by Nalini Singh
Like magic.
Her heart began to pound, hard thumping lunges. "Feed, then. Take my blood." She sat up until she could straddle his chest and bend over him, pressing her bare, sweating breasts to his chest, her throat to his mouth.
Raniero froze as if unable to believe she was yielding herself. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked. "You will not regret your trust."
He kissed her leaping pulse, his lips lingering and tender.
And then he bit.
Amaris jerked at the hot sting. It had been years since she'd fed a vampire, since she'd dared let one get this close. She'd forgotten how it felt, the hot intimacy of trusting a man with her blood, the slide of fangs into flesh, the movement of lips and tongue.
And the surging tide of magic that rolled up from somewhere inside her, deep as bone and heart, a glittering tide that ran up her spine in shuddering waves.
He jerked, absorbing it, drinking the power in with every swallow. She gasped as he moaned against her skin.
Somewhere over the sound of her pounding heart, she heard a metallic crunch, the ring and rattle of chains.
Raniero's arms came around her, hard and sweating and strong. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized he'd broken his bonds.
Orel would have pushed her away, rolled to his feet, and gone for the door. Raniero cradled her as if she was something precious, his hands stroking over her skin, caressing her backside, exploring the dip of her waist, sliding his fingers into her hair.
Until at last he drew his fangs from her flesh with exquisite care, then ran his tongue over the tiny wounds. Amaris felt his magic dance across her skin, healing the punctures.
"Thank you," he breathed in her ear.
She straightened, drawing reluctantly back until she could sit up astride him and meet his dark gaze. Still he stroked her, sliding his hands along the curve of her thighs, cupping a breast, rasping a thumb across an erect nipple.
He gazed up at her with those dark, bespelling eyes. "You are so beautiful."
Simple words. She'd heard them before from other men, other vampires. So why did they have such power coming from him?
"We'd better go." Amaris licked her dry lips and tried to steady her voice. "If we're going to free Marin, we have to strike now."
Raniero let his hands drop away. Her skin felt curiously chilled without them. "I know." His gaze searched hers. "But later, when this is over . . ." He hesitated.
Her heart had slowed its frantic pound, but at those words, it leaped again. "When this is over?"
"When this is over, I want more of you." His eyes didn't falter as he stared into hers. "All of you."
Amaris couldn't seem to help her giddy smile. "You'll have me." Then she remembered everything that stood in the way--freeing her sister, fighting their way past the Varil, Korban's men, Tannaz, and Korban himself. "If we live."
Raniero's lips thinned with determination. "We'll live."
The door to Raniero's cell jerked open, and Amaris appeared around it, eyes wild, hair disheveled. "He dies!" She wrung her hands, staring at the four guards in the corridor. "Help me!"
They exchanged a wary look. "Judging from the sounds half a sandglass ago, he was healthy enough."
"I think it's some spell. Mayhaps Korban's enemies move against him." She glared at them, magic lighting her pupils with a warning glow. "Or would you rather go to Korban and tell him why you let his prize captive die?"
Considering their lord's reaction to the last guard unit's irresponsibility, that was a message none of them wanted to carry. "Very well, woman," the guard sergeant said. "You two, stay in the corridor. Kriso, with me."
Drawing his sword, he flung the door wide and stalked inside--where Raniero wrapped a length of broken chain around his neck and broke it with one ruthless jerk. Kriso fell to the magic blast Amaris fired at his head. She grabbed his sword from his hand before he hit the ground.
The other two guards shouted in alarm and rage, but Raniero was already in the corridor like a cat among pigeons, the sergeant's sword in his hand. He killed them both in the same smooth motion, cleaving one man's head from his shoulders before running the other right through the breastplate.
Raniero turned to aim a wild, glittering grin at Amaris. "I think the sergeant's armor will just fit."
She eyed the carnage. "I doubt he'll argue. But hurry--I want to get Marin away from her witch of a nurse before someone stumbles on these four."
