One With the Night (24 page)

Very well. He’d think of those lost times when he had enjoyed the sexual act. His thoughts slid to days in Edinburgh as a student, to a bonny wench called Megan … But how could a wraith of long-dead times rouse him?

“You know, I consider it almost an insult that you need compulsion to achieve an erection,” the hated contralto murmured above him.

God help him … she’d whip him, or create the pain in his head until he was hoarse with screaming. He took a dreadful chance. “It … it is only that I am weakened, mistress. And tired.”

“You make excuses?” she cried, pushing him back. He sprawled on the carpet. It scratched at his raw skin. “There is no excuse for a slave not pleasing his mistress.”

Callan scrambled up to press his forehead to the carpet, waiting for his sentence to be pronounced. There was a long silence. Callan licked his lips. What was she doing? He dared not raise his head. Was she thinking of some new, more terrible submission she could require?

“You do grow weak from my tasting,” she said at last. “But there is a cure for that.”

She sprayed him with compulsion. His cock grew painfully erect.

“Now come here and serve me, and then we will cure this exhaustion of yours.”

*   *   *

A cure for exhaustion. That’s what she called infecting him with Fedeyah’s blood. It made him strong, all right. Callan rubbed his temples as if that would erase the thoughts that plagued him. And now he needed a cure for the cure. But the price for staying to partake of it, if and when Blundell produced it, was the very submission that had twisted his soul. He couldn’t endure that a second time.

Yet would he really forgo the cure to escape Elyta? The cure was his only hope to escape his vampire nature. Only then could he retrieve who he had been before Asharti, before Elyta Zaroff, before his crimes against humanity and against himself. And if there was no retrieving what he once was, or if he had always been evil and debauched and Asharti had only released his true nature, then once he was human again he could end his suffering.

Maybe he could bear his slavery to Elyta just long enough to take the cure. The cure was no escape, though. She could still use him as a human. She could prevent his suicide and keep him alive for a long time. So he should go, tonight if he could manage it. If he went, he’d be doomed to vampirism forever. But he’d be his own man. Or his own monster.

And Jane?

He couldn’t leave Jane to Elyta.

But Elyta seemed to like Jane. Jane was in no danger from her, surely. And Elyta ruled Flavio and Clara absolutely. Yet … women like Elyta didn’t like rivals. She wouldn’t like Jane’s streak of independence. At the first of Jane’s pointed questions, she’d lash out. Jane had already refused Elyta’s invitation to partake of him.

Nonsense. Jane could take care of herself.

Yet she couldn’t. She didn’t even know about compulsion.

But what good was he to her? He couldn’t protect her, whether he stayed or left.

The sun was sinking, somewhere outside the darkened room. He was sinking with it, submerging in a dark and oily sea. The water filled his mouth with the bitter taste of despair.

Elyta stirred from her sleep.

*   *   *

Jane couldn’t bear to be in this house another second. She’d tossed and turned all day. They were only two doors down. The feminine moans of pleasure, the masculine grunts, the periodic banging of the bed against the wall tormented her. Pillows over her head couldn’t shut out the sound. There was no use leaving her room. She’d be able to hear them all over the house. And she was trapped inside by the sun.

Lying there awake, she couldn’t forget the arch of his ribs or the strong muscles in his thighs and buttocks bunching as he lifted himself in counterpoint to Elyta, or the way his biceps bulged as he held to the bedposts.
Have you no shame? No control?
She should only be horrified that she had been so mistaken about him.

Well, now the sun had set. She rose, dressed hastily, and pulled her hair up into a knot. She’d get away. The loch? No, she had no desire to see the monster again. The castle? Absolutely not! That was full of tainted memories. Up the glen, then, as far as she could go.

Hmmmm. She didn’t want to miss Brother Flavio’s return. Her father would try the experiment with laudanum immediately. It wasn’t that she wanted to be there in case Kilkenny needed her. He might choke to death for all she cared. No, it was only that she wanted to witness the breakthrough, and take the cure herself immediately. She didn’t want this thrill of life in her veins, or the throbbing insistence that had lured her into sexual encounters with Kilkenny.

