Come to Me (27 page)

He had the demon book up on the table with him, which was why she was struggling to keep awake. She hadn't yet spent a night without its comforting presence by her side.

Even more comforting would be Nicolae himself, but she'd ruined her chances there, of course. It had been several days since he had told her the excruciating story of how he had received his burns, and in that time she had been as good as her word, keeping her body under layers of heavy clothes, her hair tightly braided—albeit uncovered—and her behavior pure, if not her thoughts.

Her thoughts were still stuck on how close they had come to making love. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the head of his manhood against her; could almost feel his hands on her breasts, his shaft rubbing against her sex, his lips against her own, his hot mouth on her neck and his tongue playing at her nipple.

She squirmed under her blanket, her body reacting to the thoughts, readying itself for a touch that would never come. She'd felt anew the miserable weight of her part in Nicolae's past while he'd been telling his tale, and at the end she'd felt she had no right to ask him to make love to her.

She glanced over at him, hunched at the table, brow marred by a frown of concentration, hair disarranged, dark eyes alight with purpose and intelligence as he read and made notes. Her heart did a little tripping tumble in her chest at how adorable he looked. How could anyone have wanted to hurt him? She would gladly rip the head off anyone who tried to do so again.

Her eyelids drooped, and the weird dreamlike confusion of approaching sleep filled her mind with images. She was falling asleep without the demon book beside her. She tried to care, but the seduction of slumber wooed her into darkness.

"I thought you'd never fall asleep."

Samira opened her eyes in shock: Theron was sitting beside her on her pallet. "My eyes aren't really open, are they?" she asked aloud.

"No, and you're not really speaking, either. Nor do you have to look like a serf."

She was suddenly sitting on the bed in succubus form, naked, her wings on her back in full leathery glory. "Theron, don't!"

"You
like
being a peasant?"

"I like being in control of myself."

"Very well."

She was back in the human form with which she had become familiar, although this time her clothes were of soft silks and velvets.

"You're not going to complain about the garments, are you?" he asked.

"No, they're an improvement." At least they were soft and loose. "What are you doing here?"

"Such a welcome you offer your friend, and this after I've been trying for so long for a private chance to talk to you. Why for the sake of Night were you clutching that book every night?"

"I could have spoken to you while awake, if I was touching it. Why didn't you show yourself?"

"Because of
him
," he said, tilting his head toward Nicolae. "It was a private chat I was seeking, but he's always with you at night."

"He is, isn't he?" she said with some pleasure.

Theron rolled his eyes. "You've been attracting hordes of incubi, too, each time you sleep with the book, but I've scared off most of them."

"Have you been coming here every night?" she asked.

"Are you afraid I've been spying on you?"

She was, of course, but delicate issues of personal privacy were alien to the dream demon way of thinking. "Theron, why are you here? I never told Nyx your name; don't attract her attention now by visiting me."

"She'll think nothing of it. Rumors have been flying through the Night World about your temporary humanity, and you've become a bit of a curiosity; an amusement to be peered at. Most of your audience is quickly bored and moves on, you'll be happy to know."

"Delighted."

He got up and joined her on the bed, finding a place where he could stretch out his legs and make himself comfortable on the pillows. His manhood lay large and half tumescent in the valley where thigh met hip. As she looked at it, it grew and hardened. She quickly met his eyes.

He grinned. "You have quite a river of pent-up human lust, Samira. Your Nicolae hasn't been helping you with that." He looked down at his arousal and his smile widened. "You know what a good measure this is of your frustrated desire. Wouldn't you like me to take care of it for you? I promise I'll make it good. I'll even look like
him
, if that is what you want." And so saying, he transformed himself into Nicolae, only there were no burn scars on his smoothly sculpted body.

Theron flexed a muscle, and his erection bobbed. "Come take a ride," he leered.

"Theron, stop it," Samira said angrily, his mock, salacious version of Nicolae giving her a creepy mix of lust and revulsion. She tried to close off her mind to Theron but didn't know where to start, all her human thoughts and feelings seeming jumbled together in a pile and left in the open for him to see.

