Vampire's Embrace: A Vampire Queen Series Novel Read online

“None taken.” He didn’t show much reaction to the astonishing coincidence, but with what else was going on around them, nothing seemed too outlandish, did it? “Fraternal or identical?” he asked at last.

  “Fraternal. Lucky for you. She’s far prettier.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  She chuckled dryly. “Any woman amid this sea of men looks like a beauty queen.”

  “No. It’s not that.” His jaw tightened, and he reached out, ran a knuckle down her cheek. “Things are going badly for us out there, Nina. They should evacuate you and the other medical staff sooner rather than later.”

  Her heart sank at the news, combining with a tiny flutter of fear at the look in his eyes, but she shook her head. There was no way any of them would leave their patients. It would have to be a direct order, and she couldn’t imagine either Matron giving it. “I’ll go when all you lads have had enough and decide it’s time to get back to your footy.”

  “That was yesterday. Tomorrow. Any day that’s not today.” His jaw kept that firm set, though. “I mean it. Don’t endanger yourself. It would make me very unhappy to hear that something bad happened to you.”

  He used that direct look again, the one that shot right to her core and made her knees do a funny weakening. As if he had the right to tell her what to do. Maybe he did. She’d never covered much of that with Sher, the restrictions relating to the rest of her family’s bond to the vampire world.

  Regardless, rather than annoyance, she felt that odd flutter in her belly from it. So she covered it with a neutral smile.

  “I’ve already had to deal with a bossy vampire today who didn’t have enough sense to eat properly. How much worse can it get?”

  The skin around his eyes crinkled. “A fair point. Good-bye, sweet nurse. Thank you for taking care of my friends. And me.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say something else sassy, since he seemed to enjoy that, as all the lads seemed to, but before she could say anything else, poof, he was gone.

  Her grip on the door constricted and she started back, a foolish reaction. But it had startled her. Sher had never said they could dematerialize, yet she had said they could move incredibly fast. Faster than the human eye could follow.

  So her blood had helped, then. That was something. Nina realized when she’d cupped his skull, she’d barely noticed the wound that had been there. If humans had those kind of healing abilities…

  She shook her head before the thought could impale her heart. She needed sleep. And not to think too much about what he’d done to her body, how her knickers were wet between her legs, and little shudders were still going through her at odd moments.

  He’s my sister’s, she reminded herself, though she knew even Sher would consider that inaccurate. Sher belonged to him, not the other way around. Out of all of it, that was what Nina had the hardest time understanding. To enter into a lifelong commitment to another, where you couldn’t consider the bloke as much yours as you were his? That wasn’t love to her, and love should be the bloody bottom line for a relationship that could span three hundred years.

  Long after Nina herself was dust, Sher would be with him. When she was ten, she’d plotted a rescue for her sister, if it turned out her vampire was an ogre. Three hundred years with a brutal Master. Did Sher really know what she was getting into? It had kept Nina up nights, even more than it did her parents, which had baffled her. Everyone seemed to accept this except her. Even her younger brothers.

  He’d made no promises about taking care of Sher. Though Nina knew she certainly had no way of extracting them, it would have been nice to hear him say something to that effect. But this momentary meeting, seeing that Alistair was the type of male who would help his mates on the front lines, made her feel a little better. A little more reassured.

  He wasn’t what she’d expected, but maybe, just maybe, she could comprehend something of what Sher found so appealing about belonging to their world. The portrait didn’t do justice to the sheer force of his presence.

  She also felt a small hope that maybe he would be kind enough to let her visit, see how her sister was doing with him.

  That would be the only reason she would anticipate seeing him again.

  She had to say it twice to believe it.

  Chapter Three

  Alistair had been right. The enemy’s advance had the hospital personnel relocating and retreating once more, eventually setting up at facilities close to the heart of the city. Soon thereafter, evacuation of Singapore was mandated. According to reports, the city was almost completely surrounded by the enemy now.

  The nurses unanimously refused to go, until the doctor in charge left them no choice, making it an order. Matron Paschke asked for volunteers for the first boat, the Empire Star. No one volunteered, so she chose the fifty-nine women.

  Nina was relieved not to be one of those, but she knew it was a temporary reprieve. Matron Paschke indicated the remaining sixty-five would be departing on their heels. Matron Drummond stood tight-lipped during the announcement. They all knew that she believed they should give the nurses the choice to risk court martial and stay with the wounded, but Matron Paschke’s calm insistence that they follow orders and serve as soldiers should had prevailed.

  At breakfast only two days later, Matron Paschke announced the remaining nurses would be departing that day. She instructed the women to collect their belongings, anything that could fit into one small kit bag with a tin of beef and beans.

  It had been emotional enough to witness the leaving of the first fifty-nine women, and not just because friends were split up in such an uncertain time. Their mission was to care for the wounded, and they had been ordered to abandon their patients. Most of the women had cried as they boarded the vehicles and were driven away. The day Nina and her remaining fellow nurses left was no different.

