3

S uccubus.

He had not told her what he meant by it, what the word even meant. No, brimming with arrogance, Lord Blackmoor had turned on his heel and vanished after tossing that word into her bedroom like a flaming cannonball.

Vivienne jumped out of her bed and snatched up a robe. She dragged it onto her naked body as she charged out into the empty hallway. The door to the servants’ stairs stood open. She raced up the back stairs in the pitch black. She missed steps, bumped her shins, and arrived at the top. She searched the attic rooms for him, finding one locked.

Damn. She’d run after him, but he had gotten here so far ahead of her, he’d had time to lock the door.

He was sleeping in a dark, ignored part of the attic. Faint snores came from the servants’ bedrooms that filled the rest of the space. She tried again to turn the knob. It didn’t budge. She rattled it. She didn’t dare pound on the door or shout; she’d wake everyone else.

This stranger had barred her own door to her.

She braced a foot on it and pulled. But it stayed shut. This was her door; why should it obey his blasted command? She had to admit defeat and trudge downstairs. Rage made her eyes burn, and sheer stubbornness held the tears back.

But, in the morning, when she tried to leave her own house, a rough-looking, thick-necked brute stopped her.

She stood on the threshold of her doorway, unable to take another step without walking into a wall of a man. She was afraid, but she tried to drown that with rage. “Who in blazes are you? And what do you mean, I am not to leave the house?”

He touched his cap. Never had she seen such enormous hands. “Orders from his lordship, ma’am,” he said. “I work for him. And his lordship insists you stay in the house until nightfall.”

Fury crackled. “This is my house. I am the voice of command here.”

The enormous man shook his head. “His lordship insisted this is for your safety, ma’am.”

She threatened the man with everything she could think of, from her pistol to a dozen years in New South Wales after he was transported, but he merely turned his enormous back on her and crossed his arms.

“I will have you bodily removed,” she roared at his back. People passed by on the sidewalk below, umbrellas over their heads to shield them from rain, all oblivious to the insanity of her situation.

“That would be a hard thing to do, ma’am. Lord Blackmoor hired me from my previous position as doorman in a gaming hell. I’m used to having to stand me ground.”

Wonderful. There was no point sending any of her servants out to deal with him. He was obviously accustomed to cracking heads.

Fuming, she stalked to the back of the house. Another enormous man stood there, smoking a cheroot. Within minutes, she learned “his lordship” had positioned men all around her house.

She stomped up the stairs, but quieted her footsteps as she retreated to Sarah’s room. Warm spring sunlight spilled in and a soft breeze batted lacy curtains. Her daughter was still sleeping. Vivienne settled onto the chair she kept always at the bedside.

How had this happened? A dozen years of pain and submission and saving and enduring, and she was back in a man’s power again.

At dusk, rain, soot, and fog all conspired to turn the East End sky black as coal, making it safe for a vampire to emerge. Especially one in a heavy, hooded cloak. Heath stopped in front of the apothecary and held up his hand as Julian, also cloaked, headed for the door. “Wait,” he warned.

He wanted to take a few moments and take in all the details of this place he’d ignored before.

Yesterday, his attention had all been on Vivienne. He had observed the apothecary only in his peripheral vision. Now, through the window, he saw dust, grime, and a jumble of ancient bottles.

He stepped back from the sidewalk. Fog billowed down the lane; the cobbles were slick and shining from the mist. Clopping hooves echoed from another street. The store was a narrow one, squashed between an empty building and a cobbler’s shop.

Julian rattled the door. “Locked again.”

“You expected otherwise?”

“It was open last night, when we came with the courtesan.”

“Miss Dare,” Heath corrected. “She’s no longer a courtesan.” He drew out a slim lockpick and had the lock sprung in a second.

“I did it faster.”

“And clumsier. You left scratches on the plate. Scratches which may or may not have been noticed. We have to be careful about this, Julian. And quiet.”

“Why? If there are demons here, they don’t need sound to know they’re being invaded.”

“True. But the place smells empty.”

“I can’t smell anything but the stink of chamber pots and rot. Same as yesterday.”

