Blood Wicked (2 page)

He could see more of her now. She was naked, possessing two perfect ivory breasts, topped with peach-pink nipples. A smooth belly. Generous hips.

He was hard with desire and fiercely hungry for her throat.… Then he blinked. Bare breasts and a bare neck reflected beside him?

Heath jerked around. His normally slow heartbeat became a hard pulse in his throat. Tom, lurking behind a granite boulders, looked up fearfully. Around, the Dartmoor hills stretched, empty and still. Up here, he could see for miles—right to where
his estate house sprawled, surrounded by a stone wall, lichen-covered trees, and the little white dots of slumbering sheep.

There was no nude woman behind him.

Tom peered at him, uneasy and curious. “Whose face did you see, milord?”

How could he see the face of a woman who was not even there?

Right, Heath. And how can you be a vampire—cheating death and surviving by drinking blood?
“I looked into a moonlit pool of water. I saw my own face, of course.”

Tom gave a strangled grunt of dismay.

Heath groaned. “Bloody hell, man, I am not going to die next. I can assure you of that. Your tale is nothing more than a faery story, meant to frighten and entertain.”

Of all the men in England, he was the least likely to have a sudden and untimely death. He’d already done that bit and had escaped the final reckoning. He was now immortal. The undead. Nosferatu.

But the woman …

Cold unease gripped his heart. How could he be seeing her reflection? Had he actually seen someone who was going to die? Who was she? He didn’t know, so he couldn’t warn her to be careful around carriages, firearms, and unknown plants.

Then his throat tightened. In the reflection, the woman ran her hand down his chest as she lowered to her knees in front of him. Her hands deftly released his cock from his trousers. And Heath had the astounding experience of watching from a distance while a beautiful woman sucked his cock deeply down her throat. Hell …

The water bubbled again. This time his reflection disappeared. The woman was now reclining on a chaise, her hand draped over her curvaceous hip. There was a man standing beside her. But it wasn’t him. It was his brother Raine, who had
been missing for a fortnight. His brother was gazing at the beautiful blond woman as though he loved her.

Was he looking at the reflection of a woman who had harmed his brother? One who had also disappeared? He didn’t know who she was, so why had he seen her sucking him?

Whoever she was, he had to find her.

London, Two weeks later

A
s a mortal man, Heath had adored women’s breasts. They seemed to be a stroke of genius. Plump, bouncy, and tempting, and all the fun of playing with them pleasured the woman, too.

As a vampire, he found them irresistible.

For the ten years he had been Nosferatu, one of the undead, he’d been plagued with the yearning to sink his fangs into a woman’s breasts and taste her succulent blood that way.

He’d resisted. But hell, it had been hard.

And now, he was standing in a brothel’s salon while some foolish woman thought to tempt him by baring her generous bosom. Henna-red curls bounced around her face. She flashed a coquettish look to him beneath thick lashes, pursed her scarlet lips, then let her silk wrapper slide from her shoulders.

He knew he should look away. The gesture would annoy her and she would move on to other prey. Half the men in the room were watching that scrap of silk as it fell from her shapely shoulders and snagged on the swell of her generous bosom. She gave him a wicked smile. Then she shimmied to make the fabric fall free. Two stunningly large breasts popped into view—full,
ivory white, and topped with nipples rouged to an erotic scarlet.

Blinking, blazing hell.

The two vampires who sat in front of the courtesan traded lusty smiles, then bent to the two full breasts on offer. But neither men suckled the aroused nipples; each drove their teeth into the plump sides of her breasts. What they wanted was blood.

The seductive, coppery tang of it filled the salon.

The woman gave a sensual moan of pleasure. Her head fell back. The vampires knew how to take enough blood to give her a thrilling sexual sensation. They wouldn’t kill her. They would show her unfathomable delights by lightly drinking her blood, while stroking her nipples and her hot, wet cunny.

Years of abstinence reared up inside Heath. His cock reared in front of him.

No
. He would not let himself give in to temptation.

