Wicked Lord: Part One (9 page)

But then, Trinity pulled his wrist from her
sucking mouth. "It's enough," he warned.

She mewled with loss, finding herself
pleading, "Please, more!" She felt as if she might do anything to
have more of the euphoric heat that was spreading through her
body.

"It's done," Doctor Latham announced. "Thank
god," he added with a tired voice.

Beth was ready to lurch upward to try to
convince Trinity to give her more of the tempting liquid, but his
hands held her down.

Trinity's hair fell forward as he looked
down at the small stitches across the paleness of Beth's back. He'd
heard her plea for more of his blood and it disturbed him.

"Tell the brother it's gone well and his
sister is sleeping. He shouldn't disturb her. You will return in
the morning to check on her," Trinity ordered.

He knew Latham had a questioning look for
him, but he didn't glance upward to accept it. He heard Beth sigh
at his proclamation. She turned her head to the side trying to look
up at him, kneeling beside her. He held her wrists prisoner with
his other hand pressed into her shoulder blades.

Latham's helper rose off Beth's thighs, then
she fastidiously gathered the bed linen to pull up over Beth's
lower torso.

"Will you let me go?" Beth's voice turned
sensual, tempting him.

He didn't answer, he just laid his hands
more firmly and held unearthly still, until the doctor was packed
and ready to leave.

"I will return in the morning," Doctor
Latham said. Then they were gone with the door clicking shut in the
quietness behind them.

"I can feel you," Beth whispered.

"I can feel you," he responded. He could
feel her body flowing with the desire for more of his blood as his
body flowed to give it to her.

"What's happening to me?" Her plea sounded
as lost as he felt.

He could tell her he didn't know, because he
didn't, but he couldn't frighten her. "The affects will wear off."
He grimaced at the lie, even when he was such a good liar.

"No!" The word was a small cry from her
plush lips as she twisted her wrists beneath his hand. "Please,
Lord Trinity, please let me taste more. I will do anything." Her
breath panted with temptation.

Trinity could feel her craving like a live
thing skittering in his mind. The innocent Lady Beth Winslow was
gone, and he knew …
he
knew all he had to do was to release
her and she would curl and press her naked body against his. Her
body would move with driving lust for more of his essence, but not
of her own conscience. It would be his blood's fake allure.

All he had to do was release his hold.
"Maiden, you must be stronger than your urges, you
will
regret them," his voice rasped low over the pain in his fangs.

Beth mewled in disappointment and he could
feel the battle she waged internally. She wanted him. He wanted
her. Why must they deny it?

"You want my blood,
not
me," he
charged harshly.

"That's not true," she cried. "I-I …"

"You are too innocent to know the
consequences."

"You are so cruel," Beth sobbed. "I hate
you!" she cried.

"You would tempt the beast?" he asked with a
harsh snarl as he pushed away from her, releasing his hold.

"Trinity!" Beth implored, rising upward. She
turned to sit, clutching the bed linens to her chest as her gaze
frantically shifted over the room looking for him.
He was
gone.

"No!" she cried tragically. "You cannot
leave me like this."

Large tears fell hot on her cheeks as she
whimpered with loss. Her desire was to feel the heat of Trinity's
blood again. It held the most exquisite feelings she'd ever felt.
It made her feel worldly and mature. She thought with the essence
of it flowing through her she understood the desires of men and
women, something she was innocent of before. She'd also felt the
dark demons that lurked in Trinity's soul. Things that drove him,
but he feared to look at too closely.

Then tingling began in the far reaches of
her limbs, like the sparks from fire, moving up her arms and legs.
Haunting intuition told her the amazing effects of Trinity's blood
were leaving, and she moaned in denial, falling on her side,
unconscious.

***

Adam closed the door on the doctor's
carriage and stepped back. The driver up top set the conveyance
into motion and Adam turned back to his step uncle's mansion.

