Blood Wicked Read Online Free PDF

apothecary later. “Let her go, Julian. And love”—he turned to the blond woman—”don’t try to run. I warn you it will be a futile gesture. I’ll catch you again. Easily. You told me you’re desperate to return to your daughter, so I’ll take you there. In my carriage.”
    Her chin went up, but her eyes flicked around, seeking escape. Her mind was still eerily closed to him. And he didn’t know why.
    “I have a carriage. I do not need your help.”
    He bowed before the trembling blonde. The woman must know she had no way out, but was only looking more fierce as a result.
    “This has nothing to do with help, my dear. You may not have noticed, but you are now my prisoner. Until I get the truth out of you, I’m not letting you go.”
    Her eyes widened with fury, snapping at him with blue fierceness. The same eyes he had seen in the reflection. “And who in hell do you think you are?” she demanded, all explosive fire.
    He didn’t play with fire anymore. He moved in the night, eternally cold, eternally dark, eternally deadened. “Ah, little one, you have no idea how apropos your question is. But haven’t you guessed? I’m Blackmoor. The man you are supposed to bed. Now, tell me who
you
are.”
    The girl in the giant bed looked fragile. Like one of the porcelain dolls his daughter had treasured.
    Heath knew pain again, a swift, sharp slice of it. He knew what it was like to lose a child.
Meredith
. His daughter. Someone he had vowed to keep safe forever, to protect from everything. When he’d first held his little girl in his arms, he had vowed she would never even have anything to pout about.
    And now she was gone.
    All he had were memories, but they were laden with pain and guilt, like thorny briars twisted around his heart. Memories, for a vampire destined to live for eternity, were tenuous things that slowly drifted away.
    The blonde pushed past him, crossing the bedroom with soft, swift steps. She sat on the edge of the bed and tenderly stroked her daughter’s pale face. Real lines dragged at her lush mouth, not ones she had painted on. “Sarah? I have your medicine, dear. Let’s help you to sit up so you can drink it.”
    Heath folded his arms across his chest. Retreated into shadow. He’d sent Julian back to the apothecary after he’d learned the blonde’s address. So he was alone here with the woman, her daughter, and her sleeping servants.
    He watched her. Ariadne used to touch their daughter this way, with a mother’s unique combination of love and firmness. It hurt like blazes to watch, but he couldn’t look away.
    “No,” came the plaintive cry from beneath a heavy counterpane and snow-white sheets. “It’s horrid. Don’t want anymore. Hate it. Hate it.”
    Her mother tried for a soothing smile. But her lips wobbled. Tendrils of blond hair cascaded down her neck. She was a beautiful woman. At this moment, holding her daughter’s hand, she shimmered like an angel.
    “Well, we do not have a choice, Sarah.” He heard the sharp rise in her heartbeat. She was terrified for her child. “You must take it. To get well.”
    To stay alive.
    He could not hear the thought, but he could guess it. She hadn’t given him her real name when she had finally given it to him in his carriage.
My name is—is Mrs. Tate
, she had said. She had been too distracted, too filled with fear for her daughter to lie convincingly.
    On their way up here, he’d let her go ahead while he examined invitations left on a table beside the door. She was Vivienne Dare.
    He remembered there had been a beautiful courtesan known as Miss Dare. Bosomy. Elegant. Lovely. The type of enticing, voluptuous temptress who made a gentleman so desperate to get her, he would sell his soul to have her in his bed. Or, at the very least, bankrupt his estate.
    One night with her and a man was said to be addicted to her forever. No other woman could ever measure up. Heath had been married then, faithful to his wife, and he had been