Bloodspell (17 page)

She forced herself go further, glimpsing his childhood, his adolescence and his older years. And further still, so many images in the older years that she became confused, something was off about the timing and the way he looked so
consistent
in all of the images. She went deeper still, following the shadows down, down, down, until she found herself on the edge of a cloying darkness—the thing she'd sensed briefly at the bar.

Victoria felt Christian's hands squeeze reassuringly against hers and she pushed against it. Without warning, it shifted into something heavy that enveloped her, her skin crawling as if hundreds of roaches covered every inch of her body. A red-eyed face formed in the darkness. The monster grinned, its distended fangs bloodied and gleaming, and a salty, metallic tanginess coated her tongue. She tasted blood.

Angie's words echoed like thunder in her mind—
not human,
not human,
not human.
With wild strength Victoria withdrew, wrenching her hand out of Christian's now slackened grip. His expression was unfathomable.

"You're a—" she gasped, incoherent, scooting her body to the far end of the sofa. She tasted the phantom blood again and swallowed the hot bile in her throat along with the words that wouldn't come. Angie was wrong—he'd been human once, just not anymore.

Christian stared at her, his fists clenched in his lap. There was no way he could explain or condone what he was. From her reaction, he was prepared for the worst. It seemed like eons had passed until she finally spoke, her gaze burning into his.

"You're not human." It was not a question.

"No."

"You're a vampire."

"Yes."

Victoria closed her eyes, her breathing harsh in the deafening silence, her heartbeat erratic. Christian was a vampire.
A vampire
!
As in a dead thing that needed to drink blood to stay alive. It seemed like an absurdity—the physical beauty of him and the ugly truth of what he was. The knowledge was staggering.

Still, like her, he wielded a terrible power and was capable of committing many horrible things, but that didn't make him a terrible person. The words Brigid had written flooded her mind ... liaisons between witches and vampires, the Undead, were forbidden. How much had he risked to show her what he was? Humbled by his trust, Victoria moved closer and touched his cool face with her palm.

"You're still Christian. Beneath what you are, it's still you." Her hands trembled, the amulet searing into her skin even as the words left her lips.

"Victoria, I am not that boy anymore." Christian's laugh was jarring, the ugly sound echoing in the room. "I'm not him. This"—he gestured at himself—"body is not alive. It's a dead monster that steals life from others. Didn't you see what I
am
?"

"Christian." She said his name so quietly that it gentled him even before she placed both hands on his side of his head. "I know what you are, I saw it. What I am trying to tell you is that I also saw how you feel about me. And I know you would never hurt me."

"But what if—"

"You won't." A smile lit her face. "You may have just met your match. There's no way you could get past my magical defenses!" Then her tone got serious, and she said quietly, "Don't forget what
I
am, Christian." It was the first time that Victoria had ever acknowledged what she was to him, and the act frightened and liberated her all at the same time.

"The laws—" Christian began. She placed a hand against his mouth.

"Some laws need to be broken."

Christian kissed her palm and pulled her into his arms with a smothered laugh, giving in to the silent ache that had been his constant companion for weeks. He brushed the hair off her temple.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"For what?"

"For not running."

"A wise friend once told me, 'you are who you are.'" Victoria traced a line from the scar on the corner of his eyebrow across his cheekbone. "I know what you are, but I also know
who
you are too. And the 'who' is the part that defines us."

Christian stared at her with an enigmatic expression. "You are extraordinary."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Well, I'm not exactly normal either."

Despite her brave words, fear slunk around her insides. Though she refused to reconcile the thing she'd seen with him, a part of her knew that they were one and the same. Deep down, it terrified her. Memories of monsters with sharp teeth and red eyes skulking in the bowels of her closets filled her head.
But that wasn't him,
she told herself fiercely. She knew it wasn't him. Just as what she'd learned about herself, was not all of who she was. Still, she shivered.

"Who was the little man who served us?"

"That's Anton. He's my caretaker, you could say. His wife cleans and he also takes care of the gardens. They live in a small guest house at the far end of the property."

"Do they know?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Yes, I suspect so, after all, it's not like they see me eat food on a regular basis." Christian flashed his perfect white smile at his joke. "Don't worry, their family has worked for my family in France for years."

"So how old are you really then?"

"I was born in 1816, so you could say a couple of centuries give or take a few years."

"Omigod, a geriatric!" Victoria grinned, then sobered. "How did you—" She broke off, unable to phrase the question. Christian nodded; he didn't have to read her thoughts to know what she was asking.

"It's a long story. And you're tired."

"That's okay, I'm comfortable," she said, stifling a yawn.

Christian looked at her once with an enigmatic expression then started his tale.

"My father was Charles Beaumaris, the Duke of Avigny, a cousin to King Louis XVI. In 1792, my family fled France at the direction of Marie Antoinette for fear of assassination. They lived for a while in Austria, and then spent several years in Louisiana, New York, and Boston. Lucian, my brother, and I were born in 1816 in New York. My family returned to France three years after the abdication of Napoleon." Christian took a deep breath and continued, knowing he had just finished the easy part, the easy
human
part.

"Because of my family's connections with Louis-Philippe, who was then king, in the summer of 1835 my brother and I were kidnapped and tortured by the very same people who attempted to assassinate him later that same summer. We were nineteen. They wanted information on his whereabouts and beat us to within an inch of our lives, leaving us for dead in an alley. It was the last thing I remember then, waking up ravenous days later ... but not for food ..." He looked at Victoria almost apologetically. She motioned for him to continue. "The people who had found us were vampires. They knew who we were and at first, they were only going to take one of us, but in the end they turned us both."

