by Ann Lory
After bathing, she returned to the bedroom and was surprised to see a pair of dark dress pants and a purple silk blouse lying across the bed. She wondered when Dimitri had bought these clothes for her.
She dressed, then brushed and dried her hair and finally left the room. Rowlin met her at the bottom of the stairs, holding out the little black purse she’d had with her New Year’s Eve.
“Where did you find my purse?” She took it from his outstretched hand.
“Miss Matthews brought it for you this morning when she came.”
“I didn’t even think of how I would get into my apartment. Thank you, Rowlin.”
He nodded at her. “You are quite welcome.” His eyes twinkled, and she couldn’t help but think what a wonderful man he was and how glad she was to know him. “Where can I take you, Miss Stephens?”
“Well, I think since I have been gone for a couple of days, I should go to my apartment and check on my cat.”
“I will get the car.” Rowlin strode away, and Cassie went to the front door and stepped outside, walking to the base of the stairs.
It was a dreary, foggy day, and Cassie shivered as the cool mist surrounded her. Rowlin pulled up in a Lexus and started to get out, but Cassie jumped into the car too quickly for him. He looked startled, and Cassie laughed at his expression.
“Like I said, Rowlin, I’ve been opening my own doors for years.”
Rowlin chuckled, then he drove down the driveway toward San Francisco.
* * * * *
Patches came bounding at Cassie as soon as she stepped into the apartment, meowing plaintively, obviously scolding her. Cassie scooped the cat up into her arms and hugged her, the cat’s purrs echoing with her own happiness “I’m sorry I was away for so long, Patches.” She looked into the cat’s green eyes. “Forgive me?”
Patches rubbed the top of her head against the bridge of Cassie’s nose.
“Thank you.” Cassie whispered and kissed Patches on the head. She set her on the floor and walked further into the apartment, quickly feeding the cat and pouring fresh water. “It’s good to be home.”
Rowlin cleared his throat. “You can’t stay here, Miss Stephens. I have to take you back to Mr. Alexios’s.
“What do you mean, I can’t stay here?” Cassie spun around to face Rowlin.
“It isn’t safe.”
Cassie sank down on the couch. “You’re right, of course.” Looking around her apartment, she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever be safe again. Rising, she went to her bedroom. “Let me pack some things, and I’ll be ready.”
Once in her room, she grabbed a small suitcase from her closet and the kitty carrier. She packed jeans, dress pants, blouses, underwear and other necessities. She also stowed away the little red nightie she had bought before but had not able to put to good use. Now, however ...
Moving over to the dresser, Cassie slipped on the ruby ring Dimitri had given her after Christmas and smiled as the red stone sparkled in the light. Picking Patches up, she placed the cat in the carrier, then grabbed her suitcase and left the bedroom, picking up some cat food from the kitchen.
Rowlin rushed over to help her, giving a questioning look at Patches. Cassie frowned. “If I go, so does she.” Nodding, he took the suitcase from Cassie as she locked up, and they both loaded everything into the backseat of the car before heading back to Dimitri’s house.
* * * * *
As soon as the sun disappeared from the sky, Dimitri rose from the bed. He frowned as he mentally surveyed everything in the house. The cat! Muttering an oath, Dimitri stalked across the chamber to the bathroom, cursing the entire way that Cassie had brought her pet to his home.
After bathing, Dimitri dressed in snug black pants and a long-sleeved, open-collar, black silk shirt. When he stepped into his study, he answered the growl that greeted him with one of his own. There, in front of his favorite chair, sat Patches, staring at him with defiant green eyes.
“You are in my chair, cat!” But Patches stretched leisurely, then lay down on the soft cushion, peering at him as if daring him to move her. Despite his words, Dimitri tried to gently push the cat from the chair, but she wouldn’t budge. They glared at each other, neither one backing down.. Dimitri intended to win, however. “My house, cat, my rules.”
Patches yawned, then began to lick her paws, clearly determined to ignore him.
