Winter's Touch (Immortal Touch Series) (34 page)

What if the damned woman was still alive? She’d go
squawking to the police and he’d go to jail. Or worse, he’d incur the wrath of his brother for failing in his mission.

But no, she
must
be dead. Wouldn’t someone have been at his door by now?

He wondered again what had transpired between Edan and the bonnie red
-haired lass. No doubt she was dead as a doornail by now. He knew his brother had been aching to drain her blood since he saw her at the Rabbit’s Run, and he didn’t have long to wait. The lass fell for his deception as easily as everyone else had. Too bad. He wouldn’t have minded having a go at her before Edan killed her.

No, he wouldn’t have minded that at all
...

Instead he’d had to waste his time with that Forbes
cow. Well, she’d damn well
better
be dead. There were better things he could have done with his evening. Although he’d been so pished he probably wouldn’t have remembered much of it anyway.

H
is blurry gaze traveled to the bottle in his hands, and not for the first time he wished he had the strength to put it down. His vice would one day be his downfall and he knew that as well as anyone.

Like when he was fair blootered and would accidentally refer to his
“son” Kade as Edan. It was a dangerous slip of the tongue. Fortunately for him, most of the locals assumed he was eleven pence three farthings short of a shilling. The jocks at the Rabbit chalked his confusion up to drunken grief and would generally just clap him compassionately on the shoulder. Because the ones his own age, the ones from this area, they remembered. They remembered how hard it had been for him to lose his only brother. And they figured it must be difficult to have a son who so closely resembled the young man who had drowned thirty years ago.

If they only knew the two were one and the same
...

It was a good thing their parents were dead and gone. Wouldn’t they have just keeled over in their tracks to see their dead son return
ing from his watery grave after nearly three decades! Och, what a sight that would be...

Alistair
...

He turned the bottle up again and ignored the almost imperceptible voice in his head. He was drunk. There was nobody
there.

The clock on the mantle ticked loudly
, the repetitious sound drumming in his head.

Alistair
...

The
distant feminine voice called to him like a siren’s song. He covered his ears with his hands and shook his head roughly back and forth. “Nae...nae...”

Yes.

“Nobody’s oot thaur. Nobody.” He wiped his mouth with a nervous hand and shot a fearful glance at the window. He was spooked tonight, that was all, unnerved by the recent events and the emptiness of the huge eighteenth-century house that had once served as a vicarage. The voices were all in his drunken head. Or it was the wind.

Was
there any wind tonight?

He made his way to the window and peered out into the
dusky gloom. The trees were motionless.

But s
omething else caught his eye. A flash of green that seemed to be moving. He rubbed his bleary eyes and strained them to see what it was...then wished he hadn’t.

The green was a dress.
No, it was a long cloak, and the woman who wore it beckoned to him with unseen hands hidden within flowing sleeves. The loose hood couldn’t contain the wild mass of hair that spilled from either side. It was the color of autumn leaves.

God in heaven, it was
her!

Or her ghost, come to haunt him.

Either way, he wanted no part of it. Rooted to the spot, he closed his eyes and willed the specter to vanish.

Come to me
...

His knees gave way and he crouched on the
pine floor with his back pressed against the wall. “Awa’ wi’ ye, demon! Be gain!” His voice shook with fear as he broke out in a cold sweat. The Scotch bottle rolled across the floor unnoticed.

And when he realized the apparition
had entered his house, he very nearly pissed his trousers. She was coming for him. The wench from the pub, the nosy wee lass who had written her own obituary by interfering in matters that were no concern of hers. But she was supposed to be dead, was she not? Was it her spirit then, coming to call on him this cold night? With mounting dread he listened as the light footsteps slowly approached, then stopped once they reached the threshold of the sitting room.

And there the wraith stood.

“Poor Alistair. You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

She
sounded
real enough. Alive enough. Her eyes though, those feline green eyes...they glittered like those of a predatory cat. “Hoo did ye git in ‘ere?”

“Your charming son was kind enough to give me his key. Or should I say, your brother?” She smiled sweetly
as she pushed the hood back from her head. “Are you not pleased that I came to pay you a visit? I rather had the notion that you fancied me.”

He stared at the vision suspiciously. “Whaur is he?”

“He’ll be along soon. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? Or did you plan on finishing that all by yourself?” She nodded in the direction of the bottle that lay forgotten on the floor, a thin liquid trail left behind in its path.

“Please. Ah didnae dae ye ony harm.”

“Of course you didn’t, dear. I know a fine man like you would never do such an unspeakable thing as to hurt a poor defenseless woman. Why, only a despicable coward would do that.”

“Nae,
nae, it wasnae mah fault!” Still cowering on the floor, he covered his head with his arms.

“I had a lovely evening with your brother last night. Such a gentleman he is.
I’ll bet he was popular with the ladies, wasn’t he? And you must have really looked up to him. Admired him. It must have been a terrible shock to you when he drowned.” She brought a creamy white hand to her mouth. “But what am I saying? He didn’t drown at all, did he? How absolutely wonderful! It’s just so
heartwarming
when a family can reunite. Kind of gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?”

She knelt before him
, so close he could smell the scent of lavender and mint. “Lainie is sort of like my family now, did you know that?”

