Chapter Fifteen

 

 

 

“Lucretia was well pleased with you, Mr. Franklin,” Moreau said, grinning from ear to ear. “How did you enjoy her company?”

“Oh, um.” Uncle Howard colored slightly. “She was very hospitable. Very kind.”

“Excellent. Then you’ll accept her offer.”

Asher felt his uncle’s pleading gaze fasten on to him, but couldn’t raise his own from the ground. He’d heard Moreau’s women whisper about Lady Lucretia preferring younger men. He’d also heard that the recent attacks on Redemption had cost the town more humans than vampires and the pinch was beginning to make itself felt.

A number of bloodsuckers had inadvertently exsanguinated their pets through overfeeding.

Lucretia would grit her teeth and put up with an old man if it meant she could preserve her favorites. This didn’t bode, especially well for Uncle Howard.

“And you, Mr. Foley?”

Wesley snorted brazenly in Moreau’s face. “I’d sooner chew glass that let that harpy get her fangs anywhere near me.”

Connie sucked in a sharp breath. The whole room seemed to echo her shock.

“I understand that in Sargasso you are allowed to run quite wild,” Moreau said mildly, “so I’ll pardon your language, Mr. Foley. But be advised we don’t tolerate rudeness in Redemption. Particularly toward your betters.”

“What exactly makes—”

“He’ll behave,” said Asher, before Wesley could dig himself in deeper. With his floppy blond hair and chiseled jaw, Wesley had it in him to be fetching. If he could get the glare he was currently training on Asher under control, he might even find himself in a suitably painless compromise. “Lady Victoria couldn’t have chosen better.”

Moreau cocked an eyebrow as if to say, you really think so? But when he spoke, it was to correct a more insidious point. “Unfortunately Lady Victoria wasn’t too thrilled with Mr. Foley’s lip.”

Shuffling lower in his seat, Wesley smirked. “Could’ve told you I’m unmarriageable and saved you the trouble.”

“One disappointment is hardly any reason to stop trying,” Moreau assured him. “You’ll be joining Mr. Franklin at Lucretia’s until new arrangements can be made. As for you, Ms. Pinkham—”

“I’m very happy where I am,” Connie answered smoothly. “And I think I could make Ivan even happier.”

Asher had only seen the ghoulish Ivan once, but he struggled to imagine what happiness might look like on his face. Presumably a slightly less dolorous expression. A smile seemed beyond his abilities. Laughter, out of the question.

If Connie had been wasted on her former fiancé, then it was a damn travesty to have her saddled with a creature as bland and bleak as Ivan.

Asher shook himself. In a matter of hours, he’d gone from thoughts of escape to trying to make the least painful bargain with a man he would’ve fantasized about murdering not too long ago. He told himself it was pragmatism. A tiny voice at the back of his mind insisted he was merely gutless.

Moreau grinned broadly. “I’m very pleased to hear it. We’ll have the bans read soon. Ivan will be thrilled.”

Connie returned his smile, though hers was slightly timid and quick to slide from her lips.

“What about Asher?” Wesley grumbled. “Or is it that you’re sending him back?”

“Perish the thought!” Moreau seemed affronted by the mere suggestion. “Oh no, I fully intend to find Asher a good woman to honor and obey.” The sharp, faintly salacious slant of his mouth revealed all too clearly what he meant by ‘obey’. “But in the meantime, he will be under my protection as my honored guest. If you’ve no objections, of course, Asher…”

Moreau’s wolfish smile would have been charming if his canines hadn’t been just a half inch too long. If Moreau hadn’t represented everything Asher hated about the world.

What could he do, besides shake his head and wish for more whiskey? The little he’d imbibed already threatened to rise up in his throat. It was paltry comfort to note that Moreau’s bite had ceased bothering him.

Moreau’s hunger wasn’t difficult to decipher. There would be more tonight.

 

* * * *

 

“Regretting it yet?”

If Asher didn’t acknowledge the unnatural chill that rippled down his spine, he could almost tell himself that it was the wind’s whisper ringing in his ears and not a most familiar brogue.

“Snubbing me won’t help.”

