Blood Curse

“It’s your brother, Harry. Ophelia—” His voice broke, the voice she knew so well from her past, that she’d thought she would never hear again. Then Harry shouted, “Are you all right?”

She pushed off the bed, and made her sore legs take her to the door. Her brother was here. It should have been impossible, but it wasn’t. Ophelia leaned out the door, and called, “Harry, I’m here.”

A tall, broad-shouldered, blond man emerged from a bedchamber into the hall. Moonlight alone lit the space. The fire in her room had died out, and she had snuffed the candles after Raven had left. She had wanted to be in the dark.

Then she saw her brother’s face, just as he yelled joyously, “Ophelia!”

His long strides brought him to her in two heartbeats, and his broad, white smile was almost blinding as he grinned with delight. Harry pulled her into his arms. Hugged her so tight, she couldn’t breathe as she was pressed into his hard chest.

Years and years had gone by since she had last seen him, before she’d gone to Darkwell’s. How much bigger he’d grown. As a boy, he’d been a display of prominent ribs, bony shoulders, and skinny arms. Now he was a man and a powerfully built one.

Her younger brother was just a bit smaller than Ravenhunt.

Tears of happiness choked her as she embraced her brother. She could hug him. There was so much the same about him. Dark gold curls fell across his brow and hugged the base of his neck. She could never forget his large blue eyes. Even when he’d been naughty as a child, Harry could use his huge eyes to make anyone forgive him.

Her heart ached. Harry and she had been high-spirited friends, until her power had come and she had been locked away. Harry was almost all she had left. She had lost her parents and her eldest brother, Simon. Simon had been devilish, but not like Harry. Mean-spirited and cruel, her other brother had always been filled with anger.

But they were all gone. After she had gone to Mrs. Darkwell’s, Mama and Father had been attacked by thieves on the street and killed. Then, a few years later, the same thing had happened to Simon. Harry had suddenly become the head of the family, taking care of their youngest sister, Lydia. She knew Lydia was now a healthy fifteen.

But she knew what had really happened. She had touched all of them, and her power must have eventually caused them to die. The other stories were probably lies to hide the truth. She had stolen her family away from Harry and Lydia.

“You’re alive, Ophelia. I couldn’t believe it was true.” Harry’s eyes were no longer the twinkling, naughty eyes of a carefree boy. They were a man’s eyes, older, more shadowed, and they were filled with tears. “I didn’t dare hope—” Harry laughed hoarsely. “I did, I guess. I ran in here to find you. Praying it would be true.”

She didn’t have to pull away from him.

“They told us that you were killed by a vampire,” Harry mumbled.

Ophelia lifted from his chest. “That was what they told you? I knew you had been told I had died, but never how.”

Now he stared at her with troubled blue eyes. “Who told you this? That damned vampire? Has he kept you with him all this time?” Harry stepped back, his eyes filled with horror. “Did he turn you? Is that why he’s kept you for all these years?”

“He? Goodness, do you mean Ravenhunt?”

“I mean a black-haired man with black eyes and no soul. He was there, at Ravenhunt House.”

Her brother had encountered Raven. But she must reassure him. “I am not a vampire. I am perfectly—” Her voice broke, but she managed to say it. “Normal.” She could only say that word because of Raven.

Then she thought of more questions. “Why were you at Ravenhunt’s home? How did you know to find me here?”

“I followed him here. He walked through the streets of London, as confident as you please. I waited until I saw him leave—this place is like a fortress, and it took me hours to find a way in.” Harry put his hands on her shoulders and peered deeply into her eyes. “Have you been with the monster all these years?”

She flinched. She had been a monster. “I haven’t been with him, but I was a prisoner. I went to live with a woman who kept me locked up so I could not hurt anyone. I had a power that—” Her brother knew nothing about this. How could he believe her? He would think her completely mad.

“I am a vampire slayer, Ophelia.” Harry’s gaze held hers, filled with concern. “I have seen the monsters that really live in London. There is nothing you can tell me that would stun me.”

“A vampire slayer? Oh goodness, are you a member of the Royal Society?”

Her brother frowned. “You know of them?”

“From Ravenhunt. He’s been protecting me from them.” There was so much to explain, and she didn’t have time. Raven had not come back. He was going to hand over her power and let himself be destroyed. “The power I had—the Royal Society was going to kill me to try to get it from me. Please, Harry, tell me you are not one of them.”

Her brother hugged her. She heard a sob catch in his throat. “Dear God, I would never hurt you. I am a member of the Society, but work with good men. Some are vampires—the Earl of Brookshire is one. These are vampires who live among mortals without hurting them. Have learned to control how they take blood and harm no one. The Society hunts the rogue vampires, the dangerous ones.”

He spoke with such pride. “The Society is not all good,” she insisted. “There are members of the Royal Society who are not noble.”

Ophelia quickly blurted out what she’d learned while a prisoner: some men of the Society did not trust the vampires in their ranks and wanted to destroy them. She told her brother in a speedy, garbled rush of words about her power and what those men had tried to do to her. Breathlessly, she finished, “They are still out there. They are the truly dangerous ones.”

Her brother looked down at his hands, where they touched her. She knew what he feared.

“My power is gone. Ravenhunt took it from me.” She blushed fiercely. She couldn’t tell her brother how that had happened. “But if Raven turns the power over to the vampire queen, he will die. I have to go to him and somehow save him.”

“Why will he die, if you did not?”

“I was protected.” Love had protected her. Was there any way her love could protect Raven? Any way she could save him now?

She didn’t care what he’d done in his past. She forgave him for forcing her into sex, for taking her power against her will—he’d done it to save his sister. He had thought she would hate him. She could never hate him. “We have to hurry.”

Harry clasped her hand. “That vampire you were with—I heard him talking with a female vampire outside this house. The way he spoke . . . he’s the brother of the woman I love. She believes him dead, and she is under the guardianship of the new marquis. But her brother is not dead, he is a vampire—”

“You love Ravenhunt’s sister?” she broke in, astonished.

“Yes, his sister, Frederica. A vampire queen has taken her prisoner.”

“I know,” she said, hurriedly. “It is to force him to give up the power he took from me. We must find them both. But how?”

There was so much Ophelia wanted to know. Why had her brother become a vampire slayer? How had he found her? There was no time for questions. Nor to find out about her brother’s life for the years she had not been there.

Harry groaned. “I don’t know where to find the vampire queens. I don’t even know them all. There are several, all representing different clans of vampires, and they either work together, or they war with each other. This is one I do not know, but I did hear the vampire Ravenhunt use the name Jade. We have to go to men I know. Men I work with.”

He tried to pull her to get her moving. She resisted.

“I am sorry,” her brother said quickly. “You are in your nightgown. But we do not have time for you to dress. We’ll put a cloak over you, get you to Lady Brookshire’s, and she will look after you.”