Blood Guilt (20 page)

“Good morning, vampire,” she said throatily. “You didn’t have breakfast.”

“I had a big supper. It was particularly delicious.”

“I can’t believe I let you say those gross things to me.”

“You mean you can’t believe you like them. Because they aren’t gross; they’re sensual.”

She stared, accepting the truth for now, yet unsure that it was right. “I must be very depraved…”

He moved lazily within her, pushing her into the wall once more. “Very. Enjoy it.”

An instant longer, her wide brown eyes gazed into his. Then, with a little gasp, she jumped, wrapping both her legs around his hips, and pushed onto him in a wild, desperate fever. He obliged her, holding still and hard for her to ride on. It was exquisite, so much so that he couldn’t stay still for very long. He rammed her into the wall and let himself go, fucking her with wild, vampire speed.

It didn’t take long. She screamed as she came, falling forward onto him with the force of her orgasm. Her internal convulsions made him shudder uncontrollably. He shoved into her once more, hard, and as his own climax hit, he had to hold himself upright by bracing both hands on the wall.

“I could do this all day,” he murmured into her hair as her legs flopped bonelessly to the floor. “And then all night. Just to be going on with. But we have a child to rescue and a world to save from earthquakes.”

It did no harm to be the one to bring back reality this time. But before he could truly enjoy watching her adjust, with reluctance as well as pride, Robbie spoke in his head, sounding both excited and secretive.

Max? Max, are you there?

I’m here.
He released Mihaela, but she looked so lovely and so serious as she dragged reality back around that he bent and kissed her mouth.

The other vampire came in last night. Just before I fell asleep. Gavril’s really happy. He says we’re going to do it tonight. Whatever it is.

Mihaela’s mouth opened sweetly under his. Not such a sexual kiss as those she’d given in the last half hour, but deep and warm and delicious. Her taste was addictive.

We’ll be there
, Maximilian assured Robbie.

Gavril says the new guy’s just what we need and is worth at least four of the others,
Robbie said happily.

Does he have a name?
Maximilian asked, moving his mouth on Mihaela’s in deeper exploration. She gave a little moan. He loved those little sounds she made. He wondered if he could take her again before she got down to the business of the research document.

Ferdinand,
Robbie said without a lot of interest.

Maximilian paused. Mihaela, licking his fangs in a quick, teasing sort of way, paused too, as if she sensed his withdrawal. Maximilian sent Robbie a mind-picture.
Is that him?

Aye, that’s him.

Mihaela drew her lips free, gazing up at him with a question in her anxious eyes. A question he didn’t know how to answer just yet. So he took her mouth back and kissed her some more while he told Robbie what to do.

****

They took the car on the ferry from Valetta to the island of Gozo this time, and as Maximilian drove toward Xaghra, Mihaela wondered at the difference twenty-four hours made. For the first time, she felt she was working with Maximilian as a partner. And it was to do with a lot more than last night’s astounding sex. Or this morning’s wicked encounter that had never even made it to the bed.

Mihaela’s whole body heated at the memory, and as if he sensed it—which he probably did—he glanced at her with a smile that in a human she might have called smug. In a smoldering kind of way. Maximilian, it appeared, was not averse to more sex.

I have a vampire lover,
Mihaela thought, stunned all over again.
Maximilian is my lover.

No one had hung around for more than a one-night stand before. Apart from Josh, who’d stayed for a week. The others had been mere couplings, a fulfillment of animal need. Only she’d never felt particularly fulfilled. Neither had she wanted to meet any of them again, not after her first experience as a teenager, anyway. And yet now, without her making any effort at all to attract or pick up, she had an amazing, skillful lover in this unique, strange, beautiful being.

She knew she should add “dangerous” and “lethal” to these adjectives, but in truth she didn’t feel in any remotest danger from him. He could turn her bones to water, arouse her to the heights of fever, and make her scream with the intensity of the seemingly endless pleasure he could induce in her. But he’d never hurt her. Not once. Even in the throes of the most urgent passion. Even in Scotland.

