The Vampire Narcise

10

March 1804

Every so often, the memory came hurtling back into Narcise’s mind.

Although it was more than ten years since Giordan Cale had destroyed her, every nuance of the moment, every sight, sound, color, scent…even the remembrance of the way her being simply stopped and then imploded…it all came back.

As if it were happening again.

Anything could trigger it: the sight of a piece of charcoal on her drawing table. The sound when her maid dropped a handful of hairpins that scattered on the floor. The glimpse of a head of brown curls. The scent of a peach.

Whatever it was would send her mind shooting back to that moment when she walked into Cezar’s private chambers.

Even now, her belly shuddered, threatening to send her last meal spewing forth, but try as she might, Narcise couldn’t keep herself from going back there, reliving the very minutiae of a time she’d kill to forget.

She’d been looking for her brother—something she generally avoided doing, but there was no help for it, for she hadn’t had a fencing lesson or a painting session for three weeks, including a false one with Giordan Cale—and she wanted to find out if and why he’d canceled the meetings with her tutors.

Cezar had been unusually absent since the night he’d brought her back after she seduced Cale, and Narcise had welcomed the reprieve, knowing how difficult it would be to hide her feelings about Cale in front of her brother. Fortunately Cezar had been in a relatively fine humor and had actually released most of the children he’d had captive. Perhaps that should have been a warning sign to Narcise, but at the time, she was merely grateful those lives had been spared.

She’d also expected to hear from or to see Giordan himself…but three weeks had passed since she seduced him, and she’d seen and heard from no one. Including Monsieur David and her fencing instructor. But it was Giordan’s absence, of course, that tortured her the most.

And that had her active mind making up scenarios and explanations—none of which were pleasant in the least. The worst of them all was the image of him with another woman, or women, perhaps…being the jovial, sensual host she knew him to be…and providing all form of hospitality.

Or perhaps now that she’d actually seduced him, that they’d actually been together, he’d moved on to another conquest. That was the Dracule way. Her heart grew cold at the thought.

Had she trusted him only to be betrayed and set aside?

At last, after neither David nor Cale appeared for her lesson for the third week, she went in search of Cezar, noting vaguely that all of the servants seemed to be otherwise occupied. His private parlor, where he kept the dish of sparrow feathers, was empty, but…

She stepped just inside the door, despite the deterrent of the feathers. She smelled him. Giordan. Giordan had been here recently.

The flush of a thrill warmed her and her heart began to pound with hope. She had no doubt, no doubt at all that Giordan would find a way to free her from Cezar. He’d been here, recently, very recently. Earlier today.

It was at that moment that two things happened: the first—and now, much later, she understood the significance—was that the ever-present tray with feathers was not in the chamber. The second was that she noticed that, across the parlor, the door to Cezar’s private bedchamber was slightly open. And there were sounds and scents coming from inside…heavy, erotic, strong scents.

Even now, in her mind, her memory of it, Narcise screamed at herself don’t go over there…

But she did. Whether she realized what it was, whether it was the scent on the air, permeating the chamber, or whether there was some other reason she was compelled to walk on silent feet over to the chamber door…

To peer around the crack and to look in…no, no, noooooo, don’t…but she does it again…she looks in…

At first, she doesn’t realize what she sees. It’s the scent of arousal…heavy and thick…of lifeblood and eroticism and man…. It catches her, giving that little tug in the center of her belly that spears down low and causes desire….

The chamber is lit well enough by the blazing fire that Cezar always keeps, and several lamps, turned up to a golden glow. There is a massive bed, its curtains pulled wide, to one side. A large divan and two chairs are arranged in front of the fire. A table covered with glasses and bottles sits next to it, and even from here, she can see that three of the four bottles are empty. The scent of whiskey and blood mingle strongly with musk and virility.

There are two people, not on the bed, but on the divan, directly in front of the raging fire, opposite the door around which she peers. Since her brother’s varied proclivities aren’t unknown to her, she’s not surprised to see that he’s with a man.

She can’t see well, she’s not even certain why she’s compelled to watch—perhaps the scent hooked into her mind and dragged her there—but the first glimpse of a pale, slender hand curling over a strong, sleek shoulder makes her breath seize.

There is a cast of amber light over his skin, over the familiar golden curve of arms and shoulders now marred with bitemarks, shadowed by the flickering fire…the golden brush of lamplight over the strong profile with the patrician nose, so handsome, so perfect…the glow creating a nimbus from behind thick, dark curls, and an unholy halo around an even darker head adjacent to his.

She can’t breathe. The floor is falling away from her feet as if she is standing on a house of cards, and her body ceases. Everything halts: breath, heart, sensation, emotion.

His rich, tawny skin is slick with perspiration, shadowed from the hands on him…his face half turned from the door, etched tight with pleasure and pain. His lips, drawn back from his mouth in some sort of groan or grimace as fangs drive into his shoulder…

For all of the details of that moment, Narcise remembered hardly anything of what happened afterward. She must have made her way from the chamber, she must not have screamed despite the shrieking and wailing inside her, stumbling from the private parlor, somehow back to her own room before her body began to feel again.

Shattered.

And then, after that, it was dull and empty.

Sometime later—days, she thought, based on the number of times a servant came for her to feed…but she had no true concept of time for a while—Cezar sent for her.

She had no choice but to answer his summons, hardly aware of what she was doing. When she walked into Cezar’s private parlor, the conduit that had led to her destruction, Giordan was there.

Cezar was sitting in one of the chairs, looking complacent and relaxed. “You have a visitor, Narcise,” he said with great congeniality.

“He’s not my visitor,” she managed to say. Despite her best efforts, her voice shook. Rage and pain threatened to erupt.

Cale turned from where he’d been standing in the corner, his back to the room, his broad shoulders straight with tension. His eyes were bright—too bright. And yet the skin around them was tight. He was fully, formally dressed, but his clothing was wrinkled, less than perfect.

He looked weary—and well he should, based on what she’d witnessed. Narcise’s stomach threatened to revolt just then and despite the fact that she hadn’t fed for who knew how long, she knew something would come up anyway.

“Narcise,” Giordan said. His voice was rough and low. But anger and command hummed beneath.

Why was he angry with her?

She couldn’t—she fled the room, the world spinning into hot red nausea. She couldn’t think, couldn’t comprehend, could hardly feel. Nothing but the raging whirl of her emotions.

He came after her, out of the chamber into a corridor that was uncharacteristically deserted. “Narcise.”

His scent came with him—and with it, a revolting mix of opium, hashish, whiskey, blood. And Cezar. She steadied herself against the wall, trying to block the images that assaulted her, that matched the stew of debauchery emanating from him. The scents of his betrayal.

Somehow, from the depths of herself, she managed to find words. His words. “‘It’s you, Narcise. It’s only you.’” She threw them back into his face, the ones that had sustained her for weeks. “You disgust me.”

“By the Devil, you can’t truly believe—”

“I don’t have to believe. I saw. You.” Her voice broke and she felt herself falling back into that chasm of desolation and grief, a whirlwind of blackness. Disbelief and pain. Such pain. She had to get away from him. A roaring filled her ears, the deep, dark roar of hatred and agony. “Get away from me.”

He stepped toward her, grabbing her arm. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you?” His voice raw, his face, terrible, was close to hers. She hardly heard the words, for they were lost in the horrible swirling scent of blood on his breath, the smells of depravity and sweat and other darkness.

She talked over him, the roaring in her mind and heart blocking his words as she spewed her pain onto him. “You’ve completely destroyed me. Something even my brother wasn’t able to do, in decades.” She jerked her arm from his fingers with a sharp movement, turning away, starting back down the corridor. “Get away from me.” Her voice threatened to break, but she wouldn’t allow it. “Get away.”

He’d said she was strong. Oh, he had no idea how strong she was. Her hand closed over a doorknob and she turned it, not caring where it led, hardly aware of what she was doing. Have to get away from him.

“By the Fates, Narcise, listen—”

“I can’t bear—” She shoved a hand over her mouth to hold back the vomit, and stumbled through the door. As she slammed it behind her, falling against it, trying to breathe something other than him and his depravity, he slammed against it, rattling it in its hinges.

And then he was gone.

He didn’t remember leaving Cezar’s subterranean residence after those nights of hell.

In retrospect, a decade later, Giordan wondered that the man even allowed him to do so—but then, of course, by that time, Cezar had gotten all that he’d wanted.

At least, for the moment.

With Narcise’s hate-filled, witchlike visage burning in his memory, her acid words screaming in his mind, Giordan found himself raging blind and lost through the streets. Violence pounded through him, his abused body weak and overused, his hands, his very skin a reeking reminder of the hours and days past.

He had no real memory of where he went and what he did once out of Cezar’s place: it was dark, and his world became a hot, red rampage, filled with the taste and scent of blood, the heat and suppleness of living flesh, the rhythmic pulsing against his body, the slap and thud of flesh against flesh. There might have been screams, shouts, cries, moans and groans. There were certainly deaths and injuries.

Giordan’s vision burned with red shadow. It was as if coals had been shoved beneath his lids and seared into his irises, coloring his sight.

He supposed he went mad.

Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you? His own hoarse words rolled in his brain, over and over, desperate and angry even as he sought relief. She wouldn’t even listen. She wouldn’t listen.

He woke sometime, some hours, perhaps days, later in one of Paris’s narrow alleys. Tucked back in a corner. Alone.

That moment was clear in his mind even today, a decade after: that moment of reemergence, of clawing up from the depths of a heavy, dark sea. As if he’d dragged himself awake from the worst of nightmares.

But it had been no nightmare, those three nights of hell. And what he’d thought of as the light at the end of the tunnel, as the prize for his endurance and existence through hours of torture, turned only into the slap of betrayal. And the hot memory of humiliation.

Narcise.

Giordan rubbed gritty eyes with trembling fingers that smelled of blood and semen and opium and filth. He saw that the alley was hardly wide enough for him to extend his legs, but so long that he could see only that it angled into nothingness.

The walls on either side of him loomed tall and windowless, like dark sentinels. The brick was cold against his bare back, chill and rough with dirt, sticky with unidentifiable substances. Even springy with a bit of moss. The ground below, uneven with cobbles and filtered with a random tuft of grass, seeped damply into his breeches.

All at once, Giordan became aware of the sun. It emerged from a heavy cloud as if a curtain had been drawn away. The golden light spilled into the alley next to him and would soon filter over the spot where he lay.

At first, he didn’t have even the energy to pull to his feet. Nor the desire.

His mind was stark and empty, devoid of thought, even emotion. Just…empty.

Finished.

She’d finished him.

But then, as the base need for self-preservation stirred with the shift of the sun, Giordan prepared to heave himself upright.

At that moment, he saw the cat.

She sat there, pale and blonde against the shades of indigo and violet and gray that filled the alley. Her blue-gray eyes were fixed on him in that way of her race, unblinking and steady.

But there was no miffed accusation in this feline’s stare. Her tail, which curled comfortably around her, had no annoyed twitching at its tip. She exuded peace.

She looked just like the cat who’d stared at him from a nearby roof some weeks ago. Just after he’d met Narcise.

Giordan realized belatedly that some of the weakness in his body stemmed from the presence of his Asthenia, positioned just-so in front of him. She sat just far enough away that he wasn’t breathless and paralyzed, but close enough that he felt the essence of her presence like uncomfortable waves.

And he realized that, until she moved, he could not escape from the alley.

“Scat!” he said with as much sharpness as he could muster, but at the same time, a wave of grief for his own fat orange Chaton roughened the back of his throat. “Move!”

The cat looked at him, her eyes intelligent and steady. And she didn’t move.

Even when he threw a stone toward her, she didn’t flinch. She hardly deigned to notice when the rock scuttled across the stones next to her.

Giordan looked up and saw the light blazing above in a perfect, cerulean sky. Hot and yellow and bright. The beams had begun to fill the alley in an ever-widening triangle of light, turning the stones lighter gray, glazing them with hints of yellow and rust, coloring the random tufts of grass green.

It was only a matter of time until the rays would fall onto him; now they eased slyly against his breeches and filtered over the heel of his battered boot.

He pressed himself up against the wall, crouched in the corner, glaring at the cat.

“Move!” he shouted again, and looked for something else to throw at the stubborn creature. There was nothing. He managed to work one of his boots from his foot—a very long, difficult process in his weakened state—and when it finally came free, he flung it clumsily toward the thing.

It tumbled just behind her and she barely lifted her chin as it thudded onto the cobbles.

He began to heave himself to his feet, but at that moment, the cat decided it was time to move…and she sauntered toward him.

As she came closer, the rest of Giordan’s strength fell away. His lungs slowed their movements, his chest felt heavy and constricted and his muscles ceased to respond.

Giordan sank back onto the ground, leaning against the wall as the cat positioned herself directly in front of him. So close he could see the gray and black flecks in her unblinking eyes, and even the fact that she had whiskers in both white and black. Her ears were two perfect triangles sitting at the top of her head, and her fur was lush and long like corn silk. He had a moment of madness and nearly reached to touch that soft fur.

Feeling ebbed from his body and he closed his eyes against the nothingness that swept over him. Blankness…something even beyond paralysis.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and saw the sun just peeking over the roof above him. Soon, it would be directly overhead, pouring into the alley.

He’d burn.

If the damned cat didn’t move…he’d burn. He had nothing to cover himself with, nowhere to hide.

“Go!” he shouted, but his voice was weak. And perhaps it even lacked conviction.

The cat, of course, didn’t move, and although she continued to watch him with those wide eyes, her expression was not haughty.

It was determined.

Giordan closed his eyes when he felt the first brush of the sun’s warmth.

It was an impossible juxtaposition of pleasure and pain…the warmth, as if someone’s hand brushed over him, warm and tender…and yet edged with sharpness, bespeaking of the agony to come.

He huddled against the building, curled up like a cat—or a fetus—pressing as close against the bricks as he could. But the back of his shoulder was exposed, the only part of him that he couldn’t keep in the shadow, and the sun’s rays inched inexorably closer until at last they seared into his sensitive flesh.

A wave of agony screamed through him and he realized from deep inside the white pain that it was coming from his Mark.

The light poured onto him, battling with the dark, undulating roots that branded him Lucifer’s. They writhed and screamed with their own pain as the sun burned and burned and burned.

The last thing he remembered was a light…bright and white and pure, burning inside his mind.

Clarity.

And a voice, deep inside him, that said, “Choose.”

In the decade that followed Giordan’s betrayal, as the Reign of Terror in Paris ended and the Revolution metamorphosed into a new era under Napoleon Bonaparte’s leadership, Narcise came to a realization: despite her inability to banish the memory of what Cale had done to her, there were other men who wanted her, ones who could love her. At least for a time.

There were other men who, if she found one who was infatuated deeply enough, could perhaps finish the job Giordan had begun—or at least had made her think he’d begun; she had no reason to believe Giordan had ever even truly meant to free her.

She firmly pushed away her pang of unease as she remembered his face during their final confrontation. Everything from those moments was a blur of pain and darkness, of sordid, hedonistic smells assaulting and pummeling her with the knowledge of what he’d done…everything except the dull shock in his eyes.

Narcise shook her head to banish the image.

Now, perhaps she could find a man who actually would help her escape from her brother.

She didn’t have to love him, or even care for him—she wasn’t certain she could ever open her heart again.

She merely had to make them want to help her.

Because it had become clear to her, with a bitter and terrifying finality, that she had no chance of escaping Cezar on her own. For too long she’d held out hope that she could find a way…but he was too smart and cunning. There were sparrow feathers, it seemed, everywhere in the house and in its adjoining tunnels, and he kept anything that could be considered a weapon far from her except when she was forced to entertain. Nor could she trust any of the servants, for they were all bound to her brother.

She was utterly alone, and felt that loneliness more acutely than she ever had before—now that she realized what it was like to love someone, and now that she had lost hope of finding escape on her own.

But if she had nothing else, she had strength and determination: the same characteristics that had helped her become a nearly undefeated swordswoman and had kept her from going mad during the years of rape and molestation.

Perhaps that was why Lucifer had chosen her. An iron core beneath a seductive, beautiful woman was a formidable weapon.

And so she looked more closely at her opponents when she faced them. Sometimes, she even allowed one to win, just to remind herself that she could still feel. Pain, pleasure, apprehension…whatever.

Just so she could feel.

London

Chas Woodmore was surrounded by vampirs, which would normally be a convenience rather than a concern, since he was, in fact, a vampir hunter. And a damn good one at that.

Some called those who shared his occupation Venators, but that was a completely different society—in fact, it was an entire family from Italy that spent their lives hunting and slaying the half-demon vampires that had descended from Judas Iscariot.

Woodmore happened to specialize in the hunting and staking of the very different vampirs that originated in Romania, where Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula, had made his own deal with the Devil in the late fifteenth century. Unfortunately for his progeny, the unholy covenant applied not only to Vlad himself, but also to any of his descendants selected by Lucifer to participate. They had to agree, of course, just as Dracula had done, but Luce was a master at manipulation and it was rare that any of them declined his juicy bargain—partly because it was most often made during their dreams.

Thus, some of the Dracule embraced their newly immortal lives, complete with bloodlust and damaged souls that belonged to the Devil for all eternity, and some of them existed more judiciously, realizing only after the fact that perhaps it hadn’t been such a good deal after all….

And then there was Woodmore’s employer, Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale, who fought the regrettable bargain with every breath he took, every single day.

It was because of his association with Corvindale that Woodmore was not only surrounded by some of the less rapacious vampirs at this very moment, but also comfortably unarmed—and playing cards with the lot of them. This lot happened to be safe from Woodmore’s lethal stake because they were of the mind that, for example, one didn’t have to murder a mortal in order to feed.

And Woodmore happened to be losing tonight because of one Mr. Giordan Cale, who seemed to have some sort of magic about him when it came to having the winning hand every time. Or at least when the pot was very large.

“By the Fates, Giordan,” Corvindale said in disgust, tossing his cards onto the table. “You dragged me out of my study for this? What precisely is the benefit to me of being relieved of three thousand pounds in the space of two hours?”

A fleeting smile curved Cale’s lips as he collected the pound notes and coins from the latest winning pot. “A change of scenery,” he suggested mildly. “Perhaps even some social discourse, no?”

Although he spoke excellent English, he had a trace of French in his pronunciation. Woodmore knew that Cale was originally from Paris, but had left the city ten years ago, near the end of the Reign of Terror, and hadn’t returned. He’d been in and out of London for the past decade, but they had only become acquainted a few weeks ago.

“Corvindale? Social discourse?” Lord Eddersley laughed, his gangly hands bumping the table, making the coins clink. “But Luce’s hell hasn’t yet frozen over.”

The earl slid his companion a dark look, but Woodmore wasn’t certain whether it was because he took offense, which was bloody unlikely, or because he didn’t want to be here in the private apartment at White’s gentlemen’s club in the first place. His employer—which was a loose term, for they were more like associates working toward the same goals than master and minion, and, aside of that, a gentleman never actually worked for anyone anyway—rarely left his study unless it was to seek out more ancient books or parchments to add to his collection.

Brickbank, a baronet from Derbyshire who was also a member of the Dracule, gestured to a hovering footman for a refill on his whiskey, complaining, “Wish those Brits would run that damned frog Boney out of Paris. Damned tired of drinking this rot from Scotland. Miss a good Armagnac.”

“Those Brits? Do you not consider yourself one of them?” Cale asked, sipping his own “rot.”

“I’m too old to be a damned soldier,” Brickbank replied, and all of the vampirs laughed. Even Corvindale managed the sharp bark of a chuckle. Of course they would: each of them was well over a century old, and they looked no more than in the prime of their lives. “And I don’t give a bloody damn about their Prinnys or their Parliaments or anyone’s cock-licking emperors.”

Woodmore wouldn’t trade places with any of the Dracule, even to live and be forever young and virile…for when they died, they belonged to Lucifer. Even vampirs, like their mortal counterparts, had the illusion of free will and some choice to be good or evil; still, a life of taking sustenance from other living creatures, of the uncontrollable bloodlust that came with it…of being cloistered from the sun, and knowing that one would spend eternity in the bowels of hell—whenever eternity struck—such a life was repulsive to Woodmore.

That was, perhaps, the only reason he and Corvindale had become friends—because he knew that more than anything, the earl wanted to sever his relationship with Lucifer. As proof, for over a hundred years, the earl had refused to feed as the Devil intended, and instead resorted to butchers’ bags of blood for sustenance.

Among the Dracule, this long-term abstinence was routinely blamed for the earl’s irritable disposition and dark personality.

“But of course Corvindale can get anything through the lines,” Cale said with a sidewise glance at the man in question. “He’s hardly noticed any inconvenience from the war between our nations, despite the problems crossing the Channel, have you, Dimitri? He’s kept me in supply of my favorite Bordeaux as well.”

“You have a stash of Armagnac?” Brickbank said, looking at the earl in surprise. “And haven’t brought it here to White’s? Should move the game to Blackmont then.”

Corvindale shot another dark look, this time aimed at Giordan Cale, who smiled as he lifted his own glass to drink. “Naturally I’ve charged you a substantial fee to keep you in such supply,” the earl replied to Cale.

Woodmore hid his own amusement. The last thing his employer wanted was people at his home, bothering him while he was trying to immerse himself in old scrolls and ancient languages. Searching for a way to break the covenant with Lucifer.

Which was why Woodmore felt particularly grateful that, some years back, Corvindale had agreed to play guardian and guard for his sisters should anything happen to him. He had three younger sisters—Maia, Angelica and Sonia, the latter of whom happened to be ensconced far north of London in a Scottish convent—and a dangerous occupation of which none of them were aware.

“I’m of a mind to take the game to Rubey’s,” said Cale, “if we’re talking of moving it. I suspect Dimitri has supplied her with some excellent vintages as well—and she won’t make us leave so she can hole herself up in her study.”

Corvindale glanced at him, lifting one eyebrow with skepticism. “Spying on your potential competition?”

“Not any longer. She’s convinced me that it would be futile for any establishment of mine to try to compete with hers here in London. Now I’m attempting to persuade her to take on an investor—namely me—to make some improvements to the place. Aside of that…ah, well, she meets another criteria of mine and she’s been rather accommodating.” Cale smiled with exaggerated modesty.

Woodmore, along with every Dracule in London, was well-acquainted with Rubey’s—the luxurious brothel that catered to vampirs and, occasionally, a select few mortals who were aware of the Draculean underground. Rubey, a mortal herself, was a formidable character who reminded Chas of his half-part-Gypsy great-grandmother in personality, if not looks. She was sharp in business acumen, quick of wit and overly generous with lectures and advice—wanted or otherwise. Nearing forty, she was also very attractive, if not a bit long in the tooth for him.

Because he needed to be so ingrained in his employer’s world of the Dracule, he’d visited her establishment on more than one occasion. But the most recent incident had been when he was too far into his cups and he ended up in one of the bedchambers with a female vampir make. That night of heat and pain and passion had been his first—and last—intimacy with a vampir, and one he did not intend to repeat…despite the fact that the very memory haunted him.

