Shadow Keepers: Midnight Page 5

  She didn’t realize she was falling until Tiberius was at her side, gripping her around the waist and leading her to the bed. Her knees had turned to water, but how he’d come to her so quickly she didn’t know. Right then, she couldn’t wrap her thoughts around anything. Nothing was real, and the world was a nightmare come alive.

  “And you,” she finally asked. “You … hunt werewolves?”

  He hesitated for only an instant before nodding.

  “Why?”

  “They are vile creatures,” he said, his expression raw. “An abomination. Even as men, you cannot trust them.”

  There was more to tell—she could see that much in his eyes. But she saw pain there, too. Perhaps he once had a brother like hers. Perhaps he had a family debt to pay.

  The thought triggered something in her memory. “What did you mean?” she asked. “When you were speaking with my father you said you were bound to our family, and he said that he honored no such bond.”

  “It is a long story,” he said, moving to her side and drawing her against him. She pressed her head against his bare chest and sighed. Just the touch of him felt like coming home. “Suffice it to say that I will always protect you.”

  “And my brother.”

  “Even your father,” he agreed, “though it pains me somewhat to do it.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “The sun has set. We must go.”

  “We?”

  He nodded. “I wish it weren’t so, but I cannot leave you here. Those men will return.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she said, then immediately regretted the words. Even if it were true—and if several men came, it undoubtedly was not—she still wanted to remain at Tiberius’s side, especially since he would be taking her straight to Antonio.

  He smiled with understanding. “Perhaps you can. But my bond requires me to see to you as well. And that is a job I can best undertake with you at my side. More than that, though, I wish you to be near me.”

  “Oh.” Her heart fluttered, a small bird beating its wings.

  “Take this,” he said, then pressed the hilt of a dagger into her hand. “It is silver. If the need arises, do not hesitate to use it.”

  “I won’t.”

  A flicker of a smile touched his lips.

  “My Caris,” he said, and then he reached for her hand.

  They left the inn on foot, not willing to risk that Baloch’s guard would hear approaching horses. Tiberius would have preferred to leave Caris out of this—the thought that he was putting her in harm’s way weighed heavily on him. He’d meant what he’d told her about the scoundrels in the inn; they would undoubtedly come back, and if they found her alone, they would surely break her. Just the thought of their using her so brutally made the daemon rise within him, and even now he regretted not ripping their throats open when he’d had the chance. He’d held back only because Caris was present, and he had not wanted her to witness the eruption if he allowed the daemon even the slightest bit of room to emerge.

  For so many centuries he’d toiled in solitude, fighting to tame the daemon that lived inside him, that had emerged, as in every vampire, at the time of the change. For the most part, he had succeeded, his daemon buried so deep now that it preened and snarled only when faced with the chance to confront a werewolf.

  At least that was the way it had been before.

  Tonight his daemon begged for release, screaming with rage and crying out to destroy the men who would harm Caris. And it was that surge of fury as much as the swell of contentment that convinced him that he loved her.

  He considered taking her only part of the way on this quest. The forest and hillside were rife with small caves where she could find shelter and wait for him, away from the lascivious treachery of men who would do her harm. But even then he feared for her. Animals roamed the dark—and worse. This close to a full moon, there was no doubt that Baloch’s men would bring the wolf out, if for no other reason than the pleasure of running fast and free over the leaf-covered ground. Baloch himself most likely roamed the forest this night, and that was why he and Caris were moving slowly now, with Tiberius evaluating their surroundings at each step.

  All those reasons underscored his decision to keep her at his side, and yet in the end it was pure selfishness that swayed him. He simply wanted her with him.

  No. That wasn’t entirely true. As much as it pained him to admit it, he needed her. Or, rather, he could use her. He knew well that the walls of Baloch’s palazzo were infused with hematite, and while Tiberius’s age gave him superior strength, even he could not completely overcome the effect of that vile mineral.

