Diana's Hound: Bloodhounds, Book 4 (3 page)

His fingers tightened, holding her hand to his chest. “I wasn’t chiding you. I was asking in all honesty. You’ve been a bloodhound longer than Hunter, and recognizing death is one of your instincts. Am I alive?”

“Your heart beats.” She could feel it, slow but steady, under her fingers. “And the sunlight doesn’t burn you. But it’s more than that. The undead—vampires and stronger ghouls—I feel them in my gut, this dizzy, sick sort of heaviness. But you make me feel—” She clamped her mouth shut and cursed herself silently.

Nate stroked his thumb along the inside of her wrist. “Something other than sick and dizzy, I hope.”

She shivered and pulled again, this time until he released her. “You’re alive, Nate. I’m sure of it, but what I think isn’t important. What matters is what you feel.”

“In this moment?” He held up her whiskey. “I feel the slightest bit inebriated, which supports your theory. Dead men don’t get drunk, do they?”

“I don’t think so.” She took the glass and drained half of it.

Nate lifted his own drink. “Then I’m nothing more tragic than a man who could do with less whiskey and more sleep. Especially since liquor tends to loosen my tongue, and there are things I shouldn’t say.”

Such dangerous, dangerous ground. “We have more in common than you realize.”

“Perhaps.” He tossed back the rest of his drink and set the glass aside without taking his gaze from hers. “At the end of the day—or the night, as it were—the most important thing for us both to remember is that you are a beautiful young woman with many, many years of living ahead of you.”

Oh Christ, he was letting her down easy. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “I’m not going to throw myself at you. No more than I already have, anyway.”

He moved so fast she only had time to draw one startled breath before he gripped her chin, forcing her head back to meet his eyes. “I would give anything to be sober enough to congratulate your good sense instead of wishing you a fool.”

His skin was hot on hers, almost as hot as his gaze. If she pushed, would he give in? And what would he do if he did? It was far easier than it should have been to imagine him bending her over the end of the sofa or pushing her to her knees to take his cock into her mouth.

Her hand crept up of its own volition. Her fingers slipped under the placket of his shirt, between two of the few buttons that were still fastened, and rubbed over the hard flat of his stomach.

Nate shuddered under her touch, his grip tightening for half a second before he reached for her wrist to pull her hand away. “I’m not
this
selfish. Not yet.” He released her abruptly and pushed past her, striding toward the door.

Diana didn’t stop him. She finished her drink and stayed stock-still until his footsteps receded. It was just as well he’d gone. It didn’t take a genius of Nate’s caliber to know the dawn—and his sobriety—would bring nothing but regret and recrimination.

She could do without more of either.

Diana passed the rest of the night in fitful but blank slumber and woke long after the sun had already risen. She bathed and dressed quickly, ate even faster, and hurried out into the training yard.

Satira was there, setting up the range with targets and an array of weapons. “Good morning, Diana.”

“Good morning.” Nerves left her fidgety, and Diana picked up a pistol and studied it. “Practice shooting?”

“Nate said you might be interested in learning to use a crossbow.” Satira’s eyebrows drew together as she bent over one of the weapons, a rifle that seemed almost too heavy for her to lift on her own. “Ophelia said it was very fitting, and Nate swore the decision was practical, not whimsical, and then I asked what the hell they were talking about and got a reading assignment.”

“Doc named me after her.” Diana set the pistol aside and eyed the crossbow. “The Roman goddess of the hunt. And of the moon, I think—he mentioned that once or twice, when he was in a particular humor.”

“Clever.” Satira scrunched up her nose as she finished her adjustments to the weapon. “I’m clever enough, but not like Ophelia and Nate and even Hunter. All I’ve ever wanted to learn is how things are put together and how they work.”

Diana recognized the words for what they were—an admission of sorts. The others weren’t clever, they were
educated
, and Satira wasn’t. “I left school at sixteen and started working with my mother. You should have seen what she could do with a needle and thread.”

“I’ve seen what
you
can do. You make your own clothing, don’t you?”

