“He might have come to kill you when you were so beleaguered.”
“He might have, but he didn’t. He came for a look and, perhaps, to make sure I had a chance.” Saloman’s lip quirked. “Paying a debt, he said.”
One of his hands had come to rest under the towel on her naked breast. The other caressed her throat, just over the place where he’d bitten her in Budapest and in Sighesciu.
She glanced up at him. “He was your friend, wasn’t he?” That was how they’d trapped him. His lover and his friend.
“Yes. He was my friend. One of only two vampires I’ve made over the millennia. The other is Dmitriu.”
She touched his face, unwilling to add to the pain he didn’t reveal but which she sensed anyway. Maximilian and Dmitriu were like his sons. Both had betrayed him in different ways; yet they stood beside him tonight in battle. “Dmitriu tells the hunters things.”
“I know.”
“I thought if you knew, you’d kill him.”
“I nearly did. I nearly killed you too. The trouble with death is”—his lips twisted—“it’s so final.”
“It wasn’t for you.”
“It will be one day. But not yet.” His mouth closed over hers, and she pressed up into him. He lifted her, carrying her to the bedroom, laying her among the clothes she’d tried and rejected this evening before returning to the skirt and top she’d bought for her date with Richard.
Shit!
Oh well, I’ll apologize tomorrow. This is the only time I have for Saloman, for us. . . .
Saloman lay beside her, naked, kissing her breasts with strong, sensual pulls that drove her wild. His mouth glided upward to the hammering pulse at the base of her throat and around to the side of her neck. He sucked the skin into his mouth, and she arched upward, throwing her head back with peculiar bliss and need. His teeth, razor sharp and caressing, grazed her vein.
A little drink, he murmured inside her head. To have you inside me as I’m inside you . . .
The words were arousing, covering the pain of his piercing teeth. His heavy thigh moved over her, pinning her down. His hand took hold of her between the legs, and she felt the slow, cold pull of his mouth, heating to burning, relentless pleasure. She clutched him and came as he drank from her.
Somewhere in the torrent of bliss, she was aware of Billie Holiday. “Hush now, don’t explain, you’re my joy and pain.” And she wanted to weep, except there was no time, for he loomed over her, entering her body as he licked the pain from her wound, and it all began again.
At some point during the storm of shuddering climax, their mouths had come together, for he separated them slowly afterward, licking along the length of her quivering upper lip.
She swallowed. Desolation trembled on the edge of her fragile, very temporary happiness. “Was that revenge too?”
“It was never about revenge. I wanted Tsigana’s blood. And then I wanted you.”
“Saloman, go before I break. . . .”
She pushed at his chest, but he remained immovable, inside her and out. “You gave me tonight,” he reminded her, “and I want it all.”
She gave up and wound her arms around his neck. “So do I,” she whispered. “Oh, so do I.”
A little later, she rose from the bed and went to the window, parting the closed curtain a chink to see out onto the quiet street. She was in limbo, between the last battle and the next, whatever that would be. Glancing over her shoulder, to where he lay on the bed, his powerful arm across his chest as he watched her, she caught a glimpse of blood on the sheet. She stared at the tiny drop as memory flooded back.
“It’s like the dream I had. . . .” There were no corpses, except for the ghosts and horrors in her mind from the recent fight, but Saloman and blood were on her sheets. “Did you send the dreams?”
“No. But they don’t surprise me. We had unfinished business, you and I.”
As he rose and came to stand beside her, his muscles rippling in his beautiful, pale body, Elizabeth ached. “It’s not clear-cut, is it? Good and evil. That’s what you meant when you said evil was in the eye of the beholder. We all see it differently.” She leaned into his shoulder. “I truly meant to kill you tonight, because it was right. And now . . .” She closed her eyes. “I wonder if it was more than love that stopped me.”
As his arm came around her, she opened her eyes and glanced upward into his face. “Are you evil?” she whispered. “Would you really enslave humanity?”