Alistair
moaned.

“I guess you don’t take after your brother much. You’re just so
uncouth
, dear. No finesse whatsoever. No sense of common courtesy. At least
he
was kind enough to take me out to dinner before he ripped into my flesh like a rabid mongrel.”

The Scotsman began to blubber like a baby. “
Nae
...dinnae hurt me...”

“How did you guess my plans? Oh well, it doesn’t matter. Now I believe I did promise you that your brother would be arriving shortly, did I not? And since I’m such a sentimental type, dear Alistair, I’m going to let you see him one last time before I kill you.”

Another figure appeared in the doorway then, a tall fair-haired man whose diabolic smile froze the very blood in his veins. Something was dangling from his outstretched hand. Something being held up by a shock of dark hair.

Your hour has come.

It was the head of Edan Guthrie.

The screams came too late. They were mere gurgles in his throat by the time his two visitors threw themselves
on him to sink their unforgiving fangs into his arteries.

~
*~*~

“You did very well, darling
. What a clever girl you are.”

Cocking her head to
one side and smiling at him, she ran her tongue along the fangs that were now retracted to fold smoothly against the roof of her mouth. Such ingenious things. Hidden behind her canines, they were barely noticeable unless she chose to extend them, as she’d done just now with the man who lay stone dead at her feet. The smell of his blood still permeated her nostrils, heady and intoxicating. She would never have believed that something so repulsive could suddenly seem so appealing, or that death could become such a prosaic occurrence.

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to make a habit of this.” In spite of
it all, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of remorse for Alistair’s wasted life and untimely death. His was not to be mourned, however. Avarice and corruption dominated every part of him and it didn’t take the blade of a relic to put it there. No, he’d managed to learn it quite well on his own.

“I’m afraid you won’t have much of a choice.” He wiped a smudge from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. “You need this to survive.
Try to go too long without it and your appetite will govern your actions. You’ll become uncontrollable.”

Satiated for now,
Eva chose to push his warning temporarily from her mind. There was time enough to worry about how to procure nourishment without bringing harm to innocents. She was confident in her ability to find a way.

For now, there was a more pressing issue. “What are we supposed to do
now?”

“You have much to learn, little one.
Think in advance and plan accordingly.”

“So what’s your plan
then, oh wise one?”

“
I do believe there’s an old stone well behind the house.”

“
Ah...how very convenient.”

With a
devilish smile, Julian lifted the severed remains of Edan. “Always remember to use your head.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Rising from Ruin

The
Abigail Silk
rap on the GSM phone she’d picked up specifically for her trip jerked Eva out of a sound sleep. Drowsily she banged her hand around on the nightstand until she located the offending object, making a mental note to ream her mother for putting that blasted ringtone on there. Hip-hop was
so
not her thing.

“Muh,” she mumbled into the cell phone, still not fully awake.

“Eva? Were you sleeping?”

Was she sleeping. Really? “Mom, it’s four o’clock in the morning here,” she croaked.

“Oh...I’m sorry. I didn’t think about the time difference. I just wanted to check up on you and make sure everything was okay since I hadn’t heard from you.”

God, nobody could spur a guilt trip like a mother. Eva wearily sat up, glancing at the prone form of Julian as he began to stir underneath the covers. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“Making any headway?”

She had to stifle a snicker at the inadvertent choice of words. From beside her came a soft laugh, a sexy, sleep-husky sound that was distracting as all get-out. She was surprised he could hear her mother’s question - the voice on the other end was close to inaudible. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Really? Wha...on?”

“I’ll tell you about it when I get back, okay? You’re breaking up. The reception here sucks.”

“Oh, all...then. You’ll call...airport?”

“I’ll call you as soon as I’m back in the States,” she promised.

“Okay...you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

A strong arm reached around her and she snuggled contentedly into the contours of his body, a place she never wanted to leave. Even following an evening of
most
vigorous sex after settling their score with Alistair (on a carpet of leaves beside the well, in the rental car on the way back, twice in this very bed), she still felt herself ignite in response to him. The evidence of his own arousal was pressed firmly against her, hard and ready.

“As long as we’re awake
...” He ran his hand up her naked thigh suggestively.

“You’re insatiable,” she murmured, though in all honesty she couldn’t say if she was referring to him or to herself. She felt as if there was no way she
would ever get enough of him. A sharp tickle surprised her, and she realized with a thrill that he was raking his fangs lightly across her shoulder.

And the blissful thought occurred to her that their eternity together wasn’t likely to involve much sleep.

~*~*~

Four thousand miles away in
a condominium rental office in Florida, a vampire by the name of Asher Reid was just wrapping up a conference with the general manager of Vestal Sands when he received an unexpected text message.

Plans for this weekend on hold.

Discreetly slipping the iPhone back into the pocket of his Dockers, he returned his attention to the mousy, middle-aged man whose talent for crunching numbers was only exceeded by his adeptness at bootlicking. “So we’re on the same page then? You’ll have the yearly budget submitted to me by next Friday?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Reid. Not a problem.”
The man adjusted his Coke bottle glasses with fidgety hands. In Ash’s opinion he drank way too many energy drinks and that, combined with his type A personality, was liable to contribute to an early heart attack.