Darkness Bred (13 page)

Right.

But why not try, and every moment bought was a gift. Sean took the man by the elbow and was immediately thrown off with enough force to toss him on the ground several yards away.

“Forget your little ploys,” Colin said. “I only pretended to be interested. They are waiting for us, we have to go.”

“They?” Sean said innocently.

Colin leaped on top of him, but immediately reared up to his knees and screamed.

Balanced on his shoulders, Skillywidden trailed a silver chain back and forth over the vampire’s neck while he made disoriented swipes trying to dislodge her. Clamped in her teeth, the chain should have been too heavy for so tiny a creature, but she obviously had considerable strength.

Shaking his head, Sean gingerly took part of the chain and looped it around Colin’s neck. He made a knot, then grabbed for Skillywidden, but she didn’t intend to be caught.

She moved out of his reach, stood on her hind legs, and clawed at the air over her head as if catching a ball. With the pads of one paw spread, the claws extended, she bounded up Colin’s back and drove the same paw into the side of his head.

His eyes closed instantly and he fell forward. Sean rolled out of the way just in time to let the man land, unconscious, on his face.

T
he underbrush sucked at her paws. Slippery with rain that had slithered through the trees, the wet, mossy tangle made a treacherous course for Elin to use when she wanted to get up to speed.

Traveling as Skillywidden was an amazing advantage but there were places that could snare her small limbs.

Thank goodness Tarhazian couldn’t reach Skillywidden with those cold fingers of hers. Elin leaped on, aware that regardless of how warm she was in her silvery fur coat, the temperature appeared to be dropping and there might be ice and snow to contend with later.

Yes, she was running from Sean. Wild as that seemed, she couldn’t be sure how he would react to her interference in his fight with Colin and she wasn’t ready to find out.

“Elin!”

A shiver rippled under her skin. He sounded furious, which was an outrage considering how much she had helped him.

Suddenly stubborn, she whipped around, hid behind a tree trunk, and shifted to human. She stepped out, one finger held imperiously forward, and when Sean came into sight, she called, “Stay where you are.”

He slowed down but didn’t stop. Instead he crept toward her, his golden eyes narrowed to slits and a triumphant smile on his lips. His hair was free and swung forward, thick and casting menacing shadows over his face.

“If you come any closer, I won’t tell you what you need to know, and I’ll disappear at once,” Elin said.

The smile became a grin. He paused and crossed his arms. “You terrify me.”

“I just stopped Colin for you.” She tried not to let him see her shiver.

The grin disappeared. “You did. Thank you for that although I might have managed by myself. I asked you to stay at Gabriel’s—because I don’t want you exposed to even more danger. How did you get out?”

“I went to the bathroom,” she said smugly. “I wonder if Niles has broken the door down yet.”

Sean smothered a laugh and took a step closer.

Elin stepped backward. “Stand still, or I’m gone and I mean it.”

“I’ll find you, and I mean it.”

“You’re really pushing things,” she said, although she was beginning to feel both unsure of herself—and breathless with the prickle of sexual awareness. Everything about him excited her.

“How come you can shift and still be dressed?” Sean said, looking her over closely enough to bring a spasm of need between her legs.

“You want me to be naked?”

He considered her words. “Yeah, that’s what I want. But this isn’t the right time or place. How come you aren’t—”

“Wearing only my skin,” she finished for him. “Because my gift allows me to shift with my clothes. They just come back when I do. Don’t you think that’s a whole lot more civilized than your naked nonsense?”
Much as she enjoyed it.

He smiled again and she felt herself blush. “The question is,” he said, “how long Colin will stay the way he is and what should I do about it?”

“The silver will cause him a lot of pain,” Elin said. “And there’s another reason he isn’t going anywhere fast, but…anyway, he could be unconscious for some time.”

“You hit him with something I couldn’t see,” he said.

The pressure irritated her. “Perhaps I did.” She still wasn’t ready to share Deseran secrets, not until she asked Leigh, and not until she told Sean about herself. She felt panicky about how he would react when she did tell him. She would welcome the swirling drifts of glittering colors and their strange powers attracted her to them. She felt as if they kept her safe. But it wouldn’t be fair to Sean to seek that comfort while she was with him.

“So you won’t explain how you can knock out a vampire?”

“If I would explain it to anyone, it would be you,” she told him quietly. “I trust you to do what you think is best, for you and for me. Can you say the same about me?”

“I trust you, Elin, but I fear that strong will of yours.”

She had no answer.

Blood trailed from one ear and stained the side of his face. His clothes were torn. And he managed to look like the most desirable male she’d ever met—more desirable than that if it were possible.

