What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] (3 page)

A narrow door a yard high and forged of thick, leather-banded steel winked from the shadows. He'd never get through that door, his sword and strength useless against metal half a foot thick. He swept the area with narrowed, searching eyes. There had to be another way.

His lips stretched to a smile.

Lucien retreated a step, raised a booted foot, and roaring violent desperation, kicked once, twice.

The wood under the hinges that held the door in place splintered. He pried at them with his fingers, tips bloodying on edges serrated by rust, but the hinges bent. Moments later, they popped away.

"Find him?"

Lucien ignored Malachi's pained, gasping question. Instead, groaning at the weight, he heaved the wretched door to the side, and retrieving his sword, he bent to a crouch. The door had barred a rough earthen tunnel arrowing down steeply. Lacey tatters of cobwebs hung by dusty threads in one corner. Otherwise, he couldn't see beyond the first few feet of inky black.

The tunnel, long abandoned, had been recently reopened. The musty odor of neglect wafted to him on a miserly breeze from below, but underlying that scent, something more, something that made his blood shriek. He wouldn't be too late this time. Couldn't.

"Hurry, Luc."
Lucien's stomach twisted at Malachi's awkward lurching gait as his vampyr elder forced his damaged body to their rendezvous point: the stables.
"He's dying."

"Get out of here. While you still can."
Lucien entered the tunnel at a low stoop. Loose dirt crumbled beneath his feet, plinking down to the darkness below.
"Krystiyan didn't run. He'll return soon, with reinforcements."
He scrambled as fast as his awkwardly bent legs would allow, slid, tried to focus whatever fine senses he could muster.

"A woman?"

Lucien winced, unsurprised at the sensitivity of Malachi's vampyr, but hardly pleased by it.

"Master David found a woman."

And Garrick, that sly son of a bitch, had sent them—had sent him—into the viper's nest to retrieve her.

Holy Christ, they were doomed, but Luc couldn't resist the female's call. It didn't matter that he wasn't old enough to be a proper father to her. It didn't matter that he wasn't powerful enough to become the protector she'd need. All that mattered were her weakening cries in his heart and in his head. If he didn't take her as his ward and get her away, she'd die. They'd all die.

So he scrambled down the tunnel.

It widened ahead, spilling into a narrow, circular room with crude stone walls that might've once outlined a well. Lucien dug in his heels to slow his descent and dropped from the tunnel several feet. Skidding on rotten leaves, he avoided slamming into the lump huddled in the stale muck by twisting to a sharp roll. He grunted when the back of his head cracked into unyielding stone. His body jolted to a stop.

Heart thundering against his rib cage, he stared at what was left of her.

She was naked, her slim body shivering between weak, twitching convulsions brought on by the transition. Slashes tore pale skin muddied by dirt and grime. On her back, her legs, the arms she hugged around herself. Bruises flowered sadistic blues and purples under the grit. And the parts of her that hadn't been beaten or shredded had been bitten.

No.

Mauled.

"Can she be saved?"

He shoved Malachi's presence from his mind. If Mal hadn't gutted himself on David's sword, Lucien might've answered. To give her the more powerful elder's blood. Garrick had been right about that. But his new partner was wounded, unable to provide for her.

More importantly, unable to follow.

As Garrick had planned.

Cursing, Luc pushed his sword into its sheath and scooped the female from the dirt and the rot. She shrieked—in terror or agony, he didn't know—but the hoarse scratch of her damaged vocal cords spiked fresh fury through him. How long had she screamed before her voice had deteriorated to that rusty, croaking rasp? “Sh,
bebe
. It's over, all over,” he lied.

He stroked dark curls from her face and off her shoulders, ignoring slimy bits of leaf and twigs snarled in it. He exposed her mouth first, lips blue from lack of blood. They opened and shut in spasmodic gasps, wounded-animal whimpers emerging from her bruised and bloodied throat. Then her pert nose. Twin threads of scarlet streamed from her nostrils, but it hadn't been broken, so he assumed the virus responsible. Swearing, he pushed her hair past the shell of her ears until her dark eyes stared, unseeing, back at him.

Her emerging vampyr sparked red glints inside them.

