Читать книгу Be Mine Forever - Rosemary Laurey - Страница 8

“Justin,” Stella began as she closed the door, “you’re overreacting.”

“I’m not, love. There’s far more to this than you and Angela realize.”

She folded her arms under her breasts. “That so? Any plans to share it with us?”

“We didn’t plan to. Not yet. But in the circumstances…” How to start? A two-minute guide to two millennia of distrust and confrontation? “It’s complicated.”

“I don’t see why. You’re mad because I helped Angela do what she needed to do. Tom’s going to be pissed at you and that will make a rift in your centuries of male bonding.”

Abel give him strength! “Have a seat, Stella.”

She must have sensed his reined-in frustration. She sat down on one of the chairs by the fireplace. He took the other, and pulled it up so they were knee to knee.

Her wry smile hit him hard in the heart. How he loved her! But how could she have let Angela leave? And to Devon of all places? Because he and Tom had failed to share the dangers with them. There was a lesson there. “Stella, it’s a lot more serious than Tom getting put out with me.” A trace of worry creased her dark eyes. “The problem isn’t Angela going off on her own, it’s where she’s gone.”

“To Totnes to find the shop where her coat came from.”

“Totnes is in Devon. We don’t go there.”

She frowned as she thought that over. “By ‘we’ you mean vampires?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m assuming there’s a very good reason why we should avoid Devon?”

The hint of sarcasm irritated him. But more than that, he anticipated her shock when she heard. He reached forward and took her hands in his. “It goes back to before I came here. Even before the arrival of the first Romans. We avoid the West Country, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and parts of Dorset, and almost all of Wales.” She nodded, listening. A little furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “Those parts of Britain are steeped in magic and abound with witches.”

“And that’s why vampires don’t go there?” He nodded. “But Angela’s not a vampire.”

“No. And perhaps may pass unnoticed, but if one of them recognizes her as vampire get…”

“What?” Her eyes widened. “She’s in danger?”

“I don’t know for sure. Possibly. Possibly not. Stella, we have nothing to do with them and they have nothing to do with us. That’s how it is.”

“Why?”

He should have expected that; why hadn’t he told her all this earlier? Because there had been other, more pressing things for her to learn. “It goes back to even before Gwyltha’s time, and she was made in the first century BC.”

“I thought she started this.”

“She started our colony, as the Druid society was declining.” Stella nodded and leaned forward to listen. “Before then, long before my people—the Romans—came, the Druids held sway by magic and old knowledge. My understanding is that when the first offspring of the resurrected Abel reached these islands, no one noticed. As our numbers increased slowly, the high priests realized our powers. Vampires were admitted to the inner circle of priesthood, like Gwyltha was. Some vampires were even worshipped as gods, but in time, the two arms split through mistrust, jealousy, fear, who knows what.

“Later, as the Druids fled with their magic to the far west and the hills of Wales, we stayed behind, concealing our nature. When Gwyltha made me, we were already an invisible people. Survival dictates we stay that way. We remained hidden and kept to our part of the country. They stay in theirs.”

“Are there no witches in the rest of the country?”

“A few, but they are mostly amateurs, players of games. The old lore witches fled with their magic, and we’ve stayed apart ever since.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“The last time witches tangled with us, a coven tried to extinguish Kit.”

“Kit Marlowe, Dixie’s Kit?” Too blunt! Shock and worry widened Stella’s eyes as she jumped up. “We have to warn Angela!”

He stood up and pulled her to him. “I doubt she’s in immediate danger. The attempt on Kit was planned in advance and timed for when he was weakest.” He smoothed Stella’s short, dark hair to calm her. “We just need to get her back. I’d call, but you might have more success. She might dismiss me as playing the heavy vampire.”

“She just might.” Stella paused. “I don’t want to scare her, either. I’ll tell her we’ve discovered something that needs her to get back here ASAP.”

She would have, if she’d gotten through. The hotel rang Angela’s room for several minutes, but no reply. The clerk assured Stella she would give Angela the message, and other than leaving her number, there wasn’t much else Stella could do. “I hope she gets it,” she said as she hung up.

“She will.” Justin pulled Stella close. “I didn’t mean to worry you, but she’s taking a risk going there.”

“It would have been nice to let us in on all this.”

She was right. “I did suggest Tom tell her, but he wanted to wait until he discovered something certain.”

“You mean in all these centuries, he hasn’t yet discovered few things are certain?”

“I know of one.” He grasped her hips and pulled her close. There was no mistaking how he felt about her. “I love you and I’ve missed you like hell.”

“Maybe we should take care of that!”

