“Surely.”
He gave her a hand in getting out of the car, and they took refuge from the sun under the awning of green provided by the giant oaks.
She took a deep breath, remembering the fear of the moment displayed by her mind’s eye. “After I ran from the car and you grabbed me and threatened to kill me I really thought you were behind the plot.”
“You were supposed to.”
Her feelings of that moment were hard to forget, even in the light of what happened after. “I hated you then as much as I’ve ever hated any vampire. But why? Why did you do it?”
“I can’t tell you all of it, but basically I did what I did because it was the only way to save Drago.”
“You told me you didn’t even know Philippe.”
Revelin lifted a shoulder. “A lie.”
“Why did Philippe try to kill Drago?”
A cock of the shaggy head told Marya that Rev didn’t question these things half as much as she did. “Ambition. Jealousy.”
“And you yourself don’t have those feelings?”
“Jealousy? No. Ambition? Maybe, but not like that.”
Marya looked at him. She believed what he said. There was no pretense to Revelin in either his demeanor or appearance. “Did Drago know you were on his side all along?”
“No. Not until I quoted Voltaire. The prayer for making my enemies ridiculous. I wasn’t sure Drago would know it was Voltaire, but he did. He told me he understood with the quote about life becoming a disgrace and death a duty. That was Voltaire, too.”
She was silent for a moment, digesting everything Revelin had told her. “Is the world of the Undead always like this? Deception and manipulation?”
The white teeth blazed at her again. Flanked by dimples on either side, the look was more an answer than his words. “More like the human world than we care to admit, yeah?”
“You’re a very strange man, Revelin.”
He scrunched his brows together. “Is that a compliment, Miss Jaks?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I suppose it is.” She stepped closer to him, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. “Whatever your reasons, thank you for what you did for Drago.”
“You’re welcome. Come on. We’d better head back. Drago and Nikolena are not patient people.”
As they turned back, Marya saw Drago heading for them. As he drew close, she tried to decipher his expression. His face looked strange, as if he were a man who had just aged ten years in the past ten minutes. A ridiculous thought of someone who was well over five hundred years old, but it was true. Gray shadows filled the pockets between his eyes and the bridge of his nose and clung to the planes of his face. By contrast, the rest of his face looked even whiter than usual. Even his lips were bloodless. Marya knew it was the manifestation of the vampire, but it wasn’t lust. It was simply as though whatever humanity existed had taken refuge far beneath the surface.
Marya looked at Drago’s eyes, but there was no glow to the blue, no brow furrowed in passion. There was only the color, but with no more depth than if the blue had been daubed on with the careless stroke of a paintbrush.
His gaze slipped from Rev to her and back to Revelin. “Time to go. Mon ami, one more favor. Take the van and help with Adelle. Nikolena’s going to see the body back to France.”
“Of course.”
There were no more ‘thank yous,’ handshakes, or back slaps between Drago and Revelin. Perhaps it was the way of the vampires not to display emotion to each other. Perhaps it was just the lack of amity between the men that had been apparent to Marya from the start. Respect, yes, and a common cause, certainly, but all the ‘mon amis’ in the world would never make the two true friends.
Rev turned to her. “Good-bye, Marya.”
Well, she was human, and she would show it. She pressed another kiss against Rev’s cheek. “Thank you for everything.”
His brows as well as the corners of his mouth lifted in bemusement. “You’re welcome.” Rev glanced once more at Drago, then turned and glided back toward the van.
Drago spoke, his voice as lacking in life as his features. “Come. I’ll take you home.”
They climbed into the car, and when it became apparent that Drago wasn’t going to make so much as small talk, Marya said what she felt she needed to say. “I’m sorry about Adelle. I know how important she was to you.”
She hoped he wouldn’t think the comment presumptuous. She really knew nothing about being a servant to the Undead, and she didn’t know anything of the specific relationship between Adelle and Drago.
But Drago didn’t remind her of any of that. All he said was, “She was the light in my window.”
It was a very human thing to say, but Marya didn’t think now was the time to voice such an observation. She didn’t know what was going through that vampire mind of his. Were all his thoughts on Adelle, or was he reflecting on Philippe’s betrayal? And Nikolena . . . what had she instructed him to do? Had she ordered him back to Paris? With that her thoughts drifted to her own feelings, but they were as difficult to make sense of as his were.
He’d be leaving, and soon. Of that, at least, she was very sure. In the face of that certainty, her jumbled feelings shouldn’t matter. But they did. If memories were soon to be all she would have, she wanted them to be clear-cut and whole, not blurred by doubts and fears. For the remainder of the ride home, she thought very hard about her past, her future, and the jewel of now, so precious and rare.
THE ARRIVAL AT her cottage was as silent as the drive had been. Still, Marya had cherished each moment. If she couldn’t have words, she had taken her fill of images, stealing glances at Drago often as he drove, adding the impressions of his profile bearing the healing cut to her store box of memories.
She went to the kitchen now, anxious for a tall glass of iced sweet tea. His first words to her were also of a practical nature.
“Cherie, we must talk, but first I need to take a shower. I cannot abide the stench of vampire blood, not even my own.”
