Chapter Ten
Friedrich flexed his hand then balled it into a fist, the knuckles stinging where he’d broken the skin. The self-healing was slowing, the knitting of his flesh and skin taking longer to renew than a few hours ago. Even though he’d practically gorged on the lovely Miss Snow—a fact he almost regretted but not quite—he’d broken his knuckles open several times now since he and Mikhail had been interrogating the vampire who’d murdered the innocent maid at the town ball. He’d need to feed again soon if he continued on like this, putting a higher demand on his body’s self-healing.
“You might as well kill me,” the villain gurgled from a bloodied mouth.
The villain deserved death for what he’d done. No telling how many other innocents he’d killed on his quest to find the White Lily.
Friedrich waved off Mikhail, who had the villain raised off the ground with one hand, ready to start another round.
“We’re wasting our time. He’ll never tell us anything under my uncle’s compulsion.”
Mikhail tossed the fiend back to the hay-strewn ground where he crumpled, his thick iron ankle chains rattling. The beast cackled, peering up between his stringy hair, “But I can tell you this,” he hissed, “until we find her, the huntsmen will keep coming to the north.” He rolled to face the stone wall, still chuckling wickedly.
Mikhail and Friedrich exchanged a look, then exited the cell and clanged the cell door shut. Once out of reach, Mikhail noted, “He said her. Does he mean the leader of the Black Lily?”
“Possibly.” Friedrich wondered at those cryptic words. “But it doesn’t make sense. He said the huntsmen will come north. It’s never been speculated upon that Arabelle and Marius are hiding in the north. No, he’s speaking of the White Lily.”
“But how do we know the White Lily is female? It could be a man behind the propaganda.” Mikhail pulled the leaflet found in the girl’s pool of blood from his pocket, examining it.
“Let me see it again.” He handed it over. They’d both examined the leaflet several times. Friedrich pressed his nose to the parchment and inhaled deeply. At first, all he could smell was blood. He moved his nose across the paper, catching the scent of the dead girl. He remembered, for she smelled of strong candy-sweet perfume. He closed his eyes and inhaled along the back, seeking a scent that may have been embedded by the hand who made the bill. The distinct aroma of a man was there—woods and iron—and then yes, a faint whiff of something floral, then gone again before he could grab hold.
He sighed on a shrug, tucking it in his pants pocket as they walked on. “The scents of both men and women are here. Perhaps the maker’s scent was stronger before it changed so many hands.”
“Or perhaps your uncle has several leaflets and has compared the scents, narrowing down to one in particular.” said Mikhail as they wound up the stone stairwell to the first floor of the castle. “That’s what I’d do.”
“Yes. You’re right. That creature back there isn’t refusing to answer us simply because he’s stubborn or exceptionally strong-willed. He’s definitely under my uncle’s compulsive persuasion.”
“Compulsive persuasion?”
Once Friedrich locked the dungeon door, he led them through a short corridor into the second kitchen, used for butchering and cleaning meat and vegetables for the servants’ meals. It was past midnight, so the kitchen was empty.
“It’s in his elixir. I’ve seen him compel men and women to do unspeakable things once he’s bitten them.”
“I take it I don’t want to know.”
Friedrich gave a rough shake of the head as he poured water from a pitcher into a bowl and cleaned the blood from his hands. He remembered when he was a young man, barely twenty, Dominik had demonstrated his power and influence as he always did to remind others he was the mightiest. Friedrich was visiting Izeling Tower under his father’s orders, who’d wanted Friedrich to bond with other members of the Varis family. Dominik had cornered a frightened milkmaid in the barn with five of his Legionnaires in tow. Once he’d bitten her, she was at his mercy. He’d commanded her to remove her clothes and service every vampire among them on her knees. She proceeded to do so without protest. Friedrich had fled the barn, noting the darkness that had settled around the king, a black halo—unclean and dangerous. When he’d confessed the incident to his father and his distaste for his uncle, he’d only scorned Friedrich for not being man enough to take what he wanted—the sovereign right of every vampire.
