Beloved Forever (27 page)

Nicholas nodded. “One day, in Heaven—”

The man scoffed. “You have no need to wait for eternal reward. I can grant you eternal life.”

He scowled. “Do not toy with me, infidel.”

The man’s hand tightened on his cheek, causing his nails to dig in painfully. “Do not call me any name but master, young one. I offer you what men would kill for. Do not rebuff me.”

“How?” Nicholas managed to ask as a fiery pain burned through his belly and up to his throat.

“You do not need to know how. You only need to accept one condition.”

He bent forward as the burning turned to ice. His head spun, and he knew death sat beside him, ready to whisk him away. “Wh-wha-what?”

“You are mine for as long as I want you.”

He screamed as the pain returned, and it drained the last of his strength. He fell back against his dead horse, eyeing the man uncertainly, noticing his ugly scar for the first time. “Emma…I need her.”

“You will have her…eventually. If you agree to my terms, you shall live forever.”

“Emma,” he said again, his voice a mere whisper.

“Yes,” the man said impatiently. “She will be yours. I swear.”

Anything was worth it—even his soul, if that was what the man wanted. He briefly wondered if he was making a bargain with Satan, but couldn’t muster the energy to care.

He laughed. “No. I do not want your soul, young one.”

He frowned when the man read his thoughts. Nicholas stared up at him, fascinated by the scar, wanting to ask where it came from. His vision grew dim, and he thought he felt Emma’s hands on his body. His head slumped forward, and he yelped when the man jerked on his hair.

“Do not sleep yet. Give me your answer. Will you pledge an oath to belong to me if I save you?”

He nodded, barely able to move his head.

“I know how you knights are bound by your word, so I must have your verbal promise. Swear to me.”

“Swear.”

The man moved so quickly Nicholas didn’t see him. One second, he was a few inches away, and the next, the man’s face was against his throat. He cried out at a flash of pain, but it quickly faded to pleasing warmth that encompassed his body. He stiffened, thinking death had finally come. “Emma,” he whispered.

“Master,” the man corrected in a steely tone. “Your first loyalty lies with me now.”

His eyes closed as the warmth faded to ice. Nicholas slumped sideways, almost against the man. Nicholas wanted to push away the wrist Koss offered, after ripping it open with his own teeth, but didn’t have the strength. As blood pooled into his mouth, instinct took over, and he feebly sucked on the gaping wound, taking in the sustenance as quickly as he could in his weakened state.

The man tilted up his head. “All will be well. Soon the transformation will begin. Rest now, love.”

Nicholas’s eyes widened as the other man pressed his lips against his. He wanted to protest when a tongue slipped into his mouth, but his body refused to cooperate. He couldn’t move at all. He could only endure the onslaught of the foreigner’s mouth on his and wonder what kind of bargain he had forged.

1215, England

“No,” he screamed, rushing toward Emma as she fell to the stone floor. Frantically, he lifted her into his arms and turned her to face him. The cross protruded obscenely from her chest, and he pulled it out, barely registering the pain touching it brought him. He tossed aside the symbol of her faith and touched the wound. Tears burned in his eyes when he realized her heart had burned away. She had believed so strongly in the cross’s power that it had ended her life in an instant.

From what Koss had told him, he knew there was no way to revive a vampire whose heart was gone. “No,” he cried again, refusing to believe it. He brought his wrist to his mouth and slashed it with his fang. Surely, blood would revive her. He smeared it against her lips, waiting for her to begin drinking. When she didn’t move, he forced his weeping wrist into her mouth, but she didn’t suck. Nor did the blood pouring down her throat seem to affect her.

Nicholas kept the blood flowing into her until his head spun with dizziness. With a sob of defeat, he brought the wound to his mouth and sucked until it began to close. He cradled her body against his, weeping into her soft hair.

What had he done? He had murdered her as surely as if his hand had guided the cross. What right had he to force her into becoming like him? He should have known she would never be happy living the life he lived now. If only he had thought about her reaction before he changed her, Emma would still be alive.

But he hadn’t thought at all. Escaping Koss’s apartments at the palace and returning to Emma had consumed his thoughts to the extent that he hadn’t stopped to imagine what she would think of his new form.

He cried out as a sharp pain flashed through his chest. He had never imagined she would turn to his treacherous brother for comfort. How could she have married William?

Because she thought I was dead.
Would he really have wanted her to be alone if he had died? He squirmed at his honest answer of yes.

What could he do now? He looked down at her, smoothing strands of hair off her pale cheeks. Any time now, her attendant would come to wake her, and she would alert the household when she found Emma’s body. He had to be gone before then.

The thought of leaving her brought another sharp pain to his chest. He laid her on the stones and got to his knees, searching for the cross he had discarded. He saw it and stretched to reach it. He hissed as it burned his hand, but held onto it, bringing it closer, until it rested against his chest.

He turned back to look at Emma, wondering if she would welcome him in Hell, or if she would still hate him. If God were just, he wouldn’t send Emma to eternal damnation for suicide, although Nicholas was certain that would be his final destination. If suicide didn’t incur God’s wrath, surely the murders he had committed the last few months had done so.

He hesitated. The cross burned even through his tunic, and sweat beaded his brow. He longed to hold her again and beg her forgiveness, but what if he spent eternity without her? Was it better to suffer in Hell, or to suffer on Earth?

Nicholas tried to force the cross into his heart, but didn’t have the strength. With a cry of frustration, he flung it away and inched back to Emma, kneeling beside her to kiss her cooling brow. “My love, I tried.” Tears streaked his face. “I cannot do it. I do not have your courage and conviction.” He kissed her parted lips and got unsteadily to his feet, taking one last look at her before hurrying from the chamber. He couldn’t believe his actions had lost her to him forever. He didn’t deserve to live, but was too afraid of what awaited him to die.

