legs shook as she reached the top of the stairs. She did not dare turn and look back. But in the gloom of the hallway, she sank back against the rough plaster wall. She covered her mouth with her hands, smothering a sudden sob.
What did the dreams mean?
She’d been intimate with that…that beautiful blond man in those dreams. With a vampire. A vampire with the perfect features of an angel! From her dreams, she could remember the salty, rich taste of his bare skin against her tongue. Her fingertips knew his textures. She had played in the coarse silkiness of the golden curls on his chest. She had stroked his erect nipples. Even cupped his bottom as he drove…goodness, in her dreams he had been inside her. Deep, deep within her.
And he knew—he knew—what she dreamed, what they had done!
How could she bring her father downstairs? Althea did not believe for one minute the vampire Earl of Brookshire would not torment Father and would keep her secret.
But if he truly was the brother of the vampire in the crypt, Father must speak with him. Whether it meant her exposure or not.
Her wrap and the skirts of her nightrail swished about her legs as she hurried to her father’s room, but she stopped in her tracks before reaching the door. The earl had come to her in her dreams. He had deliberately seduced her. Until the last dream, she hadn’t even suspected he was a vampire.
Of course he must have known who she was. His denial was a complete lie. How could he expect she would believe he did not? The dreams were a trick—to capture her mind and soul, to use her in some way to release his brother—
“By all that is holy—” Her father’s panicked cry froze her blood.
A crash echoed from his room. A heavy thud. Furniture overturned? Her father falling? For several thundering heartbeats, Althea couldn’t move—then she wrenched forward and raced up the hallway.
“Father?” She reached his door. Thank heavens, the knob turned under her shaky hand. She pushed the door, but before it opened more than a few inches, it slammed back in her face.
“Father!”
Another crash. Althea shoved the door again, but this time it refused to give at all. She kicked it, twisting the knob so hard she thought it might break off in her hand.
Beyond the door, there was silence. “Father!” she cried once more.
Faintly she heard a twang, followed by an instant thunk. The bolt of a crossbow? There was no cry of agony, only an eerie, disembodied chuckle that seemed to come from her father’s room and from behind her at the same time. She whipped around, her hand still clasped to the knob.
There was no one there.
Where was Mr. O’Leary? Hadn’t Crenshaw heard the crashes? Hadn’t the servants?
Desperate, she shoved at the door, her shoulder and hip braced against it. Althea threw all her weight—not much—at it. She screamed, hoping to summon someone. Anyone.
The metal knob turned to scorching fire in her palm. In vain she tried to jerk it again, even as her skin screamed in agony. A revolting stench rose—her burning flesh. With a howl, she yanked her hand back. Sickening pain shot up her arm as she pounded on the door. Dizziness washed over her as her wounded hand struck the wood.
The door thrummed beneath her blows. From the gaps in the frame, a blue light spilled out—a light filled with small twinkling stars. Once in the hallway, they flew at her eyes. Her spectacles protected her, but some struck her cheeks, her lips. Each delivered a sharp, horrible pain, like a bite from small, sharp teeth. Slapping at the door helplessly, she had to flinch and shake her head to avoid the stings.
A black shape enveloped her, pulling another scream from her throat. A huge hand wrapped around her wrist and drew her back from the door. Althea fell against a large, black wall—the earl’s massive chest. “You?”
“You are hurt.” Raw fury snapped in his deep voice.
“I don’t matter. My father is in there!”
Still holding her wrist, he raised his booted foot and slammed it into the door. Before her eyes, the door arched inward and snapped back. With a bang, a large crack shot through the middle of it and it sagged on its hinges but still stood as a barrier.
“Bloody Zayan,” the earl muttered.
Althea jerked her gaze to Brookshire’s face, swathed in the pale blue glow. A deep red fire burned in the depth of his eyes and she caught her breath at the sight. He was a demon and she was praying for his help?
But what else could she do? She’d never been so helpless. None of her weapons could help against so much power.
“Get back.”
She flinched at his brutal command.
“Back, goddammit.”
Stumbling back, Althea snagged a slipper in her hem and tumbled against the wall behind. Her stake bit into her stomach and frantic breathing surrounded her—her own, choked and raw and desperate. The earl lifted his gloved hands, palms facing the door.
A blast of light arced from his hands and the door exploded into splinters. He was definitely no ordinary vampire.
“Stay there,” the earl barked as he stepped into a maelstrom of white and blue light. The dazzling stars swirled as though trapped in a whirlpool. They gathered in a large white ball, which raced into the room behind him.
Wresting the stake from inside her wrapper, she got to her feet and staggered to the doorway.
“Miss Yates, you’re not to go in there, lass.”
A hand caught hold of her shoulder, the instant she recognized the voice. Mick O’Leary! Finally!
Althea twisted beneath his grip and rapped the stake across his knuckles.
“Ow. Christ Jesus!” O’Leary’s hand jerked open, giving her an instant to storm forward. As if she would cower in the hallway while her father was in danger! But as she raced into Father’s room, she could not see a thing other than spinning stars and flashes of light.
Cries and shouts and thudding boots came from behind her—O’Leary and other servants charging into the room.
“Father?”
“Althea!”
Dizzy with relief, Althea stumbled through the dark room toward her father’s voice. But cold wrapped around her, squeezing tight. A slithery cold as though an enormous snake had dropped on her. She slashed blindly with her stake. The tip glanced off an object, and she drove harder, with two hands. She felt it penetrate and pushed it home.
Something exploded behind her and the force shoved her forward.
Warm, comforting arms embraced her. “Althea, my love.” Her father’s voice, but weak, a mere whisper near her ear. She pulled her head back from his chest, searching through the screaming lights.
“Father, we must get out. Can you move?”
But he didn’t answer, and she felt his hands brush over her back in the sign of the cross. He muttered over and over. Latin, but her head filled with a rush of sound and she couldn’t understand his words.
“Father, what is it? What are you fighting?”
A clap of thunder burst inside the room and the lights shot away, toward the window. As they moved, they seemed to tug at her, like a ferocious wind that could pull her off the ground. Father’s grip tightened and she clung to him, her hands fisted in his nightshirt.
Her ears rang with the screeching sounds of the fleeing lights, and then, so loud she feared her ears would burst, a cry of rage exploded.
Then silence.
In the center of the strange, frightening stillness, the vampire earl stood, fists raised to the sky. A faint green glow pulsed around him and as she watched,