One With the Night (17 page)

What had he done here? Ravished her? No, she had been willing but she regretted it. She wrote in her notebook that she wanted transformation. But sexual intercourse did not transform. The act of congress always left one flat and yearning for something that didn’t exist. That must be what she was feeling. He had felt it a hundred times. And he’d felt worse with Asharti. But that wasn’t how he felt now. He’d thought … but the look in her eyes said he was wrong.

God, how had he sunk so low as to defile her? She hated him. He could see that. And if she knew what he had done in the desert … He squeezed his eyes shut. If Jane Blundell had even a hint of how evil and weak he was, she would spit on him and order him away.

He got to his feet somehow and turned away from her. They had used each other just the way Asharti used him to slake her lust. The tenderness he’d felt for her was an illusion. And certainly any feelings he imagined in her were only that—imagined.

The damned vampire lust! The Companion used them both. It wanted life, and sexual congress was the ultimate expression of creation and life. Why in God’s name had he given in to it? The feel of her soft flesh against his had maddened him. Indeed, it wasn’t safe to think about her even now. He might lose whatever small portion of his identity he had managed to scrape together since Asharti. Or worse, he might give it away.

He strode to where his wet shirt pooled on the floor. He stood frozen above it, the air in the tower chill now that the fire inside him had been doused. Outside the wildness of the storm had sunk to a steady, soaking rain.

What he felt tonight was far more powerful than what he had ever felt with Asharti. Why? Was it because for two years he’d not felt a woman’s touch on his body, a woman’s lips on his? They had offered. Women always offered to a well-made man. He wanted to claw at his face, to rend the flesh Asharti had found desirable. But he would just heal, and his Companion wouldn’t even leave disfiguring scars.

He didn’t need any more scars. He was disfigured on the inside. The face of an innocent man in the desert, begging for his life, flashed before him. All he had tried to do since he escaped couldn’t change his true nature. Emotion whooshed from him, leaving his shoulders to sag. Jane was right to be angry. She must despise him.

“I can’t believe I … I so lost my senses…” she muttered to herself.

“It will no’ happen again, I promise.”

“You’re right, it won’t.” Her voice was tight.

He reached for his shirt. The sodden fabric slid over his head. He wrapped the kilt around his loins. Even now, imagining her behind him, he felt himself rise again. He had to get out of here. But he couldn’t leave her to fend for herself. He must escort her back to the farm. God, what would he do, just knowing she was in the house with him, remembering her breast in his mouth, the way she spread her thighs so eagerly for him? He began to ache. He kept his back toward her as he snatched up the basket of the latest poison her father would use to torture him.

“Come,” he said, his voice hoarse in his ears. “It’s time ta brave th’ rain.”

He motioned her to the stairway. She glanced at him and then away. She was ashamed of what they had done here.

And why not? So was he.

*   *   *

The ride back to the farm was sodden and silent. Jane, once so eager to know about her condition, now felt a wall between her and Kilkenny she could never bridge. The horses trudged up the glen in the relentless rain. She had never wanted to be one of those frivolous misses who thought only about how to attract a man. She had more serious things to do with her life. She had no desire to cede control of it to a man. She had seen the possessive look in Kilkenny’s eyes tonight. It was the look all men got in their eyes when they looked at a woman. Well, she would never be possessed by a man.

And yet, she had surely lost control of herself tonight. The feel of chaotic emotions and desire ripping through her unrestrained frightened her. She would have done anything tonight to make the needing go away. She would have abased herself, begged him, and played the wanton. Now that she thought on it, she
had
done those things. Where was her pride? Where was her purpose? If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up begging any man she could find to rub her the way Kilkenny had tonight. She flushed with shame. How would she bear his presence in her house, knowing that he knew what she had done tonight? Could he be trusted to keep his distance? She cringed. It might not be Kilkenny who was untrustworthy, but herself.

CHAPTER
Eleven

Callan pulled the horses up to the barn, uncinched their saddles, slid their bridles over their heads, and tossed them some hay, then headed down for the house through the rain.