"She's going to be all right," he muttered
to himself, still feeling bone-deep relief. Yet he walked to the
door in conflict. The doctor had said not to bother Beth until
morning, but he worried about leaving her alone … at night. So
vulnerable. At the same time, he wanted to tell the authorities
about the woman in the woods and he was uncommonly nervous about
Lady Ariel and what she might be doing.

Beth won, of course. He couldn't leave her
where Fanton might soon be lurking, so he retrieved a wingback
chair from the front parlor. He carried it to her door, set it
down, settling in for the remainder of the night. Once the
quietness soothed his body into relaxing, his mind wouldn't forget
the evenings perplexing questions.

"Who is Christian Blacknall?" he muttered.
"What is he?" Whatever they were, and Adam knew the Blacknalls were
not human men, they seemed to have a code of morality about them.
"Men who many times look like men but are not men?"

He tugged a hand through his hair, shrugging
in the chair, remembering the last sight he had of Christian
Blacknall. The man's handsome face had looked fiercely primal. Adam
knew he would sound insane trying to tell anyone about the things
he'd seen that night. Something, however, inside him wanted to keep
Christian Blacknall's secret. All the Blacknalls had helped them.
They'd saved Beth. He wondered what she'd seen, and what she'd
think once she had calmer thoughts.

It appeared to him Lord Trinity had
intimately saved Beth's life. From what? What kind of man could rip
apart a human body like the one he'd seen? Yet now he knew there
were other than men that walked the earth. He worried his fingers
over his temple as his thoughts just made more confusion and less
answers.

"What leaves you sitting in a chair in the
hall, stepbrother?"

Adam's body jerked from being startled at
the sudden voice. His gaze leaped upward to see Fanton wearing
pristine eveningwear, standing two feet in front of him. Bloody
hell, how did Fanton get so close to him without him hearing?

"Fanton," Adam expelled, quickly standing as
he watched Fanton look as though he were barely sniffing the air,
while his gaze latched onto the door behind Adam's back.

"Who is in there?" Fanton's eyes gleamed
toward the closed door.

"Where have you been, Fanton?" Adam
demanded, angrily.

It seemed hard for Fanton to turn his
interest away from the door. "At a whorehouse, if you must know,"
he answered. His voice was a lazy drawl as his black eyes slowly
turned to Adam. "After Lady Ariel couldn't tear her thoughts away
from you or Beth, I became bored and left." Fanton seemed a little
taller or broader … he definitely appeared to have more glossy
perfection about him, as he added snidely, "I tell you, that is why
I never attend society events. They are so trite and
wearisome."

Adam frowned, barely able to keep from
grinding his teeth. "Were you in the garden tonight, Fanton? At the
ball?"

Fanton's gaze instantly sharpened. "No,
stepbrother, I cannot think of one reason I would be in the
gardens."

An outright lie
, Adam thought,
because Lady Ariel placed him there at least for a few moments. Why
would Fanton lie if he were not hiding something? Adam decided he
didn't want Fanton to know the full of what had happened that
evening, so he held back.

"Beth's turned her ankle," he said watching
Fanton's reaction, which oddly turned into a smug look. "The
doctor's been around and she will be fine with some rest."

"And you've just decided she needs a guard
outside her resting place … in her own home?" After slinging his
barb, Fanton adjusted his tailored evening jacket.

Bastard.
Adam knew Fanton was toying
with him and they both knew it, but neither would reveal themselves
to say it. "It should be obvious I'm here to help her should she
need assistance in the night."

Fanton frowned with a gleam growing in his
eyes. "You are always such a dutiful brother to little Beth."

"At least I would never leave her unattended
to an event I'd escorted her to," Adam replied tersely.

Fanton stepped closer with a new fierce look
on his features, and Adam nearly stepped back with the power he
could feel emanating from him. "Be careful, Adam. It's not wise to
provoke me."

Adam tensed his posture, attempting glare
for glare. "What's happened to you?" he demanded. "You're not the
same ever since our parents died."

"
Killed
themselves, you mean." Fanton
spat the heresy as though he enjoyed the thought and didn't care
his father had died.

"I'll still never believe that," Adam
responded hotly.

