The Queen of Swords: A Paranormal Tale of Undying Love (28 page)

He plunged the tip of the blade into the floorboard deep enou
gh to stand on its own and went to the sofa to check on MacCabe. He was weak and groggy owing to the loss of blood, but otherwise seemed well enough. His kilt was still hiked up to his waist and his sex still fully engorged. Graham regarded the jutting member warily.
A man’s seed is the nectar of the gods.
He was in dire need of an energy boost, but could he set aside his pride to take what he needed?

He threw a backwards glance toward the doorway. There was no one there and no
noise from anywhere else in the castle save. The only sounds were MacCabe’s shallow breaths and faint heartbeat. Not that Fitzgerald or the lad couldn’t appear out of nowhere in an instant. Prepared to transport at a moment’s notice, he knelt down and wrapped his hand around the caretaker’s organ. Twinging with revulsion, he bent over it and opened his mouth. His throat closed, his gut convulsed, and his heart flared in protest. He withdrew and let go, shaking his head. He couldn’t, dammit. Just couldn’t. However much it might aid his cause.

* * *

Cat blinked down at the Two of Cups. The card displayed a young couple exchanging golden chalices in what looked to be a wedding ceremony. Between them floated a staff entwined with two copulating snakes, a symbol of healing, divine communication, and the union of opposites. A winged lion’s head—red to represent fiery sexual passion—crowned the caduceus. The card signified the rejoining of soul mates. It was one of those she’d received the day the gypsy read her fortune on Carnaby Street. She now grasped its full meaning. And what she must do about Graham.

* * *

Now armed to the teeth, Graham crept down the steep stairs leading into the dungeon-turned-wine cellar. Stopping at the bottom, he scanned the corridor. The bunker-like space was much the same as he remembered. Beams and lintels of dark timber cut the porous sandstone walls. Crude iron torches jutted along the passageways. At present, the torches were unlit, making the space dark and spooky. He shivered, and not just from the sudden drop in temperature. Despair, as always, hung in the air like trapped smoke.

At the end of the passage
, he could see the barred iron door leading to the cells. Dark shadows littered the way between here and there, but his night vision was keen enough to see no one lurked therein. He smelled nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual fusty bouquet of wine, oak, dust, and rodents.

And speaking of
vermin, where might that evil rat be hiding?

Gripping the
caged hilt of his father’s broadsword, which he’d taken down from over the mantle, he slunk toward the door and gave it a push. It swung open with the groan of hinges stiffened by age and disuse. The air rushing out at him was frigid, earthy, and foul. He stepped inside, searching the darkness for danger. Casks and wooden racks filled with dusty bottles lined the chiseled walls. He cocked his head, hearing only the scurry of pests. Sniffing the air, he picked through the layers of scents.

Dust. Wine. Rat
s. Blood.

Blood? He inhaled more deeply.
Alarm sped his pulse when he realized the blood he smelled was human. Turning toward the scent, he began to follow it through the shadowy labyrinth of cell-lined corridors. Glimpsing the light-haired lad, he dove back around a corner. Holding his breath, he pressed himself to the wall, sword clutched firmly. Dematerializing wasn’t an option. He’d drop his weapons, giving himself away. The lad would follow and he’d be unarmed. He waited for the lad to come his way. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. Ever-so-gingerly, he stole a peek around the corner. There was no one there.

He pressed on, senses on high alert.
Turning the last corner, the scent of flesh and blood pricked his nose. Hunger rumbled in his belly. He said a silent curse. Because of Cat’s enraging suggestion, he’d failed to take his fill from the lad in the vaults.

Somewhere underneath
all the other sensations, his Fitzgerald sensors thrummed. The dark wizard was near. Eyes darting around, he saw only shadows and the doors running the length of the corridor. Heavy plank with black iron strap hinges.

Creeping toward the first door, he sniffed
around the jamb. He could detect no unusual aromas seeping through the cracks. He gripped the latch, but snatched back his hand with a hiss. The iron burned like fire. Using the apron of his kilt as a buffer, he tried again. As the door creaked open, he peered inside. The cell was empty except for a few large casks in one corner.

He
repeated this ritual at the next cell and the next. Both were dark and empty. Heart pounding in his ears, he moved on. As he approached the final cell, the bouquet of blood and smoke grew stronger. The door was closed, but a bar of light shone underneath. Fitzgerald’s vibration intensified. So did his hunger. Tightening his grip on the broadsword, he crept nearer. Just as he reached the door, it swung open unaided, hinges screeching like a banshee’s cry. Shock sped his already racing pulse.

