

### Wicked Lord: Part One

By Shirl Anders

*This is #1 of a 3 part serial version of The Lords Of Blacknall: Trinity

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Allure Books. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyrighted 2016© Shirl Anders

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Chapter One

Fog choked the London night air with damp and cloying tendrils as Trinity crouched on the wings of a stone angel parapet on the east corner of Blacknall mansion. His nostrils flared, inhaling stale night air like a lethargic limb barely able to lift and move. He'd not get much distance through the clinging fog to pick up scents further than the half-fouled Thames. Yet something gnawed at him as he flung back his chunky damp hair and his heavy coat settled around him. It was an awareness he couldn't name, and with his senses attuned, his gaze was sharp. He'd trained the last half-century to sharpen his instincts and perceptions just as he'd exercised his body to hone his uncanny strength.

"Still, I do not trust my intuition without proof of actually seeing it," he admonished himself, balancing on the cold marble of the angel's upturned wings.

He knew it was the humanity remaining inside him.

There were many who didn't believe vampires carried any humanity after they'd been turned. Yet he and his three brothers believed. They lived their entire existence bound by that comforting fact.

They were born from humans.

Four brothers. Lords of Blacknall. This century. Trinity chuckled, turning his sharp gaze to the west. Holding the title of Duke of Blacknall had irritated his eldest brother Church for the last fifty years. Church would rather be a scientist like Baptiste or even a rector like their youngest brother, Christian.

Trinity hardly believed that. Church could no more be a clergy than he could stop being the eldest. One of them had to pretend, in this decade, to be an English lord, for their family's best placement. English dukes and their families, seen as eccentric, were not questioned as much as common men. Therefore, they could employ more privacy. Trinity carried the courtesy title Marquis Montrose, while Baptiste was Earl of Sterling, and Christian, Viscount Ash.

Trinity stretched his tall body to stand balanced on the stone angel's wings as though he were an evil apparition come to devour the pure angel. A small, unexpected gust of wind blew the edges of his coat outward as he felt Church beckoning him. It was unusual, the connection he and his three brothers had. They'd not turned each other into vampires, but they were all born from the same evil Sire. Perhaps that was why he could forever feel his brothers' call.

They knew other vampires turned by one Sire, yet none of them connected the way he and his brothers did. But there was nothing common about the Blacknall men, as either humans or vampires, and there never had been.

Minutes later, Trinity slid with unearthly quiet into the rosewood study on the second floor of Blacknall mansion. Because it was night, both Baptiste and Christian were there, having left their normal vocations for the daylight hours. None of them appreciated daylight; however, after a century of walking the earth as vampires, they'd discovered arcane ways to move about in sunlight.

"I still hear you, Trinity," Baptiste called, without turning his head of light blond hair as he sat on a settee facing the fireplace, which was burning with a glowing fire.

"I do too," Christian announced. He didn't turn his even blonder head, so that Trinity looked at the back of both their heads after gliding so close behind them as they sat on the settee. He didn't believe they knew that.

"Sorry," Christian added, ever the soulful brother.

"Don't be," Church said. "He has to keep challenging his skill level, as we all do."

Church was a tall figure beside the fireplace as he gazed at the flames. He did not turn his head either, as he added, "Be a useful skill if one of us could master it."

"It would," Trinity admitted loudly, startling both Christian and Baptiste, who jerked their dark blue-eyed gazes around toward him.

Trinity suspected he'd startled Church a bit too, but Church held his reaction well, only turning his head slowly after long moments. The flames from the fire slashed red glints through Church's snow-white hair, while his black eyebrows arched with an elder brother's look of congratulations. Church's icy-colored hair was part of the toll it cost him to gain liberation from their damnable stepfather, who was also their depraved Sire.

"That was good." Baptiste's gaze captured Trinity's, and his unnaturally handsome face, framed by wavy blond hair that clipped his square jaw, showed approval.

They were all like that... beautiful vampires. Church's face appeared the most natural because he had some maturity to his features, except for his blond hair gone white, which they endlessly needed to explain away as the tragedy that occurred when he'd seen their parents die. When told, it was a grievous tale about a harrowing carriage accident that only Church survived.

All a lie.

They were all master liars. Trinity wondered if they even knew the truth anymore. But Baptiste tried to hide his youthful Adonis looks with a moustache. Christian tried with a goatee. But Trinity never tried to hide his appearance with anything but a glaring sneer.

"There's been another woman killed in the Blood Cull's territory," Church reported with a grim slant to his features. He turned to face them before pinning them with a grave stare.

"Eleven in as many weeks." Trinity stilled his fingers on the edges of his long coat, his mood shifted... darkened. He'd been set to remove his coat, but he lifted his fingers away. "Cull." The distaste was evident in his snarl and the thickening of his tensed muscles. None of them appreciated Cull's ways.

However, in their world, there weren't many vampires that lived by rules. They had been able to enforce a rule not to kill humans for quite a few years and another rule, not to turn humans, for half that time. The Blacknalls lived by five unbreakable rules.

Because they chose to.

Because they came from humans.

And because they had to live among them.

These rules defined their existence. They did not kill humans and they did not turn humans into vampires. They did not use human slaves for feeders, did not let humans know they were vampires, or take any blood not freely given.

"My Bow Street Runner source states the woman was ripped apart like the others and left as though half fed upon by animals." Church glared at them all with the inner disgust of blood wasted. Christian and Baptiste rose and all four men growled their disgust. "Her dress suggested she was a young woman of some means this time. Unlikely one of Cull's, but considering the area..."

"If she'd been one of Cull's, it would be because she was forced into prostitution against her will." Christian's mouth pursed with anger as his gaze shifted between them.

"That is an issue for another time." Church grasped Christian's shoulder for an empathetic squeeze he'd used numerous times on all them. There was a time, Trinity thought, when they never touched. He knew Church continually worked to overcome the abuse of their youth.

Church continued, "We must discover who or what is killing women on London's eastside before someone or the constables run across a vampire as the culprit." Church's fierce gaze glinted; they all knew what that meant.

"And because it is wrong for any vampire to rip apart and murder innocent people," Christian added, with his stubbornness born of devout faith. His sermons could bring people to tears or propel them into shouting God's name. Ever the scientist, Baptiste said it was some quality in Christian's voice or vocal cords that entranced people. Trinity thought that it was his littlest brother's heart.

They were all parts of the whole. Church was the soul, Baptiste was the logic, and Christian was the heart. Trinity thought he, on the other hand, was the dark side of every man.

"I will go and convince Cull to tell us what he knows," Trinity muttered foully as he turned to leave.

***

Cull had been nothing but a squalid wharf rat before he'd been turned into a vampire. There was still much of it inside him a century later. He tried to appear tough, but with his slender and wiry build, along with thinning black hair slicked back into a tight ponytail, he never pulled it off. Normally he wore sleeveless leather vests in an attempt to show off his pale, muscular arms. What Cull lacked in girth he made up for in continuously conniving talk. There was always a new deal to make money, and Cull was convincing enough to have gathered a fairly large brood of vampires around him. Of course, there were more vampires made in the lower eastside slums of London than any other place in all of England.

Cull's main moneymaker was whores. Christian proclaimed there was dispute about whether the women were willing victims or not. The brothers Blacknall had used enough force and disrupted enough of Cull's moneymaking schemes to convince Cull not to kill humans. They'd also persuaded Cull and his brood not to turn humans... for the most part.

Trinity found Cull entertained in his favorite pastime: whore fights. Trinity stopped on the eaves of a decaying rooftop, three stories up, looking down into the dank, back alley. Except for a few excited chortles coming from the spectators, it would be too dark for any human eye to see what was going on from his vantage point. He crouched with his chunky, long blond hair settling over his shoulders. It was easy with his eyesight to see everything. The women were not vampires, just soft and frail bodies forced to fight each other, or perhaps they wanted to. He knew Cull would promise the winner higher status in his slut kingdom. The rules to winning the catfight were simple: one opponent had to be stripped bare and pinned to the ground before the other opponent won.

Trinity watched the women's fat breasts bobbing with their ruddy slits contorting at unusual angles as the long-haired whores grappled with each other, rolling on the ground. Most prostitutes were chubby and round. These two were no exception, with fleshy buttocks that were pale and undulating in such a way he felt thick interest stirring his shaft; he instantly snarled his dissent.

He had always preferred voluptuous as opposed to thin. He'd stroked his shaft to imaginings of it every day until he ejaculated the need. Sex and blood-hunger were too closely intertwined. It was the one area in which the Blacknall brothers disagreed. Actually, it was the one area their righteous vampire lust had no answer for, therefore, they all dubiously ignored it.

Trinity turned his daunting gaze from the lush interests to Cull and the few who attended the catfight. "Business must be slacking," he muttered. There were but three gents he saw as patrons betting on the fight. That left only two of Cull's brood. That was all he concerned himself with because the patrons were not likely vampires.

As he climbed down the side of the crumbling brick tenant building into the alley below, he didn't make his presence known until he stood between the two vampires from Cull's brood. The advantage to Cull's brood was they were likely so corrupt on opium, the stench of whores, and the rot from the lower eastside they'd lost all ability or inclination to scent another vampire's approach.

Both, one tall, one short, were gazing intently at the wrestling women, so neither man saw him as he reached outward. He grabbed them by the back of their collars, and then, faster than humanly possible, he lifted one upward and he tugged them together, until their foreheads butted against each other in front of him. The force was immense as the crack sounded in the alleyway like the strike of an anvil.

It was hard to kill a vampire, but it wasn't that difficult to knock one, or two for that matter, out cold. Trinity let the unconscious vampires fall limply to the ground with varying thuds, dependent upon size, as his piercing gaze lifted to Cull. Cull's human patrons ran away in the darkness.

Cull snarled, "Blacknall blood, always have to ruin good business."

Trinity snarled much louder, lifting his muscular body and height over Cull. Cull relented quickly, especially with his two cronies unavailable. Trinity had fought Cull twice and won the last time leaving the chicane Cull with his head half-severed. It had taken Cull quite some time for that one to regenerate. Cull knew who the master was, and he submitted with a bowed head. Trinity relaxed his stance... a bit.

"I pinned her, Master Cull!" cried out one of the women behind them.

He and Cull turned their gazes to the tangled mess of fat, pale tits and bare legs.

Cull cussed with his fist rising. "Bloody balls! I would have won it all. That bitch was bet as the loser."

Trinity shrugged wide shoulders and stretched his neck, turning fully to face the women. He growled with a fierce showing as his fangs distended. The whore on top screeched, shaking and swaying her melon-sized breasts. The one on bottom craned her neck and, seeing him, she screamed along. They both scrambled up and began to run away. It was a vision, even giving rise to the predator controlled deep inside him. His nostrils flared with the thoughts of tender flesh and hot pumping blood inside weak and fleeing prey. Then, with effort, he forced his gaze away, turning back to Cull.

"My best whore's dead, now this," Cull hissed.

Suddenly, Trinity's interest was piqued. With a swift motion, he grabbed Cull, whose betting coins and pounds went clattering onto the damp cobblestones beneath their feet. With barely an afterthought, he lifted Cull off his feet. A fierce growl erupted from his throat as he marched forward and slammed Cull into a brick wall on the side of a tenant building. Cull's fangs extended, as did his nails, while Trinity held him up against the wall by his throat.

" _Tell_ me about your best whore," Trinity's voice spat, unrelenting, into Cull's twisted features.

Cull snarled and hissed, but then Trinity started to become angry, his eyes slanting yellow and Cull immediately became more subdued.

"Killed," Cull spat, glaring.

"How?" Trinity bared his fangs. Cull wouldn't meet his threatening gaze and became more submissive. "How?" His growl was fierce again with his fangs punching longer.

"It's not my blame," Cull whined. Trinity shook him with increasing strength. "All right," Cull gasped. "Torn apart," he choked. Then he added, "Like the others."

Trinity asked, enunciating each word with his fangs bared, "Do you have a renegade beast in your territory, Cull?"

"Not a vampire blood," Cull barked. "No vampire rips its food apart!"

Trinity stretched his neck one way, then the other, as though realigning a kink. He let the mangy vampire drop.

"Shit," Cull cussed, barely catching his fall in a half crouch.

Trinity strode several paces away with his back to Cull. He lifted his nostrils to the night air. Rotting food and stenches from the sewer filled the air. The east side had such a decaying fragrance.

"I thought the woman just killed was a high society chit." Trinity didn't turn to look at Cull who answered his question quickly enough.

"It was my slut. She was just dressed to meet a titled gent. Same as the others... all whores."

"All yours?" Trinity asked, and he turned to face Cull. He saw Cull was groping around on the damp cobblestones for the scattered coins and pound notes.

Cull looked up at him sideways with a half sneer. "Not all, Blacknall, some's the Mongrel's, some's independent."

Trinity nodded. He lowered to a crouch with his forearms balanced on his bent knees as he let his eyes glow yellow with predatory tints.

"Where was the last one murdered?"

"Murdered?" Cull hissed. "That's human kink."

"You said it wasn't a blood," Trinity hissed back.

Cull didn't dissent further, he just gave Trinity the location and Trinity left Cull alive. Nevertheless, his last words and final threat to him were, "Your house better be in order, Cull. There are worse punishments for a blood than death." In times past, Trinity had told Cull about several abhorrent ones the Blacknall brothers were not above inflicting.

Trinity found the spot within minutes. The carnage had taken place in a small park between King Street and Row Street. The corpse was gone, of course, but the area on the grass was still bloody enough to attract two mongrel dogs which he scattered with his presence as he strode into the park. His long hair was damp and his gaze was sharp as he scented the air. It took him moments to analyze the blood scent as he crouched and surveyed the area.

"Cull was right," he muttered. "No vampire would let all this blood fall to waste." He touched his finger to a smear of the old blood. He held it to his nose to sniff and lifted it to his tongue to taste.

