Blood Guilt by Marie Treanor Page A

the picture from his memory. His foster father had held him by the arm and shaken him for running away, and when Robbie had fallen, the adult had simply yanked him to his feet. There were other blows, other bruises, mostly inflicted by his foster siblings.
    “Who chose such foster parents for you?” Maximilian enquired, and for some reason the cool, emotionless tone of his question seemed to calm Robbie’s fears.
    “They’d run out of options. I’m a troublesome child. I always run away.”
    Looking for someone to talk to? Maximilian asked telepathically. Like this?
    Robbie nodded. Aye.
    Find many?
    No… Not until they came.
    Maximilian received a clear picture of Gavril and his companion, and released the boy’s arm to turn his neck to one side and touch the vein. There were no signs, no residue of bites that he could determine.
    “They didn’t hurt me,” Robbie said a shade anxiously.
    Of course they didn’t. They’d have seen his foster parents’ mistreatment in the child’s head as easily as Maximilian had done and ensured his cooperation by being different.
    “You know they’re like me?” Maximilian said.
    “Vampires.” Robbie’s eyes gleamed. He looked away, then quickly back again. “Am I a vampire?”
    Maximilian frowned. “Why should you think that?”
    Robbie shrugged, moving restlessly away from him, picking up the pad with Maximilian’s drawings and flicking through them. “I’m different, ken?”
    “You’re a telepathic human, that’s all. There are others like you who are also not vampires. What did those vampires want with you?”
    “They wanted me to help them.” There was pride in the voice of the young, shunned child. “Said I was the only one who could.”
    “Help them with what?”
    “Dinae ken. It was meant to’ve been yesterday. Only, when I heard you, I wanted to talk to you, and they got angry because they had to chase me. And after what they did to you and the lady, I don’t think I like them anymore. I like her , though.”
    Maximilian glanced down at the drawing Robbie was showing him. It was the one Maximilian had dashed off while waiting for Robbie to come to the door. The hunter, with her huge, tragic, dark eyes and defiant, sensual mouth. In such a drawing it had been impossible to catch the full, translucent effect of her taut, perfect skin drawn over those exquisite bones. Later, when he got back to stone, or paints, he’d capture her properly. This time… “I drew her too,” Robbie offered and rummaged in the discarded heap of paper for his own drawings.
    It was childish, the strokes of his pen less sure, but he’d caught enough of her features to make her recognizable. Maximilian gazed at it, wondering if he should talk himself out of the plan forming in his head.
    He raised his gaze to Robbie’s face. “If I took you to her, would you promise not to run away?”

Chapter Four
    Mihaela was almost surprised when she found herself at St. Andrews Cathedral. She’d spent most of the day walking around the town and thinking. Perhaps it was inevitable she should end up here, in the dark, where she’d first seen him step out of the mist to stand with her enemies.
    That had been more than a year ago, when the mission was to trap and kill Saloman. It had been a spectacular failure.
    Mihaela grimaced at the memory. Impulsively, she walked into the grounds. Elizabeth, her closest female friend, loved this place, and Mihaela could understand why. Walking from one arch with its distinctive, ruined single tower to the twin-towered one on the other side, she at last felt a kind of peace settle over her.
    It had been a difficult day. She’d woken late after her late return from Edinburgh and subsequent huge supper, and although she meant to rest to recover her strength after Maximilian’s bloodletting, she’d been too restless to sit still. She’d walked on the beaches, around the bustling town, and along the road to Largo and back. In between time, she sat in