The Burning (13 page)

Whose fault was that, all of it?

He breathed. His. The weight of it sat on him.

But there
was
a weight on his chest aside from guilt. He opened his eyes.

Bloody hell! There was a girl collapsed over him. The one people thought crazy. Her long white-blonde hair was spread over him. She was wearing nothing but a night shift. Blood soaked the thin linen and made her hair sticky. She must be hurt! Had he hurt her somehow? He got up on his elbows and lifted her gently off his chest.

Then he sat, cradling her in one arm. Tiny flames guttered in candle stubs scattered about the cave. He leaned over and grabbed one to examine her for wounds. Her face was smeared with drying blood, but he couldn’t find a source. He pushed her hair back from her face. Lord, but she was beautiful! So tiny, so delicate in his arms. Her features looked too perfect to be human; small straight nose, skin so translucent and fine he could see the veins in her temples. Fragile. That’s what she was. But was she dead? He felt for the pulse in her throat with thumb and middle finger. It beat erratically back at him. She was alive.

His brain began to work. She was unconscious, but the blood was his. He pulled up one eyelid and waved the candle before her eyes. The pupil did not contract. He patted her face and, when that got no reaction, pinched her cheek. Nothing.

This did not bode well. He’d seen people dead to the world like this before. How had she gotten that way?

He looked around, trying to piece together what had happened. The book, the guttering candles almost burned to the socket . . . He remembered now. It was the girl who used this
cave. She must have seen him appear here. He’d lost consciousness immediately thereafter from pain and loss of blood. He must have been a sight. He looked down at his own body. His clothing was shredded. The gaping wounds beneath were memories. Only lines and circles of pink, new skin remained. Soon even they would disappear.

Swallowing, he felt some constriction at his throat. He tugged at his cravat, before he remembered he hadn’t worn one. He felt the cloth about his neck. It must be a bandage. He pulled at the knot. A bloody pad fell to the sand. He glanced to the woman still in his arms. She had bandaged him. After what she must have seen? That was courage, indeed. And kindness. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had been kind to him.

He laid her out upon the floor of the cave. He would leave her here to recover. He tried to sweep the cobwebs from his brain. The vampire who escaped would go to Kilkenny. That meant Kilkenny would come for him, or send others of his army. Perhaps many others. But Stephan was willing to bet he would come himself to see his nemesis eradicated. Not what Stephan had intended. But perhaps not a bad outcome. He had gone from stalker to bait. Very well. He was summoning his own destruction. But it
was
one sure way of finding Kilkenny.

That meant Stephan needed to wait in Cheddar Gorge and he couldn’t afford suspicions about his nature to arouse the townspeople. He remembered the girl saying she could sense things about people if she touched them. She had certainly touched him. Would she know what he was?

If he was smart he would kill her right here. The pulse beat faintly in the fragile stem of her neck. Rubius would do it. The Daughters would kill her. A wash of failure swept through him. He couldn’t. He didn’t know for certain she knew what he was. He couldn’t kill her on the off chance that when she woke she would know he was a vampire. Enough
innocent people’s deaths could be laid at his door. He couldn’t afford another one.

He glanced around to the candles. They would soon go out. The torch she read by had already failed. She would wake in darkness, frightened. Could she find her way out? His gaze slid back to her. He felt in some way that he knew her, had always known her. He had an impression of goodness, sincerity, terrible loneliness, and yet underneath a strength that belied her fragile looks. He had met her three times, no more. What could he really know about her? And yet he could not shake the impressions . . .

Stephan sucked in air and blew it out. He was going to do something stupid.

He picked her up, along with a cloak lying in the sand, and kicked out the remaining candles. She felt so small cradled against his chest. A woman like this needed protection. She was warm against him in the cool air of the cave. The skin on her bare arm almost burned his palm. His power started to rise of its own accord. He knew why. His loins tightened in a familiar reaction. It was the curse of the training, that was all. He was surprised he still responded to her after he had expended so much power tonight.

