Blood Wicked (25 page)

Relax. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.

She knew that. She had wanted to
show
trust, but it meant nothing unless she could truly follow through. But a little bit of doubt surged up. She knew men did new things, exotic things when they were growing restless. When they were going to leave.

No, Angel
, Heath insisted.
I want to explore with you because it delights me to see you discover new pleasure. It thrills me to see your eyes open so wide, to watch you pant with anticipation.

She froze.
How did you hear what I thought?

You must have sent it to me. By accident, I assume. Vivi, I’m not doing this because I’m bored or restless. And this is from a man who sailed thousands of miles to find new creatures, new worlds, new sensations. It took me a long time to understand that every moment with someone you care about is the most astonishing adventure of all. Trust me, love. I’m doing this because I want to share pleasure with you.

His tongue flicked lazily over her clit.

She moaned desperately at the burst of sensation. She saw herself in the mirror. His prisoner—tied up, gagged, with things hanging from her nipples that should be torture but were thrilling instead.

No, Vivi. Even with your hands bound, you control me. You have my heart tied up in knots. I’m your prisoner.

Those words would scare her—could
she
say them? Say her heart was held captive? To not just feel it, but admit it.

Pleasure was like a silky wave flowing inside her. But she stared down at Heath as he tasted her and licked her and loved her. Was that why he’d traveled and stayed away from his home? Was he afraid of love? Afraid, like she’d always been, of losing control? Perhaps it hadn’t been grief that had closed his heart; perhaps it had been closed before that. But why?

His tongue surged into her quim, sliding against a secret place that made her legs melt beneath her. She was sagging now,
the rope was taut, and he lowered on his knees so her exposed cunny was pressed right on his face.

They were both afraid.

But in this, she could take a step toward being fearless.

His fingers thrust in and out, plunging deeper with each stroke; his tongue swirled over her clit, twirling faster and faster. He moved, lifting her feet off the floor. She was suspended on his mouth and the pressure made her head swim. Her eyes were shut tight. She opened them wide. This was the very first time she’d been bound and suspended and she was going to witness every stunning, erotic second of it.

Tension wound up inside her, and she rocked on his mouth, growing closer and closer. The ropes tugged, the metal hook creaked, and she bounced desperately on his face.

Yes
, he urged in her head.
Come for me
.

Like a slave to a master, she did his bidding at once. Her climax broke free. Her scream filled her head, but the gag kept it in. She sobbed his name over and over. She tore so hard at the ropes as she came, plaster dust rained down upon them. The hook stayed in place, at least. And he brought himself to climax.

Vivienne floated in the wave of luscious pleasure.

In my thoughts, Vivi, I heard every moan. I heard you cry my name
. Heath spoke the words in Vivi’s thoughts, then he tugged the ropes free and released her. The red rings around her wrists made him feel guilty. Gently, he massaged them, but she gave a breathless sigh. “You were right,” she whispered. “It was an adventure. It was thrilling.”

At once, he turned into a protector. He had to take care of her. Quickly, he wrapped her robe around her. Dimitri had sent sherry to his bedchamber; Heath assumed it had been intended for Vivi. He poured her a glass as she sat on the edge of his bed. She looked delighted but a little shocked, and that gave a tug at his heart.

Finally, he sighed. “I have to go now, Vivi. Tonight, I have to
try to find my brother. And now that it’s dark I can go out safely. You are free … I mean, if you need more …”

She was watching him with patience as he stumbled over his words. “I understand if you need to bed someone else tonight. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

She shook her head. “I won’t need to. And I don’t want to.”

She’d told him that before. This time, deep inside, he hoped it was true. He had no right to want her fidelity, but he couldn’t stop the words before they spilled out. “I meant what I said. I’m your prisoner.”

“And I can see that scares you.”

He jerked his head up. No, she could not read his thoughts. He could see that in the pensive look on her lovely face. In her thoughtful frown. She knew what he felt because … because she could understand him.

Christ, that terrified him. He left the bed.

“Is it because you still love Ariadne?”

