“If you so desire.”
She stared into the face so close to hers that the tiniest of movements would brush her forehead against his, her lips to his mouth. Her breath vanished. “I do desire.”
Would his arms drop from her? Would he stand aside and just let her go, cold and frustrated and alive?
His hand slid back down to her knee. “But then I’d leave, and your friends just entering the building wouldn’t find me.”
Her breath returned in a rush. She gave an involuntary jerk of her head, trying to see if the hunters had indeed arrived to end this torture of agony and pleasure. But all she could see was his dark shoulder blocking her view.
She gazed into his pitiless, shadowed face. “Then it’s over? Will you kill me now?”
His lips twitched. She didn’t think he ever intended it as a smile. “No. But we still have time for the sex.”
In a movement of bewildering speed, he rose, dragging her with him and spinning her onto the dance floor. He held her close into him. She found herself clinging to his shoulders, dizzy and disoriented.
“They’ve come to kill you, and you’ll stay here for sex?”
“It’s a game,” he assured her. “Can you orgasm before they interfere and stop it?”
Though her hand itched to slap him, the rest of her body screamed out for the orgasm. Her mouth wouldn’t work at all until he covered it with his. Seduced all over again, it began to move under his lips. He held her by the buttocks, one palm on each, his fingers digging and kneading, pressing her into the hardness of his erection. Her entire body flamed. It was as if the last dance had never been interrupted.
Except that, from the corner of her eye, she saw Mihaela enter the room, István and Konrad at her heels.
She dragged her mouth free. “Too late.” As hard as it was to speak with triumph when the body yelled with fury and frustration, she did her best.
He laughed, a soft, melting sound that seemed to shoot straight to her womb. “Sweetheart, we have all the time in the world.”
Other hunters entered too. She recognized some of them from the headquarters building. “No, we haven’t.”
His lips stirred against her ear, sending new, exciting shivers all the way down her neck and spine. “I could fuck you here. If anyone noticed, they wouldn’t care.”
Her fingers gripped his shoulders, half in warning, half in wicked longing. “I suppose it’s a minor crime for a vampire.”
“There is no crime in mutual pleasure.”
She gave a small deliberate wriggle over his erection and with fierce triumph, saw his eyes gleam. As the watchful hunters moved around the dance floor, observed from the bar by a woman in black and the anxious young waiter, Elizabeth stood on tiptoe and whispered in Saloman’s ear. “How does it feel to be trapped?” She dipped her tongue in his ear. “By your own lust?”
“Tell me,” he invited.
She smiled, trailing her lips along his jaw to the corner of his mouth. “I’m freed. My friends are surrounding you, closing you in with your unfulfilled desires.”
“Then you’d better pray I let you come quickly.”
Christ, she was so sensitive, so aroused, that if she moved, just a little against his erection, she would come right now. With a superhuman effort, she held still. It was he who moved, deliberately gyrating.
“I can live without sex,” she whispered. “I’m good at it.”
He smiled. “No, you’re not,” he said, and kissed her mouth.
She couldn’t resist closing her eyes. Last kiss . . . oh God help me, help him. . . .
His torturing hands caressed their way up her body to her throat. She opened her eyes. Konrad and Mihaela had seen them; were bearing down on them. The woman in black—Angyalka herself ?—vaulted over the bar and ran toward the dance floor. At once, several people fell in behind her, presumably vampires.
Without warning, the music stopped. For an instant, the tableau seemed to freeze. Saloman, one hand almost caressing her throat, dropped the other around her waist and met Konrad’s fierce gaze. The hunter, careless of being seen in this moment of emergency, held the inevitable wooden stake.
“Let her go,” Konrad commanded.
Saloman laughed. “In the immortal words of our hostess—bite me.”
