A Dark Heart (17 page)

“And you’ve no idea where your father might have hidden those documents?”
Sasha asked.

Something flickered behind her eyes – a hidden suspicion, perhaps,
but she shook her head in denial. “No, I don’t. But there is something else,”
she said. “Father lied to us about who O’Connor is. He said he was a new
acquaintance, but when he came to the flat in Cardiff, I recognized him from
Egypt ten years ago. He didn’t go by the name O’Connor, though.”

“Nick O’Connor in Egypt?” Sasha sounded skeptical.

“I’m sure it was him,” Helen insisted. “He worked for the same man as
that horrid Charles Netherfield.” She speared Sasha with a particularly sharp
glance. “And that man was like you, and like the other man I once knew. He has
your eyes. Your powers.”

Sasha’s mouth set in a grim line, and Christiana felt her own heart sink
at the implication. An Elder. And one who’d been involved with Netherfield. The
list of suspects was short.
Very
short.

“What does this man look like?” Percy asked in a strange, wavering voice.
Christiana turned and found that the man had finally taken a seat in a wing
chair, his face drained of color. He was staring not at the girl but at Sasha
– at Sasha’s eyes, more precisely – as if he were seeing a ghost.

“Big. But tries to hide it,” Helen answered. “Blond. Scandinavian, I
think. I could draw a sketch, if you’d like. It’s been years since I saw him, but
I’ll never forget
his
face, any more than O’Connor’s.” She shivered at
the memory.

Helen Bartholomew turned out to be an excellent artist. She quickly
sketched a man’s face on the paper Aline gave her with a few deft strokes of
the pencil. The face that emerged was square, strong-featured and Nordic, not
precisely handsome, but attractive enough – if one discounted the
ugliness Helen had managed to convey in the man’s expression, and the meanness
in his eyes.

Sasha took one look at it and swore in Russian.

Percy rose from his seat a bit unsteadily and glanced down at the sketch.
The man seemed to freeze in place, his fists balled at his sides so tightly his
knuckles turned bone white. The expression on his pretty features twisted until
it was as hard and ugly as the man’s in the sketch, a snarl curling the edge of
his lip beneath the thin moustache. Hatred coursed through his body so strongly
Christiana felt the coldness of it from several feet away.

After a long, tense moment, Percy raised his head from the sketch and
locked his icy grey eyes on Sasha. “Who is this man? And what is he? What are
you
?”

“Why should I tell you?” Sasha countered coolly.

Percy stabbed a trembling finger on top of the sketch. “Because I plan on
killing him,” he said in a dark tone that sent a chill straight to Christiana’s
heart.

“You’ll need to join the queue and say a prayer, then,” Sasha murmured,
unimpressed by Percy’s declaration. “Because that man is Stieg Ehrengard.”

Percy’s body tensed even more. “As in…?”

“As in
Stieg Ehrengard
.”

“But surely he’s dead,” Percy scoffed.

“He’s very much alive. Immortal, in fact, just like I am,” Sasha said.

Percy looked as if he might swoon like Helen had done.

“I think you need to take a seat, Mr. Percy,” Aline said wryly.
“Apparently, Elijah didn’t tell you very much about us, did he?”

Percy returned to his seat stiffly. “Apparently not, madam,” he muttered.

“Stieg Ehrengard from the history books?” Helen asked in a weak voice.
“The one who … made
him
?” She pointed a wavering finger in Fyodor’s
direction.

“Among other things,” Sasha said. “There are thirteen of us, and we’ve
been around for centuries. The other twelve call themselves Elders, the pretentious
bastards. Stieg Ehrengard is the worst of them. The Crimean War was just one of
many attempts by that man to stir up trouble.”

“Trouble? Is
that
what you call Sevastopol?” Percy said sardonically,
though Christiana could tell the man was severely shaken by the conversation.

Sasha’s amber eyes went as shadowy and cool as Percy’s. “I’ve called it
many things. It was one of the darkest days of my life.”

“Because you were there,” Percy murmured incredulously. “Forty years ago.”

Sasha nodded. “Ehrengard used soldiers like Fyodor to do his bloody work
then, but now it seems he’s stooped to conducting his business with gangsters
and leeches.”

“And Elijah knows all of this, I suppose?” Percy demanded. “Has probably
known for some time about Ehrengard?”

