The Hunger (21 page)

CASTLE SINCAI, TRANSYLVANIAN ALPS
, 1105

After Beatrix had comforted Stephan with love as though his confessions and his betrayal did not matter, she found herself adrift on confusing emotions. She loved Stephan. He needed her. But no matter what he said, he did not love her in return. How could he when he said he loved Asharti, too? She needed someone to tell her what to do. Stephan had been the only one she could turn to for advice when she was confused or in pain. Now he could not help her
.

Who could possibly understand this? The answer surprised her. Asharti must know Stephan bedded both of them. What did she feel about that? She was older only by a few years, but she had lived in society, whereas Beatrix had existed almost outside the world of men. Could Beatrix bring herself to consult her rival?

It was a mark of the turmoil in her breast that she resolved to try. She slipped out of the stable. Stephan slept in the fresh hay under a horse blanket. She edged into the keep by the kitchen door and trudged up a winding stairway to Asharti’s chamber in the west tower. Scratching on the heavy timbered door, she pushed in without permission. She was not sure Asharti would want to talk, and she intended to give her no choice
.

The sight that met her eyes made no sense. The covers
of the bed, lit only by the fire in the grate, seemed alive, bulging and poking in several directions at once. A strange double grunting issued from under the counterpane. Then the coverlet fell away to reveal Asharti’s supple, naked back, her black hair hanging to her waist as she sat up. She knelt astride a boy propped against the pillows. Beatrix recognized him from the stables. Blood trickled down his neck. The boy lifted Asharti’s hips and she ground herself against his loins. Their bodies were covered with a light sheen of sweat, gleaming in the firelight
.

Beatrix stood transfixed as the momentum increased. Asharti pounded her nether parts against the boy. The base of his erection was alternately revealed and sheathed in her. Asharti’s groan of pleasure drew up into a wail. The boy arched his hips in throbbing silence. Still, she raised and lowered herself against his pulsing cock, gasping. A low wail escaped her
.

Asharti’s back relaxed. Flushing, Beatrix retreated. But Asharti caught the movement. Beatrix froze. Asharti waved her in, a sudden gleam in her eye, without a trace of shame
.

“Come in, sister.” She lifted herself off the boy. He seemed dazed. His erection softened. Beatrix was shocked to see the marks of Asharti’s canines on the inside of his elbow and his thigh. She had never fed from a human other than at the carotid. This smacked of . . . play
.

“Shall you partake?” Asharti asked. “I can bring him up again in a moment.”

Beatrix’s flush grew hotter. “I wanted to talk to you. I’ll wait.” She turned to go
.

“Nonsense. I am done with him. Up,” she ordered. As the boy rose she smacked him on the buttocks with an open hand. “Back to your stable. I will call for you tomorrow night. See that you’re clean and ready.” She pulled on a heavy velvet robe. The boy hastily dressed from a pile of clothing next to a bath set in front of the fire. “I do so love a bath,” Asharti remarked
.

The boy ducked his head and retreated. Beatrix wanted to do the same. How had she thought that Asharti would understand the emotions swirling in her breast? Beatrix certainly didn’t understand what she had just seen. Asharti had sex with that boy only hours after she lay with Stephan. How could she? Had she no respect for Stephan? “You know Stephan forbids feeding among the servants.” Beatrix sounded small and petulant to herself
.

“And do you always obey Stephan?” Asharti asked, raising her brows
.

Beatrix looked down at her hands. Asharti was so much bolder, more experienced.

“Have you come to berate me for taking Stephan from you?” Asharti asked, wrapping her velvet around her and tying the silken cord about her waist. “I did not, you know.”

“No. I do not blame you,” Beatrix murmured, ashamed
.

“Ahhh,” Asharti breathed. “He has told you.” She crawled up onto her bed
.

“What do you mean?” Beatrix was stalling. Asharti knew?

“His experiment, of course. I told him it was cruel to let you go on. Your dream of bliss was always doomed.” Her laugh had an edge. “He can’t love us, not one as old and knowing as he is.” She curled like a cat among the quilts, her eyes narrowing. “I never expected that.”