At the back of her mind, where she refused to go, she knew this couldn’t and shouldn’t last. When this was over, if she still lived, they’d leave Malta, and she’d return to being an official hunter. She couldn’t imagine seeing Maximilian again then. She couldn’t really imagine him wanting to. In some way, they’d saved each other with this affair. Somehow, she’d helped bring him out of the depths of his despair and isolation, and he’d reminded her of the importance of life, of her own life beyond hunting. And for now, that was enough.

She had last night, a new understanding and closeness with the fascinating being beside her. And she had their shared mission to save Robbie and prevent the vampires using her parents’ research to cause devastating earthquakes. And Gavril would die, giving her closure on the first and greatest tragedy of her life. Tonight would end many things. And begin many more.

Dusk was falling when he parked just inside the village. Mihaela picked up her bag of weapons from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. She checked her pockets for detectors and stakes, and got out of the car. The familiarity of the actions soothed and focused her.

“Do you know where they are?” she asked as Maximilian joined her.

“All together in the villa, with Robbie. We’ve time to check out a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Like their escape route.”

It made sense. If their plan failed and some of them got away, it would help to know where they were headed. They certainly wouldn’t be hanging around. Vampires could probably survive tsunamis, since they couldn’t drown, but they could be buried under rock falls and collapsed buildings that even their supernatural strength couldn’t shift. But more than that, there was Robbie, their primary “booster.” If they were unaware that this exercise of his power would probably kill Robbie anyway, they were sure to have a plan to save him for the next attack.

“How do we do that?” she asked doubtfully. It wasn’t the sort of information they were likely to give Robbie.

“We follow their scent,” Maximilian said.

In the gathering darkness, they walked through the village and up the hill to the temple site of Ggantija. Without warning, Maximilian flung one arm around her waist and jumped. She gasped as she found herself flying over the gate. He landed lightly, surefooted, holding her against him off the ground to protect her. But his mind was clearly not on sex or even flirtation at this point. He let her slide to her feet and walked on almost immediately.

Am I piqued?
she asked herself, only half-amused. She followed him among the stones.

“If you can scent them, won’t they be able to smell you too?”

He shrugged. “If they’re really trying, maybe. At this stage, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Unless they up-sticks and move on with Robbie to the next place, the next earthquake, and we have to start all over again.”

“We’ll always find them. And sooner or later, we’ll kill them.”

“Sooner would be best,” she said grimly. “I don’t want Robbie with them any longer.”

“For what it’s worth, I think it’ll take more than a scent of me to stop them tonight. They’ve been working toward it for too long. They’ll push on and rely on the damage they cause to take care of me. At least in the short term.”

“I don’t see how we can avoid a showdown,” Mihaela agreed. “We need to snatch Robbie and kill them all. And if possible, discover if anyone else knows what Gavril does. Then, we have to retrieve the original of my mother’s document.”

So much had already been decided between them. Maximilian halted and looked around him, turning a full circle to take in his surroundings.

“Here,” he said, “is where the vampires usually stand. Around the outside wall of this temple. According to your parents’ paper, familiarity is important to all the power sources, but particularly to the catalyst. Robbie runs all over the stones but has stood here with them too.”

“The new vampire, the one who came early this morning, won’t have this familiarity,” Mihaela pointed out. She was already planning hiding places and angles of attack.

“He may have been here before; he’s old and strong, and he has some stone feeling already,” Maximilian said. “Still, he may come before the others, so be aware.” He stepped closer to the wall and lifted one hand to touch it. A smile flickered across his face. “Robbie’s right. The stone does speak to you. It’s old and powerful…” Reluctantly, it seemed, he dropped his hand. “And they all touch it. They’ll stand against the wall here, probably with Robbie in the middle.”

Mihaela glanced up to the top of the rough, dry stone wall. “Can you hide on the other side, inside the temple?”

They’d decided earlier it would have to be some such scenario. Picking the vampires off earlier, either in their farmhouse or on the trail up to the temples, had attractions. But since they were only two against eight, Maximilian and Mihaela really needed the vampires to be distracted by the stone ritual in order to have the maximum advantage of surprise. They mustn’t have opportunity to snatch Robbie away in the fight.

