Embrace the Mystery [03] Blood Rose Series (12 page)

She showered and dressed in jeans, a tank and a long-sleeved sweater, socks and running shoes. By now she felt urgent as well. Knowing Margetta’s level of power, she would have divined something about where her daughter meant to go, that she’d enlisted Quinlan to help her, and just what kind of force she’d need to destroy the enemy.

She found Lorelei and Anthea in the kitchen, on adjacent stools at a large island of black marble. Each sat in the same position with elbows on the marble, hands cradling coffee mugs.

“Oh, coffee. No, don’t get up. I can see the cups and you have everything ready.”

She helped herself, filling a heavy red mug three quarters full, then adding two teaspoons of sugar and enough cream to create the exact shade of caramel that she preferred. She took a sip and her lips parted. “Anthea, this is the best.”

The housekeeper grinned. “Nothing better than coffee after a night of gymnastics.”

Even Lorelei smiled.

In ordinary circumstances, Batya might have been embarrassed because it seemed her lovemaking with Quinlan had been a little loud. But thoughts of what had transpired, of the blood-giving-and-taking, of his vibration, of breaking through her mating frequency, of having his beautiful girth inside her then at the end, his weight on her, flowed through her mind like a never-ending stream.

She shivered.

“Are you all right?”

Batya shifted her gaze to Anthea. Something nagged at her, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “He’s pretty amazing.”

“Yes, he is.” Anthea took another sip. “I’ve served in many homes over the years as housekeeper. Mastyr Quinlan is very demanding, but he’s just, and he always has an eye to everyone’s comfort. No, that’s not the right word, because sometimes we’re uncomfortable. He has an eye to our well-being. Yes, that’s more what I want to say about him.”

“Well-being.” Batya brought her mug to her lips and turned to lean against the island, slightly away from Anthea and Lorelei. From the beginning, this time with Quinlan had been full of mystery. She narrowed her eyes. “He started coming around a few weeks ago, intent as men like him often are, on getting me into bed. I always knew his reputation. But look where it led.”

She pivoted, resting her hip against the marble. Meeting Lorelei’s gaze, she continued, “One night, Margetta shows up and nearly kills him, but if he hadn’t been there, hadn’t been doing what men have always done, you’d be enslaved now and my guess is I’d be dead.”

“I think you’re right.” Lorelei tucked her dark brown hair behind her ear. “I owe Quinlan and you so very much.”

“Has he been here, earlier I mean?”

“Only to eat,” Anthea said. “He’s in his library with the map he brought from Lebanon. Henry’s with him. They had conference calls with both Rafe, his second-in-command of the Grochaire vampire brigade, and Mastyr Seth of Walvashorr.” She set her mug down and slid off her stool. “But I have strict orders to feed you a big meal and I will, if you’re hungry.”

Batya had fed a vampire last night. She planted a hand over her stomach. “I’m starved.”

Chapter Five

Quinlan stared at the upper central portion of the map, at what he and Batya together had uncovered between Grochaire and Walvashorr Realms.

He shook his head. “I don’t see any other way. We’re going to have to find the Pickerne Caverns if we want to make it to Gem Meadow alive, any of us.”

Henry kept touching the region that actually said, ‘Ferrenden Peace’, and the long section before the area called the Dead Forest—another mystery. “I can’t believe I’m looking at the real deal, but I can feel the place right here. The vibrations are powerful.” He let his hand rest over the words. “This wasn’t supposed to exist. I read these tales as a child, of a queen who secluded herself to keep her people safe. Do you think she’s real as well?”

Quinlan shrugged. “Hell if I know. But at this point, anything seems possible.”

Once more, he ran his left hand over the western portion of the map that encompassed his realm. The concept of a straight up battle had always appealed to him, of fighting for the health of a people, for the rights of the individual, for justice. He fought the Invictus wraith-pairs because they destroyed the innocent, often drinking them to death and casting them aside. The poor made excellent targets living unprotected as they did in those tracts of land where the Invictus hunted on a regular basis.

But he could count on one hand the times he’d functioned as prey rather than predator and he didn’t like the feeling one bit. Margetta sought to bring her daughter under her control and his job meant staying one step ahead of her, not getting caught by her extremely powerful vampire-wraith Invictus pairs, and somehow getting her safely to Ferrenden Peace.

