Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 (12 page)

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.” He looked around, unable to keep the anxiety from his features. “Every plank in this house is warded. I checked.”

She clutched at his wrists. “The cellar. It has earthen walls.”

His heart leapt into his throat. “Where?”

“Beyond the laboratory. There’s a pantry area with shelves and—” Grace swallowed. “Could they have tunneled into the cellar?”

The danger sharpened his mind. “Bypassing the wards on the house. Shit, I didn’t even think of it.”

“Archer.” Her thumbs stroked over his skin, but her eyes were worried. “What do we need to do? What do you need
me
to do?”

That much was easy. “Stay here. No matter what you hear or what happens. You should be safe in the house.”

Her eyes widened, and she wet her lips. “I could get my gun and come with you—”

“
No.
” He was holding her too hard, but he couldn’t relax his hands. “You lock the door behind me and stay here, Grace. Swear it.”

“All right.” When he didn’t release her, she smoothed her fingers down his arms, almost petting him. “I promise, Archer. I won’t open the door for anything. But you have to promise you’ll come back to me.”

“I do. I
will
.” He pulled away, the tension in his midsection deepening to pain. “Always.”

He made his way to the cellar door before he lost all ability to think clearly. The interlopers must have been deep in the laboratory, because he bypassed the stairs and dropped into the dark, deserted main room. Listening, he realized they were ransacking one of the side rooms, some movements shuffling and awkward, some so quietly precise they had to belong to vampires instead of ghouls.

Feet scraped across dirt to his left, and a body lunged at him. Archer reacted out of instinct, slamming the heel of his hand up into the intruder’s face. His muscles began to contract, the transformation taking hold. In a few moments, he would be more beast than man, no mean feat during the new moon.

But if he didn’t stop them, kill them all…

Grace.

Archer howled his protest as ghouls converged on him from all sides. Hands clawed at his face, teeth scraped over his arms. In the darkness a vampire laughed. “Don’t kill him. I’ve heard a blood from a hound’s vein will break any protection ward.”

Oh,
hell
no.

The last shaky threads of control inside him snapped, flooding him with rage. The beast took over, and Archer plunged into a darkness broken only by the snap of bone and screams—first of anger and pain, then pleas for mercy.

There was none.

Grace thought nothing could be more terrifying than the sounds of violence drifting up from the cellar. Archer’s roars had deepened into snarling growls punctuated by sick, tearing noises. Screams of agony twisted into animal noises of fear as glass and wood shattered.

It went on and on until she thought she’d go mad from worry, and then she discovered something worse than the shrieks of the dying.

Silence. Unbroken, horrifying silence.

She’d donned her chemise and boots—for all the good either would do her in attempting to flee. Even the gun clutched in one hand offered little comfort. Perhaps she needed the dignity of not dying naked and unarmed, but if their attackers had taken down a bloodhound in his protective fury, she had little hope of defending herself with a mere pistol.

Surely they’d have tried to get through the door already if they’d triumphed. And if Archer had destroyed them, he would have returned to her. She crept to the door and pressed her ear against it, straining for some hint of sound. Footsteps. Movement.
Anything.

Silence wrapped around her, so thick that the whisper of steam from the boiler grew as loud as the thudding of her heart.

She’d promised. She’d given him an oath. But if he was dying in the basement, she’d never forgive herself. And if he was already dead…

Her fingers closed around the key that unlocked the door as well as the wards. If Archer was dead, he wouldn’t be able to take her to task for this bit of stupidity.

Lifting the gun in her other hand, she turned the key and eased the door open a few inches. “Archer?”

A growl drifted up out of the cellar.

Her heart leapt toward her throat—hope instead of fear—and she pushed the door wide before groping for the knob that controlled the electric lights. They flared to life, illuminating a scene so horrifying her brain recoiled at first, refused to process it.

Archer knelt in the middle of the floor. At a second glance she wasn’t sure how she’d recognized him in the hunched-over beast shuddering through a transformation. Blood-slicked fur gave way to equally bloodied skin as she stared numbly. Claws receded into human hands and a wolf-like face melted into the familiar features her gaze had traced so often.

He was a beast caught mid-change, but he wasn’t the source of her horror. She tried to glance away, to give him privacy for what must be a painful and difficult process, but the cellar held no safe place to rest her gaze.

Blood slicked the floor. Slicked the walls. Tables were overturned, glass beakers shattered and shelves upended. Bodies—no, pieces of bodies—lay scattered across the floor, limbs severed grotesquely from torsos where giant claw marks sliced through clothing, skin and flesh with equal prejudice.

It was a slaughter. A massacre beyond anything she could have imagined, and the words he’d spoken in the saloon took on a brutal truth.

“I’d rip apart anyone or anything that tried to come near you.”

Archer rose, the light glinting off his blood-wet skin. “Grace.”

She swallowed and jerked her gaze back to him. Every cowardly instinct screamed for her to run. From the blood and death below, and from the responsibility of being the one who’d caused it.

More words came back to her. His words, laced with a vulnerability he hadn’t been able to hide.
“I suppose I just…don’t want you to be scared of me.”

If she ran, she’d realize his worst fears. Instead she forced herself to focus on him, to look past the blood and see the man. He bore injuries, dozens of cuts and scrapes, and the ache in her chest intensified with every wound she found. Worry carried her down the first two steps before she realized she’d moved. “You’re hurt. You’re bleeding.”

He looked down, almost as if dazed. “No. I killed them.”

“I know, Archer.” She still clutched her weapon in one hand, but she held out the other. “Come upstairs with me? I’d feel safer if we were both behind the wards again.”

