One With the Night (22 page)

The thing she couldn’t reconcile was how you actually directed your reappearance by thinking about where you wanted to end up. What interaction of the host’s mind and the Companion’s power did the trick? It was just like Kilkenny’s luck, where the Companion’s energy seemed to fuse with its host’s knowledge and experience to produce a specific result, almost as though two beings became one. Perhaps the organism in her blood wasn’t a parasite. Maybe the relationship was more symbiotic. That would account for the feeling of being more alive. Was that really a feeling of being more whole than she had been before the infection?

That was entirely subjective. But there might be objective consequences. For instance, if you could direct yourself to a new location, why couldn’t you direct another object? Could one move objects with only the mental power lent by one’s Companion? Intriguing thought! She scribbled furiously in her notebook. She’d never be able to ask Kilkenny. The experience that haunted him, the accusations Miss Zaroff had made, what they had done at Urquhart, all sat between them now like a hunched gargoyle, ugly and hard as stone. It watched everything each of them did, and glared at them. She felt it. He felt it, too, she could tell.

Above her she heard the click of heels across the scrubbed wood floors. There was a certain anxious rhythm to them. They came from Miss Zaroff’s room. She must be hungry. It might not be for lamb and parsnips, no matter that she said she didn’t need blood immediately. Jane should offer her blood. Now that Jane thought of it, Miss Zaroff too was a fount of information that should not be wasted. She headed up the stairs and tapped on her guest’s door.

“Miss Zaroff? Would you like dinner?”

The door opened. Miss Zaroff wore a dressing gown of finest aubergine silk, patterned with pagodas and blossoming branches. It showed a fulsome cleavage to advantage. “Miss Blundell, do come in.” She swung the door wide.

Clara stood by the window, brushing off a dashing riding habit of lavender gabardine.
Drat.
Could she pump Miss Zaroff for information with Clara in the room? She stepped inside … Again, she caught the scent of female musk. “I just thought…”

“Clara will provide for my needs,” the woman said brusquely. “Won’t you, Clara?”

Clara caught her intention, bobbed once and murmured, “I’ll go immediately, miss.”

“Do sit,” Miss Zaroff said, motioning toward one of two chairs by the fireplace.

Jane cleared her throat. “If you have need of … blood…” The word caught in her throat.

Miss Zaroff waved a hand. “I fed in Inverness. But I thank you for your concern.”

Jane sat on the edge of her chair. “You seem … agitated. Is there nothing I can do?”

Miss Zaroff gave a brittle laugh. “I can provide for myself if there are any comely males in this backwater.”

“Oh.” There probably were no men attractive enough for Miss Zaroff in the village. That left only one possibility.

As though she read Jane’s mind, Miss Zaroff remarked, “Perhaps you’ll share Kilkenny. He’s strong enough to service us both, and Clara into the bargain.”

Miss Zaroff knew that she and Kilkenny had … And she said it so matter-of-factly! Jane was shocked. She lowered her gaze. Was that all they had been doing, servicing each other? She flushed. She glanced up to see Miss Zaroff’s knowing look.

“You
are
an innocent, aren’t you?” The woman chuffed a laugh. “I’ll wager you thought it was true love.” She made it sound like a crime.

“No, Miss Zaroff.” Jane felt her flush deepen. To conceal the arrow that had just been plunged into her heart, she asked lightly, “But is it possible for you to answer a question?”

“Call me Elyta. We are sisters in a way, are we not?”

Jane wasn’t sure about that. But she wanted information. “Elyta, then. Is … is this heightened sexuality a normal part of being vampire?” There. Put it in the context of scientific research and the fact became almost manageable.

“Lord, yes.” Miss Zaroff … Elyta rose and went to stand at the window, looking out into the night. “Surely you have felt the Companion’s urge to life?”

Jane nodded.

“Our sexual needs are but another expression of that.” She shrugged and turned back. “I need servicing several times a day. Which is why this journey has set me on edge so.”

“Oh.” Jane cleared her throat. “And it is the same for men?”

“Absolutely. And when two vampires come together … well, the result is inevitable. It doesn’t often come up, since we live one to a city. To congregate would only draw human attention to our need for blood.”

“How lonely,” Jane exclaimed. “To have no one with whom you can share your secret.”

“No one to challenge your power,” Elyta amended. “Personally, I like Rome.”

