Out of the Light, Into the Shadows

by Lori Foster

  It had been left behind when her family had been removed from the palace. It was just one of hundreds of objects that had to be abandoned. Some had been more personal than priceless, others had been worth a fortune. That was why Katie had assumed Michael had sold them all.

  This box, while not the most expensive of her parents’ possessions, would command a fair amount on the open market. She would have thought it was long gone. It made her wonder what else Michael was holding on to that belonged to her family.

  And why had he chosen to return it to her?

  He had also seemed surprised to see her wearing her mother’s necklace.

  Katie walked into her suite and set the box down on the coffee table, staring at it. Why was Michael really in Las Vegas? How the hell had he found her?

  Then there was Rasputin …

  There were answers out there, and she wanted them. Not even bothering to change out of her work clothes, Katie pulled the room key Michael had given her out of her pocket and stared at it.

  If he had more of her family’s treasures, she wanted them back.

  She wanted answers to nearly a century of questions.

  And she wanted to see that he felt some measure of remorse for seducing an innocent young girl just to use her and toss her away.

  Maybe she’d never get the latter, but she was going to harass him until he gave her the former.

  MICHAEL went to answer the door, hoping Sergei had some reassuring news for him. He was no closer himself to a decision as to what to do about Rasputin and Katie’s necklace, and despite Sergei’s detachment, he could use someone to bounce thoughts and ideas off of.

  Except that it wasn’t Sergei standing in his doorway. It was Katie.

  “Hi,” he said, pleased despite the sour look on her face. “Come in.” He held the door open wide and fought the urge to smile. God, she was so beautiful. It amazed him that one woman could have so much inner and outer beauty. He had missed her so much, and he just wanted to drink in the sight of her.

  He wanted to touch her as well, but he didn’t want to lose a hand.

  She walked into the room, arms over her chest. “Explain why you gave that box to me.”

  So she wasn’t going in for any chitchat or social niceties. That was just fine with him. They needed to talk. Maybe she even needed to yell at him or hurl a vase at his head. Whatever. He’d take it. He would bleed for her if it meant she would look at him the way she used to.

  “I gave it to you because it’s yours. Or technically, it’s both yours and your brother’s. I would have given it to you years ago if I had known where you were.”

  Leaning against the closet door only a few feet into the hotel room, she eyed him. “Why? Why didn’t you just sell it along with everything else? You could have gotten a decent price for it.”

  That confused him, and he leaned on the opposite wall, sticking his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t reach for her. “Why would I do that? It’s your family’s. I took it out of the palace so that when I saw you all again, I could return it to your parents. When I heard what had happened, I …” Michael paused, his throat tightening. “I thought you were dead. So I kept it for me, as a way to keep a part of you, but also on the hope that somehow you had escaped. When I heard that bodies for you and your brother were never found, I was so relieved, I can’t even tell you. I looked for you. But I couldn’t find you.”

  Now Michael did reach out and stroke his hand down her rich brown hair. “I can’t tell you how hard it’s been, hoping like hell you were out there somewhere, but not being able to find you. I’ve always thought you were alive, but it’s maddening not to know for certain, to not see you for myself.”

  She moved out of his touch, her hand coming up to stave him off. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you didn’t intend for us to die? That you just meant for us to be imprisoned?”

  It took him a second to digest her words. Then he stood up straight. Oh, God, so that’s what she thought? “Sweetheart, what are you talking about? I didn’t mean for you to die, I didn’t mean for you to be imprisoned. I was trying to protect all of you.”

  Her cheeks had gone pale, her green eyes wide. “But I saw you that day they took us. You were with the men down the hallway who were ordering our removal, the men who were commanding the guards to haul us out like common criminals.”

  No wonder she was so angry. She thought he had betrayed her family. “No, no. That is not what happened.” He gestured to the room. “Please, come sit down. Let’s talk. Let me explain.”

  She did, albeit reluctantly, dragging her heels on the carpet. Katie sat on the edge of the small sofa, her hands on her knees. “I’m listening.”

  He sat on the coffee table in front of her. “You know that as a distant relative of your father’s I was involved in politics. I was also one of the principal players in the plan to assassinate Rasputin in the year before the revolution. Of course, at the time, we didn’t understand his immortality, so we were unsuccessful. But we wanted him removed to prevent his influence over your mother. It was obvious to most of us that as an empire we were headed for turmoil and upheaval, and we wanted to avoid that. We wanted to transition peacefully to a governing body. But as you know, that isn’t what happened. So I ingratiated myself to the Bolsheviks as someone who would support them, so that I could protect all of you. That was always my primary goal—to protect you. And of course, to do what was best for Russia.”

  Katie shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe. I thought, when I saw you looking so chummy with those men, that you had betrayed us. I don’t know if I can believe that you didn’t now, after all these years of being so convinced of that.”

  Michael put his hands on her knees. “Baby, why would I? My God, I loved you. Still do. Do you understand that? I loved you, and wanted to spend my whole life with you. I wanted you to bear my children and grow old with me. You know your father disapproved of our match, that he wanted you to marry a grand German prince. And you know that I was willing to disregard that, to ruin my career and political aspirations by eloping with you.”

