A Dark Heart (24 page)

Doing both at once, however, nearly made his head explode, as he
discovered seconds later when she suddenly rose up on her knees and came down
upon his rigid, aching length. She took him all the way inside of her, as if
they were always made to fit together in such a way, and he ripped his teeth
from her wrist and groaned, the sensations nearly too overwhelming to bear.

Then in the most arousing moment of his life, she leaned down and licked
her own blood from his lips. He had to grip the bed sheets beside him until
they tore to keep from coming right there and then. It was probably wrong to
feel so stirred by such an unorthodox action, but it certainly didn’t
feel
wrong.

Her hips rose and feel against his own, innocent, clumsy, instinctive
movements that knocked him into utter incoherency, made him unable to do
anything but watch her make love to him. Soon, almost laughably so, she was
tightening around him, her breath fractured, her skin flushed and damp as she
drove herself over the edge.

He’d never dared to dream that she’d be so responsive, so …
delighted
in her lovemaking that she would come so easily. Already her body shuddered in
pleasure. He’d never been comfortable in matters of sex, had always felt shamed
by his body’s natural urges. Even his deepest fantasies of Ana had been tainted
and sordid and awkward, for that was all he’d ever known. He’d never expected
to find beauty in the act. He’d not known there could be.

Until now, as he watched her peak in the dawn light.

Overcome, unable to restrain himself a moment longer, he turned them both
until she was beneath him and sank into her again and again. A hoarse cry broke
from her lips, inflaming his senses even more. Her body arched into his,
climaxing again, as he took her fiercely, intently, until he came with a
violence that seared away every bad memory he’d ever had.

Afterwards, he buried his face into a tumble of her golden hair, gasping,
as she laughed with delight, stroking his back with a possessive tenderness
that nearly shattered him as much as the lovemaking had.

No one
had ever just held him like Ana did.

It was only after several breathless minutes that they noticed someone
was knocking on his door. He tried to ignore it, but the knocking continued.

“All right in there, gov?” shouted an all too familiar voice.

Matthews.

 Irritated, coming back to his senses, he sat up with her, staring despondently
towards the door.

She laughed against his ear after kissing it, and disentangled herself
from him.

“You’d better answer it,” she said.

The day, it seemed, had begun. He vowed not to let it be as bad as the
one before it.

He called out to Matthews to shove off and rose from the bed. He
retrieved his trousers and began to pull them on. He glanced over his shoulder
at a laughing Ana. “What?” he demanded.

She shrugged, her twinkling eyes on his backside.

He flushed like a damned schoolgirl and turned away before the urge to
return to her became too strong, and tripped his way towards the door. He
opened it a fraction and peered out at Matthews, who stood there with a studied
blankness on his face that made Elijah immediately suspicious.

“What is it?” he barked.

“Begging yer pardon, gov, but Hubert Bartholomew showed up on the
Professor’s doorstep this morning with the little girl.”

Elijah frowned, while behind him Ana gave an excited cheer at the good
news – or what on the surface seemed like good news. Elijah wasn’t so
sure. With what little he knew of this Hubert Bartholomew bloke, he knew it
would be a mistake to trust him.

“Who is there with them?”

“Just Fyodor at the moment, and Percy. His Lordship was there earlier,
but ‘e had a proper row with the Gentleman … er, Miss Bartholomew … and left.
They don’t seem to like each other.”

Elijah cursed and ran a hand through his hair.

“O’Connor seems to have pulled his watch on the townhouse as well,”
Matthews continued, though Elijah could hear the skepticism in his voice.
“Though I don’t trust it.”

Neither did he. It sounded too good to be true. O’Connor might have
pulled back his most visible spies, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still
there. “Give me a moment here.”

Matthews smirked a bit and wiggled his one remaining eyebrow
suggestively. “Hop to it, gov. The nobs are wanting ‘er Ladyship back. They’re
afraid you’ve done away with her.”

He glared at the Constable and was ready with a retort when Ana called
from the other side of the room. “I’m quite well, Constable. Better than well.
We shall meet you outside in a few minutes.”

