“Elena, look at me.”
Though reluctant, she did as bidden.
His gaze captured hers as he placed his hands gently over her own. She stared into his eyes, deep, dark, fathomless eyes that seemed to draw her in until she saw nothing else. Gradually, the throbbing in her head disappeared. The tension drained out of her body, leaving her feeling warm and tranquil.
What was he doing to her? Was he hypnotizing her? Erasing her memory? Maybe that would be for the best.
“Relax, wife, the only thing I have done is erase the pain in your head.”
Suddenly weary, she leaned against him. It was too much to absorb—what he was, what he had told her. It was all simply too fantastic to believe. Maybe she was dreaming. Yes, dreaming. Sighing, she closed her eyes. When she awoke tomorrow, life would be normal again.
Drake stroked Elena’s hair, her cheek, the curve of her neck. He had violated vampire law twice now, first in telling her who and what he was, and then by not wiping the knowledge from her mind. He refused to consider taking her life. The rules of the Coven didn’t seem important when she was near. The beat of her heart was music to his ears, the scent of her skin more fragrant than the primroses that grew in the garden, the heat of her body a welcome warmth against his own cool flesh.
After five hundred years as a vampire, there was little left in the mortal world that surprised him, but sitting there, with Elena sleeping beside him, he discovered that he cared more deeply than he had imagined for the woman who was his wife in name only. Even more astonishing was the realization that he wanted her love more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
With a shake of his head, he stared into the fire, certain that he had a better chance of gaining heaven than winning the fair Elena’s love.
Eyes closed, Elena turned over on her stomach and tried to go back to sleep. After last night, she was reluctant to face a new day, although a glance at her watch told her that the day was already half gone. Plagued by scary dreams, she had awakened several times during the night. Each time, Drake had been there beside her, his voice lulling her back to sleep. Odd, that finding him in her bed hadn’t frightened her, considering all she had learned.
With a sigh of exasperation, she flopped over onto her back. A quick glance showed that she was alone in bed. Well, not exactly alone. Smoke lay on Drake’s pillow, regarding her through half-closed eyes.
Elena turned onto her side, her chin pillowed on her hand. “So, cat, whatever am I to do? How can I stay here with him, knowing what he is? How can I ever trust him?”
The cat blinked at her, then yawned, revealing very white, very sharp teeth.
Elena stared at the cat, and the memory of how Drake’s fangs had looked when he’d bent over one of the robbers rose in her mind. His teeth, too, had been very sharp and very white.
She shook the image away. All felines—and vampires, she supposed—came equipped with very sharp, very white teeth.
After slipping out of bed, she washed her face and hands, brushed her hair and her teeth, then pulled on her khaki shorts and a T-shirt and went downstairs. She was too upset to eat. Instead, she paced the great hall and then, on impulse, she went to the front door, which still refused to open.
She uttered every swear word she knew, but it didn’t make her feel any better, and the darn thing still didn’t open.
Turning away, she practically tripped over the cat. “Must you always be underfoot?” she muttered irritably.
“Meow.”
Sidestepping around the cat, Elena made her way to the kitchen’s back door. Maybe it would open today. Working in the garden might help to calm her nerves, help her to think of what to do next.
She wasn’t surprised when the door still refused to open.
“This is so unfair!” She shook the handle with both hands, and then, her frustration rising, she kicked the door. “I feel like I’m suffocating in here!”
“Meow.”
“Oh, go away.”
But the cat didn’t go away. Slipping between her legs, the big gray tom lifted one paw and gave the door a push.
And it swung open.
With another meow, the cat darted outside.
Elena stared after the remarkable creature for several minutes. Truly, it was a most unusual cat. Drake admitted to being a vampire. Was he a warlock, as well? Everyone knew witches often kept cats as familiars. But he had said he didn’t own a cat. She frowned. Maybe it was just semantics. Or maybe, she thought with a rueful grin, the cat owned Drake.
With a shake of her head, Elena stepped over the threshold. She didn’t care if the cat possessed some kind of feline mojo or not. All that mattered was that she was outside.
She took a deep breath of the clean, fresh air as she glanced at the high walls that surrounded the castle. There must be a gate. Maybe she had missed it the first time she’d looked. Starting at the corner nearest the house, she made a slow exploration of the wall, but there was no gate, no trellis, no way out. If only she had a ladder.
