God, she just bet he did. Those slender, devilish hands would no doubt make a woman scream in pleasure. And those lips . . .
Abruptly she was squashing the renegade fantasy and stirring up the annoyance she most certainly should be feeling.
“Ack. You’re revolting.”
“Vulgar and revolting?” His smile widened to reveal startling white teeth. “My sweet, you are in a very precarious position to be tossing about such insults.”
Precarious? She battled the urge to glance down and discover if any shards of her crime were visible.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
With a flowing elegance, Dante was on his knees before her, those disturbing fingers lifting to lightly stroke her cheek. His touch was cool, almost cold, but it sent a startling flare of heat searing through her.
“Oh, I think you do. I seem to recall a rather precious Ming vase that used to sit upon that table. Tell me, lover, did you hock it or break it?”
Damn. He knew. She desperately attempted to think of some feasible lie to explain the missing vase. Or for that matter, any lie, feasible or not. Unfortunately, she had never been particularly skilled at prevarication.
And it didn’t much help that his lingering touch was turning her brain to mush.
“Don’t call me that,” she at last lamely muttered.
“What?” His brows lifted.
“Lover.”
“Why?”
“For the obvious fact that I’m not your lover.”
“Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Tsk, tsk.” Dante clicked his tongue as his fingers moved to boldly outline her lips. “Has no one ever warned you that it is dangerous to dare fate? It has a tendency to come back and bite you.” His gaze drifted over her pale countenance and the soft curve of her neck. “Sometimes quite literally.”
“Not in a million years.”
“I can wait,” he husked.
She gritted her teeth as those skillful fingers traveled down the arch of her throat and along the neckline of her plain cotton shirt. He was merely toying with her. Hell, the man would flirt with any woman who possessed a pulse. And maybe a few who didn’t.
“That finger moves any lower and your stay in the world is going to be considerably shorter.”
He gave a soft chuckle as he reluctantly allowed his hand to drop. “Do you know, Abby, someday you’re going to forget to say no. And on that day, I intend to make you scream with pleasure.”
“My God, how do you possibly carry that ego around?”
His smile was purely wicked. “Do you think I don’t notice? All those covert glances when you think I’m not looking? The way you shiver when I brush past you? The dreams that haunt your nights?”
Conceited, puffed-up toad.
She should laugh. Or pooh-pooh. Or even slap his arrogant face. Instead she stiffened as if he had hit a nerve that she didn’t even know she possessed.
“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” she gritted. “The kitchen? The sewers? The fires of hell?”
Surprisingly the pirate features hardened as his lips twisted into a sardonic smile.
“Nice try, my sweet, but I don’t need you to condemn me to the fires of hell. That was accomplished a long time ago. Why else would I be here?”
Abby gave a lift of her brows, intrigued in spite of herself by his hint of bitterness. For God’s sake, what more could he want? He possessed the sort of cushy life that most oversexed playboys could only dream of. A glamorous home. Expensive clothes. A silver Porsche. And a sugar mommy who was not only young, but beautiful enough to make any male hot and bothered. His life was hardly in the gutter.
Unlike her own.
“Oh yes, you must really suffer,” she retorted, her gaze flicking over the silk shirt that cost more than her entire wardrobe. “My heart simply breaks for you.”
The silver eyes flashed with a startling heat as the fierce power that always smoldered about him prickled through the air.
“Do not presume to speak of things you know nothing about, lover,” he warned.
Just let it be, Abby, she sternly warned herself. Whatever his easy charm, the man was dangerous. A genuine bad boy. Only fools deliberately toyed with fire.
Of course, when it came to men, she might as well have the word idiot tattooed on her forehead.
“If you dislike being here, then why don’t you leave?”
He regarded her in unnerving silence before his eyes slowly narrowed. “Why don’t you?”
“What?”
“I’m not the only one suffering here, am I? Every day you seem to fade a bit more. As if your frustration and sadness has taken another piece of your soul.”
Abby nearly tumbled backward at his sharp perception. She had never dreamed that anyone could possibly have noted her desperation at her tedious existence, nor the budding fear that she would soon be too old and tired to care that she was going nowhere.
Certainly not this man.
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know a prison when I see one,” he murmured. “Why do you remain behind the bars when you could so easily slip away?”
She gave a short, humorless laugh. Easily? Obviously he was not nearly so perceptive as she had given him credit for.
“Because I need this job. Unlike you, I don’t have a generous lover to pay my bills and keep me in style. Some of us have to earn our pay with actual work.”
If she thought to insult him, she was far off the mark. In fact, her sharp words merely returned that mocking humor she found so damn annoying.
“You believe me to be Selena’s whore?”
“Aren’t you?”
He lifted a broad shoulder. “Our . . . relationship is a bit more complex than that.”
“Oh yes, no doubt being a boy toy to a rich, glamorous woman is astonishingly complex.”
“Is that why you try to keep me at a distance? Because you believe I share Selena’s bed?”
“I keep you at a distance because I don’t like you.”
He leaned forward, until his lips were nearly touching her own. “You may not like me, sweetness, but that doesn’t keep you from wanting me.”
