Giordan stilled at her words, at the revolting offer.
Narcise stood no more than ten paces away from him, straight as a rail, her ivory face paler than usual and without its normal luminescence. The dark, scraped-back hair gave her an even starker appearance, verging on gaunt. Her fencing attire, those close-fitting tunic and breeches, had damp spots from perspiration and one red blossom on the shoulder from where someone had nicked her.
Her blue-violet gaze was cold and dark, without a hint of Draculean glow.
"Is that how you normally do it? Give an option?" he asked, legitimately curious and at the same time, repulsed by the very thought.
"Not at first," she said conversationally, though there was the faintest tremor in her voice. "I fought them all at first. It took me some time to realize that it was less painful, and often over sooner, if I lay there like a dead fish."
His gut tightened as his attention was drawn automatically to the large bed off to one side. The images flashing into his mind were unpleasant and dark; yet he couldn't deny that the vision of her lying on the bed, naked and spread out, was compelling. More than compelling. Desire flooded him, compounded by the fact that the very room smelled of her-of that heavy, rich ylang-ylang and vetiver-and of coitus and blood.
His veins began to swell as his fangs threatened to show themselves. He forced himself to look away from the bed...which wasn't an altogether prudent thing, for his gaze then lit upon a variety of other accessories in The Chamber.
Chains with manacles hanging from a plastered and painted, rather than stone, wall-which gave it an absurd appearance of civility. A rack of whips. A small metal box. Carved ivory phalluses, of varied sizes. Even small knives: too dainty to slice one's head from one's shoulders, but certainly dangerous enough to cut decorative nicks into one's flesh.
Giordan's belly churned, knowing that each of those items had been used many times over. And those were only the items he saw at a glance. Narcise, Narcise...how can you be less than mad after this?
"So which shall it be?" she pressed, her voice a little more tense now. She was as rigidly controlled as he struggled to be. "Surely it cannot be that difficult a decision."
"Where is the peephole?" he asked. For now, he must ignore her question. The very thought was enough to weaken his already stretched control.
She looked at him blankly for a moment, then her eyes skittered to the wall across from the manacles and chains. Cezar hadn't attempted to even hide the small holes through which he must observe. They were hardly larger than the arrow slits in a medieval castle, but there were several of them, at varying heights, in the plastered wall. Not obvious enough to distract one from one's pleasure, but certainly there.
Without preamble, Giordan walked across a thick rug to the wall and spoke into the dark slots. "I don't wish to be spied on, Moldavi." He could scent the stew of male need and lust through the holes, and knew that at least several of them from the previous room were there, prepared for even more entertainment. And, indeed, as he looked into the dark spots, Giordan saw the faint glow of several pairs of orange and red eyes, burning, blinking and then turning away.
He suspected that his host might be annoyed, perhaps even furious, at his statement, but Giordan was confident that the man wanted badly enough to buy into the spice ship he was sending to China, and that he would acquiesce gracefully.
His need for fresh opium was a strong incentive.
But of course, too, Cezar Moldavi needed always to be in control, and a conflict that he couldn't win-such as this with Giordan-would make him appear to be out of control.
So, once the male scents had faded and he knew they were all gone, he turned back to Narcise. She was watching him warily, and as far as he could tell, she hadn't moved.
"What is it to be, Cale?" she asked a third time. "You only have until dawn." The edges of her full lips were white with tension.
"Neither. I'm not going to touch you," he said.
A strained silence settled over the room.
"Are you mad?" she whispered. Her hand had moved, and he could see its faint tremble as she rested it against her throat. A bit of color rushed into her face.
"Just a bit." Giordan pulled his attention away and said, "Is there anything to drink in this torture chamber?" Blood whiskey would take the edge off his senses.
Narcise didn't reply; perhaps she didn't trust herself to speak, either. But she walked over to a cabinet he'd hardly noticed and pulled out a bottle of, praise the Fates, brandy or whiskey. As soon as she removed the cork, its warm, pungent scent filtered through the air, telling Giordan that while Cezar didn't provide his best brandy, it was still a far sight better than what most of the taverns in England served. The rush of the amber liquid sloshing into a small glass was the only sound for a moment. She poured a second one, surprising him faintly, and then turned to look at him. She left one of the whiskeys on the small table and stepped away, sipping from her own glass.
