"Love At First Bite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Sherrilyn, Banks L. A., Squires Susan, Thompson Ronda)

Chapter Three

It was almost dawn. Davie waited in the darkness of the tiny whitewashed house. The windows were covered over with black cloth. Rufford and Fedeyah would be here soon.

He should leave. The weapons cache must be moved and the food supply replenished. Then he would bring several young men and women for Rufford and Fedeyah when they woke. They drained a little blood from each, as the donors drowsed and smiled, and stored it in two leather sacks. They needed it most when they arrived, wounded, just after dawn. Davie had never seen them return from a night of fighting. But he had seen the results of the battle. The city was buzzing with fear. Twelve decapitated bodies had been found in an alley today. Twelve! The number of Asharti's followers in the city had been growing. And they were not as discreet as Rufford and Fedeyah. Human bodies drained of blood were being noticed, even in a city where the poor died on the streets every day. Citizens were leaving if they had the means to do so. Davie dreaded a panic that would send the population of the African metropolis streaming into the desert and certain death by exposure or setting sail for Gibraltar in unsafe craft that would leave them at the mercy of the weather and the sea.

With the turn of days, he had been lingering longer as dawn approached, tempted to stay. Curiosity killed the cat. Possibly quite literally in this case. Who knew what feral monsters Rufford and Fedeyah became after a night of killing? They never let him into the room where they slept. By the time he returned in the late afternoon, they were sitting in the chosen house, with the remains of the food he had brought scattered over a table, making plans for the night. This campaign was taking a terrible toll on Rufford. The man's grim determination had been slowly turning into a heartsickness that was palpable. And Fedeyah? Davie had never trusted the Arab and couldn't read his face. Fedeyah followed Rufford's orders, just as Davie did, though the Englishman was something like a thousand years younger than the Arab.

Davie felt he was doing too little, that he was protected from whatever put such a charge on their souls. At the very least he could witness that cost. So he sat, quiet, as the gap around the cloth that covered the window lightened. He laid a sharp cutlass across his knees, lit a fresh candle, and waited.

The two whirlpools of blackness did not surprise him. He had seen vampires translocating many times. But he was shocked at the figures that materialized out of the darkness onto the terra-cotta tiled floor. They were covered in wounds that showed bone and guts and shouted death. He jumped to his feet. Rufford took a single step forward. His soft leather boots gushed with blood. He was naked except for a cloth around his loins and those boots. His burnoose had apparently been ripped from his body. Davie had been in the Peninsular War. He had seen wounds and death aplenty, but nothing quite so vicious as Rufford's. It looked like an animal had raked him with six-inch claws. Shoulder gaped over ligament; chest showed bone; belly revealed intestine; thigh showed layers of muscle.

Rufford toppled to the floor.

Davie rushed forward. "Rufford!" Fedeyah sank to his knees. He, too, was wounded, but not like Rufford.

"Get from us," Fedeyah gasped in his heavily accented English. "The blood!"

Davie stopped, swallowing hard. Fedeyah's wounds were already beginning to close. Rufford didn't seem to be making the same progress. The scoring Davie could see on his back still bled. The dirt floor was dark with blood. "Can he die?" Davie croaked.

"No," Fedeyah panted. "But drinking blood can give him strength and spare him pain."

"Right, right." Davie scanned the room. "Blood." There it was, on the crude wooden table. He lunged for the leather water sacks. When he turned back, Fedeyah lay on the floor in semiconsciousness. His wounds were visibly healing now.

Davie took a breath. Very well. It was up to him. He held up his hands to the light of the candle, front and back, checking for cuts or scrapes. Nothing. He could do this. He knelt beside Rufford. The man's pale English flesh was an anomaly in this land of sun and sand. Davie sucked in a breath and turned Rufford over by the shoulders. Davie's hands were slick with blood. He heaved the nearly naked man into his lap, not looking at his belly or the wounds in his neck and chest. Holding up his head, Davie got the nipple of the water sack between Rufford's lips and squeezed. Thick, half-coagulated blood oozed from the corners of Rufford's mouth before he gasped and choked and swallowed. But then, barely conscious as he was, he sucked greedily.

