As for Dev, he’d chosen a squat on the ground just outside the match boundaries, balanced, solid on one foot, the other heel out, a pose he could hold for some time and which kept him from jumping up and surging forward each time Ruskin pressed an advantage.
She still wasn’t full on, but she was doing a hell of a lot better, and the sneak suspicion he’d had about her was being reinforced.
Those forward lunges, her deft counterattacks, the parry and ripostes, showed her footwork was better than Ruskin’s, her compound attack strategies and secondary intents obviously superior. This time it was the older vampire whose breath started to labor, though hers did as well. They’d nicked each other a few times, and she’d managed a good cut across his side once, quid pro quo for his earlier take in that area.
Back and forth, the cobblestones ringing with the sound of crossed steel, the shuffle of slippers and boots. At first, so involved in the duel, Dev didn’t pay attention to the weather, but then he noted the stars had disappeared and the wind was kicking up. A flash or two heralded the impending storm, and thunder began to be heard over the constant roll of the ocean off the cliffs where Ruskin’s home was built.
A Darwin lightning storm was an extraordinary phenomenon, but Dev could have wished for better timing. The wind started blowing out the torches, so soon the vampires fought in darkness, silhouettes that spun and moved in full shadow, making it hard for him to see who had the advantage. He couldn’t see Lyssa or Alistair to gauge their reactions, either.
But then the flashes began to spin into a full-course light show, shards of light cracking through the air above them, giving the display of skills an ethereal spotlight from time to time, catching the flash of an eye or baring of a fang, the glitter along a blade or curve of a guard. They had to treat wind as a factor, of course, with it whistling in through the various entry points to the courtyard.
A particularly loud crack came in darkness, a clatter, and he saw one of her sabers skitter across the ground, coming to a spinning stop close to him. When he reached for it, Alistair spoke sharply. “No. This is their fight.” He might have ignored him, but Dev’s attention was caught by the two combatants. They appeared to be grappling. Then they pushed away and Ruskin lunged forward, skewering Danny through the abdomen.
Dev surged to his feet as she screamed, but her other blade was in motion. With a savage snarl, she brought it around in an erratic sweep. On a strobe of lightning and Ruskin’s bellow, he saw her notch it under his ear, the force of the swing biting into his neck enough to hold the blade in the bone, but not enough to go all the way through. A brief glimpse of her savage, blood-smeared expression, then she was in darkness again. Her silhouette held there for one more blink while Ruskin’s body jerked, his strangled scream of rage vibrating through the air. When his arms started flailing, trying to grasp or knock out the blade, she let go of the weapon.
Dev was unable to follow her with his eyes, but he felt the breeze of her passing, heard the scrape of the other saber on the stone.
As Ruskin staggered, trying to reorient himself, lightning flashed again. So Dev did see her sweep back in over the other blade and take his head.
Thunder reverberated, a low growl. Dev went for his knife. Alistair and Lyssa were already moving as the four young vampires lunged forward, their movements strobed by a staccato of storm flashes. The thunder’s voice was enhanced by a warning hiss from Lady Lyssa, a chilling sound that came from the darkest worlds of children’s nightmares. Though Alistair had drawn a pair of wickedly sharp daggers, that one sound settled in the vitals with the weight of imminent death, bringing Ruskin’s progeny to an uncertain halt.
As Thomas had joined them with a lantern, Dev quickly shifted his focus to Danny. She’d backed away from the fallen body, and was peering through the darkness. She was looking for him. Her clothes and face were splattered with blood, her midriff soaked.
With an oath, he was moving toward her, heedless of any other threat now. When the sword dropped from her hand and she fell to one knee, holding her abdomen, he was there, holding it with her. Blood oozed around their tangled fingers.
“Bloody hell, that hurts,” she said.
25
RAIN at last came, as if it had only been waiting to lash the courtyard and the fallen body, the gruesome staring head. Despite the fleeting feeling of amusement Dev felt from his lady, he insisted on carrying her, and wasn’t sure he was wrong about it. She was weak again, and he didn’t believe it was all from the stomach wound. With a savage wave of fury that made him want to kick the head across the courtyard for extra measure, he realized whatever Ruskin had done to her in the hours before their duel was going to take some time to rejuvenate her fully. His blood and Lyssa’s had carried her through this, though. Just.
He took her to a couch in the nearest room, which appeared to be a study. He heard Lyssa ordering the servants to bring them some wine while Alistair instructed the four vampires on the disposal of Ruskin, and other matters.
