Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Praise for CAPTIVE DREAMS by Diane Whiteside and Angela Knight
“Will leave you longing for more.” —Romantic Times
“This book makes dreams come true . . . I highly recommend [it] to anyone who likes erotic stories written with skill and passion.”—ParaNormal Romance
“Sensual and luxurious . . . uninhibited . . . any reader of erotic romance should be sure to pick up [Captive Dreams].”
—Sensual Romance Reviews
“This book is so incredibly hot! It is eroticism at its best, and it is definitely not for the faint of heart . . . You will blush. I guarantee it!” —Romance Reader at Heart
“Hot and out of this world.” —Midwest Book Review
Praise for
Diane Whiteside’s
Texas Vampires Novels . . .♦
“Audacious . . . a shockingly heady brew.”—Publishers Weekly
“A vampire romance trilogy by the master of erotic prose . . . [An] incredible, sensuous story.” —Booklist
. . . and for
Diane Whiteside
“Deliciously sexy.”—Angela Knight
“Prose so steamy that it fogs one’s reading glasses.” —Booklist
“Hot and sexy . . . Diane Whiteside writes steamy tales of sensual delight. Once I started reading . . . I couldn’t stop until I reached the end.” —In the Library Reviews
Titles by Diane Whiteside
Novels of Texas Vampires
THE HUNTER’S PREY
BOND OF BLOOD
BOND OF FIRE
BOND OF DARKNESS
THE SWITCH
CAPTIVE DREAMS
(with Angela Knight)
CAPTIVE DESIRES
Anthologies
UNLEASHED
(with Rebecca York, Susan Kearney, and Lucy Monroe)
BEYOND THE DARK
(with Angela Knight, Emma Holly, and Lora Leigh)
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2009 by Diane Whiteside.
All rights reserved.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Heat trade paperback edition / November 2009
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Whiteside, Diane.
Captive desires / Diane Whiteside.—Heat trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-15111-2
I. Title.
PS3623.H5848C37 2009
813’.6—dc22
2009019531
http://us.penguingroup.com
ONE
ATLANTA PRESENT DAY
BOOM! The vortex ripped open and spat out Alekhsiy Iskandronovich like a dragon’s discarded toy. Ghostly scythes tore into his belly, carving smoky trails to feed the void’s greedy maw. He slammed into a brick wall and bounced off, the rough edges tearing at his axe’s leather scabbard.
“Thrice-damned masons!”
He instinctively tucked into a ball, only to land on the sloping lid of a metal bin. A jagged, knife-edged patch of pitch-black sky pulsed and reformed into a myriad of shapes too fast to be watched. But it constantly spat out sparks along the silvery braids binding it to him.
BAM! His sword and dagger thudded into him. His gear collided with each other and the damn box. Echoes roared through the alley’s narrow confines like the Red God of War’s angry hungers.
He fell, rattling over bumps and bars on the searingly hot metal cover. He flung out his hand to stop himself, yelped at his scorched fingers, and dropped onto the ground.
He landed on his ass, like a youngling knocked off his first boarding ladder. Demons ripped through his stomach again, eager to hurl its contents back to Torhtremer.
Alekhsiy gagged. His brother Mykhayl had warned him of this reaction to journeys across the void. He could master himself. He’d done his duty before after a night’s carousing. Surely this couldn’t be any worse.
But the next time I accept a quest to cross the void, hoping to see my little dancer, remind me what an idiot I am, Mother of All Life. No matter how great the temptation to just once catch a closer glimpse of she who’s brought me so much joy and peace before unimaginable trials over the long years.
His stomach heaved another objection but he forced it back. An odd handle on the box’s side offered him a grip and he pulled himself onto unsteady feet.
Large metal pots stood to his left, while the faceless wall protected his right and back. The paving beneath him was almost flat, unlike cobblestones, but its treacherous cracks caught at his boots.
The vortex snapped shut, booming like a gigantic thunder-clap directly overhead, and chopped off the knives cutting into him. The sky disappeared into a few patches of clear, cloudless blue, in between the army of gray stone buildings eager to grasp it.
Alekhsiy dared to take a single breath, testing his lungs’ limits.
Heavy metal crashed into more metal somewhere close by, crumpling like paper. No such noise had ever been heard in his father’s forge.
Alekhsiy promptly dropped into a battle crouch, every nerve coming alert to face such a catastrophe’s source.
