MIDNIGHT CAPTIVE: Book 2 of the Bonded By Blood Vampire Chronicles (30 page)

“It is too late for me, Broderick. Even immortality cannot restore my youth.” She chuckled and Rick’s heart constricted. “We would forever receive the scathing looks thrown at us now…an old woman with such a young, handsome man. Scandalous.”

“I care not what others think. I—”

She placed a finger on his lips. “Hush.” She moaned and clung to him, coughing and bleeding from her mouth onto his chest. “End this now,” she wheezed, when the fit had passed. “Feed from me one last time, my darling. Let my life give you sustenance and give me peace.”

“Nay!” He gripped her shoulders and searched her eyes for reason. “You cannot ask this of me!”

“I plead for mercy, Rick.” She sobbed and a wave of misery flooded him with such a force, it stole the breath from his lungs. His wife had been holding back all this time!

“My god! Why did you not let me—”

“Forgive me, my love, but I did not want you to worry so.” She pressed her palms to his cheeks, wet from tears. “But now you know why I beg you to let me go.”

“Nay, Davina,” he whimpered into her hair and enveloped her in his embrace. Rocking her in his arms, he wept as she wracked through another fit of coughing and moaning. She held nothing back. Her anguish consumed him. Heart breaking, but knowing he could not let her endure this misery for his sake, he surrendered. “Aye, Blossom.”

Broderick pushed the hair from her smiling face and tired eyes. She nodded and sighed. “Thank you, my love.”

He pressed his forehead to hers and clenched his jaw. “How will I live eternity without you?”

Threading her tiny fingers into his hair, she gripped him with as much strength as her weakened form would allow, but her eyes bore into his with purpose. “Hear this now. Nothing, not even death, will keep me from loving you. Though this body may wither and become a dry shell, my spirit will pursue you until the end of time. We will never be apart.”

He covered her mouth with his and tasted her blood. Trailing tender kisses across her cheek and jawline, he nestled against her neck. “Eternally yours,” he whispered.

She clutched his head and offered her throat. “Together forever,” she responded.

Broderick hesitated, her erratic pulse beating against his tongue.

“Give me peace,” she whispered in a tortured breath. “Do this for me.”

“I will love you forever, Davina.” His fangs pierced her cool skin and Broderick drank the life from his wife, granting her wish…and tormenting his already damned soul.

Broderick threw the empty earthen cup across the tavern and it shattered, raining pottery shards over the patrons at the far wall.

“Acht!” The innkeeper charged to Broderick’s table and stuck a rigid finger in his face. “Another outburst like that and I’ll toss you out on your rump!”

Rick scoffed and leaned forward. “Don’t you have anything stronger than beer?” he demanded in German. “Bring me Scotch.”

The owner threw his head back and let forth a hearty guffaw. “You’re drunk enough, if you ask for that.” He glanced around as a few others joined him in a chuckle, but Broderick frowned. The man sobered. “Beer and wine is all I have. You want
aqua vitae
, you’ll have to travel down the river to Bremen.”

Rick tossed a small sack of coins onto the table. “Then bring a cask of beer to my table. There’s enough there to pay for ten of them.”

The stocky man snatched the bag and examined the coins. Cocking an eyebrow, he hefted the sack then narrowed his eyes at Rick. The innkeeper disappeared through the door at the rear of the tavern and returned with a cask and a lead cup. “No more smashing my wares. It’s no business of mine if you want to drink yourself into sin, but you’ve been peaceful until now. Let’s keep it that way.” With a nod, he stomped off to his post behind the wooden counter.

Broderick glared at the other patrons, who eyed him with a mixture of apprehension, anger and disgust. However, they were all wise enough to divert their attention elsewhere, leaving him to his drink. The small tavern he’d wandered into was dark and unassuming. He just needed a hole in which to hide and sort through his thoughts.

What in blazes am I doing in Germany?

The decades had been lonely without Davina, but he had managed. Seeing Cailin and James eased some of the grief. Though he mostly left Cailin in the capable hands of her husband, Broderick returned every few years to visit…and they grew older while he did not. They had five beautiful children, who also grew into adulthood. Broderick watched from afar as time stole them from him, one by one. None of their children or grandchildren pursued the shipping company so, when Cailin and James passed, Broderick reclaimed it, long forgotten by their offspring. The business kept him occupied enough to stave off the heartache of losing Davina. Though his bereavement had never disappeared, he
had
managed. And when her birthday arrived, he mourned as he always did on those special days. But this year, as he wept over her grave, grief swallowed him. The specter of his beloved Davina had penetrated his defenses and pierced through the numbness he’d forged over the near-century. A yearning had pulled him south, out of Scotland, through England, across the Channel and into France. Then the compelling desire to traverse along the war-torn, northern coast yanked his soul through the Netherlands and into Germania of the Holy Roman Empire. And here he sat, staring at the leaden mug waiting to be filled, just as he ached for his own heart to be filled.

Due to the rapid healing of his immortal blood, alcohol had no real effect on him. At one time, he’d had a generous portion of Scotch whiskey and started to feel the effects, but it passed quickly. He gulped down six mugs of beer from the cask and closed his eyes tight against the ache in his chest. The libation did nothing to drive the images of her from his mind.
I should savor them. Relive them again and again. Eight decades of silence…and then a precious, spectral encounter with her today.
He had only dreamt when Davina was near, whenever she thought of him while he slumbered during the day. But she was dead, so these new visions couldn’t be her. Perhaps he had been so consumed with grief on the eightieth anniversary of her death, he had finally gone mad.

