Blood Fire (20 page)
But he had fought against the chains for a week and hadn’t found a way out. He didn’t know why it was taking Esmeralda so long to give up on him and destroy him.
Octavia must have had their baby. He didn’t know if she was still safe. He had to find her, yet how could he go to her as a vampire?
Damnation Sutcliffe, are you in there?
Where had the voice come from? He jerked around, but he saw no one in the room. It sounded like—
It is Bastien De Wynter, man. Let me know if you are in there. If I have to confront six naked demonesses, I want to know I’m doing it for good reason.
“De Wynter,” he shouted, though his throat was raw from thirst—for blood—and his voice was a weak croak. “I’m in here and chained to a damned bed. Get me out of here. Please.”
Had he ever said “please” before in his life? Likely not. There was nothing like being held captive to make a man humble.
The cooing and giggling on the other side of the door grew louder. It sounded like thousands of bees.
“Back, back!” De Wynter barked. “Let go of that. I’m a happily married man.”
One of the women gave a burst of screeching laughter. “Don’t try to put that in your mouth, you foul harpy,” De Wynter yelled.
What was happening out there? Matthew strained to sit up. He had no idea what De Wynter was talking about—the man was not married.
Though that was the most insignificant thing to worry about.
Even if De Wynter got through the door, how could he help with the locked shackles? Esmeralda kept the key around her neck, and as Matthew had proven, they were too strong for even a vampire to break.
The door flew inward and slammed onto the floor. Matthew dropped his head back in shock, frustration, and fury. Damn, damn, damn. “De Wynter,” he shouted. “We’re supposed to keep those foul women away from us.”
He jerked his head up as footsteps sounded. Sebastien de Wynter stood in the doorway with three naked women hanging off him. One was wrapped around him like a boa constrictor, her large breasts pressed to his side, her legs tight around his thighs. Another had her arms around his neck, and she clung from behind. The third was gripping his leg. De Wynter looked down at her. “Let go. I’m dragging you across the floor.”
“You are mine,” the woman cried. Her fangs were elongated, her mouth distorted so that her lips were wide open. She looked like a snake ready to plunge in her teeth. Those teeth were aiming for the man’s thigh.
“De Wynter—”
Before Matthew could finish the warning, De Wynter reached down, grasped her shoulder, and flung her off him.
“I’m sorry, my angels of hell,” De Wynter said, “but I have to use this potion on you.” He pulled a vial out of his pocket, poured some into his hand. It smelled like . . . like something that had gone bad. He sprinkled some on his shoulders and around him.
Hissing, the women backed away.
Matthew wasn’t surprised—the stuff was noxious. Laughing—amazingly the man looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself—De Wynter approached. He dumped some of the clear, pungent fluid into his hand and sprinkled it on Matthew’s bare legs.
Matthew moved to hold up his hand in protest, but the shackles stopped him. “Gah, what is that stuff?”
“Something to make you less tasty.”
“I appreciate your coming to get me, but I’m chained to the bed and the harridan Esmeralda has the key.”
“No, problem. Guidon suspected as much.” De Wynter pulled out a small key ring. A half-dozen silver keys jingled. “He knew the type of shackle she would use—it is a thousand years old.”
“Guidon? Who in blazes is he?”
“The historian of all vampires,” De Wynter said.
Four quick turns of the key, and Matthew was free. The demonesses were cautiously approaching, fangs bared.
“Are you sure this stinky stuff is working?”
“We are about to find out.”
“I can’t believe we got out of there alive.”
Matthew pulled the carriage door closed as De Wynter, who had climbed in ahead of him, sank back on his velvet carriage seat. Stretching out his arms, De Wynter cocked his brow. “We aren’t alive, Sutcliffe. We are both undead.”
Wonderful. He’d been saved from certain destruction, so that he could embrace destruction. Matthew had forgotten that he was now a monster. He slumped down onto the edge of the seat opposite De Wynter. Worse, the scent of blood surrounded him—he was highly attuned to the aroma of blood exuded by people around him. By mortals.
“Close your legs, Sutcliffe. Remember, you are wearing nothing but my coat.”
Esmeralda had stripped him naked to keep him prisoner. She’d left his clothes with the demonesses. Apparently the fanged harridans had been so aroused by his scent they had ripped his clothes to pieces in their lustful frenzy, and had had sex together on the tattered remains of his shirt and trousers.
So he had borrowed De Wynter’s tailcoat. He clamped his knees together and arranged the coat to cover more of his bare legs, and definitely his bare crotch. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel the cold of the November night, but that must be because he was now a vampire.
De Wynter suddenly frowned and pulled open his cravat. Two small puncture wounds stood out on his pale throat. “Dratted succubi,” he muttered. “That one clinging to me managed to bite my neck.”
