Beloved Forever Part 24

His eyes closed as the warmth faded to ice. Nicholas slumped sideways, almost against the man.

Nicholas wanted to push away the wrist Koss offered, after ripping it open with his own teeth, but didn't have the strength. As blood pooled into his mouth, instinct took over, and he feebly sucked on the gaping wound, taking in the sustenance as quickly as he could in his weakened state.

The man tilted up his head. "All will be well. Soon the transformation will begin. Rest now, love."

Nicholas's eyes widened as the other man pressed his lips against his. He wanted to protest when a tongue slipped into his mouth, but his body refused to cooperate. He couldn't move at all. He could only endure the onslaught of the foreigner's mouth on his and wonder what kind of bargain he had forged.

1215, England "No," he screamed, rus.h.i.+ng toward Emma as she fell to the stone floor. Frantically, he lifted her into his arms and turned her to face him. The cross protruded obscenely from her chest, and he pulled it out, barely registering the pain touching it brought him. He tossed aside the symbol of her faith and touched the wound. Tears burned in his eyes when he realized her heart had burned away. She had believed so strongly in the cross's power that it had ended her life in an instant.

From what Koss had told him, he knew there was no way to revive a vampire whose heart was gone.

"No," he cried again, refusing to believe it. He brought his wrist to his mouth and slashed it with his fang.

Surely, blood would revive her. He smeared it against her lips, waiting for her to begin drinking. When she didn't move, he forced his weeping wrist into her mouth, but she didn't suck. Nor did the blood pouring down her throat seem to affect her.

Nicholas kept the blood flowing into her until his head spun with dizziness. With a sob of defeat, he brought the wound to his mouth and sucked until it began to close. He cradled her body against his, weeping into her soft hair.

What had he done? He had murdered her as surely as if his hand had guided the cross. What right had he to force her into becoming like him? He should have known she would never be happy living the life he lived now. If only he had thought about her reaction before he changed her, Emma would still be alive.

But he hadn't thought at all. Escaping Koss's apartments at the palace and returning to Emma had consumed his thoughts to the extent that he hadn't stopped to imagine what she would think of his new form.

He cried out as a sharp pain flashed through his chest. He had never imagined she would turn to his treacherous brother for comfort. How could she have married William? Because she thought I was dead. Would he really have wanted her to be alone if he had died? He squirmed at his honest answer of yes.

What could he do now? He looked down at her, smoothing strands of hair off her pale cheeks. Any time now, her attendant would come to wake her, and she would alert the household when she found Emma's body. He had to be gone before then.

The thought of leaving her brought another sharp pain to his chest. He laid her on the stones and got to his knees, searching for the cross he had discarded. He saw it and stretched to reach it. He hissed as it burned his hand, but held onto it, bringing it closer, until it rested against his chest.

He turned back to look at Emma, wondering if she would welcome him in h.e.l.l, or if she would still hate him. If G.o.d were just, he wouldn't send Emma to eternal d.a.m.nation for suicide, although Nicholas was certain that would be his final destination. If suicide didn't incur G.o.d's wrath, surely the murders he had committed the last few months had done so.

He hesitated. The cross burned even through his tunic, and sweat beaded his brow. He longed to hold her again and beg her forgiveness, but what if he spent eternity without her? Was it better to suffer in h.e.l.l, or to suffer on Earth?

Nicholas tried to force the cross into his heart, but didn't have the strength. With a cry of frustration, he flung it away and inched back to Emma, kneeling beside her to kiss her cooling brow. "My love, I tried."

Tears streaked his face. "I cannot do it. I do not have your courage and conviction." He kissed her parted lips and got unsteadily to his feet, taking one last look at her before hurrying from the chamber. He couldn't believe his actions had lost her to him forever. He didn't deserve to live, but was too afraid of what awaited him to die.

1426, England "I know what haunts you," the gypsy woman said in a shaking voice, as Nicholas drew her closer.

He lifted his head to stare down at her. "What?"

"I know what drives you to the acts you commit. You are a desperate man." It was difficult to tell if the trembling in her voice came from fear or the s.h.i.+vers racking her half-dressed body. "You punish yourself for what you did to Emma. You think she would want it that way, but she would not. She loved you."

