“What else did Pritkin lie about?”
Mircea smiled wickedly. “Is that a question, dulceaţă?” I swallowed nervously as his hands began to massage my lower thighs. He noted my confused look with a small sigh. “I will not hurt you, Cassie. I swear you will feel nothing but pleasure from my touch.”
“You’ll answer the question—in full?”
“Do I not always keep my promises?” I nodded; that much was true. At least so far. He smiled broadly and sat back on his heels. “Very well, how did Pritkin lie?” He thought for a moment. “For the most part, dulceaţă, he did not lie; he simply evaded. He was being honest when he said that if the sybil has gone dark or been killed, the power will pass to someone else. But he was less so when he denied—most unconvincingly—that it will choose you once you become…available.”
“Why does the Circle hate the thought of me gaining the power?”
Mircea’s rich laugh spread through the room. “They hate you because they fear you. No one can command the Pythia. The Circle is bound to protect her, even to obey her in some things, and you are the first one to potentially hold the power in centuries whom they have not indoctrinated since birth. You would not be their puppet as so many Pythias have been. You would use the power as you saw fit, and that might mean in opposition to their wishes at times.” He paused for a second to slide out of his boxers, tossing them aside unself-consciously. I watched them fall to the rug with my heart in my throat and refused to look at him.
“I was told what the dark mage said to you, Cassie. He told you the truth, but, again, only in part. The mythical Cassandra was the only seer who steadfastly refused to be under the control of anyone. She ran from even Apollo himself to avoid having another dictate how her gift should be used. The Circle is afraid that you will be true to your name.”
“Are you saying I have a whole army of Pritkins after me?” I was horrified. I’d been surrounded by four master vampires, one of them the reigning dueling champion, and he’d still almost killed me.
“Not necessarily. If you are malleable enough to be used, they will try to do so. Pritkin was truthful when he said that the current Pythia is dying and will not be able to control the gift much longer. They have lost their sybil and urgently need to find her or locate another. But they are caught on the horns of a dilemma: they do not wish the power to pass to you, but who is to say where it would go if they eliminated you? Possibly to one of their other adepts, but equally possibly to another rogue whose existence they missed. If they recover their lost sybil or if you are difficult, they may take the chance and kill you; if not, they will undoubtedly attempt to rule you. Either way, dulceaţă, you are far better off with us.”
I thought that was debatable, but if the rest of the Circle was like Pritkin, I definitely didn’t want to meet them. “What are you saying? We make love and, bam, I’m the Pythia? Is that what all this has been about?”
Mircea laughed, a joyous, faintly wicked sound. “That is another question, and you have yet to pay for the last one.”
I raised my eyes to his face and resolutely kept them there. “What do you want?”
He smiled, and this time it was gentle. “Many things, Cassandra, but I will settle for simply having you look at me for now.”
“I am looking at you.” I received silence as his only answer. I sighed. Normally I wasn’t particularly shy. Raphael often had nude male models around and I’d seen nakedness used as part of punishment too many times to count. But this wasn’t some stranger I didn’t know; it was Mircea, who’d suddenly gone from being an untouchable fantasy to being an all-too-available reality. I wasn’t too shy to look at him, as he probably thought. I was trying hard not to jump him, at least until I got some answers, and gazing at that gorgeous body when I couldn’t touch it was damn close to torture.
I licked my lips and accepted the inevitable. My eyes traveled over the fine bones of his face and perfect curve of his lips, down to the hard planes of his shoulders and chest, to his stomach and the faint line of hair that I’d found so intriguing earlier. His body was superb, like a marble statue come to life, one of those slender masterpieces by an ancient Greek genius. His sex was perfectly proportioned to the rest of him, uncircumcised and pale, but flushed with a dark pink tinge. He was already half erect, but, when my gaze lingered, he lengthened, gaining weight and width almost magically. His legs were the best I’d ever seen on a man, and his feet were as finely shaped as his elegant hands. He was exquisite.
I heard him take a ragged breath. “How can you make me feel so with only a look? Touch me, dulceaţă, or allow me to touch you or I will go mad.”
Okay, maybe I’d been wrong. Mircea might be doing this at the Consul’s bidding, but he wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea. It made me feel a little better. “Answer the question,” I said, and my voice was steady, although it came out barely louder than a whisper.
He groaned and rolled onto his stomach, giving me a view of tight buttocks and taut shoulders. “You will have to repeat the question. My concentration is suffering.”
“If we do this, will I be Pythia?”
“That I do not know, nor does anyone. The power will pass soon, almost certainly either to you or to the lost sybil. All we are attempting is to keep you in the running, so to speak. If the Pythia dies and you are still a virgin, it may result in the power passing to your rival.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad to me. If what I’ve been experiencing is only part of her power, I don’t think I want the rest.”
“Not even to help your father?”
I blinked. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about that. It said something about the confused state of my head. “You promised to tell me about him, and that’s not part of this deal!”
Mircea looked at me from under a curtain of dark silk. “You have no pity, dulceaţă. Nor have you paid me for your last question.”
“Tell me about my father and maybe I will.”