“They were succubi?” Matthew asked hollowly. “Like Octavia?”
“Not like your wife. I apologize for what I said. They are vampires, and are not succubi at all. I used the term facetiously, and I had no right.” Then he gave a smile that was obviously forced. “Now what? I thought of White’s, but of course, you need clothing.”
“White’s? Are you insane? How can you relax and ask ‘now what?’ I’m a vampire. The first thing I should do is destroy myself for the sake of humanity.”
De Wynter retied his cravat in an elegant knot. “Interesting. If that’s the first thing, what do you plan on doing second?”
“Obviously there would be no second thing, which is why I can’t drive a stake through my own heart just yet. I have to find Octavia. Esmeralda told me that making love to a man without a soul would kill Octavia. She said she would turn me into a vampire, yet leave me with a soul. Is that possible?”
De Wynter shook his head. “I do not know.”
“Esmeralda wants Octavia. She destroyed my brother and now she wants my wife. Damn, will I destroy Octavia if I make love to her? I can’t even destroy myself, leaving her a respectable widow, since I have to protect her. But I do not dare bed her, in case Esmeralda’s claim that I have a soul is a lie. Damn and blast.”
“There may be another solution. . . .”
“Tell me, then. Don’t sit there stroking your jaw. Enlighten me.”
De Wynter reached out. With the tip of his index finger, he flicked the side of the tail coat aside.
Matthew grasped it to close it. “Do you mind?”
“There’s a mark on your chest, just below your heart. I didn’t notice it before. Did Esmeralda make it?”
“No, I don’t believe so. It wasn’t there earlier today. I don’t know how it got there.” He’d been trapped for a week with nothing to do but fight his chains and look down at his naked body. And now there was a foreign black mark on his chest. Not a stain, it was a definite shape, with crisp edges. It looked as if someone had drawn on his skin with ink. It looked like a heart, but one shot through by a lightning bolt. “I don’t know what it is.”
“I do,” De Wynter supplied. “It’s a brand.”
“Like what is done with horses or sheep?”
“This is different. Vampire queens can do it. It usually carries a curse. If you are wearing it, it means you are cursed.”
“Of course, I’m cursed. I’m a vampire.”
“This is something completely different, Sutcliffe. We have to get to your home. You need to dress. Then we have to pay court to the vampire queens.”
“I have to find my wife—”
“Damn it, Sutcliffe. You cannot go near her until you know what kind of curse you’ve been damned with.”
13
Apologies
I
t was a brothel on Curzon Street, a private one, known only to select men, for it was one that catered to gentlemen who sought male lovers. The bedrooms were filled with the grunts, sighs, and panting of men.
t was a brothel on Curzon Street, a private one, known only to select men, for it was one that catered to gentlemen who sought male lovers. The bedrooms were filled with the grunts, sighs, and panting of men.
“God, yes,” grunted a male voice from behind a closed door. “Deeper. Plunge deeper into me.”
A hoarse male laugh answered the request.
Matthew’s enhanced vampire senses let him hear what was happening in the various bedchambers. De Wynter grinned, but Matthew felt his neck turn red. Surprising, given the number of orgies he’d attended. Becoming a married man had changed him.
That fact alone should unnerve him. But surprisingly, it didn’t.
Becoming a vampire had definitely changed him. He had been forced to wait a day before coming here with De Wynter. It had been close to dawn when they had escaped last night. They had visited the vampire librarian Guidon, then the need for day sleep had hit Matthew hard. De Wynter had first taken him to a different brothel from this one—a place where women willingly allowed vampires to take some blood.
De Wynter had watched over him, had stopped him before he took too much. But even with the woman’s consent, the experience had horrified him. Appalled him. After that, he had fallen into sleep, learning that as a brand-new vampire, he had almost no ability to fight the need for day sleep. It would take days or weeks before he gained more control.
De Wynter had also taught him how to shift shape into vampire form. Another hellish experience.
“The vampire queens are here?” Matthew lifted a doubtful brow.
“Where else would they be, with so many handsome, virile, blood-filled males on display?” De Wynter asked.
He had no idea. The vampire queens sounded like Esmeralda, who had been enraged with him for stealing his brother from her—she’d intended to make Gregory her sex slave for eternity. “The vampire queen I wish to talk to will be in there,” De Wynter said.
Matthew pushed open the bedroom door and saw the woman referred to as a vampire queen.
A woman with coal black skin was watching two blond men—one was on his hands and knees, the other slamming into him from behind. She wore a loose-fitting, open robe of black lace and nothing beneath. Firelight glanced along the muscular form of her body, turning her ebony skin to a remarkable sculpture of black, silver, and blue. She had large brown eyes and the fullest dark crimson lips he had ever seen.