“I think we should leave Colin where he is,” Sean said. “He knows nothing about Skillywidden. You made sure he didn’t see you. He’ll be embarrassed that he couldn’t subdue me and take me wherever he wants me to go. There’ll be a pause in what he’s up to, but not for long before he’s back again. I’m going to Saul. I’ve got to get to The Island.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want you to go.”

Sean shook his head. “You know I’ll do what I think has to be done, Elin. First I have to get you to a place of safety and warmth.”

He frowned and looked through rather than at her. She knew he was communicating with someone else. Quietly, she waited, watching him, battling the strangeness of being, at the same time, in extreme danger and so sexually aroused, she wanted to wind herself around him right here.

She must not practice her unusual skills of seduction, not now. But how she longed to stroke him with the essence of her body and watch him struggle. She could make him helpless in her hands, but that wasn’t what she really wanted. Elin wanted Sean to take her in every meaning of the word. The decision about what happened with them was his to make now.

He looked at her and she saw he was no longer involved with another mind. “Niles isn’t happy with what you did,” he said, but a smirk was there. “Locking yourself in the bathroom and ducking out wasn’t what he had in mind. Leaving Pokey in attack mode wasn’t funny either.”

“I didn’t, exactly,” she said, unable to meet his eyes. “All I said was for Pokey to…”

“Yes.”

“I told her not to worry because I’d be back. She doesn’t really understand.”

“And she bit Niles’s nose when he broke down the door,” Sean said, but he couldn’t help smiling.

“I must apologize to Niles,” Elin said honestly and diplomatically. “He showed me he would be willing to accept me. I’ll say I’m sorry for what I did.”

“Wise woman,” Sean said. “He thinks we’re right to get out of here and leave Colin. That way it’s just a skirmish between the vampire and me.”

“And you told him you’re going to get Saul to take you to The Island?” Elin said.

He looked at the ground, and started toward her again.

“You didn’t tell Niles,” she said, as she turned and fled once more.

She ran, growing colder and colder as the wind whipped through her thin dress. That iciness she had expected began to emerge and even her flying feet and swinging arms did nothing to warm her.

A fiery rim of copper from behind dark clouds showed through the thinning trees, bringing in the dawn. She would not let Sean go to that place, Island or whatever, alone. The thought that he could die there terrified her.

“That’s it.” He reached her, whirled her around, and threw her, like a bundle of nothing, over his shoulder. “You have teased me, my love. I shouldn’t let you goad me, but you have. I have a lot of business ahead of me. It’s time to get some things clear between us.”

He took her to Two Chimneys.

She said nothing when he carried her up the ladder to the loft and pushed her beneath the thick down quilt on the bed.

“Colin will be set free by his scourge but he won’t come after me again too quickly. Niles will want to know what went down but he’ll swallow his curiosity until a more appropriate time.”

“More appropriate than what?”

In the darkness he saw her better than almost anyone else would. Cocooned in the bed with her head covered but her face exposed, she could not be more awake, or more aware of him.

“More appropriate than when people are exhausted and need to rest.”

“I’m not exhausted.”

He breathed deeply through his nose. “No, I don’t think you are. But let’s see.”

Stripping rapidly, he kicked his clothes aside and slid into the bed with her. He gathered her close, hugging her, chafing chilled skin until her shivers subsided. And she clung to him, her face tucked into his neck, one leg hooked over his hip.

Her hands started to move over his body. Now stroking his face, her fingers fluttering along the outline of his mouth, now rubbing his chest, tangling with the hair there, slipping down his sides and around to his spine, back over his hips to his belly. Moving, moving, turning every inch of him white-hot.

He should not let this happen like this. It was not the way of his kind.

Under the covers she dived and delved, kissing a path behind her racing hands, sucking in the taught tissue on his abdomen while she squeezed his buttocks, ran her fingers between them, and pushed his upper leg back to make room for her mouth.

Elin licked him delicately. She had made this her time, she intended to complete her plan to seduce him, and he let himself sink into the seduction. When her mouth closed over his penis, she sucked softly, teasing until he didn’t think he could hold back. Her fingers played to the base of his erection, weighing and pressing; so gentle, so firm—an exquisite pressure on a hair trigger.

Her silk dress wound about her body.

Now it was up to him. He raised her head, hardly able to bear the separation of her mouth from his flesh. Her dress came off so easily, and the filmy panties. She wore no bra, and in his hands her lithe, firm body slipped, twisted until she was once more wound about him.

From her thighs, to her hipbones, across her flat belly, over her small rib cage to her pointed breasts, Sean allowed himself to revel in the sexy, satin feel of her skin over tender flesh. She made small sounds, wanting sounds, and pushed herself harder into his hands.

Sean made circles around her breasts, trailing the backs of his fingers across her soft skin. He licked and kissed the sensitive places at the sides of her breasts and began to kiss the same circles he’d made with his fingers.