He stiffened at the sound of his love's name on the gypsy's lips. "What? What did you say?" He shook her when she didn't answer quickly enough.

"She lives again. Release me, m'lord, and I will tell you how to find her."

Nicholas reeled away from the woman in shock, dropping his hold on her. He watched her with narrowed eyes, waiting for her to attempt escape. He stood between her and the only exit of her wooden wagon, and none in the encampment would hear her cries, because he had sent them all to sleep when choosing her as his victim earlier.

In the pale light from the candle, her resemblance to Emma startled him anew. In his grief and madness,he had forgotten his original purpose of feeding from her and started having s.e.x with her. He didn't stop until he realized he was about to rape her. She wouldn't have been the first since losing Emma, but he couldn't do it when he looked into her face and saw his love once more. It would be like taking her innocence all over again, and he had pushed the woman away, disgusted by his actions that night and during the past centuries.

Still, she was convenient, and he needed sustenance. He had returned to his original plan of feeding from her, until she spoke.

Her eyes remained wide, and the fear on her face caused him to squirm with a trace of guilt, an emotion he thought he had banished during the past two hundred years frittered away on acts of wickedness.

"Speak, woman. Tell me of Emma." He listened carefully as she spun a tale of spirits reincarnated. His eyes widened when she told him he would find Emma again in 1511, inhabiting the body of a native girl in the New World, whatever that was.

When she had finished speaking, she took a step back. "I have kept my word, m'lord. You shall find her."

He lifted a brow. "We shall see if your words prove accurate. You speak of events too far in the future for me to have much faith."

She shook her head. "But, m'lord, I do not know which body she possesses now. It is only because I sense great violence in Erukan's life that I am able to pinpoint where she will be one hundred years from now. Her lives will be uneventful until then."

He inclined his head. "If you have given me true information, I am indebted to you."

She sagged, and her trembling eased visibly, until he stepped closer to her, causing her to stiffen again, and the heady perfume of terror wafted from her pores. He enjoyed the tang the fear gave blood and deliberately sought to increase hers by flas.h.i.+ng his fangs before speaking. "However, I would like something more tangible, if I am to be in your debt, madam."

She screamed as he reached for her, fighting with all her strength.

Nicholas easily subdued her. "Relax. You will enjoy this."

She shook her head, continuing to fight him.

"Look into my eyes." He spoke so forcefully she couldn't hope to resist him. Her head rose slowly, and then he was staring into deep pools of liquid fear. "You want to give me what I need, do you not?"

Slowly, she nodded, despite the fact her eyes were still large with fear.

He caressed her hip. "Anything I want."

She nodded once again and relaxed against him.

Nicholas buried his face against her neck, seeking out her carotid artery as his hands cupped her bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "In return, your death will be quick," he said softly, before sinking his fangs into her skin. After the disaster with Emma, he had vowed never to create another vampire. The next best thing to eternal life he could offer this woman was a quick death. It didn't even occur to him to walk away and leave her inpeace. He held little hope in her predictions of Emma's reincarnation, which more likely came from a flash of psychic ability and her desperation, and he had to feed. She was convenient.

1511, San Juan Batista (Puerto Rico) The burned bodies of Erukan's people surrounded him. The carnage was terrible, but he had no eyes for any of the suffering, beyond his love's. Her headless body had still been bound to the pole when he found her. He had cut her down and held her in his arms while sobbing against her chest. It had been a long time before he was able to lay her aside to prepare a grave.

Now, he knelt by the hole he had dug with his bare hands. She lay beside the mound of sand, her body finally reunited with her head. It had taken him nearly an hour to find it. With a gentleness she was far from being aware of, he placed her body and head in the hole, staring down at her for a long moment before pus.h.i.+ng the sand back into the hole, hiding her from his sight.

As Nicholas covered the grave first with sand, and then with large rocks to protect Erukan from wild animals, his mind insisted on replaying the horror of what had happened to her. He should have been there to save her. It should have been him, if either of them had to die. He should have stopped this ma.s.sacre. He shook his head, trying to force away his recriminations, as he fortified her grave.