Asher sighed. “Go away, Halloran.”

“You’re on my land.”

Reluctantly, Asher blinked his eyes open. The barren plains around Willowbranch were a familiar sight, particularly after dark, though he had only seen them from the farmhouse porch a handful of times. It should have been nowhere near enough to have the view etched onto his memory.

The rocking chair creaking back and forth in the corner of his eye bid him to whirl around.

“Dear uncle,” Nyle read, his voice like velvet. “Shall I tell you how he feeds from me? His teeth are long and sharp…”

A fist closed around Asher’s heart. “What—where did you get that?”

Asher’s question left Nyle unmoved. He didn’t raise his gaze from the letter in his hands. The creases and soot stains on the paper gave away its origin.

“That’s private,” Asher snarled. “Give it back—”

Nyle vanished from sight as swiftly as he’d materialized, leaving Asher to stumble into thin air.

“Again,” Halloran drawled, “you’re on my land.” The letter was now in his fist, though he didn’t seem to have the same interest in perusing its contents. “Did you really find the nights more bearable in my company?”

Incensed, Asher snatched the missive from Halloran’s grip. “You bastard! You took everything I had and now you’re going through my trash?”

The valley echoed with the tenor of his shout, carrying it far and wide, to the edges of Asher’s dream.

“I didn’t,” Halloran corrected after a beat. “Nyle was…curious.”

“I’m sure you tried to stop him.”

“Why would I? You’d have me believe your species is not unintelligent. I thought there might be some value in your thoughts.”

Asher could all but hear the sarcasm in his voice. It shouldn’t have irked him so. “Yeah, well, I was never much of a wordsmith.” He scowled at Halloran. “How did you bring Nyle here?” And why? Hadn’t Asher been humiliated enough?

Dropping his gaze from Asher’s face to the letter, Halloran licked his lips and swallowed as if trying to parse out the words he meant to offer in explanation. Yet when he glanced up, his eyes were hard. “If you still don’t understand how this works, then I’m wastin’ my time with you.”

None of this is real.

Asher staggered where he stood, the letter clutched tightly in his fist.

He was still in Redemption. Moreau had simply allowed him to sleep. At long last.

A sharp ache in his wrist tripped another circuit in his memory. Asher glanced down. The sleeve of his white shirt was dappled with red.

Halloran noticed it too. “Someone’s had your blood.”

“Someone else,” Asher corrected grimly. Halloran wasn’t the first. He wouldn’t be the last.

He didn’t flinch when Halloran seized his arm, the grip firm yet unexpectedly gentle for a vampire, and fumbled the cuff open. Two telltale punctures pocked the skin where Asher had been gouged.

“I’ve sometimes wondered if silver bullets would do the same to one of you,” Asher mumbled, sagging against the porch rail.

Halloran cocked an eyebrow. “Never tried shooting at us?”

“I’m alive, aren’t I?” One attempt on a vampire’s life and he wouldn’t be.

“My mistake,” Halloran sneered. “Wasn’t aware you value your life so highly you’d never think to move against my kind.”

Manhandling Asher could take, but his nerves were too raw to admit taunting. He wrenched free, fighting the stubborn quaver in the pit of his stomach, the adrenaline that coursed through him at having Halloran close enough to touch. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t actually present.

Halloran snorted. “None too keen to acknowledge your achievements, hmm? Pity. And just when things were starting to get interesting…”

“My achievements are cold in the church grounds,” Asher snapped. “As for interesting, I’m about to be shackled to another one of you—”

Halloran growled. “Is that so?”

“Yes, that’s goddamn—”

“But you don’t want that.” Halloran braced his hands on the rail, one to either side of Asher, boxing him in. “So what’ll you do about it?”

Between the sharp jolt of anxiety that stole through Asher at their closeness and the learned instinct to make himself small as soon as he’d attracted a vampire’s interest, Asher froze. His breaths shortened, heart throbbing somewhere in the region of his larynx.

“Ain’t nothing I can do,” he forced out. “I got no guns, no ammo. And the outfit that was supposed to help me buckled a couple of months back.”

He took perverse pleasure in seeing Halloran’s expression shutter, although it was short-lived.