He changed back to his visual form and sat up, his expression becoming serious. "You've been afraid I would come visit, haven't you? You wish I'd go away. I can see it in your mind."

"This isn't fair."

He touched her chin, tilting her face toward him, looking deeply into her eyes. "Nothing ever is."

She felt a tremor of fear go through her. "What do you want?"

"I know you feel that you've already done far too much for me. I need you to do something else, though."

She shook her head. "No, Theron. Nothing more."

"But this time it will help your precious Nicolae. Indirectly, of course."

"I suspect that it will help you more."

He shrugged. "Naturally. Why else would I do it?"

"Why else, indeed?" she echoed. She felt a thousand years apart from Theron in that moment. Did he truly understand so little? She doubted he would even be able to intellectually grasp the notion of altruism, or of putting another before oneself.

Had she herself been equally as ignorant? She must have been, to have done what she did.

"Vlad has reneged on his deal with me," Theron said.

She caught her breath. "You tried to collect?"

"It's time."

She shook her head in denial. If it was time for Theron to collect, it meant that Vlad's armies were victorious, and his position assured. And if that was true, Moldavia had borne the price. "What has happened? Where are Vlad's forces?"

"The southern half of Moldavia is his. He is called Vlad the Devil by the peasants, did you know that? He was made a Knight of the Red Dragon for his defense of Catholicism, but 'dragon' and 'devil' are the same in the language of the peasants:
Draco
. They can't tell the difference, and neither can I, frankly. The man is wicked. Vlad waits now for Dragosh to finish the job of conquering Moldavia."

"Dragosh?" she asked in horror.

Theron nodded. "Dragosh and his army are preparing to head through Tihutsa Pass and sweep their way to the capital of Suceava. They should be passing through here in about ten days' time. The days of Bogdan and his clan of Dacian wolves are all but over."

Theron fluttered his wings in annoyance and continued, "So there Vlad sits, nothing to do but hold his ground and wait, his victory as secure as any victory ever is in this war-mad place. But will he fulfill his end of our bargain? No. He refuses. I don't think he ever had any intention of fulfilling it."

Samira raised a brow. It was just like Theron to be annoyed at being cheated, even though he himself had intended to cheat Vlad. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Have your fledgling wizard cast a spell for me."

"Nicolae?!"

"That demon book must have a spell for allowing a demon into a human. Have him find it, and then go to Galatsi where Vlad has made his headquarters, and cast it on Vlad. Once he's done so, I can take over Vlad's body."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You've aided in the destruction of Nicolae's country. Why on earth would he want to help you now?"

"In exchange for the information I've just given you, of course. His father doesn't know that Dragosh is going to attack from the west. Bogdan thinks that Dragosh is with Vlad, in the south."

"It's not much of a deal. Instead, I want you to swear that when you take over Vlad's body, you will withdraw his forces from Moldavia."

Theron laughed. "Samira, my darling, what would be the point of being king if I had to give away half my kingdom?"

"You won't be king at all if you can't possess Vlad's body."

"Be reasonable," he cajoled. "You know this is what I've been working toward, for years. I'm not going to give it up for the sake of a scarred, banished princeling with an army of five. Look at him! He has no future. He barely has a present. Better that Moldavia—or at least the southern regions—be in my hands than in faltering ones such as those."

As Theron spoke, Samira felt her face harden, her eyes narrowing and her jaw clenching. He was speaking ill of her Nicolae; he was insulting him, disregarding him, sneering at him as if he were a moribund worm slithering toward its final hole in the dirt.
Her
Nicolae!

"There will be no bargain. I will not ask him to help you," Samira said in a low voice, each word cold and hard and crisp between her tight lips.

Theron looked at her in surprise, and then he started to laugh. "You're falling in love with him!"

