They began to dance. Again and again he let her strike home, absorbing her kicks and punches into his body, showing almost no reaction. He struck at her, not so much to hit her as to force her to block. He wanted to tire her out.

She pivoted on one foot and sent a roundhouse kick toward his head. He ducked and caught her foot, yanking her off balance. She spun free of his grasp, twirling horizontal to the ground and landing on her feet. But even as she did, he was behind her, trying to catch her arms. She snapped her head back to smash his nose. He lurched but did not let go. Together they tumbled backward into the pool.

Opening her eyes underwater, the first thing she saw was a rosy red cloud blossoming around his head. Finding bottom, she shot out of the water, panicked, swiping the tainted water from her face. He surfaced, his face twisted with bitterness and green with pool light.

"What's wrong? Afraid to join me in h.e.l.l?"

Using his fingernail, he slashed a vein open in his wrist and snapped his arm in her direction. She turned her head, sealing her mouth while the hot spray pelted her face. He grabbed her by the ears and tried to kiss her with his blood-smeared lips. She slammed her knee into his b.a.l.l.s, and followed it with an upper cut to his solar plexus.

Alya was strong as sin and slippery as an eel. Whenever he grabbed her she turned boneless, impossible to hold. Once she broke free, she was all sharp blows and cutting edges.

Now that he'd tasted her and he knew exactly how strong she was, he calculated his odds of winning as being just above half. To her core she was made of steel and ambition. He'd heard her mind. All she thought about were different ways to kill him.

But he didn't regret giving in to his hunger. After thirty years spent in fog and shadow, tasting her had been like drinking pure light.

For the hundredth time she broke from his grasp. This time she sprang out of the pool and ran for the house. Ran for her weapons.

He pursued, expecting knives. She met him at the door with a shotgun blast. Luck kept him alive. Luck and his fantastically expensive bulletproof shirt. He dove behind her sofa, and rolled behind the fireplace. He couldn't stay there for long.

"Marry this, you son of a b.i.t.c.h." She pumped the shotgun.

He leapt over her dining room table, pulling it over with him just in time to deflect the blast. He picked out the route he'd take to the long hall. Knew it led to her kitchen from studying her floor plan. Didn't know what he'd find in her kitchen, but hoped for knives.

"I didn't come here to hurt you." As he said it, he picked up a broken vase and tossed it to the left while he dove right. She fired at the vase first, giving him time to reach the hall.

The next blast blew a hole in the wall between them. He sprinted for the kitchen. It was stocked for humans. For her lovers. Gritting his teeth at the memory of her riding that skinny, pathetic human boy, he grabbed a butcher knife, ripped the fire extinguisher off the wall and pulled the pin.

Poking his head around the corner, he saw her advancing down the hall, confident behind her big gun. He stepped out, spraying the fire extinguisher, blinding her.

Flipping the canister around, he clocked her under the chin with its b.u.t.t end. Her rifle blew another hole in the wall. He clocked her a second time and the rifle dropped from her hands Disarmed, she bolted to the living room. Mikhail followed, holding the fire extinguisher and the butcher knife, and found her pulling a decorative scimitar from the wall. Holding the hilt in a two-handed grip, she swiped the blade through the air. It made a wicked wooshing sound. He sighed. It was real.

"I'm tired of you, Faustin."

Tell me about it. He presented his weapons. Such as they were. The white foam on her face should have made her look clownish. It didn't. It made her look d.a.m.ned scary, She swung. He blocked with the extinguisher. The force of her strike shook his arm.

"I remember, you know. That one drop."

She swung at him again. He spun, protecting himself with the canister, using the knife to keep her a decent distance away. He couldn't play offense against a scimitar.

"What did it do to you?"

"It made me a ghost."

"Do ghosts bleed as much as you do?"

She struck low, slicing open his thigh. At the same time, he reached out with his kitchen knife and drew a ragged cut up her arm. They both retreated, nursing their wounds. Mikhail cast around for a better weapon. She probably had them stashed all over her house. He did.

