Wicked Lord: Part One (4 page)

"Ariel!" she cried, lifting her skirts to
begin running down the patio steps into the garden and beyond
toward the woods. She'd lost her, and then she'd lost Adam too.
He'd never returned to their rendezvous spot inside. She'd
considered the gardens outside. It was the only place she hadn't
searched.

"Ariel, where are you?" Beth cried, darting
her gaze back to the closed ballroom doors. No one would hear her
cries with the music and the doors closed. She would be all alone.
"But I cannot ignore her need!" Her gaze returned to the hag-shaped
woods as she ran toward them. Did she really intend to go in
there?

A wrenching scream split the cold night air
in front of her from deep within the haunted woods, and her steps
faltered. "Adam, oh God, Adam, I wish you were here."

Beth clutched the small pearls on the
necklace at her collarbone as she tried not to cry out in fear. On
the scream’s heels came a more frightening sound. It was like no
sound she'd ever heard, and it brought her rushing steps to a halt
right at the edge of the eerie, blackened woods. She couldn't tell
the direction of the sound that was either terrible agony or
heart-wrenching terror. Could it be an animal? She didn't know of
any animal that could possibly sound like it had.

Her gaze skittered about the menacing woods.
What did she know of night predators? Then thoughts rushed her.
Except for Fanton
. He was an evil creature of the night. She
couldn't help herself; she called out, "Ariel! Ariel!"

Instantly, she wished she'd not cried out
her presence. Her eyes leaped to the right, turning her body, then
to the left. "I'm not going into those woods," she hissed with a
frightened whisper.

She tried to assure her quaking conscious
that by daylight the woods before her would look harmless and
innocent, perhaps even inviting.

"Not as if haunted by demons," she whispered
on a fierce note. Then, the sound of a woman's wretched weeping
crept from deeper in the woods. It was to the right of where she
stood in her dew-soaked dancing slippers — or was it straight
ahead?

"Ariel?" Beth hissed with a louder whisper
as though some evil wouldn't hear her lowered voice, as opposed to
the high-pitched pressure seeking release as a scream. Her entire
body trembled with more than the cold night air against her bared
shoulders and arms in the sheerness of her now damp ball gown. She
shuddered with the need to go into the woods, but the fear to do so
pulled her back.

Suddenly, something rushed toward her
through the woods, breaking branches to the right of where she
stood. She screamed in terror, grabbing up her full skirt and
fleeing into the woods toward the left. Instantly, her long hair
lost the battle to stay on top of her head. It tumbled down, like a
black shawl, over her shoulders as her full skirts hindered her
attempts to run through the underbrush of the forest.

A malevolent sound barked out of the night
air, making her gasp. An evil chuckle followed. The threatening
sounds seemed to be right behind her as she shrieked and ran to the
left. Her gaze jerked over her bare shoulder trying to see. She
thought she saw a hulking, dark shape rushing toward her and she
panted in fright, turning to the right, trying to evade it.

Something snatched at her gown, tearing the
silk easily. The attack was like icy talons of evil intent, ripping
silk. She screamed, stumbling to a halt with tearing material all
around her. Her dark, heavy hair was as wild as a swirling shroud
everywhere she turned in a frantic circle trying to evade the
malevolence attacking her.

"No! No! No!" she screamed with each turn as
she tried to clutch pieces of her gown back.

She felt the charged breath of death fill
her nostrils with a blast of heat singeing her throat.

"
Run,
" an ungodly voice roared.

Beth screamed and cried as she ran forward,
clutching her pale, naked breasts. She'd seen fangs and red eyes as
the animal attacking her howled with inhuman potency. It was a
harrowing nightmare she prayed to live through as she ran with
terror, and the monster chased closely behind her.

***

Trinity guided his black stallion to a halt
beside Church's pure white stallion. "I wasn't asking for help
yet." Trinity's voice was low as his yellow-rimmed, blue eyes
flashed toward Church. His voice was modulated so perhaps his
brothers, Christian and Baptiste, wouldn't hear as they settled
their horses a bit behind them.