S
enses keen, he cast around the chamber. It was dark apart from the amber glow of dying embers in the grate of a small fireplace. He saw the lad first, the fair-haired one, standing in the corner of the cell looking back at him. His pale visage floated among the shadows like a ghost. They stood there for a long moment just looking at each other, saying nothing. Then, another figure stepped out. Another dose of adrenaline surged through his system. It wasn’t Fitzgerald, thank God. Instead, it was a human lad of about sixteen. The source of the blood scent. He was naught but the glazed expression of mesmerized prey.

“Where is
your master?”

The
blond duz, grinning guilelessly, made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Not here. As you see.”

Graham consulted his veins as he glanced behind him
. He neither saw nor sensed the dark wizard’s energy. The other duz whispered something in Irish he didn’t quite catch. The human, responding to whatever it was, came toward him with his arms outstretched.

“Take him, my
blood brother. He wants you to. We both do.”

The tantalizing scent of mortal blood provoked a flood of saliva.
He swallowed, suddenly ravenous. He reached out, unable to help himself, but drew back. He felt flushed and shaky all of a sudden. An adrenaline hangover, probably. The human drew closer, his eyes hooded. Graham’s gaze roamed over his naked body, taking in the bruise on his chest. It was just above the nipple. Who’d fed from him, Fitzgerald or the blond? Did it matter? Another flood of saliva made him lick his lips. The lad had an erection. There was more bruising on the flesh of his inner thighs. His skin was otherwise smooth and flawless.

Somewhere above them a clock chimed
. Its ringing reverberated through the cell’s timbers. The boy drew nearer and put his arms around his neck. Graham didn’t move. The sumptuous aroma of blood punched his nose. The boy moved to kiss his mouth, pressing the length of his nubile body against his own. The feel of the boy’s cockstand against his thigh incited his own arousal.

“Go on,” the other
duz whispered in Irish. “Live a little.”

Graham’s head
swam. Apart from Jack the Ripper, he’d never allowed himself to take pleasure in feeding from prey of his own gender. The bloodlust growled in his belly, eclipsing his conscience the way the moon eclipsed the sun. He forgot everything. Fitzgerald, Cat, the curse, himself. He pulled the lad to him and kissed him with fervor, crushing his tender lips. His fangs raked the tongue between his lips, drawing blood. The savory flavor burst in his mouth. His cock instantly stiffened. The boy moaned with a mixture of pleasure and pain before pulling free.

“Feed from me
,” he whispered. “I want you to.”

Lost to himself,
Graham gripped the lads firm, youthful buttocks and lifted him off the floor. His fangs pierced and sank in. The irresistible flavors of iron and saline flooded his mouth. The lad’s heart, young and strong, joined with his own in a macabre
pas de deux
as he devoured the youth’s essence.

Following
a few heady moments of bliss, he began to feel odd. As if he was fraying around the edges. Syrupy warmth flooded his system. Spun sugar filled his head. His teeth began to tingle. All feeling drained away. His physical being ceased to matter or even exist. The clock upstairs chimed again. Its music pulsed through his blood like desire. He felt euphorically disengaged as if he no longer stood under his own power but instead was at the center of a tug-of-war between floor and ceiling. An oddly agreeable suspension. Suddenly, his head felt too heavy for his neck. As it fell back, his arms released his prey.

“What’s happening to me?” he heard someone say in a
voice like his own. Somewhere inside his sugar-coated brain, he recognized the feeling. He’d been set up. The lad had taken opium. And now, God help him, so had he.

Chapter
24: Surrender

He awakened sometime later with a pounding headache. Looking around, he took stock as he struggled to regain his bearings. He was still in the cell, now dark except for the glowing red coals in the fireplace. Stripped of everything but his kilt, he was on the cot—but not alone. Floating between his parted legs was Gerard Fitzgerald’s ashen face and glowing eyes.

“Where is the witch?”

Still dazed, Graham blinked at him. The effects of the opium were beginning to fade, but cotton candy still encased his mind. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“The witch
. The one who deceived me.”

The image of a dark-haired woman flickered. Caitriona. His mind offered the name abstractly as he struggled to bring his thoughts into focus.
Little by little, memories broke through the sugary layer. Caitriona on the bed, drained of blood and cut open, the bairn she carried beside her, milky blue and still attached by the umbilical cord. Catharine, pale and lifeless, on the slab in the morgue. Cat trapped in the priest hole.

Promise
you’ll come back for me.

I
shall. I swear it.

Fitzgerald
leered at him. “Aiden will find her. However well you may think she’s hidden, he’ll sniff her out. Mark my words.”

“Why can
you not just leave us be?”

“
I suspect she told you why.”

“She told me nothing.”

“It’s your soul I’m after. And your heart. And until you give them to me, you’ll know no peace.”

