by Julie Leto
“Are you still afraid to sleep?” she ventured.
Damon frowned, but noted silently she might not be too far from the mark. “I cannot deny the emotion has niggled at me, particularly when there’s a chance I might not wake again for another century or two. Of course, you might be experiencing the same reluctance. If you sleep, you may discover that once you wake, our meeting has been nothing more than a dream.”
Alexa pressed her lips tightly together, lips that were now pale. They’d been rouged darkly when he’d first seen her from the other side of the painting. All of the color she’d applied to her face to enhance her large green eyes and striking cheekbones had faded, and her hair, still brilliantly red of course, was now a tangled mess.
And yet, he still found her undeniably desirable. Educated beyond most men of his station, Damon had met many knowledgeable women in his time, yet none took their educational prowess lightly. Women in his age who’d been lucky enough to know things beyond husbandry and housekeeping either flaunted their superior intellects or hid them furiously. Alexa did neither. She simply enjoyed the things she knew and joked about the things she didn’t.
And underneath the fair skin, rumpled appearance and sharp mind resided a woman of unparalleled passion. Perhaps this was his ultimate punishment—meeting a woman he could have only until he was free. Because once he could leave this castle, he would spend the rest of his days avenging Rogan’s evil.
As she rolled over, her hair fanned across the pillows and caught the dying light of the fire’s embers. “I’d likely be better off if this were all a dream.”
“Why?” he asked, scooting nearer. Unable to help himself, he wished for the torches and candles to dim, and instantly, they complied.
She stretched, raising her arms over her head and arching her back so that her breasts curved against her barely buttoned blouse. The outline of her dark nipples caused his mouth to water. What he wouldn’t give for another taste of her heavenly flesh.
“A lot of people rely on me,” she answered. “They need me to think clearly and logically all the time. Indulging in an affair with a man who might not be real? Doesn’t exactly qualify as clear or logical.”
“You cannot be beholden to others all of your life.”
Mindlessly, she toyed with the cuff of his shirt, her fingers grazing over the inside of his wrist. If she knew how the tiny action was driving him insane, would she stop? Could she?
“You were the eldest son,” she pointed out. “Are you trying to say you didn’t put your family obligations above your own needs most of the time?”
Damon glanced aside. “I upheld my responsibilities, yes. But that’s not to say I didn’t indulge my own needs. On a regular basis, I might add.”
He was tempted to tell her of his mistress, but thought better of it. He’d gathered from her earlier diatribe on marriage in the twenty-first century that the taking of a lover while legally wed to another was no longer universally acceptable, though the practice still existed. What a strange world she lived in. She had no trouble sleeping with a man without benefit of marriage, but breaking marriage vows was unacceptable. He wondered if he’d ever grow accustomed to the new morality—or if he’d even get the chance.
Suddenly noticing how she was touching him, she yanked her hand away and tucked it beneath her head. “What about the night you went after Rogan? Was that for you or for your sister?”
Damon had avoided admitting too much about the situation that had led him to his entrapment, but her question struck him deeply. He supposed he’d never questioned his motivation for seeking out Rogan that night because his sister’s kidnapping and the oncoming mercenary horde had taken precedence above all else. “A bit of both, I suppose. Lord Rogan had been introduced to me at White’s by a mutual friend a year before I brought him to Valoren. The man was utterly fascinating, l must admit. Nobility from some far-off land, knowledgeable in all manner of science and literature and politics. Handsome. Wealthy. Engaging, I dare say.”
“Charming?” she asked.
Damon frowned. To women, yes. Undeniably, to many men as well. In Valoren, company rarely changed. Damon had relished the time he’d spent in London tending to his family’s interests and, when not paying attention to familial concerns, seeking out new and interesting entertainments. From their first encounter, Rogan had brought an exotic excitement into Damon’s often tedious life. First, he’d been fascinated. Shortly thereafter, disgusted.
“Most who met Rogan fell immediately under his spell. I had no idea at the time that his magic was beyond this world.”