Mircea rolled off the bed and began to pace, which didn’t help my pulse rate any. He stalked, like some big jungle cat, rather than merely walked. “Very well.” He turned to me suddenly, his eyes flashing gold. “If you insist, then we will discuss this. I did not want to tell you, but you have forced my hand. Roger is dead, as you were told. Dead, but not gone.”
“You mean he’s a ghost?” I shook my head. “Not possible. I’d have known. He’d have come to me—I was right there in Tony’s house for years. It’s not like I’d have been hard to find.”
Mircea stopped near the bed, a little too close for comfort, and continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “Roger was an employee of Antonio’s, one of his favorite humans, in fact. Which made his betrayal all the more bitter. That was how Antonio viewed his refusal to give you up when ordered to do so. He could not leave Roger alive and save face, but he did not want his death to deprive him of your father’s gift. You received your connection to the spirit world from him—he, too, was reportedly able to make ghosts his servants.”
“That isn’t what I do.”
He brushed it aside. “Call it what you will. Suffice it to say that Antonio found it useful from time to time. You were clever to hide it from him, dulceaţă. I asked him if you had that gift as well as the Sight, and he said no.”
“Eugenie told me not to tell.” Only now did I understand why. Of course, ghosts could be useful, especially in dealing with other families. Since vamps can’t detect them, they’d make perfect spies. Hell, he could even have sent them to let him know what the Senate was doing. A pretty big advantage, that. “What happened?”
“Your parents fled when they realized you had inherited their gifts, knowing that Tony would take you. He sent his best operatives to track them down and paid some dark mages to devise a trap for your father while he waited. It was designed to capture his spirit as it left his body after death, and it worked perfectly. When I heard what had been done to Roger, I commanded Antonio to release him, but he demurred. He preferred to keep hi
m confined as a perpetual punishment and a warning to others, even though he had discovered that Roger could not command ghosts now that he was one.”
“But he released him on your order, right?” I didn’t like where this was going.
“He swore that it was impossible, and invited me to have a mage of my choosing examine the trap. I did so.” He looked at me with pity. “I hired the best, Cassie, for I liked your father. But the mage, a member of the Circle itself who owed me a favor, told me that he had never seen one like it, and that all his power was not sufficient to break it. As a result, your father’s ghost resides with Antonio still.”
My lips felt numb. I wanted to disbelieve him, but it was exactly the sort of thing Tony would do. “There must be a way to break the spell.”
“The Silver Circle should have enough power to manage it. My associate intimated as much at the time. Even if it was the Black Circle itself that wrought the trap, the Silver is stronger. But they would not willingly take on such a task. They despise your father, as they do any human working for us, and blame him for seducing your mother away from them. They would not help even were the Consul herself to petition, but if the new Pythia were to ask…”
“They couldn’t refuse?”
Mircea sat down on the bed beside me. I resolutely kept my eyes on his. “They could, certainly, but I doubt they would. If the power goes to you, Cassandra, they will swallow their pride and try to woo you. If they thought they could buy your favor with such a task, they would likely fall over themselves to do it.”
Suddenly, I was on my back and Mircea was on his hands and knees, looming over me. “And now, dulceaţă, I believe there is a little something you owe me.”
I had a lot of other questions, but they temporarily fled, along with my ability to form coherent sentences. Mircea sat me up and stripped off the robe, which he threw against the wall as if it offended him. His hands returned to slide slowly down my arms, from shoulders to wrists. He lay me back carefully and let his eyes roam over me as I had done him. He surprised me by taking his time, and the weight of his gaze was enough to make my nipples contract and my whole body tense.
His hands soon followed the path his eyes had blazed. He started at my ankles, then ran them slowly up my body, stroking and teasing the flesh as he went. I was writhing by the time he was up to my knees, moaning when he paused to massage my lower stomach, and completely breathless when he captured my breasts again. He continued, however, running his fingers over my neck and face, lingering slightly on my lips, then moving up through my hair. I felt like my body was on fire by the time he stopped, and judging by the flush that stained his usual mother-of-pearl complexion, he wasn’t completely unmoved, either. He swallowed several times before finding his voice. “If you have a question, Cassie, I suggest you ask it quickly.”
I wasn’t sure I could think of one, but I really needed something to distract him, or I was going to be an eligible candidate for the Pythia’s job very soon. “How did you find me?” He parted my legs and crawled between them. I felt terribly exposed and not at all ready for this. “Mircea!”
“I swear I will answer your question, Cassie,” his said, his eyes amber fire, “afterwards.”
“No! That wasn’t the deal.”
He gave a strangled groan and collapsed onto my legs, his hair falling forward to cover my groin. He stayed that way for about a minute, his breathing harsh and unsteady, before raising his head. His face was pink and his eyes glittered darkly, but some of the fever had subsided. His voice was lower than usual, and his accent was more pronounced when he began speaking, fast and with no preamble.
