Blood Sin (2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Teaser chapter

  PRAISE FOR MARIE TREANOR AND HER NOVELS

  “Wow! Steamy-hot fantasy, sizzling sex, and a story that makes you think. . . . Marie Treanor really packs a lot into these pages.”

  —Fallen Angel Reviews

  “Witty and sensuous.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “My first impression of this work was wow . . . highly recommended read from an author to watch.”

  —The Romance Studio

  “A very unique fantasy. The passion and heat . . . was Pure Erotic but with a loving passion that made me feel all warm inside.”

  —Paranormal Romance Reviews

  “A fantastic story . . . superhot sex. I cannot wait for future books.”

  —Joyfully Reviewed

  “A strange and adorable relationship . . . so much more than a mere vampire story.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “Funny, sizzling, and tender.”

  —Bitten by Books

  “Marie Treanor always delivers a book that you’ll be talking about long after reading it.”

  —Love Romances

  “Hauntingly beautiful and entirely sensual.”

  —eCataromance

  “Clever, agreeable, and very readable.”

  —BookWenches

  “A superbly written story filled with suspense, action, and steamy, passionate encounters.”

  —Literary Nymphs

  ALSO BY MARIE TREANOR

  Blood on Silk

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

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  First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2011

  Copyright © Marie Treanor, 2011 All rights reserved

  SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Treanor, Marie.

  Blood sin: an awakened by blood novel/Marie Treanor.

  p. cm.—(Awakened by blood ; bk. 2)

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47893-6

  1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Women—Scotland—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6120.R325B56 2011

  823'.92—dc22 2010040469

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my editor, Kerry Donovan, who always sees the bigger picture.

  And to all my editors from whom I’ve learned so much—especially Linda Ingmanson, the Adverb Slayer, for all her support, advice, and encouragement over several years and two publishers; and my other “serial” editors, Crystal Esau and Meghan Conrad, for their unfailing humor, help, and patience.

  To the Transylvania trio for all the fun and inspiration. May they never know.

  And finally to my husband. For the neck thing.

  Chapter One

  The vampire Saloman had not killed in two weeks. As Luiz Salgado-Rodriguez wandered toward him like a wraith among the shadows, hunger surged and Saloman anticipated the exquisite rush that came from a powerful kill.

  And yet, observing the elderly professor shuffle across the vinestrewn courtyard of his Salamanca home, Saloman craved a harder kill, an enemy worthy enough physically to make him work. In short, he wanted a fight.

  Instead, he stepped off the roof, his black leather coat streaming upward to slow his descent, and landed with impeccable elegance in front of the professor. “Good evening,” he said politely in Spanish.

  Although the old man was startled—who wouldn’t be?—he neither screamed nor bolted, and in his pale, cloudy eyes, Saloman could make out no sign of fear. In fact, Luiz Salgado-Rodriguez smiled, as if he recognized death and welcomed it.

  “Are you . . . Saloman?” he asked, his voice as frail and uncertain as his body.

  Saloman smiled. “You’ve been expecting me,” he said mockingly. As if he were the host rather than the visitor, he waved one inviting hand at the stone bench beside them, and the professor sat, a little too quickly for grace. “The vampire hunters explained your family history, perhaps? Told you that your ancestress Tsigana once killed me?”

  The old man shrugged. “There was no need. I am aware of my own heritage. Although it was interesting to learn that you had been awakened. I didn’t expect a dying old man to interest you—not until the others came.”

  Saloman stirred, closing the distance between them and sinking down onto the bench with his body turned toward the old man. “The others? Other vampires have been here?”

  It was the old man’s turn to smile, a weak but surprisingly charming gesture. “Not here. I’ve always known how to protect myself from your kind, so although I see them in the town from time to time, they are not aware of me or my descent.” He gazed into the dis
tance, and then, as if rediscovering his thread, back to Saloman. “No, I meant Dante, the American. He wanted the sword.”

  Saloman sat very still, searching the professor’s wise old face. “Did you give it to him?”

