This Rough Magic

by Heather Graham

  She wore a black velvet sheath dress with a string of pearls and let her hair fall over her shoulders. At dinner, she chatted with Geoffrey about the play, and laughed with Alexi over the region’s superstitions. She met Tanya’s openly curious stare with a shrug and waited for Jon to appear.

  She and Jon laughed together so easily that evening, sitting by each other. Their knees brushed, and he held her fingers and kissed her often. He was devastating, she reflected. Black was his color. He was rugged and masculine and elegant and sophisticated. She had never been happier than now, knowing that his golden gaze fell upon her and that his whisper was for her ears only.

  His whisper...promising that he would come to her, that he would be with her by midnight.

  She escaped the dinner table early. She wanted to change and brush her hair and freshen her cologne and await his arrival.

  She still walked on clouds as she returned to her room. He would come to her. She was smiling when she opened and closed her door. In a fog she kicked off her high heels and unclasped her pearls. Then she saw the dark-haired woman in the middle of the room, the beautiful woman with the wealth of black curls and the huge sapphire-blue eyes.

  “Jasmine!” Carly gasped.

  “Shh!”

  But they rushed for each other, hugging fiercely. Relief flooded through Carly. Jasmine was alive and well, and she was seeing her and touching her at last.

  Carly pushed away from her sister. Uncharacteristically, Jasmine was wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater.

  “What in God’s name are you up to?” Carly began severely. “You had me scared to death! You made me travel halfway across the world and worry myself silly.”

  “Stop, please!” Jasmine begged.

  “Then give me some explanations. Quickly.”

  “Don’t scold!” Jasmine protested sulkily. “And please, keep your voice down. You don’t understand! I’m in danger! There are very strange things going on.”

  Carly hesitated, watching her sister worriedly. “I thought you’d been here. I found your earring today.”

  Jasmine smiled and touched her ear. “I hadn’t even realized I’d lost it.”

  “But you were in here.”

  “Yes. Oh, it’s a long story.”

  “Well?”

  Jasmine took her hands earnestly. “Carly, we’re in danger. We’re really in danger.”

  Jasmine never had been able to tell a story from beginning to end, but as Carly looked into her luminous blue eyes she knew that her sister was really frightened.

  “We have to tell the count—” Carly began.

  “What!” Jasmine protested, shaking her head furiously. “Don’t be ridiculous. That isn’t Jon Vadim.”

  Carly felt as if a two-ton rock had slammed her in the face. “What?” she demanded sickly.

  “That isn’t Jon Vadim. That isn’t the count. Carly—” Jasmine broke off, growing pale. “It’s him!”

  Carly nodded, unable to speak as Jon called, “Carly! Damn it, open this door. Are you all right? Carly, I’m coming in.”

  He would come in. She sensed it; she knew it. He would throw his shoulder against the wood and break the lock. Jon would do something like that.

  Except that it wasn’t Jon Vadim.

  “Answer the door!” Jasmine pleaded. “He’ll come in!”

  Carly stared from her sister to the door. He was calling her again, and he sounded tense, worried.

  She ran over to answer it. He had lied to her. He wasn’t even Jon Vadim.

  Who the hell was he? an inner voice screamed.

  She ran to the door and turned around.

  Jasmine had disappeared.

  “Carly!” he yelled.

  The door burst open.

  CHAPTER 9

  Carly could scarcely breathe. She didn’t know whether to scream out, praying that someone would come to her rescue, or pretend that she didn’t know the truth about Jon. That Jasmine hadn’t just been in her room to tell her that the real and tangible man she had fallen in love with wasn’t real at all. He was an impostor. He had asked her to trust him, and he was living some fabulous lie.

  Jasmine had disappeared. Carly didn’t know whether her sister was hiding beneath the bed, in the bathtub, or perhaps in the armoire. There hadn’t been time for her to escape out the terrace windows. But Carly knew Jasmine must have been terrified to have run like that. Terrified of this man.

