Prince of Twilight (7 page)

Especially being fully aware just how little time remained. Four days. Four short nights until the Red Star of Destiny eclipsed Venus. And then they would both die.

Beyond the physical pleasure he would give, and eventually receive, as well—yes, why the hell not? Beyond those things, he would be able to keep him
self fully apprised of Tempest's progress and her interactions with the Athena group.

He returned to the bedroom, leaned over her and whispered in her ear, “Remember me only as a dream, Tempest. Remember and know you will dream of me again. From now on, beautiful Tempest, your nights, and your will, belong to me.”

“Don't go,” she whispered. “Don't leave me again.”

He leaned closer, pressed his mouth to hers, kissed her softly, deeply, and wished for more. And more. He had to leave. He had to find a victim, feed on hot, rich blood, before his will failed him and he took hers instead.

That would make him vulnerable to her. It would strengthen the already powerful bond and create a weakness in him. One that might make him falter in the things he needed to do.

And he could not falter. He had to move forward with his plan or all would be lost.

S
tormy felt warm all over. She rolled onto her side to hug her pillow to her with a deep contented sigh and felt a smile tug at her lips. And then she came fully awake and the smile died. The sigh died. The warmth turned to a chill that shivered from her toes to her throat, where it caught and lodged.

Vlad had been there.

She sat up in the bed, scanning the darkness of the room around her. The balcony doors were closed, their curtains still, blocking out the night beyond them. She saw no one lurking in the shadows. The luminous red eyes of the digital clock beside the bed read 4:15. There were no other eyes glowing at her from the corners. She reached out, groping for the lamp just to be sure, found the switch after a couple of false starts, and turned it on.

Light flooded the bedroom. She saw no one. But
she
felt
them: eyes on her, watching her. The sensation was so real, she spun around to look behind her, but no one was there. Even so, it felt as if someone was standing right behind her, breathing down her neck.

Shivering, hugging herself, she moved across the room to the French doors of the balcony and tested them. Locked. Swallowing the dryness in her throat, she went to the closet and closed her hand around the cool brass doorknob. She stiffened her spine and jerked it open.

But no one was lurking inside. Sighing in relief, she turned and moved to the bathroom, reaching in first to flip on the light, then scanning the room. She'd left the shower curtain open, but she glanced behind it anyway.

Nothing.

She left the bathroom light on when she retreated to the bedroom, though it was a stupid, childish thing to do. Dropping to her knees beside the bed, she gripped a handful of covers and lifted them so she could peer underneath. But there was nothing there except an expanse of the same carpet that covered the rest of the floor. And then she shook her head at her own foolishness. The very notion of Vlad hiding under a bed… It was ludicrous.

She was alone.

But he'd been there. She was sure of it. It hadn't been just a dream. She ought to know, she thought. She'd been dreaming of him for sixteen years. She'd never felt like
this
upon waking. She felt relaxed; fulfilled.
Sated.

Swallowing hard, she moved to the French doors again, unlocked and opened them, then stepped out onto the balcony and faced the darkness.

“Vlad? Where are you?”

The only answer was the gentle whisper of the wind moving through nearby trees, and sliding around the eaves and the railing.

“I know you're out there, Vlad. And I know you want that damned ring. Don't you try to put it on me, Vlad. Don't do it. I'm warning you.”

There was still no answer. She stood there for a long time as bits of the dream that wasn't a dream came back to her. She remembered the way he'd touched her, the way he'd made her body come alive, made it sing.

Don't be stupid! It was me he was touching, me he wants, not you! Never you!

The voice, familiar and hated, shouted the words inside her mind, and Stormy gasped, gripped her head and closed her eyes.
That
was who she'd felt
watching her. Elisabeta! She was getting stronger again. Rising up again.

She closed her eyes, chasing away the shivers of fear racing through her body. She had to focus on what he'd said, not on what he'd done.

He'd said he didn't have the ring.

Had he been telling the truth? Maybe so. Because if he had it, why hadn't he put it on her last night? Why wait?

