Blood Curse (Blood Series) Read online

  “Very astute,” de Wynter said. “But we will ensure it doesn’t happen.”

  “But he will just try it again.” Love for her wasn’t enough to stop him. That realization struck like a blow and she sank back on the chair.

  Brookshire and de Wynter bowed and left.

  She turned to Althea. “What am I going to do?” She quickly told her friend what she had guessed about Raven. “He’s hell-bent on destroying himself.”

  “First, you should go home and see your sister. Then we will decide what to do with Ravenhunt,” Althea said firmly.

  This was her home. A large mansion marched along part of Brook Street. Dozens of paned windows reflected the pink promise of morning.

  Ophelia tilted her head back to drink in the stone front with the beautiful carved window details she’d always admired. She had to close her eyes.

  Home—when she’d been a prisoner of Mrs. Darkwell, it was all she’d dreamed of. This should be the most wonderful moment of her life. Her dream sat right in front of her. Her dream of returning home. But she felt empty inside.

  The door opened and a footman in livery stepped out. He squawked in surprise as a dervish exploded from the shadowy doorway and shot past him. Her sister rushed down the steps. “Ophelia! We thought you were gone, too! I can’t believe you’re here!”

  Tears gathered and fell before she met Lydia halfway across the drive. Lydia had been just a child the last time Ophelia had seen her. Now she was tall, willowy, with her blond hair pinned up. “Lydia, you are so grown-up!” She had no idea what to say—she wanted to be light and happy about this reunion, and not have to tell Lydia about her power or vampires.

  Harry had told her he’d kept his vampire slaying a secret from Lydia.

  “I’m so sorry you thought I was dead.”

  Lydia’s eyes, a remarkable blue-green, searched hers, glittering with tears. “Harry said you were very ill, and you were taken away so you could not make us sick. He said we were told you’d died because we could never see you again.”

  She hugged her baby sister tighter. “I’m cured now. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Of course you won’t!”

  How much loss her family had suffered: their parents and the oldest son. Before that, she had lost Harry and Lydia and they had lost her. Yet despite all the horror and grief, Lydia could hug her tightly and shed tears of happiness. Harry had done an amazing job of ensuring Lydia grew into a normal young woman.

  Lydia drew back. “You must come in. There’s tea. It won’t be long until breakfast. Harry says they didn’t look after you well at this place, but you survived in spite of them.”

  That much was true. “Don’t fret, Lydia.” She smiled at the young girl’s wide turquoise eyes. Lydia looked so much like Mama. “I will be very happy with anything. I’m just so happy to be home and to see you again.”

  Lydia frowned, looking to the drive, which was now a bluish color as the sun crept higher. “Where are your things?”

  “I don’t have any things. All I have is what is on my back.”

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lydia. Things don’t matter.” They were at Darkwell’s and therefore lost forever. And she didn’t care. Her few dresses and vanity items represented her life as a prisoner.

  “Come see your bedroom. We didn’t touch it at all. Father and Mother wouldn’t allow it.”

  Her parents had died a year after she had been sent to Mrs. Darkwell’s. Then Simon had become earl and had run the household until his death. Harry had been only seventeen when he had become earl. It was at the same time he became a vampire slayer.

  Harry had been forced to grow up so quickly.

  All because of her power. She knew how Simon had really died, but her power must have killed their parents. Guilt bit into her. She had robbed Lydia of parents. How could she be happy and normal with her sister knowing that?

  How did one fight this horrible guilt? She wanted Ravenhunt to fight it, yet she didn’t know how. She could not just forget it. It was real and it was a pain that wouldn’t go away.

  Guilt made the rest of her morning with Lydia strange and awkward. She tried to behave naturally, but inside self-reproach gnawed away at her stomach.

  Finally she begged the need to lie down. She went up to the attics.

  Years ago, in the old nursery, she had made a small studio for sculpting. Everything remained in place. Wooden-handled sculpting tools sat on a cloth on a small table. Partly finished carvings sat in the light of the windows. There were her clay pieces. They had never been fired; they had just dried out with time. Some had crumbled.

