Life force? Memory crashed over him. Memory of Emily’s body sprawled atop his. That had been no dream.
Val clasped her dirty hands. Her fingers were like ice. Still, he felt a faint heartbeat. Emily. There was no response.
He felt Cezar behind him. Val said, grimly, “You let me take too much.”
“Since when am I your conscience? At any event you were in no condition to heed the voice of reason, as I have already pointed out. I did warn Miss Dinwiddie, if you’ll recall, that she was likely to be your next meal.”
Val touched his fingers to the bloody marks on Emily’s neck. She had trusted him, and he had failed to protect her, despite his vow to keep her from harm.
“The responsibility is not entirely yours,” said Cezar. “Miss Dinwiddie would not be swayed from her path.”
“You attempted to do so? How unlike you, then.”
“I did not. It would have been futile. She was determined that you should drink from her.” Drogo looked anxiously from one of them to the other. Cezar touched the wolf’s head. “And you did.”
Val chafed Emily’s hands. This was not the way the stories went. The hero was not supposed to require that the heroine make a blood sacrifice of herself. “You could heal her,” he said.
“I could, but then she would be mine. You don’t want that, I think.”
What Val wanted was his existence as it had been before Emily arrived to turn him lunatic. Cezar added, “You must make a decision. She hasn’t much time left. Don’t glower at me. I didn’t make the rules.”
“No, but you enforce them. I don’t suppose you’d care to turn a blind eye.”
“No. However, she risked her life to save you, knowing full well what you are. That sort of courage is rare. Too, the Dinwiddie Society has collected a great many secrets over the centuries. I think our little wren must not be allowed to fly away from us just yet.”
“Our little wren?”
“Are we not comrades?” Cezar pulled out a silver knife and slit his wrist. “Now, will you remedy the situation, or shall I?”
Val took the blade. Impossible to know the consequences of feeding a mortal their mingled blood. What would it do to Emily? What would it do to them? Such a thing was so far beyond the rules that the mere thought was staggering.
If Cezar chose to share the repercussions of this forbidden act, so be it; but it would not be Cezar’s blood that Emily tasted first, not Cezar’s blood that forced the bond. Val slashed the vein on the inside of his elbow. With all his force of will, and Cezar’s will behind him, he focused his mind. Emily.
Her eyes fluttered open. He felt a great sorrow at the emptiness he saw there. Emily, drink.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.
(Romanian proverb)
Emily opened her eyes to find herself in a small stone-walled room. A rather crowded stone-walled room, which contained Cezar and Val, and Drogo stretched out beside her on a cot. The terrible gash in the wolf’s flank had completely healed, leaving only a smooth scar.
She surveyed her Spartan surroundings with a degree of disappointment. “Is this the secret meeting place of the Brotherhood?”
Cezar moved to the foot of the bed. “Not all of us are sensualists like Val.”
Emily glanced back at Val, whose auburn hair tumbled loose over his shoulders. He had removed his ruined clothing, and wore only a pair of breeches, in which he looked even more delicious than Mrs. MacCamish’s Paradise Cake.
He was watching her watch him. Emily felt most unlike herself, doubtless because of what she’d done. Or what had been done to her. “I take it I’m still alive.”
Drogo snarled softly as Val sat down on the bed. “You are.”
“And I’m not a vampire?”
“No, elfling, you are not.” Val’s bare skin brushed against hers, and little sparks fizzed up her arm.
Animal magnetism. Magnetic friction. Emily had previously been privileged to glimpse Val’s chest. To see him in almost a state of nature— “Um.”
Cezar was holding a golf club. He gave it a gentle swing. “Nor are you merely mortal, because both Val’s blood and mine have mixed with yours. Which leaves you, Miss Dinwiddie, somewhere betwixt and between.”
Emily contemplated the coverlet. Both of them! The ultimate intimacy, indeed. She wished she could remember more of the experience.
“I don’t,” murmured Val.
Colors were brighter. Sounds were sharper. Emily raised one hand, wriggled her fingers, touched them to her lips. “What am I, then?”