Halloran recovered with a crooked smile that didn’t get anywhere near crinkling his brown eyes. “What if I said there’s a war coming your way and all you need is to be ready when it hits?”

“I’d say you’ve got a great sense of humor.”

Halloran had snarled and called him obstinate so many times that, after a while, his aggravation lost all sense of threat. Asher settled more comfortably against the rail, his discarded letter rustling in his fist.

“Are you going to kiss me again?”

Predictably, Halloran dropped his gaze to Asher’s mouth as if he were considering the question.

“I’ve only ever kissed you to shut you up.”

Not true. But it didn’t matter. “You’ve only ever done it when you wanted. Ain’t so tempting, is it, if I’m offering?” Asher told himself it was mere curiosity that bid him ask. What else was there to talk about? Escape was Halloran’s fantasy. Revenge had lost its appeal the last time Asher was dragged, bleeding, through the streets.

Halloran straightened, his gaze hard. “You still don’t know a goddamn thing, boy. Better hope Moreau don’t figure out just how tempting you can be.”

The cruel sting of his words pricked Asher where he was vulnerable.

Breath fled his lungs in a rush, taking with it any thought of cringing back, of making himself small and insignificant for a vampire’s sake. He saw red before him. “Fuck you. Fuck,” he growled, planting his palms against Halloran’s chest and shoving, “you!”

To his surprise, Halloran went when pushed. It didn’t seem as if he could help it.

“You did that to me! Your filthy, viperous kind—taking whatever you want, no fucking concern for anyone! Don’t even see us as people, do you? We’re just things to you. We’re just—there to be used, to be meddled with! You ain’t got the right!”

Halloran struck the closed door with his back. End of the line. Asher was on a roll, ire pouring out of him in a torrent of words and rage until he nearly wasn’t sure what he was saying but was certain that it needed to be let out before he exploded. And he needed Halloran to listen, whether he had to fist both hands into his lapels and hold him still, or corner him against the rickety front door. He was going to make Halloran hear him. It wasn’t like anyone else cared.

“Your friends do,” Halloran said, which was how Asher realized he’d spoken aloud. Halloran’s voice was infuriatingly low and even, as if Asher’s crumbling mind didn’t even catch his notice.

“My friends are prisoners ’cause of me,” Asher gritted out. He couldn’t say when he’d begun leaning into Halloran’s broad chest. He discovered it with some astonishment, when his knees began to melt under him.

He didn’t flinch as Halloran settled a cool palm at the small of his back. As far as Sargasso’s laws were concerned, he was still Halloran’s property.

Halloran slid a knuckle under his chin. “So get them out.”

“I can’t,” Asher rasped, his throat scraped raw. “I can’t.”

He was in bed with a viper far more dangerous than Halloran ever could be, in a town built like a fortress. Brushing Halloran’s fingertips with his lips in the depths of a dream was about as rebellious as he dared to be anymore.

“Wesley’s pistols,” said Halloran.

“What about them?”

Moreau had confiscated all their gear, down to the clothes on their backs and the horses they’d ridden in on. Darlene and his other wives whispered that it was hard to know who to trust anymore, human or vampire. They clammed up when they noticed Asher listening, but they seemed to know that it was vampires, and not humans, who were harassing Redemption.

Halloran gave his chin an abrupt nudge, jostling Asher from his thoughts. “Listen to me. You need to get those guns and get out of town. Tonight.”

Asher snorted. Of course, that was going to happen. Why had he ever believed Halloran could help him? Vampires didn’t have a sense of the impossible. Cheating death would do that to a man. “Why the rush?” Tonight, tomorrow, what difference could a day make when any attempt was doomed to failure?

But Halloran palmed his cheek, hand rough and businesslike on Asher’s face. “Listen to me. Ambrose’s men are coming for what was stolen… Do you understand? They’re coming sooner than you think.”

A wave of panic swept over Asher, the blood in his veins freezing in the space of a heartbeat.

Halloran seemed to mistake his shock for acquiescence. “That’s right. Come morning, there won’t be a prison in Redemption to hold any of you.”