  Carly wondered if he had murdered the real Count Vadim. Her heart pounding mercilessly, she stared into his amber wolf’s eyes and wondered at the relentless power that lurked there. His hands were on his hips, and he seemed breathless himself. Keenly, swiftly, he scanned the room, then looked back at her. Still in his tux from dinner, he was striking and handsome and deadly, and she sensed the suspicion and danger and tension he emitted.

  He was a night person, he had told her. He moved by night; he could see in the dark. Suddenly he seemed part of an evil world, a world where wolves preyed upon the unwary.

  She had been very easy prey.

  Carly stepped back. She blinked and suddenly realized that she couldn’t tell him that Jasmine had been there. Jasmine had been afraid of him and was probably counting on her to steer him away, and quickly.

  Where was her sister?

  He ran his fingers through his hair, staring at her in sudden confusion. “Why the hell didn’t you answer the door?”

  Her first attempt at speech failed. She swallowed, and this time, words came out in a whisper, but heated and, at the last, indignant. “What do you think you’re doing, breaking down the damned door?”

  “What?” he demanded sharply. A moment’s silence followed, and then he exploded. “Because I was scared to death, that’s why! I called you and called you and called you, and you didn’t answer. And you were supposed to be waiting for me.”

  “Oh,” Carly said blankly.

  His frown remained. She couldn’t move; she felt paralyzed. An inner voice warned her that she must behave normally. She couldn’t let him know what she knew. She had to give her sister the chance to escape.

  “Carly! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said lamely. He took a step toward her and she took a step back. He narrowed his eyes and kept coming. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “Nothing, I told you!”

  He reached her, and she eluded him by leaping onto the bed and then over it. Breathing hard, she stared at him and realized sickly that she was making a fool of herself. A blind man would know that something was wrong. He clenched his jaw as he watched her, and he paused, hands on hips. He walked over to the door and did something with the knob. Carly heard a series of clicks. Then he turned back to her, leaning against the door. Handsome and casual, he gave her a cold grin that offered nothing in the way of humor.

  “I didn’t break it,” he told her. He moved a hand to demonstrate the easy flow of the bolt. “We’re locked in here now.”

  Carly nodded. He stood between her and the door. She could make a mad scramble for the balcony doors, she thought, but he would pounce on her in seconds flat. She just stood still, watching him.

  He threw up his arms in disgust. “All right, Carly, come on. Game time is over. What the hell is wrong?”

  She shook her head.

  He started toward her slowly. There was really nowhere to run. She held her ground.

  But he must have heard the echoing thunder of her heart. He must have seen the panic in her eyes and heard the desperate rasp of her breath. He stopped before her. He set his hand against her breast, and she nearly screamed. The touch tore into her, raw and scalding, and even with the truth before her, she wanted to deny it. She was in love with his scent, with how his eyes held her with their hypnotic gaze, and she ached for his touch as fiercely now as she ever had.

  It was a lie. He was a lie, and everything he said or felt was a lie.

  She wanted to scream, to demand to know who he was. Yet how could she? How c
ould she do anything but allow her heart to pound and ice to weigh down her limbs as she wondered where Jasmine was, and prayed that he didn’t find her.

  “Your heart is beating like a jackhammer,” he observed.

  “Is it?”

  His gaze grew rueful. “And it most definitely doesn’t seem to be in anticipation of my arrival.”

  “You barged in on me.”

  “You were expecting me. You invited me. At least I think you did.”

  “I’ve—I’ve changed my mind.”

  “You’ve changed your mind.”

  “Yes!”

  He closed his eyes, his hands still against her breast. She couldn’t bear the touch and slid away from him. She tried to laugh, but despite herself the sound was uneasy. “I’m not in the mood, that’s all.”

  He paused. Carly’s knees grew weak, and she sank down on the foot of the bed. She felt a dizzying rush of blood come to her head. Jasmine must be hearing this conversation and wondering what lay between them. She must be sick over it.

