17
Beloved
Miranda’s heart lurched in her chest as Zayan gathered his son into his arms. The boy was long-limbed but thin, and distressingly fragile when embraced against Zayan’s solid, powerful body.
Two strides took father and son to a slab of stone that lay like an altar, at the edge of the circle. Miranda followed behind them, taking calming breaths. The boy did not protest as Zayan laid him gently on the stone. He just lay limply. She sensed Lukos had come to stand at her other side. Her senses were heightened; she knew his scent, but also, she just instinctively felt he was there.
As she bent to her knees on the left side of the boy, she smiled down into the child’s blank eyes. Lukos followed, behind her. His warmth whispered against her through their loose clothing. Slowly, Zayan dropped to his knees on the opposite side of the stone. She saw his hands shake slightly. It deeply touched her heart to see Zayan, who had been a battle-hardened general and a man who had known the worst betrayal, openly reveal so much loving concern for his child.
Zayan looked up and met her gaze. “Remember, Miranda. If there is danger to you, you are to stop.”
The tremble of his hand—she realized, with a glimpse into Zayan’s thoughts—it had been for her. She held out her hand so it hovered a few inches above the boy. “Put both your hands on mine now.”
“Is there anything we should say? Any incantations?” Beneath the soft glow of the moonlight, Lukos wore the most serious expression she had seen him reveal. He had not looked so grim even when they had fought the red power.
She shook her head. “I simply touch and it happens. In all cases, I have truly wanted the child—or the person—to live.
Think of that. Think of a deep desire to bring the boy to life.”
“His name was Marc,” Zayan murmured, and he gently rested his hand atop hers. Lukos put his on last, so his hand covered Zayan’s but the tips of his fingers touched her skin.
“Marc, then.” She swallowed hard. What would it be like for Marc to open his eyes two thousand years after he last shut them? Do not think of that, she warned herself. Think of joy.
Think of how he will have the chance to run again, and play, and know his father’s embrace.
She touched her hand to Marc’s chest, over his heart.
There was no warmth this time. Her skin began to glow instead, all along her arm, in a soft, pulsating shimmer of gold.
She could see it through the white robe. The golden glow increased at their joined hands. Zayan’s grip tightened. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. It is different—” She quickly added, “But it does not feel bad.” Instead, she felt a lightening at her heart. It was as though she was experiencing every joyous moment of her life at once.
Beneath her hand, Marc’s heart took on a strong and steady beat. She saw the twitch of this arms and legs. His eyes shut abruptly, and when the lids flickered open again, life gleamed in the deep brown eyes. The vibrant glow of life—of a soul.
It was done, and it had not been hard at all—
Suddenly, the gold shimmer drained away down her arm. It sucked between their hands, drawing a shock of cold air behind it. The light vanished into Marc’s chest. Miranda gasped as an icy sensation gripped her everywhere.
Her fingers went numb, as did her toes. She felt as though they had become instantly brittle with the cold. She could not even shiver, she felt too frozen to even move.
“Stop it,” Lukos cried. “Take you hand away.”
But Marc had not tried to move. She could see the light in his eyes slowly extinguishing. They were losing him . . .
Zayan clutched her hand and tried to pull it up. But her power gave her the strength to fight him. “No,” she gasped. “Let me try.
I think this is a test. This is what Elizabeth meant. It takes the conviction of love to do this.”
Lukos growled in fury, but he pushed his hand down, which forced Zayan’s on top of hers and splayed her palm tightly on Marc’s chest.
Marc’s eyes opened again. Shock and surprise and fear touched his face. Then his gaze settled on Zayan, and Miranda felt a feeling of safety rush over him. He knew his father, and he knew, with Zayan, he was safe.
Miranda eased her hand up. This time, Lukos released his hand, then Zayan let hers go. Now freed, Marc struggled to sit, but before he could, Zayan lifted him into a great hug.
The cold was slowly abating. Miranda stood, shakily, and held out her hand to the small girl. Lukos held her shoulders, but Miranda whispered, “No, I am all right. Bring Zayan’s daughter to me.” Obediently, he went and carried the small girl to the stone altar. Tears were leaking down Marc’s cheeks, as Zayan stroked his hair, and he looked ashamed of them.
Until he saw the tears in his father’s eyes. And these he stared at in honest surprise.