  She picked up one of the tools. She’d spent hours using it. Banished away from people because of her supposed illness (really her power), she had come up here. The sculptures acquired by Father over his Grand Tour days had inspired her.

  Father had agreed to provide her with tools and materials, even though this was a shocking occupation for a girl.

  Ophelia set down the carving tool. She didn’t want to sculpt anything.

  Well, what she really wanted to mold and shape was her own future. She wanted to cut away Raven’s guilt, exposing a man who could be happy.

  She had picked the one sculpting ambition that would be almost impossible.

  Changing a man.

  She was supposed to spend the night safely in her old bedroom, but she couldn’t sleep. Ophelia got out of her old bed, in this room that now felt foreign and strange. For years, when a prisoner at Mrs. Darkwell’s, she’d dreamed of being here. Now she felt she didn’t belong here—she belonged with Raven.

  Stealthily, she got out of bed. Harry had left her and Lydia here and he’d returned to the Royal Society offices. The house was filled with servants, and that would keep her safe. She knew he, along with Lord Brookshire and Mr. de Wynter, had already circulated the truth throughout the Royal Society: that her power was gone.

  She had nothing to fear from them anymore.

  She crept to her brother’s room and quickly dressed in some of his clothes. His trousers were rather snug over her hips.

  Ophelia pulled on one of Lydia’s velvet cloaks to hide her masculine attire, then had one of the footmen summon her brother’s carriage. The servants had been given no instructions to stop her. She guessed Harry had never thought she would try to sneak out.

  She rushed down and clambered into the carriage, giving the address of Guidon’s shop. With the carriage waiting outside, she banged on the now familiar door.

  In minutes, she was inside the parlor with Guidon. But he did not give her tea. This time he gave her sherry.

  At least, she thought it was sherry. She took a sip, gasped a bit, for even just a drop burned on the way down. “Strong,” she gasped.

  Guidon studied her seriously. “It must be, my lady, for it helps you to see everything you wish to know.”

  Impulsively, she touched Guidon’s arm. “I want to know about Ravenhunt. Did you know what happened to him before he became a vampire? He was a soldier, I know, but why does he feel such guilt? Why did he run away when his fiancée died? Was it because he loved her so much and then lost her? Does he feel responsible?”

  “I should let Ravenhunt tell you, Lady Ophelia. He did reveal the worst to you. The thing that he feared would hurt you. The death of your brother.”

  “I don’t remember very much about my brother. I had no idea Simon was a warlock—until I went to Mrs. Darkwell’s, I didn’t know what one was. But I want to know what torments Ravenhunt so.”

  Guidon reached out and clasped her hand. Ophelia looked down as he patted her hand, again amazed at how normal it was beginning to feel to touch.

  “Lady Ophelia, I must know . . . was Mrs. Darkwell good to you? Did she take care of you?” Guidon’s tufty eyebrows were drawn in a frown, his bulgy eyes filled with concern.

  “I suppose she did, but she kept me like a prisoner. I know she had to protect everyone else, but it hurt me deeply.”

 
“She must have done it for the best, Lady Ophelia.”

  “I don’t know. I think—I think she was afraid of me.” She shrugged, acting as though that had not hurt her. “I suppose I cannot blame her.”

  “How did Ravenhunt capture you, my lady, when you were under Mrs. Darkwell’s protection?” Guidon looked at her intently. “It was for your protection, you must understand that. There was a great fear that you would be destroyed, if anyone found out the truth.”

  “I understand that. I could kill people. Of course, people would want to kill me.”

  “That is all behind you now. Would you tell me how he caught you? It is very important, my lady.”

  “I—I liked to sculpt. So I snuck out of Darkwells’ and went to the British Museum to see the statues and the Elgin Marbles. Ravenhunt met me there. I would go close to closing, as I couldn’t sneak out earlier. Once when I got there, he had not come, but he’d left a note for me, inviting me to Lady Cresthaven’s house. That was where he took me.”

