Handsome Bastard: Ancient Blood, #2

By Kate Hill

Trained since childhood to hunt blood drinkers, Leotine is sent on a mission to destroy the elusive Cyprian Augustus. The cunning blood drinker has converted or killed many hunters who have tracked him. Will the vampire or the huntress win their deadly game of lust?

Note: Handsome Bastard was previously published. This is a re-edited version and contains two additional scenes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Hill
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005335731

Kate Hill

Kate Hill is a vegetarian New Englander who started writing many years ago for pleasure. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading, watching horror and action movies, working out, and spending time with her family and pets. She also writes under the name Saloni Quinby.

Book preview

Ancient Blood 1: Handsome Bastard

by Kate Hill

Copyright 2022 Kate Hill

Smashwords Edition

First electronic book publication Ellora’s Cave 2006

Second electronic book publication Kate Hill 2018

First trade paperback publication Kate Hill 2018

Cover art created at Canva.com

This book has sexual content and is for those 18 or over.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, and events is purely coincidental.

This book was previously published by Ellora’s Cave. This version has been re-edited and expanded.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One: He’s a Monster

Chapter Two: It is My Command

Chapter Three: Deserving of My Wrath

Chapter Four: Not as Punishment

Chapter Five: I’m Prepared to Die

Epilogue

Author’s Note

About the Author

Preview of the Darkness Therein

Also by Kate Hill

Prologue

Leotine glanced at the corpse positioned on the stone slab, its eyelids weighted down by coins, and felt nothing but disgust for the creature responsible for the woman’s death. As a member of the sacred society We Who Serve Humanity, she had overcome any tendencies toward squeamishness years ago.

This is the fiftieth of our soldiers who has died by his hand. For centuries we have hunted Cyprian Augustus and he has slipped through our fingers like smoke from Vulcan’s fire. We thought Aurelia would have taken him, but he somehow used his enchantments to muddle her thoughts and sway her loyalties. Julius, leader of her faction, stared at Leotine as he spoke. The uncharacteristically desperate look in his eyes should have made her nervous, but didn’t. She found that men in general were given to overreacting, especially if blood-drinkers were involved.

The corpse, nearly as white as the slab on which it rested, bore no marks on the face or neck. Strange for one supposedly killed by a blood-drinker. Leotine lifted the sheet covering the dead woman’s torso and noted the gaping wound above her heart.

He changed her and then he staked her?

Julius shook his head and sighed. No. That act of mercy was performed by us, but he did kill her. Turned her into something vile. Took her mortal life so we were forced to destroy the creature inhabiting her body. He stepped closer and placed a heavy hand on Leotine’s shoulder, his frenzied gaze fixed on her. You are our last hope. We have sent powerful, experienced men as well as women seductive enough to lure a temple priest away from his god, but Cyprian Augustus has slaughtered them all or turned them into his kind, so we were forced to hunt and kill our own. No one has ever swayed you. Your parents gave you to us early to be certain your heart would belong solely to our cause. They knew how important it is. Yours will be the hand to strike down our most elusive enemy, if you accept the duty.

We have served for as long as they have existed and will continue to serve until they are extinct, Leotine replied, using the words of their society’s primary law. Though she remained outwardly calm, inside she boiled with fury and also eagerness to destroy the creature responsible for the deaths of her fellow warriors.

Be cautious. His charms are—

Nothing to me. I have seduced fiends and sent them back to Pluto with my blade through their black hearts. I swear to you and to humanity that Cyprian Augustus will be no different. He is mine.

Chapter One

He’s a Monster

The body sprawled in the road leading to his villa brought Cyprian Augustus and his servant to a stop. In spite of the pouring rain, his superior sense of smell caught the scent of fresh blood combined with a distinctly feminine aroma that roused Cyprian’s interest.

Shall I see who it is? Sextus asked his master.

Before replying, Cyprian glanced around, enveloped by the icy feeling that usually preceded disaster. Finally he nodded and dismounted. Sextus did the same and followed him to the body. Both men knelt.

Covered in a layer of mud and a wet, bloodstained tunic so thin it scarcely concealed her every lush curve, the woman remained unconscious as Cyprian touched a hand to her neck. A pulse beat steadily against his fingers. Despite the noise of the storm, when he concentrated hard enough, he could hear her heartbeat. One of her eyes was blackened and her cheek badly bruised. Her nose and lips oozed blood, as did several shallow cuts on her arms and legs.

Chestnut hair clung to her shoulders, neck, and face. Cyprian brushed a tendril from the corner of her mouth. He noted that in spite of the beating she’d endured, she was quite lovely.

How do you suppose she got here? Sextus asked.

No definite ideas.

Well, how about giving me an indefinite one if you think you know something?

Anyone unfamiliar with their past would find Sextus impertinent, but their relationship extended far beyond that of master and servant. It had endured long past any mortal’s comprehension. Cyprian’s mouth twitched downward. He had suspicions about this beaten woman in slave garb who had the delicate beauty and well-fed look of a lady of leisure. Of course, he knew from experience how many beautiful slaves filled the wealthy households of Rome, but it was simply a feeling that told him to use caution. Such feelings had kept him alive for centuries while others of his kind succumbed to death by mortal hands.

Do you intend to leave her? Sextus asked. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Cyprian had committed a cold act, yet when he did he invariably had a good reason.

Then use your reason, he told himself. Stop looking at her pretty face and those luscious, magnificent, potentially deadly curves.

If we leave her here she’ll most likely die, Sextus said. Either from those wounds or from exposure or from someone running over her in the middle of the road. So if you intend to leave her to such a fate, at least let me have a taste—

Stop. Cyprian raised his eyes to the heavens, and then he shook his head. Pitiful excuse for a blood-drinker that you are. Can’t you tell her injuries aren’t remotely life threatening? It’s warm enough out here for her to survive, and who else but you or me would be traveling this road at this time of night?

Apparently someone was. How else did she get here?

With a low growl, Cyprian tugged the woman into his arms and stood. He carried her to Sextus’s horse and placed her over the saddle.

Why does she get my horse?

Curling his lip, Cyprian glanced at Sextus over his shoulder. The question should be, why do I keep you around? Guide the horse. When we arrive home, bring warm water and bandages to my cubiculum.

Ah. Sextus smiled, revealing the tips of his tiny fangs. That’s more like the Cyprian I know. Bring her right to bed.

It’s usually a good place to begin getting the truth out of a woman.

I know several husbands and lovers who might not agree with you.

That’s because they’re stupid.

Cyprian mounted his horse and kicked it toward his villa. Yes, women spoke lies in the bedroom, but their bodies and expressions were quite another matter. Gaze into a female’s eyes just before her moment of crisis and a man could see through to her very soul.

Of course, Cyprian was more gifted than most when it came to sensing lies in both men and women. As a rule, blood-drinkers possessed keen mind control, but even among his own kind Cyprian was known as a master of thoughts. He sifted through thoughts like grains of sand on a beach, easily pulling out perfectly shaped shells and either handling them with the utmost delicacy or crushing them to powder. Mortals and immortals, women in particular, found him almost impossible to resist. Even in