Embrace the Night

Chapter 4

Rafe watched me in silence for a moment, then cleared his throat. "There may be an alternative."

I waited, but he just sat there, his jaw working but no sound coming out. "I'm listening."

"I can't tell you," he finally said, sounding defeated. Apparently Mircea's command hadn't been so flawed after all.

I glanced at Billy, who sighed and shrugged. He doesn't like possessions, but they do allow him to tiptoe through someone's thoughts, gathering stray information here and there. And I doubted Mircea had prohibited Rafe from even thinking about whatever it was he didn't want known.

"Drop your shields," I told him, "and hold that thought."

Rafe looked a little nervous, but since Billy slipped inside his skin a few seconds later, he must have done as I asked. I glanced around, wondering what the tourists would say if they knew that a ghost was currently possessing a vampire a few feet away. It made Dante's staged shows look a little tepid by comparison. Then Billy stepped out of Rafe's other side, looking freaked. "Oh, hell, no."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. Not a damn thing."

"You're lying." I couldn't believe it. Billy has a lot of flaws, but he doesn't lie. Not to me.

His jaw set and his hazel eyes looked as implacable as I'd ever seen them. "If I am, it's for your own good!"

There are, so tradition says, four main reasons for a ghost to appear to mortals: to reproach, to warn, to recall and to advise. I could add a few more: to annoy, to obstruct or, in Billy Joe's case, to seriously piss off. "I'll be the judge of that!" I told him angrily.

"And your judgment's been so great so far?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Every time you get involved with the vamps, it's a bad thing." Billy held up three translucent fingers. "Tomas. ‘Oh, Billy, he's just a sweet street kid who needs a home. A sweet street kid who happened to be a master vampire in disguise, who betrayed you and almost got you killed!" A finger went down. "Mircea. ‘Oh, Billy, I've known him forever, he's nothing to worry about. Until he placed that damn geis on you and maneuvered you into the Pythia thing, that is." Another finger folded under, leaving me staring at a rude gesture. "See why I'm a little worried here?"

"I'm involved anyway!" I reminded him tightly.

"You won't like it."

"I already don't like it. Just tell me!" The bartender was looking at me a little funny. Probably wondering why I was yelling at the bar.

"Your buddy has been doing some investigating," Billy said, with obvious reluctance, "and heard a rumor. But it's probably no more than that. People have been speculating about the Codex for centuries—"

Rafe shook his head, then grabbed his throat again. The bartender began slowly edging away. I sent him a smile, but the expression in his eyes said clearly that he thought we were nuts. It would have bothered me less if I didn't halfway agree with him.

"Billy!"

He sighed. "The word is that the Codex was never lost, that the mages have had it all along but circulated the rumor because they didn't want anyone looking for it."

"Wonderful," I said morosely. "All I need is another run-in with the Circle."

"Cass," Billy said, almost gently, "there's more than one."

It took me a moment to understand what he meant; then my eyes automatically slid over to Rafe. "The Black has it?" I whispered in a savage undertone.

The Black Circle was a group of dark magic users, people with no scruples about how they obtained power or what they did with it. They had recently allied with some rogue vampires against the Silver Circle and the Vampire Senate, in a war that threatened to engulf the entire supernatural world. So far, I'd mostly managed to stay out of it. I really wanted to keep it that way.

At least Rafe had the grace to look slightly abashed. "I'm trying to avoid making any more enemies," I said tightly.

"And if Mircea wants to raid a dark stronghold, he has the people to do it," Billy pointed out. "He sure as hell doesn't need us."

I nodded emphatically. For once, Billy was making a lot of sense. Rafe looked lost, unable to hear Billy when he wasn't in residence, so to speak. "Mircea has a capable stable—" I began, only to have Rafe cut me off with an agitated gesture.

"None of them will do anything," he croaked, sounding half-choked. I went around the bar to get him some water.

"Why? Do they want him to die?"