He tried to feel only revulsion for the night of debauchery, but even two weeks later, the marks from bites he’d begged for in the blur of drunkenness and lust hadn’t quite healed. And remnants of the night’s pleasures still weaved within his dreams.

As he picked up his drink, Woodmore noticed a little spider making its way along the edge of the table between him and Cale. He lifted his hand to smash it, but the other man raised his palm and said, “Allow me.” And as he watched, Cale scooped the spider onto one of the playing cards and dropped the creature in a corner, where, presumably, it scuttled away to safety.

Woodmore couldn’t help but eye the man curiously—a Dracule, sparing the life of a spider? Perhaps he felt some sort of bloodsucking kinship with the critter—and noticed that Corvindale had been watching as well with a bemused look on his face.

The earl looked as if he were about to comment, but he was interrupted by Brickbank.

“Woodmore, heard you tried to hang Cale on a stake, few weeks back,” said the man, peering into his glass as if hoping it would change to something French. “Something about smoke explosives?”

“It would have been unfortunate if Woodmore succeeded,” Corvindale said dryly. “For Cale still owes me for the last shipment.”

“But since the casks are nearly empty, that would have been to my benefit,” Cale retorted, giving rise to another round of laughter.

“It wasn’t my best effort, that attempt,” Woodmore admitted ruefully, thinking about how the little packets had fizzled and not puffed into a thick cloud of smoke when he’d thrown them into the fireplace. That had made it difficult for him to distract his victim. He looked at Cale, acknowledging at least privately that the man could easily have killed him that night. But for some reason, like the spider, Woodmore had been spared. “But as it turns out, it was for the best. Corvindale tells me you’re intimately familiar with Cezar Moldavi and his place in Paris.”

The last vestiges of levity drained from Cale’s face. Corvindale said something sharp under his breath and Wood-more glanced at him, but the earl was watching as his friend raised a glass to sip.

“Dimitri is correct,” replied Cale, his eyes iced-over brownish gray.

Unclear as to what had provoked such a turbulent response, Woodmore nevertheless continued. “He’s the sort of bastard that deserves a little less efficient way to die than a simple stake to the heart, the damned child-bleeder.”

“On that, at least, we are all in complete agreement,” said the earl.

Indeed, the stories Woodmore had heard about Moldavi were enough to make his blood run cold. He found it disturbing enough that these immortal men, beholden to the Devil, needed to drink blood to live, but to take from children…and to leave them to die… It was tales like these that only confirmed for him that his dangerous mission was the right thing to do.

And the only reason he hadn’t attempted the assassination of the beast so far was that he knew he needed a perfect plan in order to outsmart Moldavi.

He looked at Cale. “I need to find a way to get in to his hidey-hole so I can kill him. Corvindale is financing the effort, and he’ll get me across the Channel.”

One of the reasons Woodmore was such an effective vampir hunter was his ability to sense the presence of a Dracule, and thus identify them easily. Even members of the Draculia couldn’t identify each other merely by sight, or smell, but even as he sat here in the midst of them, Woodmore’s belly was filled with the familiar sort of gnawing-itching sensation that indicated the presence of a vampir. He became used to it after a while, as one did with a smell or aroma, but it was always present. Another advantage was Woodmore’s ability to move about in daylight, and his innate fighting ability and speed. And then there was his lack of an Asthenia.

Of course, being mortal, he had any number of things that could slow, weaken or even kill him.

Cale gave a brief nod. “I’m willing to assist in any way. I am more than passing familiar with the place.” He drank again, draining his glass, and set it deliberately at the edge of the table nearest the footman, who responded immediately to refill it.

“There’s a sister,” mused Brickbank. “Dashed beautiful, according to Voss. Can’t remember her name.”

“Narcise,” said Cale quietly, curling his fingers around the refilled glass. “I believe her name is Narcise.”

“Yes. She’ll be included in my plans as well,” Woodmore said. He knew from experience that some of the most vicious and bloodthirsty vampirs were the female ones. “Two for the price of one, Corvindale. She’s rather accomplished with the épée, I hear.”

“The saber, if I recall correctly. And rather than be your target,” Cale said, setting down an empty glass again, “you’d be better off utilizing her as an accomplice. There is no love lost between her and her brother and she’d like nothing better than to see him skewered on a stake.” His mouth twitched in a humorless smile as he added, “Unless things have changed in the last decade.”

“I can’t imagine they have,” Corvindale replied flatly, confirming for Woodmore that he was definitely missing some underlayer of conversation. He would get the story from Corvindale later. “He is the worst sort of dog.”

“What of the Astheniae? Do you know what theirs are?” he said, looking at Cale.

“But of course, no, or I would have employed it myself. No one knows Moldavi’s weakness. But because he keeps himself so cloistered, the assumption is that it’s something very common.”

“And the sister? Narcise? Do you know her Asthenia?”

“I do not.”

“Poor bastard Sabbanti died fifteen years ago,” Brickbank commented. “His was pine needles. Didn’t last more than five years before he got staked.”

Woodmore glanced at him with a wry smile. “He was one of my first slayings, in fact. I was sixteen.”

“Thought it was an unfortunate accident,” Brickbank replied, clearly stunned. “By Luce’s bollocks!”

“That’s how I make most of them look. I don’t need the damned Bow Street Runners sniffing around, complicating things. They get in my way often enough as it is.”

“It wasn’t long after that when you attempted to stake me,” Corvindale said. “Naturally you didn’t have a chance at succeeding.”

Eddersley, whose eyelids were always half-closed, suddenly looked interested. “You tried to slay Corvindale? And you’re still alive?”

Woodmore nodded. “He took the opportunity to educate me on the precise angle with which to employ my stake— I was slightly off, and therefore not nearly as accurate as I am now. And then the lesson deteriorated into a philosophical conversation about how, just as with mortals, there are good vampirs and evil ones, and then on to covenants with the Devil and how to break them when they are, indeed, unbreakable.”

“I merely convinced Chas that he should exploit his quite exemplary skills toward ridding the earth of those Dracule who have a different perspective of how to live as immortals, among mortals, than we do. Rather than hunting us.”

“You mean, those who choose not to do business with you, Dimitri, or who otherwise compete with you,” Cale said. “You’re a ruthless bastard in your own way.” His glass had been filled and then emptied a third time, and the congeniality that was normally in his expression had completely disappeared.

“Aren’t we all?” Corvindale replied evenly, but, yet, there was no dangerous glow in his eyes. Instead his gaze was somber. “And isn’t that precisely why we’re sitting here— Woodmore excepted, of course? Because we’re all ruthless bastards, selfish and violent and lustful? That’s why Lucifer came to us with the offer in the first place. And not a one of us has changed since then.”

“Change?” Brickbank echoed, sloshing his drink. “Why the bloody Fates would we change? Live forever. Women—or men,” he added, glancing at Eddersley, who didn’t look particularly sleepy at that moment. “All we want. Power. Money. All of it. No one can touch us.” His eyes gleamed with pleasure.

“But therein lies the flaw,” Corvindale said, crooking a finger to have his own glass refilled. “We do not live forever. At least, here, on earth.” He gestured to Woodmore. “And some of us leave this place sooner than others, thanks to our friend here. At some point, we are beholden to Lucifer. We belong to him.”

Corvindale’s deep bitterness effectively flattened the congenial mood, and they lapsed into silence.

Woodmore was fascinated and horrified in turn by the depths of this conversation. They were saying the very things he’d struggled with ever since he came to know Corvindale—and realized it was possible that all vampirs weren’t deserving of being hunted and killed in cold blood.

In fact, he suspected that Cale knew full well that his accusation wasn’t quite accurate—Corvindale didn’t employ Woodmore to simply assassinate his competition, or even those with whom he disagreed.

Woodmore certainly made threats to those who interfered or otherwise attempted to sabotage the earl’s business ventures, but his slayings were confined to those who were more like Cezar Moldavi, those vampirs who fed greedily and left their victims to die, or who otherwise used their strength and constitution to violate and terrorize mortals simply for the pleasure of doing so.

Because they had given away their conscience with their soul.

Thus, his occupation as a vampir hunter was one that brought Woodmore both revulsion and satisfaction. He associated socially with the very race he stalked—how much better it was to know well what he hunted—while picking and choosing among the servants of Lucifer to slay some and protect others.

It made for many dark, empty nights, lying in bed or in some form of transport, wondering if he truly had the right to be judge, jury and executioner of these men and women.

But he, of all men, was particularly suited to the task. And it was a cross he must bear.

11

Two months later

Despite being at war with England, Napoleon’s Paris was surprisingly easy to enter, particularly with the resources of the Earl of Corvindale to grease palms and ensure that certain eyes turned blindly away from certain things. And for a gentleman like Chas Woodmore, whose Gypsy heritage gave him an almost Gallic appearance, the blending in was even simpler.

It was the getting out of the city that would be the problem.

But for Chas, there was only one element of the plan to be concerned with at a time, and the first was to gain entrance to Cezar Moldavi’s house.

It was past noon, well into the afternoon, as he walked along a rue in Le Marais. Although this was the area where the wealthy lived, the street was busy—filled with servants walking to and from the market, deliverymen and the residents rumbling along in their carriages on their way shopping and to other social engagements. No one would take note of yet another courier with a small paper-wrapped packet, particularly since he was dressed so as to be unremarkable in simple clothing and sturdy shoes. He’d settled a simple cap on his head, which had the result of covering much of his thick, dark hair and shading his face. It also made him appear younger.

Nevertheless, Chas knew it was highly unlikely he’d actually make it out of the city. If he succeeded with his plan to assassinate Moldavi, and possibly the sister as well, regardless of what Cale had told him about her, then he would have the greatest chance of making it back to London. In that case, he’d only have to contend with getting past the soldiers at every corner of the city.

He couldn’t help a rueful smile, imagining Corvindale’s reaction if he had to carry through on his promise to take in Maia, Angelica and Sonia in the event of Chas’s demise. Maia, the eldest of the sisters and his junior by nearly ten years, would have plenty to say about it as well. Chas could already imagine her, with her hands on her hips and her foot tapping in annoyance. She was used to being in charge and managing the household, notwithstanding the dubious assistance of their chaperone Mrs. Fernfeather.

But there was no one better equipped, nor more trustworthy, than Corvindale to protect his sisters if something happened to him, and as such, for the first time in all of his travels, Chas had left instructions with Maia to contact the earl if he didn’t return or otherwise message her within a fortnight.

That was how long Chas expected it to take to infiltrate Moldavi’s homestead—if things went smoothly—and get close enough to his target, then get out of the city. He’d have one chance to drive the stake home, and God willing, he’d succeed. The rues were just as dirty and crowded in Paris as they were in London, Rome and St. Petersburg. He happened to prefer the countryside to the big, loud cities, perhaps because he was fairly forced to frequent them—and their seediest, most dark and unsavory places—in search of Dracule. As he avoided a steaming pile of dog shit in the center of the walkway, which was really just the edge of the street, he pictured for a moment the small estate he’d just purchased in Wales, with its neat, unassuming manor house tucked amid rolling green hills.

It was likely he’d never have a chance to enjoy the place. He’d acquired it secretly, in hopes that it would be a private haven for him if he needed to hide his sisters from danger. For, just as he attempted to rid the world of vampirs, so were there vampirs who were bent on ridding the world of him…and who wouldn’t hesitate to use Maia, Angelica and Sonia to do so.

Thank goodness at least Sonia was tucked safely away at St. Bridie’s. The last time he’d seen her, when he’d come to visit, they’d had a terrible row. A flush of guilt warmed his cheeks as it occurred to him that he might never see her or any of them again. God willing I’ll make it up to them all.

Then he realized he hadn’t been paying attention to the numbers on the houses, and had nearly missed Moldavi’s.

Here it is.

He walked past the columned, whitewashed front of the narrow but imposing three-story building, his attention moving from thoughts of his sisters and sharpening as he observed the area. A maidservant rushed past, carrying three large parcels that obstructed her view, and nearly collided with two footmen who were standing in the center of the walkway. Two carriages passed each other, harnesses rattling, hooves clopping. Someone shouted across the way from an unshuttered window, and there was a bellicose response from another window in the next building. Moldavi’s house, while it looked the same as the ones surrounding it, was the only one that seemed devoid of life.

From Giordan Cale, Chas knew that the house itself was only the facade of Moldavi’s residence, and that most of the living space was underground in well-furnished but windowless chambers. The servants—mostly vampir, but some mortal—lived in the aboveground floors, where heavy curtains were drawn over the windows during the day. It was also where merchants entered and deliveries were made, and these upper floors were the way Chas would gain access to the house. He just had to wait for an opportune time…or to create one himself.

The improved smoke packets that his friend Miro had made for him were in his coat pocket, but those were best used inside a confined space. And since this was his first visit to the area, he didn’t intend to do anything more than get a sense of the area.

He’d continued on his way to the end of the block. The houses that lined the thoroughfare were all similar to each other in design, with classical columns and landings. Built close together, these structures were part of an architectural revival that had swept Paris during the Revolution. Along with the city’s rebuttal of all things royal had come the desire to eliminate the opulence and richness the ruling class had imposed upon it.

Thus, the nouveau style embraced the simplicity of the Greeks and Romans along with symbolizing the rise of the bourgeoisie and their own seal on the city.

The scent of spring roses and lilies caught in the breeze as he walked past neatly trimmed gardens around to the next block. There was a small alley between two of the houses that abutted Moldavi’s, and he turned into it, still carrying his package.

The alley was deserted and he walked purposely along toward the rear side of Moldavi’s house. If anyone saw him, he was delivering a package to Monsieur Tournedo—and could someone not direct him to whichever of these houses belonged to the gentleman, s’il vous plaît? If no one did, he’d have the chance to explore the rear of the house.

During sunlight was the best time to attempt to break into a vampir residence, for a good portion of the household would be asleep. He just had to find the right time.

And then as luck would have it, an opportunity presented itself. Looking back, Chas knew he couldn’t have planned anything better.

All at once, he heard a loud crash and clatter coming from the street in front of Moldavi’s house. The horrified whinny of a horse, followed by a scream and lots of shouting. More whinnies and even a terrible, agonized shriek from one of the beasts. Whatever had occurred, it wasn’t good—likely an animal would have to be put down—but it was also a guaranteed distraction to anyone in the vicinity.

Sure enough, as Chas peered around the corner toward the mess on the narrow street, he saw crowds gathering. Like executions, accidents drew the morbid as well as the curious. Which included, more often than not, everyone in the vicinity.

“It was a cat! She ran in front of me and I could not stop!” a driver was shouting.

“But you should have been looking!” raged another. “Now see what you’ve done!”

People were streaming from their houses, shouting encouragement and orders, crying out in shock and horror. Dogs barked and whined, and warning bells began to ring. Even a gunshot sounded, momentarily tempting even Chas to investigate further.

But, no…he had much more important and satisfying things to attend to. Bloody damned child-bleeder. He was looking forward to seeing the man cower in fear for his life, knowing that only the thrust of a stake was between him and eternal damnation.

His lips settled in a feral grin that no one could see, he eased back behind the house. If anyone in the Moldavi household was awake, it was certain they’d be either looking out the front windows or standing on the front porch. Chas had the perfect opportunity and had to work quickly.

As trees gave shade, and thus provided shadow from the sun streaming inside the house through a window, he avoided the windows near the large oak that grew on the north side of the building. Best to find entry through a chamber that was less likely to house a Dracule. And the higher the chamber, the less likely it would be occupied when the master lived belowground. He eyed a window on the third floor and noted the sturdy brick edging around its gabled roof.

Just then, a streak of blonde shot around the corner of the house. It was a light-colored cat, and it appeared to be the one that had caused the ruckus out front. Once safely under a yew against the house, the feline stopped and looked up at him with unblinking gray-blue eyes.

“Merci,” Chas murmured to the creature as he slipped his package, coat and cap behind the bush and pulled a rope from inside his pocket. “You’ve given me an exceptional opportunity.” He swung the rope up onto one of the window gables and pulled tight when its hook caught around the lip of the peak.

The cat meowed, and to his amusement seemed to nod and then preen in acknowledgment, then ducked under the bushes and out of sight. The rope safely in place, Chas tested it and then began to climb.

He was quick and efficient, his movements smooth and sleek, and moments later, he pulled himself onto the ledge of the window to peer in carefully. Empty of everything but a rug and a single chair. He smiled, but there was also a nudge of disappointment that no one was waiting to try to stop him. It had been some time since he’d been in a good fight.

Gathering up the rope, he looped it out of sight onto the top of the little roof so that it would be accessible on his way out.

Then, grateful for the continued chaos from the street beyond, he climbed into the chamber and walked silently to the door. Before opening it, he waited for the familiar sensation to come over him…the sort of itching in his belly that told him a vampir was near. The closer one came to him, the deeper and more violent the odd feeling he had in his gut.

There was a time not so long ago when Chas would have sneaked through the home of a Dracule and staked any vampir he encountered—often while in their beds, sleeping away the daylight. Even after he met the earl, and learned that at least one of Lucifer’s stewards was not quite the evil being his granny’s stories had made them out to be, he hadn’t become any less discriminating in his work.

But in the last few years, since he’d come to know Corvindale’s friends and realized that despite the fact that they had all tied their souls to the Devil, there were various degrees of immorality and violence, Chas had become less rigid in his choices. In his mind, every vampir could be a threat to mortals, but there was a divide between those who truly were, and those who simply tried to live and let live.

He heard nothing alarming and went out the door into the corridor on silent feet. A little twinge in his belly told him a Dracule was near, but it was so subtle that he knew it wasn’t in close proximity.

As he made his way through the house, mentally reviewing the rough sketch of a map Cale had made for him, it became obvious that the top floors of the house were empty and unused. That made his job even easier, for he’d be less likely to encounter anyone as he made his way to Moldavi’s private quarters below the ground.

Nevertheless, he utilized the servants’ stairs down through the back of the house, noting to himself that there were no enticing smells coming from this kitchen. Draculean households didn’t really need to cook much.

The twitch in his gut was getting stronger, and he slipped a stake from one of his inside pockets. But as he passed silently by the main foyer of the home, which was furnished so as to impress any casual visitors, he saw that a cluster of people still gathered in front of the house and glimpsed the gleam of shiny black paint on the side of an upended Landau.

It was safe to say that everyone awake in this house was out in the street.

As he made his way toward the staircase Cale had told him led to the underground apartments, Chas couldn’t resist thinking: Could it simply be this easy? This Providential?

Sonia would say, yes, if he was doing God’s work, the Hand of the Almighty would arrange things so that it would happen. But Chas didn’t fully believe that such blatant miracles occurred like chess pieces being rearranged on their board.

His favorite Biblical maxim was “God helps those who help themselves.” And that was what he was doing.

He’d just about reached the entrance to the lower level when his belly gave a sharp twist and the odd itching feeling became uncomfortable. Just then a door opened in front of him.

Chas reacted before the vampir had the chance to see him: he lunged for the unsuspecting man, grabbed his arm and had him pushed against the wall, forearm up against his throat, before the sot could take a breath. All in complete silence. The vampir goggled up at him, his eyes wide and shocked. Then they narrowed a bit as he seemed to catch his breath.

“Where’s Moldavi?” Chas asked in a soft voice, the stake’s point just beneath the servant’s waistcoat, pressing gently into his breastbone as his powerful arm eased up on the man’s throat.

He felt the footman draw in a breath and just before the bastard was about to shout an alarm, he jammed the stake through shirt, breastbone and directly into his heart.

His victim jolted, shock rushing back over his face, and Chas felt him shudder…then all life abruptly cease. Swearing to himself—for now he had the smell of fresh blood in the house, not to mention the problem of a dead body to attend to—he wiped off his stake and stuck it back in his pocket. Then he heaved the corpse over his shoulder and slipped quickly back the way he’d come, toward the servants’ entrance.

Opening the back door, he dumped the corpse into the space between the house and the thick yew and boxwood that grew close to the wall, hoping it would obscure the body for some time.

Back inside the house, he moved with silent speed back to where he’d been when he encountered the vampir, all the while waiting for a renewed itch in his belly that told him more Dracule were near.

Before he started down the stairs, he paused, waiting, listening…feeling. There was a sound in the distance, voices rumbling…and the niggle started in his gut again. But it was some distance away and he started down into the depths of Cezar Moldavi’s lair.

There was a sort of finality about it. Perhaps it was because going below the surface was akin to being buried, perhaps because there was no way out but the way he came—or through the skull-lined catacombs on the north side—but Chas felt his nerves string tight. He was on his guard as he’d never been before, listening for the sound of approach, paying heed to his body and its innate signals. He had his stake in one hand, and his other fingers curled around the butt of his pocketed pistol.

Aside of it being cooler, and lit only with oil lamps and no natural light, the subterranean corridor appeared no different than one above the ground. It was painted and furnished, lined with doors just as any other hallway in a well-appointed home. But here he moved with more caution, listening at every door to see what he heard and felt.

The voices had become more distinct and Chas more cautious as he made his way along a stretch that seemed to make a large U-shape. When he reached a large door from which the voices seemed to be coming, he stopped to listen, scanning the hall as he pressed his ear to the wood, careful not to touch it and make it jolt in its hinges.

“And Corvindale,” said a male voice beyond the door.

A little prickle scooted up his spine and Chas pressed closer. He couldn’t make out all of the conversation, but he heard snatches of it.

“In London?” came a different voice, with a bit of a hiss to it. That must be Moldavi. “But of course. Perhaps you’d like to go, then, my dear?”

“Of course. I’d be more than delighted to see Dimitri again,” came a husky female voice. She must be sitting closest to the door, for her words rang fairly clear. “Since Vienna, you know.” She gave an arch laugh.

That had to be the sister. Chas leaned closer, his gut filled with that gnawing feeling from the proximity of vampirs.

Despite what Giordan Cale had implied about the sister Narcise being more of an ally than a threat to his mission, Chas had reserved judgment. Her brother might use and abuse her, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t malevolent in her own way. Anyone that close to Moldavi was most likely tarred with the same brush, and from the sound of her, he wasn’t far off in his estimation. A beautiful woman with fangs was a formidable force, particularly for a man.

A fourth voice joined the conversation—another male, which cooled any thought he might have had about bursting into the chamber. With four Dracule against one mortal—even with the mortal being himself—the odds were not in his favor. Chas heard something about spice ships just as something moved in the air behind him. He spun around in time for a slender, four-sided silver blade to rest right in the center of his chest.

“You don’t look like much of a fencing instructor,” said the woman holding the épée. This particular blade’s tip wasn’t blunted, however, and Chas could feel its point digging into his skin.

“What does a fencing instructor look like, per se?” he replied, keeping his voice quiet.

“For one thing,” she replied in a voice that was low and dusky and threatened to wrap around him like a velvet rope, “he would normally be armed with a blade of his own, instead of a stake.” She was strikingly beautiful, with deep blue-violet eyes and ink-black hair. So much so that he felt a little tremor of awareness beneath the adrenaline shooting through his body.

Now things were going to get interesting.

