What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1]
Read What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] Online
Authors: Kari Gregg
Loose Id, LLC
www.loose-id.com
Copyright ©2011
First published in 2011
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Loose Id LLC
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For Judi, who believed in me first, and to Rory, with thanks, for seeing me through.
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Southern France
AD 1727
Blood is life.
The flicker of lanterns lining both sides of the center lane cast eerie shadows in the stable Master Nathaniel had converted to slave quarters half a century ago. Garrick lurched down the corridor on unsteady legs. His stomach clenched at the jangle of keys dangling from his fingertips. The screaming edge of hunger spiked into the base of his skull.
But his father's words echoed in his mind.
For once, the cacophony of bloody horror that Nathaniel forced on him every day with his streaming wrist hadn't drowned out the memory.
Tonight, Garrick had come to the stables thirsty.
He ignored the other rooms, empty and silent, to stagger to the last converted stall on the left. One corner of his mouth curved. “Blood is life,” he said under his breath and fit the key into the lock. He pushed the door open.
Squinting against the brightness within, his gaze sought out Luc. Same scarred walls. Same ring bolted to the floor. His glance trailed the heavy links of the chain strung through it to—
"
Jesus
,” the slave gasped when Garrick's attention finally found him. “What in the hell happened to you?"
Garrick snorted a laugh.
Several days without blood had hollowed his cheeks and sapped the color from his skin. His fair hair stuck out at his temples from the fists he'd clenched in it. His fingers had gouged crescent-shaped grooves into both palms, and without blood to speed his healing, the marks remained. As the temptation to turn built, Garrick had cared less about what he wore too, so his cravat hung in a tangled mess from the gaping collar of his shirt, and his breeches bore gritty stains at the knees from hours spent in prayer at the chapel.
Luc was right.
He looked like hell.
No.
He looked like a slave.
His mouth bowed to a pleased smile. “Nathaniel happened to me."
Luc's jaw dropped.
Garrick chuckled in spite of the weariness that weighed down his shoulders. “I'm to have no blood until I obey him."
When Luc shifted on the floor, his manacles clinked. The slave ignored the grating sound. Instead, his dark eyes narrowed to study Garrick. “How long since you fed?"
Too long.
Garrick's mouth watered as the young vampyr, eyebrow arched in quiet concern, awaited his answer.
Too easy to reach for Luc.
So seductively easy.
The chains wouldn't matter. Not now. Garrick's powers had three hundred years of strengthening. At a stingy three decades, Luc was an infant among their kind. Helpless. Weak. While Garrick had been forbidden blood these past days, fledgling slaves were given only enough to keep them alive and position them under Nathaniel's booted heel.
Luc would never escape him.
Robbed of blood, Garrick felt his vampyr instincts prod his control. Every minute was a struggle; his every breath another skirmish against the brutality bred into the marrow of his bones.
"Garrick?” Luc crept toward him, on his knees since his chains tethered him closely to the floor.
So powerless.
So deliciously vulnerable.
"How long since you last fed?” Luc persisted.
Garrick's mouth thinned to a grim line.
He wouldn't become this vile thing grappling for possession of him. “Five days."
Luc cursed under his breath, the lilt of his southern French accent lending his oaths an elegance that finally gave Garrick the strength to rein in the desperate impulses his thirst provoked.
Luc glared at him.
Garrick swallowed his bloodlust and mustered a self-deprecating grin.
"I have no choice in what he does to me, but
you do
.” The young vampyr shook his chains in frustration. “Is bending your proud neck a hardship if it means not starving into a desiccated husk, as I have?"
Garrick met his livid stare. “I'm to kill you, Luc."
The slave stiffened to cordwood. His dark eyes rounded.
"He supplied you with more blood this week than you normally see in a year.” Garrick's shoulders jerked to a shrug. “Didn't you wonder why?"
Chains clanging, Luc shoved a shaking hand through his unkempt dark hair. “Who knows why he does what he does."
Who, indeed?
Inhaling a determined breath, Garrick rolled his shirtsleeve up his forearm. “My only regret is I won't make as fine a meal for you."