“Until the Council rules one way or another, that woman is your acting Region Master,” he heard the vampire lord’s warning. “So I’d pay particular attention to the things she wants, or it’s likely to be your head rolling around that courtyard.” Danny made a noise of protest as Dev lifted the shirt. The stomach wound would have eviscerated a human. The kind of wound he’d seen men die of, in agony. Her free hand shifted, laid on his.
It’s fine, Dev. We just need to bind it up to hold everything in. “I hate to ask”—she gave a weak smile—“but if I can get some more blood, it should knit up, good as new.”
“You don’t ask a servant for blood. You take it,” Lyssa said shortly, materializing at his elbow like a malevolent dark witch, her hair brushing Dev’s arm. “Here. The household staff provided us bandages. Apparently they have frequent need of them.”
“Don’t be angry,” Danny said. “And don’t take it out on him.”
“You would be wise to say as little as possible to me,” Lyssa said, pinning the younger vampire with a dangerous look. “Until I decide not to kill you myself.”
“She’s right, though,” Dev said, cupping Danny’s face, drawing her attention. “It’s past time for asking.” Danny closed her eyes. “Bandage the wound first.”
It wasn’t easy, for it did hurt her terribly. He had to steel himself to her gasps, her death grip on Lyssa’s hand, vampire bones the only ones resilient enough to take her grip as he and Thomas worked as quickly as possible. Nina proved a competent nurse as they wrapped the gaping wound tightly so the skin could mend without her insides dropping out, something that would disconcert him greatly, whatever Danny herself felt about it.
As they cleaned her up, though, Dev noted bruising, gashes that were half healed. Teeth marks. What the hell . . . “These are older.” His fingers passed over them. “Why aren’t they healed?”
“When I take blood, I can divert the energy from healing to physical strength, when I need it.” She lifted a shoulder. “Given the situation, I thought it might be best to augment my strength for the fight.”
“They will take longer to heal, as a result.” Lyssa bent to take a closer look herself. “But still within a few days. How did he do this?”
Alistair came in then, and regardless of the sense it made, Dev shifted her shirt to cover the lace-covered breasts. The male vampire drew Nina close to his side to slip an arm around her, offer a tender squeeze of reassurance before he nodded her toward a chair.
“Danny,” Lyssa repeated with far less patience.
Dev thought it odd to see Danny hesitate the way she did now, waiting for Nina to get seated. Then he saw the shadows gathering in her eyes and understood. She wasn’t trying to avoid Lyssa’s question. She just couldn’t bear to say the words, because of how she’d had to deal with it.
“The children. He put you in with the children during the day, when you should have slept.” He felt a renewed surge of rage, and his hand clenched into a fist on her leg. “That bloody bastard.”
Danny’s gaze flickered, locked on his to say the words. “I killed another handful.”
“You had to do it. You know you did.”
She made a half shrug, looked down at her hands, then back up. “I’m thinking . . . Well, I’m having a daft thought, Dev.” She spoke to him, as if no one else was in the room. It was a unique feeling, since he’d already noted that when there was more than one vampire about, servants were treated as children—best seen, not heard.
“How many are left?”
“About eight.”
They held gazes a long moment. “You think they can be tamed down.”
“I know I should kill them. It would be the most merciful thing. They’ll never grow up, never have adult bodies. But they’ve had nothing but cruelty and abandonment. I can’t do it.” She turned her attention to Lyssa. “It’s one of the things I brought to the Council, but Ruskin convinced them I’d been misinformed. They’ve been dealing with the territory war in Germany, and that was taking precedence. Ruskin changes orphans and aborigine children, uses them like a pack of hounds for his sport.”
“If you don’t kill them now, it will be much harder later on,” Lyssa said impassively as Alistair muttered an oath.
“We all have the option of walking into the sun, when we’re in sound mind to make that decision,” Danny responded slowly. “I’d like to give them more of a life than what they’ve had, let them make that decision for themselves. Will you give me that right?” Lyssa exchanged a long glance with Alistair. “Well,” the vampire queen said at last. “As we know, I am merely a powerless figurehead. Who am I to make such a call?”
Danny smiled as Alistair snorted. “You are Region Master of the Northwest Territory now,” he said to Danny. “Or will be, if Lady Lyssa and I have anything to say about it. As such, it is your call.”