Her mouth came to his as she raised up on tiptoe. Her lips were sweet and moist and soft, and he’d missed her more than he’d ever imagined possible. He wanted this woman. His vampire. Stella. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him against the glorious fullness of her breasts. As he pressed her lips apart, her tongue caressed his, and wild vampire need coursed through his ancient blood.

The phone on his desk rang.

She pulled away, but before she moved the two paces to lift the receiver, it stopped. She paused, a hand’s length from the now-silent phone. “Must be Pete or Jimmy calling Sam about homework or the new movie playing in Whitby. I wish Angela would call.”

He pulled her back against him, not to kiss her this time but to hold her hand against his chest and cup her head in his hand. “She’ll call back. Don’t worry.”

“What if she calls while he’s nattering away to his buddies?”

“She’ll call again. She hasn’t been there long enough to alert anyone to her presence. Things will be fine.”

She looked up. The trust in her eyes almost broke him. What had he accepted, taking on a wife and child? Joy and worry beyond belief. He bent to kiss her again.

“Pardon me!” They both looked up. “Sorry.” Sam gave an almost wicked grin. “I can see you’re busy, but Uncle Tom’s on the phone.” He held out the portable phone from the kitchen.

“Thanks, son.” Justin reached for the phone.

Stella took it first. Might as well get this over. At least Tom was at the other end of the receiver. Two irate, elder vampires were a bit much for anyone to face. “Bless you honey. How’s the homework?”

“Almost done. Can I watch Robot Wars when I’m through? It starts in ten minutes.”

Sam had wasted no time acclimatizing himself to Brit TV. “Yes, and when it’s all finished, you can treat yourself to a Penguin, but make sure those teeth are scrubbed before you go to bed.”

“Thanks, Mom!” He hadn’t taken long discovering the best of British snacks either. But she had to take his word for how good those rich, chocolate sandwich cookies tasted.

“Hello?” Tom’s voice yanked her right back into the hole she’d dug herself.

“Hi, Tom.” She ignored Justin’s outstretched hand. This was her doing, she’d handle it.

“Hello, Stella. You’ve a very sharp young man there. He was telling me all about Newcastle’s chances against Sunderland.”

“He’s their staunchest supporter, I think.” Soccer had been a godsend. Right from day one, he’d made friends in the playground on the basis of heading and dribbling. “How’s London?”

“Wet! Is Angela handy?”

Her palms might not go sweaty anymore, but her throat still tightened. She was about to upset a four-hundred-year-old vampire. “Tom, Angela’s not here right now. She decided to go to Totnes to see what she could find out.” Silence greeted her announcement.

Tom didn’t ask her to repeat it. He’d obviously understood fine. His irritation seethed through the wires. “Have you no sense?”

Plenty, but now wasn’t the time to point that out. “Tom, until Justin came home an hour or so ago, I was unaware of the problems with the West Country. So was Angela. No one thought to mention the matter to us.”

It was the first time she’d heard a vampire splutter. The line went silent for several seconds. “Where is she? And how long has she been gone?”

“At the Royal Oak in Totnes. She went on the ten o’clock train this morning and called me when she arrived. She’s fine.”

“You don’t know that, Stella, and you shouldn’t be meddling!”

“Tom, she was going to leave whether I helped her or not. This way, I know where she is, and she’s calling me every day. Would you rather I’d refused to help her and she’d gone off without telling me? Do you want the phone number of her hotel?”

“Yes…please. And let me speak to Justin.” She gave him the phone number, and as soon as she finished, Justin picked up the other phone.

As he said, “Hello, Tom,” she realized the door was still ajar. She stepped out to check on Sam. He was engrossed in the action on the flickering screen and blissfully unaware of the worries that welled up in her heart. What if something had happened to Angela? Justin hadn’t been sure if it was dangerous for her, but if witches had tried to extinguish Kit, an elder vampire, what would they do to a new-made ghoul?

Stella walked back into the library just in time to hear, “I agree, but it’s done now. And to be honest, Tom, these women do a darn good job of taking care of themselves.” Justin listened in silence for several seconds, looking up at her as she closed the door behind her. “You’re leaving right away?” he asked Tom.

“Let me speak to him again,” Stella said.

“If we hear back from Angela, I’ll call you at once.”

“Justin,” she hissed. His ignoring irked. His imperious wave of the hand got her dander up. “Justin, let me speak to him!” Remembering the Brit insistence on the courtesy, she added, “Please.”

“Keep me posted, and good luck.”

Justin set the phone on the table after clicking it off, and he met her frown with a soft smile.

“I wanted to speak to him, to tell him not to go barging in playing the masterful vampire.”

