His Dark Embrace

Skylynn hurried to the next cell, her heart pounding as she reached for the handle. To her relief, the door was unlocked.

“Sam!” Dropping to her knees beside her brother, she cradled his head in her lap. “Sam? Sam! Please, Sam, don’t leave me.”

When there was no response, she looked up at Thorne. “Do something!”

He gazed down at her. Her brother was more dead than alive. “What do you want me to do?”

For a moment, Skylynn stared up at him, mute. She couldn’t say the words. She swallowed hard, blinking back her tears. “Please,” she whispered. “He’s all the family I have left.”

“Are you sure? There’s no going back, no changing your mind once it’s done.”

With tears streaming down her face, she nodded. She had lost so much. She couldn’t lose Sam, too.

Thorne glanced at Sam, then back at Skylynn. “You might not want to watch.”

Rising, Sky backed toward the far corner of the cell. With her arms wrapped tightly around her waist, she looked at Kaiden. She had asked for this. She would see it through.

With a nod, Thorne knelt beside Sam and gathered him into his arms. Feeling Skylynn’s gaze on his back, Thorne hesitated a moment, and then he lowered his head to her brother’s throat and drank what little blood he had left. Thorne heard Sky gasp when Sam went limp in his arms.

Hoping she wouldn’t regret her decision and that Sam wouldn’t hate her for making it, doubting the wisdom of what he was about to do, Thorne bit into his own wrist, then held the bleeding wound to Sam’s lips.

“Drink, Sam,” he murmured. “Drink, and live.”

Girard Desmarais cursed his bad luck as he fled the Abbey. How the hell had Thorne gained entrance to St. Germaine’s? He puzzled over that for several minutes, then muttered, “Of course. Mind control.”

Berating himself for not having foreseen such an eventuality, he made his way into the city and the small apartment he kept there.

So, he thought as he removed his cloak and tossed it over a chair, he had blown his chance this time. But there would be others. Cassandra or no Cassandra, he wouldn’t rest until Thorne or the girl or both were dead.

Skylynn tugged on Kaiden’s arm. “Is he going to be all right?”

“We won’t know until he wakes tomorrow night. Right now, we need to get out of here.” He couldn’t take a chance on Desmarais alerting the rest of the brotherhood, and while the odds of that seemed slim, Thorne thought it best not to take chances. He wasn’t afraid of many things, but he didn’t want to confront a bunch of former slayers wielding torches and wooden stakes if he could help it.

After draping Sam over one shoulder, Thorne reached for Skylynn’s hand. “Do you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

“Okay, hold on tight. Don’t be afraid.”

With an effort of will, he transported the three of them out of the Abbey’s basement and deep into the heart of the forest beyond.

Skylynn stared up at him, her eyes wide. “What just happened? How did you do that?”

“Vampire, Sky, remember?”

“Can all vampires do that?”

“As far as I know.”

“Wow.”

“There’s a plane waiting to take us home,” he said, and then frowned when he realized how late it was. If they left now, it would be daylight before they reached Vista Verde, and while he might survive a short time in the sun’s light, Sam, as a fledgling, would go up in flames.

He considered trying to transport the three of them to California, but quickly dismissed the idea. He had never tried to transport anyone else that far, wasn’t sure if he could transport the three of them that far, or what effect it would have on Skylynn.

He explained his reasoning to Sky, then said, “I think we’d better spend what’s left of the night in a hotel.”

She nodded. “All right.”

Thorne squeezed her hand. “You ready? Okay, here we go.”

A short time later, they were registered in one of London’s best hotels. Sky wasn’t sure how Thorne had managed it. Another bit of vampire magic, she supposed, since he had scored a pair of adjoining rooms without so much as a reservation. And such lovely rooms. The furniture looked antique, the drapes were brocade, the paintings on the papered walls depicted scenes of the English countryside.

Wrapped in a warm bathrobe, courtesy of the hotel, Sky stood at one of the windows, staring out at the rain, while Thorne showered.

So much had happened so fast. She glanced over her shoulder to where Sam lay, apparently sleeping, on one of the king-size beds. When he awoke tomorrow night, he would be a vampire. Had she made a mistake in asking Thorne to turn her brother? Would Sam thank her for saving his life, or hate her for what she had done? Would becoming a vampire restore his memories, or erase them forever?

Sky turned back to the window. She had always wanted to visit London, but not like this. Too nervous to stay still, she paced the floor. Where was Desmarais? A hotel wasn’t like a house. This threshold wouldn’t repel him, but surely he wouldn’t come here. Would he?

Now that Sam was a vampire, the odds were two-to-one against Desmarais. Would that fact be enough to make the crazy slayer-turned-monk-turned vampire leave them alone? Somehow, she doubted it.

Her heart skipped a beat when the water in the bathroom stopped running. A moment later, Kaiden entered the room, naked save for the fluffy white towel wrapped around his lean hips.

Stars above, the man was the epitome of male perfection from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. And he was all hers.

“Are you all right?” he asked, coming to stand beside her.

“I guess so. I’m just so worried, you know, about Sam, about what he’ll think when he wakes up.” Feeling suddenly chilled, she ran her hands up and down her arms. “Kaiden, did I do the right thing?”

“I guess we won’t know that until tomorrow night.”

Sky nodded. What if Sam hated her when he woke up and realized what he had become? What if he couldn’t control his hunger and he went on a killing spree? Any lives he took would be on her head. Oh, Lord, what had she done?

Needing something to distract her morbid thoughts from what might happen when Sam awoke, she traced the faint white scar on Kaiden’s cheek. “How did you get that?”

“Sword fight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Happened when I was a highwayman. I stopped a carriage to rob the passengers. One of them was a duke. I guess he wanted to impress the ladies because he drew his sword and tried to stop me. He lost.”