Vampire Instinct (39 page)
Authors: Joey W Hill
Tags: #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Erotic Fiction, #Erotica, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural
“Of course. He said it to me.”
“Elisa, he was all the way across the compound, and I heard nothing.”
“But I’ve never given him blood directly.” At his look, her temper spiked. “I’ve no reason to lie to you. You can plumb my bloody mind, right? Look there for the truth if you’re not going to believe me.”
She tried to struggle up on her elbows, feeling at a sudden disadvantage like this. The sharp pain that shot through her was enough to steal her breath, but she didn’t want to be in this position anymore.
“Hold on, then. Stubborn girl.” He surprised her by helping her sit up, easing her into an upright position and rearranging her pillows behind her so she could manage it. She imagined she must look frightful. Seeing a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror, she was surprised to find her face was washed, her hair reasonably combed. The place where Leonidas had hit her was still bruised, but not as much as she expected, telling her how long she’d been out.
“Chumani came in and saw that you were cleaned up. I thought you’d prefer a woman to do that, though Kohana was all set to do it. He’s turned into a mother hen when it comes to you.”
“So why aren’t
you
off working and letting one of them watch over me?”
you
off working and letting one of them watch over me?”
He gave her a look, but touched her chin, stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “Don’t avoid the question. Think. How could he have second-marked you, if you don’t remember it?”
He had to be mistaken. Jeremiah had never had access to her, except...
She closed her eyes. “After Victor. He took off and they had to go hunt him down. So when they found me, they didn’t know how long it was after the attack. I was on the barn floor, next to Jeremiah’s cage. Dev said Jeremiah was holding my hand, just inside the cage. I was a mess, a lot of wounds.”
A lot of bites . . .
A lot of bites . . .
“He marked you through the wrist. And you didn’t know.”
“No. I . . .” She stopped, though, thinking about it. When things had been at their worst, she’d curled up into the tightest possible ball in her bed, her fist in her mouth. She’d hoped Danny wasn’t listening in to her tears, and that Mrs. Pritchett wasn’t feeling the trembling that shook her so hard the bed rattled in its frame. She’d shied from sleep until exhaustion made it impossible for her to do otherwise, and when she went under, she’d expected nightmares in that darkness.
Sometimes she did get those, but before they could break her, they would shift, and sleep became the one place she was soothed. It was gray fog and warmth, a soft touch on her brow, a stroking. A child’s voice would be singing to her, easy lullabies from her childhood as well as songs she didn’t know but would find herself humming when she worked around the station, keeping herself on an even keel.
She’d thought maybe she’d overheard the cook singing them, but then Mrs. Rupert had asked her what the song was, liking the tune.
It had been Jeremiah. Staying so quiet in her mind so she’d never know he was there. He’d been helping her stay together. It made so much sense now, why she’d felt so bonded to him, had never truly feared him the way she had the others. Was it a second mark, or . . .
“No, it’s a second mark. I’d have detected a third mark on you, and so would Danny. Because you were already second-marked by Danny, and Jeremiah is so much younger, his mark was far weaker and concealed by hers, so to speak.”
His expression was dispassionate, a closed book. Alarm trickled through her. “He didn’t do it to hurt me. He’s never spoken to me directly, not until what he said after Leonidas’s attack. Is he okay? Have you checked on him since you brought me here?”
Mal rose. “I’ll send Chumani in to look after you. I need to attend to some things.”
“Wait.” He was beyond the reach of her outstretched hand now. “You haven’t told me how they are. Is Miah okay? And Matthew and Nerida? Are the children all—”
“Goddamn it, girl.” Mal stopped in the doorway and turned to face her, right before she feared he’d been about to leave without another word. She wouldn’t have put it past him. One moment he was positively nurturing; then the next he was the bloody Wall of China. Of course, she thought she might prefer either of those confusing states to this, his anger suddenly pouring out on her like a hot western wind. “How many times do these fledglings have to nearly kill you for you to realize they’re
not
children? They’re not your personal pets or your mission in life. Should I just throw you in with them, let them mangle and violate you over and over, until it penetrates that thick, common servant’s head of yours?”
not
children? They’re not your personal pets or your mission in life. Should I just throw you in with them, let them mangle and violate you over and over, until it penetrates that thick, common servant’s head of yours?”