At last, when he anch.o.r.ed the last rock in place, he stood over her makes.h.i.+ft marker, searching for the proper words. None came to him, and he shook his head, scrubbing at his eyes when they began streaming again.

"I was too late to save you," he whispered. A harsh sob broke from him. "But I swear to you, I shall punish as many of those who were responsible as I can track down. They will pay for your life with their blood, beloved."

He took a deep breath and turned away. Nicholas took two steps before halting and turning back to her. "Next time will be different. I will not lose you again." He knew he wouldn't be content to wait to see if fate reunited them. He must make it his mission to seek her out again. Already, somewhere in the world, her soul had probably been reborn into a new body. He wouldn't rest until he found her again, even if it took lifetimes. "Until next time." He forced himself to turn away and walk toward the Spaniards'

settlement. More blood would spill before this night was over, but this time, it wouldn't belong to innocents.

1665, Virginia Nicholas vomited as he saw the burned body of Elspeth hanging from the rafters of the barn. Tremont's unpleasant laughter sounded behind him, and he whirled to find the other man smiling snidely.

"You dared touch what was mine. She paid for allowing your filthy hands on her body." He stared up at her body with glee on his face before returning his gaze to Nicholas. "You shall join her, Vallsade."

Nicholas paid little attention to the two men coming at him. He rushed forward, pausing only to snap the neck of one and rip out the heart of the other before reaching Tremont. The other man's arrogant facade shattered when confronted with the heart Nicholas shoved against his face as he jerked him closer by theruff of his s.h.i.+rt. "I would love to make you eat your own heart, Tremont."

Tremont began to quake with fear. "My men will kill you-"

He shoved the b.l.o.o.d.y heart into the other man's mouth, effectively silencing him. "None will be alive when I have finished with this place." He threw Tremont into the corner, impaling him on a pitchfork tine through the shoulder. "You shall be the last to feel my wrath."

The other man spat out the heart and a mouthful of vomit before struggling to regain his feet. He screamed as the tines worked their way deeper into his flesh.

With a simple thought, Nicholas immobilized Tremont before beginning his b.l.o.o.d.y work. The sweet sounds of Tremont's sobs followed him into the night as he left the barn.

He got lost in a mindless haze of blood, stopping only when everyone on the plantation who wasn't an innocent was dead. He returned to Tremont, bearing his gift wrapped in a bundle.

The other man had p.i.s.sed himself, Nicholas noted with disgust, as he returned to the barn. Tremont was a trembling ma.s.s of nerves as he towered over him. "Now, it is your turn, Tremont." He smiled down at him. "However, I will not kill you. I have thought of a better punishment for you. Yes, you shall live with your pain each day, as I must now live with mine."

"Wh-wh..." he stuttered before falling silent.

Nicholas tossed the bundle at him. It spilled open, revealing the lifeless body of Tremont's son. His garment was soaked in blood from the wound at his neck.

He screamed and reached for the boy, forgetting Nicholas's power didn't allow him to move. The tines of the pitchfork embedded more deeply into his shoulder, but he didn't seem to notice as he struggled against Nicholas's mental command without effect. "My son. You killed my son!"

Nicholas knelt beside him. "And you killed the only woman I have ever loved." He touched an edge of the b.l.o.o.d.y blanket wrapped around the dead child. "Nonetheless, it wasn't I who killed your child. His frantic mother denied me that pleasure. She thought it better for him to die by a merciful cut of her dagger than by my hand."

"Johanna," he whispered. Tears welled in his eyes. "Barty. Please, let me hold him."

The note of pleading in the man's tone gratified Nicholas, but he wasn't finished torturing Tremont yet. "I really must tell you something else first." He leaned closer, dropping his voice an octave. "As evil as you are, I would never have murdered an infant to punish you. She killed your son for naught."

A keening wail broke from the man, as surely as his spirit broke right then, but Nicholas was beyond seeing the man's surrender. He had learned several things under the cruel tutelage of Koss, including how to create an eternal slave. He wanted to relish in Tremont's suffering every day for the rest of his life.

With luck, that would span millennia.

1831, England (Vallsade Manor) With a savage shout, Nicholas plunged the sword through his brother's throat, pinning him to the stone steps. He saw William's eyes widen with surprise before they grew dim as he pa.s.sed from the world forever.