“I was aware of that, my love, but I’m afraid Tom’s self-restraint was in short supply. If he’d caved in and cursed you from here to Hades, I would have been in the position of having to call out an old friend for insulting my wife.”

“Oh, give me a break! You…” She stopped. It would be just like them to still duel over her honor. “Justin, that would not have been necessary.”

“Maybe not, if he’d apologized sufficiently, but I sensed Tom was not in an abject frame of mind.”

“He’s worried?”

“Frantic might better describe it.”

“You should have let me speak to him.”

Justin reached out and caught her hand. “Stella, nothing will allay his worries but seeing for himself.”

Since she was getting to that point herself right now…“He’s going to bring her back?”

“Right away, my love, and I did urge him to employ tact and sound reason over emotion.”

Once Angela called back, she’d fill her in so she’d be prepared when Tom arrived. It had to take several hours to get there from London. Unless…“He is driving?”

“I imagine so. He has no change of clothes down there, and I doubt Angela will have anything he can wear.”

She’d already learned from Justin that bat or bird form was the fastest way to get anywhere, but transmogrifying back and standing naked could be a bit awkward. Justin had spare wardrobes all over the place.

“Stop worrying.” His arm snaked behind her and drew her close. “I’ve missed you. Think Sam would settle for me reading to him in bed while you try out the bath oil I picked up in the duty-free?”

His wide lips were just inches from hers. “Trying to seduce me with gifts and sweet words?”

“Why not? It works every time.”

That earned him a dig in the ribs and the slow promise of a kiss.

Angela set off at a brisk pace. The rain had eased but the early nightfall, and just about every shop closing, turned Fore Street from bustling to well-nigh deserted. She’d stayed longer than she realized in Meg Merchant’s welcoming shop.

Angela closed her fingers around the deck of cards in her pocket. Even if she never found Mariposa, she had a clue to her past. As soon as she got back to her room, she’d lay out a spread and see what the cards had to say. She couldn’t keep them in this paper bag; they needed to be wrapped in silk to retain their power. How the hell did she know that? No idea! She sped up. The sooner she got back to the Royal Oak, the sooner she could grab at another fragment of her past.

“What’s the hurry, then, sexy lady?”

Angela stopped midstride as a tall teenager stepped out from a doorway, blocking her path as the sidewalk narrowed. One look at the menace in his eyes, the dangling piercing beside his left eye, and the death’s head tattoo on his bare arm, and Angela stepped into the street.

And almost collided with a battered car that just happened to pull up alongside.

“Wanna ride, sweetheart?” someone called from a rolled-down window. The tattooed menace stepped closer.

Fear lasted seconds. Fury came fast. She and Jane had survived homeless on the streets of Chicago. She was not getting mugged, or worse, in a sleepy little market town.

“Get away from me!” she snapped at anyone within earshot.

A hand closed over her left arm. “Unfriendly are you? We can’t have that, can we?” Tattoo lad raised a hand and stroked the side of her face, pressing his ring into her cheek.

He smiled at her shudder.

Behind her, a car door opened.

Her anger incandesced. A wild buzzing echoed in her ears, her eyes seemed to tighten, and she snarled, leaning into tattoo boy and fixing his eyes with hers.

He paled, let go of her, and stumbled backward. Recovering his balance, courtesy of the shop window, he darted in front of the car and begged then to open the door.

A voice behind her asked, “Did the nasty bitch frighten you then, didums?”

Angela spun around and glared. The thug dropped the knife in his hand and backed away. “Christ!” he muttered.

He looked around as if searching for help. “Oh God!” He wailed, as he lurched backward. Seemed Providence declined him succor. Thug number two almost leaped into the car headfirst.

“Get the hell out of here!” a voice shrieked from inside the car. The driver followed this advice, accelerating down the hill, one rear door swinging open as the car wove across the road.

“Thank heavens!” Angela pressed her hand to her chest. She gulped air in an attempt to steady her racing heart and almost yelped as she caught her reflection in the shop window.

Red, blazing eyes glared back at her, but they were the least of her shock. Her mouth was drawn back in a feral snarl, and her skin held a livid cast that in the evening light looked fearsome and in daylight would no doubt cause heart attacks. As she watched, her distorted reflection adjusted to the one she was accustomed to seeing and the tightness in her skin eased. In seconds, the monster disappeared, and plain old Angela Ryan, or as “plain” as she could be given she was ghoul, looked back at her.

After some very slow, deep breaths, she walked on down the hill. So! She could scare off those of evil intent. It wasn’t quite transmogrifying or exerting mind control the way elder vampires could, or even the physical strength Stella possessed, but it was a start. What else could she do? Fly? Walk on water? Outrun deer? She’d skip experimenting with the first two but maybe try the last one. If she went up on the Moors, she could have a go, see how far she could run and how long.