He had been preparing to pull on his shirt. Surprise made him drop it on the floor. “I don’t still love Ariadne,” he growled. He hated himself for saying it, because he now knew it was true. Had he ever really loved her? Properly, the way a woman should be loved? Immaturity and arrogance had made him an idiot. His position made him look on his wife and daughter as beautiful possessions befitting an earl. Was an arrogant idiot capable of love?

In Vivi, who was so strong, who cared so deeply for Sarah, he could see what love should be.

He grabbed his shirt off the floor roughly. “I don’t love her anymore. That’s what I feel so damn guilty about. That was the one thing I had the obligation to do—remember Ariadne and Meredith forever. But when I’m with you … you are the only person in the world I want to think about. When I was married to Ariadne, I was running away in search of glory and excitement. Every moment with you excites me, Vivienne.” He gave
a hard, curt laugh. “That’s the madness of this. The very fact that I want you so much means I’m betraying Ariadne. I’m a wounded fool, Vivi, and you deserve what I’m not capable of giving.”

With that, because he couldn’t face the gentle understanding in her eyes, he took his shirt and walked out.

Heath headed to Dimitri’s study first. He walked in to find Sadie lying on a chaise, utterly naked, running her tongue suggestively around a bunch of hothouse grapes. She waved cheerfully at him.

“No, my love,” Dimitri growled to Sadie. “You must leave. We have matters to discuss not fit for your tender ears.”

An odd thought for a vampire, but true. Sadie still possessed naïveté and innocence, at least about certain things. And ancient vampires like Dimitri believed in old hierarchies and paternalistic views. Young vampires were kept ignorant and women were treated as playthings. Except for the powerful queens, of course.

As soon as Sadie had gone, Dimitri brought out a stack of folded news sheets from a drawer in his desk. He tossed them down. “There have been a series of murders in the last fortnight on the streets surrounding your apothecary. My investigators confirm the finds. Eight people have died from slit throats in the last two weeks.”

There were always footpads prowling the slums, ready to cut a throat to steal a few coins. But slicing a victim’s throat with a knife, at the end of a feeding, was also a method vampires used to disguise their attacks. Heath knew Nikolai would be determined to feed. There would be no moral compunction against taking human blood for Nikolai. That proud, arrogant man would not dream of drinking animal blood instead.

The papers rustled in Heath’s hands. “Did you hire lads to
watch the apothecary, as I asked you to do?” On the first night he’d arrived here, he’d spoken privately to Dimitri about this.

Dimitri nodded. “My investigators would visit them and get reports. They are here.”

First, Heath scanned the stories in the newspapers. The first murder had happened two weeks ago. A middle-aged woman had been found dead in an alley, and the small alley was about twenty feet from the apothecary. Within minutes, Heath quickly read all the reports. Eight murders had taken place within a two-hundred-yard radius of the apothecary. The Whitechapel denizens were in a panic, the Bow Street Runners mystified.

Then Heath read the reports Dimitri’s investigators had transcribed from their visits to the four boys stationed around the apothecary. They hadn’t seen anyone go in or out of the building.

Heath frowned. “I’ll start my search there. There must be another place nearby Nikolai is hiding.”

His carriage halted on Whitechapel High Street. Heath jumped down, instructed his coachman to wait, and eased his way through the crowd of inebriated dandies, rough tradesmen, and bold penny-whores who filled the sidewalk.

No point in taking his gleaming carriage into the rabbit warren of streets. Not when he could be infinitely more lethal than an armed driver. At least, when he chose to be.

The blood and brandy mixture Dimitri had again provided him had defrayed his need to feed. But it was still a struggle. It wasn’t just blood his vampire nature required. It was the hunt and the victory over a frightened prey. Night after night, for years, he had fought that need.

He ducked off into an alley and plunged into darkness. He was haunted again—and a haunted man liked to be left alone.

For the first year after he’d lost Ariadne and Meredith, he’d
seen their faces everywhere. They weren’t ghosts, but his memories were. His memories flitted everywhere and he could never turn away. Now Vivienne was haunting him.

He couldn’t have her. What was it with his bloody stupid head—and heart—that it wouldn’t understand the word “impossible”?