Watching two men experience his fantasy had him taut as a bowstring and ready to snap. His hand closed too tightly on the glass of brandy in his gloved hand. With a delicate
ping
, the glass shattered. He dropped the remnants to a table and glanced around. Where in blazes had Julian gone? He needed to get out of here.

With her red-blond curls, this woman was not the one he was looking for.

He had made it to the door when the madam of the place, a demoness of some sort, sashayed out of the shadows and planted her buxom body in his path. “Ah, my lord. Have you only come to feed tonight, or do you wish to indulge in other pleasures as well?”

“Neither.” Heath cleared his throat, hiding the two weaknesses that tried to claim him. Lust and hunger. “I’ve come in search of my brother.”

Her plucked brows drew together in a frown. “But your brother is not a vampire, is he?” The stout woman was about forty. A stomacher crushed her belly flat and pushed her enormous bosom upward in a shelf of whitened flesh. That was the specialty of this brothel. The women within possessed the largest breasts in London.

“He is now. A mistake on my part—” He stopped. Christ, there was no need to explain his private hell to a madam. Swiftly he gave a description of Raine.

The woman shook her head. “No, he has not been here. But you must feed, my lord. I can sense the anguish within you.” She reached out for his arm.

And though he had immeasurable power, Heath jerked his forearm back like a frightened boy. “I do not need it,” he said curtly. “I wanted to find out about a woman. One who was involved with my brother. Blond—her hair is a dark gold. Very lovely. Blue eyes. Large ones.”

“That could describe many of my girls. You shall have to look through them, my lord.”

He glimpsed the madam’s thoughts. Visions hit him. A thousand personal, useless visions—of gowns, jewels, the location of the keys to her locked drawers, the bare chest of a footman she slept with. Then one image came forth and pushed all the others away. A man’s face—with auburn hair, laughing green eyes, a spray of freckles across his cheeks.
Raine
. And then he saw himself, with his brother.

Raine had followed him here once. A year ago, while his young brother had still been mortal and had no idea what he’d been walking into.

In her thoughts, the madam would naturally conjure up the last time she had seen Raine. Which meant what she had told him was the truth.

He saw images of several blond women in her head. Her
thoughts flowed easily to him.
He wants a blonde. Sally? She has blue eyes. If he wants a specific girl … how can I tempt him to choose one of mine instead?

Heath drew back from the madam’s thoughts, the shutters in his mind falling back into place like iron doors.
Clang. Clang. Clang
.

“Come.” She moved to his side, a bright smile on her crimson lips. “Let us find the woman you are searching for tonight.”

He knew the game. She wanted to give him a reason to stay, to peruse her voluptuous, half-naked tarts in the hope he would find one he couldn’t resist.

“No, thank you. I’m not looking for a woman to fuck, but for one to question.”

“How … odd. My lord, I sense great agony in you. I know you do not wish to feed, but I fear it is becoming painful for you to deny yourself any longer. How long has it been since you took blood?” she asked sympathetically, but he knew her concern was feigned.

“A week.”

“That is far too long. Dangerously so. Surely you know that, my lord.”

“I have gone longer.” Three months. That had been the longest. And he’d been left so weak, he’d thought he was going to die. Then a servant had wakened him, had told him Raine was dying. That had forced him to leave his bedchamber, drink enough blood to regain strength, and then race to his brother’s side to give him eternal life instead of lose him forever.

It had been months since he had come to a place like this—a brothel where the negotiations for blood were as common as those for pleasure. He had sworn he never would again. Not after the last time, when he had lost control.

The longer he tried to go without blood, the more violent the hunger became. It was irresponsible of him to walk amongst the human world without slaking his thirst for blood
in the … kindest way he could. He should accept the offer here, where he could ensure the safety of the woman who let him take her blood. But he turned away and strode for the door.

Julian, come out from wherever you are. We are done here.

And he cursed the vampire council for sending Julian Tremaine with him. Tremaine was supposed to be his overseer, but Heath spent most of his time looking after the lad.

