“When did that change?”
“When the nobles caught up with me. Ours was an elected monarchy—anyone with the correct bloodline was a candidate—and they had decided to support a rival branch of the family. And in those days, the common way of changing power was to kill the ones who currently had it.”
I’d heard the story of his change long ago, but he’d made it sound like a grand adventure. It wasn’t sounding so much like that now. I was beginning to suspect that the version I’d received as a child had been a highly selective account.
“They killed Father first. He’d sent me on an ill-fated crusade against the Turks, and despite the fact that the troops I led had acquitted themselves well, we lost the war. I was…less than popular…thereafter, with nobles who had not bestirred themselves to help in the fight. Making me watch his death was intended as retribution.”
He paused to tackle a particularly tough stain, then continued. “They scalped him, a trick we’d learned from the Turks. It involved peeling away the skin of the face while the victims still lived, torturing them and making them unrecognizable at the same time. When they finished, they blinded me with hot pokers so his mutilated body would be the last thing I ever saw. Then they buried me alive.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I lay there, hearing the clods of earth falling onto my coffin, and assumed it was the end,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull his trousers back on. “I waited for my air to run out, for death, for judgment, for something…but hours passed and nothing happened. Nothing except that my eyes mended, allowing me to see despite there being no light. I finally had to face the fact that something a little…strange…was going on.”
“What did you do?”
Mircea shrugged. “I dug my way out. It had rained overnight, making the ground soft. Otherwise I might not have managed it. Afterwards, I lay on the wet earth, gulping in air that I clearly no longer needed, and wondered what to do. I was a monster; I’d finally accepted that. But I was a damn weak one. I hadn’t had any nourishment since the change and my body had had to repair considerable damage from the fight and the torture that followed it. I knew I was in no fit state to face them again.”
“How did you survive?” I asked urgently. I really wanted to know. Our situations weren’t identical, but there were enough similarities for me to hope for a nugget of wisdom. Mircea hadn’t known how to be a vampire any more than I knew how to be the Pythia. Yet he’d managed.
His eyes narrowed slightly at my tone, and I cringed inwardly. I was tired and not guarding my voice as well as I should. I’d probably just told him a lot more than I’d intended.
“By luck and some timely help,” he said after a pause. “My clothes, other than the filthy ones I had on, money and possessions were in Tirgoviste—where many of those who had just tried to kill me resided. I had to risk going back there, and as luck would have it, I was seen by one of my attackers. He didn’t realize how weak I was and did not dare to take me on himself. But he ran to summon the others.”
“But if they’d just buried you, why did they believe him?” Most people would ask anyone who came bearing tales of the walking dead if maybe he’d been drinking a little too much.
Before answering, Mircea came to join me. Since I was still sitting by the hearth, far too near the fire’s random sparks for a vampire’s liking, the move worried me. So did the casual smile on his face. “Spoken like a true modern woman,” he said lightly. “But at that time, many people accepted the old legends about nosferatu as fact. And they knew how to deal with any of us who dared to show our face.”
He sat down and relaxed, digging his bare toes into the deep, rich carpeting, and his eyes fixed on the hem of my gown. I looked down only to realize that the dirty ends of Pritkin’s boots were peeking out from under the silk. I’d forgotten I was wearing them, just like he’d forgotten to search them. I felt myself blushing at the memory of exactly why we’d been so distracted.
I tried to tuck my feet back under the material, but it didn’t do any good. Mircea knelt in front of me and pulled my foot into his hands, staring at the dirty, clunky boot incredulously. “Where did you get this?”
“Um.” It was about a size ten, and obviously a man’s. Mircea scraped at a bit of mud coating the heel and a knife popped out. It fell to the floor, making a small ringing sound, and we both stared at it for a beat.
“You’re wearing the mage’s shoes?”
“Technically, they’re boots.”
Mircea’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I can see that. Why are you wearing them?”
“My feet were cold.”