  He stood before her and wove his fingers through her hair, lifting her face to his.

  “Not in the mood?” he inquired politely.

  “All right, I’m sorry!” she snapped. “But I’m not! I—I’ve just decided that this is pointless, and I don’t want it to go any further.”

  She wanted to look down, gaze away, do anything but feel his eyes boring into hers, feel the tension of his frame nearly touching her, feel the power of his fingers upon her.

  Again he spoke to her. His voice was a husky whisper, low and sensual and lulling. “How can you forget? How can you change your mind? You said you loved me, and you showed me in every conceivable way that you did. I’ve never know a woman to give herself so freely, so...intimately.”

  Something about the sexuality of his voice spelled out almost every move they had made throughout the long day. Carly didn’t know at that moment whether she was more frightened or mortified. The room spun. She wished he would move, for she didn’t want to inhale his masculine scent. She didn’t want him to use his fingers against her so, just lightly massaging her scalp, using a practiced tenderness against her.

  “Please...” she said. “I have a headache.”

  “A headache?” he scoffed, almost laughing.

  “Yes! A headache.”

  “Carly, please, you can be more original than that! And for an excuse like that, aren’t you supposed to be married?”

  “It’s not an excuse. I have a headache. Believe me, I have a piercing headache. Please...” She tugged free from his hold and stared down at her hands. Why couldn’t she wield more authority? Why the hell couldn’t she get this man out of here?

  At last, he started to walk away. She thought he was leaving her, but he was not. He headed for the bathroom. Carly panicked, wondering if Jasmine was in the shower. She leaped up, raced ahead of him and braced herself against the door. He stopped, smiling curiously, brows raised.

  “What—Where are you—What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I was just going to wash my hands. I have a smudge of something on my knuckles from the door.”

  “Oh.”

  “May I pass?”

  Had he killed the real Count Vadim? She trembled, and she couldn’t believe it, but she suddenly saw an image of him striding in and sweeping back the shower curtain in a fury. He would find Jasmine standing there, and maybe he would curl his fingers about her throat, because he didn’t dare have her around to tell the truth.

  “No!” she cried.

  “No—I can’t pass?” he asked her.

  She nodded. He would brush right by her any second, she was certain. Not really knowing what she was doing, she hurled herself toward him with a sudden burst of energy and landed in his arms. She threw her own around him and kissed him. She ran her fingers through his hair and pressed her breasts against his muscled chest.

  He held her and returned the kiss, moving his hands down her back, bringing her higher against him, cupping her buttocks. Hot, searing sensations leaped into her and streaked back and forth. Their hips met and ground together. She fought for logic and reason, and tears stung her eyes, because she could still want him so desperately. He had lied to her with every word, but when he touched her he played her like a puppet, and she could not escape his power, the charisma of his kiss.

  She was trying to make him forget his quest, she reminded herself. And with a chill in her heart she knew that she had loved him before, and that what had been must meld with what was now. If she touched him again, what difference would it make, for she had touched him so thoroughly before? She had to be with him. She had to let Jasmine escape.

  He broke away from her, moving his thumbs over her throat and chin as he searched out her eyes. “What about your headache?”

  “It’s better. It’s miraculously better.”

  “Hmm. I wonder if headaches disappear so easily for married couples,” he mused skeptically. Then he added carefully, “I thought you weren’t in the mood.”

  “What?” She gazed up at him. He kissed her throat, and she wondered if she would really care if he intended to slit her veins. She even wondered in some foggy corner of her mind if he wouldn’t become a silver-gray wolf, right before her eyes, and tear into her heart, and soul and mind....

  “I, er, I got back into the mood once my headache disappeared,” she explained.

  His lips touched her flesh. There was nothing but tenderness in his caress. He put his arms around her. She was floating, remembering that she loved him. Jasmine must be wrong. There couldn’t be anything evil about this man, Carly knew; she loved him.