  Guidon appeared to be jiggling with anxiety on the seat.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Darkwell’s restrictions drove you to sneak out of the house, my lady?”

  She nodded.

  “Indeed.” He rubbed his chin, nodded his head. “It might be enough.”

  “Enough for what? What are you talking about?”

  “You wished to know more about Ravenhunt,” he said quickly. “About his past and why he carries such guilt.”

  She nodded and sipped more of the sherry. It gave her such a jolt, she coughed. Her eyes watered, and she blinked the tears away. Through the film of them, she opened her eyes and saw a tall, blond gentleman across from her.

  “Aah!” The cry of shock flew off her lips. But when she blinked again, there was no handsome gentleman. Guidon sat there. He smiled, which for him looked like a grimace. She shook her head. “I am so sorry. My nerves are not as strong as I thought. I’m imagining things.”

  She took a deep breath and put the sherry glass down on a small table. “What happened in his past?”

  Even as she asked the question, the room seemed to dissolve before her eyes. She could see a lying-in in an elegant bedchamber. The birth was underway. In the middle of the bed, amidst bloody and wet sheets, a sweat-soaked woman cried out in pain. The woman fell back, sobbing as if she could endure no more. Someone cried joyfully, “A boy. My lady, you have been blessed with a son.” More images flashed in front of her, then she gasped. The woman who had given birth lay on the bed with her eyes open and unseeing, her skin ashen, her lips blue.

  No. Oh no. The images disappeared, leaving her on the verge of tears. She gained control. “Ravenhunt’s mother died giving birth to him.”

  “Yes.” Guidon studied her gravely. “His father never forgave him and held him responsible for his mother’s death. She died of loss of blood after the birth. Internal bleeding that could not be stopped. His sister, Frederica, is his half sister. Yet even though his father remarried, he never stopped hating Ravenhunt for the death.”

  “That was not his fault. You cannot mean to say he has always felt guilty for that.”

  “He has, my lady. It made him very protective of Frederica, which led to many arguments between them.”

  “What of his fiancée?”

  “Lady Margaret Calthorne, an earl’s daughter. She was very lovely.”

  “She died of an illness.”

  “No, Lady Ophelia, that is not the truth. This is very tragic, but you must see it. Close your eyes, then open them and you will be witness to the truth.”

  She saw a woman with dark brown curls, with a rounded belly beneath a white shift. Fists suddenly rained down on that tiny bump. Sobbing wildly, the woman beat her own tummy.

  Ophelia reached out to stop her.

  But the woman didn’t really exist. She could do nothing. She couldn’t stop the savagery with which the blows rained down. Crying with great heaves, the woman stumbled to her writing table and snatched out paper. Then she sat and meticulously wrote a beautiful letter. Ophelia could see the writing, but she could not read it—it was like looking at the image through wavering glass. The young brunette folded it neatly. Tears no longer ran down her face. She wore an aura of calm.

  But then the woman stood and she walked gracefully to the open window. Though it was hard for her to move, she managed to put one foot onto the ledge and she grasped the sash—

  The image vanished.

  “She took her own life,” Guidon said in husky tones, “because she was with child.”

  “Why?” Ophelia gasped, horrified. “If she was to marry Ravenhunt, why would she kill herself over a—” She remembered when he’d spoken of love as being something fraught with problems. And she knew. “Oh my, it was not his child, was it?”

  “No, the baby was not his. He was furious when he learned. I gather he frightened her a great deal, threatening to call off the wedding and let the world know about her betrayal. In despair, she killed herself.”

  “He felt guilty afterward. He must—he must have felt like a killer.” It made sense now. He was confused—angry, bitter, wounded, guilty. He must have felt as if he was destined to be a killer forever.” She looked to Guidon. “Do you think he could understand he is not responsible for these deaths?”

  “There are others he did commit as a soldier and then as a vampire. Those haunt him now.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Make him understand he is not a killer. That he can be free.”