Elijah could feel his cheeks grow hot with mortification. “You heard
her,” he growled. “I’ve not eaten her.”

“Have you not?” he murmured, all innocence.

Apparently, Matthews couldn’t help himself. Fortunately for him, he was
halfway down the staircase, whistling to himself, before Elijah figured out
what the Constable had truly meant. The cheeky bastard.

Elijah’s blush deepened even more, and he took a moment to compose
himself before he turned back to Ana. She was off the bed and fastening the
last of her buttons on the bodice of her gown. He didn’t know how she’d managed
to climb into all of that clothing in so short a time, but he didn’t appreciate
her efficiency. His flat was hardly paradise, but it certainly had seemed so a
few short minutes ago before the Constable had ruined everything. He didn’t
want their time together to end.

She noticed his scowl and cocked an eyebrow. His heart thumped in his
chest at her playfulness. Her long hair ran loose over her shoulders. Unbound,
it was so long it nearly reached her waist, and it shone in the dawn light like
liquid gold. She was so beautiful to his eyes it was nearly painful.

“Why are you suddenly so irritable?” she demanded.

He glanced at the mussed bed, then back at her pointedly, and pink tinged
her cheeks. It made him feel slightly better about his own inability to contain
his blushes around her. She crept up to him, stood on her toes, and kissed the
end of his nose.

And there he went, blushing yet again. She kept doing the most
exquisitely tender, slightly …
madcap
things to him.

“We’ve got to face our day, Elijah. As much as I hate it, we’ve problems
to solve. But it’s good news about the Bartholomews, isn’t it?”

He made a sound that expressed how he felt about it and jerked on a
clean-ish shirt from the wardrobe. She helped him finish his toilette, teasing
him all the way.

When she was done fiddling with his necktie, she gave him a searching
look, placing her hand over his chest, right at the level of his heart. “Don’t
let your pursuit of that evil man rule you. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth
risking your future.
Our
future,” she corrected.

Her final words made his heart soar, but it was still tethered to the dark
weight he carried, pulling it quickly back to earth. “I can’t give up, Ana.
Don’t ask me to.”

She was silent for a long time, watching him, her hand drawing circles over
his heart. “I won’t. But I wish you would. I’m so afraid for you, Elijah.”

“I must see O’Connor pay for what he did,” he insisted. “You’ve no idea
what it was like.”

“No, I don’t. But I know that it would destroy me if you died, Elijah,”
she said quietly.

“I meant what I said. I’ll be careful. I’ve too much to live for now.”

She gave him a wobbly smile. “Then that’s good enough for me,” she said,
so convincingly he almost believed her, but he could still see the worry
lingering deep in her eyes. It made him want to do nearly anything he could to
erase it. But the only thing that would erase it – giving up his pursuit
of O’Connor – was the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to do. And he
hated O’Connor even more for it.

“It’s not just me, Ana,” he whispered. “He’s done what he did to me to
dozens of boys. And he still does it. The Black Market doesn’t just sell
things
,
Ana. It sells people. Children are O’Connor’s specialty, and I can’t … I just
can’t
let it go, even for you.”

She moved closer, wrapping her arms around his middle and hiding her face
against his chest, soothing him with gentle strokes down his back. “I know,
Elijah,” she said softly. “Just always remember what you said. You said you’d
do nothing to endanger your life again.”

“And I won’t,” he said, holding her close. “I promise.”

“ And promise me it doesn’t end here, Elijah.  Promise me we shall
find each other at the end of the day … at the end of
every
day … and be
together again.”

“I don’t need to promise that,” he murmured, burying his nose in her
hair, lost in the fragrance of her, the feel of her – the
heart
of
her. “I couldn’t stay away if I tried. Not anymore. I never want to be parted
from you again.”

