In flickering candlelight, Zayan pulled a whip down from its hook upon the wall and threw it to an octagonal table of wrought iron that stood in the center of the dungeon. He looked to her, his silvery eyes speaking volumes of sympathy, but Miranda was too stunned to find words.
She had never seen such things.
The dungeons consisted of three cells cut into the hillside rock. A large oak door stood open on each cell. Iron shackles hung off the walls and ceilings. Benches of odd configurations sat in the corners. She had no idea how a human body would fit on the odd seats and strange leather pads, and she was certain that half were intended to thrust a person’s buttocks into the air.
There were more than scraps of women’s clothing and scattered pins, there were journals complete with carefully rendered illustrations. The pictures had been annotated. She recognized the hand from the letters she had received. These were Blackthorne’s books. In them, he’d sketched his plans of what he intended to do with his female prisoners, adding his notes on what had worked and what had not, and how to make his tortures more arousing.
She dropped one of the books to the table. She was not certain what she felt. Horror. Disappointment. And after her erotic adventure with Lukos where he had been tied up, a sense of understanding that unnerved her.
She was stunned. But after what she had revealed as her fantasies, did she have any right to judge?
Zayan stepped in front of her. “You see, angel.” His voice was infinitely gentle. “He would have hurt you more than I ever would.”
Miranda crossed her arms over her chest. Anger boiled, and she wanted to take up the whip and lash it at the walls. “You would happily hurt me. You would drain my blood, and the only reason you haven’t is that I have something you want.” She was alone now—utterly alone. She could not go back to her brother and his family, or Aunt Eugenia—not without putting them at risk. All she’d had were dreams and fantasies of Blackthorne. Fantasies of love and marriage. Of hope. That’s what he had been for her—hope she could have a normal woman’s life. But she couldn’t. Not here. Not anymore. It appeared all the dark, scandalous rumors about Blackthorne were true.
She shuddered as she looked around the dungeon. This did not arouse her. It made her sad.
Had Blackthorne sensed, even in her letters, that she was not normal? Was that what had drawn him to her? Or had it been that he’d known, once she was here, she would have had no escape?
Zayan gently cupped her cheek. “I am sorry. I know what the betrayal of a loved one feels like.” Below the dark slashes of his brows, his beautiful eyes revealed anguish, and her heart gave a small leap. He caressed her face and brushed his thumb to her lower lip, making it tingle.
His mouth lowered toward hers and she arched up. Wanting his kiss. Needing it.
She fell forward and her hand touched his chest above his heart—
They were sleeping. He padded softly into the chamber in which the boy reposed. He could not assign this task to anyone else. He could not put himself in anyone else’s power. Wearing a slave’s robes, he had entered the house. He was believed to be far away, on his way home from battle. It would never be suspected that his was the hand that struck—
The boy stirred. He was small and frail. It would be an easy task. A hand to the mouth to muffle a scream, a quick slash with the blade. As his hand clamped down over the face, the boy’s eyes opened, showing first confusion, then recognition, then—with the wisdom of the young—frantic fear and the knowledge of impending death.
Blood sprayed. He had pulled a dark cloak on top of the servant robes. This he would discard when he was finished.
There. It was done. All he had to do now was find the girl—
“Miranda?” Arms surrounded her; hard muscle pressed against her back.
Blinking, Miranda focused on the present, not the past. The horrific image had disappeared. She had fallen against Zayan’s broad chest and he had embraced her. She heard one slow, languorous beat of his heart. Then she dazedly remembered what she had seen and struggled to break free.
She had seen what had happened to Lukos. Was she seeing what Zayan had done?
He let her go and she glared at him, hurt and furious. Her heart must be thumping as loud as a drum. “You told me you were a Roman general. Is that the truth? In which case, you have blood on your hands.” Her blood was moving like mud through her veins. “Did you kill children?”
Zayan had lit a torch in the cell with his magic lights, and his eyes were mirrors in the wavering light. Reflective eyes hid so much. “I have a great deal of blood on my hands. And though it was said that I fed from children, that I took their blood to keep me eternally young, that was not true. I would never hurt a child.”