Even starved, her transition criminally protracted, she couldn't have been exposed to the virus long. No more than two days. David would've shored up the stronghold's defenses if he'd had more time. Krystiyan wouldn't have been able to breach the increased security, nor would he and Mal have been capable of forcing a way inside.

If the dark master had had her longer, the virus would be changing her instead of killing her.

He punctured his neck with the jagged tip of his fingernail, a small, neat crescent just above his carotid. When fresh, hot blood surged, he pulled her mouth to it. “Drink. To ease the pain."

Her eyelids flickered.

He crooned to her, hoping the gentle tone of his voice reached her. If not, then the acrid scent of his blood. Or the taste of him gurgling against her cracked lips. Anything to coax her to drink, but he needn't have worried.

She fell on his neck like a rabid animal, biting, clawing, scratching for more.

"That's it,
chere
. Feed.” With his blood now linking them, he concentrated, struggled through the agony of her thoughts to pluck her name from her shattered mind. “I need to get you away from here, Kate. Don't let go.” Gritting his teeth against the pain, Lucien lifted her.

She'd feed as they fled. They couldn't wait.

Krystiyan wouldn't.

When they emerged from the tunnel, Malachi weaved shakily in the stable's sole exit. Sticky black blood sheeted his shirt and seeped into the waistline of his jeans. “She lives, then.” He leaned against the doorjamb, his face pasty white. “Good."

Snarling, Lucien swiveled to place the bulk of his body between Mal and the woman. He anchored her to him with one arm, freeing the other to retrieve his sword. The sharp, metallic slide of his weapon as it slipped from its sheath electrified him. “Don't make me kill you."

"David may have beat you to it, kid.” Malachi laughed, turning to stagger from the stable. “I'll leave a blood trail for Krystiyan, lead him from you as long as I can.” Beads of scarlet spattered on the cool grass as he walked, his gait awkward and uneven.

Lucien followed cautious yards behind. Relief that his partner wasn't fighting him for Kate made him dizzy, but he was young, not stupid. He wasn't foolish enough to put his weapon away yet. Malachi would hunt him for the woman cradled in his arms soon.

His throat tightened.

Garrick hunted him already.

"This is where we part company,” the elder said when they reached the hole they'd cut in the perimeter fence. “I'll go through first, heading west-northwest.” He raised a red-smeared hand when Lucien opened his mouth. “I don't want to know which direction you're going, so you don't need to lie."

He watched his partner's clumsy crawl through the opening. “Thanks, Mal."

When he reached the other side, Malachi struggled, but he finally pulled himself upright. “I'm in no shape to fight you for her, anyway.” Shoulders squaring, he lurched forward one step, then another. “It was good hunting with you, Luc."

Lucien frowned at the wet rattle in his partner's chest. “Forget drawing the others from me. I can outrun them. You can't. Garrick is coming to help you, Mal. Go to ground."

"Death is nothing to be afraid of.” The vampyr smiled, blood foaming pink and frothy at the corner of his mouth. “Even the death Krystiyan would give me would be...a blessing."

Lucien's first responsibility lay with Kate now. He wouldn't risk her, not even for his partner, but the survival of their kind demanded more than the woman in his arms, the females who were so horrifically rare. They needed women. Desperately. But to win the war, they needed soldiers too. “We can't afford to lose you, Malachi."

"Get the woman to safety. I won't die.” Mal shrugged an apathetic shoulder. “My luck's never been that good."

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Lucien sprawled against the scratchy nap of the sofa. His chest heaved when Kate's mouth released the opening he'd made above his left nipple. The cut wept blood, but her boneless weight told him she already slept, too weak to notice or care.

He closed his eyes.

His head fell back against the couch's spine.

Five nights.

He'd wasted precious weeks circling Krystiyan's search parties and Garrick's ruthless hunt to reach his closest shelter, a derelict basement in Chicago's K-Town. Then he'd shut out the world to nurture and tend to her for five hellacious nights.

He'd cared for the injuries David had inflicted. He'd comforted her through the agony of the transition, murmuring into her hair, stroking and soothing her. He'd coaxed precious drops past dry, cracked lips as hour passed to hour and night melted into night. In the beginning, he'd marveled at how eagerly she'd feasted. Those brief periods of hunger had galvanized him while they'd been on the run, but hope had since become a vague memory.