Asharti knew. And it did not hurt her. Beatrix felt small and naive all over again. A longing to be as invulnerable and independent as Asharti came over her
.

Asharti’s eyes darkened in anger. “What I do not forgive is that for all his theory, in his heart we are not equal. He favors you because you are born. He is as prejudiced as those he would convince.”

“He likes you better for your courage and your self-reliance.”

“Nonsense. Men always like to be in control. He fears
my independence. That is different.” Asharti peered at her. “Your lips are swollen. He tried to make you forget your outrage by swiving you, didn’t he?”

Beatrix lifted her chin. “No. He thinks we will leave him, and he was so cast down . . . I made love to him to comfort him.” She sounded so gullible!

Asharti snorted. “Me, I find that even one as experienced as he is cannot satisfy my needs entirely, especially since he must save himself for teaching you, as well. I have a great sexual appetite.” She stretched, almost preening. “I must supplement the pleasure I take from him.” She seemed invulnerable. Beatrix wished she had Asharti’s armor
.

“And
will
you leave him?” Beatrix asked
.

“When I have taken everything he has to give.” She shrugged. “He has taught me much of sex, and how to draw the power, how to control the reappearance when we translocate. I am nearly done with him and his precious experiment. What I want to learn next, he cannot teach me.” She smiled knowingly. “You, however, will stay with him, and comfort him and do his bidding without thought. You are the perfect experiment.” She snuggled down into the quilts. “Perhaps he will find another who is made to fill my place in his little exercise.”

The prospect of Stephan filling Asharti’s place confirmed his perfidy. She was ashamed that she had made love to him even when she knew the whole. Anger followed on the heels of shame. “I will be no experiment,” she muttered
.

Asharti sat up abruptly. Her red velvet gown fell open, revealing the swell of her breasts and one dusky nipple. “Then let us go tonight.”

Panic surged around Beatrix like the tide around a rock. “Now?”

Asharti crawled to the edge of the great bed on hands and knees. “He doesn’t love either of us.” She straightened. “Perhaps he’s right. It is time for us to go.”

Fear churned in Beatrix’s belly. To be on their own . . . where would they go?

But what choice was there? Beatrix could not bear to stay, letting Stephan make love to her, knowing that to him she was only an example of a vampire born, as Asharti was an example of a vampire made. She longed to let the anger rage inside her until it consumed her pain
.

Still, Stephan was old and powerful. “He will come after us.” she whispered
.

Asharti shook her head. “He expects us to leave. He will be too despondent to pursue us. His little experiment has failed, after all. I refuse to be displayed to the vampire world like a trained bear. We are free if we have the courage to open our cell doors.” She raised her brows
.

Beatrix swallowed. Fear and anger and grief all swirled inside her. Asharti was her only way out. Asharti was the one who knew how the world really worked
.

She nodded. “But I won’t leave him without telling him.”

“Go then. Tell him,” Asharti said. “But try not to let his cock lure you into staying.”

Beatrix started to protest, but she couldn’t. Asharti was right. So she simply turned and started for the stable, heart thumping in her chest
.

In the darkness of the barn, with the breathing of the animals all around, Stephan opened his eyes as she approached. The green smell of new-cut hay mingled with the scent of horses. As he sat, the blanket fell to his waist, exposing his chest and shoulders. She stood in the doorway, trying to build a wall against the realization she saw dawning in his eyes. “We’re leaving, Stephan. Both of us. I just came to let you know.” She wanted him to shout that he would never let her go, that she was the love of his life, and this experiment nonsense was just a lie
.

Instead, he nodded. “I understand.” He heaved a sigh. “You will come to hate me before you forgive me. At least I hope you can forgive me. But be sure to forgive yourself.”

“She has nothing to forgive herself for.” Asharti’s sharp voice came from behind them. Beatrix turned sharply. Asharti was dressed and a cloak covered her shoulders
.

“You didn’t trust me to say goodbye?”

