by Aja James
The next night, Jade lay bloody and broken in front of the same doorstep where the soldiers had left her after having their fun.
She wondered how much money Lὕ Bu received for selling her to those rutting animals. Wondered whether he’d finally drunk his fill and gotten some good luck with dice.
Ironically, unbeknownst to her, he’d been stabbed to death that afternoon while tottering around in a drunken stupor. The clinking of coins in the pouch on his belt had drawn some particularly bloodthirsty thieves.
Jade wouldn’t have had the strength to care even if she did know; she was too busy dying herself.
A rueful, derisive smile tilted her swollen lips as she closed her eyes.
This should teach her a lesson, she thought as her consciousness receded.
She was a fool to imagine herself in love.
She was the greatest imbecile in the world to trust her heart, her life, to another person. She should have known better than to depend on anyone else.
Well, if she had another chance, she wouldn’t make the same mistake again, she thought as twin trails of tears rolled unchecked down her bruised and battered cheeks.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart…”
A voice she was certain she never heard before, yet she remembered so clearly, whispered in her ear.
Perhaps she was already on the other side of life, perhaps she was even before the gates of heaven, for the man’s voice sounded so heavenly, it soothed away Jade’s physical pain.
“I’m with you,” the voice said, “you’re not alone.”
Jade’s smile turned wistful as she sighed her last human breath.
She didn’t mind dying if this voice was the one lulling her to the other side.
Chapter Nine
Seth held Jade tighter as she wept unconscious tears.
She clutched him closely with her whole body, her limbs wound around him like soft prison bars, her mouth still drawing hungrily upon his vein, her sex milking his in wave after wave of shuddering climax.
It was working, the blood and pleasure he gave her.
She was coming back to life, her powers returning to defeat the icy poison from Katerina’s touch.
Just a little longer. He would make her well again, herself again.
But he…
He would never be the same.
One of Seth’s Gifts was the ability to project his soul into any space, any time.
He rarely used his powers to invade people’s memories, but as Jade lay dying in his arms, he knew instinctively that she wasn’t just fighting Katerina’s poison, she was also fighting demons from her dreams.
From her past.
He knew from experience that she was weakest when she slept, unaware of the world around her, defenseless and alone.
He’d held her every night during the six months of their contract three years ago as she cried in her sleep, the complete antithesis of the dominant, confident vampire queen she portrayed while awake.
The poison had made her even weaker while unconscious, and for many terrifying heartbeats, Seth thought she’d never wake.
She wasn’t strong enough to fight the poison, he saw very quickly. She’d been obviously starved for blood and lacking sexual vitality even from the brief glimpse he’d caught of her when she confronted the Countess.
If she had been at full power, she might have easily pushed back the Countess’s icy stain. But she’d been a frail ghost of the vampire queen he’d known years ago.
What’s more, as the poison and her own weakness pulled her closer to death, she not only lacked the strength, but also the will, to fight it.
To live.
So he projected himself into her dreams, just as he gave her strength with his body.
He delved into the memories she relived every time she slept, and watched her past life unfold as if he were living it with her, an invisible shadow by her side.
He’d given her comfort when she needed it most.
Sharing her pain as she felt it had made her stronger, less alone.
But Goddess above!
Her pain slayed him.
Her past broke him.
He would have traded his soul and all his lives if he could have truly gone back in time and protected her.
As it was, all he could do was relentlessly pull her through the quicksand of her dreams, feed her body, if not her heart, with the strength of his blood and sex.
He’d wanted to understand her, and now he did.
With this insight, Seth knew what he had to do.
*** *** *** ***
“I thought I might find you here.”
Sophia turned to the familiar silky voice. Ere was not two feet behind her, a flirtatious smile tilting his sensuous lips.
“Hullo,” Sophia greeted without the effervescence and energy she used to display in front of Ere, her scrumptious ex-teaching assistant.
As she took in his tall, lean form and handsome face, not even a flicker of attraction stirred within her.
So much for her erstwhile crush.
There was a time Ere could make her blush with the pleasures of his attention on command.
But that was before.
No male, across all the ages and all the world, would ever compare to Dalair, now that she’d finally had him, however briefly.
Ere gestured to the Persian exhibit on permanent display, a much smaller sliver of the grand exhibit a couple of years ago.
“I never congratulated you for helping to curate the Grand Exhibition on ancient Persia,” he noted. “You didn’t come to the much feted opening event.”
“An emergency took me home early,” she responded.
The emergency had to do with Inanna and Gabriel, now good friends of the Dozen, for though they were Dark Ones, they both had Pure souls, as did their adopted son, Benji, one of Sophia’s favorite people.
Ere nodded.
“You’re quite difficult to keep up with, Sophia. You must lead an exciting life.”
