Blood Deep by Sharon Page Read Free Book Online

the bone beneath. He felt a pass of cold, then a spurt of warmth.
    Panic flew up like frightened grouse. Blackness swirled in on his vision. He spluttered. He fought to breathe.
    She had sliced his throat open.
    Her voice sang by his ear. “This, Lukos, is how you meet Lucifer.”
    Her hands were held together and a strip of her own petticoat was being wound around her wrists to bind her.
    Miranda bit her lip, fighting to stay calm, but her chest heaved on a fit of panicked sniffles. The vampire with the white streak in his hair was tying her up. His breath whispered softly over her neck as he meticulously wrapped the cloth around and around her crossed wrists. His breath was surprisingly . . . warm.

    BLOOD DEEP / 39
    The shades were drawn, the carriage lamps were not lit. She sat in the gloom, a prisoner of two otherworldly beasts, trapped in shadow. Trapped in fear. To think she’d been terrified of poverty and the workhouse.
    Miranda didn’t understand. Why tie her up? They were so strong. Wouldn’t they just plunge in their fangs, drain her blood, and leave her dead?
    “Not too tight, Lukos. We don’t wish to harm her pretty hands.”
    So the vampire with the white streak in his hair was called Lukos. She had seen her brother’s schoolbooks— Lukos was the Greek word for “wolf.” There were tales she’d heard of men who could transform themselves into wolves. Between the vampire and the werewolf, she would be torn limb from limb.
    Wouldn’t she?
    “Where were you traveling?”
    The mesmerizing, silky baritone of the vampire Zayan compelled her to turn to him. Against her will, she drew in a sharp breath at his stunningly handsome face. She could not fight against the need to stare into his silvery, reflective eyes.
    Could she break free, throw herself at the carriage door, and fall out? She ran the risk of being run over by the wheels. But wouldn’t it be better to die that way than by a vampire’s bite?
    And if she forced the door open, she’d burn the vampires inside.
    Zayan’s compulsion was pushed aside and another took hold. Lukos. She sensed anger between them—it was like sparks of lightning in the carriage. Fire shot from their glittering eyes at each other. She had seen gentlemen before a duel, struggling to keep rage beneath a restrained and refined exterior. She could sense things about people—their darkest fears, their most primitive emotions, the things they did not say but that they felt deeply. And she could almost taste the hatred between these demons.

    40 / Sharon Page
    “Good plan, but it won’t work, sweeting,” Lukos growled.
    “You’d never get the door open. Tell us where you were going.”
    It was like a command, and inexplicably the words came to her lips. She couldn’t understand why they wished to know.
    “To Lord B—” She stopped, battling the compulsion to speak.
    She looked at Zayan again, was drawn to him.
    He undid his cloak and let it fall from his shoulders. The thick cape was lined with dark, rich fur—an animal’s pelt that was as black as his long, untied hair. His burned skin had now repaired itself. Within moments of being inside the carriage, with the shades drawn, he had healed. “Are you going to your husband?”
    “No!” She cried it out, afraid that these beasts would hurt Blackthorne if they thought him precious to her.
    “Why does a proper lady travel to an English peer alone?”
    Even in the shadows, his eyes glinted silver at her. “You do not look like a mistress.”
    What did it matter to them? They were only going to kill her. She wriggled her hands; she pulled, but the cloth would not tear. Even though it had been ripped so easily from her skirts, it would not give now. Her chest felt as if it would burst out of her corset.
    Lukos bent to her ear. “Relax, sweet lass. We mean you no harm.”
    Her heart slowed, as though Lukos could control it. Fear slithered through her, but her body did not behave as if she were as terrified as she