"If you had bothered to give some warning I could have prepared them and they would have given escort instead of chase," Eli said from the open doorway. "My wolves do not like surprises."
Malachi flashed Eli a grin as he asked, "And what fun is that?" But he was pleased. Most others wouldn"t have eluded the sentinels, so Eli had some protection, even in the day while he slept. The b.i.t.c.h who was hunting Eli was a witch, but untrained and young.
She"d be a little easier to catch, as long as Eli stayed on guard. "Surprises are the only things that make life tolerable."
Eli grinned and said, "Not the only, my friend. Not even the best."
Malachi lifted a dark red brow, the same deep red of the hair he wore in a long, thick braid that nearly touched his waist. He could scent, only faintly, the lingering sweet perfume of woman. It was...different.
Human, but not. Vampire, sort of. "Still enjoying that young Huntress you brought into the Council? I"m surprised her wolf allows it. Think he"d let me have a taste?"
Eli"s face went blank and he said in a flat, cold voice, "Not likely. Stay away from her, Malachi. She"s happy with Declan."
"Then there"s no reason to stay away, is there?"
Malachi knew d.a.m.n good and well there was a reason.
All vampires could draw people to them-it was simply their nature, and what allowed them to feed freely and pleasurably. The older a vampire became, the stronger the call.
Eli had seen women fall prey to that call, some he never would have imagined susceptible. Nuns, grannies, gay women, and women who despised the touch of a man, because of a brutal past. Tori may well be able to ignore it, but he wouldn"t see Declan hurt. "Leave her be, Mal.
I am asking as a friend."
Malachi was eaten with curiosity to learn more of this woman, but it hadn"t come to pa.s.s. Staring into Eli"s serious, somber golden gaze, he rolled his dark blue eyes in aggravation. "Then, as a friend, I will," Malachi said with a sigh. Flashed him an evil grin, he said, "But tell me, does she taste as good as she f.u.c.king smells?"
Eli"s mouth curled in a slow smile and he replied, "Better."
Malachi hadn"t changed.
Not in the two plus centuries Eli had known him.
He still had a wide streak of mischief in him, and a craving for creating havoc. And he still treated their friends.h.i.+p the same.
None of the other vampires Eli knew had the somewhat dubious privilege of calling Malachi "friend". Dubious because Malachi was sometimes a harbinger of things to come, and rarely were they pleasant, though he also would alight on Eli"s property every few decades simply for companions.h.i.+p.
Of course, not tonight. I couldn"t be so lucky, Eli thought darkly. He lounged against the wall in the bathroom, as Leslie soaped and rinsed Malachi"s body.
The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had loved the baths of medieval times, and more often than not, this was how they spent their conversations. h.e.l.l, more than once, Eli and Malachi had both ended up in that tub, either feasting on one woman, or bringing in a second so they each had one.
But Malachi wasn"t up for s.e.x sport tonight.
"n.o.body seems to know who the la.s.s is," Malachi said, eyes closed in pleasure as Leslie ma.s.saged his long, muscled arms with talented fingers. As Eli had expected, she had fallen to Malachi"s silent call the moment she laid eyes on him. Of course, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had also refused to take her with him, so on top of replacing Leslie, he was going to have to deal with the pseudo-withdrawal she would suffer when Malachi left.
That was worse than anything else.
It was unsettling to see how easily a woman succ.u.mbed to Malachi. In the early days, Eli had envied it. As he grew older, and started having some of it directed his way, he pitied the women. When Malachi left them, Eli had seen women cry as though their hearts were broken.
He used to wonder if Mal even noticed.
Now he knew the older vampire did notice, but he was weary. Too d.a.m.ned weary too care.
Sometimes Eli wondered why Malachi chose to continue when he was so obviously tired of his life.
Maybe, after all these centuries, it was habit.
"Are you listening to me?" Malachi asked, his voice rough with aggravation.