The victim was young and opium sour. His hand lowered as he tilted his head to the side, slowly evaluating the blood like a connoisseur. Suddenly, his gaze jerked to the left and it latched onto a footprint in the soft dirt. "She was chased," he growled. _Hunted._

He rose, following the trail more by the taste of her blood than by sight. The footprints came from the far side of the park, and halfway across he found the scent of the foul beast that hunted her. It was a very weak scent, just a boot print and not blood. A barely perceptible tendril and it came from the west. Uptown.

"Interesting," he uttered, rising again to follow the wavering scent west.

With difficulty — losing the scent, and then after barely finding it again — he followed it to a crumbling mansion in a section of London that housed the blue-blood nobles of old money and long lineage. He couldn't say if the one carrying the odd, wavering scent from the possible animalistic murderer had entered the mansion or just stalked its circumference.

Then it came to him, on tendrils of wind suddenly moving the fog to swirl apart, an instant rise of awareness. There was a fear-laden hunt occurring somewhere. At the same moment, his attention rose toward an awareness of predator stalking prey. He could feel all three of his brothers' attentions turning sharply to the west... following his own. He sensed the hunt in the wind and his brothers sensed it through him. Their connection was not of words, but more intentions, and he tried but failed to hold them back from following him as he tracked the newest evidence he perceived in the west.

The lethal monster was hunting again.

So soon...

C **hapter Two**

"You cannot hide from him forever, Beth," Lord Adam Winslow announced as he lounged informally on the window seat in his sister's small sitting room.

Said sister muttered at him, as she tried to tie her wavy, long black hair on top of her head with a velvet ribbon the exact emerald coloring of the ball gown she wore. "He doesn't stalk you," she replied with an accusatory tone.

Adam sighed. She was right; their stepbrother, Lord Fanton Rothschild, had always been very strange, however about three years ago he'd turned strangeness into a new life style. Fanton didn't even seem to look the same. It was as though he'd gotten better looking with perpetually glossy hair and shiny eyes. Before, he'd been pimpled and fallow-looking. Back then he'd sweated profusely and had something he'd called a moustache on his upper lip, and that Adam called a few sorry hairs.

"Even his moustache is thick and glistens now," Adam muttered under his breath. Fanton had been secretive and slimy, now he was secretive and feral. Adam didn't know how his stepbrother had gone from a sappy pervert to a handsome deviant. But he had. One thing stayed the same though, unfortunately. That was Fanton's unhealthy interest in his stepsister, Lady Elizabeth Winslow. _Beth._

"Adam, it is not that bad." Beth's voice was soft as she turned to him with her hair ribbon secured. "I'm supposed to be looking for a husband." Her declaration placed her small hands on her generously rounded hips. "So going out every night—"

"Until dawn," he interrupted, pinning her with an accusatory look.

She smiled at him, her ivory skin looking fragile against her midnight black hair. He worried about the fact she had to sleep during the day because she forced herself to stay away from her home every night... all night. She lost sunlight hours trying to keep the forced schedule she imposed on herself. Not seeing enough daylight for her health.

"I'm just so glad you see his manipulative and strange ways. Unlike—"

"Our step uncle Westfield," Adam interjected.

Beth, used to his interjecting ways, continued on, "Yes, our step uncle to whom we owe everything, but does not see it. Without you, Adam, I would think I was going mad."

"You are not," Adam responded strongly, coming off the window seat in a lanky stand. Unlike Fanton, who was bull-chested these days, he was simply leanly-muscled and thin. Adam reached Beth's side as he clasped her hand. "I see it," he said, looking down into her glistening multi-colored eyes. Beth had the most unique eyes. One was dark blue and the other was hazel green against her long black eyelashes. "I just wish there was something I could do about it," he finished with an edge in his voice.

"No, no," Beth whispered, squeezing his hand. "Promise me," she implored, "Promise that you will go about the University and leave Fanton alone."

" _If_ he hurts you..." Adam warned with a tight voice.

"He won't," Beth soothed, and then she said quickly, "All these years since our mother married his father, after our father died when we were just children, he has never really hurt me in all that time."

"He just better not," he retorted stubbornly, making Beth smile for some odd girl's reason he would never fathom as she patted his cheek several times.

"You are so good to me, little brother," she said with fondness, and then with another girl's character trait, she changed the conversation as quickly as one could click their fingers. "So say you will come to church with me this Sunday. I've found a new one that has a rector who is said to give the most amazing sermons."

Adam hedged, but he knew there wasn't much he could deny Beth. Then, before he spoke, a barely-perceived knock sounded on the sitting room door. They both turned to look toward the door, puzzled. No one in their step uncle's crumbling mansion came to their doors and knocked.

Beth was the first to recover, calling, "Come in." She glanced at Adam with a furrowed brow, and then at the door. He suddenly realized Beth thought the person behind the knocking could be Fanton. He stood taller and he took a step in front of Beth. A second later, they both relaxed when the aged butler Spindle appeared, out of breath.

"There is a Lady Ariel Raleigh arrived, Lady Winslow, and she awaits you in the main foyer." Adam knew both he and Beth wondered how the elderly Spindle made it up the long, twisting staircase at all to warn of the momentous event.

He also knew Lady Ariel was Beth's only friend and since they had no female relatives to chaperon Beth into society, Lady Ariel and her aunt took charity upon Beth to escort her on the rounds. Without their good graces, Beth would be out of the social events.

Adam saw Beth's worried gaze shifting to the window and he saw, as she did, it was already dusk. "She cannot be here," Beth exclaimed. "It is too early and I've told her never to come inside for me." At this exclamation, she grasped her shimmering silk skirts, lifting them to step forward with a hurried march toward the door. As she passed Spindle, she asked, with fear inflicting her voice, "Lord Fanton hasn't risen yet, has he?"

"I am not certain, my lady," Spindle called after them, as by then Adam decided he'd best follow Beth. Adam knew Spindle's uncertainty meant Fanton might well be awake, moving about his suites on the lower floor of their infirmed, step uncle's crumbling mansion. But Fanton never came out of those suites until after dusk had fallen into night.

And Beth was gone. Always.

"I could strangle Ariel for this," Beth muttered, looking back at him as she rounded the dark wood banister. "She simply will not listen to me and stay away from him," she continued to mutter, stopping at the top of the stairs to gather her skirts higher. Adam stepped beside her and clasped her elbow to steady her. She gave him a grateful glance, and then they began to step down the long, winding staircase that led into the foyer.

Adam knew for the longest time — well over a year now — Beth had been able to keep the fact she had a stepbrother a secret. Until ten weeks ago, though Fanton had never done it before, he began attending society functions. It wasn't that Fanton stayed closeted in the mansion as a hermit to society. It was just in the evenings past Fanton usually attended more bawdy events across London. He ran with a crowd of indulgent and rowdy young lords. They attended what higher society deemed as unseemly events: boxing, gambling, whore house parties, and many more sordid affairs.

"Lord Fanton never cared for genteel parties before," Beth expelled as though reading his ongoing thoughts. "Nor titled young ladies like Lady Ariel," she continued on a sharp note. "But they've met now. Lord Fanton has forced his strange seductions upon her." Beth stopped halfway down the staircase and he could tell she dreaded going further.

"We will both talk to her," he said, offering what support he could.

"I should have brought my shawl," Beth muttered.

Adam thought she looked lovely as usual. She would say, as women were wont to do, that she was too plump or just barely pretty, not beautiful. However, he knew men turned to look at the ampleness of her bosom and the sincerity of her laughter. For all that, Beth thought she was average. She was a very sweet girl.

"All right then," Beth announced, seeming to gather her resolve, and then she began to step down the stairs once again.

Adam watched Fanton looking up at them as they came into view. Fanton's gaze latched onto Beth with a serpentine look of gloating, while he slowly walked around Lady Ariel. Lady Ariel's creamy shoulders were bare in a sparkling, lavender-colored ball gown, while Fanton's hand lingered about her waist. Fanton whispered something to her, which made her blush and laugh. However, Fanton's slate-colored gaze stayed drilled onto Beth, sweeping her cleavage as she hurried down the stairs.

"Lady Ariel, you should not be here!" Beth exclaimed. Adam knew his sister wouldn't sound as harsh were she not so upset.

Adam stepped beside Beth when they reached the marbled floor and he saw Lady Ariel's pretty mouth turn into a pout as her body leaned closer to Fanton's stocky but strong figure.

"Your stepbrother, Lord Rothschild, invited me inside," Lady Ariel informed them with an edge to her voice. "Lady Beth, he has invited both of us to a glass of sherry before our events." Lady Ariel smiled a pretty offering to Fanton, who rounded her figure again. Like a wolf circling its prey, Adam thought.

"A harmless invitation, really," Lady Ariel continued with a dipping of her eyelashes. "And I might convince him to attend the Valtimer's ball with us."

Beth blanched. She could hardly revile Fanton to his face. He would make her pay dearly if she tried. Fanton's stalking gaze told her he had her pinned just where he wanted her, and the impossible red glints in his irises strobed once, then disappeared. For the thousandth time, Beth wondered why no one else could see the red glints when they appeared, not even Adam, as she forcibly quelled the trembling trying to overtake her body.

"Come, Beth, my sweet pigeon. Come drink sherry with us," Fanton drawled with a heavy-lidded gaze that made her wish for a stout coat to cover her bare shoulders away from his leer. Fanton was not as a brother should be to a sister, and he never had been.

Beth saw Ariel's gaze sharpen because of Fanton's illicitly inflected words, just as Fanton added, "No need for you to stay, little brother." Fanton stopped his circuitous route around Ariel with his hand too intimately holding her waist.

Beth wanted to snatch that hand away and shout at him to leave her only friend alone. Instead, she nodded her head with forced but demure manners, saying, "A glass of sherry would be welcome, my lord. Adam, please do not let us keep you from your friends."

Adam's handsome face and buff gray eyes unveiled a stubborn look Beth had seen quite often. She balanced on a fine line between Adam and Fanton. Adam wanted to defend her, while Fanton could easily crush him.

"I'm in the mood to dance tonight," Adam said, then he bowed to Ariel, straightened, and he held out his arm. "Please, let me escort you to the sherry, Lady Ariel."

_Oh no_ , Beth thought, trying to keep the distress she felt from her features. It was a very bad thing for Adam to try to come between Fanton and what he'd set his sights on. Beth knew Adam was trying to help her, by perhaps trying to court Ariel's attentions away from their stepbrother Fanton, whose eyes blazed darkly.

Ariel appeared instantly flattered. Adam was fit, tall, and handsome... any woman's desire. So, enticed, Ariel glided forward in her lavender silk gown with lace embellishments. She took Adam's arm with a delighted laugh, leaving Fanton's hand to fall free from her waist as the couple relocated to the parlor.

Belatedly, Beth thought to move. To flee from Fanton's reach. However, she'd delayed a bit too long and as she tried to follow Adam and Ariel, a dauntless hand grasped her forearm, stopping her.

"You'll do," Fanton drawled, tugging her off balance and up against his hard body clad in impeccable black and white evening attire. "You will always do, my shy, plump pet."

Beth's gaze darted to Fanton's blackened hunter's gaze and she thought to protest, loudly. But his musty breath slid tendrils across her face, and a moment later she swayed toward him.

Fanton gazed down his stepsister's ample cleavage. It appeared to him as if her big tits wanted to leap from the gown she was wearing. Quicker than a man could see, he reached forward and squeezed one of her fat breasts, and then he dropped his hand to the indent of her waist. Too late, Beth's hand lifted to brush across where he'd groped, but his hand was long gone.

_There was always Beth, so malleable_ , he thought. Yet she was a feast he dared only nibble at. Not because they were related, as they weren't related in any biblical sense, and not because they were a contrived family. That was a lie. _No_ , he thought, looking down at Beth's face as she pushed with weakened resolve against his chest trying to escape his strength. The reason he didn't devour her was that Lady Beth Winslow, his stepsister, looked very much like the one portrait he had of his mother.

"Yet," he uttered, closing his other hand to squeeze Beth's waist between both his large hands. "My mother would _never_ act as slutty as you do." Beth whimpered at the cruel clutch of his hands and her warm breath fanned his face. "But that other one, your friend," he drawled, looking up toward the parlor doors, then back down at his slutty sister swaying before him. "She looks nothing like Mother." That one was all blond with her tits barely covered like his sister's.

"You do it to _tempt_ men," Fanton bit out as Beth clawed at the front of his black evening jacket. "Worse than whores in the streets." His voice lowered into a hissing sound.

"Lord Fanton? Beth? Are you coming for sherry?" Adam's voice called from within the parlor.

Fanton sneered, releasing Beth and she stumbled backward several paces. He adjusted his facial features into as pleasant as he could arrange them. Then he looked over at Adam, who had appeared at the parlor entrance, as he said, "Our sister wants to monopolize me, little brother. I will tear her away though."

"Come on, Beth," Adam called.

Beth's multi-colored eyes blinked and she looked quite confused as Fanton sneered and walked past her toward Adam, and then around him into the parlor. He arrived in the parlor alone with the blond slut for a brief moment, and she instantly dipped her bare cleavage at him with a whore's tempting gaze fluttering his way. How quickly she forgot her other admirer, Fanton thought. He was intrigued because she was a high society piece and not a lower east-end whore.

"Lord Fanton, you must come to the ball and dance with me," she said, with husky temptations in her voice. He smiled as he circled the room, circling closer to her.

He began to wonder how fast she could run... then he wondered whether she could really scream well. In some far corner of his mind that acknowledged such things, he was surprised. The urge was rising again so quickly. He reassured himself it was simply the irresistible temptation of a noble bitch flaunting herself at him. He'd never tried one of those before.

And, she was offering...

Chapter Three

"Ariel, please stay away from Fanton," Beth remembered pleading with her only friend. Then she'd declared aloud to Ariel, damned the consequences should anyone overhear and it get back to Fanton, "He is _not_ a good man."

