Blood Sworn 1: Salva Me Read online

  Jeremy scrubbed at his mouth, unable to forget the vile taste of the savaged girl’s blood. Not even an hour could have passed when they’d found her, given the girl’s state, yet the poison had already wreaked enormous havoc on her body. He hoped the turning would not drain him to the point of exhaustion. The upcoming hunt would require every ounce of his abilities.

  He penned a few brief lines, noting the number of casualties Thorven had reported. Flipping his pen end over end, he considered the news about the Raavenshal Host, possibly the most disturbing development. It brought Jeremy’s former Host forcibly to mind. David’s face swam before his for a moment, and then he pushed the memory back.

  With a sigh, Jeremy tucked the book away into his drawer, then headed for his next task. As much as he loved Morgan, thinking on possibilities best left unsaid had leached away his desire. He wished to do nothing more than hold his Host tight and keep him safe from the predator hunting unchecked in England. But Morgan would object to such cosseting. Strongly.

  By the time Jeremy reached his rooms, Morgan was awake, sitting propped against a mound of feather pillows. Clear lines of pain were etched on his face, but he looked otherwise rested, though dark shadows circled his earthen eyes.

  Perhaps Morgan would survive the turning after all, his wits and dignity intact. His adamant will could make the difference; it took more than physical stamina for a turning Host to come through the process as anything other than an obedient follower.

  As soon as Jeremy entered the room, Makoto left, closing the door with an impenetrable look on his face. Formerly one of his mother’s nosferii minore, Makoto had been a samurai, a warrior, driven by honor to survive and take vengeance on the man who had killed his lord. He’d sworn his allegiance to the Yamakawa family after his turning, following Jeremy to England to serve the family seat. He understood what was afoot, knew what stakes rode on this. Jeremy wasn’t certain the man approved or not, but he knew Makoto would never say.

  “You took your damn time.”

  The anger in Morgan’s voice took Jeremy aback. Such a snarl was out of keeping with his Host’s normal politeness. The last time he’d heard such fury from his Host had been the only time he’d enjoyed Morgan’s body before today.

  Jeremy’s shock must have shown; a look of bewilderment crossed Morgan’s strained features, a crimson flush staining the strong, sculpted face.

  “Forgive me,” Morgan said, voice hoarse with embarrassment and a strong emotion Jeremy couldn’t identify. “I… My thoughts…” The words trailed away.

  Jeremy waved away the incipient apology. “Think nothing of it, Holland. With my poison running through you, it’s not to be wondered at that your nerves are on edge.”

  A harsh laugh replaced the embarrassment. “On edge is quite an understatement, my lord. My nerves are on fire, burning me from the inside.”

  “I wish I could mitigate the pain for you, but it is proof that your blood fights the venom.”

  Alarm clouded Morgan’s eyes. “Will that jeopardize the turning?”

  “Not at all. In fact, it’s an encouraging sign. It means a greater chance of success.” No need to let Morgan know the odds may have increased from one in four to one in three. Let him consider the odds greater than fifty percent. Such positive thoughts could only be of benefit. On the other hand, that flash of anger from the implacable Morgan Holland suggested his independent nature battled the process as fiercely as his body.

  A troubling sign. Such altering of the Host’s normal personality ordinarily indicated precisely what Jeremy wished to avoid—Morgan’s descent into a mindless follower, dependent on Jeremy for all things essential to his life.

  Thorven had reason to be concerned. If such a thing came to pass, Laura Holland’s reason for agreeing would vanish, and two lives would be lost rather than one saved. Yet sharing the knowledge with either could prove disastrous. So Jeremy chose to keep them ignorant and unaware of the potential danger. The turning had been set in motion; it could not be stopped at this point.

  He settled on the edge of the bed, caressing Morgan’s flushed features to determine if the heat level was high enough. A fevered, sweating brow assured him the warmth was adequate. As his hand drew back, he felt the faintest shiver under the tips of his fingers. A trail of heat followed, suggesting the beginnings of compulsion. The color of Morgan’s face deepened; a blush of shame, perhaps, or confusion.

