Abandoned to the Night (The Brotherhood Series, Book 3) (11 page)

Elliot nodded to Alexander and then crept into the room, grabbed the sword from the floor and with two hands thrust it high above his head. “Get your filthy bloodthirsty fangs off him.”

Leo’s eyes flew open, growing wide with shock. “Elliot?” His gaze drifted to the doorway. “Alexander?”

The devil woman gave an ear-piercing scream, grabbed the sheet and held it to her bare breasts as she scrambled to Leo’s side. Elliot noticed Leo’s fangs protruding, the sharp tips coated crimson.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Leo asked without the slightest hint of gratitude for the hundreds of miles they had travelled, for the weeks spent cramped inside a bloody carriage with barely enough air to breathe.

“What do you think we’re doing here? We’ve come to rescue you from the evil clutches of the golden-haired devil.”

Chapter 10

“Damn it. Quick, untie me, Ivana.” Leo noted Elliot’s look of utter confusion. “It is not what it seems,” he said as guilt flared.

“Ivana?” Elliot’s contempt for the woman who had turned him was evident in his expression and his tone. “You’re calling her by her given name?”

“Put the sword down,” Leo said as Ivana freed his right hand. He touched the pads of his fingers to his neck, the damp, sticky residue clinging to the tips. Bloody hell. It must look even worse than he suspected.

Alexander stepped forward. “What is this?” he asked through gritted teeth as he waved his hand at the rumpled sheets. His wide eyes surveyed Leo’s naked form, falling to the hard evidence of his arousal. “Please tell me it is not what it looks like.”

Hell, Leo didn’t even know where to start. It had taken hours to hear Ivana’s lengthy explanation, and now he had to try and make his brothers understand the reason for his betrayal in a matter of minutes.

It didn’t help that Elliot stood frozen to the spot, the look of disgust on his face like a blunt blade twisting in Leo’s gut.

Leo glanced back and forth between the men he called his brothers. “Just give me a chance to explain.”

“We have travelled for three weeks to find you,” Elliot sneered as Ivana freed his other hand before rearranging the sheets to protect his modesty. “I thought you were being tortured. I stood outside the blasted door prepared to give my life to save you. And all the time—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “All the time you’re cavorting with the devil woman who stripped us of our humanity.”

Anger flared in Leo’s chest. “Don’t call her that.”

Elliot ignored him. “Move out of the way, Leo, so I can put an end to this once and for all.”

Despite Alexander’s annoyance, he turned to Elliot. “Let us hear what he has to say before you do something you may later regret.”

Elliot snorted. “Half an hour ago you wanted to kill him for all the trouble he has caused. Now you plead for clemency? If there is one thing I can’t abide, it is a damn hypocrite.” He nodded towards Leo. “Look at him. Look at his blood-stained fangs. Look at the mark burnt into his chest. This creature has ruined our lives. She has poisoned our brother’s mind, and I’ll not rest until she pays for what she’s done.”

Ivana cleared her throat. “From what Leo has told me, it seems your life has never been better. There are not many men who can claim to have found their one true mate.” She sounded confident even though she was shaking at his side. “The gentleman I met in the mausoleum was blind to the beauty of love.”

Elliot lunged forward, and they all gasped. “Do not dare speak to me of such things. What would you know of it? Because of you, I must watch helplessly as the woman I love slowly fades away from me with each passing year. I will never forgive you for that.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Move aside, Leo.”

“If you will only listen to what she has to say,” Leo pleaded, “as I have done. I have witnessed things that have made me alter my views about what happened here.”

Elliot raised the sword an inch higher. “Nothing anyone could say or do would make me change my opinion. Nothing could eradicate the four years of agony. What’s worse is she has changed you again. The man I know would never betray the brotherhood. The man I know would not degrade himself by bedding the woman we all despise.”

“I
am
a changed man,” Leo acknowledged. “I am not the same man I was before I came back here. But you need to know why, Elliot.”

“I’ll give you one more chance to move.”

Leo swallowed. He could feel the roaring flames of anger burning in Elliot’s chest. But he sensed his friend’s pain, too. Casting doubt over everything they had believed to be true was bound to cause emotions to flare. It was unsettling, unnerving and Elliot was scared.

“I cannot move, Elliot,” he said with a heavy heart. “You will have to kill us both.” He turned to Ivana, ignored the fact two men loomed over the bed. “I believe in you,” he said stroking her cheek. A smile touched his lips when he noticed the trickle of dried blood on her neck. She had tasted divine. Their joining had been everything she’d promised it would be, and more. “I understand your motives. If I must die, I will die here with you.”

She covered his hand and smiled. “It is how it was always meant to be. We should never have been apart. I should have been stronger. I should have fought for us.”

“It doesn’t matter now. We have found each other again.” He turned to Elliot. “I appreciate the effort it took for you both to come and find me. I would never have wanted to tear you away from the women you love. But if this is the end, then so be it.”

It was as though the whole room stood suspended in a moment of frozen stasis: no one moved, no one spoke, no one dared to breathe. The air felt stale and stagnant.

After what seemed like an hour, Elliot threw the sword to the floor, the clattering sound echoing through the chamber. “You have made your choice,” he said before turning on his heels and storming out through the doorway.

Alexander stared at them, his expression solemn, grave. “Is this truly what you want?”

Leo didn’t want to side against his brothers, but he hoped they would understand given time. “It is.”

“You choose to be with her?” he asked somewhat incredulously.

“I do.”

“It will be hard for Elliot to accept it.” Alexander swallowed audibly and focused his attention on Ivana. “Do not mistake my calm countenance for approval. I want to kill you with my bare hands for what you’ve done to me. But I recognise the truth in your words. The man I used to be was not capable of love. Sometimes we must experience our darkest nightmares for us to appreciate the beauty of our dreams.”