“What’s going on?” Cassie entered, a quizzical look on her face. Both Patches and Dimitri faced her guiltily.
Dimitri quickly forgot about the nuisance in his chair, his full attention on her. She was dressed in a familiar red satin teddy.
Cassie looked at Patches. “I hope it’s okay that I brought her with me. I didn’t want to leave her behind.”
Still distracted by her outfit, Dimitri shook his head to clear his thoughts before glancing back at the cat. “Oh, yes, that’s fine.”
Cassie snapped her fingers. “Patches, go upstairs.” The cat twitched her whiskers, stood, then jumped from the chair. It seemed to Dimitri that the animal gave him a little smug feline smile as it flipped its tail, then stalked from the room.
Cassie handed Dimitri a glass of wine. “I’m sorry.”
Setting the glass aside, Dimitri pulled her body against his. “I’m sure Patches and I will come to a happy compromise in the near future, but there are more important things than that. You are breathtaking.” His gaze roamed over her satin-clad body; he was sure his eyes must glow with his appreciation.
Cassie’s smile was seductive as her hands traveled over his chest, then slowly began to undo each button of his shirt. Dimitri groaned as her fingers skimmed lightly over his skin, teasing him as she bared his flesh. He grabbed her wrists and held them together between them.
His voice was husky when he spoke. “You are playing with fire.” As he said the words, a blaze roared to life in the hearth.
Cassie touched her lips to his chest, her tongue grazing his nipples. She looked up at him with vibrant purple eyes. “Good,” she whispered. “I want us to burn.”
Dimitri growled, kissing her with intense passion before he brought her down onto the ornate rug in front of the fire. His tongue dueled with hers as his hands wandered over her body, and she moaned, arching into his urgent caresses. After a long moment filled with their harsh breathing punctuated by moans, Cassie pushed his hands away and rose to her knees. She tore his shirt off.
Dimitri grunted as Cassie pushed him onto his back, her lips and tongue nibbling at his neck and chest, driving him wild for her. She glided down his body, tugged at his pants, freed him, then grasped his long and erect shaft in her hand. With a wicked look from under her lashes, she took him in her mouth.
He cried out, his hands playing through her hair and his hips thrusting to meet each lick of her tongue, each suctioning caress of her mouth. She squeezed her hand up and down his cock as she devoured him, her lips tasting every inch of him till he was to the point of exploding.
But before he could reach his peak, Cassie removed her lips and glided up his body, straddling him. She propelled herself against his hardness, rubbing him against her opening and the sensitive nub above, eliciting further groans from both of them. Finally, she allowed him to enter her.
Dimitri ripped the teddy over her head and tossed it aside, baring her breasts to his hungry gaze. Rising, he tugged her against him, taking a hard nipple into his mouth, kissing and suckling the tightly drawn tip. Cassie moaned, urging him on as she rocked back and forth over him, taking a little of him inside her with each undulation, grinding her body against his.
He swallowed a pleasurably shocked breath as she moved fiercely over him, and he sank into her to the core. His cock pistoned into her hot channel and demanded her release. She shuddered with each upward thrust of his hips, then lowered her head and bit his shoulder. Unable to stand the ecstasy of her bite, Dimitri grabbed her around the hips and shoulders and rolled her beneath him. Her soft curves molded against his and his lips captured her
s in a passionate kiss, determined to steal her senses.
She whimpered when his cock continued to surge in and out of her. His thrusts were wild and savage; he couldn’t get enough of her. Finally, Dimitri convulsed above her, pouring into her even as she shrieked with her own release and spasmed, clinging to him.
Dimitri had never heard or felt anything more glorious.
Chapter Fifteen
They lay in each other’s arms on the plush rug, a blanket wrapped snuggly around them, the fire a soft glow before them. Dimitri studied Cassie’s face while she slept. Her hair was untamed around her face, adding an exotic beauty to her features, and her lips were slightly parted and swollen from his rough kisses.