Perhaps because he still hadn't located the rite that went along with it. Maybe he was just waiting for the one missing piece, biding his time.

From now on, Tempest, your nights, and your will, belong to me.

She heard his passionate whisper, a command, not a request. She lifted her head, staring out at the night. “No part of me belongs to you, Vlad. Understand that. I'm not the young, cow-eyed girl I was before. And I've been working with your kind for long enough to know how to shield myself. My will is too strong to be broken by a vampire. I'm my own woman, and no man owns me. Not even you.”

She thought she had told him she loved him last night. But surely he couldn't take that declaration seriously. Not when she'd been asleep, believing it all to be a dream.

“That was wrong, Vlad. What you did last night, making me stay asleep, and trying to convince me it was just a dream? It was wrong. You violated me.”

To get to me! And he will again and again and again, and you'll have no say in the matter.

“Shut up, Beta!”

She felt no response from Vlad, swallowed hard and lowered her head. She'd loved every second of it. But that didn't make it all right. He hadn't asked. He'd only taken.

Given, actually. But still… She wondered briefly if she was truly angry that he'd touched her without asking, or was it more that he had denied her seeing him again when she'd longed for nothing else for all this time? He'd kept her asleep, used his power over her to keep her from waking up. She wanted to see him. She wanted to throw her arms around him and weep for joy. She wanted to tell him how much she'd missed him.

“Right. The man has come to murder me. Get over it, Stormy.”

Because it was true. He hadn't come for her. He'd come for the ring, and for Elisabeta.

“Don't let it happen again,” she whispered. And on some level, she was sure he was out there, somewhere, listening. “Just don't.”

She went back inside, locked the French doors and crawled back into the bed, determined to get another hour or two of sleep before it was time to get up and face the day. He wouldn't come back again tonight, she told herself. It was too close to dawn for that.

She only wished she could be as certain about Elisabeta. The sleeping intruder had awoken, strong and ready for a fight. It wasn't one to which Stormy was looking forward.

She rolled over, punched her pillow and closed her eyes. And she did get the sleep she'd been so determined to get. But it was far from restful, and filled with more pieces of her missing memories.

 

Vlad built a fire in the giant hearth and yanked the dusty sheets from the furniture, making a place for them to be comfortable on the ancient but still sturdy chairs. He located food, canned stew with gravy, certainly not cuisine, but she declared it edible and proved it by devouring every bit. She was starved. The castle's caretakers, he told her, only came in one weekend a month, and though he'd phoned ahead to tell them to prepare a room for her, the supplies they'd left in the pantry were meager at best.

“I'm not the original Vlad Dracula,” he told her at length.

Stormy looked at him quickly. “You're not?”

“No. I am…far older. But that's unimportant right now. I was centuries old, already, when my travels took me to Romania. I cannot help but think it was fate that led me there. To her.”

“Elisabeta?”

“Yes.”

He was intense, his eyes focused on the dancing fire that painted his face in light and shadow, giving him an even more frightening appearance. And even more beautiful.

“The prince, the real son of the king, had been killed in battle before he was out of his teens, his body left to rot, unidentified and unclaimed. His father never knew what had become of him, and by the time I arrived, he had been mourning his lost son for some years. I knew the young prince's fate. I'd heard it directly from the enemy who'd slain him. That man panicked when he realized he'd killed the prince, knowing the vengeance the king would wreak should he learn of it. So he stripped the prince of his clothes, obliterated his face and dragged his body into a stand of brush, never to be found.” He lowered his head. “When I arrived, the king mistook me for his long-lost son. I didn't have the heart to kill the joy in the old man's eyes. I saw no harm in playing the role.”

“I see.” She didn't, not entirely, but she was eager to hear more of his story. About Elisabeta, the woman who terrified her, seeming to possess her at times.

“I'd been living as Prince Vlad for nearly five years when I met her. We married a day later.”

She shot him a quick, searching look. “That's it? You met her and married her a day later? That's all you're going to say about your…courtship?”

Vlad lifted his brows, spearing her with his steady gaze. “What else is there to say?”

“I don't know. How you met her. Where. What made you fall in love with her. It must have been…intense, if you married her so quickly.”