As he pushed into the kitchen, Clara was dishing up some vegetables around a pheasant that smelled wonderful. She glanced up at him and her eyes widened. Callan realized that his kilt was pinned awry and his waistcoat had no buttons. What must she think of him? Probably just what he deserved that she think. He pushed through the kitchen, past the dining room. He was about to go upstairs to change into something dry if he could find it, when he saw Miss Zaroff and Jane … Miss Blundell (damn it, he had no right to call her anything else) in the sitting room.

“My, but there appears to be so much you do not know,” Miss Zaroff was remarking. “There you are, Kilkenny.” She motioned him in. Callan had no desire to confront Miss Zaroff looking like he did. But he didn’t want her badgering Jane about what she didn’t know of being vampire. He set his jaw and ducked into the room.

Jane … Miss Blundell had already changed into yet another drab gown, black this time. She was looking flushed. He could smell what they had done together on her. He must exude a similar scent. He glanced to Miss Zaroff. She could not help but know what they had done. Indeed, her eyes narrowed.

“Kilkenny, I was just telling Miss Blundell she should proceed with caution when she is out alone with you.” The woman already knew Miss Blundell had not proceeded with caution.

Callan went still and said nothing.

“After all,” Miss Zaroff continued blithely, “it is not often one encounters so famous or so ruthless a criminal.”

Callan had been a fool to think she would keep silent about his past. Why did she choose to reveal it now? Was it because she knew he had made love to Jane Blundell?

*   *   *

A ruthless criminal? What was Miss Zaroff saying? Jane looked at her stupidly. She glanced to Kilkenny, but he only set his lips and looked grim.

“Can it be you do not know who you harbor?” The musical laugh sounded like it should have been tinkling through a grand palace, not the humble sitting room of Muir Farm. “Callan Kilkenny is a famous fugitive. He made a vampire army and tried to take over the government of England, didn’t you, Kilkenny? You wanted to create a vampire society to prey on humans. And the corpses he left in his wake! I have no idea how many.”

The muscles in Kilkenny’s jaw clenched, but still he said nothing. Jane was shocked. Was Kilkenny a criminal among his own kind? Was he making vampires, plotting treason, killing people? How little she knew of his past and that only what he had told her himself.

“The Elders want you dead, you know.” Miss Zaroff put one lilac-gloved finger to her dimpled chin.

“Well, they’ll ha’ ta wait until th’ cure is found,” Kilkenny muttered. He turned on his heel and strode from the room. Jane heard the kitchen door open and slam shut. She stared at Miss Zaroff, who looked exactly like the proverbial cat who dined on canary. She couldn’t face that expression. She wouldn’t give the woman the satisfaction of being smug about knowing more about Kilkenny than Jane herself did. Was it even true? But Kilkenny hadn’t bothered to deny it. She felt her anger rising in her throat. She’d just see about that.

She mustered a smile. “Won’t you excuse me? I find I’m fatigued.” And she too left the room, to Elyta Zaroff’s widening smile.

*   *   *

Damned interlopers. He lit the lantern hanging outside the tack room. He might as well oil the saddles and bridles before they stiffened from their soaking. He got out some oil and rags, slung Miss Blundell’s sidesaddle over a stall door. It smelled, subtly, of her, beneath the scent of wet leather. He found he couldn’t face that smell, so he decided to rub down the mare and grabbed a curry comb.

Elyta Zaroff had put a wedge between him and the Blundells. The look in her eyes as she informed on him, so smug, so … ruthless. That look was familiar somehow. A powerful vampire woman … more powerful by far than he was …

He clenched his eyes shut and leaned on braced arms against the mare’s barrel as the memories washed over him, unstoppable.

*   *   *

Marrakech, March 1819

Callan hung his head, on hands and knees above her. His body was drenched in sweat, his cock still achingly erect, balls tight with need. A drop of his blood splatted on the golden skin of her thigh. She sighed in satisfaction and pointed to her side. He lay beside her and she licked at the jagged cut she had torn just over his nipple. His erection pressed thickly against her thigh.