God in heaven, what am I doing? Davie might burn in hell, but he wouldn't let a man suffer. When Rufford had taken what there was, Davie laid him down and took the other sack to Fedeyah. Davie roused the Arab, who raised himself on one elbow and took the water sack. Fedeyah upended it over his mouth and squeezed. Blood arced into his mouth. His wild black hair was caked with dirt and dried blood. As Davie watched, a scalp wound closed and sealed itself. Fedeyah leaned against a wooden chest, breathing hard.

Davie turned to Rufford. The belly wound was healed enough so that no intestines were visible now. The gleam of bone had gone from his chest. As Davie watched, Rufford opened his eyes. They radiated pain. His gaze darted about the room until it fell on Davie. "You shouldn't be here," Rufford croaked.

Davie leaned down and hoisted him up by one arm, though Rufford protested weakly. He got his shoulder under Rufford's arm and pulled him onto one of the beds, a simple wooden frame with rope netting supporting a straw mattress. Fedeyah crawled onto the other one. "You were in no shape to get to the blood," Davie panted.

"Doesn't matter," Rufford muttered. A cut on his temple sealed itself and faded into a pink line of new skin. "I'd heal sooner or later."

"If it weakens you for tonight, it matters. Looks like last night was a near thing."

"More all the time." Rufford's voice was bleak. "They make their own reinforcements."

Davie glanced to Fedeyah, who seemed to be dropping off to sleep. "You took the brunt of it," he said to Rufford.

"I have an Old One's blood. I am the stronger. It's up to me to protect him."

"Seems they know that. They're going for you."

Rufford nodded. "Word is out. We no longer have to look for them. They find us."

This whole campaign seemed hopeless to Davie. "Can just two of you turn the tide?"

"Beatrix sent word to all the cities and even to Mirso Monastery itself. They will come. Some to Tripoli, Algiers, and here. We must hold out until they get here."

"Then I hope they arrive soon."

"I'm more worried about Tripoli."

Ahhh. He was worried about his wife. Davie couldn't imagine having the woman you loved in a situation like this. He looked away, remembering Emma. He saw her in the breakfast room in the Grosvenor Square house. The room was light with gentle English sun. Her skin was clean and pink. He would never see her again.

"Miss Fairfield?"

Davie stared at him. The man could read minds!

"No," Rufford said, a small smile touching one corner of his mouth. "But your thoughts aren't hard to guess. I'm sorry I made you leave someone you love behind."

"How did you know it was Miss Fairfield?"

"It was written all over you two the day I married Beth. Did you tell her?"

Davie shook his head. "I was on my way to propose when Whitehall called."

"You didn't go through with it?"

Davie shook his head. "Couldn't make her feel… obligated, under the circumstances."

"Probably wise. Spunky, that girl. Stood up for Beth when no one else would."

Davie smiled. No one could help liking Emma. He looked away, lest Rufford see his weakness. "She was my best hope for a… normal life. After… you know. After… her."

"I like Englishmen," she said. They were in the chambers of the former ambassador in the English compound in El Golea. She lay across the huge bed of English walnut carved and inlaid with rococo magnificence, her body draped with strips of almost transparent cloth. A spill of heavy black hair splayed out over the rich cut-velvet spread. Her nails and lips were painted gold. Her nipples were dusted with it. Kohl lined her eyes. She wore a wide necklace of interlaced gold links to which had been attached hundreds of tiny gold disks, each set with a tinier jewel. Her wrist had a bracelet of the same. They tinkled when she moved.

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and he had never been more frightened of anyone. He knelt on the cool tile beside the bed, head bowed. He was naked, as always, knees wide, his most private parts vulnerable to her. She did not allow him even a scrap of cloth to cover his loins. He was full, if not fully erect. Two round marks punctured his flesh over the big arteries that ran down into each thigh from his groin. That was one of her favorite places to feed. She had him shaved and bathed daily and whipped almost as often with wide leather straps. She liked fresh welts but didn't want them bloody. If he was too injured, he would lose the strength to service her. He had become dulled to the horror of compulsion. Revulsion at her habits was a luxury not allowed a slave. The time when he had been Major Vernon Davis Ware, attach#233; to Lord Wembertin, was a distant dream.

