His Dark Embrace

She frowned. Maybe he was ill and didn’t want her to know. Maybe Granda’s tonic really was keeping him alive.

After putting the glass in the dishwasher, she went into the front room and looked out the casement window. The lights were still on in his house. She clutched the collar of her robe—his robe. Should she go over and make sure he was all right? He hadn’t looked very well when she’d left. Maybe that’s why he had been so abrupt. She could get dressed and run over on the pretext of returning his robe and retrieving her clothes, she thought, and then dismissed the idea. He wasn’t likely to fall for a ruse like that. Maybe she should just wait until tomorrow.

But what if he was really sick?

What if he needed help?

Maybe she hadn’t imagined that eerie red glow in his eyes. Maybe it was a symptom of his illness.

And maybe she should just mind her own business.

She jumped as a brilliant flash of lightning lit up the sky and the lights went out.

Chapter 7

Thorne lifted his face to the heavens. The storm reminded him of the night he had been turned so many centuries ago. It had happened in the heart of London in the middle of winter. He had been a bit of a scoundrel back then, much to his mother’s shame and his father’s disgust. He had spent most of his time in the pubs, drinking, gambling, and wenching, and had gone through his grandfather’s inheritance in less than a year.

Not surprisingly, his father had disowned him, declaring he was a wastrel and a disgrace to the family name. His mother had taken to her bed whenever her youngest son’s name was mentioned.

Being young and full of the juices of life, Thorne had turned his back on his family and taken to being a highwayman, a role that he had embraced with a great deal of enthusiasm. He had slept by day, ridden the highways and the byways by night, and generally had a rip-roaring good time stealing from the rich to line his own pockets. His companions had been no better than they ought to have been, all young and carefree, eager to wench and wine until the wee small hours of the morning.

Thorne had been in the middle of a rousing game of euchre when a woman sidled up to him. He had never seen her before, but one look, and he knew he would never forget her. Waist-length brown hair tumbled in riotous waves around her bare shoulders. Her skin was like fine alabaster, her eyes as green as the meadows of Scotland. One look into those eyes and he had followed her out of the pub and into the teeth of the storm.

She paused under an overhanging balcony. “What a handsome fellow you are. Have you a name?” She spoke softly, yet he heard her clearly.

“Thorne.” He couldn’t stop staring at her—the red of her lips, the swell of her breasts.

She had run one delicate finger down his cheek. “Are you happy, Sir Thorne?”

“My thanks for the title,” he replied, grinning foolishly, “but it’s just Thorne.” His gaze moved over her from head to heel. The rain had plastered her gown to her form, revealing a slender but voluptuous figure. “As for being happy,” he said, lifting his gaze to hers. “I didn’t know what happiness was until you walked into the pub.”

She laughed softly. “Sweet words,” she murmured, her voice laced with amusement. “I wonder, do you taste as sweet?”

“Taste me and see,” he invited her.

“Indeed, I shall. But not out here.”

“You must be cold.” He started to remove his coat, but she waved it away, then linked her arm with his.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, he followed her down a muddy street, into a respectable inn, and up the stairs. He was staggering a little now, the night’s drinking finally catching up with him.

She laughed as she steadied him. “Careful, now. No need to rush. We have all night.”

It was dark inside the room. “Shouldn’t we have a light?” he asked.

“No need.”

The moon broke through the clouds, shining across the open window along with a few raindrops. Had he been sober, he might have realized he was in danger, but he was well in his cups and she was exquisitely beautiful.

“No light?” He rocked back on his heels. “Don’t tell me you’re shy.”

“Hardly that.” Taking him by the hand, she led him to her bed and pushed him down on the mattress.

He fell back, surprised and a little unsettled by her strength.

In an instant, she was sitting astride his hips, a dark shape barely discernable in the dusky room.

He grinned up at her. “Like to be on top, do you?”

“Always.”

“Not this time.” He took hold of her waist with both hands, intending to roll over and tuck her beneath him, only to find that, without seeming to move, she now had him pinned to the bed, both of his large hands caught in one of her much smaller ones.

The first thread of fear skittered down Thorne’s spine when he tried to break her grip. And failed.

The second came when she leaned down toward him. Moonlight shone on her face now, and in that pale light he saw that her eyes were no longer green, but red. And glowing.

“Who are you?” he asked. “What are you?”

“I am the daughter of Nyx.” She lifted one brow. “Have you never heard of me?”

He shook his head, suddenly incapable of speech.

“My name is Death. My sisters are Sleep, Strife, and Pain.”

Of course, he thought, his mind racing to make sense of her words. According to Greek mythology, Nyx was a goddess, daughter of Chaos, who had, without benefit of a husband, given birth to Death, Strife, Sleep, and Pain.

Thorne stared into her eyes. She was mad, he thought, quite mad.

And then her lips peeled back in an evil grin, revealing a pair of very white, very sharply pointed teeth.

“I am Death,” she whispered, and buried her fangs in the side of his neck.

His first reaction was horror. He struggled against her hold on him, but to no avail. And then a strange thing happened. When he stopped struggling, his fear melted away and he was awash in sensual pleasure, more intense than anything he had ever known. He grew weak, light-headed, knew he was dying, and he didn’t care.

When he awoke the following night, he was a vampire, with a new vampire’s raging thirst and no compunction about how he quenched it.

For all that he hated the beautiful vampire who had turned him, he was grateful that she had stayed with him long enough to teach him how to hunt, how to handle the sensory overload that pummeled him, to tune out the barrage of sights, sounds, and smells that poured in from every side, how to cloak himself in the deep shadows of the night, and later, how to dissolve into mist or assume another shape.