Cezar’s smile was ironic. “You are yourself, Miss Dinwiddie, and a good bit more.”
“But what does that mean?”
“I truly do not know. We will have to wait and see.”
See? Emily’s eyes widened. “I’m not wearing my spectacles, and yet you’re not just a blur.”
Cezar exchanged a glance with Val. “Miss Dinwiddie may hold other surprises in store than merely sending the Darkness away.”
Emily blinked, but the bright colors didn’t fade. “Don’t talk about me as if I wasn’t here. By the Darkness, do you mean Samael? It was pure luck that I happened on his name.”
Cezar rested his golf club on his shoulder. “Samael is leader of the Fallen Ones. Otherwise known as the Venom of God. If you had not been wearing Marie d’Auvergne’s amulet, we would not be having this conversation, for all your demon-banishing skills.”
Emily touched the pendant, quiet now against her breast. Her first demon, and she hadn’t had a chance to interrogate him. Drat!
“You are undeniably your father’s daughter, Miss Dinwiddie.” Cezar resumed his putting stance.
“You knew my papa?”
“By reputation only.” Cezar swung.
Val settled more comfortably, his thigh inches from hers. “Samael wasn’t merely out for an early morning stroll. It might be helpful if you could tell us who might seek to do you harm.”
Emily leaned against him. “Not Michael,” she said. “He would have no reason, even if he possessed the power to call up demons, which I take leave to doubt. I had agreed to marry him, thereby giving him access to not only the Society’s resources but also mine, neither of which he would have if something happened to me before we were wed. After we married he would, of course, but since I’ve no intention of marrying him, that is a moot point.”
Came a brief silence while Cezar and Val seemed to be having a silent conversation. Emily mused upon the possibility that she might grow fangs. Develop a craving for raw meat. Become irresistibly charming. The whimsy made her smile.
You are already irresistibly charming, little one. Val’s voice in her mind was a caress. You charmed me on our first meeting, with your umbrella and your garlic and your assorted talismans.
Now Ravensclaw was emptying the butter boat over her head. Emily had never in all her life charmed anyone. She narrowed her eyes at Cezar. “The literature claims that vampires can strike one dumb, rob one of one’s strength and beauty, and steal milk from nursing mothers, although I don’t know why you would. Your senses are so heightened that you can hear a liar’s heartbeat, and smell the faintest fear. I wonder how you can prevent yourself from eavesdropping.”
Cesar glanced up from his imaginary golf ball. “Val didn’t mean you were a bothersome detail. Bothersome, unquestionably, but much more than a detail.”
Emily stroked Drogo. “That was rather more than eavesdropping. I hope this doesn’t mean that now I’ll have you in my mind.”
No, little one. Nor will Cezar invade your dreams. Val took her hand in his.
Emily sighed. “I fear I’ve been less than diplomatic. Again.”
Cezar murmured, “I will leave the two of you to your own devices. Drogo?” The wolf growled softly and refused to budge. “It seems you have acquired a champion, Miss Dinwiddie. Or a chaperone.”
Emily remained silent until Cezar had left the room. “I hope he’s going to search for the at
hame.”
Val rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “More likely Cezar is going to rescue Andrei from Lisbet. Or practice his golf swing.”
Emily wished Cezar might practice his golf swing on Lisbet. “Are you going to scold?”
Val wound his fingers through hers. “Would you listen if I did?”
“Papa used to say the same thing.” Emily stared at their interlaced hands. “I must find that athame.”
“We will.” Val put a knuckle under Emily’s chin and tipped her face up to his.
She felt as if she were drowning in his eyes. “Just how closely are we bound together now?”
So closely that I feel your heart beating as if it were my own. His fingers brushed her breast. “As Cezar, Andrei, and I are bound to our maker, you are bound to Cezar and myself. Not as strongly, certainly, but if anything happens to one of us, you will not remain unaffected. And the opposite, as well.”
