The Vampire Laird (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery/Romance) (13 page)

Meg and Charlie both sighed at once. Their all too charming brother had captured the heart of two Baobhan Siths. Just another chapter in the cursed love life of all the Ravynne siblings. “Allyn, you will wake up now! We have to get you out of here before Orianna and Cerberus get back,” Charlie said, shaking him harder.

He rolled on his back and blinked up at them owlishly. “What are you two…no…three…” he began and then his eyes widened in terror. “Orianna!”

Charlie gritted her teeth and swore under her breath. “No, she is not Orianna. She just looks enough like her to be her twin. Her name is Meaghan and she’s trying to help us get you out of here before Orianna gets back. Now get up and get moving. We’re leaving and you, little brother, are coming with us if we have to drag you every inch.”

He moved like a zombie as they helped him dress. Finally, they pulled him into the hall and Charlie relocked the door. “That will give her something to think about when she gets back. She’s likely to send Cerberus after him when she finds him gone. This hall won’t matter. He’s been up and down it dozens of times, but we need to make sure he can’t track Allyn down that last little bit to the secret door. We’ll have to carry him, Meg. Can you manage it with your ankle?”

“No problem,” Meg said with a grim smile. “She’ll no doubt check on us, too, so we better be back in bed when she comes calling.”

Meanwhile, Meaghan was staring at Allyn with luminous eyes. Her hand trembled as she reached out and stroked his blond hair, then sighed. “I will get ye back to yer room before I leave ye, but we must hurry. I am afeart she is back already and on her way upstairs.”

As it was, they barely managed to hide Allyn in Charlie’s room and crawl back into the Tudor bed, when they heard the faint click of the hidden panel opening. Feigning sleep, they waited till they heard the secret door swing back into place. “That was too close. What next?” Meg asked shakily.

“I’ll check on Allyn and spend the night in there with him. I’ve hidden him under the bed. Try to get some sleep, Meg. We will need it. If the fog is gone tomorrow night…or should I say tonight…we will have to try and get out of here somehow.”

“Say good night to Allyn for me. He must have gone through hell from the looks of him.”

“And I’m very afraid there’s a lot more hell to come….” Charlie told her over her shoulder, as she slipped back into her room.

***

Allyn was still asleep under the bed and Charlie slid a pillow beneath his head, drew a blanket over him, then sat back on her heels. She brushed away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. “Blast you, Allyn, you’d better be okay I don’t know what she has done to you, but she’ll pay for it. You have my promise.” She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He was her baby brother. The one she’d taught to ride a bike and fly a kite. The one she helped work on his first car…a 1975 Camaro…an old relic he had paid for with what was probably the first and only hard work he had ever done.

Another tear rolled down her cheek and she sighed, then rose and climbed up in the high antique bed. She crossed her hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. How was she ever going to get them out of this mess? Orianna was as looney as a bedlamite. Her father was into something illegal and owned the entire village…well almost…there was Angus and the old man they’d spent the morning with who “dinnae want tae ken” what was going on around him. Just what was going on? Daryna was afraid of something and she was their biggest threat, because she had access to their rooms…did the cleaning…brought up trays. How could they keep Allyn hidden from her if only for one day?

She swung her legs off the bed and padded quietly to the open French doors. The fog had thinned and she could see lights moving about the grounds and down the road towards the village. They were looking for Allyn. A howl echoed eerily and she shivered reflexively. She’d been right. They were using Cerberus to pick up Allyn’s trail…only there wasn’t a trail. He was safely tucked under her bed…at least for now.

She crawled back under the covers and turned on her side. A weight settled against the curve of her body and she smiled. Cloud was back. Stoking his long fur and listening to his rumbling purr, she found herself drifting off to the sanctuary of sleep.