Zayan shook his head. “It is not the measure of a man to battle his emotions. It is a man’s strength to give his devotion to those he loves, to reveal his feelings and not to hide them, and to earn the reward of love.”
At the boy’s confusion, Zayan lovingly ruffled his hair, then set him down. The child cuddled against Zayan’s legs. He spoke, but Miranda could not understand the words. He was speaking a language from two thousand years ago. Zayan answered him in gentle tones. The boy stepped back.
Lukos planted a kiss on top of Zayan’s daughter’s glossy brown curls and arranged her on the stone. “She reminds me of Ara,” he said, as though an explanation was needed for that emotional touch. “She does not look like my sister, but she is . . .
I sense she is very much the same.”
“Lina,” Zayan whispered. “That is her name.”
Miranda lifted her hand, and at once the men joined her, again placing their hands over hers. Knowing what to expect took Miranda’s fear away as she felt the rush of joy, then the sudden onslaught of cold.
As Lina awoke, her face crumpled up and she began to cry.
Shock and fear, Miranda supposed, but as she moved to comfort the girl, dizziness struck her. Her strength drained away.
She slumped back, and Lukos held her. Her legs felt as though filled with feathers—with no substance or strength. She had to gasp for breath.
“Are you—” Lukos began.
“I’m fine,” she managed to speak, and her heart was slowing to a steady beat.
Zayan lifted both his children, settling his son on his right hip and his daughter on his left. Then he bent to her. Seeing such joy in his dark, silvery eyes, Miranda smiled. “Perhaps this is why we shared dreams,” she whispered. “I was meant to find you, so I could give you this.”
“You were meant to find me, because I was meant to love you, Miranda. I’ve existed for two thousand years. Now, with you, I finally understand what it is to live.”
Before she could protest, Lukos stood and scooped her up.
He carried her in his arms.
“We have to get to shelter,” Lukos said abruptly to Zayan.
“Miranda’s cold and weak. And I don’t trust the vampire queens.
There may be a catch to this. A trick.”
She shook her head. “No, I think the trick was to have faith.
I think we’ve—we’ve done it.”
But she saw the disbelief in Lukos’s eyes. He did not believe she was safe yet.
Out of the corner of her eye, Miranda saw Zayan’s children falling into sleep, perhaps the ordeal had exhausted them too.
His son had clasped his hands to his father’s shoulder and rested his head there as his eyes shut.
His daughter had laid her head to Zayan’s chest. For a sizzling moment, her gaze held his mirror-like eyes. I love you, Miranda, he murmured in her thoughts. The children are sleeping. Once they are safely tucked into beds, I intend to show you how explosive a love that will last forever can be.
Not alone, Lukos added. I intend to show you, too, my love.
“Not the nursery. I want them to share my bed tonight. I need to have them close to me.” Zayan laid his sleeping son on the enormous bed in the chamber of their borrowed manor house. Miranda stroked a stray curl from his daughter’s cheek, then drew up the crisp, white sheets and the heavily embroidered counterpane. Marc and Lina were dwarfed in the bed, but they looked adorably cozy.
Maids, easily controlled by the vampires, had fed the children treats, had found them nightclothes that had been long tucked away, had bathed the children with soap and warm water, and then had vanished upstairs to the attics.
Miranda took a deep breath. As far as she could tell, none of the servants had been harmed in any way. There were no bite marks to be seen on anyone’s neck. So what were Lukos and Zayan doing to feed?
Lukos spoke suddenly in her mind. We can control our feeding because we have existed for so long. And I learned to subdue the urge during my imprisonment. We can survive on little blood and quickly heal the human’s wound.
She realized that like Bastien and Yannick, Jonathon and Drake, these men could be merciful to mortals. They only had to want to be.
Zayan kissed his children on their smooth, soft-as-silk foreheads, and Miranda slipped into Lukos’s bedchamber. He was sprawled on the bed, naked. And erect—his cock stood straight, arcing along his belly. His black hair fanned out around him. I want you, Miranda. One last time.
His words stopped her on the threshold, her hand on the door frame. What do you mean? The cold sensation of using her power to the extreme had faded away, but a new frostiness swept over her at his ominous words. Do you mean the prophesy?
Come, strip off your robe, and I’ll tell you.