Graham bit his lip. He
’d be damned if he’d let her pay for his sins a third time.

“Let her go.”

The wizard arched a dark eyebrow. “Why should I?”

“Because
, if you do, I’ll give you what you’re really after.”

Interest flashed in his maker’s
yellow eyes. “You would do that for her?”

“I’d do anything for her
,” Graham bit out. “But first, you must let me see her safely from the castle. And promise never to bother her again.”

Fitzgerald
gave him an apprising look. “And if I agree to this, you will surrender your immortal soul to me? And agree to be mine?”

G
raham swallowed, resigned to his fate. “I swear it on the holy iron of my dirk.”

* * *

Cat shuddered as a strange feeling washed over her—a strange bone-chilling feeling having to do with Graham.
Shit.
Something had changed. Something palpable. Taking a minute, she sank into her solar plexus, immersing herself in the energy now pulsing from it like radioactive waves. He wasn’t dead, thank Hecate. Nor did he seem to be in life-threatening danger. But something was wrong. No, not
wrong
exactly, but
different
. Definitely different. And not in a good way. Something had altered his energy. Something that felt frighteningly akin to surrender
.

The possibility wrenched her heart.
Had he given Fitzgerald what he wanted? Had he sacrificed himself to save her? Her lips compressed against the idea. She couldn’t allow that, dammit. She’d died twice already to save his soul and she wasn’t about to fail him now.

Flicking his lighter, she
lit the candles while concentrating all her energy on his.

“Power of the Goddess rise

Course unseen across the skies

Come to she who calls
you home

Come to me from where
you roam

Soul to soul, I summon thee.

Soul to soul, return to me.”

* * *

“This is my favorite part of the body,” Fitzgerald whispered behind him. “That tight ring of muscle known in Latin as the
sphincter ani externus
.”

To seal their deal, the
black magician had demanded proof his submission was sincere. And so, here he was, about to be buggered by the creature he despised most in the world, trying desperately to think about something, anything, else.

But not Cat. He’d tried that at first, tried to imagine it was her back there instead of
the sadistic Irishman, but that fantasy proved as cruel as the reality. He was painfully aware he’d not see her again once she was free. And once he’d surrendered his soul, she’d never come back for him. And yet, it would be worth it, or so he kept telling himself, to know she was out there somewhere living the life she deserved.

He gritted his teeth as
Fitzgerald’s spit-moistened finger circled. “If you’d rather, I could flip a coin. Heads I get tail; tails I get head. What do you say to that?”

He
made no reply, figuring he was buggered either way. Or was he? He could swear he felt a summons tickling his flesh. Just as his hopes began to rally, Fitzgerald inserted the teasing finger. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

The spell tugged on every molecule of his being, breaking the bonds that tied him to the physical plain. Rather than fight it, he gave himself to it.
He came back to himself in the priest hole, still down on all fours with his backside exposed. She was beside him in an instant, kneeling and pulling down the pleats of his kilt.

She stroked his back.
“What happened? Are you all right?”

He
pushed off his arms and dropped back on his haunches, shaking his head both to answer the question and to clear his memory of what Fitzgerald was about to do to him.

“What happened?” she asked
again, her forehead creased with concern.

The haze clogging his brain lingered.
“Let’s just say I’m grateful you summoned me when you did, and leave it at that, eh?”

“Did
you find Fitzgerald?”

He swallowed and shook his head, which was starting to clear.
“Aye. And his lads. I took care of the dark-haired pair, but the fair one is still at large. In fact, he’s hunting for you—well,
us
now, I suppose—as we speak.”

The
crease between her eyes deepened. “But, I thought I was safe here.”

He
moistened his dry lips. “I thought so too. But maybe I’m wrong. And if I am, we can’t stay here like a pair of sitting ducks. He’ll feel me and find us eventually.”

“
What do you suggest we do?”

“Find them
first and kill them,” he told her. “I just haven’t quite figured out how to go about it.”

He was safe for the moment
, and grateful to be so, but also unarmed. And he could hardly return to the attic armory with her in tow. The broadsword was in the dungeon, but, with any luck, the claymore was yet stuck in the floor in the caretaker’s office. There also remained Bonny Dundee’s long-handled axe, though that would provide only temporary protection. To break the curse, he needed a stake of hawthorn wood. There was a hawthorn tree in the walled garden, but how to get to it and complete the task without being discovered? As he tried to work it out, he began to feel like the man who needed to row a fox, a chicken, and a sack of grain across a river one at a time.

He
got to his feet, still thinking. He couldn’t risk leaving her here unattended, which meant they’d have to wend their way through the corridors with no defenses at first.

