I bolted upright, ready to shake Dimitri awake, when I realized that she wasn’t really there. Rather, it was a holographic image of her traversing a phantom room.
Was this a new power I’d gained from ingesting Dimitri’s blood?
She paused before a large set of tall, ornate doors that stood open, focusing on the man seated in a wingback chair positioned before an immense fireplace. Orange and yellow flames licked at the blackened stone within and cast an eerie glow across the shadowy contents of the room. I could see only the top of this man’s shaved head above the upholstered back. On his middle finger he wore an onyx ring, which he tapped rhythmically against the armrest; a ring very similar to the one Dimitri wore.
Kassandra slinked over to him in the same outfit she’d worn earlier; a black and beige, knee-length dress that hugged every curve of her shapely body, her gold bracelets twinkling in the firelight as she approached him in high-heel sandals.
Perching on the other armrest, she gazed into his face with unconcealed excitement. “You’ll never guess who has him.”
Then her image flickered and dissolved.
I looked over at Dimitri once more, his profile etched by moonlight. Should I wake him, tell him about my dream? Something about the man was chillingly familiar.
A coldness began to take root inside me, and I worked myself against the line of Dimitri’s body. The contact did little to ease the intense sense of dread rising in me.
This had never happened before tonight. I’d never been awake during what, I prayed, was merely a bad dream. Maybe it was a direct result of the shock and stress created by what had happened to me today, or the healing effect of Dimitri’s preternatural blood coursing through my veins. Toss in Kassandra’s very real threat to kill us, and no wonder I was having nightmares.
“Quiet your thoughts, Austin,” Dimitri said in a sleepy voice. He opened his eyes and offered me a lazy smile. “They are loud enough to wake the dead.”
My breath caught in my throat and I began to tremble. “My God, I know who he is!” The alabaster skin. The shaved head and curious ring. “I know who the man with your sister is!”
Dimitri bolted upright, bringing me with him. “What man?”
The dream man was no longer hidden by the armchair. He was leering at me now from the foot of the bed, elongated black eyes glinting with malicious intent. “I see you, little incubus…”
“Haemon!” I shouted, the name forming like a cancer in my mind.
Dimitri gripped me by the shoulders. “How do you know this name?”
“He knows I’m with you, Dimitri. He sees us!” My mouth went dry. It was difficult to form words. “He’s coming for me!”
“Close your mind to him, Austin. Do it now!”
The commanding boom of Dimitri’s voice shattered the image of the grinning fiend. It wavered for an instant, then dissolved. My terror, unfortunately, did not.
“It is only a mind trick,” Dimitri said, rising to his feet and staring down at me shivering on the bed. “My sister has infiltrated your mind. She is making you see the dead.”
I shook my head emphatically. “No, she’s really with him.” Dimitri began to pace the room. “It’s the man from Prague. The one who—”
“Savaged you.” The look on Dimitri’s face was murderous. “I see it in your mind. But he failed to mark you.” Ready to tell Dimitri that he’d marked me plenty, he added, “Another vampire’s kiss I would have detected.”
“He did bite me,” I said. “But the scars healed.”
“Then he will have a connection to you.” Dimitri balled his hands into tight fists, his jaw clenching. “You have encountered not one but three vampires, and yet live to tell of it.”
“If you call this living…” My own anger was on the rise, which was a helluva lot better than being scared shitless. “Who is he?”
“A ghost,” Dimitri responded, walking to the foot of the bed where that other dream vampire had only just stood.
I scooted across the mattress to be closer to him. “This is no ghost. This guy’s alive, and he’s with your sister right now.”
“Haemon’s involvement greatly complicates matters.” He moved to sit on the bed again and rested a hand on my leg. “More than ever, you must bridle your emotions, or they will trace our location. Look at me, Austin.” And I did, because his voice held such conviction. “I swear I shall not allow any harm to come to you.”
I took in a deep breath and exhaled. “I believe you. I just don’t know if it’ll be enough.”