He started with another growl and herded her up the stairs. “You shouldn’t be down here.”

She held her breath until they were both on the other side of the closed and locked door, then let it out in a sigh that twisted into a near-hysterical noise. She set the gun on a table before it could slip from her nerveless fingers and covered her mouth with her hand. No tears. She couldn’t give in to the relieved sob trying to work its way out of her. Not until she’d gotten him cleaned up and
knew
he’d be all right. Not just his body, but his mind and heart.

“Bath,” she choked out, hurrying past him to the washroom dominated by its huge copper tub. “If you get cleaned up, I can see how badly you’re hurt.”

“I’m not.” He gripped her upper arms. “The door. You opened it.”

She stared up at him, her heart racing. “I had to. It was so quiet, I thought—I thought you were—” She bit her lower lip until she tasted blood, and even that couldn’t stop tears from burning her eyes. Words bubbled up, words of apology, of defiant explanation, but the ones that escaped were weak and wounded, just like her heart. “Don’t leave me again.”

He dragged her closer. “If you’d been hurt…” The words trailed into a snarl, and he buried his face in her hair.

Silent tears spilled down her cheeks as she closed her eyes and clung to him. Blood stung her nose, sharp and metallic, and it stuck to her chemise and slicked over her skin. In any other moment she would have cared, but now there was only him. Alive and healing beneath her hands, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders. “Do you still need me? With the—the new moon?”

“Shh.” Archer stroked her back. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She shivered and pressed closer. “I didn’t lie. I meant it when I told you I’d stay in the house. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able to.”

He didn’t answer. He’d fallen silent again as his hands tracked over her body, as if checking for injuries, though she hadn’t been part of the fight. His gaze held the same intensity that had haunted it for the past twenty-four hours, but the gentle exploration of his fingers didn’t shift to touches meant to arouse.

The new moon might still hold sway over Archer, but he needed something other than her pleasure now. Assurances of her safety, perhaps, or maybe only to soothe her. Asking for help had gotten him moving before, so she took a slow step toward the washroom. “Will you help me clean up?”

Archer growled his assent, swept her into his arms and carried her to the tub. “Let me do it.”

“The tub is big enough for the both of us.” She touched his jaw and winced at a bruise that had already begun to rise. “Take a bath with me.”

His hands moved over the squeaky taps, then tested the water as it flowed out. She gave up trying to engage him in conversation and settled for lifting her arms above her head so he could strip away her ruined chemise.

He was still aroused, so hard it must be uncomfortable, but Archer seemed as oblivious to his erection as he was her nudity. His touch remained more soothing than seductive as he lifted her, stepped into the water and settled with her against his chest.

She didn’t dare ask questions. Not about the vampires he’d slain, and not about what else might come through the tunnel in nights to come. She imagined anything foolish enough to make the attempt would take one look at the carnage beneath them and run screaming for safety.

Her safe place was here. Closing her eyes, she settled her head on his shoulder. “What do you need, Archer? Tell me what you need. Please?”

“Warm,” he murmured, his breath lifting the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. “Safe.”

Goose bumps dotted her arms, and she took the hint and stopped trying to force him to speak. Whatever need gripped him now had left him in a place beyond words, and she gave herself over to silence and gentle touches. He rinsed her hair, poured water over the blood that had begun to dry on her arms and hands and whispered in her ear.

There were no words, no way to make sense of the low rhythm of his voice. But her quiet submission to his stroking and petting soothed him so that she was able to retrieve a washcloth from the side of the tub and set about the careful task of cleaning them both.

It should have been a solemn task, but his hard cock rubbed against her with every movement, and she couldn’t remain as oblivious to it as he seemed to be. The horror of the slaughter below faded as the world narrowed to his wet skin and his careful touches, each one fuel for the slow-building fire inside her.

So slow. It took forever before she ran the last of the fresh water into the tub to rinse soap from his broad chest. His skin was clean and covered in newly healed scars, and she pressed kisses to each one she could reach, her hand drifting beneath the water to hover just short of his neglected erection. “You need me. Take me.”

He caught her wrist and held her gaze, searching.

Grace froze. Maybe the need was only physical, something he’d rather ignore. “You don’t have to,” she said quickly. “I only meant nothing has changed. I’m yours for as long as you need me.”

“I want—” His voice rasped out, and he licked his lips and tried again. “I want to hold you.”

Her heart pounded. “Of course. Of course, Archer. Come to bed with me and hold me.”

He dried her carefully, with complete and utter focus, and led her into the bedroom. Before crawling onto the mattress, he folded Grace in his arms. When they’d stretched out, he cocooned the blankets around them with a long sigh.

He sounded almost at peace. Closing her eyes, Grace relaxed into his embrace with a sigh of her own. “Sleep, love.”

“No.” His teeth scraped the back of her neck.

She shivered and tilted her head forward, encouraging his touch with a soft noise. “No?”

His cock brushed against her ass and nestled between her thighs. “No.”

Grace eased one leg forward and reached back to grip his hip. “You want me?” She hadn’t meant for it to come out as a question.

In answer, he thrust against her, thrust inside, and that banked fire surged up to consume her.

It was different. Slower. She had time to savor the exquisite way he filled her, to focus on each touch as he dropped kisses to her shoulders, as he stroked her hips and breasts, as he drove her to whimper and then moan.

But not to release. He held her close and slipped his hand lower to stroke her clit. When she whispered his name and clutched his hip, orgasm so close she could taste it, he lightened the touch until it felt more like her imagination than his fingers.

She whimpered and strained toward his hand, lost in that delicious place on the edge of climax. “Archer.”