“That’s how I know there’s no one—mortal or not—inside.” The door gave a soft groan. Heath moved through the dark to the counter. Behind it Mrs. Holt had dispensed Vivienne’s needed drug. On the wooden shelves, bottles were crammed in.

“I’ve already searched through here. What exactly are we looking for this time?”

Heath glanced up. Julian frowned at the counter, his lip curled in distaste.

“I want to know what Mrs. Holt is. What she wants. And who really is making magic potions in this chemist’s. There have got to be some answers to be found here. Let’s go to the back.”

Vivienne had been instructed to seduce him. Why? If he kept thinking about the mystery behind it, he wouldn’t slip and think about letting Vivienne kiss him, touch him, then finally, when he was about to howl with desire, mount him—

Hades.

A dingy curtain concealed a set of narrow, crooked stairs. Heath moved up them so swiftly, the steps had no time to creak. He found himself in the room in which the apothecary prepared medicines. On one side, a wooden counter ran the length of the tight space. Bowls and pestles littered the work-table. Faint light crept around the curtains and glistened on the surface, revealing stains, powder residue, and slick things that had long dried. Astringent scents filled Heath’s nose, along with the heavy smell of rotting flesh. There were barrels along the wall beneath the lowest shelves.

“Body parts,” he muttered.

“Christ Jesus!” Julian’s shout had Heath spinning on his heel. “They weren’t there before.”

As he spat out the words, Julian jumped back. A stack of enormous jars swayed, tottered, and Heath jumped over the table to reach them—

His hand caught them and steadied the pile. Eyeballs sloshed in a yellowish fluid. Julian pointed to the counter and grinned sheepishly. “Those weren’t there last night either.”

Heath noted a tag attached to one. DRIED ELEPHANT PENIS, it read. “Poor buggers.”

A stack of books rested at the end of the counter. Heath looked at the first, a treatise on herbs and plants for medical treatments. The next two were texts on human anatomy. Normal, acceptable books for a place that sold cures.

“There are three bedchambers beyond this room,” Julian explained. “The largest is at the back and is the only one being used. The other two are empty.”

“Many chemists are more successful than this one appears to be,” Heath mused. “Most raise families within their shops.” There was something wrong, something missing.… “Stairs.”

“Over there,” Julian said.

“No. I mean there should be stairs up to another floor. These narrow stores all have three floors. We’re only on the second, and I saw no stairs that led upward. So they must be hidden.”

He began tracing his way along the walls, tapping, until his fist made a hollow sound. The plaster appeared unbroken. So how did the door to the stairs open? Magic, obviously. With a spell he didn’t know. So he raised his boot and slammed it through plaster and laths.

Julian jumped. “Hades, I thought we were supposed to be quiet.”

Ignoring the younger vampire, Heath kicked a hole large enough to climb through. He found himself on the landing of another narrow stair. There was no sound, only the soft flutter of bits of plaster settling. Then he charged upstairs. The stair opened onto a room that took up the entire floor, decorated like a gentleman’s study with an ornate desk of black wood and large leather chairs.

It took only moments to know the room was devoid of demons or apothecaries. Heath searched the desk first. He ripped open drawers and found them also empty—except for the last, which held a heavy seal. He turned and lifted it to look at the pattern.

He knew the design well. It was a thick cross decorated with curves and loops. The sight of it shot his thoughts back into his past. He remembered the flame of a campfire, howls of wolves, and the barking of frightened dogs. A man wearing furs lifted a brand from flame, and the raised cross had glowed red.

Heath remembered searing pain, the stench of his own burning flesh, as his sire’s servant had branded him while the ancient vampire placed the curse on his head.

“What is it?” Julian asked.

“Nothing.”

Now he knew how Mrs. Holt had known who he was. The vampire who used this room was his sire. Nikolai, the five-hundred-year-old vampire who had made him, who’d cursed him.

What was Vivienne’s part in this? As her payment for her medicine, was she supposed to unleash the demon in him?

Night had settled by the time his lordship bothered to come downstairs. Vivienne knew from stories that vampires had to stay out of the light and sleep in the day. But they slept in coffins. And vampires did not really exist.

She watched him with pursed lips as he prowled into Sarah’s room, all long legs and mobile shoulders. He appeared oblivious to the anger stewing inside her, the arrogant wretch. He was dressed in trousers and a shirt, but he moved on bare feet. Silent, graceful, stealthy.