  He would have done anything to be with her. He still would. Rubbing his thumbs over her knees, he leaned closer to her, breathing in her floral scent, sighing at the pleasure of feeling her, seeing her after all of these years. “My Maria, I love you. Then. Now. Always.”

  Running his finger over her soft, plump lower lip, Michael stared at her as her eyes grew moist and a single tear rolled down her cheek. He wiped it with the pad of his thumb. “They were going to kill you immediately, that very first day, but we got them to agree to your containment at Ekaterinburg instead. We had our own guard posing as one of them. It was never supposed to end the way it did. When I heard … I wanted to die, too.”

  “How did you end up a vampire?” she whispered.

  Grateful she wasn’t yelling at him or accusing him of a pack of lies, Michael answered, moving his hands to her shoulders, her hair, to anything and everything he could touch. His tactile memories of her were reawakening as he rediscovered the feel of her skin, the angles and curves of her arms and shoulders. “After one altercation with Rasputin, I was dying. Our man, the guard we sent to Ekaterinburg, was a vampire. He turned me. That’s why I hoped you might still be alive. I thought maybe somehow he had saved you.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Nick? Was it Nick you sent?”

  “That wasn’t his name, no. Why?”

  “Because it was a guard in that room who saved Peter and me. He was a vampire and he turned us. I can’t imagine there could be two vampire guards in the room. We’ve been living with Nick all these years. Changed our names, moved away, got jobs. He’s been like a big brother to me.”

  While part of Michael ached that he hadn’t been there for Katie, that he hadn’t been the one to acclimate her to a new life as a vampire and help ease her grief over losing her family, he was glad she’d had someone with her. And was profoundly grateful that she hadn’t died in that room.


  “I’m glad he was there for you. And I’m so, so sorry for what happened to your family, for what you’ve endured. I failed you, and for that I’m sorry.” Michael dropped his head, fighting the very unmanly urge to cry.

  Katie stared at the top of Michael’s head, and she wanted desperately to believe him. If he hadn’t betrayed her, then it was all okay. Not that she had lost her family, but that she had given her heart to this man. Thoughts and emotions were a muddled mess in her mind, and she still had questions, still had doubts, but she had to touch him. It had been so very long and she ached to run her fingers through his hair.

  He sighed when she did, brushing an errant lock off his forehead and trailing her fingers across his temple.

  “It was horrific,” she told him in a whisper. “Until the very end, my father didn’t believe it would happen. He was the proverbial lamb being led to slaughter. I knew. I could see it in their faces, knew it the second we walked into that tiny room. What else would they be doing? But there was nothing I could do. I tried to hide Peter, but it was useless, and as I lay dying, I hoped I would descend to Hell so that I could meet you there and spit in your face when I saw you.”

  Michael’s hand tightened on her knee, and he glanced up at her from under his long black eyelashes. “You always did say exactly what you were feeling. I’m glad we were both spared that particular conversation over fire and brimstone.”

  Katie gave a small smile, the tears in her eyes blurring her vision. “The box? How did you get it?”

  “I pocketed what I could before the palace was ransacked.”

  She nodded, still not sure what to believe, but at the moment, she no longer cared. She simply wanted to be in Michael’s arms again. “Kiss me, Michael.”

  He gave her a look that was so filled with love and passion, Katie almost glanced down to see if he had seared her clothes off.

  “I’ll do anything you want,” he told her.

  What she wanted was to have sex with him, and somehow she didn’t think he was going to object to that.

  SIX

  KATIE wanted to make the first move, wanted Michael to understand that despite the doubts and confused thoughts rattling around in her, she wanted him. She wanted to just let go and sink into the comfort of his arms around her. But she hesitated when he didn’t just reach forward and kiss her, and she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she had been shy about her sexual feelings for Michael when they were young. In fact, he had tried to be noble and hold off until they were married, but she had tempted him to the point that he had given in—with great gusto.

  But maybe now, after all this time, she needed him to take the first step to bridge the gap of a century.

  “Do you remember the first time?” she asked him in a whisper.

  His eyes darkened as his fingers moved further up her thighs in delicious circles. “Of course. It was after some elaborate dinner party for a foreign diplomat, a German, and it made me jealous to watch you being trotted around the room by your mother as she introduced you to a handful of German eligibles. Men she deemed worthy of your hand in marriage, unlike me.”

  “All I wanted was to be with you, talking, laughing. You always made me laugh, Michael. We shared the same sense of humor. Every single one of those men she introduced me to were wrong, completely wrong for me.” Katie put her hand over his, stroking him in kind as he caressed her. “Only you were right for me.”

  The intensity in his eyes made her shiver. Gone from both of them was the vibrancy and naïveté of youth, but the connection, the love, was still there.

  “I’m sure that jealousy was part of why I gave in that night,” Michael said. “I had wanted so desperately to wait because I wanted you to understand I respected you above all others. I loved you as a wife, forever.” He gave a rueful smile. “But it was a constant battle, you know, between the desire to hold you in my arms, our bodies giving each other pleasure, and the need to wait until we were legally married. That night I couldn’t resist what you offered so sweetly and passionately.”