She nodded in understanding. As soon as she quenched her thirst with the ready-made tea from the refrigerator, she headed for the master bedroom to take her own shower. But the sound of running water halted her steps and turned her toward the guest bath. A moment later she pulled aside a corner of the shower curtain and stepped inside the sanctuary of the steamy bath.
Drago turned to her, and his eyes widened in surprise, drops of water glistening on his black lashes like dew on grass. He lifted both arms and swept his long hair back out of his face. The motion tightened the muscles of his stomach, drawing her gaze downward, and somehow the cleansing water cascading over his body like a waterfall over smooth stones made him look young again.
She reached for the bar of soap from its tray and stepped closer to him, sliding the soap over his chest. His raised arms lowered behind her head to follow the length of her hair down to the small of her back. The water from the showerhead pulsed across her body, but it was the pressure from his hands that urged her to lean into him until her breasts brushed against his chest. She moved her hands to his sides, skimming the soap over his back, and her gaze lifted to his face again. She drank in the raw beauty caressed by the thin fingers of water, and when his lips parted, she was jealous of each drop that clung to his skin and trickled over the contours of his face.
He dipped his head closer, and she closed her eyes and waited, the sound of her heart pounding over the pelting of the water. He traced her lips with his as if he were tasting her, searching for the sweetest spot, and the anticipation of being devoured held her fast. But when he kissed her, it was no more than a tug on her lower lip. A second kiss was just as swift and teasing before he pulled away from her. She opened her eyes, and the blue of his, set off by the glittering lashes and brows, was purer than any lake or ocean and no longer empty. She wanted nothing more than to dr
own in their depths. When he leaned forward again she parted her lips in expectation, but all he did was open his mouth. She expected another kiss, but instead he snaked his tongue out and flicked its tip at the depression under her lower lip.
There wasn’t enough water in ten showers to put out the blaze of desire that flared at that small touch. The bar of soap went skittering around the circumference of the tub as she met his next kiss. This time his craving matched hers, and the whole world shrank to a cocoon of wet heat that pulsated all around them. Water ran into her eyes, blinding her, and when her equilibrium deserted her as well, his arms supported her, cupping her buttocks and molding her body to his. She felt him against her, hard and ready, and when his mouth left hers, it was to turn off the water and scoop her into his arms. He stepped out of the tub as if her weight was nothing, and in a few long strides was at his bed. Her back hit the mattress, and his body covered hers immediately. Her entire being felt liquefied, as if she could melt against him, soak into him, and become truly one with him. He was inside her before she realized it, and with his warm, wet body joining hers, the illusion was complete. Only the length of him feeding her hunger, devouring her from the inside out, reminded her that there was solidity to both his body and hers, if not the future.
This time no images of the past came to her mind, no visions at all of the outside world. There was only this one moment, and with the clean warmth and wetness of her body, it was like being born again, fresh and new. Nothing of the past existed or mattered, and the future . . . She didn’t think about the future. Unrecognizable sounds escaped her, asking for something she couldn’t express, but Drago understood and gave her what she longed for.
At long last her body relaxed, sated, but the perfection of the moment was marred by her awareness of the tension that still tightened his body. With every new beginning, a price to be paid.
“Drago?” she whispered against his cheek.
The sound of his name seemed to pull him back from whatever brink he teetered on. He pulled out of her and rolled to his back, and she watched the beast’s need wage war with the man’s control. His teeth were clenched, his lips curled back, and his brow furrowed. Finally, she saw his features and his body relax, and his chest rose and fell with measured breaths.
“I’m sorry,” she said, grateful at least that this was the last time she’d be responsible for the vampire’s agony.
“Don’t be, cherie. It’s not your fault. Besides, your reaction to my touch is every bit as satisfying as blood to me.”
Somehow, she doubted that. Still, if he couldn’t have her blood, at least he had his fantasy. “It’s the fantasy, isn’t it? Exposing a mortal to her ultimate dream?”
“Is that all you think this is, cherie?” His voice sounded tired.
“I have no illusions about what it is for you. And you’re leaving, so for me it can be nothing else.”
“And if I weren’t leaving?”
She wriggled under the bedspread, cold without his warmth. “Please, Drago, don’t. Let’s just leave it as it is.”
He turned toward her. “What do you want, Marya?”
She shook her head. “You’ve given it to me. You’ve given my life back.”
“But what do you want for the future? Come now, the truth. If you could have anything in the world, what would you have?”
She snuggled further down under the cover, as if it could shelter her from his pointless questions. “What I’ve always wanted. That which I can never have.”
“Say it.”
She was quiet. Why does he have to ruin everything this way?
“Say it, cherie.”
Damn you, Drago! “You. I can’t have you, but I want you.”
“Tell me why.”
She lay still for a moment, still angry that her actions in and of themselves hadn’t been enough for him to understand her feelings. Gradually, though, the resentment dissipated. Perhaps it was best after all that she spell everything out. She would have her final closure. She would be able to begin her life anew knowing that she had left nothing unsaid, and he would never have any doubts about what he had meant to her. She reached out and grazed her fingertips down his forearm. “Your touch. I can feel your strength, but I also feel everything you’ve ever felt. Wonder and joy . . . pain and despair. But your touch also makes me feel cherished, as though you, too, can see everything in my life. I’ve never had that before. I’m in love with you, Drago, vampire and all. I know love’s not a word in the dictionary of the Undead, but . . .”