“You too have found love then,” Ivana said with a look of wonder. “It is a precious gift to be treasured. In time, you might come to understand why I had no choice but to hurt you.”

“Elliot’s experience in the mausoleum still haunts him, though he suppresses the feelings. There was something cold and cruel about the way you behaved with him as opposed to us, which is why he will never forgive you.”

Leo sat up. The need to defend her was strong. “You don’t know all she has done for him, for—”

Ivana put her finger to his lips. “Hush. Now is not the time for confessions or revelations.”

She could have let him blurt the truth as a way of defending her actions. She could have made Elliot feel foolish, cold-hearted. Calvino had taught him that one sees the true nature of a person when they are under attack. There were cowards. There were men quick to boast as a way of disguising their fear. And then there were those whose integrity commanded respect. Ivana cared for the children more than she cared for herself and Leo’s heart swelled all the more for her.

“I had my reasons,” she said addressing Alexander. “But I was not myself that night. The tainted blood I’d drunk had affected my mind. Bitterness and resentment caused me to attack Elliot in such a brutal manner. But I cannot go back and change what happened.”

Alexander looked to the floor. “I should go and find him. He has always been the strongest, most reliable one of us. He has never failed in his duty to the brotherhood, and I owe him a debt of gratitude for all he has done for me. You must give him time, Leo.”

Alexander inclined his head and left the room.

Ivana threw her arms around him. She was shaking with suppressed emotion. “I thought he was going to kill me. My life flashed before my eyes and all I saw was pain and misery.”

Leo took hold of her chin and tilted her face so he could look into her eyes. “What just happened between us was heavenly, Ivana. What you do for the children is the work of an angel. I am not saying what you did to us was right. But it’s done with. And I can see you are working to readdress the balance.”

“I fear the worst is yet to come.”

He attributed her cryptic words to the guilt she felt, to the shock of being threatened with death for the second time in so many days. He supposed she never thought to see them all again, especially not together.

“I should go and speak to Elliot. Try to make him understand. He has been a huge part of my life for the last three years, and I would not be here without his support.”

“I too must go,” she said. “It’s too late to read to the children, but I will call and see Herr Bruhn. I hate to think of him sitting alone all night, and I would like to check on Frau Bruhn.”

Ivana kissed him once softly on the mouth.

“Will you go with Sylvester?” he asked fearing what Elliot would do in his irrational state if he caught sight of her going out alone.

“Of course,” she said offering him a smile though it did not light up her face as it usually did. “You do not think I would walk through the forest while there are men intent on murder.”

“Alexander will not hurt you.” In truth, Leo was shocked at the earl’s reaction. Alexander had no patience; his short temper made him volatile and often unpredictable. “He is angry, but then I have never seen him any other way unless he is with Evelyn.”

“Evelyn? Is she the love he refers to?”

“Evelyn is his wife. I have known her for a short time, but I think of her as a sister.”

Ivana sighed. “It eases my conscience to know that they are loyal, loving gentlemen. That they love with their hearts, not their anatomy. To marry takes a great sacrifice and commitment, and it pleases me to know some good has come of it all.”

Perhaps one day soon he would be ready to marry. Would he marry Ivana? He could not envisage sharing his heart or his bed with any other woman. Indeed, he could imagine them living together in the castle. He would buy another house, somewhere in France, somewhere where all the brothers and their wives could spend the winter months.

Leo shook his head. Even in his wild imagination, he had never expected to dream of such things. Indeed, he rarely ever suffered from bouts of sentimentality.

“Marriage does not seem so daunting to me anymore,” he said in a bid to gauge her reaction. “Since witnessing the pleasure gleaned from such a union, I find it has some appeal.”

Ivana stared at him, swallowed deeply but offered no form of encouragement, no hint that she would welcome a declaration. “Marriage is not for everyone. Some things are better left as they are.”

Her response sounded cold, detached. But then she was a woman ruled by her heart, and he had not mentioned love. Was it love he felt or merely an overwhelming need to sate the lust ravaging his mind and body? Did it have something to do with a desperate need to remember what they’d meant to each other before? Only time would tell. In the past, he had often found it difficult to distinguish between the swelling in his chest and that of his cock.

“I must go. Herr Bruhn will be worried.” Ivana climbed out of bed and scoured the floor, rummaged through the pile of discarded garments.

The branding mark on her hip drew his attention. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

“The mark on your hip,” he said as she threw her chemise over her head and wiggled into it. “Is it the same as mine?”

Her face grew solemn, her complexion pale, ashen. “Yes. It is the same.”

He stared at the thorny cross in a circle of twine. “How did you come by it?” It suddenly occurred to him that someone must have bitten Ivana, too. She must have been human once; an innocent young woman lured by a devil.

“The same way you did.” She was being deliberately vague. “It is a symbol of the suffering we must endure.”

“Who turned you?” he asked bluntly.

She glanced at the floor. “It is a long story. Too long to begin when we have so many other things we must do this night.”

Curiosity burned away. “I have often wondered about its purpose.” When she returned from her visit to Herr Bruhn they would sit by the fire, and she would tell him everything.

Disdain flashed in her eyes. “It is to remind me I am cursed, to remind me my fangs are an instrument of death. Like the crown of thorns, they tear into flesh, inflict nothing but pain and misery. It is a sign of degradation and mockery. It heralds the fall of man.”

“And so you branded me for the same reason? To remind me of all that I am.”

She did not answer at first. “I branded Elliot and Alexander for the same reason.”

Why could she not speak plainly? Why was every question met with a cryptic response?