He again wondered how he had been so fortunate as to claim such a creature whose heart was pure sunshine. He knew he didn’t deserve her, but he would fight to keep her just the same. She was his treasure, his once-in-a-lifetime, and he would give her all of his love until she was no more.
He sighed. She would grow old and frail even as he remained unchanged. A mortal’s life was over in the blink of an eye, and the thought of being without Cassandra was like a stake through his heart. Although he was tempted, he knew that to give her eternal life would be to curse her to darkness. He imagined her violet eyes turning a soulless black, her perfect petal-soft lips stained red with blood. He shuddered, and his arms instinctively tightened around her. No, he could never do that to her, his beautiful Cassandra. Dimitri loved her, and so her final day on this earth would be his as well.
He knew the moment she woke. Her eyes opened and Cassie smiled, turning to lie on her belly and look at him. She ran her fingers through his hair and over his cheekbones, then studied his black eyes. Dimitri put all the love and passion he felt for her into his gaze.
“Why are your eyes black and not brown as they once were?” He tensed beneath her, surprised at her question. “When I was at the museum and saw your family portrait, you had brown eyes.”
Dimitri nodded and exhaled slowly. “When one has no soul or heart, one is also forever shrouded in darkness. Thus, when I was turned, my eyes became black.”
“What was your mother like, your father?”
“My mother was beautiful and loving, always there for me when I was a child. I had no nannies, as she was determined to raise me. When I was hurt, she would kiss my tears away; when I was happy, she was there to share my joys. She was truly wonderful.” He paused, thinking of his father. “My father was a well-respected man and away often, trying to keep the peace between our countrymen and the Turks. He wanted the best for me and always told me how proud he was of my accomplishments.”
“How did your parents die?”
Dimitri closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. “They died about ten years after I was made into a vampire, but I had not gone to see them in all that time. I did not want them to see what I had become, to look on me with horror and fear, so I stayed away where they would never find me.”
He inhaled sharply, ready to tell her everything.
“I was in Austria in the year 1510 when I learned of the sultan’s displeasure with my father, who had stopped sending money and would not pledge fealty. All because of me. I immediately left for my home.”
Dimitri stood beneath the arched gate before his home, the place where he had grown from child to man. The once-beautiful building, whose high white walls had always been covered with wild flowers and vines winding up toward the sky, seemed to burn with hell’s own fires. In the distance, the orchards, too, blazed against the sky, casting their own orange glow against the cover of night.
His thoughts were wild as he raced toward the flames, eyes searching desperately for his mother and father. Servants and guards rushed about, trying to douse the inferno with buckets of water before it spread to and destroyed the entire village, but it was too late. All was lost.
He entered the main yard; one of the servants who had known him when he was a young boy dropped to her knees and immediately crossed herself when she saw him. He approached the old woman, sensing the overwhelming fear that radiated from her.
“My parents,” he demanded urgently.
She trembled. He could see how inhuman he looked to her. “You are the angel of death come to take them away.”
Dimitri clutched her arms, roughly shaking her. “Where?!” he yelled.
The old woman pointed toward the burning house, and without a second thought, Dimitri rushed into the building. The heat and smell was stifling and intense, the crackling and explosions of the flames loud enough to drown out the shouts of the servants and guards outside.
His ears strained to listen, reaching past the deafening noise, until finally he heard it. A faint heartbeat. He sped to his parents’ bedchambers on the second floor. Flinging himself past the oak doors, he found his mother on the floor, skirts smoldering, her body covering his father’s lifeless form. Flames licked at the bed curtains, their bed a lake of fire.
His heart stopped. The next instant, he was across the room and dropped to his knees beside his parents. Removing his coat, he slapped it over her legs, snuffing the bright sparks, but the damage was done; he could see and smell the stench of her burned flesh.
He grasped her shoulders, pulling her away from his father’s body.
