Page 40 of Kept 3
“The Kept can still have children,” he murmurs, looking down at the blanket and picking at a stray silk thread with his beautiful, long fingers, “just not with their masters.”
“So, vampires can’t have babies, but I can?”
“With a human man, yes.”
“Of course,” I breathe out a sigh of relief, “otherwise the Lanesborough’s wouldn’t exist.”
“Pardon?” he raises his eyes to mine.
“The Lanesborough’s are descendants of Elsbeth’s. Her blood runs through their veins, only that side of the family rebelled against her, against all vampires. They have babies, but every now and again, a child is born with the hunter blood in their genes, like James and Lucy.”
“I never knew,” he frowns, “I knew the Lanesborough’s were hereditary hunters, but I had no idea it was Elsbeth’s blood,” his face turns thunderous as he mentions her name.
“How could you not?” I frown, “she told you when you tried to have a hunter stake her in the 1500s that she made them.”
“Yes, but she didn’t say she was related to them,” he shakes his head.
“She knew my name,” I whisper. “How did she know my name?”
“I don’t know,” he shakes his head.
“Can she feel, you know, what you feel?”
“No. That ended when I turned vampire.”
“How did you find me? How did you save me?”
“I didn’t save you,” he whispers, “and I didn’t find you. She came here, to the house, gloating that she had destroyed you. I found you,” his breath hitches and I watch him pause, trying to reign in his emotion, “I found you where she said I would; laid out in the parlour, exactly as Constance had been. I thought you were dead, Josephine, I…” he stops, shaking his head and dropping it once more into his hands, his next words muffled, “I never knew pain until that moment.”
I sit still, thinking through his words, seeing for the first time, his depth of feeling for me.
‘He really does care for me.’
“She’s going to kill me, properly kill me, when she learns I’m your Kept.”
“I will destroy her,” he says, his eyes radiating murder as they meet mine, “you need not fear her. She will not walk this earth much longer.”
I gulp and nod. He is truly terrifying when he wants to be.
“Yes, you should do that,” I whisper, squeezing his hands and bringing him back to the now, “if you can.”
“I’m older and more powerful than I have ever been,” he murmurs, rubbing his thumb across my knuckles as he speaks, “it will not be easy, but it will be a pleasure like no other.”
I frown, and he looks up, remembering who he is speaking to.
“I want to help you,” I breathe, “I want to kill her for what she has done to you, and to me, to us,” I add the last word almost in a whisper.
He shakes his head.
“But,” he smiles gently, trying to lighten the mood, “while we are on the subject, what is this?” he leans down beneath the bed and pulls out the silver-patterned knife, and my eyes widen. I had almost died retrieving this.
“It belonged to James,” I shake my head to get out the images that flash in my brain, his body bereft of skin, his eyes bulging out of his skinless, red skull. “It is an ancient relic. Apparently, it will killthevampire, the father or mother of all vampires. It was given to Elsbeth’s son for safe-keeping and hidden in the family.”
“Thevampire?” he frowns.
“James believes there is one, and that if that vampire is stabbed with this silver or platinum or whatever it is weapon, all vampires will die.”
Nicholas frowns down at the knife but handles it, I think, a little more gingerly.