Lukos watched as Miranda let the white silken robe puddle at her feet. She possessed a beauty that would make any mortal man believe in goddesses. The way she stood, her knees together to enhance the rounded curves of her hips, and the graceful lines of her legs—legs, he thought, that delectably went from a plump, taut rump all the way to the floor. Her naked breasts bobbed as she walked toward him. Peaked by her pink, hard nipples, they almost mesmerized him with their seductive, enticing wobble. They were so sweetly sensual, he wanted to gobble them whole.
This was all he could have with her. One more night.
He managed a smile for her. Tonight, I’d love another peak at your fantasies, angel. What would you want me to do?
Even after all they’d been through, she still blushed for him.
She rested her knee on the mattress, clutched the bedpost, and turned a fetching shade of pink.
Do you want to be tied up? He was teasing her. Savoring her for this one night. Or would you like to have me bound again, for your pleasure?
“No, freedom tonight,” she whispered. “No ropes or magical chains. Though I do have a rather illicit fantasy about highwaymen—”
“Highwaymen? Capturing you and ravaging you?” Zayan stood in the doorway, behind Miranda.
She gave a smile that glittered like sunlight on water. “Hmm, I suppose I have already lived that fantasy.” Melodic and filled with naughty amusement, her voice made Lukos’s cock bob and his ballocks tighten. “I’ve done rather a lot of scandalous things with both of you. I’ve even watched the two of you pleasure each other—”
Zayan flashed a grin. “I think the thought of it—the memory—is arousing her.”
“I have to agree.” The luscious smell of her juices came readily to Lukos’s heightened senses. “Perhaps you would like to watch again, angel.”
It would signify a truce between he and Zayan—a sign he believed Zayan’s claim that he had not taken Ara for Lucifer.
The vampire queens had told him that originally. After the power that he had unleashed with Zayan and Miranda, Lukos believed he knew why. The queens had fed him lies to make him and Zayan enemies, to ensure he and Zayan did not combine their power. He suspected that together they could destroy the queens. The vampire queens were accustomed to being at the top of the hierarchy of the vampire world. Only gods, goddesses, and Lucifer held greater power than the queens.
Which made him worry about what could happen to Miranda. She had incredible power, and she was joining in a three some with two strong demons. The queens would not be happy with that. Had Elizabeth suggested they work together to defeat the Pravus and resurrect Zayan’s childrens as tests of their combined power?
Right now, he imagined Elizabeth, Eve, and the other queens were afraid. He suspected those witches would want to see Miranda destroyed—
“Do you not want to pleasure her, wolf?”
Zayan was prowling toward the bed, his hand wrapped around his thick shaft. Lukos had to admit he possessed a handsome cock. Not as appealing as Lukos’s long, straight rod, which was a magnificent twelve inches in length, but he could understand why Miranda’s heart raced when she looked upon it.
“Yes,” he growled in return.
“I want to be sucked,” Zayan rasped. He got onto the bed from the opposite side to their delightful angel, who licked her lips as she watched, her hand wrapped around the post and her knee resting on the bed.
“As do I. I expect it would please her to watch us suck each other at once.”
Miranda’s eyes grew wide. “Ooh, yes.”
Lukos had to laugh. Her response was so ingenuous. And his cock bobbed again as another surge of blood went into it.
God, he’d never been so hard. His fluid leaked out, and he swept it away with a rough brush of his hand. Even the smack of his palm against the straining head felt damnably good.
Zayan straddled him, so he was looking up at a pair of heavy bollocks and a long, swaying member. Their audience—Miranda—gave a gasp of delight. Lukos drank in Zayan’s scent— vampires had a rich, clean smell, an enticingly sexual aroma. A smell that made him want to suck fiercely at Zayan’s cock.
The sudden grip of Zayan’s hot mouth around his own rigid prick made him groan in agony. Hades, it was good. The brush of fangs, the tease of firm lips, the incredible suction . . .
He arched up, his fingers gripping Zayan’s thighs, and he took the taut, bulbous head of Zayan’s rod between his lips. I’ll make you come first, General, he threatened. He meant to tease, and he saw Miranda wag her finger in playful discipline. If I’m naughty, he said to her in her thoughts, come and spank me.
