Her eyes, heavy with desire after their kiss, rose in his mind. They beckoned, and then suddenly widened with horror and shock.
Fear.
He’d pulled back by now, enough that the sticky heat of body against body had lessened. Voss heard his own breathing in a room that had become nearly silent. It rasped unsteadily and he hated the weakness it portended.
The throb at the back of his shoulder pounded harder. Insistent. Go…go…go.
Take.
Dull pain turned burning and sharp and reminded him that he had no reason for such deprivation. No reason to resist, to deny himself.
Nothing to fear.
Voss turned back to the woman. Easy, familiar relief.
Not Angelica.
The blaze shocked him and Voss gasped. Luce’s dark soul. The devil wanted him to do it. To take her.
Angelica.
Not now, he told himself. And his Mark. Not yet. After I get what I need. After she does what I need.
Then he would take.
Ignoring the pain, driving it away, he lunged for the softness of the woman, buried himself, his senses, his mind, in the moment as he had done so many times before.
Later, sometime much later, he woke, naked, amid twisted sheets stained with blood. He remembered, vaguely, the dark-haired woman. And the blonde after her and the other brunette. The desperate need, the thirst he’d tried to quench. Over and over.
Then…dark dreams he’d tried to avoid, the face of Brickbank. His impaled body. Even the wisp of his soul, spiraling away in the darkness. Horrifying.
Of Angelica, white and sleek. Dark-eyed, tempting, begging.
And Lucifer.
In his dreams?
Voss sat up, his head pounding as if he’d drank a full bottle of blood whiskey.
Bloody damned hell.
Lucifer had only visited him in his dreams once before. The night he’d come to offer his unholy bargain, the temptation of a lifetime.
Slender and dark of hair, bright blue of eyes, pointed of chin and jaw and angular of body, Lucifer wasn’t unpleasant to look at. But nor was looking upon him easy or comfortable. There was too much darkness behind those shocking blue eyes.
Sunlight seeped from behind the heavy shutters and curtains in his room and Voss stared at the shape it cast. The last time he’d touched sunlight had been the morning after Lucifer’s nocturnal visit.
He hadn’t realized what it would do to him. He hadn’t realized the dream, the covenant, had been real.
He hadn’t been touched by a sunbeam since.
A cold chill settled over him. Why had Luce appeared in his dream? To remind him of the unholy bargain they’d made?
He could remember nothing but his presence, his spectral face. Smiling that easy, smug smile that said he knew a man’s every desire. And that he could fulfill it in every way.
Voss’s legs felt weak and when he moved to haul himself out of bed, the skin and muscle beneath his right shoulder protested with pain. As he turned, he saw the Mark in a mirror and paused…trapped by the sight.
Not like Dimitri’s, whose Mark was black and so thick and raised it seemed to visibly throb. But Voss’s was certainly more prominent than he’d ever seen it.
The ache was bearable, but insistent and penetrating. He moved his arm gingerly, then reached behind to touch the marks. Normally he felt no difference between the black rootlike insignia and his flesh, but now there was a slight swelling and a bit of warmth there.
Voss turned away from the reflection and rang for a bath. He wouldn’t go to Angelica sweaty and dirty from his night of blind pleasure.
But nor did he feel remorse for taking what he needed and craved. It was his right, his compulsion. His compensation from Lucifer: never-ending, unrepentant self-indulgence.
He wouldn’t hurt her; he wasn’t like Cezar Moldavi who caused pain simply for the sake of it, as a revenge for all of the pain inflicted on him during his mortal years.
No, he wouldn’t hurt Angelica. But he would have her.
And he wouldn’t wait much longer.
Dimitri was tired and annoyed. Not particularly in that order. Definitely not in that order.
In fact, annoyed wasn’t a strong enough word for how he was feeling. Livid. That was it.
He glared down at the figure standing between him and his only chance at a modicum of relief. No.
He felt murderous.
“What is it, Miss Woodmore?” he asked. It was clear that the eldest of his new charges wasn’t going to allow him to pass to his study unless she spoke to him. And, from the looks of her stubborn expression, at great length.
She had obviously found the time to change from last night’s appalling Hatshepsut costume, and, presumably, to rest a bit. At least, that was what her maid had reported, via Dimitri’s valet. Once assured that Angelica was not only safe, but would be returning to Blackmont Hall later that morning, Miss Woodmore had felt able to take a bit of repose. Perhaps even a bath, if the spicy floral scent emanating from her hair was any indication.