His eyes might be shielded, but his words were tired, and his voice held a heavy quality that sounded like regret. A vampire was without a soul, but Eugenia had told her that the “poor creatures” did experience emotion, and that the Royal Society was wrong in its belief that vampires could not feel anything. Eugenia believed they carried the pain of their mortal lives into their undead existence.
The images she had seen haunted her. She wanted to know what they were. “Were you forced to become a vampire? Or did you willingly become a vampire?” Wouldn’t a general want to embrace immortality? To be able to fight with preternatural strength and never die? “Why did you give up your soul? To win battles?”
“Any man only embraces death when he has nothing left to live for. Even on the battlefields, when the pain is beyond belief, a man will welcome death.”
“Were you dying on the field and you became a vampire to escape?”
“I saw my children dead in their beds and knew I had nothing to live for other than revenge.”
His words, thrown at her without a trace of emotion, stole all the air from her lungs. The small boy she had seen—had that been Zayan’s son? “H-how did they die?”
“They were murdered. Someone had entered my house and slit their throats.”
Dear God, she had seen it. And she had heard the killer’s thoughts in her head. This had never happened to her before. She had seen through a murderer’s vicious, coldhearted eyes. The whips and instruments of torture around her dropped away. They did not matter anymore. “Who murdered your children?” She was not sure why she was determined to push to find the truth.
His silvery eyes turned oddly black, like the shiny surface of a smooth plane of coal. He turned away from her and contemplated the other whips hanging upon the cell wall. Midnight black and gleaming in the torchlight, his hair rippled around his shoulders. Suddenly, he launched forward and slammed his fist at the wall. Chips of stone flew into the air. He had drilled a three-inch-deep hole with his fist, and Miranda froze at the sight of such rage.
“That is something you do not need to know,” he said, but he did not turn. He ripped several of the whips from the wall and broke the thick handles, scattering them to the ground. “By the gods, it is like I can see them again—”
She was scared. By touching him and seeing the murders, had she brought the memories back to him? She was afraid to approach him.
“I’ve never known the truth of who did it,” he said. “I became a vampire, possessing unearthly strength and powers, but I could not prove who murdered my children. I believe one of my rival generals had them killed. My innocent children were slaughtered to destroy me. You asked if I became a vampire to escape. I did—to escape pain.” He turned. “What need had I for a soul?”
“Slaughtered. I am so very…sorry.” She had never seen a man look in so much agony—only Lukos when she had witnessed his torture in a vision.
She had not seen the face of the killer of Zayan’s children because she had seen through his eyes. What would it do to Zayan to tell him what she had seen? It would not help him. And she could offer him no clue to the killer.
He pushed off the wall, and he faced her hollowly. “When immortality and strength were offered to me, I saw I could get the vengeance I craved. That’s why I chose to become a soulless demon, my love. I got my vengeance and thousands of frightened, weak mortals paid the price.”
Before she could respond—before she could think whether she should be angry, or sorry, or outraged by a man who selfishly hurt others to ease his grief—the long echoes of a gong filtered through the dungeon.
“Dinner,” he murmured. “You were denied the chance to eat at the inn. You must be ravenous now.”
It was as though the sound had broken through his anguish. Pain no longer distorted his features. He was as handsome as ever.
“Dinner? In the middle of the night?” Then she understood. Zayan had compelled the servants to serve a meal for her.
What did food matter? If only she could have been there for his children. She could have touched them and—
“You are thinking that if you had been there, you would have changed everything,” he said coldly. “You would have given me my children back. You would have stopped my heart from breaking. You would have stopped me from making a pact with the devil. You might have spared so many lives.”
That had been her thought, and he had seen it. “I know it’s impossible, but I don’t deserve your anger for thinking it.” He strode to the door, then turned, waiting for her to follow. But he did not compel her to do it. As with Lukos, she went to him to ask questions. “Has it haunted you for all these years? For centuries?”