She’d ride Missy. Just to get into the cool night air. Flavio wouldn’t be able to start back from Inverness until sunset, and then it was seventeen miles of bad road. She had several hours yet. She strode down the stairs, refusing to tread lightly. Let them hear her. She didn’t stop to break her fast but went right up to the barn.

Before she could get there, her father leaned out of the laboratory door and beckoned. His white hair stood out at odd angles. His coat was stained in several places and he hadn’t shaved this morning. She sighed and followed him into his workroom. Beakers bubbled merrily with decoctions in shades of green and brown and even dull red. Steam fogged the windows of the old creamery building. The whole place smelled rather … decayed.

“Jane, my dear,” he said, turning back to his beakers. “Where is Kilkenny? Flavio could be back at any time.” He drained the contents of one beaker through a long glass tube. The virulent green liquid turned several corners and drained into a glass tub of sorts, where it joined a clear viscous fluid and miraculously turned a sort of blue-purple color, like aubergine.

“I’ve no idea,” she said stiffly.

Her father scribbled frantically in his notebook, muttering. “Two powerful poisons paired with laudanum…” When he finished, he looked up. “Can you see he’s fed well? I want him fit. I’ll dose him as soon as Flavio returns.”

Jane set her lips. “He seemed quite fit last time I saw him.”

“He’ll require lots of protein—a few eggs, some rashers of bacon and a kidney or two, some biscuits or bread, something to provide energy.”

“Clara can attend to it.” She couldn’t help her impatient tone. “I’m going for a ride.”

“Now?” Her father raised his beetling brows. “Jane, this could be all we’ve waited for.”

She blew out a breath. “Oh, very well, Papa. I’ll make sure he’s fed.
If
he deigns to come downstairs.” She turned on her heel. Missy would have to wait.

*   *   *

It must have been the smell of eggs and bacon that brought them downstairs. Jane was willing to let the food get cold rather than knock on Elyta’s door again. She was going to put out the food and leave. Clara insisted that Elyta be served in the dining room rather than the kitchen. Jane and Clara had worked silently together preparing the meal. Now they set steaming plates of food on the sideboard.

Elyta, trailed in, en déshabillé, wearing her lilac wrapper, her dark hair hanging loose. Kilkenny followed. He had pulled on shirt and breeches carelessly. He did not meet Jane’s eyes but pulled out Elyta’s chair. The woman sat languidly. Jane smelled sex on them both.

“Kilkenny, fetch water for my bath,” Elyta ordered. “Clara, I’m starving.”

Clara selected food from the trays. Kilkenny made for the door. He looked strangely determined. Jane should be glad to see him go. But she had a promise to fulfill.

“My father wants you to eat, Mr. Kilkenny. You need your strength for the coming trial.”

He paused. But he still didn’t look at her. “I’m no’ hungry,” he muttered.

“I had forgot about the test,” Elyta exclaimed. “Sit and eat, Kilkenny. You can get the water after we sup.” Her ordering Kilkenny about was a bit … disconcerting. Was that what it was like to be so beautiful men would do anything for you? Still, Kilkenny didn’t strike Jane as the type to take orders. She was wrong. Kilkenny sat, his fascinating mouth a grim line. Jane filled a plate and set it in front of him. He stared at it. She put a slice of toast and jam on her own plate.

Clara poured tea. “Would you like some ale, Mr. Kilkenny?” Jane asked, half wanting to torment him by making him speak to her. He
should
be ashamed of his behavior.

“This’ll do,” he said softly.

“Of course he’ll take ale. It’s entirely more sustaining,” Elyta contradicted. Clara went to get the ale. He still hadn’t taken a bite. “Eat, Kilkenny,” she said sharply.

Still staring at his plate, he picked up his fork. He cut a bite from his egg. The yolk poured yellow that seeped against his bacon and toast. Jane watched, beguiled, as he hesitated, then shoved a forkful of food in his mouth. He swallowed convulsively.

“Are … are you ill?” She asked it almost against her will. It was just concern for the test.

“He’s not ill.” Elyta answered for him. “He’s just a little lazy and rebellious this evening. Aren’t you, Kilkenny?” Her voice was sweet.

“Aye.” He almost choked on the word. Or on his eggs.