Sasha shrugged. “It is most likely. If O’Connor is a Bonded companion,
which seems to be the case, an Elder would have had to Bond him in the first
place. Ehrengard would be the first suspect on a very short list.”

“He told me none of this,” Percy said quietly, his face pale and drawn,
none of his former bluster left.

For the first time all evening, Christiana almost felt sorry for the man.
He sounded … hurt. And Christiana knew all too well how it felt when the people
one loved and trusted the most kept secrets. Which made her wonder over Percy’s
relationship with Elijah. She’d not known the man even existed before tonight,
but he seemed extremely close to Elijah. Too close. He spoke of Elijah with a
fierce possessiveness that suggested more than friendship. And his contempt of
her … well, it sounded more like jealousy than anything else.

Which was ridiculous.

But she knew, even as sheltered as she was, that sometimes men preferred
the company of other men
in that way
. And though the thought had crossed
her mind in the past when she’d tried to understand Elijah’s indifference to
not only her, but women in general – as she’d never known him to court
any
woman in all the years she’d known him – she just didn’t think Elijah was
like that.

Especially after the other day in his office. He had made it fairly clear
that he preferred women.

She wasn’t so sure about Percy, however. The man was a cipher. But
Christiana knew one thing for certain: Elijah was
her’s
. She was not
about to share him with anyone, especially a foul-tempered, ruthless stranger
who hated her.

Aline finally broke the tension-filled silence. “So, just to make sure I
have understood correctly. The Inspector and Mr. Percy here seem to have
started a war with the king of the Black Market – who has a vampire army.
Stieg Ehrengard, the wickedest man to ever live, is holding a little girl
hostage for a few bloody blueprints. And there is a wounded vampire lying a
floor beneath my newborn children. I believe we should have stayed in Paris,
Sasha,” she said to her husband wryly.

“Trouble does seem to follow us, does it not,
milaya
?” he said
with a dramatic sigh.

“This time, I intend to avoid it at all costs,” Aline said and turned to
Christiana. “I’m sorry, my dear. I know how you feel about the Inspector, but I
cannot trust him. And I know you are mad at Rowan at the moment, but under the
circumstances, I believe I shall be taking the twins to stay at Llewellyn House
while you sort out this … muddle.”

Christiana couldn’t blame her. Aline had nearly been killed twice by
vampires last year and had never been at ease around the Inspector. Having her
children under the same roof with him would definitely be unacceptable,
especially in his unpredictable state. And who knew what trouble would follow
after the night’s events? Christiana’s exhausted mind swam with the thought of
East End gangsters and genocidal madmen descending upon the Romanov’s Mayfair
townhouse.

No, she definitely could not blame Aline for leaving.

“Of course you must go there,” Christiana said. “And with all haste, it
seems.”

“I shall go with you,
milaya
,” Sasha said. “But we may need to
give up our nanny for the time being. Fyodor, shall you stay here and lend your
services to Lady Christiana?” he asked his friend.

Fyodor glanced from the boy to Helen Bartholomew and nodded a bit
hesitantly.

“I shall visit tomorrow morning to check on our patient,” Sasha said.
“And Miss Bartholomew, of course. Perhaps we’ll discuss your condition in more
detail.”

Helen nodded tentatively. “I’m sorry to be such trouble,” she said. “But
Hex is sure to work something out so we can get Hester back and leave you in
peace very soon. You think trouble follows
you
, but you’ve no idea.
We’ve
brought this trouble to your doorstep, just as we always do. It is what a Bartholomew
does best,” she finished miserably.

“You’ve landed in good company, then,” Christiana said. “And I’ve a
feeling you’ll be staying here for a while. If Stieg Ehrengard is hunting you,
there is no place in the world you can hide, but at least here you’ve an Elder
or two on your side.”

“As much as it pains me to admit,” Sasha said, “this might be a situation
that requires the Duke’s help.”

“Perhaps,” Christiana agreed with a weary sigh. “And there’s no hiding it
from His Grace anyway. Once Rowan hears of what has happened, I’m sure the Duke
will soon know everything. They’re thick as thieves these days.”

“You’re talking about the Duke of Brightlingsea, aren’t you?” Percy said
flatly. “I suppose
he’
s an Elder too.”