“I do.” Men’s clothes were practical, especially for a bloodhound, but they didn’t fit a woman’s body. “I could make some alterations to yours, if you like. Surely Nate couldn’t complain about my safety in that endeavor.”

Satira blinked and straightened, her expression turning thoughtful. “Oh dear. Is he being old-fashioned?”

“He doesn’t like the fact that I’m training with Hunter, or that Wilder is allowing it.”

“Nate can be protective.” Satira busied herself with the crossbow, but she kept sneaking looks at Diana, as if gauging her reaction. “Maybe he doesn’t mind the training as much as he minds seeing Hunter hit you.”

“Of course that’s it.” Diana shrugged. Principle alone couldn’t account for it. “Theoretically, he agrees I need to train as much as any other bloodhound. In practice, however…”

“In practice, he’s being thickheaded.” Lifting the crossbow, Satira shook her head. “Men so often seem to be. Especially where women are concerned. I honestly don’t understand how they manage to hold all the power in this world when a woman with a pretty smile can turn them into fools.”

“One of life’s great mysteries.” Just like Nate himself. “Now tell me, Satira—how do I fire this thing?”

“Oh, it’s fun. But you don’t need this part…” She fiddled with the base of the weapon until the end piece with its hand crank detached. “The windlass isn’t enough to decrease the draw weight for me, but you should have no problem. The cylinder holds twelve bolts you can fire without reloading, but you’ll need to draw each time.”

Diana hefted the bow. It was heavy, probably due to the automatic cycling cylinder that held the extra bolts, but well balanced. She needed a second hand on the barrel only to guide the weapon, and she nodded toward the targets that had been set up with a questioning lift of her brow. “May I?”

Satira stepped aside. “It’s loaded with practice bolts now, but we have quite a collection of explosives.”

Diana drew the bow in a halting movement. “The tension’s all right, but I’m not used to this sort of thing.”

“It takes a little practice,” Satira admitted. “Wilder never took to it, and Hunter’s as likely to forget weapons and tear apart an enemy with his bare hands. But if someone learned how to use it… Oh, the bolts are so much easier to modify. I had a thought about compounds that react with a vampire’s blood. I got the idea from something Ephraim had written, in fact.”

Ephraim. The man she’d known as Dr. Thomas Beale, the man who’d saved her
life
, who was actually named Ephraim Phillips—and had been instrumental in the creation of the first bloodhounds.

Diana set the bow on the table. “I have some things to do inside this morning. Do you mind if we handle target practice later?”

Color flooded Satira’s cheeks. “Oh, Diana, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I know better. I’ve suffered enough loss of my own to not be so damned clumsy.”

Making Satira feel bad would only leave her feeling worse. “Truthfully? I had a late night, and I drank too much.”

“I understand. Go inside and—”

Horses. Diana cocked her head to listen. More than one, and moving toward the manor at such a breakneck speed that it took only a heartbeat for Satira to draw a breath and tense, as well.

It could only mean trouble. Diana grabbed two revolvers from the table and holstered them as Satira armed herself with a rifle. “Stay close.” It came out sounding like a barked order, and Diana winced and tried again. “I mean—Wilder’ll have my hide if I don’t look out for you.”

Satira didn’t blink. “You’re the bloodhound, I’m the inventor. I follow your lead.”

A jarring thought. Diana took off toward the sound of the pounding hooves, moving carefully. She was used to facing trouble alone, of putting herself between danger and the people of Crystal Springs. Doc had said it many times—
They depend on you, Diana. They cannot fight these monsters as you can.

Perhaps not, but they’d stayed home while she did it. They never huddled close to her back with a rifle.

The horses didn’t come through the side to the stable. Instead, they stopped at what sounded like the front of the house. Diana hurried through the back door and almost ran into Hunter. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Hunter ignored her question and fixed his gaze on Satira. “We need you to fetch Ophelia. I believe she’s visiting with Sylvie this morning. And see if you can find the doctor.”

