by Kresley Cole
“How many?”
“There were three demonic vampires in his party, other vampires as well. We took down two of the demons, but one remains.” Murdoch glanced behind him. “Where’s your Bride?”
Nikolai hesitated. “She’s at Blachmount. We’re . . . I’m . . .” He ran his hand over his haggard face, then said in a rush, “Ever since I tasted Myst’s blood, I’ve been dreaming her memories. . . .”
It was all Murdoch could do to mask his shock as Nikolai continued talking, the words spilling out. So the memories had followed the blood. Why weren’t his eyes red? Would Nikolai confess this to Kristoff?
Through these dreams, Nikolai had learned that in the past Myst had been a calculating femme fatale who’d used and discarded lovers without mercy. She’d been bent on tricking Nikolai, acting as if she wanted more with him, when she’d actually had ulterior motives.
Before Murdoch could even formulate a response to this, Nikolai delivered yet another bombshell. He’d come into possession of an enchanted chain—that controlled Myst. By owning the chain, Nikolai could make her do whatever he pleased.
This was their understanding? Some kind of enthrallment?
Long moments of silence passed before Murdoch said incredulously, “You took away the free will of a creature who has had it for upward of two thousand years. A good wager says she’s going to want it back.” Nikolai had dealt with war, plague, and famine all in one decade. He’d lost most of his family. And yet he’d always acted honorably. Until now.
It figured that it’d take a woman to break him.
“No, you don’t understand,” Nikolai said. “She’s callous. Incapable of love. It eats at me, her deception, because it’s the only thing that makes sense.” More to himself, he muttered, “Why else would she want me?”
Murdoch weakly grabbed his brother’s wrist. “All these years, I’ve seen you continually choose the best, most rational course, even if it’s the most difficult. I’ve been proud to follow your leadership because you’ve acted with courage and always—always—with rationality,” he grated, stopping for a ragged breath. “I never thought I would have to inform you that your reason and judgment have failed you, Nikolai. If she’s as bad as you say, then you have to . . . I don’t know, just help her change, but you can’t order this. Get back to her. Explain your fears to her.”
“I don’t think I can. You saw her, Murdoch. Why would she so quickly acquiesce?”
“Why don’t you just ask her?”
His brother’s expression said it all. He didn’t want her to know how desperately he needed her.
“And about the other men,” Murdoch said. “This isn’t the seventeen hundreds anymore. This isn’t even the same plane. She’s an immortal, not an eighteen-year-old blushing bride straight from a convent. She can’t change these things, so if you want her, you have to adjust.”
If her skin can’t be touched, you have to adjust. . . .
Nikolai ran a hand over his face and snapped, “When did you get so bloody understanding?”
Since I met Daniela. Since I nearly died. Murdoch shrugged, then stifled a wince at the pain in his chest. “I had someone explain a few rules of the Lore to me and learned that we can’t apply our human expectations to the beings within it.” Some men’s Brides are untouchable.
“Who told you this?”
I can’t tell you. I took a vow.
Nikolai didn’t press for an answer. “Will you be all right?” he asked.
“That’s the thing about being immortal. It’ll always look worse than it is.”
Nikolai attempted a grin—and failed.
“Good luck, brother,” Murdoch said. As soon as Nikolai left, he lay back, weak from hiding how much pain he was in, and still astounded by what he’d just seen. First my father, then Nikolai, now . . . me. Was it Murdoch’s inescapable fate to become obsessed with one woman?
After witnessing his brother like this, he came to a conclusion. Murdoch was already ruined without Daniela regardless.
I’ll be broken if I lose her in the future—or if I lose her now.
Now that this realization had struck him, Murdoch was oddly resigned to it. It’s too late for me.
“I’m besotted with her.” He gave a laugh, then grimaced as his wounds punished him for it. At least now he knew.
For the first time in weeks, he felt optimistic about his future. All he had to do was convince her to forgive him. Though he’d proved he was in no way silver-tongued with her, he would somehow figure out a way to persuade her. He always came through when it really counted.
He craved seeing Daniela again and was eager to get this sorted out between them, but he was still too weak, and he didn’t want her to see him like this.
Kristoff had put him on two weeks’ leave, so Murdoch could wait another day or two.
After all, he knew exactly where she’d be.
TWENTY-EIGHT
DANII’S EAR TWITCHED A SPLIT SECOND BEFORE SHE HEARD the masculine demand: “Where the hell are you going?”
So the vampire’s returned. “Away,” she said as she zipped up her second suitcase.
“You were just going to disappear without a word?”
“I’ll bet you’ve never done that to a woman. Besides, I didn’t figure you’d even notice I was gone. Thought you’d be busy trolling for humans.”
“I haven’t looked at another woman since—”
“Anyway, I wrote you a note on the dresser,” Danii interrupted, uninterested in whatever he’d come to say.
He snatched up the paper where she’d written: Murdoch, it’s been real. Daniela.
“How were you going to leave?”
“I have ways.” Ways being the one Sno-Cat operator in Russia who would journey to this place, the one due to arrive in an hour.
Murdoch crumpled the note in his fist. “How would I have been able to find you?”