She saw a quick flash of anger. He did not want to talk about it. Which surprised her then, when he said softly, “I can still see the wounds. I can see the pools of blood behind their heads. But I can’t remember what their faces looked like. I’ve forgotten. I’ve spent almost two thousand years trying to remember, but with each moment, the memory of them becomes harder to grasp. I will forever see them dead. I’ll never again see them as they were alive.”
His words speared her. Pain etched lines around his mouth and slashes of shadow across his forehead. She thought of the shock and the futile anger that had almost drowned her when her older brother had died. Even after she had saved him, terrible fear and grief had consumed her, as though he had died and not lived. She had wanted to do something dangerous and mad to expend all that fury and pain that had no outlet.
If Simon had died, and if someone had appeared and offered to make her a vampire, what might she have done?
You understand…
The words echoed in her thoughts. Miranda realized Zayan now stood in front of her. Her hair still rippled with the slight breeze of his impossibly fast movement.
He cupped her cheek again, his bare skin smooth as velvet. “No magic this time,” he murmured. Then he bent to her mouth.
Aching for his broken heart, his sorrow and pain, she let his mouth cover hers, a mouth that was impossibly warm for a man who should be dead. Zayan was tortured. He had been driven to madness by an unthinkable crime. She saw that Aunt Eugenia had been correct. Zayan had the capacity to feel regret and know sorrow.
She let her lips part, shamelessly encouraging him. Her upper lip bumped his fangs and she felt the prick to her toes. Silky and hot, his tongue touched her lips, sending another jolt of sensation that streaked down through her and seemed to burst into fireworks between her thighs.
His hand tightened on her back, pulling her up to his mouth as his lips ravaged hers and his tongue filled her mouth with heat. Each teasing plunge of his tongue made her pulse between her legs. He kept kissing her and didn’t seem to ever want to leave her mouth.
A sharp clang jolted Miranda back from the kiss. Lukos had thrown the door to the cell wide open. He stared pointedly at her corset and shift—revealed because the cloak had fallen open. Then he snarled, baring his fangs.
Miranda strode down the corridor toward her bedchamber—and clothes—clutching the fur-lined cloak around her. She felt a ripple of air; then Lukos materialized in front of her and in front of her bedchamber door. His long strides and preternatural strength had easily allowed him to catch, then pass her. He braced his arm on the wall. Bolts of vivid light seemed to flash in his silvery violet eyes.
“You kissed him,” Lukos growled. “You went with him to the dungeons and let him kiss you. You enjoyed it. I heard the rapid, excited beat of your heart—”
Miranda threw up her hands. Lukos’s lower lip had jutted out into a boyish pout. She could not understand. He had willingly let Zayan kiss her nipples in the carriage. And now, rage crackled off him like lightning sparked by colliding clouds.
He would not step aside and let her pass. He was jealous. This was all about possessiveness. “You shared me in the carriage,” she said in a fierce whisper. “Why are you behaving now like a petulant boy?”
“I was in control in the carriage—I was part of the game, allowing you to explore. In the dungeon, you were opening your heart to another man. That’s a different thing.”
“I sympathized with the tragedy that Zayan had experienced. Just as I felt horrified by what had happened to you—”
“You pity me?” Lukos roared in disbelief. He reached for her cloak, but she held up her hand. To her amazement, a red glow shot from her palm and hit Lukos squarely in his chest. It shoved him back and he stumbled sideways.
Heart pounding, Miranda pushed open her door and rushed into her room. She paused before closing the door. “What would you prefer? That I am afraid of you? That’s not what either of you want, is it? For some reason, you both want to seduce me. Why? For my magical power? We’ve already proven I cannot return your souls. What is it you want from me?”
He said nothing. So she pulled off the cloak and flung it out into the hallway, then shut the door hard. At which point the shock of the dungeons, the horrifying images, the battle with a vampire in a tantrum all did their work, and shaking, she sank to the bed.
She felt close to them both—to two vampires. Again, that mad belief returned. That this was where she belonged. With them.