Elisa sucked in a breath, pain knifing under her rib cage. But he wasn’t done. He’d pivoted fully, stepped back into the room, his mouth hard and tight. Almost ugly.
“Why do you worry about them every moment of the day? Any other young woman would be pining for the mainland, for dances and boys and a record player in her room. You’re
not
their mother. You were given a job, to clean up after them and feed them their meals, to be their
maid
. The same job you’ve performed all your life. No more and no less. It shouldn’t mean more than that.”
not
their mother. You were given a job, to clean up after them and feed them their meals, to be their
maid
. The same job you’ve performed all your life. No more and no less. It shouldn’t mean more than that.”
A record player?
His contempt and fury took the breath from her. In one vicious stroke he erased every kind or provocative thing he’d done toward her, painted everything in her life with the same brush, so none of it meant anything to anyone.
His contempt and fury took the breath from her. In one vicious stroke he erased every kind or provocative thing he’d done toward her, painted everything in her life with the same brush, so none of it meant anything to anyone.
No, that was wrong. She managed to steel her trembling jaw, closing her hands into fists on the bedsheets again. “It means something to me.”
She barely got it out, but it didn’t matter. He was already gone.
The words that had come out of his mouth were vile poison. She hadn’t deserved it; he already knew that. It was like everything he’d felt at the fledglings’ compound—rage, fear and unreasoning jealousy—had suddenly overflowed. His gut churning, he took himself out of the house. While he pointedly ignored Chumani and Kohana’s condemning glances when he passed them in the kitchen, he curtly told them to watch over her.
His skin crawled with the impending dawn, beads of sweat breaking out as he drove through the night. He went to the shore, leaving the Jeep high above the tide line. Standing in that graying darkness, he defied the sunrise to reach out and touch him, suffering the discomfort of its near arrival as his penance.
It was the past, damn it. Well over a century ago now. But he remembered.
Remembered the beatings, everything that went into forcing him to be something he wasn’t. He’d resisted, but he’d been six, like Nerida. If a body and soul was starved long enough, they grabbed onto what was necessary to survive. When at last he was broken and turned into a “tame Indian,” dutifully willing to perform manual labor inside a world not his own, he’d lost his language, unsure of the syllables anymore. He didn’t remember his name. His fucking name. The faces of his mother and father, their friends and neighbors, had blurred.
He’d had more in common with those fledglings than Elisa knew, and that pale mirror had stuck in his craw from the beginning, hadn’t it?
He’d always told his staff they could not pity an abused cat. Just like when Nerida had dropped at his feet, expecting him to hit her, it was important not to react, not to reinforce or instill the idea that they were irreparably damaged. He’d claimed to be calm, impartial, but, blinded by his own emotions, he’d made that mistake with the fledglings, in a different way.
So caught up in the unnaturalness of their early turnings and their brutal circumstances, the dangers they posed to others, he hadn’t considered the curative powers of
expecting
them to act normal, and seeing if that helped them move toward normalcy, no matter what their physical handicaps were. Such as giving Nerida a simple command to take blankets across a compound.
expecting
them to act normal, and seeing if that helped them move toward normalcy, no matter what their physical handicaps were. Such as giving Nerida a simple command to take blankets across a compound.
Hadn’t Elisa suggested something along those lines from the beginning? Had he let his personal baggage, unloaded from that plane with the fledglings, make him that obtuse?
He thought again about Jeremiah meeting his gaze, telling him with undeniable dignity that they didn’t need anything. How long had it been since the boy had been treated as something more than a dangerous, unpredictable monster? Mal didn’t have to look far for the answer to that. Elisa had been treating them that way all along. She’d even tried to give that gift to Leonidas, as much as she could.
Damn it, he didn’t know what to do with the feelings roiling through him. He kept coming back to those seconds racing across the island, cursing every thick patch of undergrowth or upward rise that slowed him down. Seeing her lying there. It didn’t matter that he’d known she was alive, that she’d survive. It hadn’t blunted the edge of her pain or terror, or lessened his reaction to it, seeing it all play out in his head and knowing he wasn’t there to protect her.
He should have paid closer attention to Danny’s warnings about Elisa.
She’ll look like a baby to you, but she’s strong, Mal. Terrifyingly so, because I think her fragile soul and body weren’t made to survive a will that strong.
She’ll look like a baby to you, but she’s strong, Mal. Terrifyingly so, because I think her fragile soul and body weren’t made to survive a will that strong.