“The Consul suspected what Rasputin was doing before any of us, even Marlowe. The attacks began shortly after the Circle requested MAGIC’s help in finding their lost sybil, and the Consul made one of her famous, intuitive leaps. But there seemed little we could do except to aid in the search and hope they would recover her quickly. True sybils are rare, and we thought there was no other of sufficient strength to duplicate Rasputin’s actions. But we made certain that those of proven ability were closely watched, in case she should die and the power pass on. I have business interests in Atlanta, Cassie. I have known where you were for some time, and of course, I put your name on the list of those to be watched.”
His eyes settled between my legs and I could feel myself blushing. I tried to wiggle out from under his touch, but it only caused him to bend and kiss the inside of my thigh over the pulse point. His lips worked gently and I felt no fangs, but that light brush of his mouth caused the trickle of liquid heat that had been building in me to suddenly become a flood. “Mircea, please…” I wasn’t even sure what I was asking for, but he only smiled grimly.
“No, I will answer the question in full.” He inhaled deeply. “And then I will pleasure you in full.” I writhed under his hands, and he closed his eyes. “Cassie, please don’t move. The vibrations are…disturbing, and my concentration is ragged as it is.”
“I never agreed to sex if you answered the question! This isn’t fair!”
Mircea paused and cocked an eyebrow. “Forgive me, dulceaţă, but precisely what is it you think we are doing now?” “You know what I mean.” I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the pleading my body was doing. “No intercourse.”
Mircea ran his tongue along the crease of my knee and up my leg, stopping just short of where I suddenly, desperately wanted him to be. He raised his head slightly to meet my eyes, but his breath still glided over my most intimate places. My body trembled, and his fingers dug more firmly into my thighs. “You want me as badly as I want you, dulceaţă. Why deny us both?”
“You know why. It’s not just about pleasure—this is setting myself up for something I’m not sure I can do.” As soon as I said it, I realized I’d told the truth. The only reason I wasn’t attacking Mircea was the strings that went with him. Having sex meant throwing in the towel on my independence, possibly forever. Either way I looked at it, I lost. The Senate might be a kinder, gentler alternative to the Circle, and Mircea beat the hell out of Pritkin as a jailer, but it would be a jail all the same. But if I wasn’t Pythia, there would be a lot less interest in where I was and what I was doing.
“And if you do not accept your calling, how do you plan to persuade the Circle to help with your father?”
I sighed. There, as Shakespeare would have said, was the rub. I didn’t want to be Pythia. The office had helped to get my mother killed and promised me only life in a gilded cage—assuming the Circle didn’t kill me. Besides, Pritkin was right: I hadn’t been trained. I didn’t know if I could handle Seeing any more than I already did. I hadn’t liked the new powers I’d obtained, and I doubted I’d enjoy the others any better, whatever they were. But, if I refused the position, I wasn’t sure I could do anything to help my father. I knew Tony well enough to know how vindictive he could be. He would view my father’s imprisonment as serving the double purpose of torturing both him and me, and he’d never voluntarily give him up.
“I’m not saying no,” I told Mircea truthfully. “I just need some time. No intercourse yet; pick something else.”
He placed a kiss on my lower stomach. “That will not be difficult, Cassie. You are a feast for the senses.”
“Just answer the question.”
He looked surprised, then laughed. “Do you know, I had actually entertained the notion that I would be in charge of these proceedings? I will know better next time.” He grinned at me, rubbing slow, languid circles on my stomach, causing that delicious heat to build even more. I writhed under that light stroke, and it obviously pleased him. “My beautiful, fiery dulceaţă.”
“I am not yours.”
Mircea smirked. “On the contrary, you have always been mine. I assure you I did not stay at Antonio’s court for almost a year for the pleasure of his company.”
At my startled look, he laughed again, a low, touchable chuckle that tightened things low down. “I had heard of your gifts and arranged to
meet you. I knew that a clairvoyant of your reputed strength would be a useful addition to my staff, but wanted to be sure what I was gaining before negotiating with Antonio. Once I met you, I suspected that I might be looking at the next Pythia, but I could not know for certain until you grew up.”
He looked off into the distance and sighed. “I made a mistake in not immediately adding you to my household, but I feared that it was too prominent, and that I would not be able to keep you from coming to the Circle’s attention. I left you with Antonio and ordered him to continue to hide your identity. I planned to retrieve you when you matured, but by then you had rather complicated things, had you not?”
“Wait a minute. You knew about my parents’ murder?”
“I only learned after the fact, and at the time it seemed a trifling affair.” He saw my frown and sighed. “Would you prefer me to lie to you? I did not know about you then, Cassie, and I could not chastise Antonio for dealing with his servant as he wished. Although I thought it a waste, it was his right. I was told that a woman had been with him in the car, but she had taken your father’s name and I did not connect her with the runaway heir. Forgive me, but although your father was the most trusted of Antonio’s humans, frankly that is not saying much. There was no reason to connect his wife with the Pythia’s court.”
“What about me? When did you learn that they had a child?” If Mircea had left a helpless baby in Tony’s fat hands, my opinion of him would go down considerably.
“Not until years later,” he said seriously, as if realizing how important the question was to me. “I spoke with Raphael a few months before my visit. Antonio had sent him on an errand to my court, and he took the opportunity to inform me of the truth. Of course, I immediately arranged to meet you.”