She was breathtaking, certainly, but not as beautiful as Octavia.
Both of the young men had stripped off their shirts and pushed their trousers down to their ankles. A fire burned in the fireplace, and both men glistened with sweat.
He had never desired sex with another man, but he had to admit the scene was arousing him: the harsh thrusts, the moans and groans. This time he didn’t blush. Instead, his cock ached at the thought of being gripped in tight heat. The way the hard haunches of the man on the bottom rippled when the upper man slammed his prick deep. The scene aroused him.
But since becoming a vampire, he found everything aroused him.
“She is the queen I want,” De Wynter murmured. Matthew caught his friend’s broad grin in his peripheral vision. “Do you want to just walk over or shift shape and fly, Sutcliffe?”
Fly? Matthew felt the usual sense of horror at what he now was. “I—hell,” he bristled. “I’d prefer to walk instead of shifting shape and enjoying the pleasure of stretching my body like it is on a rack.” That was what changing into bat form had felt like. “Nor do I want to shift shape and lose my clothing in this place.”
De Wynter shrugged, then stepped into the room.
Matthew knew De Wynter had been trying to make a joke, to make light of what he now was. He knew De Wynter wanted him to accept it. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to shift shape and turn into a giant bat, even though he could do it now.
After his first experience with drinking blood, he now refused to do anything a vampire was supposed to do. What he would do when his hunger got strong, he did not know, but he could not face plunging his fangs into a human’s neck.
He followed De Wynter. He used to crave the exploration of unknown worlds. He had traveled the planet in search of the new, the adventurous. Now he lived in the most novel world of all, but the vampire world was one he wished he could leave behind.
The queen was not just watching now. She was feeding.
She was drinking from the neck of a young, muscular, dark-haired man. At the sight of De Wynter, she released her victim, patted the six-foot-tall man on the rump, and murmured, “That will have to be all for tonight, my dear. Come tomorrow.”
The vampire queen smiled as De Wynter gave her a flourishing bow. Matthew hesitated, then bowed, but without the theatrical sweep of his hand and hat.
White fangs flashed as she smiled coyly and seductively at him. “You fear I hurt my young, handsome friend?” Her voice was rich and throaty.
Do not offend,
De Wynter said in his thoughts.
Treat her like a queen.
De Wynter said in his thoughts.
Treat her like a queen.
This was the first time he had seen De Wynter look nervous. So he knew he had to play along. “I don’t, Your Majesty.”
She laughed. “You did. But do not worry—I would never kill him. The poor, young, sweet boy is dying of a disease, so when I finally bestow immortal life, he will be spared a painful death. It is not all torment and agony, Lord Sutcliffe.”
His brow rose.
“Yes, I know who you are. The queens were aware that Esmeralda had turned you. So why are you here? Is it to be set free? I cannot do that for you.”
“But could I be?” Hell, he’d never even thought of it. “Set free?”
Dark shoulders moved with fluid elegance in a shrug. “Sometimes it is possible. It depends on a great many things.”
“Queen Nivar, Sutcliffe was cursed when he was changed,” De Wynter said. “He bears a mark on his chest, just below his heart.”
“Does he?” She licked her lips. “Let me see.”
The lip-licking made Matthew apprehensive, but De Wynter jerked his head as if to say: Go on. Matthew opened his coat, then waistcoat. The two men were rutting passionately, which meant no one was paying them any attention.
He jerked up the hem of his shirt, revealing his abdomen, then his chest and the strange brand. Standing motionless, he waited as she moved close and bent to study the mark.
The vampire librarian Guidon had not been able to help them. At first Matthew had been surprised by the librarian’s troll-like appearance and his enthusiasm to learn everything he could about a newly made vampire. The small librarian had hopped up and down with excitement. Matthew had told Guidon what Esmeralda had said before she took his blood. The words were burned into his brain, and he had repeated them:
But I have to do something special with you,
Esmeralda had said
. Your wife will reject you—she will sense you no longer have a soul. So I have to make you into something different. A vampire with a soul.
Esmeralda had said
. Your wife will reject you—she will sense you no longer have a soul. So I have to make you into something different. A vampire with a soul.
Guidon had not thought the curse mark had anything to do with the words. But he could not be sure.
“Very interesting,” Queen Nivar said. She stroked the muscles of his chest, then laid her fingertips on the mark. “But this was not given to you by Esmeralda. Yes, she left you with your soul, but this has nothing to do with her. This is a curse. You must come with me, so I can discover what it means.”
“This is the largest I have ever seen.”