“Enslave is not a nice word.”
“It’s not a nice action.”
“Some forms of slavery are clear and incontrovertible. Like the foulness of raising the soulless, will-less dead. Others are more a matter of perception.”
It was so weird to be having this conversation naked in her bedroom, his arm around her waist. But this was their stolen night. Letting her head drop against his shoulder, she inhaled his distinctive yet elusive scent and tried to absorb him through her skin.
“You’re playing with words, Saloman. What is it you intend to do?”
“I don’t know yet—exactly. But you must admit, the world has gone drastically wrong without me. In the last century alone, two world wars that killed millions, a society gone amok with hatred . . .”
“That’s over with,” she argued.
“You still have famine and greed. Your world is torn with religious bigotry and hatred, violence, murder, dishonesty; yet you despise vampires for the same acts. . . .”
“No one denies we’ve made mistakes,” Elizabeth retorted, “or pretends the world is perfect. We’ll make more mistakes, but they have to be ours.”
“Why?”
She lifted her head to stare up at him. “Why what?”
“The earth belongs to me as well as to you. Why should you make all the mistakes when I could make things better?”
“Better for whom? Vampires?”
He inclined his head. “In the short term, yes.”
“Vampires kill people. You kill people. . . .”
“Rarely. When it is right.”
“But how can it be right, Saloman? You told me you think differently from us. So why should you judge which of us deserves to live or die?”
“Because I can.”
She gripped his shoulder and shook it, but before she could speak, he said, “I see more than humans or vampires. You kill each other, both believing you’re doing the right thing. You’re making judgments too, based on little more than prejudice and misunderstanding. Zoltán would have enslaved as many humans as he could—after I gave him the idea. That would have been slavery, rooted in his own violent, bloodthirsty hedonism—an unimaginable nightmare for your people. I can bring justice.”
“It’s not justice without consent!”
“Consent will come with knowledge.”
She didn’t know whether to be more fascinated or appalled. It didn’t sound like the insane carnage and destruction prophesied by the hunters and no doubt promised by Zoltán, and yet . . . “You really do want to rule the world, don’t you?” There was a catch in her voice.
“I’m good at it.”
“I won’t let you, Saloman.”
“I know.”
She slid both arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. She closed her eyes against the pain. “Then after tonight, we’re enemies again. It will be over.” Ugly words, ugly emotions among this sweetness that she should never have allowed, yet couldn’t regret. She felt his lips in her hair, and her throat constricted. If she wept, he’d feel the tears on his chest.
“Make the most of what we have,” he said in her ear, and she could have sworn his voice ached as hers did. “There are many hours until morning. But Elizabeth . . .”
She gave in to the insistence of his fingers and lifted her head. His beauty was blurred, but she held on to the tears. He kissed her, his mouth moving over her lips like breath as his words sounded inside her head.
It will never be over.
Epilogue
In his New York penthouse apartment, Josh Alexander laid the heavy sword on his living room floor and unwrapped it.
Beside him, his visitor let out a gasp. Josh wasn’t surprised. He’d lived with it all his life, and it still got him that way. The sword gleamed, almost glowing in the lamplight. Gold and silver intertwined in the elaborately carved hilt. The blade, unmarked by any signs of deterioration, shone like new—clean, sharp, and lethal. The whole weapon seemed to draw all the apartment’s expensively designed lighting to itself, brilliant against the dull, mundane old coat on which it lay.
Sometimes, like now, when he hadn’t seen it for a long time, Josh almost understood why his father had imagined the sword contained so much power. It was beautiful, stunning, an exquisite, deadly piece of timeless craftsmanship. Age only lent it greater majesty.
Yet tonight, for the first time ever, Josh had to force himself to touch it. It looked strangely . . . alive.
With a deprecating smile, Josh closed his fingers around the cold, carved metal, as he’d done countless times before. The pain hit him instantly, like a jolt of electricity blasting him backward, even as he dropped the sword with a cry of astonished agony.
