Free Winter's Kiss by Felicity Heaton Page A

the smell, the flames, it had almost been too much for him. He hadn’t felt so unsettled in centuries and he knew that it was affecting his judgement. It had to be or he wouldn’t have brought Nika here, to a place where she would be in more danger than ever.
    Only her voice had brought him back from the nightmare of his past.
    Now they both had to face the nightmare of her future. The destruction of the village and the death of her father had taken its toll on her. She had been quiet since they had fled the scene but her heart hadn’t slowed. She was so close to him that he could sense her crushing fear and hurt as though it was his own. Those emotions only increased his desire to protect her. They had brought him to a dangerous decision, one that might prove to be both of their downfalls.
    He walked tentatively over the invisible threshold of his bloodline’s territory and felt a pull inside. Fear. In all his years, he hadn’t forgotten the human emotions that had once ruled him. They had dulled during his lifetime as a vampire, but had never fully disappeared, and now they were playing havoc with him. The first night he had seen Nika as a grown woman, his feelings had returned full
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    force, so potent that he had wondered if he felt emotions even keener as a vampire than he had ever done as a human. He moved his hands against the underside of her thighs, absorbing her warmth through his gloves and cursing the soft feel of her body. Her breath tickled his neck, stirring the fine hairs and luring him into closing his eyes so he would feel everything more intensely.
    She murmured something about her leg and him putting her down. He couldn’t allow her to walk now. One set of footsteps on someone’s senses was better than two.
    Nika pushed against him but he held her tighter, unwilling to let her down and to lose the feel of her against him. She sniffed and he could smell the tears drying on her cheeks. On their way here, she had cried now and then, always stifling her sobs in a clear effort to hide them. It was impossible to conceal them from him. Even though she was putting on a brave face, he could see through it to her underlying fear and fatigue. Since the attack in the wood, she had been under constant assault. First the attack itself and then the revelation that she was becoming a creature of darkness, and then she had figured out that he was going to leave her. He had seen it in her eyes when she had and her demeanour towards him had changed abruptly. And then the village. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of tangled memories, a twisted vision of what had happened all those years ago and tonight. Dragging himself back to her, he realised that everything was against her. Now, she had no one in this world and that thought only made him want to stay with her. For a split second, he found the strength in his heart to turn his back on his kin and continue to love her, ignoring the danger. Only for a split second.
    The trees began to thin and the mansion walls appeared out of the darkness. The sight of them brought reality back. He was a Validus. The gift that his family had given him centuries ago was one so precious he could not lightly turn his back on them for any reason, not even for love. He still owed them so much and he feared that his debt would never be repaid. The fire had been a sign. It had been a reminder to him that his lord and his bloodline came first.
    Pale stone and delicate black wrought iron marked the barrier around his family’s home. Three hundred metres to his left was the west gate. The main gate stood over four hundred metres to his right, around the corner that he could see one hundred metres away. Guards patrolled the grounds in pairs. He would need to time it so he avoided them all.
    His gaze tracked to the mansion itself. In a way, it reminded him of the palaces in St. Petersburg, the nearest city. The elegant facade was the same as theirs but coloured in ochre and white, lined