Blood Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page B

traveling the world. So he hadn’t paid much attention. But he could understand why Miss Dare was said to be so addictive. She had a demon’s lure.
    Now she had a dying daughter. And from the look of theyoung girl’s elegantly appointed bedchamber, Vivienne Dare possessed fantastic wealth.
    So what had she wanted with Raine? She wouldn’t have gotten a soul from him. Or even expensive gifts.
    “Come on, angel.” Miss Dare helped her daughter sit up. She clucked and coaxed like a mother hen.
    He liked this view of Miss Dare. Her skirts were tucked beneath her generous bottom. In profile, her nose was an adorable little curve, her cheeks softly sculpted. Her mouth was truly enticing. It never stayed still.
    Miss Dare poured fluid from the vial to a silver spoon and replaced the stopper. Her daughter was an ethereal beauty. Long golden hair spilled around the pretty, faery-like face. She had big blue-green eyes, a button of a nose, and funny little pointed ears that made her look like a wee elf. But she must be at least sixteen, if not older. She was so thin, he’d thought her younger at first.
    Miss Dare wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Her face took on the lines of a mother’s sorrow, even as she forced another soft smile to her lips. “It won’t be so bad. A quick swallow. Then we’ll give you a cup of chocolate, and you’ll have something sweet to drink.”
    “Don’t … want … chocolate. Want … want sleep. Darkness. Please.” The girl clutched her mother’s arms. Stared up with blank, stricken eyes.
    He heard Miss Dare’s heart skip a beat. Whatever her daughter meant, she had not said these words before. And Miss Dare was scared.
    “Open up and one quick swallow and it’s all done.” Miss Dare slipped in the spoonful of medicine.
    The girl struggled. Sputtered. But, with maternal firmness, Miss Dare held her daughter’s jaw closed, so the child had no choice but to swallow. Then she put her palm to her daughter’s pale forehead.
    “I’m not so cold anymore, mummy,” the girl whispered.
    “Oh, that is so good, my love,” Miss Dare whispered on a sob. She hugged her daughter.
    Heath’s heart gave a twist in his chest.
    Outside the bedroom, in the hallway, footsteps whispered. Heath jerked his attention to the door as Julian appeared on the threshold.
    “Did you get the crone from the apothecary?” he asked softly.
    Julian shook his head. “She was gone when I got back there. The shop was locked up, Heath. I broke in—”
    “Broke in. Hell, the woman will know that when she returns.”
    Julian’s lower lip went out. “I was careful. I picked the lock, and I didn’t touch anything. She won’t know. Place is grungy and disgusting. There were jars of stuff she must use to make her medicine.”
    “Anything unusual? Eye of newt? Any animals in any state of evisceration?”
    “There weren’t any animals. Just powders and liquids.” Julian nodded toward the bed. “What’s wrong with the girl?”
    “I don’t know. Can you sense she’s dying?”
    “I can hear her heart.” He gave a young man’s jaded shrug. “It’s weak and slow. Can you heal her?”
    “I don’t know. But I am going to try.” A young girl’s life? It wouldn’t begin to balance the evil he’d indulged in as a vampire, but it would be a start. “I’m going to need some time alone with the lady and her daughter.”
    Julian frowned. Then he gave an abrupt nod. He turned on his heel and left, his greatcoat flapping around him like a bat’s wings.
    Vivienne sat with her back to Heath. She’d discarded her gloves—funny, he hadn’t noticed her do that—had thrown them on the floor.
    She held her back straight and tense even as her hand flowed over her daughter’s long curls, stroking, reassuring, loving. Her gaze never left her daughter, she never turned, but he knew she was aware of him.
    He waited while she felt the girl’s forehead again. She pulled up the bedclothes, smoothed and fussed,