Immortal Bad Boys

by R. York, R. Laurey, L. Thomas-Sundstrom

  Elizabeth laughed, coughed, put both hands to her throat and closed her eyes. Dante reached her side.

  "Careful, Dante," Elizabeth whispered. "It will seem as though you care."

  "I do care."

  Elizabeth attempted a smile, failed to affix it.

  "What is it you expected me to do?" Dante asked.

  "Reason that it is not worth the effort. That she is not worth the effort."

  "Whatever effort are you speaking of?"

  The green eyes accosted him suddenly. Dante frowned. Was Elizabeth's secret that she was a witch? Could she see down into him so completely as to know what he might be thinking? Had she cast a spell upon him? Used the ancient incantations to keep him unbalanced?

  For what purpose?

  He considered this question.

  Elizabeth leaned in to rest her head on his shoulder. Her soft masses of curls brushed against his face. So soft. So pale. The hue of summer wheat, an image only remembered in the deepest recesses of his mind. The darkest recesses of his mind.

  This reminder was uncomfortable. He had made a vow. He would keep her safe.

  But he was so hungry.

  Elizabeth's head came up, realigning on her smooth regal neck with a swanlike grace.

  "You told her I am honorable?" Dante said. "And that I would help her."

  "And you turned her down."

  "Was it a game, then? A tournament of wills?"

  "Something perilously close."

  "Did you send the old woman?"

  "Yes."

  "To tempt me further?"

  "To see if you would keep your promise."

  "What promise would this be, exactly?"

  Elizabeth's eyes flashed in place of a reply.

  "Hadn't I done enough to you already?" Dante asked.

  "Not enough, by far, it seems."

  In an attempt to dissect her remark, Dante tilted his head. "You are speaking of love?"

  "Do you love my brother's choice?"

  "Would you keep me from others so that you can continue not loving me in the future?"

  "So that I can keep you close, whatever there is or isn't between us."

  "Selfishness doesn't become you, my green-eyed challenger."

  "Do not insult my intelligence, Dante. Look upon these walls. This is where I live."

  Dante felt the lines of a fresh frown deepen the furrow on his forehead. Was she being so subtle as to have made clear her position in her brother's nest? She was perhaps the only woman to remain outside of Alan Rothchilde's clutches, while existing in the very center of the debauchery and evil.

  How did she accomplish this?

  Back to that.

  "Elizabeth…"

  "I am a woman, Dante, in case you have not noticed."

  His frown deepened further. "I have noticed."

  Ask her, he thought. Just ask her how a mere woman might survive here amid her brother's lair. Wasn't that what he had come to Rothchilde's castle in search of? The knowledge of who this sister was? And how she withstood all this? Were these answers not the reason for being here, where danger reigned even for such a creature as himself?

  "You touched her," Elizabeth remarked before he could ask anything.

  And Elizabeth's intake of breath caused her breasts to swell above the heart-shaped neckline of her gown.

  Throb. Pulse. Rise in his breeches. But this was not supposed to happen. He did not love her, he reminded himself. He was incapable of such emotion. In all of his years on this godforsaken ground, he had never felt the need to love.

  "You left her because she was protected, and out of necessity rather than any choice you might have deemed to make," Elizabeth charged.

  Guards. Garlic. Hindrances, one and all, all right, Dante thought. But those things had not unnerved him.

  "Now who is insulting whose intelligence?" he returned.

  "He knows about you," Elizabeth said. "Need I tell you how my brother knows?"

  Dante grinned. Once again her breasts swelled above her bodice, along with her anger—though she kept a loose leash on that anger. Her breasts were luminous, plump with life and longing. In turn, he longed to hold them, lick them, caress them. He reached out, ran a finger across the delicate bones beneath her chin, and fought off a shudder of delight. No, not delight. Something more.

  "I do hope that scrawny lad was not your brother's intended bedtime snack," Dante said. "I can understand how this might have upset him."

  A patch of pink the size of a thumbnail flushed Elizabeth's cheeks. Fascinating, Dante thought. Demure, despite her challenge. Alluring. He barely noticed the garlic now. He barely thought about the angel.