“You have lived in many cities, then?”

“It’s a bit of a round-robin. When one leaves, a city is vacant, and another may decide to relocate, which leaves another vacancy.”

“So you never have … relations with your own kind.”

“Relations?” Her laugh tinkled merrily. “Occasionally. But let me advise you never to have sex with one as strong as you are. Pick those you can dominate. It’s much safer.”

Again Jane was shocked. “Why?”

“Because a woman exposes herself during sex. She is vulnerable to her own desires, and to her need for the male to plunge himself inside her. The only way to counter that is to be the one in control.” She looked slyly at Jane. “You must be careful with Kilkenny. You are both new. You cannot control him during intercourse.”

“It … it won’t come up,” Jane whispered. “I’m going to take the cure.” The vision of sexual union Elyta had just expressed was so dismal it almost took Jane’s breath away. Yet hadn’t she experienced for herself that need to have Kilkenny plunge himself inside her?

“Still, if your father doesn’t produce the cure tomorrow, you’ll find yourself with needs. Come to me, and I will provide. You shouldn’t be fucking Kilkenny alone.” The word shook Jane. She had heard it only in the poor neighborhoods where she attended her charity patients. For a moment it distracted her. But then she frowned. Exactly what was Elyta proposing?

Jane’s face must have shown her disbelief, for Elyta smiled again. “Have you never had a threesome? Well, well, another treat in store.”

Jane swallowed. Kilkenny wouldn’t fall in with Elyta’s plans. Would he? Or would he have relations with anyone to hand, just because he was a vampire and needed sex? She wouldn’t call it “making love.” It obviously wasn’t that. He hadn’t been making love to her, either.

Clara came through the door with a tray.

Jane rose abruptly. “Perhaps you’re right.” She choked. “I must go now.”

Elyta’s attention had already shifted to her dinner as Jane closed the door. She hurried down the stairs and out into the night. She must get away from here. She’d practice translocation. Maybe she would try to move stones—anything to keep her distance from Elyta Zaroff and Kilkenny. Now if only she could escape the feeling that surged up from her stomach into her throat. No matter how she had castigated herself about what happened at the castle, she hadn’t really thought it was the kind of experience Miss Zaroff had just outlined so bleakly. She had thought that perhaps Kilkenny …

She had been a fool.

CHAPTER
Fourteen

Callan trudged into the kitchen with a pail of milk and set it by the sink. Clara had made a pie out of early gooseberries. The smell of pastry and cooked fruit filled the kitchen. She looked up as Callan entered. Her brown eyes were strangely flat.

“My mistress wants to see you,” she said.

“Your mistress can go ta hell,” Callan muttered. He pushed past, but she held his arm.

“Please,” she said. “If I don’t bring you, she’ll be angry with me.”

Callan pressed his lips together. He wouldn’t put it past Miss Zaroff to say cutting things to her maid. “Verra well. I’ll see her.”

The girl trailed him up the stairs.
She’s no’ a lass, but an old vampire by her vibrations,
Callan reminded himself. She tapped at her mistress’s door. “He’s here,” she said, and opened it.

Callan pushed inside. “What d’ye want?”

Elyta Zaroff sat brushing her long black hair in front of a small dressing table. Her purple dressing gown with some kind of flowering trees and pagodas on it gaped over perfect, jutting breasts. Her eyes lifted to his in the mirror. “You were made by Asharti, weren’t you?”

Callan lifted his chin to hide his shock. “Nae.” How did she know his shame?

“Don’t bother to lie. I saw your scars. They are her marks.”

He clenched his jaw. She’d seen him naked. What did he care if this woman knew? “Aye, th’ marks are hers. But she did no’ make me.”

“Then one of her minions did, perhaps Fedeyah.”

She knew! He didn’t respond, but stood staring at her.

“She was a good student,” Miss Zaroff remarked. “I’ll wager she trained you well.”

“What…?” All that was implied in that statement washed over him. But even as he turned to plunge toward the door, her eyes flashed the deepest of reds and he was transfixed.

She rose, slowly, sensuously, and moved toward him, a smile spreading across her face. He felt the familiar helplessness like a black blot growing inside him. He tried to move, but she had him fast, transfixed like a butterfly in the collections displayed at the university so long ago.

