Winter's Touch (Immortal Touch Series) (33 page)

Dodging a second lunge, the Scotsman overcompensated his balance and the next assault brought him to the ground. He struggled desperately to prevent Julian from gaining access to his neck, and livid with insolen
t rage he screamed wildly, “
Get the feck off me, goddammit!
”

A
sudden well-aimed bash sent bits of the assassin’s teeth flying and he howled in surprise and agony as his own blood began to flow. His cries of distress were savory but still not satisfying enough. Nothing short of decapitation and dismemberment would assuage Julian’s wrath.

In spite of his predicament, the
second vampire outweighed Julian by thirty pounds and with this leverage he was able to shift his body so the positions were reversed. Now that he had the advantage, he hovered over Eva’s lover, grinning in an evil grimace while hot blood dripped from his mouth.

“The tables have turned, eh?
So ye’re the one she came here for. Should hae kept her to yerself - her blood was exquisite. Would ye like to know what it felt like to kill her?
Would ye?
”

“
I’ll rip you to fucking pieces!
”

“It was better than a feckin
’ orgasm!” He had his hands around Julian’s neck now and was preparing to fracture his cervical spine when, abruptly and unexpectedly, he froze. For a long moment he stared down into the eyes of his opponent with an expression of shocked bewilderment. Then slowly, he toppled over to the side, a length of iron protruding from his back.

Eva looked down at the dead vampire with
aversion.

“Sorry, but it wasn’t any good for me.”

~*~*~

Unable to move, to speak, to breathe, he gazed up at the vision of perfect beauty that had to be a dream. Or perhaps he had finally met with death after all and was joining his sweet angel in the hereafter.
The gaping wound in her throat was closed, not even a scar remaining to attest to her assault. A few streaks of drying blood were the only traces left behind. The vision knelt to touch his cheek gently and he closed his eyes in languid ecstasy.

This must be heaven.
“Ah, Eva. My love.”

“Julian? Are you hurt?”

“Don’t go. Don’t leave me again. Please.”

“Never. I’ll never leave you.”
She clasped his hand.

He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice. He could smell her. He could feel her. She was real. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t dead.

She wasn’t dead.

“Eva?”

“I’m here.”

“
Is it...true? Are you really here?”

She smiled and slid her arms underneath him. “Can you sit up?”

He allowed her to help him, wincing with the discomfort of his broken ribs. The sharp pain helped to clear his head somewhat. He tangled his fingers in her hair, unwilling to release his physical hold on her, fearful he would suddenly find that she was just an illusion. “I dreamt you were dead.”

“
I was. Do you need a doctor?”

“No. Eva, how
...?”

“Your blood,
silly. Seems your little experiment worked after all, with the slightly insignificant key factor being that I had to die first.” Her emerald eyes, more vivid than ever before, gleamed brightly.

“It worked,” he repeated in disbelief.

“I think you have internal injuries. Maybe I should get you to a hospital.”

“No
...no, they’re healing. I’ll be fine. Just let me rest for a bit.”

“What are you doing here anyway?”

Shock quickly subsiding, he managed to summon a familiarly petulant look. “What am
I
doing here? Did you really just ask me that? What the bloody hell went on here is what I’d like to know! Lainie calls to tell me you’re running about the village like Nancy fucking Drew and then I get here to find...”

“Lainie,” she said quietly. “
Is she...”

“She’s fine.”

Eva was skeptical. “She is?”

“Fortunately for Lainie, Alistair
Guthrie is an incompetent oaf. Now would you mind telling me why he would see the need to bash her over the head, and who exactly
that
is?” His foot nudged the corpse with disgust.

“
Meet Alistair’s brother, Edan Guthrie. He disappeared along the same time that you were attacked. Turns out you weren’t the only one who got a knife in the chest.” She reached for the dagger and grasping the handle firmly, pulled it from Edan’s flesh in one smooth motion. “Huh. Somehow I kind of expected him to crumble into dust or something.”

“You watch too many late night movies.
” Julian eyed the dagger with wonder. “So that’s how you killed him? With the knife?”

“Not just
any
knife. This thing carries a powerful curse dating all the way back from the twelfth century. Not sure how it wound up in the hands of a common criminal, but I guess that doesn’t matter now. We finally found the source of your curse.” She examined the dagger with a sense of awe. There wasn’t a trace of rust on the weapon that had been forged of solid iron and forever stained with the polluted blood of a priest turned miscreant. “Seethed in pure evil. No wonder you lost your identity.”

He took
it carefully from her hands and tossed it aside. “I found it again in you.”

She tilted her head sideways.
“Did you really come back here just for me?”

“Why else? I couldn’t be without you for another day. I’ve always loved you, Eva. I never wanted to send you away
...you must know that. You were all I ever wanted.”

“I hope you mean that. Because it would appear that I’ll be around now for a
very
long time.” The gentle mischief in her voice was evident.

“Darling, I’ll love you for an eternity of forevers. Longer than the sun and
the moon and the stars endure.” He held her close to him, his ribs almost completely mended now, and kissed her hungrily. Never would he have believed that he could ever feel the way he did with her in his arms. She responded to him zealously, her mouth soft and warm with newborn life.

A
bruptly, he pulled away to ask her, “Do you feel the cold?”

Eva
hesitated, considering. “I...
feel
it, yes. But it’s different now. Pleasant, not painful. Is that how it is for you?”