Use the rising power,
he commanded himself. He would take her out of here. She lived at that great house connected to ruins just outside of the village.
Companion!
The power rose around him. The cave went red, then black. Good thing she was unconscious. She wouldn’t feel what happened next. A moment of searing pain, and the cave disappeared.

They appeared at the edge of the wood that lay between Maitlands Abbey and the road to Wells. He’d leave her here where others could see to her. He must do it soon before he had to practice the chanting to control his body. It was becoming insistent with a need he dared not fill.

But now leaving her did not seem so simple. It was near dawn. The sky was lightening. Already he could hear someone about in the stables and stirrings in the kitchen. He mustn’t be seen in these bloody, tattered clothes. He glanced down to Miss Van Helsing, clutched against him. She was covered with blood, as well. There would be questions. He didn’t want anyone asking her questions. He didn’t want her to reveal how she had gotten bloody. He was hoping to hell she wouldn’t remember.

His mind raced. He could remove her clothes and just leave her. Of course her reputation would be ruined. She might be a witch in people’s eyes, but she was a chaste witch. There would be no limit to the scorn heaped upon her if anyone thought she was a loose woman, as well. Besides, her person would be smeared with blood. If she was found naked and bloody? Then there would be suspicions
and
her reputation would be ruined.

What did her reputation matter in the grander scheme of his purpose? But he couldn’t . . .

Damnation!

He laid her down. His body missed the warmth of her instantly. He was fully erect now, just with the nearness of her. He hadn’t touched a woman since he left Mirso. He had vowed not to take the chance. And here he was handling a barely clothed and beautiful girl. If he was going to be an idiot, best do it and be done with it, before she roused his power beyond the reach of his control. He eased her out of her cloak and flung it about himself to cover his torn and bloody clothing. He slid down the slope to the back of the house, where the kitchens were.

The woman who came out to throw a bucket of water into the yard was older, her years of work lined deeply in her face, her gray hair confined by a simple mobcap. She wore a knitted woolen shawl against the morning cold.

“Good morning,” he said, stepping out from behind an
outbuilding corner. It was the root cellar by the smell of potatoes and carrots and raw earth.

The woman started. Then she looked him up and down. “If you want a handout, they’ll be breakfast scraps at ten.” He ran a hand through his hair and knew he must look wild in his tattered breeches and the borrowed cloak that was only three-quarters length on his tall frame. So he wasted no time. He brought up his Companion, just enough to put compulsion in his voice.

“I’m no one you need to worry about,” he said softly. “Where is Miss Van Helsing’s room?” He watched her eyes go unfocused as though she looked at something far away.

“She has the fourth floor, all of it. The old nursery,” the woman muttered.

The nursery? Odd. “You were startled by a shadow this morning, nothing more.”

She nodded slowly. He bowed and turned away before he let his Companion stand down. He strode back to where he had left the girl. She would be cold. He wrapped her in the cloak and gathered her against himself. His body responded almost instantly. He clenched his jaw against the feeling swelling through him. Then, setting his sights on the fourth floor of the great house, he drew the power once again.

They flickered into space in a low-ceilinged room, quite large, with dormered windows and simple, childish furniture. The coals of last night’s fire glowed in a fireplace at one side. The servants would not dare disturb their mistress for some hours. That would serve his purpose. Too bad he could not order up hot water for the hip bath he saw in the corner. He laid her on the narrow bed in her cloak to keep the bedclothes from being stained. Then he took a poker, stirred up the fire, and laid on several logs. That would get this room warm. Even at the top of the house, it was cool here.

He turned back to his charge. Now he must steel himself
for the ordeal ahead. Control. Wasn’t that what he was good at these days?

