Covet (11 page)

Lord Ashville grabbed him by the throat, fingers closing around it, throttling him. Javier didn’t stop. Driven by the smell of blood and his lust for violence, he fought on regardless of the lack of air. He clawed and scratched at Lord Ashville’s chest until his vision swam and the edges of his sight turned fuzzy and black.

Lord Ashville grinned up at him, rolled to his side and came out on top again. He throttled Javier and rather than fighting him, Javier fought for air instead. He grasped Lord Ashville’s wrists, trying to prise his hands off his throat, and choked. Someone moved out of the corner of his eye and then Lilah was standing over them both. She brought a thick carved wooden pillar that normally held a church candle down on Lord Ashville’s back, sending him slamming forwards into Javier’s chest. Lord Ashville reared up and turned on her. He lashed his arm out, catching her across the stomach and sending her flying into the black painted wall to the side of the stage. She fell to the ground in a heap. Lord Ashville went after her.

Javier pushed himself onto his feet with great effort and shot as fast as he could across the stage after Lord Ashville, intent on reaching him before he could harm Lilah again. He would never allow that. Lilah was his now and he would do all in his power to protect her.

She was his.

He brought his fingers together so they formed a flat surface with his palm, extended his claws, and came up behind Lord Ashville. The man choked as Javier struck, driving his hand into his back and smashing through his ribs. Javier growled, clutched Lord Ashville’s heart, and tore it out. Lord Ashville slumped to his knees and then fell forwards onto the stage floor. Javier uncurled his fist and let the heart roll from his fingers and fall onto its former owner. Blood dripped from his fingertips.

Javier stumbled past Lord Ashville’s corpse, his body aching with each weary step, pain blazing across each long gash that littered his arms and chest. He fixed his senses on Lilah, needing to feel that she was alive and would heal with his blood in her body. He collapsed onto his knees next to her and struggled to pull her into his arms. They trembled and shook, weak from the fight and blood loss. He still couldn’t believe what he had done. There would be repercussions. He shouldn’t have killed Lord Ashville. He should have retained enough control that he could have forced the man to face the heads of society and let them judge whether he and Lilah had broken the sacred law. There was no hope of that now. His superiors would believe he had sought to defend himself when he should have meekly accepted his fate and allowed Lord Ashville to collect his head. He had only made things worse.

He managed to work Lilah into his arms and rested there with her, his hands looped around her front and her back against his knees. Her soft steady breathing concerned him as much as her slow heartbeat. He closed his eyes and fought his own desire to sleep. He had to get her to safety and heal her.

“Let me help,” Callum said and Javier snarled at him, baring his fangs, and held Lilah closer, unwilling to let anyone touch her while she was badly injured.

“She will live.” Those words, roughly spoken by Snow, ignited the spark of hope in his chest and soothed some of his fear. He looked up at the powerful male, right into his icy eyes that were still ringed with red, needing to hear him say it again.

Antoine stood a step behind Snow, his pale blue eyes on his brother, wary and watchful, as though he expected him to lose control again at any moment. Snow glanced over his shoulder at his younger brother and Antoine’s gaze shifted from him, to Callum and then down at Javier and finally Lilah.

“I will need to speak to our rulers about this,” Antoine said and Javier nodded, unwilling to dare hope that they would grant him a reprieve. They were likely to sentence him to death when they learned of what he had done and the cold look in Antoine’s eyes said that he wouldn’t do anything about it. Javier hadn’t expected anything less of Antoine. The aristocrat believed in the laws and the sanctity of them, and they had never been close to each other. The man held himself at a distance from everyone except his brother. If it was Snow in his situation, Javier was sure that Antoine would lie to protect him.

Snow frowned at Lilah and spoke so quietly that Javier was sure he had misheard him. “I will deal with it.”

Antoine stared at his brother. Javier and Callum did too.

Snow lifted his head and looked down at Javier. “I will take responsibility for what happened here.”

Javier wasn’t sure what to say.