U
nless...

He hadn’t thought it possible, but what was the worst that could happen? If it didn’t work, he’d come right back, so she wouldn’t be alone for more than a moment.

“Graham,” she said against his chest, “can I ask you something?”

“Aye
.”

“Why do
you have a ring in your sporran?”

The question
zapped his brain, bringing his full attention back to her. With all that had happened, he’d forgotten all about his plan to propose.

“It was my mother’s,” he said, hoping she’d drop it.

Drawing back, she regarded him with suspicion in her eyes. “But why do you have it?”

He looked away from her probing gaze.
“I’d rather not say.”

“Were
you by any chance planning to propose?”

Biting his lip, h
e fought the impulse to roll his eyes. What part of his last statement did she not understand? “Aye, well. Not right this minute, no.”

Worry pinched her features. “But
you were planning to at some point?”

All at once, h
is mouth felt as dry as sun-bleached bone. He heaved a sigh. “If you must know, and it would seem you must, I was planning to ask you tonight. Though, now that I think about it, putting it off seems a wee bit pointless. Now that the pussy’s out of the bag and all.”

Lips pursing
, she looked hard at him for a exasperating moment. “And that’s your proposal?”

He cleared his throat with a nervous chuckle.
“I suppose it is, though I expect I’d have done better had I not been blindsided.”

She looked
injured. “Are you upset?”

“No, lass
.” He set a consoling hand on her shoulder. “Though I will be should you refuse me.”

A devilish gleam
replaced the hurt in her eyes. “Are you afraid I might?”

“Aye, well.” He looked at the floor, raking his hair. “A man can never really be sure what’s in a woman’s mind, now can he?”

A laugh escaped her as she slipped her arms around his waist and snuggled against his chest. “Yes. I will. Marry you, I mean.”

“Come what may? Curse or no?”

“Yes.”

The
momentary flood of relief he felt evaporated in a scorching surge of anxiety. “And now, with that settled, shall we get on with the business of Lord Fitzgerald?” When she started to pull away, he tightened his hold on her. “Stay where you are, eh? I want to try something.”

Closing his eyes, he willed
himself to the walled garden. He hugged her to him as the cosmos pulled him in. He could feel that familiar breaking apart, the icy entities moving past and through, the paradoxical sensory transcendence. The hiss of eternity echoed in his ears. If his curse could be broken, he would miss the ability to travel this way, but not its soul-jarring sensations.

When his molecules reunited, he found himself under the hawthorn tree. The smell of decaying flesh hung in the air
, the regrettable bouquet of the blossoms. He felt a bit dazed, so it took him a moment to realize she wasn’t in his arms—or anywhere else within his field of vision. Panic stabbed his heart. Cursing under his breath, he closed his eyes and willed himself back to the priest hole.

* * *

What had she just experienced? There had been a void, dark yet blinding. The had also been an unearthly sound, subtle yet deafening. At first, she’d felt supported, but then she started to spin as if caught in the eye of a cyclone. She’d been weightless and utterly defenseless. It felt as if she was shattering into pieces and turning inside out all at the same time.

Where was she now? Wherever it was, there was no sound and very little smell.
Just a weak bite of dust, damp, and something mildly metallic. She opened her eyes slowly. Sockets still sore, she surveyed her unfamiliar surroundings.

It appeared she was in a
cramped garret of some sort. There was a small, dusty window, but no furnishings. Only a cache of antique weapons propped against the opposite wall. She was no weapons expert, but she knew enough to recognize broadswords, claymores, and dirks. All of them had to be at least a century old.

Good goddess.

Had she gone back in time?

Swallowing her rising panic, she shook her head? Was time-travel even possible? She scoffed, half annoyed, half amused. How the hell was she supposed to know? A few months ago, she hadn’t thought vampires existed either and now she was engaged to one. With a little luck, he wouldn’t be one much longer, but that didn’t change the fact of their existence. With a little more luck, he’d find her before Fitzgerald found him.

She shook her head in an effort to clear it.
Her muddled mind offered no useful intelligence. She knew neither where she was nor how she got there. Crawling toward the window, she hooked her fingers on the sill and drew herself up. Wiping away some of the grim, she peered out. Down below, through the cloudy glass, she could see a sprawling green lawn. A wood lay just beyond. In the other direction, a little farther away, she spied a farmhouse or barn shielded by a stacked-rock wall and a sprinkling of trees.

Memories began to surface
only to spin away like an over-animated
Powerpoint
presentation. They'd become separated while traveling through the ethers. But where was she? And where was he? And, perhaps more importantly, where were Fitzgerald and his fair-haired accomplice? Alarm pulsing, she cast around for an exit, but saw none.