Aaron was in his lair, well beneath the main house when quite suddenly, he was awake. No one, not even Duncan, could get into those rooms without his permission, but something, or someone, had woken him from his deep, healing sleep.

"Who's there? Where are you?" He sat up cautiously, pulling the silk sheet over his bare body.

"I am Melody, Mistress of Light, and Keeper of All Magic. I have a need of you, Aaron Xavier MacMa.n.u.s, and would like to speak to you privately, please."

The room suddenly became ablaze with candle light. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the soft glow, Aaron spied a tiny woman sitting, well, on closer inspection, floating above the arm chair across the room from his bed.

"How did you get in here?" Or better yet, he thought, why are you here in my lair?

"Actually, I'm not really here. I'm in Nevada, Reno actually. Have you ever been there? It's very hot, but the room I have is quite lovely. I'll only be there for a short time more before I move back to Molavonta." She smiled at him. "I'm hiding, you see. I wanted to see you, to see your worth before I came to talk to you personally. I hope you don't mind."

She got up and floated toward the dresser closest to where she sat. He watched as she leaned down and looked at the photos on it.

Most of the pictures had been taken by Duncan. They were of him and his friends over the centuries. His favorite one, the one of him and Duncan together in the early nineteen hundreds, she now held in her hand.

"You aren't here, yet you can see me and I you," Aaron said, more to himself than to her. "You can pick up things too. How is that even possible?"

After setting the gold frame back down on the dresser, she moved over to the suit of armor that graced the far corner of the room. He had worn that particular suit during the Crusades in the thirteenth century when he fought for the Holy Land versus Muslims. He had been a Templar Knight. He had just avoided being arrested with Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and sixty of his senior knights in Paris that night on October thirteenth.

The men and Jacques had been charged with heresy and accused of h.o.m.os.e.xual acts, crimes punishable by death. The admissions of guilt were extracted with the use of torture. The Pope initiated inquiries into the order and thousands of Knights Templar were arrested across Europe. Aaron had been away in America and not a part of the group that fateful night. When word had reached him of what happened, it was too late for him to help. He kept the armor as part of respect for the last Master of the Knights.

"I'm magic," she told him without turning. "It's as simple as that. You are Sara's vampire, are you not? She didn't tell me how big you were, but then she isn't very little herself, is she? I've come to talk to you about her."

"Sara told you about me?" Aaron didn't like the sound of that. "Not everything she said can be held against me. She and I haven't seen eye to eye on much since our acquaintance. Really, I don't think we've agreed on one thing since we've met. Did you know that she is living in her car? Stupid girl, what does she want? To get killed? Well, that could be her intention, as she has asked me to end her life before. But she did say that it was a lapse in judgment, so perhaps she's changed her mind about that." He stopped talking when he realized the woman was staring at him quite alarmingly. Oh, maybe she did not know about his and Sara's little conversation when they met.

"I do now, thank you. Did she tell you who beat her up? No, I can see that she didn't. I won't either. Tell you, I mean, at least not until I get to know you a little better. As a matter of fact, I only just found out myself, by accident." She sat over the chair again. "Now, I want to tell you a few things, ask you some others, and see what we can come up with, vamp."

He leaned back on the headboard to his bed. He figured they were going to be a while if they were going to try and understand Sara. The woman across from him laughed.

"You might be right on that. But she is a good person." Mel grinned. "And quite stubborn, too. She will make you a good mate if you want her."

"You read minds too." He marveled how he had not felt the slightest intrusion from her touch. Then he realized something else. "You're the one she's protecting out West."

"Very good, vamp. Yes. Sara's been hiding me away for some time now. She's been waiting for me to heal, to get stronger," she told him. "Sara has sacrificed so much to keep me safe. Now I'd like to make sure she is safe as well."

He stiffened at that. Sara was his to protect. Sara was his. "Tell me who is beating her. I'm a.s.suming it's the same one she's protecting you from, right?" Mel nodded at his question. "She's mine to...Sara's my mate, as you've said. I need to protect her." He felt her this time. Her touch moved through his mind, through his memories. He let her.

"Well Aaron Xavier MacMa.n.u.s, let's you and I talk about the stubbornly beautiful Sara Temple, shall we?" Then she looked away from him for a moment. "You will know that the man she is protecting me from isn't her only tormentor. I will not give you the other because it is not safe for too many others just yet."