"Come, Englishman," she whispered, beckoning with one long golden nail. Her eyes went red. He felt the familiar tightening in his balls, the throbbing in his cock that signaled a full erection. She could keep him hard all night, and she would. He crawled up onto the bed and lay beside her, his cock stiff now. He thumbed her nipple because that was what she wanted. She commanded, though she didn't speak. He obeyed. He kissed the top of her breast. She ran those long-nailed hands through his hair, over the welts on his back and buttocks. Then she lifted his chin with one finger even as she grasped his cock with the other. His throat was bared to her. He saw the glint of her canines in the darkness, felt the sharp pain. She sucked only lightly, a prelude to excite her as she writhed against him and pulled at his cock. The sensation cycled up to excruciating, but he wouldn't come. She hardly ever let him ejaculate. She liked to keep him raw and needing. With a jerk she pulled her teeth from his neck and lay back on the pillows. She wanted him to lick her.

She spread her legs and he knelt between them. She tilted her hips up. He parted her fur with his tongue and tasted her musk as he slid his tongue up and down to her point of pleasure, teasing her toward her release. As her excitement grew, she held his head to her pelvis and ground against him, moaning. Then her hips began to jerk and he sucked on her small nub, harder and harder, drawing out the sensation for her. When at last she could stand no more, she cried out and fell back. Her eyes faded from red to jet-black.

"I like you, Englishman," she said. She could speak many languages and did, seeming to choose them at random. He understood her when she spoke French or Arabic, Latin or Greek, but lost her when she started speaking the guttural one that sounded a little like German or Russian but wasn't. "But I find you have been keeping secrets from me."

Fear cycled up through Davie. What secrets could an attach#233; to an incompetent ambassador in a godforsaken place like El Golea have that she could want? He crawled to her side again. Should he beg forgiveness? Should he speak at all?

She arched. He had been well trained. He bent to suckle her nipple. The gold dust tasted bitter and metallic in his mouth. "I am told, slave, that an Englishman crawled in off the desert here some months ago. He had the marks on his body." She fingered the twin wounds at the inside of Davie's elbow. "Do you remember this man, slave?"

"Yes, Goddess," he said, around her nipple, which had tightened. She would be ready for his cock soon. She meant Rufford. He knew now how Rufford got those wounds. He understood the pain that drenched the man's eyes, why he said he had turned into his own worst nightmare.

"Where is he now, slave?" she whispered. Poor sod. Hadn't Rufford suffered enough?

"He's gone." There. He could give her that. That couldn't hurt Rufford.

Compulsion slammed into him. His cock grew painfully hard. "I know that!" she barked. "Where?"

Davie let out a moan. His balls were swollen almost to bursting. A molten core of fire was trying to get out through his cock and couldn't. "England." She couldn't reach Rufford there. How he longed to be in England with Rujford! He bent to kiss her. That was what she wanted. Her lips were soft, but he knew they covered fangs that would bite and suck yet tonight. She thrust her tongue into his mouth and lifted her hips again. He tore himself away and lay between her thighs, his cock aching as it trembled at her entry.

"Where in England?" she hissed.

He held up her hips and thrust inside her, hard, ramming his cock home. It was excruciating for him. She wanted it harder yet. She wasn't pleased. He slid in and out. Where? She wanted to know where. He couldn't tell her. He'd pretend he didn't know, even to himself, and then he wouldn't tell her. His cock screamed for release.

"Where?" Her eyes were full red now.

Stanbridge. Rufford said he was going home to Stanbridge. He couldn't help the thought. No! He should never have remembered it. He pumped inside her. She bucked in counterpoint. He bit his lip until it bled, trying not to say the word. He leaned down into her. She licked the blood from his lip. That brought out her canines. They pierced his carotid on the other side. She clung to him and sucked as he rammed his cock home. He felt her womb contract around him with her orgasm. His own cock was beyond pleasure and well into pain.

At last she lay back on the bed, panting, and allowed him to withdraw. His cock was raw, still throbbing with sensation.

"I was distracted," she said conversationally. "Now, where were we?"

Her eyes went from burgundy into carmine.

He panted against the word that thundered in his brain, pressing to be uttered. He twisted away, but she grabbed him by the nape of the neck and with incredible strength brought him round to face her. "I know you know," she whispered, almost inside his brain.

"Stanbridge!" he cried, and collapsed beside her. Betrayer! His eyes filled.

"That's better," Asharti soothed, stroking his head. "I'm surprised you had so much resistance left in you. You'll leave tomorrow for England, with a letter."