For that reason alone, he felt a profound urge to move, to take the women under his arm, and fly them straight over the newly uncovered Pleach Range to safety. But both the map and Batya’s paintings had illuminated the way and he was realm-enough to know when to submit to the whims of the Goddess and when to push back.

Earlier, he’d made contact with Rafe and relayed all that had happened. Fortunately, Rafe had seen no signs of what he now described as the mastyr vampire wraith-pairs that had attacked Quinlan in Lebanon. With any luck, those pairs would stay on Lorelei’s trail and away from the regular Grochaire population.

Rafe had taken care of the dead Guardsmen at the access point and had set up a small force of twenty in their stead. He’d offered to support Quinlan on the trek to Ferrenden Peace, but his mastyr instincts told him that his Grochaire Guard needed to keep going out, as they normally did, to battle the Invictus, town-by-town.

When he’d finally reached Seth, who served as the Mastyr of Walvashorr Realm, he’d listened without offering either comment or question. In the end, he’d affirmed exactly what Quinlan knew in his gut to be true. “This whole situation has serious realm undercurrents. And I am at your service.”

Seth didn’t express amazement at the discovery of Ferrenden Peace either, or that the ancient fae had managed to create a new brand of super-powerful wraith-pairs, making use of lesser mastyr vampire, or even that the ancient fae now had a name. Of course, Seth had always been stoic by nature.

However, he agreed readily to track Quinlan’s journey from the western reaches of Walvashorr, to hopefully meet up with him in Ferrenden Peace just in case Margetta should find her way there as well.

With his own realm secure in Rafe’s hands, and Seth ready to move toward the land of fables as well, Quinlan had only one issue to settle, namely, where to begin.

According to the map, the Great River Caverns of Pickerne led to Gem Meadow. However, Quinlan had no idea how to get to them. With his finger, he traced the symbols for the caves. He peered closer. A smudge lay to the left. He rubbed, but nothing came off.

He used the magnifier once more and saw that what he’d perceived as a smudge was actually the shape of a shallow bowl. “What do you make of this?”

Henry took the magnifier and bent over as well. He extended the glass, then drew it close.

Rising up abruptly, he snapped his fingers and the three ridges of his troll forehead rose and rippled slightly. “I know where this is, mastyr, and it’s not far from here.

“What is it exactly?”

Henry shook his head. Some of his blond curls had escaped the woven clasp that all the Guardsmen wore and for a moment he looked a bit like Ethan. He had a broad smile like the Mastyr of Bergisson as well. The ladies enjoyed Henry, no matter the species. Henry, like Davido, excelled in charisma.

He turned his right hand palm up. “I’m not sure. It’s really too small to be called a meadow or anything like that. Besides, in the summer it’s dry like it can’t collect water to grow things though it’s a depression in the earth.”

“Is the ground bad there, unfit for growing things?”

“Maybe salt deposits. I’m really not sure, not being into horticulture.”

Quinlan grinned. Henry had been his wingman on dozens of trips to the nearby town. “No, that you’re not.”

Henry’s smile dimmed bit-by-bit until he tapped the magnifier against the map a couple of times. “We’re in some serious shit right now, aren’t we?”

“Realm shit, like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

Henry scanned the map once more. “Wait, I’ve just realized something.” He placed his hand on the map at a location some thirty miles from the stronghold. “This section doesn’t contain the same vibration and if my calculations are correct, I know this meadow well. A river and a stream converge there. Mastyr, we’ve all been there. We’ve run maneuvers in Gem Meadow, we just never had a name for the place before.”

Quinlan rested his hand on the map over the indicated area. “Damn, I think you’re right. And it has several permanent open air tents, doesn’t it?”

“With protective sun panels, yes.”

“Okay, good to know.”

“And we can’t just fly there?”

He considered this option for a good long minute. “My instincts tell me that the caverns are the way to go. If nothing else, we won’t be vulnerable in the open air.”

“You have to go with your instincts.” Henry shook his head. “This Lorelei, she’s something very different, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is, but she’s also a woman in need of protection which is all that really matters. The rest, the danger, Margetta’s power, well, fuck it all.”

