Blood Rose (32 page)

Serena turned to watch. Strands of her hair fluttered across her nose, stuck to her lips.

Drake, one hand on his cock, dampened her bum with his juice. The head, perfectly shaped to invade, pushed in. Her first impulse? To scream. She let out a little cry, a strangled one, and swallowed the rest.

Althea had promised this would be exquisite. She wanted to believe.

“If you want to stop, we will stop,” Jonathon promised. He held her hips, his hands strong and comforting.

Stop? She was about to climax! Drake worked slowly. He gained an impossible inch and her body fought, trying to push him and Jonathon out. She stayed completely still, until he urged,

“Keep rocking, it will ease my entrance.”

Eyes shut, she began riding like a wanton. Not caring if the men could stay inside, just driving herself, driving like a bolting team—

The little death. How she understood the words. Two men held her tight, their raw grunts like music, their cocks thrusting hard. They wanted to find that little death.

She shattered. Blankness swamped her brain, sheer delight burst inside.

Jonathon’s eyes shut, raw vulnerability twisted his face, and he launched up. She felt the flood of his hot come fill her quim.

“You died first,” Drake crowed in triumph to Jonathon, then he yelled and bucked against her.

He was coming too, and she was burning, drenched, soaked—completely loved.

“I’ll summon a bath, Serena.”

Jonathon’s voice washed over Serena, waking her with a start. She lay on his bed, and crisp sheets covered her damp, naked body. She smelled of both he and Drake—their sweat, their skin, and the rich, pungent scent of their come. It was heady, erotic. She didn’t want to wash it away.

She’d made love to them both. She wouldn’t let shyness take over.

Jonathon slipped on a banjan. Drake’s hand traced along her bare arm; she rolled over to see him and met his smile. He lay, uncovered; his muscles glistened and his cock slept. Jonathon left the bed, and Serena shivered as she felt the tension between the two men. After climaxing, they’d avoided looking at each other or speaking.

She didn’t know what to say. Had they created magic?

Jonathon had heard her voice in his head, she knew he had, but was it because she was a vampire or because they had created an enchanted connection?

Serena concentrated on the bed canopy above her head. She tried to send a bolt of magic power to it. Her head throbbed with the effort, but nothing happened.

“You are the most special woman, little lark.”

Pain settled around her heart. “You know I wasn’t an innocent for our…our first time.”

Drake touched her cheek. “It is of no consequence to me.”

“It is to me.” She was trembling.

“Tell me, then.” His voice was soothing, a balm to the sudden pain in her heart.

The bed creaked as Drake shifted to move close to her.

“What did you say to her?” Jonathon’s body loomed over her, anger in his voice.

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Possessively, Drake’s muscular arm slid around her. She stared down at it—the bulge of muscle, the golden hair, the seductive pattern of veins. His hand rested on the white sheet just beneath her breasts. Should she tell them of her past? Did it really signify to speak of it?

“Serena had another lover before me.” How matter-of-factly Drake said it. She felt her cheeks burn.

Defiantly she stared into Jonathon’s eyes, punishing herself by reading the emotions there.

Surprise, then shock. “You loved another man?”

No censure, just a question, and open vulnerability in his dark brown eyes.

“There was going to be a ch—child.” Like a fool, she stuttered on the word. “But…but I lost it...”

“You miscarried.” Jonathon spoke bluntly, but his lashes dipped and the lines deepened around his tense mouth.

She managed to nod. “He was relieved, of course. I’d been a dreadful fool. And escaped by the skin of my teeth—”

“You lost a child, Serena,” Drake said. “Someone broke your heart. Give me his name and I rip him apart.”

“No, the mistake was mine. I was supposed to be strong enough to resist—”

“Rubbish.” Jonathon sat down on her other side. With exquisite gentleness, the back of his hand caressed her cheek.

On her right, Drake’s lips brushed her temple. He asked softly, “Who was he?”

“It truly doesn’t matter.” She remembered how Althea had insisted that she must find honesty with Jonathon and Drake. Althea’s bond with Yannick and Bastien had required honesty to become strong.

Serena took a deep breath, because the name of the man didn’t matter, but she sensed neither Jonathon nor Drake would give up until they knew it.