“You had no idea he was a sorcerer?” Alexa yawned again; this time she managed to curl her fist in front of her mouth before she rolled onto her side and watched him intently, despite her heavy-lidded eyes.
“One hardly believes such things, does one? The magic I’d witnessed in my childhood had been of Romani origin—healing and such. Hardly more than an intense knowledge of herbal remedies, good luck and superstition, or so I believed,” he said, adjusting a few pillows to accommodate the stiffness growing in his shoulder. “But when Rogan heard that my father was the governor over the only recognized colony of Gypsies in Europe, he was the fascinated one. He entreated me to invite him on my next journey. I had no idea that he would not only set up housekeeping within the Gypsy enclave and attempt to usurp my father’s authority with the king, but also entice my sister to run off with him on the eve of what would have been a very bloody attack.”
Damon filled in the rest of the story, marveling at how his anger still seemed so fresh.
“Rogan must have been very charismatic,” she concluded at the end of his tale.
The dreamy sound in Alexa’s voice raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “He was evil personified. Romanticize any other portion of my life, my lady, but not him. Never him.”
Alexa’s eyes widened at the intensity of his speech, but her shock surrendered to yet another yawn, and slowly, her lids began to drift closed.
“I doubt I’ll ever have to deal with your Lord Rogan, Damon. Neither will you. Yes, you survived all these centuries because of magic, but what are the chances this Rogan did as well? And if he did, wouldn’t he be here, in his own castle, seeking to regain the magic you now command?”
Alexa curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Apparently, Damon thought too long before he replied, because just as he opened his mouth to present a theory on Rogan’s whereabouts, he heard the sweet purr of her sleeping. Indulgently, he brushed aside the hair that had fallen across her cheek and wondered at the soft sensation of his skin against hers.
His skin. His touch. His blood, bone and muscle. He was alive again, Rogan he damned. And if he survived all these centuries on account of his nemesis’s dark magic, chances remained that Rogan had somehow cheated death as well—no matter how unlikely Alexa thought such survival could be. Rogan had been an extraordinary man and an even more clever sorcerer. Damon had underestimated him once. He would not do so again.
And then there was Sarina. His heart ached, knowing that the protective talisman she’d once worn had been torn away on that fateful night. Did she escape with Rogan? Had another of their brothers found her? Or had the mercenaries destroyed her with the coming dawn?
Damon surrendered to the softness of the pillows all around him. Sleep teased the edge of his consciousness, and he didn’t have any further energy to fight. If sleep meant the end of this folly, he’d at least have the memories of making love with Alexa to last him for the next few centuries. If he awoke with the dawn, however, he’d have to push those memories aside. For as much as he relished the idea of seducing her again, he had to keep his emotions in check. He enjoyed her. And he’d use her. Just as he’d used his mistresses before her. Because only with her help could he answer the questions burning through him—and only by betraying her would he finally find retribution.
***
Farrow Pryce tapped his fingers along the windowsill, the rhythmic drumming ma
rking his impatience. Yet again, for the good of the cause, he’d operated with maximum stealth, never moving in for the kill, no matter how many opportunities he’d watched come and go. He waited until he could utilize the old man to ultimate effectiveness. And according to the spies he’d placed in the Crown Chandler organization, the time was now.
After a barely audible knock, the door behind him opened with a soft whoosh.
Farrow didn’t bother to turn around. “Is our guest tucked in for the evening?”
“He thinks so, yes,” was the reply, the male voice tremulous, a contrast to the man’s large size. He could break Farrow in two with his bare hands, and yet he followed his every order to the letter. Farrow’s jaw twitched into a smile. Power really was delicious.
“Good,” he replied. “Wait until the drugs have him nearly asleep, then wake him. Ice water ought to do the trick.”
With the appropriate affirmative response, his minion shot out of the room. Funny how none of the men he’d brought into his service ever dawdled. Farrow never blatantly asked for quick service and immediate obedience, but somehow they all knew his expectations. Subtlety could be a powerful motivator, when skillfully applied. But not for his guest. With Paschal Rousseau, he was done playing games.