He paused at the end of the bed and studied Sarah with his head cocked. He took a deep breath as though he scented something in the air.

Vivienne opened her mouth, but he spoke first. “Does she normally sleep so much?”

And with one question, he probed the deep fears boiling inside her. “She has never slept a whole day before. She must have been very tired—”

“She must be getting weaker and the medicine isn’t helping. That’s what you fear.”

She watched, hands fisted, as he approached Sarah. She flinched as he touched Sarah’s throat with two fingers until she realized he was checking the pulse.

“If I try to help your daughter, it will mean she will have to drink my blood. Are you willing to let me do that?”

“N-no. That’s preposterous—” She stopped. Doctors had come and had bled Sarah. And it had done nothing. “You licked my wound and it went away. Is that what would happen if Sarah drinks your blood?”

“It’s not as simple as that. I can’t feed her enough at one time to banish whatever this illness is. Not without taking the risk that I turn her into a vampire. I assume that’s not the future you envision for your daughter?”

“No!”

“Then we start slowly. A little at a time. She will build a tolerance. We should know in a few days if it is working.”

A few days. “And do you intend to keep me a prisoner all that time?”

“I intend to keep you with me, Miss Dare. Until we find my brother.”

He might call himself a vampire, but he was as pigheaded a man as any of her protectors had been. But she couldn’t fight now. Or even protest her innocence. If believing she knew his brother kept him here to help Sarah, she’d hold her tongue. “That name you called me. Succubus. What does it mean?”

She had prided herself on the library she built, for she wanted Sarah to be well read. But none of her books defined that word.

He had been studying Sarah. He looked at Vivienne. “There is a way to prove what you are, Miss Dare. But it will mean you won’t be making love to anyone—in your dreams or out.”

“Your dream can’t have been the same as mine,” she challenged. “That’s impossible.”

A slow grin spread. “You dropped to your knees before me in Hyde Park.” He spoke softly so Sarah could not hear. “You sucked my cock until I was on the brink of climax. And what did I do then?”

She flushed. “You lifted me up to my feet and knelt before me and—”

“You see. The same dream. Was your climax as good in your dream as it was in mine?”

But he had left her then and drawn a blade out of the waistband of his trousers. A long, thin knife. He drew it along his wrist, leaving a dribble of blood.

The sight of it brought back vile memories. Her mother’s—Rose’s—blood dripping from her nose after she had taken a man’s blow. Vivienne shivered. Every maternal instinct screamed for her to protect Sarah. And to resist this man who had invaded her house, who was battering her defenses with something far stronger than violence. Hope.

With shaky fingers she touched her healed cheek. She had to try this. Was his promise any more far fetched than the crone’s medicine? Yet Sarah looked so small and defenseless. Was she betraying her daughter? With a heart heavy as lead, she asked quietly, “Should I wake her?”

He shook his head. He tipped his hand to smooth the line of his wrist and send the blood oozing faster. “No. All I need to do is touch the blood to her lips. She will take over from there.” Another rueful smile played over his mouth. “Like a babe at the breast.”

But as he lowered his powerful body to sit on the edge of her daughter’s bed and flicked back his sleeve, Vivienne ran to the fireplace and grasped the poker. In her mind’s eye, she could see the leather apron–clad butcher flying through the alley. This would hardly stop Heath.

But it was something.

Heath murmured to Sarah. Vivienne couldn’t hear the words, but his tone was soothing. She found her grip loosening on her weapon. She shook sense into her head and held it hard. There had been gentlemen—cads and scoundrels who had pursued her to get close to Sarah. She was not naive.

Heath held his wrist to Sarah’s lips. “N—” Vivienne began in protest, but to her amazement, Sarah fastened her lips to his wound. Her daughter’s eyes were still shut, but she drank fiercely. Suddenly Sarah’s hand shot out from the covers and gripped Heath’s arm to hold him there.

Heath motioned Vivienne to come to him. Holding the poker, she did.

“See how strong her grip is. Is it always like that?”

“Heavens, no.” Vivienne’s tongue felt thick and clumsy. “She is always so weak.”

