Prince of Twilight (4 page)

“It's been a long time since anyone has lived here, yes.”

Blinking, she went to the nearest window, passing a double fireplace that took up most of one wall on the way. Wiping the dust from the glass with her palm, she stared outside.

The impression was of sheer height and rugged, barren rock. The moon hung low in the sky, nearly full and milky white. It spilled its light over cliffs, harsh outcroppings of rock and boulders jutting upward from far, far below. Beyond the cliffs, she could see grassy hills and valleys. But around this place, there was none of that. It was dark. It was bereft. Even the few pathetic trees that clung for their lives to the steep cliff-sides were scrawny and dead looking.

Stormy swallowed the dryness in her throat—she could barely do it. She was dehydrated, thirsty, starving and a little bit scared. This didn't look like any island off North Carolina.

“Where the hell are we, Vlad?”

V
lad kept his distance from the others who were visiting the museum. Mortals. Tourists. Groups of children being led about by young tour guides. He slipped into the Anatolian exhibit, which was housed in a room all its own, and stared at the ring in its glass case. Memories came flooding into his mind, into his soul, but he drove them back. It wasn't easy. He recalled taking the precious gem from his little finger and slipping it onto Elisabeta's forefinger, the only one it came close to fitting. He remembered how, within an hour, she'd wound it around with twine, to make it fit more snugly, and how seeing it on her made him feel proud and protective. It was large and strong and powerful on her small, delicate hand. It seemed to denote his claim to her. It seemed to mark her as his own.

“Sir? Excuse me, sir?” a woman asked.

Vlad blinked the memories away and turned to face the uniformed woman who had approached him. He hadn't even been aware of her presence, much less of how much time had passed while he'd stood there staring at the ring.

“The museum is closing sir. You'll have to leave now.”

“Ahh. Yes, of course.”

She left him alone, and he turned again to the ring. It was the one. He'd found it at last. And yes, he would leave the museum—for now. But no power on earth would keep that ring from him.

He closed his eyes, turned and left the museum, but as soon as he stepped out into the fresh air of the night, he sensed something else, something he had not expected.

“Tempest,” he whispered. And he turned slowly, scenting the air, feeling for her energy, certain she was close.

And she was. He began to move, barely looking, drawn by the feel of her. Like following the trail left by a comet's tail, he homed in on her warmth, her light, the sparkling energy that was hers alone.

He wouldn't get too close. He couldn't, not with
out running the risk of her knowing. In all these years, all this time, he hadn't come close to her, despite the temptation he could barely resist. And as long as he'd kept his distance, Elisabeta had slept. She'd been dormant, deep inside Tempest. Somewhere. He knew she hadn't left this plane. She hadn't died or moved on. She was still there. He felt her there. But she hadn't stirred.

As long as he stayed away from Tempest, he thought, she wouldn't. It was easier on Beta that way, or he hoped it was. Let her rest and bide her time. But time—God, time was running out for both of them. And now that he'd found the ring, he almost didn't dare to hope there could be a chance. Yet he couldn't help but hope.

So he followed her trail as her presence hummed in his blood, stroked his senses like a bow over the strings of a violin, until his longing for her vibrated into a pure, demanding tone. It was more powerful now, he realized as he drew closer, than it had been before. Even harder to resist, perhaps because he was allowing himself to move closer to her than he had in sixteen years. It drew him, drove him, until he stood on the sidewalk beside a hotel, staring up at the room where every sense told him she was.

God, it was all he could do not to climb the wall and go to her.

Always before, he'd been prepared to resist his own urges. Always before, he'd had time to steel himself before getting within range of her energy. But this had been entirely unexpected. He hadn't come here for this, for her. He'd come for the ring. His plans beyond that were uncertain. Without the scroll, the ring was useless.

Why was Tempest here? Had she come for the ring, as well? Why? How could she know?

He couldn't let her obtain it, if that was her goal. For her to possess it would be far too dangerous.

As he stood there, staring up at the room, Tempest stepped out onto the balcony, leaned on the railing and gazed out into the night.

He couldn't take his eyes from her. And his preternatural vision didn't fail him. He managed to drink in every detail of her face in a way he hadn't been close enough to do in far, far too long.