That had been thirty minutes ago, and Ariel had gaily laughed and patted her hand, declaring everything would be all right. Ariel had danced off with Adam, and Beth had thought she was safe. However, Beth discovered now she was gone, leaving Adam holding two glasses of punch Ariel had asked him to fetch.

"I've been around the room once, Beth, and she's not in the ballroom," Adam declared, setting the punch glasses down on a nearby table. He turned back to her, while swiping a thatch of sandy brown hair out of his eyes. "Damn," he cussed lowly.

"I am so tired of trying to warn her away from him, Adam. And she will not listen and simply take my word for it," Beth said with frustration heating her words.

"I know," Adam replied, looking down on her. "There comes a time when we should just..."

Beth gazed up at him as he left the sentence hanging and in her mind, she finished it. _Give up and she will do what she will do._ But instead she said, "I will look for her in the ladies' retiring room."

"And I will circulate through the upstairs," Adam offered.

Beth touched Adam's arm. "We will meet back here. One of us will drag her back here if we have to."

Beth watched Adam's smile as he started away, saying back to her, "We will find her."

She watched Adam with a worried gaze as he climbed the elegant staircase at the Valtimer mansion. Immediately she decided she couldn't keep putting Adam in the middle of the situation she had with Fanton. She turned toward the conclave of ladies' lower-level retiring rooms.

"After I find you, Ariel, I shall break off our friendship this very night," she muttered. She would do something she'd not considered for a very long time. She would give up her doomed search for a husband and she would apply to teach at a school for girls.

"That will take me out of your reach, Fanton," she continued beneath her breath. It would leave her brother, so full of potential, an unfettered life to live to his desires and not be worrying about her constantly.

***

"Come, Lady Ariel, walk with me in the gardens under the full moon," Fanton drawled, massaging the lady's slender neck from behind, with wisps of her blond hair curling over his moving hand.

"But he is such a gentleman, and he's gone to fetch me punch. I really should wait."

Fanton thought she spoke without any true conviction as his fingers tightened on her neck and he felt her begin to pull away from his hardened grasp. _No, no, noble slut._

"Wait," he called. "There is a new game gentlemen and ladies play who are courting that I want to teach you," he offered quickly, forcing a touch of teasing into his voice.

He felt his lady-prize stop withdrawing as she leaned closer to him. "Courting game?" she asked, now nearly breathless. He was so brilliant and she was such a slut, he thought, as his sharp gaze traversed the ballroom. No one would notice them. A moonlit walk was normal among these weak society fools.

"Come, I will show you."

Then, as easy as that, he had a high-society whore out in the deserted gardens at night... all alone. He could feel no one else walked the gardens but he and the woman of such low virtue beside him.

"The game is you shall run ahead and I stay to count, until I reach twenty, then I will come to catch you and if I'm able to catch you, you must forfeit a kiss to me."

"A courting game, Lord Fanton?" she questioned with such hope in her voice, he nearly chuckled.

"Of course, my savory treat. You and I..." He left the rest hanging for the blond slut to pick up, as he knew she would.

"For a kiss then," she said brightly. "If you can catch me!"

He told himself he would only play for a little while... this time. He would simply show himself how easy it was. Nothing more. He looked at the large glass-paneled doors to the ballroom. They were closed, but light spilled out onto the stone patio. He could hear the music and laughter as his gaze turned to the pale, moonlit gardens and beyond into the dark woods.

How easy this was. He'd never realized.

"I am counting," he declared. "One. Two."

"Oh, Lord Fanton!" she exclaimed. "Don't start yet. I am going. Oh! Don't look which way I go."

Fanton turned his back as if he were a dutiful courting puppy and he heard the swishing skirts of his prize as she skipped away. He looked up at a sliver of the full moon trying to peek through the fog, counting aloud for the twit's benefit as he wished the bobbing slut were Beth instead.

His mind began to fixate on how he would adore chasing his plump Beth deep into the dark woods, while he rolled his shoulders, shedding his evening jacket. Better yet, he would strip Beth of the fancy silk she wore, ripping the material from her lush curving figure, before he let her loose. Then he would stalk her pale, naked body. His cravat came loose and he tugged at the collar of his pristine white shirt. He would watch Beth's fat breasts and wide hips as she would try to run from him. But no. She was not fast enough to escape his power... his strength. He would run her down. His Beth would try. Oh, she would struggle so hard trying to stop him. She would attempt to fight him with her frail limbs against his powerful strength. She would try to leave him. Yet he would never... _ever_ let Beth leave him again!

Shrill sounds suddenly pierced Fanton's hearing. He snarled on the edges of a manic roar, looking down at the blood washing his hands. His body shook as he wildly looked around. What had he done? How had he come to this? Again! _So_ soon.

***

Beth heard a blood-curdling scream split the night air. It seemed to come from the woods behind the Valtimer mansion.

"Ariel!" she cried, lifting her skirts to begin running down the patio steps into the garden and beyond toward the woods. She'd lost her, and then she'd lost Adam too. He'd never returned to their rendezvous spot inside. She'd considered the gardens outside. It was the only place she hadn't searched.

"Ariel, where are you?" Beth cried, darting her gaze back to the closed ballroom doors. No one would hear her cries with the music and the doors closed. She would be all alone. "But I cannot ignore her need!" Her gaze returned to the hag-shaped woods as she ran toward them. Did she really intend to go in there?

A wrenching scream split the cold night air in front of her from deep within the haunted woods, and her steps faltered. "Adam, oh God, Adam, I wish you were here."

Beth clutched the small pearls on the necklace at her collarbone as she tried not to cry out in fear. On the scream's heels came a more frightening sound. It was like no sound she'd ever heard, and it brought her rushing steps to a halt right at the edge of the eerie, blackened woods. She couldn't tell the direction of the sound that was either terrible agony or heart-wrenching terror. Could it be an animal? She didn't know of any animal that could possibly sound like it had.

Her gaze skittered about the menacing woods. What did she know of night predators? Then thoughts rushed her. _Except for Fanton_. He was an evil creature of the night. She couldn't help herself; she called out, "Ariel! Ariel!"

Instantly, she wished she'd not cried out her presence. Her eyes leaped to the right, turning her body, then to the left. "I'm not going into those woods," she hissed with a frightened whisper.

She tried to assure her quaking conscious that by daylight the woods before her would look harmless and innocent, perhaps even inviting.

"Not as if haunted by demons," she whispered on a fierce note. Then, the sound of a woman's wretched weeping crept from deeper in the woods. It was to the right of where she stood in her dew-soaked dancing slippers — or was it straight ahead?

"Ariel?" Beth hissed with a louder whisper as though some evil wouldn't hear her lowered voice, as opposed to the high-pitched pressure seeking release as a scream. Her entire body trembled with more than the cold night air against her bared shoulders and arms in the sheerness of her now damp ball gown. She shuddered with the need to go into the woods, but the fear to do so pulled her back.

Suddenly, something rushed toward her through the woods, breaking branches to the right of where she stood. She screamed in terror, grabbing up her full skirt and fleeing into the woods toward the left. Instantly, her long hair lost the battle to stay on top of her head. It tumbled down, like a black shawl, over her shoulders as her full skirts hindered her attempts to run through the underbrush of the forest.

A malevolent sound barked out of the night air, making her gasp. An evil chuckle followed. The threatening sounds seemed to be right behind her as she shrieked and ran to the left. Her gaze jerked over her bare shoulder trying to see. She thought she saw a hulking, dark shape rushing toward her and she panted in fright, turning to the right, trying to evade it.

Something snatched at her gown, tearing the silk easily. The attack was like icy talons of evil intent, ripping silk. She screamed, stumbling to a halt with tearing material all around her. Her dark, heavy hair was as wild as a swirling shroud everywhere she turned in a frantic circle trying to evade the malevolence attacking her.

"No! No! No!" she screamed with each turn as she tried to clutch pieces of her gown back.

She felt the charged breath of death fill her nostrils with a blast of heat singeing her throat.

" _Run,_ " an ungodly voice roared.

Beth screamed and cried as she ran forward, clutching her pale, naked breasts. She'd seen fangs and red eyes as the animal attacking her howled with inhuman potency. It was a harrowing nightmare she prayed to live through as she ran with terror, and the monster chased closely behind her.

***

Trinity guided his black stallion to a halt beside Church's pure white stallion. "I wasn't asking for help yet." Trinity's voice was low as his yellow-rimmed, blue eyes flashed toward Church. His voice was modulated so perhaps his brothers, Christian and Baptiste, wouldn't hear as they settled their horses a bit behind them.

"I'd not keep those two on a leash long and let you have all the fun," Church replied, his voice level as he nodded toward their two siblings. Yet Church's voice, even devoid of inflection, held a multitude of command. Perhaps it was because he knew Church so well, Trinity thought, releasing his irritation as a lost cause. He simply didn't care for his brothers miring themselves in foulness when they'd already lived through such malevolence at their Sire's hands. He wanted it to be his mantel to now take on and leave them free. Trinity shifted in his saddle. In the end, it might be an idiotic desire he had for his brothers, who were vampires after all, yet he couldn't rid himself of it.

"I've no problem sending them back." His voice was gravelly as he sneered and held his stomping stallion steady.

"It's brothers Blacknall, not _brother_ Blacknall." Church glared at him with a stubborn tilt to his masculine face; a face most humans would call menacing even through its compelling handsomeness.

Trinity sighed, looking out into the pitchy woods in front of them. He wondered why he trained so hard to take on most of these burdens, and then Church refused to allow him his head in these matters.

"There's no blood-scent," Baptiste advised them.

"I don't detect a thing," Christian added.

"Not even the smell of the hunt," Church finished.

Then, Trinity saw all three of his brothers' gazes turning toward him.

"I feel her," he spoke softly, looking to the west.

"Her?" All three brothers spoke as one, in varying degrees of acerbic puzzlement.

Trinity's eyes narrowed into slits and he nearly let out a foul snarl. Let them wonder, he thought. He wondered. But he'd felt her the moment her terror had ripened.

"West," he snapped, turning his stallion into a sudden gallop. Let them wonder and keep up. He had no time for their questions. Questions he couldn't answer.

A hard gallop later, Trinity knew they all now smelled the blood of a fresh kill as he halted his stallion and swung down from his saddle. The moment his boots touched the ground he began to sprint forward.

"Trinity, where are you going? Wait!"

Trinity looked over his shoulder at Baptiste, giving him a sharp growl, but not stopping his forward run. He knew the woods were a swatch of forest behind a long cobble-stoned lane of noble-owned mansions on Kings Row. The tract of woods was wide and eventually yielded into a large park by the Rothberry Road.

His thick, dark-blond hair whipped about his head and upper shoulders as he ran. He could track straight for the fresh blood, or he could race toward the terrified woman, who was still alive.

Chapter Four

"You look troubled, sir."

Adam turned toward the deep voice behind him to find a blond nobleman regarding him, while the man's voice reverberated through him even after the sound was gone. Adam noticed the gentleman wasn't dressed for a ball but wore outdoor attire showing a fit and muscular frame. The man regarding him with soulful, dark blue eyes over a goatee that molded around his wide mouth was no noble fop laying about on his title.

That the man could tell his unrest simply by looking at him spoke volumes about his distress, Adam thought, worrying a hand through spikes of his sandy hair. His eyes continued to dart across the voluminous ballroom. "My sister," he uttered, showing his desperation by blurting his distress to a complete stranger, "is missing." His hand scrubbed his jaw on the strident note.

"And you fear for her safety?"

Adam's gaze darted to the man. A very comely man with a voice like warm, red wine. He wasn't so very old as his first glance assumed. It was the man's trim goatee that hid his younger, but very handsome, face.

"Yes," Adam hissed, and then without further comment or worry of rudeness he started forward. He would try the kitchen.

"I'll help you," the man's soothing voice sounded as he strode beside him.

"I've looked everywhere." Adam lifted his hand and slashed it through the air with frustration. "She is searching for her friend and now I have lost her."

"We will find them." The man's quiet confidence seemed to fill Adam's desperation and soothe his rising panic.

"I'm, Lord Adam Winslow." Adam glanced at his companion and nodded.

"Mr. Christian Blacknall. Good to meet you. I wish the circumstances were better." Christian Blacknall's hand reached across his chest and Adam's met him halfway for a short, firm handshake.

Adam could tell Christian was a nobleman, as he was, even though Christian was dressed in casual traveling attire in the middle of an ongoing ball. If he found it strange... Adam didn't let himself consider it, because he had worries that were more pressing.

"There." Christian pointed and Adam turned with him toward the kitchen.

What gnawed at Adam was the fact Fanton was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you seen a lady with black hair and a green ball gown?" Adam fairly attacked the first kitchen worker he saw with hissed voice and glare. The lad was tall and lanky, and he could not be more than sixteen. Adam's hand clasped the lad's shoulder. "Have you?" he demanded. The lad seemed to stutter with no words, but wide eyes that a gentleman was accosting him.

Then an older man's voice said, "The boy knows nothing, my lord. No lady would be back here in the kitchens."

Adam's gaze jumped toward the voice of an elderly worker as he held onto the boy.

Christian interceded, "Oh, good worker, we know a lady would not normally visit here. But, sir, we fear this is not normal and we pray you could tell us or anyone here if they have seen her."

Adam blinked and the awareness of his agitation softened as his hand relaxed on the lad. He was amazed at the quality of Christian Blacknall's voice... and his compelling demeanor. He felt the man's warmth soothing him.

"Ah, my lord, I'll ask around for sure." The elder kitchen worker turned away.

At that moment, the lad looked up at Adam, and he whispered. "I did see a lady with long black hair running in the gardens while I was taking a wee break."

Adam's gaze jerked toward Christian's dark blue eyes. Christian nodded and Adam felt like clasping him into an embrace. Suddenly afraid something might show on his face, he tugged his gaze away, letting his fingers release the lad and he moved to stride toward the back kitchen door.