  “I will try.” She smiled weakly. “How do you know so much about everyone? You’ve helped me so very much but I don’t know a thing about you.”

  Guidon looked surprised. “You wish to know about me?”

  “Yes,” she insisted.

  “I am just a cursed vampire. I mean, I truly do carry a curse, one I’ve had for hundreds of years. Inside, I am a much different man from what you see. And I was in love once. Deeply in love with the woman you know as Mrs. Darkwell.”

  It was dawn and the need for the daysleep crippled Raven. He had ensured his house was locked up. Ophelia was safe at her home—where she belonged.

  Why did he feel so damned apprehensive? She no longer had her power, so she was safe. He had spread it around the vampire brothels of the stews, knowing the gossip would travel quickly. The slayers—Ophelia’s brother, Brookshire, and de Wynter—were putting out the word through the Royal Society.

  Ophelia was safe. She could begin to forget about him. She could begin her normal life.

  Tonight, he had nothing to hide. In his bedchamber, he pressed a lever, much like the one that controlled the opening in his roof. A section of wall sprang open, revealing a long, shallow opening. A space filled with a simple black coffin, its lid open and inviting for a vampire.

  He needed this. He got his best rest in a coffin. With Ophelia in his home, when he’d tried to hide what he was, he’d used a bed. That had weakened him.

  What in hell did he want to be strong for? His eternity of solitude?

  Hell, he didn’t know.

  But Raven hopped in the coffin.

  When he slept in the coffin, he went dormant. He could see, his mind could function, but he could not move again until his body naturally awoke at dusk. Fortunately when he’d pursued Ophelia at the museum, it had been early spring, when dusk came early . . .

  When the lid rose open hours later, he saw it happen, but he couldn’t fight. Caught deeply in his daysleep, he couldn’t break out of it. Couldn’t move. Or even shout. His gaze fixed on the face of a man he didn’t know.

  How in blazes had someone gotten in?

  Why now, damn it?

  Raven knew the voice as the man pointed a crossbow at him. “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” the man mocked. “I knew you would follow the trail of crumbs I left. You kept her, took her power, destroyed Jade. You were a good boy, Ravenhunt. You did everything I hired you to do, without even knowing it. All the time, you though
t you had won. Yet you were my puppet, doing everything I expected you to do.”

  The man threw back his head and laughed.

  It was the client who had hired him to kidnap Ophelia.

  20

  The Choice

  His blood leaked from two wounds—one in his shoulder and one in his lower thigh. Twin red streams moved sluggishly but relentlessly, spilling out onto the dusty floor of the abandoned church.

  Though glassy eyes, Raven saw the pool at his side ooze into a larger circle. His cheek lay in it, his lips bathed in the coppery tang.

  In his dormant, day sleep state, he couldn’t move. Nor could he heal.

  He still had no idea of the name of his client—but he had stared at the man through eyes that he could not move. The client was tall, possessed stark white hair beneath his beaver hat, but had the face of a man in his early thirties. The client was not one of the men from the Royal Society who had attacked him, or whom he had fought in the laboratory.

  Who in hell was he?

  Raven could barely hear slow, measured footsteps moving up and down the wood plank floor. Pacing. His senses grew weak as he lost blood.

  The client had fired a crossbow bolt through his shoulder and one through his lower thigh. Raven couldn’t even grit his teeth against the pain. Couldn’t move to reach for the two arrows piercing him. Cold crept over him, making his limbs numb and slowing his heart.

  With his arms and legs bound, Raven lay on the floor between two pews in the abandoned church they had used for meetings. Guilt ate at him for the way he’d taken Ophelia prisoner at first. She must have been terrified out of her wits. Now he knew what she’d felt like.

  Right now he was paying for every evil he’d ever committed. He knew why he was here. Bait for Ophelia.

  He was going to keep her away. He would be destroyed if she didn’t come, but he didn’t care. Sacrificing himself for her was his destiny. It would pay for everything he’d done.