Her heart forgot to beat as she struggled not to close that shallow distance and put herself out of her misery. A kiss. Just one kiss. The tingling need was nearly unbearable.
No, no, no. Did she really want to be a poor joke to relieve his boredom? Hadn’t she played that humiliating game before?
“Do you know, Dante, I’ve met my share of jackasses in my time, but you—”
The rather tidy insult was brought to a stunning halt. In the air there was a sudden, crackling heat. As electrifying as a strike of lightning.
Unnerved by the prickling sensation, she turned her head toward the stairs just as a thundering concussion ripped through the house. Caught off guard, she tumbled backward, her breath knocked from her body.
Just for a moment she lay perfectly still. She half-expected the ceiling to come crumbling down upon her. Or the ground to open up and swallow her.
What the blazes had happened? An earthquake? A gas explosion?
The end of the world?
Whatever it was, it had been enough to tumble the pictures from the walls and knock over tables. Suddenly the Ming vase she had broken matched every other priceless object.
Giving a shake of her head to clear the ringing in her ears, Abby sucked in a deep breath. Well, at least she seemed to be alive, she told herself. And while she was certain to be sporting a few bruises, she didn’t think anything vital was actually missing or punctured.
Lying flat on her back, she barely heard the low feral growl, but it still managed to make the hair upon her nape stand upright. Dear Lord, now what?
Struggling to push herself upright, she glanced about the littered foyer. Astonishingly it was empty. No wild animal. No approaching madman.
And no Dante.
With a frown, Abby ignored her w
obbly knees and forced herself toward the nearby stairs. Where had Dante gone? Had he been hit by the explosion? Or thrown from the foyer?
Had he simply disappeared in a puff of smoke?
No, no, of course not. She pressed a hand to her aching head. She was thinking crazy. She must have been knocked unconscious for a moment. That would explain it. No doubt he had gone to check on the damage. Or to call for assistance.
Her job was surely to ensure that Selena was not injured.
Concentrating upon placing one foot in front of the other, a startlingly difficult task, she managed to climb the sweeping marble stairs and awkwardly make her way down the hallway. At the end of the long east wing, the door to Selena’s chambers was already open and Abby stepped over the threshold.
She got no farther.
A gasp was wrenched from her throat as her wide gaze swept over the demolished room. Like downstairs, the pictures and various objects had been tumbled to the ground, most of them smashed beyond recognition. But here the general mayhem had left the walls blackened and in places crumbled to dust. Even the windows had been blasted from their frames.
Her gaze flew to the large bed that was tumbled onto its side and at last to the center of the room where Dante was kneeling beside a limp, battered form.
“Oh my God.” Holding her hands to her mouth, Abby stumbled forward, her heart firmly lodged in her throat. “Selena.”
Noticing her presence for the first time, Dante jerked his head up to regard her with a frown. Almost absently, Abby noted the even sharper pallor of his skin and the oddly hectic glitter in his silver eyes.
Obviously he was as shaken as she was.
“Get out of here,” he growled.
She ignored his warning as she fell to her knees beside the burned body. Whatever her secret dislike for the beautiful, coldhearted woman, it was forgotten as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Is she . . . dead?” she croaked.
“Abby, I said to leave. Now. Get out of this room. Out of this house . . .”
The dark, furious words continued, but Abby was no longer listening. Instead she watched in fascinated horror as one of the charred hands twitched upon the carpet. Holy freaking hell. Could the poor woman still be alive? Or was it some horrible trick of her imagination?
Frozen in shock, Abby stared at the fingers that continued to jerk and spasm ever closer. It was like something out of a nightmare. A sensation that only deepened when the hand snapped upward and grasped her wrist in a painful grasp.
Opening her mouth to scream, Abby discovered her breath wrenched from her body. A coldness was spreading from the fingers that dug into her flesh. A coldness that crawled through her blood with a searing, ruthless agony. With a groan, she desperately attempted to tug herself free of the brutal grip.
She was going to die, she realized in stunned disbelief. The pain was clawing at her heart, slowing its beat until it was doomed to halt. She was going to die, and she hadn’t even bothered to start living yet.
What an idiot she was.
Raising her head, she met Dante’s shimmering metallic gaze. His beautiful, wicked features appeared grim in the dim light. Grim and edged with something that might have been fury, or regret, or . . . desperation.
She tried to speak, but a bright flare of light burst through her mind, and with a strangled scream she plunged headfirst into the welcoming darkness.
Chapter 2
Surrounded by a silver fog of pain, Abby floated in a world that was not quite real.
Was she dead?
Surely not. She would be at peace, wouldn’t she? Not feeling as if her bones were being slowly crushed and her head about to explode.
If she were dead, then this whole afterlife thing was a big, fat rip-off.
No. She had to be dreaming, she at last reassured herself. That would certainly explain why the silver fog was beginning to part.
Curious despite the vague taste of fear in the air, she peered through the shimmering light. Moments later she could see a dark, stone chamber that was only dimly lit by a flickering torch. In the center of the stone floor lay a young woman in white robes. Abby frowned. The woman’s pale face was remarkably familiar, although it was difficult to determine the exact features as the woman twisted and screamed in obvious agony.