  As they assembled at the rendezvous point, soldiers came with letters to take home for them. Keeping a brave face was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. And when they at last boarded the ambulances to head for the wharfs, her heart broke when she saw that the orderlies, officers and ambulatory patients had lined the drive to salute them. She pressed against Helen’s side, furiously waving her handkerchief, just like many of the others, a handkerchief she had to use on her own face to mop away the tears.

  “Bloody stupid,” Helen said, anguish in her voice. “Just the doctors and orderlies to take care of our boys. I’ve never wanted to be a man more.”

  Nina fervently agreed. The face of every man she was leaving behind felt as if it was being branded upon her soul.

  It wasn’t a long drive to the wharf, but she would never forget it. It was the backdrop of nightmares. Smoke blanketed the city, and fires were burning everywhere, fueled by the stores of oil and rubber on the dock. More than once, the Matrons barked at the drivers, making them stop so the nurses could help wounded along the road sides. The smell grew progressively worse, and it wasn’t just the usual sewage smell. There were bodies, in the buildings, the streets, vehicles, no personnel left to remove them. The living, mostly civilian families, swarmed toward the water, everyone looking for a way out.

  “This is what hell must look like,” Helen said, her raspy voice weighted with horror. “And it feels worse than it looks.”

  Nina gripped her hand. “Hold steady,” she said softly. “We’ll get through.”

  The drive to the docks was interminable, though. When they reached them and assembled on the one where they were told to wait, they were a somber group.

  Then, as if the Devil thought things weren’t decorated enough to his liking, another air raid began.

  Bloody, fucking hell. Nina had never been caught out in a bombing before, always having the illusion of a building to protect her. Not only were they out in the open, people packed the docks as well. Children, families.

  “Take cover, take cover.”

  “Don’t trample each other.”

  “Calmly now, calm as you can. G
et whatever shelter you can.”

  The nurses, veterans at keeping their wits about them during the indescribable, terrible noise, did what they could, shouting and directing those in the crowds to whatever shelter was available, pulling the wounded into those alcoves, ducking and covering themselves as the projectiles screamed down from the roaring planes.

  As Nina snatched up a child and ran with his mother, carrying another baby at her breast, she stepped into a burst open suitcase and saw a blue dress, a string of pearls. Then it was gone as they ducked into the overhang of a storefront.

  The mother was crying, wailing something in what might have been Dutch, but Nina shoved her into a crouch around her baby, sandwiched the other child against her back and put herself over as much of them as she could. She felt something strike her back, a handful of somethings, and her heart skittered, but a second later she collected herself enough to realize it was merely mud and gravel from the road, kicked up by the plane gunfire that had missed them by a few feet.

  It didn’t last long, thank God. While the crowd had panicked at their exposure, air raids had been happening in Singapore for some time. Almost as soon as the planes departed, they were scrambling for the dock edges and jockeying for the few spots that could possibly be had on the boats with renewed desperation. No one wanted to be standing here when the planes came back.

  Because they would be back.

  The mother fled into that riotous group, clutching her older child’s hand tightly. Nina paused only long enough to verify, as much as she could, that none of the three had been hurt before she ran back to the other nurses. They were triaging with whatever small amounts of supplies they had. When the call came for them to leave, Nina wasn’t the only one who wanted to wish the offending bellower to bloody hell for shouting at them to get it moving, insistently pointing them to the boats that would take them out to their ship.

  “Come, ladies,” Matron Paschke said at last, though her eyes were suspiciously wet. “We must go.”

  “This is total bollocks,” Temple said, tears streaming freely. “Matron, we can’t leave them. Please…”

  “We must follow orders. We will do no good to the wounded men being transported home if we do not survive to help them.” But the Matron tempered the stern words with a touch on Temple’s plump arm, her cheek. “Come,” she said again. “We have done what we can. Now we do what we must.”

  Her glance at Nina and Helen said she expected their help to get the younger woman moving, but the tightness of her face said the Matron felt no differently from the rest of them.

  Nina shepherded Temple onto a dinghy. She saw other, more experienced sisters doing the same until they were all loaded onto small craft, which took them out to the ship. Once there, The Matron told them to find a spot until the boat was underway. She also reminded them to keep on their Red Cross armbands. Nina suspected they were little to no deterrent to the Japanese, but on the slim chance they were, they would stay on. If for no other reason than they’d been ordered to do so. Absurd as it might seem, having structure, orders and duties kept awareness of the total insanity around them at bay, such that odds of survival could be heightened.

  But nothing could close out the piteous pleas of those paddling on small craft near the Vyner Brooke, begging for passage. She found a spot in one of the trussed life rafts and sat down there with Helen and Temple, the three of them watching the fires of the city and the sun slowly sink toward the horizon. Somewhere, a few of the nurses tried to sing, as they often did to raise spirits, but the music died away not long after it started. Today was a day for grieving.

  When she closed her eyes, the past few months flashed through her mind. To get through this unbearable moment, she purposefully focused on one memory, no matter how guilty she felt about it.

  She thought of Alistair.

  She’d written a letter to her sister about their unexpected meeting, keeping it high level, but it had not felt honest. Realizing just how judgmental she’d been about her sister’s feelings, without firsthand knowledge of what serving a vampire was like, she’d started over and written a more detailed account. Leaving a few personal things out.

