“You drive me to insanity,” he murmured in his velvety Romanian accent. “But we cannot make love.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Unable to stop herself, she arched against Dimitri’s chest, pressing her mouth to his with a blazing kiss. Desire waved through Alba with the force of a hundred galloping horses. Dimitri’s hands drifted to her chest, where they formed half-circles beneath her breasts. While she whimpered with pleasure, he fondled and squeezed the spheres though the shirt.
As his thumbs whispered across Alba’s erect nipples, she gripped his arms and urged him to slide his touch lower. Her center was already damp and as the scents of their arousal mixed, she licked her lips. Dimitri purred. He stroked her clitoris, and as he probed her creases patiently, expertly, the sensation built Alba’s desire. She stole a look at Dimitri. While he pleasured her, the shadows thrown off by the lit hearth accentuated his lean cheeks and carved jawline. Smiling like a mischievous cat, he delved his fingers deeper inside her core. Alba sucked in a breath. As he caressed her center, he claimed her mouth with a hot kiss and she climaxed against his hand. When he pulled her swiftly to a standing position, his dressing robe fell away and she stared at his glorious body gleaming in the firelight. His wide shoulders complimented the narrowness of his hips and his pectoral muscles moved like molten metal as he urged her against the wall. With her back to him, Alba wondered how attractive her bare bottom looked from this angle. But as he began to knead it with moans of pleasure, it seemed that Dimitri didn’t mind the image at all.
“You have an ass fit for a queen,” he whispered gruffly into her ear. Pressing his arousal against her buttocks, he covered her with his solid body, crushing her flat against the wall. He skimmed his hands over her derrière and her eyes widened as he touched her in a place she thought women were never touched. Hardly breathing, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of his skilled hands roaming her body. He slithered a hand under her shirt and cradled her breasts again. Then with his other hand, he guided his penis into her folds, stroking her dampness with its tip. Dimitri nudged her hair over her shoulder and ran his tongue along the column of her neck.
“You are so beautiful—” His voice was raw with desire.
Alba could feel his energy radiating behind her. Can he smell my blood? Will it lead him to violence?
Her eyes flitted to a silver sconce that lined the wall over the hearth. Her distorted reflection shone back, but Dimitri’s did not. To see if his fangs were bared, Alba whipped her head around. Dimitri had a firm grasp on her hips, while his neck and head were bent back in ecstasy. He raised his head to meet her gaze and she saw the sharp points of his incisors glimmer in the firelight.
Terrified, Alba broke away. Her heart pounding incessantly, she thrust him a look tainted with fear. Still, he encircled her waist and tugged her closer. And while he embraced her, all she could envision were his fangs. Suddenly, she regretted playing with fire.
“I . . . I should be getting back to the dormitory,” she stammered.
“I’m sorry, Alba,” Dimitri said breathlessly. “It seems that I cannot control myself around you.”
“No, it’s my fault.” She paused as she squirmed farther away from him. “I kept pressing you.”
Lust still lit his eyes. She watched his chest heave up and down with the heaviness of arousal and his fists curl into tight balls. He spun away from her while he tried to compose himself. “I will get you home,” he said, frowning. “Then you must gather your things. When the sun rises, you should make arrangements to leave for Romania tomorrow night.”
Alba said nothing. How could they go away together and endure the torture of never being intimate? A wave of angst spilled over her as they dressed. Although she held on to Dimitri tightly during their flight back to Bloomsbury, she was grateful when they touched down on the dormitory ledge. As he leaned in for a heated kiss, he reminded her that he would come for her the following evening. She gave him a nervous smile and slipped silently back into her bedroom. All she could think of was that tonight had been an overwhelming paradox. She’d experienced extraordinary fulfillment—yet she was more frightened than she had ever been.
Damn you, Dimitri.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dimitri felt drugged. Alba had intoxicated him with her sensuality and he could barely think straight. As he made his way back home, her luscious image became fixated in his mind. Even the crisp night air did nothing to clear his head.