Friedrich didn’t want to hurt and take advantage of a terrified servant girl. That was when he understood he was set apart from his father and his uncle. Until he’d gotten to know his young uncle, Marius, who became more like the brother he never had, he’d thought there was something wrong with his way of thinking.
Then he’d seen Marius treat his blood concubines with respect and affection, vastly different than what he’d witnessed in his own home growing up. And when his father and mother died on that tragic night, he vowed to never keep a Blood Harem of his own, and to never treat a woman the way his father had his mother. That was the moment he’d decided he could worship and adore many women for the erotic pleasures they could give one another, but he would never make the mistake of tying himself to just one. The blood of that night still stained his hands. He’d never consider taking just one woman, one lover. Though he knew he wasn’t a violent man like his grandfather or a disloyal man like his father, he still feared his blood was tainted. That his family curse would rise up and ruin the love affair. Or that his past would taint any woman he came to care for, to love. It was easiest to take many women as lovers than to form an attachment on just one.
Mikhail dipped his hands in the bowl to wash. “Perhaps they intercepted a batch from the courier, the one who delivers the leaflets? If your uncle got ahold of him, he’d use his elixir to get the truth out of him.”
“Hmm. Perhaps. Then he’d know the White Lily’s name.”
“Not if this White Lily is careful, using many handovers before the courier gets the copies to deliver.” Mikhail wiped his hands on a rag folded on the counters then tossed it to Friedrich. “But he might’ve known she was female and confessed as much under King Dominik’s powerful elixir.”
“Indeed.”
“And what of the prisoner?”
“Keep him for now. Depending on the dose of elixir he got from my uncle, he may come around and give us information later.”
“Finding the White Lily will be a difficult task for these huntsmen. The north is vast. Full of rough, wintry terrain.”
“True.” He tossed the rag on the counter in frustration. “But that bastard in the basement was seeking the White Lily. And something led him here to Terrington. That’s what makes me uneasy.”
He’d presumed the White Lily was a man from the brazen way these leaflets were being reproduced and circulated far and wide. He never supposed the radical who was printing and spreading bold anti-vampire propaganda was a woman. And why not? The leader of the Black Lily was Arabelle, a fiery woman with grit and a spine of steel.
“What is it?” asked Mikhail.
“Nothing. Any word from your man who went to Korinth for that information I needed?”
“No. Dmitri hasn’t returned yet, but I expect him back soon enough. He went on foot, not horseback.”
Friedrich calculated the distance. “Hmm. Even for a vampire, that’s a two-day journey there then two days back. Without resting much at all.”
Mikhail grinned. “Not for my brother. He’s the fastest vampire I’ve ever known. Comes in handy for the Bloodguard.”
Friedrich gave a nod of respect. “I’m fortunate you’re both in my employ.”
They strode through the kitchen toward the main corridor of the castle.
“I expect him no later than tomorrow afternoon with news of Miss Snow’s history.”
“Good. Get some rest, Mikhail. And thank you for your work, even though it didn’t tell us much.”
“Nothing at all, really,” he added with disappointment.
“Well, his unwillingness to give us anything at all told us who owns him. And now I know my uncle has sent some of his killers directly into my territory.” He stopped with one foot on the wide marble staircase. “That’s not nothing.”
“Indeed, Your Grace. Good night.”
Friedrich flashed up the stairs and into his bedchamber, sighing on a smile when he saw the steaming tub of water waiting for him next to a crackling fire.
He stripped off his clothes and sank into the tub, scented with mint leaves and oils. Steam rose from his arms where he set them on the edge, his head resting on the lip of the tub, finally content to let his mind wander where he’d wanted to go all evening. Back to Miss Snow.
What a lovely, lovely surprise. The woman was an enigma. Originally, he’d thought her a nosy spy for his uncle, trying to wiggle information from her servants about his whereabouts. He’d come to that conclusion because it was around the same time he’d had to dismiss his Legionnaires for the same reason.