“William Bridgewater,” she admitted. “The eldest son of the family who raised me. I wasn’t in love. I realize that now. I just wanted to love and be loved.”

“But he got you with child and didn’t marry you.” Anger, hot and harsh, resonated in Jonathon’s question.

The power she held shocked her. At a word from her, would both men hunt down and punish William? But it wasn’t what she wanted—she wanted to erase the past. She wanted to make all that had happened vanish, she wanted to make it not so, and that she could not do.

She wanted an ordinary life. And that she could not have either.

She glanced from Jonathon to Drake. Jonathon had been forced to stake his own fiancée.

Drake had been born to the terrifying world of the stews. They shared pain between them.

“No. He was…happy when I lost the baby. It was a great relief. I was supposed to be relieved too, but I was heartbroken. I realized then I didn’t want to marry William—that I had made a terrible mistake.”

“You risked your heart for a man who was not worthy of you.” Jonathon bent and kissed her cheek. “You did nothing wrong. The mistake was that blackguard’s.”

“Indeed.”

“But neither of you are to hurt him. Or call him out. Or kill him.”

“Oh, but think of how terrified the coward would be when confronted by a big, bad vampire.”

Despite the pain she felt at her memories, she had to giggle. “You mustn’t.”

“If that is your command, I will obey.” Drake gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I feel sated and exhausted after our delicious lovemaking, but not more powerful. What about you, my love?”

Trust Drake to move to the topic of sex, to steer away from a painful discussion. Serena shook her head. “But Althea insisted it will give us the power to defeat Lukos.”

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Would you wish me to help you bathe?
Drake asked.
Sommersby will prepare for Lukos.

Serena cast a guilty glance toward Jonathon. What exactly was the etiquette of sharing two men? How did they both feel about this? If she made love to one man alone, was it like an infidelity?

“No. I can bathe alone.” Suddenly embarrassed, Serena slipped out from under the sheet. She darted into the connected bathing room.

Soothed by the warm water, Serena finished drying herself with the last of the heated, soft towels. A light knock sounded on the door, and it opened.

Drake walked in, fully dressed. He laid her shift and gown over a straight-backed chair.
Do
you want Jonathon to keep you from becoming vampire?

“I don’t know.” She spoke aloud as she picked up her shift. When young, all she’d ever wanted to be was a proper, nice young lady and please Mrs. Bridgewater, who had raised her.

She turned her back to Drake, not knowing why she needed to, and slipped her shift over her head. She would never be ordinary. But what did she want to be? Mortal or vampire? The only mortal she could trust, the only mortal she cared about, was Jonathon.

I will help you dress,
Drake offered.

A forbidden intimacy or not? Blast, blast, would she hurt Jonathon by accepting? But she couldn’t dress herself—bother—so she nodded. She felt strangely relieved to keep her back to Drake as he fastened the gown.

Serena sat down on a velvet-covered chair and pulled on her slippers. “Jonathon won’t be able to stop it happening. I know that.”

And then you will be vampire, as I am.

He sounded delighted, and she understood. “You and Jonathon are battling over me. You cannot. We are supposed to share a love between three!”

Drake slipped his arms around her waist as she straightened her skirts. He brushed a kiss to the top of her head. “The shared lovemaking was delicious, and I will indulge your desire for it anytime, but I won’t share your heart.”

“It’s our destiny, Drake,” she whispered. But how could she convince them—

Bang!

Something big and hard had hit the window. Lukos!

Drake grabbed her hand and drew her back into the other room. Jonathon, fully dressed, had laid an arsenal on their rumpled bed. Stakes. Holy water. Three crossbows—

“They’ve just started to attack,” Jonathon shouted as he grabbed up a crossbow. He tossed one to Drake.

The curtains were wide open. It was pitch black, the moonlight gone. A huge black shadow flew at the window—the glass bowed in the frame. It exploded inward. Instinct sent Serena’s hands to her face as fragments of glass and painted wood rained inside.

Drake grabbed her and pulled her back. She stumbled, but Drake held her as he retreated.

Shadows poured inside and instantly transformed.

Jonathon fired, and a bolt streaked toward the seething mass of blackness coming inside. The bolt shot through them all, slicing through air, and flew out the window. The black shapes began to take form. They were like gargoyles, horribly shaped with hideous faces and long fangs that curved to below their jowls.