1426, England

“I know what haunts you,” the gypsy woman said in a shaking voice, as Nicholas drew her closer.

He lifted his head to stare down at her. “What?”

“I know what drives you to the acts you commit. You are a desperate man.” It was difficult to tell if the trembling in her voice came from fear or the shivers racking her half-dressed body. “You punish yourself for what you did to Emma. You think she would want it that way, but she would not. She loved you.”

He stiffened at the sound of his love’s name on the gypsy’s lips. “What? What did you say?” He shook her when she didn’t answer quickly enough.

“She lives again. Release me, m’lord, and I will tell you how to find her.”

Nicholas reeled away from the woman in shock, dropping his hold on her. He watched her with narrowed eyes, waiting for her to attempt escape. He stood between her and the only exit of her wooden wagon, and none in the encampment would hear her cries, because he had sent them all to sleep when choosing her as his victim earlier.

In the pale light from the candle, her resemblance to Emma startled him anew. In his grief and madness, he had forgotten his original purpose of feeding from her and started having sex with her. He didn’t stop until he realized he was about to rape her. She wouldn’t have been the first since losing Emma, but he couldn’t do it when he looked into her face and saw his love once more. It would be like taking her innocence all over again, and he had pushed the woman away, disgusted by his actions that night and during the past centuries.

Still, she was convenient, and he needed sustenance. He had returned to his original plan of feeding from her, until she spoke.

Her eyes remained wide, and the fear on her face caused him to squirm with a trace of guilt, an emotion he thought he had banished during the past two hundred years frittered away on acts of wickedness. “Speak, woman. Tell me of Emma.” He listened carefully as she spun a tale of spirits reincarnated. His eyes widened when she told him he would find Emma again in 1511, inhabiting the body of a native girl in the New World, whatever that was.

When she had finished speaking, she took a step back. “I have kept my word, m’lord. You shall find her.”

He lifted a brow. “We shall see if your words prove accurate. You speak of events too far in the future for me to have much faith.”

She shook her head. “But, m’lord, I do not know which body she possesses now. It is only because I sense great violence in Erukán’s life that I am able to pinpoint where she will be one hundred years from now. Her lives will be uneventful until then.”

He inclined his head. “If you have given me true information, I am indebted to you.”

She sagged, and her trembling eased visibly, until he stepped closer to her, causing her to stiffen again, and the heady perfume of terror wafted from her pores. He enjoyed the tang the fear gave blood and deliberately sought to increase hers by flashing his fangs before speaking. “However, I would like something more tangible, if I am to be in your debt, madam.”

She screamed as he reached for her, fighting with all her strength.

Nicholas easily subdued her. “Relax. You will enjoy this.”

She shook her head, continuing to fight him.

“Look into my eyes.” He spoke so forcefully she couldn’t hope to resist him. Her head rose slowly, and then he was staring into deep pools of liquid fear. “You want to give me what I need, do you not?”

Slowly, she nodded, despite the fact her eyes were still large with fear.

He caressed her hip. “Anything I want.”

She nodded once again and relaxed against him.

Nicholas buried his face against her neck, seeking out her carotid artery as his hands cupped her bared breasts. “In return, your death will be quick,” he said softly, before sinking his fangs into her skin. After the disaster with Emma, he had vowed never to create another vampire. The next best thing to eternal life he could offer this woman was a quick death. It didn’t even occur to him to walk away and leave her in peace. He held little hope in her predictions of Emma’s reincarnation, which more likely came from a flash of psychic ability and her desperation, and he had to feed. She was convenient.

1511, San Juan Batista (Puerto Rico)

The burned bodies of Erukán’s people surrounded him. The carnage was terrible, but he had no eyes for any of the suffering, beyond his love’s. Her headless body had still been bound to the pole when he found her. He had cut her down and held her in his arms while sobbing against her chest. It had been a long time before he was able to lay her aside to prepare a grave.

Now, he knelt by the hole he had dug with his bare hands. She lay beside the mound of sand, her body finally reunited with her head. It had taken him nearly an hour to find it. With a gentleness she was far from being aware of, he placed her body and head in the hole, staring down at her for a long moment before pushing the sand back into the hole, hiding her from his sight.

As Nicholas covered the grave first with sand, and then with large rocks to protect Erukán from wild animals, his mind insisted on replaying the horror of what had happened to her. He should have been there to save her. It should have been him, if either of them had to die. He should have stopped this massacre. He shook his head, trying to force away his recriminations, as he fortified her grave.

At last, when he anchored the last rock in place, he stood over her makeshift marker, searching for the proper words. None came to him, and he shook his head, scrubbing at his eyes when they began streaming again.

“I was too late to save you,” he whispered. A harsh sob broke from him. “But I swear to you, I shall punish as many of those who were responsible as I can track down. They will pay for your life with their blood, beloved.”

He took a deep breath and turned away. Nicholas took two steps before halting and turning back to her. “Next time will be different. I will not lose you again.” He knew he wouldn’t be content to wait to see if fate reunited them. He must make it his mission to seek her out again. Already, somewhere in the world, her soul had probably been reborn into a new body. He wouldn’t rest until he found her again, even if it took lifetimes. “Until next time.” He forced himself to turn away and walk toward the Spaniards’ settlement. More blood would spill before this night was over, but this time, it wouldn’t belong to innocents.

1665, Virginia

Nicholas vomited as he saw the burned body of Elspeth hanging from the rafters of the barn. Tremont’s unpleasant laughter sounded behind him, and he whirled to find the other man smiling snidely.