It was nearly sunset when she faded away. Aaron fell into a deep sleep once again, wondering as he drifted off, if it had all been a dream.

"Is she here?" Aaron asked Duncan as soon as he had walked in the kitchen. Aaron felt...rejuvenated and alive, like he had gotten a shiny new toy for Christmas. Too bad this toy was extremely powerful and p.i.s.sed off at him as well. Well, he thought, she had really left him with nothing more to do than he'd done.

"You gave her little to no choice in the matter, my lord," Duncan told him with a sad look. "You had a werewolf pick her up and bring her here as if she was something you picked from a catalog. Of course she is here."

"I couldn't let her live in her car, Duncan. I isn't safe. Not even for her. Surely you can see that? I had to do something. Did William have any trouble with her?"

Aaron had met William Daniels a few months ago while out walking in the moonlight. He had been stalking a deer on the property just beyond his. William had shifted to human from wolf as soon as he had seen Aaron coming toward him. It was a courtesy to let one supernatural know that you were not hiding to cause the other harm. Aaron had been using him as muscle ever since.

"No, sir. No trouble whatsoever. He said that he had never enjoyed doing an errand so much and that he thought about paying you to let him fetch you a human more often. I did explain to him the circ.u.mstances surrounding the 'fetching' of the young miss. It upset him a bit that she had been out when he could have been keeping an eye on her. He said that she is too...let me see...'too prime to be out alone.' He was quite taken with the little miss, it seems."

"Hummm, so long as he's taken with her from a distance, I don't care. Duncan, there is something I've been meaning to tell you for a few days now. It's about Sara. I know you like her. I'm glad for that. I don't know for sure, but, well..."

"She's your mate, sire?"

Aaron looked up sharply at the man. Duncan really had become quite wily indeed. "I... How did...yes." Aaron threw his hands into the air. "I believe Sara is my mate. Why is that the first guess everyone makes concerning her and I?"

"How do you feel about that, sir, if you do not mind my asking?" It was a good question, one he had been asking himself for two days.

"I don't know. Ask me after tonight. That is if I'm still alive. She may be the death of me yet." He patted his good friend on the back and went in search of Sara.

*CHAPTER FOURTEEN*.

Sara was just getting into of the huge garden tub in the bathroom when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway. There was only one person she could think of who walked like that, and she really did not want to see him. Not now-likely, not ever.

As she lay in the warm water, she thought about Aaron. Did she really hate him? Yes...no...maybe. Okay, maybe she didn't hate him, but she didn't like him either. At least she didn't want to like him. He was overbearing and arrogant. But he did have her safety in mind. And he was incredibly handsome and sweet-sometimes. There were times when he was yelling at her, she never knew whether she really wanted to smack him or pull him into her arms and...what? Strangle him? Possibly. It sounded like a good idea. She could see herself wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers touching the back of his hair, squeezing him until he came close to her. Her mouth, maybe.

Frustrated, she got out of the tub and began drying herself vigorously. d.a.m.ned man had her so upset she didn't know which way was up or down. And now...and now he was coming into the room.

The bedroom to which she had been taken when she arrived this afternoon was different than the one that she had been in previously. This one was elegant and bright. Not that the other room wasn't nice, but this room, she loved.

The bed was an oversized king canopy with an ecru-colored lacey cover over the top. The four posts that held it in place were dark cherry and fashioned with pineapples carved into them just at eye level. The coverlet was done in an array of pinks and purple velvets, and then accented with embroidered flowers at each corner of the six by six squares. The furniture was also cherry, a large dresser she thought was called a highboy, and a vanity with a smallish chair with a cushion that was covered in the same pattern as the spread. There were no curtains adorning the three floor-to-ceiling windows. In their place were shutters of the same dark cherry as the furniture. The hardwood floor had a beautiful wool rug that had the same motif as the rest of the room. Sara was just tying the white chenille robe when Aaron stepped through the open door.

"Are you still angry with me?" She ignored his question. "You have to realize, Sara, how lucky you were that you'd not been raped or murdered out there alone."

She just glared at him and walked to the vanity and sat down. "I'm getting dressed, go away."

She had made the decision while trying to relax in the tub to no longer be polite to him. It was dangerous, she thought. Not that she had been over effervescent to begin with, but now she was not holding back, d.a.m.n it. She thought it might be necessary to keep her sanity.