The lad offered a bit more in a much stronger voice as he moved away. "I didn't think much of it, sir, as I saw a blond lady earlier doing the same thing. We thought it was a new noble's daft, err... I didn't mean that! But a game or some foolishness."

Adam barely heard the end of what the lad said before he was out the back door of the kitchens, striding into the night. The fact that Beth was running, and her hair was down, scared him. Something was very wrong.

"Beth!" he shouted, and then he began running toward the large, dark expanse that was the gardens. "Beth!"

Adam felt the aura of Christian sprinting beside him and once again he was glad for the man's presence. Lights from the back of the mansion lighted the extensive gardens into ghostly, glowing shadows as Adam realized Beth could be anywhere in the large area. Suddenly, a darker shadow than the rest loomed in front of them and Adam nearly went into a fighting stance, but for Christian's hand on his arm.

Christian's voice halted him. "Lord Adam Winslow, it's my brother, Baptiste Blacknall, Earl of Sterling."

Adam huffed a labored breath from his desperate running as he looked at the man. He couldn't make out the man's features very well in the gloom, but he did see the trait of blond hair that appeared to run in Christian Blacknall's family.

"Christian, it's this way," Lord Baptiste uttered, pointing toward the woods before he started forward. "Did you find anything inside?"

"What is this way?" Adam demanded, grabbing the back of the twill fabric on Christian's jacket as he rushed forward with the two men. _Why were they here?_ The question began to chant loudly inside Adam's skull. "And what were you looking for?" he demanded.

"His sister is out here, Baptiste," Christian's voice uttered as Adam wondered about both men's sure movements through the murky woods. As it was, he had to hold onto Christian's forearm to guide him through the dark tangles of branches and underbrush. He halted his retorts, listening to the two odd men.

"There are _two_ out here then," Lord Baptiste expelled as a statement more than a question. "Trinity seems to sense the one still alive, but you can smell the blood of the other."

"Blood!" Adam exclaimed, feeling more fear stabbing him as one glowing shot of stark moonlight broke through the fog and tree branches overhead. He saw Lord Baptiste turn his gaze back to them.

Lord Baptiste expelled sharply, "You'd best prepare him, if you insist on involving him. 'Tis bloody."

Adam could swear he heard an animalistic bass snarl come from Christian's direction, but then Christian said, "He'd be out here with or without us. Better with us."

Adam was startled at the yellow, animal-like glints he'd seen in Lord Baptiste's eyes in that one moment when he'd looked back. He wondered why these men were out in the woods as if they knew some deadly deed was occurring and knew it before it had happened. However, most of all, the thought of something bloody up ahead terrorized him.

"Beth!" he began to shout. "Beth!"

"Here," Lord Baptiste called, coming to a halt ahead of them. "But be prepared," Lord Baptiste growled, halting next to Christian as he looked back at Adam.

_They are yellow beast eyes_ , Adam thought in alarm, nearly backing away from the entity that was Baptiste, who had growled his words like an animal.

"Control yourself!" Christian shouted, and Adam watched Baptiste's features contort as Baptiste stretched his neck toward the moon, then back down again.

"'Tis the blood," Baptiste snarled.

"I know, brother," Christian uttered, grabbing Baptiste's shoulder. "Fresh blood is the hardest. But we will resist."

_Hardest what_ , Adam wondered? Resist what? He growled himself in scared frustration and plowed between both strange men, until he saw what was on the other side of Baptiste.

"Oh Lord, no! Oh Lord!" Adam cried, crumbling to his knees in horror before the bloody and torn apart remains on the forest ground before him that had once been a woman.

"Lady Ariel!" he cried at the blonde hair he saw, but more the tattered pieces of lavender silk.

Chapter Five

Beth didn't know how she stayed upright, but the vicious and snarling voice kept howling at her to, "Run!"

It came from her left side, and then it stalked her from the right side. Suddenly it snapped right behind her and she could feel scalding hot breath wash over her bare buttocks. She knew the beast was playing with her. It meant to kill her. Its intentions loomed over her like its black shape. The more she screamed and panted, the more the monster howled and she was running out of breath and strength.

She could barely see through the wildness of her long hair to keep from running head long into trees. Branches jabbed her flesh. The fact her gown was torn from her body, along with her petticoats, leaving only a half corset covering her waist, mortified her as much as terror gripped her.

She was going to die.

Trinity caught the flashes of alabaster skin off to the left and in front of where he ran through the brambles. The woman's screaming had stopped many minutes ago, and he had to guess the foul beast hunting her had nearly run her to ground.

He veered his headlong sprint towards the glimpses of pale flesh he kept catching sight of through thickly-grouped trees surrounded by scattered bushes. His timing to reach the young woman before the vile monster leapt to kill her was too close to think he'd make it. The threatening roar he released was of a maddened vampire reverberating through the night air. The abhorrence would recognize his thundering challenge.

He heard the woman cry out... in pain this time. Instantly he smelled blood, as he bellowed, "No!" Then his large body crashed through a small opening in the foliage.

He realized too late he was moving much too fast to halt his forward motion, when suddenly the woman was there... as if pushed forward toward his unchecked momentum. He only had seconds to react and he grasped her against his body. Her long black hair whipped around them as he turned to take the brunt of an inevitable fall. He landed on his back with the woman piled on top of him. Then he heard the triumphant howl of escape from the foul beast fading into the distance.

Trinity held tight to the voluptuous young woman as he arched his back and shouted his anger at losing his chance to kill the abhorrence. "I _will_ find you!" he bellowed.

He became aware of the woman screaming as she thrashed on top of him. More powerful than her ineffectual attempts at breaking his hold, while she screamed shrilly into his ear, were the scents of her fresh blood, choking him. It was a quality of blood scent he'd _never_ inhaled before.

His savage and barely-controlled inner hunter snarled to life. Fangs punched past his lips as twin weapons, gluttonous for the smell of pure virgin's blood pumping from cuts on the woman's struggling body. Ravenous hunger clogged his throat as he'd not felt since he was a young and uncontrolled vampire. Then, before he had any hope of exerting his willpower over the sudden monstrous cravings, his body turned, flipping the woman onto her back. He landed, pouncing over her. His fangs ready to strike, while the veins in his body throbbed for the blood he could smell.

Why was her blood so fucking potent?

The animalistic snarl that lunged from his throat clashed with the woman's frightened sobs, and her wide eyes gazed up at him with horror polished in their depths. Her small hands pounded against his upper chest as her bare hips and legs thrashed, trying to push his body off. His hard erection beneath his britches pounded for her submission, ordering his hips forward to press the rigid length down into her soft center, crushing her lower body's struggle to a halt.

The woman whimpered in fear. Then she cried, "Oh no! No!"

The strangled animalistic sound he made choked the woman's cried words into panting silence, as if she believed halting any motion would make the vicious animal set to strike her miss.

Beth couldn't stand the predator's gaze of yellow eyes with red glints slashed in the centers. She whimpered with sheer terror, jerking her gaze to the side, clenching her eyelids. She'd seen the long white fangs and she'd heard the animalistic snarls that came from the beast surely set to kill her. First, a monster hunted her and now another apparition held her captive. Yet the powerful menace against her felt like a man with hands, arms, legs, and a heavy chest. She felt men's trousers along her bare legs, and she felt a jacket fallen open over her breasts. Was it a man?

_Why didn't it strike_? her mind wailed, as her breath heaved. Was this the beast that chased her? She thought not. But her questions and abject terror paled in comparison when she felt a hardened length pressing into her core... and what that foretold, nearly caused her to fall into hysteria.

"Don't move!" The commanding voice was a tense baritone with the aftereffects of a growl.

The appearance of human words so surprised her panicked state, she jerked her gaze toward the sound as her body quaked in reaction. Had someone come to save her?

_"Don't,"_ the beast above her commanded, "Move."

To hear the semblance of a human's voice in the world gone so mad made her hopes flare unrealistically. Yet they did all the same. She wanted to live.

"Trinity!" a man's voice shouted from the forest surrounding them.

The beast's head jerked upward to look over her head and away from stalking her with its blazing and vulturous, yellow eyes.

"Stop, brother! Don't bite her, Trinity!" the voice rang out from the distance.

Beth felt the air she held suspended leave her lungs as her hands flattened on the chest above her. _Bite her?_ She cringed.

" _Virgin's_ blood," the beast-man above her snarled viciously. "So potent you can smell it. _Never_ felt this hunger before!" His voice growled, making her whimper and squirm against him with the intense need to run.

"Trinity! Brother!"

"I _will_ fight it, Church," her beast-man vowed, half snarled, half shouted as his chest heaved into her chest. "Move away!" he yelled.

"For our mother!" the voice, called Church, returned.

Beth didn't understand anything that had happened that night. How could she end up nearly naked beneath a primal man-beast? So many things were beyond the comprehension of her innocent life. However, she did understand — or perhaps she wanted it so badly to be true — that the man called Trinity, imprisoning her, was trying to fight the urge to strike her. He couldn't be the one that had chased her through the night forest because that presence held a livid and evil malevolence toward her.

"I will rise upward and give you my jacket," the creature called Trinity said. His voice held strange inflections through the large fangs extending from his mouth. It also seemed he promised the action as though to convince himself.

Beth tensed more, trying to slow her panting breath, halfway certain he wouldn't win the battle as he began to rise upward. Then, with his arms locked on either side of her, he stopped moving, but his other worldly eyes didn't stop traveling. He looked over her face, and then he looked downward toward her bare chest. She gasped a squeal of embarrassment chasing her fear, as caution be damned, she jerked her arms between them to cover her breasts.

"You are very beautiful," his tense voice emitted lowly. His hand rose and she would have flinched away, but his gaze held her immobile. His fingers touched her cheek and they felt cold as he curled them and he stroked over the curve of her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

"Please," she begged for her life, and the red glints in his eyes seemed to dull within the yellow. His hand lifted to her temple and he did the most extraordinary thing. He wrote a cross upon her temple with his fingers.

"For my mother," he growled lowly.

Beth could feel the incredible tautness in his body above her. He nearly quivered with tenseness, and then he continued to rise off her lower body, until the cold night air flashed across her nakedness.

It was the most unheard of position she'd ever been in. She'd never so much as shown her ankle to a gentleman. To be nude was horrifying as she laid there shaking with mortification. Then a warm jacket fell on top of her and she snatched it against her body... overwhelmed.

"Put it on," the man's hoarse voice ordered from the darkness above her.

"I-I," she mewled, her body quaking.

" _Don't_ make me touch your skin again," his voice demanded.

Then it seemed to Beth as if her body was held by strings he pulled. She sat upright even though she thought she couldn't. Next, her arms jerkily lifted to turn the coat behind her and put her hands through the sleeves.

Her hair was a rampant mess around her and half was caught beneath the jacket, but she didn't care. She hurriedly buttoned it, to cover herself, buttoning from the bottom to the top, but the last two buttons wouldn't close over her bosom. It seemed extremely important to her that they should close and tears burned her eyes again that she couldn't get them shut.

Trinity held himself rigid against striking and taking the virgin's blood, even as it pounded in his veins with the demand to do so. Never had the demand for a human's blood been so strong. He'd never experienced a test as severe and he knew it was about to get worse as he sensed the rapidly beating heart in the tender, nude virgin at his feet.

He wanted to howl as he lifted his face, flipping back heavy wedges of his long hair. He breathed in the cold night air as his mind went through a mantra he used when he trained his body to fight. A minute later, some of the tenseness left him as he silently intoned the mantra. He _was_ stronger than his urges. He willed his fangs back and his fingernails to recede. He knew the yellow predator in his eyes cooled.

"I will _not be_ a foul beast that hunts without morality," he rumbled from deep inside.

He had to get the woman out of the woods to safety. There were many problems with all that had happened within the hollow hours of morning and the consequences of it all touched his thoughts. Nevertheless, he focused on the immediate need, and he wondered once he picked the woman up into his arms and he started to carry her from the woods, where the hell was he going to take her?

Something about it angered him and when he bent down there was fiercer growling in his voice than he intended. "Grasp my shoulders. I will take you out of these woods."

The woman made a feminine yelp of fright and she scooted away from him with pale, shapely legs showing and his hunting jacket losing the battle to cover her large, plump breasts. At that moment, it seemed as though scattered moonlight through the lifting fog chose her naked breasts to gleam upon. He could feel the hot blood pumping through her veins, the virgin cove between her thighs, and his erection's interested lust for her ripe, curving body. It posed a three-way attack against his willpower. Why this virgin? _This had never happened before_.

"I do not have the prudent time to hold out and calm your sensibilities, maiden," Trinity snarled as he strode to the girl, and then he grasped her arms with his superior strength.

"Just let me go!" she cried, and then she squealed as he swung her upward and planted her struggling body over his shoulder.

"And just where would you go in these dark woods with that foul monster trying to kill you, maiden?" Trinity mocked her ridiculous pleas as his wide hand clamped over the creamy-textured flesh of her outer thigh.

His eyeteeth pricked as the cloud of her temptations worked to overpower his resolve again, and she responded with crying accusations. "You are the monster!"

Incensed with more than fury, he growled like the beast he could be as he started forward swiftly through the woods. "I've not hurt you, have I?"

The girl was frantically trying to hold down his jacket over her bare ass upended over his shoulder, while her other hand was clutched like a claw of nails through his shirt and into his back.

_Pain was good_ , he thought. It could make the un-dead feel alive. But as he rushed through the forest carrying his bleeding, nubile virgin, a thought relentlessly scratched at him. Why was the woman not affected by his bloodlust and his carnally aroused allure? Normally, when a male vampire's lust became fixated with a woman in close proximity, he exuded an appeal that enslaved and mesmerized the woman he lusted for. It couldn't be stopped. If a vampire's shaft was hard, the unwilling became willing.

He despised it.

Beth couldn't believe the strength of the man that carried her. She wanted him to be a man. He spoke like a man, so she made him a man. Not a beast. It felt better when she decided he was a man named Trinity, and he was trying to help her. _Not_ eat her.