  Moreover, he had to admit that her plan for infiltrating Baloch’s lair was a good one. And it wasn’t as if she was a typical female who didn’t know which end of a knife was the dangerous one.

  He turned to look at her as they walked, no longer surprised by how the mere sight of her seemed to lift him up. She was his muse, his gift, and if it were possible, he would walk to the ends of the earth with her and never look back.

  “What?” she asked, though her smile suggested that she knew the direction of his thoughts.

  “I was merely thinking that even the glow of the stars and the moon dims in comparison to your beauty.”

  She quirked a brow. “A nice sentiment, but I am more likely to believe that you were thinking of how best to infiltrate the palazzo.”

  “As clever as she is beautiful,” he said, then silenced her burst of laughter with a long, sensual kiss. “We are close,” he said when he finally pushed her gently away, his gaze firm on her rapturous face. “Are you ready?”

  “I am.”

  She wore the gown she’d traveled with, a deep emerald green that brought out the color in her feline-shaped eyes. It was cut low and cinched at the waist, so it accentuated the ample curve of her breast. Her skin, already pale and smooth, glowed as luminescent as mother-of-pearl in the moonlight. It was one of the inherent ironies of nature that the moon could provide such beauty and at the same time bring forth a monster such as Baloch and his kind.

  As they approached the treeline, he took her arm, tugging her back into the shadows. He stroked her cheek, then looked deep into her eyes. “You will not be alone.”

  She swallowed and nodded, and though he could smell the fear upon her, she didn’t hesitate. She pinched her cheeks to give them color, then smoothed her skirts. She kept her right hand in the fold of her skirt where he knew she had stowed her dagger. Another was strapped to her leg, hidden beneath the thick folds of material. And then, without further talk, she stepped away from the trees and walked toward the crushed stone path that led to the palazzo’s gate.

  He transformed immediately, shifting into the black raven he favored. She looked back, and he could see the surprise on her face at finding him gone, but she didn’t slow her step, and soon he was flying in lazy circles above the gate, watching with avian intensity as she approached the first of their prey.

  From his position up high, he watched as she drew near the two guards at the gate. Her shawl fell slightly, revealing her soft shoulder. She said something, laughed when one guard replied, then idly trailed her finger over her collarbone, drawing his attention to her breast.

  Tiberius swooped, transforming back into himself behind the second man—and using the man’s own dagger to slice his throat even as Caris turned and saw him, her eyes going wide.

  “Where did you—”

  But she didn’t finish the question, her words catching in her throat as he grabbed the other guard’s neck and twisted, his pleasure at watching the weren fall profound.

  “My dagger?” he asked.

  She lifted her skirt and released the hair ribbons she’d used to bind it, then handed it to him. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” he said. She didn’t understand how he’d arrived so quickly. She didn’t understand why she had to carry his blade. She didn’t need to understand, though. She only needed to recognize that everything they wer
e doing worked toward the goal of saving her brother.

  He took the silver knife, then stabbed each of the guards in the heart in turn, ensuring that they were truly dead. He looked back at her then, afraid he’d gone too far in her presence, but she merely lifted her skirt away from the pooling blood and stepped over them.

  He held out his hand to assist and couldn’t hide a thin, pleased smile. She truly was a most remarkable woman.

  “You say that Baloch is in the forest, but what if he returns?” she whispered as they passed through the gate and into the open-air courtyard. They kept to the shadows as Tiberius examined the area, his vampiric eyes probing deep into the dark, his keen hearing and smell searching for any hint that they were not alone in the atrium.

  “I hope he does,” Tiberius said, once he was confident no one was watching them. They’d spoken earlier of his belief that Baloch would be out in the wild tonight, as was his habit. Unfortunate, Tiberius thought. He would very much like the opportunity to plunge a dagger into the bastard’s heart. But within these walls he was weakened, and he could already feel the nearby hematite sapping his strength. Better to get Caris and Antonio out safely, and then return to fight Baloch on another day. A day when he could savor the pleasure of watching Baloch’s life bleed away.