Seth poured himself a brandy from the cut glass decanter and studied Orianna as she stood in the doorway. She looked wild and dangerous and every bit as mad as her mother had ever been. Her Baobhan Sith imitation had been convincing enough to scare the villagers and allowed her to play the vampire with who ever struck her fancy. Usually she didn’t keep them long. There were two or three…he lost track…in the cemetery already. He had expected this Allyn to have joined them long ago. But he hadn’t and now he was a problem…a loose end that knew too much.

“I take it you haven’t found Allyn yet?” he murmured with deceptive calm.

She slid into the next chair with the boneless grace she had inherited from her mother. “No. How he got out of a locked room remains a mystery. If I hadn’t posted a guard outside their rooms, I might have believed his sisters helped him.”

“And they are still tucked in their rooms I trust?”

She snorted derisively. “They’re both asleep in the short one’s bed. Afraid no doubt to spend their nights alone after my first visit.”

“The ‘short one’, as you persist in calling her, is Meg. Please refer to her as such in the future. She is a guest after all and is due some courtesy, even by you. So you visited them…playing the Baobhan Sith no doubt. Were you trying to scare them, too?” he asked evenly, refilling his glass.

She laughed without amusement. “Yes…I appeared seemingly from out of thin air, but the one you lust after was not as frightened as she should have been. In fact, I barely made it out of there without being caught. Fortunately, there is no way they will ever find the secret door. It will remain a ‘locked room mystery’ for the Ravynne sisters with the only possible explanation being that I am exactly who I claim to be.

She took a sip from his glass before she continued. “Just what are your plans for them? I thought you were going to sell them off…had a buyer lined up, if I remember correctly, but they are still here. Do you plan on keeping this Charlie for your personal use? I think that might be a big mistake on your part. She scarcely seems the compliant bed partner you’ve grown accustomed to.”

He smiled ruefully. “She has proven much more of a challenge than I would have thought possible. But a man needs a challenge now and then, Orianna. All this, while profitable, has become rather boring. She, on the other hand, is definitely not that, though she can be rather irritating. I will take my time with her initiation.”

“
Initiation
? Is that what you’re calling it now?” she asked maliciously.

His smile turned icy as his hand snaked out and delivered a hard slap. “We have learned to allow ourselves such little indulgences without pettiness, Orianna, or have you forgotten?”

Her eyes flashed as her hand cradled her burning cheek. “Don’t forget who I am and who you are. You will be sorry you did that…very sorry” and with that she fled the room.

***

Despite her exhaustion, it took Meg a long time to fall asleep. Allyn and how they would escape occupied most of her thoughts, but there was still room enough to worry about Grey’s promise. He had said he would come for her in her dreams and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. True…being with him had been sexually very arousing, but making love with a vampire was a very unsettling notion. Of course, if it was just a dream, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions no matter what they were, would she? Still mulling that over, she dozed fitfully, then dropped into a deep well of sleep.

The dream began just as she had feared. She was walking somewhere in a darkness so intense, so thick, she could see nothing at all, but she could feel the ground vibrate beneath her bare feet and hear the rhythmic pound of galloping hoofs coming closer and closer. Up ahead, a light glimmered then grew stronger and she saw a rider coming fast. He was limned with fire as though he rode straight from hell. Closer and closer he galloped. She tried to scream, but only a squeak escaped her trembling lips. She tried to run, but her feet wouldn’t move. She was stuck like a mouse in a glue trap. Closer and closer he came.

She looked back over her shoulder and he was almost upon her and then he was there. He reined in and looked down at her, as his horse moved restively between his powerful thighs. “Come, Meg!” he ordered, then bent and scooped her up onto the saddle in front of him, pinning her tightly against his chest. She should burn from his fiery touch, she thought, but the flames were cold…almost icy. She shivered and he pulled his black cloak around them both and loosened his hold. He was breathing hard and she could feel his heart pounding against her back as rapidly as her own.

The flames flickered then died and the darkness closed in once again, as he urged his horse forward at a fast gallop. They sliced through the night in silence. All she could hear was the rapid thud of their galloping horse as he ate up the distance and then the clatter of his hooves on the wooden drawbridge. They had returned to Blood Castle…his lair. It’s just a dream, Meg, she told herself firmly. You will wake up any moment and find yourself back at the manor in your own bed.