Dizzy, he fell to his knees, clasping one burned, throbbing hand in the other while his head swirled with horrific visions of the sword—swinging, lunging, hacking, its shining blade dripping with scarlet blood. The hand holding it wasn’t his own. Ungloved, it was pale, strong, and sinewy. Blood trickled in elegant rivulets over its knuckles and long, tapered fingers. An unknown man’s dark face swam into his vision, young and hard and handsome, with terrible, blazing black eyes and ruthless, unsmiling lips. His thunderous voice echoed in Josh’s head, paralyzing him with awe and dread.
I am Saloman. Give me my sword.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at
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Awakened by Blood Series,
BLOOD SIN
Available in April 2011
“Seriously,” Josh murmured. “Dante’s parties are always fun. None of the other stuff really matters. Everyone will be nice.”
Which might have been his way of saying that however much Jerri hated her presence, she wouldn’t get too nasty. Elizabeth didn’t really care. She’d met much nastier creatures than bitchy movie stars. Squaring her shoulders, she concentrated on getting through the evening as pleasantly as possible, and hoped for a few opportunities for friendly tête-à-têtes with Josh. By the time the party ended, she was determined to have convinced him of the danger he faced, and to make him aware of the option of hunter protection.
As they entered the big, impressive drawing room where pre-dinner drinks were being served, Elizabeth’s first thought was that it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected when Josh first invited her.
There weren’t as many people as she’d feared—maybe around twenty. The men all wore formal evening clothes, some traditional black tie, some a bit more individualistic. The women wore formal dresses too, of all lengths and levels of daring. Elizabeth allowed herself a quick sigh of relief that her own gown did indeed suit the occasion. Then she noticed that despite the formality of the attire, the guests themselves didn’t seem to be stuffy in the least. Several looked over and smiled. Some actually waved, and one man called out, “Hey, Josh!” from the other side of the room.
And then Dante, standing just inside the doorway with a group of traditionally garbed men, welcomed them with a big smile. An instant later a waiter was before them with a tray of drinks. Elizabeth took a glass of champagne as Dante introduced the men around him. Their names passed right over her, although she smiled and shook hands with each.
“These guys are all expert antiquarians,” he explained. “I was telling them about your sword, Josh, and how you’d be glad for them to take a look.”
“Sounds like a most interesting piece,” one of the men said. “How long has it been in your family?”
“Hundreds of years, so I’m told.” Josh sipped his champagne. “I’ll show you it after dinner if you like. Just don’t let the senator convince you I’m prepared to sell it, because I’m not!”
“Whatever the price?” one of the men joked.
“Whatever the price,” Josh confirmed.
If it really was Saloman’s missing sword, the price was probably higher than they knew. Elizabeth said lightly, “May I see this amazing sword too?”
“Of course,” Josh agreed at once. Then he said to the others, “Elizabeth’s a historian, so she might well have some valuable knowledge.”
“How come you’ve never tried to find out about it before?” Elizabeth asked, curious.
Josh shrugged. “Never really thought about it because it was always around when I was growing up. Just recently, I’ve become more . . . intrigued by it. No doubt because of the senator’s interest!”
Dante laughed and toasted Josh with his champagne. Over the top of his glass, his piercing blue eyes twinkled, yet Elizabeth caught a hint of hardness there that might have been acquisitiveness or distrust. Possibly the latter, because for the first time since she’d met him, she had the uncomfortable feeling that Josh wasn’t telling the entire truth. She began to wonder whether there wasn’t more to his relationship with Dante than he’d let on.
Elizabeth let her gaze wander away from the antiquarians and around to the other guests, who all looked to be in good spirits. She spotted Jerri Cusack, stunningly glamorous in a risqué white dress, laughing up at a tall black-haired man—with his back to Elizabeth—whose arm Jerri playfully shook. The woman on his other side didn’t seem very pleased, judging by her rigid body language, although she kept smiling
“Actually,” one of the antiquarians was saying, “my interest began with the paranormal and paranormal artifacts, and it was from there that I moved on to more general antiques.”