The blush of youth had faded from the body of the woman in which his love lay sleeping. In its place were the angles of a female in the prime of her life. Her face was thinner, her eyes harder, than they had been before. Her hair was still blond but not as pale; still short but less severe. Its softness
framed her face and moved with every touch of the breeze. She still bore a striking resemblance to Elisabeta, her ancestor. He longed to bury his fingers in those sunlight-and-honey strands, to bury himself inside her; to feel her shiver under the power of his touch.

She wanted him.

God, he could feel her wanting him. Yearning for him. And she knew he was close. She sensed him, perhaps not as powerfully and clearly as he sensed her, but it was there. And consciously or not, she was calling out to him. She wanted him still.

He had to school himself to patience. He had to know why she was here, what she was doing. He'd waited sixteen years to be with her again—more than five hundred before that. Surely he could wait one more night. But not much more than that.

He was hungry. He needed sustenance, blood to satisfy his body and perhaps calm the raging desire in his veins. To keep himself from going to her, for just a little while longer. And then, in the early hours just before dawn, he would go after the ring.

And that was precisely what he did. But when he got to the museum, it was to find the window broken, the alarms shrieking, sirens blaring and the ring…

Gone.

 

Stormy woke to the insistent sun beaming through the hotel room's windows and searing through her eyelids. She rolled over in the bed and hid her face in the pillows, but the memory of her dreams woke her more thoroughly than the sun ever could have.

She'd dreamed about Vlad.

But she hadn't dreamed about the two of them making love—which was odd, because she'd dreamed of
that
many times over the past sixteen years, never sure whether it had actually happened, or if it was just part of her senseless yearning for him. Or something more sinister—perhaps the longing of her intruder or one of
her
memories.

No. This dream had been more like a memory. Until the end. Then it had become a vision. He'd been standing there on the shores of Endover, where she had first met him. His castle-like mansion hovered on its secret island behind him, and the sea was raging in between. He'd been just standing there, staring at her.

Wanting her.

Calling to her.

The wind had been whipping through his long dark hair, and she'd remembered—yes, remembered!—the way it felt to run her fingers through it.
His chest had been bare, probably because, in her mind, that was the way she preferred to remember him. His chest. Next to his eyes, and that hair, and his mouth, it was her favorite part of him. She'd touched that chest in her dreams. She'd run her hands over it and over his belly. Had it ever been real?

It felt real. More real than anything else in her life.

She rolled onto her back and pressed her hands to her face. “God,” she moaned. “Am I ever going to get over him?”

But she already knew the answer. If she hadn't been able to forget Dracula in sixteen years, it wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. He had a hold on her. Maybe it was deliberate. Maybe it was him messing with her mind, refusing to let her forget him, even while making her forget the details of their time together. Or maybe it was because of that other soul that lurked inside her. Because, though it had been dormant for a long time, Stormy knew that
the other
was still there. And if she'd begun to doubt it, Elisabeta's recent appearance had driven the truth home. She lived still.

But was that why she couldn't forget Vlad? Or was it just because he was the only man who had ever made her feel…desperate for him. Hungry for him. Certain no one else would ever suffice.

And no one else ever had. Or ever would. She couldn't even climax with another man.

He certainly hadn't had the same issues, though, had he? He'd never made contact, not once in sixteen years. And it hurt, far more than it should. Some days she convinced herself it was because he truly
did
care about her. That he was keeping away to protect her from the inner turmoil Elisabeta would cause if he did otherwise. But most of the time she believed the more likely reason. It was, after all, Elisabeta, not Stormy, he loved. And since he couldn't have her, he couldn't be bothered with Stormy at all.

She closed her eyes, and revisited, mentally, the initial parts of her dream—and knew it had been a memory. A snippet of the weeks Vlad had erased from her mind. He'd taken her to Romania, not North Carolina, smuggled her there inside a casket. She'd awakened in his castle, furious with him.

But why? What had happened there? Why had he let her go? God, why had he ever let her go?

Groaning, Stormy dragged herself out of bed, shuffled across the room and kicked the clothes she didn't remember wearing out of her path. She went to the door and hoped, for the hotel staff's sake, that her standing order had been delivered on time.