"No!" He looked around agitatedly, but his almost yell had been lost in the thrum of music and the hum of conversation. He leaned over the bar and dropped his voice to a whisper anyway, so much so that I practically had to lip-read. "There might be a few who resent their positions, who think they could do better elsewhere, but most are wise enough to see…" He trailed off.

"See what?"

Rafe took the glass I handed him, but didn't drink. He put it down and started rubbing both hands across the bar top in an unconscious, distressed motion. "That with Tony gone and Mircea dead, there will be no one to protect us. The family will be ripped apart, each of us taken by other masters to add to their power base. And they won't know us, Cassie; they won't care. We'll be commodities to them, nothing more. Things to be used and discarded when we fail to please."

I mentally cursed myself for not thinking that far ahead. Of course Mircea's death would be more than a personal tragedy—his position as family patriarch ensured that. And it would be devastating for people like Rafe.

He'd never had much respect at Tony's, where a steady trigger finger counted for more than artistic genius. But at least he'd known the rules of the household and where he fit into the hierarchy. In a new family there would be a constant struggle for position—maybe for decades. And Rafe was no warrior. He might not last long enough to carve a new place for himself.

"Then why won't the family help him?" I demanded. "It's their butts on the line as much as his!"

"Because the Consul has forbidden it!" Rafe whispered. "I am risking her wrath by even being here!"

Well, that explained the nervousness. "Why would she do that? She needs Mircea alive!" As scary as the Consul was, she couldn't hope to win the war alone. The Senate was ultimately only as strong as its members, and it had already lost more than a quarter of them to combat or treachery. She couldn't afford to lose Mircea, too.

"She says that everything that can be done is being done, and that we'll only make matters worse by interfering. But I think there is more to it than that. You're the obvious person for us to seek out, and she doesn't want us to aid you."

"But I'm trying to help!" Lifting the geis would benefit me as much as Mircea, and if there was one thing I'd have thought the Consul understood, it was self-interest.

"I know that, Cassie. But she doesn't. She believes that you are still angry with him for placing the geis, and may attempt some form of revenge. She knows you don't have to help him; that once he dies, the geis is broken—"

"She actually believes I'd do that? Stand by and watch him die?"

Rafe's hands clenched on the bar top. "I don't know what she might think under normal circumstances. But these are not normal! We are at war, and she is afraid of losing him. Even more, she's afraid of your power. Fear is not an emotion she feels often, and when she does…she tends to overreact. Perhaps, if you spoke with her…"

I shot him a look, but didn't bother to reply. I had a suspicion that the Consul's plan to rid Mircea of the spell might involve killing the one who had placed it on him. Which, thanks to the aforementioned timeline snafu, was me.

"Mircea isn't going to die," I said, trying to convince myself as much as Rafe. "He's a Senate member, not a newborn!"

Rafe didn't answer. Instead, he held out his hand, opening the palm to reveal a slim platinum hair clip. I recognized it immediately. Unlike a lot of ancient vampires, Mircea didn't usually dress in the clothes of his youth. I'd only ever seen him in them once, and that had been to make a political statement. He preferred understated, modern attire, with the only outward sign of his origin the length of his hair. He once told me that in his day only serfs and slaves had short hair and that he'd never been able to overcome his prejudice against it. But even there he conformed to modern conventions by keeping it confined at the base of his neck in a clip. That one.

I stayed a good two feet away, desperate not to trigger a vision. Just thinking about Mircea was hard enough; I couldn't risk seeing him. But this time, my caution did no good. A wave of images crashed into me, sweeping me away.

I blinked a new scene into focus, my ears ringing from the sudden silence. Low-burning candles cast a puddle of watery gold light around a large bed, raised up several steps from the rest of the room. I had an impression of comfortable surroundings—dark wood, soft carpets and a lot of heavy antiques—but I couldn't focus on them. All my attention was taken up with the body lying on the crumpled sheets, skin china-pale next to the chocolate-colored fabric. Dark blue shadows softened the clean, strong lines, draping them with a subtle beauty completely unlike electricity. Watching the flames run orange-gold fingers along Mircea's muscles, I finally understood the allure of candlelight.