  In front of him loomed the main apartments of the palazzo, a low, sprawling building, with the exception of one tower that rose up as if to kiss the sky. The courtyard surrounded the palazzo, a lush garden that wound around the building with flower beds and crushed-stone walking paths. Quietly he led her through the flowers, following one of the paths until they reached the back of the palazzo and the entranceway to the lower chambers and the dungeon that his sources told him faced the south wall.

  As they moved in silence, Caris’s question—Why?—seemed to echo in his mind, and he shivered, a profound cold that ran through his bones. Century upon century had passed, and yet he could still see himself, battered, abused, beaten. Ripped open and left to die while the sun beat down upon him so hard that the desperate thirst was even more excruciating than the pain that had radiated through every inch of his body.

  And then he had seen those eyes—Caris’s eyes. Even after so many generations, Horatius’s eyes still lived in the family line. The old man had dismounted from his horse and tended to Tiberius himself, his servants only fetching water, wine, and cloth. And when it had become clear that Tiberius was surely doomed, Horatius had listened to Tiberius’s whispered tale about what had happened, the hatred he felt, and the dreams of revenge—dreams that had kept him clinging to life well beyond another man’s breaking point.

  Horatius’s wrinkled face had tilted back toward the sun, and he’d closed his eyes, deep in thought. Then without a word, he had lifted Tiberius himself, placed him gently into his cart, and risked his own life to take Tiberius to the one person who could give him a chance to make that dream of revenge come true.

  A vampire.

  He’d sworn an oath that night to protect Horatius’s family even above his own, for it was that family that had saved him, that had kept his dreams of revenge as alive as the body that still survived to this day.

  He looked now at Caris, and he wanted to share his past with her. But even more, he wanted her to know that although he’d come to rescue Antonio out of a familial obligation, that obligation was no longer the driving force. She was. She’d opened up a world to him. Made long-dormant feelings stir. He wanted her with him forever, and yet he could say nothing. He was, at the end of the day, a coward. He’d seen the disgust on her face when he’d revealed the truth about Baloch. And while he certainly felt the same way toward the weren, he also understood that her reaction wasn’t aimed only at that one vile group but at all Shadowers.

  Tiberius had endured many things in his long years upon the earth, but the one thing he could never bear was to see the same look of disgust and fear on Caris’s face that he had seen on her father’s.

  “Tiberius?”

  They’d arrived, and he tugged her to a halt. “Keep your dagger ready.”

  She nodded, her face set, her grip firm.

  The lock was solid, but the wooden door broke easily with a single kick. Even with the presence of hematite, he hadn’t faded too far, his many years upon this earth coming to his aid. But they were still outdoors, the impact of the mineral weakened. Soon they would go down narrow passageways and would be surrounded by walls, floor, and roof mortared with the dreaded infusion. He would weaken more; that was certain. The only question was how much.

  “Stay close,” he said as he began down the stairs, his senses acute. He had expected more guards, more trouble; the fact that penetrating Baloch’s lair was so simple reeked of a trap. But what kind of trap?

  “There,” Caris whispered, pointing to a passage that led off to the left. It seemed to descend further into the bowels of the earth, and he nodded. If Antonio was being held here, his cell would likely be deep inside the fortress.

  They turned—and as they did, Tiberius heard a sharp clang and a contemporaneous snap, snap, snap even as he felt the sharp sting of something fast and hard embedding itself in his thigh. He didn’t think, he only reacted. The snap was still echoing in the air when he grabbed Caris and tossed her in front of him, then leapt forward himself, just out of harm’s way.

  “Caris!” She lay on the ground, a wooden stake gouged into her right shoulder, another in her left thigh.

  “Go,” she said, her voice weak and her face pale as she sat up, her features contorted with pain. “Go and find Antonio.”