With a shrug, Elena found the gloves she had worn before and set to work on another patch of weeds. She tried to keep her mind blank as she knelt in the dirt, but, perhaps inevitably, Drake intruded on her thoughts. He was a vampire. It was impossible but true. Try as she might, Elena couldn’t decide how she felt about him now, although, in truth, she had never been certain what to think of him. He was unlike any man she had ever met. Of course, she hadn’t met very many men, especially men who were five hundred years old.
She wasn’t surprised when the cat appeared. Sitting in the shade of an old oak tree, it watched her with a faintly bored expression.
“Too bad you can’t make yourself useful,” Elena muttered. “This would go a lot faster if I had some help.”
With a flick of his tail, the cat curled up and closed its eyes.
An hour or so later, Elena decided she needed a rest. Rising, she stretched her back and shoulders. The exercise had done her good. Feeling suddenly hungry, she peeled off her gloves and dropped them on the iron bench.
Smoke trailed her into the house.
Elena glared at the cat. “You are such a pest. Can’t you find something else to do besides follow me around?”
A loud “meow” was her only answer.
In the kitchen, Elena washed and dried her hands. As always, Drake had provided her with a tasty meal. Whatever faults he might have, he always made sure she had plenty to eat. Sometimes he left her prepared meals; sometimes just the ingredients.
Munching on a slice of bread smothered in butter and honey, she wondered if he ever missed real food—meat and potatoes, fresh peas and corn, hamburgers and hot dogs, potato salad, freshly baked bread warm from the oven, cakes and cookies, pie and ice cream, grapes and strawberries, malts and sodas and all the other good things to eat and drink that she took for granted.
She lingered at the table, her thoughts drifting. She wondered how long Drake was going to keep her here. Now that she knew what he was, would he ever let her out of the castle again? Take her to the city again?
She lifted a hand to her throat. He had admitted to tasting her. Was that why he kept her here? How much was “a taste”? How could she sleep through such a thing?
So many unanswered questions. She pushed them out of her mind. She would think about all that later. Right now, she was going back outside.
Rising, she headed for the garden, the cat at her heels.
Muttering, “Silly beast,” Elena made her way toward the iron bench. Grabbing her gloves, she pulled them on while she regarded the ground she had cleared earlier. It looked barren now.
Returning to the shed, she found a shovel and began to dig up one of the rosebushes, intending to replant it in the newly turned plot of ground.
She dug a wide hole around the bush, then reached down and gently pulled the roots out of the earth. A bit of blue-and-white striped cloth was tangled in the roots. Taking hold of the cloth, she gave it a yank. . . .
And screamed when a desiccated hand appeared, tangled in the material.
Elena stared at the skeletal hand and at the small blue stone ring on one finger for several seconds, then dropped to her knees, retching. Jenica had been wearing a dress made from that very same cloth the last time Elena had seen her.
Smoke padded up beside her. The cat took one look at the contents of the hole, hissed softly, and ran into the castle.
Moments later, Drake appeared at her side. “Elena, what is it?”
She looked up at him, sobbing, then pointed at the grisly find. “It’s . . . it’s . . . Jenica. . . .”
Lifting Elena to her feet, Drake drew her into his arms. He didn’t have to look into the hole to know what was there. The stench of death and decay was sharp in his nostrils. “Are you sure it is her?”
“She . . . when she ran away . . . she was . . . was wearing a dress made out of that same cloth. Uncle Tavian,” she said, hiccuping, “he bought her the dress for her birthday. And the ring . . . it was a gift from her mother.”
“Come inside and sit down.”
She looked up at him through tear-filled eyes. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Come inside,” he repeated, leading her toward the back door. “I’ll unearth the rest of the remains. We need to make sure it is your cousin.”
After settling Elena on the sofa and covering her with a blanket, Drake returned to the garden. In his five hundred years, he had seen death in all its forms and he studied Jenica’s corpse dispassionately. An examination of the body showed she had died of a broken neck. He frowned as he detected Dinescu’s scent on the body. It proved nothing, of course. She had lived in the man’s house.
Squatting on his heels, he recalled reading in the local paper that there had been speculation that Jenica Dinescu had eloped with one of the neighbor boys. He remembered Jenica as being a quiet, frightened child, too timid to run away from home. Odd that Elena had never mentioned that her cousin had eloped. Drake grunted thoughtfully. Was the boy also buried here?
Rising, Drake brushed the dirt from his hands as he debated what to do with the body. There weren’t a lot of options. He could rebury it here, wrap it in a blanket and take it to Dinescu to gauge his reaction, or drop it off at the local undertaker.
