Wicked Lord: Part One

By Shirl Anders

*This is #1 of a 3 part serial version of The
Lords Of Blacknall: Trinity

All rights reserved. Except for use
in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in
whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography,
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of
the publisher, Allure Books. This is a work of fiction. 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
.

Copyrighted
2016
© Shirl Anders

Follow Shirl on
Facebook

Check out Shirl’s
Blog

Signup to Shirl’s Mailing List for
Contests, New releases, & Giveaways!

Chapter One

Fog choked the London night air with damp
and cloying tendrils as Trinity crouched on the wings of a stone
angel parapet on the east corner of Blacknall mansion. His nostrils
flared, inhaling stale night air like a lethargic limb barely able
to lift and move. He'd not get much distance through the clinging
fog to pick up scents further than the half-fouled Thames. Yet
something gnawed at him as he flung back his chunky damp hair and
his heavy coat settled around him. It was an awareness he couldn't
name, and with his senses attuned, his gaze was sharp. He'd trained
the last half-century to sharpen his instincts and perceptions just
as he'd exercised his body to hone his uncanny strength.

"Still, I do not trust my intuition without
proof of actually seeing it," he admonished himself, balancing on
the cold marble of the angel’s upturned wings.

He knew it was the humanity remaining inside
him.

There were many who didn't believe vampires
carried any humanity after they'd been turned. Yet he and his three
brothers believed. They lived their entire existence bound by that
comforting fact.

They were born from humans.

Four brothers. Lords of Blacknall. This
century. Trinity chuckled, turning his sharp gaze to the west.
Holding the title of Duke of Blacknall had irritated his eldest
brother Church for the last fifty years. Church would rather be a
scientist like Baptiste or even a rector like their youngest
brother, Christian.

Trinity hardly believed that. Church could
no more be a clergy than he could stop being the eldest. One of
them had to pretend, in this decade, to be an English lord, for
their family's best placement. English dukes and their families,
seen as eccentric, were not questioned as much as common men.
Therefore, they could employ more privacy. Trinity carried the
courtesy title Marquis Montrose, while Baptiste was Earl of
Sterling, and Christian, Viscount Ash.

Trinity stretched his tall body to stand
balanced on the stone angel's wings as though he were an evil
apparition come to devour the pure angel. A small, unexpected gust
of wind blew the edges of his coat outward as he felt Church
beckoning him. It was unusual, the connection he and his three
brothers had. They'd not turned each other into vampires, but they
were all born from the same evil Sire. Perhaps that was why he
could forever feel his brothers' call.

They knew other vampires turned by one Sire,
yet none of them connected the way he and his brothers did. But
there was nothing common about the Blacknall men, as either humans
or vampires, and there never had been.

Minutes later, Trinity slid with unearthly
quiet into the rosewood study on the second floor of Blacknall
mansion. Because it was night, both Baptiste and Christian were
there, having left their normal vocations for the daylight hours.
None of them appreciated daylight; however, after a century of
walking the earth as vampires, they'd discovered arcane ways to
move about in sunlight.

"I still hear you, Trinity," Baptiste
called, without turning his head of light blond hair as he sat on a
settee facing the fireplace, which was burning with a glowing
fire.

"I do too," Christian announced. He didn't
turn his even blonder head, so that Trinity looked at the back of
both their heads after gliding so close behind them as they sat on
the settee. He didn't believe they knew that.

"Sorry," Christian added, ever the soulful
brother.

"Don't be," Church said. "He has to keep
challenging his skill level, as we all do."

Church was a tall figure beside the
fireplace as he gazed at the flames. He did not turn his head
either, as he added, "Be a useful skill if one of us could master
it."

"It would," Trinity admitted loudly,
startling both Christian and Baptiste, who jerked their dark
blue-eyed gazes around toward him.

Trinity suspected he'd startled Church a bit
too, but Church held his reaction well, only turning his head
slowly after long moments. The flames from the fire slashed red
glints through Church's snow-white hair, while his black eyebrows
arched with an elder brother's look of congratulations. Church's
icy-colored hair was part of the toll it cost him to gain
liberation from their damnable stepfather, who was also their
depraved Sire.

"That was good." Baptiste's gaze captured
Trinity's, and his unnaturally handsome face, framed by wavy blond
hair that clipped his square jaw, showed approval.

They were all like that … beautiful
vampires. Church's face appeared the most natural because he had
some maturity to his features, except for his blond hair gone
white, which they endlessly needed to explain away as the tragedy
that occurred when he'd seen their parents die. When told, it was a
grievous tale about a harrowing carriage accident that only Church
survived.

All a lie.

They were all master liars. Trinity wondered
if they even knew the truth anymore. But Baptiste tried to hide his
youthful Adonis looks with a moustache. Christian tried with a
goatee. But Trinity never tried to hide his appearance with
anything but a glaring sneer.

"There's been another woman killed in the
Blood Cull's territory," Church reported with a grim slant to his
features. He turned to face them before pinning them with a grave
stare.

"Eleven in as many weeks." Trinity stilled
his fingers on the edges of his long coat, his mood shifted …
darkened. He'd been set to remove his coat, but he lifted his
fingers away. "Cull." The distaste was evident in his snarl and the
thickening of his tensed muscles. None of them appreciated Cull's
ways.

