“Feel me, and you will know it to be true.”
She placed a hand over where his heart should beat. The silk fabrics of his clothing were soft underneath her touch, but she could also feel the strength that lay beneath it. More than the undeniable power in his body, but what dwelled deep beyond that.
She knew to what he was referring. She had tried to ignore it up until this point—something about him that was pulling her close. She blamed it on his charisma, his undeniably seductive charm. But there was a far more insidious current that drew her near him. When he twined with her, when she felt him there in the darkness of the ether, tangling around her like roots of a tree, it was not horror she felt. It was not disgust. She could feel his thousands of years. Time immemorial that stretched behind him. A future that spanned a million times longer lay before him. A road that stretched for eternity in both directions.
It was empty. Save for one figure upon it.
No matter the face he wore, no matter the name he chose, she could see him for what he was.
He was alone.
Skies of stars that she did not know. Trees, and desert sands, and white cliffs upon the ocean. Cities, and markets, and all of humanity filled him. Love, and loss, and grief, and tragedy. Joy, and agony.
He was all those things.
Sinner, saint, husband, murderer, tyrant, fiend, demon, and lover. A hundred thousand facets of a ruby, one for each of the souls who had touched him. Nearly maddening in its expanse.
And he was right. It felt like home.
God help her, gods help her, whoever might listen…she looked into that emptiness and sought only to do her part to fill it.
Gods help her, she was falling in love.
Crimson eyes shone in the darkness like the ruby in her metaphor. “Where others may turn away from you, I find I am drawn to you like a moth to a flame,” he murmured, echoing her own thoughts. “I shall have you, and I shall not let you go.”
“And if I wish to be free?” It was an empty threat. She did not wish for such a thing, and he knew it.
The flash of a grin, of too-sharp teeth, were all she could see as the dream around her faded to nothing. With it came the rumble of his voice, dusky and dangerous. “You shall never be rid of me.”
19
Maxine awoke in darkness. She felt an ache on her throat, and she lifted her hand to touch the sensitive spot she found there. It stung to the touch, but not terribly.
She did not feel as awful as she expected. She did not feel dizzy, or woozy, or strange. All the opposite. She felt oddly rested. It was the second time she had felt the kiss of a vampire, and she knew Vlad had been exercising restraint both times. He was trying to show her that he could be trusted. That his touch was not to be feared.
The jury was still out, in her opinion.
If only she could see where she was. This was not her own bed this time. Once Eddie had opened fire, her window of freedom—a ruse and a lie as it may have been—had slammed shut. While she knew where she was not, it did not help her know where she was.
Lifting her hand into the impenetrable darkness around her, it hit something six inches above her face. Something covered in silk fabric and upholstery. Odd. Reaching to her side, she felt a similar surface a foot to her right. And to her left.
She was in a box. An upholstered box.
I am in a coffin!
Panic struck her, perfect and instantaneous. It overrode everything else. She squeaked out a cry for help as both her hands struck the lid. It budged, if barely. There was hope! There was—
Hands caught her wrists. She screamed, loud in the tiny space. Monsters! I have to escape—
A dark laugh came from beneath her. She was not alone. The feeling under her had not entirely been the base of the coffin. It had been him…Vlad.
She was lying in a casket with the King of Vampires.
“Be still, my dear.” His voice resonated through her. He folded her hands over her. It was also about then that she realized she was not wearing her coat. Or her dress. She felt a thick blanket over her, and beneath that the silk of her slip.
“You