HIS vow to
never leave Ana’s side was sadly broken the moment they reached Mayfair, at
least for a few hours. Ana decided to go straight to Llewellyn House to talk to
the Earl rather than accompany him to the Romanovs’, which suited him just
fine. Ana might have found out the truth about O’Connor and Ehrengard, but
Elijah would rather she kept as much distance as she could from the whole foul
business. He still hadn’t recovered from when Charles Netherfield had shot her
last year, and he never wanted to go through that sort of agony again.

But he was coming to realize that Ana would not pay heed to any
suggestion that she stay safely tucked away. She’d made it clear that she would
insist on involving herself in all of his affairs, and the thought was as
thrilling as it was terrifying. After last night, he knew for certain Ana was
more courageous than he could ever be. He just hoped he never gave her a reason
to regret fighting so hard to save him ever again.

The streets surrounding the Romanovs’ townhouse were too quiet, too
normal. The handful of ruffians that had been keeping an eye on the house were
gone, just as Matthews said, but Elijah doubted O’Connor had pulled the watch
completely. He’d merely replaced the ruffians with leeches, no doubt, who were
used to blending into the shadows. Elijah couldn’t be certain of this, since he
was unable to sense his own kind, but Elijah couldn’t shake the feeling that
trouble was well on its way as he entered the townhouse.

Normally, O’Connor didn’t transgress into the tonier neighborhoods of the
city, at least during daylight hours, but the fact he’d had so many men
watching the house no matter the hour all week long proved how interested he
was in the Bartholomews. He wouldn’t have just stopped altogether unless he was
planning something big.

Elijah feared that the only reason O’Connor had held back openly
attacking them and taking what he wanted for the past week was the threat of
Elder intervention. O’Connor had to know what Sasha Romanov and the Earl of
Llewellyn were, and what they were capable of. But Elijah wondered if the man
would bother with discretion altogether if he discovered that neither of them was
even occupying the townhouse at the moment.

Elijah’s introduction to Hubert Bartholomew did nothing to ease his
growing unease with the situation. Bartholomew was a short, rawboned man of
middle years with the same frighteningly red hair as his eldest daughter,
though it was threaded with white. It stuck out in thick patches from his head,
and, along with his over-large hazel eyes, shabbily dapper clothes and
white-toothed grin, it gave him an air of guilelessness that no doubt fooled most
people. But Elijah wasn’t fooled. He wouldn’t have trusted the man even if he’d
never heard about his shady past. He knew a confidence artist when he saw one.

But Elijah didn’t know if all he had to worry about was Bartholomew
running off with the Romanovs’ silver, or if the man had a more sinister plan.
It just seemed way too convenient – way too unbelievable – that
O’Connor would simply let Bartholomew and the girl go, then appear to pull his
watch on the townhouse. And Bartholomew’s explanation as to why didn’t sit right
either.

“I gave him what he wanted,” the man said to Elijah. “After I heard the
trouble he was giving my girls, I didn’t think it was doing any good to hang on
to my bit of leverage.”

“You had the documents with you the whole time?” Elijah pressed, not
bothering to hide his disbelief.

“’Course not. Hid ‘em back in Cardiff. Told him where to look,” he
blustered.

“And he took your word for it? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” the man insisted. “Sent his men there a few days ago.
One of them must have found the blasted things, since he let us go this
morning.”

Elijah met Hex’s eyes. She looked as skeptical as Elijah felt. She was
sitting in the drawing room with them, holding Hester in her arms as she slept,
looking as if she might never let her go. Apart from her long hair and dress, the
little girl looked just like her brother, though she didn’t seem to suffer the
same strange disorder. She was surprisingly normal.

Hector, on the other hand, sat apart from the rest of the room with
Fyodor, scribbling in a notebook with single-minded intensity. Elijah wasn’t
certain Hector was aware of the world around him, or that his father and sister
had even been missing at all.

“Then you won’t mind if we leave on the first airship back to America,”
Hex said, holding her father’s gaze.

“Of course not. Never should have come here in the first place,” the man
said agreeably, with barely a glimmer of deceit in his manner.

