Wicked Lord: Part One Read online

"Maiden?" Trinity questioned. He'd felt her body fall limp over his shoulder. Sweat strafed his temple with the effort he used to refrain from jerking to a standstill, to lick the blood he could smell like a lover's scent, husky and cloying in a cloud around them. Yet he realized she was too delicate to carry as he was. He stopped his near-running pace and lifted his senses to the immediate surroundings and then the woods beyond.

  The foul creature that hunted human women, and strangely not for their blood, he thought, was gone from the woods. The monster's last bloody corpse was to the east of where he stood and his own horse was straight ahead. Trinity felt his younger brothers' attentions were elsewhere and that was good, because this newest dilemma of one virgin's blood scent might be hard for any of the Blacknall brothers to resist.

  Resist they would … of course. Nevertheless, why put all of them through the agony that one of them could endure. And he was enduring. Church, he was certain, was not far away. Perhaps his brother had conjured an idea of what they were going to do with a young society miss. A very naked society miss, completely out of her gown.

  He steeled himself. It was becoming easier, or perhaps he was becoming stronger. The tempest of desires that attacked him was not the violent cyclone it had been. He would choose, and he chose not to bite and feed upon the warm and delectable woman in his arms. It was as if maturing from puberty into manhood. Youngsters found it hard to control their lustful intentions; a man did not.

  He'd lusted after and he'd bedded women in his long years. Always retaining a minute control to do nothing more than that. When he engaged, if he did at all, he picked older women. Widows whom he could ply with drink, so they might not really remember the rougher sides of their sexual encounters. If they happened to question a more animalistic tone, he simply wiped those thoughts away from them.

  In essence it had become tedious to control and a bothersome event, to the point he'd not even tried to form a liaison in well over …

  "A year," he snapped, with dawning incredulousness. By god, it had been that long.

  Trinity drew an irritated breath at himself as he lifted the lady off his shoulder. He bent one knee to kneel as he lowered the woman to the ground, but he supported her with his bent leg. Her head lulled forward, then to the side, and finally caught arched backward. Dark tendrils of her thick black hair fell away from her flushed face.

  He saw several scratches on the cleavage of her lily-white breasts. The maiden was ethereal, her skin was so ivory, and he saw a cut on her pale slender neck. He forced himself to glance quickly over to another on her delicate cheek. All those abrasions had stopped oozing blood. However, the one that raised his hackles and made him suck in a controlled breath was seeping with sluggish determination over the hand and fingers he used to support her back.

  It was where the monster had slashed her as she ran. He'd heard her pain at the moment of the attack. Somehow, as he'd lifted her off his shoulder, his hand had reached beneath his jacket against her bare skin. His hand settled just above the lace on some style of short-corset she still had on, and his hand was pressed against the gash, which was oozing blood.

  He dared not move his hand, as desire like the molten center of a wildfire swept through his empty soul. It told him if he touched his unique saliva to the laceration on her human flesh the bloodletting of the wound could slow. It reasoned with him that if he bit her luscious neck, he could stop himself after only a few draws and she wouldn't be harmed.

  "Don't kill me, I beg you, my lord."

  Trinity's stalking gaze left the tender and dark cove between the virgin's legs to lift to her pleading gaze. The retort of denial was upon his lips, but it stuttered to a halt when he saw his free hand, not supporting her back, was clasped over her delicate throat. He was shocked that he'd not realized he'd arched her throat and started to turn it to the side. He was riveted … realizing tragically she might be too much of a temptation for him.

  "Please," she pleaded with enlarged pupils of fear as her small hands touched his chest. They pushed ineffectually.

  "Do not plead with those pretty lips," he said in a low, almost tender tenor, as he looked deeply into her eyes and his breath blew across her face. Her body trembled, but her eyes remained sharp, and once again, confusion furrowed his brow.

  "I cannot mesmerize this temptation," he muttered, loosening his fingers over the warm and fragile column of her neck.

  "You look like a man," she whispered, and her small hands uncurled from their fists upon his chest. They flattened against his tensed muscles.

  His own hand lifted from her throat and lowered downward to graze over the curve of her exposed breast with his curled fingers.

  "Don't, please!" she cried, clenching her eyes shut, while digging her nails into his chest.

  It came to him that dressed, or rather undressed as she was, didn't make her any less the innocent. He rarely moved in the circles with young society girls … and he reminded himself that they were the purest form of untried.