“And he made a gentlemanly gesture?” His tone dripped sarcasm.
“Not exactly.”
“You stole his shoes.” Mircea sounded like he didn’t quite believe it.
“Boots. And I didn’t exactly…I mean, he wasn’t using them at the time.”
“And why not?”
“Um.”
Mircea pulled the other offending boot off and tossed the pair of them to the other side of the room. They landed with a crash against the heavy wood paneling, sending a shower of caked dirt scattering across the floor. Which left him staring at Pritkin’s socks.
They were woven from a coarse gray wool that in no way matched my dress and, like the boots, were oversized. Mircea didn’t comment this time, just yanked them off and threw them after the shoes. “My feet are going to get cold,” I protested.
“I will find you something more appropriate,” he informed me tightly, pulling my feet into his lap.
He hadn’t yet buttoned the shirt, and when he moved, the firelight did amazing things to the muscles on his chest. He started rubbing my arches, just too hard to tickle, and it felt so good I had to look away. It was a mistake, letting him know he was getting to me, but it was either that or get up and move—an even bigger red flag.
“How did you get out of there?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Out of where?”
“The town.”
“With Horatiu’s help,” he said, rubbing my instep with hot, firm strokes. He had incredible hands—long, slim and skilled—and the warmth of his touch through the filter of my silk stocking was more than a little disconcerting.
“I take it he was younger then?”
“By quite a few years. The family’s hold on the throne had never been completely secure, and we had been trained from childhood to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Horatiu retrieved my emergency funds, some clothes and a horse, and hid me until nightfall. I was getting ready to go when he rode up, insisting on coming with me as far as the border. I tried to dissuade him, but he was as hardheaded as ever. And fortunately so. I wouldn’t have made it alone, not in those first few months. Even with his help, there were some very close calls.”
I caught his hand, needing to break contact in order to think. “Is there anything you’d do differently?”
Mircea let his hand lie still in mine, although the other kept hold of my leg, those long fingers curled around my ankle. “At the time, I believed that I was doing the only thing I could. I was leaving until they stopped searching for me, until I grew strong enough to defend myself and the political winds changed once again. But I departed too quickly, with too much left undone. Some of my mistakes I rectified later, but others…could not be redeemed.”
That might have been true, but it wasn’t what I needed to hear. “If you were going to give the old you some advice, what would it be?”
Mircea was silent for a long moment. “That when you become something more, you must often give up something to claim it.”
“That doesn’t sound very helpful!”
“Perhaps not, but there are no hard and fast rules in survival. I did what we all do when faced with something we believe beyond our abilities.”
“And what’s that?”
“The best I could.”
“And when that wasn’t good enough?” I whispered, finally admitting what
I’d been trying not to think about. That I wasn’t good enough. That the former Pythia had said it herself, in what I was beginning to think had been a prophecy: that I’d be either the best of us or the very worst. I had no idea what that first part meant, but I could really see the latter as a possibility.
“I found help.”
“Such as?”
“The family,” he said simply. “They stood behind me. Gave me something to fight for besides my own survival. Helped me believe that we would triumph, even when I sometimes doubted it myself.”
“The family,” I repeated dully. The very thing I didn’t have.
“Not the one of my birth. It was shattered, first by Father’s death and later by Vlad’s betrayal. But in time, I built a new one. I had Horatiu, then Radu and, eventually, others.”
Great advice—for another vampire. But I couldn’t just go out and make a family for myself. And every one I’d ever had had disappeared through murder or betrayal or bad luck.
“Well, some of us don’t have a family to fall back on,” I said bitterly.
“You have a family, dulceata?,” he told me, pulling me close. He moved slowly, giving me time to protest, to move away. When I didn’t, one hand circled my waist, the other cupping the back of my neck, his touch careful but sure. “You’ve always had one.”
“The family is loyal to you, not to me.”
“But as I am loyal to you, it amounts to the same thing.”