Besides, all the blood in her body had pooled into her head from the position she was being carried in. It made her feel lightheaded as her long hair trailed down to the back of Trinity's calves. His pants were lighter colored than her hair and on different bounces of her body, she could see the black ends whipping against the material as he strode forward.

It came to her in snatches that she'd read a romantic tale once about a great warrior saving a damsel and carrying her away over his shoulder. It had sounded so enthralling at the time. However, in reality it was horrid and jarring and completely breath-snatching as she moaned and felt a black curtain of unconsciousness fall over her.

Chapter Six

"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 Beth 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

Trinity held his left arm out from his side as virgin's blood dripped from the cuff of his shirt. He needed to feed and feed quickly before his hard-fought control snapped and he did something he would regret for eternity

"Baptiste has brought down a buck. It still lives," Church called to him from deeper in the woods. "Come, feed, Trinity. We will all feed and regain our purpose."

Trinity sprinted toward redemption... this time, and as he ran, he tore his shirt off, throwing it aside. There was still blood on his hand and when he came across a small stream, he stopped to wash it off. Crouching, he looked at the blood drying on his hand and fingers, wondering how they'd all lived this long and not known virgin's blood held such diabolical and monumental cravings for them.

Forcibly, he sunk his hand into the water, when all he wanted to do was lick the blood from his fingers. He growled, shaking his entire body, and then he used his other hand to wash and rub the blood away from his chest, arm, and hand. He felt Church's presence and he looked up to see his brother standing across the small stream. Church's face looked relaxed and his fangs were receded. Church had fed.

"Come, little brother, it's not far." Church inclined his head and Trinity rose from his crouch, stepping across the stream to stop beside his older brother. Church's hand clamped his shoulder. "Well done, brother, you saved that woman."

Trinity wondered if that were true why he felt as though he'd marked or scarred the young woman for life. He ignored Church's praise and he sprinted toward the blood he voraciously needed. Normally, he didn't take animal blood as Baptiste, and especially Christian, did. Animal blood did sustain, yet wasn't satisfying. Of course, Christian couldn't find it within his faith to drink from newly dead corpses, Trinity's preferred food. Christian never denounced him for it or the freshly-leeched blood he drank that their ally, Doctor Latham or others of his like, gifted them with.

Trinity reached the buck just as the last of its noble life left it and he knelt beside it offering a silent prayer for its sacrifice, which he was certain all his brothers might be surprised he did. He began to feed with a need harsher than he'd felt in a long time as he heard his brothers' intense conversation above him.

"I've not come so close to losing my control in so long I'd forgotten what it felt like. Forgot the overpowering demand," Christian admitted, with his voice sounding confused.

"I felt it once in the last year," Baptiste said, surprising them all. "I think she was on a monthly and I strayed too close."

"That's never been a problem before." Church's voice was on edge. "Why didn't you say something, Baptiste?"

"Damnation, Church, you know we never speak about women or sexual relations together. All we do is argue about it or don't know how to handle it." Baptiste glared at Church.

"You should tell us everything, especially something this important."

Baptiste ignored Church's rise of temper, saying, "I've thought about it ever since it happened and really the only conclusion I could come to was we're reaching our prime as men beneath this damned vampire's curse."

Trinity wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, straightening his torso. "And men in their prime, physically, seek virginity, health, and youth above all else to spread their seed." He practically snarled out the words as the trueness of it sank into his soul.

"So an innocent young virgin, freshly bleeding, shouted to our darker natures," Christian said, then he added, "Then the murdered one was surely not a virgin."

Trinity could feel his bloodlust retreating with his blood intake and feelings of fullness slowly seeped through his body. His maddening hunger was abating. As he stood to form a circle with his brothers under the full moon now escaped from the clinging fog, he still felt edgy with thoughts of a maiden named Beth.

"What we need to know," Church said as he leveled a glare at each of them in turn, "is why none of us could track the murderer's movements or blood?"

"But Trinity, was—" Baptiste began.

"I followed the woman," Trinity injected. He felt the rise of his brothers' curiosity over this. However, he was in no mood to discuss what he couldn't understand.

Whether Church understood his complicated feelings or not, Church passed the question by, moving on. "We cannot scent every vampire." Church shrugged his broad shoulders in the twilight. "None of us knew when our stepfather, Nikkos, was around."

"Some of those women he forced us to bring to him..." Christian's yellow-rimmed blue eyes looked as haunted as they all felt.

"Had to be virgins." Trinity arched his neck with a growling voice.

"That adds another line of proof to my theory." Baptiste remained the clear, scientific head among them. "They didn't overly tempt us, then."

Trinity slowly looked along the dense tree line. "So we have a murderer that could be a vampire or not."

"But this monster tears apart its victims like an animal." Church punched his fist into his palm.

"Some could easily accuse us of being animals." Trinity sneered.

"You're cynical to think such a thing." Baptiste grasped his shoulder. "We've all conquered our baser inclinations."

Trinity didn't stop his leering cynicism as strange intuitions began to claw through him. Really, they'd never left his concern. He turned his gaze to the west. _Why could he feel this one lone woman and her fears?_ Unable to ignore his concern, he suddenly started forward, becoming a blur with vampire's speed. "I _must_ go."

"Brother!" Church yelled with a voice that wanted him to stop,

Trinity kept going, and then Christian was beside him. "Don't try to stop me," Trinity warned.

"Nay, brother." Christian laughed. "Just take my jacket, will you?"

Christian tossed the jacket toward him, and Trinity caught it. "Thank you."

His direction was his horse and he heard Christian speaking loudly to him, "When you see to the lady's welfare, see that the brother fairs well too."

Trinity raised a hand aloft as he ran, in acknowledgment of Christian's request. At least one brother didn't find his sudden urges strange and unfathomable.

***

Beth felt pain stabbing across her back, and she didn't understand how she'd not felt it in the woods before. Vicious eyes like the inky, black depths of a lightless pool flashed through her mind and she gasped, remembering the pain of the slashing cut. But after...

After that, she only remembered the dark and mystifying Lord Trinity. She shuddered against Adam as he carried her and he chased after... Beth tried to make her mind focus, but it was so hard and she desperately wanted to go to sleep. She wanted to hide from everything that was so horrible. If only the pain would let her sleep.

"Beth!" Adam looked down at Beth jostling in his arms. She'd gone limp and he could see her eyes were closed. He knew enough from classes he'd taken at the university to know she was still in physical danger. She was so cold, combined with shaking, and the presence of some wound he'd heard Lord Trinity speak of that could put Beth into shock's clutches.

"Damnation!" Adam shouted. "If this is how you treat your friends in need, I'd not want your friendship. My god, Lady Ariel, she's passed out and needs our help desperately!"

Adam gasped a labored breath of relief when he saw Lady Ariel finally stop running away. She'd nearly made it to the steps at the back of the mansion before she turned back.

"Thank god," he heaved, slowing his pace slightly to intercept Lady Ariel as she hurried back to them. He could see Lady Ariel was shuddering in the cold night air in her inadequate ball gown and her once perfectly-styled blond hair had fallen about her bare shoulders.

"Beth!" Lady Ariel exclaimed with her small hand reaching up to touch Beth's cheek. There were tears in Lady Ariel's eyes. "She has to be all right." She looked up at him beseechingly.

"She will be," he reassured her, when for some odd reason he'd been so angry at her moments before. "We need our carriage. She needs a blanket and warmth," he stated, starting forward again, and then he asked, "Were you with Lord Fanton? Is he still here? Gads, I hope he's not taken the carriage."

"He wanted me to play some silly game out in the gardens and it was so dark," Lady Ariel said out of breath beside him, trying to keep up. "I-I," she stuttered, and then she seemed to force herself to blurt, "I left him..." Her voice trailed off.

Adam came around the side of the mansion and he saw the line of resting carriages. Good god, he thought, how hard would it be to identify theirs? "A game?" he asked, distracted, as he looked at the line of dark carriages, trying without luck to pick out any defining characteristics. There had to be well over thirty.

"A courting game," she answered breathlessly, stopping beside where he'd stopped. Her words jerked his attention back. It was too dark to tell, but he was certain Lady Ariel blushed. She hurried on, saying, "But for the longest time I couldn't find you or Beth. I search the entire ball, but then a servant boy said you'd gone to the gardens... S-So I braved them again... for Beth." Lady Ariel patted Beth's shoulder. "Has he hurt her terribly?" she asked in an agonized murmur.

Adam had turned his eyes back toward the carriages again, distracted at Lady Ariel's long explanation. He saw a carriage pulling out of line and a footman jumping off the back to come towards them. What miracle was this?

"He might have tried to kill her out there in those woods," Adam muttered, glancing down at Beth limp in his arms. He really had no idea of the impact of his words. "I think this is our carriage footman. Come on."

He heard the swishing of Lady Ariel's skirts beside him as he once again hurried forward to meet the footman. His one thought was to get Beth safe, warm, and home in bed. Perhaps then, Lady Ariel could check Beth for any wounds. The murdered woman in the woods bothered him greatly. He had to tell the authorities, but Beth's welfare was more important at the moment.

"The gentleman said to bring the carriage up fer you, my lord," the footman announced upon reaching them. Adam didn't halt, and the footman turned to walk with them.

"Gentleman?" Adam questioned.

"Aye, I didn't catch his name, sir. He was tall with blonde hair and a goatee. Not dressed for the party though."

_Christian Blacknall._ Adam's gaze scanned the area, but somehow he knew he wouldn't see the handsome Mr. Blacknall about.

"I hope we done right," the footman stammered.

"Yes-yes," Adam answered. "Hurry ahead and open the door. Get out as many lap blankets as you have."

Adam reached the carriage and he didn't stop, but he carried Beth up into it, laying her on the seat. "Lady Ariel, we need to make her warm, but can you check for a wound first?"

"Adam?" Lady Ariel questioned, crouched up inside the carriage beside him.

He was trying to untangle the cloak from around Beth's limp body, as he said, "It would be more proper if you do this..."

Lady Ariel made a strangled sound beside him, and then she cried, "Her clothes! Oh lord in heaven. She's not got all her clothes on!"

Adam turned his gaze toward Lady Ariel's shrieking, seeing her backing out of the carriage. "Wait! You cannot go," he insisted with anger shaking his words.

"I can't! I can't!" Lady Ariel cried. "I'm so sorry!" She whirled around to flee away toward the mansion.

"Damnation," Adam cursed, folding the cloak back over Beth. He grasped two lap blankets to cover her as he lifted her up and held her in his arms. Her head fell against his chest and he stroked the tangled strands of her long hair.

"Driver! On to the Westfield mansion as quickly as possible," he ordered with a shout.

Chapter Eight

Adam knew things were dire. Life-changing events had occurred that night. Yet he could only be grateful Beth was alive as he remembered the bloody remains he'd seen in the woods.

"Beth, oh, Beth."

His heart wound around the words as he grasped her tighter against the sway of the carriage. He worried that she didn't wake and still felt so cold. He wondered what he needed to do first when he reached his step uncle's mansion. Then they were pulling up front and he saw another carriage was there as he thought sourly of Fanton. He simply knew Fanton had something to do with the terrible events that had transpired.

"If I find out you did," Adam hissed. "I will beat you unconscious, Fanton."

The carriage halted and he was readying to order the driver to fetch a doctor, when a gentleman he'd never seen before opened the carriage door.

"I'm Dr. Latham, Lord Winslow. I was sent by Blacknall," the thin, elderly gentleman stated briskly. "I understand the lady requires attention?"

Adam was surprised... a bit startled, if the truth be known. "Yes," he rushed to answer the doctor as the man finished opening the door.

The doctor leaned in with a lantern held high. He clasped his palm over Beth's forehead. "No fever." He squinted through his spectacles. "That's good. We need to bring her inside."

"She won't wake up." Adam knew his anxiety showed.

"A bit of shock, I'm sure. She will be all right," Doctor Latham said.

"You know what happened?" Adam asked as he followed the doctor's urging hand to carry Beth down out of the carriage.

"Blacknall explained the events pertinent to this young lady's care," Doctor Latham supplied, evenly.

"Which one?" Adam asked as they reached the opened front entryway into the mansion. "Which Blacknall sent you?"

"Lord Trinity, Marquis Montrose," Doctor Latham answered with brisk efficiency. "I've taken the liberty and had my servant set a fire in a small bed chamber we found down the west hall. It looked unoccupied, and I didn't want to waste time trying to discover the lady's proper bed chamber." Adam looked blankly at this as he followed the man. Doctor Latham added, "No one seemed about when we took the liberties."

Adam knew no one would be about. His elderly step uncle and his one indoor servant, Spindle, would be well-bedded and snoring. The cook and her husband, the outdoor man, lived in a cottage set at the very back of the large property. That left Fanton, who'd hired the carriage and footman for the evening, otherwise they'd not had one. Beth would have used Lady Ariel's if Fanton hadn't interfered.

_If I get my hands on Fanton_ , Adam thought, just as Doctor Latham opened the door to the small bedchamber alight with a warm fire. A middle-aged woman in a dark, serviceable dress with a long white apron stood beside the bed. She had its comforter and blankets folded back and waiting. Adam felt his knees wobble with relief at finding better-qualified people to help his sister.

"Come, lay her down, Lord Winslow," Doctor Latham said.

As Adam laid Beth down, she made a whimpering sound and he nearly did fall to his knees with relief. Her unconsciousness had scared him. "Beth," he murmured brushing his lips to her temple.

"If you don't mind waiting outside, my lord," Doctor Latham said.

"Of course." Adam straightened, scraping a hand through his hair. "Please keep me advised." As he turned to leave, he saw the doctor's medical tools lying on a side table with a porcelain bowl of steaming water, and he appreciated the fact that they seemed to be proficient.

Once the door clicked shut behind Lord Winslow, Trinity stepped out of the shadows from the corner of the room. The scant shadows in the corner wouldn't have been enough for a normal man to go undetected in.

