Darkness In The Flames (46 page)

Exhausted, he clung to her and let her sob, simply enjoying this moment of new closeness. For days he’d nursed her through the worst of it, doing what he could to ease her distress.

He’d been there himself—the memories of his own transformation helped him anticipate her needs, make it easier for her than it had been for him. His blood had sustained her, sped the process along much faster. She’d not had to forage for food, to find small creatures and devour them in an insane frenzy of bloodlust. She’d not had to drag herself from shadow to shadow or wake in her own body’s discarded fluids.

He’d spared her much of the misery—but to what had he condemned her?

“Nick—you’re here.” She raised her damp face from his chest as her tears ceased. “
I’m
here. I’m
alive
.”

Tentative fingers touched him, as if she was still not sure this was all real.

“Yes. We’re together. We survive, Verity.” He stared at her. “How do you feel?”

Oddly dark eyes looked intently back at him. “I feel—strange. No pain anymore, but different—you know?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I know.”

“How? What did you—I was so badly injured, Nick. How did you save me? I remember so little—”

Nick swallowed. “I-I made you like
me
, Verity.” He waited. Did she remember that?

“Yes, yes. You asked and I said yes. I don’t mean that…” She waved the matter casually aside, easing Nick’s mind considerably. “I mean how did my body not succumb to my injuries? I don’t understand how your changing me
healed
me.”

“It wasn’t the biting so much.” He lay back, seeking words to explain that which he himself barely comprehended. “After I bit you, I drained as much of your blood as I dared. Then—then I fed you.”

“Ahhh.” She nodded.

“Your body
adjusted
—that’s the only way I can describe it. My blood is different, but yours changed to accommodate it. And in doing so, the damage healed itself. We now share blood that will not allow our bodies to be injured. Wherever we are wounded, we heal almost immediately.”

“So when you were shot—” She paused. “It makes sense.” Another thought struck her. “How long? How long did all this take, Nick?”

“Close on five days.”

“
Five
days?” Verity sat up with a jump then slumped back down. “Urgh. I’m as weak as a kitten.”

Nick felt almost the same but wasn’t about to tell her that. Right now she needed information. The practical woman he loved had to sort out her thoughts and heal
them
every bit as much as her body had needed to recuperate.

“You are weak, still. It will take more time to become fully accustomed to your new—existence.”

She lifted up a little and raised an eyebrow. “My new
life
, Nick. My life with you. We are the same now. We shall live together like this. I don’t know how you survived this process alone, but you did. You found me and now I have survived it too. Up to this moment you’ve been in darkness, a darkness I could not have comprehended if I hadn’t passed through it myself. But now? Now we’re together. Now we have light.”

She leaned to him and dropped a delicate kiss on his mouth. “Now we have each other. Now we
both
have a future.”

Nick had no words to respond. She was right. He’d done a terrible thing to her but it seemed they both might benefit. She had survived to bring hope to his soul.

He sighed and held her, content to lie with Verity in his arms. His world had shifted, settled into a new path. One that offered comfort and the pleasure of sharing with another.

“Verity, there is still much for you to learn.”

She yawned. “I can well imagine. And will you teach me, Nick?”

“I will.” He settled her comfortably. “Right now, rest is the best medicine. You are weak and I will confess I am tired myself. We shall both have to feed soon, something I will show you how to do.”

“I do not know if I can—kill, Nick.”

“You will never have to, sweetheart. ‘Tis not necessary, no matter what stories you hear. We can take enough to sustain our needs without destroying life. It took me some time to learn the skills necessary. You will have them from the start.”

“You’re a good man, my love. I am blessed.” Her eyelids drifted closed.

“Blessed?” He snorted and settled himself. “Make no mistake, Verity. We’re cursed, cursed to wander the darkness. Cursed to watch life pass us by and yet remain untouched.”

“If I have to spend eternity with you, ‘tis a curse I welcome.” She sighed sleepily. “Silly man. I love you. That’s not a curse—that’s a gift.”