"I'd not keep those two on a leash long and
let you have all the fun," Church replied, his voice level as he
nodded toward their two siblings. Yet Church's voice, even devoid
of inflection, held a multitude of command. Perhaps it was because
he knew Church so well, Trinity thought, releasing his irritation
as a lost cause. He simply didn't care for his brothers miring
themselves in foulness when they'd already lived through such
malevolence at their Sire's hands. He wanted it to be his mantel to
now take on and leave them free. Trinity shifted in his saddle. In
the end, it might be an idiotic desire he had for his brothers, who
were vampires after all, yet he couldn't rid himself of it.

"I've no problem sending them back." His
voice was gravelly as he sneered and held his stomping stallion
steady.

"It's brothers Blacknall, not
brother
Blacknall." Church glared at him with a stubborn tilt to his
masculine face; a face most humans would call menacing even through
its compelling handsomeness.

Trinity sighed, looking out into the pitchy
woods in front of them. He wondered why he trained so hard to take
on most of these burdens, and then Church refused to allow him his
head in these matters.

"There's no blood-scent," Baptiste advised
them.

"I don't detect a thing," Christian
added.

"Not even the smell of the hunt," Church
finished.

Then, Trinity saw all three of his brothers'
gazes turning toward him.

"I feel her," he spoke softly, looking to
the west.

"Her?" All three brothers spoke as one, in
varying degrees of acerbic puzzlement.

Trinity's eyes narrowed into slits and he
nearly let out a foul snarl. Let them wonder, he thought. He
wondered. But he'd felt her the moment her terror had ripened.

"West," he snapped, turning his stallion
into a sudden gallop. Let them wonder and keep up. He had no time
for their questions. Questions he couldn't answer.

A hard gallop later, Trinity knew they all
now smelled the blood of a fresh kill as he halted his stallion and
swung down from his saddle. The moment his boots touched the ground
he began to sprint forward.

"Trinity, where are you going? Wait!"

Trinity looked over his shoulder at
Baptiste, giving him a sharp growl, but not stopping his forward
run. He knew the woods were a swatch of forest behind a long
cobble-stoned lane of noble-owned mansions on Kings Row. The tract
of woods was wide and eventually yielded into a large park by the
Rothberry Road.

His thick, dark-blond hair whipped about his
head and upper shoulders as he ran. He could track straight for the
fresh blood, or he could race toward the terrified woman, who was
still alive.

Chapter Four

"You look troubled, sir."

Adam turned toward the deep voice behind him
to find a blond nobleman regarding him, while the man's voice
reverberated through him even after the sound was gone. Adam
noticed the gentleman wasn't dressed for a ball but wore outdoor
attire showing a fit and muscular frame. The man regarding him with
soulful, dark blue eyes over a goatee that molded around his wide
mouth was no noble fop laying about on his title.

That the man could tell his unrest simply by
looking at him spoke volumes about his distress, Adam thought,
worrying a hand through spikes of his sandy hair. His eyes
continued to dart across the voluminous ballroom. "My sister," he
uttered, showing his desperation by blurting his distress to a
complete stranger, "is missing." His hand scrubbed his jaw on the
strident note.

"And you fear for her safety?"

Adam's gaze darted to the man. A very comely
man with a voice like warm, red wine. He wasn't so very old as his
first glance assumed. It was the man's trim goatee that hid his
younger, but very handsome, face.

"Yes," Adam hissed, and then without further
comment or worry of rudeness he started forward. He would try the
kitchen.

"I'll help you," the man's soothing voice
sounded as he strode beside him.

"I've looked everywhere." Adam lifted his
hand and slashed it through the air with frustration. "She is
searching for her friend and now I have lost her."

"We will find them." The man's quiet
confidence seemed to fill Adam's desperation and soothe his rising
panic.

"I'm, Lord Adam Winslow." Adam glanced at
his companion and nodded.

"Mr. Christian Blacknall. Good to meet you.
I wish the circumstances were better." Christian Blacknall's hand
reached across his chest and Adam's met him halfway for a short,
firm handshake.