"Succubi do not love; you know that. I do see that he is a good man, though, with the potential for greatness within him. He—"

"You see what your little human heart wants you to see. You can't hide it from me, Samira. I can see right into you. You're falling in love with him."

She shook her head in denial. "The succubi—"

"You're not one right now, though, are you? But really, I thought you had higher standards than to fall for a dabbling trickster, a one-armed warrior."

"You thought I could fall for one such as yourself, perhaps?" she asked bitterly. She hated that Theron had seen into her heart, revealing something that she herself did not yet know.
Love
? She was in love?

She couldn't be. The succubi did not love.

"You don't want him," Theron said, nodding toward Nicolae. "You think you do, but only because he's the only male you've spent any time with as a human woman. You can't help yourself. Think, though, Samira—get Nicolae to help us and I'll take over Vlad's body and come fetch you. I'll have all of Wallachia
and
Moldavia, and you can rule by my side!"

"Isn't Vlad to marry Lucia of Maramures? Dragosh won't approve if the betrothal is broken."

"He won't be strong enough to complain. Moldavia would rather side with a Wallachian ruler than one from Maramures or Transylvania. And if worse comes to worst, we can do the same to Lucia that I do to Vlad. I'd be willing to take you in Lucia's body."

"You're not going to take me in any body at all! You've lost your dream-fogged mind, Theron! You can't steal lives like this. You are a dream demon; you have no place in the Waking World."

"You've found one. Why can't I?"

"It wasn't my choice! I don't belong here!"

"But you want to stay, nonetheless."

"I do not," she said, and even as the words left her lips she felt them for the lie they were. Again Theron had seen into her heart, telling her what she didn't know. She wanted to stay here with Nicolae, no matter her complaints on the miseries of being human. She wanted to stay by his side, come what may.

"You want him to make love to you and whisper your name in your ear. You want him to forget that you were ever a demon. You want him to love you as a human woman, and to ask you to be at his side for the rest of his days."

She shook her head in denial.

"He'll never forget what you were, Samira. He'll never love you. He can't even bear to have sex with you, and what could possibly stop a man from having sex with a willing, beautiful woman?"

"It's not me, it's the past," she protested. She felt tears start in her eyes. "It's not me." Part of her believed it was, though. There was doubt in her heart that Nicolae had been completely honest with her about why he never could go through with making love to her. She was afraid he still saw her as a monster, a demon from Hell, no matter the time and confidences they had shared.

"He'll never love you. Why try to help him? Help me instead, and I can give you the life and the love you want."

She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. "You can't. You don't understand anything of which you speak."

"I understand you better than you understand yourself. I would suit you just as well as him; better, for I understand you in ways he never could."

"I don't want you, Theron. And you don't want me—not truly, not as a man would. You don't have a heart."

"You would do well enough with me. At least I would give you the sexual satisfaction you so desperately need." He reached out and stroked his fingertips over her breast. Her clothes were suddenly gone.

"Theron, don't," she said, growing frightened. "Please don't."

"You're still a virgin. Don't you want to know what it's like to feel a man inside you?"

"Not you…"

"Then how about like this?" He changed into Nicolae, as naked as she was. Nicolae's dark brown eyes looked into hers, and Nicolae's voice spoke: "Let me make love to you. I want you, Samira. I've wanted you from the very beginning."

"You're not Nicolae," she whispered.

"Samira," he said softly, and gently touched her cheek. "Don't be frightened." He bent his head forward and kissed her, his lips soft against hers. One warm hand went around her waist, while the other softly stroked the outside of her thigh.

She felt her grasp of reality slipping away. A small, small part of her still knew that she was dreaming, still knew that this was Theron, not Nicolae; but Theron's power to shape her dream was overpowering her will. She didn't know how to fight him.

"I want to be inside you, Samira," he said softly, and lay her back on the furs of the bed. His hand moved between her thighs, which parted as if her body was not hers to control. She felt his fingers stroking expertly over her, playing over her with just the right amount of pressure, arousing her until he could use her own dampness on his fingers.