Zayan’s mouth moved expertly over Lukos’s shaft, ramping up his arousal. But Lukos had no intention of giving his climax to Zayan. No, his orgasm was for Miranda, and he would hold on to his control. In challenge, Zayan began to play with his balls—exactly as he liked it, not gently, but with a roughness that took the caress to the brink of pain.
Lukos raked his fangs along Zayan’s shaft. Strange to think he was sucking at the man he’d hated, and doing it to please Miranda. He knew Zayan loved Miranda, and he understood how that felt. He might not have a soul, but he had a heart. It gave him a kinship with Zayan—a closeness.
For Miranda, he could share.
He released Zayan’s rigid cock and held out his hand to her.
“Join us, angel. I want to be inside you. I want to explode in your tight cunny. I want your fingernails digging into my shoulders as you climax. You belong between us, love.”
She climbed onto the bed, and Zayan shifted, so she was sitting in the middle, her thighs pressing against theirs. She frowned playfully. “If I were to suck one of you now, it would be like kissing the other.”
Convoluted woman’s logic, but the thought was erotic and Lukos was more than game. Demurely holding back her hair, she bestowed a kiss to his weeping cock head. After Zayan’s fierce sucking, it amazed him that her gentle caress was so potent.
She bent and gave a gentle suckle to Zayan’s prick, and let her fingernails tease the sac between his thighs. She looked at ease, her cheeks flushed with arousal, her mouth plump, wet, and tempting.
In his mortal youth, he’d enjoyed foreplay. With little freedom for one thousand years, he’d always rutted quickly. He’d wanted to slowly enjoy this night with Miranda.
But he couldn’t wait any longer.
Miranda climbed on top of him, taking his cock deep inside her tight, fiery hot pussy. Zayan swiftly worked three fingers into her tight derriere, making her moan and whimper in ecstasy.
In no time, she came for them. And fell to his chest, gasping for breath.
“Another position, angel,” he whispered against her ear.
“We have all night . . .”
“Oh, dear heaven, yes. I never want to stop making love to you both.”
Lovemaking had never been like this.
Lukos fell back on the bed. He had been the last to surrender to climax, and he felt as though his brain, his spine, his every muscle has dissolved into semen and had shot out of his prick.
Miranda’s arm slid over his chest. “That seemed to be . . . very intense.”
It was. He patted her arm, and she nestled against him. After such strenuous sex, and such powerful orgasms, she would likely succumb to sleep. Once she did, he needed to be able to slip away.
So he coaxed her to roll over to face Zayan. He stroked her hair, and the look Zayan gave Miranda spoke plainly of love.
Hell, Lukos knew that expression of wonderment. He suspected he’d been wearing it several times in the last few days. Zayan was marveling over this just as he was. How in blazes had they both been fortunate enough to find love?
Lukos snuggled up to Miranda from behind. Her derriere was a lush cushion for his softening cock. She was warm, and deliciously damp with sweat. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in wild curls. Go to sleep, angel, he urged.
He saw Zayan relax against Miranda. Dawn was near, and
Zayan no doubt intended to stay close to her until she dropped off into sleep.
Zayan would keep her safe. He was certain of that. And that meant he could leave her now.
He wanted to stay forever at Miranda’s side. Hades, he was willing to share with Zayan to do that. But he had another responsibility. And fulfilling it would likely destroy him.
“You did not tell me why you believe we were making love for the last time.”
Lukos jerked away from the balustrade, looking guilty. He also looked exotic standing there. Even when he was in the form of a man, he exuded the primal power of a wolf. A sharp gust of wind whipped his waist-length black hair around him.
Miranda waited, but suspected he intended to avoid an answer again.
“I never knew making love could be so exotic,” he murmured instead.
“You won’t distract me,” she vowed. “I want to know.” She held her robe—a heavy brocade one she had found—more tightly around her. The night was clear, and she had never known anything more reassuring that the velvety-black sky. There was no fog. But dawn was close. The mantel clock had put the time at a quarter after four.
She approached slowly. “Tell me.”
He laughed. How differently he did so than Zayan. Zayan’s laugh was gusty and bold, the sound of a man with the world spread out at his feet. And with his children, his chuckles were rich and poignant and filled with love. Lukos’s spoke of irony, of a joke he was making at his own expense. It was the sound of a bitter man.