“Ah, yes,” he said, easing a bit away from the tip of her blade, feeling the door behind him and still taking care not to jolt it. Damn. He’d been wrong; this had to be the sister. “Perhaps it was an oversight.”

“Perhaps.” She followed him with the tip of her épée, and those lovely eyes narrowed. “There is only one way to find out then, isn’t there? We shall have to fence, and you will prove to me that you are accomplished. This way.” She used the tip of her weapon to prod him away from the door.

“But of course,” he replied readily, his brain working quickly.

Getting away from the others would hopefully give him the opportunity to disarm her without creating a disturbance that would bring Moldavi and his companions rushing from the chamber.

“I trust you have a place in mind?” he added. And not on the other side of this door…

“Walk, monsieur,” she said, not yet drawing blood, but coming dangerously close to doing so. He didn’t want that scent in the air, so he complied.

Chas walked quickly. If this was the sister, she was certainly not the downtrodden, dead-eyed creature Corvindale had described—a fact which heightened his suspicions even further. Perhaps that was the way things had been a hundred years ago in Vienna, but things had obviously changed. His fingers tightened around the stake.

“Here,” she said in that low voice when they came to a door near the end of the U-shaped corridor. “Open it and go in. Slowly.”

Feeling the sharp implement in his nape, Chas did as she bid and walked into the room. He took an instant to confirm that no one else was waiting beyond the entrance, and then he reacted.

Holding on to the edge of the open door, he used its leverage to whip himself around and behind it, away from her sword. She made a sound of fury, the blade clashing against the door, but he was already ducking below and erupting back out from its shelter, rearing up and knocking her against the wall on the opposite side.

A gasp of surprise burst from her as she slammed against it, her breath knocked out for a moment, and her lips curled back as she swung the blade down clumsily. He ducked again and, on her downswing, he slammed his entire body against her sword arm, smashing it against the wall, blade impaling the floor instead of his arm.

With his foot, he slid the door closed as he pushed his forearm beneath her neck and held her there.

Her eyes stormy, her breasts heaving between them, she glared up at Chas. A little ripple of attraction shivered through him, and he pushed it firmly away. She was a vampir, and lived to seduce.

Her breathing eased. “There is no doubt, then. You’re Chas Woodmore.”

12

Narcise recognized both surprise and satisfaction in his eyes. His body still held her sword arm in place against the wall. And his arm, wedged beneath her chin, was making it difficult for her to swallow, but despite the stake in his hand, she had no fear.

If he used it, then she hoped he’d make it quick and put her out of her misery.

But if he didn’t…perhaps he was the man she’d been waiting for.

“You’ve heard of me?” he said, easing up the slightest bit on her throat so that she wasn’t looking up so sharply.

“But your reputation precedes you, Monsieur Wood-more.” She switched from French to English, with which she was more comfortable even after more than a decade here in Paris.

Indeed, everyone knew of the fearless and clever vampir hunter Chas Woodmore. How he’d somehow scaled a sheer cliff and sneaked into the mountaintop castle of the bloodthirsty Darrod Firvin to stake the man in his sleep. And how he’d tricked the princes of Tylenia and Tynnien into climbing aboard a small ship so that he could slay them as well.

The Dracule all murmured of the dark-haired Gypsy gentleman who slipped in and out of the shadows like a vampir himself, silent and deadly like a servant of Death. Ironically those who told the tales were ones who’d never actually met the man, for those who did weren’t alive to tell the tales.

Which was probably why no one had included in their tales the fact that he was handsome as a dark angel, with thick black hair and intense green-brown eyes. And that he smelled like danger, tight and dark and manly. She scented a bit of blood on him, too, but it didn’t smell like it would be his.

“My reputation?” White teeth flashed in his swarthy face, and he inched his arm away a bit more, but kept her sword arm pinned to the wall with his solid body. “Is that so? And here I thought my accomplishments went largely unnoticed.”

“I do hope you don’t find such modesty too painful,” she replied. “And I would appreciate it if you’d either drive that stake into my heart or remove your arm from my throat.”

“You don’t have a preference?” he asked. He seemed sincere.

Narcise shrugged, and she realized that although she’d managed to catch her breath from their brief battle, she still felt a bit breathless. This man might be more than a match for her. “There are advantages to both.”

“Drop your sword and I’ll release you,” he said.

She complied, and he kicked the épée across the floor of her parlor. When he stepped away, his arm moving from her, she adjusted the sleeves of her manshirt, pulling them back down over her wrists. “Why are you here?”

He ignored her question and asked, “You’re Narcise?” She inclined her head and felt his eyes sweep over her. Before she could react, his hand whipped out and grabbed her arm, pulling it away from her body. “How did this happen?”

She didn’t have to follow his gaze to know that he was speaking about the bruising around her wrists from the manacles. That was nothing compared to the marks on the rest of her body, which was the reason she was wearing men’s clothing today. She couldn’t fit in her gowns without a corset, and it was simply still too painful to be laced into one.

“I lost a fencing match,” she told him, forcing her lips into a rueful smile, meeting his eyes blandly. “It happens occasionally.”

He watched her closely, as if searching for a lie, or waiting for more information, and then released her arm. “What happens when you win?”

“Whatever I choose,” she replied. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a vampir slayer,” he reminded her.

“Then why did you not slay me?” she asked, moving her arms back and away from her chest to give him a good target she suspected he wouldn’t use. “I thought Chas Woodmore was merciless.”

“You might be more beneficial to me alive than dead. Where’s your brother?”

“Are you truly here to kill him? I’d lead you to him in a breath if I—” Narcise stopped, her blood running cold. “He’s coming. They’re coming.”

She could hear the voices, and knew they’d smelled the faint blood and perhaps even the new scent of Chas Wood-more. Or that her brother had become suspicious when she didn’t return to the parlor, which was where she’d been going when she came upon this vampir slayer.

Woodmore looked as if he were ready to either lunge at her or duck behind the door, and Narcise made a quick decision. She was going to get away from Cezar, and this man was going to help her.

She opened her mouth and screamed as she dove for the épée on the floor.

One moment Chas was ready to duck into the bedchamber beyond the open door to hide from Moldavi, and the next, his sister was screaming for help.

Cursing, he spun after her as she rose to her feet, her sword back in hand. “You,” he snarled, deciding he’d take her to hell with him. “I knew better than to believe them.”

But her eyes had widened with fear—something he hadn’t seen before, even when he had her plastered, immobile, against the wall—and just as the pounding footsteps reached the door, she whispered, “I’ll save you. Help me. Please.”

When the door burst open, Chas got his first glimpse of Cezar Moldavi. But he didn’t have much time to observe the man in detail, for he was followed by three other vampirs, and they were all red-eyed and fanged-teeth. They surrounded him without hesitation, blocking the door.

“What is going on here?” said the man who was presumably Moldavi himself. Slight of stature, dark hair with an odd, wide jaw, and rings glinting on all of his fingers.

Chas stilled, his attention bouncing around the chamber to see what might be utilized for an escape, or at least for a weapon. The thing about stakes; they weren’t good for distance. One had to get up close.

Narcise, the madwoman, had her sword, and he looked down to notice that it was once again thrusting into his chest. “Look who’s arrived for a visit, dear brother,” she said. Her expression had changed into something hard and blank.

“Do I know you?” Moldavi asked, making a little hissing tsk sound. “Monsieur?”

Chas hardly took note of the other three vampirs, assuming they were the ones who’d been speaking with Moldavi earlier, and instead focused on gauging the distance and angle it would take him to thrust his stake into the man’s chest. He flickered a glance at Narcise, trying to read something in her eyes that would either support or deny her previous plea of Help me.

What exactly was she asking him?

“We’ve never met,” Chas replied to the man who’d walked around him as if he were a piece of furnishing he was considering for purchase. The hair at the back of his neck lifted, prickling uncomfortably at the man’s frenetic movements.

Darkness rolled off Moldavi in silent waves, burning in eyes that seemed calm, but lurking deep within them was an odd light. He was too quick, too odd in his movements, yet the underlying energy bespoke of paranoia battling with control. There was no doubt in Chas’s mind that this man was malevolence personified.

“Too dark and swarthy for my taste,” Moldavi murmured to one of his companions—not his sister. “But who are you, then, and what are you doing here?” he said, standing in front of him.

“It’s Chas Woodmore,” Narcise said, sending Chas’s shocked attention back to her.

How in the Devil’s name is that going to save me?

Moldavi stilled and his eyes narrowed. “You’re Wood-more?”

“I’m here to kill you,” said Chas, never one to beat around the bush.

Moldavi turned to look at his companions, chuckling, and Chas felt the tip of Narcise’s blade shift a bit. Whether by accident or design, he didn’t know, but he didn’t hesitate.

The next moment he was spinning away and then lunging toward Moldavi, stake raised to his shoulder. No one could react in time to stop him, and Chas felt a surge of triumph as his powerful thrust embedded the stake into the back of the man’s torso. Right at the heart.

But instead of feeling the soft inside, the give of the heart after breaking through the skin next to the spine, Chas felt a shock of pain jolting his arm as he realized he’d struck armor—something metal, based on the strength of the reverberations trammeling through his limb.

He swore as they descended on him then, all of them, fangs flashing, eyes red, hands tearing and clawing. He still had hold of his stake and, using his legs, he twisted and bucked, stabbing indiscriminately as countless hands and feet grabbed and kicked him. He felt something give in his shoulder, the tearing of skin, the burst of blood from his upper arm.

Something sharp slammed into his back, then his gut, and one of them yanked him up and threw him through the air. He hadn’t caught his breath when he slammed into the wall and the world, mercifully, went black.

His last thought before tumbling into darkness was Corvindale is going to kill me.

When he opened his eyes again, Chas found himself reclining on a chaise or some sort of divan. A fire roared nearby, heating his skin uncomfortably. His body ached, his head pounded and he was thirsty.

It took him a moment to realize that he was dressed only in his breeches and that his wrists were tied on either side of him, restrained with leather thongs to the foot of the divan. His legs were also immobilized in the same way.

Something moved in his periphery and he looked over to see Moldavi, who’d shifted into his line of vision. He was with a young woman who seemed to stumble as she walked along with him.

“I have my own special armor,” Moldavi said without preamble, directing the woman to sit on a chair directly in front of Chas.

“My informants neglected to share that detail with me,” Chas replied wryly. “If they even knew.”

“It’s saved my life more than a dozen times. Would you like to see it?” Moldavi pulled off his shirt to reveal a slender, ashen-gray chest dusted with shiny dark hair.

The man was slender, nearly skeletal, and at first Chas saw nothing that could be considered armor except for a dark circular shape over the center of his chest. It gleamed and he saw that it was metal…set into his skin.

“Look more closely,” Moldavi said, leaning toward him, gesturing to his breastbone. “Do you see?”

And then Chas understood. The faint octagonal outline on—no, beneath—his skin, covering the entire breastbone and over his chest, was larger than that which was exposed beneath the skin. No larger than the spread of a hand, the whole was nevertheless generous enough to protect the heart from any stake.

“It’s… Your skin has grown over it?” Chas asked, fascinated and horrified at the same time.

Moldavi nodded complacently. “Some years ago I realized how prudent it would be to have a permanent protection. We Dracule heal so quickly, of course, and so I made a place for the medallions of protection—I have one on my back as well, of course—by cutting a place for it in my skin. Oh, it didn’t hurt, don’t be concerned. And it makes me feel quite powerful. I kept the medallions there until the skin grew back over them—most of the way, as you can see, some of it is still exposed. I rather like the appearance of it. I have similar protection in my neck, of course. For, you see, now I can’t be killed. Even by the fearsome Chas Woodmore.”

Moldavi shifted, now standing behind the woman. He moved her hair away, leaving a shoulder and the side of her neck bare. “You come from London, do you not, Chas Woodmore? Where you live with your three very lovely sisters?”

A shock of fear speared his insides. “You seem to be more familiar with me than I am with you.”

“Oh, I am very familiar with you, Monsieur Woodmore, and Maia, Angelica and…Sophia? What was her name?” He gave a brief smile, licked his lips, then bent slightly to sink his fangs into the bare shoulder of his companion. She tensed, stiffening at the pain, then relaxed.

The spike of worry for his sisters turned into a deep, heavy bolt of revulsion as Chas watched Moldavi gulp the coursing blood. His throat, visible above an elaborate neckcloth, convulsed as his jaw moved in the same rhythm—as if he couldn’t get enough of it fast enough. The woman’s reaction was nearly as unsettling: she closed her eyes, her face tightening with some expression that was neither wholly pain nor wholly pleasure.

As he fed, Moldavi watched Chas, his burning red-gold eyes fastened on him as if gauging his response. Chas wanted to look away, but he could not, and he felt his own body begin to stir in response.

No. He tried to force his attention away, but found himself trapped by the hypnotic gaze. The sounds of rushing blood and the quiet kuhn-kuhn-kuhn of Moldavi’s drinking filled his ears. Chas knew he was being enthralled, but in his weakened state, he could hardly drag his eyes away. Desire tingled inside him, teasing and coaxing a deeper response and Chas tried to focus on the pain throbbing through him instead.

Moldavi released the pinch of pale flesh between his fangs, lifting his face with a slow smile. Blood stained his gums and the edges of his teeth, and Chas fancied he could even smell it on his breath.

“Very satisfying,” Moldavi said, looking at him. “Would you care to sample?” He smoothed his finger over the oozing wounds on the woman’s shoulder, offering a red-tipped digit to Chas.

He turned his face away, noting the pillow behind his head. His heart pounded rampantly as his stomach squeezed with queasiness.

“No? Perhaps another time then. I hope you won’t think me rude, dining in front of you, but I offered to share, and you declined.” Moldavi licked the woman’s shoulder, which Chas didn’t see, but he could hear the sounds. Sloppy and wet, yet sensual.

He swallowed, his throat prickly and rough. His cock had begun to fill and he willed it to subside.

“Now,” said Moldavi, pulling the woman’s hair back over her shoulders, patting it into place and then giving her a sharp gesture to leave, “back to the matter at hand. London…and your informants. I must assume Dimitri has sent you here.”

“No one sends me,” Chas managed to say, relieved that the feeding was over. The tightness in his belly released just that little bit, and he began to focus on his wrists…if there was anything that might be loose or weak. “I go where I will.”

“But it is well known that you and Dimitri—what does he call himself in England? Corvindale?—are associates. I find it unlikely that he hasn’t at least encouraged you to find me. There was an incident in Vienna, you see, some years back…and Dimitri hasn’t quite gotten over it.”

“I needed no encouragement to come after a child-bleeder,” Chas told him.

“Oh, who has been telling tales? Tsk.” Moldavi stood and turned toward the blazing fire. When he shifted back around, he was holding a slender metal spike, hardly thicker than the tine of a fork. It glowed white-hot for a moment, then settled into red, then black.

A ripple of fear coursed along his spine, and Chas steadied his breath. This is going to be unpleasant.

“Perhaps you might tell me a bit more information about Corvindale. What his recent investments are, perhaps?” Moldavi smiled and that slender spike moved closer to Chas.

He steeled himself, his heart ramming furiously. “I’m not privy to that information,” he said.

Moldavi’s fingers curled around Chas’s immobile arm, the digits ashen in color next to his olive skin. “I’m certain you know something.”

Chas shook his head, and groaned at the sharp pain as the spike slid through the soft part of the side of his arm and emerged on the other side. He closed his eyes, shuddering as the little rod burned his flesh, inside and out. Agony reverberated from that center of pain, dulling his thoughts and thickening his mind.

“Perhaps you might know when he is going to leave the country again? I’ve found it impossible to send anyone inside Blackmont Hall, for he has it well secured. If he travels, it will be much easier for me to…renew old acquaintances.”

Through the haze of pain, Chas saw that Moldavi had turned to the fire, and then back again, holding another of the slender metal spikes. “Anything you can tell me will speed things up a bit here,” Moldavi said with a smile.

Chas managed to shake his head, and wondered yet again what Narcise had been thinking to say I’ll save you. Help me.

The woman was obviously addled, or else she was a consummate actress. Just as unpleasant and self-serving as her brother.

Moldavi pinched a piece of flesh at Chas’s side, along his firm belly. “My,” he said, his voice shifting lower, “there isn’t much here to work with, is there, Woodmore? Nevertheless, I shall prevail.”

He looked at his victim and said, “What about Giordan Cale?”

Chas tried to shrug, but feared it came across as more of a convulsion than anything else. He braced himself, but it wasn’t enough to prepare for the sharp, searing pain as the thick needle went through the flesh of his abdomen.

“Giordan Cale,” said Moldavi again, more urgently. His eyes glittered. “I understand he is in London now. What do you know of him?”

Chas opened his mouth to speak, and perhaps might have said, “Nothing.” At least, that was what he attempted to say, but it wasn’t the answer Moldavi wanted. A rough jab through his bicep had him jolting and crying out in pain, and then before he could react, a second one in his other bicep. He was pinned to the divan’s upholstery.

“Giordan Cale,” Moldavi said again. “What is he doing? Where is he? Where does he go?”

“I don’t…know…much….” Chas stammered. “Water…?”

Something splashed in his face a moment later, and he choked but licked his lips to get the essence of the water. Before he could fully recover, Moldavi had something else in his hand.

Another metal object, this one with a blunt tip that glowed white-hot. “Tell me everything you know about Giordan Cale. Everything. Everything.”

“Why?” he managed to ask. Why this obsession with Cale?

Moldavi’s only response was to pull his teeth back in a feral smile and jam the poker into the top of his shoulder.

The smell of burning flesh had Chas arching and twisting in his position, his body fighting the thongs as agony shot through him…from his shoulder, from the back of his knee, from the inside of the crook of his arm…all of it turned white-hot and red as he babbled.

He didn’t know what he was saying, but the questions over and over were about Cale, Cale…always about Cale.

At last pain claimed him, and he eased into a world of peace.

When Chas peeled his eyes open next, he could hardly breathe for the pain. Nor could he focus, for the room tilted and spun so violently, he had to close his eyes. But someone was prodding him to move, forcing him to stand, to walk.

Through a haze and with pure determination, he gathered his strength—both mental and physical—and concentrated on moving, thinking, banishing the agony. His eyes opened, his gaze focused, his limbs began to cooperate—if sullenly—and his thoughts cleared…albeit slowly.

He wasn’t restrained, and was led into a room that was well-lit with many lamps and torches, along with another roaring fire. One side of the chamber was lined with a small dais, on which a dining table sat. Moldavi and another four or five companions sat at the table, which was littered with cups and goblets, bottles and flasks. They looked up at his entrance, and Moldavi said something that made one of them laugh, and the others look at Chas. At first he thought he was hallucinating from the pain when he recognized the short-statured man who was soon to be formally crowned the Emperor of France. But he blinked and refocused and could only come to the conclusion that he recognized him correctly.

The remainder of the space was empty, long and narrow and open. The only other furnishing was a long table at the other end, and from here, he was fairly certain he saw two long blades lying on it.

As Chas stood silently in front of the table, flanked by two burly—if unintelligent-looking—made vampirs, he tried to assimilate the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte was here.

There’d been rumors of Moldavi’s allegiance to an alliance with the new emperor, but for him to be so intimate and in such close quarters was unsettling. It appeared to be a social engagement…but nevertheless, to have a powerful man so enticed by one like Cezar Moldavi…well, the Dracule were infamous for remaining uninvolved with politics or authority.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing if Bonaparte was engaged with the likes of Moldavi—it might keep him from the invasion of England that Westminster seemed to think was imminent.

Despite the obvious political fascination, Chas reminded himself he had more pressing matters to attend to. As he stood there, trying not to let his knees buckle, he realized he still wore his own breeches. They were sweat and bloodstained, but they were his, and that meant the inside pockets still held the little smoke packets he had.

If he could get close enough to the fireplace and toss one of them in, an explosive puff of smoke would—God willing—roll into the chamber and give him the element of surprise…and the chance to escape. Hopefully after he sent at least one of those bastards to hell on his way out.

Now that he knew Moldavi had protection, it made for a more difficult process. But there were other ways to get to the heart—through the throat, or shoulder, for example—although that would be much more difficult than pinning someone through the chest.

But he was still alive, and he had options, and Chas focused on those thoughts, even going so far as to slyly move his arm along the side of his breeches to confirm that the slender smoke explosion packet was still there. It was.

Yet, he was still wavering on his feet. His body protested with every movement, and the burns and piercings were tender and inflamed with pain. He wasn’t certain how long he’d been here—hours, days, weeks?—but certainly he hadn’t eaten for a very long time. The gnawing in his belly wasn’t merely due to the presence of the Dracule.

The chamber door opened and in walked Narcise. She, too, was flanked by a pair of guards. She was also, again, wearing men’s clothing—tight breeches and a close-fitting tuniclike shirt. Her hair shone like blue-black coal from where it was pulled back tightly into a knot. Her feet were bare.

She didn’t acknowledge him at all, and instead faced her brother and his companions. “What do you want?” she demanded.

“Entertainment, of course, my dear sister,” Moldavi said. “We have an esteemed guest tonight—” he nodded to Bonaparte “—and I have promised him something very thrilling. I hope you will do your best to make it so.” Then he gestured to Chas.

Narcise turned as if noticing him for the first time. “Him? You want me to fight him? What sort of entertainment would that be? The man can barely stand,” she scoffed.

Chas lifted his chin in annoyance. He wasn’t exactly ready to collapse, and he certainly didn’t feel as if his knees were going to give way. In fact, he was feeling stronger—and more furious—by the moment. More determined to get out of here alive, but taking one or two of the vampirs to hell first.

I’ll save you. Help me, please.

If there was a woman in the world who didn’t need his help, it was Narcise Moldavi.

And if she thought turning him over to her brother for torture was a way to save him, she was even more disturbed than he’d thought. As far as he was concerned, all deals were null and void.

“You’re correct, my dear sister…which is why I thought we might want to even things up a bit.” He lifted his hand from a small box on the table, withdrawing a long cord. Chas saw that he was holding a leather thong with two feathers dangling from it.

She blanched, and even Chas could sense the tremor shuttling through her. Something changed in the chamber, some sort of ebbing of energy or life…and he realized that Moldavi must be holding Narcise’s Asthenia.

Feathers.

“You’ll fight to the death. There will be no stopping until one of you is dead,” commanded their host, tossing the chain to the floor in front of the table.

Narcise stiffened and Chas felt her shock.

“Yes, you’ve heard me correctly. He’s a vampir hunter, is he not? A killer? And that is what he came here for. I’d hate to disappoint him, and have him return to Dimitri only to complain about my lack of hospitality. Woodmore,” Moldavi said, looking at him, “if you succeed in killing this lovely sister of mine, I will generously allow you to go free…back to your own sisters.”

The words dangled there enticingly and Chas glanced at Narcise. Her face had gone blank and her eyes empty, and for the first time, he realized what Corvindale had meant by describing her as having dead eyes. One of her guards lifted the feather necklace and slid it over her head.

She shuddered visibly this time, and he could see her breathing change.

“Or you can slay him,” Moldavi told her. “Which is what I fully expect you to do. After all, you have had so many years of instruction. You should be able to best a wounded mortal.”