Maximilian followed her gaze, then jumped. He stood on top of a horizontal stone, gazing down on the other side of the wall, then transferred his gaze to the outside, as if imagining his enemies’ positions. He looked like some kind of old god up there. Even in his modern jeans and T-shirt, he seemed peculiarly at home among the ancient stones. There was a deep, atmosphere to this place that got under your skin and tugged. It made Mihaela shiver because it felt supernatural, almost magical, and so very old. Like Maximilian. Although, of course, the temples were older than he was by thousands of years. They were older than Stonehenge in England…

“Yes,” Maximilian said, stepping casually down from his great height to land beside her as if he were merely alighting from a train. “You’ll have to be close enough to act immediately after I snatch Robbie. If I can, I’ll kill at least one as I take him, but that will still leave you with seven vampires, one of whom is very strong.”

They’d talked about this too. Singly, none of the vampires except for Ferdinand and possibly Gavril were strong enough to seriously trouble an experienced hunter like Mihaela. Their danger lay in sheer numbers. On the other hand, the vampires were coming to trigger an earthquake, not to do battle. She and Maximilian should have the advantage of surprise.

Mihaela said, “I’ll hope to get one at the outset by throwing a stake as soon as you move. And with luck, in the surprise, I’ll get another.” Mihaela walked away from the temple to a large stone that formed a small triangle with the temple wall and the lower wall of a stone circle. She examined the space between.

“Here?” she suggested.

Maximilian nodded. “Without Robbie to carry their ritual, they’ll stop and come at you. This is a good place to ensure they can’t surround you, though remember they can come at you from above as well.”

“I’m a hunter,” she said dryly, and the flicker of pride as well as amusement in his cool eyes warmed her down to her toes.

“I know you are. I’ll leave Robbie hidden and masked and return to help you as soon as I can. But for those vital seconds I’m gone, you’re much more vulnerable than I like.”

“I’ll cope.”

He met her gaze, his own unreadable. Then he merely nodded and began to walk forward again, his head up, as if he were sniffing the air like a dog. Then he looked at the ground and reached out one hand for Mihaela. “Gavril has come this way more than once. I suspect this will be his escape route. His trail goes some distance, so it’s quicker if we go like this.”

Before she could prepare, he’d seized her round the waist and was running so fast her feet didn’t touch the ground. She simply hung on to him. She felt his every powerful movement against her cheek and body and limbs, the bunching and stretching of his muscles, the jolt of each pace taken with impossible speed. They were away from Ggantija. Open country of fields flashed by, and then, with a final jolt that made her grunt, they stopped.

A large barn rushed into focus. Mihaela blinked and glanced up at Maximilian, who released her without comment and walked quickly toward the barn door. The door opened as he approached, but although Mihaela grabbed for her stake, no one came out.

Understanding that Maximilian had manipulated the door with his mind, she murmured, “Have I ever told you how creepy that is?”

“But useful. Look. That’s quite an escape route.”

It took some moments for her eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness. Then, gradually, the large, monstrous shape of a helicopter emerged, its giant propellers almost touching the walls of the barn. So, once he’d set off the earthquake that would kill hundreds if not thousands, Gavril meant to get out by helicopter, no doubt taking Robbie with him so he could do it all again somewhere else.

Mihaela couldn’t allow that. The quake had to be prevented and Robbie rescued. But no way was Gavril getting away to try again.

She swallowed. “Why are hand grenades not standard kit for hunters?”

“Can you disable it?” Maximilian asked.

Mihaela shrugged. “Sure. How hard can it be?”

She dug her flashlight out of her bag, and began looking around the helicopter. It would probably have been easiest to set the fuel tank alight, but the fire would be seen for miles around, and she didn’t want to alert Gavril so early on. Something a little subtler was required at this stage. She climbed into the cockpit with Maximilian’s help and began looking for wires to cut. While she got to work, using lock picks and her penknife as a screwdriver, Maximilian quietly left the barn.