“I never expected I would make love to a woman who makes my heart soar, angel. I never thought I’d make love to a woman I loved.”
“And we can do it again. Tomorrow night. And every night after that—”
He clasped her fingers and drew them to his lips. He bestowed a courtly kiss to their tips, but with such a heated gaze that it set her toes on fire, even as it made her heart ache.
“I love you, Miranda.”
The wind had died, letting his softly spoken words hang in the crisp air.
“But?” she asked on a wry smile. She’d guessed exactly which word would follow his declaration.
He drew her index finger into his mouth and suckled. Then he stopped. “I can’t have you, love.”
There would be more to follow. Miranda wanted to prompt but saw darkness shroud his eyes, a blackness that seemed to come from inside him, and suck away the reflected moonlight.
He straightened and turned to look out over the terrace railing once more. “I don’t know if the red power, the Pravus, was speaking the truth when it told me my sister Ara is still alive and has been Lucifer’s prisoner. It could have been a bluff. But it could also be true. I have to go to her, Miranda, and rescue her.”
She stroked his shoulder, savoring the smoothness of his skin. “And then you could come back.”
“I wish I could, angel. And I believe you are the one who can save me from the prophesy. But if I go into the Underworld, I won’t get out alive. Lucifer made me an apprentice to serve him, and I betrayed him. I even tried to destroy him out of revenge for taking Ara. I’m not strong enough to take on the devil and win. But I suspect he would be willing to trade Ara for me.
He’d let her go so he can have the pleasure of torturing me.”
“But our power combined—”
He put his finger to her lips. “Too great a risk for you. And resurrecting Zayan’s children has weakened you. You’ve tried to hide it, but I can sense it about you.”
He moved away from her abruptly, striding along the terrace. She rushed toward him but was too late. White clouds surged around them, then scattered in the burst of wind. She glimpsed a wolf racing across the dark lawns. Lukos was gone, running away to enter the Underworld.
She did not even know where the entrance to Lucifer’s labyrinth was. She could not stop Lukos, and now she could not even follow him.
In his dream, he saw Lukos. He stood naked on the terrace, and Zayan groaned as cool night breezes whispered over his skin.
He felt them as though he were in Lukos’s body. As though his mind was deeply connected to Lukos’s experiences.
Demure lavender scents teased him, and he saw Miranda pad across the flagstones toward Lukos. Her hair rippled behind her, a cape of gold. Her arms slid around Lukos’s waist, and at the shared sensation of touch, Zayan went instantly hard.
Heat flooded him—not the quick sizzle of lust, but the sharp, fiery pain of a shape-shift. Lukos, in wolf form, bounded over the terrace railing, the rough stone brushing the underside of his belly. His claws tore into the earth, his paws threw up a spray of dirt as he loped in the night.
Zayan saw Miranda turn back to see him, where he waited in the bedchamber. He felt the quickening of her heart. Then he felt it suddenly stutter—her pulse skipped a beat or two, and she pressed her hand to her breast in shock. Her heart began to beat again, slower. He could almost feel the strain on it.
He struggled to wake, but he could not escape the daysleep.
His senses were still alert, even if he could not move physically.
It was one of the traits that distinguished him from lesser vampires. He could sense Miranda’s energy, her life force, was less than it had been before Lukos had left.
Was it the truth, or just a trick of his dreaming mind? And if it was the truth, what in blazes did it mean?
His gut instincts knew, even as he tried not to think of it.
Lukos had left. After Miranda had joined with them both, and their magical powers had combined. Somehow, Lukos’s disappearance meant that Miranda was dying.
“You intend to calmly walk into Blackthorne’s castle and ask the slayers to help you save Lukos?” Miranda could not believe Zayan would do such a mad, irrational thing.
Zayan drew on a greatcoat he had commanded a footman to fetch for him. He quirked a brow. “Yes, love, that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
“You would take such a risk, after your children were returned to you?”
“Does your aunt, the vampire-slaying one, love you very much?”
“You think she would help us? I did save her life. Years ago, when I was a young girl. I used my power then to save her life.”
Zayan drew on a pair of fine black leather gloves. “Then she owes you.”
“But what of your children? They are confused and will be frightened if you leave them—”
“I will take them with me to the slayers. Your aunt should be gentle with them.”