About her prostrate form sat a circle of women in gray cloaks, holding hands and chanting in low voices. Abby could not make out the words, but it appeared as if they were performing some sort of ritual. Perhaps an exorcism. Or an enchantment.
Slowly a gray-haired woman stood and held her hands toward the shadowed ceiling.
“Arise Phoenix and bring forth your power,” she called in booming tones. “The sacrifice is offered, the covenant sealed. Bless our noble Chalice. Bless her with your glory. Offer to her the might of your sword to fight the evil that threatens. We call. Come forth.”
Crimson flames swept through the chamber as the women continued to chant, hovering in the thick air before surrounding the screaming woman upon the floor. Then, just as abruptly as they had appeared, the flames melted into the woman’s flesh.
Abruptly the gray-haired woman turned her head toward a darkened corner.
“The prophecy is fulfilled. Bring forth the beast.”
Expecting some horrid, five-headed monster that would fit right into the bizarre nightmare, Abby caught her breath as a man attired in a ruffled white shirt and satin knee breeches was brought forward, a heavy metal collar and chain hung about his neck. His head was bowed, allowing his long raven hair to cover his face, but that didn’t halt a shiver of premonition from inching down Abby’s spine.
“Creature of evil, you have been chosen above all others,” the woman intoned. “Wicked is your heart and yet blessed are you. We pledge you to the Chalice. In fire and blood we bind you. In the shadow of death we bind you. Through eternity and beyond we bind you.”
The torch suddenly flared, and with a terrifying growl, the man lifted his head.
No. It was not possible. Not even in the strange and ridiculous world of dreams. Especially not ones that felt so horrifyingly real.
Still, there was no mistaking his terrifying beauty. Or the smoldering silver eyes.
Dante.
She shuddered in horror. This was madness. Why would these women have him chained? Why would they call him a monster? A creature of evil?
Madness, indeed. A dream. Nothing more, she attempted to convince herself.
Then without warning, the unease tracing her spine turned to consuming terror. In pure fury, Dante tilted back his head, the perfect alabaster features bathed in flickering light. The same flickering light that revealed his long, deadly fangs.
When Abby at last woke again, the silver fog, and the sharpest edges of her pain, had disappeared.
Still, with uncommon caution, she forced herself to remain perfectly motionless. After the day she had already endured, now didn’t seem to be the best time to be charging and blundering about in her usual style. Instead she attempted to take stock of her surroundings.
She was lying upon a bed, she at last decided. Not her own bed, however. This one was hard and lumpy and possessed a funky scent she didn’t even want to consider. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of passing traffic and, closer, the muffled sound of voices or perhaps a television.
Well, she wasn’t in Selena’s charred house. She was no longer in a damp dungeon with screaming women and demons. And she wasn’t dead.
That was surely progress?
Screwing up her courage, Abby slowly lifted her head from the pillow and glanced about the shadowed room. There wasn’t much to see. The bed she was lying upon consumed most of the cramped space. About her were bare walls and the ugliest flowered curtains ever created. At the end of the bed was a broken dresser that held an ancient television, and in the corner was a shabby chair.
A chair that was currently occupied by a large, raven-haired man.
Or was he a man?
Her heart squeezed with a building dread as her gaze swept over the slumbering Dante. God. She would have to be demented to think what she was thinking.
Vampires? Living and breathing . . . or whatever it was that vampires did . . . in Chicago? Nuts. Full-out, engines-roaring madness.
But the dream. It had been so vivid. So real. Even now she could smell the foul, damp air and the acrid burning of the torch. She could hear the screams and chanting. She could hear the rattling of heavy chains. She could see Dante being pulled forward and the fangs that marked him as a beast.
Real or not, it had unnerved her enough to desire a bit of space between her and Dante. And perhaps several crosses, a few wooden stakes, and a bottle of holy water.
Barely daring to breathe, Abby sat upright and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her head threatened to revolt, but she gritted her teeth and pushed herself upward. She wanted out of here.
She wanted to be in her familiar home, surrounded by her familiar things.
She wanted out of this nightmare.
Taking one unsteady step followed by another and another, Abby moved across the room. She was just upon the point of reaching for the doorknob when there was the faintest whisper of sound behind her. The hair on the nape of her neck tingled before a pair of steely arms wrapped about her.
“Not so fast, lover,” a dark voice murmured directly in her ear.
For a moment her mind went blank, and she was paralyzed with fear. Then sheer panic took control.
Arching her back, she frantically attempted to kick at his legs. “Let me go. Let go.”
“Go?” His arms merely tightened at her struggles. “Tell me, sweet, where do you plan to go?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Surprisingly he gave a short, humorless laugh. “My God, you don’t know how I wish that were true. We were both released, do you realize that? We were free. The chains were broken.”
Abby stilled at his rough, accusing words. “What do you mean?”
He brushed his face over the top of her head in an oddly intimate manner before he was firmly turning her to meet his shimmering gaze.
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