"Your name...it isn't French," she said suddenly. Although they had conversed briefly before, Giordan hadn't truly appreciated the low duskiness of her voice. But now, it curled around him like a smoky serpent and his belly twitched in response.
"No, it isn't, unless it is some shortened version of a name or place. Or perhaps my father was English. I don't know. I don't know much about my origins. I'm fairly certain my parents were from the countryside," he said, willing to follow the brief diversion, for of course he'd been telling the truth when he told her he didn't mean to touch her. Aside of that, conversation might perhaps relieve the pulsing gums pushing at his fangs and the bulge in his breeches.
He walked over to pick up his own drink, wondering if leaving it there was a play for control on her part, or if she didn't trust him to get close enough to hand it over. "They came into the city and then I don't know what happened. We were poor. I have vague memories of my mother, but nothing very solid."
"But you are no longer poor. Was that..." She hesitated, looking at him with desperate eyes this time. "Did He promise you riches?"
Giordan knew precisely what she meant. "Lucifer visited me after I was well on my way to becoming as wealthy as the king." The old niggle of unpleasantness wormed into his belly. "He merely promised that things would never change, and that I would enjoy great wealth for eternity. And I... But I'd lived on the streets, slept in the alleys and beneath the sewer bridges. Once you've been hungry every day for five years, and haven't had shoes or a clean shirt for a twelve-month, you are desperate to keep that from happening again. At least...I was."
He took a large gulp and pursed his lips, ignoring the doubts and darkness that weighted him at the memories of his past. Why had he agreed to follow this conversational path?
"Did Cezar make you?" he asked.
"No," she replied. "But in a matter of speaking, yes. It was he who arranged for Lucifer to visit me. If he hadn't..." She shrugged. "If he hadn't, he would only have had a plaything for perhaps two decades instead of eleven."
Her tones were nonchalant; something that Giordan could hardly accept. How long had she been her brother's prisoner? And what could he do to take her away? "Luce came to you in your dreams, then?" he ventured, keeping his thoughts away from what he could not change. Yet.
"Is that not always how celestial beings deliver their messages?" she said wryly. "Or invitations?"
"I do not think of Lucifer as a celestial being," Giordan replied with his own dry smile, and felt a sharp twinge on the back of his right shoulder, where the Devil's Mark marred his skin. Luce's annoyance or anger with him often manifested itself through the rootlike weals that covered the back of his shoulder.
"No, of course he is no longer. But he once was friends with Uriel and Michael and Gabriel."
He noticed that her face seemed less taut, and as she chose a chair on which to sit-still a distance from him, but at least she was lighting somewhere-he sensed her beginning to relax. Because of course, their conversation had turned from dangerous things to angels, fallen and otherwise, and the world they had in common.
"And then Luce fell," she added, her face serious. Worn. "Just as we have."
"One does not have to live an evil, completely selfish life despite being Dracule," Giordan said, then gritted his teeth against the sharp searing pain.
Narcise fixed him contemplatively with her gaze. If she was experiencing similar discomfort, she hid it well. But then, she had a lot of practice. "I've yet to meet a vampir," she said, using the old Romanian term for the Dracule, "who does not live only for himself, at the cost of life, dignity or pain of others. Including myself. Is it not the way we've been made? What we agreed to?"
Giordan could scarcely account for the fact that they were having such a conversation. Surely Lucifer would burn them alive through their Marks, for he was finding it difficult to even breathe in the presence of scalding pain. At least it had distracted him from the lust and desire she caused in him.
Perhaps this blunt conversation was due to the whiskey. Perhaps it was because she felt the same connection-albeit unconsciously-that he did. Perhaps she'd never had anyone to talk with about such things. He could hardly fathom her and Cezar having a discussion of this sort.
"It is possible to live an honorable life as a Dracule. I know of one who does, in fact," he said.
"You?" She narrowed her eyes skeptically.
"Well," he said, allowing a bit of levity into his voice, hiding the agony burning over his shoulder, "I have been known to make noble gestures. But I spoke of my friend Dimitri, who is the Earl of Corvindale. He has not fed on a mortal for more than a hundred years. He is, in fact, searching for a way to break the covenant with Lucifer."
"Impossible," she said.
"I know it. But he's trying. He rarely comes out of his study for any reason except to search out new manuscripts or writings."
"And so that is why..." Her voice trailed off, and she rubbed her lips together thoughtfully.