  He ripped the stake from his own thigh. The pain was intense, making his leg tingle and his muscles cramp, and he realized that Baloch had coated the tip with hematite. A clever booby trap for encroaching vampires. “I will not leave you here,” he said, turning his attention to the stakes still embedded in her body.

  “I can’t walk,” she said. “And you must hurry. Baloch will be back soon.”

  “No,” Tiberius repeated. “If there are any weren in the dungeons, they’ll surely smell your blood. They’ll come. They’ll kill you.” He pushed away the memories that threatened, forced down the rising daemon. Now was not the time. He knelt in front of her and gripped her hands tightly. “They’ll do worse than kill you.”

  “No, Tiberius. Dammit, no.” She shifted, then winced from the pain of her wounds. “Please, if you care anything for me, go get my brother.”

  His heart twisted—he could not willingly sacrifice the boy any more than he could sacrifice her, but his choices were untenable. Leave her, and she would die. Carry her to safety, and the boy likely would. There was only one solution that made sense, and it was the solution he most dreaded. There was no alternative, though; he reached out and gently tilted her chin so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. “I care everything for you. And I can heal you. Do you trust me?”

  A flicker of astonishment crossed her face, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. She simply nodded, slowly and firmly. “I trust you.”

  “Very well.”

  He shifted his position, then closed his eyes, thinking of blood until he felt his fangs grow and sharpen. He didn’t look at Caris—he didn’t want to see her reaction. Instead he bit his own wrist until the blood flowed freely. “I’m going to pull the stakes out,” he said. “It will hurt—and for that I’m sorry. But once I do, you must drink.” He lifted his wrist as if in explanation. “Drink,” he said, “and you will heal.”

  Drink?

  The word was still echoing in her head as Tiberius pulled the stakes from her body. She screamed, the pain almost unbearable. And then before she had time to think, Tiberius had one arm around her neck and his wrist in front of her lips, and he was begging her again to drink, and by the Blessed Virgin, she knew then what had been tickling at the back of her mind. His strength. His swiftness. And most of all her father’s fear.

  He was a vampire.

  Dear Lord, she’d fallen in love with a vampire.

&nb
sp; Love. She turned the word over in her head, but there was no uncertainty. Her heart didn’t lie. She loved him. And when she lifted her head up and looked into his eyes, she was certain that he loved her, too.

  “Drink,” he repeated. “My blood can heal you. It can strengthen you.”

  “Will I—”

  “—change? No. The effect is only temporary. Please, Caris. Loathe me if you will, but do not deny me now. Every moment we waste, the danger grows.”

  “Loathe? No, I—”

  “Please.” His voice held such anguish that she couldn’t argue. She closed her mouth over his wrist and drank deep, surprised by the intense, coppery taste, but even more surprised by the intimacy of the act. This was the man who’d kissed her and stroked her, who’d touched and filled her in ways that no man ever had. When she pressed her lips to his wound and drank, she could feel his strength coursing through her like the warm glow of good wine. Her shoulder and thigh itched and burned, and she realized with mild surprise that her skin was knitting, the wound vanishing in an instant.

  “That’s it,” he whispered, his voice low and powerful. “Just a bit more. There, there now.”

  She pulled away, afraid that if she kept going she would never stop. She wanted this too much, wanted him too much. And the power of her need terrified her.

  “Antonio,” she whispered. It was the only word she could manage.

  “Come.” He reached for her and as she took his hand and climbed to her feet, she saw the movement behind him.

  “Tiberius!” she cried, flinging the dagger even as she called out the warning. He whipped around and did the same, his blade landing hard and true in the heart of one and killing it instantly, hers missing the heart only by inches, but still buried to the hilt.

  Tiberius leapt up, then knocked the living weren back against the wall. It landed with a thud, then bounced back, rushing Tiberius, who ripped the blade from the creature’s chest and used it to slice the weren’s throat. Blood spurted, and the creature fell to the ground, his life pumping out of him.