The Slayer, page 11
“No.”
A spark of recognition and fire lit Lilly’s eyes. The Chosen were as much her ticket to something she dearly wanted as they were to ensuring the vampire court’s victory against Rathe and the Darkin who had joined him in his crusade to open the Gates of Nyx and eliminate humanity.
Alexa left Lilly discussing the particulars of the Chosen with her crewmen. The attention distracted Miss Arliss enough to soothe her apparent fear of flying. Too bad it did nothing to appease the uneasiness building like a maelstrom in the pit of Alexa’s stomach.
“How do you feel the Hunters in our homeland will respond to Mr. Jackson?” she asked Michael as he accompanied her to the bridge. Of any of her children by gift, Michael would know. He’d been a Hunter until his entire family had been turned into werewolves and he’d willingly become a vampire with the House of Drossenburg to escape the fate of being forced to hunt his family down. His smooth brown hair curved about his collar and swept over his forehead, making him look far more boyish than his one hundred and fifty years.
“He’s a Slayer. It is only natural that they will shun him, perhaps even seek to take the Book from him and claim the glory of stopping Rathe for themselves among the Legion.”
“It is quite an honor.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“An honor worth killing for,” she mused. “Have we had word on how the British Hunters are faring in their quest to locate our portion of the Book for Queen Victoria?”
Michael cleared his throat. “Yes, my lady. The report from the castle is that they have met with resistance from the French Hunters and are taking the long route through Germany to reach the castle.”
“Of course they would. The French Hunters are an enclave unto themselves, and Queen Victoria has strong familial ties in Germany, making her Hunters welcome there.”
They reached the bridge, and Michael opened the door for her. Alexa hesitated as a thought coursed through her mind. “Michael, you don’t think the British Hunters would have made an alliance with the Austro-Hungarian empire to get the Book for themselves, do you?” Considering he’d once been one of their numbers, he would be the most reliable source of information on the subject.
“I could see it being a possibility. Their leader is very keen to stay in the Queen’s good graces. Whomever holds the complete Book would hold the fate of the world in his or her hands, and the British are most eager to extend their empire by any means, natural or supernatural.”
It was simply too far a distance to Castle Barranoch to communicate effectively with Count Vernay via her thoughts, and it opened up the potential for any vampire to overhear their conversation. “Dispatch a message immediately to Count Vernay and alert him that we may be double-crossed if the British join forces with the Austro-Hungarian Hunters. We must ensure that the Chosen are the ones who hold the Book.”
Chapter 9
The airship came to rest in a barren, tan stretch of dirt and rock. In the distance was a cluster of buildings veiled in the layers of dust hanging in the hot, still, creosote-scented air. Other than a few houses, the only building was the old fort, constructed out of the same reddish tan stone that littered the landscape and rose up in mountains around the little wilderness outpost. Half tumbled down, it blended in so well that it was hard to discern it from the desert. Alexa shivered at the thought of ever having to live in such a desolate, inhospitable place.
Lilly seemed giddy at the sight of the dilapidated settlement, as she walked down the gangplank to join Colt. Truly these Americans had very different ways of seeing the world, the contessa thought.
The air stirred with the scent of leather and male, and her skin prickled with heated awareness. Alexa didn’t need to look to know Winchester was standing directly behind her.
“Do you think they’ll succeed in finding the first part of the Book?” she asked as the crew pulled up the gangplank and readied the ship for departure.
“If anyone has tenacity in this family, it’s Colt. He’ll find it or die trying,” Winn answered flatly, but she could also hear a tinge of disapproval in his tone as they watched his brother walk with Lilly toward the speck of civilization in the distance.
Alexa glanced at him. “His tenacity displeases you?”
“Nope. Wouldn’t be a Jackson if he didn’t have that in him.”
“Ah,” she said, with a knowing smile. The clank and thud of the gangplank being raised and the roaring sound of engines told her the ship was ready for departure. Her captain was nothing if not efficient. She’d allotted him thirty minutes. They were lifting off in ten.”You wish to protect him.”
Winchester blew out a harsh puff of breath that ruffled his mustache. “Cain’t always be around to save that boy. He’s going to have to do this one on his own.”
She knew precisely how he felt. Since she and Count Drossenburg had not been married long enough before his death to produce children of their own, all her children had been by gift. And each time one of them left the court, she worried that he or she would not return. Alexa wasn’t sure what compelled her to touch Winchester; she only meant to offer him her sympathetic support. Her hand looked very small against his muscular arm clad in his rough oilskin duster. Even through several layers of fabric she could feel the tantalizing heat of his skin. “If he is anything like his brother, he will do well.”
The ground dropped away from beneath the hull, and she wrapped her other gloved hand around the railing to steady herself.
He gazed down at her hand on his arm, and when he looked up the raw intensity of his gaze, filled with male awareness, rippled like a surge of hot water through her veins. The ship rocked slightly, the air filling with the hum and shush of the steam turbines and whopping sound of the props as they pushed up farther into the endless blue of the desert sky.
Perhaps it was the rapid climb in elevation that was making her feel light-headed, Alexa thought. Surely she could not find this rough, rugged, common Hunter appealing. But the ichor pumping hard and thick in her veins told a different story.