He'd unbuttoned his shirt but kept it on, and it was all he was wearing. It was plastered to him, the thin white fabric gone nearly translucent from the sweat that soaked it. I took in a swift succession of images, none of which did anything for my equilibrium: nipples drawn to tight points, stomach muscles quivering, hips slick and straining, eyes liquid amber.

His body, already taut with pain, suddenly shuddered and twisted violently. His back arched, throwing out his chest, flexing every muscle until it looked as though his spine would break. His fingers splayed across the damp sheets helplessly, his thighs trembling as if he'd just finished a marathon. His head craned back against the mattress, teeth clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out starkly. I stared at him with a heart-squeezing ache that made me want to grab him and cling, as if that would somehow keep him safe. Instead of damning us both.

His limbs finally went slack and he sprawled on his back, still breathing hard, shivers racking him for long minutes. A few locks of glossy dark hair had stuck to his throat. Other than his eyes and the pale blue veins visible just under the skin, they were his only color.

His face was free for once of its usual pleasant mask and he looked desperately hungry, almost feral. His eyes were wide open, focused intently on the ceiling, and he was muttering something in a hoarse, indistinct voice. Then he paused, hands fisting in the damp sheets beneath him. There was a smear of blood on his lips from where he had bitten them in the seizure. He licked it away as that sharp gaze flicked about the room. Although I wasn't actually there, although he couldn't possibly see me, I was suddenly speared by a pair of feverish, fire-lit eyes.

"Cassie." My name was half caress, half groan.

I found myself at the top of the steps, as if his voice had summoned me. I didn't panic—visions are not exactly unusual for me—but this one communicated something more than mere images. I could feel everything: the slick wood of the bedpost, fragrant with beeswax; the heavy brown velvet bed curtains, trapped by a soft satin cord, and the silken fringe that edged them, sliding softly over my knuckles. I'd never had that happen in a vision.

It slowly dawned on me that I might have accidentally shifted, although that seemed impossible. Since becoming Pythia, I'd had the power under my control, not vice versa. I decided where I went, and when. I started to move back when a shaking hand lifted and slid up my thigh, feverishly warm against my skin. Of course, I could be wrong.

Mircea's hair hung limp and snarled and his cheekbones stood out sharply under bruised-looking flesh. Despite the solidity of his body, he looked worn. But the eyes were the same—burning, glittering, dangerous. The intensity in them caused me to decide that maybe I should panic a little after all, especially when my skin started prickling, and not with fear.

With no warning, my legs went out from under me. I fell into a depression already warm from his body, his scent clinging to everything like a drugging haze. The musk of it was almost a taste, surrounding me with something dark and sweet and wild. It jumbled my thoughts, my brain trying to catalog too much at once: the sheets, crisp old-fashioned linen, so finely made that they might have been silk; dust specks glittering in the candlelight like gold dust; a few drops of sweat falling from Mircea's hair and landing on my cheeks like tears; and the weight of his body over me, his thigh pressing between my legs, firm and blood warm.

He took my mouth hard, teeth and lips almost savage. He bit my lower lip until it stung, then licked the marks with quick motions that soothed only enough to leave me even more sensitive for the next bite. He growled against me, the words meaningless but the thought clear as crystal: Mine.

Just when I decided that there was nothing in the world but that skillful mouth, he started shaping my body with his hands, sliding over my hips and stomach, up to my breasts and shoulders, then to my throat and down again. The thin PVC conducted warmth almost as well as bare skin; every touch burned, every possessive sweep of his hands said mine without the need for words.

I'd been living with the hunger the geis caused for so long that I'd almost become used to it, almost forgotten how satisfaction felt, until the heat of his touch reminded me. His fingers tightened with bruising strength, but I barely noticed. Another teasing bite was followed by a slow, caressing kiss. My eyes slipped dreamily closed as I was marked with lips and teeth and the addictive slide of his hands.