He went to the dressing table and poured water from a flowered china pitcher into a matching basin and found a soft cotton towel and some lavender-scented soap. He set the basin on her night table. He didn’t light the lamp sitting there. That would attract attention. Behind him, the fire snapped and cast a flickering glow across the room as the logs caught. It was enough. He saw quite well in the dark. Sitting on the edge of the small bed, he made sure he had himself firmly in hand. Then, without looking at her face, he grabbed the neck of her shift and ripped it down the front to the hem.

Zeus above! Even mottled with dried blood, she was exquisite. She was delicately made, yet her figure was lush. Her breasts were heavy for her frame, tipped with rose aureola and small nipples. The curve of them made his loins tighten. And her skin . . . it looked like creamy silk. Her hair, so very blonde as it was, had come undone as he carried her, and now it splayed across the bed, echoed in only slightly darker tones in the triangle at the apex of her thighs. Her hips were generous for her size and the curve of her calves made him practically quiver.

He took a ragged breath and fought for control. He could not give in to the need that cascaded over him, pooling in his loins.
Tuatha, rendon. Melifant extonderant denering
. There. That was better. He had the control required, thanks to the Daughters.

He clenched his teeth and dipped the towel into the water in the basin. He was clenching more than his teeth as he started with her face. His erection would not be banished, but that did not mean he had to acknowledge it. The only reason he couldn’t seem to suppress it was that he was weakened by his battle. That was all. He wiped the delicate
features carefully, paying special attention to the blood that had seeped into her hairline. He half expected to find some kind of wound, some lump where she had fallen to cause her swoon. But he did not. There were no abrasions, no bruises even. Once the blood was wiped away, her skin was pristine. He worked down her neck. Such a tiny column; so vulnerable. Her pulse throbbed through the arteries there. It made the need inside him multiply. Blood and sex mingled together until he throbbed in answer to the blood pulsing in her veins. He wiped her shoulders, and, God help him, her breasts. He was breathing heavily now, his loins on fire.
Denering tuatha feralicenta perala
. He dipped the towel, wrung it out, began again. Over her ribs, across her flat belly, he wiped away the sticky blood. His blood. She was covered in his blood because she had tried to help him. Even though she hated to touch anyone. Even after she had seen him appear in a swirl of darkness. She must have seen him . . . What woman would try to help him then?

He held himself firmly in check as he daubed at the blood that had seeped into the hair on the mound between her thighs. Dip the towel, wring it out, go over her body one more time, the hips, the belly, her breasts. Dip, wring, neck and shoulders, face.

There. Her fine skin was ruddy where he had scrubbed at some of the thicker smears of his blood. But she was as clean as he could make her. The splotchiness would fade by the time anyone found her. He pulled her shift and her cloak from under her. Then, his loins almost painful with arousal, he lifted her in one arm and pulled back the quilt. He laid her in the bed and covered her. Now to remove all trace of his presence. He opened a window and tossed the rosy water onto the roof of the portico below. The towel and her torn and bloody shift were wrapped in the cloak. Those he would take with him.

He turned to look at her one last time. She seemed so frail and fragile in the child’s bed.

Still he was puzzled by her condition. With no wound he could discern, why had she not awakened? The sun was rising. He had finished at the hunting lodge at what, midnight? The quilt barely moved with her breathing. Something was not right here. The only thing he knew for certain was that it was his fault. Somehow, she had swooned when she . . .

When she touched him! She said she knew things about people when she touched them. But it must be more than that. When that scrawny one at the tavern touched her the other day, it seemed to daze her. There was some sort of consequence to the touching for her and yet she had bandaged him.
Generous,
he thought.
A generous impulse. And courageous
.

He pressed his lips together grimly. He owed her nothing. She was stupid to touch him if it had some physical consequence. It was her fault she had passed out, not his.

Stephan clutched the bundle of gory clothes to his own tattered and bloody shirt. Someone would get her a doctor when they found her. Her people would know what to do.

Companion!
The room went red. The blackness pooled at his feet and began to rise, more quickly even than usual. Desire still pooled in his erect member. The Companion fed off his sexual energy and ramped up their joint power to excruciating. He had to get out of here.