It had. Outside the door was a rolling service tray, with a silver pot full of piping hot coffee and a plate with several pastries beside it. There were a cup, a pitcher of cream, and a container with sugar and other sweeteners in colorful packets. Beside all of that was a neatly folded—and hot of the presses, by the smell of the ink—issue of the daily newspaper.

Her order had been filled to perfection—assuming the coffee was any good—and delivered on time. She'd specified this be brought to her room every morning of her stay between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m., and that it be left outside her door so that her sleep wouldn't be disturbed.

Yeah, she was a pain in the ass as a hotel guest. But given what they charged for rooms these days, they ought to throw in a little extra service, the way she saw it. Not that they were throwing it in, exactly. She would be billed, she had no doubt. But the agency was thriving, so what the hell?

She wheeled the cart into her room, filled the cup with coffee and snagged a cheese and cherry Danish. It wasn't Dunkin' Donuts, but it was the closest she could get at the moment. Then she sat down to enjoy her breakfast and unfolded the newspaper.

The banner headline hit her between the eyes like a fist.

BOLD BREAK-IN AT NATIONAL MUSEUM—PRICELESS ARTIFACT STOLEN.

“No,” she whispered. But she already knew, even before she read the piece, what had been taken. The hole in the pit of her stomach told her in no uncertain terms.

And her stomach was right.

According to the article, the burglary had been a graceless smash-and-grab. Someone had kicked in the window of the room where the ring was on display, so they clearly knew right where it was. They had set off every alarm in the place but were back out the window and gone before the security guards even made it into the room.

It didn't seem a likely M.O. for Melina Roscova. Stormy would have expected more grace, more finesse, from a woman like that. But who else would want the ring?

The answer came before she had time to blink. Vlad. That was who.

She'd dreamed of him last night. Had it been coincidence? Or had it been his real nearness making his image appear in her mind?

Did he have the ring? Just what kind of power did that thing have?

She shivered and knew that whatever it was, it
frightened her. But she shook away the fear and squared her shoulders.

“One way to find out,” she muttered. She finished the Danish, slugged down the coffee, and headed for the shower for a record-breaking lather and rinse, head to toe. But halfway through, she stopped. Because…damn, hadn't she fallen asleep in the bath last night? Why the hell didn't she remember getting out of the tub and into bed?

She frowned as she toweled down and yanked on a pair of jeans and a black baby T-shirt with a badass fairy on the front above the words Trust Me.

“I must have been more tired than I thought,” she muttered. “It'll come back to me.”

Telling herself she believed that, she slapped a handful of mousse into her hair and gave it three passes with the blow dryer. “And that,” she told her reflection, “is why I love short hair.”

She stuffed her feet into purple ankle socks, and her green and teal Nike Shocks, then grabbed a denim jacket and her bag—a mini-backpack—on the way to the door. There she paused before going back to grab her travel mug off the night stand. She filled it from the coffee pot, snatched two more pastries and the business card Melina had left her the night before, then headed out the door.

She moved through the hotel's revolving doors and turned to tell one of the uniformed men who stood there to go get her car, but Belladonna was already there, waiting. She was parked neatly just beyond the curved strip of pavement in front of the hotel's doors, along the roadside. Had she called down last night and arranged for the car to be there, then forgotten doing it? That didn't seem likely, but between the drinks she'd had last night and the stress of being in the same city with that ring, much less Vlad, she supposed it was possible.

And that was as far as she allowed that train of thought to travel. She would deal with the burglary now. Just focus on that. The intricate and tangled web of her mind and her memory would only distract her. She had to see Melina Roscova. Because she had to find out what had happened to that ring.

My ring,
a little voice whispered deep inside her mind.

It wasn't Stormy's voice.

 

It was a four-hour drive to Athena House, or would have been if she hadn't gotten lost on the way, and stopped for lunch to boot. Stormy inched Belladonna's shiny black nose into the first part of the driveway and stopped at the arched, wrought-
iron gate that had the word ATHENA spelled out in its scroll work. The gate was closed, but there was a speaker mounted on one of the columns that flanked her on either side.