He settled back in his seat, a complacent smile hovering over his lips. “Arm them,” he said, nodding to one of the guards.

As they faced each other moments later, each brandishing a long, gleaming blade, Chas gathered his strength and steadied himself. The sword, which would normally be comfortable in his hands, felt heavier than usual. Awkward and wearing. He looked at Narcise.

She was moving slowly, as if she had difficulty breathing, and he knew it was because of the feather necklace. That would make things all the more simple for him. Not that he truly believed Moldavi would set him free if he killed Narcise, but he intended to win and then, hopefully, set the smoke packet afire.

“Begin!” commanded their host with a clap of his hands.

She staggered, and he could see real pain in her face. He had a momentary pang of sympathy for her…for, despite the fact that he was hardly as powerful and agile as he normally was, he was certainly mobile. She hardly seemed able to move.

She lunged toward him suddenly, her aim off and the sword jamming into the ground next to him. Their bodies clashed and he automatically reached out to steady her. As they bumped together, almost like two lovers embracing, she whispered, “Help me. Escape.”

He stumbled back and whipped his blade around, wondering if he’d heard her correctly…wondering if it were another of her tricks. Her face tightened, her teeth bared in great effort as she lifted her sword and raised it over her head in a stroke that left her body wide-open for his blade.

Chas knew it was his chance, and he realized, as their eyes met when he swung his weapon around, that she knew it. At the last minute, he lowered his blow—which would have easily cleaved hand from wrist, head from neck, and hand from wrist again—and turned the blade to its flat side.

It struck the side of her torso, sending her staggering in the direction of the fire…which was precisely his intent. He came after her, and said, “Just as you saved me?” as he slammed the blade against her rising one.

“Was the only…way…” she muttered, and he saw a wave of effort crease her face.

Chas’s knee buckled and he stumbled into the wall, his sword scraping along the floor as he used it to regain his balance. Hell, it was like fighting when he was in his cups. He wondered if the spectators found the sight amusing or entertaining.

They were near the fire now, and he had a decision to make. Trust her, or slay her, which would be easily done. Either way, he had one chance to use the smoke cloud. She seemed to have regained a bit of ferocity, somehow, and was coming at him again. “Please,” she said over the clash of their swords.

Her eyes met his in that instant between the silver blades, and he saw pleading there. And desperation. Chas spun away, thinking suddenly of Sonia, and the argument they’d had when he visited her.

Who made you God? she’d said. Who gave you the right to judge who lives and dies? I should think you of all people would understand why they did it.

The pang of conscience, combined with the fear that he’d never see her again, and never be able to set things right—for he’d had his own harsh words: We all have our God-given abilities, and some of us actually use them, Sonia—unlocked something deep inside him.

Narcise was more familiar with the makeup of the house. Having her with him might slow him a bit, but at least he wouldn’t get lost.

He could always slay her later if he had to.

“Be ready,” he said, parrying sharply at her, lunging at her. The more he fought and moved, the easier it seemed to get. His body was returning…even as hers slowed. Although their conversation was soft, lost in the noise of battle and their distance from the spectators, he took care to keep his face away from Moldavi when he spoke.

She met his eyes, hers wide and hopeful, if glazed, and he reached into the pocket of his breeches with his free hand. “Thank you.”

He had the packet, he was lining them up alongside the roaring flames. “Way out?” he asked, slamming his blade against hers to muffle their conversation.

“There,” she gasped, her eyes going to the corner as she raised her blade weakly.

She was so slow and clumsy that he sliced along her arm without meaning to, and heard a shout from the dais: “First blood!”

Chas saw a small door in the corner and noted that it was far from the dais. Perfect. He might have a chance after all…as long as Jezebel wasn’t leading him into a den of lions or something worse. Like a locked door.

“Locked?” he asked, circling around and creating a vicious thrust that clashed with her sword.

“Don’t…think…” she gasped. “No.”

He flipped the packet into the fireplace as he eased her toward the corner, waiting for the telltale explosion. Hoping to hell Miro’s chemistry worked as well now as it had during their trials.

He was just about to give up when there was a soft muffled boom! and something shot from the fireplace.

Sparks and coals blasted into the room, and in the moment of surprise, he grabbed Narcise, half lifting her against his hip, and ran unsteadily toward the door, sword still in hand.

People were shouting and Moldavi was giving orders, but Chas ignored everything but the door. They had to get around the table and off the dais, and across the room…and he had the element of surprise. The puff of smoke rolled into the chamber, more slowly than he would have liked, but it was effective enough. His legs wobbled, his arms trembled and Narcise was little help in an ambulatory fashion. They fell into the door, the momentum of his running clumsy and imprecise.

She shifted, gave a groan of exertion…then all at once, she was moving. The door opened and they burst out of the room.

Narcise turned, suddenly strong and quick. “Help me,” she said, leaning against the door as something slammed against it from the other side. Chas found the wooden bar and fit it across, barring the door, and then she said, “This way,” and started down a dim corridor.

She must have lost the feathers along their way through the chamber, or maybe even yanked them off her neck, because now she was faster and more agile than he.

Chas wasn’t about to complain; he still had his sword and a partner who seemed able.

They were going to make it.

She ran and he followed, his legs protesting, the aches in his torso screaming, but this was for life—the pain could go to the Devil. He was going to make it.

They came to the end of the corridor—a large, locked door—and just as they approached, a vampir guard turned to see them.

Chas didn’t hesitate; it was second nature for him to duck under the attacking man, spin—albeit wobbly—and come back around from behind with the blade of his sword at neck level.

The man’s head rolled to the floor in a gush and splash of blood, but Chas didn’t hesitate. He went for the door, looking for the lock, and realized that Narcise wasn’t with him.

Turning, he saw her, pale-faced, half-collapsed against the wall. The blood. It had to be the blood. He grabbed her arm and towed her toward him, but her eyes were rolling back into her head and she was having trouble breathing.

She collapsed into his arms and he realized it wasn’t the blood—vampirs craved it, but it didn’t make them faint.

“Where’s the key?” he demanded, hearing shouts in the near distance. Damn the vampire sense of smell…they could track them as well as a dog could.

She murmured something he couldn’t understand, and saw that she was severely incapacitated. Then he realized, through the intensity of the moment… “Feathers.”

Narcise nodded, barely, and he realized why she’d never escaped on her own. Moldavi had the entrances and exits lined with feathers, or somehow used them to block it for her. He glanced around but didn’t see any sign of them…but for all he knew, they could be embedded in the door frame. She shuddered and tried to grasp him, but her fingers were weakening.

Now he didn’t know if it would kill her to go over the threshold—assuming the feathers were there, and in great numbers, obviously—or whether once past, they would no longer affect her, even if she was so greatly weakened. But either way, he had to decide to take the chance, or leave her behind.

“Where’s the key?” he demanded again, then realized the guard was there for a reason.

Gingerly, still holding Narcise up with one hand, trying not to step in the pool of blood—he didn’t need that scent clinging to him as well—he fumbled around the vampire’s body.

Just as the voices turned down the hallway, and he could feel the pounding of feet on the floor, he found the key hanging on a ring at the man’s waist.

Chas yanked it, praying it would come free, and the man’s body jolted in protest. He used his sword to slice down blindly and cut the bloody thing from his waist, taking a chunk of clothing and skin with it.

Key in hand, a weak and useless Narcise over his sword arm, he lunged for the door. They were coming, and he nearly dropped the key from his weak and clumsy fingers…but he fit it in as their pursuers appeared in the hall behind them.

Fifteen feet away and the door opened. Chas lunged through and dumped Narcise on the floor as he spun to close it behind him, struggling with the lock again in the light of a dim sconce.

By the time he had it in place the force of the others on the opposite side had the door surging in its hinges. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, turning to gather up Narcise again.

But, praise God, she was on her feet—if pale—visaged and wide-eyed…and she was bloody damn smiling. He yanked the torch from the wall, even though she wouldn’t need light in the dark, and they started running together.

“We made it,” she gasped. “We made it. We’re in the catacombs.”

Chas looked around and realized they were in a stone-hewn tunnel lined with…skulls. Giordan Cale had described it to him, and had even drawn a rough map of the tunnels that Chas had committed to memory.

She was right. They’d made it.

And despite the fact that he hadn’t accomplished the task for which he’d come, he felt more than a little satisfied.

13

Narcise drew in the fresh, cool air and felt the tears gather in her eyes. Free. I’m free.

It was well into the night, and Paris lay beyond her, around her…waiting for her. Paris, and the world…all of it, waiting for her.

Yes, she’d been out of the apartments many times in the years of living here…but this was different.

This time, she didn’t have to go back. This time she wasn’t accompanied by the insidious darkness of her brother, whose presence clung so heavily even when he was absent.

This time she was walking, on her own two feet, instead of being transported in a dark vehicle with guards.

“Are you coming with me?” said Woodmore in an impatient voice. “Or are you going to stand here and wait for them to catch up to us?”

“With you,” she managed to say, terrified at the thought, as he grabbed her arm and began to walk off briskly.

He had her clutched to his side, a bare-chested, battered man towing along a slender effeminate partner. At least, that was what she thought they might look like. And, apparently, even such an appearance wasn’t remarkable enough to glean notice from anyone else.

“Where are we going?” she asked, still drinking in the air, the activity of people walking and talking and laughing. There were women smiling slyly, with red lips and very low bodices…there were lanky youths watching from the shadows…there were couples, strolling arm in arm as if they had nowhere to be…and no one to escape from.

A group of the emperor’s soldiers wandered past, leaving Narcise to wonder if they knew their master was several feet below them, eating and drinking with a vampir.

“I don’t bloody damn know, but wherever it is, we don’t have time to dawdle,” Woodmore replied. “Nothing went as I planned.”

There were smells, too…lovely smells of spring flowers on the breeze, and fragrances from some of the well-dressed (and not so well-dressed) women strolling by. She scented sausages and cheese and wine and ale, cakes and bread and crepes all offered for the late-night patrons. A rolling lust for a cake, iced with cream, surprised her. She hadn’t had a sweet—or at least, hadn’t enjoyed one like that—since she was a girl in Romania. And beyond the food, there was the underlying stench of sewer and refuse, the damp and algae of the Seine, coal and wood smoke, and blood.

The bloodscent was coming most strongly from the man next to her, mingling with sweat and burned flesh, and it teased her…for it had been some while since she’d fed.

A blonde woman wearing a long, simple dress was standing near one of the columns along the Tuilieries. She seemed oblivious to the passersby who jostled through the narrow walkway beneath the covered promenade, bumping into or next to her.

She was watching them closely, but her calm gaze wasn’t unsettling in its intensity. Instead, Narcise felt a wave of peace slip over her as their eyes met. The woman smiled as Woodmore fairly dragged her past and the Mark on Narcise’s back twinged painfully. It surprised her, for Luce hardly ever expressed his annoyance with her. Perhaps because she never had much chance to make a choice that would annoy him.

The first step. Those words rang in her head and Narcise smiled to herself as she happened to meet the blonde woman’s eyes. She nodded at her, although of course there was no possible way the woman could know why she was nodding. But, yes, this was only the beginning.

It occurred to her, then, as Woodmore snapped his hand at a hackney cab—then decided not to climb aboard when a well-dressed gentleman pushed his way ahead of them—that she didn’t have anywhere to go herself. She had no money. She knew no one—an uncomfortable memory pinched her belly and she thrust away the thought of someone she did know—and didn’t know whom to trust.

But then a name did appear in her mind. Dimitri, the earl, in London. Cezar hated the man ever since he ended a business association with him when Dimitri learned that Cezar was a child-bleeder. And…there’d been that night in Vienna, when Cezar had offered Narcise to Dimitri.

Although she’d been dull with pain from a feather bracelet, Narcise still remembered that night…the cold, dark man who looked at her with a modicum of sympathy, but not even a flicker of lust.

She would go to him. Any enemy of Cezar was a friend of hers.

But in her fantasies, when she’d planned to make her escape, it was much less chaotic. Narcise had imagined a scenario in which she’d slipped from the house with a bag on her shoulder when the place was quiet and everyone was sleeping or otherwise distracted. Or that she’d be standing over Cezar’s headless body saying a fond farewell as his blood coursed onto the floor.

Just as Woodmore said: Not as planned.

But, nevertheless, it had worked.

“Here,” he said suddenly, towing her into a shadowy alcove.

The next thing she knew, they were at the backside door of a small public house that smelled of old ale and stewing meat, and Woodmore was negotiating in rapid French with its proprietor. He flashed that white smile, made a lewd gesture and then produced a small pouch that clinked—which she swore he hadn’t had moments earlier.

The pouch’s contents seemed to be the deciding factor for the proprietor, and the door opened wider. She felt the man’s amused grin on her as Woodmore led her inside and then directly up a set of dark, dingy stairs where the smell of coitus and ale clung to the walls. She wasn’t certain whether the proprietor recognized that she was a woman and not a man, but in either case, it didn’t matter.

After all, this was Paris.

And the recently liberated Narcise had no qualms about following the vampir hunter into a small bedchamber lit only by the glow of a lamp.

“Shut the door,” Woodmore ordered, and when she turned back, she saw that he’d sat on the bed.

For the first time, she noticed how much difficulty he seemed to have breathing. His torso and arms were a mass of cuts, bruises and large burns. “You’re hurt, what—”

“You just noticed this?” His voice was harsh. He seemed to struggle for a moment, then added in marginally softer tones, “I need to get cleaned up. They’re going to bring a bath.”

Even his sharp words didn’t offend Narcise. She was free. Nothing would upset or annoy her now. Yet, she felt that she owed him some explanation. “It was the only way to get him to allow us to fight.”

“And how precisely would fighting have helped us if one of us was dead? Or did you simply plan to kill me—but then how would that benefit you?” His voice was rough and unsteady.

“I didn’t expect him to make us fight till the death. I thought I would allow you to win, and then you would take me to…well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? We are here, and I’m free. Thank you. Do you need food? And where did you get the money? Surely you didn’t have it in your breeches all this time.”

“I venture to guess that such a bulge would have been noticeable,” he said, flashing a surprise smile. “At least, in certain places. I lifted the coins from the sot who stole our hack. He’ll never miss them, and I can’t draw on my resources until tomorrow.”

She’d walked over to turn the light up and by then, a knock sounded on the door. She opened it to reveal a maidservant with a jug of ale and a platter of cheese and bread. The girl brought it in, put it on a table, then turned to the cold fireplace.

“I don’t believe they have your particular vintage,” Wood-more said, gesturing to the food.

Narcise nodded, and realized again that it had been more than a few days since she’d fed, and with the hint of his bloodscent—just barely oozing—still lingering, her gums began to contract and her breathing roughened. Her glance went briefly toward the maidservant and she considered the possibility of enthralling the girl so she could feed, but when she felt Woodmore’s eyes on her, she discarded that idea.

If he was like any other man, he’d enjoy the erotic sight of two women in such an intimate arrangement, and then she’d have another problem on her hands if he wanted to participate. The last thing she wanted or needed was another man trying to control her—or to have her bloodlust take over. Woodmore might be a mortal, but he was a legendary one in her world. He wouldn’t be easily denied.

She turned her attention away from him and back to the fact that she would have to find a way to feed. She’d never actually had to arrange it for herself; Cezar had always, as part of her captivity, provided a servant—a male as often as a female—or other mortal for feeding.

But this was a problem she welcomed.

A fire now blazing in the grate, the maid stood and gave a short bow, then left the chamber.

Woodmore had taken a few swigs of ale, and was selecting a piece of cheese when he looked up at Narcise. He didn’t speak, although he seemed to be searching for something to say…and then he returned his attention to the tray. She realized she was trying not to breathe, for the chamber—especially the bed—reeked of coitus and perspiration, and over it all was Chas Woodmore’s scent. His blood.

Narcise suddenly felt awkward and out of place. And, all at once, exhausted. Her knees wobbled and as her head spun, she reached blindly for the chair and eased herself into it.

But she was free. A smile erupted, happiness welled inside her so much that her Mark twinged again…and suddenly, tears flooded her eyes. The tears rolled down her cheeks, catching her by surprise—she hadn’t even realized she still knew how to cry—but all at once, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

A handkerchief was thrust into her face, and she took it blindly, gratefully—and at the same time, ashamedly. She’d been through so much…why, now when she was happy, did she have to show such weakness?

The cloth smelled like Woodmore, of course, but dense and thick—rough with blood and sweat and pain and the pleasant smell of his skin and hair, too. She dried her eyes and lifted her face to find him watching her with a detached expression. “Thank you.”

“I have three sisters,” he replied with a shrug. “Sobbing females don’t unsettle me in the least. And I suspect you have more of a reason to cry than Angelica did when her favorite yellow gown was stained with ink.”

Narcise gave him a wavery smile and wiped her nose again. “I cannot remember the last time I cried,” she told him. Not even ten years ago.

Another knock came at the door, and Woodmore answered it this time. She noticed the way his feet scuffled a bit when he went to open it, as if he could hardly lift them. He held on to the door while a half-full tub was brought in, followed by five huge pails of steaming water, and she suspected that he was doing so in order to keep his own knees from collapsing. There was a drawn tightness in his face and around his eyes.

But now that she’d become fully aware of his scent, Narcise found herself noticing his bare torso, half illuminated by the glow of the lamp. He was tall and the skin of his chest and ridged belly was as dark as that of his hands and face. He had dark hair trailing down his stomach, into the sagging waistline of his breeches, and up to a full expanse of it over his chest. His arms were rounded with muscle, scarred and marked, but powerful nevertheless.

Her eyes started to heat when she thought about the texture of his skin and the essence of his lifeblood, and she had to look away. It was a reaction she couldn’t completely control, but she could hide it, for it didn’t mean anything.

After the water came the maidservant who’d brought the food, and this time she was carrying a pile of cloth and a small pot of unguent. These she left near the bath, and Narcise realized it was for Woodmore’s injuries.

When the door was closed once more, and they were alone, Woodmore turned to her. He seemed even more unsteady, and she thought he actually swayed on his feet. “I don’t expect you have delicate sensibilities, but if you do, you’ll either have to leave or close your eyes.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said quietly.

He gave her an inscrutable look and turned away. And then all of a sudden, he made a sort of half turn, as if to grab for the chair, and he began to sink.

She heard him groan a low curse just before he hit the floor with a dull thud.

Narcise rushed over to kneel next to him on the ground. “Woodmore?” she said, and went to shake him by the shoulders…but stopped when she realized that would mean closing her fingers over two ugly burns.

She saw the red oozing from his arms and the sides of his torso, recognizing Cezar’s handiwork with the metal spikes, and wondered how he’d managed to do what he’d done—fight her, carry her, run and slay and even pick a pocket—with these sorts of injuries.

At the same time, she felt a wave of remorse that she hadn’t noticed how badly he was hurt during their fencing match. Of course, she had been a bit distracted…but she should have at least gauged his weakness as her rival if nothing else.

“Woodmore!” she said more urgently, still hesitant to touch him. But when he still didn’t move, she had to, and was shocked to find his skin flaming hot. He moaned, rolling his head to the side as her fingers brushed over his shoulders.

He couldn’t remain on the floor. Narcise picked him up awkwardly—he was long and loose-limbed, and heavy even for her—and got him to the bed. And then she began examining him in detail.

She’d had enough injuries of her own, inflicted by Cezar or any number of his friends, to recognize all of the different manifestations of burns, piercings, cuts and bruises. She’d also had some experience in caring for them, although she wasn’t certain whether washing and cleaning injuries on mortals would even help, since they could die from injury and she, of course, wouldn’t.

But she did the best she could, using the warm water and the dubiously clean cloths that had been brought in with the unguent to wash away blood, sweat and grime. Narcise even immodestly stripped away his breeches, leaving him fully naked, so that she could examine him for other wounds. A particularly nasty one, which had been hidden by the trousers near his right hip, had her sucking in her breath in alarm.

Even in the faulty light, she could see that whatever had gone through his skin, and out the other side, had taken the fabric of his breeches with it like a needle and thread. The injury was rough and dark, and little frayed threads and pieces of cloth decorated the opening.

And it smelled. They all smelled of course, but this one had a wrong scent to it. An ugly, thick, roiling sort of stench that was so unpleasant it didn’t arouse her bloodlust, even as undernourished as she was, and succeeded in masking some of the other enticing scents as well. She cleaned it carefully, probing to get the remnants of thread and wool from inside, and knew she was doing a good job when he flinched and moaned in his fever. But the injury would bear watching, for it might not heal at all.

The rest of them, ugly as they were, evil and dark, were painful but should heal. This one on his hip…perhaps not.

By the time she finished, the sun was rising and casting yellow beams through the window. Dangerous to Narcise, but at the same time, she hadn’t seen the sun for more than a decade.

So she stood at the window, carefully to the side, and watched as the golden glow painted the rooftops and buildings clustered around this dingy little public house—so crude and dirty and simple compared to her previous residence, but so welcome.

She couldn’t see much aside of the walls across the street and down the alley, for the buildings were close, but just the glint of yellow made her chest expand with pleasure.

No, she couldn’t walk out into it, she couldn’t bathe herself in its rays nor pick flowers on the mountainside as she’d done with Rivrik…but at least now she could see it. And she could smell the warmth as the beams baked the edge of the cotton bedding or heated the wood of the window shutters.

And perhaps…if she were brave…she could walk out into it with a cloak over her head and shoulders, thus allowing the rays to seep through and warm her through the shield.

She watched from the window for a long while, simply observing the way the shadows changed, shortening and then disappearing, and then beginning to fall toward the east…how the light changed the scene of busy Paris, the carriages and barouches, the merchant carts and the shops’ awnings from dull shades of gray to every color imaginable.

She was weak and hungry still, but she couldn’t leave in search of someone on whom to feed. And she couldn’t go down to the public room of the house and lure someone up here…could she?

So Narcise ignored the insistent waves of weakness and light-headed moments and watched from the window, wishing for her paints or at least a pencil.

When Woodmore groaned, drawing her attention from the scenery, she went to his side. He opened his eyes, but they were dull and feverish, and his skin was still hot despite the fact that the fire had long subsided into glowing coals.

The water from the basin was cool, and she used it to dab at his forehead, uncertain what else could be done for him. His glassy gaze didn’t seem to be able to focus, and his lids fluttered as he moaned and muttered things she couldn’t understand.

Narcise felt a stirring of panic when she checked the worst of the wounds again and saw that it was puffy and foul-smelling still. The blood crusting and oozing, its edges stank and she knew something had to be done, or the infamous vampir hunter would die—and in such an inglorious fashion.

At first, she simply didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t leave during the day to go in search of a physician, nor did she have any funds to pay for one. The pouch he’d lifted from the nabob who’d taken their hack was empty.

And aside of that, she was feeling weary and nauseated herself, from lack of feeding and sleep.

Very deep inside her, Narcise was also terrified that if she left this sanctuary, Cezar or his men would find her and take her back to the hell she’d been living.