“And you admit that there was never a cure for Helen,” she pressed. “That
you risked us all for nothing but an empty promise.”

Bartholomew hung his head as if in shame. “There was never a cure for
Helen,” he said softly.

Elijah
knew
Bartholomew was lying about this last part. According
to what Romanov had told the others, there was no medical cure to the girl’s
condition. But Elijah could think of two ways to heal her, and O’Connor had
access to both of them. He just hoped Bartholomew had not planned on turning his
own daughter into a leech – though Bonding her was hardly the better
option, if it would indebt her to a man like Ehrengard.

But he’d not put anything past the old man, especially where Helen was
concerned. Elijah had not missed the honest love Bartholomew had in his eyes
whenever he spoke of Helen, a love that he did not seem to feel for the rest of
his family. Helen was obviously the man’s favorite child. And people did all
sorts of mad things for the ones they loved, as Elijah knew all too well.

“I didn’t think you were
that
cruel, Father,” Hex said, rising to
her feet with Hester in her arms, “to use Helen’s illness against me. You
nearly cost us all our lives, and for that I’ll never forgive you. We’re
returning to America … No, I suppose we can’t go back there. We’ll have to find
somewhere new, where you’ll never find us.”

A flicker of hurt passed over Bartholomew’s face, quickly suppressed.
“What I did was for Helen,” he said quietly. “I had to try, didn’t I?”

Hex just shook her head and left the room to check on her sick sister,
who hadn’t left her bed all morning. Bartholomew eyed Elijah warily once they
were alone, before sneaking a glance towards Hector and Fyodor. The man was
right to be worried. Now that Hex was out of the room, Elijah didn’t feel the
need to temper his interrogation.

He stood up, which made the older man tense.
Good.
No doubt his
experience with other leeches weren’t happy ones. Elijah smiled without humor.
“I don’t think she believed a word you spoke any more than I did,” he said.
“What did O’Connor promise you? To turn your daughter into one such as I?”

Bartholomew gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white,
clenching his jaw and refusing to answer.

Elijah crossed the room to Fyodor’s side and watched as the lad sketched
in his notebook. It took him a moment to realize that the boy was doing more
than sketching. He was writing down what appeared to be a series of complex
ciphers. Elijah had never done well in that part of his limited schooling, but
he knew mathematical equations when he saw them. And these equations were
entirely incomprehensible to him. He flipped a few pages back, trying not to
disturb the boy at his work, and found more calculations and pencil sketches,
which looked more like mechanical blueprints than boyish doodles.

Elijah tensed as realization swept through him.
Good Lord
. It made
sense now, why O’Connor had wanted the boy. He tried to contain his shock,
however, as he turned back to his conversation with Bartholomew. But it was
difficult. His mild disgust with the man had just been replaced by a cold fury.
How could he have done such a thing to a child? Put him in such peril?

“Did O’Connor not tell you she would be bound to him forever if he gave
her his blood? That she would slowly go mad from the bloodlust if she did not
feed from him regularly?” he bit out.

A flash of surprise passed through the man’s eyes, followed by worry. Evidently
O’Connor had failed to mention the specifics to Bartholomew.

“And would you have that pretty, innocent child of yours feeding from a
man like that? Enduring his … attentions? A man who makes a sport out of murder
and rape?”

Bartholomew flew from his seat, his face red from anger and revulsion.
“Of course not! What sort of man do you take me for?”

“I take you for a liar and a fool,” he said pointblank.

“It’s the other one who says he can help my Helen without turning her
into a leech like you,” Bartholomew insisted. “Do you think I’d want a man like
O’Connor anywhere near her?” he cried, stalking to the bay window overlooking
the street front and raising an arm to brace himself against the frame.

Because Stieg Ehrengard was
such
a better choice for Helen
Bartholomew. “Then you’ve not given up, after all,” he murmured.

“What?” Bartholomew said, jumping a little at his voice and turning from
his post at the window – a little guiltily, if Elijah wasn’t mistaken.