She paused in her packing, briefly glancing up at him. “I guess you wouldn’t.”
Then she frowned. Though he always dressed well, tonight he seemed to have taken great care with his clothes. He wore an expensive sweater and luxe overcoat. His boots had been polished.
She sported a miniskirt and a camisole. With no shoes. “Why are you all dressed up?” she asked irritably.
“This night is important to me.” He was moving stiffly, and stood at an odd angle to her, keeping half of his face in shadow. “I need to tell you something.”
And I need to see why you’re not showing me the other side of your face. She moved to get a better look at him. Stitches? His face had been cut up, and yet he’d still tried to shave. What was so important? “Murdoch, what happened to you?”
“I almost got killed by a few half-demon, half-vampire beings.”
“There’s no such thing.” She waved his words away. “It’s one of the rare ‘myths’ in the Lore that’s actually false.”
“They had horns and fangs and were stronger than any vampires I’ve ever fought. They also had red eyes.”
All Fallen vampires had red eyes, but very few species of demons did. There’d been rumors of Ivo plotting something major. Had he conceived of a way to turn demons into vampires?
“Remember when Deshazior and the kobold said they were different and unfightable?” Murdoch said. “Well, they are.”
She had to contact Nïx about this. Wait. . . Her sister had mentioned dempires the last time they’d spoken. Demon vampires. Nïx already knew.
Murdoch began pacing, stabbing his fingers through his hair, his energy seeming to take up the entire room. But he was limping. And she thought she heard a barely perceptible squeak. A leg brace? Whatever he’d tangled with had inflicted some serious damage.
“Daniela, I think I know why I’m like this around you. Why I’m always at a loss for words and gruff. It’s you.”
“Blaming much? This behavior used to impress the ladies? Really?” She turned back to her packing.
“That’s what I’m trying to
explain. I wasn’t like this. I was smooth, compliments falling easily from my lips.”
“Murdoch Suavé?” She knew he hated it when she called him that. “Then what’s different now?”
“Now I fear that . . . I think that this . . . matters. You matter. To me.” He ran his hand over his forehead. “I feel a lot of pressure not to fuck this up with you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know. A chance? To see where this leads.”
She felt a spark of excitement at the idea, but mentally snuffed it. Murdoch equals misery. When would she finally accept that?
“Stay here, Daniela. With me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “With you? Like living together?” Had his nod been the tiniest bit hesitant? “What’s changed?”
“You said that I was afraid, and I think you were not . . . wrong.”
She didn’t reply, just raised her brows.
“I didn’t see it before, didn’t understand my reluctance. But when I was ambushed and believed I was going to die”—he stopped, meeting her gaze—”all I could think of was you.”
Oh. She felt herself softening. I’ve been thinking about you, too. No matter how hard I try not to. If she hadn’t had her carving, she’d have gone mad.
“And then a few days ago, I saw my brother. He’s a wreck over Myst. I thought that I’d never seen a man so twisted inside over a woman. But I have. Our father was that way for our mother.”
Murdoch resumed pacing. “He was obsessed with her. When she died, he never again laughed, never moved on. He used to sit in their room and stare at her portrait for hours. I think I feared something like that happening to me, if I sought more with you. But then I realized I’m more afraid of missing this with you.”
A breath escaped her as she edged closer to him. I want him. I want reality over fantasy. “Murdoch, did you practice that speech?”
“Continually for the last two days.”
No, remember Farmer Ted! Remember Loa’s betting book! “Since we’ve been seeing each other, you’ve threatened me, frightened me, and put me in a position where I was forced to walk out into the heat of noonday to hitchhike in a hell vehicle that reeked of tobacco. When you went out trolling in the Quarter, you . . . hurt me,” she said. “So you think long and hard about this. I saw your frustration when you wanted to bite me. I saw your hunger as you stared at my neck. And I’ve seen you clench your fists when you want to touch me.”
Closing in on her, he asked in a husky voice, “And did you see nothing else, kallim?”
She swallowed, unable to look away from his intense gray eyes, already flickering black with emotion. “You can never touch my skin, never drink from me. I’m colder than I’ve ever been. The pain would be much worse for me, and for you as well.”
“I understand.”
“Murdoch, there’s no magic that’s going to change our situation, no way to circumvent it—not now, and potentially not ever. Do you think you can be satisfied with that?”
“Satisfied? Completely? No. But I think we can be happier together than apart.”
If he had waxed rhapsodic about their chances, she probably would’ve run screaming. Instead, he’d been honest. And she agreed—she wouldn’t be satisfied completely either.
“I’ll give this a few months,” she eventually said. “On two conditions.”
“What are they?”
“Just as before, you can never tell anyone about me. Not until I’m ready.”
“Why?”
Because I give this a one-in-fifty shot of working out. “Because I don’t want to be the butt of jokes or the betrayed one on the betting books. And I don’t want to be known as the Forbearer’s forsaken one.”
“You expect me to forsake you.”
“Any reason why I shouldn’t?”
“I’m not my history. At least, that’s not all I am. Anymore.” He frowned, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“You’ve told me that you can’t do monogamy.”