Haemon and Kassandra were out for blood. I also got the distinct impression they’d have fun spilling it. If the crazed look in Haemon’s soulless eyes was any indication, I had every reason to be worried. We both did.
“What else did you see in your vision? Were there other people?”
“No,” I answered. “Just Kassandra and Haemon in some big room with a lot of antiques.”
Dimitri’s face lit up. “With a large fireplace and single chair before it?”
I nodded. “A wingback, like at your place.”
He slapped his thigh. “They are not in Rome, as I feared, but at his residence in Prague.” I didn’t get the connection. “The Council sits in Rome. For whatever reason, they haven’t yet involved them.”
“So no assassins?” I heaved an audible sigh of relief. “And by the way, how did your sister get off this boat? We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“She can fly.”
“She can what?”
“Fly,” he said with rising irritation. “Trust me when I say this, the worst is far from over. If Kassandra and Haemon have failed to inform the Council of your existence, you can wager they stand to gain a great deal more through their silence.”
I pressed fingertips to my throbbing temples. “And the fun just keeps coming.”
Dimitri eyes focused on the darkness beyond the stateroom windows. “I must leave you now. The sun will be up soon.”
“I’m sorry. Your flying vampire sister’s got an all-access pass to this floating bull’s-eye and you want to leave me alone? No fucking way!”
“There is no complete way to guard against the sunlight here. This holds true for my sister and Haemon. You will be safe here for the time being.”
I bolted out of bed and over to the curved wall of glass, tugging at the heavy silk panels to the bank of windows. They groaned in protest. “I’ll cover the windows and make the place a cozy coffin for two, okay?”
“I do not sleep in a coffin.” Dimitri depressed a button at the side of the bed. The drapes slid effortlessly closed across a hidden track in the ceiling. “And I cannot stay because of what I know, because of this,” he said, walking over to me and placing a hand on my forearm.
His touch generated a sudden surge of incubus lust in me.
“We called it the Hunger,” he said, fixing me with a heated gaze. “The sway the incubi held over us, and which you appear to hold over me. Even with my guard up, your gift of enchantment is formidable.” He released my arm and took a step back. “I would be unable to resist the temptation.”
“That’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Dimitri walked to the landing dividing the upper and lower stateroom. “It is why my kind so feared your own,” he said over his shoulder. “As I have already explained, the females of your ilk did not carry magick potent enough to seduce vampires as effectively as mortals.”
All I could think about was Haemon and Kassandra returning to the ship and finding me alone. That, and how very much I wanted Dimitri to touch me again.
“Take the bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa.” I pointed to the lower stateroom. “Just please don’t leave me.”
For a moment, it looked as though he might change his mind.
“Alas, it is a risk I am unwilling to take.” He walked down the three steps and into the long corridor beyond.
I felt my stomach drop, or was it my heart?
Dimitri was right; I did want him. I�
�d never force myself on him, though. Okay. I might try to persuade him to do a little more than just cuddle with me. After all, we were both monsters.
“And therein resides our dilemma, my friend,” he said from the broken set of double doors. “I would have to say yes, and we both know that I cannot.”
I lay alone in the large bed, restless but determined to get my frazzled emotions under control. Could I really compel a millennia-old vampire to have sex with me against his will?
The idea was equal parts thrilling and alarming.
Then again, maybe Dimitri was right. It incubus magic at work. He was a vampire, after all, and a heterosexual one at that. Which I was, too, or had been up until a few months ago, anyway. Add to the list our supposed mortal enemies status and how could it possibly be anything but magic keeping him from doing what his laws dictated?
And yet, if that were the case, why did my passion for him feel so real? Did incubus enchantment also bind the conjurer to his own spell? That sentiment didn’t ring at all true. My feelings for Dimitri Ravello were genuine, I was sure of it.
I exhaled deeply and tried to keep from grabbing the sides of the mattress and kicking my heels in frustration. I needed to still my thoughts. Get some rest.