“
It is. Most sensations will be different for you now. You’ll find them much more pleasurable. And...intense.” His mouth curved in a wicked smile before his lips found hers again, deepening his kisses to taste her with the desperate voracity of a starving wolf, until she was breathless with longing.

Consumed with carnal
lust and half mad in their fervor for one another, they coupled in feral passion, their bodies wildly entwined in a frenzy of desire. There in the forest amidst the carnage of their violent journey, beside the slain corpse of their mutual enemy, they consummated their eternal love.

And the trees sighed
their release.

~
*~*~

Enfolded in the arms of her beloved, Eva gazed around her at the changed world with newfound wonder. It wasn’t that it was different in itself exactly, but more so in the way she perceived it. Felt it.

The chill of the air held no discomfort, only a sharp, cleansing purity that tingled on her smooth skin. She was beginning to understand why he had always craved the cold. It felt lovely. Though the ground was still hard, the firmness cradled her securely with the maternal protection of Mother Earth. The soft wind was more of a quiet serenade than a simple draft of air. She knew now what he had meant when he told her there was music in the night’s silence. The silence
was
the music.

And his touch
...Julian’s touch...no words could ever describe the incredible intensity of the abiding love and fiery passion that reached out to her through every pore of his being. His touch was her breath, her heartbeat, her life. Her life eternal.

“We really should go check on Lainie,” she said softly, reluctant to break the spell. Then she realized with a surge of joy that the spell could never be broken now. It was
everlasting. Her heart sang.

“
Yes, but first I have to clean up this mess.” Fastening his pants, Julian sat up to survey the damage. He rested his eyes on the lifeless body of Edan and a smoldering anger lingered there. “He should die a thousand agonizing deaths for what he did to you.”

“He was under the influence of the curse, too,” Eva reminded him gently. She wrapped the dagger in her scarf, the one Lainie had given her. It had been saturated with her blood and was no longer yellow but a dirty reddish-brown. “
What should we do with him?”

“I want to remove his head, just to be certain. Then I suppose I’ll bury him with our old friend there.”

“Well, don’t use this. There’s no telling
what
might happen.”

“I won’t need it. I
t will be a distinct pleasure to execute the task with my bare hands.”

She turned her head away. Vampire or not, she had no desire to see something so grisly.

But even as she kept her eyes on the damp scarf in her hands, a shrewd smile played over her lips.

“
You know...I have an idea.”

~
*~*~

“Stop touching those stitches, Lainie.”

Eva set the tray containing lunch on the coffee table and raised her eyebrows at the woman.

“Och, I wish ye’d stop makin’ such a fuss o
’er me. Besides, they itch.”

“The doctor said not to tamper with them. Do you really want to start bleeding again in the company of a new
ly turned vampire?” Julian caught Eva’s eye and winked naughtily.

Lainie huffed indignantly. “
I don’t know what ye find funny about
that!
And heaven only knows what I’ll do wi’
two
of ye to contend wi’. I must be off my head.” Her tone was strict, but the truth was she’d never been so relieved in all her born days when the two of them finally returned. After he’d bolted out of here last night, they’d been gone for such a long time she knew something must have gone terribly wrong. And she felt it was all her fault for not preventing Eva from going out there by herself.

To think how she’d misjudged that Kade character! She hadn’t thought twice about him taking Eva out to dinner. He’d seemed like such a
fine young man, unlike his so-called “father”. Truth be told, at the time she’d had it in her head that Julian might become jealous enough over the occurrence to confess what was now perfectly obvious. After all, she’d have to be blind not to notice the infatuated looks passing between those two.

She was still amazed by the transformation in her surrogate son.
For the first time in thirty years, he seemed genuinely happy. More like the person he’d been before all this ridiculousness came about. Before he’d died, like dear Eva had. Och, poor child!

Well, the girl didn’t seem any worse off for her metamorphosis. It must have been the way she’d been changed that kept her personality intact. It was the blood of a vampire and not the blade of that
dreadful dagger that had transformed her. Of course it was unfortunate that she had the affliction of vampirism now, but at least she had survived her ordeal. And so far she was bearing up amazingly well.

Apparently that
shyster from last night hadn’t been quite so lucky.

She didn’t even want to
imagine what her two lovebirds had planned for his brother. Ever since they’d returned from accompanying her to the emergency medical center, they’d been engaged in deep conversation. At one point it almost seemed to her that Jules was issuing instructions.

Once they’re
in all the way, pull back slightly...

She tuned them out, not wanting to hear any more.
She didn’t want to know the ghastly details.

Besides, whatever that man was dealt was well deserved, in her opinion.

~*~*~

Alistair Guthrie’s hands shook as he
tilted the bottle of Scotch whisky and drank with gusto.

He hadn’t heard from his brother since the night before, when he’d received the phone call with his instruction to
take care
of Lainie Forbes. Already three sheets to the wind, he’d had no choice but to try and carry out his directive as quickly and efficiently as possible. He wasn’t nearly as adept at killing as Edan, but he could make do in a pinch.

Only
now he was beginning to worry. He’d been so intoxicated last night that in retrospect he couldn’t be sure if he’d carried out his task to completion. He had a vague recollection of pounding on the door, of the woman snatching it open almost immediately as if she’d been expecting someone else. And of grabbing something solid from one of the end tables and walloping her across her head with it. Of her falling. But his memory was hazy after that.