“The highest Elder in all the world,” Sasha said with deep irony. He had
as little use for the Duke as the Duke had for him. They had three centuries of
mistrust between them, and Sasha had never forgiven the Duke for what he’d done
at Sevastopol to end the War. “And the one person who can protect you from
Ehrengard. Brightlingsea has only one goal left in life,” Sasha said, fixing
Percy with a heavy look, “and that is to kill Stieg Ehrengard. At any cost.”

Percy smiled grimly. “Then we shall get along famously, for that too is
all I live for, consequences be damned.”

TWO nights
later, a horrible, animal cry arose from Elijah’s room, followed by a
resounding crash of porcelain, bringing Christiana instantly out of her
half-sleep. Pulse pounding, she glanced at the wall clock, just visible in the
moonlight. It was three in the morning. He’d regained consciousness at last,
for she recognized that cry. It was the same one he’d used as a little boy,
when the terrors would invade his dreams night after night and he’d come awake
screaming.

She struggled into her robe, lit her bedside lamp, and was in the
darkened corridor separating their rooms just as another scream of pure terror
rent the silence of the night.

She hurried towards the room and found Matthews just coming awake from
his vigil in a chair set next to the door.

“Must ‘ave dozed off, milady,” he muttered blearily, struggling to his
feet and reaching for the door.

She put a hand on his forearm, stopping him. “I’ll handle this.”

Matthews frowned. “Milady …” he began doubtfully. “I know I talked all
that blather about you being his best medicine, and all that. But I’m not sure
I trust him in the state ‘e’s in.”

He wasn’t the only one. The staff had been sent away hours after Elijah’s
arrival, and the Bartholomews were tucked up on the other side of the house
with Fyodor to guard them. Aline and Sasha had taken the twins across town to
stay at Llewellyn House at the earliest opportunity, so the house was nearly
deserted. No one had wanted to be around when Elijah awoke. Except her. She’d
been waiting for this moment for more years than she cared to count.

She raised her chin. “I trust him.” But she winced when another crash
sounded from inside the room, shaking her conviction.

Matthews’ lips pursed. “’E’s a bloomin’ vampire, milady. And wounded. ‘E’s
liable to be violent. You should wait until ‘e’s calmed down.”

“How do you propose to calm him down, then?” she demanded. “Morphine?”

Matthews frowned, his eyes flashing with anger.

“
I
am what he needs, Constable,” she said quietly. “It is time for
him to accept that. He won’t hurt me.”

He looked unconvinced, and she could tell his mind worked for a way to
deny her words. But in the end he shook his head in resignation. “I hope you
know what yer doing, milady,” Matthews said.

She didn’t, not at all, but she wasn’t about to reveal her doubts. “Wait in
your room, Constable,” she said.

His eye widened. “Milady, you might ‘ave need of me.”

“I shall be fine.”

He shook his head in dismay but obeyed. She waited until she saw Matthews
skulking around the corner, then faced the door with a heavy sigh.

Elijah would not hurt her. Much. Deep down she knew what would happen
when she walked through that door, and some of it was going to involve a bit of
pain. But Elijah would never intentionally harm her, no matter
what
he
was. No one else trusted him – Elijah didn’t even trust
himself
– but she did. She had to, for if she didn’t, what was the point to the
last two decades of her life? What was the point to any of her efforts now?

Elijah was worth saving.

Even if he himself didn’t think so.

She slipped inside the moonlit room and turned the lock behind her,
surveying the wreckage. The bed was empty, and a tangle of sheets trailed to
the floor. A giant carved wooden chifferobe lay in ruins across the middle of
the room, its contents spilling out. A porcelain ewer and basin had both been
shattered against one of the walls, and the curtains covering the windows hung
at a precarious angle, leaking in the moonlight.

A thud sounded in the shadows on the far side of the room. She made out
Elijah’s stooped form, tearing through the contents of a tallboy.

She set the gas lamp on the bedside table and crept forward cautiously.
As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she stopped short, her breath hitching
in her throat. Other than the white bandages around his torso, he was wearing
nothing but thin linen drawers, the rest of his tall, whip-thin body bare to
the world.

To her.

She blushed but began forward once more. If she couldn’t handle the sight
of him in his unmentionables, she had no hope of succeeding tonight.