Who was I kidding? I was too amped up and freaked out for sleep.
Besides, every time I closed my eyes I saw Haemon’s leering face staring back at me.
Fuck!
CHAPTER 24
“I’ve come for you, little incubus…”
My eyes flew open and I bolted upright, seizing a grinning Haemon by the throat. No, not Haemon. Vardoulakis, and I was crushing his windpipe.
I released him and watched the man stagger backwards, coughing and struggling to get air back into his lungs. What was he doing here? Of more troubling and immediate concern was the sudden and overwhelming urge I had to sink my teeth into him. His palpable fear and galloping heartbeat only magnified my desire to drain him of every last drop of blood.
Vardoulakis must have registered this as well. Yet no matter how frantic he was to bolt—oh, and he wanted to—my silent command rooted him to the floor.
I stole out of bed and advanced on him with all the lethal intent of a great jungle cat.
The Greek’s eyes went wide, the fear reflected in them pushing my hunger over the edge. I pounced and knocked Vardoulakis hard onto his back, and then lunged for his jugular.
In that same instant, a furnace-like blast of heat shot up my leg and I leapt away from the terrified captain with a howl. The entire left side of my calf had been seared and reeked of burning flesh.
Only now did I see the small shaft of sunlight from a rift in the curtains. The pain was so intense that it shattered the bloodlust. A damn good thing for both of us.
Vardoulakis scrambled to his feet and tried to regain some semblance of composure, but with little success. “Master Ravello wishes you to join him on land.”
God, to think what I’d nearly done to this man. If the sun hadn’t stopped me, Vardoulakis wouldn’t be breathing anymore. “I’ll find some clothes.”
Vardoulakis bent to retrieve the bundle he’d dropped when I attacked him and offered up a pair of flip-flops, rumpled shorts, and a stripped T-shirt to me with a shaky hand.
It was official. I was one of the bad guys now.
We exited the sliding-glass doors at the rear of the yacht and onto the covered patio. I stiffened at the sunlight reflecting off the water, at its heat pushing in at the open sides.
Vardoulakis was a step ahead of me. He’d picked up a quilted blanket along the way, which he wrapped around me to keep the early morning sun’s rays from charbroiling his departing guest. The gesture shamed me even further. I’d almost eaten the man.
At the stern, we moved down a short flight of curved steps to the water’s edge. A motorized dinghy large enough to accommodate the Captain, myself, and two other crewmembers bobbed and dipped there, its motor idling. The dinghy also came equipped with a red and white striped tent surround that would ensure my safety from the intensity of the sun’s rays.
Once we were all aboard, Vardoulakis sat as far away from me as possible.
I could hardly blame him for wanting to keep his distance.
Through rectangular vinyl windows, I glimpsed a small fishing village with an imposing fortress perched high atop a giant rock. The buildings were whitewashed, a few with cobalt or terracotta tiled roofs—some conical, some more traditional. The vibrant, deep blue water, coupled with these quaint dwellings, left little to guesswork. We had to be somewhere in Greece.
The moment we docked in the tiny harbor, I was ushered down a short pier and into the backseat of an idling Range Rover with tinted windows and blackout curtains in the rear section.
“I must return to the yacht,” Vardoulakis said in a matter-of-fact tone, refusing direct eye-contact. “Niko will take over from here.”
The young driver nodded at me.
My immediate thought was the danger posed by being anywhere near that vessel. If Kassandra had found it once, she’d find it again. My second thought was what I’d almost done to this man less than half an hour ago. “Louk, I’m so sorry.”
He lifted his gaze to me then, his expression brightening somewhat. “May the gods smile upon you,” he said and shut the rear door.
I never saw Vardoulakis again.
CHAPTER 25
“Sure. I have done it many times,” the young Greek driver assured me.
I re-examined the near vertical rock wall leading to the acropolis high above, an amalgam of pre-Christian temples encircled by a medieval wall, and then back at the driver. What he proposed was tantamount to scaling a skyscraper.