She looked at Woodmore, who, despite his fever and the shuddering breaths he was taking, still appeared capable and intimidating—even with his eyes closed. He was so dark and exotic looking next to the undyed linen sheets, his overlong, thick hair tumbling over his forehead and clinging to his neck from the heat of his skin. But his face was tight and flushed and his pulse thumped erratically, its sound seeming to fill her ears.

But…she had to do something.

She was a Dracule, she had the ability to enthrall even if she couldn’t go out in the daylight. How foolish of her to waste time when she did have the means to do what had to be done!

It had been so long since she’d been on her own, making her own decisions. Much more than a century. Still, to have stayed hidden and helpless like a trembling rabbit was not admirable in the least.

Unwilling to leave Woodmore alone for too long, she rang for one of the servants. A young woman came and Narcise gave her instructions in her imperfect French: she needed a physician immediately for her companion.

Then, assuring herself that Woodmore would sleep—if not restlessly—for a bit longer, she left the chamber quickly. Down the back stairwell she went, and then into the public room where it was crowded with people, noise and smells. Smoke and sweat were strong enough here to gag her, along with the layer of stale ale and old wine and a myriad of other aromas.

Nervously she looked about and settled her attention on an old, fat man who was waddling unsteadily toward the door. He was well-dressed and clumsy with drink.

Narcise, who was thankful to still be dressed as a boy, kept her face averted and hoped not to draw attention as she made her way to meet her unsuspecting mark. At the door, which fortunately led into a small alcove to keep the snow and rain from pouring into the pub itself, she met up with the fat man. He was irritable, which made her feel even more justified in drawing him into a bit of her thrall whilst she relieved him of the wallet he held under his coat.

It was done more quickly and easily than she’d even imagined, and Narcise, flush with funds and a different sort of confidence that had nothing to do with swordsmanship or even her beauty, slipped back up to the chamber she shared with Woodmore. She would feed later, after she’d seen to Chas, and when she could find a more private place.

But that incident seemed to be the most optimistic part of the day. When the physician arrived, he spoke French too rapidly for her to completely understand…yet the idea that Woodmore was in dangerous condition became very clear.

Narcise watched as the docteur used a sharp knife to cut into the swollen and infected wound, then scooped away the foul-smelling green pus that erupted from it. He cleaned it and wrapped it and gave her a list of instructions that was only partly clear…and then he left, taking a good portion of the fat man’s money with him.

Not long after he left, a knock sounded at the door, drawing Narcise’s attention abruptly from her patient. She quickly covered Woodmore with a sheet and then bade the servant to enter.

It was a young man who’d come to collect the tub and pails. He looked at Narcise, who’d just taken her hair down and whose shirt still clung to her body curves, and she saw a flare of interest in his eyes before he turned to gather up the items.

Her heart began to thump harder and her gums constricted. No, not here…but why not? It’s more private than belowstairs.

She swallowed hard and tried to ignore her increasing light-headedness and the gnawing in her stomach.

“Could you build up the fire again?” she asked, hearing the duskiness in her own voice. “It’s chilly in here.”

“Certainly, madame,” he replied, and set the pails on the ground. His gaze lingered as he walked past her, and she felt a little nudge in her center.

He’s willing.

He doesn’t know what it is you want.

She bit her lip, trying to keep from scenting the young man, who was lanky and blond and had an alluring, masculine scent laced with innocence. He couldn’t be much older than twenty.

No…

But yes. A streak of pain flamed over her shoulder and down the side of her back and Narcise gasped. The sudden filling and pulsing of her Mark was like a branding iron of Lucifer’s temper. “Madame?” the youth asked, turning from the fireplace to look at her in concern.

“What is your name?” she asked, breathless with pain…and anticipation.

“Philippe,” he said, and she felt her eyes warm into a strong warm glow.

“Philippe,” she replied, stepping closer to him. “There is something else you could assist me with.”

His breathing changed, deepening and slowing, as her eyes burned into him. Oh, yes. Narcise’s fangs erupted swiftly and she could scarcely breathe.

“Will you?” she asked, holding out her hand. Her heart beat savagely in her breast, and she could smell his desire, his interest wafting through the air.

He stepped toward her, his eyes heavy-lidded and his mouth full and sensual. “What is it?” he asked.

She could wait no longer; hunger and need drove her and she fairly flung herself at him. His arms went around her, his fingers pulling at her shirt, but she had hold of his shoulders and slammed her fangs into his flesh.

His gasped mon Dieu rang in her ears as the flood of ambrosia poured into her mouth. Narcise clung to his shoulders as she forced him back against the wall, drinking and leeching from his warm, youthful flesh. His hands moved over her, pulling at her clothes, dragging the shirt up over her back so he could touch her skin.

She felt the rise and swell of his cock against her, and the soft moans from the back of his throat as she swallowed and sucked deep drafts of lifeblood. Pleasure and arousal, along with strength, rushed through her. Her breasts tightened, becoming sensitive behind their loosened bindings. Damp and heat pounded through her as she licked and drank, the young coppery blood filling her mouth. His chest rose and fell against her breasts, and his hands moved around to cover them, sliding down over tight nipples to the swelling center between her legs, frantic and desperate for his own release.

Narcise might have gone on for too long if there hadn’t been a dull noise from behind her. The thump brought her back to the moment, to where she was, what she was doing…and that she and her victim had sagged into a heap on the floor, his hands tearing at her breeches.

She pulled her fangs away, breathing as if she’d been running, and felt her partner—for he wasn’t precisely a victim—shuddering against her. He muttered something low and desperate in her ear, grinding the bulge in his trousers against her hip as his mouth found hers. He was sloppy and warm, and the taste of his own blood must have excited him, for he pulled her closer, urgent and needy.

Narcise twisted her face away and returned to his shoulder to lick at the bitemarks she’d left there. It made the wounds heal quickly and cleanly, and helped the blood to stop flowing.

As she pulled back, a glance behind her indicated Chas Woodmore, completely naked and wavering on his feet, clutching the bed as if he were about to pitch over any moment. The feverish light was in his eyes, but determination tightened his face, and she saw that he held a piece of splintered wood in his hand.

Their eyes met across the room, and she recognized horror and revulsion burning there…and yet an underlying layer of lust that was echoed in the lift of his own cock.

Her insides jolting in surprise and something else she didn’t understand, Narcise turned away and pulled herself and her victim to his feet. He sagged against her and she propped him against the wall with one hand, much stronger now that she’d been nourished, and yanked his sagging breeches back up into place. His cock still filled them out, but she had no interest in this young, lanky man. The image of another male body—mature, muscled and powerful—had lodged in her mind.

Yet, the blind lust had eased and she was back inside her own control—if not fully aware of Chas Woodmore in a completely different way. Another dull thump had her attention swiveling back to the vampir hunter, even as she restrained Philippe’s enthusiastic and insistent hands. Wood-more had managed a step or two, then collapsed once again.

Narcise turned her thrall back onto Philippe with new intent, and coaxed him into her world. This time, she lulled him into a dreamlike state that would eliminate from his memory everything that had happened since she turned her thrall on him.

When she finally released him, he was back in front of the fireplace and she was sitting in the chair just as she had been. Woodmore, whose gaze burned in its own mortal fashion as he dragged himself back to his feet, had sunk weakly back onto the bed in a feverish stupor.

“Merci,” she told Philippe as he gathered up the pails and tub. The marks on his neck were hidden by his shirt, and hadn’t left even a drop of blood on the pale linen. “Would you be so kind as to bring a new bath?”

“But of course, madame,” he said, his eyes still a bit feverish…as if he couldn’t quite remember what had happened, but sensed that something had.

She smiled at him and gave a little flare of glow in her eyes, then sent him on his way.

Then she turned her attention to Woodmore. His breathing was off rhythm, rough and ragged, and if anything his skin had become hotter. His cock had softened back into a relaxed state, and his eyes remained half open but unfocused.

Narcise’s trill of panic returned and she looked again at the wound on his hip. It was likely causing the fever. The swelling around it, and the stench… The physician had helped, but the smell told her that he’d not been able to stop the infection.

And then a thought struck her. It was so unexpected, and yet so logical she could hardly believe it hadn’t occurred to her before.

If there was bad blood there, gathering and clotting around the wound…she could take it away. She could draw the infection from him, and then use her lips and tongue to cleanse and heal in their own effective way.

It could work.

And, she thought, swallowing hard as she looked down at his tight, battered body…it would give her an excuse to taste him.

Something she hadn’t realized how much she wanted.

14

Chas opened his eyes to find bright sunlight blazing through a half-shuttered window.

He lay there for a moment, looking up at the wood-beamed ceiling festooned with random cobwebs, then off to the side and around an unfamiliar chamber. He couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d come to be here.

Yet, shifting in the bed on which he lay, Chas felt hardly a niggle of concern. There’d been many a night that had taken him places he hadn’t expected to go; many times he’d awakened after too much drink or women or both…quite often after routing a group of vampirs.

But as he turned, he saw her, lying on her side on the bed next to him. And with that sight came the rush of memories—some strident and clear, others murky and hot and red.

But first, before he tried to make sense of what was real and what had been dreams…he just looked. Such beauty, such exquisite beauty was breathtaking. Even in repose, she appeared unimaginably lovely.

Her cheek, perfectly ivory, without a flaw, rested on hands folded as if in prayer—an irony in and of itself. The position caused her already full, sensual lips to plump out even more enticingly, and an endearing pudge to her face. Her eyes were closed of course, but that was one thing he remembered clearly: the intense blue-violet color in them, ringed with black, flecked with dark colors.

Long, shiny hair, the color of coal, clung to her face and throat, tumbling into a pool on the bed between them. He reached over and touched it to see if it was as silky as it appeared. It was.

He could see the shadow of her breasts where they showed through a low neckline of the chemise she was wearing, the curve of them as they bunched up against the mattress. A ripple of attraction seized his belly, but he ignored it.

This was Narcise Moldavi.

He was in bed with a vampir—and one he’d meant to kill, at least at some point.

Chas sat up gingerly, noting that Narcise slept on the side of the bed farthest from where the sun would stream through the window, and felt the remnants of aches and pains throughout his body. His naked body.

With that realization of pain, more details came filtering back…Cezar Moldavi and his metal spikes and the burning poker…the fencing match between him and Narcise…the smoke packets that had worked almost as well as they had during their trials…perhaps they’d gotten a bit damp during the trip across the Channel.

Things were murky after that. He remembered everything being slow and dark and red, of pain and agony with every movement, the world tilting and spinning. There were times of running, stumbling along as if forever and ever…up some stairs…

Here. Into this chamber.

There things turned darker and hotter, and memory confused with dreams and nightmares. He closed his eyes and saw an image of Narcise, rising naked and glistening from a bath…there, in the corner…of her with eyes red-gold and hot, her fangs long and white and lethal…blood…there was blood and pain, and he had an image of her on top of someone, tearing into him…

Narcise stirred next to him and then she opened her eyes.

When she saw that he was awake, she sat up abruptly. “You’re alive.” Her eyes were wide with shock and happiness, making her even more beautiful with her dark hair swirling about her shoulders against a thin white shift.

Chas felt another loosening inside his belly, deep and fluttery. She was right there, she was lovely and sensual and they were alone. He wasn’t so weak that he couldn’t reach over, pull her to him—

He closed his mind to the temptation. She was a vampir. She’d coerce, coax, lull…seduce him…drag him into the Devil’s dark world.

“I don’t remember much,” he said.

“You nearly died,” she said. “From an infection. The doctor came, more than once, but he wasn’t certain if you’d live.”

Chas sank down onto his back, remembering even more. The screaming pain on his side, the cool, quick hands administering to his wounds, the haze of heat and confusion that followed, Narcise… He stopped his thoughts, afraid of where they were about to lead. It was impossible not to be attracted to her.

He tightened his lips. That was Lucifer’s game, wasn’t it? She was irresistible for a reason.

“What day is it? How long have I—we—been here?” he asked instead.

“Nearly a week,” she told him.

“A week?” Shock and concern almost had him sitting up again. “It’s been a week since we left your brother?”

Narcise nodded.

Good Christ, Corvindale was going to be furious. Surely by now Maia had followed instructions—reluctantly of course—and contacted him about Chas’s disappearance.

He turned his gaze back to hers. “You stayed here with me?” he asked.

“Of course. I wasn’t going to let you die.” She frowned irritably. “I’m not my brother.”

An image of Narcise, bending over him, her slender hands on his skin, flashed into his mind with sudden clarity. Bending over him, near his—

Despite his lingering weakness and the raw pounding in his head, he sat up abruptly, yanking the coverings away from his right hip, knowing what he would find….

“What have you done to me?” he demanded, staring at the four neat little marks on his flesh. Repugnance and fury rushed over him as his belly tightened and fluttered. He stared at her, not trying to hide his revulsion. “You dared?”

Her eyes had widened again, then returned to normal. She tightened her full lips and lifted her chin defiantly. “The infected wound wasn’t healing, and the doctor could do nothing more for you. There is something in the saliva of a Dracule that promotes healing, and so I thought to help you by applying it.”

Chas heard what she was saying, but it took a moment for her meaning to penetrate the fury. “There are bitemarks,” he said, still angry…feeling violated and unsettled, particularly by the sordid image that went along with the knowledge. Narcise, bending to him…her sensual lips closing intimately over his skin, the pain of penetration, but the release from swollen veins…nausea mixed with that shiver of lust, deep in his belly, and Chas swallowed hard.

This is what they do. They enthrall. And lure.

“I hoped that drawing out the poison, whatever was infecting you, removing it from your body, would help, along with my saliva. Whatever it was, it worked to keep you alive.”

He looked away, his heart beating too hard, his fingers curling into the blanket. “I’m finding it difficult to be grateful,” he managed to say. “But I suppose I must be.”

She’d withdrawn from the bed in the face of his blatant anger, and now she looked at him from where she stood on the other side. “At least you’re honest,” she replied, and turned her back to him.

As he watched, at once struck by the intimacy of sharing this space with a woman he mistrusted, reviled and yet desired, she began to braid the inky waterfall of her hair.

“Did you enthrall me?” he asked, lifting his head, still on edge and furious as he watched her slender shoulders and the delicate edge of her shoulder blades through the thin chemise. She had sleek and elegantly muscled arms, unlike any he’d ever seen on a woman, and he could see the roundness of her buttocks, the curve of her hips. He hated that he wanted her, that his body was changing and responding to her mere presence.

Narcise had stilled at his question, then turned slowly back to face him…so slowly, it was as if she were in agony. “Did I enthrall a helpless man? An unwilling one?” Her deep blue eyes were both fierce with rage and awash with pain. “If you knew what I’ve lived through, how I’ve been violated over decades of captivity, you would never have asked such a question.”

Chas felt as if he’d been struck, and he let his head fall back onto the pillow. Mortification and shame warred with that lingering revulsion and distrust, and he stared at the ceiling, utterly aware of her, knowing he’d wounded her deeply…asking himself why he cared.

She was a vampir. A handmaiden of the Devil. One of a race who preyed on living creatures and took from them, who’d given their souls for immortality, power, money…vanity. The very act of their feeding was an inherent violation of life and liberty. They were conscienceless, depraved, self-centered creatures, with Corvindale being the only real exception he had encountered—the only one who didn’t find it agreeable to feed on living humans.

Chas had been gifted with the ability to sense, stalk and slay these creatures—he knew there was a reason he had. That he was meant to do this as surely as a priest was meant to consecrate the hosts. But.

Narcise had finished her braiding in silence and now she walked over to the single chair on the other side of the chamber. Chas noticed how she avoided the sunlight spilling through the window, but that she looked at it with longing.

Yes. These were creatures who’d given up the light to live in darkness. And sometimes, they regretted it.

“What do you plan to do next?” she asked.

“I need clothing and food,” he replied, “and then I must send word back to London. To my sisters.”

“London. Is that where Dimitri is? I’d like to find him, and see if he would…well, I know he and my brother are sworn enemies. And I hope that he might help me.”

“Corvindale? He might be willing to be of assistance. I suppose you want me to bring you to him.”

Her expression, which had been taut with anger and hurt, lightened. “Is it possible? To get to London, through the blockade?”

He had a mild wave of surprise that she would even be aware of the war between England and France, but then he recalled who her brother’s companion was. Surely even Narcise had been privy to some of the political discussions between Bonaparte and Cezar. “Yes, but it will take some preparation.”

It could be a fortnight or more, and all the while, Corvindale would be saddled with Maia and Angelica. Chas would never hear the end of it.

Then a terrible thought struck him, turning him ice-cold. Moldavi would want revenge on him for escaping, and for taking Narcise with him. And the first place he’d look to do it would be with Maia and Angelica.

He was up and out of bed in an instant. “Where are my clothes? My breeches? My shoes?” He must send word to Corvindale, at least, that the girls would be in danger. The room tilted but he didn’t care.

“They’re gone. You only had your breeches, and they were so—”

“I need something, I must get word back to London.” He looked around the chamber as if expecting clothing to materialize.

She’d risen from the chair and before he’d even taken a step, she was handing him a neatly folded pile. “You didn’t allow me to finish. I was able to obtain clean clothing for you.”

Chas took them silently. If he weren’t so intent on getting out of the inn to see to business, he might have been chastened by her tone. But he couldn’t worry about that now. Moldavi had had a week. A week. Through his alliance with Bonaparte, he could have sent people after Maia and Angelica already, crossing through the blockade.

His knees wobbled a bit as he drew on the breeches, but Chas ignored it. There’d be time for weakness later. The shirt fit well, but the boots were a bit tight—although certainly adequate. As soon as he was dressed, he started for the door…then stopped, with his hand on the knob as he turned back to Narcise.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I trust…I trust you’ll be well alone here?”

She lifted her brows in a wry expression. “I’ve been alone for the last week, Woodmore. I suspect I’ll do just fine in your absence.”

Narcise wasn’t at all oblivious to Chas Woodmore’s revulsion toward her. She didn’t completely understand it, but it gave her a sort of comfort, knowing that he wasn’t about to force himself on her.

Or try to, anyway.

She had no worries about protecting herself from him. Aside of the fact that he was still weak enough to be wavering while on his feet, she was also, of course, stronger and faster than he was even in his prime. Nor did he seem inclined to attempt to slay her, either…although she wasn’t completely certain he wouldn’t try.

The last week of tending to him, however, had helped to ease Narcise into her new life: a life where she was beholden to no one, a life where she made her own decisions, procured her own nourishment, clothing and even drawing supplies.

Nevertheless, she was never wholly comfortable leaving the public house—especially at night, when she knew Cezar or his makes could be out looking for her. She’d become adept at enthralling mortals to gain whatever it was she needed: pencils and paper, a pouch of sous or livres, clothing for herself or Chas…even a full, hot vein on which to feed.

Philippe had visited her chamber more than once. She wasn’t certain if it was coincidence that he was always the one to bring new water for the bath, or whether he sensed that there was a reason he was drawn to this particular chamber.

Until now, Narcise had always approached feeding as some necessary evil akin to submitting to her brother’s friends. A mortal was brought to her, and she fed. Or, during the span of months when she attempted to starve herself rather than submit to Cezar, a jug of fresh blood was forced down her throat.

There was a residual layer of eroticism that always aroused her when she was in such an intimate situation, but it never required satiation—at least on her part.

Philippe seemed eager enough, and more than once during the three times she’d enthralled him had he managed to get himself—or herself—half unclothed. There were moments when she nearly allowed herself to finish what they, or more accurately, their bodies, obviously both wanted…but she never could succumb so far.

For decades, she’d protected her emotions and her heart—not to mention her mind—by separating herself from the reaction of her body and keeping all but the physical response locked deeply away. She was fully aware of that, cognizant of that steely control.

The one chink in that armor had come with Giordan, and since then, she’d melded it back together so tightly she suspected it would never soften again.

Now that she was free of Cezar, however, Narcise realized there could be a chance for her to open herself again. And after ten years, she hadn’t forgotten nor forgiven Giordan. No, in fact she burned with revulsion and loathing for him…but she remembered how it had felt to be awakened. Not with malice or control, or even by reflex.

But with love and affection.

Neither of which, of course, young Philippe possessed toward her—but at least he had no malice or control.

Or so she was thinking as his insistent hand slipped beneath the hem of her chemise. Her fangs pulled free from his flesh and he tried to find her mouth, desperate for a kiss, but she refused, nipping instead at his ear and feeling his cock slide against her belly through layers of cloth. “S’il…vous plaît,” he whispered thickly, and when she pulled away, he frowned petulantly.

Narcise shook her head, looking into his glazed eyes, knowing that he didn’t truly know what he was doing—or wanting—any more than she ever had during those dark nights in The Chamber.

She released him, pulled him free from her thrall and from her arms, and was just stepping back when she heard the doorknob rattle.

Philippe was still too numb and slow to react, or even to understand what was happening, but Narcise knew, and she turned away an instant before the door opened. Chas swept into the chamber in the dark swirling scents of wine and power.

Later, she never fully understood why she felt the need to try to hide what had been going on—but it didn’t matter. Chas’s eyes flashed to her and then around the chamber. The expression on his face spoke clearly of his disgust and aversion.

“Leave,” he snapped at Philippe, the poor confused boy, who stumbled awkwardly from the room with, Narcise knew, half-formed memories of a very intimate situation.

She had a moment to wonder briefly if he’d ever come back, but then irritation and affront spurred her to face Chas. “If you’re afraid your sensibilities will be offended, perhaps you should knock the next time you decide to enter.”

“Perhaps it would be best if you found another place to…do…that. I don’t wish to be any sort of party to your depravity.” His eyes flashed with that cold loathing…yet Narcise felt a shifting in his breathing, an awkwardness in his heartbeat. He strode across the chamber, much steadier on his feet than he had been when he left. She scented food along with the heavy weight of wine, tobacco and smoke, and realized he must have eaten belowstairs. And, from the smell of it, drank quite a bit of wine.

She knew her fangs were still slightly extended, and that her eyes had just banked from their burning glow, but she turned away.

“I have no choice,” she said. “If I don’t feed regularly, then it becomes more difficult for me to control my…” She bit her lip, her cheeks warming.

He’d walked over to the window and snapped the shutters closed, as if shutting out the cool night air would cleanse the room of tension. In fact, it did just the opposite—trapped the scent of blood and wine and musk, and of Chas Wood-more and his energy, his nobility, all the more tightly into the chamber.

Narcise felt a stirring low in her belly, a little flutter that she hardly recognized. No. Not him.

She turned, fighting to pull her fangs back into place. Perhaps she should leave. The sun had nearly set. She could do what she needed to do away from his judgmental, greedy eyes.

“Word is out that we’ve escaped from your brother,” Chas said flatly. “Not only does he have his makes pouring through the streets and along the Palais searching for us, but because of Bonaparte, he’s got the soldiers on the watch during the day.”

A tremor of fear shivered in her belly. “Are we trapped? Will they find us?”

“Of course we aren’t trapped,” he replied, disdain replacing revulsion. She found she preferred that reaction to the disgust in his face. “I can get us out of Paris and across the Channel, but it will take more planning than I’d anticipated.” His face turned expressionless and his eyes skirted away. “We’ll have to stay here for a few days longer.”