The madam chuckled behind him. His preternatural hearing easily picked out the sound, even as he heard Julian Tremaine’s footsteps racing down a hallway. “You will be back,” she murmured to herself.

No, he’d drive a stake into his own heart before he weakened.

The last time he had fed at this brothel, he had escorted a voluptuous lass to the bedchamber. The girl had flopped on the bed, swept back her hair to bare her throat, and waited for him with dead and resigned eyes.

He’d never lost an appetite so quickly in his life. This became an addiction for the women, like gin or opium. They needed to be bitten, to know the pain, to feel the earth-shattering pleasure of climaxing while being fed upon. The prostitute had told him, with whimpers, that her last client had been brutal and rough. She had clutched his arm, despair in her eyes. She was terrified, but she
needed
him to take her blood.

He had done it, despite his revulsion—with this world, mainly with himself. The girl had cried while he did it, and her emotions flowed to him, making her blood taste sharp as vinegar, foul as rotting fruit. He had paid her extra, a few gold sovereigns he had tucked in her closed fist, and placed against her heart. Since then he had fed from animal blood. It left him weak, unsatisfied. But it meant he did not have to touch a woman who truly did not want to be touched.

Heath shook off the maudlin thoughts and strode to the
bottom of the stair. He was here only in his search for Raine and for the woman he had seen in the pool. He grasped the banister and barked up the stair. “Julian, get your arse down here. I’m gone.”

A servant hastily opened the door to him. Heath jumped down the front steps and strode away from the house. Three brothels along this street catered to the “nocturnal brother-hood”—the male vampires of London who chose to slake their thirst with the willing and leave their meals alive.

“Heath, wait—” Julian came running out of the brothel, retying his cravat, though the placket of his trousers still flapped where one button was undone.

Heath rubbed his temple. “Your trousers.”

“Oh, right. I was in the middle of something. Could you have given me a few more minutes?”

“You were in the middle of
someone
. And no, I could not give you more time.”

Julian licked his lips, flicking away a trace of blood. “She tasted good, but I hadn’t got to the best part, where I got to be deep in her while I was drinking and she was coming around me.”

“Another time.”

Julian scowled. He was a youth. Only two-and-twenty. A pup within the nocturnal brotherhood, he had not even spent a full year as a vampire. “You promised me I could. And in return I agreed to look the other way about your activities tonight. This is not one of our five crime scenes.”

This had to be the vampire council’s sadistic idea of a joke. Julian had been assigned to ensure he completed his mission: find a succubus who had killed five English peers. But Julian was young, rebellious, and obsessed with sex. Julian was so like Raine, Heath had been forced to spend every moment of those nights reliving the mistakes he’d made with his brother.

They were supposed to be examining the places where the
men had died, questioning other men who knew the victims for a description of mistresses and lovers. Track the succubus down, in other words. But he had to find Raine.

The vampire council would have him destroyed if he did not unearth the demon before the next full moon. But the council had also issued a death warrant on his rogue brother. And his brother’s existence came first.

Julian’s lower lip protruded in a pout. He did up his trousers and drew out a cheroot from a pocket. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“A woman.”

“They had those back there.”

“Not the one I wanted.”

“How can you be so certain?” Julian protested. Holding a match to the cheroot stuck between his lips, Julian looked longingly back toward the brothel. “We should have stayed there longer, to ensure we explored all the women and made sure none of them were the succubus we’re supposed to find.”

“I was able to determine that without wasting time, Julian. And for the love of Hades, don’t make that pouting expression again.”

He couldn’t let Julian know the truth. Tonight he wasn’t searching for the succubus. He was looking for the woman he had seen in the pool. And he had to ensure the council did not find out what he was doing. He couldn’t reveal any clue that might lead them to Raine first.

Most vampires feared the vampire slayers who worked for the Royal Society for the investigation of Mysterious Phenomena. But Heath feared the vampire council more. The slayers knew it existed but since it destroyed vampires they left it alone. But it had grown more dangerous.