Temptation Calls. Caridad Piñeiro

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      “The children can’t see you like that,” he said, motioning with his free hand to her face. “And you’re hurt.”

      “I’ll be okay, Ricardo, but…Is there anything you can do for the others?” Samantha gestured to the bodies littering the stoop and sidewalk.

      Ricardo slipped off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders, revealing his naked chest and a low-slung pair of pajama bottoms. He’d clearly run out of his small botanica on the corner of her block without bothering to change.

      “I’m not sure—”

      “Someone has to see to them and you’re right. I can’t go back now,” Samantha said. She couldn’t afford to have her secret revealed to anyone else. It was bad enough that Ricardo had discovered the truth about what she was so soon after she’d moved to the neighborhood. Right now, there were too many things tempting the animal to emerge—her anger, the smell of the blood and the pain from her injuries.

      Ricardo handed her the keys to his place. “Go and rest. I’ll do what I can.”

      After quickly giving Ricardo a description of the occupants and the car, she fled to the safety of the botanica. Once inside, the smells of herbs, flowers and candles calmed her heightened senses. She moved slowly toward the back of the shop and to Ricardo’s living area.

      She’d been there often. Many in the neighborhood suspected them of being lovers. None could have guessed the true nature of their relationship.

      Samantha slipped off his jacket and draped it over a small sofa then she walked to his bathroom to wash the blood off her hands. How many had been killed? She should’ve saved more of them. Guilt flooded her.

      But gazing up at the mirror, she saw nothing. No guilt. No anguish. No image. She hadn’t seen her reflection in the one hundred and forty-one years since she’d become a vampire.

      She ran her hand over the burning spot high on her shoulder. There was but a half-closed hole beneath her fingers as her body slowly expelled the bullet that had ripped into her flesh.

      Farther down, along her side, at the ragged exit wound where the bullet had passed completely through her, the bleeding had stopped. The wound was already beginning to knit.

      It would take a little longer, but not much. The healing would leave her weak, but even as a human she’d been accustomed to pain. No matter how much she despised the truth, neither of her lives had been free from violence.

      Samantha headed for Ricardo’s rocker. It reminded her of her mother and how she’d swayed Samantha to sleep as a child. She curled up on the rocker’s worn wooden seat. “Maman, will it never end?”

      New Orleans, 1860

      Please let it end. Let it end soon, Samantha thought as she huddled protectively around her swollen belly, trying to shield her baby.

      But the blows didn’t stop. Not for a long time.

      He used his fists against her face. He kicked at her, the sharp toe of his polished black boot like a knifepoint as it connected with her arms and back and even with her belly when he found an opening around the defenses she erected in vain.

      Samantha didn’t scream. The screams would only make the beating worse. Maybe even hurt others.

      Last time she’d screamed, one of the field hands had rushed in to help her. Her husband had beat the man to within an inch of his life and the field hand hadn’t lifted a hand to protect himself. A black man wouldn’t dare harm his white master.

      Nor could a Creole woman like Samantha. Many would consider her lucky to have landed a husband like Elias Turner, a handsome and charming sharecropper.

      Samantha herself had thought so when Elias had wooed her at the tavern where she worked. It had once been owned by Samantha’s parents, before her father’s weakness for drink had ruined the business and her mother had worked herself to death. As an orphaned servant girl of mixed blood in a city where blood still mattered, Samantha couldn’t have done better than the attractive and prosperous Elias Turner.

      What she hadn’t realized was that his captivating smile and charisma hid hands that too easily became fists. Or that Elias would much rather win some quick cash at cards than labor out in his fields. And worse yet, that Elias hated that she was the descendent of slaves, a mixed-blood.

      Samantha had tried to make a good home for Elias, hoping that he would change. She prayed her actions would mellow the violence he too often unleashed against her and his slaves. With her careful attentions, their small home gleamed and she always had an appetizing meal waiting for him. In bed there was nothing she wouldn’t do or allow done to keep Elias’s mood good, even though at times what he asked made her feel lower than the cheapest whore in the French Quarter.

      When she’d caught him looking at her swollen belly just a few weeks ago, she thought she’d finally seen something there—the start of the change she’d been working so hard to achieve.

      She’d been wrong. Oh so wrong.

      Elias hated that the child she bore wouldn’t be pure. As he beat her, he spat out his disgust for her and the baby she carried. Accused her of tricking him with her beauty and making him forget she wasn’t much better than his ebony-skinned slaves. When he was finally done venting his anger, he stormed from their home without even a glance back.

      Even though he had left, Samantha continued to huddle tightly on the floor, bloodied and in pain. She prayed and fought not to scream as one spasm and then another tore through her. She didn’t want Elias to come back and hit her again because of the noise. She didn’t want anyone else to come in and risk a beating.

      With each spasm of pain, Samantha bit down hard on her lower lip, tasting coppery blood and the salt of her tears. Something warm trickled down the side of her face from her brow. Between her legs, she was damp with whatever was escaping her body. It pooled beneath her, wet and sticky.

      Samantha beseeched the God who so far hadn’t heard the cries of the women in her line. She pleaded and begged that the child within her would not know this same despair.

      Morning fled and afternoon came. She lay there, unable to move. The puddle beneath her was cold now, as was she. She was weak and almost delirious from the agony racking her body.

      It was dark when one of the field hands finally found her. As his gentle hands cradled her close, she finally let herself rest.

      Cool bathed her forehead. It coursed down her face and along her neck, rousing her. She remembered only vague bits and pieces of the last few hours.

      Slowly she opened her eyes and gazed into an undeniably masculine face. His eyes were dark, nearly black, and intense, but somehow comforting. She recognized the face, but it took her a moment to remember—Dr. Ryder Latimer from the plantation down the road.

      “How do you feel?” he asked, his tone filled with concern.

      Samantha tried to sit up, but pain lanced through her side and lower. She gasped and reached to rub a comforting hand over her belly, only…

      “My baby. Is it…?”

      “I’m sorry,” he said and abruptly rose from beside her bed.

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