Something about Mr. Winchester Jackson had flipped a switch inside her, making her intimately aware of him in ways that she’d never been of another being, vampire or human. The inventor in her wanted to explore and test the flood of new sensations, trying to divine the cause. The intellect in her shouted she should withdraw and avoid him in no uncertain terms. Curiosity won.
Winn knew that look. The contessa was intrigued by him, like any red-blooded, mortal woman. The wind teased dark tendrils of her hair across her cheek and her full mauve lips. He resisted the urge to wrap his hands about her waist and pull her closer. For a moment he questioned if she was trying to throw a glamour on him, but then she wasn’t speaking, so that couldn’t be the reason he felt compelled to bring her closer.
The contessa broke the spell weaving between them first. She shifted her gaze and withdrew her hand, and clamped it beside her other on the rail, looking out at the land that spread beneath them. “The world looks very different from up here, doesn’t it?”
Wasn’t that the truth? Up here, flying among the heavens, the contessa didn’t look like some child of the night. She looked like an elegant, proper lady—a beautiful one.
Winn swallowed hard, trying to bring his response to her under control and realign his thoughts. There were no gray spaces. It was black and white. She was Darkin. He was a Hunter. Black. White. And he’d do well to remember that.
He focused instead on the shifting colors and shapes of the landscape below them. He’d never gone any farther than the Mississippi River, and the change in scenery fascinated him, tempting the adventurous part of his nature that’d he’d ruthlessly suppressed for the past ten years.
Adventure was dangerous. Hunting was deadly.
“I don’t know about you, Mr. Jackson, but I am going to retire for a bit to refresh myself before dinner.”
The thought of vampires and dinner made him immediately tense.
Her expressive eyes twinkled as she asked, “Will you join me this evening?”
His gaze flicked to hers. He was starving, but he wasn’t about to be part of the meal. “I don’t think that’s possible,” he said gruffly.
She laughed, and the sound was husky and sensual. “You won’t eat braised beef and vegetables, with an apple tart for dessert? I promise you my ship’s chef is most accomplished.”
Winn scratched the back of his neck in confused agitation. “I thought—well—”
“I know what you thought, Mr. Jackson, but I am determined to prove an amiable host to you on our journey.”
His throat swelled with embarrassment, making it hard to swallow properly. Winn cleared his throat against the sensation. He removed his hat and placed it over his chest. “My apologies for jumping to conclusions, my lady.”
She dipped down into an elegant curtsey and looked up at him through her lashes in a most seductive manner. “Dinner is at seven. I shall see you there in the dining room then.”
Winn watched her walk away, the rustle of her skirts making his skin suddenly too warm. He ran his finger along the inside edge of his collar. He was on this journey to an unknown foreign country alone. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, he’d never even been off of American soil. He stared down at the lights that marked the cities far below. Between them stretched miles and miles of darkness. Winn got the uncomfortable sensation that every mile closer to the home of the vampire court weakened his hunting abilities, which were rusty to begin with.
He knew what to fight here in the States. He knew the Darkin that roamed here. But over there, over there was one big unknown for which he was clearly unprepared. Winn patted down the large hidden pocket in his duster and found Marley’s water shooting device still safely stored there.
He bent his arms on the rail, staring out at the stars on the horizon, brilliant against the blue-black sky. Marley had said Russian werewolves were different, when he’d called him back inside and given him the letter he wanted hand-delivered to Queen Victoria. Winn had seen shape-shifters, but not the kind that only turned to wolves. He’d seen demons aplenty and a rare vampire now and again. But what else waited out there to cause him to screw up and make a mistake? And that’s really all it would take. Just one mistake, like the colossal one he’d made with that yellow-eyed demon before he’d known better, and he could die, or worse yet lose the piece of the Book to Rathe’s minions.
He heard the clock above the fireplace mantel inside strike the half hour. Winn glanced at it and decided he probably needed to clean up for dinner himself.
He entered the observation deck and took the stairs down to the second deck and found his cabin. Winn opened the door and sucked in a surprised breath. There on the bed was an elegant black-and-white tuxedo with a long, split-tailed evening jacket. He closed the door behind him and touched the fabric. It was finer than anything he’d ever worn.
Winn rolled his shoulders and eyed himself critically in the looking glass poised above the ceramic washbasin on the stand in his room. He looked like he’d been out in the desert for two or three days. His stubble always grew in fast and dark, and the dust storm had left his skin gritty and streaked with dirt. Beside the white washbowl, rimmed in gold, was a fluffy white towel, a tin of shaving soap with a bristle brush, and an ivory-handled straight razor. Curls of steam eddied above a pitcher. Perhaps it was time for a shave.
“Am I late?” Despite hearing his heartbeat before she saw him, Alexa was still startled by his voice. It had a gravelly edge to it, a rumbling sort of sound—one that made her ichor surge just a little harder and faster than normal through her veins.
“Not at all.” She turned from the window and gazed at him. His tanned cheeks were smooth and clean, almost touchable. The stark black of the tuxedo complimented his slicked-back jet hair and mustache and made the blue of his eyes that much more intense. “You look quite handsome when you’re civilized.”
