Wicked Lord: Part One (7 page)

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!

"What do you mean?" Lady Ariel asked with a
shrill voice and her eyes darting over everyone. "I've been inside
looking for you! What has happened to Lady Beth? Did that man
attack her? I
know
him …"

Beth made a strangled sound into his
shoulder as he gaped at Lady Ariel who backed away from them, while
he tried to place what she was saying. He turned back to look at
the Blacknall brothers, maybe for answers, as he questioned whether
he'd seen the bloody remains of a woman out in the night woods.

They were
gone
.

Christian no longer stood beside him. "How
could they do that?" Adam demanded into the night air, turning
again in a complete circle as he held Beth tightly to his chest.
How could they leave his side without a sound? Then, his gaze
settled upon Lady Ariel who was running away, back toward the
mansion.

"Damnation," he cussed, suddenly realizing
the new implications if Lady Ariel reached the mansion and blurted
her story to anyone. "Beth, it's all right, all right," he soothed,
trying to comfort her as he rushed after Lady Ariel, whom he
shouted to as loudly as he thought he could get away with.

"Lady Ariel! Stop!" That didn't work, so he
tried, "Beth needs you!"

Chapter Seven

Trinity held his left arm out from his side
as virgin's blood dripped from the cuff of his shirt. He needed to
feed and feed quickly before his hard-fought control snapped and he
did something he would regret for eternity

"Baptiste has brought down a buck. It still
lives," Church called to him from deeper in the woods. "Come, feed,
Trinity. We will all feed and regain our purpose."

Trinity sprinted toward redemption … this
time, and as he ran, he tore his shirt off, throwing it aside.
There was still blood on his hand and when he came across a small
stream, he stopped to wash it off. Crouching, he looked at the
blood drying on his hand and fingers, wondering how they'd all
lived this long and not known virgin's blood held such diabolical
and monumental cravings for them.

Forcibly, he sunk his hand into the water,
when all he wanted to do was lick the blood from his fingers. He
growled, shaking his entire body, and then he used his other hand
to wash and rub the blood away from his chest, arm, and hand. He
felt Church's presence and he looked up to see his brother standing
across the small stream. Church's face looked relaxed and his fangs
were receded. Church had fed.

"Come, little brother, it's not far." Church
inclined his head and Trinity rose from his crouch, stepping across
the stream to stop beside his older brother. Church's hand clamped
his shoulder. "Well done, brother, you saved that woman."

Trinity wondered if that were true why he
felt as though he'd marked or scarred the young woman for life. He
ignored Church's praise and he sprinted toward the blood he
voraciously needed. Normally, he didn't take animal blood as
Baptiste, and especially Christian, did. Animal blood did sustain,
yet wasn't satisfying. Of course, Christian couldn't find it within
his faith to drink from newly dead corpses, Trinity's preferred
food. Christian never denounced him for it or the freshly-leeched
blood he drank that their ally, Doctor Latham or others of his
like, gifted them with.

Trinity reached the buck just as the last of
its noble life left it and he knelt beside it offering a silent
prayer for its sacrifice, which he was certain all his brothers
might be surprised he did. He began to feed with a need harsher
than he'd felt in a long time as he heard his brothers’ intense
conversation above him.

"I've not come so close to losing my control
in so long I'd forgotten what it felt like. Forgot the overpowering
demand," Christian admitted, with his voice sounding confused.

"I felt it once in the last year," Baptiste
said, surprising them all. "I think she was on a monthly and I
strayed too close."

"That's never been a problem before."
Church's voice was on edge. "Why didn't you say something,
Baptiste?"

"Damnation, Church, you know we never speak
about women or sexual relations together. All we do is argue about
it or don't know how to handle it." Baptiste glared at Church.

"You should tell us everything, especially
something this important."

Baptiste ignored Church's rise of temper,
saying, "I've thought about it ever since it happened and really
the only conclusion I could come to was we're reaching our prime as
men beneath this damned vampire’s curse."

Trinity wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand, straightening his torso. "And men in their prime, physically,
seek virginity, health, and youth above all else to spread their
seed." He practically snarled out the words as the trueness of it
sank into his soul.

"So an innocent young virgin, freshly
bleeding, shouted to our darker natures," Christian said, then he
added, "Then the murdered one was surely not a virgin."

Trinity could feel his bloodlust retreating
with his blood intake and feelings of fullness slowly seeped
through his body. His maddening hunger was abating. As he stood to
form a circle with his brothers under the full moon now escaped
from the clinging fog, he still felt edgy with thoughts of a maiden
named Beth.

"What we need to know," Church said as he
leveled a glare at each of them in turn, "is why none of us could
track the murderer's movements or blood?"

"But Trinity, was—" Baptiste began.

"I followed the woman," Trinity injected. He
felt the rise of his brothers' curiosity over this. However, he was
in no mood to discuss what he couldn't understand.

Whether Church understood his complicated
feelings or not, Church passed the question by, moving on. "We
cannot scent every vampire." Church shrugged his broad shoulders in
the twilight. "None of us knew when our stepfather, Nikkos, was
around."

"Some of those women he forced us to bring
to him …" Christian's yellow-rimmed blue eyes looked as haunted as
they all felt.

"Had to be virgins." Trinity arched his neck
with a growling voice.