“I didn’t trust him, sister.” She motioned to Stephan. “Let us go now.”

“Be your own person, Bea,” Stephan whispered. “If you need me, I’ll come.”

“Bea will not need you,” Asharti sneered. “I’ll teach her what she needs to know.”

Beatrix stood, paralyzed, staring at Stephan. Her eyes filled as well as her throat
.

“Come, sister,” Asharti barked. Beatrix turned. Time stopped. Surely Stephan would stop her! Asharti stretched out her hand. Already her eyes were reddening. Beatrix walked to her as though in a dream. Asharti grasped her hand. Beatrix took a long breath and called her Companion. The life that surged up along her veins reminded her that she was still alive. She would go on, in spite of Stephan Sincai. A whirling darkness enveloped the two young women
.

Stephan had not stopped her. What worse could there be than Stephan’s betrayal? Giving herself over to Asharti? She slumped on her dressing table. She knew what worse there could be—the repetition of rejection; memories that tortured her, music that wailed off-key and images that ran like watercolors. Blendon. Ponsonby. Prinny. Mirso Monastery.

Darkness.

Twelve

The cutter darted over the Channel making a crisp thirteen knots, the usual choppy winds replaced by a fair blow on her quarter. John paced the deck, unable to stand confinement in the cabin. His body could bide no more stillness than his emotions could. If only the biting wind that drove the ship plunging forward could blast his heart clean.

It had all meant nothing to her. Had he been so naive as to think she must somehow feel what he felt in that bed last night? He meant nothing. He was just another in a string of men she used to amuse herself. She had not even protested when he told her he must leave.

He could not let her callous indifference undermine his focus for his mission. Or let false illusions of her invade his dreams as they had on the hulk. His last interview with Barlow made clear how much was at stake here, both for England and for John himself. As he stared out over the spitting sea into the darkness the bow wave of the ship unfolded below him. He forced himself to remember the warm glow of Barlow’s study.

John saw himself taking the sheaf of papers with his
instructions, his identity, how to signal for pickup. He heard Barlow clear his throat. “Don’t let yourself be taken, boy. I wouldn’t trust you not to break under torture.” The man was fidgeting with a portfolio of papers.

John stared until Barlow looked away. “You’re suggesting I save a bullet for myself?”

“Or I can give you a poison capsule,” he said, taking up a penknife to sharpen a quill.

“If I run out of bullets I can always slit my wrists.” John made his voice light.

“When an agent knows as much as you do, we should not send him into the enemy’s den. We should make you a courier to Scotland, no more.” He fidgeted with penknife and quill.

So that was what awaited him; suicide if he failed and being put out to pasture if he succeeded. Very well. But right now he needed the distraction of a mission and England needed him. “How unfortunate, then, that you have not a dozen others to send in my place.”

“You’re right.” Barlow’s hands stilled. He looked . . . sad. “Go with God.”

John shivered. That was what he had said to the dying Dupré on the hulk. Barlow thought he was sending him to his death? He had nodded to the old man, so vibrantly alive since recovering from his bout of illness. “I’ll approach her immediately, do the deed, and get back to Le Havre. If it is going to take longer, I’ll send a message no later than the first week of May.” He pulled on his gloves. “If you don’t hear, then I saved some bullets.”

“Remember, it cannot look like an assassination,” Barlow warned.

“I understand. They must believe their intelligence is safe.”

“And find out what the devil is capable of draining the blood from a body.”

John nodded. He had never seen Barlow so agitated.
“The drained bodies—they’ve shown up in England, haven’t they?”

Barlow started. “What do you know about that?”

“Lucky guess,” John murmured.

“Dover,” Barlow said, his clipped tone brooking no further questions. “Now get to Paris.”

John grabbed his hat and let himself out before Barlow changed his mind.

So here he was, an assassin on a fast cutter for Le Havre. He would seek no information, steal no papers, poison no sources. Barlow had told him just to kill her, or her husband if it turned out he was the one. John would not have interrogated her in any case. He had just enough pride left to refuse to torture women. That left assassination.