Dancing forward, she swung her scimitar in decorative arcs, showing off. He backed up grimly, watching for any opportunity. As he pa.s.sed a long, low leather bench, his instincts whispered to him. Sweeping it up, he used it to block her next blow. Her blade sliced the cushion open. But he didn't want a shield-he wanted to see what was under it, and sure enough, he found a Ruger P89 holstered to the underside.

She rushed him, but he scrambled backward, bringing the pistol to firing position.

"You're not going to shoot me," she said, raising her sword.

He shot her in the shoulder. The impact drove her against the wall. Stunned, she dropped to the ground, her hand over the wound. The blood wicked fast through her wet nightgown.

Holding the gun on her, he took a couple of cautious steps forward, kicked the scimitar across the tile, and wondered what the h.e.l.l he was going to do next.

Long ago he'd lost her because he was too weak to hold her. A show of strength had brought him this far. But he knew in his gut strength couldn't take him any further. His father said to give her no quarter, but he couldn't press the gun to her temple and abduct her. It wouldn't work. Not with her.

Alya Adad wasn't a willful woman who would respond to a strong hand. There wasn't a submissive bone in her body. She'd die before she knelt to him. He'd tasted her. He knew.

Echoing his own thoughts, she pointed her chin at the gun. "Finish it."

"No."

"I never loved you, you know."

He tightened his grip on the gun. "You're lying. I was there. Remember?"

"And they call women sentimental." She scooted along the wall, trying to escape him even though she couldn't walk. "I never did. I never will."

He didn't listen. He couldn't afford doubt. If they were destined to be together, then there was a path to follow. But the way was perilous, and the thread of hope fine as a spider's web. Holding the gun behind his back, he squatted down in front of her. With his free hand he swiped the extinguisher foam off her cheeks.

"Alya, I shouldn't have bit..."

She caught him with an upward jab. His head snapped back and his teeth cracked together.

"d.a.m.n it!" He struck out instinctively, slapping her cheek so hard that his hand went numb to the wrist, but she slapped him right back, a stinging blow to his ear.

He took that one, and she gave him another. And another. She hit him until his face burned and his ears rang. He took all of her blows, paying for her blood, letting her fury spend itself. Even coated in powder foam and bleeding-bleeding from the gunshot he'd inflicted on her-she was full of grace, quick and bright as a flame.

G.o.d help me, I think I've gone insane. A bit of tooth floated under his tongue. He was wonderfully, obscurely happy.

When her blows slowed, he spat out the broken tooth and said, quite truthfully, "I could do this all night."

Eyes snapping with fury, she slapped him extra hard for that. "f.u.c.k you. What are you doing here? Is this your idea of revenge?"

"You think this is my idea?"

"You're in my house, a.s.shole. Holding the gun you shot me with."

There was that. Mikhail emptied the semi-automatic in front of her, releasing the magazine and tossing it onto the sofa and carefully ejecting the loaded round.

If he were Alex, he'd say something charming and give her a lopsided grin. Gregor would...well, he didn't understand what women saw in Gregor, actually. But whatever it was, he didn't have it. Mikhail knew he was cold and dry and unappealing to women, and he didn't have any experience at courtship.

All he could be was practical.

Chapter Six.

Mikhail's fair skin flamed with her handprints, and his eyes were filled with some unholy brightness. He said, "Your shoulder-is there an exit wound?"

In answer she glanced at the bullet hole in the wall above her. The bullet had pa.s.sed just under her clavicle, but she could still move her arm, so the damage couldn't be that bad.

"May I see your back?"

Blood loss must be getting to her, because the way he spoke almost made her laugh. Such a caring, considerate home invader he was. She'd been shot before, as had he, by his scars. Both of them knew she would live. It took a lot to kill a vamp.

"Stop playing doctor. That's not why you came here."

"I didn't come here to hurt you."