Davina had been in the woods, her ethereal form naked and waiting for him. Her cinnamon tresses spilled over her shoulders and hid the precious globes of her breasts, but blended with the thatch of curls at the juncture of her thighs. Young and breathtaking as when she’d entered his Gypsy tent as a voluptuous woman.

He fell to his knees before her and buried his face in her skin, inhaling the lavender scent of her hair and growing hard. “Davina!” He covered her belly with kisses and nibbles, his hands smoothing over her silken legs and bottom and back, not able to get enough of her.

She cradled his head against her breasts and wept. “How I’ve missed you!”

Davina straddled his thighs and Broderick claimed her lips. Tearing open his breeches, he slipped inside her wet heat. Surely he had died and gone to heaven! She clung to his back as she rode him to a swift and furious climax, taking Broderick with her.

Shuddering and panting, he pulled back to gaze at the rapture on her face and a raven-haired woman with olive skin rocked in his arms. “Blossom?”

She nodded, her sapphire eyes revealing the woman he would die for.
Davina pressed her lips to his and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Together forever.”

Aye, he
had
gone mad. Broderick opened his eyes, reached for the cask and jerked with a start.

Malloren Rune sat across the table from him. “Well met, Broderick MacDougal,” she whispered in her British accent, concern in her gaze.

The Prophetess!
“I cannot recall the last time I have been taken by surprise.” He scowled at her. “Exactly how much does your position as the Keeper of Secrets prolong your life?” The last time he had seen her, over a century ago, she was more than one-hundred sixty years old. What was different about her? Her skin had the subtle luster only seen on… “You are a Vamsyrian?”

She nodded.

“But…you are a member of the Army of Light.”

“It was necessary so I may continue my station. My transformation was the second milestone in the prophecy. It appears I will be the steward of this journey to redemption for Vamsyrians.”

He tipped his head back and a sardonic chuckle rumbled through him at the irony. “The one who advises mortals against the very choice you made. Have you sacrificed your soul to save us all?”

Clearing her throat, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin with regal defiance. “There are many sacrifices I have made through the years in my service to God, though none quite as important as this. The prophecy is why I am here.”

He grumbled. “Where were you when Davina died of consumption? You claimed she was the key to this damned prophecy and, when I needed answers, you were nowhere to be found. How is it I did not sense you approach me?”

She shifted in her chair and avoided his glare. “My talents for remaining unseen were magnified when I crossed over.” She narrowed her eyes. “You will not find me if I do not wish to be found.” She glanced at his cup, then the cask. Sadness shrouded her face and she sighed. “I truly regret the sorrow you have endured over her passing. But I have—”

Broderick jumped to his feet and snatched her throat in his hand. “Lies!” he hissed. “The prophecy. Her part in it. Don’t pretend to show compassion toward either of us. If you had a care, you would have let me kill Angus and I could have made amends with the Council. She would be with me now.”

In spite of the hold Rick had on her, she only encircled his wrist with her fingers and shook her head. “If you had killed Angus,” she whispered. “Davina’s soul would have been destroyed and you would have lost her forever.”

“I
did
lose her!”

“Take your hands off the maiden, son.”

Broderick glanced to his left and spied a half-dozen glowering men, ready to pounce with various blunt objects and clubs in their fists.

But Malloren put her palm out to stay the crowd. “I am not in danger, kind sirs,” she rasped in German. “But
you
will be, if you take another step closer. I know this man and, in his present disposition, he will tear your beating hearts from your chests.”

Broderick shoved Malloren back into her chair and snarled. “You know nothing about me, woman.” He waved a dismissive hand at the intimidated men. “You have nothing to fear from me.” He crossed his arms and scowled at the Prophetess.

The innkeeper narrowed his eyes. “Acht! Damned gentry and your sick games.” He pointed his axe at Broderick. “I’ve had enough of you and your lady friend. Get out of my tavern.”

As much as Broderick wanted to release his pent up anger and grief on everyone around him, rational thought won over his emotions. These men didn’t deserve his wrath. He’d save that for Malloren. He leveled his gaze on her. “Aye, let us take this outside, shall we?”

She rubbed her throat and nodded. Rick pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the tavern.

The damp, chilled August night haunted his form, surrounding him with heavy foreboding. Malloren scampered to catch up as he stomped down the road to the coastline. The North Sea lay quietly hidden on his left behind an oppressive fog bank. The stillness of the late night sucked the life out of his argument. He grumbled.

“We are far enough from the town. Let us speak.”

He continued down the road at a determined pace. “So you can feed me more of your lies? I think not.”

“You dreamt of her today, didn’t you?”

He stopped and held his breath, squeezing his eyes shut against the dream and Davina’s haunting presence.

“She lives, Broderick MacDougal.”

He whirled to face the prophetess and she stepped back. “Why are you here! To torment me? Is my grief not enough to satisfy you?”

“I’m here to help you. Davina has been reborn. Have you not had a yearning to come here? Are you not drawn to this place by an unknown force?”

“Stop speaking to me in riddles! She is dead!” Broderick paced, doing his best to push down the rising tide of hope the Prophetess could bring back his wife…because believing was insane.

“Davina’s soul resides in another body and is calling out to you now.”

“What are you…? So she is a wee bairn? A child I am to…what,
raise
?” Broderick resisted the urge to slap the woman, who had obviously lost all her faculties.

“No, of course not. She is a full-grown woman.”

He stood with his mouth agape. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I know this may sound…”

“Mad? That it does! And you contradict your teachings. The soul lives once and is destined for heaven or hell. Is it not why Vamsyrians were created…to trap the soul and condemn it to an eternity in hell? A choice, I might add, you have also made.”

“As is my understanding of this
arrangement
with Satan, and yes…I am a part of those souls now. But if we can fulfill the prophecy, we will be saved. Davina is the key.”