Elisa had ignored him, hadn’t waited, because she hadn’t trusted him. She’d known his heart wasn’t in this from the beginning, so she couldn’t believe anyone would really try to save those girls other than herself. And that was his fault, damn it.
Totally unexpected . . .
Again Danny’s description.
She was this crazy little maid I’d just met, and she cracked a teapot over the head of a five-hundred-year-old vampire. He could have torn her to pieces, and she knew it, but she did it to distract him. To help me.
Again Danny’s description.
She was this crazy little maid I’d just met, and she cracked a teapot over the head of a five-hundred-year-old vampire. He could have torn her to pieces, and she knew it, but she did it to distract him. To help me.
He wondered if Willis had been overwhelmed by her, like a diamond dropped unexpectedly in his dusty lap. Mal wasn’t sure he didn’t feel the same way. Elisa had set something off in him almost from the first day, and that wasn’t his usual behavior.
Short and curvy as a ripe peach, she made him want to take a bite, taste those juices, the flavor of her. Hell, he even got aroused when she wore her apron now. He imagined her in only that, her breasts swelling out the open sides, taunting him like freshly risen bread. From there, his active mind would see her turning to cut tomatoes at the counter, revealing that soft round bottom, her white thighs. He’d press up behind her, bury himself in the wetness of her cunt, slide his fingers beneath the apron and tease her nipples into aching hardness. Her dark brown hair, nearly the same color as the silken curls between her legs, would brush against his jaw as he drove into her, hard enough to make her drop the knife. Locking both her wrists over her head, he’d push her up against the counter, making it vibrate with the force of his thrusts into her.
He was avoiding why he was really out here. She’d been right. She
was
right. Nerida letting them out of their cells to come to Elisa’s defense had been a planned, intentional act. Then there was Jeremiah’s marking of her. Cleverly concealing that he could be in her mind, but sending her those soothing lullabies when she’d been afraid and alone in her bed at night, back in Australia. Though Mal hadn’t known her then, tonight suggested he really hadn’t let himself know her at all.
was
right. Nerida letting them out of their cells to come to Elisa’s defense had been a planned, intentional act. Then there was Jeremiah’s marking of her. Cleverly concealing that he could be in her mind, but sending her those soothing lullabies when she’d been afraid and alone in her bed at night, back in Australia. Though Mal hadn’t known her then, tonight suggested he really hadn’t let himself know her at all.
He’d lost much of his humanity, as most made vampires did, but the irony was that the painful memory of his own humanity, not vampire indifference to human frailty, had goaded his cruel words to Elisa, his near-fatal mistake with the fledglings.
They were fighting bloodlust, yes, and any of them might succumb to what had befallen Victor and Leonidas, but they’d proven themselves. They weren’t rabid animals, sick and senseless, beyond help. They deserved more than he’d been giving them, and it was time to set aside his own past and its influence on his actions, and focus on what kind of future was truly possible for them.
It had been easier to give that chance to his feline brethren, because he didn’t see his own human face, the betrayal and pain reflected on it. But now that he acknowledged it, he knew he had to make it right. And he’d begin by making it right with the woman who’d given them so much of herself. Who’d given far too much, because she thought she was all alone in doing so.
When he’d founded the preserve, he’d done the same, thinking he had to do it all, that only
he
cared enough, mired in the pain of the creatures he was trying to help. It nearly drove him mad before he started letting others in, recognizing their passion could be as great as his own. It couldn’t be one person’s mission. Not only because it took more than one set of hands, but because defeats and setbacks had to be weathered, and only the support of others could help with the pain and grieving over that.
he
cared enough, mired in the pain of the creatures he was trying to help. It nearly drove him mad before he started letting others in, recognizing their passion could be as great as his own. It couldn’t be one person’s mission. Not only because it took more than one set of hands, but because defeats and setbacks had to be weathered, and only the support of others could help with the pain and grieving over that.
Other books
Secondary Schizophrenia by Perminder S. Sachdev
Clay's Way by Mastbaum, Blair
Caress Part Two (Arcadia) by Litton, Josie
Bronxwood by Coe Booth
New Tricks by David Rosenfelt
DarykCraving by Denise A. Agnew
FIGHT by Brent Coffey
The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin
Cabin Gulch by Zane Grey