He laughed as though he read her thoughts, then carried her swiftly inside and up to his chamber, where he tossed her lightly into the middle of his bed. Candles burned low, offering just enough light for her to see her captor as he stalked about the room. He tossed his cloak over a trunk, then returned to her. He was wearing the same Highland garb he’d worn in his portrait. Slowly, he unwound his plaid and tossed it after the cloak, then began untying his shirt, as he watched her intently. She swallowed convulsively, as she let her eyes explore his heavily muscled shoulders and broad chest covered with silky black hair that tapered down over six pack abs and disappeared below his kilt. He was magnificent! And he seemed to know it…was clearly enjoying her admiration. He smiled crookedly and settled his weight on the bed next to her, then raised her hand to his lips. “Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted earlier today,” he murmured. Fleetingly, she remembered Nevermore’s timely interruption. There seemed little chance he would save her now. And did she want to be saved? It’s just a dream, Meg, she reminded herself again and found herself saying, “You were about to explore every inch of my satiny skin.”

He laughed. “Which I will do as soon as I get you out of those… what do you call that garment you are wearing?”

“PJs….pajamas,” she told him.

“And with little cats on them….” he murmured, poking one with an exploratory finger.

“Kittens actually.”

“I like kittens, too, shall I see if I can make you purr.” He kissed the inside of her wrist and a moan slipped through her lips. God help her, she thought, she was going to melt again like butter in a hot pan!” So you like that? Let us see what else makes you purr,” he whispered huskily as he looked deeply into her eyes, then dropped his gaze to her parted lips. She felt a hot flush invade her and strange, unfamiliar sensations began to pulse in her lower belly. Suddenly she was afraid…very afraid…but not of him. She was afraid of herself…afraid of the aching need that was stealing over her, making her want something she could not even name. It must be lust, she thought. She’d read about it, but that was as close as she ever got to what she was feeling now.

Again, he seemed to read her thoughts. “You think too much. Sometimes your body is wiser than your head. Let yourself feel all that I would do without guilt or question. Tis only a dream, Meg. Yield to me.” But Meg still struggled. She hadn’t been raised to behave like a wanton with the first vampire that came along, had she? She couldn’t help the giggle that followed that thought. He raised one black brow and asked, “You find me amusing?”

“Not you. This whole situation is….”

“You also talk too much,” he added, then stifled her reply with a kiss that effectively silenced the tiny nagging voice in her head. She was lost and she didn’t care, so she returned his kiss with all her new found passion. As his mouth moved over hers, his fingers began to work the buttons on her pajamas. She gasped as his hand slid inside and cupped her breast. He groaned deep in his throat and murmured, “Lie still, lass. I need you more than you can ken.” And that was her undoing. He needed her. She lay back with a sigh and surrendered herself completely.

His gray eyes were dark with passion, his breathing ragged, as he undressed her until she lay before him flushed with her own desire. She should have felt ashamed, but she didn’t. She felt beautiful…truly beautiful and she knew he thought so, too. It was in his eyes and in his touch. He lowered his body and let his weight settle into her. He was hot and heavy and she relished both. Propped on his arms, his smouldering gray eyes were only a breath away. “Meg.” he muttered hoarsely and swooped down to cover her mouth with his. He kissed her again fiercely…hungrily…and she opened her mouth to his invasion, letting him plunder at will as she met his tongue with her own. She was awash in sensation as her body spasmed in response to his mouth…his hands…the press of his hard muscled body. She writhed beneath him as her need deepened and her hands clawed at his back and shoulders impatiently.

He laughed and sat back on his heels. “I have just begun. Be patient. You have never been loved, have you Meg?”

She shook her head not wanting to remember all the nights she had stared at the ceiling after Mitch had rolled off and gone to sleep. She didn’t want to think at all. And then she couldn’t, as he began to explore every inch of her with his mouth, hands, and tongue.