Flattening both hands on her pelvis, grazing over her mound, he stroked upward to cover those sweet breasts, to pinch her nipples between his fingers.

Elin convulsed, she jerked and folded, curled against him. And her teeth sank into his shoulder. She pulled his penis toward her, but he held her off, secured her arms to the bed, and slid down to tuck his tongue into the neat little cleft of her sex.

She struggled against him as if she could take charge again, which only made him smile even while his genitals pulsed.

Opening his mouth wide, he encircled the opening into her body and claimed the place that drove her mad. And within seconds she writhed against him, lifted her hips to meet his tongue, pushing as if to force him deeper.

He felt orgasmic tremors break over and through her and smiled again. Deliberately, he stretched his legs straight down, pressed himself into the bed to help him stay in charge of what was happening to him.

He must be the stronger one. She could be forgiven for giving in to appetite, he could not.

Elin panted. As Sean moved to lie, half over her with a thigh across her hips, she twisted to slide her arms around his neck and hold on tightly enough to make him protest.

She laughed. “Don’t tell me I’m hurting you. I couldn’t.”

There were many ways to hurt, many forms of pain, some of them irresistible.

“Come to me,” she whispered in his ear. “If you want to.”

He nuzzled her neck. “I want to more than you’ll ever know. Will you become my mate, Elin? Will you braid your life with mine so we’re one?”

Silence made him frown, then he felt her tears on his face, their saltiness on his lips. “Don’t cry, please don’t cry.” He wiped the tears away. “I want to make you happy.”

“You already have. I want to be your mate.”

He ran his fingers into her masses of black hair and combed it out across the pillows. “Then we are promised. We will become sealed and you will be my mate.”

“And you will be mine,” she said.

“First we must deal with the formalities of my people, and with the threats that have been made against all of us,” he said.

“But you will make love to me now?”

Her small voice turned his heart.

“When I’m sure you are ready and I’ve done everything I must do to get rid of anything that could threaten you because you are my mate.”

“Sean—”

He kissed her words away. “I’m going to hold you through the night, unless you tell me to leave.”

“Never,” she said, sounding cross. “I wouldn’t let you leave.”

“Then go to sleep. I don’t believe we’ll have long to wait, and I don’t believe we’ll have many moments to rest before then.”

Suddenly, she nipped his bottom lip. “You’d better make sure it’s not long or I may have to take drastic steps. And you never know when or where I’ll take them. And you know I can do that.”

N
iles ran both hands through his black hair. “I expected Sean to get here three hours ago. What do I get? Not another word. I can’t make a move as long as I think he’ll show up, or if I think I could mess something up for him by barging in. Why not at least update me on his movements?”

Leigh figured he didn’t expect any answers. She held Pokey in her arms, facing away from Niles so she couldn’t see his glares. The little tooth marks on his nose had faded but his annoyance hadn’t.

He had told her about transferring the primary decision making for the Team to Sean. Leigh knew him too well not to imagine how he chafed against sharing command in any way but she was touched by his love for her. The coming months, while they waited for the baby, wouldn’t be easy but she had no doubt Niles would suffer the most.

They had returned to Gabriel’s after lunch because Leigh had to catch up in the office and Niles said he needed to make progress on the addition to the building—after he mended the bathroom door.

Innes had been working there when they arrived, together with two of the other hounds, Ethan and Campion, but one look at Niles and all three had found pressing duties elsewhere.

So far she’d gotten very little done between Niles’s interruptions, and she doubted he had done anything at all.

“Can I hand you nails or something to help out?” she asked tentatively.

His expression suggested he didn’t understand what she’d said.

“Maybe I can do something useful?” Leigh smiled and rubbed his arm.

Niles gave her all his attention. “How are you feeling?” he asked darkly.

“Great.”

“Who is the doctor you’ve chosen? I want to interview him. I should make these decisions with you. We’ll go into Seattle to see him.”

“I’ve decided on a midwife.” Why did he have to bring this up now? “There’s a clinic in Coleville and it’s really nice. That’s where I’ll go for regular checks, but the baby will be born at home.”

“Are you mad?” He held both of her hands. “This could be a difficult pregnancy and birth. The next thing you’ll tell me is you’ll have Saul standing by in case there’s trouble.”

“Well, I did—”

“No.” He sank to his haunches and put his face in his hands, all the time shaking his head. “You’re going to make this so hard, Leigh. We can’t take any more risks than we already are. And Saul? You can’t be serious.”

He was overreacting because he had too much on his mind. “First things first,” she told him quietly. “Where was Sean when he contacted you? You didn’t say.”

After a slightly too long silence, Niles said, “Two Chimneys.”

She smiled a little. “Inside or outside?”

“Inside, I think.”