But they found the nurse just leaving Marin's room, a bundle of possessions in her arms. She gasped the truth around the fingers Raniero dug in her fat throat. "Milord came for the child. He said he has no more need of me. He told me . . . he told me nothing more!"
"The Great Barrier," Amaris whispered in numb horror as Hetram fell unconscious to the steps. "Korban has finished his spell."
EIGHT
"Can you find her?" Raniero demanded, his black eyes glittering through the slit in the helm he'd taken from the guardsman. "Track her with magic, since she is your blood?"
The suggestion arrested the panicked reel of Amaris's mind, helped her think again. "Yes. I should be able to . . ." Biting her lip, she drew on her magic and reached out for her sister. It was an old, familiar spell, one she'd used a hundred times to keep track of an active child prone to disappearing. Sometimes literally; Marin had particularly loved using that invisibility spell . . .
There.
She felt the solid tug of the little girl's life, and her knees went weak with relief. Not dead, then.
Not yet.
"I've got her. Come on!" Amaris spun from the room and shot down the snaking stone hallway. Behind her, Raniero's booted feet rang on the stone, and his armor creaked as he raced after her.
"Which way?" he demanded as they ran.
"Up." She spotted a stairway and took them. "Feels like she's about fifty feet up, and maybe twice that far to the right."
"Battlements," Raniero grunted. "Makes sense."
"The Great Barrier is closest to the castle there." She knew the spot. Korban had once dragged her there for one of his mad rants. She'd listened to him go on and on about the power the Varil would give him, watching the glowing curtain of magic shift and glitter in the night.
If the barrier fell, his own people would be the first to pay the price, but Korban really didn't care.
Amaris reached the top of the stairs, but before she could charge out onto the battlements, a big hand grabbed her shoulder and dragged her to a stop.
"Guards," Raniero murmured. "Where are his guards?"
"I doubt there are any," she whispered back. "It's one thing for his people to know what he intends. But to work the spell in front of them, when they know they'll be the first the Varil will kill . . . Nay, he'll not want witnesses."
They slipped onto the battlements together, stolen swords in hand, Raniero with a guard's shield slung over his shoulder. The sky overhead was black with scudding clouds. The icy wind whipped Amaris's hair, carrying the sound of chanting to her ears. She didn't recognize the words of the spell, but something about the hissing alien syllables made the hair rise on the back of her neck.
"I do not like the sound of that," Raniero said grimly, shrugging his shield down onto his left arm. "Which way?"
Amaris indicated the direction with a gesture, and the vampire took the lead. She padded after his broad back, straining to hear any approaching enemy over the moan of the wind.
Abruptly Raniero jerked back and froze, lifting a warning hand. She stopped to peek around his brawny shoulder.
And caught her breath in dread.
The two Varil warriors stood just ahead, backs turned as they watched the scene ahead with snakelike intensity.
Tannaz held Marin pinned to a stone altar as Korban chanted, holding a glowing knife poised over the child's chest. The Blood Orb floated above her head like a demonic bubble, crimson energies swirling sullenly inside its glowing heart.
Amaris reached down into the core of her
magic, felt its hot leap, and shouted a spell that sent it boiling from her fingertips. The blast hit Korban's knife and knocked it from his hand, spinning it over the stone wall.
Korban snatched for the blade with a shout of startled rage, but he was too late. Furious, his face going scarlet with rage, he whirled to glare at Raniero and Amaris. "Kill them!"
The Varil whipped around and charged, huge blades lifted, fangs bared. Amaris dodged between them, avoiding their flashing blades. She had to get to Marin before Korban could complete his spell. Behind her, steel clashed on steel as Raniero engaged the two reptiles.
"Oh, no you don't, you traitorous little bitch!" Tannaz leaped into her path, brandishing his sword. Behind him, Korban wrapped an arm around Marin and dragged her off the altar, ignoring the child's shrieking struggles. The Blood Orb floated after them like a dog begging for a promised meal.
Tannaz swung his blade in a furious stroke, obviously thinking he'd kill her quickly. Amaris ducked his overconfident stroke, her sword slashing across his armored ribs even as she sent a spell rolling down the blade. Her magical attack sliced through his armor like parchment. Tannaz howled in startled pain and clutched his side. Amaris spun, whipping the sword around to slice his thigh to the bone.