Miranda caught her breath. To have the chance to spend time with children who had been resurrected after two thousand years?
She imagined Aunt Eugenia, Althea, and Serena would be delighted.
But it astonished her that he would have such trust in people who wanted to destroy him. She had told him of her encounter with Lord Denby on the road to the castle, and he had realized the implication at once. There were members of the Royal Society determined to wear blinders, to see the unknown as evil, but there were others who wanted to understand more of the magical world surrounding them.
“You are willing to trust the slayers, those who were your enemies, for Lukos?”
“I am not doing this for Lukos.” He tipped up her chin, the leather of his glove a soft caress against her skin. “I am doing it for you, Miranda. I am afraid that breaking up the threesome is draining your life force in some way. And the only ones who can help me understand why are the vampire queens.”
Miranda bit her lip. Lukos had not trusted the vampire queens, but they had helped her. “I think Lukos believes he must sacrifice his life for his sister’s. He isn’t planning to return.”
Zayan grimaced. “He thinks he can strike a bargain with Lucifer, doesn’t he? His life for his sister’s.”
“You don’t believe he can?”
“Any bargain he could make would involve so much trickery, he’ll end up sacrificing both himself and his sister.”
Miranda accepted a cloak from a maid and threw it around her shoulders. “I do not know how to get into the Underworld.”
Zayan looked grim. “Well, love, I do.”
“Aunt Eugenia, I want you to put down the crossbow. Please, he can be trusted. He’s brought his children here!”
Miranda held Lina on her lap. The girl had been afraid of her at first, but now, only hours after she had saved the child, Lina was already beginning to trust her.
Zayan stood by the fireplace, holding Marc’s hand. The fire roared behind them, and Aunt Eugenia, along with Althea, Serena, and their husbands, stood between Zayan and the drawing-room door.
“I would never trust him,” Aunt Eugenia declared. But she did lower the weapon. “He was the vampire I was hunting on the night you saved my life, my dear.”
Miranda’s heart plummeted. Suddenly, Zayan’s past was personal. She remembered how wounded her aunt had been.
Heart in her throat, she faced him.
“Do you hate me now, love?” he asked gently. “Your aunt was going to stake and destroy me. I didn’t hurt her. I retreated because I could not bring myself to destroy a lady. Instead, another vampire attacked her. A younger one than I.”
Miranda looked from her resolute aunt to the man she loved.
“I can’t choose,” she finally said. “I want to love you both and have you both love me. If you cannot, Aunt Eugenia, I understand.”
She saw her aunt bite her lip, a gesture of uncertainty she’d never seen Eugenia make. “I suppose I could not expect him to simply stand there while I stuck a stake in his heart. But are you certain of this, my dear? You say you love these vampires. But perhaps—”
“No, Aunt. I am not under their spell. I’ve found where I belong. With them.”
Her aunt placed the crossbow on a table. And walked to her side. “I will look out for you always, Miranda. I promised you that when you saved me and I saw your power. No matter what choice you make, I will support you. I want you to feel you belong. I want you to be happy.”
Miranda’s throat tightened. “You will accept that I must follow my heart?”
The Earl of Brookshire stepped forward. “Are you sure of your heart, though, Miss Bond?”
“I am,” she declared loudly. “Do you not understand? Zayan became a vampire because he had been betrayed by everyone who was close to him, and he had his children viciously taken from him.” She pointed to the earl. “Would you not go mad if your daughter was taken away?”
His silvery blue eyes held hers. “Yes, I believe I would. The grief would tear me apart.” He turned to Zayan. “I can imagine the rage. The need to destroy.”
“When I transformed your brother,” Zayan said softly, “it
was my intention to save him. I cared deeply for him. I could not just watch him die.”
Miranda faced Serena, Drake, and Jonathon. “I wish to help Lukos. He was sent to be the devil’s apprentice, forced to sacrifice himself to protect his people.” She had recounted to them all the story Lukos had told her of his past. “Can you imagine the guilt, pain, and anger he felt to learn his sister had been taken a prisoner to ensure his obedience?”
Both men solemnly nodded.
“If you, dear niece, have fallen in love with him without bewitchment, there must be something of value to him.” Eugenia stepped toward Zayan. She held out her hand to Marc. “We will take care of your children, Zayan. I, for one, am willing to begin again.”