"My lord, were you born such a bastard, or did that trait occur after you were given the vampire's kiss?" Jane bristled.
"Do you know you look like a hedgehog right now?" Asher confided snidely, watching her. In spite of all his good intentions, he couldn't seem to resist striking at her. He felt the need to fight, to assuage his tattered dignity by force. He knew he was being pigheaded, but no more than that wereboar friend of the Huntsleys.
"Born a bastard, I see," Jane snapped.
"I will not be spoken to like this in my own home! Bite your tongue, woman, or I will do it for you," he threatened.
"Oh!" Jane seethed with righteous indignation. "You sound just like my father. Ordering me around without so much as a by-your-leave."
"Don't insult me, Jane. My temper has been sorely tried by this misalliance. And while you may have gotten what you wanted, I didn't want a wife in a thousand years!"
"What makes you think I wanted to be your wife—especially when you insult and degrade me at every given opportunity?"
Asher looked taken aback. "Why, everyone wants to be my wife. I've been chased to ground by connubial bliss-minded females for hundreds of years."
"Oh, you arrogant blood guzzler. You're driving me batty. You're a bloody, no-good—"
"Jane, Jane, remember your new station in life. I don't believe a countess should curse," Asher interrupted.
Jane ignored him, almost weeping. "You'll never forgive me, will you? You will harp on and on about how you've been cheated. Well, my toplofty earl, I've been cheated too. I desired a marriage to a man who would willingly share his life with me, who wanted me to have his children. I wanted to cherish and be cherished. And look what I ended up with—a dead man walking always away from me. So if this marriage isn't your ideal, it isn't mine either!"
Asher snorted.
Cut to her very soul, her dignity and self-esteem shredded, Jane sighed. "You know, your tongue is sharper than any stake my family ever made." She stood up regally, fighting back tears. She wouldn't let her callous, contemptible husband see her cry. Turning abruptly toward the door, Jane hurried off, almost running to escape.
As Asher watched his prey flee, his predatory instinct came to the fore. He growled. Jane of all people should know better than to run. He wanted to feel her warm lips under his. He needed to drink in her erotic scent, to drink her virgin's blood. He longed to feel her underneath him, moaning in ecstasy.
Before she could reach the door, he leapt over his chair. Taking another leap, he reached Jane's side and yanked her into his arms, crushing her to him and pinning her against his chest. Lowering his head, he ravaged her lips.
He could taste the blood welling from a cut on her mouth. He could smell the sweet, cloying odor. It almost drove him wild. He licked at her, his tongue tasting all her honeyed essence. He groaned, his thirst begging to be slaked. She was a bloody good experience, this unwanted, plain, vampire-hunting wife of his.
His hands rose to squeeze the firm plumpness of her bosom, which overflowed his large fingers. They felt wonderful. Bloody marvelous. His cock swelled, and he began to ache with a new need: to bury himself deep in her tight, hot depths.
Jane moaned, her senses reeling. At first Asher's kiss had scared and hurt her. But in the space of a heartbeat, the assault had changed to a fierce persuasion, a sweetness that required her response.
As her husband pressed her close, Jane felt a large hardness against her. It gave her pause. Asher was not as immune to her as he pretended. And most certainly his body felt the same way she did—maybe even more so, she thought vaguely as he rubbed it against her.
"Oh, Asher," she moaned, and pressed tighter, trying to meld her body into his. She wanted to be consumed, to burn and burn, to go up in flames like a phoenix to be reborn. She sensed that Asher could take her to places she had never been, and to walk on clouds that knew no end.
Pressing herself against him, she clung to his shoulders, her world spinning. She felt strange tinglings in her body, which began to burn. She hungered for her husband's touch, and for something she couldn't name.
Her breathing became erratic as longings of a more explicable nature swamped her. Tonight! She would finally, truly be his wife tonight; and if this kiss was anything to go on, she felt as if she might be reduced to dust by it.
Asher himself wanted Jane with a fervor that surprised him. His plain little duckling had the softest of lips, and her neck so was very, very inviting. Her scent was beyond description, calling to him in a primeval way. He had to have her now.
He lowered his head and placed a kiss on her breasts. She squirmed against him. Enflamed, he suckled her breast into his mouth, drawing it gently between his teeth. He could feel the nipple peaking, and waves of her heat scorched his groin. He felt as if he needed to bury himself within her in the next few seconds, or he would explode—something he hadn't done since he was a young man of fourteen.
Suddenly, the most hideous noise interrupted their passionate encounter. Asher broke away, a little dazed.
"What is that sound?" he asked, his breathing labored as he tried to crush down his desire.
It took Jane a few seconds to understand what he husband was asking, so dazed was she by his kisses.
"That noise, Jane—what is it?"
Bemused, she finally recognized the sounds coming from outside the informal dining room's open balcony window. They were coming from the garden. And only one creature in the garden—probably in all of London—could make that screeching.
"It's Orville," she answered. "Orville sometimes likes to sing at night."
Pushing her away, Asher stared at Jane in stunned disbelief. "Does he make that noise often?" He shifted uncomfortably, his pants too tight. His wife could certainly kiss. If he didn't know better, he would swear she wasn't a virgin. But he did know better. And that noise… "Surely not. Nothing should even ever make that noise once!"
Jane would have laughed at the look on her husband's face, if she didn't feel like crying. Her body was a riot of emotions. "No. It's just that this is a new place, and he is probably lonely for me." As she spoke, she put one hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. One small fib wouldn't hurt too much.
Asher bowed curtly. "Then you must go and comfort the infernal bird. And since the night is not getting any younger, I have places to go and people to see." He stalked icily off.
He could feel Jane staring at his back, but he breathed a long, deep sigh of relief. She was quite pretty when she was angry, and he had been stopped from taking his wife on the floor of the dining room. For that, Asher was more than grateful. Who would believe it? Saved by the bird.
Fighting Tooth and Neil
The theatre was crowded with society's elite, who were sparkling and shining in their jewels and rich clothing. With so many present, the noise was like a thousand wasps trapped in a bell jar. Now some were discussing Lady Veronique's mysterious disappearance, and the missing prostitutes that the newspaper had been writing about. Twelve were now gone, vanished. Normally newspapers wouldn't take note, but with the total so high, the public's interest had begun to stir.
Ian, Clair and Jane had discussed it in the carriage earlier, wondering if supernatural species were involved. Jane hadn't revealed that she thought it was Dracul. She'd save that for later.
They all sat in Baron Huntsley's box, waiting for the play to begin. Clair and Jane had been discussing the first week of wedded bliss—or rather, the lack thereof. Ian observed the crowd.
"Asher doesn't trust me. He doesn't want me," Jane complained. She didn't want to speak ill of the dead, but Neil Asher was impossible. He made her so mad at times, she wanted to spit Neils.