  Beth couldn't believe the frothing of emotions claiming her. She had never once in her life thought about a man touching her … her bosom. She might die. She couldn't believe it had actually happened. The resulting ache that shivered through her chest was agonizing in its pleasure, instantly wanting to make her feel its throe again. Then it suddenly sent pangs lower into her core, completely surprising her into a small moan. She desperately wanted to clasp her hands between her thighs as her eyelids lifted.

  "Maiden," the man who saved her, named Trinity, rumbled in a deep tenor voice.

  He knew things about that moan she did not, and for the first time since she'd been attacked in the dark woods, she shivered with cold.

  "Trinity!" a man's voice shouted.

  Beth gasped, clutching her hands over her breasts, while trying to scrunch her lower body beneath the bottom of the jacket, where it wouldn't go.

  "Church!" Trinity shouted above her, lifting his intense gaze above her head, even as he pulled her closer to his strong chest.

  "Is she alive?" Church asked, and Beth could tell he wasn't coming closer to them.

  "You cannot sense her heartbeat?" Trinity asked, with his deep voice sounding amazed.

  "Nay, just smell the bewitching blood," Church called back. "But I've a cloak here I'm throwing to you, brother."

  Beth felt Trinity lower his gaze to her, but she pressed her face into his neck. For the first time she wondered who these men were.

  "You are more and more a mystery, maiden," Trinity said, and as he spoke, Beth could feel the rumble of his voice through her hands pressed to his chest.

  The shiver she felt was beginning to turn into quaking of her limbs. After all the terror, her mind was returning to the horrible predicament she was left in — nearly naked, freezing, and with two men she didn't know. However unreasonable it might be, this made her burrow even more into the embrace Trinity offered.

  Trinity heard Church announcing, "The lady's brother is close."

  "Adam!" his maiden cried with her humid breath, warming his throat.

  Trinity bent both their bodies forward to reach out and grasp the cloak Church had thrown him. He lifted the cloak and his gaze rose to Church who stood off several hundred yards. With his predator's night vision, he could clearly see Church's fanged sneer. Church worked his head to the left, then right, arching his neck fighting for control. Trinity understood that even staying at a distance, away from the maiden's unusual blood temptation, was not really helping.

  "Please, can't I go to my brother, my lord?"

  "What is your name, maiden?" Trinity tried to speak softly as he brought the cloak over her. He dared not move his hand from her back, until he could release her for good and flee away from her.

  "Beth Winslow," she whispered, clutching her hands to the cloak and pulling it around her shivering body.

  "Then, Lady Beth, if you put your arms around my shoulders I will take you to your brother."

  This time he watched B
eth do it without any hesitation and strange feelings curled into his chest he'd not felt before. Later he would be astounded at his control, but for the moment, he felt everything about the woman he carried in his arms as she held onto him and her warm temple caressed his jaw line, while her hair fell over his back.

  "This way," Church called. "We are close."

  Beth embraced him tighter as he strode forward and his exceptional eyesight caught glimpses of the back of a well-lit mansion.

  "What if someone sees me," Beth exclaimed, turning her face into Trinity's strong neck. She didn't know what to think or do. She was nearly afraid to ever let go of Trinity. She felt him stop as he held her close.

  "Bring him here," Trinity called.

  She was so grateful he'd rescued her, when he didn't know her. "Thank you," she offered, with her voice soft, but tight. Then hot tears began running down her cheeks.

  "Maiden? … Lady Beth?" His deep voice was questioning, but she was too choked to respond.

  Then she heard, "Beth!" It was Adam's voice. She tried to call his name, but her crying only worsened.

  "By God! What have you done to her?" Adam demanded.

  He rushed forward, however he was stalled by the look alone of the tall, blond-haired man holding his weeping sister in his arms. Adam quickly placed the man as another Blacknall brother by his build and blond hair. The light was better from the back of the mansion, just beyond the edge of the woods, and he could see this brother better. He hoped he'd never have to cross the man because he looked dangerous. His face was etched in stone and pinpoints in his irises glowed with a red embedded in unearthly yellow.

  As much as the man made him pause, this Blacknall held his weeping sister. His heart nearly broke. Beth looked to be in quite a state with her black hair unbound and trailing over her and the man that carried her. Adam could tell by her bare shoulder and feet that her clothing was also in wild disarray. If he'd not seen the mangled body of innocent Lady Ariel earlier, he'd believe the blond brute holding Beth had ravaged her.