He was losing her.

During the daylight hours, the pallor of her skin blanched to bloodless alabaster. The purpling of her bruises had intensified, and the slashed skin on her back had ceased knitting. Most telling, Lucien had forced her to feed for the past two days. Before, feeding had been instinctive. Though weakened, she'd fought for survival.

Not anymore.

He ran his fingers through her long, dark hair, comforted by its softness. “I'm sorry, bebe. So sorry."

Once they'd gone to ground in Chicago, he hadn't dared leave her. Garrick prowled, closer by the day, and though Lucien didn't know what had happened to Malachi, whether his partner lived or died, he knew Krystiyan hadn't followed the vampyr elder. The dark master pursued him and the woman instead. Both Garrick and the master tracked him through the scent Lucien couldn't avoid leaving in the human prey he trailed behind them. The Russian's foul odor soon joined Garrick's seductive scent to permeate Chicago's West Side.

Lucien couldn't hunt.

His strength deteriorated with each feeding he missed, and he'd missed too many. He felt the loss in the deadweight of his limbs, the lethargic beat of his heart. Fatigue crept over him, through him, and saturated his every pore and muscle.

His options had dwindled to a blur his mind refused to process.

He needed blood, but he couldn't feed while their predators were so near.

He couldn't run from them either.

Kate's transition had grown more difficult—and dangerous—every night they'd spent on the road to Chicago. He'd flee if he could, but she wouldn't survive if they ran again. Better to starve than allow Krystiyan to snare them on open ground. And Garrick? Damn his conniving, manipulative soul! Luc would fight him, inch by cursed inch, before allowing the vampyr elder to take her so readily.

Instead, Luc had gambled that he was strong enough to sustain them until the search wavered.

He'd been wrong.

He planted a kiss on the crown of her head.

He must call Garrick.

"I have fed richly, Luc, glutted myself for you and the woman both."

His eyes flashed open.

He tensed, tucked Kate against his side.

A startled growl emerged from his throat.

Garrick's eyebrow arched. “You would have called, and I would have answered.” He lifted his arm and slashed at his wrist with sharp incisors. “I found you first."

The metallic scent of his blood burned Lucien's nostrils. “Stay away from her!"

"She's dying.” Garrick shoved his streaming wrist toward him.

Lucien flinched from the first blow of a battle he knew he couldn't win, but instead—

"Feed."

Garrick's fingers dripped sweet crimson.

With the first splash on his lips, Lucien fastened one hand to Garrick's meaty forearm. He held it in his tight grasp, and bending to the wound, he drank.

Had he been so dry? So cold?

He hadn't noticed.

But as blood poured into his ravenous mouth, he recognized the disorientation hunger had wrought in him. If he—a three centuries-old headhunter—was so frail, how much weaker would his ward be?

"Restore yourself, and your ward will feed from you."

She would live.

She must live.

Lucien clamped his teeth into the wound, satisfied when Garrick's breath hissed at the roughness.

He drank.

Within moments, Garrick's strength seeped into his drained body, first as a trickle, then as a flood. Nerve endings snapped. His heartbeat doubled, tripled, until his heart pounded against the wall of his chest as the power of the elder vampyr's blood stirred it to brutal life. Flush with the virus that made them vampyr, Garrick's blood singed his veins like an electric current and so filled him with life, with energy, and blessed God, the power, Lucien sucked greedily.

"Drink deeply. The woman will need it."

With the first urgent demands of his hunger appeased, Lucien slid his fingers into Kate's hair. Cradling her scalp, he guided her mouth to the opening he'd made on his chest.

She sniffed at fresh scarlet gurgling from the cut, her nose wrinkling. They hadn't time to wait for Garrick's blood to steep inside his, but traces of Lucien's familiar scent would tempt her. It had to.

It did.

Kate traced the wound with the tip of her pink tongue.

Lucien's body clenched.

The violent bite of his teeth hurt Garrick, but Lucien couldn't help himself. His former partner had abandoned headhunting—abandoned
him
—when the temptation to turn had drawn perilously close. Garrick had said killing had become attractive to him. Too alluring. So he'd laid down his sword before he became what they fought to destroy—a monster.