Eli forced his gaze back to Malachi and fought down the instinctive urge to fall to his knees in submission.
"Wandering mind, so sorry," he said, his voice clipped.
Even after all these years, he still had to fight the urge to submit.
And he was a f.u.c.king Master.
Sometimes, when Eli found himself doubting there was any kind of G.o.d or heaven or h.e.l.l, he made himself think of Malachi. Somebody had once told him, when he was a child, that G.o.d"s own angels walked the earth to help those who needed it the most. To protect those who couldn"t protect themselves.
That was Malachi.
Had Malachi been born with evil inside him, being the powerful Master that he was, he would have wreaked more havoc than the Council would have been able to control. Instead, he had been born a good, decent man, even if he was somewhat demented at times.
"There"s a girl who wants ye dead," Malachi snapped.
His accent was odd, difficult, no, impossible, to place.
That came from spending too much time in too many places. But when he was aggravated, the burr of Scotland came out. Even after so many centuries, Scotland was still where he called home.
"More than one, I"d wager," Eli said with a shrug.
"What of it?" "This is a girl who can run like the wind and can hide in plain sight. I"ve tried tracking her, but she eludes me.
She"s been askin" "bout you, boy, and I dinna see her trying to sell ye a bleedin" bridge."
"Who is she?"
Malachi dismissed Leslie with a glance and leaned forward in the water. "We don"t know, Eli. She asks, she searches and hides. But she asked the wrong person-Agnes Milcher-and Agnes felt the hatred and the power. She"s a b.l.o.o.d.y powerful witch and none of ours kin find her."
"Looks?"
Malachi shrugged. "We don"t know that, either. She wears glamour like you wear your skin, Agnes says her image changed constantly while she tried to break the glamour and it never broke. Some saw a young tiny blonde who looked rather fey, others a strappi ng red headed Amazon. Agnes saw both of those, plus a dozen more faces."
Eli knew you couldn"t live as long as he had, do the things he had done, and not make enemies. But none of them had gotten to him yet, and he wasn"t going to lose sleep over it.
Chapter Two
Eli was going to die over it.
He had been out hunting, and hadn"t paid attention.
His prey had been a child molesting b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He never made it to the pervert"s house.
As he stumbled to his knees, agony tearing through him, he decided that was his number one regret.
If he had known he"d never see another moonrise, he would have made certain Tori and Declan knew about this kill before he had left the house.
But he hadn"t been expecting this.
The warning Malachi had issued had fallen to the back of his mind.
h.e.l.l, it had been nearly a f.u.c.king year since Malachi had shown his face and not one sign of this supposed girl who wanted him dead.
Until tonight.
Now he had a thick arrow-more like a spear than anything else-piercing his chest. Tinged with the scent of human blood, soaked in garlic, rubbed with some herb that he suspected was toxic to a vampire, and he was going to die. Eli summoned what little strength he still had and called out to his people. Hopefully some of his wolves could arrive in time. Quickly he sent a final, urgent command to Jonathan to take care of his prey and the child. Jonathan wasn"t a true Hunter, not yet, but he would be in time and any were could handle one f.u.c.king, perverted child molester.
At least he could die knowing the little girl would be saved.
Behind him he heard footsteps, smelled a soft, sweet perfume and the musk of woman but he was too f.u.c.king weak to turn his head and look at his killer.
Soft, pleased laughter filled the air, but a bay rent the night and the woman cursed. "Seeing as how I don"t want to die, and I know how many steps it takes to make sure a vampire is dead," she whispered in his ear from where she knelt behind him, "I think I will have to run.
"But I will see you dead. Until that happens, I have the pleasure of knowing you will suffer."
Eli coughed up blood, gagging, and spat it out as he fell forward, catching his weight on one hand. "Mind if I ask why you want me dead, witch?"
"Because you stole someone from me," she purred, her voice a soft seductive caress even to his dying ears.
"Five years ago, a man and ch ild died because of you..."