"Oh, you're going to bleed for that!" Ignoring the wound, he charged her with a vampire's flashing speed.
She sidestepped like a dancer, and he missed, though she felt his sword snag the fabric of her gown. It tore with a ragged sound.
Damn, but she wished she had her armor.
Being a Blood Rose gave Amaris speed and strength beyond human, but she was still no match for a vampire as powerful as Tannaz. He would inevitably wear her down and kill her . . . Unless she could goad him into stupidity.
"Mother always said you were a bully and a coward. She underestimated you." Amaris gave him a slow and vicious smile. "You're also a murderer and a traitor."
The rage that flashed over his face chilled her blood. He attacked, his sword slamming into hers with force enough to numb her arm to the shoulder. Before she could shake it off, he attacked again.
And again. And again. Amaris scrambled backward, parrying frantically as he rained blows on her, sometimes overhand, sometimes in flat, brutal arcs, sometimes targeting her thighs or arms. In minutes, she was bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds, though she managed to avoid anything more serious.
She was losing. Simply staying alive wasn't enough; she had to land blows of her own. Yet attacking him was impossible when it was all she could do to keep him from driving through her guard and gutting her.
As Amaris circled with Tannaz, retreating, parrying, trying frantically to stay alive, she got fleeting glimpses of Marin and Raniero. The child hung limp in Korban's arms, her eyes wide with helpless terror as he chanted, the Blood Orb hovering close.
Raniero's blade flashed in bright moonlit arcs, shield ringing as he blocked the Varils' massive battle axes. Blood streaked his armor, both vampire red and reptile green.
But Amaris didn't dare divert her attention from her father's murderous blade.
Then one thin slipper hit a pool of her blood, and slid. With a cry, she went down on one knee. She tried to throw herself backward, twisting away from the thrust she saw coming right for her heart.
Too late.
The blade slid between ribs and left hip and kept on going, right out her back. She bit back a scream of hot agony.
Tannaz grinned down into her eyes, fangs flashing.
An axe strike clanged against Raniero's shield as he spun, avoiding the second reptile's attempt to hack his head off. He retreated in a fighter's crouch, watching his opponents with narrow eyes. They prowled, attempting to circle behind him, thick lizard tails twitching hungrily. They were slower than he was, but they were also much stronger, as evinced by the dents they'd left in his shield and armor. He was surprised Amaris had held her own with them as long as she had; only her Blood Rose speed and agility had kept her alive.
The thought of Amaris made his gut coil into a solid knot of anxiety. The last he'd seen of her, she was fighting her father. Yet he couldn't see her now.
Unfortunately, he couldn't help her until he'd taken care of the Varil.
An axe thunked against his shield with a force that drove him back on his heels. Damn, the bastards were strong. He spun away from the blow, using the momentum to launch an attack at the other lizard. His blade crashed against Blue Stripe's axe, skidded along the steel, and bit into a scaled shoulder. The Varil hissed in pain and rage, jerking away as green blood flew.
Unfortunately, it was a shallow cut, not enough to disable the big lizard. And Raniero had collected some ugly wounds of his own, despite his stolen armor. His hands were slippery with blood, and a wound on his thigh throbbed in time to his pulse. His sword was growing heavy in his hands, and he knew he was slowing down.
And that could be the death of him, because vampire speed was all that kept him alive. He had to keep moving, or the lizards would trap him between them.
So he retreated, dancing away from his foes, darting in and out between them as he hacked at any target the Varil presented. He knew he had to wrap up this fight before Amaris or her sister died.
Then, as he ducked the brutal swing of a spiked tail, he glimpsed Amaris on her knees, her father's sword rammed completely through her body. And his heart froze in his chest.
It was a lethal moment's distraction. The two Varil saw it and lunged forward in simultaneous attack, one great axe swinging for his head, the other for his torso.