His feelings resonated through the bond as loudly as if he'd spoken, and I could feel him hard above me. It hurt that we were still apart, still separate beings when the geis wanted us one. It was a deep, hollow ache, like hunger that has gone beyond starvation, past where the need is a pang to become a long, gnawing nothingness. I'd never known hunger like that for food, but I recognized it anyway. Hunger can have so many forms.

I'd spent my whole adult life starting over. I'd been constantly on the run from someone, Tony or the Senate or the Circle, never staying too long in the same place, never getting to know people because I'd soon be moving on again, leaving them behind. I'd learned not to want things, not to try to hold on to anything, because if I got used to it being there, it would be that much harder when I had to let it go. I'd watched person after person with paranoid eyes, keeping them all—potential friends, enemies, lovers—at a safe, painful distance. And all the while, the hunger grew, for someone who would stay, someone permanent, someone mine.

And now the geis was whispering, so seductively, that I could have it all: Mircea, a family, a whole world that I understood and that understood me. I might be human, but I didn't think like one. I hadn't realized how much I didn't until these last few weeks, when I'd been lost in a sea of human magic that made no sense, in human reasoning I couldn't follow and in human quarrels that might end up destroying me. I had a sudden, intense longing for cool skin, calm voices, and ancient eyes. For home.

Only I didn't have one of those anymore. It was just so me, I thought bitterly, stroking the sharp lines of his cheekbones with my thumbs. The only place I truly felt at home was the last place I could ever go.

My hands buried themselves in his hair, even while my brain tried to treat this like all the things I'd ever wanted and not been allowed to have. But my usual compartmentalizing and compromising weren't working. Nothing about me wanted to hear «later» or «wait» or "too dangerous," not with dark strands running through my fingers, wrapping like a silken restraint around my wrist, just as soft as they looked, and beautiful, so incredibly beautiful.

I explored his body while hunger and a deep possessiveness battled it out with a lifetime's caution. I wanted this, so badly. My hands shook as they rode the curve of his legs to the hollow of his knees, the crest of his thighs. It wasn't enough and it was too much. I badly needed to get out of there, but I'd never wanted to stay so much in my life.

I caught his shirt, shoved it down his arms. His shoulders were broad enough to make me stretch to bare them, the muscles knotted with tension as my hands slid over them, sweat slicking my palms. I could have this, I argued with myself, just for a minute, a few stolen seconds before I did the smart thing and got out of there.

I stroked up his biceps to the hard wings of his collarbones and the strong column of his neck. Mircea was all long, sleek lines, the angles softened by lean muscle, the classic body of a runner, a swimmer, a fencer. I reached his cheek and followed the line of his jaw, where a muscle quivered helplessly, to lips that opened beneath my touch.

His tongue slid across my fingers the way his voice had shivered across my skin as I traced the curve of that full lower lip. Our eyes met, and I felt like I could fall into that amber gaze for weeks if I let myself. I expected him to kiss me, but his lips found my collarbone instead, mouthing it lightly, his tongue sliding along the bone before moving back up to explore the vulnerable skin of my throat.

Teeth brushed against me, a small sensation precisely where a vampire would bite, but I felt no fear. Unstuck, unmoored, floating almost gravity-free, but not afraid. He withdrew slightly, his tongue making a slow, possessive glide, right over my pulse, and I once again felt teeth. They weren't the dull blade of a human's, but a razor-sharp reminder of what, exactly, was in bed with me. But I still wasn't worried. Because Mircea never bit me.

Only he'd gripped the flesh over the jugular, just hard enough for me to feel it, and he wasn't letting go. It was a light sensation, no pain, but my pulse was beating hard against the pressure of his lips and there was a claustrophobic ache when I swallowed. "Mircea," I began, and felt fangs slide into my flesh.

For a frozen moment, my heart stuttered in my chest, torn between pounding its way through my rib cage and stopping altogether. But I couldn't concentrate on what his lapse in control might mean because the pain was immediately followed by a weightless swell of pure need. He was grinding our hips together as his teeth sank deeper, bright agony broken by strobing flashes of intense pleasure, everything bleeding into a surreal wave of sensation that rose and fell with each sinuous move of his body.

