What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] (7 page)

They'd crossed precious little of the field when a cry from the gates echoed across the field.

Garrick forced his gelatinous legs to pump, dread prodding his spent body forward. Faster. Must move faster.
"They're coming."

Luc's chest rose and fell in ragged gasps.

The footsteps of their pursuers thumped distantly behind them, but no matter the banquet of blood Luc had feasted on, he was a child among their kind. He wouldn't last. Terror boosted the vampyr's pace, his blind fear stinging inside Garrick's head like angry hornets.

The wind shifted.

Garrick's nostrils flared.

The dark, unbearable craving nearly drove him to his knees.

Zechariah.

He stumbled, his feet turning in the direction of that beckoning scent.

Luc dropped the sword to grab him with both hands, dragging him to the shoreline, just a little closer. “What are you doing? Run!"

Garrick's stare swiveled over his shoulder, seeking—

"Stop,” the dark master shouted. “Garrick, stop. Please!"

For the span of one heartbeat, Garrick's eyes played tricks on him, transposing Nathaniel's sly features over Zechariah's face. Though he knew it for a lie—his body burned with the dying embers of Nathaniel's cursed blood—hate knotted his belly.

From half a field away, Garrick recognized the glimmer of remorse in Zechariah's green eyes, but also the red glint of his awakening vampyr when those same eyes swept Luc. “Wait!” The master lifted his hand in pleading appeal to Garrick. And to Garrick alone. “It's not too late, son."

Garrick's jaw hardened.

He glared at the master with icy contempt. “I'm not your son."

Zechariah jerked to a stop, boots digging into the hard-packed earth. “Don't do this.” His gaze flashed again to Luc and again dismissed him. “I can right what went wrong here."

"Come on, Garrick! Let's go."

His heart lifted at Luc's plaintive, insistent voice in his head. Luc. Not Nathaniel, Zechariah, or any of the other masters. Luc, who cared for him, had fought for him, and was fighting for him still.

The corners of Garrick's mouth curved in malevolent glee as Luc pulled him from the dark master. Away from this life. “Don't approach us again.” He jerked his chin at Luc. “Either of us.” He met Zechariah's shocked gasp with a grim stare that condemned he and the other masters to hell. “I renounce all of you."

Zechariah paled. “You can't mean it."

"I cast my lot with the rebellion.” Garrick laughed, a hard and bitter sound that stood the hair at his nape on end. He let Luc maneuver him into the marsh, his stare never wavering from the dark master. “The next time you see me, prepare to raise your sword, because I will raise mine.” Garrick's voice lowered to a throaty purr. “I'll kill you. All of you. Even you, Zechariah."

Southern Louisiana

Present Day

"The police are still stumbling across shallow graves on David's estate. The authorities will need months to sift through evidence to identify his victims,” Lucien said. “Until those DNA results come back, everyone believes you number among them. They think David killed you."

Kate's dark eyes, fringed with sooty lashes, glistened. “Didn't he?"

"You are more than you once were, and the human part of your life is over. There is no going back, chere.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But your heart is still beating. Your lungs draw breath. My blood runs in your veins. You are alive, and I cannot regret it."

"You can't regret it?” She choked down bitter laughter. “Oh, that makes everything peachy, then. As long as you're okay with it, I mean."

"I'm glad you agree.” He snickered. “If it helps, for your sake, I wish a master hadn't found you first. But for my sake and for the sake of our people, I thank God that I found you as well. I regret
how
your transition began, but I cannot regret that it
did
begin. You are only becoming what you were born to be."

Her breath hitched. “I can't do this. I can't be—"

"You already are. You already have.” He smiled. “One step at a time. The rest will come, and we will deal with your new life and your new nature little by little. As you are able to accept it. For now, you need only worry about your hunger."

She shuddered.

He nudged her head into the crook of his shoulder, her mouth temptingly near the blood her body now craved. “Feeding this way is natural for us. Our women are too important to hunt and biologically ill equipped for it. So you will take blood from the vampyr sworn to protect you. That would be me, your guardian, and later, if you choose, Garrick."

"No."