He raised his head. Leave? He shut down the hope that might just show in his eyes. Leave her? His betrayal had earned him freedom. Guilt washed over him.

"But first, tonight, you must be punished for your resistance."

Davie blinked as the tiny house and the smell of blood flickered back into his consciousness. He pulled his mind away from El Golea before he could relive that punishment. But Asharti could never be banished for long. He was doomed to relive that time again and again, maybe for the rest of his life.

Rufford gripped Davie's arm. "She's dead. I saw her die."

Davie closed his eyes once. "Is she? She seems fairly alive to me."

Rufford took a breath and sat up. His body was covered with scars that were disappearing fast. Davie saw the older scars, though, that he had first seen when Rufford dragged himself in off the desert in El Golea, twin circles at throat and groin and the insides of his elbows, jagged tears in his pectorals and his thighs, scars of a whip across his shoulders. They were made before he gained his power of healing. They said he knew what serving Asharti meant. "There is life and… love after Asharti. Take it from me, Ware." His eyes were blue pools of pain and determination.

Davie chuffed a bitter laugh. "Are you sure? We're barely hanging on against her leavings, and I'm not sure you can last much longer."

"I'll hold out. I have to."

I'll go to Northumberland, Emma thought. Surely things will be better at Birchwood.

She tossed her gloves on the dressing table. She was still agitated from leaving Bedford House in a huff. Flora, her maid, unpinned her bodice and untied her skirts. She let the skirt pool at her ankles. Flora helped her shrug off the bodice and unlaced her corset, saying nothing. "You may go, Flora." Emma drew the chemise over her head and slipped on the nightdress Flora had left.

Things wouldn't be any better in the country.

Love didn't come along every day. But against all odds, Emma had found love. She loved Davie. Probably had loved him for years. That was why she never mistook girlish crushes on a man in a uniform or with a handsome face for real love, and why she could refuse dukes and poets in the face of betting at White's. And since she'd found love, she wasn't content to be a spinster. She wanted more of the feeling she got when Davie took her shoulders or brushed his lips across her hands. Much more. She wanted Davie in her bed making love to her, and at her side at the breakfast table planning their day. She wanted to share his life, and give pleasure and comfort to him in all the ways a woman could. She wanted to grow old with him and wise.

She crawled into the great bed in the room reserved for the lady of Fairfield House. A fire crackled in the grate, its warmth proof against the capricious March winds.

The worst of it was that Chlorinda and Miss Campton thought her a rebel because she was willing to be a spinster if she couldn't have love. No, the worst was that she thought herself a rebel. What had she done but refuse a few offers of marriage that were distasteful to her and occasionally speak too bluntly to be conventional? What kind of rebellion was that? It hadn't cost her anything. And what if she set up housekeeping on her own so Richard could retire to Northumberland with Damien? Would that be rebellious? Hardly.

No, rebellion would be chucking it all to go after the man she loved.

She sat up. The room seemed to expand and contract around her as everything changed. Her mind darted in a thousand different directions.

Why not? What did she care for danger, or hardship?

But what if he didn't love her? She thought back to that day in the breakfast room and their painful conversation. He loved her. She was sure of it. Duty was in the way. What of that? She could help him execute his duty. That was what people who loved each other did.

The whole problem with being a woman was that you had to wait for a man to give you what you wanted. You couldn't make a push for it yourself.

But why? Davie didn't think he could ask her to sacrifice her comfortable ways. But that was exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to make her rebellion real.

There would be a cost. She'd be leaving behind everything she had known, including Richard. She'd never be received in polite society, ever. There was danger, according to Davie. Davie might be angry. Probably would be angry. She might die with him.

And what of the cost if she didn't even try? A dry descent into a half-life of regret. That was all she had to look forward to if she retreated from this moment without taking any action.

Plans formed and re-formed in her mind. Could she do it? How did a gently bred young woman just up and leave for Casablanca? Money, of course. A companion, no, two. Where to get them? She mustn't tell Richard until after she had gone. He wouldn't understand. But Damien would help her. He always had a soft spot for her, and he had an interest in getting her off Richard's hands. Besides, Damien was a believer in true love. He'd brave Richard's wrath. Passage on a packet. Could she even find Davie in Casablanca? Surely the embassy would know where he was. Unless the worst had already happened. But she wouldn't think about that. She'd write to Damien first thing in the morning.