Before she could reach him, he spun around, sensing her. His metallic
fangs were extended, his eyes glowing and unseeing, as he faced her like a wild
beast that had been cornered. He was drenched in sweat, panting and clutching
his abdomen in agony. Dark stains soaked through the bandages and spread over
his drawers.

He’d torn his stitches.

She gasped and drew back, appalled. Even in his weakened condition,
however, he was quicker than her. He stalked towards her and seized her arm in
a bruising grip before she had time to blink, much less breathe.

“Where is it?” he snarled.

“Where is what?” she asked in a surprisingly steady voice.

He growled and dragged her towards a chair. Trapping her in front of it,
he reached around her and heaved his tattered overcoat draped over the back of
it before her eyes. “It was in here. Where is it?” he repeated on a hoarse cry,
looming above her threateningly.

She shivered but schooled herself to return his gaze as calmly as she
could. “You mean the vial of morphine?”

He dropped the cloak, took her by the shoulders and shook her lightly.
“What have you done with it?” he breathed, looking ready to tear her apart.

“I destroyed it.”

“No! No!” he cried.

With an abruptness that startled her, he released her and stumbled back
to the tallboy, emptying the drawers in a frenzy, a tumble of bedclothes and
linens falling at their feet.

She leant against the chair and watched him for a moment, gathering her fracturing
wits. She ran her hands over her arms where he’d gripped her and shivered.
She’d known he was strong, but she’d never
felt
that strength used
against her before. She was beginning to regret sending Matthews away.

But she couldn’t give up, not now. She knew that she was the only one who
could help him. Matthews and Fyodor might be able to subdue him in the state he
was in at the moment. They could even force him to give up the morphine for a
while, but they couldn’t watch over him forever. Once he was clean and free, he
would
go back to the drug. This conviction had been growing the past few
days as she’d sat by his bedside, waiting for him to wake up. Perhaps he’d
begun to take the morphine as a way to suppress his thirst for blood –
for
her
– but the drug had
become
his thirst. It ruled him,
body and soul. Every action, every decision he made, was clouded by his compulsion.

But she could heal him. She had to. She
would
.

Or at least she would try.

“You’ll not find it in there, Elijah,” she said softly, approaching him
once more. “It’s gone.”

He doubled over, clutching the side of his head. “I must … I must have it.”
He glanced around the room, terror transfixing his face. “He’ll not go away
unless I have it…”

She laid her fingers on his arm. “You were having a nightmare.”

He wrenched away from her with a shudder. “No. It’s no nightmare.”

“There is no one in this room except you and me.”

“He’s
here
,” he argued. He pressed his knuckles against his
temple. “He’s in my head. I have to get him out of my head…”

Her skin crawled with recognition. Those were the same words he used to
speak as a young boy when he woke from his night terrors.

Who had done this to him?

He sagged, looking ready to faint. She rushed to him and wrapped her arms
around his bandaged waist, holding him close. Her face collided with his
drenched chest. He smelled salty sweet, feral, and he was as hot as a furnace.

He tried to push her away. “Don’t touch me!” he gasped.

She ignored him and tightened her hold. “I’ll not let you go. I’ll never let
you go. Never,” she said fiercely.

She tilted her head and looked up at him. He was staring down at her
dazedly, a thrilling, dark heat pulsing through his glowing amber eyes, as if
he were finally seeing her out of the fog of his nightmare. She didn’t know
whether to be more terrified or relieved as his trembling hand went to her
shoulder, the nape of her neck, clutching her with a desperate strength, as if
trying to reassure himself she was real.

“Elijah, come back to me,” she urged in a broken whisper.

His gaze unfocused slightly. “No. I need…”

“You don’t need the drug, Elijah,” she said sternly, reaching her hands
up and cradling his jaw.

He tried to move away again, but she held onto him tenaciously, forcing
his head down, closer to hers, so that their foreheads melded together. His
harsh breath scalded her lips.

“I need it. Please … Ana, Ana, you must bring me some. I don’t want to
hurt you,” he whispered. “My need … I ache … how I ache.”

“It will pass,” she said soothingly, kissing his cheeks, his forehead,
his lips.

His head jerked away, his fingers clawed into the skin at her neck. “No!
I cannot. You don’t understand … you’ll never understand.”