“This is a good sign then.” He looked up at her. His auburn hair fell across his face, disheveled, red as flame. The sympathy, the hope in his strange, reflective silver eyes stunned her. She was a stranger to him. Why should he care about Sarah’s fate, about hers?

And if he thought she had hurt his brother, why did he look at her so gently?

Transfixed, she watched Sarah drink. It should horrify her, but pink began to bloom in Sarah’s cheeks. It had been months since Sarah’s skin had been anything but ashen.

“That’s enough, little love,” Heath whispered.

Her daughter’s eyes flew open, desperate and angry, and she clung to him harder.

“No, Sarah,” Vivienne tried, “you must stop—”

But Sarah ignored her. Heath spoke strange words. “Arnum aria enta.”

It sounded like Latin, but nothing Vivienne recognized. Sarah dropped away from his wrist and fell back onto the bed. Her eyes were closed. But her skin, instead of looking parchment thin, actually glowed.

“Is—is she all right?” Guilt and fear were a crushing weight on her heart.

“She needs to sleep. She has to digest whatever it is in my magical blood that heals.” He stood, reminding Vivienne of his size. His head brushed the tasseled trim of Sarah’s bed canopy.

“She looks so much better.” She hugged that hope to her heart, desperate not to lose an ounce of it. Before her tear-blurred eyes, Sarah’s face looked as pretty as it once had, instead of haggard and ill. Then her tears spilled. “The medicine never did that to her.”

His sensual mouth twisted sardonically. “I suspect the medicine was only intended to keep her barely alive. Not to cure her.”

“But why? I paid the price.” She gaped at him before she thought to brush away her tears.

His gaze fixed on her wet cheeks. “And if Sarah was cured you would stop paying the price. A succubus steals part of a man’s soul each time she beds him. Mrs. Holt didn’t want you to stop.”

“I am not a succubus. I do not steal men’s souls. If anything, men have taken mine.”

“I don’t believe that.” He looked around. “You care too much for Sarah to have no soul. I think, if anything, men made your soul stronger.”

That was utter madness. And she was about to throw fierce words at him, when he smiled lazily. He grasped the poker and tugged it out of her hand.

“A woman with a weapon is always a dangerous thing. You know, there is a way to prove whether you are a succubus or not.” He ran a considering hand over his jaw. “For the details, there is a book I must consult.”

“Then go and look at it. And leave me alone.” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you did,” he said softly. “Now, you will have to get dressed. The men I’ve employed can watch the house, and I assume you have your servants watch over Sarah.”

She glared at him. “I’m not leaving my daughter.”

“Yes, you are—for a few hours. I have to go out. I want to get that book. Then I need to find my brother, and I need to find out who has been using you to drain the souls of England’s peers.”

Vivienne could not even count all the dangerous things she had done within the last day. And now she was walking into a dark house with a well-built, muscular gentleman who called himself a vampire. She had no weapon, nor anyone to protect her. Servants surrounded her, but they were in his employ.

He had helped Sarah.

Heath had given her a miracle. And for that alone, she knew she had to do what he asked.

The door thudded to a close behind her, the heavy sound echoing in the massive foyer of his town house. She froze at the sound, her hands clutching the sides of her cloak.

“What is wrong, Miss Dare?” Moonlight spilled in from a skylight, glancing across his face like a sword’s blade. In the bluish glow, his eyes were silver. Unearthly. “There’s nothing to fear in my foyer.”

Oh yes there is. You. “Why did you help my daughter when you believe I am capable of murder? When you suspect—wrongly—that I made your brother disappear?”

“Your crimes are not your daughter’s crimes.”

“Do you intend to let me go home to her?”

“I want to find my brother.” He watched her carefully. “However, I don’t plan to take revenge. Revenge is a bloody useless thing to want and a dangerous thing to pursue.”

She refused to show how much he scared her. “Do you have a portrait of your brother in this dark house? I should like to actually see the man you accuse me of seducing.”

He paused. “I told you what he looks like.”

“Yes. Like you only more attractive. I would prefer to see for myself.”

With gentlemanly aplomb, he offered his arm. Given she was essentially his prisoner, the gesture seemed absurd. He felt no noble consideration to her. “Come,” he said.

