The Burning (32 page)

Men swarmed down the ladders, which were then folded and put into two carts along with various iron bars and tools. The men scrambled into the carts themselves, and the horses trotted briskly out the gates.

She was locked in. Had someone found her secret passage? He wondered that her uncle would allow her nursery to be made into a prison, even sick as he was. Did Van Helsing rule here so completely? She must feel so alone!

He drew his power as the sun sank toward the trees, and after the sear of pain, he snapped into reality in the tiny dressing room on the fourth floor.

Ann sat on her bed, crying. She sensed his presence, though, for she looked up and wiped her cheeks with a handkerchief. He strode into the room. “What has happened? Why has your uncle allowed this . . . this desecration?”

“My uncle is dead,” she said in a dull voice.

He sat beside her on the little bed, careful not to touch. “I’m sorry.” She must leave here now. She had no choice. “Van Helsing ordered you locked up?”

“No,” she said, and managed a tiny smile. “Squire Fladgate and Mr. Steadly were the ones who insisted. I . . . I went into the village to try to convince the squire to invalidate Erich’s special license. They thought I helped you escape. Someone grabbed me, and I got away and then I touched several others accidentally, and . . .” She trailed off.

“Not a good day, on the whole.” He wanted so to hold her and comfort her, maybe because it would comfort him to be able to give her some kind of solace.

She shook her head. “They brought me back, accosted my uncle. It’s my fault that he—”

“His days were numbered, perhaps on one hand.” He saw the guilt in her eyes. He knew that kind of guilt only too well. No one could lift that guilt for you. So he didn’t try again. “You must leave here.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry to add to your burden but surely you must see it.”

“It’s too late. They’ve even boarded up my secret passage.”

“That is not the only way out of here.” He reached into his pocket. “Here are three letters. One is to my solicitor, one to my banker. They will take your affairs in hand. One is to a lady who is very influential in the ton. Her name is Beatrix Lisse, Countess of Lente.”At that her eyes snapped up to his. Of course, she knew all about Beatrix. “She will set you up and find you a lady companion. She is kind and capable.” He rushed on. “And this is some ready cash for the journey.” He knew that if they had accused Ann of murder, London might not be safe, either. But Beatrix would provide. She would send Ann somewhere safe until the murders were forgotten.

“I cannot take these things,” she whispered. “Erich will never let me go.”

“
Erich
does not have a choice,” he growled, thinking how very satisfying it would be to put his fingers around that dandy’s throat and squeeze.

“I don’t want another death on my hands,” she warned, as though she knew what he was thinking. Her voice was small, but firm.

Stephan sighed. The image of Van Helsing gasping vainly for breath receded. He put the letters on her night table. “I don’t need to kill him. He is a coward. He thinks you are friendless. When he sees you are not, he will cease to be a problem.”

She didn’t look like she believed him. “What . . . what of you?”

Ahhh. What of him? That was the question, wasn’t it? He
would do his duty by his kind. He could have no role in this woman’s life. He was vampire. She was human. But he said the weak thing. “I will come to London when I can.” He looked away when he said it.

Ann looked up at Stephan Sincai as he stared at her bookshelves, unseeing. Did he mean what he said? Would he come back? Did he . . . feel for her? The emotions churning in her had no name. Fear, yes, sympathy, of course, but also longing . . .

The room wavered around her as the pieces fell into place. She understood him like no other man. He was complex and difficult. He was good and had done bad things and was planning to do more in the name of good. He suffered and was strong. He could be tender and fierce. She liked him intensely. And then there was the longing to be with him, and the other longing that came in erotic dreams so strong she had had her first climax, sterile though it was.

My God! The conclusion was inescapable. She loved him. That was what this feeling was! She had known him only a few days, and yet she had known him for millennia.

She took in a breath and let it out. Could a man like Stephan care for her? She searched her memory of him. Some new recollections dropped into place; an interlude in Lapland fighting for the Danes, a vision of the translucent towers of Mirso Monastery along with the despair in Stephan’s heart as he headed down the mountain toward it.