No doubt she’d seen his monstrous fangs. The truth was, Alba had fueled his thirst to an extraordinary degree—and he’d come within inches of biting her neck. Luckily, he had restrained himself, but it’d been hell.
Was going away with her really a good idea? Because he was a mulo, his thirst was building more than he thought possible, and he was starting to second-guess the decision.
He’d almost reached his house after escorting Alba home when he decided he would have time to feed and make a medical round in Whitechapel. After securing his Gladstone bag, he traveled to the sooty East End. The quiet streets attested to the fact that most of the city was terrified by Jack the Ripper’s murders. Will I be able to find a victim from whom I can drink?
As luck would have it, he spotted two flamboyant prossers in the distance. The women were busy parading their bodies shamelessly beneath a gaslight. Obviously, they didn’t have the luxury of fearing the Ripper.
Dimitri approached the younger prostitute. Wearing a mini-bowler hat and a choker with a flower on it, the fair-haired girl sauntered toward him. While they exchanged mutual smiles, they walked arm in arm to the rear of a tailor shop. Dimitri pinned her gently against the wall, and when he slid in closer, he mesmerized her with his stare. Feeding with no resistance, he listened to the girl’s pleasurable moans. Afterward, he took off unnoticed as she melted to the ground in a trance.
Alba would despise me if she had seen the attack. In fact, he hated himself for it as well. But drinking was a necessity. Without his daily dose of blood, he would perish. What good would he be to Alba then?
Dimitri reached Miller’s Court, where he proceeded to make his rounds. In a series of house calls, he checked on ailing prossers and aged tenants inside their tiny doss-house rooms. Glad to leave the depressing rookeries behind, he stopped inside the East End clinic next. There he treated a downtrodden man who was suffering from the flu, delivered a baby, and treated an elderly woman’s painful arthritis.
At three-thirty A.M., he returned to his house on Park Lane. Too tired to bathe, he removed his waistcoat and donned his dressing robe over his bloody clothes. Entering the drawing room in a relaxed state, he drank two glasses of wine and got even sleepier. Too fatigued to go to the basement, he settled on the sofa, where he drifted off.
A banging at the door split the dark, dead silence of Dimitri’s sleep.
“It’s the police, Dr. Griffin. Open the door!”
Dimitri tried to sit up, but daylight was upon him. His eyes darted to Jochen, who appeared in the parlor’s archway. His servant cum friend was fully dressed—and didn’t look as though he’d been awakened by the banging.
There was another series of furious knocks.
“Shall I open the door?” Jochen asked as he helped Dimitri to an upright position.
Sunlight bored through the window, and though it hadn’t landed on Dimitri directly, he felt disoriented and weighted by its haze.
“Did they say they were the police?” Dimitri slurred his words as he nearly fell back to sleep.
“Yes,” Jochen said. “I think we should let them in.”
“Of course,” Dimitri murmured.
Jochen moved to the ornate entryway with Dimitri slumped against him. A police chief had his grim face pressed to the glass door panes and his fist raised to knock again.
“Dr. Griffin,” the gentleman said breathlessly once he and two additional police officers entered in a rush. “My name is Chief Constable Ethan Prindle . . . of the Commercial Street Police Station.
I’m here to inform you that there’s been another grisly murder in Whitechapel.”
Dimitri’s gut surged. He’d been in Whitechapel last night. Had the fair-haired prosser died? Had someone seen him drink her blood? No, he’d been very careful . . .
His stare shifted to Jochen. Perhaps the police were here to collect him. Or better yet, maybe this was all a dream.
“A prostitute named Mary Kelly was killed in her house in Dorset last night,” Prindle informed him. “Her mutilated body was found at ten-thirty this morning.”
Christ! What time is it? “That is most unfortunate,” Dimitri said. “But what does it have to do with me?”
“A man fitting your description was seen entering Mary Kelly’s house.” The constable inhaled. “Dr. Drake Griffin, we are taking you in for questioning in the murder of Mary Kelly, also known as Marie Jeanette Kelly. Take him away, boys.”