  Perhaps his hunger was tainting his viewpoint.

  "You needn't bother telling me anything about your brother," he said. "I know him well enough."

  "Do you?" Elizabeth countered. "Then you know she told him."

  "Actually, I reasoned that she might be too frightened to do anything of the kind."

  "Just as you reasoned that the promise I extracted from you was a joke?"

  "On the contrary, I believe you knew your warnings would challenge me to go to her, to see for myself, up close, what caused your brother to choose her." Dante eyed Elizabeth closely. "Was I wrong in assuming this?"

  "Yet you did nothing to her."

  "There is an abundance of time left to change the outcome, is there not?"

  "Garlic had been placed in her room, Dante. Perhaps its effects are not lost on you?" Elizabeth tried another smile, this time with a fair amount of success, though her lips did not long remain upturned. "I placed the garlic there," she said.

  "Ah. I believed it was your brother."

  "I removed the guard, so that you wouldn't."

  "I had already met a scrawny lad."

  Elizabeth could not fully hide her distaste over this comment, Dante saw. He said, "You sent the note?"

  "The note was a warning, not an invitation. Had you stayed but a while longer in the tower, you would never have left it."

  "You would warn me, and at the same time make a present of the angel?"

  "A trial, merely. A test. My brother's choice is no gift."

  "A test of what? The sharpness of my wits? My fighting skills?"

  Yes, and in which way had he failed, Dante wondered? What was she getting at? He hadn't taken the angel. He had not dragged her from the bed and clamped his teeth to her neck, beating Alan Rothchilde to it. Elizabeth had been victorious in this, surely? And he had allowed her victory.

  The look in Elizabeth's eyes was stirring up something deep within him. Something discomfiting. The beat in his throat had become a nagging question. His thirst was now a viable craving.

  Then an idea slipped in beneath the other thoughts. A new scent came to him, stronger than Elizabeth's, mingling with Elizabeth's. Token. She had mentioned a token. Something belonging to the angel, perhaps?

  He looked at Elizabeth questioningly.

  She was no longer smiling.

  Chapter Eleven

  « ^ »

  Dante's lungs were near to bursting, though he supposed he did not actually breathe. Habit, maybe, that he inhaled through his nose? Old traditions were so very hard to break.

  "Yes. I brought you something," Elizabeth said.

  Dante's limbs took on the burn of being internally heated. Perspiration broke out on his brow. He could discern the reason, well enough, of course. Though the stink of the garlic pervaded, swirling through the air, tainting everything, it masked a thing beyond it.

  Elizabeth had brought the angel.

  Here.

  To him.

  Elizabeth watched his reaction, felt near to swooning. Weakness pervaded her body, still. She was drained, suffocating. After everything she had offered, Christopher Dante dared to look beyond her now.

  With a limp hand, she signaled.

  Surprised, speechless, Dante stared. The angel, in a blur of white, stepped into view. Simultaneously, Elizabeth reached f
or his hand. She placed it across the exposed portion of her breast, held it there for several breaths, then drew her soft, full lushness completely free of the cloth surrounding it.

  There were others in the room, Dante knew suddenly. Not just the angel. Dark shapes drifted in the shadows, in the corners, near the door. And Elizabeth, seemingly impervious to them and to the angel's presence, molded his fingers around her.

  "You were right," she whispered. "Innocence is alluring."

  Her fingers squeezed his. "You are right in that I have never given in to the weaknesses that bind other women. I have not been allowed such leeway. But I was innocent once, and untried. You, of all… people… know this for a fact."

  She manipulated his hand so that his palm rubbed across her raised pink nipple. "Imagine me here, amid the nightmares of my brother's court. Imagine what a nightmare I have been living, Dante. Until you came."

  The emphasis she placed on the last word was not lost to him. Elizabeth leaned in, ran her mouth across his.

  "My brother searches for her as we speak," she said. "He will, of course, find her before long."

  Her lips lingered on his, slid softly across his as she spoke. "You must help her. But not for the reasons you assume. First, there is something we must do. There is a thing she can do."