And then the memories from Mirso bubbled to the surface. Rubius, his daughters, the terrible suffering, the sexual use, the punishments, the pressure to eliminate emotion . . . Her mouth opened. Breath hissed into her lungs. They told him such torment was the price of entry to Mirso?
This
was the power they had taught him, this fierce sexuality unconnected to any emotion? Horrifying!

More horrifying still was the fact that he had let them do it. He had submitted willingly. Such was his guilt, his desire to atone. For what? He had let Asharti go in an act of forgiveness and charity. For this he had been so punished? For this he should be treasured. Yes, Asharti was evil. Yes, she had created vampires willy-nilly and made them into an army that threatened the world. They should have monitored her better. Rubius could have done that. Why blame Stephan? Why did Stephan so blame himself?

He tore his gaze away from the bookcase and gave her a smile he meant to be reassuring.

But Ann’s mind was awhirl. How could he want to return to Mirso where he had suffered so? Would Rubius and his daughters ever give Stephan peace? They had made him into a killer that they could use again and again. Stephan thought his nightmare would end with Kilkenny and company. Ann wasn’t so sure.

And she wasn’t sure a man who had been through suffering like that could ever truly love her in return. He had been capable of love once. He had loved Beatrix. But now? He was examining her, uncertainty in his eyes. He must see she was in turmoil. She wanted to know what he was thinking more than anything else in the world. There was no way to do that. But she could feel what he felt about the experiences he had had since the night she had touched him in the cave.

It might kill her.

She didn’t care. Before she could change her mind, she reached out and covered his hand on the counterpane with hers. He looked up, shocked. She braced for the shattering shower of experience.

It didn’t come.

She felt his shock at her touch. She experienced his meeting with two of the Daughters. She realized he had washed his blood off her and been aroused by her naked body. She got a dose of his growing feeling for her. But his dismay at
that emotion came through clearly, as well, his fear that his caring for her would make him fail in his mission, deny him redemption. She felt his resolve to complete his mission regardless of the cost, his certainty that it would kill him.

Stephan jerked his hand away. “Are . . . are you well?”

She blinked and nodded, as surprised as he was. “I suppose . . . well, maybe I already had all your experience and the essence of you. I just got the recent pieces; nothing I couldn’t handle.” She chuffed a laugh. “If I touched you every day, it just might be bearable.” Was this what it took to live in the world? Touching the people she cared about often enough to not be overwhelmed? How had she gotten to twenty-five without knowing that? She could have comforted her uncle at the last. She could even perhaps have made love to a man . . . She drew her brows together, thinking about her mother.

“Has something disturbed you? You . . . you didn’t remember the bits at Mirso, did you? The training?” His brows were drawn together. How dear of him. He wanted to spare her that.

“Most of them, I think.”

He flushed to the roots of his hair. “Then you know how evil and dangerous I can be. That . . . that must be shocking for an innocent like you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I understand.” She said it simply, from her heart. It was true. She did understand. She didn’t tell him he shouldn’t have submitted to the Daughters. It wasn’t her place.

His gaze darted over her face. “But still you are disturbed. What were you thinking?”

She wondered if she could tell him what was in her heart. But could she not tell the man she knew so intimately anything? “I was wondering why my mother went mad when I was conceived. If she already knew and accepted and . . . well, accepted my father, why would . . . conjugal relations have driven her mad?”

“Perhaps she hadn’t ever touched him before.” His voice was a soft rumble in the growing gloom.

Ann looked out through the barred windows to the fading light. “Or perhaps she did not . . . accept him.” Perhaps her mother did not
love
her father. Maybe that was what made touching Stephan different. She turned back and reached out to touch his hand again where it was laid along the counterpane. It was warm. The light hairs on the back of it scraped her palm. She felt a thrill wind down between her legs.

And that was all.

She grinned like an idiot as tears welled up inside her. She began to laugh and cry all at once. “Nothing. I felt almost nothing.” Then the giggles swept her again.