Giordan suspected he knew what she'd been about to say. Although he hadn't been there, he was aware of the night in 1690, in Vienna, when Dimitri's house had burned. That was the night that Cezar had forced his way into the place and presented Narcise as an offering to his host-who had declined, having not the least bit of interest in her.
How Dimitri could have been indifferent to the woman in front of him, Giordan couldn't imagine, but he was grateful for that fact in many ways.
"What's in the box?" he asked, once again noticing the small metal chest that sat amid the sorts of accessories the Marquis de Sade might use.
"If you truly mean me no harm...please don't open it," she said quickly. That tension had returned to her beautiful features.
"It must be your Asthenia," he said. "And your brother allows it to be kept in here with you, when you are already at a disadvantage?" Anger chilled him. Cezar Moldavi was one Dracule who deserved to burn in hell for eternity.
Instead of responding, Narcise merely looked at him, which was as close to an admission as he expected.
"Perhaps someday you'll trust me enough to tell me," he continued.
He stood, walking over to the bottle of whiskey, and poured himself another drink. As he sipped, he turned back to look at Narcise. Overwhelming desire caused his heart to stutter and his breathing to alter, but he buried it firmly.
Not now.
Not here.
Not tonight.
He gripped his glass tighter, focusing on the scent of the alcohol and not the essence of woman that filled his consciousness. Not the enticing curve of her jaw, one that he suddenly wanted to brush his lips against, nor the ivory column of her neck, so slender and elegant.
"Why did you do this?" she asked.
"A variety of reasons, all of them-well, most of them-quite noble."
Narcise's eyes lifted, focusing on him over the rim. "Such as?"
"I'd seen you fence, and I wanted to test your skill myself. I wanted the opportunity to talk to you."
Her eyes had narrowed and she flung the rest of her whiskey down her throat. "But we did not fence, Monsieur Cale," she said, her voice even smokier, now baited with whiskey. "And you knew that I wasn't at my best-"
"Which was precisely why I chose this way to do it. I wasn't completely certain I would best you, of course, and so I thought it best to ensure that it all worked out in my favor." Giordan realized that he didn't at all mind admitting that fact. However... "I realize you don't know me very well, but I confess that I find it no little insult that you assumed I wanted to win so that I could lock you in a room with me and rape you." He sipped from the drink, his fingers so tight around the glass he feared it might shatter.
Her chin had snapped up at his blunt words, a shocked expression flickering across her face. "Why should I have thought any differently?" she asked...but the tone in her voice wasn't accusing or even defensive. It was weary.
"Because," he replied, watching her, "when you fed on me three weeks ago, I didn't so much as breathe lustfully in your direction, Narcise. Although all I wanted to do was drag my arm away from your mouth and push you up against that wall and dig my own fangs into your shoulder...and then your arm...and your breast...the inside, that very tender, most sensitive part of your thigh..." His voice grew lower, unsteady and rough. "And then I would use my tongue, long and slick and warm...all along your skin."
She gasped audibly, and the color rose higher in her face. Their eyes met, and he allowed her to see the glowing flame of desire in his. The bald need.
"I wanted to fill my hands with you, taste you. I suspect you'll be rich and warm, like a custard, sweet and yet strong. I wanted to slide my warm body against yours, feel the two textures of our skin melding. The heat generated by the friction."
He knew his words were so soft they barely reached her ears, but the rise and fall of her chest and the growing blaze in her eyes told him that she heard him.
"When you sank into me," he continued, making love to her with his words, caressing her with his tones, "I realized it was you. It would only be you. Narcise."
She moved sharply, that high color easing from her cheeks. "Lovely words, Monsieur Cale. But what a ridiculous thing to say, from a man who will live forever."
Giordan shrugged and concentrated on the way his feet were planted on the floor. Rooted, cemented there, keeping him from moving to her, and taking her face into his hands to show her how certain he was. "I've never felt that way before, Narcise. And I've lived a long time."
He felt the weight of her own gaze on him, and saw the bare hint of a glow there. His gums tightened, swelling more, and he thrust away the memory of her mouth closing around his arm, and her lips tracing the ridges of his wrist. He couldn't dismiss the memory of her tongue sliding through the heat of his blood, and the need burning in her eyes.
"I said I'm not going to touch you," he heard himself saying. "But that doesn't mean that you cannot touch me."