Matthew let out a low whistle as he surveyed Queen Nivar’s dark library. She moved through the moonlit room as if floating over the ground, just as Esmeralda had done. Her black lace gown swayed over her slender, tight bottom as she moved. A scarf of black velvet, decorated with enormous jewels, held her hair.
She waved her hand. “Of course. That little gnome-like librarian Guidon believes he has all the knowledge about vampires, and he refuses to share it with us, the queens. We have to pay him to be told things. So we have built our own library. Now . . . let me see . . .”
She drew out a book—a thick book that her hand could barely grasp. It smelled of dust, and the leather binding was split and old. “Here. I thought as much. That mark comes from the touch of a god. A god or goddess must have visited you in your day sleep and has put a curse on you. Let us find out who . . . and what the curse says. It is fortunate for you that I am one of the queens who is versed in ancient magic.”
“Taught to you by Guidon,” De Wynter remarked casually.
Baring fangs, Nivar hissed at him. “It is a good thing you are married to a very special lady, or I should kill you with pleasure for your insubordinance.”
“Married?” Matthew looked to Sebastien. “You aren’t married.”
“I am.” A shrug. “It’s . . . complicated.”
Nivar closed the book with a snap. “I must touch your curse. I can make it speak to me.”
Matthew again opened his waistcoat and jerked up his shirt. Again, the queen touched the scar. This time, she closed her eyes, parted her lips, and made soft moaning sounds.
Finally she moved back. Her shiny brown eyes glittered. “You have been given a way to escape. It is because you still have your soul. Esmeralda may have turned you into a vampire, but the goddess of love—Aphrodite—has given you a way to free yourself.”
“
Aphrodite?
You must be joking?”
Aphrodite?
You must be joking?”
“Sutcliffe, you are a vampire. Of course I am not joking. You can become human again. Mortal. It is a way out, but only if you prove you deserve it. It is the ultimate gamble. You will die in a fortnight—you will be destroyed, cease to exist—unless you break the curse.”
“What do you mean ‘die in a fortnight’? You mean if I try to change back?”
“No, I mean you are destined to die. In two weeks. That is your curse.”
He reeled back on his heels. To think he’d worried about being a vampire for eternity. He had two weeks.
He had never been a man to gamble at dice or cards. He gambled by taking dangerous voyages. His games of chance were played on storm-tossed ships, in disease-ridden jungles, in wilds where there were creatures that would eat him for dinner.
“What do I have to do to break it?”
She stroked her full lower lip with a fingernail that was like a talon. “It is really quite simple, my lord. All you must do is capture a woman’s heart. If you can make a woman truly fall in love with you, knowing that you are a vampire, you win. You will be free. Mortal and human once more.”
What woman would love a vampire? How in blazes could he woo a woman in two weeks? He couldn’t even find Octavia, and she was his wife. Octavia was the only woman he wanted. It would be easy enough to seduce her and make her happy in bed, but to make her truly fall in love . . . when he was a vampire? That was insane. She already despised him, apparently. Now she would be afraid of him.
“Her love for you must be more than infatuation,” Nivar said. “It must be deep and strong. There is one other caveat. Aphrodite has chosen the woman in question. She knows that you have married a woman without love, and you have driven that woman away.”
“I did not drive her away,” Matthew said through gritted teeth. “She ran away.”
“You offered her imprisonment, in return for protecting her name. That hardly nourishes a woman’s soul,” the queen responded, sounding annoyingly like De Wynter. “Offer this woman real love and make her love you in return, and then you will live. You will live with a soul.”
“But after that, making love with Octavia will kill me.”
“Perhaps. But otherwise you are guaranteed to die in two weeks.”
So to save his life, all he had to do was make Octavia fall in love with him.
“Hell,” muttered De Wynter. “You have a fortnight to find your wife, apologize, make her forgive you, and win her heart. After you drove her away.”
“I did not drive her—”
“Yes, you did,” De Wynter and the vampire queen broke in, together.
“All right,” Matthew growled. “Let’s say I did. If Aphrodite, the goddess of love, wants me to make amends to my wife in two weeks, how does she expect me to do that when I can’t find her?”
Nivar shrugged gracefully. “I imagine she has thought of that. Goddesses tend to be very clever—almost as brilliant as vampire queens. I expect you will have help on your quest. Your quest to seduce and court your wife.” Her deep, throaty laugh filled the room. “How delightful—a husband given a do-or-die quest to court his own wife. That is very clever. I must remember it, and next time I want to bestow a curse, I know what it shall be.”
“Finally, we’ve found the woman who has kept my backside on a saddle for almost an entire week.” De Wynter grinned as he reined in his horse in the shade of an elm tree, in front of a country manor house. It was sunset; the sky was red. De Wynter wore a hat pulled low, a greatcoat and gloves, and kept his skin out of the sun.
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