She steadied him with gently stroking hands until his grip had relaxed
and he leaned into her ministrations, tamed for the moment. He buried his face
in the crook of her neck, his mouth pressed against her, his fangs flirting
with the delicate skin at her throat. She could feel the want in him, so
powerful he shuddered all over from the effort of tamping it down. But for the
first time in nine years – in a lifetime – he was slowly relenting
to it.

She turned her head, sought his forehead with her lips, then his rough,
unshaven jaw. It was a small awkward gesture, for she’d never dared such a
thing with anyone before – let alone an unstable vampire – but it
changed everything. Something quickened between them. She heard him gasp, felt
his arousal rise against her belly. She was clever enough to recognize
that
,
at least, and she shivered as something rare and wonderful and warm dislodged
deep inside of her, startling her with its intensity. She realized it was her
own desire for him, so long repressed.

He inhaled and groaned. “Your scent …
God
. I can’t … I can’t do
this to you,” he insisted in a hoarse gasp as he attempted rather
half-heartedly to push her away one last time. “I need the morphine.”

She squeezed her arms around his neck. “No,” she whispered against his
ear. “Have me instead, Elijah.”

She coaxed his head down and brought his lips to hers, kissing him
tenderly, uncaring when his fangs accidentally slashed through the fragile skin
of her mouth. As if he couldn’t help himself, his tongue snaked out, licking
away her welling blood. He moaned.

“What am I doing?” he breathed against her lips.

“
Have
me, Elijah,” she repeated urgently. “I’m better than any
drug.”

He hesitated no longer, groaning in agony as his mouth descended to cover
hers. There was nothing gentle or kind in his kiss. It was stark, brutal, an
act of desperation and need. He savagely worked her lips apart with his own and
plundered with his tongue, clumsily piercing her with his fangs until she
gasped, overcome with a maelstrom of need and trepidation.

“Ah,
God,
you taste so good,” he said savagely, lapping at the
blood he’d spilled with his tongue, moving down her chin, her throat, to the
dip in her collarbone, his tongue licking, tasting her. “I need you. I’ve
always needed you,” he whispered.

His hands raced over her shoulders, her back, and down, down, until he
was clutching her backside, shoving her up against him with awkward urgency,
his erection thick and hard against her. A fire began burning deep in her
center, warm licks spreading down her legs, making it difficult to stand, difficult
to breathe or think. And when he rolled his hips slowly into hers, hitting a
spot between her legs she’d only ever touched late at night in her lonely bed,
she moaned.

She felt a hand leave her backside and trail up her side, blindly
groping. He wrenched the front of her robe apart, pulling it down her shoulders
until it hit the floor. Hot, feverish fingers traveled over her stomach and
then higher, clawing greedily at her breasts through the silken nightrail. Then
he gripped the material at her neck, and with a single savage stroke, rent the nightrail
down the front. It fluttered to the floor, leaving her completely exposed and
entirely at his mercy.

She stiffened as she watched him study her, half-wondering if he even saw
her anymore. Wild lust gripped his stark features, made his already vibrant eyes
pulse with need. His whole body shuddered with the force of his desire, and
when she risked glancing down, her pulse leapt. She’d not imagined anything so
large, so hard … so alive.

Even if she wanted to stop him – and she didn’t, despite his
terrifying urgency – she knew it was too late. It had been too late the
moment she’d crossed the threshold.

She raised her glance, just as he closed the distance between them once
more. His mouth delivered bruising kisses down her throat, his incipient beard
scratching her tender flesh in its wake. She arched into his kisses, and his
mouth descended lower to her right breast. She clutched his head and pulled him
closer as his mouth enveloped her breast, trying to devour it. She half
expected him to sink his fangs deep, though she’d never considered the
possibility of him biting her in such an unorthodox place before. She realized
that the prospect didn’t repel her at all, but rather excited her. She savored
the ripples of pleasure that seared through her body, the place between her
legs swelling with need.

As if scenting her, his head came up abruptly, nostrils flared, his mouth
clenched so tightly his fangs tore at his bottom lip. His eyes, still so
unnaturally bright, now contained a gleam that was almost demonic. Her arousal
ebbed slightly, knowing with absolute certainty he had no control left.