not deny me the truth. Not if I’m destined to return to the living death from which your brother raised me.”
Trembling, she nodded against his head, his face. “I want you, too. God help me, Utana, I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you.”
“Thank the gods.” He kissed her then, and she fell against him, lifting her arms, despite her handcuffed wrists, to lower them around his neck as she opened to his kiss, fell into it and felt as if she were plummeting headlong into a bottomless well of utter yearning.
Reaching behind his head, he freed her from the cuffs with no more than a flick of his fingers, never breaking the hold of his lips, his mouth. His hips arched against her, and her stomach knotted tighter, feeling his arousal pressing into her belly.
Nuzzling her neck, he slid his hand downward, breaking the chain that held her ankle…an act that reminded her sharply why had she had not done so herself. “They might be watching us, Utana. You said yourself, you felt observed here,” she said as he moved with her along the side of the bed, and then, his arms around her, lowered her onto it, and himself with her.
The hand that was caressing her shin moved slowly up the outside of her leg, lifting her swirling skirts as it did. With a wave of that strong hand, the heavy curtains surrounding the bed reacted. They moved as if a gust of wind had caught them, closing themselves around the mattress. Closing out the whole world. The war that was raging between vampire and human. The horrible acts he’d committed. The hateful one that she must soon commit. All of that was gone.
“This is an oasis in the harshest desert sands,” he told her. “This time, this place, this moment between us. A paradise we must savor to its fullest, for it will never come again.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She smiled against the top of his head as he moved down the front of her, kissing the swell of her breasts above the tiny top.
“Never have I seen the dance so…enchanting. So powerful. And it…is from my time, not yours.”
“So is the woman who taught me,” she whispered. “Give or take a few thousand years.”
“I shall thank her one day.”
Those words sent a chill through her as a visual appeared in her mind. The image of Utana meeting her beloved aunt Rhiannon—and then blasting her with the beam of his eyes, as he had done to so many others.
Her passion cooled, and she was racked with guilt. “Will you thank her before or after you murder her?”
She pushed against his chest, turning her body to one side as he blinked down at her in confusion. She closed her eyes. “I can’t do this. Get off me.”
“Brigit—”
“Get off.” She shoved hard, throwing some of her preternatural strength into it, and he landed on his back beside her. He was breathing hard. Hell, so was she.
She steeled herself, called up that image of Rhiannon being blown to bits in order to fuel her resolve, and got to her feet.
“Are you leaving me, then?” he asked, as she crossed the room toward the door.
“Yes. In a moment, but first…” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Utana. But there’s no other way.” And she lifted her hand, palm up, fingers lightly resting against her thumb, and she called up the power.
“Your heart is harder than I ever imagined,” he whispered.
“Not really,” she told him, tears streaming down her face. “This is going to shatter it. But I have no choice.” And in one act of pure will, she opened the channels, for the power to rise up and shoot from her eyes as she flicked her fingers open. Tears were streaming, but she kept her focus and flinched at the moment when he should have been raining down around her in tiny pieces.
Except nothing happened.
Frowning hard, she stared at her hand, at him sitting there, as realization dawned. He hadn’t even moved to defend himself. He’d just sat there, waiting. And he looked furious with her now.
“What…? How…?” She stared at her open palm, feeling no hint of the tingling energy she’d felt her entire life. You…you took my power?
That night in the forest, he admitted, speaking mentally, just as she had. As you keep saying, Brigit, there was no other way. You would have killed me, as you have just proven, or forced me to kill you, and