"I've come to talk to you," he said as he sat on the bed. "There are a few things we have to work out, like what I expect from you." Sara did not acknowledge him in anyway, but continued to brush her long hair. "Ah, so we are going to be childish, are we? Fine, I'll do the talking."

"There's a big surprise," she said softly. She knew he heard her. There was nothing wrong with his hearing.

"At precisely six o'clock I will be back in here to escort you downstairs. You will be ready to receive guests with me. What I want from you is anything you might feel from the people in the room. I don't care how mundane you feel it is. I want to know about it. You feed me the information through telepathy and none will be the wiser. Any questions?" She didn't answer him. "No? Fine. I'll see you in two hours." He turned and left.

Minutes after he left her to her bath, Mel contacted her.

"h.e.l.lo, Little Warrior. Tonight is your big date, is it not? I so wish I could see you in your gown in person."

"You know it's not a date. Something's wrong. What's the matter, you never contact me this time of day?" She suddenly had visions of Sherman finding out where his mate was and killing everyone on site.

"Everything is fine, I'm fine. I left the nursing home yesterday. I'm now in Molavonta. I'm safe. I've sealed myself in my high tower, and will stay here until I'm able to come to you. I'll be where you are in two days." Sara relaxed a little, but tensed at her next words. "Sara, you will need to make time to talk with me. It is imperative that we get things in order before Sherman finds out that I'm back in the Kingdom of Molavonta again. Things need to be finalized, you understand me?"

"Yes, I understand." Sara did not like her tone, or what she was saying. But she was her queen.

"I will see you on Sunday at sunset then. I want you not to worry, little one. I'm very strong now. You've done well. Have fun this evening and be the belle of the ball." The connection closed with a mental hug from Mel. Sara couldn't help but smile at the feeling it evoked in her heart.

At ten to six, just as Aaron was heading up the stairs to get Sara, Duncan came from the kitchen with a message for him.

"The little miss called. It seems she's having some difficulty with her clothing. She asks that you would please give her a few minutes and she will be down shortly."

"What kind of clothing problems? She's wearing her dress, isn't she? Please tell me it's not her flight clothes? That would be just like her, to p.i.s.s me off, you know?" He thought that if she did come down in her uniform, it would be no less than he deserved. He had been a rude overbearing a.s.s to her all day.

"I'm sure I don't know, my lord. She said that she will be down, for you not to get your, I believe she called them 'panties' in a twist and start pounding on the door. She said that it would not make it any easier for her to figure things out." Aaron was sure there was more to what Duncan was telling him, but decided that he would let it go.

At twelve after the hour, Aaron started up the stairs to get her. Guests would be arriving soon, and he wanted her beside him. In what capacity, he just wasn't sure yet.

The mistress from this afternoon told him he must decide if he wanted her for his mate, that she needed to get Sara together with someone who would be a partner to her for life. She could just as easily sever that potential bond before it was too late for either of them if he did not want her. Did he? He was not any closer to knowing the answer to that than he had been earlier.

Aaron heard her speaking before he saw her. Which was a good thing or he may have fallen on his face without the extra few seconds of warning. As it was, he gripped hard on the banister and watched as she made her way down the long, winding staircase, her heels clicking on the stone steps.

"I know, I know, I'm late, but I had trouble with this bra thingy. A torture device, if you ask me. It has twenty-two eye hooks up the front. And since I didn't try it on in the shop, I wasn't sure how to put it on." As she spoke, her arms moved and made her b.r.e.a.s.t.s move as well. He could feel the drool forming on his tongue. "Then if that isn't bad enough, it's mashing my entire bosom into a puffed up ma.s.s to have it spill out of the flippin' thing. Once I got the stupid thing on, I realized I needed to take it off again. Have you ever tried to pull on stockings with b.o.o.bs in your face? Not possible, let me warn you. Of course they aren't the regular panty hose either. Oh no, they're these sheer socks that pull up to the mid-thigh. How I'm expected to keep them up all night is beyond me! Then back into the iron maiden thing. It's not that I don't like the dress and shoes, but just look at these things. Why one wants to walk on their toes like this all night is beyond stupid."

Sara had been walking down the grand stair case as she ranted. Aaron watched each step she took, looking at whatever she had been going on about at the time; bosom, chest exposure, legs. Now she stood before him, one step up so that they were eye level. She was looking at him expectantly while waiting for him to make a comment about the state of her shoes she was now showing him-or some other nonsense; he simply could not remember what she had been saying. She was his. All his, and he needed to stake his claim right now.