Lucien chuckled at the speed of her denial. “The point is you need never bite a human."

Her body sagged in relief.

"The wound is there, open for you.” He cradled her close to his body and pitched his voice to a soothing rumble. “Four hours ago you began to rouse from the transition. You resisted feeding, but you did drink. Just let the memory come; let it guide you."

"What if—"

"Shh,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “Shut your eyes. Concentrate. I held you just like this, like a child curled on a father's lap. That is what a guardian is: a vampyr father who seeks your comfort and safety above his own. He soothes your fears and eases your passage into the wonderful life awaiting you. A whole new world is just a sip away."

"You'll probably give me rabies.” Her nose wrinkled. “Or AIDS."

Her fingers bunched the material of his shirt, both pushing him away and pulling him in. Lucien would've howled with happy laughter at her perversity if he wasn't sure he'd drive her away, but delight of her lit his heart. “We smell illness inside humans and so avoid feeding from the sick and the dying. Even if I were to take in tainted blood, neither one of us would grow ill. Our immune system destroys rival infections too efficiently."

She hesitated, so long the wait both charmed and maddened him.
"You're killing me, cherie. By inches."

"Get out of my head,” she mumbled.

Lucien's body clenched when her tongue darted out to taste him. Her head whipped back at the heat, the power in it.

Deeply embedded in her mind, he shared her stunned surprise and the fierce longing that followed. “I've fed from Garrick these past hours. He's much older than I, his elder blood incredibly rich,” he said, answering her before her mouth grew distracted with unnecessary speech. “You feel a lesser intensity taking it from my veins rather than his, but if you prefer his neck to mine..."

He chuckled when her lips settled against the wound, her mouth drawing gently. He hugged her close. “There's time yet, plenty of time."

Garrick opened the SUV door, the driver's seat creaking under his weight. His glance darted to Kate in the backseat. “Dawn is approaching. Cover her.” He started the vehicle and shoved it into gear while Lucien tented the blanket atop them. “We'll reach Pridemore by noon."

Kate fed.

Muzzy-headed, muscles aching, she stirred against Luc on the bed. He'd draped his arm around her sometime during the daylight hours, anchoring her body to his. After hours that felt like eons on the road and the days at Garrick's isolated property since, she knew Luc's scent as well as her own. She knew his taste, the quick slash of his smile, the warm tenor of his voice...

He yawned, rubbed his jaw with his free hand.
"Good evening, bebe."
He skated a sleepy kiss across the crown of her head.

She gulped, heart slamming against the wall of her chest as though it meant to flee her body.

She had to get away from him.

She had to.

But to what?

She wouldn't survive on her own. The vampire who'd grabbed her during the drive to Louisiana had taught her that. Others far worse than Luc hunted her, and even if she avoided them, she wouldn't escape Garrick. She had no illusions of that. He watched her, still as stone and just as yielding. She might ditch Luc if she surprised him again—maybe—but she'd never evade Garrick. Nor could she escape what she had become.

Vampire.

"Must we go over this again? So early? We are not mythological vampires. We are vampyr, a race cousin to humans who created those legends to..."

She squeezed her eyes shut and tuned his voice from her mind.

Vampire or vampyr, the harsh truth was no matter how her heart revolted, she hungered. She felt the desire for blood in the scream of her nerve endings. The cells of her body, dry and empty, cried out. She hungered. Oh, how she hungered, and it disgusted her. How could she do such a vile thing, even to survive?

Every time, she swore she'd be stronger. She'd resist. She meant it. Every time.

Then, the craving would start.

And she had learned.

Some appetites could not be conquered. Stubbornness couldn't stand against an elemental instinct to survive. Sheer force of will crumbled in the face of it.

And hunger, too long denied, had teeth.

So far, the need was not so great that she couldn't push it aside. A little longer every night. Kate knew from bitter experience that the demands of her body couldn't be ignored forever, but pride demanded some measure of control. She wanted to live. Enough to...

She shuddered.

Enough to do even that.

But survival didn't have to cost her dignity. Her humanity? Yes. Vampires weren't exactly human, though, so she supposed that was okay. But staying alive wouldn't destroy her self-respect.