Curious as Emily might have been about Val’s maker at another time, she was in this moment appalled. Cezar knows what we are doing now?
It’s not so close a bond as that.
Emily lowered her gaze to Val’s bare chest, the faint traces of dried blood.
He stiffened. “You don’t want to be like me, Emily.”
She wanted to be with him. For eternity. As his ailalta. Which was something he clearly was not prepared to hear.
Emily wriggled around and thrust her hand into her pocket. Val winced. She retrieved the dirty crumpled note that had led her to Samael and handed it to him.
Val studied the note. Emily wondered if his preternatural senses were at work. Did some of the writer’s aura cling to the paper? Some scent?
He remained silent. “Well?” she demanded, after several moments passed.
“I was trying to decipher the handwriting.”
Emily snatched the note from him and read it aloud.
“That’s ambiguous enough,” Val said. “How could the writer be so certain you would take his bait?”
Emily tucked the note back into her pocket. “Papa used to say I have the curiosity of a cat combined with the good sense of a pudding. I fear it’s true.”
Val didn’t argue. “I wish you would stop scaring me half out of my wits.”
Emily felt so astonishingly unlike herself that she grinned at the notion Ravensclaw might become a nitwit, too.
Val cupped her face. I am forever in your debt, elfling. You risked your life for me.
You and I and Cezar— I’ve never heard of such a thing.
I will never forgive myself for taking too much from you.
Emily drew back. There is a way you may repay me. You did say you’d let me do things.
You are determined to drive me mad, aren’t you? So be it. What would you like to do to me?
Where to begin? Words failed her. Emily slid her hands up his muscular arms to his strong shoulders, and tugged.
Val’s resistance crumbled. Passion flared as his mouth touched hers. He spread a line of teasing kisses along the curve of her cheek, sampled the taste and texture of her earlobe. Her breath caught in her throat as Val’s teeth grazed her neck. Yes. That.
He kissed her, really kissed her, then. Need quivered deep in her belly as his tongue twined with hers.
Emily was afloat on a river of sensation. She shivered as Val’s fingers lingered on the marks he’d left on her throat. She wanted— Emily didn’t know what she wanted, but she wanted it ferociously. She pressed against him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her hands fisting in his hair.
Drogo growled. Val froze. Emily opened her eyes to see Ana levitating above the bed and bit back a shriek.
The ghost looked cross. “So here you are, and doing what you shouldn’t. You pledged yourself to me until death did us part, remember, Val? And though death did, it didn’t, so you’re stuck with me until—”
Enlightenment dawned. Emily gasped, “It’s not your house that’s haunted, but you, Ravensclaw!”
Ana drifted closer. “What’s happened to you? Really, Val, you should take better care of her. Although, as I recall, you didn’t take very good care of me.”
“He didn’t?” said Emily.
“I did so,” retorted Val.
“Then where were you when Oko stuck me in that burlap sack? Nowhere to be found, that’s where.”
Now Val was contemplating violence. Fascinating, this glimpse of married life. Equally enlightening, Emily’s own desire to strangle Ana with one of those flimsy veils.
Veils? Burlap sacks? “You were a concubine?”
“I was an odalisque,” Ana informed her. “A favored one. The sultan liked my way with the dance du ventre.” She struck a pose, and began to undulate.
Never could Emily have conceived of anything like this. Or anything like Ana, for that matter. She wasn’t accustomed to seeing a female so scantily dressed. True she couldn’t see Ana as much as see through her, but there was no question that Ana wasn’t wearing much. Her meager garments were in constant movement as she jiggled and writhed, rippled her belly and contorted her body, dropped to her knees and bent backward until her hair swept the floor. Every muscle and both shoulders quivered. She concluded with a final suggestive wriggle of her hips, and a two-handed finger snap.
“Astonishing!” said Emily. “I wish I could do that.”
“No you don’t,” retorted Ana. “Being fancied by the Sultan wasn’t all that great a treat, particularly when he was in the mood for the Fixing of a Nail, because he wasn’t perky, even with the help of a special paste made of forty-one different spices, honey, and herbs.” She looked reflective. “The eunuchs, on the other hand—”
“I beg you,” interrupted Val. “No more.”