“Rousseau is old,” Gemma said, her sultry tone creeping out from where she lounged on the leather chair behind his desk. She was, as always, the lone voice of constant contradiction.
“Why do you care?” he asked.
“Care? Hardly. But torturing him with traditional methods could result in his death. And then where will you be? He’s gone to a great deal of trouble to hide the diary. He’s not going to give it up just because you put bamboo shoots under his fingernails. At his age, he’s likely made peace with dying, don’t you think?”
Cold, hard and sapphire blue, Gemma’s eyes taunted him, challenged him. Though he supposed lesser men would find her endless opposition threatening, Farrow instead entertained a surging rush of lust. Loyal to the last, Gemma provided keen insight and clever council to his cause. Not to mention what her bloodline added to his bid to rule the followers of the sorcerer Lord Rogan. With a direct descendent of their master at his side, Farrow would rule the K’vr like none other before him. And under his leadership, the truest power—imaginable only to the followers of the great magician—would be his for the taking.
He reached out with both hands, curling her outstretched fingers in his. “What do you suggest, love? As you said, Rousseau is over ninety years old. I doubt he’d fall prey to your particular brand of persuasion.”
With sleek elegance, she slid off the chair and coiled into his arms, her breath teasing along the edge of his collar. Her short, cropped hair, highlighted in colors that ranged from white blond to inky black, hugged her sleek cheekbones and emphasized the luminous blue of her irises. “You think age makes a man immune to a woman’s charms?”
Farrow laughed, wondering how Gemma’s brother would react to witnessing this scene. Keith Von Roan fancied himself the true heir to the K’vr—which wasn’t exactly untrue. But what he possessed in bloodline, he lacked in vision. Over the centuries, many a coup had taken away the leadership from Rogan’s direct descendents, though they remained influential. So with Keith’s sibling at his side, Farrow would take the title of leader. Once he had Rogan’s magic in his possession.
He swiped his lips across Gemma’s, reveling in the feel of her sleek red mouth against his. “Is charm what they’re calling your talents these days?”
Her grin reflected her iniquitous sensuality. “No, but it’s what they called it in Rousseau’s day. I know all about a man like him. The chivalry. The denied passions. Allow me to work my magic on him and I’ll get you what you want. Perhaps more. And he’ll be in a condition to use him later on, if necessary, which he won’t be in if you keep turning him over to those goons of yours. If I fail, you can try your preferred approach with nothing but a few more days lost.”
She pressed her taut breasts fully against him and he enjoyed the thick feel of her feminine flesh, the hard tips of her nipples swiping across the silk of his shirt. He couldn’t resist leaning into her hair and inhaling the lingering scent of her bath. Her tongue grazed over his chin, igniting a simmering need for her that never truly abated—and, unfortunately, was never fully satisfied. And now that he was on the brink of taking over the leadership position he’d sought for more than a decade, his best interests were served by keeping her on his side.
“Do what you must,” he instructed.
With a feline-like growl, she tugged free of him and proceeded to the door.
“Try not to give him a heart attack,” he reminded her.
She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes glittering with lusty expectation. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m an awful lot of woman for just one old man.”
“You’re an awful lot of woman for any man.”
Even after she swung out of the room, Farrow could hear her laughter echoing down the long hallway.
Ten
Cat peered around the darkened corner inside the university’s humanities building and involuntarily drew her hand to her nose. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the smell of old books every once in a while, but in the last twenty-four hours she’d achieved maximum overload. For the entire afternoon and evening yesterday, she’d pawed through the extensive collection of professional journals and diaries owned by Professor Morton Gilmore. Her hands still needed a few more coats of moisturizer to counteract the dryness caused by constant contact with old paper and fading ink. To top off the experience, she’d come up entirely empty in her search for the dissertation or memoir that supposedly contained the reference to Valoren. After a hot shower in her hotel room, she’d finally cleared the scent of old books out of her nostrils. But now she was about to charge headfirst into another professor’s dusty office in search of documentation she wasn’t entirely sure existed—and if it did, might not help her on her quest.