  Not even danger over the lethal qualities of the Blacknall holding his sister was going to stop him from trying to bring her to safety. He stiffened his spine, and he walked toward Beth. It appeared this Blacknall looked as strained as any man he'd ever seen.

  Adam cleared his throat as the man's glassy and unnatural eyes studied him. "I will take Lady Beth now," Adam demanded with as much authority as he could muster into his voice.

  "In a moment," the brute uttered and the aura surrounding him intensified.

  "Now, listen here!" Adam replied hotly, starting forward with his arms stretched outward.

  "Do not try it," the man snarled, and Adam swore he looked every bit a savage beast.

  "Wait! Trinity means her no harm." Adam stopped his determined advance at the sound of Christian Blacknall's voice as he learned the name of the blond brute holding his sister.

  "Christian, stay away!" Trinity shouted, and Adam turned to see Christian still coming toward them. "She's bleeding, Christian! And there is something unnatural about the effect," Trinity uttered.

  "Bleeding!" Adam yelled, with alarmed question. "Beth, come here now!" he yelled, while fairly leaping toward her. Strong hands grabbed him, pulling him back from the snarling Trinity, as his sister screamed and cried.

  "Nay, Lord Winslow," Christian begged him. "Please listen, we only want to help, but you must help us!" Christian exclaimed.

  Adam heaved panting breaths as he heard Trinity speaking with compassionate tones to his sister. "Lady Beth, do not be afraid," Trinity said. "I will give you to your brother, but I need your help."

  Adam could hear Beth's voice catch on her weeping as she tried to speak. "W-What is it, Lord Trinity?"

  Adam looked at Christian whose face was turned away from him. Christian's body felt like a taut wire beside him that might snap.

  "When, Lord Winslow, takes you I need you to leave swiftly from here. When your brother takes you, he needs to take you quickly. Do you understand, maiden?"

  Adam heard Beth's voice whisper something, then louder, but still shaking, she said. "I understand, my lord."

  Christian gripped Adam's arm tighter. "Lord Winslow, you must not tell the authorities we were here. We all must go quickly to protect you both."

  Adam's gaze leaped up to Christian, who faced him now, and he saw luminescent yellow animal eyes and protruding fangs upon Christian Blacknall's face. Adam couldn't withhold his gasp, but Trinity was there, stepped up to him and lifting Beth toward him.

  "Quickly," Trinity barked at him.

  All at once, surprising everyone gathered, a shrill feminine cry leaped forward, from behind where Adam stood with his back to the mansion. "Lady Beth! What has happened to, Lady Beth?"

  Adam raised an astonished and loud sound as he started to turn toward a voice he knew, but never thought to hear again. Lady Ariel?

  "Take her!" Trinity shouted, thrusting Beth into his arms.

  "Lady Ariel," Adam exclaimed, continuing to turn with Beth shuddering in his arms, while she strangled his neck, gasping tears. "How can you be here, Lady Ariel?" he demanded, wondering at the sanity of his mind with murders in the woods and unnatural men who sorely looked and half acted like beasts!

  "What do you mean?" Lady Ariel asked with a shrill voice and her eyes darting over everyone. "I've been inside looking for you! What has happened to Lady Beth? Did that man attack her? I know him …"

  Beth made a strangled sound into his shoulder as he gaped at Lady Ariel who backed away from them, while he tried to place what she was saying. He turned back to look at the Blacknall brothers, maybe for answers, as he questioned whether he'd seen the bloody remains of a woman out in the night woods.

  They were gone.

  Christian no longer stood beside him. "How could they do that?" Adam demanded into the night air, turning again in a complete circle as he held Beth tightly to his chest. How could they leave his side without a sound? Then, his gaze settled upon Lady Ariel who was running away, back toward the mansion.

  "Damnation," he cussed, suddenly realizing the new implications if Lady Ariel reached the mansion and blurted her story to anyone. "Beth, it's all right, all right," he soothed, trying to comfort her as he rushed after Lady Ariel, whom he shouted to as loudly as he thought he could get away with.

  "Lady Ariel! Stop!" That didn't work, so he tried, "Beth needs you!"

  Chapter Seven