Her words warmed him. He was
loved
. Something he’d never expected to happen.

The knowledge strengthened him for the one thing he knew he had to do. There was unfinished business to be settled. A score to be paid.

He’d watched Verity suffer as she became something new. That suffering had been preceded by an event so terrible it would, under ordinary circumstances, have taken her life.

Her muttered ramblings over their time together had painted a picture for him, one that gnawed within him. He had seen the fatal damage to her body and she’d murmured of the brutality which caused it.

The whipping, the beating—the consequent sexual abuse—it had been a nightmare she’d suffered alone at the hands of two savage people who could give Thérèse a run for her money.

That
was something Nick could not let go unpunished. He’d planned, meditated, strategized and schemed, even as he’d tended his mate. He could not kill,
would
not kill. His goal was to honor Verity by pointing out to those who’d harmed her the error of their ways in brutalizing her. There would be no honor in ripping their throats out with his fangs, satisfying though such a deed would have been.

No, Nick had another idea. One that would not involve either him or Verity. Just a knowledge of science, chemicals and the deviant habits of two
humans
who barely warranted the description.

He had seen much depravity in his travels. Much poverty, much pain and much horror. But what had been done to Verity touched him on a more emotional level. She had not desired such treatment nor had she merited it.

It was simple viciousness, the savage delight in bringing pain to another. And he knew who was to blame.

Leaving Verity sleeping, secure in the knowledge she’d rest for several hours at least—and with any luck through the coming day—Nick crept from his cave and saddled his horse.

He was headed for FitzAdams Towers and the repayment of a debt.

Chapter Thirteen

The next few days passed quickly for Verity as she learned all there was to learn about her new lifestyle. Nick was nothing if not thorough in his teachings, sharing not only what they needed to do in order to survive, but also his ideas, his theories and his assumptions about what they were and how their bodies had changed.

They had spirited exchanges, Verity’s ideas clashing at times with Nick’s, leading to arguments that probably would have ended in bed had Nick permitted it. But he insisted, over her increasingly wanton objections, that she was still not strong enough.

She believed otherwise.

Their first feeding came soon, of necessity. “Nick, tonight. We need to feed. I can sense a deep sort of hungry feeling…here…” She placed her hand over her belly. “It’s tonight. It has to be tonight. Please?”

Nick was pale, paler than normal. He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well.”

They’d ridden toward a nearby village, silently following paths only they could see, guiding their horses carefully through the darkness.

Finally Verity spoke. “Nick—does it hurt? Hurt those from whom we feed?”

“I cannot tell. But they seem to recover. In the early days I checked. I would return to ensure that my—victims—still survived. They did.” He shrugged. “More than that I can’t say.” He glanced at her. “You remember my instructions? No more than absolutely necessary. They will lapse into unconsciousness as you begin to drink and that protects us, granting them forgetfulness. It’s how I wiped Cooper’s mind clean of you and your fellow highwaymen the night we met at the inn. The urge to devour will be strong, Verity. You must be aware of how much you are taking.”

She simply raised an eyebrow. “I remember. Don’t worry.”

“How can I
not
worry? I’ve turned you into the thing I despise most—a copy of myself. I’ve condemned you to this inhuman existence and now I’m taking you out to drink blood from the neck of some innocent farmer. You ask me not to
worry
?”

She chuckled. “You’re my lover, Nick. Not my mother. Don’t overprotect me,
or
underestimate me.” Her eyes turned hot. “And speaking of being my
lover
…”

Deliberately Verity drawled the word, promises of erotic delights in her tone.

Nick shifted in his saddle. “Yes. Well…perhaps if tonight goes well…”

She pursed her lips. “Promises, promises. I hunger for more than blood, my love. And that hunger is growing stronger too.”

“Shh…” Nick held a finger to his lips. “Do you hear that?”

Verity stilled, listening. Soft murmurs were coming from a small glade, almost indistinguishable amidst the sounds of the night, but clear to her extra-sensitive ears. She nodded.