Snow crouched beside Lilah, a strange look in his now blue eyes. “You are like family to us.”

Javier glanced at Antoine to find the man scowling at the back of his older brother’s head. He didn’t seem to share Snow’s view and Javier was certain that Snow wasn’t taking responsibility because he felt Javier was like a brother to him. He was dreadfully certain that Snow was seeking his death.

“It was my fault. I will take responsibility for my own actions. You are needed here more than I am and perhaps if I take Lilah with me to them they will see that we are telling the truth and that Lord Ashville had no true claim to her,” Javier said and Snow shook his head. “I will not hear of it, Snow. Let Antoine speak to them and then I will take Lilah to see them. All will be well.”

“Let him, Brother.” Antoine’s tone was as black as midnight skies in winter and Javier could understand his anger. If Javier was in his position and it was his brother offering to face a board of vicious purebloods in place of another vampire, he would have been angry too. He would do all that he could to stop him. “I will contact them and then I will take Javier and Lilah to them personally. You need not involve yourself.”

“I attacked him too.” Snow straightened and his icy irises slid to one side, towards his brother, but he didn’t turn to face him. He looked down at Lilah again and then turned away, heading for the stage exit. “You owe me, Javier. Tend to your pretty female and take care of her. She is yours now. Cherish the gift of her love.”

The sound of the stage door slamming echoed around the theatre and Javier stared at it for long seconds before it opened again and Antoine stormed out of it, heading after his brother.

Javier looked down at Lilah where she lay in his arms and hoped with all of his heart that he was wrong about Snow, and that justice would be kind and protect him from the wrath of their rulers if he wasn’t and Snow was seeking his death. Antoine would never forgive him if their rulers executed Snow. The aristocrat vampire would come for his head, or offer it in exchange for his brother’s life.

He glanced up at Callum. The look in his green eyes was one of reassurance and Javier accepted the kind gift. He looked towards the door, his mind on what Snow had done for him. He had known the aristocrat brothers for a century now, had witnessed their closeness and the lengths they would go to in order to protect each other. A soothing wave rolled through him and he released the fear in his heart. Antoine would never come for his head because he would never allow his brother to face their rulers alone. He would travel wherever Snow chose to go, even into the jaws of Hell, and would ensure his brother returned safely. He would lie to protect him, would back up Snow’s story and blame this whole mess on bloodlust and an accidental killing, never mentioning the sacred law that had been broken. Javier only hoped their rulers believed them. He wasn’t sure how to thank Snow for what he was doing for him. He owed the vampire his life.

Cherish the gift of her love.

He would do just that.

Now that Lilah was his.

Javier slowly rose to his feet, lifting Lilah into his aching arms at the same time, ignoring the pain that tore through him. He would suffer pain one hundred times stronger for her sake if he had to. He would have faced their rulers and whatever sentence they would have given him now that he knew she was free of her master and safe.

Callum held the door for him and waited while he walked towards him, each step more painful than the last.

He would tend to his female.

He would cherish her forever if she would have him.

L
ilah woke slowly, her head strangely free of pain and her body warm and relaxed. Why had she expected to wake in agony? She fluttered her eyes open and Javier came into focus, lying next to her on his back, his face littered with thin red lines and bruises. His lip was swollen and split, and there was a nasty dent in his nose. She frowned and lowered her gaze to what she could see of his bare chest. More red lines marred his shoulders and torso. There had been a fight. Was that why she had expected to wake in pain?

She slowly raised her hands from under the midnight blue covers and frowned at them. They were dirty and there were cuts on them, but they were healing and had already passed the scab stage. Each mark was like a dark pink scar, several weeks’ old rather than mere hours.

There were more marks on her dirty elbows and she could feel that her lip had split too, but it wasn’t swollen like Javier’s.

She touched it and then her cheek, recalling that Lord Ashville had dragged her through the theatre searching for Javier and everything had turned chaotic.