  Jeremy slid his hand over bunched pectoral muscles, the moist slickness assuring him the necessary fever heated more than just Morgan’s brow. Clenched abdominals beckoned, intimating pain and something more. Below his questing fingers, evidence of his Host’s pleasure shifted the covering, drawing a crooked smile from the man.

  “It seems I crave your touch,” Morgan said, voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. “Though you warned me, I did not quite believe.”

  Jeremy ceased his casual explorations. The implications of Morgan’s comment were unpleasant at best. “This is no time for regret.”

  “I did not say I regret it. I would do anything to save Laura. I merely said I did not truly understand before.”

  The candid admission drove a shaft of pain into Jeremy. “I would do anything to save Laura.” Those words laid bare the crux of the matter. Morgan surrendered to the compulsion, suffered the indignity of it, only for his daughter. It seemed Morgan’s heart could not be won with any ease. Yet such a sacrifice was a worthy thing, another point of honor for his Host, though it meant Jeremy might never know the love he sought.

  He pushed the hurt to the back of his mind and returned to his questing touches. Beyond assuring him of Morgan’s heat, the contact helped soothe the ache in his chest. He could already detect the beginnings of the pheromone changes that accompanied the compulsion. Though the alteration of the venom took three days, the changes Morgan had just begun to experience would take months to settle. If his flash of anger a moment ago was any indication of the fragile state of his emotions, it could prove to be a difficult passage. Jeremy would have to rely on Morgan’s obstinate nature to navigate through those changes safely.

  His fingers reached the sheet where it bunched loosely across his Host’s lap. Morgan’s arousal twitched at the soft caress. Gathering his courage, Jeremy allowed his hunger to show. “Now that you do understand, shall we proceed?”

  A nod was the only response he received, and Jeremy smothered the hurt sigh that threatened. Even if it’s only this, it is still more than I expected before. He would have to content himself with that mantra. He stroked Morgan harder through the sheet, mollified to some extent by the gasp of pleasure the touch elicited. “Now, let us bring your fever to a higher pitch.”

  Jeremy pressed Morgan gently back onto the bed, his arousal growing at this small sign of attachment. He peeled back the covering sheet, straddling Morgan’s thighs so the bulge of his erection rested nearly on top of his waiting prize. A groan accompanied the contact, along with a leap of anticipation from the now-trapped shaft.

  A tiny bead of excitement pearled at the top, and Morgan reached up, unfastening the buttons confining Jeremy’s erection. There was no hesitation, despite the man’s unsettled emotions. The feel of those hot fingers peeling back his clothing a layer at a time was exquisite torture, causing Jeremy’s cock to twitch in growing anticipation.

  And here he thought he’d be taking the lead. He surrendered to the novelty, stripping waistcoat and shirt, closing his eyes against the onslaught of sensation between his thighs. Morgan’s touch nearly drove Jeremy insane, and he squelched the urge to flip the man over and pin him to the bed. He wanted to pound into him, but the point was to drive Morgan’s body heat to a certain pitch. That meant control, not wild abandon. As much as he yearned to bury himself inside Morgan, it was a treat that must wait until the turning.

  The fever in Morgan’s body had already created a sheen of slick sweat that Jeremy could feel through his breeches. He folded his hand about their two cocks, pressing himself against the velve
t steel of Morgan’s arousal. A shift of his hips drew a deep groan from his partner, and he allowed himself a smile of satisfaction at the sound.

  Soon, the slippery sensations caused by the frottage had Morgan moving underneath him. The tension built in Jeremy, causing his balls to tighten as he fought against the approaching orgasm. He’d never before been this aroused by such simple caresses, but the feel of Morgan’s desire for him had triggered an answering need he barely kept in check.

  “God, Jeremy,” Morgan gasped, his strong fingers digging into the flesh of Jeremy’s thighs.

  The sound of his name on Morgan’s lips sent a blaze of pleasure raging straight down Jeremy’s spine. The thundering surge followed right on the heels of Morgan’s release, and Jeremy shuddered at the abrupt flare of pure lust flooding from his shivering Host.