When she dropped the hem of the dress and stood up, he reached out and cupped his hand behind her neck, pulling her into his embrace, into his kiss. Mine, was all he thought before he covered his mouth with hers and devoured her.

Aaron tasted her lips, pulling the lower one into his mouth, and then ran his tongue along the seam, requesting permission to enter. She leaned into him and allowed him in.

"Aaron, please," she begged, whispering desperately through his mind. He answered her by pulling her tighter against him, slipping his thigh between her legs, and cupping her a.s.s with his other hand and pulling her harder against his c.o.c.k. Need was a living, breathing thing between them now, and it was not going to be denied, he thought.

Neither seemed to realize nor care that there were people standing around them in the entrance hall, their sudden need overpowering all reason. When Colin cleared his throat for the third time, Aaron reluctantly pulled away, but did not release Sara.

"Shall we turn everyone away, or can you two hold off until everyone is gone? Just say the word, and I'll get rid of everyone who comes to the door." Aaron turned to look at his best friend and saw his c.o.c.ky grin. He smiled when Colin winked at Sara.

Aaron turned back to look at the woman in his arms who was currently turning several shades of red from her embarra.s.sment at getting caught practically making love on the stairs. He had no doubt whatsoever that that would have been where they would have ended up had they not been interrupted.

"No, Mr. Larimore, that won't be necessary." She blushed deeper when Aaron pulled her tighter in his arms. "I don't know what came over me. I must have slipped. Yes, that's it. Thank you, Mr. Mac, Aaron, for catching me. I'm okay now. Let's get this over with, shall we?"

Before she could take a step away from him, he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her again. "Make no mistake, Sara love, you did not fall, and we are going to finish this tonight." He kissed her again, and then pulled away from her with a great deal of reluctance.

When the first guests arrived, Sara had not left his side, not that she could have as he had not let go of her hand once since they had kissed on the stairs. She was relaying him information automatically and without much thought as to what she was telling him. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and laughed.

"When I said to tell me everything, love, I thought you'd just send me snippets of information, not life stories." Sara had just finished telling Aaron about a woman's, Abby Allen's, one-sided conversation with herself about her and her mate's horrible experience just that evening and the human they had encountered. The human had touched Abby and she was sure that she smelled just like the human, all scented up with cheap perfume and body odor. Sara had been giving Aaron her opinions right along with the story.

"I'm sorry. I know you said everything, but I'm sure you didn't mean that mundane," she groused at him.

"No, probably not." He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. He watched as her pupils dilated. "But it is fun to watch and hear you get all fl.u.s.tered."

No one could guess the couple was talking to each other. They likely just a.s.sumed that Sara was told to be silent, and she was obeying. She was nothing more than a snack for the master anyway, and a very nice-looking snack at that.

"I'm not fl.u.s.tered, thank you very much. I'm reflective."

"Oh, and what's the difference? Because I have to tell you, I've never been more fl.u.s.tered in my life. All I can think about doing right now is throwing you against the nearest wall, lifting your dress, and seeing what other delights you have under there." He pulled her closer to him and nipped at her neck. "You never told me about what your panties are like. I know about your stockings, which I will take great delight in removing from you one leg at a time, rolling them down, inch by incredible inch, kissing the exposed skin as I go. Then there are those enticing twenty-two eye hooks that I can't wait to open one at a time until your breast spill out into my hands and my mouth. Oh sweetheart, I want to suckle on your nipples until you come."

"Oh my," She whispered to him breathlessly.

"Yes, my dear, 'oh my' about covers it for now."

Aaron could not wait to have her beneath him, riding him, naked with him, and after the last two hours of people falling at his feet, he wanted to taste her in the worse way and he was not waiting any longer, d.a.m.n it. He began making his way to the nearest room with a door and a lock. His strides made short work of the otherwise long trek across the grand hall, dragging her right along with him. When they got to the powder room just off the main hall, he pulled her in behind him and shut the door. He jerked her body to his and was kissing her before she could speak, much less protest.

G.o.d, he wanted her. It was several seconds of heavy breathing and heated kisses later when he heard the door lock engage. He pulled back from her and grinned. "Good girl," he said before he lifted her up by her bottom, sat her on the vanity of the small room, and positioned himself between her legs. When she hooked her ankles together behind him and around his hips, he nearly cried with relief. But kissing her was no longer enough. No, not nearly enough at all.

