Sex, Lies, and Vampires(21)

"By the fire, I hold your strength," I yelled, needle-pointed bits of the light starting to pierce my brain, the pain building until it held me so tight I couldn't draw a breath.

"By the earth, I hold your courage!"

The light filled me, shards of it digging deep into my body as it ate through my brain. I fought the light, fought the need to let it go in order to save myself, fought the knowledge that I was just a hairbreadth away from another stroke. Above the screaming in my head, Adrian's voice protested, but I couldn't release my concentration to listen to him. I had to speak the last words.

I spread my arms wide, fighting the light within me with every last ounce of strength I had. "By these powers, I banish thee!"

The light exploded within me, pain so sharp it tasted of the blood that sang in my veins as I slipped away, my heart and soul and mind consumed by the light until there was nothing left of me but ash.





Chapter Nine





It was a woman's voice that spoke first. "I say we dump her in the river."

"We cannot do that, Beloved," a man's voice answered, humor lacing his voice.

"No? Then we'll find a lake and dump her. A deep lake." The woman's voice was American and vaguely familiar. That thought startled me, not because I found her voice familiar, but because I found anything familiar. It meant I wasn't dead, or a mental vegetable.

"Allie, you're not being very charitable. It's not Nell's fault she did what she did, although I truly did not know she had that much power. She swore to me that she was not a Charmer, and yet she managed a banishing ward by merely speaking words. I was not aware that was possible."

I cracked an eye open at the words. Melissande was speaking, shaking her head sadly as stood looking out a window.

"Oh, she knew what she was doing! Did you see what she did to Christian's hands? It took him an hour to heal those burns! A whole hour!"

I rolled my opened eye to the side and watched the crazy woman—evidently named Allie—who sat on Christian's lap. A faint smile touched my lips. Although I've always prided myself on being a fairly peaceful, nonaggressive person, I was not averse to causing a little grief to a vampire who was trying to harm the man of my dreams.

Adrian! Oh, my God, how could I have forgotten him! What happened after I cast the banish charm? Had he escaped? Where was he? Immediately I tried to stretch out with my mind to reach him, but a sudden blinding pain pierced my brain, causing me to waver on the edge of unconsciousness.

"Christian, have you ever heard of a Charmer who could speak a ward?" Melissande turned to address the dark-haired vamp.

The pain ebbed slowly, enough so I could catch my breath. With tentative, careful movements I tried moving my left arm and leg a tiny fraction, praying with a wordless prayer that they'd respond to my commands. I couldn't stand finding myself a prisoner of my body again. Not now, not when my life had taken on new meaning.

Christian looked thoughtful. "Two or three centuries ago I met a Charmer who could verbalize a ward. But she was a very powerful Charmer, and I do not get the same sense of power from this one." A languid hand waved my way, stopping in midair as he noticed the movement of my left foot. "Ah. I believe she has returned to us."

I clenched the fingers of my left hand into a fist, relieved almost to the point of tears that my body did what I asked of it. I had stopped in time. I hadn't been consumed by the white light of my mind failing me—I had charmed and still lived whole and complete. Or as whole and complete as I was when I started this little adventure.

Adrian. What had happened to him? Oh, God—what if I had killed him as I had killed Beth? "Adrian," I said, my voice coming out a panic-filled croak. "Where is Adrian?"

"She's awake? Good. Let me go look up where the nearest lake is."

I turned away from the angry Allie as she slid off Christian's lap, looking at Melissande. She seemed to be the most sympathetic person in the room. "Where is he? Where is Adrian?" I asked.

Melissande's hands fluttered helplessly as she cast a glance at the vampire who approached the bed where I lay covered with an eiderdown. It was Christian who answered. "The Betrayer is in confinement, Charmer."

Confinement. That could be good or bad. If I hadn't killed him with my attempt to charm, his jailers could have. "Did you hurt him?" I asked, my fingers curling as I pictured Adrian lying somewhere hurt or dead.

"He is"—Christian paused, and I knew that whatever he was about to say would be a lie—"unharmed. What we would like to know is, what is the exact nature of your connection to him?"