He tensed, his legs flexed, and he leapt. Elizabeth felt as if she were flying. Her stomach rolled as she shot up through the air in Saloman’s hold, impossibly high, impossibly fast over the faces of the stunned crowd. The velvet black sky with its myriad of sparkling stars seemed to rush down to meet her, dragging her through the open dome window into its cool, breezy grasp. But the powerful, only too solid arms that held her were Saloman’s.
Chapter Eleven
At some point early on in the bizarre flight, her abject terror got lost in wonder. The world jolted as it sped by her eyes, in between long, soaring swings that felt more like the flying dreams of her childhood than anything with a basis in reality. Hanging on to his shoulder with one hand, the fabric of his shirt with the other, she registered the beauty of the city from this angle: the crowded rooftops of Buda against the blackness of the night sky. She even had odd glimpses of blurred people moving in the streets below.
“Are we flying?” she exclaimed. She dragged her fascinated gaze up to his face in time to see his gaze flicker to her in something like surprised approval.
“Alas, no.” His gaze left her. She felt again the tensing of his muscles and the weird soaring through the air that made her want to clutch her stomach. “Merely jumping.”
They landed with a soft thud, and almost before she realized it, he was running again—running far faster than was humanly possible across the rooftops and leaping over the spaces between.
Eventually, she remembered she should be angry, even if her fear had gotten temporarily lost. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my palace.”
Palace. Not lair, or den, or crypt. “You have a palace in Buda,” she repeated. Of course, his definition and hers would be different. He lived below the ground, in cellars and sewers—why didn’t he smell bad?
“Oh no. I embrace the new city of Pest.” He swerved, then jumped, and Elizabeth again saw the Danube spread out before her.
“You’ve been misleading them,” she said in dismay. “Leaving a false trail.”
“Just in case they had the forethought to watch, or have the ability to see.”
They’d look like a blur to most people. He moved so fast, they’d just be a flash half glimpsed from the corner of somebody’s eye. A blink to clear the blur and they’d be gone. No one could see and no one would know. Her bag with her phone and the alarm buzzer were back at the Angel. Now she was truly on her own. And in just a few minutes, if she survived that long, the fear would kick in with a vengeance. Right now, she could relish its absence, even wonder at herself for the crowing she couldn’t resist.
“No roofs over the river! Even you can’t jump that far! How will you cross to the other side?”
“Like this,” Saloman said, and swooped. The air rushed through her hair, pulling at her skin while the ground leapt to meet her. This time she hid her eyes in his shoulder. But it seemed he had no intention of killing her in so pointless a manner. For an instant they landed on the cobblestones in front of the chain bridge. She opened her eyes, just as he leapt once more. Silenced, she could only gaze in fresh wonder as they bounded from the top of the first stone arch to the next, moving ever closer to the Parliament building on the other side. He even ran across that, apparently unnoticed.
There was nothing he couldn’t do, no way she or the hunters could defeat him. And it was she who had awakened him. Not the sort of fame she’d ever imagined—a firm place in the secret texts of the vampire hunters. But he wouldn’t be content with that either, would he? He wanted to rule the world, human as well as vampire.
Moving away from the river, they came to a series of well-planned streets and squares with large, classically built hou
ses. Once the dwellings of the powerful aristocracy for whom they were built, they had long ago been divided into flats, or so she had been led to believe.
“Hold tight,” Saloman said on the roof of one such building, just before he stepped off it.
If her bones were shattered, he could still drink her blood, and she wouldn’t be in much of a position to fight back.
Her bones didn’t shatter. He landed with bent knees, absorbing the force with the ease of obviously long practice, and let her slither down his body until her feet touched the ground. Numb and dizzy, she would have stumbled and fallen if he hadn’t kept his arm around her waist as he moved along the side of the house to the imposing front door.
Humiliated, angry at her own helplessness, she snapped, “There’s no need to hold on so tightly. After that performance, there’s not much point in my trying to run away, is there?”
“None,” he agreed. He was unlocking the door, with a key. Not the cellar, then.