Lilah sat up abruptly and pain speared through her this time. She pressed her hands to her stomach and held down the bile and her urge to be sick. Her vision swam and she waited for it to stop wavering before she looked around Javier’s blue bedroom. The long black coat folded neatly over the chair in the corner told her that part of her memories had been real. Snow had tried to protect her.

Had he killed Lord Ashville?

Her gaze tracked back to Javier where he slept beside her. Every cut and bruise on his beautiful face and body told her that he had been the one to fight for her. Had he killed her master? She placed her hand over her chest between her bare breasts and tried to feel Lord Ashville in her blood.

Her eyes widened.

She felt something but it didn’t make her skin crawl and the presence was close to her. In this room.

Lilah touched her lips and then drew her hand away and stared at it and the healing cuts on her arms. The bruises on her skin were faded too, and she could no longer feel the internal pain from Lord Ashville’s abusive behaviour towards her.

Javier had given his blood to her.

“Forgive me,” Javier uttered in a raspy voice and slowly opened his chocolate brown eyes. Concern touched his expression and he wearily raised his hand and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. The worry in his eyes turned to fatigue and his hand drooped, falling to her breast, as though he no longer had the strength to lift it. She took hold of his hand for him and brought it to her face, holding it there so he could stroke it. “I wanted to give you a choice this time.”

Lilah closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his hand, feeling his apology deep in her blood. She wasn’t angry with him. He had only given her blood so she would heal rapidly and he had probably saved her life by doing so. When Lord Ashville had thrown her against the wall, she had felt her life forced from her body, the pain so intense that her heart had struggled. She had expected to never wake at all. Javier hadn’t forced a bond upon her, not in the way Lord Ashville had.

He had gifted her with life by giving his blood to her and she could feel in her veins that he wished there had been another way to save her.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” She drew his hand away from her face. Her gaze fell to the deep bite mark on his wrist, a mark that he must have made for her. She pressed a long kiss to it, thankful for the gift that he had given her, a chance to be with him. Her heart whispered that he would never use the bond between them against her or treat her as Lord Ashville had done. He had given her blood out of love not out of a desire to own her. “I would have done the same for you.”

She looked at the cuts and bruises on his body.

“I will do the same for you.” She leaned over him on the bed, reached around behind her neck and pulled the hair away from her throat, revealing it to him.

Javier stared at her throat and then at the other side where he had bitten her. “You have no bite marks other than my own.”

Lilah frowned and then shrugged. “You were the first to bite me.”

“On your neck... or ever?” Javier struggled onto his elbows, propping himself up on the bed. The covers slid downwards to reveal the top of his stomach, the taut muscles enticing her to look at them. She kept her eyes on his, giving him the attention he deserved and refusing to gawp at him when he was having a serious conversation with her.

“Ever.”

“Lord Ashville never took your blood?”

Lilah shook her head. “No. He was never interested in me like that. He only ever bit the men and slept with them.”

Javier stared at her, slack jawed, his amazement running through her blood.

Lilah realised why he looked so surprised. “That’s why he didn’t have full control of me. You were apologising because you had taken my blood and then given me yours. That’s what completes a bond between a human and their vampire master. That’s why I still had my free will. He didn’t have my blood to complete the bond.”

Javier nodded. “I have never been so thankful in my life.”

He didn’t look as though he had much reason to be thankful right now. He was a mess and there were dark areas on the bedclothes where he had bled on them.

“What happened?” Lilah carefully traced along the edge of one of the cuts on his cheek and then furrowed her eyebrows when she ghosted her finger over his broken nose. The dark shadowing under his left eye extended down over his cheek to his jaw. “Did you kill him?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Javier whispered, his voice hoarse, and Lilah looked down at his throat and the dark purple bruises on it. It looked as though someone had strangled him. Her eyes briefly widened when she remembered coming around and seeing her master throttling Javier. It had driven her to move and she had grabbed the nearest heavy object and hit Lord Ashville with it to make him stop. “I snapped and killed him when he hit you again. It was only because of Snow that I managed it... and it is only because of Snow that I am here now.”