G.o.d help him, if Eli had possessed the strength, and the blood, that low, s.e.xy voice would have made his c.o.c.k hard as a pike without him even seeing the woman.
That was the last thing he remembered before he tumbled into oblivion.
* * * * * Tori awoke with a gasp, fiery pain streaking through her chest, then coursing through her veins with every beat of her heart. Declan mirrored her position and they both cried out at the agony.
When she looked down, Tori half expected to see her chest torn open. But the naked pale skin of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was unmarred. Through their bond she could tell that Declan was suffering the same as she.
Tori was the one to realize why.
"Eli," she gasped, forcing herself to concentrate and tamp down the bond she and her mate shared with the vampire. She couldn"t think through the pain and she needed to think.
Somebody had tried to kill Eli.
Somebody just may have succeeded.
Stumbling from bed she glanced at Declan. He, too, had made the connection, his thoughts mirroring hers as he climbed from bed as well.
"We have to go to him," she said through stiff lips. A knot had formed in her throat and rage burned low in her belly.
Before she had closed their link down she had learned enough.
Somebody had shot him from behind with a poisoned spear that had been soaked in garlic.
Somebody knew enough about vampires to know what was poison to them. The spear, a very effective stake.
The garlic, and the odd poison Tori had detected. "I"m gonna kill her," Tori said softly, moments later as she and Declan ran to the car.
"Not if I find her first," Declan growled. His hands closed around the steering wheel and she saw the tips of his nails, lengthened and clawed, as his rage spun out of control.
Tori slid her lover a sidelong look and said, "We can share. I"ll rip her throat out. You can have the rest."
"Just like a vampire," Declan muttered. "Wanting to bleed the body and let the wolf eat the cold leftovers."His beautiful face was gaunt. Gray.
Always so golden and alive, and now he lay like death on his bed.
Tori approached, her eyes burning with tears.
But she already knew what to do.
Tori had spoken with some of the council, telling them what she had learned from her link with Eli before he fell into a comatose slumber. Foxglove and sage.
Combined with the garlic, it was enough to kill any vamp that wasn"t a Master, and a good many of the lesser and younger Masters.
Drawing the dagger she had taken to carrying, Tori sliced her wrist open, deep, nearly to the bone as she knelt by Eli"s head. Declan stood ready behind her, to take over feeding Eli once Tori grew too weak.
Tori held her bloodied wrist to Eli"s mouth as she asked, "Has the witch Agnes promised us called?"
From the doorway the werewolf Jonathan-the one who had fed her only seven years ago, in this same house- answered quietly, "Yes. She will be here by nightfall.
And she already knows what to do." His handsome young face looked older, angry, weary. A tiny blonde child cuddled on his shoulder and he had shrugged when Tori had sent him a seeking gaze. "Eli had been hunting her father when this happened. He sent me. I took care of her father and now I can"t get her to turn me loose. I think she thinks I"m her puppy. I can"t control her mind the way...the way Eli could. Any time I lay her down, she wakes up screaming and she needs to sleep."
Tori had stroked the tiny blonde head and said, "Find one of the lesser vamps, Jonathan. I know you"re getting-attached, but she doesn"t need to see this."
His jaw had tightened and his reply was, "I am not a child, nor do I belong to you. Eli is my master, and I answer to him. The child is asleep, unconscious actually. She is fine. Now see to Eli." The were rarely showed anything other than deference and Declan bared his teeth at him.
Tori had merely sighed. "Whatever. We need to focus on Eli. Now."
"This witch, she can handle it?" Declan asked, his voice gone deep and rough. Brilliant green eyes dancing and swirling and glowing with his rage, only his immense willpower kept him from s.h.i.+fting. "The b.i.t.c.h will most likely come tonight or tomorrow to make certain she has finished the job. Tori won"t be able to handle her tonight and I don"t know about myself. Depends on how much blood he takes from me when he is done with her."
"I will feed him," Jonathan offered.