Her Devoted Vampire (13 page)

God.
She stopped herself
and guiltily looked over her shoulder.
Goddess,
is this because I touched Fredrick’s chest?

She’d always
recognized the change between summer and autumn, with the cold wet smells of
fallen sun baked leaves, but she’d never been able to tell when autumn bowed to
winter’s rule.

Damn, now I’m waxing poetic.

She
wrapped her arms around her and picked her way over the damp ground toward the
river, retracing the steps she’d taken when she tried to escape. The moving
water calmed her and helped organize her thoughts.

Okay, Fredrick called me
“Goddess-born”, and then my hand turned into
a flashlight.

She
looked down at it quickly to see if the mark showed in the semi-darkness, but her
palm remained quiescent. She huffed a relieved breath, watching it plume before
her. At least he’d been right about her hand glowing only when they touched.

Her feet
crunched through the brittle leaves left on an open path through the trees
toward the river.
Why didn’t I find this
stupid trail last night?
Bridget shook her head and enjoyed the ease of
motion as she walked. Her whole body felt great, better than it had in years.

See what you get when you touch a vampire?

Vampire.
The word had so many meanings she couldn’t even name them all. Scary summed up
her feelings pretty well, but he hadn’t attacked her as she’d expected from a “vampire”.

What is so special about touching the mark on Fredrick’s
chest? Maybe that’s where the blessing
 
connects us
. She
wondered if she touched him now, somewhere innocuous, whether she’d feel the jolt
of electricity again.

The word
magic
whispered through her thoughts,
and she scoffed as her feet crunched on the pea gravel at the river’s edge.
Plopping sounds dragged her gaze to the flowing water while her mind puzzled
through the new idea. Magic?

He said I’m the Avatar of the Goddess.
She rubbed her palm against her leg.
Goddesses have magic, right?

It stood
to reason if vampires existed then magic must as well, and the connection
between two total strangers couldn’t be anything
but
magic as far as she was concerned.

Especially
when he’d said he loved her without meeting her.

Bridget
groaned. She’d admit when it came to Fredrick, she felt overwhelming
attraction, and he had a few qualities she admired. But love at first sight
didn’t exist.

The
sound of footsteps on the river rocks broke her reverie, and she jerked her
head over her shoulder to see who had joined her. The lights of the homes
across the river glittered on the water in the growing darkness, but the person
who joined her was pale all over. Bridget grimaced and hunched her shoulders,
hugging her arms tighter around her.

Shit, just who I needed to see.

“What
are you doing here?”

“I could
ask you the same thing.” The woman’s dangerously silken voice floated out of
the darkness. “Did Fredrick not say you were not to leave the house?”

“He was
the one who let me come out for a walk. Ask him yourself if you don’t believe
me.”

“I don’t
need to ask him,” Ms. Vértolvaj whispered in her ear. “I know when you’re
lying.”

Bridget
jumped sideways, her feet sinking into the soft rocks at the water’s edge. The
cold seeping into her shoes crept up her back with icy fingers. How the hell
had she gotten that close without making any noise?

Oh, right. She’s a vampire, too. Moves faster than a
speeding bullet and can smell everything.

 
Then Bridget scowled and stepped back onto
solid ground, her hands tightening into fists against her sides. What did this
woman care, anyway? From what she remembered, Ms. White Fang didn’t want her in
the house or around anywhere.

Suddenly,
the white haired woman hissed just like a snake, making Bridget jump again.

“You
smell like Fredrick! Did you fuck him?”

Oh no, she did
not
just ask me that.

“That’s
none of your business,” Bridget growled back at her, feeling her lips pull back
from her teeth.

“Wily
slut! Seduced him, did you? Got out after you fucked him into exhaustion?”

Bridget’s
jaw dropped, but she forced herself to think before she said something stupid.
She stuffed her anger down deep and took another step away from the enraged
vampire.

“Is that
what you would’ve done?”

“No, I
would have bitten my captor and drawn out his blood until he was too weak to
follow.” The death’s head grin wasn’t reassuring.

“Yes,
I’m sure you would have.” Bridget’s anger flared ahead of her panic. “For your
information, Fredrick gave me permission to take a walk. I’m not leaving the
estate. If I was, I certainly wouldn’t have gone toward the river. You don’t
have to believe me. You can always go back and ask Fredrick. I’m sure he’d love
to talk to you.”

She retreated
even further away from Ms.
 
Vértolvaj,
but kept her eyes on the scary woman. Warnings screamed in the back of
Bridget’s mind as her nose picked up the scent of a bloody corpse fresh from
the grave, all damp earth and exposed organs. She didn’t want to know how she
knew that, but the smell rolled off the pale woman in waves.

“I bet
you would just love that. It would give you time to run.” The icy voice came
from her other side, and Bridget froze. “But if Mr. MacGregor wants to keep
you, then kept you shall remain.”

“Why do
you care?” Bridget surreptitiously retreated. “I thought you wanted me out of
here.”

“What
Mr. MacGregor wants, he keeps, and I make sure of that.”

What the
hell was wrong with these people? First they kidnap her and hold her prisoner,
and then they stalk her when she promised to stay.

Jeez, guys, I’m just trying to get my head around
being related to a Gaelic Goddess, not to mention the existence of vampires and
werewolves. Give a girl a break!

“Bloody
fucking hell, woman! All I’m trying to do is understand what in the Goddess’s
name is going on!”

“Bloody
fucking hell, indeed,” the vampire’s voice whispered.

 
Bridget slammed into the ground with a weight
on her chest, knocking the wind out of her. Fury ignited in her gut as she
sensed the pair of fangs closing in on her throat. Fear electrified her
muscles, but she forced herself to relax as she stretched out her hands for
anything to use as a weapon.