"That adds another line of proof to my
theory." Baptiste remained the clear, scientific head among them.
"They didn't overly tempt us, then."

Trinity slowly looked along the dense tree
line. "So we have a murderer that could be a vampire or not."

"But this monster tears apart its victims
like an animal." Church punched his fist into his palm.

"Some could easily accuse us of being
animals." Trinity sneered.

"You're cynical to think such a thing."
Baptiste grasped his shoulder. "We've all conquered our baser
inclinations."

Trinity didn't stop his leering cynicism as
strange intuitions began to claw through him. Really, they'd never
left his concern. He turned his gaze to the west.
Why could he
feel this one lone woman and her fears?
Unable to ignore his
concern, he suddenly started forward, becoming a blur with
vampire’s speed. "I
must
go."

"Brother!" Church yelled with a voice that
wanted him to stop,

Trinity kept going, and then Christian was
beside him. "Don't try to stop me," Trinity warned.

"Nay, brother." Christian laughed. "Just
take my jacket, will you?"

Christian tossed the jacket toward him, and
Trinity caught it. "Thank you."

His direction was his horse and he heard
Christian speaking loudly to him, "When you see to the lady's
welfare, see that the brother fairs well too."

Trinity raised a hand aloft as he ran, in
acknowledgment of Christian's request. At least one brother didn't
find his sudden urges strange and unfathomable.

***

Beth felt pain stabbing across her back, and
she didn't understand how she'd not felt it in the woods before.
Vicious eyes like the inky, black depths of a lightless pool
flashed through her mind and she gasped, remembering the pain of
the slashing cut. But after …

After that, she only remembered the dark and
mystifying Lord Trinity. She shuddered against Adam as he carried
her and he chased after … Beth tried to make her mind focus, but it
was so hard and she desperately wanted to go to sleep. She wanted
to hide from everything that was so horrible. If only the pain
would let her sleep.

"Beth!" Adam looked down at Beth jostling in
his arms. She'd gone limp and he could see her eyes were closed. He
knew enough from classes he'd taken at the university to know she
was still in physical danger. She was so cold, combined with
shaking, and the presence of some wound he'd heard Lord Trinity
speak of that could put Beth into shock’s clutches.

"Damnation!" Adam shouted. "If this is how
you treat your friends in need, I'd not want your friendship. My
god, Lady Ariel, she's passed out and needs our help
desperately!"

Adam gasped a labored breath of relief when
he saw Lady Ariel finally stop running away. She'd nearly made it
to the steps at the back of the mansion before she turned back.

"Thank god," he heaved, slowing his pace
slightly to intercept Lady Ariel as she hurried back to them. He
could see Lady Ariel was shuddering in the cold night air in her
inadequate ball gown and her once perfectly-styled blond hair had
fallen about her bare shoulders.

"Beth!" Lady Ariel exclaimed with her small
hand reaching up to touch Beth's cheek. There were tears in Lady
Ariel's eyes. "She has to be all right." She looked up at him
beseechingly.

"She will be," he reassured her, when for
some odd reason he'd been so angry at her moments before. "We need
our carriage. She needs a blanket and warmth," he stated, starting
forward again, and then he asked, "Were you with Lord Fanton? Is he
still here? Gads, I hope he's not taken the carriage."

"He wanted me to play some silly game out in
the gardens and it was so dark," Lady Ariel said out of breath
beside him, trying to keep up. "I-I," she stuttered, and then she
seemed to force herself to blurt, "I left him …" Her voice trailed
off.

Adam came around the side of the mansion and
he saw the line of resting carriages. Good god, he thought, how
hard would it be to identify theirs? "A game?" he asked,
distracted, as he looked at the line of dark carriages, trying
without luck to pick out any defining characteristics. There had to
be well over thirty.

"A courting game," she answered
breathlessly, stopping beside where he'd stopped. Her words jerked
his attention back. It was too dark to tell, but he was certain
Lady Ariel blushed. She hurried on, saying, "But for the longest
time I couldn't find you or Beth. I search the entire ball, but
then a servant boy said you'd gone to the gardens … S-So I braved
them again … for Beth." Lady Ariel patted Beth's shoulder. "Has he
hurt her terribly?" she asked in an agonized murmur.

Adam had turned his eyes back toward the
carriages again, distracted at Lady Ariel's long explanation. He
saw a carriage pulling out of line and a footman jumping off the
back to come towards them. What miracle was this?

"He might have tried to kill her out there
in those woods," Adam muttered, glancing down at Beth limp in his
arms. He really had no idea of the impact of his words. "I think
this is our carriage footman. Come on."

He heard the swishing of Lady Ariel's skirts
beside him as he once again hurried forward to meet the footman.
His one thought was to get Beth safe, warm, and home in bed.
Perhaps then, Lady Ariel could check Beth for any wounds. The
murdered woman in the woods bothered him greatly. He had to tell
the authorities, but Beth's welfare was more important at the
moment.

"The gentleman said to bring the carriage up
fer you, my lord," the footman announced upon reaching them. Adam
didn't halt, and the footman turned to walk with them.

"Gentleman?" Adam questioned.

"Aye, I didn't catch his name, sir. He was
tall with blonde hair and a goatee. Not dressed for the party
though."

Christian Blacknall.
Adam's gaze
scanned the area, but somehow he knew he wouldn't see the handsome
Mr. Blacknall about.