“Come.”

Nick dismounted and Verity followed suit. They moved through the trees, finally stopping short of a little clearing where two people lay naked on a hastily tumbled cloak.

A man and a woman, fucking enthusiastically, moaning their pleasure as his hips pummeled between her thighs. Verity risked a quick grin at Nick. He grinned back then frowned at her and shook his head. A motion from his hand told her to wait quietly.

She did, finding a strange and alluring fascination in this chance to observe the simplicity inherent in a straightforward act of passion. How different from Isolde’s warped desires.

The man’s buttocks clenched and relaxed and clenched again, his grunts of need echoed by his woman’s sighs and little whimpers. Her legs were around his back, holding him tightly where she wanted him most.

Their bodies clashed, her breasts revealed as he reared up and plunged again. Taut dusky nipples topped full swells, rocking gently beneath the onslaught of her lover. She raised her hips, meeting each thrust, welcoming him.

This was a couple lost in each other, drowning as Verity wanted to drown. Giving and taking what Verity wanted to give and take. With Nick.

Moisture began to dew Verity’s pussy and she fidgeted, torn between the knowledge that she was about to feed for the first time and a heightened desire to rip Nick’s clothes off and fuck him senseless. And herself, while she was at it.

The man found a breast and suckled it, never stopping his rhythm. When he released it, the woman’s hands replaced his mouth, teasing herself, obviously adding to her arousal.

Nick and Verity watched and waited. Before long, Nick leaned close. “When they are done—we move. It will have to be quickly. We must catch them just as they part and are still unaware of their surroundings.” His words barely reached her ear, but she heard them and nodded her understanding.

The couple neared their peaks. Heedless of the silence, the woman was crying out, urging her lover on, tensing her body around him and writhing as she began to come.

He groaned—a long drawn-out sob of pleasure—and then thrust a final time, deeply and violently into her. Shaking, his back arched and his head fell back. Entranced, Verity watched him come. It was quite beautiful.

But Nick touched her arm and motioned. The time had come to lay the beauty aside and feed.

Following her instructions, Verity moved rapidly and silently across the space to the couple, remembering to relax her body, to ease the tension binding the cells together. Or at least that’s what Nick had told her. She had not quite mastered the art of turning herself into a shadow, but it would come—with time and patience.

The couple was tumbling limply onto the cloak, the man’s cock sliding from his lover as he crashed to the ground beside her.

“Now.” A short whisper and Nick was on them. “Take him.”

Verity obeyed. With lightning movements she reached for the man, catching his head and stretching it to reveal his neck before he had any notion she was even there.

Fangs free and lying eagerly over her lips, Verity leaned in—and fed.

Dizzily, she drank, the sweetness and heat of his blood flowing in a gush over her tongue to be eagerly swallowed. She gulped, surprised at the flavor of him, the warmth and flavor that filled her. He was unmoving now, just a living pulse that vibrated beneath her lips.

Her fangs were deep, sharply penetrating his skin without a check. How sweet this was—using life to sustain life. To feed on the fundamental essence of humans. She swallowed again, great hungry swigs of a mead no brewer could ever duplicate.

Sensations poured through her—the man’s heartbeat thudded in her ears, his arousal still a tangy undertaste within his blood. She felt—energized, filled, aware on a level that she’d never experienced before. Thirstily she sucked, drawing strength and power with each mouthful.

Finally, she became aware of Nick tugging at her shoulder. “Enough, Verity.”

“
No
…” The denial was a mumble. She could not stop. Not now. There was so much
more
to take…

“Verity. Stop.” It was a command followed by a wrenching pull that tore her fangs from her victim’s neck.

Stunned, she stared, watching the small wounds as they slowly dissipated into no more than scratches. “I wasn’t done with him…”

“Yes you were. Any more—any
more
and you’d have killed him.” Nick’s voice was somber.

For the first time, Verity realized the magnitude of what she now was. And it scared her. That her hunger could kill another—it had been a theory up until this moment. Now it was real.