Stealing Magic (Vampire Primes) (8 page)

“I—”

She lifted a finger to silence him.

“Bonding with a mortal is rare, but not forbidden. Find your mate. Bring her into our world. I welcome her into Family Weaver.”

Relief flooded him. The Matri was wrong in supposing he wanted to forget Grace, but one did not contradict the head of the Family. “But how do I find her when she does not want to be found?”

“Do not suppose she is the one who does not want to be found. If you are bonding, so is she. There may be others who think they are protecting her from a vampire.”

It had not occurred to him that others might be involved. She was a witch. What did he know about mortal witches? If he wanted to find Grace he had better find out.

He stood and bowed to the Matri. “Thank you for your help.”

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and the barest of smiles. “Bring your mortal to me when the bond is secure. I would like to meet her.”

* * *

Julien recognized the carriage waiting before his townhouse door as he rounded the curve onto Mayfair Crescent. He considered quickly turning and walking away as not even his shadow had yet to be caught in the glow of the nearest gaslight. It was Lady Emmaline who stepped out of the shadows, making him pause as she rushed toward him.

He held a hand up. “I told you before that I do not want to see you.” Anger roared through him at the sight of the mortal. Not so deadly strong as it had been on the day Grace disappeared from McHeath Manor, but still strong enough to tinge his vision red with blood lust. Emmaline had been so pleased with her role in Grace’s leaving, initially taking all the credit for it. She had not understood she was in danger of losing her life for having ‘the silly bitch sacked and turned out’. It had become evident after much questioning of the staff that no one had sacked Grace, because no one had any memory of having hired her. A guest’s coach and driver had also left that day. No one knew who the guest was. It turned out the mystery was all of Grace’s making, but that did not stop Julien from being furious at Lady Emmaline’s attempt to interfere.

She stopped a few feet from him, and wrung her hands. “I thought of something that might help you find her, Julien. Please listen. I only want to help.”

“As you were so helpful before?”

She flinched at his bitter tone. “No! Will you listen if I tell you that I am not helping for your sake, but for hers?”

“Why would you want to help a servant?”

“Because she did me a great kindness. I thought it was an insult at the time, but she read my palm and told me to return to my husband. I couldn’t get her words out of my mind. I did return to Henry.” She gave a breathless little laugh. “I am happy with him, Julien. But that is not the point.”

“What is?”

“She read my palm. She told my fortune. She mentioned
her
people. Perhaps she is some sort of gypsy. There are many fortune tellers in the city. Perhaps you can discover something about her from them.”

“Gypsy? Grace hardly looks like a gypsy.”

“Aren’t there folk who travel with the gypsies sometime? Irish and Scottish travelers?”

Grace was certainly Scottish.

It would be most ironic if Emmaline had found him a clue when all his supernatural and Beverly’s government contacts had done no good at all.

Julien took Lady Emmaline’s hands for a moment. He gave them a friendly squeeze. “Thank you. Perhaps this will help. And may you be happy with your husband.”

He kissed each of her gloved palms, and hurried away.

Chapter Twelve

“You should ask me how I come to be here.”

Grace sighed, and turned onto her back. She was used to hearing Julien’s voice in her sleep, but this time it seemed clearer than usual. And the usual affection was not in his tone.

“How did you get here?” she asked. Talking in her sleep, she supposed, or at least in a half-waking dream.

“With the aid of a werewolf, if you must know.”

“Werewolves exist? I had no idea.”

“Nor should you. What matters is that I am here, and you have much explaining to do, my dear.”

He didn’t sound friendly, but at least Julien had called her ‘my dear’.

Grace opened her eyes. And there he sat on the end of the bed.

“Thank the goddess!” she shouted.

She sat up quickly and would have leapt into Julien’s arms but he stood and backed away. He put his hands behind him.

She threw off the covers and stood before him in her nightgown and bare feet, her hair in a thick braid down her back. He looked her over, hunger in his gaze. She looked just as hungrily at him.

“Werewolf?” she asked, when she couldn’t take the tension growing between them any longer.

