The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing (33 page)

Dracul snarled, “I have only two presently.”

“Have you lost one?” Jane had heard the three brides of Dracul were as famous as the Loch Ness Monster in the supernatural world.

“That is a question you must ask your husband!” the count snapped, his long white fangs glistening in the night.

As Jane stared at those sharp teeth, she felt a chill wind blow through her soul. Yes, eternity with Dracul would be a fate worse than death.

“Asher will pay for killing Yvette. She was special, that one,” Dracul flared, his eyes now a brilliant scarlet. “I owe him for that, and for the time he maimed me with holy water.” The vampire ripped open his shirt, revealing row upon row of melted flesh on the right side of his body, starting just below the collarbone and ending midway down his stomach. “He will pay, and dearly!”

In the blink of an eye, Dracul crossed to Jane, yanking her into his arms and away from the ostrich. Orville took exception as Dracul lowered his head, preparing to drink his fill.

Jane screamed and, seeing those long, glistening fangs descend, the ostrich attacked, pecking viciously as only an outraged bird weighing over three hundred pounds can do.

Dracul missed Jane’s neck completely, caught off guard by the back-pecking bird. In the confusion, he dropped Jane. Instinct took over and she quickly rolled away, remembering her training. Silently she thanked her father for his many lengthy drills.

Dracul’s fingernails became three-inch claws and he drew back to strike the bird. Jane, realizing his intent, threw herself upon his back and stuck her fingers in his eyes. The ostrich leveled a hard blow to Dracul’s nose. A shrill howling filled the night as Spot, hearing his mistress’s cries, ran from the house. Joining the fray, he leapt at Dracul’s privates, latching on with a vengeance.

Dracul lurched backward. The enraged vampire cried out again, slinging Jane off his back, and Spot flew through the air to land in a soft green hedge. Jane herself landed hard on her hip and left thigh. She groaned, aching. Her leg felt as if an elephant had trampled upon it. She tried to stand, knowing she needed to be ready for flight or fight, but the pain was too great. Terrified, she watched in horror as Orville backed instinctively away. The perfidious Prince of Darkness threw back his head and howled in rage.

Apoplectic, his eyes a bloody red, his long claws clicking together in a furious rhythm, Dracul turned to rip the big bird into shreds. But, seeming to notice something from the corner of his eye, a blur moving with incredible speed through the darkness and shadows, the vampire hesitated.

Catching her breath, her fingers searching desperately for some kind of weapon in the grass, Jane watched curiously as Dracul liquefied into a white mist, blending with the fog. “Where’s a good stake when you need one?” she grumbled. But soon the vampire vanished, a wisp of white in the brisk winds. Weakly she began to stand, was surprised when a strong hand helped her up.

“Jane?” Asher said, concern in his deep tone. “Are you all right? I heard you scream.”

Asher willed his voice to stay strong. He had felt a fear like never before when he’d heard her scream. As he’d hurried to where the sound had originated, he’d kept seeing images of his wife:

The way she held her stake. The way she sipped her tea. The memory of all that… The way she had spilled brandy upon his coat. The way she petted her ostrich, or spoke kindly to his staff. The way she moved beneath him when making passionate, hot love, and how she seemed to understand all without him having to explain. No, no, they couldn’t take that away from him. Or at least he prayed they couldn’t. He had put all his energy into speed, knowing that it might all be up to him.

Upon entering the clearing, Asher had seen the incensed ostrich, the stunned dog and his calamity-ridden wife lying on the ground, and Dracul dissolving into mist. Asher thought his heart might stop beating forever. But then, like a puff of smoke Dracul was gone, and Jane was left sitting on the ground with an adorable if idiotic look on her face. Shakily, he hauled her up and tightly enfolded her in his arms.

“Are you all right, love?” he asked.

Jane snuggled close, trying to slip inside her husband’s cape as she trembled with shock. He wiped a streak of blood from a cut on her forehead with his handkerchief. She was so cold. Did Asher ever get this cold? “Yes. At least, I think so.” She was safe now. Safe now in her husband’s arms. Right where she wanted to be, although she’d prefer to have no audience.

Knowing now that Jane was all right, Asher cursed, looking at the spot where Dracul had vanished. Bert, Renfield and two of the gardeners hurried to his side.