“Poor Asharti.” She pulled at his cravat and let it drift to the carpet. “She had been much abused by men. I met her in … let’s see … the early part of the fifteenth century, in Florence. Delightful place, what with the Medici running the place and the Buonarotti boy carving those beautiful nude men and priests flagellating themselves. It was nearly perfect for us until Urbano threw us out.” She pulled Callan’s shirt off over his head. It turned inside out as the sleeves left his wrists. He was having trouble breathing. The vampiress could have popped the buttons on his breeches, but she slid her hand beneath the waistband and unbuttoned them carefully. “We traveled together. I taught her everything I knew.” Her gaze held his. He wanted to shout in horror and protest. How could there be another like Asharti? And in the Highlands of Scotland, worse luck? He had
done
with Asharti.

“To the bed with you,” she whispered, and enforced her command with a push on his chest. He stumbled backward until he felt the bed against the back of his thighs. It was the same as the one in his room, high, with a carved oaken headboard sporting thick spindles at each corner. She pushed him onto it. He gritted his teeth as she pulled off a boot.

There were only three of them, though. They couldn’t suppress his will twenty-four hours a day. He could escape. He
had
to escape. “Ye … canno’ hold … me … forever,” he managed.

Her chuckle chilled him. She jerked off his other boot. “But that is what is so delightful. I don’t need to hold you. You will hold yourself at my disposal.”

He gasped for breath, trying to resist her. “Th’ minute … ye…”

“Nonsense.” She pulled his breeches and smalls from his hips. “You want the cure too much. You won’t leave.” She surveyed his body.

To hell with the cure.
He couldn’t bear this! He felt the familiar tightening in his loins. His cock began to throb. He twisted his body as if that could loosen her hold on him.

“No wonder Asharti liked you. Even aside from the blue eyes, which she always favored of course, you are well made.” She lifted his balls, stroked his newly rigid cock lightly. How he wanted to throttle her! But he, of anyone, knew how useless struggle was. She was old. She would have her way with him as Asharti had countless times. Something inside him died a little. He had thought to escape Asharti’s effect on him. He’d tried to find a new life, not normal maybe, but something. And it had been all for naught. Blackness rolled through him.

“You will call me ‘Miss Zaroff’ in front of others, but ‘Mistress’ when we are private together,” she murmured into his ear. She laid herself along his body, propped on one elbow, and turned his head toward her, exposing the artery in his neck.

This was it, then.

He had no hope of avoiding what she would do to him. He battered his mind against her will anyway. He felt her lips against his throat smiling at his resistance, and then the puncture of his carotid. She sucked lightly and pulled at his cock roughly with her left hand. He hated the desire he couldn’t prevent from rising. Was she doing it, or was it his own weak nature? He couldn’t even plead long celibacy as an excuse for his lust. He had given in to his needs only two nights ago with Jane Blundell. Elyta pulled her canines from his throat.

“My Companion is so much stronger than yours, I can drink your blood easily,” she observed, whispering. “Vampire blood always has a special tang.” Her tongue circled her lips. She drew the nail of her index finger across his chest, leaving a bloody gouge. He shuddered, not from pain, but from the horrible familiarity of it. She ran her tongue along the bloody furrow, using her saliva to keep the cut from healing, just like the vampire bats in South America Blundell had written about in his article. Then she sucked at it. His cock strained for release. When finally she pulled away, her robe fell open, revealing lush breasts with prominent nipples. “Delicious. When Jane joins us, we mustn’t let her drink, though. Your Companions would be warring in an instant. Not fatal, but uncomfortable.”

When Jane joins us
?
What…?

“I’ve invited her to partake. Clara, too,” the vile woman whispered, licking his jawline, even as she hefted his balls. “Clara declined. Quite the prude, Clara.”

Callan swallowed hard, trying not to focus on the sensations ripping through him. Miss Blundell wouldn’t join in these games … would she? Were all vampire women voracious spiders? He jerked his head away from Elyta.

She chuckled. “Grasp the bedposts,” she whispered.

He struggled as he had struggled once before in the desert but Elyta’s will was implacable, just as Asharti’s had been then. He grabbed the posts. She hiked up her robe and straddled his loins, placing his cock at the correct angle and sliding onto it, sighing in satisfaction. He gasped. She pushed herself up off his chest and slid down again. The humming in his blood sang in time to the rhythm she created.