“Followed the scent of a witch from an empty shop in London all the way to this farm. The physical scent, as all the mental signs of the McCoy family are masked and hidden.”

“Really? I did not know that.”

No answer.

“So. Did you catch your spy?”

“Yes. It turned out to be Lady McHeath.”

“Ah. Is she rotting in prison?”

“Of course not. She was passing information to pay off her husband’s debts. She is now being paid more to pass false information to the Russian ambassador.”

“Such are the ways of the upper class.”

“I suppose. Are you a prisoner?” He looked around her comfortable bedroom. “You are alone in this cottage. Could you leave the farm if you wish?”

Grace wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to be comforted in Julien’s embrace. She sat down on her bed and folded her hands in her lap. Looking up at him, she said, “It is all a bit complicated, my dear.”

“Are you a prisoner or not?”

“Sit down,” Grace said. “You have every right to be angry, but I will not be loomed over in a threatening manner.”

Julien dropped down beside her. Even though he didn’t touch her, she was aware of his size and warmth, and comforted.

“I could easily rip your head off, you know,” he said.

Might as well get it over with. “Yes. But that wouldn’t be good for the baby.”

Julien surged back to his feet. “What?” He paced back and forth, but the attic room with its sloping ceiling didn’t give him much space to move. When he stopped to face her again, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you pregnant.”

Grace fought a sudden urge to cry. “I am not sorry. Except for using you. I am very sorry for causing you pain. Neither of us were supposed to be hurt by this. The whole purpose of the spell was the creation of a child.”

“Spell? You used me in a magical spell?”

She nodded. It would be selfish to point out that she was used, too. She had obeyed Granny McCoy reluctantly, but she had obeyed.

His outrage and fury filled every corner of her being. The heat of his look melted all her defenses, and Grace began to cry.

* * *

Julien found himself kneeling in front of Grace, her hands in his. “Oh, no, my dear, don’t do that.” He was still angry, but he couldn’t bear upsetting her, either.

She sniffed. “I deserve to be upset.”

“Possibly, but we must think of the child.”

He handed her the handkerchief from his vest pocket. She wiped her eyes. Then blew her nose on the embossed Irish linen. Rude on purpose, he could tell, when she looked at him over the edge of the cloth.

He sat down beside her. He put his arms around her shoulders and she leaned her weight against him. “I’ll hear the whole story, if you please.”

“Before you decide whether or not to rip off my head?”

“Your head is safe, but don’t count on your relatives being so lucky. This is all about your family, is it not?”

“There is no evil intended,” she told him. She put her hand over his heart. “I promise you.”

“No black magic?” he asked. “No dark witchcraft?”

“Oh, please!” She put her other hand on her abdomen. “McCoys follow the Traveler Craft.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It means I’m a good girl, I am. McCoys are good witches.”

“Then why do you want a vampire baby?”

“We want a vampire’s baby—a perfectly mortal child, as you know he or she will be. The baby will be mortal, but highly psychic. This gifted child will take to the practice of magic because of the blending of our type of mental gifts with your kind’s mental talents. We’ve been doing this for a long time, I’m told. Every few generations we mate with one of the supernatural kind—vampires, faefolk, nephelim, someone whose magic we can—”

“—steal.”

“—blend with ours. It keeps us strong in the Craft. I didn’t know anything about this myself until a few months ago, when Granny McCoy chose me to—”

“Seduce me.”

“Which wasn’t all that difficult, was it?”

Julien laughed. “No. Unless—”

“I used a spell on you?” She was indignant. “I most certainly did not. We don’t try to make people do anything against their will. That’s bad magic, and very dangerous. You were perfectly cooperative.”

“You still used me.”

“Yes, I did.” She lifted her head proudly. “I won’t make excuses for it.”

Her words galled him. Hurt him. Infuriated him.

“You’ve humiliated me, mortal.”

* * *

His fury hit Grace like a strong, hot wind. She rose angrily to her feet. “Oh, no, laddie! I am not having any of your feeling sorry for yourself. You had no interest in anything more than tumbling a willing maid servant when we met. You probably even planned to make me forget about you when the house party was over. Don’t you dare try to deny it.”