I started making these sounds—high, strangled whimpers and faint little gasps that didn't sound like me at all. I arched as Mircea began to feed, the sensation rippling through me with an almost audible sizzle. It seemed to free some part of me that had been stretched too tight for too long, like an elastic band pulled beyond its limits. It finally broke with a snap I felt all the way to the bone, as if a dislocated joint had suddenly popped back into place. The sheer rightness of it caught my breath, hummed through my veins, telling me that I belonged here, right here, only here. I gasped in wonder, indescribable tension flowing out of me as I relaxed into Mircea's embrace.

I could feel my blood surging into him, warm and alive and pulsing hotly. I tried to push him away, but my hands found his shoulders instead, pulling him closer. Mircea locked one hand in my hair, bringing the other behind my hips, melding us together…

And then I was sitting seaside, the green-blue water lapping at my toes, half buried in the sand.

I looked around wildly, disoriented, expecting an attack from someone, somewhere. I rolled over and clutched the beach, trying to present a smaller target, and was momentarily blinded by the sun in my eyes. I froze, sure that someone would use the advantage to sneak up on me, but nothing happened. I blinked for a few seconds until I could get a clear view, but all I saw was sun and sky and sand—and, on the crest of a rocky hill, a small temple slowly crumbling to pieces.

Nothing continued to happen. After a moment, my heart stopped trying to thud its way out of my chest, and my breathing returned to something like normal. I lay there and watched a flock of little brown birds dive in and out of the temple's roof, where it looked like they had a nest. Other than the waves lapping around my ankles, they were the only things moving on the whole beach.

I finally sat up and, when nothing attacked me, got to my knees. Enough adrenaline had left my brain that I could think again, so I knew who it was that I should be seeing. The being who had once owned my power had shown himself to me before in a similar situation. He seemed to find it funny to pay his visits at the most awkward moments possible.

One of the small brown birds hopped along the sand, its feet making vague indentations that the water quickly filled in again. It ran out to the wet sand when the waves retreated, looking for whatever edible morsel they might have left behind, then raced them for the beach whenever they started back in. It finally tired of the game and hopped over to me, looking for a handout. I blinked and when I looked again, a handsome blond in a too short tunic rested on the sand beside me. For a second I thought he'd crushed the little bird, but then I realized the truth.

"It's all me, Herophile," he said, gesturing about. "The waves and the sand and, of course, the sun, although it is easier to converse in this form."

"My name is Cassandra!" I snapped.

He'd given me the name of the second Pythia at Delphi, his ancient shrine, at our first meeting. It was supposedly some kind of reign title, but I didn't feel comfortable using it when I didn't know how to do the job it represented. Not to mention that, as names go, it pretty much sucked.

"Where have you been?" I demanded. "You promised to train me. That doesn't translate into hanging me out to dry for a week! Do you know how close I just came to screwing everything up?"

"Yes. That's why I pulled you out of there." He glanced up from toying with a piece of seaweed. Unlike the last time I'd seen him, he didn't look like he'd been covered in gold dust. But I still couldn't see his face, which was merely an oval of light. It wasn't so much majestic as odd, like talking to an oversized lamp. "You can't continue this way. Something must be done about the geis—it's a distraction."

"A distraction?!" I could think of a lot of ways to describe it, and that wouldn't have been on the list. "Mircea is dying and I'll probably be next!"

"Not if you retrieve the Codex. The answer you seek is there."

"I know that! What I don't know is where it is or how to find it. Every lead we've had has led to a dead end—almost literally with the last one! Or weren't you paying attention yesterday?"

He finished braiding the seaweed and fastened it around my wrist, bracelet style. "If it was easy, it wouldn't be a test."

"I don't need any more tests; I need help!"

"The help you need, you already have."

"Then I guess I must have missed it!"

"You will find what you need when you need it. It is perhaps your greatest gift, Herophile. To draw people to you."