He smiled at her tenderly as she laughed and gasped for breath. “I can’t say I’ve ever been relieved to hear a woman say she feels nothing when she touches me.”

“Well, not exactly
nothing
. . . ” Suddenly the laughter died and she went wide-eyed. He was going to leave her to go fight Kilkenny and his horde. He might never come back. This moment, just before true nightfall, might be the last she ever had of him. “You have been very kind to me.”

“Nonsense,” he said brusquely.

She placed a finger to his lips. She thought she might faint from sensation, but not the sensation of his two thousand years of experience. If the reason her mother went insane during her conception was that she did not truly love her father, then Ann would be able to partake of physical intimacy only with a man she loved. That might well mean that Stephan Sincai was the only man with whom she would ever have the chance to know this part of life. She had tasted sexual pleasure without the joy of sharing she was sure it was meant to be. Now she wanted to know it all. If she missed this chance she might well live her life like a dry brown leaf blown in the wind. “I would ask a boon.” She felt that he was attracted to her. He was beyond propriety, but he
also had a chivalrous streak. He might let that get in the way.

“Ask it.” But he held himself tightly. She knew he was afraid she would ask him to give up his mission, stay with her.

She would never do that. He believed completing that mission would make him whole. No one who loved him would ask him to sacrifice that. “You will go tonight to complete your mission,” she said, looking at him steadily. “I ask one thing of you before you do.” She saw him visibly relax. And suddenly she was shy. How did one ask this? “Would you . . . ? Would you consider having sexual intercourse with me?” He looked stricken. She rushed on. “It may be the only time it is possible for me. And to have missed the relations between men and women my whole life . . .”

She wanted him to make love to her? She said she knew everything about him. Didn’t she know how dangerous that was? He could never trust himself with a woman again. Not after . . .

Stephan existed in some twilight of sexual pain. His cock had become an instrument of his own torture. But he embraced that torture. He was on his path. Sometimes he even produced a feeble glow, all on his own. Freya praised his efforts. Even Dee took grim satisfaction in his progress
.

Dee had forbidden Stancie to use him during the daylight hours. “Stancie, this is a most dangerous time,” Dee warned a pouting Stancie. “Too much restraint and you know what happens. Too little and he can hurt you. He is powerful now. Don’t play with fire.”

Stancie flounced out. Stephan knew she couldn’t stay away. To tell truth, he was surprised when Stancie did not reappear that first day. Or the second. But he saw her getting more irritated, her temper more irascible, the crazy gleam in her eyes more desperate. On the fourth day, she let herself into the room, grinning slyly
.

“So conventional, my sisters,” she whispered, running her hands through his hair. “Truly timid. They are content to try to satisfy themselves by their own hands. Not me. They will be away for several hours. Plenty of time for me to have my fill of you. Soon you will go, and then what will I do?”

He would go soon? But he wasn’t ready! He wanted to ask her about that, but her attention was elsewhere. She ran her hand over his rib cage. She caressed the crease between groin and thigh, then bent her head and licked at the great vein there. “Your blood is sweet, Penitent. I will miss you.” The sear of pain when her canines pierced the vein was nothing compared to the other kinds of pain he had learned to suffer. She sucked and his cock swelled. He repeated the chants they had taught him, but it refused to soften. Was she holding him erect?

She did not bother with pleasuring him in any way. She simply straddled his hips and slipped him inside her, grinding her loins against him as she moaned her pleasure. She came almost immediately, having endured what for her was an unheard-of drought of three days. He held to his control. But she began again almost immediately, turning around so that his cock pressed at a new angle and she could squeeze his testicles. Stephan felt himself ramping up. She was relentless, banging herself against him, moaning her pleasure. Stephan began to feel the molten fire burn his loins, his bowels, his belly. She shuddered and contracted around him. There. It would be over now
.

But it wasn’t. She straddled his shoulders, her buttocks in his face, and let him lick her, while she pulled at his cock. “Yes, yes,” she moaned. “Lick me.” When she was roused again, she sat up and moved to hover over his cock, then plunged it inside her
.