"You'll not want to stay. There's fresh blood," Doctor Latham advised him without turning from his task of unwrapping the cloak from around Lady Beth Winslow.

"I can withstand my baser inclinations," Trinity muttered, and Doctor Latham glanced at him with one raised eyebrow. "With her," Trinity finished lowly.

If he'd not gotten a fair look at Lady Beth before, he did now. She had black hair so dark it appeared as flowing ink against her ivory flesh. Her face was riveting to him with a slender nose, pretty lips, and a cup-shaped chin. Even the intensity of his interest to look at her face was certainly overcome by the tug of his brazen gaze to her large bare breasts and the thatch of ebony hair between her pale shapely thighs. She had on what he could only imagine women called a half-corset with black lace and ruffles setting off her firm breasts and framing her soft sex.

Doctor Latham and his matronly helper lifted the lady onto her side and he saw the ragged claw mark slashed across her back. Blood oozed from the wound and his body tensed further than it had at the sight of her naked body by firelight, until he assured himself he _was_ stronger than the urge for her blood. His tongue scoured over one of his fangs as he wondered if he was stronger than the lust that cackled at him while looking at her.

"It's deep enough for stitches," Doctor Latham said. "Yet I'd not want to give her laudanum for the pain as I believe she's in shock."

Trinity's gaze rose in agitation. _He didn't want her hurt._ He stepped back a pace. He was staggered by the blast of emotions. Bloody hell, where had it come from? More shockingly, Lady Beth whimpered the intimacy of his first name. His gaze spun to her red lips as if he could see her still forming his name in her delirium.

"Is she awake?" he asked with a harsh growl in his voice.

Doctor Latham lifted a needle to the candlelight with thicker thread looped through it. "No, but she will be as soon as we set the first stitch."

"I will hold her." Trinity wondered at his eagerness and his sanity.

Doctor Latham straightened, giving him a dubious scowl, while shaking his head, but he said nothing. Latham knew better than to question him. Trinity was more than capable of questioning himself over his motives. Why he was there in the first place? Because his little virgin was hurt.

He nearly shouted a curse, digging his hand through his long dark blond hair. He'd not have her tied to the bed and that was the only other way. Tied, she'd still move and tear the flesh at her wrists and ankles. It was possible he had a way to calm her if it became necessary.

It was an extreme idea. Although with Beth... and he caressed the intimacy of her given name in his mind, it might not work as some of his vampire ways seemed not to affect her like other humans. It would take more willpower than he'd used thus far trying it, and if his "trying" didn't work she could be in deeper trouble. Yet, Baptiste's experiments with vampire traits and human reactions had shown the anomaly.

He pushed the thoughts aside. He would decide if the time came. He reached to button the jacket Christian had given him. He didn't need his bare flesh pressed to her bare flesh, he thought, watching the woman helper remove Beth's half-corset. Beth's long, dark eyelashes fluttered, but she remained with her eyes closed and he wondered what color her eyes were as his gaze trailed down the full curves of her nude body.

He wanted to be on top of her, spread over the soft curves of her body, and he wondered if it had the most to do with sensing and smelling the heady vapors of her virgin's blood. Is that what made him hunger to thrust his hard shaft deep inside her and hope she would clamp her legs high on his back, while crying his name with hot tempests of passion.

He hissed through his fangs, trying to shake the vivid image taunting him, and he said curtly to Latham, "Warn her brother about her screams."

Ten minutes later, everything was ready and Trinity climbed onto the bed. There was no graceful way to accomplish holding Beth down to receive the stitches that her frail human body needed. Nevertheless, he was strong — inhumanly strong.

They turned Beth onto her stomach. Doctor Latham's servant sat on Beth's legs, while Trinity took Beth's wrists above her head, holding them immobile with one hand. Beth's long hair was twisted and tied on top of her head and he pressed his other hand onto her shoulders and the back of her neck.

Beth awoke screaming, feeling the pain of an animal slashing her back again. Only she couldn't run away this time. _She couldn't move._

"Maiden, be strong." Lord Trinity's voice urged her, and the strong, growling sound of it caught her attention. She wailed as another stab of pain lanced across her back.

"Trinity, help me!" she cried, trying desperately to thrash her body away from the pain. Yet, she was unable to move more than a few inches.

" _Keep_ her still," a voice ordered sharply.

"Beth, you must stay still." Trinity's voice rumbled close to her ear.

With her face turned to the side, she unclenched her eyes seeing one of Trinity's yellow-stamped eyes gazing close to hers. The pain stabbed again and she flinched with more tears pooling, as he uttered, "Breathe through it, maiden."

_What were they doing to her_? she wondered, and desperation had her gasping a hard breath.

"Stitching closed the animal's claw mark across your back," Trinity's voice sounded next to her ear.

She was startled that he answered her unvoiced question, but then the pain bit into her back again and she mewled bitterly against it. _No, no, no_ , she screamed in her mind as she struggled and begged with whimpers to escape the pain.

"Hellfire," Trinity cursed with a snarl, then she heard him harshly order, "Hold, Dr. Latham."

"But, I'm halfway through," the doctor's voice sounded with tension.

All Beth heard through the staggering pain was, " _Halfway_ through." She panicked, losing any courage she possessed. She wrenched her wrists against the unyielding hand holding them as she jerked her hips trying to throw the weight off, holding her down.

Trinity realized he could have the strength of ten men, but he would easily break Beth's fragile flesh and bones if he used it.

" _I'll_ give her my blood," he hissed, trying to hold Beth's thrashing body down without hurting her. His voice, which normally sounded with conviction, this time, rang with doubt as he glared at Doctor Latham.

Latham nodded his head, saying, "All of Baptiste's experiments with the feeders we've managed to save, those poor souls, have shown an overwhelming calming effect."

"With no harm?" Trinity demanded through the chunkiness of his fangs fully extended. The beast inside him was perversely interested.

"None has been recorded to date," Latham answered. "And she's going to pull the stitches out if we don't do —"

Trinity cut him off with a growl and his arm extended. He flipped his wrist upward. "Cut it!"

He would have done it himself, but he needed at least one hand to hold Beth from struggling off the bed. Doctor Latham cut his wrist and unnaturally dark blood began to pool.

Beth was struggling so much he had to force his wrist to her panting mouth. "Drink it, maiden," he commanded with a strident voice, leaving little choice.

Chapter Nine

Beth smelled a scent she'd never encountered before and the overpowering strength of it halted her thrashing head. Quickly, cold, thick liquid pressed to her lips. Her scattered thoughts held no reason, and then she heard the voice she'd learned to trust commanding her... and she drank.

Heat seeped into the tissues of her mouth, then down her throat. She moaned... and without her immediate knowledge, her body began to relax as she sucked more of the intoxicating liquid into her mouth. Her emotional and deranged thoughts began to sharpen into sanity. All at once, she knew where she was. She knew what was happening and she knew why. The miracle was she was no longer afraid.

"Finish it, Doctor," Trinity's voice sounded above her, and she smiled... drinking his essence.

She never felt another stab of pain as other things became important to her. She could hear the breathing of each person in the room. Trinity's sounded hollow, but the other two were shallow and strained. Their heartbeats ran fast in the woman and slower in the man. Beth could feel their blood flowing and she could hear her brother's pacing at the front of the mansion. His shoes tapped the marble. His heartbeat was strong.

But then, Trinity pulled his wrist from her sucking mouth. "It's enough," he warned.

She mewled with loss, finding herself pleading, "Please, more!" She felt as if she might do anything to have more of the euphoric heat that was spreading through her body.

"It's done," Doctor Latham announced. "Thank god," he added with a tired voice.

Beth was ready to lurch upward to try to convince Trinity to give her more of the tempting liquid, but his hands held her down.

Trinity's hair fell forward as he looked down at the small stitches across the paleness of Beth's back. He'd heard her plea for more of his blood and it disturbed him.

"Tell the brother it's gone well and his sister is sleeping. He shouldn't disturb her. You will return in the morning to check on her," Trinity ordered.

He knew Latham had a questioning look for him, but he didn't glance upward to accept it. He heard Beth sigh at his proclamation. She turned her head to the side trying to look up at him, kneeling beside her. He held her wrists prisoner with his other hand pressed into her shoulder blades.

Latham's helper rose off Beth's thighs, then she fastidiously gathered the bed linen to pull up over Beth's lower torso.

"Will you let me go?" Beth's voice turned sensual, tempting him.

He didn't answer, he just laid his hands more firmly and held unearthly still, until the doctor was packed and ready to leave.

"I will return in the morning," Doctor Latham said. Then they were gone with the door clicking shut in the quietness behind them.

"I can feel you," Beth whispered.

"I can feel you," he responded. He could feel her body flowing with the desire for more of his blood as his body flowed to give it to her.

"What's happening to me?" Her plea sounded as lost as he felt.

He could tell her he didn't know, because he didn't, but he couldn't frighten her. "The affects will wear off." He grimaced at the lie, even when he was such a good liar.

"No!" The word was a small cry from her plush lips as she twisted her wrists beneath his hand. "Please, Lord Trinity, please let me taste more. I will do anything." Her breath panted with temptation.

Trinity could feel her craving like a live thing skittering in his mind. The innocent Lady Beth Winslow was gone, and he knew... _he_ knew all he had to do was to release her and she would curl and press her naked body against his. Her body would move with driving lust for more of his essence, but not of her own conscience. It would be his blood's fake allure.

All he had to do was release his hold. "Maiden, you must be stronger than your urges, you _will_ regret them," his voice rasped low over the pain in his fangs.

Beth mewled in disappointment and he could feel the battle she waged internally. She wanted him. He wanted her. Why must they deny it?

"You want my blood, _not_ me," he charged harshly.

"That's not true," she cried. "I-I..."

"You are too innocent to know the consequences."

"You are so cruel," Beth sobbed. "I hate you!" she cried.

"You would tempt the beast?" he asked with a harsh snarl as he pushed away from her, releasing his hold.

"Trinity!" Beth implored, rising upward. She turned to sit, clutching the bed linens to her chest as her gaze frantically shifted over the room looking for him. _He was gone._

"No!" she cried tragically. "You cannot leave me like this."

Large tears fell hot on her cheeks as she whimpered with loss. Her desire was to feel the heat of Trinity's blood again. It held the most exquisite feelings she'd ever felt. It made her feel worldly and mature. She thought with the essence of it flowing through her she understood the desires of men and women, something she was innocent of before. She'd also felt the dark demons that lurked in Trinity's soul. Things that drove him, but he feared to look at too closely.

Then tingling began in the far reaches of her limbs, like the sparks from fire, moving up her arms and legs. Haunting intuition told her the amazing effects of Trinity's blood were leaving, and she moaned in denial, falling on her side, unconscious.

***

Adam closed the door on the doctor's carriage and stepped back. The driver up top set the conveyance into motion and Adam turned back to his step uncle's mansion.

"She's going to be all right," he muttered to himself, still feeling bone-deep relief. Yet he walked to the door in conflict. The doctor had said not to bother Beth until morning, but he worried about leaving her alone... at night. So vulnerable. At the same time, he wanted to tell the authorities about the woman in the woods and he was uncommonly nervous about Lady Ariel and what she might be doing.

Beth won, of course. He couldn't leave her where Fanton might soon be lurking, so he retrieved a wingback chair from the front parlor. He carried it to her door, set it down, settling in for the remainder of the night. Once the quietness soothed his body into relaxing, his mind wouldn't forget the evenings perplexing questions.

"Who is Christian Blacknall?" he muttered. "What is he?" Whatever they were, and Adam knew the Blacknalls were not human men, they seemed to have a code of morality about them. "Men who many times look like men but are not men?"

He tugged a hand through his hair, shrugging in the chair, remembering the last sight he had of Christian Blacknall. The man's handsome face had looked fiercely primal. Adam knew he would sound insane trying to tell anyone about the things he'd seen that night. Something, however, inside him wanted to keep Christian Blacknall's secret. All the Blacknalls had helped them. They'd saved Beth. He wondered what she'd seen, and what she'd think once she had calmer thoughts.

It appeared to him Lord Trinity had intimately saved Beth's life. From what? What kind of man could rip apart a human body like the one he'd seen? Yet now he knew there were other than men that walked the earth. He worried his fingers over his temple as his thoughts just made more confusion and less answers.

"What leaves you sitting in a chair in the hall, stepbrother?"

Adam's body jerked from being startled at the sudden voice. His gaze leaped upward to see Fanton wearing pristine eveningwear, standing two feet in front of him. Bloody hell, how did Fanton get so close to him without him hearing?

"Fanton," Adam expelled, quickly standing as he watched Fanton look as though he were barely sniffing the air, while his gaze latched onto the door behind Adam's back.

"Who is in there?" Fanton's eyes gleamed toward the closed door.

"Where have you been, Fanton?" Adam demanded, angrily.

It seemed hard for Fanton to turn his interest away from the door. "At a whorehouse, if you must know," he answered. His voice was a lazy drawl as his black eyes slowly turned to Adam. "After Lady Ariel couldn't tear her thoughts away from you or Beth, I became bored and left." Fanton seemed a little taller or broader... he definitely appeared to have more glossy perfection about him, as he added snidely, "I tell you, that is why I never attend society events. They are so trite and wearisome."

Adam frowned, barely able to keep from grinding his teeth. "Were you in the garden tonight, Fanton? At the ball?"

Fanton's gaze instantly sharpened. "No, stepbrother, I cannot think of one reason I would be in the gardens."

_An outright lie_ , Adam thought, because Lady Ariel placed him there at least for a few moments. Why would Fanton lie if he were not hiding something? Adam decided he didn't want Fanton to know the full of what had happened that evening, so he held back.

"Beth's turned her ankle," he said watching Fanton's reaction, which oddly turned into a smug look. "The doctor's been around and she will be fine with some rest."

"And you've just decided she needs a guard outside her resting place... in her own home?" After slinging his barb, Fanton adjusted his tailored evening jacket.