Narcise nodded. A bolt of relief that he didn’t intend to leave her alone made her smile a bit and relax. She wasn’t quite ready to be completely on her own yet, particularly in the same city where her brother lived.

There was still that blind fear of being found, and dragged back to his chilly, dark chambers. “Did you send word to Dimitri?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. “How will you get a message through the blockade?”

“We have several methods of communication. In this case, I used a blood pigeon, which navigates across land and sea, and will find the particular person to whom it’s trained to scent by following his or her blood.”

“It smells Dimitri’s blood from London all the way here?”

“No, no. We have many pigeons cloistered about the city, and they each have a location to which they fly, or return home. Once in the vicinity of its home area, the bird will scent the blood and go directly to its master, wherever he is.” Chas had taken a seat in the chair. He rested his elbow on the table next to him and turned up the gas lamp for the darkening room.

“You’re very concerned about your sisters,” she said, wondering what it would be like to have a brother like Chas Woodmore instead of Cezar Moldavi.

“Our parents died more than ten years ago, and since then it’s been just the four of us. We’re very close, of course, but I travel a lot, and so they are often left to their own devices under the watchful eye of their chaperone. But I miss them always, for each of them is so different.”

“Tell me about them. I’ve heard rumors…your family is quite special, isn’t it? You have what is called the Sight?”

“Thanks in part to my great-great-grandmother, who fell in love with her late husband’s groom. He was a Gypsy and since she’d already been married once according to her father’s wishes, now that she was a widow she decided she’d wed whoever she wanted. And so she married her groom. Her great-granddaughter, my Granny Grapes, used to tell us stories about vampirs when we were younger.”

“That’s why you are so successful with hunting the Dracule. Who could be better than one whose family comes from Romania? How did you ever decide that it was important to seek us out and kill the vampirs?”

Chas rose abruptly and walked to the bellpull, ringing it sharply. “Forgive me, but it seems odd to be talking about such things with you.”

“Because you’re sworn to kill me? But you haven’t. In fact, you helped me. Perhaps you aren’t such a merciless hunter after all.”

He looked at her suddenly over his shoulder. “Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am only now planning how to slam a stake into you, pinning you to the bed.” His eyes were dark and glittering. And that was when she realized how very drunk he was. “Or perhaps there are other thoughts weighing on my mind.”

Narcise’s breath clogged and a sharp spear of desire shot through her belly. Her first reaction wasn’t revulsion, however. And that frightened her nearly as much as the thought of being taken back to Cezar.

She was saved from replying by a knock at the door, and as Chas was speaking sharply to whoever had come, she went over and opened the shutters again. Drinking in the cooling air, scenting the chill breeze wafting from the Seine, mixing with smoke and trash and stewing meat, she looked out over the street below.

What if Cezar was out there, right now, looking for her? What if he looked up and saw her peeping down at him? Or across the way—there were windows across the narrow street so close she could jump to them.

Narcise ducked back inside the chamber and realized she and Chas were alone again. “Your sisters? It’s said it is they who have the Sight,” she said, hoping to keep the conversation light…at least until one of them decided to go to sleep.

“The two younger ones do,” Chas replied. “After a fashion.” He still stood at the door, now positioned there with his arms folded over his chest. “But Maia, the oldest, who is still younger than I am by nearly ten years, does not. However, she makes up for it by commanding every aspect of everyone’s lives in the entire household.”

His lips relaxed and nearly eased into a smile—the first one she’d seen on him, it seemed. The effect was very nearly devastating, giving him a soft, sensual look in a highly shadowed face. A dark angel, she thought again—and not in the same way of Lucifer.

“I can hardly imagine how she and Corvindale will get on,” Chas continued, the smile going even wider. “For in my extended absence, I’ve arranged for the earl to attend to them.”

“You speak of her with such affection,” Narcise said. “My brother cared for me so much that he sent Lucifer to me.” She made no effort to hide her hatred and bitterness.

“And so that is how it happened? You blame your brother?” Chas’s voice was whip-sharp and filled with judgment.

But Narcise had come to terms with her fallibility long ago. “I blame my brother only for begging Lucifer to turn me Dracule, for sending him to me, but it was of my own will that I agreed to it.”

“He came to you in a dream?”

“He came, as I believe he must always do, at a most crucial moment, and yes, in a dream. Where one is the weakest, the most vulnerable to his suggestion. I know of no one who was given the opportunity and who declined the Devil’s bargain. If I ever met such a person, I would like to know how he did it.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, curling her lips into themselves. “Someone once said to me that I was the strongest person he’d ever met. But by the time I became strong, it was much too late.” Her insides heaved at the memory of Giordan—and she locked it back away. “I’d already given my soul.”

Someone knocked at the door again, and Chas, who she realized had been waiting for the arrival, opened it. A servant brought in a large jug of ale and two cups, placed them on the table, and left without a word or glance at either of them.

Glad for the interruption and the distraction, Narcise watched as her companion sat back down at the table and poured himself a cup of ale.

“Do you want some?” he asked, then commenced to pouring one for her without waiting for a reply, then set the cup near the opposite edge of the table. He settled back in his seat and took a drink.

She walked over hesitantly and picked up her serving, sipping the strong, bitter drink. It was heavy and warm, and she didn’t particularly care for it…but she found that having something for her hands to do, and her mouth and thoughts to focus on, was a good thing.

“What was the crucial moment?” he asked, pouring another slug into his cup.

“Why do you want to know? So you can find a way to my weakness and slay me?” she shot back, affronted by his curiosity when he seemed so reticent and judgmental.

“Perhaps I only wish to understand you better,” he replied. His words were gently slurred. “I haven’t had the occasion to converse with a vampir on such a subject.”

“Because you’re usually trying to kill them.”

“Yes. I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he said. His eyes were dark and unsettling. “But it would be a sin to destroy one with such beauty.”

“I’m certain it wouldn’t be your first,” she answered, sipping again from her cup as she leaned against the wall, keeping herself distant from him. “Sin, of course.”

“No, indeed not. I’m nearly as evil as you are, Narcise,” he said. “What was the crucial moment? Or will you not assuage my curiosity.”

“As you can imagine, vanity was my great weakness. I am fully aware of how my appearance affects those around me. Men have only lust in their eyes and hearts when they look at me, women hate me or envy me. I had a lover when I was sixteen. Rivrik. My first, and…only…in all the ways that matter.” She nearly choked on the lie, but in her mind it was true.

What she’d had with Giordan could not be classified as love. At least, not anymore.

“Poor Rivrik,” murmured Chas. “I can only imagine his terrible fate.” He refilled his cup again, and she could tell that the jug had become much lighter.

She wasn’t alarmed by his obvious intent to drink himself into oblivion, but rather curious about it. And, she suspected, in the morning he’d remember very little of what she told him tonight. “I had an injury—a burn, from an oil lamp. It was on my face, and I was terrified that it wouldn’t heal, that I’d have scars forever. And that Rivrik would no longer love me.”

“Because, of course, there was nothing about you to love other than your face and body,” he said.

Narcise ignored him. “When Luce came to me and promised that I’d live forever, that I’d never age and that I’d heal completely…I didn’t have the strength to decline. And that’s how it happened.”

“And Rivrik? I’m certain he was delighted to have you intact—except for your damaged soul, of course. But why would he care when he had the rest of you?”

Since these were thoughts Narcise had already considered and raged over, torturing herself with them decades ago, his words didn’t sting. Too much. “He died not long after. I’m fairly certain Cezar had something to do with it.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t offer to turn him Dracule so he could stay with you and your beautiful, youthful self forever.”

Now she was annoyed and pushed herself away from the wall. “Almost immediately after I accepted Lucifer’s covenant, I realized what a mistake I’d made. I never even considered visiting such a fate on Rivrik.”

“Ah, then. A Dracule with a conscience. With regret. They are so very far and few between.” He upended the jug and the last bit of ale sloshed into his cup.

Then he lounged back into the chair, his legs spread haphazardly, his head tilting back so much that she thought he’d fallen asleep. But then he moved, loosening the knot at the top of his shirt, and yanking it from the waist of his breeches. He’d already toed off his boots some time earlier, and now she noticed his dark, long feet, bare on the wooden floor.

“And so, then, Narcise,” he said suddenly, sitting up. His face had turned dark and fierce, and he set the cup on the table without looking. His eyes, lit to glowing by the gas lamp, pinned her gaze. “Here we are.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he’d heaved himself from his chair, and now he made his way to the other side of the table. His fingers brushed the top of it as if to give him balance, and he walked smoothly but with the slightest bit of stagger that indicated just how far into his cups he was.

Narcise’s heart began to thump very hard, and her mouth dried. Even drunk and sloppy, he was dark and exotic looking. Intimidating with his superior height and broad shoulders.

Yet, she made no move to recoil or otherwise back away, even when he came right up to her. But when he grabbed the front of her chemise and slammed her up against the wall, she was so shocked she didn’t have time to react before he put his face right up close to hers.

Eyes furious and dark, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a ferocious grimace, he said, “If you ever attempt to enthrall me, I’ll kill you.”

15

Chas opened his eyes. The room was dim with threatening dawn, a pale scrim of light cast over the furnishings.

He sat up, still feeling the remnants of last night’s wine and ale. The empty jug sat on the table where he’d left it and the scent of stale hops permeated the chamber.

Narcise slept next to him on the bed, warm and close and smelling of sleep, of her. Fully clothed. Out of reach.

A rush of desire flooded him and he closed his eyes again, trying to push it away. He couldn’t allow his thoughts to go along that route. Too dangerous, too degrading.

She was a practiced seductress. Aside of the fact that eroticism and sensuality always went along with the Draculia, he’d seen evidence of it when he came in upon her little tête-à-tête with the servant Philippe.

The poor sot had been out of his mind with desire and need…and the devil of it was, he had no idea what was happening. He had no control over himself or his actions.

Chas’s mouth tightened and he settled on disgust. He’d not fall prey to that sort of lure. He’d never allow himself to be used thus, to lose mastery over himself. He recalled the fury he’d summoned when he dragged her up against the wall last night and threatened to kill her. He would. If she ever turned those lulling, coaxing, burning eyes on him, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it.

He slid off the mattress, one of those rare people who hardly felt the effects of overimbibing. There was a dull, gentle pounding in the back of his head, but other than that, and the need for a drink of water, he felt as he normally did in the morning. Although it really was much too early to be up and about for a gentleman; normally one didn’t see the light of the sun before noon.

Yet, despite the early hour and the large amounts of wine and ale he’d consumed, Chas’s head was clear. He remembered everything from the evening before—including the way he’d had to fairly thrust Narcise away after getting so close to her in that moment of fury. Too close.

Especially when, after the surprise, her eyes had narrowed in interest and admiration.

He used the chamber pot—which was the cause for his early rousing—and then the water in the basin to wash his face and rinse his mouth of the vestiges of stale drink. Then he turned back to the bed.

The shift Narcise had taken to wearing as a night rail gapped away from her throat and shoulders, exposing delicate collarbones and the shadow of other delights deeper still.

Chas pivoted away, opting for the chair to finish his slumber. He remembered full well the feel of her body pressed against his when he shoved her against the wall, his face close to hers.

That had almost been his undoing…she was just there, in front of him. He’d even had a handful of her clothing, his fingers curling into the flesh above her breasts just before she shoved him away. His caution was just that much dulled by the drink, and the knowledge of what she’d been doing in the chamber with that servant boy still lingered in the back of his mind. His imagination filled in the details of what had gone on before he interrupted…what would have happened if he had not.

And as much as he’d attempted to drink himself into oblivion, he was fully aware of his body’s response to her, his attraction to and curiosity about her.

Why did she have to be a vampir?

The pounding in his head had become stronger and he abandoned the idea of slumping in the chair and trying to sleep there. He’d fallen into…onto…the bed before she had last night, and she obviously had no qualms about sleeping next to him, and so why should he be concerned?

He climbed back into his place on the mattress, noting that the blankets were still warm from where he’d lay moments earlier, but that her hand had crept away from her cheek and now lay just beneath his pillow.

All thoughts of sleep fled as he settled down next to her, his face very close to hers, but yet distant enough that he could focus on her features. A soft, warm scent filtered from her hair and skin and he found it difficult to dismiss.

He found her impossible to dismiss.

The sun seemed to be taking her time rising today, and the chamber continued to be filled with indistinct shapes except in a rectangular patch beneath the window. But Chas could somehow make out the fringe of Narcise’s dark lashes and the little accent line at the corner of her mouth. And he noticed, for the first time, a tiny beauty mark at the corner of her left eye.

Before he could stop himself, he reached and settled his hand, open, onto the cascade of hair falling over her shoulder. Slowly he traced its smooth sheen along her head and over her shoulder and arm, lightly, lightly…hardly more than a feather touch. Her warmth seeped from beneath the silkiness into his palm, and although she gave a little tremor in her sleep, she didn’t waken.

Chas touched her again, sliding his fingers around a coil of hair that had fallen in front of her shoulder and hung like a corkscrew. Curling it around his finger, he rubbed the lock between two finger pads, then let it fall back against her bosom.

His heart had begun to swell and pound all that much harder, for he knew she couldn’t enthrall him while she was sleeping. Which meant that what he felt—that deep tug, that insistent pull of attraction—was real. And it was strong.

He just hoped to God it wouldn’t destroy him, for he didn’t think there was any way to turn back.

She felt the same simmering attraction; he’d seen it when he interrupted her feeding on that youthful servant yesterday. She’d had the boy, but wanted him. Chas.

It was in her eyes when she saw him walking through the door.

A little pang twisted his belly. Yes, she wanted him, but he could never allow her to take from him as she’d done with the footman. He wouldn’t lose that control, he wouldn’t ever slip into that maelstrom of hunger and need that he’d experienced at Rubey’s…that night where he was out of his mind with pleasure, with the need to have his blood freed, sopped up, drawn…

Chas swallowed the thick lump in his throat. Even now, a month later, the shame and humiliation made him ill. How could he have become so base, so depraved as to allow a servant of the Devil to control him?

But here was another temptation…a greater one. Narcise was beyond beautiful…she was also intelligent and brave. And she’d stayed with him when he was dying.

For God’s sake, she’d even violated him…but to save his life.

What a turnabout that was for a Dracule.

A deep little tremor went through him and he closed his eyes. No. Not her.

And yet…he could not keep from touching her. It was as if a magnet drew his hand, his fingers, his attention to her.

It wasn’t until he brushed a swath of hair back from her temple and cheek that Narcise stirred. She opened her eyes, and as soon as they focused, sleepiness fled. They flashed wide with surprise and then apprehension as she started with a slight jolt…and then her expression shifted just as quickly into confusion.

His heart pounded and desire shivered in his belly.

Her eyes were colorless and dark in the shadows, and he looked into them as he did the only thing he could think to do…he eased closer, sliding his hand around beneath her ear, and covered her mouth with his.

Despite the sudden rage of pleasure bursting in him, Chas took his time with the kiss…gently meeting her lips, curving into them, moving his against hers in sensual little circles.

She made a soft sound and began to turn her head away, but he slipped his fingers tighter around the back of her neck and pulled her close, turning the kiss deeper and more coaxing. He slipped his tongue into her warm, sleek mouth, pulled away and went back to nibbling on her lips, using the tip of his tongue to tease the corners. She trembled, at last kissing him back, her hand settling on his chest…not to shove him away as she’d done last night when he had her against the wall, but digging her fingers into the cloth there.

He wanted her, but he had no urgency, and their kiss went on and on…deep and long, and then gentle and seductive as they explored the taste and texture of the other.

When she twisted her face away at last, he saw that she was crying. That a little trickle had slipped from the corner of her eye and slid into the hair at her temple.

A stab of pain and fear caught him and he pulled away sharply. “What is it? Narcise?”

Good God, he hadn’t expected this—from a strong, seductive woman like her.

She wiped the tear away and turned her incredible blue eyes onto him. There was enough light now that he could see how they brimmed with pain and sorrow, but she curved her lips into a little smile. “I haven’t kissed anyone in a very long time.”

“I’m sorry,” he said uncertainly, feeling an unexpectedly soft unfurling inside him. It had been very easy to think of her as a hard, calculating woman bent on having—and controlling—any man in her path. But the expression in her face could only be described as heartbroken.

Her lips twisted wryly. “It’s not for you to be sorry.” Her gaze flickered away for an instant, and Chas began to ease back.

She looked at him and reached to tug him back closer to her. “Kiss me again.”

He obliged, happily, despite the niggling worry in the back of his mind. He was beginning to realize that there were things about her that weren’t obvious.

Her lips, so full and soft, covered his and drove all worries from his mind. He pulled her closer to delve deeper, tasting a bit of salt from her tears, and doing what he could to help her forget whatever it was that made her grieve.

Meanwhile, his free hand slid to the front of her chemise and found the little drawstring tie there. Loosening it, he slid his hand down the front of the gapping bodice as he trailed gentle kisses from her mouth along the slender curve of her jaw.

Her breathing changed when he found one of her breasts, closing his fingers around it and cupping its weight in his palm. Her nipple jutted into his thumb and he settled there, gently massaging its very tip as she shivered and sighed, rolling her body closer to him.

His breeches were tight and his shirt clinging hot and too heavy, but he was loathe to release her and take them off. Instead he pulled the drawstring even looser and tugged her bodice open more, down over her shoulders, so that he could slip south and close his mouth around her. She was sweet and warm, tinged with salt and musk, and he drew her deep into his mouth, sliding his tongue around her sensitive nipple. Around and around, darting and sleekly teasing.

Narcise arched into his mouth and he felt her legs shifting along his, capturing one of his breeches-clad thighs between hers in a sensual slide. He sucked harder, rhythmically, and she sighed, shivering against him as he dragged her hips closer.

When he pulled away to tear off his shirt, sitting back on his haunches, he saw her eyes burning, glowing red and orange and the tips of her fangs showing beneath her upper lip. A shaft of desire stabbed him low in the gut at the thought of those sharp points sliding into his flesh, of the bursting release of simmering need. He had a flash of her gouging him, goring into his shoulder or neck or arm, greedy and sensual, just as she had to that poor servant boy, and he forced himself to look away, fighting the temptation. No.

God, no.

Disgust made his belly pitch and swing, desire and lust weakened him, and he nearly pushed her away when Narcise reached for his bare shoulders, closing her fingers around him. But instead, he went with her, his torso warm against her breasts.

She pulled him back down onto the bed as he fought the memory of the night he’d spent at Rubey’s, bitten and dragged on in a whorl of red lust. His body craved the release, his cock full and ready, the feel of the blood flowing freely into her hot mouth, the pain and pleasure of her mouth, sensual and demanding.

When Narcise’s hand found the buttons on the placket of his breeches, Chas felt his whole body stiffen in expectation and control. She slipped her hand down the loosened waistband and closed around his throbbing erection, using her thumb to tease its tip just as he had done to her swollen nipple.

Somehow, her chemise had slipped away, and next went his breeches, and they were flesh to flesh. His dark Gypsy skin, textured with hair, sleek with muscle, slid against her soft ivory curves. He felt her readiness, damp and warm, and turned his mind from the burning in her eyes as he parted her legs and pulled her on top of him.

She eased herself into place and his eyes fairly rolled back into his head as they fit together in a shaft of pure pleasure. Narcise shifted her hips, rocking a bit, and he felt himself gathering up into that coil of release…and then she leaned forward, her eyes glowing, her fangs exposed.

Chas’s heart thumped madly, his neck throbbing, heat rushing through his body as she shifted over him, rocking, sliding, and then easing her hands up along his torso as she bent over him. His skin burned, his fingers dug into her arms, pulling her close even as he knew he should be pushing her away…but the lust had taken hold, and the red heat caught him, and all he could think about was her pressed against him, her breasts against his chest, her face buried in his throat… He wanted that sharp, stinging pain.

No, he thought, but he wanted it nevertheless. As they strained and shifted against each other, his muscles bunching and his blood surging, her soft panting warm against his throat, he imagined the slide of her into his skin, imagined the burst of pleasure, the heat flowing into her mouth as he would burst inside her.

“Narcise,” he gasped, the lust rising higher, tighter, the bed rocking and shifting beneath them. Bite me. Take me.

She shifted and for a moment, he thought she was about to pull away, but then her lips were warm and moist against his neck. Desire flared inside him…yes, yes…her tongue, slick and hot, traced the tendon, the side of his neck.

He moved faster, gathered her closer, tipped his head to the side, baring his throat and shoulder. Please.

Don’t. No.

Please.

And then she shifted, and he felt her lips go wide against him and then the sharp stabs of pain, brief and hot, and then the burst of his blood surging free. Release.

He gave a low, agonized cry as waves of pleasure undulated through him. He exploded twice inside her, into her mouth, into the deepest part of her center as she heaved and shuddered against him, her face still buried in his neck.

Then…even as he filtered back from the edge of nowhere, the lust still vibrating inside him, Chas felt the competing rush of ugliness bubbling up. Sharp little pulses from the marks on his shoulder served as prickling reminders of his depravity, opening himself up to the pleasure of the Devil.

He closed his eyes and turned away.

Narcise slipped away from him, easing back to her side of the bed, exhausted and sated. She closed her eyes, still tasting Chas on her lips and tongue, still quivering with the last bit of pleasure.

Her body was warm and loose in a way that it hadn’t been for so long. So very long. Their joining had been passionate, yet slow and tender, the desire coaxed from where she’d locked it deep inside her until it rushed out in a surge of completion.

It had been so long since she’d felt true pleasure…and yet, despite its truth, her joining with Chas left her with a hollow space deep inside. Confusion warred with satisfaction and when she felt him stirring next to her, Narcise welcomed the distraction and opened her eyes.

He’d shifted away, lying flat on his back, the back of his arm resting over his eyes. His chest—smooth slabs of muscle and dusky damp skin—still shifted with rough breathing. And a trickle of blood eased down along into the hollow of his throat.

Narcise realized that in the throes of passion and release, she hadn’t finished tending to the bite. Her mouth dried in anticipation as she thought of touching his smooth, dark skin again, tasting the last bit of salt and musk mingling with the warm blood.

She lifted herself up onto an elbow, closer to him, and leaned over the rich, shining ooze. He stiffened, sensing her nearness, and she lightly closed her fingers over the squared-off angle of his shoulder as she bent to cover the bitemarks with her mouth. She’d barely begun to lick up the remains when suddenly he moved. His arm shifted, and at first she thought he was going to grab her closer to him again, but then she saw his face. Taut and dark and damp.

And then all at once, he erupted from the bed and lunged toward the table. Snatching up the basin, he vomited into it with great violence as he bent over the table. As she watched, curious and concerned, he lifted his face, swiping his mouth with a bare arm, then—all dark and naked and muscled—stalked over to the window and flung the contents out.

She winced, hoping there was no one below, and remained silent as he rinsed out the dish with water from its pitcher and dumped that below as well.

When he finished his own ablutions in the clean basin, Chas turned back to her. The expression on his face was carefully blank, but Narcise was distracted by the shiny spot on his throat she’d been tasting a moment earlier.