She shrugged, looking back at the exhibit.
He didn’t know the half of it.
“Are you just visiting the City or staying longer this time?” Ere asked, undeterred by her reticence.
“I’ve relocated here for the time being,” she said, then looked at him curiously.
“What are you doing here, Ere? Another research project? I seem to bump into you in the City more than back in Boston.”
“Not an unpleasant occurrence, I hope?”
He was fishing for compliments, flirting easily with her as he always did.
Unfortunately, Sophia had become immune to his considerable charms.
She’d liked him at first because he unconsciously reminded her of Dalair. Same height, almost the same build, same dark features.
But now she knew they were nothing alike.
Ere was still beautiful with his natural charisma and simmering sexuality, but Dalair was…
Sophia still hadn’t the words to describe what Dalair was, not even in her mind.
He was simply everything her heart and soul and body desired.
“Of course not,” Sophia recalled herself enough to answer.
Then, a spark of inspiration occurred to her.
“You are an expert on ancient Persia, are you not, Ere? I seem to remember that your PhD dissertation had to do with the rise and fall of the empire.”
He inclined his head.
“Indeed. I am applying to Columbia University for a professorship to focus on this area. The momentum of fickle scholarly interest seems to be with me this time, thanks in part to the MET’s unprecedented success with the Persian exhibit.”
Sophia’s eyes brightened for the first time in the many months since her abduction.
“I’d like to learn all about it, if you can spare some time to educate me on the subject,” Sophia said. “Maybe I can help you again with your research. I’m quite good at it.”
“Indeed you are,” Ere agreed, recalling the time she’d s
pent hours in his Boston townhouse helping to sort through his research notes and piece together clues.
“But why the fascination with ancient Persia in particular?”
She didn’t answer, turning back to look at the display of jewels and other ornamentation for Persian royalty.
“Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a point in time?” she whispered the question as if talking more to herself than to him.
“Even though life goes on and new memories are made, you can never fully live because you left a part of yourself, a very important part, behind? And even though you know that there’s nothing you can do to change what’s already been done, you can’t move past it…”
“And you always carry a hollowness inside for the part you left behind,” he finished for her.
She looked at him, truly looked at him, staring deeply into his unfathomable black eyes.
“So you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“You’ll help me with my research on ancient Persia, then?” she asked, getting back to the topic at hand.
“Yes, Sophia,” he answered.
“I’ll help you as best I can.”
*** *** *** ***
Jade finally broke the surface of her icy lake on the third night.
With a shuddering gasp, she came awake.
Immediately, she felt different.
Something was missing. Something important.
She’d rather have remained under the frozen waters if she could have retained that… something…
The male who had held her.
Who had Nourished her and filled her.
She ached with a ravaging, hollow pain now that he was gone from her embrace.
Slowly, she drew herself to a sitting position, her body still tingling with the effects of the poison, her fight against it, and the orgasms that he’d triggered continuously within her to fuel her strength.
She didn’t remember her dreams now that she was awake, but she remembered him holding her.
She remembered his blood revitalizing her.
Most of all, she remembered his body undulating and thrusting and pulsing deep inside of her.
And the molten seed of his life force that filled her with warmth and ecstasy.
Where was he now?
Jade swiped at her eyes to clear the grogginess from her vision. She blinked slowly, her eyelids heavy from exhaustion, her eyelashes, caked with dried tears, weighing them down.
He was sitting on the chaise beside her bed, fully clothed in formal attire, and he stared at her as if he’d been staring already for a very long time. With an inexhaustible store of patience and calm.
“Welcome back, my lady,” he said in that low, husky voice, the one that penetrated even her darkest memories.
Jade took a few moments to collect herself.
Had she imagined it all?
Him holding and protecting her? Feeding her body with endless pleasure?
He looked so serene and cool sitting there in his tailored clothes, all buttoned up and tucked away.
Had he truly been naked in her arms while she’d been insensible?
Had he truly brought her to climax again and again, stroking her hard and deep from the inside out, filling her to overflowing with rapture?
A frown of puzzlement flitted across her face.
She couldn’t have imagined it all… could she?
She licked her lips to lubricate their movement, but her tongue was rather thick and unwieldy.
Her mouth remained dry, and her throat was scratchy when she croaked, “Have you…waited long…for me to wake?”
“Not long,” he replied simply.
She gathered up the satin covers with her slightly shaking hands and shielded her nakedness from view.
She didn’t know why she did it. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her naked before. And she certainly didn’t suffer from shyness or modesty.
But for some reason—blame it on her near-death experience—she felt especially vulnerable right now.
“Now that I’m restored, you can quit your vigil,” she said rather ungraciously.