Drake moved from her. She saw him raise his palms—a stream of light shot from his hands and burst into the writhing black mass of demons.

She had no idea he had such power—he was not an ordinary vampire. It was because Lukos Blood Rose ©Sharon Page 2007 Email: [email protected] 136

had made him—he had taken some of Lukos’s power. This must be what Althea had meant.

Unearthly shrieks echoed through her head, and the demons exploded into such foul-smelling dust she almost choked on it. But more oozed in through the window.

Every arrow Jonathon fired passed through their black bodies. Drake threw another bolt of white light at them, and once again they vanished into stench and choking soot. But Drake dropped to his knees on the floor.
I don’t have the strength!
he cried in Serena’s thoughts.

They hadn’t created enough magic!

“Where the hell are the hunters from the Society?” Jonathon shouted. He thrust a crossbow at her, and she grabbed it and took immediate aim.

She fired at the head of the nearest demon, and her heart sank as the bolt harmlessly passed through once more. Beside her, Jonathon flung the holy water at the beast, the droplets spraying the entire line of horrific demons. They evaporated, but more inky-black shadows amassed at the window.

“They’re endless,” Serena breathed. She grabbed the vial that Jonathon handed her and threw the water in an arc, hitting as many as she could.

“We have to run.” Jonathon gripped her hand and thrust a crossbow at her. “They’ll trap us in here. Swift is too inexperienced—doesn’t have the power.”

Drake shot a look of raw fury at Jonathon. “True,
milord
, but you’d be dead now if it weren’t for me.”

“Blister it, Swift. Get moving.”

Lukos wants us to run—he wants to force us out.

Jonathon stopped so suddenly, Serena crashed into him. Turning, Jonathon pointed his weapon at Drake. “How do you know what Lukos wants? He was your maker—are you his servant?”

“Hell, the bastard wants to take the woman I love. I want to destroy him as much as you do.”

“So what do you propose—that we stay in this room and wait for him?”

Footsteps, fast and heavy, stormed along the hallway outside the locked bedroom door. Serena bit back a cry of fury. Were these vampires? Were they trapped already?

“What the bloody hell—?” Jonathon spun and leveled his crossbow at the door.

Serena lifted hers to shoulder height, lining the sight with her eye.

Goddamn!
Drake swung back around to the window and sent another bolt of astonishing magic from his hands to drive back the gargoyles. He howled in pain as he did it.

The door bent inward in an impossible arc, then the lock shattered, wood splintered, and it burst open. Serena saw crossbows, pointed at her. Her finger trembled on the trigger. Recognition clicked—the men were vampire hunters. Horror-struck, she recognized them—Mr. Smythe and Mr.

Thomas.

“The arrows won’t work!” Serena cried, but Smythe fired. It all moved so impossibly slow.

She saw the flick of Smythe’s finger, the snapping inward of the taut string, the launch of the arrow.

Bewildered, she saw it fly at Jonathon. She jumped and slammed into his side. The impact was like hitting a wall, but she sent him staggering. The arrow sliced between them along his shoulder, tearing his coat. She felt the gentle rush of air as it passed.

Jonathon yelled in fury, and in that sudden jerk his finger hit the sensitive trigger and his arrow hurtled toward Smythe. The arrowhead found its home in his forehead, dead center between his eyes.

Serena swallowed her scream as the next hunter, Thomas, took aim at Jonathon’s heart. The Society wanted to kill them, not save them! Over her. Over her! They wanted her dead. They’d kill Jonathon to do it.

A stream of white light shot from beside her—Drake! The bolt hit Thomas in his chest, and the hunter sailed back at the door. His weapon released, but the arrow flew harmlessly to the ceiling, Blood Rose ©Sharon Page 2007 Email: [email protected] 137

hit it, and rebounded to the floor. With a dull thud, Thomas’s body hit the wall and slid down.

Serena felt Drake’s hand close around hers. Jonathon grasped her other hand. She ran to keep up. Drake jumped over Thomas’s body without a glance. A man he’d hunted with, but a man who’d betrayed him. She knew she had to be logical and hard-hearted, but she glanced down, needing to look one last time.