Lukos had the last word—in her thoughts. Not my soul, angel, he whispered in his beckoning, beautiful voice. Someone else’s.
Why had he told her about his children?
Zayan tucked Miranda’s hand in the crook of his arm and led her toward the long, laden table in the center of the dining hall. He had felt her turmoil of emotions in the dungeon’s cell. She’d hated him for what he had shown her about Blackthorne. She had felt lost and alone. And then she’d pitied him, and now that emotion was strongest in her heart.
A growl from her stomach chased away some of his anger. He had not wanted to talk of his children, but sympathy had begun to open her heart to him. It wasn’t seduction that would make her fall for him, he realized, but his vulnerability. She wasn’t going to love him for his strength, but very possibly for his weaknesses.
He was going to have to open his own heart, slice open his own old wounds. And he was going to use her compassion against her because he had no choice.
It was the only way to bring his children back.
Lukos already sat at the table, arrogantly sprawled in a high-backed chair. Flames flickered on candles on the table and reflected in crystal glasses. Steam wafted from the food; he remembered the aroma as being good, but food held no interest for him.
Miranda’s scent teased him as he drew out her chair and watched her stiffly seat herself. She smelled of sweat, of blood, but also a trace of feminine vanilla and roses. She smelled of life. And she carried a richer natural perfume—the intoxicating aroma of magic.
He watched her lift her wineglass to her soft lips, and he remembered…
Once he had returned home in haste from the battlefield. He had burst into his house. He had found his children sleeping, his wife bathing. She had rejected him that night—because of the gore still on him, the stench of his body. Even after he’d bathed, she had been like wood in his bed, her body stiff and her eyes closed. He knew she took lovers while he fought. He knew she did not love him, but what he had not known was how far she would go to betray him—
He had left her sleeping and had gone to his children. He had kissed them. He could remember the curve of their cheeks, the velvet softness of their skin, darkened to honey-bronze by the Mediterranean sun. The smell of that sunshine had clung to their hair.
But he could not remember anything more.
The clink of dishes brought Zayan back to the present. His silvery gray gaze followed each motion of Miranda’s graceful hands as she ate. Spoonful after spoonful of meat and sauce. Watching her try to eat daintily with ravenous hunger eased the iciness around his heart. Soft cooing sounds escaped her as she ate. She enjoyed her food with simple passion.
Lukos was drinking—demons could—and watching Miranda, flames reflected in his eyes.
Zayan took his glass, the wine not drunk, and went to the window. He had forgotten this feeling around his heart—tightness, awareness, something much richer than lust.
Then he blinked; dawn was only a few hours away. Far below, a few lights glittered in the tiny village at the base of the hill. A mass of heartbeats thrummed in the town. But above, around the moon, red clouds swirled.
Zayan…
The voice of the red power sang in his head. Christ, it had come to him.
Fingers of red mist streaking down from the sky toward the village—
From behind, Miranda cried out, “No! What are you doing?”
Zayan spun away from the window, his every muscle tensed, his body primed to attack Lukos to protect Miranda. Not to claim her—to protect her.
Then he relaxed. A maid had walked into the room—a much younger servant than the others, a fresh-faced young lady with flaxen curls and a peaches-and-cream complexion. To a vampire, she was like a delectable pastry. And with his attention fixed on the red mist, he hadn’t sensed her heartbeat.
Wearing a fetching blush, the maid curtsied. “My lord? You summoned me?” Her smooth throat was a pretty column of ivory.
“Stop this.” Miranda smacked her spoon on the table. She leapt to her feet as the maid padded to Lukos’s side. “Let her go.”
Zayan took a seat. Lukos had trained in the Scholomance, had learned great power from Lucifer, had plotted to rule the world of vampires, but he behaved like a rebellious boy most of the time. Zayan should be pleased; it would turn Miranda’s heart from Lukos, but it would also remind her what they both were, and that would damage his chances of getting those magical words from her—I love you—and then getting her power.
“Do not do this to try to prove something to me. Do not do this as revenge for my—my kiss.”