_Bastard._ Adam knew Fanton was toying with him and they both knew it, but neither would reveal themselves to say it. "It should be obvious I'm here to help her should she need assistance in the night."

Fanton frowned with a gleam growing in his eyes. "You are always such a dutiful brother to little Beth."

"At least I would never leave her unattended to an event I'd escorted her to," Adam replied tersely.

Fanton stepped closer with a new fierce look on his features, and Adam nearly stepped back with the power he could feel emanating from him. "Be careful, Adam. It's not wise to provoke me."

Adam tensed his posture, attempting glare for glare. "What's happened to you?" he demanded. "You're not the same ever since our parents died."

" _Killed_ themselves, you mean." Fanton spat the heresy as though he enjoyed the thought and didn't care his father had died.

"I'll still never believe that," Adam responded hotly.

"You can't believe _your_ mother would do such a thing? Stab him in the neck," Fanton gloated with a hiss. "I'm fucking glad he lived long enough to _stab_ her back," he spat.

"No!" Adam shouted, and his anger raised his fist toward Fanton's sneering face. " _He_ killed her!"

Adam thought he was going to have the rash opportunity to smash Fanton's face as his fist swung toward it, but suddenly Fanton's hand was there. Fanton snatched his swinging fist, stopping the force of his punch as easily as if he were holding a small child back.

_Impossible,_ Adam thought, as he groaned at the crushing pressure Fanton squeezed over his clenched fist. Fanton pushed with unbelievable strength and a sneer of white teeth. Adam was forced backward, disbelieving the power as he toppled against the chair, pushing it to the side, then his back hit the door with a thud.

"Fanton," Adam gasped at the pain and immense pressure that seemed to build around him. He saw Fanton's eyes with flashing red centers as Fanton growled an animalistic sound. Adam knew Fanton was set to kill him as his littlest finger snapped beneath the crushing pressure of Fanton's hand. Adam bellowed in pain, fighting not to let Fanton push him to the ground.

Abruptly, through the haze of pain clenching his eyes, he saw a beam of sunlight fall across the side of Fanton's face. It was dawn and the light was streaming in from the hall window. He was going to _die_ at dawn!

Suddenly, Fanton shouted a horrendous groan and stumbled back, releasing him. Adam clutched his hand as he bent at the waist in pain, but still looking up at Fanton in horror.

" _What_ are you?" Adam shouted fiercely over his pain.

Fanton was glaring at the ray of sunlight across their path as though it were a vile thing. Then he turned his body, gathering his cloak around himself, and stalked away.

Chapter Ten

Trinity had an hour before dawn to survey the site of the freshest murder and the surrounding woods for clues about the killer. He could walk by daylight; however, it was uncomfortable and he preferred not to ride in sunlight. Therefore, the grey edges of dawn found him standing over the bloody remains of the woman killed in the woods. One would think the blood would taunt him, but his thoughts were relentlessly on breasts of temptation and thighs of desire never before touched by man or beast.

"Hell," he muttered, rubbing a rough hand over the bristle on his hard jaw. He was cunning and strong enough to take anything from humans. Even their lives. That was the point. He was the predator and they were the prey. He'd learned that well at the command of his Sire. He could still see the faces and hear the screams. Hundreds of them. So helpless. The women and the children were especially hard. The mortal dredges of him that remembered being human were disgusted and deeply saddened by the powerless ones he'd killed.

He and his brothers had been so young, as their vile stepfather turned each one of them into vampires. One by one — and they'd been very afraid of him. That fear of him had overcome their loathing to hunt humans for him to feed upon.

Their mother hadn't realized when she'd married him what he was. He'd used every temptation he could conjure to tempt her for the sole purpose of getting his hand on the four little boys. He coveted them to feed upon at first, until they grew to be strong enough to turn into vampires that would hunt for him. After the first year of marriage, their mother was dead and there was no one left to save them.

Trinity growled at his memories, wondering why they taunted him now, intertwining with his thoughts of Lady Beth Winslow. Perhaps it was because of what could have been. She was the kind of woman he would have married in his long-lost human form. She had sweetness and curves to tempt him until old age. He wondered if he had bound her to him now. Had giving her his blood turned her fate? It worried him. He didn't want to corrupt her.

"No," he snapped, he _would_ protect her. Somehow, he would keep her safe... from himself.

Throwing away his confused thoughts, Trinity crouched down to study the edges of the murder site. He could see where the foul one had dragged his fresh kill into the small clearing. More room to work. He wondered if human men could do such a thing, while speculating about what the monster's point was. There was too much blood left for a vampire and it didn't make sense the monster could be a vampire. Vampires wouldn't tear their food apart in such an animalistic way. This was passion of some kind. A deeply abhorrent lust.

He wondered if Cull was missing another whore. He would have to ask him.

"Why play with Beth?" he muttered. The nature of that taunting hunt was as intimate as it was confusing. "It's nearly as if you knew her, beast. You could have killed her at any moment before I arrived."

Trinity stood, stretching his tall body. He circled the site with his sharp gaze magnifying each torn leaf and broken twig. He easily found the direction the murderer left and he searched to see if any small amount of his blood could be found. Perhaps the woman had scratched him or a branch had gouged him. One small drop of the vile monster's blood left that he could taste and he would know him the next time they met, by instinct alone. There was none, so he followed the trail, noticing how well the murderer ran through the forest without colliding with large branches or falling over limbs. Night vision?

"It has to be," Trinity muttered, stopping his search in one spot, where he could tell the murderer paused. "Humans do not have night vision," he affirmed, looking around the area. "Here, the monster turned back."

Trinity looked back toward the direction of the mansion where he knew Beth came from, while attending a ball. "Bloody hell," he snapped. "He _turned_ back for her." Trinity looked around the area again. "He was leaving, but he turned back for Beth."

The first edges of dawn filtered through the leaves overhead and he knew he had to go and leave further investigation until the next night. Nevertheless, he felt wildness pushing at him, making him edgy and straining his control. The foul beast that murdered women, ripping them apart for no other reason than some distorted and malignant passion, was connected to Beth somehow.

Moments later, he left the forest atop his stallion at a strong gallop. He was going to find his brother Baptiste, the scientist. He had questions his brother might help answer. Hence, when he arrived at Blacknall mansion, he went around back, specifically to avoid Church. He wasn't ready for a question and answer parry with his older brother.

He left his stallion with the grooms. All servants at Blacknall estates were well-paid to not worry about any strange events they might witness. Over the years, it was proven money worked better than force to keep the staffs' tongues silent about the affairs of the Lords of Blacknall.

Trinity didn't turn toward the main entrance. He walked in the direction of the tower on the west side, and then he opened the heavy plank door to the dungeon beneath. Baptiste had taken over the dungeon for his private work when he wasn't working at the Royal Society with an august group of scientists.

The curving, stonewalled stairs leading downward were dark with no light from oil or wick. Vampires didn't need such trivial human confections. He could easily see his way as though it were an overcast day. The steps were many, and they curved in a circular fashion into the bowels below the mansion. Trinity noticed, as he neared the entrance to the main chamber, that it was glowing with light. That meant Baptiste had humans confined in the dungeon.

His brother forever leant his scientific studies to the many unique traits of vampires. Baptiste had proved many of the characteristics such as the process to create new vampires. All the brothers adhered to strict rules against it. As Baptiste learned about their growing traits such as night vision or how much blood they needed to survive, he increasingly returned to the plight of the feeders.

Feeders were hopeless human beings that some vampires used only to feed upon. They were enslaved but never turned. These poor people were mere shells of themselves, often emaciated of body and soul. Baptiste worked tirelessly trying to find a way to return them to their former health and wellbeing of mind. Trinity knew Baptiste had found the bodies of the lost souls easier to treat than their minds.

When he entered the chamber, he could sense two humans were about. His sharp gaze picked out a man crouched in the shadows on the far side of the chamber, past the tables and equipment of his brother's laboratory. What halted his steps, though, was the woman perched on a high stool in the center of the workspace.

She was sideways to him in a thin rail of a dress with bare feet balanced on the bottom rung of a tall stool. Her hair was a glorious tumble of red hair, which was wild and long. It was so long it fell down her slender back to the top of the stool. She was overly thin and pale, making her easy to place as a feeder, and it gave her a fairy-like appearance.

Baptiste's back was to the entrance as he worked over some resourceful laboratory equipment, and Trinity approached slowly, unwilling to alarm the woman sitting so trustingly out in the open. She finally sensed his approach, and when she turned her gaze to him briefly, he saw vivid green eyes before her gaze darted away. She was off the chair and down on her knees with her thin wrists raised upward to him as he stopped before her. Instinct told her he was a vampire and previous forced servitude propelled her to supplicate before him.

"Damnation, Miss Irene," Baptiste cussed, turning slowly.

Trinity knew Baptiste knew of his arrival and the young woman's actions. It dawned on Trinity that it was some sort of test Baptiste was trying. The woman named Irene whimpered and began to shake so badly that her raised arms wavered. "Miss Irene, you do not have to kneel or offer yourself like this anymore." Baptiste's voice softened.

"I'd not take your blood," Trinity offered. "Rise," he added, thinking to help Baptiste's cause. This only brought a wail from Irene as she rose high enough to scamper out of the laboratory and out into the shadows at the edges of the chamber.

"Ah, bloody hell," Baptiste expelled as both their gazes turned to watch her. "She thinks you are rejecting her blood like it's demeaning," he said, and then he added louder out into the shadows. "Not like you are giving her freedom."

Trinity shrugged, and pulled off the jacket he'd borrowed from Christian. "Do you have an extra shirt?"

Baptiste raised an eyebrow, propping his hip against the table he'd been working on as he crossed his arms over his chest. "You came here for a shirt?"

Trinity threw the jacket onto the table beside where he stood and he lifted his arms to stretch his tall body to the left, "For that, and some blood would be nice," he said leisurely, stretching his limbs to the right. He added aloud for the benefit of Irene, "But not fresh blood."

A little while later after he'd gotten a shirt and some of the stored blood they regularly received from doctors leeching patients, he and Baptiste sat on either side of a table.

"Dr. Latham said you've been giving them your blood." Trinity inclined his head toward the two humans hiding in the shadows.

"So you left us so quickly to fetch Doctor Latham to attend to that innocent, Lady Winslow?" Trinity shrugged, holding his brother's gaze. His brother's returning half-smile was indulgent. "All right then," Baptiste said slowly, "I've been administering vampire blood to several feeders."

"And?" Trinity asked.

"And," Baptiste emphasized. "I've notated a dozen effects."

"A dozen," Trinity muttered, scraping his jaw with his hand, and then he uttered, "I _gave_ my blood to her."

"Lady Winslow?"

Trinity returned a temperate look. "It took her pain away, but..."

"She wanted more," Baptiste finished.

"What have I done?" Trinity's fist hit the tabletop rattling even the sturdy legs. He stood and paced away several steps, flinging his tangled blond hair back from his face before he paced back. "What is it about this one woman?"

He stopped before the table and watched Baptiste lean back in his chair with his gaze drifting toward Irene. "Some feeders I've given my blood to have had a different reaction. It's as if they've become addicted to it, while all others only mildly crave it, but enough that's easy for them to break the desire."

"Some?" Trinity questioned with a harsh voice.

Baptiste turned his gaze too glare up at him, as he uttered, "One." He grimaced, saying, "Just one."

Trinity's gaze jumped to Irene and she wailed, and then she ran out of sight into one of the cells. "Why?" Trinity asked with a crack in his voice.

"Even vampires need to find a mate. Perhaps, to someday procreate." Baptiste's handsome features looked like a battalion wall ready to defend his amazing conclusions.

"What?" Trinity shouted, on the edges of some beliefs he could barely believe or hope were true.

"No!" Baptiste exclaimed, standing, "I've not proven anything yet, just tossed out silly theories. It's bringing Miss Irene's mind back and I will break her of the addiction later."

"Is she a virgin?" Trinity asked roughly, but in a calmer voice.

"Nay," Baptiste answered, grasping the back of the chair to sit once again.

"But Lady Winslow tempted you. She tempted all of us." Trinity returned to sit, slowly.

"Aye," Baptiste nodded, "But while it was exquisitely tempting, it didn't look to me to be even half as much as it affected you."

"It was staggering." Trinity's lips settled into a grim line as he placed his elbows to the table. "It drove me to near insanity wanting to fuck her while at the same time suck her luscious hot blood. Blood so pure it brought me to my knees denying it."

"We've all had the driving need to bite as we ejaculate, I dare say." Baptiste's gaze trailed toward the cell that hid Irene.

"Yes, but only at the last, bursting instant. It's always gone in seconds and not a constant driving demand when just close to the woman." Trinity sighed, adding, "She's not the least bit affected by me."

Trinity heard Baptiste's surprised breath. "No entrancement?" Baptiste's voice sounded harsh as he reached to the left for a piece of parchment and a quill. He began writing on the parchment in a flurry. "She showed no signs of arousal, even though you were aroused —"

"I'm _not_ your test subject," Trinity interrupted irritably. He added, "But my shaft was hard." He left the obvious unsaid, _therefore my arousal should have affected her._

Baptiste paused with his quill raised above the parchment as the fingers on his other hand rubbed his temple. "Nothing I discover about vampirism is ever really constant, is it?" he muttered. He laid the quill down and both his hands came together on the tabletop as he sighed. "All right, brother to brother, the virgin temptation could easily point to the nature of the wickedness inside us instead of some predestined mate. You've sensed her above all others, and I might add it seemed as if it is the same way you sense us at times. This anomaly with Lady Winslow happened when she was in danger. Further, there's the point she's not affected by your aroused allure, when every other woman you tempt is. Times are changing, definitely changing."

"I'll _never_ see her again," Trinity uttered, jerking his chin forward. "Then none of these troubling questions will matter," he finished flatly.

"But she'll continue to tempt you." Baptiste pinned him with a serious gaze.