“Good, he needs to be where he can watch Elin closely.”

Niles bounced to his feet. “Yeah, he’d better not let her use the bathroom alone.”

Leigh knew better than to smile this time. Niles was still seething over Elin’s neat little escape trick.

The distinctive sound of Sally’s uneven footsteps came from the corridor. Leigh had never asked if the stiffness the woman suffered was because of something like arthritis, or the result of an injury.

“Can I have a few words?” Sally said from the doorway. She looked as if she hadn’t had much sleep either. “I’ve got to. I should have come earlier.”

“What is it?” Niles said. “Come in and shut the door.”

Sally’s plain, gray wool skirt and sweater were a complete departure from her usual flamboyant clothing. “Have you talked to Saul about Molly’s body?” she asked very quietly. “Do you know there’s the same mark on her neck as on Rose’s?”

“We heard the mark was forming.”

“It’s bright red now. I saw it today for the first time. The one on Rose, too.”

“Their bodies should be dealt with properly,” Leigh said. “This is awful.”

“Awful but we don’t have a choice but to wait and those bodies are all we’ve got as evidence—and for Saul to keep on working for an answer to what’s happening,” Sally said, her voice even huskier than usual. “But that’s not why I’ve got to talk about it. I’ve been putting it off because I didn’t want to believe what I was afraid of. I can’t put it off any longer.”

Leigh’s heart thudded too hard.

“You do know what a living vampire sorcerer is?”

“Saul explained,” Niles said. He looked worried and thunderous at the same time.

“Do you know what happens if they don’t get what they need to feed on?”

Leigh had the feeling Niles might be trying to get her out of here if he weren’t concentrating so hard on Sally. “They don’t feed very often,” he said.

“Unless they’ve interfered with their natural chemistry and they’re sick, that’s true.” Sally crossed her arms. “We’ve got ourselves one messed-up living sorcerer vampire in our neck of the woods.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I can and I am. This one’s taking risks. He’s leaving his safe place and hunting. His kind is so powerful you don’t even want to think about it. They don’t normally hunt, they send a minion for what they want—kind of like take-out food.”

Niles leaned against a Sheetrocked wall. “And you think this means, what?”

Sally hesitated. She went to Leigh and surprised her with a hug. “You okay, hon? The baby feeling good?”

“Yes, thank—”

“Say what you’re trying to say, dammit,” Niles demanded.

Sally let out a slow breath. “It isn’t a good idea for Sean to go to The Island. He hasn’t been invited. The risks are unspeakable. This sorcerer vampire is seriously twisted up, maybe mad or sick in some other way. And there’s something else none of us counted on.”

“Aren’t they all twisted?” Leigh said hurriedly, hoping Niles might not pick up on the comment about Sean. “People like this vampire, I mean. They obviously control with fear.”

“What do you mean by something else?” Niles said. “Sean isn’t going to The Island. We already had that discussion.”

“Did he say he wouldn’t go?” Sally said. “You said you would. He said he would. You told each other not to go. It’s over the edge dangerous for either of you but he’s gone. He’s on his way right now.”

Niles started for the door, only to stop again. “Where is he going? Where is this place?” He held up a hand, raised his eyes, and stared at the window. Seconds later he swung around, frustration twisting his face. “He’s closing me out.”

“All of you mean so much to him,” Sally said. “He thinks it’s up to him to make everyone safe, the whole lot of us.”

“And while I need to be here for Leigh, he is my surrogate,” Niles said. “But he should not have left without my blessing.”

“You asked him to share leadership with you at present,” Leigh said quietly.

Niles put a fist to his brow. “Whatever has to be done should be planned. We should plan together. Where is Elin?”

The expression on Sally’s face made Leigh’s stomach plummet.

“I don’t know where she is,” the woman said. “I can’t find her. She doesn’t understand how vulnerable she is. She wouldn’t try to follow Sean, would she? Niles, Aldo, the man who tried to implicate Sean in murder, could be involved. He could be on The Island.”

Niles didn’t respond.

“I don’t know where The Island is—I’ve never been there,” Sally said. “I’ve never been invited. I’m not useful enough to be invited.”

“Sean wouldn’t let Elin go somewhere so dangerous,” Leigh said and met Sally’s eyes. Understanding passed between them. They both knew Elin would do anything for Sean, with or without his blessing.

“How do you know he’s gone there?” Niles asked through his teeth. “And how do you know about Aldo?”

Sally cleared her throat. “I was at Saul’s when Sean came and said he wanted to be guided to The Island.”

“And Saul told him how to find it? That means you must have heard what was said if you were there.”

“Saul didn’t give Sean directions,” Sally said. “He told Sean he understood that he wanted to put Aldo to rest, as he put it. That’s exactly what he said. Then Saul said he’d take him.”