Jane realized in disgust that she must watch for signs of illness. If he was ill, the test would have to be postponed. He got through his food though, while Elyta chatted on about how living “rustically” as she called it was so hard on one of her sensibilities.

Jane wanted to shriek.

When they had done, Elyta pushed back from the table. “Kilkenny, my bathwater?” She smiled at him. It was a knowing, superior smile just like the one Jane had seen when Elyta first ran her eyes over him the night the vampires came to Muir Farm.

Kilkenny looked up, a terrible indecision written in his gray-green eyes. What was the matter with him? Just refuse the order if he thought it such an imposition. He tore his eyes away from Elyta’s and stared at his empty plate, smeared with egg yolk and bacon grease. Then he pushed himself up and strode from the room.

“Men.” Elyta laughed. “Such strange creatures!”

Jane heard the distant clatter of the gig. Brother Flavio was back.

*   *   *

Now was his chance. He stood at the well some fifty yards from the house. Lights shone from the windows. He could see Dr. Blundell hurrying down from the laboratory and Flavio’s silhouette at the kitchen window with the two small packages the monk had unloaded from the gig. No one was paying any attention to Callan.

He could go.

He could do no one any good here. If he stayed there was only abuse and degradation ending in death, regardless of whether the newest formula worked. He’d vowed he’d never put himself in anyone’s power again. He could keep that promise. Today had been like a nightmare reaching out from his past to twist his heart.

He sent the bucket clattering down into the well a second time. He’d stacked the bottles of blood at the base of the stone wall that circled it.

And if he left now?

Aye, there’s the rub,
as Shakespeare would say.

It wasn’t just that he would endure an eternity of being a monster if he left without the cure. True, he had wanted the cure more than anything. Who wouldn’t? But he could continue shouldering the burden of his nature.

He turned the handle and watched the wet rope stretch onto the windlass.

The thing that rankled was that if he left now Elyta would have won, in a way. She wouldn’t be able to torture him, but she would have sacrificed nothing else. She’d have the cure she came for, whatever the reason she wanted it. And he would have abandoned Jane and her father to the capricious whim of a woman he knew to be evil. He knew in the pit of his stomach that there would come a time when Jane would need protection against Elyta.

That would mean Asharti had won in some strange way, too. She had turned him into the man who would kneel at her feet, begging her to abuse him. He had committed … atrocities under her influence. He couldn’t deny it. But he didn’t have to keep being that man who didn’t stand up to her, did he? A man could change. He wanted to change, to prove that Asharti did not control him even from her grave. He had to take a stand against her sometime. He’d tried to take back his soul by doing small good deeds, but still she sat in his heart. And he’d never confronted her directly. How could he? She was dead. But now she lived again, in Elyta. Now he had another chance to achieve a different sort of ending to his story.

There was no hope of helping Jane and the doctor escape, once the cure was found.

He had no plan.

But he couldn’t run away, either.

He poured the water from the bucket attached to the well rope into the second of the two he had brought with him, then replaced the bottles of blood and lowered them into the cool water again. He turned back to the house and hefted the two sloshing buckets. He was going to endure what Elyta could compel, and all for some slender hope that he could change things this time, that he could take back what he was, and who he was.

Elyta was right. He wouldn’t run away. He just hoped she was wrong about the reason.

CHAPTER
Fifteen

Jane watched as Flavio cleared the old butter churns from the laboratory and upended several wooden tubs as seats for Elyta and Jane. He stacked some of the milk buckets to make room. Several lamps flickered, bathing the laboratory in bright, golden light. Her father paced among his bubbling beakers, making last-minute preparations. Kilkenny stood, stone-faced, hands clenched. Only Clara had not bothered to attend the spectacle.

“Wasn’t he to be naked, Doctor?” Elyta examined Kilkenny with a critical eye.

“I’ll no’ strip in mixed company,” Kilkenny muttered, eyes fixed on the floor.

“Nothing we haven’t seen before, yes, Jane?”

“Quiet now,” her father ordered, waving a hand absently. Jane was glad her father was too distracted to realize what Elyta’s comment might mean about his daughter. “Flavio, bring the opium. Are you sure about the dosage?”

Flavio set two packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with string on the workbench. “I’m sure. Our metabolisms run at a higher rate than humans’.”