She raised her head. Her lips were rosy with his blood. She was not human. He knew that now. “You made me force you again tonight, slave. You have not yet learned true submission.”

He closed his eyes, exhausted. What did she want? He obeyed her. He had no choice.

“Ah,” she breathed, tracing his lips with her long-nailed finger. “You must want to submit. You must want more than anything else to do what will please me.”

How could one love such horror? It had been almost a month. All thought of escape was gone. She kept him chained whenever he was not in her presence, and in her presence, he could no more escape than he could vanish into thin air.

She sat up and arranged her silks. She usually remained clothed, except when he bathed her and she took him during or directly after her bath. “Stand to the strap,” she said casually.

He sucked in a breath and pushed himself to his feet. He could only hope she would grow bored with whipping him. She grew bored easily. Two poles were set perhaps a yard apart especially for him. He stood between them, spread his feet and grasped the poles above his head. If he made her force him into position, she just prolonged the punishment. He heard her moving behind him. Her attention must be elsewhere, for his aching erection eased. He breathed in, and out. He could bear this. He always bore it. He imagined her picking up the broad leather strap fitted with a wooden handle at one end. His palms were slick and he rubbed them against the poles to get a better grip. If he fell, she would be displeased.

“Your countrymen are all so resistant. It’s true, I find that stimulating,” she remarked. “But I think you are capable of something more, with coaxing,”

What? What more? He dared not think what she meant by coaxing.

He heard the rush of air that preceded the snap of leather against his flesh. The sting made him jump. He should be grateful it was not the lash. But she liked to let the thin, bloody stripes heal before she used the lash again and his back was still raw tonight. The strap was painful but it didn’t draw blood. It left only swollen red welts. She was strong enough to maim him, even kill him, but she didn’t. These sessions were controlled, designed to break him down, bit by bit. She worked his back and thighs, but she always beat his buttocks almost lovingly.

The blows went on and on. He swayed as he struggled to remain upright. Sweat poured off him in the stifling tent. The rhythm broke. He felt her behind him. His knees were wobbling.

“Say you love it,” she whispered in his ear.

He swallowed. God, she was bringing up his erection again. Maybe if she liked resistance, he should not resist. “I love it,” he said before she needed to compel obedience.

“No, no, no. You must mean it. You must be stimulated by submitting to me.” She ran her nails lightly over the welts and scabs on his back, down to cup his right buttock. “Mean it.”

How could he convince her he meant it? He hated every moment of his servitude. He couldn’t ask her how she’d be convinced. She didn’t like him speaking, let alone questioning.

But, as often happened, she seemed to sense his question. “When you get a natural erection from submission to me, I will know you are truly mine.”

He hung his head. Impossible! He would never satisfy her.

“Do not despair. You will come to it with training.”

Callan wanted to scream. He began to fear he
would
come to it.

*   *   *

Callan moaned. He rolled his head on the mare’s warm flank. He
had
come to it. He’d lost himself after months of abuse, until all he thought about was how to please her. Not that he could avoid the strap or the other “recreations” she devised for herself. But he avoided the pain inside his head she could create to punish him. And that was why he didn’t indulge in sex with a woman. He was afraid of the twisted emotions it would engender.

He lifted his head.

But he had indulged in sexual relations tonight with Jane. And it hadn’t been like that. Yes, there was lust. Lord, how he had wanted her! He knew for certain she had wanted the same from him. And it was true that it was their Companions that goaded them to it. Yet … had there not been tenderness, too…?

It didn’t matter. He must keep away from her. He must never give in to those impulses again. He might betray himself. She might know the whole of what he had been, what he had done … And it was so much more than betraying England.

“Guilty memories?”

He jerked around to see Jane Blundell standing in the barn aisle.

*   *   *

The look of horror on Kilkenny’s face almost made Jane take a step backward. She steeled herself and stood her ground. She had to know the truth. Could she have been so mistaken about him?