To ensure he did the job properly, Nicholas severed the head with one clean swipe and impaled it on the sword. He tossed aside the sword, separating the head and body by several feet.

Then he rushed up the stairs to the chamber he shared with Erin. In his heart, he knew Koss had killed her, but had to make sure. Perhaps she wasn't completely dead. Maybe he could still save her, although it had been more than a day since her murder.

When he found his wife, laid peacefully across the bed and cuddling the body of their daughter against her chest-slightly above the gaping cut in her abdomen where William had cut out the baby-his cry of agony rebounded throughout Vallsade Manor.

Chapter Fifteen.

Emily awoke with the sound of Nicholas's suffering still echoing in her ears. The images of the dreams whirled through her mind, and she lay absolutely still, struggling to comprehend all she had learned about him through his memories.

When she finally found the ability to move, she turned her head to look at him. He watched her with a brooding expression, not attempting to evade meeting her eyes, but there was a tinge of red in his cheeks, as if their shared intimacy embarra.s.sed him. She licked her lips, wondering what she should say, if anything.

He put his finger to her lips before she could part them. "You know my secrets now."

She shook her head, pulling away from his fingers. "Not all of them."

His lips twisted. "What is it you want to know? Do you want an account of every atrocity I committed for nearly three centuries, punis.h.i.+ng the world and myself for your death? Do you want to hear how I lived without hope, how I loathed happiness in any form, going so far as to destroy it each chance I got?"

He lunged toward her, settling on top of her and pinning her to the bed with her wrists above her head.

"Do you want me to tell you about the women I raped and murdered? About the debauched acts I committed?" He shook her less than gently. "Well, do you, Emily? Do you want to know how evil I am?"

She shook her head, disconcerted to realize she found his proximity more arousing than she found his anger frightening. "I don't need the details. I know very well you aren't a saint."

He scowled. "Of course you do. Poor, innocent Emily subjected to whatever I choose to do to you.

You're another of my victims, aren't you?" he asked bitterly.

She held her silence, not certain what he wanted from her. If she agreed with him, she risked provoking his anger further and having it directed at her specifically. However, that thought didn't frighten her as much as it might have once. What she found most alarming was the thought of his tenuous control slipping, making him unable to function at all. They couldn't afford for him to fall apart while they werestill in danger.

She knew why he was attacking her. She was a target for his conflicting emotions, a way to deal with his grief and the discomfort of her having seen so much of the real him. The question was, how did she respond to his las.h.i.+ng out at her? Was it better to counter his statements or ignore them and pretend they didn't hurt?

"You're so quiet. Do I frighten you?"

She didn't respond while struggling to hide her fear.

Nicholas released one of her wrists to caress her breast through the cotton pajama top. "Or maybe you aren't afraid. Maybe you like me being in control." He lowered his mouth to her cheek, and when he spoke, his lips brushed against her skin. "Maybe you want to pretend you don't want me so you can live with yourself after we have s.e.x. You can convince yourself I forced you into this, too."

She glared up at him. With a surge of strength, she broke free of his hold and cupped his face in her hands. "You scare me. Is that what you want to hear?" Before he could respond, she pressed on.

"There's a darkness in your soul that you will never overcome completely. That does frighten me, but not like it should. Maybe because I know the same dark compulsions are inside me too. I could say everything that's happened to me is your fault, but there's no reason to go down that road again, is there?

I can accept what's been done to me, or I can hide from it, but there isn't any point in blaming you." Her brow furrowed. "After all, you were honoring a promise you made to Erin when you changed me."

His eyes darkened, and he opened his mouth.

Emily interrupted before he could speak. "And I'm not having s.e.x with you. Not like this." She glared up at him. "If-when-we make love, it will be because I'm ready, not because you're hurting, and you want to hide from your grief for a while." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Make love to me because you want me, not because you want me to hurt, too."

Nicholas flinched and pulled his face from her hands. He rolled off her and didn't look at her as he got out of bed. His tone was bland when he said, "Get ready. Brannon will have booked us on the earliest available flight by now." He padded to the door, pausing to scoop up his clothes from the chair where he had folded them. "I'll shower in his bathroom to save time."