"It was hard for me, but Lucian bore the mantle as if he had been born to their world. He reveled in the changes and became a willing servant of the blood. I did not. I
could
not. We were charismatic, young, and immortal. He wanted to conquer. I wanted to learn and remember what it was like to love, how to be
human.
"

Christian opened his mind to Victoria as he delved into his memories and images flooded her mind. She was lost in the pictures of his past, no longer on the couch beside him but in a different world, a different time.

Dressed in riding breeches, boots, and a waist-coat with a smart riding jacket, Christian was a polished young man surveying his estate as a red-orange sun descended beyond a row of hills. The landscape rolled for miles, acres and acres of perfectly manicured gardens. A large L-shaped stone mansion loomed behind him.

Victoria felt herself gasp at its magnificent lushness.
Fontainebleau,
he thought to her. She watched the young Christian climb onto a skittish black horse that calmed the minute he whispered something into her ears. She sensed that the horse was afraid of the monster it carried, but it still gave in to its master's velvet commands.

In his recollection, a girl in a yellow dress approached him. "Your Grace, your brother Lord Devereux sent me to welcome you back home," she told him. Her face was flushed and the young Christian was clearly affected. He turned away but Victoria could feel his aching desire as fresh as it was then.

"Go," he told the girl. It was little more than a growl. "I do not want ... you."

"Please my Lord Duke, he will kill me should I return. Please." Her voice was beseeching as she pulled a yellow scarf from her neck. Blood flowed from a vertical incision already cut deep into her flesh. The smell buckled every restraint within him, just as Lucian had known it would, and he flew off the horse toward the girl in a single leap.

"Will my brother stop at
nothing
?" he snarled, bending the girl's neck to the side. He bent, drawn despite himself, a terrible change ripping through his body. It was only the terrified rearing of the horse beside him that made him snap out of the fog of hunger consuming him. Christian staggered back. "Tell
Lord Devereux
I said go to hell, and I shall be happy to join him there!"

Victoria could feel Christian's self-disgust buried deeply into the memory. She squeezed his hand, and the images dissipated. His regret was suffocating, even now. He turned to her.

"Lucian did that often, and sometimes, too many times to count, I gave in to the horror of what I was ... am. There was no way back so eventually I stopped fighting."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I've long made peace with what I am," Christian said. "Before long, Lucian and I were at odds with each other and started to drift apart. He used to say I was too soft. As the first-born twin, I was a Vampire Lord, but I wanted no part of Lucian's regime so I abdicated my rights to him, and left. The House of Devereux is now a very powerful vampire coven and Lucian is feared by many."

"Why?" Victoria asked.

"Let's just say that he is where he is because he takes what he wants, brutally if necessary. Lucian is very, very powerful and very, very ruthless."

"But you don't live by his rules?"

"Yes and no. Yes, because I am bound to protect who we are, the House of Devereux, and he will always be my brother even though I don't agree with his principles. And no, because I am here," he said simply.

"Is it hard being away from your family?"

"Why do you ask?" Christian asked, surprised by her question.

"I don't have anyone but my Aunt Holly. If I did, I'd want to be near them, that's all," she said, shifting as he curled an arm around her. The warmth from the fireplace coupled with her exhaustion, made her eyelids heavy. She leaned into his embrace, forgetting for an instant everything she'd discovered about him, and gave in to the sweetness of just being held. "Family is important, isn't it? And knowing who you are, and where you belong?"

"Yes," he said. "But sometimes we're forced to make choices ... hard ones, just for the sake of family. Lucian wanted something I had, and it was easy for me to give it up. The Devereux mantle always meant more to him than it ever did to me."

Christian trailed off, for a moment lost again in his own memories. Victoria left him alone this time, sensing his need for momentary solitude.

AFTER A WHILE, Christian shifted and realized that Victoria had fallen asleep, the warmth of the fireplace and the hypnotic thud of his heartbeat combining to lull her into a fitful slumber. Her breathing was deep and even, her trust in him absolute. Even the threat of shadowy creatures lurking in the darkness hadn't been able to stop her eyes from closing. Christian had felt her heart accelerate ten times in the last hour. She'd been afraid. Yet despite her fear, she had seen something inside of him worth staying for.

Not wanting to wake her, Christian lifted her carefully against his chest and carried her upstairs, watching as she curled into a tiny ball under the sheets. She looked so small in the giant bed. He sat down next to her, brushing the hair off her face and clasping her fingers in his own. She mumbled something and shivered.

"Sleep," he soothed.

What he'd done was unimaginable, unthinkable. He'd broken laws he was sworn to uphold under penalty of exile, or worse, death. And executing a vampire wasn't as simple or as neat as killing a person. It involved a great deal of pain, and a lot of fanfare designed only to serve the power of the Vampire Council. Punishing a blood traitor was always an event. Punishing Christian Devereux would be a spectacle.

He didn't care. All he knew was what he felt, and Christian had lived long enough to know that what he felt wasn't just fleeting. It was something far more. Despite the risks, everything inside him knew that letting this girl go would be a mistake.

Stay with me,
Victoria,
he thought, unable to voice the words.

"I will," she said sleepily, squeezing his fingers.

VICTORIA AWOKE PANIC-stricken. It was dark as night but she could feel that she was in a bed, and her hands flew to her throat as she dizzily recalled pieces of the previous night and snatches of broken conversation. She remembered that she had been at Christian's but she didn't remember falling asleep in his bed!