Power rolled off Miranda in her outrage. The magical forces surrounded her like an aura of gold. And the red power would sense it.
Lukos crooked his finger, and without a word exchanged, the pretty maid flounced to him and planted her rounded bottom on his lap. She tilted her head and her curls tumbled away from her neck. Lukos grazed her lace-trimmed cap with his fangs, then leaned to that tempting curve of ivory skin and sank his fangs deep.
Zayan went instantly hard at the small pop of the penetration of flesh. The coppery sweet smell of her rushing blood flooded Zayan’s head. He had not fed for hours, and now hunger pounded in him, a thousand times more demanding than lust. His fangs erupted.
Damnation, his beastlike nature was exploding out. He could not show it in front of Miranda. Not when he had to capture her heart.
The maid squealed in shock, but she relaxed quickly underneath Lukos’s spell. Her face tipped back in blissful ecstasy. “Oh, aye, aye, sirrah,” she moaned.
Miranda had snatched up her fork and was stalking toward Lukos.
Zayan heard the race of the Miranda’s heart. He heard the healthy thump of the maid’s strong one. Moaning and gasping, the maid wriggled on Lukos’s lap. She rocked her derriere on him and thrust her breasts forward. Zayan could sense Lukos was playing, not slaking his thirst. And no doubt this maid had been a plaything of Lord Blackthorne’s—
Miranda was pulling at Lukos’s shoulders.
“Ooh, sir. I’m coming.” The maid bucked on Lukos’s lap. He had not touched her, just had taken her blood. Lukos lifted his mouth from her neck. Blood darkened the white fangs. Miranda had been pulling on Lukos’s hair—so hard she clutched a few long black strands in her hand.
Lukos bent back to lick the smear of blood and the wounds on the maid’s neck. To heal them. He gently lifted the maid off his lap and she landed on unsteady legs. A dreamy expression touched her pretty face. “Thank ye, sir.” And she stumbled away to the door.
Lukos flashed a wry grin to Miranda. “With her, I can control myself. I wanted to show you that. I didn’t hurt her; it was pleasurable for her. I’m not an ordinary drone of a vampire, I’m a demon. A powerful one. But with you, I can’t control my hungers and desires, angel—”
A quick motion and he had lifted Miranda and planted her on her rump on the edge of the table. Lukos tossed up her skirts. She desperately, angrily, tried to pull them down. “How dare you? After biting her, don’t you touch—”
The blue silk skirts were at her hips, showing the creamy skin of her thigh above her garters. Zayan loved the costume of English maidens—the filmy stockings and pretty garters, the slender flowing skirts, the low-cut bodices that lifted full, bouncy breasts up for his appreciation.
Lukos bent his mouth to Miranda’s wet cunny. Golden curls covered her mound, and the lips below were rose pink and slick. Wildly, she slapped at Lukos’s head, but her blows just glanced off him.
Lukos was not using magic to seduce her, only his skill and her innate, fierce desire.
He ate her cunny greedily. His heartbeat slightly quickening, Zayan watched Miranda fight the physical pleasure. She had her hands clenched into fists, and each time her body softened, she immediately jerked her spine straight and pummeled Lukos’s shoulders.
Zayan could imagine her taste—the salty, primal essence of her on his lips and tongue. He tossed back the wine, unaware of its flavor. There were only two tastes he hungered for: the slickness of Miranda’s quim and the coppery tang of her blood.
Damn.
Lukos was making her juices flow and their scent maddened him. It filled the air, filled his senses. Zayan wanted to drag Lukos aside and make her climax himself.
Lukos was dipping hothouse grapes into her lush cunny, scooping her juices and touching them to her lips. She looked shocked. Lukos popped the grape into his mouth, then licked his lips.
Zayan wanted to press her down on the snowy white tablecloth and tease her with fruit and wine, but he had to wait, watch, let Lukos do this. Jealousy. Lust. Need. They were weakening emotions. He had deadened emotion when he had first been a soldier. It had flared to life with his marriage—lust and love and possessive need—and had become stronger with the births of his children. With them he had known poignant sweetness, pride, the deepest, richest love. But Claudia had betrayed him and he’d lost his children—
“No!” Miranda cried; then she screamed out, climaxing on top of the table. Her hand sent a glass of wine toppling and a bowl of pudding skidding across the table. Platters of roast pig and beef rattled.
