind and hail to conceal
his approach. He used every dark shadow on wall and ceiling to hide his presence.
He began to examine the construction, the tubes of wires, noticing a technology
glaringly out of place on such an ancient structure.

There was, so far, no trace of his target, but his disquiet
began to grow.

Vassili had tried to hurt Charlotte. He no longer had her in
his clutches.

And yet...

He came upon the body of a young girl dressed in black robes
of the Order. She was sprawled on her back. Human. Dead. Her grey eyes had a
look of utter confusion as they stared unseeing up at the arched ceiling. Blood
still warm pooled beneath her. He didn't touch her, but noted blood and flesh
under the fingernails of her right hand.

He bent his head to sniff her fingers.

His heightened olfactory senses gave him the answer.

Vampyre.

Ancient.

Abruptly, a flash of power was all around him.

Dark magic he realized as a creature rose from the dark and
dank floor. He wasted precious seconds as he leapt away and spun around to
avoid an attack from behind. The girl had been a distraction. A trap. And he'd
fallen for it like a fool.

Vassili's claw missed his skull, but raked down his
shoulder, dug three deep ruts into his chest through kevlar, through flesh and
bone, missing his heart by a whisper. The pain was agonizing, so wrenching it
caught his breath. It nearly brought him to his knees. Then the breath of
corruption detonated in his face. Instinctually Daniel aimed his clawed fist
for Vassili's black heart as his vampyre took full control.

The strength of his beast rocked him. Now an amber mist of
fury hazed before his eyes, revenge dominating his mind. The building rumbled
around them. He felt the prickling sensation upon his skin as gooseflesh rose.
The scent of sorcery crackled and burned in the air. The creature that was
Vassili now used black magic to attract a portal to the spot.

Fuck.

Heavy blocks of stone and masonry crashed to the floor with
the sound booming in the cloistered hallway.

Again Daniel moved with preternatural speed aiming his fist
again for Vassili's heart but the creature had disappeared as if into thin air.

Now he flew fast to search the monastery and found no one.

How was it possible everyone had vanished? Dyunik monastery
was situated on top of a mountain range, for Christ's sake. Where had they
gone?

He moved through the vast structure with his vampyre on the
highest state of alert. Vassili would not attack him again. Daniel had been tested
in hand-to-hand combat and the high priest of The Order had lost the benefit of
surprise. The Order would go underground fully aware, the Censure of three
vampyre princes and seven Precedential Elders would show them no mercy.

Then magic again rose to scrape across his flesh as a roar
thundered in his ears as the whole building and the earth upon which it stood
shook again. The smell of spent fireworks was heavy in the air. A scent he knew
meant dark magic had left the building.

The pain in his shoulder, his chest, now bloomed in his mind
as adrenaline leaked way.

He wanted to drop to his knees, but knew if he did, he'd
never get up again.

'Daniel!'
Gia's desperate cry for him rang loud in
his mind.
'You are wounded?'

'I am coming for you,'
he responded, ignoring her
question.

Her annoyed huff of frustration in his mind made him bare
his teeth in a rictus grin through the agony.

He knew the pain spreading through his flesh, his bones, was
unnatural. It appeared Vassili's claws contained a venom.

His strength was failing fast.

Shit.

Fuck.

Strong arms lifted Daniel.

"You're hurt, son."

"I think Vassili poisoned me," he gasped to Ian Macpherson
and three Centuri. Then his eyes dropped to the technology snaking around the
building. "We need to follow the wiring, find out where it leads, what it
means."

Ian and a Centuri warrior supported him as they trailed down
stone steps, worn by the feet of thousands over the years, into what had once
been the dungeons of the monastery.

As they entered a clean and white space with its own
filtration system, the back-up generator still humming, they stopped dead.
There were at least ten computer stations. And by the way they were still
alive, showing a variety of building and people around the world, it appeared
their technicians had left in a hurry.

Ian blew out a long whistle.

"State-of-the-art flat screens, virtual technology,
I've never seen the like."

"Grab everything you can," he whispered through
the hurt. "We don't know how long the Entrée will remain open."

Ian placed him in a chair and Daniel again hissed through an
excruciating agony.

Fuck it
.

Sweat now slicked his palms, ran down his back.

He told his vampyre to take control before he passed out.

Ian moved fast around the room as he approached a huge table
carved of oak. The piece looked totally out of place among the glass and metal.
Daniel watched him place the palm of his hand, almost reverently, on what lay
upon the table.

"Daniel," said Ian as he turned a pale face to
look at him. "It's the ancient texts. What the
hell
are they doing
here?"

Daniel sucked in a breath, tried to breathe through yet another
wave of pain.

He was stupid enough to attempt a smile.

"You've just made my father's day."

"Sir," spoke a Centuri as his hands flew over a
virtual keyboard. "I have a message here to Vassili from Enricho
Donatti."