The brawny officers began to escort Dimitri out of the house.
“How dare you!” Dimitri cried as he wriggled in their grasp. The sash of his robe unfurled and his robe fell open. “You have the wrong man!”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the taller of the two officers said in an Irish lilt. “Just look at his bloody clothes!”
“Wot for,” the other officer cried. “Listen to ’is speech as well. And I can smell his breath. This man is drunk!”
Prindle surged forward. “I hereby arrest you for the cold-blooded murder of Mary Kelly.”
Dimitri resisted, but in his weakened condition, he was no match for the policemen. “My cloak!” he bellowed to Jochen. “Get it and throw it over my head!”
Jochen moved as if he had wings and did as Dimitri instructed. As Dimitri was led outdoors, his legs gave way. The officers maneuvered him toward the police wagon with difficulty. One of the officers drew his club and struck Dimitri in the knee full force. Jerking forward in pain, Dimitri sank lower to the ground. Despite the agony that radiated through his body, he continued to resist the burly men. Then he felt the crack of a club at the base of his skull.
Before he lost conscious, he murmured to Jochen, “Get Alba.”
A pot of chamomile tea sent forth a calming aroma as Alba sat at the kitchen table. It was early morning and the dormitory was quiet—as the girls and Mrs. T. were at the ballet studio and Justina had slinked away to a quiet nook.
Alba poured herself some of the tea and then took a sip. Thank God she’d stolen back here unseen and unheard last night. It had been twelve-thirty in the morning; she’d noticed the time on her night-table clock.
She was about to drink more of the hot tea when she heard a knock on the door. Puzzled, she opened it and saw Jochen Rhessa standing before her. A troubled look waved over his blotchy face.
“Jochen?” Alba became even more puzzled when her gaze drifted to the bundle of fabric he had clasped in his hands.
“Miss Zpda.” He spoke in rapid Romanian. “I’m sorry to disturb you . . .”
“It’s all right, Jochen. What is it?”
“It’s Dimitri. I mean Dr. Griffin,” he stammered as his cheeks flushed. “He’s been arrested.”
“My God!” Panic squeezed Alba’s heart. “Why?” was all she could ask.
“There was another East End murder last night. It seems the police have mistaken him for Jack the Ripper!”
She hadn’t yet read this morning’s newspaper. “Please. Come in.” She motioned Jochen toward the kitchen.
They sat at the round table where Alba urged her fellow Romanian to tell her everything. Jochen recounted the events of the arrest in a fast flow of words—after which Alba leaned back in her chair, completely astounded.
“And you say the police claimed this Mary Kelly was mutilated—like the four other victims Jack the Ripper destroyed?”
Jochen gulped and nodded his response.
“What time did Dimitri get home last night?”
“I don’t know. It was my night off and I’d just gotten home myself when I found him asleep on the sofa.” He paused. “He asked me to come to you for help, Miss Zpda.”
Dimitri will need a barrister. The thought gripped Alba like a tight vise. She cleared her throat. “You may call me Alba,” she said kindly, though she didn’t smile. How could she under the circumstances? She hated to think what Dimitri had done after he’d dropped her off at the dormitory. When they had parted ways, he still seemed fully charged and on the verge of losing control. Then she chastised herself. Don’t rush to conclusions. As difficult as it may be, I must believe the best scenario, not the worst.
“The police are mistaken,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure of it.”
“I think you’re right,” Jochen responded. “But how do you explain the witness who saw Dimitri enter Mary Kelly’s house?”
Her stomach clenched and she looked away to hide her alarm.
“Will you come to the police station?” Jochen asked.
“Of course.” She rose and pulled on her overcoat. “What are you holding?”
“Dimitri’s clothes. He was taken away in his dressing gown.”
Alba’s stomach fluttered. His forest-green dressing gown trimmed in diamond stitching. She knew it well—and the image of him in it sped her heart. The vision of him baring his fangs had terrified her, but he still held a sacred place in her heart. And now he was alone in a dank prison cell.