The pale
face above her smiled. “Finally accepting the inevitable, I see. You are just a
meal, after all. Maybe a good fuck. I’ll have to ask Fredrick when I bring you
back. I’m sure he’ll be grateful.”

Goddess, this woman just talks and talks and talks and
talks
.

Bridget tightened
her lips to keep the words inside as her hand closed over a sharp rock. She shifted
it into her hand and waited for her lungs to expand before she smashed it with
all her strength into the side of the pale oval hovering above her.

The
vampire shrieked and toppled off, freeing Bridget. She scrambled to her feet
and bolted toward the lights of the house. She didn’t know how much time she
had to get away, but Fredrick had been incredibly fast; and she suspected Ms. Vértolvaj
shared his ability.

Humorless
laughter bubbled up at the irony. All she’d wanted to do was get
out
of that damn house for the last few
hours. Now, she ran back to it.

Bridget
hadn’t gone more than ten steps when the foul-smelling juggernaut hit her again,
sending her sprawling into the underbrush of the winter forest. She screamed
her indignation and fury as the vampire landed on top of her.

“You
will pay for that, you little bitch!”

Ms.
White Fang flipped Bridget over on her back and spread her arms out, holding
them down with effortless strength. Bridget struggled, jerking against the
restraint, but only her torso moved. She hunched her shoulders, trying to
protect her throat from the raving lunatic hissing laughter. She groaned and
twisted, raising her hips to throw the vampire off of her, but she had no
leverage.

“Yessss,
sstruggle for me, little She-meal,” the woman sing-songed, her face looming closer.

An
infuriated snarl tore through the night, and something slammed into the
vampire, flipping them both up with the momentum of the impact. Ms. Vértolvaj held
on despite the growling powerhouse scrabbling at her. The vampire let go to
deal with the new threat at the last second, and Bridget fell hard to her side,
her lungs struggling for breath with the impact. The scents of angry dog and
pine forest mixed with the foul reek of death, and she decided guard dogs must
be out on the estate.

Bridget rolled
to her hands and knees, shaking her head as she slowly pushed herself to her
feet. She hesitated, trying to determine what had attacked the vampire in the
darkness.

What are you doing?
Run, you idiot!

She took
a few steps before she realized she had no idea which way to go. Her fall had
disoriented her, and the only point of reference consisted of the hissing and
snarling mass of conflict somewhere to her left. Her eyes caught a dark, canine
form clamped onto the icy pale, human shape, and her feet propelled her further
from the combatants.

What can I do to help, anyway? The best thing is to
get out of the way.

Bridget spun,
searching for the house lights among the dark trees, but her attention stuck on
more canine shapes hurtling through the black trunks toward her. She squeaked
and froze with her arms clamped to her chest as the animals flew past her with
rabid snarls. Like a train wreck, she wanted to turn and look to see where
they’d gone when infuriated shrieks ripped through the woods behind her, but
her good sense ordered her back the way the huge dogs had come.

She
jerked into motion and fled toward anything resembling light. Fear chased her
through the woods toward the only point of refuge she knew in this weird
nightmare of magic and supernatural beings. She should have paid closer
attention to her Comparative Religions and Mythologies class in college. It
might have prepared her a little better for nights like this. She snorted and
choked on her humorless laughter as she burst back into the clearing around the
house, relief pouring through her at the sight of its bright windows.

Almost there.

A
hissing boulder slammed into her back, driving her headlong into the ground. Dead
winter grass scraped her face as her nose filled with the reek of rotting
corpse and dirt. Bridget was flipped over, and instead of monologing, the
vampire drove her fangs toward Bridget’s neck.

“Get off
me!” Bridget struggled to wriggle her body out from under the decay-smelling bitch
on top of her.

Agony
tore through her as the vampire sank her fangs into Bridget’s throat, and she
screamed. The dogs appeared around them, flickering in and out of her line of
sight. One leapt at the pale feeding creature, and the vampire closed her teeth
together in Bridget’s neck. The jaws ripped out a chunk of flesh from Bridget’s
throat as the huge dog impacted Ms. Vértolvaj, throwing her off Bridget’s body.

Pain
overwhelmed Bridget’s awareness, and someone screamed again.

Who’s making all that noise? Goddess, I hurt!

She
pressed her hand against the torn flesh of her neck in hopes the pain would
recede, but something hot and sticky flowed over her fingers. Cold seeped into
her body from the ground.

Ah, there. That feels better.

The dogs
swarmed around her and the undead bitch, but she lost track of the world beyond
the pain and cold. Why did this feel so familiar to her?

The
world exploded into a cacophony of sound. Snarls, growls, and hisses filled the
air, but she couldn’t find the source without moving; and she didn’t have the
energy. Bridget floated in a cooling space, growing more and more tired, and
sound retreated.

A sudden
roar split the white noise, and she jerked her eyes open as another human shape
hurtled past her with a pair of huge knives in its hands. The figure
disappeared from her line of sight and joined in the fight, adding more sound
to the overall dissonance.

Hey, that kinda looked like Fredrick.

It took
too much energy to keep her eyes open and hold her neck. She relaxed into the
enveloping cold and fatigue. A pesky voice warned her she might be dying, but
she couldn’t quite work up the worry against it.

The
beckoning darkness sucked her down.

****

Fredrick
skidded to a halt at the edge of the trees when he caught the scents of death
and damp earth poisoning the air. Szilvia’s hunting scent was as familiar as
his Aston Marten, but when it mixed with the murky swamp smell of Bridget’s
fear, fury bloomed within his chest.