  Exhaustion overtook him, a weariness no nosfera noble in good health should feel. Had the delayed, shortened feeding and the preparation for the turning overtaxed him? He could not be certain, but he did know he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and lie here with Morgan.

  MORGAN LAY AWAKE, his heart’s rapid pace gradually slowing. Colbourne’s soft breathing reassured him the man slept deeply. An unusual thing for a nosfera noble, whose heightened senses were constantly on alert. For Jeremy to be this exhausted, he must have been shorting himself on needed sleep. For how long?

  He brushed aside a strand of silken black hair, fingers tentative as he stroked away lines of care that should not exist. Had he been the cause? Morgan regretted it, if it were so. His job as the steward of Colbourne Manor was to ease the burden on the lord, thereby enabling him to perform the barony’s ancestral duties without concern. His trusted position was to be a companion, a friend. Yet Morgan’s very existence as Host had been nothing but a greater burden, the result of his own hubris. Worse, he had strained their friendship with his refusals, knowing the impact on Colbourne.

  Now he forced his master to choose, to decide between his duties and his Host’s happiness. Morgan understood the inherent lack of fairness in such a choice, but he himself could not choose. It seemed he was a coward, after all. Lying here in Colbourne’s bed after surrendering to the very caresses he had spent more than a decade evading, and still he feared such intimacies.

  A surge of pain accompanied his thoughts, as though his indecision spurred the ever-present agony to flog him to a choice. He wrapped his arms tight about his knees, fighting the shudders rippling through him. The constant burn of the poison seared him from the inside, driving spikes of resentment through him, despite knowing he had requested this himself.

  Yet Laura’s agony must be a thousand times worse. He could still feel the shock of horrified recognition that had thundered through him at the sight of her. The abrupt descent from his elevated status as the blood-Host of the Baron of Colbourne to the ignoble man he truly was: the father and husband who had abandoned his family for the sensual touch of a vampire.

  Irrational, those thoughts, but they reverberated through his mind like the deep toll of a church bell calling penitents to atone. He had allowed himself to forget his wife and children, and the lord whose land he farmed. He had buried it all deep inside him as his heart and soul cleaved to a man the Church would burn alive.

  Conscience pricked, he slid out from beneath the tangled sheets, every muscle knotted. He ignored the pain, forcing his aching body to the clothespress, bending his will to the task of dressing. He would not visit his daughter in such a state of undress again. Shirt, breeches, vest, stockings: each piece a trial of patience and determination. After a long struggle, he stood, dressed as befitted the steward of Colbourne Manor.

  Morgan glanced at the bed, where the lord himself lay, graceful even in his sprawled and naked state. Morgan flushed, feeling the heat in his face despite the fever coursing through him. To have such admiration for another man, to crave the touch the Church deemed sinful, went against everything his former life had stood for.

  Now, with no choice but to yield, he wished for nothing more than a return to that life from before. Before they’d found Laura half-dead in the streets of London. Before he’d agreed to Contract with the Baron of Colbourne. Before he’d found compassion in his heart for a bloodied man dying in the Sussex countryside.

  Yet the past could be neither reclaimed nor undone, and the greatest part of a man’s pride rested in his ability to keep his word. He had failed his daughter once already. He refused to fail again. Wrenching his eyes away from the sight of Jeremy Colbourne’s supine form, he slipped out the door, closing it with as much quiet care as possible.

  By the time he reached Laura’s room, his legs trembled with fatigue as sheer fire ran through his veins. Sweat streamed from his forehead, and his shirt had plastered itself to his back. He rested a shaking hand on the door’s frame, taking a moment to catch his breath. He’d thought his prior trip had been miserable, but that was nothing compared to the torturous journey he’d just undertaken.

  Despite this, he would not show his daughter this debilitating weakness. Reaching deep into himself, he found one last pocket of strength. It did little for the searing pain racing through him, but it put a stop to the tremors. Once his body was his to control again, he entered his daughter’s room.