Did he feed last night?
“Very well.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Snip. Snip. Snip.
Ileana Zpda watched another rose tip drift to the ground. In the glass-lined conservatory of the Kensington house, she’d been cutting up flowers for hours.
Beauty in its purest form must be destroyed. Whispering the motto she lived by, she eyed the basket of roses Giselle had provided for her amusement. Now, in the afternoon haze, she plucked another flower from it. With an insistent chop of a pruner, she severed the head off the cherry rose and reveled in its wilted state.
This type of botanical demolition helped Ileana think. And following the images she’d seen in her magic mirror this morning, she had a great deal of thinking to do.
Ileana had watched it all in the mirror: Alba swallowing the headache pill she’d managed to slip in and taint moments before that twittering Mrs. T. gave it to her. Dimitri whisking Alba to his Park Lane home like a valiant knight and his vow to protect Alba. She had even seen their enflamed lovemaking—which had been fueled by the sexual confidence the pill provoked in Alba.
Still, Alba hadn’t coaxed Dimitri to destroy her—and Ileana threw her head back in laughter at the realization. Perhaps she’s not as beautiful as everyone says she is.
No doubt Alba thought Dimitri had cast a spell over her, but she was wrong. Ileana’s lust spell had worn off the same way a conventional pill stops working. But Alba was none the wiser.
Damn Dimitri. He has too much willpower for his own good. No doubt he’d learned to resist much and do without more as a filthy Gypsy.
Refusing to rely on his mulo powers any longer, Ileana had fixed him. She’d gone to the police, claiming that she saw Dimitri solicit a prosser in Whitechapel last night. What’s more, she had stated that she saw him enter Mary Kelly’s house. When Ileana gave the police chief a detailed description of him, the chief had believed her.
Now the fact that Alba failed to prompt Dimitri to destroy her in bed didn’t matter. It was all too delicious for words.
Giselle appeared just then to scoop the roses off the floor.
“Leave them!” Ileana thundered. “I like to watch them shrivel and die.”
The hunched servant fled the conservatory, wide-eyed, while Ileana’s thoughts turned back to her stepdaughter. “I had the chance to kill Alba many times since I arrived in London,” she murmured to herself. “But I want the girl to suffer before she dies. And watching her true love deteriorate in prison before he faces the gallows will do the trick nicely.”
Ileana butchered
another rose as her cheeks heated. If Alba doesn’t kill herself from grief after Dimitri hangs, then she shall die at my hand.
But I must be smart about it.
Abandoning the dead roses, she swept upstairs and stepped in front of the enchanted mirror she’d had mounted on the wall. As she raised one eyebrow at her pristine reflection, she noticed the tiniest of wrinkles across her forehead. Her eyes flashed in anger and her expression became shadowed as the mirror rippled and waved.
My beauty must never fade.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” she asked.
“Today you are the fairest, my lady,” came the imperious voice.
“Today?” Ileana growled. “What do you mean today? What does the future hold?”
“Your appearance will wane with time. It has begun to do so already. But your stepdaughter’s beauty will never change.”
Outraged, Ileana picked up a poker. She smashed the mirror into bits and shouted, “I will never be outshone by Alba. Never!”
The dimly lit corridor inside Newgate Prison glowed a depressing shade of green. Shuddering against the draft that ran along the hallway, Alba drew the collar of her half cloak together. The institution smelled of violence and tragedy. But worst of all, it smelled of stolen freedom.
Dimitri.
How was he faring without his casket—or whatever he was accustomed to sleeping in? Was he getting his much-needed blood supply?
Alba envisioned him wasting away in his cell, shriveling from the sunlight that streamed into it, and the mental image sent bile to her throat.
Pushing away the vision, she tried to focus on why she was here. She was desperate to know if Dimitri was guilty—if he was capable of butchering this woman known as Mary Kelly. Of course she’d learned in law school that she must not ask a client anything point-blank, so she needed to coax the information out of him.
Snow White and the Vampire (The Cursed Princes) Page 18