Then there was that day he’d paid a visit to the schoolhouse and found the little girl painting a black lily. When he’d asked her why she painted the flower black, he’d never forget her reply. “She is coming to save us. She says there is always darkness before the light.” It was his first discovery that there was a quiet uprising beginning among the human peasantry. Miss Snow had shushed the girl that day. Friedrich had assumed it was because she wanted to protect her from admitting she knew about the revolution using this symbol as their coat of arms.
But it wasn’t that at all. He knew that the moment he stood in her bedroom tonight and found that same little girl tucked lovingly in her bed by Miss Brennalyn Snow. She was the one teaching them about the Black Lily, so it was finally safe to say they were on the same side. And then there was the woman herself. This determined, resolute schoolteacher with ebony hair and a mouth made for sin who spent her days toiling over books and her nights caring for seven orphans seemed to be all that she appeared to be at first.
Until tonight. Her allure had caught him the night she’d stumbled into the Rose Courtyard, but tonight she’d reached into his chest and pulled out a piece of flesh and bone and walked away with it in her dainty hands as if it were nothing. He didn’t understand it. Over the decades that he’d been a mature vampire, he’d sated his thirst and pleasure with hundreds of agreeable partners. And not one affected him the way Miss Snow did when she’d fisted her tiny hand in his hair, thrust her beautiful hips, and demanded he put his fingers inside her.
He dropped one hand in the water and fisted his cock, already stone-hard at the thought of her. He thought she might be shy and reluctant when he set out to pleasure her in the carriage, but she’d knocked the breath out of him by opening in the dark like the night flower she was. As if the shadows had given her permission to let herself go and show him who she truly was. And bloody hell, if he didn’t want to know more of the tigress beneath.
Giving his cock a slow stroke, he pictured her laid out for him. The scent of her had driven him near madness. He’d petted her slowly, thinking to ease her into his touch, but she would have none of it. And when she’d demanded more, he couldn’t keep from biting her deep, a savage marking to stake his claim. Even when she heightened to her own orgasm, he refused to remove his fangs from her throat, wanting her to remember the feel of his teeth for days to come. Soon enough she’d know what it felt like with his cock deep inside her.
“Fucking hell.”
He rarely ever pleasured himself. There was no need. But one thought of raven-haired Brennalyn and all his blood congregated in his cock, making him want to stroke one off like a randy adolescent.
He stood and let the water sluice down his body, his rigid cock flat against his belly, demanding attention. With a frustrated grunt, he toweled off and padded across the room to his giant bed. It had never looked quite so big and empty before.
Climbing in naked, as usual, he traced back to earlier, after he’d searched her house to be sure all was safe. A deeper impression of her had imprinted on him when he stood in her bedroom. A loving mother with her young sleeping safely in their beds. And a fierce tigress who armed them with gold-tipped blades to fight off home intruders—vampires. He might like to call her a kitten, but she was nothing of the sort. She was fierce, with teeth and claws hidden beneath her exquisitely soft and supple exterior.
He rolled to his back and smoothed a hand over the silk sheet, remembering her satin-soft skin, wishing he could curl his fingers into her mass of black hair at this very moment. His hand found his aching cock again. He stroked himself faster, hearing her strangled voice whispering his name in the dark. He tensed, squeezing hard when he came on a shuddering groan.
Shaking his head at what she’d reduced him to, he hauled himself up to clean at the tub before collapsing onto the bed, dark silk sheets covering him.
He lingered on the image of her standing in the shadow of her bedroom, retreating within herself. He was ready to lure his tigress closer, stroke her into sweet submission, ease her to feeding from his hand alone.
And where had this come from? This single-minded obsession with one woman. So unlike him. So dangerous. If he could only let go of his cursed legacy and trust himself, a woman like Brennalyn Snow could make all the ghosts go away.
...
He awoke to the sound of an urgent rapping on his bedchamber door. A sliver of morning light slipped through the heavy drapes covering his window. The scullery maid hadn’t yet come to start the fire in the grate. He donned a night robe and padded across the chilly room to open the door.
Mikhail stood there, his mouth slanted in a grim line. “Dmitri just returned.” He proffered a book that was banned across the empire, his voice clipped and harsh. “We need to talk.”