Ana plopped down at the foot of Emily’s cot, on top of Drogo, who snapped at her. “Have you found my spell?”
Val said, “We’ve been a little busy. Abercrombie did inform me that if I burn acorns, mistletoe, and oak bark, at the same time murmuring my ardent desire for you to do so, you might leave.”
“No!” protested Emily. “She might be able to communicate with my papa. Maybe he is still present, too.”
Ana adjusted her veils. “I don’t think we stay around without good reason. I wasn’t here myself until Valentin called me back.”
“I didn’t call you back,” Val reminded her. “That was Emily. In case there’s any doubt, I would rather you weren’t here.”
Ana’s lower lip quivered. “This, after all those vows you swore to me? Does it not matter to you if you break my heart?”
Val snorted. Emily poked him with her elbow. “Where were you before we called you back?”
Ana was still sulking. “I don’t know. Somewhere other. I also don’t know why you’re not trying to find a spell to make me solid, because the sooner you find it, the sooner you can tup yourselves.” She frowned. “That didn’t come out right.”
Though the notion of tupping oneself was intriguing, albeit somewhat perplexing, Emily was more concerned with matters more immediate. “Can you contact other spirits?”
Ana pouted. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Never choose your women or your linen by candlelight.
(Romanian proverb)
Dusk had darkened into night by the time Val escorted Emily up the stair to his front door. That portal was opened by Isidore, who so forgot himself at sight of them that his lips formed a faint approximation of a smile. Isidore’s reaction was shared, rather more enthusiastically, by the other members of the household, Mrs. MacCamish even becoming inspired by Miss Dinwiddie’s return to prepare a Cullen Skink. Jamie summed up everyone’s feelings when he said, “Lor’, Miss Emily, ye gie us an awfu fricht!”
Once assured of Emily’s well-being, Zizi, Bela, and Lilian rushed off to prepare her a hot bath, and a fresh change of clothes. Jamie scurried to fetch his master a sustaining pot of tea. On, then, to the drawing room, where Machka marched up to Drogo and swatted him
on the nose, then twined herself around his legs with a rumbling purr.
Lady Alberta sat in an upholstered chair, on the table beside her a stack of books. She wore a gown that flattered her, and so it should have, considering the cost. Not that Val begrudged a penny. Lady Alberta was worth her weight in gold, a weight that had noticeably increased since she’d taken up residence beneath his roof.
She watched Drogo settle on the hearth. “I don’t believe I’ve noticed that scar before.”
“It is of fairly recent origin.” Machka was twining about his own legs now, and Val picked up the cat. “Nothing to concern yourself about”
Emily nudged him. Due to Cezar. He’s a healer, isn’t he?
Val placed Machka on his shoulder and took Emily’s hand in his. Cezar was indeed a healer, a gift rare among the Breasla. Impossible to tell the long-term effects of what they had done.
Emily seemed quite lively at the moment. So lively that, had Val not known better, he might think she’d been into his port.
Lady Alberta did not know better. She eyed him disapprovingly. “I don’t know what’s going on with the two of you — and I beg you will not tell me! — but there’s definitely something in the air.”
Emily grinned. “I suspect it’s me.”
“Whatever it is, it seems to agree with you. Have you lost your glasses, dear?”
“I have. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need the silly things.” Emily snatched up a small volume and began to read aloud.
“ ‘From my grave to wander I am forc’d/Still to seek The Good’s long sever’d link/Still to love the bridegroom I have lost/And the life-blood of his Heart to drink…’ What drivel.” She tossed the book aside.
Lady Alberta regarded her with interest. “Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s Bride of Corinth is drivel?”
“The heroine is a ninny,” Emily responded. “A lovestruck young maiden who dies when her parents refuse to allow her to marry her paramour, then returns from the grave to consummate her love, as beautiful as she was in life mind you, only to end up burning on a funeral pyre.”
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