words to him for a long time, despite his having said them to her repeatedly since arriving in Jefferson. Conflicting emotions swirled around her but one shone above all others, and she nodded.
“Then say it again,” he whispered.
“I love you.”
He flexed his hips. “Again.”
“I love you,” she rasped as he thrust into her.
He asked her to repeat it again and again, creating a steady rhythm until there was no more need for words. His low grunts and her soft moans became their soundtrack. As the pressure once again built in her loins, Alex clung to him, wrapping her legs around his waist. Her nails dug into his back and he responded by increasing his pace.
Thousands of tiny electrical pulses raced up her spine. She sank her fangs into his chest. Hot blood pumped into her mouth as she drew on the wound.
He groaned and thrust into her with a renewed speed and force.
Alex threw her head back and cried out with the intensity of the orgasm that rocked her. Fire seared every nerve ending in her body. Everywhere their skin touched burned and she never wanted it to end.
Varik’s fangs pierced her shoulder, and he buried himself within her for the final time as wave after wave of tremors swept through him. His mouth clamped around the wound, drawing her blood into him as he in turn gave a vital part of himself to her.
When the last of his tremors faded and the fire beneath her skin had been quenched, Varik rolled onto his side, wrapping her in his arms and holding her close. They said nothing. Everything that needed to be said had been voiced in their lovemaking.
Alex lay in the darkness that continued to plague her and listened to the rhythm of Varik’s breathing slow and level out with sleep. She silently fingered the ring hanging on the chain around her neck.
Her profession of love, although unexpected, was accurate. Her feelings for him hadn’t changed in the years they’d been separated. She truly did love him. She knew that now, but she wondered, with facing a possible death sentence from the Tribunal, was it too little too late?
Peter awoke screaming. Visions of Alexandra giving herself to the Dark One continued to play through his mind.
He slapped the sides of his head trying to rid himself of the sight of Varik caressing her, kissing her.
Fucking her.
“No!” He bolted from his bed and ripped open his door. He stormed down the second-floor hallway toward the master bedroom.
Each specially crafted Alexandra replica doll—one for each year of her life—stared at him from behind their glass enclosures. Whispers and moans filled the air, tormenting and taunting him.
He opened the hidden door to his attic sanctuary and rushed up the stairs. The smell of blood lingered in the windowless space. Sinking to his knees in the center of the circle, he pounded the wooden planks with his fists until his skin split and left bloody smears on the cracked boards.
“Why?” he whispered to no one.
No answer came.
Peter retraced the ritual steps in his mind. The offerings. The incantations. The sacrifice. Everything had been performed correctly and yet it had failed.
Again.
“Why does she still go to him?”
He’d entered a trance as he had done so often, desiring to see Alexandra, wanting to know if the ritual had yet taken hold. Using a doll that had been a favored toy of hers in childhood as a focusing object, he sent a ribbon of his consciousness to her. He’d performed the same action countless times to observe her, learn of her likes and dislikes, and share in her joys and sorrows.
But this time, he discovered her in mid-coitus with Varik. Peter was horrified that she would still give herself to him, a clear signal that the ritual had failed, and yet entranced by the beauty of her naked form as she writhed in pleasure. He’d been unable to look away.
Rage consumed him as he sensed all his carefully laid plans slipping away. She was slipping away.
“No,” he snarled. “She’s mine.”
He would take her.
He would make her love him.
She would be his.
Forever.
thirteen
November 18
VARIK SLAMMED HIS CORVETTE’S DOOR AND ROUNDED the car to help Alex out of the passenger seat. “Watch your footing. There’s a slight slope here.”
She eased out of the car, holding on to his hand for balance and guidance. “I’d really hoped my eyesight would be better this morning.”
“The doctor said it would take time. We’ll get through this.” He closed her door and set