Ordinarily, she wasn’t this wimpy. Dealing with musty scents was chicken feed compared to the things she’d done to hunt down evidence in her search to either prove or disprove paranormal phenomena. She’d rappelled into the hidden chambers built beneath ancient adobe structures in the Southwest during a heat wave. She’d slept alone, tucked in a three-foot-by-three-foot closet, in an abandoned New Orleans plantation house for seven nights straight in search of an elusive ghost. She’d even armed herself with a self-whittled wooden stake and several atomizers’ worth of holy water to confront a coven of self-proclaimed vampires in a back alley in urban Detroit.
She didn’t scare easily.
And yet, yesterday, she’d been overwhelmed by such a powerful feeling of dread, she’d nearly flown back in the middle of the night to Florida to check on Alexa and break the news that her expedition had, so far, been a bust.
Shortly before she’d zipped up her suitcase, however, Professor Gilmore had called her hotel, finally remembering that the diary he’d read with the reference to Valoren had never been in his possession after all. He’d read it while conferring with a colleague at a nearby university. A colleague named Paschal Rousseau, who’d written the academic paper about Valoren years before. The same Paschal Rousseau who apparently didn’t rate high on his university’s relevance list since his office had been tucked in the farthest, darkest corner of the school’s humanities building with little to no ventilation. And while Cat was no expert in Romani academia, she’d never heard of the guy. His name had not come up in any of her research. No articles like the one Gilmore claimed to have seen. No dissertations. Only one listing as a secondary resource that might have been regarding the paper he’d supposedly written, but which no longer existed. She had found a Ben Rousseau listed as a fellow of the same university, but not a word about Paschal.
Still, he’d been important enough for a tenured expert in Romani culture like Morton Gilmore to confer with. And if the mysterious professor had the diary that explained the signi
ficance of Valoren to Alexa’s castle, Cat had to push her antsiness about Alexa out of her mind for a few hours more.
Alexa.
The dreadful feeling overwhelmed her again, pressing in on her like a vise, weighting her shoulders, chest and stomach. Shrugging her briefcase to the floor, she yanked her cell phone out of her pocket and tried calling Alexa again.
“I’m sorry, but the subscriber you are calling is unavailable at this time. Please call again or press the star key to leave a message.”
Damn.
Cat disconnected. She’d already filled Alexa’s mailbox with multiple messages both last night and again after receiving Gilmore’s lead. She’d contacted Alexa’s hotel manager and was told that Ms. Chandler had not returned to her suite for the night, but that her brother had. Frustrated, Cat decided she had to break down and call Jacob. Much as her fingers ached with each punch of his cell phone number, she had to make sure her friend was safe.
“If you’re calling to tempt me back into your bed, you’re wasting your time,” Jacob said by way of greeting.
Cat blanched. God, she hated caller ID.
“In your dreams, Goth boy. Where’s Alexa?”
“Would you like to know the content of my dreams, Catalina? You might be very interested to find out exactly how you play a role nowadays.”
“I’m not interested in any of your sick fantasies, Jacob. Remember? That’s why I dumped your freak ass. Now, tell me where your sister is.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll clue your beloved sister in on the real reasons I sent you packing. Do you think she’d still be so keen to let you run even that tiny, insignificant division if she knew what a wannabe you were?”
Silence ensued, tension crackling over their connection like electrical interference. For the millionth time, Cat wondered why she hadn’t already confessed to her best friend all she knew about Jacob and his tastes for the macabre, and again remembered her reasoning. Jacob dabbled in the black arts, true, but he had no true power. He couldn’t hurt anyone. At least, as far as she knew, he hadn’t hurt anyone who hadn’t been anxious to enjoy the experience. And since he was Alexa’s last remaining family member, Cat had decided it was in Alexa’s best interests for Cat to keep her mouth shut regarding Jacob’s sadomasochistic tendencies. As an orphan raised by a grandmother who had never valued her progeny above her religion and a grandfather who saw Cat simply as an extension of himself, she knew that family wasn’t something to be thrown away simply because they didn’t measure up to classical standards. Not when you had no one else.