"Yeah, only they all seem to want me dead."

He laughed, as if my impending demise was the funniest thing he'd heard all day. "I promised to train you. Very well, here is your first task. Find the Codex and lift the geis before it causes more complications."

"And if I can't?"

"I have every faith in you."

"That makes one of us."

"You'll succeed; I'm sure of it. And if not" — he shrugged casually—"you don't deserve your position."

And then I was back, clinging to strong, bare shoulders, fingers slipping on sweat-slicked skin. Even to someone used to the abrupt way visions came and went, it was a bit of a jolt. Especially since Mircea was still feeding, and it was still amazing.

I'd never felt this connected, this anchored, this close to anyone, and I wanted it to go on forever. Only that's what it seemed to be doing, I realized after a moment. Despite the fact that my heart was thundering in my ears and little spots were swimming in front of my eyes and my breath was coming in strangled gasps, he wasn't stopping.

"Let go, Mircea," I said as clearly as I could, considering the fangs in my throat. Nothing happened, unless you counted the tightening of his hand on my hip, fever-hot even through the material. "Mircea! Unless you plan to kill me, let go!"

I pushed as hard as I could, not caring at that moment if the movement tore my neck, just wanting him off. My hands were at an awkward angle on his shoulders and my strength was no match for his, but something about the action seemed to get through. He stopped.

I could feel the hesitation in him, need warring with whatever reason he had left, and for a long moment I really didn't know which would win. Then slowly, as if he were moving underwater, he pulled back, his teeth sliding out of me cleanly.

"Cassie…" He looked dazed, and his voice was rough and cracked a bit at the edges. "I thought you were a dream."

I stared at him dizzily. "I think maybe I am."

He stared at me, swallowing harshly, the feverish glitter of his eyes even brighter, like an addict who has had a fix. "Then my dreams are improving."

I kissed him, a quick tangling of tongues, heat and softness. "We're working on a solution."

"I know." He paused and looked around the room, as if he was expecting to see someone or something. When he didn't, he fell back, a shudder shivering through him as he pulled away.

"You know? How?" The only answer was the tightening of his muscles under my hands.

He closed his eyes, blocking out my face. "You must go, Cassie."

It was good advice, but it made no sense that Mircea was giving it to me. I knew why I was doing my best to avoid completing the geis, but he had no reason to do so. It would get him out of his current torment and gain him a valuable servant. There was no downside.

"You don't want to complete the geis?" I asked slowly, sure I was missing something.

"No." His fists clenched in the sheets, hard enough that the knuckles showed white. "I want you to leave!"

"I don't understand—" I touched his shoulder, not thinking, my own mind still muddied from the spell, and he flinched like I'd slapped him. He jerked away from me, all the way to the other side of the bed, and sat there facing the wall. "Go, Cassie! Please."

"Yes, all right." Something weird was definitely going on, but I didn't have time to figure it out. There was a crack like a gunshot, and I jumped, then realized that no one was shooting at me. The hand Mircea had curled around the huge bedpost had snapped it in two like a twig.

In the next heartbeat, I was flying, the room swallowed by darkness behind me. I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision, and when I looked again I was back in the bar. The bartender gave a sudden start at the sight of me and fled to the back room.

I stared blankly after him, then caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bottled liquors. It reflected wide eyes, flushed cheeks and a kiss-swollen mouth. I put a hand to my neck, and it came back red. I stared at the blood on my palm, and tried to say something. I failed.

Rafe handed me a napkin and I pressed it to my throat, Mircea's kiss still throbbing on my lips. Already, the lack of his touch was a fierce ache behind my ribs, as if he'd left fingerprints on something deeper than skin. "Now do you understand?" Rafe asked softly.

I slowly nodded. That had been no vision. I'd unconsciously shifted, straight to Mircea's side. And if I'd lost that much control, how much worse must it be for him? The geis wouldn't kill him, I realized; it would drive him mad. And to stop hunger like that, sooner or later a person would pay any price.

Even take his own life.