“No!” she wailed fitfully, clinging to the still form. Dimitri turned her to face him. She coughed at the smoke that filled her lungs, not registering at first who held her, then gasped and wheezed even harder.
Wasting no time, Dimitri covered her with his scorched coat, then lifted her into his arms, her cry of pain tearing at him. He gave a final look at his father, tears filling his eyes. “Papa,” he whispered, then turned and fled outside with his mother.
The guards and servants cried out, ceasing their struggles against the fire and stared at him as if they were gazing upon a ghost. His eyes narrowed as they crossed themselves, but none approached him. He strode across the yard, hearing the murmurs.
“He is death.”
“Do not look upon him.”
“Lord have mercy on us!”
His mother whimpered in his arms, breaths raspy, her pain agony to him. He carried her away from the ashes of their home, and into the darkness of the night.
At last, they arrived at a favorite place from his youth, where a carpet of soft green grass surrounded a gentle stream. He lowered her to the ground, coming down beside her.
“Mama,” he choked out, seeing her pale features beneath the soot and taking in the lines around her swollen eyes, the streaks of gray through her once-dark hair. He tried to make her as comfortable as possible.
She opened her pain-filled eyes. “Dimitrius, is it really you?”
Her voice was weak and hoarse, and the beat of her heart was growing fainter, but he could hear her joy at the sight of him. Her hand reached up and gently touched his face.
His fingers covered hers, tears falling from his eyes. “Yes, Mama, it is I, Dimitrius.”
She smiled, her love pouring out to him. “My son, you have f-fin-finally c-come home.” Then her hand fell from his, eyes staring sightlessly.
Dimitri closed her eyes, then sat silently for a moment as he looked at her face. He hated himself because he should have been here, should never have left when they had loved him so. The red river of his pain flowed from his face to drip across the remains of his mother’s white night dress. Unable to bear his loss, he sobbed loudly, his heart shattering as he pulled her limp body into his embrace. He rocked her back and forth, his whole body shaking, crying for the pain that he had caused his parents.
“I love you, Mama. I beg you, forgive me.” He weeped futilely, his face buried in the hollow of his mother’s neck and shoulder. “Please forgive me, Mama, Papa, please ...”
“I buried both my mother and father the next night, then I sat by their graves for many nights after, pleading for their forgiveness for my leaving, for not returning to them, for not dying ...” Dimitri looked away, his voi
ce trembling with emotion. “And for what I was.”
Cassie’s eyes were moist. “Dimitri, I’m so sorry,” she whispered and turned his face to her. Gently she wiped his cheeks.
“You do ease my pain greatly. More than you can imagine.”
“It must have been awful for you those first years.” It wasn’t really a question, but he answered.
“Yes. I was constantly fighting against becoming what Gabriella was. I did not want the power to devour me as it had done her, and I did not want to take human lives.”
“What did you do?”
“A man by the name of Jacques Devereaux found me. He helped me learn to control the beast, how to take blood without taking life.”
“Jacques Devereaux. Is he a vampire, too?”
Dimitri touched her gently. “Yes. You see, Gabriella also made him. He, like me, had not wanted the dark gift she forced on him. Because of Jacques’s guidance, I was able to help another man two centuries later, Christian Mason, during the American Revolutionary war.”
Dimitri felt the mention of Gabriella send a shiver of fear down her spine, and his arms immediately tightened around her.
“She’s going to kill me, isn’t she?”
Her words were softly spoken, but they seemed to scream through his mind, and he flinched. Her violet eyes stared into his own. “I will protect you, Cassandra, with my last breath. I swear it!” His declaration came from the very depths of his very soul, the same soul he had thought he’d lost five hundred years ago.
Her fingertips caressed his lips. “I know,” she whispered, resting her head against his chest.
His hands cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling through her hair and causing the strands to spill out between them.
“Why do you think she is the way she is?”
“She forgot what compassion and love are and let herself become corrupt. She carries darkness inside her and the stench of evil.”
“Did you love her?”