wish me to be to you?”
“Perhaps the cards will tell you all you need to know.”
She narrowed her eyes at him accusatorially. “You’re toying with me again.”
“Indeed I am. Amuse me.”
“I am not the ballerina in my music box. I do not dance for your amusement.”
A thin twist to his lips and that devious, hungry look in his crimson eyes returned. “Do tell.”
She sighed in frustration and placed the cards down on the table in front of her. “No, Vlad. I will not read for you. I will not be ordered around by you.”
“You belong to me. Now and forever. From the moment you touched my brooch, until the moment you are dust.”
She cringed.
“Never forget who and what I am, Maxine. Never.”
“Why would you not wish me to forget?”
Crimson eyes slipped shut. “Everyone else does.”
Something about his words sliced her deep. They were unexpected. They were honest. She could feel his emotions rolling off him in waves. Grief, anger, loneliness. But resilience. A certain kind of bullheaded stubborn pride. He was not ashamed of those deaths. But there was a bitterness about them that confused her. “What do you mean?”
“I have nothing more to say on the matter at the moment.”
He was a difficult man. She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to resist the urge to throw a lamp at his head. He would disappear before it struck him. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps her cards would show her something. She looked down at the deck of cards on the table and picked them up. She shuffled it one more time and placed it in front of him. “Are you right-handed or left?”
“Left.”
Of course. She let herself smile. “Cut the deck in half with your right hand, wherever you like, and place the bottom on the top.”
“Why?”
“You asked me to read your cards, didn’t you?”
With a low hum, he did as she asked. She took the deck again and fanned it out into the arc in front of her. Shutting her eyes, she hovered her hand over the card and began to sweep along the path, searching for the ones that called to her in turn.
“Tell me something, Vlad. Is there anything I could do that would convince you to spare this city?”
“No.”
“Is there anything I could do that would convince you to spare the lives of the hunters?”
“No.”
“Then why is it they are not dead, and this city is not already in ruins?” She paused in her progress and looked up to him.
He was watching her, curious and amused. “I am distracted.”
“I can stall for time, then. Good.”
“Is that the only reason you so peaceably agree to see me? Are you a treacherous little succubus after all, luring me into your dreams with the promise of your sweet embrace, only to trick me?”
Her face bloomed in warmth. She glared at him viciously. It did nothing but make him laugh. “Do not mock me.”
“I am not. I think it is quite charming how you try to hold up the bastion flag and convince me the only reason you dreamed of yourself in my bed is because you seek to ‘stall for time.’”
“This is wrong. All of this is wrong. On many levels.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Even if I were to accept that I desire you—”
“You do.”
She shot him another vicious glare and earned a cruel chuckle in return. “How many women do you keep in your ‘employ,’ Vlad?”
“You say that as if I am going to pay you.” He raised his hand when she went to shout at him, cutting off her tirade before it began. “None. Have I kept companions in my years? Yes, of course.”
She paused for a second as she thought over her words. “Do you remember all the people you have killed?”
“No.” He raised an eyebrow at her, as if wondering where the conversation was headed. “Do you remember all the meals you have ever eaten?”
“Are we only that, then? Meals?”
“Yes.”
She winced. There was a cynical air to him again as he watched her. This was the cruel King of the Vampires that most of the world saw. A deeply haughty, aristocratic, tyrannical thing. Not what she had known to date. What she had seen was a passionate and surprisingly approachable thing. She found she disliked this version of the man.
Seeing her reaction, he softened. The coldness faded. “Forgive me. It is easy to be that which others expect me to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am only ever what others wish me to be. The