  She moaned softly as she felt the mattress underneath her. She tangled her fingers in his hair and held him as he pressed kisses against her throat and collarbone and the lobe of her ear. She locked her fingers around his neck, meeting his kisses and returning them with sweet seduction.

  Surely Jasmine would understand the sacrifice. She would slip from her hiding place and escape. She would have the sense to realize that Carly was covering for her.

  “I love you,” he whispered to her, his lips but an inch from hers.

  Aching, she nodded. He loosened his tie, then drew it from his collar, staying close to her as he did so. Then he moved, and she watched through half-closed eyes as he shed his jacket. He turned again and headed for the bathroom.

  His spell had been strong, she lay there for endless seconds before she realized that she had not seduced him—he had seduced and tricked her, and now he was on the prowl again. With a sharp cry she leaped to her feet and raced after him. He had already drawn back the shower curtain.

  No one was in the tub.

  “What are you doing now?” Carly demanded even as she breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t answer but cast her a withering glare and pushed past her to return to the bedroom. On his knees, he ripped at the bed coverings. Carly gasped, thinking, This is it! He will drag her out and we will both be at his mercy and he will know that we know....

  “Don’t, please! Don’t! Wait—” she began, but he was tossing back the covering and glaring at her once more as he got to his feet.

  Jasmine was not under the bed.

  He strode over to the armoire. Carly knew that had to be it. Jasmine couldn’t have disappeared into thin air. Carly couldn’t let him find her sister.

  “No!” she yelled, and pitched herself forward. She fell at his feet and wound her arms around his legs. He stared down at her, his golden gaze sharpened by disdain.

  If Jasmine was all right, if they both lived through this, Carly decided, she would definitely kill her sister. “Don’t, please...”

  He reached down for her hands and dragged her back to her feet. “Stop it, Carly,” he told her harshly. “By God, I am going to know what is going on.” He pushed back the armoire’s sliding doors. This time Carly swallowed her panic and terror and made no sound. Feeling her knees shake, she was afraid that they would give again.

  “Dam
n!” he yelled.

  Jasmine was not in the armoire.

  “What are you doing?” Carly cried out as he headed for the balcony doors. He threw them open, and the cold night wind rushed in upon them. Carly shivered, but he seemed not to notice. He stepped out into the mist and the moonlight. The glow fell on the starched white of his shirt and the harsh planes of his handsome face. She barely dared to breathe a sigh of relief.

  The balcony was empty. Somehow Jasmine had managed to disappear into thin air, so it seemed.

  The man Carly had known as Jon Vadim moved back into the room. He stared at her with no tenderness.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “You’re asking me?” she demanded, incredulous.

  “Who were you talking to?” He strode toward her with menace.

  This wasn’t the lover she had known, not in any way, she thought.

  “I wasn’t talking to anyone!” She was frightened by his total ruthlessness. She cried out, evading him again, running. She had to run, but there was nowhere to go. She went out to the balcony and gazed at the stones of the courtyard, far, far below. As she leaned over the ancient balustrade, gasping for breath, she closed her eyes and thanked God that Jasmine hadn’t fallen.

  Then her prayers ceased, for she realized that he was behind her, and that his arms were sweeping around her waist.

  She opened her mouth to scream.

  He clamped his hand down upon her, and she barely got out a whimper.

  “Damn it to hell, Carly, what is the matter with you tonight?” Holding her mouth closed, he picked her up off her feet so that her toes dangled just off the floor. He whispered into her ear, “Do you hear me, my love?” There was a great deal of bitterness in the endearment.

  Carly couldn’t answer him; she could scarcely breathe.

  “Do you hear me? Ah, hell!” he spat the words out in disgust. “I’m not trying to hurt you—”

  She bit into his fingers with all the fear and vengeance that were high in her heart. He cried out savagely and eased his hold on her. But before she could draw breath for a new attempt at a scream, he wound his left hand around her. He pressed the injured fingers to his mouth and swore, then dragged her into the room single-handedly and secured the balcony doors.