"We live with and fight with constant temptation as it is." Trinity stood, breaking their locked gazes. "Just add another to the heap."

"But, what if she were your destined —" Baptiste started.

"Don't!" Trinity charged, "Dare go there."

Trinity moved the chair away, and then he asked in a quieter voice, "Can she survive the addiction to my blood, do you think?"

However, he knew the answer to that had not yet been tested.

Chapter Eleven

Beth dreamt about Trinity. When she woke, nearly all she could think about was him, his blood, then him again... until she wanted to pound the bed covers in teary frustration.

"Beth?"

She turned her head against the pillow and saw Adam quietly entering the room. "Say that he is here!" she exclaimed. "Come to see me."

"Who, Beth?" Adam asked, walking to the side of her bed.

"Lord Trinity," she explained in a strident whisper.

"Oh no, Beth, of course that Trinity Blacknall, whose title I learned is Marquis Montrose, is not here." Adam raised his hand to her temple. "You look feverish."

She tried to rise and Adam's bandaged hand moved quickly to her shoulder to press her back. "I _must_ see him." She continued to press upward.

"I know you're in pain, sweetheart," Adam began.

"No, no," she said. "No pain at all." She tried to rise again.

"You must stay still." Adam's tone was firm as he pressed back against her wish to rise. "Doctor Latham spoke of no fever," he muttered.

"When was the doctor here?" Beth asked, wondering where Lord Trinity might be. Surely, he would return to see her. Wouldn't he? He _had_ to.

"Within the hour, Beth. Don't you remember?" Adam asked with concern. "He bandaged my finger and came right in to see you for a good twenty strokes."

Beth's eyes filled with tears as she looked up at Adam. "He did?" she barely whispered. How could she not remember it?

"It's all right," Adam soothed. "You've been through so much, too much. It's no wonder some things seem vague."

"I need to see him," she whimpered, and her gaze rose to Adam's eyes, pleading with him.

Adam's returning gaze looked furrowed with worry as he hushed her, saying, "You need sleep, sweetheart. Just get some more sleep."

Beth trusted her brother above anyone and for him she struggled against the intense fascination she felt to see Trinity again. "All right, Adam." She gave in and she felt him lean forward to hear her as she closed her eyes with tears drying on her cheeks.

Still, as soon as the door clicked shut behind Adam, Beth opened her eyes again. She moved to sit in the bed, leaning back against the pillows as she pressed her hands together in her lap. Someone had put her dressing gown on and pulled her hair back into a braid. Yet, the last she remembered was lying in bed, naked beneath the covers, while only one of Trinity's firm hands held her down.

_Was it infatuation_? Was that the strange feeling she had to see him again? She'd never been in love. She'd thought herself slightly attracted to Lord Bellingham once, yet nothing close to the feelings churning inside her now. She was nearly embarrassed she could be so overturned.

"He is handsome," she muttered, twisting her fingers together. "And dangerous."

Thinking of Trinity made her body ache in places she'd never known could ache with such temptation. But he knew. Lord Trinity knew about where women ached with desire. He'd been attracted to her. She felt it, or confused, she wondered if she'd seen it, when she'd... Oh lord, when she...

" _Drank_ his blood," she hissed. She shivered with goose bumps flooding her skin and her fingers grasped the bed linens on either side of her. She realized she knew from swallowing his blood, she _knew_... "He's a..." She gulped. "He's a _vampire._ "

Beth's squeezed her eyes shut. Since she'd tasted Trinity's blood, she had impressions of things: craving the taste of blood, living in coldness, and unrelenting power. She knew through the effects of his blood, flowing through her, that he'd had a violent past. One that troubled him deeply and which drove him now. She knew he loved his brothers with feelings that were overpowering.

"He fights the greatest temptations with ironclad willpower every second of every day," she whispered, her fingers curling and uncurling in tension.

Trinity was not really a man. He was a lethal copy that looked like the perfect reflection of a man, but he fed on human blood to stay alive.

"And last night he saved my life," she said seriously as she moved to get out of bed. She knew, if she could see her back, she'd find the wound was healed and the stitches were already gone. "Because of Trinity's blood."

She walked across the room to the drapes covering the glass-paned doors that led out onto a vast, stone courtyard at the back of the mansion. She pulled the heavy draping aside enough to see the sunlight. It was still daylight out and she was glad because she had some intuition that nightfall would make her craving for Trinity's blood worsen.

_She'd drunk the blood of a vampire_... and now she was changed. It was unnerving and terrifying. Yet, even as it frightened her, she wanted to show as much strength of will as Trinity showed every minute of his life. He'd told her the way.

"Be stronger than your urges, maiden."

He expected no less of himself, and oh, how she wanted him to respect her. She looked out into the sunlight wondering if she would ever see him again. She thought not. He was a man not to be interested in the trite involvements of society where young girls dressed up to go to balls, trying to find husbands. His pursuits were about serious business, not the silliness she moved through of gossip, aspirations, and parties.

"Maiden, you want my blood, _not_ me," she expelled the words Trinity had thrown at her.

He was right. Could she separate the two? Yesterday she'd been a carefree, silly girl, and today she'd woken to growing new understandings of life that more than surpassed the entire previous years of her life. Beyond her imagination. "But I'm still alive," she said fiercely, and she wasn't going to squander the gift of life she'd been given.

Adam came to visit her again later that afternoon. His handsome face looked very grim when he entered the room. She'd wanted to retire to her own rooms, but she didn't want anyone discovering she was healed... so quickly. Therefore, she sat in bed, because she was plagued by tiredness.

"Adam, what is it?" she asked without any preamble that others who weren't brothers and sisters might employ.

"Lady Ariel returned your letter unopened." He lifted the letter to her gaze as he moved to sit on the bed beside her.

Beth frowned, looking up at him with worry. She didn't reach for the letter he held toward her, as if she touched it would make its return real. "That isn't good, is it?" she confided softly.

She'd taken the task of writing a note to Ariel to call her to her side so they might sort through the events of last evening, and frankly, so she could do some inventive lying. She at least thought Ariel might wish to know about the health of her friend.

"No." Adam admitted to it not being a very good sign, and he set the letter on the bedside table. "What did you say in it?" he questioned, then he added, "Had she come this morning, I dare say your condition would have sent her packing in fear," he paused. "But you look much recovered now."

Besides the gnawing desire to taste Trinity's blood again, she was rather well, considering the ordeal she'd been through. She reached for and clasped Adam's hand so their hands sat together on the bed beside them. "Thank you so much." Tears gathered as she squeezed his hand and she willed them not to fall.

"I'm just glad I was there," he replied gruffly.

"I feel much better physically." She knew Adam would take up her meaning. She was undecided how much to share with him. However, her views on her brother hadn't changed after last night. In fact, certain aspects had become stronger. She wanted Adam to be able to go to the university unhindered, and everything that had happened was not moving him in that direction.

"I will not question you now, so close in your recovery, about what happened to you last night, Beth, but I expect us to speak about it as soon as you are able."

Beth played demure in front of him on the subject and she felt a stab of guilt. Nevertheless, if she explained everything that happened to her last night from her viewpoint, she'd only succeed in miring him deeper into her troubles.

"I don't remember most of it," she responded quickly to him, watching him raise his eyebrows in disbelief. "Just that we couldn't find Ariel, and I went out into the gardens to look for her."

"You don't remember Lord Trinity Montrose, one of Duke Blacknall's brothers?" Adam asked tightly.

Beth quickly lowered her gaze. She despised lying to Adam. "I've heard of Duke Blacknall and his brothers, of course."

"But last night..."

"I feel weak," Beth interjected over his words, bringing a hand to her temple.

"Deuce," Adam swore, and she imagined he was chastising himself for pushing her. "Beth, lay down and get some rest," he said, rising from the bed. "I will get Spindle to bring you some soup to try for dinner."

"Thank you, Adam." She tried to appear weaker than she was as she scooted to lie down.

Adam stood looking down on her for a long moment. He said, "I only want you safe and happy."

He looked so troubled as he turned and left the room, it broke her heart. She wished the same thing for him: wanting him safe. The only avenue left for her was the one she'd concluded last night. She needed to write to finishing schools that very evening for a position and have them posted in the morning. She personally knew several dames of society who sat on the boards of well-named schools she could speak to in person.

Yet it would take her very far away from Trinity.

The thought leaped into her mind with an instant feeling of dread. She raised the heel of her palm to her temple, rubbing. "Go away!" she exclaimed to the thoughts. She rubbed more forcibly. "Leave me be!" She wouldn't think of him. She wouldn't. Surely, the attraction of having tasted his essence would fade eventually.

God, she prayed so.

Chapter Twelve

Fanton stood in the dark shadows of the room over the sleeping form of Beth. Her insolent brother sat guard outside the door. The fool completely ignored the courtyard doors. Fanton was not smiling, though; something was different about his little Beth, and he didn't like it. She lay on her back with the covers twisted about her waist, leaving only a thin night rail to cover her tits. He wondered how she could manage to endure the pain laying on her back in her sleep.

Yet the rise and fall of her large tits distracted his hand. He cupped one, feeling the fat globe. He was hungry, so famished that he felt weak from the loss. Sweet delectable Beth. His other hand reached for the mound of her other tit.

Beth saw the wildness in Trinity's gaze. He hungered for her with cravings that made her moan and undulate her body in sensuous invitations. She saw his tangled long, blond hair, deep penetrating eyes, and his hard jaw. He was so handsome... so masculine, he made her breath quiver with longing as she raised her breasts to his touch. He was harsh with need, twisting her nipples and making her cry out as she felt his hot breath against the column of her throat.

"What foulness has tainted _my_ virgin!"

It was a snarled voice she feared beyond all else. Beth's eyelids flew open and she was staggered, as she'd thought she'd been awake with her eyes open and her fingers reaching for Trinity.

"Fanton!" she gasped, and before she could move, he leapt to straddle her body on the bed. He tugged her wrist to his mouth and she bucked her body beneath him trying to force him off her as she tried to jerk her wrist away from him. His irises flashed red, and she reacted to his attack crying, "No! No!"

"Why aren't you mesmerized to my will?" he demanded with harsh and wet hissing sounds around his teeth, which had extended into two long lances past his lips,

Beth tugged her arm with all her might. "Let me go!" she cried, wondering why she didn't scream.

A terrible sting penetrated her wrist. Now her mind screamed in terror, as Fanton hissed horrible vibrations against her wrist with his mouth. His entire body recoiled — one second he was on top of her, and the next he was halfway across the room.

" _Foulness_ ," he growled gutturally, like a beast.

She didn't wait to understand what he meant. Terror sent her running from the bed. Fanton was a vampire! Was she in a nightmare she couldn't awaken from? She pushed through the drapes to find the glass doors open to the courtyard. On bare feet, she stumbled past them, out onto the cold, damp tiles of the patio.

The word, " _Bitch_ ," whooshed through the air from behind her, back in the room, as she fled forward into the foggy night.

The long braid of her hair began to unravel as she cast her frightened gaze repeatedly over her shoulder. Was he following her? She couldn't tell, and it reminded her too much of the terrifying chase in the woods she'd endured just the night before. Her nightgown was not a garment to be wearing in the curling fog. It became damp and clung to her body as her bare feet ran onto the grass beyond the courtyard.

"Trinity!" she cried, terror-stricken that Fanton would attack her at any moment. That he would _bite_ her again. However, she was still too weak and her lungs burned as her legs grew heavy. _Fanton would catch her!_

Fanton snarled as though he were a rabid wolf shaking his head at tasting some putrid meat. His spittle sprayed across the room with his gyrating head as his spine fell against the wall. He'd never tasted blood so polluted before that it made his insides twitch and shudder.

Something was happening to him. It was more than a bad reaction from blood. The same blood that used to be the sweetest virgin's blood. Then he saw it. One flash of memory. Blond hair, gore everywhere, and four vampires feeding.

Vampire's blood? He looked wildly about, clutching his throat. He'd tasted another vampire's blood. A much older vampire than he was. What would it do to him? His gut began to lurch in spasms just as knocking sounded on the door beside him.

"Beth, I heard sounds, are you all right?" Adam's voice called beyond the door.

Fanton hissed. He'd been ravenous, and he still was, beyond the cramps in his belly. Maybe fresh blood would lessen the abnormal reaction. His hand clamped over the lifting door latch, stopping its motion.

"Beth!" Adam's voice called.

Fanton could hear the blood pounding in Adam's veins. He'd never sucked the boy's blood... just the sister's. Men made him feel inadequate, somehow. Women he could dominate. Nevertheless, his stepsister was rancid now and he would need a new source of fresh blood close to him. It made him feel more secure, having it close. He unclasped his hand from the door lever letting it lift as he ignored the strange tendrils in his chest and belly gnawing at him.

"Beth!" Adam exclaimed, throwing the door wide, and then rushing into the room.

"Adam," Fanton snarled, making Adam whirl to face him.

"What are you doing in here?" Adam demanded as he stalked up to him.

_Closer,_ Fanton thought, _come closer_. Fanton whipped his arm forward, grasping Adam by the back of his neck, so surprising him he didn't think to resist. At first. Then it was too late as Fanton's hungry breath belched outward, crawling over Adam's startled face and Fanton's gaze delved into the depths of Adam's startled stare. A sigh released from Adam's lips, and then the stiffness in his neck melted away.

_He really is handsome_ , Fanton thought, watching Adam's eyelids lower with a seductive tilt. Fanton caught Adam's half-slumping body with an arm braced across his back as his other hand pushed his chin to the side revealing the strong column of Adam's neck.

The first bite was crisp and raw as it surged into him. _Virgin's blood_. Fanton's eyes widened with relish as Adam's hands fisted in his hair and he moaned with compelling sounds. Fanton embraced Adam more, deepening the bite and draw of his lips. He was surprised to find his cock was hard as pretty, pretty Adam's neck arched to his feeding.

To be continued ...

_Get Part 2!_   **Wicked Lord: Part Two by Shirl Anders**