More metal screeched and a foul burnt odor erupted nearby. A cacophony of horns sounded, completely unlike the sweet music of huntsmen.
Somebody yelled, “Watch where you’re going, idiot!”
A woman screamed back, proving Alekhsiy could understand even the foulest of language, thanks to his sister-in-law’s spell. At least he didn’t have to worry whether the speaker was alive and well. Her lun
gs were undoubtedly in fine fettle.
He swallowed hard and straightened up. He was a graduate of Torhtremer’s finest military academy and a veteran of the Great Wars. He would walk, even though his legs were weaker than water-soaked straw. He had a quest to perform.
Thanks be to the Horned Goddess that he’d arrived safely. When he returned home, he’d sacrifice a hundred baskets of star lilies to the Lady. His amber amulet would blaze the way, thanks to its soaking in dragon’s blood and spell bindings.
He patted it fondly, reminding himself of its protective warmth, even through his festival tunics and chain mail.
But the cloth was cold.
“By all the gods . . .”
Alekhsiy tore open his tunic and pulled out the carved pendant. An inert lump of rock lay in his hand, little more than brown streaked with gold, and cold to the touch. It should have been crystal clear, with flames leaping through its center, and hotter than a lantern’s globe.
It held no magic and could not take him home.
A knife stabbed him hard and fast in the heart, more brutal than any endured during the wars. He gritted his teeth against the shout of denial rising in his throat. Never again to swim in the western rivers under the high waterfalls, dandle a niece or nephew on his knee, or wrestle with Mykhayl . . .
How many times had he been warned death would be an easier price to pay than what this quest might demand? His throat tightened. May the gods be gracious unto him and forgive his prior disbelief.
There were only two ways to recharge the precious wizard’s amulet. The easiest would require a longer lifespan than both he and his son could offer. The other? He might as well beg Chaos’s gray gods for a miracle.
But he could still do his duty—find the enemy and stop him on this side of the void. No matter where that left him personally.
He slowly turned around again. The dragon had promised he’d arrive at the closest place in space and time to the enemy and the key to the lock, which guarded the gate back to Torhtremer against their foe.
Where should he start?
Moisture filled the air, aching with the heaviness of heat unbroken by any rain for far too long. It beaded on the metal pipes edging the wall and lurked in the mold glistening along the bricks. It hunted every fold of his festival wear, slipping between his linen outer tunic and into his chain mail’s links, pressing down on his lungs.
An angry river was moving quickly past in the distance, creating a loud, dull roar. A few horns sounded there, too, but not many.
How had his sensitive sister-in-law survived so many years here? No wonder she’d accepted Torhtremer so quickly. The High King’s palace offered far more joys than this.
A shoulder-high ledge rose next to the large metal bin, cutting off the entire alley’s rear. A single door shimmered in the darkness behind it.
Small wagons without horses or oxen—called cars, according to the spell—and larger wagons, known as trucks, were crawling through the street beyond the alley. Men and women walked past in an odd assortment of breeches and short skirts, most carrying heavy packages. A few pushed tall, wheeled ladders that were heavily laden. Many glanced at him, then looked away without speaking, despite the obvious differences in their attire.
He needed to move on quickly before somebody questioned him.
Torhtremer’s great patrons had bestowed on him two guides for his quest. Khyber, the Imperial Dragon, had given him a golden serpent with a ruby head and a long, forked tongue looping around and around his finger to lead him to the enemy. Svetlhana, the Imperial Tigress, had granted him a silver tiger twisting over itself, as if playing with its paws and tail, to light the path to the key. But magical gifts, especially from that pair, always had their own goals, which rarely matched their wearer’s.
Would this work? How much choice did he truly have? His mouth twisted wryly.
“Show me the fastest road to my prey.” Alekhsiy cupped his hands and blew on the two rings, choosing the simplest method to summon their magic. Otherwise, they’d signal him when and how they chose.
Instantly, two narrow beams flashed into the darkness behind the ledge. They lingered on the door for an instant, then winked off.
Couldn’t they have sent him into the city, where he could defend himself against enemies? Not a dark, cavernous fortress with no room to swing his axe or sword?
The silver tiger lit up again, returning the alley to noontime brightness.
“By the Red God of War, of course I will enter it!” He hastily covered the ring with his other hand.
It faded into a steadily pulsing glow and he shook his head. Gods willing, no one would notice anything was amiss.