"Download everything you can to our servers in
Scotland," cried Ian as he dumped the ancient texts into the arms of a
Centuri before stalking towards a Daniel who was having trouble sitting
upright. "Hurry man."

Gia was waiting exactly where he'd left her.

'Good girl,'
Daniel whispered in her mind. Ian was
holding him upright. She cried out as she reached for him with impatient arms.
Her brown eyes searched his before going wide as she spotted his wounds. The
look on her face was a mix of terror and love. Dear heaven, her face swam
before his eyes, she was so very beautiful. Her dark hair tumbling about her
pale face streaked with dirt and tears, her brown eyes enormous.

"We just need to wait for Ezekiel and Marcus and Anais
to get back and we can go home," he said, praying to God that home was
still there.

Now he sank to the floor and felt Gia holding him tight.

She was hurting him, a lot, but he didn't have the heart to
tell her.

Then he heard a voice that made him close his eyes in relief.

"Is that you, Gia?" asked an Anais with tears in
her voice. And then he heard her gasp. "
Omigod
, what happened to
Daniel?"

Pain finally, thankfully, carried him away.

The world went dark.

"You
will
marry me."

Gia rolled her eyes to heaven as she tucked the sheet more
firmly around Daniel.

They were in the hospital wing of a modern version of a
Scottish castle built in a glen set between snow-capped mountains in the
Grampians in Scotland.

She'd thought she might miss the busy buzz of New York City,
but after only two weeks the stunning beauty of the place already felt like
home to her. She loved their tower apartment with views over hundreds of Munros
for as far as they eye could see (a Munro was a mountain that measured over
three thousand feet above sea level). Most of all the she loved the people who
lived within the vast structure. Marcus and Anais, James and Charlotte, Prince
Duncan Gillespie, who was always willing to listen whenever she'd feared for
Daniel's life. She'd even stopped jumping out of her skin whenever she met one
of the Centuri warriors who manned a ring of a steel around the family.

Family.

Now she was part of the beating heart of a family she'd
always dreamed of being a part of, and never had.

"We'll talk about it when you get back on your
feet," she said in the soft voice she always used around Daniel these
days.

"We'll talk about it now."

"I see our patient is still giving you plenty of
trouble," said Saira as she entered. In her hands she held a white metal dish
which contained a vial of cloudy liquid and a hypodermic needle.

Daniel scowled.

He was still terribly pale.

He'd also lost an incredible amount of weight and his
cheekbones looked as if they'd been carved from solid marble.

"I already had my shot," he said in a whiney voice,
sounding as if he was six years old.

"This is a special medicine, brewed by Ezekiel."
Saira grinned into his glowering face and sang, "
'It's a kind of
magic.'
 Roll over, make my day and let me see that tight ass of
yours."

The filthy look he threw the medic made Gia bite down very
hard on her bottom lip.

He pulled down soft cotton pyjama bottoms and rolled over.

And what a very fine and tight ass it was.

Gia gave a happy sigh.

And it was all hers, every delectable inch of it.

Saira caught her eyes, sent her a salacious wink, mouthed.
"Nice butt."

"I can read your dirty mind, Gia. And that thought was
not very professional of you, Ms. Pattullo... Ow!"

"Should've relaxed your buttock muscle," said
Saira.

"You fucking enjoyed that," he growled.

He hitched up his pants, then flinched as his face went
white.

His shoulder was letting him know it
still
wasn't
fully healed and didn't appreciate the manoeuvre.

As if he was a little boy, Saira ruffled his hair making it
stick on end.

"I did, too. You need to take it easy, boyo. Your
vampyre is winning the war with the poison in your system, but it's going to
take time for real healing to begin. Why don't you just lie back and enjoy
letting Gia pamper you to death?"

"I'd enjoy it more if she'd stop being so damned
stubborn," he said through clenched teeth.

Saira eyed his face. "You in pain?"

"You're not giving me more pain meds. I can't think
straight and sleep all the damned time."

Saira ignored him, nodded to a Centuri medic who prepped a
syringe.

"Aww, gimme a break here," whined Daniel.

"It's just a little prick," said Gia.

The dark look she received in response told her she'd pay
for the little dig later, when he was well. Her tally of what she owed already
was rising on a daily basis quite nicely.

But deep within her heart, she felt terribly sorry for him.
He was missing out on the global re-organization of Gillespie, Pattullo and
Hindmarch. The frustration of his situation was nibbling away at his usually
stable mood. These days her man was like a big bad-tempered bear.

He hadn't taken the indignity of the sick-room in his
stride, but now he accepted the pain meds with as much good grace as he could
muster, which wasn't a lot.

After Saira and the medic left, he let his dark head fall
back on his pillows.

His eyes closed, jaw clenched and his wonderful face white.

Eyes still closed, he patted the bed in invitation.

"Stop worrying, woman. Come and lie here beside
me."

Gia simply raised a brow, folded her arms.

"Uh uh. Nope. Last time you tried to ravish me."

Now he smiled, vivid blue eyes watching her from beneath
narrowed lids.