He took a deep breath. Even on the fetid air that rolled in from the Thames, he could detect the scent of human flesh and sweat, could pinpoint it to the shadowy place where his quarry was hiding. He found the first of his young lookouts crouched in the dark of a doorway, watching the apothecary from across the street. The skinny, stunted lad wore a dirty brown cap and ragged trousers, and eyed him warily even as he pointed out he was the boy’s employer. Finally, he pressed a sovereign into the dirty hand to coerce the lad to speak. He supposed he had to admire the boy’s determination to make money. “So lad, tell me everything you’ve seen. Have either a gray-haired crone or a black-haired man come here?”

The boy shook his head so vehemently, his cap fell forward.

“No, my lord. There’s been no one come ‘ere in the two days I’ve been sitting ‘ere.”

Two days stuck on a foul doorstep. Heath gave him two more coins. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Harry.”

“You’ve done a good job for me, Harry. Stay another day and I’ll pay you a sovereign for it.”

He left Harry fairly leaping with glee and checked with the other boys. Each one watched a side of the apothecary. He was generous with his payments to each, and all the boys gave him the same answer. They’d seen no one. He’d looked into their thoughts. Even if Nikolai had manipulated their memories, he would have detected a sense of blankness or confusion at some point. But there was nothing. Just a stretch of boredom, and the occasional break for a piss.

So why hadn’t Mrs. Holt come back? Wouldn’t she have expected Vivienne to return? On the other hand, she’d recognized him. Had she also guessed he could help Sarah escape her mysterious “illness”?

One question deeply worried him. What did Nikolai want from Vivienne? What was his plan, what was her role?

He’d spent two years with his bloody sire as a prisoner in a castle in the Carpathians. Nikolai lived like a monk, spending his time writing in large, leather-bound books, while Heath had been rotting away in a dungeon. At night his sire prowled for blood in the local villages, hunting with a pack of wolves that ran with him on leashes.

Heath defeated the lock on the apothecary door again and went in. Eight murders had taken place close to this building. If someone had returned—mortal, demon, or vampire—he should smell a trace of their presence. There was nothing but a gutcurling stench coming from the jars of ingredients, and the smell of abandonment and must.

No one had been in here for days. So why would Nikolai kill victims close to this place? Was he watching over it, waiting for Vivienne to return?

Heath crossed over to the grimy window. Fog rolled down the narrow lane, engulfing the street flares. Narrow shop fronts faced him. Candlelight glimmered here and there behind darkened windows.

Where in Hades would Nikolai be living? Would he really choose to live close to here? Nikolai had taken pride in his five-hundred-year existence, his noble bloodlines, his wealth. He had decorated the interior of his castle to look like a Turkish sultan’s sumptuous palace—

Heath? Where are you? Are you … safe?”

Heath jolted so quickly, he almost sent a pile of jars to the ground. It was Vivi. How had she projected her voice so far?

I’m safe and am at the apothecary. You are supposed to be sleeping.

I did. For a little while. Now I can’t sleep. And Dimitri came and told me he believed I could speak like this to you, even though you are so far away.

It was a testament to the power of the connection they were building. That was what Dimitri would say to him when he returned. For a vampire who held orgy after orgy, Dimitri had a lot to say about love.

Vivienne. Heath suddenly realized how dense he had been. She was a connection to his sire.
Vivi
, he called to her with his thoughts,
why did you come to this apothecary? How did you know you could find the medicine you needed here?

My mother used to go there, when we lived in the stews. She knew the chemist, old Joseph Hartley. He was an honest man. I suppose he was the only chemist I knew, but I just felt … right to go there.

His sire had a great deal of power. He could easily influence mortals, lure them, plant ideas in their heads. Could he have drawn Vivienne to this place?

Had Nikolai arranged all this to send a beautiful succubus to Heath, believing he couldn’t resist? His sire knew he would yearn for what he could never have. A lover. A wife. Love.

Vivi, when you lived with your mother in the stews, where did you live?

In many places. We had to go from one flashhouse to another, desperately searching for a bed.