As long as she didn't let herself think about it.

Any of it.

If she did, she might go insane.

There was no way vampires could be real. The fact that she'd become one didn't alter her assessment of the situation one bit. If anything, she just dug her heels in deeper.

This was the twenty-first century, not the twelfth. Sure, people
pretended
to be vampires. A whole subculture had developed around the mythology. Psychic vampires claimed to drain life force from their victims. Kids filed their teeth to give the appearance of fangs, dressed in Goth black, and hung out together in creepy dance clubs. Kate watched the Discovery Channel. She wasn't completely ignorant.

But no one thought vampires genuinely existed.

Not the creature-of-the-night, bloodsucking variety, anyway.

Least of all Kate, and she numbered among them.

Bite a person?

Suck out their blood like some Grade B horror flick?

Uh-uh.

Nope.

She got nauseated when she had a paper cut.

Whenever she tried to imagine biting someone's neck, she flinched.

Feeding from Luc was gut-wrenching enough, and she hadn't needed to bite him yet. So far, he'd bowed to her queasiness and made the wound for her. Thank God. She wasn't ready to face biting, doubted she ever would be. And it wasn't Luc, personally. She couldn't imagine feeding from anybody else either.

She shivered, remembering their driver during the cross-country journey.

Garrick.

No. Not him.

Especially not him.

So, whether she believed in vampires or not, she couldn't run from Luc.

As appalling as the situation was, she couldn't leave him.

She needed Luc for food.

And what of the rest?

Kate had no idea what it meant to be a vampire. Luc could be charming when it suited him. He spoke often of how powerful she would become and the power she already wielded, whatever that meant. When pressed for details, he was as unforthcoming and silent as the stony Garrick, but these things were important. She'd decided to live, damn it. She needed to know
how.

What were the rules?

Crosses wouldn't hurt her. Luc had proven that by asking Garrick to show her the gold crucifix he never removed from his neck.

Her jaw had dropped at the miniature Jesus hanging, beaten and dying, then at the grim hulk of a vampire. “You're Catholic?” Shock had streaked through her like a lightning bolt. “You can't be Catholic. You're a vampire."

Luc had laughed. “He was infected before the Reformation. Of course he's Catholic. A devout Catholic."

Garrick had nodded. “Most elders are."

"But...but..."

Devout Catholic vampires.

A bubble of hysterical laughter had worked up her throat. Horrified, she's slapped a hand over her mouth to smother it.

Luc had frowned at her. “You won't remember Malachi, but we were raiding together when I found you. Mal was a priest before he was bitten. He ministers to us: Mass, marriage, baptism, confession... He'll shepherd you too, if you like."

Kate frowned. “I'm Baptist."

"Saints preserve us, a Protestant.” Garrick's mouth had twitched suspiciously. “You'll convert."

She snorted. Whitcombs had been Baptists for four generations, and Baptist she would stay. They could make her a bloodsucking vampire. They could change that, and she could live with it. She could try. But they would
not
dictate her faith.

That was only one rule of her new existence, though.

What of the others?

What about garlic?

Could she eat it?

Could she eat normal food at all?

And what about the sun?

Both Luc and Garrick were determined to keep her out of direct sunlight, but it didn't seem to bother them. Garrick's skin glowed with the sun-kissed bronze of a killer tan. The sun obviously didn't hurt him.

Why the paranoia for her?

Luc had cackled gleefully at some of the superstitions. No coffins, he'd promised. “Entering a house you haven't been invited into isn't polite,” Luc had said, then grinned, “but I'm frequently rude.” Kate had seen her own reflection in the bathroom mirror, so that wasn't true either.

Kate's waking hours had become an endless monotony of unanswered questions, necessary questions, questions Luc claimed he'd answer when she was ready.

So she resisted the urge to run.

She needed those answers.

Even when she felt the wispy slide of satin sheets against her bare skin, she didn't so much as flinch.
He
was dressed, at least, and in the brief though seemingly endless hours David had imprisoned her, Kate had learned the prudence of assessing a situation before acting impetuously. Impulses, uncurbed, could hurt.