"Come here, my wee darlin’." His deep voice was
soft, and had he slurred the words a little? The meds must have kicked in fast.

Grinning and feeling safe from any amorous advances, she
kicked off her shoes, moved to the bed and lay on her side, leaning on her
elbow to watch the tension ease from his amazing face.

He placed his good arm around her, held her close as he
tugged her to lay her head on his shoulder.

He let out a big sigh of complete contentment.

"That's better," he muttered into her hair.

The time had come for her to be nothing but honest with him.

"I love you," she spoke from the heart and felt
him go still.

She'd surprised him.

He cleared his throat, and pulled her close.

"I love you so much, Gia. You are my life. My heart
beats only for you. I promise to keep you safe. Marry me."

Could she do it?

Could she take the risk?

"I'm not Liam," he growled the words. "Do not
measure me against him. I will not tolerate it, my love."

Anger rose that he should think such a thing of her.

They were nothing alike, how could he even mention Liam and
himself in the same sentence?

She tipped her head back to look up into his face.

"How could you think that?"

His blue eyes held hers. She read the love.

"I can read your thoughts. Every time the possibility
of marriage is mentioned you freeze, and your mind immediately returns to your
past relationship experience. It kills me when you re-live what that bastard
did to you. It kill me."

The truth was right there in his eyes. She felt it in his
heart thundering against his ribs.

She was truly,
truly
, loved.

Eyes glued to his, she whispered, "Yes."

The blue in his eyes deepened as they went wide.

"Yes, what?"

He had to be sure.

She smiled.

"Yes, Daniel Stewart Gillespie, I will marry you."

"Kiss me."

And she did.

Much later,

"It's terribly ostentatious," said Gia staring
with a mixture of awe and wonder and anxiety at the huge diamond ring on her
finger. "I don't do ostentatious. I've slim hands, skinny fingers. This
thing's a knuckle duster. I'll take someone's eye out with it. How will I put
my hand in the pockets of my jeans? I want something narrow, small and
unpretentious."

Daniel might have bloody known it.

His heart fell.

The most important purchase of his life and he'd got it
wrong.

Over two weeks ago, he'd spent an entire afternoon at a
certain well known jewellery store with two female assistants hanging on his
shoulder, whispering sweet nothings in his ear and virtually creeping up his
arse.

He should have listened to his damned intuition and gone for
the narrow band of diamonds in rose gold.

"I knew I should have listened to my gut," he
muttered under his breath.

Big brown eyes gazed into his.

"Did you go with your heart?"

Had he?

There was no point in lying to the woman he loved and adored,
she'd see right through him.

"I dunno. The sales assistant were billing and cooing over
that diamond ring, so I thought, since they were women and you're a woman, I
couldn't go wrong."

There was a knock on the door.

It opened and his father poked his head in.

Duncan Gillespie took in the scene immediately.

He swallowed a grin and told himself the timing could not
have been better.

"Can I come in?"

Daniel jerked his head in a come-and-save-me-dad gesture.

While Gia gave him wide eyes and a big fake smile and held
out her hand to show him a HUGE diamond ring that swamped her small hand.

"Nice ring," he said without looking at his son.
"Something to keep for when you're all dressed up. But for day to day I
think this one," he took a battered leather ring box from his pocket,
handed it to Daniel, "might work better for you. It belonged to your
mother, Daniel."

Daniel's eyes glistened as he opened the box and at Gia's
gasp of delight Duncan knew he'd done the right thing.

The ring was a narrow band of white gold studied all around
with deep-set diamonds.

Daniel slid the knuckle duster from Gia's finger, handed it
to his father.

"Like it?" he whispered to a Gia whose bottom lip
was trembling, in a good way. He slid the ring on her finger. It was a perfect
fit. Almost as if it was meant to be.

"I just love it," she whispered in a voice that
wobbled with an emotion he could get right behind.

She threw her arms around Daniel and kissed him right on the
mouth.

And then she threw her arms around his father and kissed him
on one cheek and then the other.

"Thank you. I'm honored to wear it and will treasure it
always."

Duncan cleared his throat, winked at his delighted son.

Lifting his hand, he swept a single stroke down Gia's
fabulous hair.

"Welcome to the family, my darling. We're thrilled to
have you as one of us."

Neither one of them noticed when he quietly left the room.

Wrapped in the arms of the man she loved, Gia couldn't stop
staring at the ring.

When she did look up at Daniel his marvelous face blurred.

She blinked rapidly. "How did he know?"

Daniel's wide smile filled her heart to overflowing.

"He's a vampyre prince, and he misses nothing. I don't
want to wait. How soon are you going to marry me?"

She just laughed and threw herself into his arms, lifted her
face for his kiss.

"Whenever you want."

"Two weeks?"

A wave of sheer happiness washed over her and threatened to
break her emotions again.

However, she managed to blink frantically to clear her eyes.

She didn't want to miss a single moment of this.

"Okay."