But Dimitri had spent the last hours of the night and well into the day (for it was now several hours past noon) attending to everything from Belial and his footpads—and their vain attempt to breach Blackmont Hall—to ensuring that the real story of what happened at the masquerade ball was obscured and stifled. A few hints dropped about a bit of playacting at the masquerade gone awry, a few twists of facts into something believable along with the altering of a number of stubborn memories, and several visits to men’s clubs to blank out more memories—and all was taken care of.
And now here stood Miss Woodmore, fresh-faced and accusing.
“It’s nearly four o’clock, Corvindale. I would like you to tell me precisely where Angelica is,” she told him. “And when she is going to arrive here. But most of all, I require assurance that she is safe.”
How could this slip of a woman who smelled like spicy flowers manage to fill the entire corridor? He hadn’t a prayer of brushing past and ignoring her insulting insinuations.
No, Miss Woodmore would not be ignored.
“Your sister will arrive here at Blackmont Hall when I am convinced it is safe for her to do so,” he told Miss Woodmore. And when he located the chit and her abductor.
He steeled himself against the rush of anger. He had a variety of reasons for disliking and mistrusting Voss. But now he had reason to kill the man.
Lucifer be damned.
The irony of that thought was not lost on him, but Dimitri had no inclination toward amusement at the moment. He had too many distractions to which he must attend, not to mention that he expected Giordan Cale to arrive at any moment.
“Is that all?” he asked, managing to keep the hope from his voice.
She lifted her pointed little chin and gave him a definite glare. “No, it is not. In fact, I wished to speak with you in regard to your conduct last evening.” He realized with a start that she was taller than he’d realized, her head nearly reaching to his chin.
“My conduct?” Dimitri was fully aware that the tone of his voice was such that a less insistent individual would turn tail and run. His head had begun to pound and, on top of that, he noticed a shaft of sunlight pouring into the corridor beyond. Someone had uncovered the windows, blast it.
“Not only was it abhorrent and crude, but you didn’t even take the moment to explain or apologize before shoving Mirabella and myself into a carriage and sending us off.”
“Indeed.”
“There was simply no reason for you to put your hands on me—” her voice dipped a bit as if she were infuriated or overcome “—and toss me out onto the balcony like some sort of—”
Dimitri matched her glare with his own. “In fact, I had sufficient reason for doing so. The least of which was the fact that you would not have obeyed me.”
“If you had simply explained—”
“There was no time for explanations, even if I had believed you might have heeded them, Miss Woodmore. You would have ignored them just as you have everything else since arriving here, including keeping the windows in this house shrouded, my library in order, and my preference not to be bothered.”
She didn’t step back, despite the fact that his voice had risen to a near-bellow. “If you had simply explained that we were in danger and there was no time for discussion, I would have heeded your warning.”
Dimitri didn’t bother to hide his irritation and considered simply walking away, pushing past her and finding sanctuary. But before he could respond, she drew in a deep breath and continued, unfortunately along a vein in which he would have preferred to avoid.
“In addition to an apology, I believe it isn’t asking overly much to request an explanation for what happened last evening. I understand that Angelica and I were in danger, but I would like to know why and from whom or what. And how it happened that you arrived in time to prevent whatever the outcome might have been…regardless of the clumsy manner in which you executed it.”
Dimitri relaxed slightly. Then she hadn’t realized he’d been there all along. He’d taken pains not to be noticed, of course, except for that one foolish indulgence on the dance floor…and after. “Clumsy manner?” he repeated, aggravation superseding his relief.
She made an exasperated sound and an elegant feminine gesture with her gloved hand. She had a very delicate wrist. “You pushed me out onto the balcony, wrapped up in curtains. Can you not give me the courtesy of telling me why?”
“Because there were some very bad men who want to take you away,” Dimitri told her without moving his jaw. “That is why your blasted brother snared me into being your guardian. Because he knew there was no one else who could keep you safe.”
“Please, my lord, you sound like a character in one of those Gothic novels by Mrs. Radcliffe, making all sorts of Byzantine comments and cryptic warnings. If you would cease these ambiguous statements and simply tell me what is happening—”
“What then? You would accept my explanations and my orders without question?”
For a moment he thought her lips quivered—either from humor or, Fate forbid it, from some other emotion. “Certainly not. But at least you wouldn’t feel the necessity to wrap me up and throw me onto the balcony.”