Satira nodded and bolted out the back door. When it slammed behind her, Hunter gestured for Diana to follow him through the kitchen. “Wilder’s trying to rouse Nate. Or sober him up. Not sure which.”

Nate’s confessions were his own to make. “Who’s hurt?”

“A girl Emmett rescued from the Deadlands.” Hunter shook his head and dragged open a door for her. “Don’t think you’ve met him yet, have you?”

She’d heard tales about the grizzled old hound, mostly from Wilder. “Something of a legend, isn’t he?”

“One of the first bloodhounds. He knew Nate when Nate was just a boy. Knew your Doc too, I wager.”

“I’m sure he did.” Doc had never spoken of him, nor had she seen the name in the translated journals she’d been able to get through so far. But that didn’t mean much.

There was a lot Doc never told her.

The wide doors to the sitting room were open, but she stopped when she saw the woman laid out on the sofa. She looked fragile, more dead than not, and all at once the last thing Diana wanted was to be in the room when the lady lost her tenuous grasp on life.

Nothing else registered until the man kneeling beside the sofa narrowed his eyes. “Stop staring and do something useful before I set you out of this room.”

Hunter huffed his annoyance. “Does she look like the doctor, old man?”

“Next best thing,” he grunted. “You’re Ephraim’s girl, ain’t you?”

“I—I’m Diana.”

“What the hell did I just say?” He half-rose from the carpet, caught her arm and dragged her forward. “Been out of the Deadlands for a day now, and Victoria’s acting like a drunk gone a week without.”

The woman was shivering and sweating at the same time, and gooseflesh dotted her arms. Diana dropped next to the sofa and pried open one of Victoria’s eyelids, revealing light hazel irises almost obscured by her pupils. “It looks like bottle fever, all right. Does she partake of the tincture?”

Emmett’s brows drew together in a severe frown. “The what?”

“Laudanum.” Diana had seen it often enough in Doc’s practice. Too many of the residents of Crystal Springs had sought refuge in the hazy numbness of the drug.

Victoria caught Diana’s wrist without warning, her gaze fixed on some point to the left of Emmett. “Not laudanum. Not drink. I’m dying because I killed him, because I killed…” Her words faded under a moan and she clutched at Diana. “He promised. The vampire promised he’d take me somewhere safe. Somewhere safe to die quietly.”

Hunter bit off a curse. “What in hell sort of business was she tangled up in?”

“A friend of a friend ran across her out in the Deadlands.” Emmett swore. “He said she’d been sold across the border.”

Wilder spoke from the doorway. “Tell me I didn’t hear that right.”

“I didn’t falter, Harding. You heard me.”

Victoria whimpered. “Bloodhound,” she whispered, so quietly the men didn’t hear it over their own conversation. “A bloodhound sold me. Don’t let them take me back to him.”

Diana’s blood chilled. “A hound?”

“Please don’t leave me.” The woman’s eyelids fluttered shut as tears spilled free, tracking across her temple to land on the tangled strands of her hair. “I don’t want to die alone.”

Diana brushed her hair back from her face. “You’re not going to die at all. You’re going to be fine. Better than fine.”

Wilder leaned over the end of the sofa. “I’ve seen people addicted to laudanum go without. She doesn’t seem particularly bad off.”

Emmett shook his head. “She’s been insisting since I picked her up. Killed her vampire master, and now she thinks she’s got a foot in the grave too.”

It was Nate who answered, his voice coming from the doorway. “It’s a new craze in the vampire courts, and one of the more creative bribes Thaddeus Lowe tried to offer me in exchange for my willing participation in his schemes. Pretty young men and women as blood-bound pets.”

Hunter had gone pale. He bit off a rough curse and took two swift steps away from the couch. “I had plenty of Lowe’s vamps feeding on me and I never reacted like
that
.”

“Because your blood is intoxicating just the way it is,” Nate said. He drew even with Diana, and she saw the numb horror in his eyes. “Lowe’s court was obsessed with heightening their experience by drugging their blood donors. She could have been given any number of concoctions by her master, and was undoubtedly told that she’d die if she tried to leave.”