"You can't believe
your
mother would
do such a thing? Stab him in the neck," Fanton gloated with a hiss.
"I'm fucking glad he lived long enough to
stab
her back," he
spat.

"No!" Adam shouted, and his anger raised his
fist toward Fanton's sneering face. "
He
killed her!"

Adam thought he was going to have the rash
opportunity to smash Fanton's face as his fist swung toward it, but
suddenly Fanton's hand was there. Fanton snatched his swinging
fist, stopping the force of his punch as easily as if he were
holding a small child back.

Impossible,
Adam thought, as he
groaned at the crushing pressure Fanton squeezed over his clenched
fist. Fanton pushed with unbelievable strength and a sneer of white
teeth. Adam was forced backward, disbelieving the power as he
toppled against the chair, pushing it to the side, then his back
hit the door with a thud.

"Fanton," Adam gasped at the pain and
immense pressure that seemed to build around him. He saw Fanton's
eyes with flashing red centers as Fanton growled an animalistic
sound. Adam knew Fanton was set to kill him as his littlest finger
snapped beneath the crushing pressure of Fanton's hand. Adam
bellowed in pain, fighting not to let Fanton push him to the
ground.

Abruptly, through the haze of pain clenching
his eyes, he saw a beam of sunlight fall across the side of
Fanton's face. It was dawn and the light was streaming in from the
hall window. He was going to
die
at dawn!

Suddenly, Fanton shouted a horrendous groan
and stumbled back, releasing him. Adam clutched his hand as he bent
at the waist in pain, but still looking up at Fanton in horror.

"
What
are you?" Adam shouted fiercely
over his pain.

Fanton was glaring at the ray of sunlight
across their path as though it were a vile thing. Then he turned
his body, gathering his cloak around himself, and stalked away.

Chapter Ten

Trinity had an hour before dawn to survey
the site of the freshest murder and the surrounding woods for clues
about the killer. He could walk by daylight; however, it was
uncomfortable and he preferred not to ride in sunlight. Therefore,
the grey edges of dawn found him standing over the bloody remains
of the woman killed in the woods. One would think the blood would
taunt him, but his thoughts were relentlessly on breasts of
temptation and thighs of desire never before touched by man or
beast.

"Hell," he muttered, rubbing a rough hand
over the bristle on his hard jaw. He was cunning and strong enough
to take anything from humans. Even their lives. That was the point.
He was the predator and they were the prey. He'd learned that well
at the command of his Sire. He could still see the faces and hear
the screams. Hundreds of them. So helpless. The women and the
children were especially hard. The mortal dredges of him that
remembered being human were disgusted and deeply saddened by the
powerless ones he'd killed.

He and his brothers had been so young, as
their vile stepfather turned each one of them into vampires. One by
one — and they'd been very afraid of him. That fear of him had
overcome their loathing to hunt humans for him to feed upon.

Their mother hadn't realized when she'd
married him what he was. He'd used every temptation he could
conjure to tempt her for the sole purpose of getting his hand on
the four little boys. He coveted them to feed upon at first, until
they grew to be strong enough to turn into vampires that would hunt
for him. After the first year of marriage, their mother was dead
and there was no one left to save them.

Trinity growled at his memories, wondering
why they taunted him now, intertwining with his thoughts of Lady
Beth Winslow. Perhaps it was because of what could have been. She
was the kind of woman he would have married in his long-lost human
form. She had sweetness and curves to tempt him until old age. He
wondered if he had bound her to him now. Had giving her his blood
turned her fate? It worried him. He didn't want to corrupt her.

"No," he snapped, he
would
protect
her. Somehow, he would keep her safe … from himself.

Throwing away his confused thoughts, Trinity
crouched down to study the edges of the murder site. He could see
where the foul one had dragged his fresh kill into the small
clearing. More room to work. He wondered if human men could do such
a thing, while speculating about what the monster's point was.
There was too much blood left for a vampire and it didn't make
sense the monster could be a vampire. Vampires wouldn't tear their
food apart in such an animalistic way. This was passion of some
kind. A deeply abhorrent lust.