“Damn that fiendish monster to hell,” Asher snarled, his fangs extending. He was beyond outraged. The count had dared attack what was his—and he’d almost succeeded. He drew another deep breath to calm himself down.

“Mistress Jane, you be okay?” Bert asked, worry filling his homely features.

Jane smiled faintly, nodding at the bird keeper. Even with Asher’s arms around her, she couldn’t seem to quit trembling.

“What happened?” Renfield asked, his sharp eyes scouting the area.

Asher looked toward Bert and the gardeners. “It’s all right. You go on back to sleep. I’ll take care of everything. Bert, take Orville with you.”

The men all obeyed, although Bert looked as though he wanted to argue.

“Bert,” Asher called, cradling Jane in his arms. “Feed that big beautiful bird anything he wants. He saved his mistress’s life.”

Bert grinned a crooked grin and lovingly patted Orville on the head. “He’s a fine, big fellow, my lord. You got it. Ol’ Orville will have a feast fit for a king.”

Jane began to shake harder as Asher picked her up. Her husband said, “I’m taking her inside, Renfield. She’s had quite a fright and a lucky escape.”

The valet said shrewdly, “Dracul?”

Asher nodded. No one was going to steal his wife, even if he didn’t want her. Well, if he hadn’t wanted her. He did want her now. In various and sundry ways. “This means war!” he cried. Immortal warfare—a deadly, dangerous game for all involved. Oftentimes it was a real bloodbath. What fun.

Renfield shook his head, knowing this was not good news. In fact, it was the worst news he could think of. Dracul had instigated war with Asher, and vampire wars always sucked. There could be only one winner, and Dracul was stronger and more hard-bitten.

The valet sighed morosely, watching Asher carry his wife back to the mansion with Spot trailing at his heels. It had taken over thirty years to train his master in maintaining his wardrobe, and they still had a way to go, especially with Lady Jane for his wife. He shook his head—he was really too old to be starting over with some new vampire master.

Staring down at Jane, who looked so pale, pretty and vulnerable, Asher silently declared that no one would ever steal her away from him. She really wasn’t so bad, as far as wives went. Over his shoulder he called, “Renfield, I want you to find Orville a mate. I owe that ostrich my wife’s life, and I want to reward the big bird.”

The valet shook his head indignantly. Didn’t he have enough to worry about. Asher ruining his jackets, his new mistress trying to discover the master’s coffin? Now he was to be a procurer of an ostrich?

Asher
laid his wife on the bed, anxiously studying her. However, his spark of concern changed to something warmer as her robe fell open, revealing her soft white thighs. She looked so pretty in the moonlight.

“Why did you go outside to the gardens?” he asked.

Jane frowned, thinking back to those moments before the attack. “I heard a nightingale. But before that I had the strangest urge to go to the garden, almost as if someone was calling me,” she answered, unconsciously rubbing her wrist.

Watching her closely, Asher took her hand and examined it closely, noticing two small nicks on her wrist.

He snarled, causing Jane to jerk back, eyeing him with alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“He marked you. Not fully a bite, but a mark,” Asher explained, looking pointedly at her wrist. “When? Where have you met him before?” His tone was glacial, matching the icy fury in his eyes. He would dispatch Dracul just as soon as he could find the marauding cretin. No one would touch his wife but him! As a boy he had never learned to share his toys. As an adult he’d grown no better.

“I met him at the Birds of Paradise Club. He wore a mask, and I didn’t know who he was. But I was terribly frightened of him. He tried to get me to go outside. Fortunately, one of the other soiled doves and her customer came upon us, and I broke away. Shortly after that I encountered you,” Jane answered shakily. “I felt a small sting, but I don’t remember anything like a bite.”

Asher shook his head. “It was a nip. Only a vampire as old as Dracul could have done this—marked you without a full bite. Only vampires over three hundred years of age can even call someone once they have been bitten. But, with Dracul, well… his powers are very strong.” He sank beside her on the bed. “You recognized him tonight, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Jane took her husband’s cold hand in hers, warming it. Basking in his concern, as well as his touch, left Jane feeling slightly euphoric. In some ways she knew Asher intimately. In other ways, he was a great, wondrous mystery. Perhaps he would always be. That thought made her feel sad. She wanted her husband to need her as she needed him. She wanted him to want her as she wanted him.