  Elizabeth drew his head downward, so that his mouth rested upon the nipple that lay exposed, so that he could no longer see the angel. Above him, Elizabeth leaned her head back, whispered, "Drink."

  He was ravenous, nearly insane with hunger. But his vow not to injure Elizabeth further rang in his ears, alongside the beat of her heart. Meaning to speak, he opened his mouth. His tongue touched her skin. She sighed, then her hand went to his breeches. She had found him hard. Decidedly hard. Deliciously hard.

  "Yes," Elizabeth whispered. "You know."

  Affected by her brash invitation and the slickness of her oiled skin, Dante half wondered why she had brought the woman he called his angel here to watch. His tongue, seemingly of its own volition, slipped sideways, over the mound of her breast. But he did not draw her into his mouth. Instead, he straightened. He looked into her eyes.

  "You can smell innocence," Elizabeth said. "Can you not?"

  "What are you doing?" Dante whispered.

  "It is too late, don't you see?" Elizabeth said. "He noticed. He will come for you."

  Dante was confused. Allowing Elizabeth to turn her head, he followed her attention across the room—to the angel. But Elizabeth's faint cough brought him back.

  "So you will kill me? Is that it?" he said. "You will give her to me as a parting gift before you let your brother have me?"

  Elizabeth was deadly serious. "I told you I would never let my brother kill you."

  Dante laughed. "Then you will do so yourself? How many men have you brought with you, dear one? Or do you assume the angel will keep me so occupied that I might fail to notice the plan you have in mind?"

  His laughter subsided. "Does she know what you are planning?"

  "Oh yes, my dearest Dante," Elizabeth whispered in his ear. "She knows some of it. You did not actually believe a woman could lack both the power and intellect to fool you?"

  Dante studied Elizabeth's oval face. "Whatever do you mean?" he asked as the angel took a step forward.

  Chapter Twelve

  « ^ »

  The angel's eyes were downcast, as he had first seen them. But her pose was not one of meek compliance. It was merely tolerance. He watched avidly as she took a second step.

  She wore a gown of pink. Not the white he had imagined, but the color of a carnation. The color of a rose that hadn't the benefit of the sun to deepen its lividness. The gown seemed to float in heavy pieces, failing to denote the lightness or airiness he had imagined. Long cords of rope dangled from her shoulders from a collar around her neck, like an overlong necklace.

  Dante swallowed, stunned. It was not rope that dangled, but an intricate braiding of garlic stems.

  His hand went to his mouth in an involuntary gesture. Mesmerized, he stared harder.

  The garlic was also wound into a cornet, and intertwined in the black hair that hung to the angel's waist. His limbs tingled. His head swam as all that garlic came closer, as the angel came closer. The puzzlement of it kept him still.

  "I do not wish to demean you," Elizabeth whispered into his ear, and yet the words seemed to come from his own mind rather than from any external source.

  "I merely question the validity of your judgment," she continued. "I question the intelligence of my brother, who thinks he can deal with a creature like this."

  The candle sputtered. Elizabeth lifted a hand, and another candle was placed in it, wick lit, before Dante could even see what had happened.

  A pool of light bathed Elizabeth, tossing long shadows across her face. The expression she wore was one of determination. The flush had disappeared from her cheeks, leaving her wan. Though Dante wanted to speak, his attention moved to the angel. His own limbs felt heavy. His head felt light.

  "You are honorable," Elizabeth said. "I can think of no other way to end this."

  "End?" Dante intoned, seeing now that the angel was beyond colorless. The pale dress seemed invariably darker by contrast.

  "She will not willingly help us," Elizabeth explained. "She is beyond helping anyone, beyond anything you or I could imagine."

  "What is this?" Dante said. But his hands began to shake with the nearness of the angel and her heavily odored, garlic-laced raiment. He could not lift his arms.

  No, it was something else that bothered him, more potent than the garlic. He looked up with a ripple of shock to find that a cross had been hung on the post of his bed. Its silver facets gleamed in the candlelight.