Henry’s spirit lightened once more. “Your bravado is outdone only by your bullshit. But yeah, fuck it all. The brigade we’ve built can take a few Invictus wraith-pairs, like the ones you described. We’ll just need to be cunning and as you know, we trolls excel at that. We’ve had to in order to survive you vampires and shifters.”

* * * * * * * * *

Batya stood in the hall, near the doorway to Quinlan’s library. She’d heard most of the conversation and from the shadows had watched the man who had made love to her last night.

A north-facing skylight high in the roofline, set at an angle to keep true sunlight out of the room, kept the space from being oppressive. Her fae vision warmed up the area further so that she had a perfect view of the Mastyr of Grochaire.

But from the moment she saw him again, her heart had started thrumming in her chest, almost pounding with renewed desire. In all her life, she’d never desired a man so fiercely, as though nothing had meaning except being near him.

If anything, her independent spirit had kept her one or two steps removed from ever getting seriously involved with any man, even though she’d had a couple of decade-long relationships over the years. But she always grew dissatisfied with the demands. And she couldn’t even begin to imagine how demanding Quinlan would be with anyone he settled on as ‘his woman’, Goddess help her.

Yet here she was, staying in the shadows for no other reason than by doing so she could just look at him.

He was already half-dressed for battle. He wore a long-sleeved woven shirt and what she knew to be his snug battle leathers. His thick leather boots ranged past his knees and were turned down at the top, drawing her eye to his heavily muscled thighs. Slim silver studs ran in a line down the outer seam of the boots, glinting in the autumn half-light.

With his hair pulled back in the woven clasp, the hard line of his cheekbones gave his features a dramatic turn, and created a sharp angle of dark and light. He had large round eyes, thick lashes and heavy straight black brows, a purely masculine collection of features that brought the air rushing out of her chest. Add the crooked line of his nose and she wished that Henry wasn’t in the room.

But if his sheer physical beauty wasn’t enough to tear at her feminine heart, what he’d just said about Lorelei and his determination to get her safely to Ferrenden Peace, spoke the truth of his character more than anything else he could have said or done.

Desire burst over her like a sudden thunderstorm, and her heart slammed around in her chest almost wildly. How had Quinlan done this to her in just a few short weeks, or maybe just overnight because he’d filled her with his seed and pierced her personal frequency, taking her hard, bringing her to the brilliant flash of ecstasy over and over.

The damn vampire was magnificent.

His brows drew together as he turned in her direction. “Batya?”

She stepped forward, leaving the shadows reluctantly.

One side of his lips curved. “Were you spying on us?”

Then his nostrils flared and his mouth opened as he dragged in a big gulp of air. She knew he’d caught her scent as well as the level of her sudden desire. He looked at Henry. “Would you excuse us for a minute?”

“Yes, mastyr.”

Henry moved on his swift troll feet, grinning as he passed by Batya. He even offered her a salute of two fingers, then hurried from the room. Maybe he sensed what was coming and that he shouldn’t be present for what would happen next.

But if Batya was in any doubt that she wasn’t alone in her experience, Quinlan covered the distance in a few long strides and gathered her up in his arms. He held her tight against him as he kissed her and not even his snug leathers could conceal what her appearance in the room had done to him.

His tongue drove deep and moved swiftly in and out. She suckled his tongue, struggling to catch her breath.
What’s happening?

The hell if I know, but damn I want you and when your scent poured over me I thought I’d come apart, run you down, flatten you on the floor. Sweet Goddess I didn’t think I’d feel this way just seeing you again.

Finally he drew back, but he kissed her eyelids, her nose, her chin. His hand pressed against her buttocks as he ground into her, letting her feel him. “What have you done to me, Batya? I was supposed to be the seducer here.”

“It’s not me,” she cried, pulling out of his arms. “This is all your fault. You had to come to Lebanon.”

Distance helped, even if it was only eighteen inches or so. Her heart labored in her chest and she struggled to breathe. That weird heaviness was back. “Are you in need of blood? We have a battle coming. I’ve been feeling it since I woke up, like a weight inside me.”