She sighed and touched him. Her hand slid along his forearm. Rock. Iron. Solid as stone. A sizzle rushed up her fingertips, then rippled in her tummy like waves in a pond. She’d never felt so giddy at a man’s touch.

It must be the strain.

“The gallery is this way.”

She had to hurry to follow his long stride. They stepped through a doorway, into a black, silent space. She felt cold as he moved away. He whipped back the drapes and silvery light fell in.

He raked his hand through his hair. She had survived by reading masculine emotions—all gentlemen revealed them. Men were far more expressive than women, and more honest about what they felt. Women only got into trouble because they tried to ignore what they saw. In Heath, she saw great pain.

He pointed to a life-size portrait behind her. “That is my brother and me,” he said huskily. “He is named Raine.”

Two young men stared down from the painted canvas. Heath was seated; she could tell at once it was he. The same sweep of auburn hair, but in the picture, it was caught back with a velvet bow. An identical proud nose and full sensual mouth, but his eyes were green. He sat back in casual repose but looked ready to leap out of the frame. His brother, Raine, looked thinner, more uncertain. His hands lay on the chair as though he was holding his brother and drawing strength from him. He looked very young. And despite their youthful faces, they wore elegant blue tailcoats, with pristine collar points and cravats.

“This picture was painted a long time ago,” she observed. “Yet you have hardly changed.”

“It was painted before my marriage. And I will never change, love. Never grow old. My soul has crumbled to dust. On the outside, you would never guess I was supposed to be dead. You would never see I was different at all.”

His marriage. He said it casually, but he had said nothing about a wife. “And your brother?”

“He changed. He has aged since that picture. He only became a vampire a few months ago.”

Vivienne stared intently at his brother. She tried to envision Raine looking older—more grizzled, more lined, more dissipated, or whatever ravages age had bestowed upon him. “I’ve never seen him. That is the honest truth.”

“I believe you.”

She jerked around. Shadows moved across him as though trying to caress his body. “Why do you believe me now?”

“You’re angry. If you weren’t innocent, you would be scared. Now you are just getting frustrated with me.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Very. I don’t know what happened to your brother. And I don’t know why those peers died. Or what Mrs. Holt wants.”

“You don’t believe you take their souls?”

“Of course not. I don’t believe in magic—black, white, or otherwise.”

“It’s interesting. You are a very jaded woman, but you are filled with hope. It glows from you. I can almost taste it exuding from you.”

Hope. Vivienne flinched. Hope should not have existed for a girl whose mother was a tart, working for brutish whoremongers and living in grimy flashhouses. It should have been beaten right out of her. Yet he had given it to her.

Hope had always been her little secret. That and determination. I will give us something better, she would say to her mother. And Mama would stroke her hair and let her say it over and over—until gin became a substitute for hope for Mama and she’d stopped listening altogether.

“You said you were married. Where is your wife?”

His eyes changed; they turned black. Pure black, as though his pupils had gobbled up all the color. “She died nine years after we were married.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Ten years. The tip of forever. I don’t want to speak about it. She is in Heaven and I’m in eternal damnation, where I belong.”

“Why do you believe that?” She stepped toward him, but he retreated from the light.

“We’re here so I can question you.”

“Well, I have another question for you. What have you done to try to find your brother? There are men who can be hired to do such things—former Bow Street Runners. Private investigators.”

“My brother is a vampire. Too hard to explain, even to those willing to do almost anything for money. I’ve searched London for him—and for you, because I saw you standing next to Raine in a reflection in a pool of water.”

“That’s impossible. I’ve never been near him.”

“It is a magical pool, high on the moors. It is said that it shows the face of the next person to die. In it I saw you and my brother.”

“Surely you are joking. If you look into a pond, aren’t you going to see your own reflection?”

“That is what happens to most people who do dare to try it. Then each one, according to legend, has died shortly after. Probably so damn nervous, they brought about their own deaths. And yes, when I looked in, I first saw my reflection. But of course, I’m not going to die. Then I saw you. You were reflected with me, as though you were … uh, standing behind me. Then my image vanished and I saw my brother. I could see, from the way he looked at you, that he cared for you and desired you.”

“You believe this? Magical pools and wild predictions! You were probably foxed and imagined it all!”