“Are you?” I searched his face. It was beautiful, flames dancing in those dark eyes, shining on his hair. And as usual it told me exactly nothing. “I’m a seer, not a telepath, Mircea. I’m not even as good as a vamp at telling when someone is lying.”
“What do you feel?” He was breathing softly through his mouth and I felt it on my lips, warm and heavy. For a second, the memory of his mouth was so vivid I wasn’t sure we weren’t kissing right now. It was all too easy to imagine loving Mircea. It was even easier to imagine the problems it could cause.
“The last things I can trust are my feelings!” I told him unsteadily. “Especially for you!”
“Ah, dulceata?,” he murmured. “You will learn as I did: family are the only ones you can trust.”
He took my face in his hands and smiled against my lips, and when I felt it, I couldn’t help smiling, too. I could feel his chuckle where my hand rested against his chest, and the thud of his heart picking up speed. I clung to him, my hands finding warm skin under his shirt, spreading across his back.
When he finally kissed me, it was nothing like Pritkin’s touch. Mircea was certain, but unhurried. Instead of bruising strength and dominance, he used a gentle, sure pressure that caught at my senses just as thoroughly. His hand stroked over my cheek as his tongue teased mine, warm and silky, transforming sweetness languorously into heat. The only word for the way Mircea kissed was “lush.”
“Your skin is cold,” he murmured, settling me against him. His body heat was at my back while the fire warmed me from the front. My dress had ridden up, above my knees, and the dry heat of the flames felt good on my legs.
I knew I couldn’t let this continue, but I was exhausted and my defenses were low. And that familiar voice was back, the one that told me I could put a stop to this, in one more minute. Nothing would happen in just a minute, I’d be so careful…One of Mircea’s hands stayed on my waist, while another found its way underneath my skirts, skimming up my left calf before sliding around to the back of my thigh. He began stroking lightly, rubbing small circles through the silk stocking. Suddenly my pulse was pounding, my vision going blurry, my skin warming all over.
“We can’t,” I told him unsteadily, trying to remember why that was important.
His fingers had found the band at the top of my thigh-high. They tightened, flexing and unflexing, scraping blunt fingernails over the lace. When they dipped under the top, I couldn’t help but shiver. “Oh, I am fairly certain we can,” he said.
I met his eyes, brimming with heat and humor, and felt something inside expanding, decompressing. It was as if it had been there all along but there hadn’t been room for it until now. I was suddenly afraid that we could, too.
Chapter 24
I realized that the dress was being undone, but then nails scratched lightly down the length of my back and I forgot why that was a problem. The double heat from Mircea’s body and the fire had caused sweat to pool between my shoulder blades, hovering on the verge of trickling down my spine. As each ribbon pulled loose, his tongue was there, licking up the salt drops, tracing patterns on my skin. His lips brushed lightly over me, closing briefly on the individual knobs along my spine, sucking gently.
“You don’t understand. The geis—” I stopped because a particularly hard shiver had caught me. I had the definite sensation of being on a train with no brakes heading straight off a cliff. Mircea chuckled, which wasn’t anything like reassuring, and it was also a little alarming how fast the clothing was coming off. But then he was murmuring low, musical Romanian against my shoulder, and I understood every word down to my bones.
I felt the silk slip and start to fall as the material pulled apart. He laid me on the rug and bent over my right leg, touching his lips to the inside of my thigh. My shiver turned into goose bumps when his tongue met skin through the silk, and his teeth closed around the lace top of my stocking.
“Mircea, listen to me,” I said quickly, to cover the stab of arousal caused by watching him pull my stocking down with his teeth. “The geis went wrong. It isn’t the original spell anymore, it—”
“Is delightful,” he said, having tugged the stocking completely off.
“Now, maybe. But it gets stronger!”
Mircea had curled his hand around my other thigh, his thumb resting on the lace edge of my remaining stocking. He started absently moving it a little bit up and down until he hit a particularly sensitive spot and paused. He stroked lightly, as if he somehow knew exactly what his touch was doing to me, while I tried to remember how to breathe.