Adam could tell Christian was a nobleman, as
he was, even though Christian was dressed in casual traveling
attire in the middle of an ongoing ball. If he found it strange …
Adam didn't let himself consider it, because he had worries that
were more pressing.

"There." Christian pointed and Adam turned
with him toward the kitchen.

What gnawed at Adam was the fact Fanton was
nowhere to be seen.

"Have you seen a lady with black hair and a
green ball gown?" Adam fairly attacked the first kitchen worker he
saw with hissed voice and glare. The lad was tall and lanky, and he
could not be more than sixteen. Adam's hand clasped the lad's
shoulder. "Have you?" he demanded. The lad seemed to stutter with
no words, but wide eyes that a gentleman was accosting him.

Then an older man's voice said, "The boy
knows nothing, my lord. No lady would be back here in the
kitchens."

Adam's gaze jumped toward the voice of an
elderly worker as he held onto the boy.

Christian interceded, "Oh, good worker, we
know a lady would not normally visit here. But, sir, we fear this
is not normal and we pray you could tell us or anyone here if they
have seen her."

Adam blinked and the awareness of his
agitation softened as his hand relaxed on the lad. He was amazed at
the quality of Christian Blacknall's voice … and his compelling
demeanor. He felt the man's warmth soothing him.

"Ah, my lord, I'll ask around for sure." The
elder kitchen worker turned away.

At that moment, the lad looked up at Adam,
and he whispered. "I did see a lady with long black hair running in
the gardens while I was taking a wee break."

Adam's gaze jerked toward Christian's dark
blue eyes. Christian nodded and Adam felt like clasping him into an
embrace. Suddenly afraid something might show on his face, he
tugged his gaze away, letting his fingers release the lad and he
moved to stride toward the back kitchen door.

The lad offered a bit more in a much
stronger voice as he moved away. "I didn't think much of it, sir,
as I saw a blond lady earlier doing the same thing. We thought it
was a new noble's daft, err … I didn't mean that! But a game or
some foolishness."

Adam barely heard the end of what the lad
said before he was out the back door of the kitchens, striding into
the night. The fact that Beth was running, and her hair was down,
scared him. Something was very wrong.

"Beth!" he shouted, and then he began
running toward the large, dark expanse that was the gardens.
"Beth!"

Adam felt the aura of Christian sprinting
beside him and once again he was glad for the man's presence.
Lights from the back of the mansion lighted the extensive gardens
into ghostly, glowing shadows as Adam realized Beth could be
anywhere in the large area. Suddenly, a darker shadow than the rest
loomed in front of them and Adam nearly went into a fighting
stance, but for Christian's hand on his arm.

Christian's voice halted him. "Lord Adam
Winslow, it's my brother, Baptiste Blacknall, Earl of
Sterling."

Adam huffed a labored breath from his
desperate running as he looked at the man. He couldn't make out the
man's features very well in the gloom, but he did see the trait of
blond hair that appeared to run in Christian Blacknall's
family.

"Christian, it's this way," Lord Baptiste
uttered, pointing toward the woods before he started forward. "Did
you find anything inside?"

"What is this way?" Adam demanded, grabbing
the back of the twill fabric on Christian's jacket as he rushed
forward with the two men.
Why were they here?
The question
began to chant loudly inside Adam's skull. "And what were you
looking for?" he demanded.

"His sister is out here, Baptiste,"
Christian's voice uttered as Adam wondered about both men's sure
movements through the murky woods. As it was, he had to hold onto
Christian's forearm to guide him through the dark tangles of
branches and underbrush. He halted his retorts, listening to the
two odd men.

"There are
two
out here then," Lord
Baptiste expelled as a statement more than a question. "Trinity
seems to sense the one still alive, but you can smell the blood of
the other."

"Blood!" Adam exclaimed, feeling more fear
stabbing him as one glowing shot of stark moonlight broke through
the fog and tree branches overhead. He saw Lord Baptiste turn his
gaze back to them.

Lord Baptiste expelled sharply, "You'd best
prepare him, if you insist on involving him. ’Tis bloody."

Adam could swear he heard an animalistic
bass snarl come from Christian's direction, but then Christian
said, "He'd be out here with or without us. Better with us."