However, in their world, there weren't many
vampires that lived by rules. They had been able to enforce a rule
not to kill humans for quite a few years and another rule, not to
turn humans, for half that time. The Blacknalls lived by five
unbreakable rules.

Because they chose to.

Because they came from humans.

And because they had to live among them.

These rules defined their existence. They
did not kill humans and they did not turn humans into vampires.
They did not use human slaves for feeders, did not let humans know
they were vampires, or take any blood not freely given.

"My Bow Street Runner source states the
woman was ripped apart like the others and left as though half fed
upon by animals." Church glared at them all with the inner disgust
of blood wasted. Christian and Baptiste rose and all four men
growled their disgust. "Her dress suggested she was a young woman
of some means this time. Unlikely one of Cull's, but considering
the area …"

"If she'd been one of Cull's, it would be
because she was forced into prostitution against her will."
Christian's mouth pursed with anger as his gaze shifted between
them.

"That is an issue for another time." Church
grasped Christian's shoulder for an empathetic squeeze he'd used
numerous times on all them. There was a time, Trinity thought, when
they never touched. He knew Church continually worked to overcome
the abuse of their youth.

Church continued, "We must discover who or
what is killing women on London's eastside before someone or the
constables run across a vampire as the culprit." Church's fierce
gaze glinted; they all knew what that meant.

"And because it is wrong for any vampire to
rip apart and murder innocent people," Christian added, with his
stubbornness born of devout faith. His sermons could bring people
to tears or propel them into shouting God's name. Ever the
scientist, Baptiste said it was some quality in Christian's voice
or vocal cords that entranced people. Trinity thought that it was
his littlest brother's heart.

They were all parts of the whole. Church was
the soul, Baptiste was the logic, and Christian was the heart.
Trinity thought he, on the other hand, was the dark side of every
man.

"I will go and convince Cull to tell us what
he knows," Trinity muttered foully as he turned to leave.

***

Cull had been nothing but a squalid wharf
rat before he'd been turned into a vampire. There was still much of
it inside him a century later. He tried to appear tough, but with
his slender and wiry build, along with thinning black hair slicked
back into a tight ponytail, he never pulled it off. Normally he
wore sleeveless leather vests in an attempt to show off his pale,
muscular arms. What Cull lacked in girth he made up for in
continuously conniving talk. There was always a new deal to make
money, and Cull was convincing enough to have gathered a fairly
large brood of vampires around him. Of course, there were more
vampires made in the lower eastside slums of London than any other
place in all of England.

Cull's main moneymaker was whores. Christian
proclaimed there was dispute about whether the women were willing
victims or not. The brothers Blacknall had used enough force and
disrupted enough of Cull's moneymaking schemes to convince Cull not
to kill humans. They'd also persuaded Cull and his brood not to
turn humans … for the most part.

Trinity found Cull entertained in his
favorite pastime: whore fights. Trinity stopped on the eaves of a
decaying rooftop, three stories up, looking down into the dank,
back alley. Except for a few excited chortles coming from the
spectators, it would be too dark for any human eye to see what was
going on from his vantage point. He crouched with his chunky, long
blond hair settling over his shoulders. It was easy with his
eyesight to see everything. The women were not vampires, just soft
and frail bodies forced to fight each other, or perhaps they wanted
to. He knew Cull would promise the winner higher status in his slut
kingdom. The rules to winning the catfight were simple: one
opponent had to be stripped bare and pinned to the ground before
the other opponent won.

Trinity watched the women's fat breasts
bobbing with their ruddy slits contorting at unusual angles as the
long-haired whores grappled with each other, rolling on the ground.
Most prostitutes were chubby and round. These two were no
exception, with fleshy buttocks that were pale and undulating in
such a way he felt thick interest stirring his shaft; he instantly
snarled his dissent.

He had always preferred voluptuous as
opposed to thin. He'd stroked his shaft to imaginings of it every
day until he ejaculated the need. Sex and blood-hunger were too
closely intertwined. It was the one area in which the Blacknall
brothers disagreed. Actually, it was the one area their righteous
vampire lust had no answer for, therefore, they all dubiously
ignored it.

Trinity turned his daunting gaze from the
lush interests to Cull and the few who attended the catfight.
"Business must be slacking," he muttered. There were but three
gents he saw as patrons betting on the fight. That left only two of
Cull's brood. That was all he concerned himself with because the
patrons were not likely vampires.

As he climbed down the side of the crumbling
brick tenant building into the alley below, he didn't make his
presence known until he stood between the two vampires from Cull's
brood. The advantage to Cull's brood was they were likely so
corrupt on opium, the stench of whores, and the rot from the lower
eastside they'd lost all ability or inclination to scent another
vampire's approach.

Both, one tall, one short, were gazing
intently at the wrestling women, so neither man saw him as he
reached outward. He grabbed them by the back of their collars, and
then, faster than humanly possible, he lifted one upward and he
tugged them together, until their foreheads butted against each
other in front of him. The force was immense as the crack sounded
in the alleyway like the strike of an anvil.