Elizabeth’s attention swung back to the speaker, whose name she thought was Bill.
“What in the world,” she asked, “are paranormal artifacts? Sharpened sticks for staking vampires?” Or a cloak that had once belonged to the most powerful vampire ever to have walked the earth—or the sword belonging to that same vampire.
What a coincidence, she thought with a sudden chill, that one of Dante’s antiquarians was interested in the paranormal. If Josh’s sword really was Saloman’s, would Bill recognize it for what it was?
Although a ripple of laughter had greeted her words, Bill’s response was immediate. “Hardly! Merely objects imbued with supernatural powers,” he stated.
“Are there such things?” That was Josh, taking the words out of her mouth.
Dante laughed. “The star of two Psychics movies needs to ask that?”
“You know perfectly well Psychics is complete bunkum,” Josh said dryly. “However much fun it is.”
“But certainly there are such things,” Bill said. He smiled thinly. “I have come across one or two objects with magical properties.”
“Yes, but what did they do?” Elizabeth asked, keen to get to the point.
“Well—”
“Josh! Darling!” interrupted a gushing voice. An instant later Jerri Cusack embraced Josh and everyone fell back to give her room. Her movements were all quick and dramatic, and she seemed to have released him almost before she’d grabbed him, reaching behind her in high excitement to exclaim, “I’ve just got to introduce you to Adam Simon!”
The name alone would have made Elizabeth turn in the direction of Jerri’s grasping hand, but the speed of Josh’s spin to meet the man interested her far more. She stepped aside to get a better view, and almost dropped her glass.
The man walked toward Elizabeth, his black hair flowing loose over his shoulders. Alone of the men present, he wore no dinner jacket, just a black shirt that might have been velvet or crushed silk, with a matching tie that looked more like a cravat. He moved with all the grace and threat of a panther.
All this she absorbed in the first instant before his b
eauty blinded her, as it had always done. Yet it never entered her head to doubt her own sanity, or even to wonder whether her recognition was faulty. His mask had fallen.
He gazed only at her. She took a step toward him without meaning to and he smiled, the rare, full smile that haunted her dreams. Shock overwhelmed the emotions struggling for release.
Then joy broke through like a tide, propelling her forward and into his arms, her face already raised for his kiss. Amber flames danced in his black eyes, burning her with love and need. His mouth no longer smiled as it covered hers.
Elizabeth, he said telepathically. Elizabeth.
Saloman.
It was an instant, a very small instant of bliss. The powerful arms she’d never thought to feel again closed around her while his mouth—his incredible, wonderful mouth—moved over hers with tenderness, accepting all her need and all the uncomplicated happiness of her kiss.
But it wasn’t uncomplicated. And they weren’t alone. A fact which Saloman, clearly, had never lost sight of for a moment. Even as she gasped into his mouth, trying to force herself to draw back, to ask questions that had only half formed in her brain, he was already releasing her. Her stunned lips felt cold, her body rebellious as his arms fell away. The tips of his fingers trailed over her naked back and lingered, though, so she stood in the circle of his arm, being inexorably turned as if to be shown off to friends.
She shivered, desperately reaching for what dignity or even sense she could muster. They were being watched by several people with varying degrees of surprise, interest, and disapproval.
As if from very far away, Josh’s voice said, “I didn’t realize you two were acquainted.”
“Neither did I!” Elizabeth hoped she didn’t sound as hysterical as she felt.
“We met in Eastern Europe,” Saloman said, and, God yes, his voice still sounded the same. A little more modern in its intonation, perhaps, but it still reached right inside her, turning her outside in. “I expect Elizabeth remembers the Hungarian form of my name.”
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