“I look forward to it,” he whispered, before pulling me into a kiss as slow and luxurious as cold honey.
Things became a little hazy for a few moments after that. I remember him stripping me slowly, his expression hungry and intent and strangely tender. I remember swift fingers slowing to stroke over bare skin while he watched me with suddenly dark eyes. I remember being stretched out on the blanket with big, careful hands, and touched everywhere, while the fire muttered smokily to itself and the snow fell harder outside.
“Mircea—” I stopped because a finger painted my lips with wine, silencing me before he kissed it away. More wine followed, running down my torso in dark red rivulets. I inhaled a deep, stuttering breath as he started licking a trail downward.
He brushed over a nipple, sucking gently as I shivered, tracing patterns on my skin with his tongue. Every touch of his lips, every breath, caused pleasure to run like wildfire along my nerves. I guess I finally know how he takes his wine, I thought hazily, before he suddenly thrust into my navel and I lost all thought.
Wine dribbled down my stomach, over my hips, down my thighs. He looked up, eyes gleaming with more than just candlelight, as he stroked over the center of me. My whole body tightened with longing for what I’d never gotten to have, what I’d never stopped wanting. I shuddered and pushed back against the fingertips when they passed over me again, and the hand withdrew.
I stared down the length of my body at him, aching, uncomprehending, until one finger returned, coated with wine, and slowly pressed inside. Tension leapt in my muscles at the intrusion, even though I’d wanted it, but the instinctive tightening of my body couldn’t stop the slow, deliberate penetration. Then it withdrew and a warm tongue replaced it, chasing the wine, tasting it, tasting me, as his thumbs traced restless little circles on my hips.
I was the one to break eye contact first, molten heat flooding out reason, my head dropping back to the rug even as I arched upward. His tongue talked softly to me, some unknown lan
guage of the body. But it seemed that part of me understood, part of me was pretty close to fluent, because ripple after ripple of pleasure spilled through me. He teased me by flicking his tongue just a little too slowly until I whimpered helplessly.
The darkened windows reflected the impossible sight of that proud head bowed over me, that clever tongue pleasuring me. I closed my eyes and breathed through it, desperately; almost too much sensation. He had begun with a gentle touch, but it quickly grew more assured, more demanding, until his hands tightened on my hips, jerking me nearer in an almost greedy way. And I guess my body must have been talking to him, too, because somehow he knew the pace I wanted, knew exactly the touch I craved. Pleasure slid up and down my spine like hot wax until it gave up and melted entirely.
Without being asked, I shifted my legs farther apart for his touch. And the geis instantly rewarded me: the feeling I had whenever I resisted, like my chest had been caught in a vise, suddenly eased. I took what felt like my first full breath in days.
And it terrified me.
I’d been a fool to think I could control this, crazy to let it go this far. If I became Mircea’s servant things would be bad, but if he became mine, they might be even worse. I didn’t think the Consul would be too pleased about having one of her senators under anyone’s control, especially mine. I didn’t even have to guess what her response would be: if I didn’t stop this, I was either a slave or dead.
My body was no longer taking orders from my brain—I literally wasn’t in control anymore—but I could still talk. “Mircea, listen to me. We have to—” I stopped suddenly, unable to finish; I was too busy swallowing the groan that wanted to slip free of my throat.
He heard the small noise I couldn’t quite suppress, and it crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I was beginning to worry,” he said lightly. “Most women are not still coherent at this point.”
I kissed him to wipe the smirk off his face, jerking him up to me by the two halves of his shirt. He drove the kiss deep as I shoved the silk off his shoulders and worked it down his arms. A toggle went skittering across the floor, but the heavy material wouldn’t rip—it caught on his wrists. I pulled back, glaring at it, and tugged harder, until it finally came off. Mircea let me, his eyes glinting, a smile playing over his lips. I ignored it this time.