He chuckled, his gaze both assessing and appreciative. “I bet you tell that to all the men you invite for dinner.”
It was a barb, but delivered with such charm and bedevilment that Alexa easily dismissed it. It was only natural that he should be uneasy in her presence during their first meal together, she reasoned. He truly had no idea what to expect. For all he knew vampires could act like the wild cannibals reported to exist in the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa. But of the two of them in the room, he was by far the more wild and untamed. He was barely thirty. She was more than ten times that in both age and experience.
The crew had truly outdone themselves. The long table was set with crisp white linen, and the crystal goblets sparkled beneath the blue flames of the gas lamps overhead. Each piece of silver and china proudly bore the Drossenburg crest. Alexa chose not to focus on it. The crest that followed her every waking moment was a reminder that she was a contessa by marriage, and while noble, was not free to make her own choices. The title came with certain expectations and certain procedures. But just for tonight, Alexa planned to break some of those rules.
“Shall we be seated?”
Mr. Jackson rounded the far side of the table, keeping it between them, even though his eyes followed her every movement with more than just casual interest. At the head of the table, he pulled the cherrywood and burgundy velvet chair out for her. Alexa’s skin warmed at the simple courtesy. Perhaps he was not as barbaric as he attempted to appear.
She’d given strict instructions that no one was to disturb them this evening, not even to bring in the courses. They were to transport them instead, leaving her utterly alone with her guest.
Winn stared down the length of the table at the contessa. Her hair was upswept in a complicated creation of curls and twists, leaving her elegant neck and her collarbone and the tops of her creamy shoulders tantalizingly bare just above a swath of red silk. A whiff of onions tweaked his nose, and he looked down to see a steaming bowl of soup had materialized unannounced in front of him.
Winn found himself at a loss as to which of the spoons he should use. He’d never found a need for more than one, and certainly not three. And there were just as many forks. Which should he use? A prickle of sweat began to itch his neck beneath the stiff starched rim of his boiled collar.
“Do you approve of our first course, Mr. Jackson?”
Winn glanced up and saw her lightly tap the spoon to the farthest right of his place setting. He picked it up and waited for her to take the first bite, then followed suit. Hunting had taught him a lot, but never anything about the ways of high society. Who needed to know which spoon was used for soup when it was a properly packed shotgun shell that was going to save your ass?
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and took a bite of the onion soup. “It’s tasty.”
He could tell she tried to suppress her smile. She took another bite, then lightly patted her lips with her napkin. “You seem surprised.”
“Wasn’t anything I expected, that’s for sure.”
Her laugh was husky and genuine, wrapping around him and making him even more aware of how very feminine she was. Winn was out of his element. How did one make fancy dinner conversation? It wasn’t as if he could talk about work at the jail, or hunting. Ma had taught him enough to know those weren’t appropriate topics at the dinner table. The sudden memory of her pierced him, turning his stomach with regret. He put down his spoon and pushed the bowl away from him.
“Is something wrong with your soup?”
“Little rich for my blood,” he murmured.
One of the crystal goblets to his right began to fill with red liquid out of thin air. “That’s a mighty fancy trick.”
“Materializing objects is not a trick, Mr. Jackson, it is a power we work to achieve.”
He took the glass and sniffed the contents, making sure it was wine. The pleasantly tart flavor of grape swirled in his mouth, but he nearly choked when he saw what the contessa had in her own glass. She held her own goblet to her lush mouth, but the red liquid was too bright, too viscous, to be wine.
“That a special vintage?” he asked, suspicion lacing his tone. She pulled the glass away from her lips and nodded.
“Anything I’d want to try?”
The contessa arched a brow and shrugged. “I’m not in the habit of telling men such as yourself what you can and cannot do.”
Winn was momentarily distracted by the disappearance of his soup bowl and its replacement by a dinner plate filled with braised beef, tender asparagus, and roasted red potatoes. It smelled better than anything he’d eaten in months. The back of his mouth ached and watered. His stomach growled. He didn’t bother trying to figure out which fork he was supposed to use to be proper; he just grabbed one and tucked in.
“It’s good to see a man with an appetite,” she said softly.
Winn glanced up at her as he chewed a bit of beef so tender he could cut it with his fork. He swallowed. “You say that like it hasn’t happened in a while.”
She sipped at her wineglass thoughtfully. “Perhaps because it has been a long time. I’ve been a widow now nearly two hundred years.”
Winn choked and launched into a coughing fit. “Two—two hundred years?”
She wove her hands together and rested her chin on them. Her gaze danced with amusement. “Does that surprise you?”
“A little,” he muttered. “You don’t look a day older than one-fifty—one-sixty at most.” He knew she had to be an old vampire to have the powers she did, but there was no way a man looking at her could have guessed her age. The smooth unblemished complexion, glossy hair, thick fringe of lashes about her eyes, and lush figure hinted at someone likely in her twenties, if that. “Not that I mean any disrespect,” he added quickly, then started eating again. Perhaps if he was eating she wouldn’t expect any more conversation from him.