  Dante swallowed. Eyes wide, he faced Elizabeth.

  "You thought her innocent, my dearest Dante," Elizabeth said. "They all did at first. It took a woman to see through the ruse. I tried to warn you."

  Was this indeed a joke? Dante wondered, his mind grasping at anything that might explain or shed some light.

  Was something wrong with the angel?

  "Touch me," Elizabeth whispered, vying for his attention, demanding compliance. Her voice was silk, surrounding a harder substance. Her green eyes were once again flecked with gold.

  Secrets.

  Dante's hand went to her cheek. Elizabeth covered his fingers with hers.

  Secrets… there in her touch, in her paleness, in each shallow breath she took.

  "Bloody hell!" he exclaimed as she separated one of his fingers from the others on his right hand and pressed it lightly to her lips. "Elizabeth," he whispered, feeling the throb below his waist, fighting the urges she had always brought out in him, despite the best of plans.

  He watched with fascination as Elizabeth's lips parted. He nearly rose from the bed when she inserted his finger inside of her hot, wet mouth. He nearly burst as she drew on the finger, sucking it inside of her lips, covering it with her tongue.

  He could barely move—caught between the garlic and the shadow of the silver cross that stretched across the sheets, between the angel's mysterious presence and Elizabeth's careful ministrations. Yet he felt curiously removed from those hindrances. One part of his body was reacting, despite the circumstances. Something seemed live enough… in his pants.

  Chapter Thirteen

  « ^ »

  You will listen to me, Elizabeth sent silently to Dante. I have not kept myself free of the nest for no reason.

  She tugged slowly on his hand, and his finger slid from her mouth, between her teeth, over her fevered lips. He was looking at her so strangely.

  I have never interfered in my brother's pursuits, she told him. Until now, Dante. Until I met you.

  He had some residual strength left, she knew. And she could take no chances. He had to be weakened more. Enough.

  Climbing onto her knees beside him on the bed, she took his shirt into her hands. From her pocket she pulled forth a dagger and slit the white cl
oth down the center.

  "You cannot kill me with that," Dante said.

  His speech was slow, hesitant, Elizabeth noted. She smiled grimly and placed both of her hands on his chest.

  "I don't mean to kill you," she told him, mouth moving over his skin in lazy circles, her hair falling across his lap. "I mean to have my way with you, and then some."

  "Have you not chosen an odd way of going about it?"

  "Yes. I suppose I have."

  She felt his skin ripple. Pleasure, in spite of his defiance. Excitement, in spite of the garlic and the cross. It would have been much easier if he hadn't gone to sleep fully dressed, she thought. How long could she keep control of the thing that stood not far from the bedside?

  But then, Dante's head was back when she looked at him. His dark, dangerous eyes were closed. She ran her tongue down to his waistband, heard him groan. Perhaps he was weaker than she imagined. Perhaps…

  Confident now, with some of her fears eased, she glanced up again. Her heart skipped inside of her chest.

  He was staring down at her.

  There was nothing weak or remotely passive in the keen expression he wore.

  "Perhaps," Dante said, taking her shoulders into his hands with a grip that made her wince, "you need a little help?"

  Chapter Fourteen

  « ^ »

  Four guards rushed to Elizabeth's side. Dante held them back with a hand raised in warning. "Be gone. Do you not see that your mistress and I have things to do?"

  "They will go nowhere on your command," Elizabeth said breathlessly.

  "They are not here to protect you from me, surely?" Dante's eyes slid to the band at her neck. Did she think he would finish what he had started? Might she assume he would drain her dry this time, if pressed to the limits of his arousal?

  If she thought so, why would she be here now? Why taunt him?

  "They are here to watch over her," Elizabeth replied.

  Dante's eyes went to the angel. "Whatever for?"

  His question lingered in the stuffy air. He spoke again to Elizabeth. "You have trussed her up to protect her from me?"

  Breath. Silence. A long stretch of unspoken excuses. Yet so curious, Dante thought. This new and mysterious Elizabeth was so damned intriguing. Why hadn't he seen it before?