He opened the door, led her inside, and closed it. And Elizabeth’s upsurge of anger vanished. After all, it was as pointless now as running.
She stood in a large, gracious hall, dimly lit by one retro wall lamp, but hung with large, opulent, Renaissance-style paintings. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture—merely a tall, mahogany coat stand, with a black leather coat hanging from one hook.
She stared at the elegantly decorated cornice work of the ceiling as he urged her forward toward the massive curving staircase. It too was lit from strategically placed wall lights. She climbed. “You live here? In this house? Where are the owners?” Dead, of course; he’d eaten them.
“I’m the owner,” he reproved, as if he’d read her thoughts—which she didn’t put past him either, God help her. “I bought it. With the scraps of paper that pass for money in these very strange times. Come.”
Through open double doors, he led her into a huge drawing room, hung with dark red velvet curtains and Eastern-patterned wallpaper. Leaving her at the door, Saloman moved around the dark room, lighting candles that gradually illuminated the contents: large rugs scattered on the floor; a chaise longue; innumerable Turkish cushions; a low, round table; and, bizarrely, a television.
Elizabeth’s gaze moved on to Saloman, who stood watching her. She swallowed. This was her reality. She could no longer hide behind anger or lust or wonder, nor could she trust in others to save her. “You’ve brought me here to die?”
He walked toward her, lean and lithe as a large cat, unruffled by his recent race across the rooftops of Budapest. There had never been a creature more beautiful, or more lethal.
“I’m sorry.” He took her hand. She looked at it, a rather pretty shade of golden brown from the sun, or from the warm lighting he’d achieved, lying inert and helpless in his large, pale fingers. His voice was soft, though not lustful or mocking. Instead, there seemed to be a hint of genuine apology. “I would never have done it in the club. I promised us both a night together. Not a furtive fuck on a public dance floor. I just couldn’t resist playing your game. You looked so . . .”
Ridiculous.
“Desirable.” His voice dropped lower, warm and husky, and in spite of everything, her body tingled in response. His gaze roved over her throat and shoulders and breasts, down over her stomach and hips to her legs, and back to her face.
“Why?” she whispered.
It wasn’t a very clear question, but again he seemed to understand. “Perhaps because I owe my Awakener more than that.” His fingers moved, stroking her palm, the soft, sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger. A caress, covering a pause that went on too long; an uncharacteristic hesitation.
His free hand lifted and touched her cheek, cupping it in his palm. “And because your beauty haunts me. Not just this lovely face or even this delectable body, but you. I want to know you.”
Elizabeth’s muscles jerked, reacting to this strangest discovery of all. “You don’t want to kill me. . . .”
“No,” he admitted, “I don’t.”
“Nothing compels you,” she quoted desperately.
“I wish that were true. But we are different species, you and I, and we think very differently. If I could choose, I would drain you of all the strength I could take without actually killing you. But then, the life force would remain yours, and if I don’t take it, one of my enemies will. That is what I can’t allow.”
“Your enemies?” she burst out, annoyed by the soothing effect of his deep, reasonable voice speaking such monstrous words. “I didn’t waken your enemies! What use am I to them?”
His eyes scanned hers, as if searching for an understanding she just didn’t have. His lips quirked. “Come, sit down.”
He led her across to the chaise longue and handed her into the seat with an old-fashioned gallantry that should have grated against his stated intention of killing her. And yet it didn’t. It was as if she’d fully entered his insane world. Shit, was she actually forgiving him? That small layer of intense warmth she could feel growing around her heart, was that pleasure because she’d been right and he did feel something for her?
This amazing, beautiful, fascinating being cared for her. However mad he was, it meant something. She just couldn’t work out what.
Dazed—was that any better than dazzled?—she watched him take a bottle and glasses from an antique cupboard in the corner, then bring them to the table in front of her.
“You like champagne?” he inquired, sitting beside her and reaching for the bottle.