“That was all you wanted from me—a quick tumble.”

“Yes.”

“And my child.”

“Vampire males don’t care about children. Offspring belong to the mother. I am that mother and I love this baby with all my heart and soul but—”

“Don’t tell me how I feel about my child!”

She put her hands on her hips. “How do you feel about the child?”

She watched as surprise came over his angry features. Light was starting to come in through the small window. It would be dawn soon.

“I—don’t know,” Julien said. “How could I know when I only now discovered the truth of why you used me?”

“Is that male vanity I hear? Why is it all right for a man to love and leave a woman, but it is a sin for a woman to do the same to a man?”

“Those are mortal sentiments,” he said.

“Your petulance certainly sounds like a mortal’s to me.”

“Petulance!”

Grace held up a hand. “Hold that thought.” She put on her slippers and reached for the plaid shawl on the end of the bed. She was very uncomfortable, which no doubt added to her irritation. She’d found being with child had a lot to do with moodiness, and increases in bodily functions. “I really must visit the necessary. We can continue this argument when I get back.”

“You can’t go out now.”

She patted her abdomen. “I’m not the one in charge here.” She started toward the stairs.

Julien stepped in front of her. “I will escort you.”

“The sun will be up any moment. Stay here, and I shall be right back.”

She resisted the urge to touch him and stepped around him instead. She went down the narrow stairs, hoping that leaving Julien for a few minutes would give them both time to calm down and have an adult conversation. She was so very happy to see him. But it was all so complicated and confusing.

When she reached the kitchen she found the deerhound sleeping in his usual spot by the banked fire in the hearth. To her surprise, another dog was sharing the rug with the hound, its huge wolflike head resting comfortably on the deerhound’s back.

It looked at her with glowing blue eyes.
This isn’t what it looks like
, a woman’s thought sounded in Grace’s mind.

Werewolf? Julien had said he’d used….

“I’ll—uh—be right back.”

Grace hurried past the creature, feeling its gaze on her as she quickly went out the kitchen door.

Chapter Thirteen

“Why didn’t you go with her?” Julien paced the cottage kitchen, staring at the door, avoiding the patch of morning sunlight coming in the window. This was Scotland! Shouldn’t it be cloudy at the very least?

He turned a glare on Brianna, the werewolf.

Still in her wolf form, Brianna thought back,
I’ve been busy keeping this dog from warning the mortals. It is a loyal, stubborn creature. I think I have finally convinced it to stay quiet. Possibly, at the wrong time,
she added.

“What do you mean?”

Brianna moved away from the dog. It immediately moved to the door. Brianna morphed from her wolf form into a short naked woman with long, gray-streaked black hair.

“She was very curious about me,” Brianna said. “And said she would be right back.”

“Can’t you smell a lie? Every word from her lips is a lie.” Julien stopped pacing and winced at his own melodrama. To be fair, Grace had never actually lied to him, except for pretending to be someone she was not, and omitting to tell him many things. “She said goodbye the day she left me. I should have listened more closely.”

“What did she say this morning?”

“That she would be right back.”

“Then I think your mortal is in trouble.”

Julien looked down at the patch of sunlight illuminating the stone floor. To a mortal it was warming and cheerful. Even looking at it hurt his eyes.
I do not fear you,
he thought. A complete lie, but one must face the enemy with a brave face. “My bondmate needs me.”

He reached for his heavy, hooded traveling coat just as the deerhound jumped back and the door banged open.

“Grace! Are you awake yet?” an elderly woman shouted as she stepped inside. She stopped after taking a few steps into the kitchen and looked around. “You would be Julien Weaver,” she said to him. “And you are naked,” she said to Brianna. Her heart rate and blood pressure both rose, but she appeared perfectly calm. “Where is my granddaughter?”

* * *

Grace did feel some gratitude that at least the woman with the gun hadn’t abducted her until after she used the necessary. Otherwise she was thoroughly annoyed. And curious, as she knew she’d seen the woman somewhere before, but couldn’t remember where.