“Vampires don’t get foxed. Let us go to the library.” He held out his hand.

Startled, she realized he intended to lead her through his house by holding her hand. She placed her hand on his forearm instead. To walk handfasted seemed too intimate. His auburn brow jerked up, but he said nothing. And stayed as quiet as his tomb-silent house as he led her through the darkness.

Silent men had always made her nervous. Like the dark sky, some men became very, very still before they exploded into a storm. Drunk ones were the most frightening. Any man who did not blather like a fool when he got foxed was a man to avoid.

What of a silent vampire? It unnerved Vivienne. Her half boots creaked upon floorboards, her breath huffed in the quiet as they walked through the house. Heath moved without any sound at all.

“This is the library.” He left her in the pitch black, and she shuddered. A moment later, she saw a blue spark in the middle, smelled a waft of sulfur. A flame caught to one wick after another. Soon a candelabra glowed, and a brilliant halo of light fell over a long, wooden table. It threw light over Heath’s strong forearm and the glow turned his hair to red flame. Gilt lettering glinted as he walked along the shelves, which seemed to stretch endlessly into the dark.

“What can you prove from these books?” There must be thousands of them. Tens of thousands. She’d had affairs with rich and powerful gentlemen. None had possessed so many books.

He ran his finger along the titles, but held the light behind him. Apparently he did not need it to see. “That you are a succubus. Come here. Look at the books on this shelf.” He set the candelabra on the floor.

The shelf in question was ten feet long. Books were packed side by side. She tentatively reached up. One of the volumes in front of her looked ancient. The other books gripped it so tightly, it would not come free. “These are all about that word you used? Succubus?”

“A succubus is a female demon who appears to men in dreams, naked, beautiful, and carnally skilled. Flower, I suspect every vampire hunter alive has either written a book about succubi—or would like to.”

A female demon?

Gently, he eased out the book and opened it. In the light she could see an image on the yellowed paper. A woman with flowing hair, large bare breasts, and fangs was straddling a human male. “This can’t be me. I don’t have fangs. I don’t bite men.”

“I think you might. Under the right circumstances.” He moved behind her. His hard, taut thighs brushed along her bottom. She took a step forward, away from him. “A succubus steals a man’s soul when he climaxes inside her. The fangs are not necessary.”

She took a deep breath. “If I was one of these, how could I have been born to my mother and lived my life in England? I am a normal woman.”

His voice softened. “I suspect you are an extraordinary woman.”

Madness, but she felt a quiver of pleasure at his flattering tone. She quickly quelled it. “I am ordinary.” Another picture leaped out at her. A blond woman had her mouth to a man’s throat and his member in her hand while he writhed beneath her in pleasure and pain. “I was not a succubus. I was a whore.” She hated saying the word. She heard the anger in it, vibrating like a blade of fine steel when it whipped through the air. “I was cursed, but not in the way you seem to think.”

“I have to search a brothel tonight. You won’t understand why I’m right unless you go there with me.”

Dear heaven, she never wanted to set foot in such a place. She had escaped being forced to work in a whorehouse by the skin of her teeth. “No.”

He inclined his head. “You don’t have a choice. I am taking you with me. When we return, before dawn, I will feed your daughter again.”

“You are wrong. I do have a choice—” She stopped. She knew what he would do. It was what any man would do to get what he wanted. Be vicious, ruthless. “You won’t help Sarah unless I agree.”

He recoiled as though she’d hit him. “I would never use your daughter as blackmail. Never. I meant merely that I could do this—”

A scream shot out from her lips as he came to her in a blurred motion and lifted her. The shelves raced by as she flew through the air, then flopped over his shoulder. His hand clamped firmly on her bottom.

“There, darling. No choice. You have to know temptation without release. Until you experience that, you aren’t going to know what you are.”

She had no idea what he was talking about. She hammered her hands on his back, wildly kicked her feet. He tightened his grip, and the most shocking erotic sensation raced from where his fingers pressed into her derriere. She should not be aroused by this.

This was what men did. When they couldn’t win in any other way—not with money or words or power—they used their size and their strength.

She could never let herself forget that.

And she would never let herself feel hot and erotic and wanting at his touch. Not ever again.