“I’m going to. Do it. Now. But you must as well.” When she gave him a “no kidding” expression, he gritted his teeth. Again, clearly not pleased with what he’d said.
“I won’t be dissuaded from this condition. You must keep us a secret.”
“My brothers will hear my heart beating. They’ll know.”
“Do you agree or not?”
Finally, he said, “I agree. And what’s the second?”
“You have to vow never to bite me.”
“I vow it.”
Don’t get too excited, Daniela!
He placed his gloved hands on the sides of her face, gazing down at her. “Now, does this mean you’ve signed back up on my roster?”
Too late. “Did you practice that line as well?”
That lock of hair tumbled over his forehead. “Repeatedly.”
TWENTY-NINE
“COME ON IN!” Danii called to the vampire pacing on shore. “The water’s great.”
Under the moonlight, Murdoch looked as if he were actually considering joining her as she swam amidst the ice floes. He was also probably regretting that he’d agreed to trace her to the northern limits of his property, which extended all the way to the Arctic Ocean.
Seconds after she’d seen the water, she’d been skinny-dipping in it.
Poor vampire, pacing at the very edge of the sea, wanting to follow her, his gorgeous face tense. Her heart tugged at the sight, just as it’d been doing daily for these last several weeks, ever since the night she and Murdoch had started living together.
After they’d paid off the irate Sno-Cat operator, of course.
“Maybe the water’s a jot brisk,” she teased. These closing months of winter had been particularly harsh, an idyll of blizzards and negative degrees for her—and of course virtually twenty-four hours of darkness for him.
Without complaint, he endured the cold to be with her. She slept during the brief murky daylight to spend more time with him. And when they hadn’t been talking, learning more about each other, they’d been indulging in bouts of sensual—albeit inventive—bliss.
She’d never been happier.
“Out, Daniela,” he called, still pacing. “You’ve been in long enough.”
“If you don’t come join me, a merman might get frisky with me!”
He stopped and canted his head, wondering if she was kidding, growing increasingly agitated.
“Oh, very well. I’ll come in.” She wanted to walk some of the way back to the lodge anyway, and needed to budget time for snowball fights—she might let him win one tonight. She loved playing in the snow with him. When he had all his cold-weather gear on, they could roll around without having their skin touch.
As she swam in, she called, “Trace and get me a towel?”
Obviously reluctant to leave her for even seconds, he disappeared, returning moments later with one. He met her at the shore, wrapping her in it. As he rubbed her dry, her eyes closed with pleasure, reminded anew of their earlier encounter. For hours, she’d teased him with ice cubes, running them all over his body, everywhere she wished she could lick him.
“You were kidding about the merman, right?” he said. “You’d never told me they existed.”
“I haven’t gotten to merfolk yet.” Yes, Danii had relented, finally divulging the secrets of the Lore, once she’d sworn him to secrecy. She owed him her life and couldn’t stand the thought of him out there engaging opponents that would try to kill him just for being a vampire—enemies with powers and weaknesses he wouldn’t understand. “I’ve only covered the first two hundred or so beings, and there are more than can be catalogued. And that’s just on this plane.”
She’d outlined many of the larger factions, from the demon kingdoms called demonarchies to the history of the noble fey. “They were feudal lords called Fé odals ,” she’d explained. “That’s where they get the name. They hailed from the plane of Draiskulia, but once they came here, they became divided into differ
ent factions. Like the Icere.” And she’d related humorous trivia: “Some demons, like Desh, can be involuntarily summoned by previous bed partners. They call those summoners swimbos—a play on She Who Must Be Obeyed. . . .”
“Merfolk,” he repeated now, handing Danii her clothes. At times he seemed overwhelmed by all the Lorean histories and details. Admittedly, it was a lot to take in.
He’d probably learned the most via laptop, by following the web results and commentary on the Talisman’s Hie, a sort of immortal Amazing Race, sponsored by Riora, the flighty Goddess of Impossibility. Entrants from all factions crossed the globe, competing for mystical prizes.
Through the results, he’d discovered that his brother Sebastian was indeed alive and well—because he was competing in it. “My brother’s alive?” he’d said that day, shooting to his feet. Just before he’d swung Danii up in his arms, he’d abruptly dropped his outstretched hands, drawing back self-consciously. “Can you believe it? I have to let Nikolai . . .” He’d trailed off. “Why did you just go pale? Daniela, is Sebastian in danger?”
Regrettably, Sebastian was competing against Danii’s half sister, Kaderin the Coldhearted, a vicious vampire assassin. “The rules state that the competitors can’t kill each other until the final round,” she’d said, not wanting to extinguish his hopes, but Kaderin had never lost a Hie. And this time they played for Thrane’s Key, which unlocked a door to the past. Since Kaderin felt responsible for the deaths of two of her full-blood sisters, she’d be a ruthless menace in order to win that key.
When Murdoch had asked Danii if she could find out anything about this—like exactly why Sebastian would enter—she’d left a message with Nïx. Yet though Nïx was the most powerful oracle in the Lore, she was also forgetful, capricious, and notoriously bad at returning calls. . . .
Danii finished tugging her skirt up her thighs, then she glanced up—to find Murdoch’s fierce gaze rapt on her body.
