Leave her fordeath. Because I knew in my dry husk of a heart that was exactly what would come for her if I left her where she lay.
And won’t she suffer the same fate if I dare to touch her?Being so close to her—a woman whose blood I especially craved—was a test I hadn’t set myself since discovering the formula for my vital essence. Truly, it was a test I had hoped toneverset myself.
Even unconscious, she was flooding my senses, driving me to desperation. There was no separating my bloodlust from the base arousal worked by the sweet, ripe lines of her lips, the rise and fall of her breasts with her shallow breathing, and the dip of her waist against the curve of her hip.
“Mother of God,helpme.”
To my knowledge, no prayer uttered by me or my forefathers had ever been heeded.
Steel yourself. You are out of options.
I couldn’t leave her. But whatwasI to do with her? Take her to her cottage? Now wasn’t the time for a man hardly anyone would recognize as their neighbor to be spotted carrying an unconscious woman across the heath. And by the blood scenting the air, she likely had a wound that needed tending.
That I certainly cannot do.
Yet since visiting The Magpie, I had made it my business to learn what I could about Mina Penrose, and I knew there was a very real risk the brother she lived with wouldn’t come home for hours yet. Even if he did, he might be stupid with drink.
If only she would open her eyes. Silvered green, like garden sage.I remembered how wide they’d gone in the tearoom when she realized who I was. And how they’d flashed when I’d advised her to stay at home. Small wonder she’d disregarded the warning.
I took another step toward her. The rich warmth of the blood that soaked into her hair terrified me. The scent clawed its way into my throat, choking me. My heart rattled as I bent over her, and my breaths—normally deep but few—came fast and light. With trembling fingers, I reached out and touched her chin—soft as rose petals. GentlyI tilted her head back, searching the flesh of her neck—dear God, that maddening pulse.
But no unholy marks. And no ragged hole, like they’d found on Mr. Roscoe. Instead I glimpsed a blood-smeared cut above one temple, a knot rising behind it, where her head had likely struck the stone.
I might have concluded from this that she had simply slipped, had I not seen with my own eyes the shadow that sprang at her from the fog. I could not have described it other than to say it was some spindling creature, tall and lethally quick. A creature like me, I knew it in my very bones. One that would have drunk his fill and left her cold had I not frightened him away.
In all my years of suffering the Tregarrick taint, I had never heard of another family with the same affliction. Not in Roche parish, nor anywhere in the medical and alchemical texts I’d pored over. Only in Eastern European mythology—and once in a ghastly tale penned by Lord Byron’s physician—had I encountered other creatures that were anything like me.
So I’d thought that by breaking the Tregarrick line—by taking no wife and producing no heir—I had ensured the dreadful condition would fade away as I did.
I had no lofty idea of saving the villagers of Roche from the ancient evil I embodied, though the ancestors of these people had certainly been my family’s responsibility. I had only wished to maintain my humanity—and my dignity—until I died quietly and alone on my family estate, be that a decade from now or a century.
Still, I would choose to save people like Mina, so bright and alive and so everything I wasn’t.
Knowing now that my family was not uniquely afflicted, I’d come to the end of my privilege of hiding from the world.
Drawing a deep breath and holding it, I bent and worked an arm under her shoulders and another behind her knees. Slowly, carefully, I lifted her from the slab. I settled her body against my abdomen, feeling the warmth of her through her dress.
Her head had tipped back, long red hair slipping from its bonds, dark and flowing like a river of blood, the freckles across her nose and cheeks like spray from the violent surge.
My mind tortured me with images of what my body expected. Of what itdemanded. Every ounce of my control was required not to bury my face in her neck, open her flesh with my teeth, and swallow until I was drunk on her.
Who was I to judge the thirst of Jack Penrose?
As I forced my eyes from her upthrust throat to the dark, mirrored surface of the pool, a fragment of memory breezed into my mind—one that had tormented me many times before.
Panic seizing me, I snapped my eyes shut, as if that could save me.
Her hair is dark satin threaded with silver. Her body is hot from the blood pulsing under her skin. She has been crying.
Her black eyes are wide with terror.
Clenching my jaw hard enough to crush bone, I stifled a howl of fury and anguish.
Roche Rock
Drip, drip, drip.
The rain sounded like it was inside the house. Jack would have to climb up and repair the roof again. I burrowed deeper under the bedcover, hoping for just a few more minutes before facing the day.