  “I couldn’t. I didn’t have it. To my knowledge, it has never been in the Spanish branch of the family.” The professor stretched his leg out as if to ease it. “And you, sir. Did you come for the sword, or for my life?”

  Saloman liked him. He liked the eccentricity of sitting in the man’s courtyard, discussing his death in civilized, conversational tones. In fact, he wished he’d known him earlier.

  “Both,” he replied. His ears caught a faint sound, like a soft breeze blowing across the roof; his senses prickled and he scanned around the four sides of the little yard. “Although it seems I will have to settle for your life. Who is this Dante who asked you for my sword?”

  “An American—charming man. A senator, I believe.”

  Shadows danced on the roof, dark with menace, too many to be opportunistic. “Thank you,” Saloman said politely. “Your masking charm works well—I’m impressed by such knowledge in a human—but I’m afraid I didn’t follow the same security. I have a different agenda.”

  For the first time, the professor began to look bewildered. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean sit still and pretend to be dead already.” Saloman leapt to his feet as the black shadows all dived from the rooftop in perfect time. Reaching up he grabbed the nearest, plucking him out of the air to snap his neck and hurl him at one of his companions with enough force to fell her too. It gave him the time necessary to deal with the others.

  The wooden stake driving for his heart glanced harmlessly off his leather coat. The idiots had come in force but without any clear idea of how to kill an Ancient. Saloman glimpsed the shock and terror in the vampire’s face before he swung him up in one arm and snatched the stake from his powerless fingers, tearing at his throat even as he staked the next vampire in line.

  They burst into dust at the same time, and Saloman whirled, kicking another across the yard before he staked the female vampire running at him once more. However, he was surrounded now, and the rest provided a harder fight. There were some strong vampires among them. Even now, theoretically, they had the strength to destroy him. With something akin to relief, Saloman let go, embraced the rush of energy and bloodlust, parrying and hitting, taking the blows in stride, staking and breaking with a speed that must have looked like frenzy to the ignored old man who sat still as a stone in the midst of carnage.

  At last only the first attacker was left, lying prone on the ground in helpless agony, waiting for his broken neck to heal. Terror glared out of his face as Saloman crouched down beside him.

  “What was the point?” Saloman asked him.

  “Independence,” the vampire whispered. “We do as we please. No rule, not by Juana and not by you.”

  “No existence,” Saloman pointed out with one casual wave around the empty courtyard. A couple of large plant pots had been broken and a tree bent almost to its roots, but the dust glistening in the starlight was the only other sign of the vampire attack. He sighed. “And no understanding.” He raised the stake in his hand and plunged downward, and the last of his Spanish enemies turned to dust.

  The vampires of the Iberian Peninsula now all answered to him—through the delectable if stern Juana. What a pity that there would be no time for another night with her.

  Is it? She’s a superb fuck but she’s hardly— He shut down the bitter thought. He would not think of Elizabeth. Not here.

  Rising to his feet, Saloman walked across the courtyard to the professor, whose eyes were wide in his skull-like head.

  “Madre de Dios,” he whispered. “You really are a demon.”

  “Did you doubt it?”

  “I’m old; I’m dying. I’ve thought of death for so long and with so much longing that I imagined it would be easy, even at your hands. And now I wonder what my selfishness will cost the world. If you gain strength from my death—”

  “I will,” Saloman interrupted.

  “Has there ever been a more powerful force in the world?” the old man said despairingly. “No one can fight you.”

  “Not entirely true,” Saloman observed judiciously. “But trust me: Death is better from me than from them.” He gestured across the yard in the general direction of the place he’d killed the last of his attackers, and reached for the professor. His desire to fight assuaged, he was pleased to give the professor a good death, even as the old man strained feebly away from him.

  “I don’t want my blood to destroy the world!” he cried out as Saloman drew him inexorably against his chest.

  Saloman bit into his throat and the old man gasped, his scrabbling fingers stretching, and then curling into fists on Saloman’s shoulders.

  Perhaps you will help save the world instead, Saloman said to him telepathically. Blood spilled over his teeth and down his throat, and the old man relaxed in his arms. Bliss had drowned his pain. With fierce pleasure, Saloman sucked the strong, heady blood of Tsigana into himself, and welcomed the rush of power like an old friend.