  Laura’s face against the white pillow was ghastly gray. She looked near death, and his chest clenched at the thought she might not survive the turning. Pulling a chair to her bedside, he took her hand, noticing the frailty, the sharp feel of bones through parchment skin. He reached to stroke her hair, feeling the dry, brittle texture of her once-silken locks.

  Her eyes fluttered open, though she did not immediately speak. Recognition came a scant second later, and a soft sigh escaped her. Her fingers tightened on his the faintest bit, quivering at the exertion. He answered her grip gently and bent to kiss her forehead.

  “I’m sorry I abandoned you,” Morgan whispered. “I never returned, and now you have been hurt so badly.” His gut wrenched at the thought of the trials she must have endured. His family had suffered because of him. It was a thought that ate into him far worse than the poison of Colbourne’s fangs.

  “Mama’s dead.” The words, strained though they were, came out flat, unequivocal. “Stephen too.”

  No hint of accusation resounded in her words, yet they struck him with the force of a blow. Julie, dead? Stephen, his boy, gone from this world? Sudden grief gripped him, made him want to crush Laura to his chest in an embrace to make it all disappear. Yet he had no right to do so. After all, until they’d found Laura bleeding her life away in the streets of London, he’d all but forgotten his family existed. Though he had memories of Julie and his children, he’d forgotten his duty to them as the man of the house. Overlooked everything except Jeremy Colbourne, despite his continued avoidance of the issue plaguing them.

  “Sorry,” Morgan choked out, shamed to his core. “I am so sorry.”

  Laura’s eyes were wide with knowledge she should not possess at her age. Barely nineteen and the brilliant glow of her eyes had already dimmed to those of a world-wise woman. “He knew it, that Lord Colbourne. He already knew I had no one. He said he’d seen other girls like me, with no one to help.”

  No one to help. He flinched away from the truth of those words and focused instead on her words about Colbourne’s easy understanding. “He is an extraordinary man.”

  “You mean monster.” Laura’s voice shook with remembered terror, terror that overwhelmed her.

  A small bit of anger stirred in Morgan’s heart at the word. Taken aback by her vehemence, he cradled her hand against his chest, looking for a way to explain the enigma of the nosferii, of the Baron of Colbourne. After a long moment, he placed her hand back on the coverlet, aching at the separation but needing it to speak without bias.

  “He’s not a monster, Laura. He’s nosferii. The Church calls him a vampire, because, like all his kind, he needs blood to survive.” He thought back to the day he had first learned the truth behind
the ancient race, the unexpected and simple answer to why they were what they were. “The nosferii are like humans and subject to all the pain and suffering the rest of us endure. Their hearts beat as ours do, they are born and die, just as we do, though their lives span several human generations. They eat and drink and only take blood from those willing to serve.”

  Her eyes showed her disbelief at his last words. “And what of me, Papa? I never said yes, not this time, and not the last time.”

  Last time? Dear God, she had been attacked before?

  His hands began to shake, and he clasped them together on his knees to stop the tremors. He could not find breath to answer her. The knowledge of her previous attack had stolen every hint of air from the room. The burn of Colbourne’s venom surged within him, and blackness began to creep into the edges of his vision.

  A strong hand gripped his shoulder, the sudden pain driving the darkness back.

  “You were attacked by a nosferatu, Miss Holland. A rogue vampire, if you will. A madman among our race, just such as yours harbors. It is my sworn duty, the duty of every nosfera noble, to hunt down and destroy such evil.” Colbourne’s mild delivery gave no hint of displeasure at the conversation or any evidence of surprise at Laura’s statement. “I had noticed the old scars on your neck. I had no intention of discussing them until after the turning, for fear of distressing you further.”

  The disbelief did not leave her eyes. “How do I know you are any different?”

  Colbourne gave a troubled sigh. “There are signs, for those who know how to see. If you were stronger, I would encourage you to walk about my home and speak with those in my employ. Were we at Colbourne Manor instead of here, in the heart of Mayfair, I would entreat you to speak with the villagers and other locals on my lands. Our community is close-knit, Miss Holland, for our own safety. Such vicious attacks as you have experienced are condemned out of hand, if only to ensure the king does not recall his protection of us.”