“I’ve never been in a position to acquire the taste.”
“I love it. I’m going to buy land here and plant vines to make my own. I understand it will never have the snob value of French champagne, but I’m hoping it will be at least as acceptable as the best Italian Prosecco.”
She closed her mouth. “You really haven’t let the grass grow under your feet, have you?”
The cork whizzed off with a pop, and he poured the bubbling wine into both glasses. “Just because you have lots of it doesn’t mean you should waste it—time or wine. Cheers.”
She took the glass from him. Live for the moment. And she would never have the chance to ask again. “So you eat and drink as well? Like normal people?”
His lip twitched. “Like normal people? No. I don’t eat your food. I can drink since my body absorbs it. I can even get vilely drunk, but I won’t. An inebriated vampire is not a pretty sight.”
“Hey, I can take it. I’ve been in Glasgow on a Friday night.” It was a thoughtless, throwaway remark she expected to pass him by. She wasn’t prepared for the quick smile of appreciation, or her own foolish pleasure in inspiring it. In spite of everything she knew, it felt like a reward.
Like Stockholm syndrome . . .
“Is that your hometown?” he asked.
“Almost. We lived in a small town close by.”
“We?”
“My parents and I.”
He sipped his wine, regarding her with such intensity that she raised her own glass for protection. “You’re a lady of learning,” he observed. “An academic. What led you down that path?”
“I was good at it.”
“Yet you only graduated at the age of twenty-eight. I understand that is old.”
How in hell did he know that? Dmitriu. She’d given Maria, along with everyone else she interviewed, a brief biography with her qualifications to prove she wasn’t just a time waster.
“I only took the standard four years. I was a mature student.”
“Why? What did you do before?”
“I looked after my parents.”
“Were they sick?”
She nodded. “My father had Alzheimer’s.” She cast a quick glance at him. “You know what that is?”
“A kind of dementia suffered mostly by the old?”
“Only mostly. My father contracted it when he was comparatively young, which meant he was in no fit state to look after my mother, who had Parkinson’s disease.” She took a mouthful of champ
agne. It felt weird to be talking about this stuff. She never mentioned it to anyone. Those who needed to already knew about it.
“When?” he asked. “How old were you?”
She shrugged. “Fifteen or thereabouts. When it got bad.”
“Did you go to school?”
“When I could. I did all right, considering the absences.”
He was frowning. “Did no one help you?”
“My aunt came twice a year and drank tea with my mum. My friends helped, covered for me . . . I coped. If I hadn’t, the authorities would’ve done something, taken them into care of some kind. But my dad needed familiarity, not a new home, and my mum needed him there, even when he stopped knowing who the hell she was.” She took a deep breath. “Oddly enough, when my mum eventually died, my dad followed within the year.”
He nodded. “Somewhere, he still knew she was his roots, his hold on life. They needed each other as much as they needed you.”
She’d never put it into words before, hating the schmaltzy sentimentality that could emerge from simple truth and sully it. She found herself watching him with something approaching gratitude.
Stockholm! Remember Stockholm?
Saloman stirred. “It happened like that with my people sometimes too. When the familiar things, the familiar friends—and enemies—all vanished, there was nothing left to make life bearable. It drove some insane.”
As he spoke of his people—the Ancients—all of whom were now gone, she caught a glimpse, dark and unbearable, of a loneliness well beyond anything she’d ever known, even in her worst moments. It hurled her into speech. “They say you’re insane.”
His lips quirked again. “Who do? The vampire hunters?”
“There are documents,” she said defensively.
“Of course there are. Written by whom?”
By those who were left when he’d “died.”
As if he read the dawning comprehension in her eyes, he smiled. “There’s a lot of truth in your thesis, Elizabeth Silk. Many things are said and claimed to justify acts that are otherwise unjustifiable.”
She leaned forward to set down her glass. “They say you killed the only other Ancient still in existence. Over a woman.”
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