The Vampire Voss (Regency Draculia 1)

Woodmore responded to Angelica as if Voss hadn’t spoken. “He might have saved you from Moldavi, but it appears no one saved you from him.”

“Chas, no. Please. He did nothing.” Her voice sounded calm and steady, but her eyes were filled with fear.

Voss could do little but lie recumbent and try to ignore the bloodscent from Angelica that still lingered in the air. The essence was long gone from his tongue, and his fangs had slid back into place. Even his raging erection had eased. But the Mark still writhed and burned white agony through him.

“You cannot call this nothing,” Woodmore snapped, gesturing to her bloodied lip and the sagging neckline of her robe. “This is a world you do not understand, and a man who is no longer a man…. He hasn’t a conscience, Angelica. None of them do. They live only for themselves, for their moment of pleasure. They do nothing but take.”

“And yet you love one of them yourself. You’re one to talk,” she responded.

Woodmore blanched as if slapped, then acknowledgment flared in his eyes. “You don’t understand. And I’m not about to let you—”

“It’s too late, Chas. I—I love him,” Angelica said. Her voice was still calm but sad.

“Then all the more reason for me to rid you of him,” Chas said. And pushed the point harder. It had gone through flesh and muscle. Blood pooled enough that it ran down the side of Voss’s torso onto the bedding. One sharp thrust and it would go through his sternum and into the heart.

“Do it,” Voss managed to say.

Their eyes met, his and Woodmore’s. He dared not look at Angelica. He just wanted the torture to end.

And he could never really have her. Not without fear in her eyes. Not without having to battle the pain and agony and the devil on his back. Not without hyssop and his betrayal and her blood between them.

Suddenly he remembered the blonde woman. The voice in his head. Are you yet ready?

Another excruciating wave sliced through him, and his fingers and toes curled against it. Just end it. I’m letting her go. I haven’t taken her. Isn’t that enough?

“Chas,” whispered Angelica. “I will never forgive you. Please…take me away. Let’s go. Leave him here. Please.” She gestured to the sun blazing through the thin curtains. “He can’t follow us.”

“You’ll never see him again,” Woodmore said, lifting the stake a bit, turning to look at her. It was the first time his voice and expression had softened since he entered the room. “I won’t allow it. Get any thought of it out of your head.”

Angelica didn’t look at Voss. “It’s gone. Please. Take me home.”

Woodmore turned back to Voss one last time. “I’m doing it for her, not for you.”

“If you were doing it for me,” Voss managed with every bit of strength he had, “you’d finish it.”

“Damn you to hell, Voss,” Woodmore said, taking Angelica by the arm and starting toward the splintered doorway.

Already done, Woodmore. Already done.

16

THE ORDEAL

Voss didn’t know how long he lay on the bloodstained, Angelica-scented bed after they left. Hazy, dimmed beams of sunlight still streamed through the windows. A gentle breeze ruffled the curtains.

Damned Parisian summer day.

At least Moldavi wouldn’t be out, searching for them. Woodmore and Angelica would be safe.

He was forced to stir, to try to move his abused body when a knock came on the sagging door. At his bidding, a chambermaid entered, ironically carrying the new clothing he’d ordered for Angelica.

The pain had eased a bit; enough that he could rise from the bed, holding a pillow to the wound on his chest, and pretend that all was well. Even though it was certainly not. His body felt as if it had been stretched beyond its limit, as if it would never work the same again. The Mark continued to haunt him, to needle and slice. But now that Angelica was gone, Voss thought it might forgive him.

Eventually the pain might ease.

Because Luce would never let him go. He’d been foolish to even think it.

Voss noticed that the small metal case that had held the hyssop necklace while protecting him from its power still rested on the small table. But she’d walked out of the chamber still wearing the necklace. Thank Fate she’d kept it on during their—he stopped his mind, forced the images away—during it all. Or Woodmore would have had all the reason in the world to execute him.

Voss’s neckcloth was on the floor, that horribly unfashionable strip of fabric he’d forced himself to wear. He pulled on a clean shirt, but wrapped the neckcloth loosely around his throat, for it was the only one he’d brought. The awful dark coat he’d brought from America was a bit dusty and smelled like smoke, but he donned it anyway. He had traveled very light, and very quickly.

He’d done what he’d come to Paris for. Angelica was safe. Woodmore and Corvindale would see to it that she remained thus, and Giordan Cale, too.

The sun was too bright and strong for him to leave, though he was desperate to quit the room. Leave Paris and put it, and England as well, far behind him. He packed up the meager things he’d brought in his satchel, slowly, still weak.

At first he dismissed the strained cry. But when it was repeated, Voss paused to listen. It was coming from outside the open windows.

He ignored it for a moment, but it became louder. More urgent.

Someone was calling for help. Thin, frightened, young.

Frowning, he went to the wafting curtains, staying out of the bolt of sunshine. Peering around them, maneuvering in shadow, he looked out and saw nothing but dazzling light and a nearby tree.

Another cry caused him to look up, and then he saw two small feet dangling…from above. Nearly a man’s height away, and off to the side.

Luce’s dark soul, it was a girl! Hanging from the balcony on the higher floor, holding on by two dainty hands. The balcony wasn’t directly above his; the platforms were staggered for privacy. If the girl released her death-grip on the railing, she would fall three stories down.

He glanced around—down, up, behind. There was no one else about. No one to notice.

Odd. So very odd.

Something prickled over his skin. Something happened inside…a burst of right.

He hesitated only a moment.

Part of him knew it would kill him as he darted out onto the sunny balcony with its red geranium pots. Another part thought if it didn’t, at the least it might take away some of the impact of the swollen Mark, spreading the pain so to speak.