Read Online The Vampire Dimitri by Colleen Gleason - Free Book Online Page A

uncovered shoulder, leaving his muscular arms bare. “Dewhurst will see to her,” the earl said.
    â€œDewhurst?” Maia said, staring at the door. And wasn’t the viscount supposed to be in Romania? “With my sister?”
    â€œI’ll deal with him later,” Corvindale said grimly, grasping her by the arm and towing her toward the door. “Iliana’s waiting in the carriage. You’ve got to get out of here,” he said, and gestured sharply for Mirabella to follow.
    â€œI’m not leaving without my sister,” Maia said, digging in her heels.
    The earl’s response was simple, and it infuriated her further: he picked her up bodily and carried her out of the room and down the hall to the servants’ stairs.
    The next thing she knew, Maia was shoved into a carriage along with Mirabella and their chaperone. No fewer than three footmen were to accompany them, which gave her a modicum of security. The door closed and clicked locked before she could speak, and the coach started off with a violent lurch.
    She could barely catch her breath, she was so incensed. But before she could gather her thoughts to speak, she looked over at her two companions. Mirabella’s eyes were wide in her fair face, her fiery-red hair hanging in straggles around her cheekbones, her red lips parted.
    But Aunt Iliana had a more composed, but intense, expression on her face. And for the first time, Maia noticed that the woman was holding a sharp wooden stake.
    Â 
    Maia had just finished opening the parlor drapes at Blackmont Hall again—for someone kept closing them and keeping the rooms so dark and dreary—when she heard the front entrance open. Her heart leaped, and she rushed to the parlor door to see if it was Angelica returning at last. But the low, sharp tones as the new arrival spoke to his butler indicated that it was the earl who had come home.
    Determined to at least have some answers from him, she flew from the parlor and met him in the hall.
    â€œLord Corvindale,” she said, positioning herself in the center of the passageway so that he couldn’t walk to his study—where it appeared he was headed—without brushing past her.
    â€œWhat is it, Miss Woodmore?” he demanded. His voice was flat and hard, and belied the disheveled, weary man in front of her. He’d either come home and changed into a new shirt (although she was certain he hadn’t been in the house since she returned from the masquerade last night; for she’d been waiting to accost him), or had somehow acquired a different one, for this shirt, though wrinkled and loose, seemed relatively pristine as compared to the one in shreds last night.
    But his features were etched even more sharply than usual. His heavy dark brows lowered in a scowl, his mouth in a flat line, his thick, dark hair springing in erratic waves from his head and around his neck. He was well overdue for a shave, as well, she noted with a sniff. His coat was smudged with dirt and his hands were ungloved and one had a line of dried blood on the back of it.
    Although Maia had filled her sleepless night by attempting to rest, then read, and then later when neither served to ease her mind, to bathe away the lingering bit of lint and dust from the curtains in which she’d been wrapped, she felt very little sympathy for the man in front of her…despite the fact that he seemed exhausted. Tension emanated from him like heat radiating from a fire, but Maia didn’t care. She needed answers, she needed to prepare, to take care of things and to address this situation—and she’d waited much too long for him. Aunt Iliana, who seemed to know much more than she let on, had merely assured her that they’d received word thatAngelica was safe and that Dewhurst would be returning her shortly.
    But the big question was: safe from what?
    From the vampirs?
    â€œIt’s nearly four o’clock, Corvindale. I would