“Get dressed.”
“What?”
He rolled off the bed. “You heard me. Go get dressed.”
She stared at him. She was glad he hadn’t dressed up a pretty lie to parade in front of her, but at the same time she had hoped for some kind of acknowledgment of her feelings. She waited, but he said nothing more. When he turned his back on her to get dressed, she silently fled to her own room.
AN HOUR LATER the doorbell rang. She considered ignoring it. She didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone, but when the bell rang a second time, she went to look through the peephole. Good. It wasn’t for her. She opened the door and invited Nikolena inside.
“Come in, please. I’ll get Drago.”
“Oh, but it’s you I’ve come to see, Miss Jaks.”
Marya stared at the woman. For all her tiny size, Marya had no trouble feeling the aura of power that elevated Nikolena to far above her physical height. “Me?”
“If we might speak in private . . .”
“Of course. Come this way.” Marya led her guest to the rear patio. Drago was still in the guest room with the door closed.
Nikolena made herself comfortable on a patio chair, looking no less regal than if she had seated herself on a throne. “I’ll come straight to the point. I need to know exactly how you feel about Aleksei Borisov. And please don’t waste my time or yours with a lie.”
Marya’s emotions during the past hour had been so much stew boiling in a pot, but it took only a moment now to cool down and serve up the truth. After all, this was about how she felt about Drago, not how he felt about her. “I love him. Is that direct enough?”
The haughty lift of one brow was Nikolena’s answer. “And what are your expectations?”
“I have none. He’ll leave, and I’ll live my life.”
“He hasn’t talked to you about being his servant?”
“No.” The thought had crossed her mind, but apparently not Drago’s. He hadn’t mentioned it.
“He cannot make you his servant, even if you both wanted it. You’re an aberration. A servant must be able to forge a blood tie. You would not be able to do this with Drago or any vampire. Do you understand, or do I need to explain further?”
“No. I understand.”
Nikolena took a deep breath and nodded, not so much in acknowledgment, but as though she had come to some decision. She raised her head. “Aleksei Borisov!” The voice was a command, but not a shout.
Drago evidently heard it. He appeared only seconds later, opening the French doors. However, it was to her he came, not Nikolena. Dressed in black trousers, a flowing white shirt and an embroidered gold vest, he glided first to her side, then moved to stand directly behind her chair. She felt the touch of his left hand on her shoulder.
Nikolena rose. “The two of you leave me no choice. Miss Jaks, you know too much of our ways to be allowed to live freely in the world. Aleksei Borisov, you cannot make this mortal your servant, and you have refused my order to terminate her. Therefore I am forced to impose sanction on you. Are you ready?”
She stiffened, but Drago’s hands drew her up out of the chair and turned her to face him. “Do not be afraid, cherie. We will face this together, and yes, I do know the meaning of your human word. In giving you your life, you have given me mine.” He
leaned forward to kiss her softly, but more than either his words or his kiss, his eyes reassured her. Those beautiful blue eyes. She stared at them and saw not boredom, emptiness, or arrogance, but his unspoken word. L’amour.
He looked at Nikolena. “We are ready, madame.”
She nodded. “L’enforcier must die.”
MARYA SAT IN the art studio of the secluded dacha several miles outside Novgorod. She was more adept at painting people than animals, and she was having a little trouble putting a realistic sheen on the black fur. Even with her concentration on her work, though, she had no trouble sensing that she was no longer alone. The man who was her whole world leaned over her shoulder, and she could feel his breath on her cheek.
“Cherie, I don’t know that I like being portrayed as a beast with four legs and a tail.”
She smiled. “I think you look very elegant and sleek. Would you rather I give you scaly wings and a tail and have you breathing fire like your namesake, the dragon?”
He turned her head with one finger against her chin and kissed her long and deep.
“No,” he whispered, releasing her mouth at last, “but I believe my comment was about putting a rhinestone collar on a big cat, not a creature such as this. Could you not have painted me as a great white tiger?”
She pretended to pout. “But if I had done that, my love, you couldn’t very well sit curled up on my lap.”
He laughed and scooped her effortlessly into his arms. By the time her paintbrush hit the floor, his speed carried them out of the studio and down the hall to the bedroom.
No more work was done that day on Marya’s latest watercolor.
Epilogue
AS FAR AS THE world was concerned, Alek Dragovich was truly dead.
He was killed in the same confrontation that ended the existence of Philippe Chenard and David Reno. That was the official Directorate release. Unofficially, Drago became the Elvis of the Undead. There wasn’t a day that went by that some vampire didn’t report seeing the black-haired, blue-eyed Anti-God in the company of a beautiful woman somewhere in the world. Notoriety and rumor turned into true legend, and stories freely flowed that Drago had been witnessed doing everything from chewing and spitting out silver bullets to crossing rivers by stopping the flow of the water.
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