“Intense.” He turned his eyes toward the fire, stared into the snapping flames. “That describes it as well as anything. The details…the details are unimportant.”

“The details are the only thing that's important.”

He shrugged as if it didn't matter, and she knew he wasn't going to share his private hell with her. Not now. And maybe not ever. “The outcome is the same, with or without my most intimate memories being spilled at your feet, Tempest. I was called into battle on our wedding night. Enemies had crossed our borders. I led our soldiers to meet them, but we were severely outnumbered. It was ugly. Bloody. Many died. I was struck down, but one of my men dragged me into shelter and left me there, safe from the sun.”

She sighed, disappointed that he'd refused to go into
detail about his time with Elisabeta. She sensed that he didn't trust her with that kind of power.

“Was it luck that your soldier put you under cover?” she asked softly. “Or did he know?”

Vlad glanced her way. “No one really knew what I was. But by then my father and my closest comrades were used to my nocturnal leanings. They all knew I detested daylight, took to my rooms whenever the sun was shining. They knew I slept by day and that disturbing my sleep was an offense of the most dire sort.” He shrugged. “They may have suspected more. Gods know the villagers did. Rumors about my nature were flying, even then.”

“So it was you, not the original prince, who inspired all the stories,” she said softly.

“Yes. It was me.”

She nodded slowly, then swallowed the lump that came into her throat. “Some of them…are pretty gruesome.”

He paused a moment. “I am not proud of the things I have done in the past, but I won't make excuses. I returned to the castle to find my new bride dead. And yes, I wreaked havoc on my enemies after that. I was brutal. Perhaps even insane, at the time. But it's done, and I can't undo it.”

She drew a breath and shivered a little. “So you blamed them, your enemies, for her death?”

“It was well deserved.”

“Did they kill her? Storm the castle while you were
away and—” She broke off there because he was shaking his head. “How did Elisabeta die, Vlad?”

He set his jaw, fixed his eyes on the fire. “She received word that I had been killed in battle, and in her grief, pitched herself from a tower window.”

At her tiny gasp, he shifted his gaze toward her again. She held her hand to her lips involuntarily and felt her eyes go damp.

“I'm so sorry,” she whispered.

He shrugged and looked away.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked without looking at her again.

“Pretend it doesn't matter. That it doesn't hurt anymore.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“And it's been eating you up inside ever since.”

“Don't pretend to understand me, Tempest. You couldn't begin—”

“You've spent all these years waiting for her to come back to you, searching for her. Don't try to pretend this obsession of yours isn't based on unbearable pain, Vlad. It won't wash, not with me.”

“My pain is not the subject of this conversation. You wanted to know about Elisabeta. I'm telling you about her.”

“Not really,” she said. “But maybe I can piece it to
gether from the scraps you're willing to share. Go on, Vlad. Finish the story. What happened next?”

“Her body lay in the chapel. My dear friend Rhiannon had arrived in my absence. It was she who told me what had led to Beta's death. And she told me more, as well. She told me that Elisabeta would return to me in five centuries.”

She nodded slowly. “I know of Rhiannon. She's well versed in the occult arts, or so the stories go. Magick, divination, prophecy.”

“She was a priestess of Isis, after all.”

“So you believed her.”

“Believed her? Yes. But I was not convinced Elisabeta's return would be enough. I wanted to ensure that she would remember me, that she would still be the woman I had loved. That she would love me again.”

Tempest rose from the chair and moved to stand in front of him, staring down at him, blocking his view of the flames, so he had little choice but to look at her instead. “How could you do that?”

“I couldn't. But I knew of those who could. Rhiannon took her leave, and I had my father send horsemen into the farthest reaches, to bring back sorcerers, witches, magicians of every sort. I charged them with the task, and they assured me they had accomplished it. They gave me the ring from Elisabeta's finger, along with
a scroll, rolled tightly and held within its circle. The told me they had somehow bound her essence to the ring, and that when she returned, I need only replace it on her finger and perform the rite contained in the scroll to restore her completely.”