Unharmed. I didn't believe that for a moment, but at least I was reassured that he wasn't dead. They would have been celebrating had that been the case.

"Nell, what did the Betrayer do to you? How did he turn you?" Melissande sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing a hand over my forehead in a motherly gesture that confused me. She was a vampire… or at least, a female of the species. Christian was a vamp, a powerful one if the aura of menace that cloaked him was anything to go by. Couldn't they tell that I was Adrian's Beloved? Maybe other vamps didn't know.

"Turn me?" Until I knew where he was, and how I could help him, I would play stupid—an act I suspected wouldn't be too hard to pull off.

"He fed off you, didn't he?" Melissande asked, her face filled with sympathy. "Sebastian said you carried the Betrayer's scent. He thought you had somehow joined forces with the Betrayer, but I told him that could not be so. No woman, mortal or Moravian, could bear to be bound to him."

My gaze slid from her to where Christian loomed over the foot of the bed, an angry Allie next to him. She wasn't wearing dark glasses now, but I could see why she had worn them in public—her eyes were the strangest I had ever seen, one a pale, washed-out gray, the other a mottled brown.

"You seem concerned about the Betrayer," Christian said, his dark eyes unreadable. "Did he feed on you?"

I looked them all over as I thought of how to answer the question. If I told them I was Adrian's Beloved, that he wasn't the monster they had all painted him, would they believe me and release him? Or would they confine me, too, their hatred of him spilling over onto me?

Stupidity has its uses, I decided. Despite my reticence to lie to Melissande—whom I truly liked, even though she was all wrong about Adrian—it was clear to me that here was a situation where less than the whole truth would be wise.

"Yes, he fed off me. After some blond bloodsucker named Sebastian gutted him. I'm concerned about where he is because"—my mind, newly awakened from what I guessed had been a protective slumber, reasoned with awkward slowness—"because I seem to be under some compulsion to help him."

There. Let them interpret that as they would.

"You poor dear," Melissande cooed, gently touching my cheek. "I knew he was capable of the most horrific of crimes, but to turn an innocent, to enthrall a mortal, is the worst sort of sin to my people."

"Really?" I asked, not bothering to correct the impression I had hoped she would leap to. "I thought making human slaves was what vamps did best?"

"Only in fiction," Melissande said with a smile, glancing at her cousin. "Moravians do their best to blend into mortal society, not draw attention to themselves."

"There are many questions we must ask you," Christian said smoothly, but I wasn't fooled by the softness of his voice. He was trouble with a capital T.

I closed my eyes as if I was too weary to keep them open, allowing my voice to crack."I will do my best to answer them."

"Later," Melissande said, patting my arm. "She needs rest now. She suffered tremendously in her attempt to banish the Betrayer. She must rest and regain her strength."

Banish the Betrayer? Hmm. What I wanted to know was what happened to Adrian. My brain refused to review in detail the events at the train station, leaving me with no idea if the power I summoned had been enough to expel Sebastian from the train station, and now did not seem a good time to inquire. I opened my eyes halfway, sounding as pathetic as I could when I asked, "Adrian? He is safely confined?"

"For the present," Christian said, his eyes narrowing.

"Have no fears," Melissande soothed. "He is in a secure place and cannot escape."

"I still say we should find a lake," Allie mumbled, giving me a dirty look as Christian escorted her out the door. His dark head tipped toward hers as he murmured in her ear, the door whispering softly as it closed behind them.

Melissande fussed with the eiderdown for a moment, asking me if there was anything I wanted, pointing out the bathroom behind an adjacent door.

"You'll feel better after you… oh, there you are. As you can see, she's recovered from her traumatic experience."

I almost came off the bed with surprise when the last man I expected to see walked through the door. "Adrian!" I shoved the cover back and swung my legs off the bed, about to throw myself protectively across him lest Melissande try to attack him.

"No, Nell, it's not the Betrayer! There is no need to run. This is Saer, my brother." Melissande hurried forward to stop me. "You remember I told you about him? Saer is organizing the rescue of Damian. He was in England, tracking Asmodeus when he received word that I had found you."