Asher placed a gentle kiss on his wife’s brow. The affectionate gesture surprised both himself and Jane. “He won’t stop now. He has marked you, and he can call you again at anytime.”

“What will we do?” Jane asked, worried. She didn’t want Asher battling the fiendish count.

“It appears I have little choice but to go to war. I doubt the ignominy of being defeated by an ostrich will halt Dracul for long.”

Jane gently caressed his face, worry shrouding her soul like a damp towel. “I have brought trouble to your door. He wants to hurt my father by making me his bride. I am so sorry, Asher. I wanted to make your undead life better, not worse. I wanted you to be happy, not hunting someone like the dark fiend of the night!”

“No, Jane, it’s not just you. Dracul wants to strike at me. I always knew the night would come when Dracul would take his revenge.”

“Revenge for what?”

“I burned his second wife to death after she attacked a school of children in France. He has never forgiven me for that. Or for the scar I gave him when I attacked him with holy water over forty years ago.”

Jane nodded, remembering the count’s angry words. But then she clasped her husband’s face between her palms, pleading, “You can’t fight him. It’s too dangerous.”

“I have no choice, Jane.”

Knowing it was true, her eyes filled with tears. “Then I will help.”

Asher looked affronted. “Over my dead body.”

His tone irritated her. “Your point being?” she asked coolly.

He scowled at first, but when she smiled, he followed suit. “Graveyard humor?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It’s only appropriate. I am a Van Helsing.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said stiffly. “It’s something I seemed to have forgotten.”

She wanted to be angry at his answer, but she was merely weary, the weight of the world crushing down on her small shoulders. “You still doubt my loyalty,” she said.

Catching a fleeting glimpse of her pain at his callous words, Asher relented. “Jane, you are what you are. Just as I am. I cannot step back now and regret roads not taken, journeys I did not travel. What you see is what I have been. Just as Dracul is. He was born of evil, and he has bequeathed evil to the world. We can’t help being what Fate created us. You are a Van Helsing, the scourge of vampirekind, and I am a master vampire. Yet, somehow… as the nights pass by, the importance of that decided difference seems to matter less and less.”

Jane nodded vigorously, hiding a smile. Her husband’s distaste for her was lessening! “Tonight we are united in a cause, our similarities binding us. Therefore, you must use me and my family connections to help you. I am a hunter. He is a vampire.”

“It’s too dangerous for mortals, even Van Helsings,” he replied.

He turned to leave. He had to go, and soon. His mouth was dry, his groin filling with heat whenever he saw his disheveled wife, half lying upon her bed. Her cheeks were flushed a becoming coral, and the tips of her breasts were peeking out from beneath her nightgown, a temptation for mortals and immortals alike. Her long hair had come undone and hung in a silken waterfall down her back and shoulders. Asher shuddered, his breathing becoming heavy. His voluptuous wife was made for loving, and her blood was rich and sweet.

Noting her husband’s heated glance, Jane began to unbutton her gown, watching his face. She had almost been made a bride of the foul fiend of the underworld. She would have been lost to Asher forever. She wanted him now with a ferocity she had never felt. “I don’t want to lose you, Asher. Never!”

Asher clenched his fists, fighting the desire that had been eating him since he’d tasted not only Jane’s blood, but her passion for him. She had fired his hunger to ravenousness, to where he desired a never-ending banquet where he would glut himself on his wife for eternity, love her night after night. For the past few days he had driven himself crazy with dreams about her pale, freckled breasts, and her thatch of curly brown hair. He had thought constantly about driving his sex, along with his fangs, deep within her.

“I must go. To track him. The trail grows cold.”

Jane shoved her nightgown down past her shoulders, revealing the creamy globes of her breasts, the freckles speckling around the nipples. “Stay a while,” she urged. Asher had to stay with her tonight. As strong and able as her husband was, she feared he was no match for the crafty, corrupt Count Dracul. Tomorrow she would enlist the help of her family without Asher’s knowledge. She knew exactly how he felt about the Van Helsings: Her arrogant husband would rather drink dirt than accept her family’s help. But they were the only way to ensure that Asher remained with her, not put in a coffin for good.