“Just don’t go too far. You must stay in the Cove until I handle the threat from would-be usurpers.”
He regarded her steadily with that unreadable mercurial gaze, now cloudy and opaque.
“How do you intend to do that when you’re starved for strength? When was the last time you fed properly?”
He paused a heavy beat.
“When was the last time you fed your powers?”
Not counting the past seventy-two hours during which she was almost certain he’d fed her himself?
About three years, actually, give or take a few weeks, discounting the intake of tepid human blood and the occasional bungling attempts at sexual stimulation.
“Nightly,” she lied. “I have so many orgies with so many gorgeous males I’ve lost count of them all.”
An indefinable emotion shadowed his eyes.
“Have you,” he murmured.
She felt an acute, stabbing pain splinter through her chest cavity at his softly uttered words, and immediately regretted her boastful lie.
Dark Goddess, what was wrong with her?!
What strange hold did he have over her?
“Why do you care?” she threw out, like a petulant toddler having a tantrum to get attention.
“Do you want to apply for a position in my harem? As I recall, I offered you the top spot, but you declined.”
She swallowed a strange lump in her throat when she saw his jaw flex as he lowered his gaze from hers.
His wide chest rose and fell hypnotically as he took a deep breath.
How easily she hurt him.
How deeply she felt it.
What was wrong with her that she looked for ways to cut him deeper, as if somehow he could be conquered that way, and through conquering him, she’d find her own freedom?
As if somehow, if she possessed him, she’d possess her own salvation.
Slowly, he raised his eyes to hers again, trapping her within his glittering gray orbs.
“Let’s make a new bargain, then,” he said, his voice steady, his expression determined.
“What would you give me for full access to my blood and body whenever and however you want them?”
Jade couldn’t help it, her jaw dropped like it’d been broken free of its hinge, as his words blasted her body with all-consuming lust.
She feared she might have drooled a little onto the counterpane.
But she marshalled her concentration and every zig-zagging marble of her wits to focus on the most critical negotiation of her life.
Hell—all her lives.
“For how long?” she demanded with a familiar huntress gleam in her eyes.
“Three weeks.”
“Come now, you can’t expect me to give over anything for a measly twenty-one days. At least a year—”
“Twenty.”
“What?” she stormed, affronted and panicked. “Don’t be ridiculous. Last time, it was six months. No one is worth—”
“Nineteen.”
Jade abruptly clamped her mouth shut and speared him with her most fulminating glare.
He merely looked complacently back at her, unruffled.
“You do realize, Pure One, that you’re supposed to meet in the middle during negotiations. It’s why—”
“Eighteen.”
She put up a hand to stall him, as she scrabbled madly around in her mind to find a way to regain some ground.
This was not how the first negotiation between them three years ago had gone!
They’d been evenly matched back then. She might even have had a slight upper hand, given the element of surprise in his attraction to her, though she’d been more than ready to own her rampant attraction to him.
They’d eventually met in the middle. And though she’d enslaved his blood, he’d always held back that whic
h she wanted most.
There had been a clear push and pull, give and take, though Jade much preferred the taking to the giving.
She’d celebrated every little win she stacked against him. She loved pitting her wits and wiles against him, loved that he never let her take anything for granted, loved that he always stood his ground with her.
No one had ever tested her so completely.
No prize would ever be sweeter to win.
If he’d ever let her truly win.
But Dark Goddess above!
Even if she never won, she loved the challenge of him most of all.
“What do you want in return?” she asked finally, deciding not to push her luck further.
“Three wishes,” he answered immediately.
“I will make three requests of you before our contract ends, and you will promise to grant them.”
“But that’s absurd!” she scoffed. “I can’t simply grant whatever you ask for if I don’t even know what the requests are! If you asked me to kill myself, am I supposed to blindly obey?”
“I will never ask you to harm yourself or those you protect,” he said. “You can refuse me if I do.”
“But what if it’s physically impossible for me to carry out the requests?” she argued. “I’m not some genie from Aladdin’s lamp.”
“The requests I make will be within your power to realize,” he responded calmly.
And then his expression softened with a hint of wryness.
“Don’t worry, my lady. I won’t try to steal your heart or soul. I won’t ask for anything that might weaken your rule or your sense of self.”
“Well, you certainly won’t succeed if you tried,” she retorted, arming herself with false bravado.
“I don’t have a heart or soul to steal, and I have no weakness for anyone, least of all you, Pure One, to use against me.”
It was such a bald-faced lie, she almost cringed to hear herself.
But he simply nodded as if he believed her, or at the very least, humored her.
“Three wishes, Jade,” he repeated his terms, “for use of my blood and body for eighteen days. What is your answer?”
She set her mouth in a grim line of determination.
“Whenever and however I want?”