“Apparently I imbibed too heavily last night,” he said coolly.

“You need give me no explanation for your illness,” she replied, wondering why he’d felt the need to do so. And then she offered a defense of her own. “I hope you aren’t under the impression that I enthralled you.”

His mouth twisted as if he were either in pain or about to laugh, and he turned away, giving her another excellent view of his long, lean back and tight, square buttocks. His tousled hair nearly covered his nape, winging up every which way around his head and ears. She also noted what was, of course, absent from his muscular shoulders: the Mark of Lucifer.

“No, I am not under that impression,” he replied. His attention slipped down and Narcise realized she was still completely naked, her chemise having gone the way of the bedcoverings during their lovemaking. She also realized, with a start, that for the first time in as long as she could remember, her body remained unmarked and smooth after coitus. No bites or cuts.

Chas was moving toward her, his eyes hot and dark. And determined. “But perhaps we should try it again,” he said, “to be certain.”

Narcise’s heart thumped and she felt her body begin to tighten in anticipation. “Perhaps we should,” she replied, wondering if this time she might banish the hollowness.

She saw that he was ready for her, his cock lifting and filling, his eyes burning in their own mortal fashion. But she wasn’t prepared for him to turn her around, facing away from him. He eased her toward the bed, gently but firmly, until the fronts of her thighs bumped it.

“My God,” he said as he pulled the hair away from her shoulders and neck. His fingers moved lightly over the faint rise of Luce’s Mark.

It grew from beneath her hair on the right side and spread down over the back of her shoulder to just past her scapula: curling, rootlike tendrils. Hers was softer in shape and lighter in color than others he’d seen, most of which looked like cracks in shattered glass.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, still gently tracing over the Mark. His voice in her ear brought deeper, gentler shivers down along the side of her neck.

“Not now,” she told him, curving her hands up and around to touch the back of his head. His hair filtered around her fingers, warm and heavy, and as she combed through, a renewed wave of his scent released into the chamber.

“I’ve seen Dimitri’s Mark,” Chas commented, sliding his hands along the curves of her torso as he lined himself up behind her. “It’s thick and black and raging, as if it were filled with evil.”

Narcise might have responded if he hadn’t slipped his hands around to cup her breasts, if he hadn’t begun to distract her thoughts by sliding his thumbs over her nipples.

He nuzzled the side of her neck, his lips full and the tip of his tongue a gentle, moist tease that sent gentle, insistent shivers through her. Narcise realized vaguely that there would be no sharp pain, no quick slide of fangs, no release from her pounding veins, and it was odd…but pleasant.

But as he eased her onto the bed, reaching around to the front of her, fingers exploring the depths of her quim to make certain she was as ready for him as he seemed to be for her, she realized what he was keeping her—and her gaze—facing away from.

Narcise could have been offended, or annoyed, but when he slid deep into place, her body welcomed him and she gave no more thought to anything except that delicious rhythm of pleasure.

And when she arched and shuddered, slamming back against his hips, her hands braced on the bed, he gave a low groan in her ear and surged one last time. She felt him find release, and allowed her arms to give way so she tumbled face-first onto the mattress.

Chas followed her, disengaging, and sliding his hand along her spine and over her bottom as he sank down next to her.

Narcise lay there for a moment, and as the last vestiges of bliss eased, she thought about what had happened…on all fronts.

He’d kissed her. He’d started this whole incident by kissing her…so intimate, so long and thorough and absent of the need for control…and she’d let him. She’d let him do something only Giordan had done. Was it to banish her memories and grief over him?

But she didn’t want to think about Giordan now. He had no place in her thoughts, in her life, in this place with Chas Woodmore.

Yet… “Are we going to London?” she asked. Hadn’t Cezar mentioned that Giordan was in London? Her heart seized up and she blanked out her mind.

“As soon as I can arrange it,” Chas replied.

She glanced at him and noted that his face seemed only a bit less tense than it had earlier—despite two bouts of coitus. “Is something wrong? Weren’t you satisfied that I didn’t enthrall you this last time?”

The chagrin—and perhaps shame—showed on his face. “I don’t fuck vampires,” he told her flatly. “Because I don’t want to be controlled.”

Narcise pulled away, fury bubbling inside her. It was a welcome emotion, replacing her other softer, confused one. “But apparently you do fuck vampires, Chas, because you just did. Twice.”

“I know,” he said, misery flashing in his face for a moment. Then his expression was cold and flat again. “It was…incredible. You’re incredible, Narcise, and, damn me to hell, I can’t stay away from you.” He rose from the bed with sharp, short movements. “I can’t keep my hands or thoughts off you.”

As she watched, confused and angry, he yanked on his breeches with a snap of the fabric, dragged on his boots and picked up his discarded shirt. “No matter how hard I try,” he said, his jaws tight together, “I can’t make you into the evil, manipulative demon I want you to be.”

“Why do you want to do that?” she asked, affronted and yet fascinated in spite of herself. She was beginning to realize that his anger wasn’t directed at her, but at himself.

“So I can kill you, damn it.” With fury and rage surrounding him, Chas stalked from the room, still holding his wadded up shirt.

He didn’t return until well after the sun went down, and this time, he didn’t reek of drink. She’d spent the day drawing scenes from the window, using the pencils and paper she’d managed to charm from unsuspecting shopkeepers—and through Philippe—during Chas’s feverish illness.

When he came into the chamber, she looked up briefly, then returned to her sketch. Much of Notre Dame’s towers were visible from her window, and despite the irony of a soul-damaged vampire drawing a holy place, Narcise had spent much effort on the sketch. Now that it was getting darker, she was working from memory.

The emperor had ordered the area around the famous church to be cleared of old buildings, piles of garbage and debris left from the years of neglect during the Revolution. He insisted that the streets around the cathedral be emptied and widened for his upcoming coronation, which was to take place inside. Soldiers and city workers had been toiling over the project for the last month, and it would take well into the autumn before they were finished…or so Narcise had heard him complain to Cezar. Because of this, the coronation had been moved to early November.

“We’re leaving Paris tomorrow,” said Chas, sitting heavily on the bed. “I’ve made the arrangements.”

She nodded briefly but remained intent on her work, trying to ignore the spike of apprehension in her belly.

“Your brother has the entire city looking for us,” he continued. “But he isn’t certain we’re even together. That works to our advantage. We have to go during the day, so I’ve taken precautions for you. You’ll be driving a cart with a coffin in back…which will contain me—a corpse dead from the plague. I’ll stuff the box with old meat beneath me so as to attract flies, and to make a stink, and will fill your pockets with it as well. You’ll dress as an elderly woman with a large hat and gloves to protect you from the sun and will be taking your dead husband to the country.”

Silence reigned between them for a moment, broken only by the distant shouts from the street below, and a burst of raucous laughter from the pub beneath the floor underfoot. Her pencil scratched quietly as she shaded one of the windows in the square-shaped towers.

“Do you still wish to go to London?”

At that, she rested her pencil on the paper and turned to look at him. “Only if you can suffer my manipulative, evil presence,” she said stiffly.

His face tightened. “Narcise, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, but understand, I spend my life hunting and killing the Dracule. It’s not often that I find one worth saving.”

She tossed her head and looked back down at her work, lit by a nearby lamp. To her horror, it began to blur and she furiously blinked back the tears. She hadn’t cried in decades, and now in the last week, she’d teared up three times. Was she growing soft?

“Narcise,” he said, his voice softer. He rose and came to stand behind her, his fingers sliding gently over her hair. “You saved my life. You stayed with me when you could have left. I was a fool for saying those things to you today. It’s just that…I’m beginning to have feelings for you, and it’s not what I expected.”

She turned to look up at him and read the bleakness in his eyes. “I’m sorry it’s so difficult for you,” she said, her voice emotionless.

He shrugged, a rueful smile curving his lips. “I am, too. Narcise, I am sorry.” He drew in a deep breath and said, “I’ll keep you safe. I have a secret place, a small estate in Wales where you can hide…where no one will find you.”

She looked at him, her heart leaping. Wales was far from London; she knew that. “Yes,” she said, knowing that her heart was in her eyes. “Thank you, Chas.”

He gave that little shrug again and said, “And maybe you’ll allow me to stay with you for a while.” His grin was crooked.

“Of course,” she said, and smiled back.

His gaze darkened and his lips parted slightly. “You are the most beautiful woman,” he breathed. “God help me.”

He reached for her hand and she rose from her chair, suffused for the first time with comfort and security. She trusted him, and somehow, he’d come to trust her.

As long as they made their safe escape from Paris, she would have the chance to be free of Cezar forever.

16

Two weeks later

Reither’s Close, a village outside of London

Narcise paced the small chamber, trying not to imagine what was happening in the pub below. Trying not to picture the meeting between Chas and Giordan Cale.

More than a week ago, she and Chas had arrived on the British shore in the dead of night. Safe.

Between his careful planning, the livres and guineas he’d used to grease palms and her ability to enthrall, their exit from Paris and subsequent passage through the English blockade of the Channel had gone expediently and smoothly.

Without even a detour to London, they were on their way to Chas’s secret estate in Wales, but had stopped for three nights at an inn in Reither’s Closewell, a small village west of London, so that he could send word to Corvindale and wait for a response.

Everything had gone well during their stay until Chas extricated himself from Narcise’s arms—and bed—and informed her that he was to meet a gentleman in the public room below.

When he said, “Perhaps you don’t remember Giordan Cale, but he’s a confidant of Dimitri,” Narcise’s entire world had halted.

“Not titled, but rich as Croesus and,” Chas continued with a bit of a laugh, “more than a match for me. I met him when I sneaked in to stake him. Obviously we both lived.”

Narcise found her voice. “Obviously.”

“I can meet him below, but it wouldn’t be as private if I asked him up here. Less chance of us being seen.”

“No,” was all she said. But inside, her body was shriveling into panic. She had to close her fingers together to hide their sudden trembling.

Was Chas watching her closely, or was it her imagination?

“Very well, Narcise.”

And she wondered what, if anything, he knew about their history.

For, despite their continued intimacy, she hadn’t told Chas about what had happened with Giordan and Cezar. Those events of a decade ago were no longer relevant, and there wasn’t any sense in reigniting the memories, reliving that horrible time.

As she imagined their conversation, she tried not to think about the fact that Giordan would scent her the moment he approached. Her presence was everywhere on Chas, and Giordan would know not only that she was near, but he’d immediately understand the nature of their relationship.

Would he even care?

As Narcise continued to trace the boundaries of the room, avoiding the narrow strips of fading sunlight from between awkwardly fitting shutters, she found herself wondering just what was, precisely, the nature of her relationship with Chas.

Not that Dracule had relationships like mortals did. After all, eternity was a very long time. Marriage was futile—at least with a mortal, who’d die long before the Dracule would, not to mention grow old and shriveled while the vampir remained ever young. And female Dracule, at least, didn’t seem able to procreate—at least not in the way their mortal female counterparts did.

And as for love… Narcise had come to realize that love was a mortal concept. A mortal curse. Dracule didn’t truly love, because to love meant to place someone before oneself. And a vampir simply did not do that. Ever. If one even thought about doing such a thing, Lucifer burned and blazed through the pulsing coils on one’s back and influenced those actions back to where they should be: to self. Of course, a Dracule was all about passion and lust and pleasure, and if one happened to give it during the time one was also receiving, then so be it.

Therefore, what had been between her and Giordan couldn’t have been love. Not at all.

For more than three weeks, she and Chas had been together as partners in their escape from Cezar and lovers since that morning he’d kissed her. And since the day Chas had told her he had feelings for her, and how much he loathed the fact that he did, the bond between them had been strengthening.

Not simply a bond of passion and lust, but a layer of respect and blossoming affection. She trusted him, she wanted to be with him, she enjoyed his body. Yet, Narcise was under no impression that she loved Chas.

She sensed that she could just as easily awaken one night and realize she wouldn’t truly miss him in her life. That if he left, she would be sad, but not…destroyed.

Perhaps that was because she’d come to realize one disturbing thing about Chas: he hated—perhaps even feared—her Draculean tendencies, and he loathed himself for being attracted to a vampir.

It was as if he were at war within himself: he wanted her to bite him, to feed on him…but he hated himself when he responded to such titillation.

Yet, he cared for her. Deeply. He brought her little gifts—flowers, lace, hair combs. Even an ivory busk, which fit into the vertical pocket of her corset, down between her breasts. No more than two fingers wide, as thin as a knife blade and about as long as her hand, it was beautifully carved with more flowers, and leafy vines, and a sun radiating bold rays.

“Because I know how much you miss the sun,” he’d said when she looked at it, smoothing her fingers over the delicate design. “You can keep it near your heart.”

She had. She’d slipped it into the little pocket of her corset and even now, she pressed her hand there, between her breasts, and felt the sturdy little placket there.

Then she heard the pounding of hurried, ascending footsteps and then the hasty scuff as feet reached the top, and Narcise froze, waiting. If Giordan had somehow come back with him, or—

The door to the chamber opened sharply and her heart surged into her throat as she looked at the blur of a figure rushing in. When she scented and recognized Chas, his hair dark and wild, his face tense and angry, she went even colder. What had Giordan said? What had they done?

“I’m leaving,” he said, throwing clothing into his pack, hardly giving her more than a brief look. “For London. It’s Voss. He’s abducted Angelica.”

If Chas was unsettled about being with a vampir himself, he was even more rigid and terrified about his sisters being abducted or otherwise seduced by a Dracule. He well knew the violence and terror that could be inflicted by one of them.

If one were to be honest, Narcise must admit that she had had more than a few pangs of envy that these three mortal women had a brother who loved them so much and was so concerned for their safety that he would risk his own life to keep them safe. And, apparently, Chas would leave the side of his lover when one of them was in danger—even if said lover was in grave danger herself.

“London?” she repeated, a variety of thoughts shooting through her brain. “But that’s the first place Cezar will look for me. For us,” she added.

“It certainly is, but I have to go, Narcise.” Chas stopped and looked up at her. “I’ve made arrangements for you to stay here. You’ll be safe, and Cale will take you on to Wales while Corvindale and I find Voss….”

But Narcise hadn’t heard anything after the words Cale will take you. Her brain simply froze, her stomach plummeted and she felt dizzy. Nauseated.

I can’t see him again. I can’t.

The memories flooded back, the glimpses of sleek, muscled shoulders by firelight, her brother’s face rising behind them, lips peeled back in pleasure and pain…the scents of depravity and the raging in his eyes. Do you have any idea what I’ve done for you?

She swallowed hard, gave her head a little shake. No. By the Fates, no.

“I’ll come with you,” she said quickly.

Chas stopped his packing and looked at her sharply. “But you don’t want to go to London. It’s too dangerous.”

“You’ll protect me,” she said, smiling with a bit of seduction. Not too much. “I don’t want to be away from you, Chas.” She dropped her voice low, trying to keep the panic out. “You got us out of France, you’ve outwitted Cezar every step of the way…and London is your own city. You’ll be even sharper and smarter there. As well, I’d like to meet your sisters. And Dimitri again.”

His face eased just a bit. “I confess, I would rather you come with me. But I didn’t think you’d want to take the chance.”

“London is a big city,” she replied, relief sweeping her. “There are, I’m certain, many places to hide. Aside of that, Cezar wouldn’t expect us to go there, and hide in plain sight.”

Chas nodded. “Then pack up. I’ll send word to Cale that his services to take you to Wales won’t be necessary.”

“I’m certain the man didn’t wish to be bothered with such a task anyway,” she said, turning to stuff her own belongings—such as they were—into a different satchel.

If she’d hoped for a reply, some sort of indication regarding Giordan’s feelings toward her, she didn’t receive one, for Chas had already left the chamber.

Forcing herself to breathe normally, she closed her eyes for a moment and thanked the Fates—or whoever—that had helped her avoid what would have been an untenable situation.

Traveling to Wales with Giordan Cale?

Narcise would have run back to Cezar first.

London, a week later

“You’re a very unusual vampire, to be sure, Giordan Cale.”

He looked up from where he’d been casually feeding on Rubey’s warm, creamy shoulder as a bit of foreplay and withdrew his fangs gently. Swallowing the last essence of sweetness, he smiled slightly and soothed the marks with his tongue and lips.

“In what way?” Giordan replied, settling back against the arm of the divan.

Rubey, who was half reclining on the opposite end of that furnishing, made a fetching picture. She had strawberry-blond hair that curled around her face when not restrained, and where one could occasionally find a thread of gray. Tonight she wore it in a loose tail gathered at her nape, little curls flirting with her temples and ears. Her lushly curved but slender body reminded one of a peach in color as well as in taste, and Giordan fancied she even had a permanent hint of peach brandy in her essence. It was, after all, her favorite libation, and he kept her supplied with an excellent selection of it. Her face was more striking than classically beautiful with wise green-gray eyes that tipped up at the sides and very high, sculpted cheekbones.

He’d never seen her in anything but the most expensive, fashionable clothing, and tonight was no exception. She wore silky pale green with darker green and yellow ribbons that gathered up the bodice of her dressing gown. Thanks to him, said bodice was loosened, exposing a vast expanse of breast and one marred shoulder, where thin trickles of blood gathered in the hollow of her collarbone.

“Why, and how long would it take me to count the ways,” she replied with a woeful shake of the head and the lilt of the Irish. Her eyes sparkled with wit and intelligence.

Giordan gave a brief smile and thought about loosening those ribbons at her bodice even more, but realized he wasn’t all that interested in pursuing that avenue tonight.

“Perhaps I could trouble you to name just one way,” he replied mildly, his thoughts slipping from the conversation to…other topics that, generally, he preferred to leave alone in the darkness. Where they belonged.

He rose from the divan, clad only in shirtsleeves and the current male fashion of pantaloons, and went to the cabinet. But of course they were in her private apartments, in a separate building from the pleasure house and the rest of her staff—most of whom were otherwise privately engaged as well.

“Very well,” she replied, and he felt her eyes on him as he poured a glass of whiskey.

There were two small decanters of ruby-fresh blood from which he could add to the drink, but he wasn’t certain where they’d originated, and he dared not take the chance.

Ever since what he’d come to think of as the After Hell, he’d had to be very careful about where and on whom he fed.

A lot of other things had changed as well.

“You switched the mousetraps,” Rubey mused as he poured her a small glass of the peach brandy.

“And that makes me unusual? The poor creatures were being crushed in the neck by the springs of the traps,” he replied, handing her the drink.

“Aye, and why should it matter to you? The mice don’t belong in my place, and I’m going to see that if they trespass, they pay the price,” she replied tartly.

“A bit bloodthirsty, are we?” he asked, aware of a niggling discomfort with her choice of topic. He was different now, and even Dimitri didn’t know about it all.

He just thought Giordan’s feeding preferences had changed…but it was so much more than that.

“But now the new traps, they let the little bastards just get captured until they’re set loose,” Rubey said. “To weasel their way into someone else’s house.”

“Better that than yours,” Giordan replied, and considered that it might be a good diversion to loosen those ribbons at her bodice after all. He settled back down on the divan much closer to her this time, his thigh lined up along where her skirts angled off the sofa.

“And then there’s the way you feed,” she said, eyeing him closely. “Sure as the day’s long, you’re not like any other vampire I’ve ever met. Excepting Dimitri, of course, but he don’t feed on anyone anyway.”

“I am discriminating in my choice of libation,” Giordan agreed, sliding his fingers up to the ribbons and filtering his fingers through the loose knots. “Aren’t you?” he asked with a smile.

But of course, Rubey didn’t cast up her accounts if she partook of a piece of steak or a chicken leg….

He could still remember those black, bleak days when he hadn’t realized what was happening, and he hadn’t understood why he’d feed and then no sooner had he finished than it all came furiously, violently back up again. His mouth and throat had been scorched dry, his belly sore and weak from the constant purging. The taste of bile-laden blood, rushing back up through his throat and burning into his mouth and nose, was a disgusting, degrading sensation he’d never forget.

Thank the Fates for Drishni and Kritanu, helping him understand how he’d changed. How he must have answered the voice that said in his head: Choose.

How he’d found light after all the darkness. Soothing, peaceful, warm…after so many years of darkness.

If it hadn’t been for them, he’d have gone mad.

More mad than he’d already been, after Narcise.

Rubey made a moue of distaste. “Sure and it’s ironic, the way I run a house of pleasure for them who drink blood when the very thought of a bloody steak or the leg of a hen makes me ill. My pappa couldn’t ever understand why I was happy with only potatoes and greens.”

Giordan might have replied but his shift toward the ever-expanding exposure of her bodice was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Blast it,” Rubey said, disappointment clearly in her tones. “What is it?” she called.

The door eased open and one of her servants—a large brute of a mortal man named Eduardo, whom Giordan didn’t wholly trust—stepped in holding a small silver tray. “A message has just arrived for Mr. Cale,” he said.

Giordan took the note, which was marked with Corvindale’s seal, and broke into it. “Meeting here tonight with Wood-more. Voss still in city. Come.”

He closed it up, a myriad of emotions running through him—the foremost and strongest being pain. Darkness. But Giordan drew in a deep, steadying breath and after a moment, his red vision and the pounding, trammeling feeling eased. His fingers relaxed.

There was a time when he’d have had no qualms, no hesitation about snapping the neck of someone like Woodmore—particularly since, several months back, he found the man in the rooms Giordan had let in London, preparing to hang his heart on a stake. Some sort of gray-black smoke was trickling from the fireplace and Woodmore was caught off guard by Giordan’s wakefulness during the day and, he learned later, a malfunction of some sort of smoke explosion.

But those days of quick, efficient violence had gone, and when Giordan learned that his would-be attacker was none other than Chas Woodmore, associate and friend of Dimitri, he’d allowed it to end as a misunderstanding. He’d even helped prepare the bastard for his mission to assassinate Cezar Moldavi.

But his easy assistance was before he’d responded to Woodmore’s request to meet him in Reither’s Closewell…and smelled Narcise. Everywhere. Everywhere on Chas Woodmore.

Even the information Woodmore had wished to share—that Cezar Moldavi had not, in the past decade, forgotten his obsession with Giordan—didn’t concern him.

After all, it had been a decade for Giordan as well. The ten years had been both interminable and all too brief, too close. Too raw.

Now, he stood and made himself walk casually over to the chair where he’d removed his shoes, sit and pull them on.

He’d known they were together, of course; that Wood-more had helped her to escape from Paris—or had abducted her. No one was clear on the details. But to smell her thus…so lush and rich and feminine. Narcise.

The moment was as if he’d slammed into a stone wall: he lost his breath, he felt the shock of pain reverberating through him, he turned numb.

After, Giordan wasn’t certain how he’d managed to make it through that meeting at the inn, once he’d caught her scent. It was the way it rolled off Woodmore, the way it seemed to permeate him and mix with his own essence…mocking and familiar and horribly insidious.

His vision turned dark and red even now. He couldn’t ignore the memory of the disgust in her face, the horror in her eyes.

As if anything she could think about him was as horrible as what he’d done. For her.