Alekhsiy braced both hands on the ledge and heaved himself up. An instant later, having heard no noise coming from behind the door, he turned the knob and walked in, his hand on his dagger.
Danae Livingston yanked open her hotel room’s curtains. “What the hell was that—a sonic boom?”
“In downtown Atlanta? Don’t be silly.” Larissa never glanced up from the pins she was rapidly shoving into a cobalt silk tunic. “Probably a thunderstorm.”
“No clouds.” Danae pressed her nose to the glass. The outside view was better from her bedroom than from the sitting room, since its corporate logos provided an even better guarantee of anonymity for the coming weekend. It was damned unlikely those blue-collar neighbors had ever heard of her.
Larissa snorted in disbelief. “How can you tell . . . ?”
Danae turned back to face her, the familiar bubble of laughter rising once again inside her.
“When you can’t see anything!” she finished simultaneously with her best friend. They’d known each other so long, they knew which jokes had been laughed at before. Worse yet, they still found them funny.
She leaned against the wall and howled. Larissa joined in from the floor, shaking her head.
“Thirty years they’ve held GriffinCon at this hotel and you still can’t see much of the sky. Only other high-rises.” Larissa pointed out finally, when they’d subsided into giggles. “Seeing you do that like a two-year-old is as weird as catching you in a tabloid, just for wearing a pretty dress.”
“Hey, ballerinas do sometimes know clothes, and looking out the windows here lets me at least guess at the weather.” Danae handed her a fruit juice from the immense room service platter to divert Larissa from the media’s ongoing fascination with her. “And confirm that the loading docks’ traffic jam is even larger than usual.”
“It’s a sellout crowd this year. They had to double the Dealers’ Room.” Larissa juggled the drink but managed to indicate another pile of fabric.
“Why?” Danae obediently handed it to her, raising an eyebrow at the truly minuscule amount of spandex involved. Who was going to wear this little item? Larissa didn’t usually put her husbandly hunk on display. “Didn’t the ConComm swear not to do that again, no matter how they had to arrange things?”
She bent over into a stretch, automatically keeping herself limber for next fall’s dance season.
“Hadn’t you heard? They needed someplace to put all the day-pass people.”
“Day-pass people?” Danae looked over at Larissa from between her legs, her arms braced on the floor. She still had on her camisole top and thong, more clothes than she would have worn in New York for fitting costumes. But they made it easy for slipping in and out of the fine silks her friend preferred. “Are there a lot this year?”
“For the movie trailer!” Larissa rolled her eyes, curved and comfortable in an oversized Jarred Varrain T-shirt and blue jeans.
“For the Torhtremer saga?” Danae started to lower herself farther, considered the space available and the carpet’s roughness on her forearms, then came slowly upright again. “Why are so many people coming for one day? Surely they can see the trailer at one of the other big fan conventions.”
“You honestly haven’t heard?”
Larissa was genuinely gaping at her. Maybe she needed to ta
ke this seriously.
Danae shoved the pile of costumes aside and sat down on the floor. “Hey, you know I’ve been on the road for the past six months. I didn’t even have time to read all of my e-mail for the past month. So give—what’s going on here?”
“They’re showing a special extended trailer of The Raven and The Rose on Saturday night.”
“Extended?” Danae swallowed before she squeaked again. “Just how long is extended?”
“At least thirty minutes. Some people say an hour.”
“Ohmygawd!” Danae hugged her friend. “The sixth movie! We’ll be the first to see what the final movie looks like!”
“Not the final movie,” cautioned her friend. “Remember Corinne Carson never wrote the seventh book before she died. So we don’t know what happened to the Imperial Terrapin or who Mykhayl fell for.”
“Nobody else completed the saga either.” Danae shrugged and sat down in the lotus position, settling and resettling her feet on her knees for amusement. “There are only fanfic authors now.”
“Working within the Torhtremer universe, according to the rules Corinne Carson laid down.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said noncommittally. That was true of everybody except her, and she’d only broken one of the laws very recently. She’d certainly never written a story about Alekhsiy, her sole interest in Torhtremer, for money. And, of course, no wise fan would ever advertise any deviation from Corinne Carson’s Great Laws of Torhtremer Fanfic.
“All your costumes are from Torhtremer.” Larissa waved a hand at the piles of cloth.
“All of them?” Danae stared at the unrevealing stacks on the bed. “Don’t you want to do something from Celeste Carson’s Varrain universe? After all, whose handsome face is splashed across your chest, honey?”
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