  “I couldn’t wait anymore. I wanted to be yours, and it was lovely,” Katie whispered. “You took your time, did all the things that you knew I would like, so that I was ready.”

  “I wanted it to be good for you.”

  “It was.”

  “For me, it was the most special night of my life.” Michael cupped his hands around her cheeks and moved his mouth softly over hers. “Until now.”

  Katie closed her eyes as he kissed her, his lips a delicate brush over hers. God, she had missed him. Missed this feeling. No man had ever been able to arouse as much honest, raw desire from her as Michael had. It was just a kiss, a light and innocent press. She knew already that he could talk her into anything sexually, and she knew that was the advantage, the benefit, of being in love. Sex had been physically gratifying with other men, but never the same. Never the same as looking up at a man as he filled her, her heart sighing with sweet, earnest love.

  “Tonight I have what I thought I’d lost forever,” he told her, his voice a warm tickle against her ear. “And I want to show you how much I love you, how I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  Katie didn’t know what to say, how to articulate the emotion that had lodged itself in her chest, but she didn’t have time to speak before Michael scooped her up into his arms and stood.

  “Let me make love to you, angel.”

  Like she was going to say no to that? Katie slipped her arms around his neck. “You are more than welcome to make love to me as long as you’d like.”

  She meant that most sincerely. “You don’t even need to ask.”

  Michael gave a soft laugh as he carried her to the other side of the room where the bed was. That was the convenient thing about a hotel room—it only took sixty seconds before she was lying on her back on the comforter, and Michael was tugging her clunky work shoes off.

  He peeled her socks off, too, running his fingertips along the bottom of her feet. Then, before she could protest that it tickled, Michael was lying beside her. “I’ve missed the feel of you.” He breathed in deeply. “The smell of you.” His tongue trailed across her bottom lip. “The taste of you.”

  Katie sighed, closing her eyes to enjoy the feel of his caress across her stomach where her shirt had ridden up, indulging her senses in the nearness of his masculine body, the sound of his breathing, the feel of his soft hair beneath her fingertips. He started to undo the buttons on her white shirt, and Katie shifted onto her side, opening her eyes to see him. It was a given she was a little biased, but she thought he was gorgeous. Princely, ironically enough, with his long nose, chiseled cheekbones, and striking eyes. He had been a Russian prince, though unable to offer the grand political alliance her parents had craved for her. But he had been regal and charming.

  Now, the way he was staring at her, lust lit in his expression, his every movement, he was more intense than charming, but just as confident, aristocratic. When he finished opening all the buttons on her shirt and cupped her breast, Katie pressed into his touch, the simple contact kicking the warmth between her thighs up a notch.

  “I haven’t been with a woman since you,” he told her.

  She stopped thinking about how good it felt to have him stroking her nipple through the satin of her bra. “Excuse me?” she asked blankly. He couldn’t possibly mean …

  “I haven’t had sex since that last night we were together.”

  “Are you serious?” That stunned her. She couldn’t even fathom an adult male going all those years without sex.

  “Yes. In my mind we were still together. I was being faithful to you.”

  Katie didn’t know what to say, and tears clouded her eyes. That was the most romantic, yet strangest thing any man had ever said to her. “Wow, I don’t know what to say.”

  Because she couldn’t exactly say the same in return. Not that she’d been racking up the bed partners, but there had been a few. All futile attempts to banish the memory of Michael. Encounters
that had shown her that while the body could easily be satisfied, the heart and soul were greedy little bitches—they wanted what they wanted and wouldn’t take any sort of substitute.

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know.”

  Then he left no time or ability for her to answer when he pushed back her bra and took her into his mouth. Katie arched into the touch, gasping when his teeth lightly skimmed her nipple. Before she could blink, he had her shirt down her arms and off, the bra following suit.

  He licked and sucked both breasts, his tongue rolling around each nipple in tight, teasing circles. It was delightful, each flick of his tongue tip sending a warm jolt through her, the ache of desire grabbing a hold of her body and squeezing tighter. Katie moved restlessly against the pillows, letting her hands fall to her sides.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “The most beautiful woman on the planet.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” she protested, even as she flushed with pleasure at his words.

  Michael looked at her in a way so intense, so loving, so sexy, Katie lost her ability to breathe.

  “Oh, I’m not exaggerating,” he said as he undid the button on her black pants.

  “Maybe a little?” Katie let her eyes slide shut when his hand slid down into her pants to cup her panties, his thumb so close to where she wanted him to touch, yet painfully far away.

  “No,” he said, at the same time he pulled his hand away. “You are beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous. Amazing. Tell me you believe me.”

  Lamenting the loss of his touch, moved by the sincerity and depth of his words, Katie nodded, unable to force the words out of her tight throat.

  “Good.”

  Then Michael pulled her pants and panties down in one swift motion, tossing them on the floor. The cool air hit her equally cool skin and Katie shivered, from both the breeze and anticipation. He brushed his hand over her, gently pushing her legs apart and then his mouth was on her.