Lukos lifted from her. With her feet against his shoulders, Miranda pushed him back. “That wasn’t seduction,” she gasped. “And I am furious with you for feeding from that maid.”
Then she lifted her hand and a stream of scarlet light flew from her palm. It hit Lukos’s shoulder, and the vampire howled in pain. He staggered back, gripping the wound, a look of shock etched on his face.
Zayan stared—the stream of red light was the same color as the red power. Miranda leapt down off the table and ran from the room. Zayan shifted shape to a bat and flew after her in pursuit.
All Miranda could think of was the sight of Lukos’s fangs touching the woman’s neck, then plunging in. She had been horrified, then stunned by his victim’s reaction. The woman’s face had glowed with pure ecstasy—she looked like a woman who had seen angels.
Miranda rushed to her bedroom and locked the door, knowing the gesture was likely insignificant against the men’s strength. She hugged herself as she paced the large, silent room.
Lukos had not hurt the woman. Why did it bother her so much? Was it the belief that he could lose control and kill? Or was it the fact that when he fed, the experience he shared with other women was so erotic?
Madness. It was mad to feel…jealous. Even a mortal man would have had many lovers. She knew men were rarely, if ever, faithful.
She thought of the horrible torture she had seen Lukos endure. Wasn’t it amazing that he was not just a killer? My God, she had seen him lose his eyes. She had seen him covered in blood—
Miranda heard the soft sound—the beat of wings, faintly for it was coming from beyond her closed window.
Let me come in, love. Zayan’s voice.
When she had been young, Aunt Eugenia had warned her that if a vampire ever came to her father’s house, she was never to open a window or door to it. She had always agreed, while secretly giggling. A vampire coming openly to the house? That was mad.
But now she slowly walked to the window. Her fingers played on the latch. She thought of the images she had seen of Zayan’s children.
What if she could touch him again and see more? What if she could see the face of the killer?
Then she looked down at her hand and saw a red mark appear in the center of her palm. A diamond shape. It vanished but in her shock, she flicked the latch and the window swung wide.
Zayan flew in and materialized before her.
Miranda gasped in amazement. He stood before her naked. He held out his hand. She saw not a vampire before her, or a hard, ruthless general, but a man driven by desire. A man feeling vulnerability along with his need.
“I dreamed of you. I dreamed of a woman while I was held in captivity—a woman wrought of gold and sunshine. And I understand now that she was you. I know you didn’t see me, I was always making love to you from behind.” He bowed, his long erection wobbling in front of him. “You belong to me, love. And I remember you saucily told me that I belong to you.”
Miranda stared. She had dreamed of Zayan. He had been the man in her erotic dreams, the man she had never seen. “Those were dreams only.” And she frowned. “Did you put them there?”
He shook his head. “That power I don’t have. I can’t come to you in dreams. You have to bring me to you.”
“What does that mean?”
But he grasped her hand, held it to his mouth for a kiss that made her toes sizzle in her shoes. And he drew her into his embrace, and slanted his mouth over hers.
Suddenly, she felt as fiercely hot and tense and excited as she did in her dreams. But how could she? She had just been jealous over Lukos, and she had shared dark, astonishing fantasies with him. How could she feel such a rush of excitement in Zayan’s arms? But she felt as molten, as intensely aroused, as she had when Lukos had plopped her on the dining room table.
Zayan’s kiss deepened, his tongue slid in and played with hers, and she moaned in approval, surrender, and pure, hungry lust.
There had been another man in her last dream. If the dreams were the truth, or some kind of prophesy, who was the man with the golden hair?
And in her last dream, she’d been bitten…
Moonlight shimmered in, and before Miranda’s eyes it turned fiercely red and bathed Zayan in its vivid glow.