  Her small taste of it did not put her anywhere close to where Sher was on it, but it was enough that Nina considered the rewritten version an apology of sorts, as well as a reassurance. Sher would have a fuller measure of her support and loyalty, and perhaps a more open mind than before.

  Anything she shouldn’t have left out of the letter would be ferreted out of her, regardless. When Sher learned she’d met Alistair, Nina would be interrogated until Sher had every single detail, including Nina’s unexpected reaction to him. She expected Sher would be smug and teasing, but in a way that Nina didn’t dread. Such normalcy as a sister’s teasing would be indescribably welcome.

  She thought of the days ahead. Once all were aboard, the Matrons would set them up with a routine, an order of things to do which would help occupy their minds and keep them mindful of their duty. There would be civilians on the boat, a far-too-small handful.

  Bloody hell, she just wanted to draw in a breath not filled with this stench. A smell she knew now included far too many corpses. It was unconscionable what could become familiar. The norm. Madness.

  She centered herself once more, pulled it together. Thought of Alistair’s penetrating blue eyes. Strewth, Sher had said vampires were fair to look upon, and she hadn’t exaggerated. Dirty, bloody, tired, pale, he should have looked like a corpse himself. Instead, she remembered the set of his mouth, the grace of his strong hands. How his hair, though dirty and damp, had been thick and dark, like silk against her knuckles.

  But mainly she remembered his voice, all the nuances of emotions he’d given her. Weariness, sadness. Surprising touches of humor. Almost a smile once. And desire. A man’s desire, which reminded her of his comment about dancing around bonfires together.

  We’ll get through. She’d said that to Helen, and she said it to her and Temple now, threading her arms through theirs to hold tightly. She was a Sister with the Australian Army Nursing Service. Upon the return to Australia, she’d be assigned to one of the mainland hospitals, helping in the recovery and rehabilitation of men so severely wounded they’d been sent home. She needed to turn her attention to that, because her time near a battle zone was likely done for now.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Two days later, Nina leaned on the rail, sharing a cigarette with Helen. Tensions were high on board, since earlier in the muggy day, a lone Japanese plane had discovered them, and peppered one side of the deck with gunfire. While it had soon departed, it was very possible that it would return with others. They’d all gone over their instructions for battle stations with the Matrons and were as prepared as they could be.

  She was keeping a close eye on Nate, one of her patients from the hospital. He had a bad chest wound and one amputated leg, but he became extremely agitated inside the boat cabin area, enough to jeopardize his life by aggravating the wound. So the decision had been made to let him stay out, despite the risk, under a metal overhang near one of the entrances to the enclosed part of the vessel.

  Once settled aboard, they’d discovered they had the care of a small handful of critically injured soldiers, including Nate. Someone had smuggled them out to the boat. Who had made that happen, she didn’t know, but it had provided a small balm to them all, to give them soldiers to care for. While the men were unhappy about leaving mates behind, they’d been too injured to prevent their own evacuation.

  She found a tired half-smile inside herself as Nate tipped his face up to the wind, half closing his eyes against the morning light. He hadn’t cried when he’d woken up without a leg. But she’d tell no one that she’d dried his tears when he spoke of Sherman, the mate who was still in Singapore. Who was now at the mercy of an advancing Japanese army.

  His eyes snapped open, sought the skies. A blink later, she heard it, too. The drone was like a distant bee hive. As the sound gre
w stronger, a ball of fear spiked in her lower belly. The Matrons’ and crew’s prediction had been correct. The Japanese pilot was bringing back reinforcements.

  She was already in motion as the wounded men instinctively reached for guns that weren’t there.

  The handful of soldiers assigned to protect the boat raced to the mounted guns while others prepared their rifles, in case the planes swooped low enough to be in their range.

  Civilians were clogging the doorways to the cabins and lower decks, so Nina went to Nate and drew him further against the closest cabin wall, tugging the stretcher bodily. “We need to get you inside,” she said firmly. “Just as soon as the way is clear.”

  He shook his head, his eyes tracking the pilot, his expression taut. “Going to be on us by then. Go below, Sister. I’ll be fine.”

  “And let you enjoy all this fresh sea air by yourself? Not likely.”

  Nina crouched next to him, figuring the best way to protect him from what might happen. She had to put a restraining palm to his chest above the wound to prevent him from shoving himself up on his elbows, though she could well understand his desire not to feel like a helpless turtle.

  “Easy,” she said sharply, and drew his attention. “Let’s just look together, all right?”

  “Like a couple of lovers under the fireworks,” he managed, but there was no flirtatious glibness to it. His expression remained just as tight as they looked toward the skies again. At the escalating shouts of the soldiers, the sharp cries of the women, it was impossible not to do so.

  The planes dropped out of the clouds, the metal sides glistening with the morning light. Dread gathered in her chest, dried up the saliva in her mouth. Initially looking like the random flight of birds, the planes centered themselves, heading toward them with unmistakable malevolent intent.

  They were caught in the crosshairs of the enemy with nowhere to run.

  As she stared up at that plane, there was an odd, still moment where her gaze flitted quickly over everyone around her, as if capturing a picture of the souls she knew would soon be lost forever. Including herself.