He sensed the twin attacks more than saw them. Throwing himself forward into a long, flat dive, he felt one blade skim past his ass as the other scraped one kicking armored shin. He landed in an acrobat's tumble and came up just in time to hear an anguished roar.
In missing him, Blue Stripe's axe had buried itself in his partner's chest. Cari'f fell, tail lashing in death throes.
Taking Blue Stripe's axe with it.
Blue Stripe lunged for Cari'f's axe, grabbed it out of the convulsing clawed fist, and whirled.
Too late.
Raniero heaved his great sword in a flat, furious arc that chopped into the reptile's thick neck with a meaty thunk. But even as he died, the raider swung his axe. Raniero deflected it with his shield, but the massive blade still struck his thigh a glancing blow. Blood flew, bright scarlet mixing with Varil green as Raniero went down.
"I'll wager that hurts," Tannaz purred as Amaris panted in anguish down on one knee. "Now, don't you wish you'd been a loyal daughter instead of a treacherous little bitch?" He levered up on the sword he'd driven between her ribs and hip.
The pain was a blinding scarlet screech that forced Amaris to her feet again. She dropped her sword to grip her father's wrist, trying to keep him from hurting her further.
He grinned down into her face. "Nothing to say, daughter? No viperous accusations, no vicious insults?"
"Why bother?" she managed as pain rippled through her side in nauseating waves. Her left hand groped for her belt, found the hilt of the slender knife she wore there. Her right hand spread against his armored side, found the chink just beneath his ribs. "You know what you are."
Rage lit his eyes, and he twisted the sword, ripping a scream from her lips. "And I know what you are--a whore, just like your mother."
Not close enough. She forced herself another inch up the blade, stepping full against him as she drew the knife from its belt sheath. "But did you know how I've met the sun every morning I've been your captive?" With a quick twist of the wrist, she drove her little knife right into the chink in his armor into the flesh beneath. It wasn't a deep wound given the length of the blade, certainly nothing that would kill him. Not by itself. Her lip curled in satisfaction. "Burn, Father!"
Before he could jerk away, she cast the spell that released all the morning sunlight she'd stored in her dagger for just this moment, sending it pouring into the knife wound on a river of magic.
Amaris jerked b
ack, forcing herself back the length of the sword, reeling backward as Tannaz went up like a torch. The vampire howled in agony, the light pouring from the dagger to devour his magical flesh. He blazed bonfire bright until the fire finally went out, leaving his armor to collapse to the battlement stones, empty of all but ash.
Dizzy, weak with blood loss and the effort of casting the spell, Amaris reeled like a drunken woman. But before she could hit the ground, strong male hands caught her shoulders.
"I will have to remember not to make you angry," Raniero said, even as he sent a pulse of magic into her body. She added his strength to her own and healed the lethal sword wound, sighing in relief as the pain faded.
NINE
"We've got to get to Marin before he kills her," Amaris said grimly.
Raniero longed to tell her to stay behind, but her magic was greater than his, and he knew he'd need her if he was to have any hope at all of stopping the wizard. So he nodded silently and turned to lead the way as they went in search of Korban.
They found him bathed in the pulsing crimson glow of the Blood Orb. His eyes were wide and glittering with exhilaration in his pale face as he held Marin pinned against his chest. The child hung limp in his arms, the side of her face marked with a purpling handprint where he'd obviously struck her.
"You bastard!" Amaris snarled.
Korban smirked at them and kept right on chanting, the words coming in a fast singsong now.
Amaris exchanged a grim glance with Raniero, realizing he was coming to the end of the spell. Once that happened, all he had to do was break Marin's neck, and the Great Barrier would fall.
"We've got to get her away from him," Amaris whispered.
"Aye, but how?" Raniero hefted his sword and eyed Korban, who promptly lifted the child higher to shield himself. "Fucking coward."
Amaris's eyes widened with desperate inspiration. "Marin!" Her voice rang clear over Korban's chanting. "Remember our game!"
The child's despairing gaze met hers, but there was no understanding in them.
She tried again. "Remember that game you love to play? The one where I look for you?"