Luc frowned. “What?"
"Nathaniel won't relent. If I don't kill you, he'll watch me die and kill you anyway.” Garrick raised his hand and bit into the meat of his wrist. Thick coppery blood filled his mouth. He bent to Luc on the hard stone floor. “Drink,” he said, offering the wound to him.
The other vampyr gaped at him.
Foul temper coiled in Garrick's belly when hot scarlet spattered, wasted. “Drink!"
"He'll kill you for this.” Luc shook his head in stunned denial. “He'll kill us both."
"He's killing us already.” He pushed his dripping wrist forward. “You know it's the only way."
Luc's pupils dilated. He shifted his gaze away, but his nostrils flared at the rich metallic scent. “You've had five days without his blood, five days to ease his influence over you. You could break free—"
"Nathaniel's called the other masters to bear witness.” He grabbed the slave by his nape and pulled his mouth to the wound. “Because he senses how near my vampyr is to draining you. Drink, for God's sake. There is no time."
Luc struggled against his grip, but salty, slippery wet slid between his gritted teeth.
Garrick's eyes snapped shut. He focused his flagging energy inward—There. Luc. The only spark of warmth in centuries of cold, cursed darkness.
"Too much of Nathaniel's blood pollutes me. I cannot lift my hand against him. You can."
"I don't stand a chance against an elder."
Luc's fingers tore into Garrick's biceps—no longer to push him away, but to pull him in.
"He'll slaughter me."
Garrick sucked in a breath at the first brush of the slave's mind with his. He'd tasted other vampyr. Nathaniel. His father. So the mental connection opening between him and Luc didn't shake him. But he'd never before felt this...
Familiarity.
This casual intimacy.
With every greedy draw of Luc's mouth, the link building between them intensified and with it, the crushing relief that his prayers had been answered. For once, God had smiled on him. Garrick had waited more than a century for the right moment, the right man.
He'd chosen well.
"Alone, we cannot hope to defeat Nathaniel."
Garrick settled to the stone floor, fingers sliding from Luc's nape to his shoulder, urging him on.
"But working together? With my blood to fuel you?"
His mouth curved as the chill of the stable seeped into his flesh through the fine clothes Nathaniel had provided him. His mind spun at the blood loss, the depleted shell of his body tiring.
Too soon.
He closed his eyes, willing his heart to beat and his lungs to fill. Garrick was strong, but days spent without blood had leeched his vitality from him.
It didn't matter.
If he must die to destroy Nathaniel, then he would die.
Garrick's muscles loosened as Luc fed. His discomfort at the hard cool stone faded. Everything faded except Luc and readying him for battle.
"You can defeat him, but you must drink deeply."
Luc's teeth bit into his flesh.
"You've little to spare."
Too weak to maintain his hold, Garrick's fingers slid away.
"As long as I'm free of him, I'll count my death as the better bargain."
Luc's melodic curses filled his head.
"And leave me alone to these heathens? I think not."
He fed, though, until he shook with the roiling strength of Garrick's vampyr pulsing in his veins.
Garrick's breath shallowed to a thin rasp.
Luc slowly lifted his mouth from the wound.
"No."
Garrick's heart stuttered.
"Take more."
Luc unbuckled the sheath of the sword Garrick had strapped to his bulky waist. The blade slid free with a whispery metallic grate that rang tinny in Garrick's ears. “If the other masters are coming, the stronghold will be in an uproar of preparations.” He patted down Garrick's clothes. “Key?"
"Front pocket."
Luc unlocked the manacles that had bound him for thirty years. “He'll have hired men and women from the village to ready the guest quarters. I'll be able to slip in and out without drawing attention."
Garrick had counted on that.
"His overseer is organizing villagers and the other slaves in the great hall. Take the stairs in the kitchen instead. Use the servant's entrance to the master suite. Nathaniel retired there to await me."
Garrick's stomach pitched at the sick anticipation that emanated from the dark vampyr master.
"Surprise will buy you moments, but not enough to finish him. You need more blood."