  The old man moved his lips weakly, speaking almost with his last breath. “At least you don’t have the sword.”

  It was her hair that caught his attention. Glimpsed in the tiny space between the moving shoulders of his entourage, it seemed to sparkle like pale red gold in a blink of sunlight. Josh Alexander veered right to see beyond his press secretary, and discovered that the lovely hair belonged to an equally beautiful woman. Caught in the halo of sun from the window above, she looked like a glorious if slightly untidy angel.

  She stood at the reception desk, arguing with the immaculately groomed receptionist whom she nevertheless managed to outshine without trying. Her long, strawberry blond hair was tied behind her head in a loose ponytail, from where much of it had fought its way free around a delicate yet oddly determined face. Her beauty lay in her fine bone structure, her appeal to Josh in the fact that she’d done nothing obvious to enhance it.

  Pushing past his surprised secretary, Josh propped himself against a nearby pillar to watch her. His schedule was clear and he was ready to play.

  “I’ve already told you, there’s no one of that name staying here,” the receptionist was reciting in a bored voice.

  “How can you tell without looking?” came the dry response, and Josh felt a frisson pass down his spine. Her voice was Scottish—educated Scottish, he guessed from the fact that he could understand her so easily—low pitched and clear. The sort of voice he longed to act opposite, or even just be opposite, in any number of romantic scenes on- and offscreen.

  “I assure you—” the receptionist began again.

  “You can’t assure me of anything if you don’t use the tools available to you. Please let me speak to your supervisor.”

  “I am the supervisor.”

  “Then your manager will do perfectly.”

  The receptionist seemed taken aback by the other woman’s quiet determination. Fooled by her casual appearance and something appealingly gentle in her expression, she’d obviously failed to notice the steel behind it. Josh had seen it right away, but then Josh studied faces obsessively. That was what made him so good at his job.

  “Josh, what are you doing?” Mark, his press secretary, said urgently, standing right in front of him to block his view. “Hotel security has just warned us to go straight to the elevator. That girl at reception is probably gutter press—she’s asking for you and she’s about to cause trouble.”

  “Is she really?” Josh grinned. He’d only just emerged from the press conference a happy man, because the local journalists were eating out of his hand, and because the location filming had gone well, much faster than expected, leaving him time to relax for a few days and see a bit more of Scotland before he had to return to the States. And now here was this unusual and beautiful woman with a voice that sent shivers down his spine, actually lookin
g for him. It was a gift.

  Brushing past the outraged Mark, who still hissed after him in protest, he walked toward reception. The receptionist’s eyes flickered to him in both alarm and gratification. Presumably it wasn’t every day she spoke to a Hollywood movie star. On the other hand, it was bad luck to have this rare opportunity while failing to appease an ill-tempered customer. She almost preened, though, as if glad he’d see her carrying out her instructions so well, even in such a difficult situation.

  “Look,” Josh’s target said, barely sparing him a glance, much to his amusement, as he leaned one elbow on the desk beside her. “I’m well aware he’s staying here. Please just give him this note from his cousin.”

  The receptionist smiled and twitched the plain white envelope from the girl’s fingers. At least she didn’t put it straight in the bin. “Madam, Edinburgh is suddenly full of Josh Alexander’s relations. Good evening.”

  Frustrated and clearly well aware that the note was unlikely ever to get near its intended recipient, the strawberry blond sighed. “Your manager, please,” she repeated. “As quickly as possible.”

  “I doubt that will be necessary,” Josh said smoothly. “May I read the note now? And are you my cousin?”

  The receptionist looked aghast under her layers of carefully applied makeup. The other girl swung around in surprise and gave him a long, considering look. Unexpectedly, a breath of laughter sounded and was choked off.

  “Ah. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. I was too busy being angry. I’m Elizabeth Silk.”

  Without affectation, she held out one small but long-fingered hand, free of any rings. Another good omen. Josh took it, smiling, and she let go again after the briefest of shakes.