“You spoke in the present tense. ‘The other one
says
he can help,’
you said. That leads me to believe you’re still planning something.” Elijah
pointed down at Hector. “You didn’t hide the pages in Cardiff at all, did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said stiffly.

Elijah rolled his eyes and turned to Fyodor. “Go find Matthews and Percy
and tell them to come in here. I’ve a feeling we’re going to need them.”

Fyodor glanced once at the boy with a worried expression before nodding
and lumbering off in search of the others. Elijah pulled his wireless tickertext
out of his jacket pocket and typed out a message to Rowan for him to get the
hell over here – preferably with Romanov and
without
Ana. He had
little hope of
that
happening, but he was fairly certain that things
were about to go tits up, and he didn’t want her anywhere near him when it did.

“What was that?” Bartholomew demanded, his ruddy face paling. “What did
you just type?”

He tucked his wireless away and positioned himself over the boy, who
continued to fill the notebook with the strange, impossible ciphers, totally
oblivious to the mounting tension in the room.

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but you put the information in the lad’s
head, didn’t you?”

Bartholomew guffawed loudly, as if this was the most ridiculous thing
he’d ever heard, but he couldn’t hide his increasing nervousness, or the way
his eyes kept flickering in the direction of the bay window.

As if he were looking for something – or someone – out there.

Elijah didn’t know how he could have been so stupid, so careless. The man
had made some sort of signal out of the window earlier, and he’d not even
noticed.

“How could you do this to your own son?” Elijah demanded. “They’ll tear him
apart to get what they want.”

Something hard and suspicious settled onto Bartholomew’s expression as he
stared at the boy, and his next words shocked Elijah. “He’s not my son. He’s
nothing but an unnatural abomination, and I’d sell the little bastard to the
devil himself to save my Helen,” the man said in a low voice.

Elijah wanted to go back in time and shut the boy’s ears against the
cruel words, but other than a fractional pause in the movement of his pencil,
there was no indication Hector had even heard them.

“Ehrengard will never give you what you want,” he said.

“Ehrengard?” Bartholomew demanded, looking confused.

“Stieg Ehrengard. The other man who has convinced you he can save Helen.
He will take what he wants from you and leave you to rot.”

Bartholomew shook his head. “We have a deal…”

“Ehrengard doesn’t make deals.”

“Why do you keep calling him that? It’s not … it can’t be…” the man
whispered, his confusion deepening.

But Elijah never got the chance to explain what he meant. By the time he
sensed the leeches, they were already pouring silently through the open drawing
room door. He was glad he’d sent Fyodor away in time. There were a dozen
well-blooded foot soldiers – O’Connor’s finest, and too many for the
Abominable Soldier to have handled, even with Elijah fighting by his side.

Elijah gripped the back of Hector’s chair as the vampires surrounded
them, knocking a protesting Bartholomew out of the way, but he made no move to
attack. If the leeches had wanted him dead, they’d have dispatched him as soon
as they entered the room. That meant only one thing.

The leader of the pack of leeches gestured to the man standing at
Elijah’s back. “Dose him good so he won’t give us any trouble. O’Connor wants
him alive, along with the boy.”

Elijah stiffened and his stomach sank even deeper with his dread, his
worst fears confirmed. He sought Bartholomew’s worried eyes over the leech’s
shoulder. “Do you still think he’ll give you what you want?”

Then strong arms were wrapping around his shoulders, immobilizing him as
something hard and sharp punctured the side of his neck, shooting him full of molten
fire. The last thought he had before the pain knocked him out was of Ana. Even
after all they’d shared and the promises they’d made to each other, he’d never
told her he loved her – not properly, anyway. Such simple words, so
easily overlooked. And now he might never get the chance to say them at all.

He
knew
he never should have left their bed this morning.

CHRISTIANA
wished she’d never left Elijah’s bed that morning. The rest of the world was
destined to disappoint her after passing the night in the arms of the man she
loved, but she supposed there was no help for it. The world would have its
pound of flesh before she was allowed her happy ending with Elijah, and she was
more than happy to give it.