Dawn Thompson (38 page)

Loose rock dust began to sift down over Jon as he stood rooted to the threshold of the tunnel. He dared not stay much longer; the whole lower region was in danger of collapse. He’d almost given up when the wall moved behind one of the alcoves on the left side of the corridor, and Sebastian appeared. For a moment the vampire froze; then, shielding himself from the rays of the sun, he let loose a bloodcurdling shriek, teetering on the edge of the widening gap.

Jon’s gaze was riveted to his nemesis. For a split second, their eyes met. Jon could not read the message in the vampire’s deadly glare, but in a moment it was over: Sebastian spun and roared and spiraled down into the gap through the widening crevice, which swallowed him up in a rush of wind that ruffled Jon’s hair and narrowed his eyes.

Yes. It was over.

Crumbling rock and debris sealed the fissure, and Jon rushed up the quaking staircase and reached Milosh and Cassandra by taking the steps two at a stride. “There are six burnt corpses below,” he said. “Dozens fell through the rent in the floor. I saw them go down myself. Between the sunlight pouring in and the flames, it was as if the floor opened up and swallowed them.”

“Sebastian?” Milosh asked.

Jon nodded. “Yes,” he said. “He came at the last, through another entrance to the tunnel behind one of the alcoves. The sun was just streaming in when he arrived. He was swallowed up with the rest. There was no other way out of that corridor except through the open doorway into the sunlight or right past me, which he did
not attempt. Go—see for yourself if you like, but hurry, the buttresses have collapsed. This whole section is going to go. We are no longer safe here.”

Milosh disappeared over the edge of the landing, and Jon took Cassandra in his arms.

“I love you, Jon,” she murmured. “Now will you take me home?”

He pulled her closer, the throbbing pressure of his sudden arousal leaning heavily against her, until her rapid heartbeat hammered against his own.

“Yes, my love,” he said, showering her face with kisses. “We have much work to do there, and our whole lives to do it. It’s finally time to go home.”

It was difficult to bid Milosh good-bye. He would not be staying in the region, either. It would not be safe now that he had been found out; he would be hunted. This would not be a permanent exile, though. Once the current generation had passed on to their reward, he would return to his homeland, to this place where his beloved wife and unborn child were buried. It had happened before. It would happen again, and in the meanwhile there were other places for him to hunt down and destroy the undead. They’d heard that the condition had reached epidemic proportions on the far side of the mountains.

He had kept his promise not to divulge Cassandra’s secret, and theirs was a tearful parting. She would not soon forget the sad look of loneliness in the Gypsy’s eyes as he bade them farewell. That had occurred in the dead of night, a sennight ago, at a coaching inn on the far side of the river.

The final search of the castle had shown nothing else. Well hidden in the forest, they’d watched the mountaintop
for a week, looking for lights at night, and also monitored the villagers’ comings and goings during the day, but Castle Valentin remained shrouded in darkness, hauntingly desolate and still. There was no sign of Sebastian, dead or undead. It was time to go home.

Now, fair but cooler winds blew upon the four-masted privateer that would carry Cassandra and her beloved Jon back to England. Sapphire waves buoyed the ship, and whitecaps creamed against her prow like paper lace as she pitched and rolled with the fickle rhythm of the autumn sea.

The crimson sun had almost set, but the sky still blazed with streaks of rose and gold and purple that tinted the clouds and the underbellies of the snowy-white waterfowl that rode the wind. Cassandra could no longer see the quay. She pulled her hooded cloak closer around her, acutely aware of Jon’s strong and pinioning arm. They stood along the gunwales. Neither had spoken Sebastian’s name since they’d left the Carpathians. Neither had mentioned the swarms of bats they’d seen sawing through the night air silhouetted against the moon, even in the forest, as their coach-and-four tooled ever closer to Gdansk. Would she ever again see a bat in flight and not be plagued with bone-chilling thoughts of Sebastian?

You cannot escape me.
His malevolent voice and deep-throated laughter ghosted across her memory, and she shuddered. Was it only a memory, or was he speaking to her mind from this side of the grave? The ghostly voice faded, siphoned off on the wind as mysteriously as it had come, and she cuddled close into Jon’s strong embrace.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” Jon murmured, gazing into her eyes. “If you hadn’t set that creature’s coat afire on the mountain, we would not be standing here
like this. You saved our lives, my love. And I will never forget the sight of you as a panther doing battle, streaking through the air. I see it waking and sleeping.”

Cassandra hesitated. “Do you trust me, Jon . . . I mean . . .
really
trust me?”

“Yes,” he said, soothing her. “I trust you with my life. God knows you’ve saved it more than once on this mad ramble.”

“No matter what?”

“Of course, no matter what,” he said with a chuckle. “Look here, whatever is this?”

“And you won’t deny me anymore when we make love?” she persisted, ignoring the question.

Jon’s expression clouded suddenly. “Of course not,” he said. “You know why that had to be until the blood moo—”

Cassandra laid a finger over his lips. “Shhh, I know,” she said. “I just want to be sure that won’t happen now . . . no matter what.” She needed to be sure before she broke the news.

“Silly goose,” he chided. Giving her a playful squeeze, he turned her away from the ship’s rail. “Come,” he said. “Let us go below so I can prove the point. I won’t have to leave you this time to feed on cattle in steerage, nor will I fear feeding upon you. You can lie in my arms the whole voyage if you wish. We have much work ahead of us at home, and an eternity to do it, but this time is ours, Cassandra—all ours.”

An eternity.
That unfathomable concept of forever had haunted her as a child, and it had come back to haunt her again now more severely. She was still coming to grips with its vastness. The mere thought of living in Jon’s strong arms throughout eternity made her heart race. This was not how it was supposed to be, certainly not what they had planned, but they were together; and with love, all else paled.

Cassandra had made peace with herself over the child she carried. Milosh was right; she would just have to wait and see, and deal with whatever happened when the time came. Whatever their fate, she and Jon would face it together. Right now, she was going home. England! Anticipation of that crowded all negative thoughts from her mind. How she had missed her home.

Through the slanted window that followed the contours of the ship’s hull belowdecks, the waning moon threw fractured shafts of silver light on the bunk they would share. The scent of tar and salt was heavier here, pungent and evocative. One by one, Jon stripped away Cassandra’s garments, and then his own. Staggering with the rolling swells that undermined his balance, he scooped her up in his arms and set her down on the bedding gleaming silver in the moonlight, then climbed in beside her.

“I am going to ravish you,” he murmured. That deep, resonant voice set her afire from the inside out until she feared her bones would melt. In slow, tantalizing circles, his hands roamed her body, blazing a trail of icy heat from the notch below her arched throat to her breasts and the hardened buds of her nipples. They slid lazily along the curve of her waist to her belly and thighs, lingering on the soft, moist mound of her sex. “Would you like that, my love?” he whispered, nibbling on her ear, his hot breath puffing against her cheek. His hooded eyes were the color of mercury and dilated with desire.

Her pulse leapt, her body thrumming in anticipation. His voice crackled with smoldering fire. He had the power to penetrate her with that voice, with those eyes. And as the thick pressure of his arousal found her thigh, she melted.

“Yes,
please,
” she murmured, taking his face in her hands. Her thumbs caressed his angular cheeks, the heels of those tiny hands reacting to the muscles along his jaw that had begun ticking a steady rhythm. “But first, my love,” she murmured, “I have something wonderful to tell you. . . .”