“Taking the service road up is our best bet.” Not to mention a helluva lot safer!
“Captain Louk says you must to stay out of the sun.” He pointed to the burn on my leg. “Don’t worry. You do great.”
He’d known me for all of twenty minutes. How could he have so much faith in a perfect stranger? Then again, I was an incubus pumped full of vampire blood. Maybe I can do this.
The driver deposited the climbing paraphernalia he’d removed from the rear of the SUV onto the ground and began separating out harnesses, crampons, and other items I had no idea how to use. He glanced from his gear to me, then up the mountain-face. “Is a little tricky for the first thirty meters. The rest is a slice of pie. That is what you Americans say for easy, no?”
“Something like that,” I responded with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “Where are the ropes, uh…?” In all the madness of the morning I’d forgotten his name.
“Niko.” He said it with a big grin. “And that is the magic part.”
Great, more magic. Not only was a pair of psychotic vampires out to make me their latest chew toy, I was going to beat them to it by falling to my death from the side of a mountain. I failed to see any magic in that scenario.
“Can’t we wait till nightfall and then take the service road up?”
“The authorities close it an hour before sunset.” Niko stood back to assess the equipment once more. “And Master Dimitri wants you with him. Is never good to keep him waiting.”
Dimitri Ravello certainly had his humans well-trained, and Niko was definitely human.
The young man possessed an aura of vitality that quite literally pulsated around him. Intense, refreshing, it was also a welcome change, despite his questionable plan. Toss in totally charming with an infectious laugh and, gosh, I’d managed not to think about Haemon or Kassandra for almost thirty seconds.
“Come,” he instructed, bending to pick up the harness,” I assist you.”
I stepped into the leg loops he held out for me, having already put on a pair of climbing boots on the drive over from the harbor, along with knocking back a soda bottle filled with fresh blood that Niko had had the good sense to offer me. Guess he wasn’t keen on becoming my mid-morning snack. The psychological impact of having to drink blood in order to survive was someth
ing I’d probably never get used to. Conversely, if Dimitri had been truthful with me last night, I wouldn’t have to for much longer.
Niko slid the nylon loops and thick foam belt the rest of the way up my legs and tightened the band around my waist. The fly of my cargo shorts protruded through the vinyl crotch ring, which his securing, tugging on and brushing against was making a tad poochier. I also couldn’t help noticing the scent of sweat rising off him. It was intoxicating and had begun to mix with something else that made focusing on the task ahead of us that much harder.
He smelled like something wonderful to eat. The kind of food you licked and nibbled at before taking fully into your mouth and swallowing.
“Always you must to double pass the buckle,” he instructed with a serious face now. “For safety reasons.”
That last comment nearly caused me to laugh out loud. Like this or anything in my life for the past six months had been even remotely safe.
Instead, I nodded at him with a tight grin and struggled to keep my supernatural sex drive and newfound bloodlust in check. Trouble was they didn’t like taking orders from me.
Niko stood up and gave me a reassuring pat on the back. He then peeled off his T-shirt and tucked it into the waistband of his baggy cropped pants. His bronzed, lean torso was devoid of hair and did nothing to help calm my human nerves or rising incubus/vampire lust. A silver pendant in the shape of a zip lighter dangled from a crude leather string around his neck.
“Master’s lair is there.” He pointed to a remote spot at the top of the mountain.
I exhaled deeply. “Of course it is.”
While our side of the mountain still lay in shadow, the day’s heat was on the rise. I could feel my skin growing pricklier. If we were going to do this, now was time.
A slice of pie?
Niko had neglected to mention that the first thirty meters was going to be a psychological, white knuckle, oh-my-God-I’m-gonna-die first thirty meters.
Mercifully, I’d survived the most challenging phase of the climb.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help marveling at my body’s rise to the physical demands required to scale this mountain. I continued to grip the rock face with intense focus and pull myself up with relative ease.
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