It would be nice to have a laundry list of ghoul attributes. If Tom could have found that in the old lore books, it would have been useful, but heck, she’d compile her own. Had Jane made any discoveries? She’d give her a call just as soon as she laid out her cards and checked with Stella that all was well back in Yorkshire.

But by the time she reached the bottom of the hill, Angela was dizzy and weak. Seemed the Igor act sapped strength. She hungered for raw meat. Plenty waited up in her room. She almost dropped her key in her eagerness to get gnawing, but made it into her room, slammed the door shut, and grabbed the first package, which happened to be the chicken.

She chewed down the raw meat until only bones remained. The edge of her hunger off, she looked at the small paper bag a few inches from her fingers. She couldn’t touch telling cards with greasy fingers. She scrubbed her hands, uncertain what, if anything, she was going to learn.

The new cards slid easily out of the flimsy box. Her fingertips brushed the pristine surface. She shuffled them slowly, letting the cards slip through her fingers as she set her mind seeking the messages in the cards. She was doing this on instinct, harnessing lost memories. Without asking herself why, she cut the deck and dealt out seven cards facedown in a circle on the bedspread.

The sight was terribly familiar and completely strange at the same time. Ridiculous! But she knew what she was doing, or would when she turned them faceup. Her fingers shook a little as she turned up the six of spades. Threats! She’d just had that. In spades. She couldn’t stop the giggle. Had to be delayed shock and relief. One never laughed over cards. They were too sacred. The next turned was the king of hearts: a kind, fair man. Tom was more brown-haired than fair, but his skin was certainly very pale. Did a vampire count as a man? Jack of spades: a bad-mannered man. No, it was reversed. A false friend, a traitor. Ha! Another card and she found Tom for sure: the jack of clubs, a good lover and a clever, dark, young man. Okay, young was used advisedly, but he had been young when he died. Next, the eight of hearts: love and romance. She wished. Maybe after she found out who she was. More clubs. The six reversed. She needed to be careful. Over what?

She hesitated over the final card: the ace of spades. She had love ahead of her. No point in asking how she knew all this. Confidence seeped into her mind. She’d read the cards once and would again.

If Tom were here, she’d have him shuffle them. As it was, she shuffled for him, keeping in mind his slow, sexy smile and the memory of his cool body, skin to skin with hers.

She missed him!

Why did he have to be so unreasonable and difficult?

She cut the cards and remembered the press of his lips against hers and the sweet taste of his skin on her tongue.

Once she sorted things out here, she’d call him. Maybe go back to Havering via London. But only after she learned something about herself. She was not returning to his “be a good ghoul and let me handle all this” line.

It was as if the cards were coming alive for her. Her fingers warmed as she placed each card facedown. This time she turned them all at once and scanned the spread. From hers she’d received fragments. Maybe together she’d learn more.

Maybe.

The same reversed king of spades. Was it the same evil man? Did they both face the same threat? Hardly likely, as they were on opposite sides of the country. He had three hearts. Looked as if he was headed for luck in the love direction. Was she there with him? Was she the queen that smiled up at her from the chintz bedspread? And as if Tom wasn’t sexy enough for a dozen men, the ten and the four side by side promised him marriage and success in love. Two of diamonds: an argument. They’d had that already. Seemed they couldn’t spend twenty minutes together without one. What did the four and nine of clubs foretell? An unfamiliar place? Heck, she was the one in unknown territory. This was Tom’s country and had been for centuries. And the nine? Money coming, or friends getting together. He had no shortage of money. Interest accumulated over the years, and his friends did seem to stick together. They’d pretty much invaded Ohio back in November.

Love and evil foretold for Tom. An evil and clever man for her, and satisfaction in love and the need to go carefully—not surprising if an evil man lurked ahead. Plus she had to face the uneasiness of five black cards in her seven.

She certainly owed Meg for the cards. She’d pay first thing in the morning. Angela gathered them all up and sat, staring at the deck, now warmed by her hands.

How did she know this? Hell if she knew! But she had read the meaning in the cards. What else waited to be discovered?

The power of the cards skimmed over her skin. She had a whole lot more to find out—about herself and her past and how she ended up on the streets.

Angela looked around at the soft bed. She was dog-tired. The journey, the encounter with the thugs, and now the power in the cards together drained her abundant energy.

She set the cards on the nightstand, pulled off her clothes, and stretched out on the bed.

She was asleep in moments.

And completely oblivious to the dark shape that peered in her window a few hours later.