He’d tried to explain, to make her understand…but she didn’t want to listen. She wasn’t ready to listen.

Either she’d never loved and trusted him at all, or she hadn’t loved and trusted him enough.

At it was, he didn’t know whom to thank that Narcise had decided to go with Woodmore to London instead of having Giordan take her to Wales. He doubted he would have survived that trip with his sanity intact.

“Is everything all right?” Rubey asked.

Giordan wasn’t certain how long he’d been silent—he’d finished dressing and was starting toward the chamber door before she spoke. “A summons from Dimitri,” he said with an ironic tone. “When the earl beckons, one must answer.”

She was watching him with those shrewd eyes. “When will I see you again?” she asked. Not with petulance, not even with invitation, but as a businesswoman, scheduling an engagement. Rubey was no man’s woman through her own volition, and not for lack of being wooed.

“When next I need to feed,” he told her smoothly, then moved quickly back to her side. Pressing a farewell kiss to her temple, he said, “With your permission, madame.”

“Of course,” she replied haughtily. But he felt the weight of her curious gaze following him out the door.

The trip to Blackmont Hall, the residence of the Earl of Corvindale, was hampered by a carriage accident on Bond. Giordan didn’t begrudge the delay, for it gave him more time to mull, to consider, to settle. To decide if he even meant to go.

The streets were relatively quiet, for the shops were closed this late at night, but the thoroughfares were by no means deserted. Carriages and hacks trundled by, many pedestrians skirted the shadows—some of them up to no good, some of them simply walking from one pub, club, theater, or party to another.

Giordan sat quietly in his richly appointed carriage and considered how far the bounds of friendship reached. If it were anyone other than Dimitri, he would ignore the summons. When Woodmore sent him the secret message to meet in Reither’s Close, Giordan had gone, not realizing what awaited him.

But he did now. And he wasn’t certain he’d be able to handle being in the same chamber as Woodmore and not think of peeling the man’s flesh from his body. Despite who he’d become.

He hadn’t laid a violent finger, hand, or fang on anyone since the After Hell.

Instead of dwelling on thoughts of Chas Woodmore, Giordan forced himself to review what he knew, wondering why Dimitri felt it necessary to have him present tonight.

Voss had run off with Angelica Woodmore. He claimed it was to keep her safe from Moldavi’s men, who’d, predictably, followed Woodmore and Narcise from Paris.

Giordan had been in London—although with Rubey and not in attendance—the night of the abduction, when Belial and three others had entered a masquerade ball and murdered three people. That night and the next day, he and Dimitri had had to work together to enthrall witnesses and change stories. Otherwise, the news might cause a mad panic in London such as there had been in Brussels some years back after a similar occurrence. Shortly after, Giordan left to meet Woodmore in Reither’s Close and break the news of Angelica’s kidnapping.

But by the time Giordan had returned to London, with, presumably, Woodmore on his heels, Angelica had been safely retrieved by Dimitri.

Still, the earl was furious with Voss for taking one of the Woodmore sisters while he was responsible for them during their brother’s disappearance, and by the tone of his message tonight, he intended to find Voss and square things with him. Which, in Dimitri’s mind, likely meant to kill the bastard.

Ever since the incident in Vienna a century ago, when Dimitri’s house had gone up in flames, there’d been bad blood between the earl and Voss. This current situation involving Angelica—which the earl would interpret as impertinent and insolent, at the very least, and a grave insult at worst—made the situation even more untenable.

And therefore, Giordan would answer the summons if for no other purpose than to reason Dimitri out of cold-blooded murder, and to help him find Voss if necessary.

Which was, it seemed, how far the bonds of friendship extended.

Blackmont Hall—which was nearly as dreary and cold as its name and resident suggested—was surrounded by high, smooth, brick walls that were topped with sharp metal and wooden pikes and studded with gas lanterns. The two dozen lamps were lit every night and extinguished every dawn whether the earl was in residence or not. Aside of that structural barrier, Dimitri had an entire retinue of guards—both mortal and make—at his disposal, watching the sisters and the grounds.

If there was a place in London safe from Belial or unwanted guests, it was the Corvindale residence.

Giordan was well-known to the gatekeeper, and he was waved in after he removed the hat and cloak he’d donned against the ever-present drizzle. Crewston, the Blackmont butler, opened the front door and said, “His lordship is in his office with several persons. Including his young wards.” His tone indicated his disdain for the inclusion of the two Woodmore sisters in a meeting clearly meant for men only. “Apparently there was some sort of event this evening.”

Handing his hat and cloak to the butler, Giordan stepped into the foyer and stilled. Narcise. Was. Here.

It was with great effort that he didn’t pause in his strides, although he did slow and his movements turned jerky as he walked past Crewston down the corridor. His heart pounded, his blasted hands wanted to become damp, but by the Fates, he wouldn’t allow that. He swiped his palms on his trousers and kept walking.

Pausing outside the study door, which had been left slightly ajar in—he suspected—a show of empathy and warning for him by Dimitri, Giordan listened, waiting for an opportune moment to make his entrance. The earl had given him the advantage of surprise, and he was going to make full use of it.

Someone was speaking in tones threaded with distaste. “You must be Narcise Moldavi. The vampire.” He recognized the voice wafting through as that of Angelica Woodmore.

“I am.” Narcise’s voice was low and dusky as it always was, yet it carried a hint of annoyance. Giordan’s heart thumped uncomfortably and he squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, nearly missing the Woodmore sister’s response.

“Are you here so that we can welcome you to the family?” came Angelica’s reply.

Clearly she wasn’t any fonder of the idea of Narcise and Woodmore being together than Giordan was.

Or, no, perhaps it wasn’t that the two of them were intimate that disturbed Giordan, when one came down to it. It was more the fact that she was here. He’d have to see her. He might even have to speak to her.

All the while pretending his entire insides weren’t warring, desperate for her again.

“In fact, mademoiselle, I’m here, endangering my person only because of you.” He heard the faint clink of a glass over Narcise’s voice. She sounded hard and unemotional. “When your brother learned that Voss had abducted you, he insisted on coming to London, despite the danger to me.”

Suddenly furious that Narcise would blame the young mortal for her own weaknesses, Giordan opened the door. He stepped inside with smooth, controlled movements, his face expressionless. “You know very well you didn’t have to come to London with him. Don’t blame your own cowardice on the girl, Narcise.”

He couldn’t have planned for a better entrance. All eyes swung to him, but he was only looking toward one pair. They flashed with bald shock and a ripple of fear…and then into cold, emotionless sapphires. Fear, oh, oui, it was there. And well it should be. If she had any concept how deeply he struggled to keep himself in the light…how much, even now, after his change, he’d consider risking it, just to grab her by the shoulders, to shake some sense into her—to force her to understand, to care about what he’d done….

The voice in his head, the one of the light, said: She’s not yet ready. She cannot hear you.

But oh, yes. A woman could indeed drive a man to do what was unimaginable. To do something he could hardly conceive. For love or, just as readily, for hate.

A little shudder of nausea rippled deep in his belly and he pushed away those sordid, awful memories.

Narcise was standing near the liquor cabinet, dressed in masculine clothing. He could see that she’d been disguised as a man—and an elderly gent, if one accounted for the faint lines that had been drawn on her face to emphasize wrinkles and aging. Ironically it was Giordan who’d taught her that trick during his clandestine visits to her. Smudges added to the gauntness of her face…a face that was still as beautiful and perfect as it had always been. A mask covering perfidy and fickleness.

She held a hat that, presumably, had just been removed in an exposure of her gender and identity.

Narcise didn’t respond to Giordan’s entrance other than to add a flash of fangs to her sneer as she tossed the hat onto a table. Sipping from a glass of whiskey, she walked over to stand deliberately next to Woodmore.

But Giordan was no longer paying attention to her. He’d turned his back, although he was aware, of course, of precisely where she was standing and how she’d moved. He forced his curling fingers to loosen as he looked at the other occupants in the chamber.

“Miss Woodmore, Angelica, meet my friend Mr. Giordan Cale,” Dimitri spoke, rising from his seat in the corner.

“Chas, what in heaven’s name is going on here?” Maia Woodmore demanded.

“I’ve been attempting to tell you,” Woodmore replied mildly. “And I will…if we aren’t going to have any further interruptions?” He glanced at Narcise, but it wasn’t a look of reproach as much as it was one of affection.

Ah, the damned fool loved her.

“You’re taking us home, Chas,” Maia said firmly, and at that moment, Giordan felt a bit of sympathy for Dimitri. This elder of the sisters was clearly as headstrong and stubborn as her brother—and not nearly as tactful. “Tomorrow.” It was more of a command than a question, or even a request.

Narcise shifted, and so did her lover. “I’m afraid that’s impossible right now,” Woodmore said.

“What do you mean? You’re here, you’re back. There’s no reason for us to stay here any longer,” Maia said.

“Don’t disappoint the girl, Chas,” the earl said. “Take her home.” Then he glanced over. “Or perhaps Giordan would like to take on governess duties?”

Giordan snorted in return. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of the honor, Dimitri.” He bared his teeth in a false smile and accepted a glass of much-needed whiskey from the earl. It was all he could do to keep from slugging it down.

“But why can’t we go with you, Chas?” demanded Maia.

“Corvindale is and will remain your guardian for the foreseeable future,” Woodmore replied flatly, “but I wasn’t going to stand aside and let Voss compromise my sister.”

“I’m not compromised,” Angelica said stubbornly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Woodmore replied, glancing around the room. “We know he was here tonight, Angelica. Whether you invited him or welcomed him or—”

“I certainly didn’t invite him!” The girl was clearly outraged and offended. “I wouldn’t invite a terrifying creature like him anywhere!” Apparently she shared her brother’s distaste for the befanged Dracule.

“It doesn’t matter,” Woodmore continued sternly. “Corvindale and Cale are going to help me find him. And then I’m going to kill him.”

Giordan kept his tickle of annoyance at Woodmore’s assumptions to himself, and felt rather than saw Narcise move to the other side of the chamber behind him. She stayed carefully out of his eyesight. Her essence stirred the air, still as lush and feminine as it had been in Paris…but yet not quite the same.

“Since it appears that you will be under this roof for some further time, Miss Woodmore—Angelica—perhaps you might find your way back to your chambers,” Dimitri said abruptly, standing from where he’d been brooding in a corner chair. “The night is waning.”

Giordan, who, in some ways knew his friend better than Dimitri knew himself, suspected the man had used up his not very extensive patience. The earl’s library and office had been invaded, not to mention his hermitlike lifestyle disrupted by the new additions to his household, and would be, it seemed, for sometime to come.

The earl wanted everyone gone.

In the flurry of the sisters Woodmore bidding good-night and farewell to their brother, and the earl’s insistent ushering of them out of the chamber, Giordan managed to position himself so that Narcise would be unable to quit the room without passing directly by him.

As it happened, whether by accident or Dimitri’s intent, Narcise was separated from her lover and left alone in the chamber with Giordan. She would have slipped past him, the cowardly woman, if he hadn’t moved a half step to stand in the way. Now she must brush against him if she meant to escape and avoid a conversation.

“Good evening, Narcise,” he said.

She was close, so close, that not only her essence but the warmth of her presence surged against him. Yet, he absorbed the assault as if withstanding the force of a blow and would not allow her to escape from his gaze.

“Giordan,” she replied in a voice as cool as her icy-sea eyes. An ink-black coil of hair clung to her temple as if it had been smashed there by the heavy hat.

For a moment, he wavered—the darkness, the loathing and disgust, shimmering, threatening to drop like a heavy curtain—but it was just an instant of madness. He recovered himself. “And so you have found your escape at last. My felicitations. I hope it is all that you’ve dreamed.”

Ah, his tones were so easy, so casual and absent of irony, devoid of the shame and anger he felt. The humiliation. They were so loose, unlike his twisting insides, unlike the impossibly tight curling of his fingers.

“It is,” she replied in a matching tone. It was as if they’d settled at a café and discussed the weather over coffee and tea whilst overlooking the Palais Gallery.

He made certain he showed no hint of the bloodlust that simmered beneath his skin, throbbing, dark and hot and suddenly insistent.

“My only regret,” she said, still looking up at him with eyes as emotionless as a pair of black-mounted amethysts, “is that Cezar still lives.”

“What is this?” Giordan responded lightly, oh, yes, still so lightly despite the heaviness threatening his mood. “Your vampire hunter could not complete the task?” Faint surprise and polite regret tinged his words. “I was under the impression that he traveled to Paris for that purpose only.”

“Alas, no, for when he found there was a choice between having Cezar and protecting my well-being…well, of course you see how that turned out.”

Direct and sharp, her words and meaning stabbed him deeply. And twisted, as if the blade was in his entrails, raking a cross through his insides in the manner of the Japanese seppuku.

Nevertheless, he kept his expression emotionless. “If only it were always so simple,” was all he replied.

“Narcise.” Woodmore’s smooth voice interrupted from behind them.

“Chas,” she said, brushing rapidly past Giordan as if he were a Corinthian column. The scent of her relief swamped him.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. My sisters are a bit over-set,” said Woodmore, looking down at Narcise and then at Giordan. Comprehension shone in his dark Gypsy eyes. “And Corvindale is fairly apoplectic that Voss has been inside Blackmont Hall.”

“Not to mention the fact that his entire household has been upended,” Giordan replied with a faint tinge of malice. “For the foreseeable future. I cannot say I blame him.”

Woodmore continued to look at him with cool challenge and the faintest of complacence. If the vampire hunter hadn’t known before, he knew now at least something of the history between him and Narcise. But if he was under the impression that Giordan would be competition for him, he was sadly mistaken.

“Indeed, and my sisters are just as disrupted. Thus, the first thing to appease everyone—including me—is to find Voss and take care of him. I don’t want him anywhere near my sister. Then we can leave London.” He looked at Narcise. “And go someplace where you’ll be safe.”

Corvindale returned at that moment. “Are you leaving now? Excellent. Good night.” His expression and tone left no room for further conversation, and giving Giordan a wry look, Woodmore gestured for Narcise to start down the corridor.

“We are gone, then,” he said. “Dawn is almost here. I’ll see what sign I can find of Voss while the sun is up. Look for word from me in the afternoon. If luck is with me, I’ll find the bastard and stake him in his sleep.”

“By the Fates, you look as if you need a drink,” Dimitri said to Giordan as soon as they were gone. “The Devil knows I do. Bloody damned women.”

By Luce’s dark soul, it wasn’t a drink he needed. “No,” Giordan said. “I’ll take my leave before the sun is up.”

And he followed Woodmore and Narcise’s path down the hall, inhaling her essence in his wake.

No, indeed. It wasn’t a damn drink he craved.

“You aren’t truly going.”

Chas paused in his packing to look up at the tone of accusation in Narcise’s voice.

“Of course I’m going,” he replied firmly, shoving a trio of stakes into his leather sack. “She’s my sister, Narcise. Do you think I would leave her safety up to chance? Especially with Voss?”

Two weeks after their gathering in Dimitri’s study, Angelica had been abducted by Belial. According to Voss—who’d seemed unaccountably concerned—she was being taken to Paris to be delivered to Cezar.

The other vampire had been convincing in his argument that he, Voss, should be the one to go after her and bring her home, despite the fact that Angelica’s own brother was a vampir hunter. And though even Dimitri’s stubborn opinion had been swayed by Voss’s points, Chas wasn’t about to sit on his hands while his sister’s fate was in the hands of a bloody damned vampire.

Especially one who’d already attacked her once. And who’d sneaked into her chamber and done God knew what else while she was under his thrall.

He shoved a clean shirt into the pack with more violence than necessary. The only reason Voss wasn’t dead right now was that he’d been wearing protective armor when Chas had seen him last, when he’d come to White’s club to deliver the news that Angelica was on her way to Paris. And because the damned man was right—he could gain access to Cezar.

“But Voss is smart enough, and Cezar likes him because he always has information he wants.” Narcise argued the same points that had been made previously. “For sale, of course. He won’t be suspicious of him, so Voss will have no problem getting in. And with those smoke-cloud packets you gave him, he’ll have an easy way to escape.”

Chas stopped and gave her a hard look. “I don’t want him anywhere near my sister. Not only do I not trust him, not only have I heard legend upon legend of him ruining women, but he is also a Dracule.”

The moment those words slipped from his mouth, Chas regretted them. Not the sentiment of course, but the way he’d expressed it, for Narcise’s beautiful face blanched.

“And so you can commingle with we Dracule, we damned and damaged demons…but not your sister.”

Her words were bitter, and Chas felt a wave of self-disgust—for the memory of himself panting beneath her, blind with need, ensorcelled by her texture, taste and scent…and begging for her to tear into him with her fangs…burned tauntingly in his mind.

And yet…it was no mere lust that drove him. There was something much deeper in his heart. If only he could reconcile it with who she was: immortal, damaged and bound to a demon.

“Blast it, no, Narcise.” He shoved his fingers through his hair and resisted the urge to throw something. “It’s different for her than for me. I understand what I—I understand what it’s like.” He’d been hunting the creatures for years. He knew their faults, their weaknesses. Their pure center of self.

He fully comprehended what he was doing to himself by being with one. Unlike his naive sister.

“Well, Chas, I suggest you begin to help her understand. Because from the way she was acting that night in Dimitri’s study, I wouldn’t be surprised if Angelica was in love with Voss. And she doesn’t know what to do about it. She probably doesn’t even realize it.”

Over my bloody damned dead body.

“Never,” he snapped, yanking up his satchel. By God, he’d never wish such a thing on his sister: to be in love with one of these warped-souled beings. It was an untenable hell of its own. “And even if she fancies herself in love with him, I won’t permit it. I’ll kill him first.”

“I’ll come with you, Chas,” she said, standing in a swirl of dark hair and smooth slide of her pale gown.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said, his voice softening. “You can’t allow yourself anywhere near Cezar. Paris might be a big city, but you know as well as I do that he has spies and makes everywhere. I won’t risk you, Narcise.”

“It was almost impossible for us to leave Paris safely the last time,” Narcise was arguing. “Cezar still has makes and mortal soldiers watching for us everywhere…you know it. You’ll never get out of the city again, with or without Angelica. Let alone into Cezar’s place.”

Chas wondered whether she was more terrified that he was leaving her alone, or that he might not come back.

Or that she might have to see Giordan Cale again.

He reminded her, “But the last time you were with me, and he was searching for you—”

“But, Chas…”

“And aside of that, Cezar would see me. You know that for certain. He’d be delighted to welcome me back into his lair.”

He didn’t understand why she was being so unreasonable…so uncharacteristically weak. Narcise was the strongest woman he’d ever known—how else could she have survived her years of captivity with her brother?

Surely it wasn’t just that she was frightened of being left in London. A little niggle of certainty wormed into the back of his mind and he thrust it away. No. Surely whatever had been between her and Cale was truly over and done with. The hatred between them had rolled off in palpable waves.

Between Dimitri and Rubey, who was intimate with Cale, he would find out what their history was.

“Chas, please,” Narcise begged, and a wave of anger rushed through him.

“Don’t insult me by implying your brother is more than a match for me,” he said flatly. “If we knew what his Asthenia was, I’d have brought it to him long ago.” Even as he said these words, he realized the argument was weak. But he didn’t have a choice. Angelica was in danger, and he wasn’t about to sit back and place her safety in Voss’s hands.

And if he had the time to go to Scotland, to visit Sonia and beg her to help him one more time, Chas could learn what Cezar’s Asthenia was. While Angelica had visions of people in their moment of death, their youngest sister had a different gift. She was able to see what a person feared the most—and for the Dracule, it was the Asthenia.

Chas had used Sonia more than once in the past to help him learn the specific weakness of a vampire he was hunting, but once she learned why he was asking for her help, she’d refused to be part of it. “Neither of us have the right to make such judgment,” she’d told him piously.

“But you’ve been given a gift…and so have I,” he’d argued back. “We’re meant to use them.”

“No,” she’d said…and he’d recognized fear lurking in her eyes.

But he was certain she’d help him this time—to find Cezar’s weakness, knowing that their sister’s safety was at stake…yet, there was no time now. He’d have to trust Voss to carry out their plan and free Angelica…and as soon as he could, Chas would relieve his sister from the vampire’s presence.

And then he’d kill Voss.

Chas looked at Narcise, filling his eyes with her. He never tired of her beauty, he never lost the awe he felt when he looked upon her perfection, and although it was blasphemy—terrible, shameful blasphemy—he thought what a boon it was that Lucifer had turned her immortal. That her looks would never fade, that her face and figure would never age.

It would have been a shame to lose such exquisiteness. Such artistry.

“You’ll be safe here, Narcise,” Chas said, gesturing to the stone walls around them. The quarters he’d prepared for her were in the cellar of an old monastery ruin.

Perhaps two years ago, he’d flushed out and chased away a group of made vampirs who’d used the place as a haven. The only access to the cellar was through an old wall in a cemetery that sat on one of the hills on the outskirts of London, and the entrance was well-hidden. Aside of that, there was a barrier of crosses and other religious markings that would keep vampires away—with only one secret passage through which one might manage to gain access. He’d had to help Narcise across that threshold in order to be safely contained, and it had been some time until she regained her full strength.

Thus, he knew she’d be safe here. Not only did Narcise, armed with her saber and vampire strength, know how to take care of herself—but no one would find her or cross over into the place…unless Chas wanted them to.

He drank in the sight of her again and felt something painful twist deeply inside him. He would return to her. And he’d find some way to manage loving an immortal with a warped soul.

“You’ll be safe here, Narcise. He won’t find you, and then when I get back we’ll go to Wales.”

“Very well,” she acceded. Her gaze settled on him and he recognized a tinge of fear…and something softening her eyes.

His heart tripped and a wave of desire and uncertainty rushed over him. He would come back. But would she still be here?

Chas dropped his satchel and went to her, striding across the room and pushing her back against the rough wall. He took her mouth, covering her lips with his in a deep, needy kiss.

Sweet and warm and lush, she melted against him, her fingers cupping the back of his head, pulling him down into her. Chas closed his eyes, memorizing her, feeling every curve and rise of her body printed against his. I love you.

“Be safe,” she breathed as he pulled away to catch a breath, staggered by the force of his emotions. “Come back to me.” She reached up to touch his face, her fingers gentle along his jaw, brushing his hair back.

A ripple of fear shimmered in his middle. “I’m in love with you, Narcise. Make no mistake…I’ll return. But…” he said, all at once knowing what he had to do. Knowing he had to take the chance. He had to know. “While I’m gone, you have other things to attend to.”

Narcise blinked, her eyes wary and confused.

“Do what you must do,” he said steadily, trying not to think of what could happen, “to let go of the past. Otherwise…” His lips tightened. “I love you, but I won’t wait for you to come to love me.”

No. She had to free her heart from whatever kept it locked up, away from him. And then…somehow, he’d figure out a way for them to be together.

A vampire hunter and an immortal woman with a warped soul.

As he caught up his satchel and swept from the chamber, her last words followed him. “I can’t lose you, Chas.” She wouldn’t.

But how would he go on if he lost her?