"Sara, I want you now. I need to be inside of you. But this isn't the time or the place to make love to you. Let me taste of you, baby, please?"

Without waiting for a reply, he dropped down to the toilet seat, pulled her forward to the edge of the sink, and began lifting the dress up her legs. He watched every inch he exposed of her legs, knowing that paradise was just a foot or two away. When he ran his hand up her thigh and encountered her skin left bare by the top of her stockings, he nearly whimpered with his need to touch more of her. His hands traveled further, cupping her bared a.s.s cheeks in each hand, pulling her to him. He could smell her; her juices were already soaking her panties through. He could almost taste the nectar that was his and his alone. He didn't go for seduction. He couldn't, his need, their need, was too high. He bit through the tiny sc.r.a.p of lace and ripped it away. Finally, he thought, what he wanted, her. Aaron tilted her hips, leaned his head forward, and took his first taste of her creamy, wet flesh.

"Please, Aaron..." she begged him.

"Soon, baby, soon. I want you to come for me. Let me feel you come against my mouth. I want to taste your c.u.m. Now, Sara, now-come for me!"

With a scream tearing from deep in her throat, she came hard, nearly squeezing Aaron's head off from the tightening of her legs around it. He kept tasting her and taking her rich cream into his body until she fell back against the mirror over the sink. He stood up, pulling his pants open as he did, and his erection jumped forward toward her.

"Sara, touch me, touch me now." As she reached out for his c.o.c.k, he took her hand in his and wrapped it around his hard shaft, showing her what he needed for her to do. The moment her hot hand touched his c.o.c.k, he knew that he couldn't last. He moved against her with each downward stroke of her hand, kissing her deeply, and thinking about what it was going to feel like once it was his c.o.c.k inside of her deliciously hot p.u.s.s.y. He began sending her mental pictures of what they were going to do once he got her alone in his bed.

As she started sending him her own mental pictures of her need, she moved her mouth down his jaw just below the collar of his shirt, and bit. His body jerked as her teeth, while not breaking skin, clamped down on the vein in his throat. That was all it took. His fangs, already elongated from his need of her, burst forward and he struck quickly, opening the vein at her creamy neck, and came, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. in her hand while her hot blood filled his mouth. When he pulled hard on her throat with his mouth, sucking more of her richness into him, she came, and with each draw from her vein, Sara came again and again until she fainted dead away from the intense pleasure.

She was out only a few seconds, but it was long enough for him to worry he might have hurt her in some way.

"Are you all right, love?"

"No, I don't think I'll ever be right again. That was incredible! I never knew...I mean I'd heard, but...I...did you...I mean I know you, you know...but did you, you know...?"

Aaron burst out laughing. He didn't think he had ever been so happy. "Yes, sweetheart, I did. And yes, that was the most incredible experience of my life as well. I can't wait to take you to my bed and experience so many more incredible things with you."

"Now?" She leaned forward to kiss him as she asked.

"As much as I'd like to, Sara, we have a house full of guests, most of which will still need to see me before sunrise. Come with me and let's get this over with so we can be alone."

Aaron pulled away from her reluctantly and began to straighten her and himself up. He didn't know how to hide the stain that was now down the front of his shirt and her dress, but Sara simply swiped her hand down over the area and they were both as pristine as when they'd came into the little bathroom, if not a little more relaxed with each other.

*CHAPTER FIFTEEN*.

Aaron and Sara had become quite the topic of conversation once they returned from the powder room. Every vampire in the room could smell Sara all over the master. There was also much speculation on what she was exactly.

"This lady is afraid you'll ask for more money. Good heavens! You can take that much from each of your people?"

Sara had gotten much better at filtering out the information before she fed it to him, she thought. She was not sending him as much useless stuff and more tidbits of thoughts they were having.

"I only take a percentage of what they make. It all goes into a fund for the alliance, minus two percent for my expenses. Why, how much are you talking about?" Sara stood by Aaron and watched yet another vamp pledge their solidarity to him.

"She was giving the other master forty percent of their total income from their businesses. Sheesh. And the amount came to sixty thousand per year. Sixty thousand? Are you kidding me?" Sara was amazed at the amount. Especially when she considered there were times when she would go for days without food in order to pay her meager bills.