"Really? It didn't seem like that when you were slamming my head against the ventilation shaft."

Mikhail considered this. "That's true." He nodded, absolutely serious. "I enjoyed that."

The blood loss won out-she laughed. He blinked at her, confused.

"But I promise, it's out of my system now."

She laughed harder, covering her face with her hands. This was one conversation she'd never, ever imagined herself having.

From between her fingers she saw Mikhail's brow crease with concern. "Please, let me see your back."

Alya stopped laughing abruptly. She didn't like turning her back on anyone, and she liked people looking at her back even less.

He held up his empty hands. "I just want to see if it's a clean wound."

Grimacing with pain, she hitched her shoulder forward, just enough that he could see the wound, but not her whole back.

Gently, he poked her shoulder in a few places. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.

"It's not too bad. I suspect your scapula is nicked, but not broken." His fingers traced away from the wound, following a line toward her spine. "What made these scars?"

d.a.m.n. Of course he'd notice them. Of course he'd ask about them. She never told anyone the truth, but she decided to tell it to him. Maybe because she was too exhausted to lie. Maybe because it was part of his story, too.

"My father gave me those."

He sat back on his heels, so he faced her. "For what?"

"For you." She couldn't help but smile at the idea. It was an uncomfortable smile. "For leaving you. Well, really, for running away with Jean. When my father found us, Jean handed me over without a fight. But I fought. I tried to get away. When he caught me, he pinned me down on the boot of the car, snapped off the aerial and lashed me with it."

"He beat you until you couldn't fight back." Those Russian eyes of his did sad so well, and they did it now, turning into dark wells.

She nodded. After the beating, he'd flown her home from Louisiana to Marrakech and locked her up in the old cistern in their bas.e.m.e.nt, where the water was ankle deep and the walls crawled with bugs. He didn't let her out until she'd agreed to a quickly arranged marriage to some pudgy Albanian excuse-for-a-prince, a marriage intended to salvage the family's reputation. She "agreed" to this arrangement while her brother, Driss, sat on her chest and her other brother, Sami, hobbled her ankles.

Of course she bolted at her first opportunity: directly from the altar. Her father vowed to kill her. She ran all the way to China and threw herself on the mercy of Sun Bin, the Prince of Hong Kong. They'd met briefly in New York the summer before, and she'd remembered how he'd looked at her.

Sun began her lessons in power. All their lessons took place in the bedroom. He wouldn't deal with a female on any other level. That was true of all princes, she learned as the years pa.s.sed. All of her lovers back then were princes, because no one else could protect her from her father.

Princes were the creme de la creme of vampire kind. No prince rose to that t.i.tle through heredity or corruption alone-though both helped. A prince wasn't a prince unless he had the strength, will and wits to hold his position against all challengers. The vampire race was not made up of pacifists. The men who controlled it wielded their power with a fine blend of brutality and precision, and as Alya learned, the innate dominance of a prince found its most creative expression through s.e.x.

Every prince she met wanted her. Not because she was young and attractivethey had their pick of womenbut because they could sense her latent power, which made bringing her to heel more satisfying. And she was literally brought to heel, again and again. She'd even worn a golden leash for one of them.

None of them imagined she would ever be a threat. She didn't even imagine she would be. At first, all she wanted was protection. And for many years, she resigned herself to s.e.xual submission, though it did not come naturally to her. That was the price you paid to sleep in a prince's bed. Some of her princes were s.a.d.i.s.tic thugs. Others were accomplished doms who taught her well. But none of them understood how closely she listened to and watched what they did outside the bedroom.

She became a commodity of sorts, a treasure that switched hands. Usually she managed to engineer her transfers, but sometimes she was outmaneuvered and ended up in bad places. But no matter where she went, she kept learning. As arm candy, she had almost unlimited access to their lives. She sucked their c.o.c.ks while they strategized with their lieutenants. She hung in cuffs while they carved out businesses empires.

By the time she broke out on her own, she understood perhaps better than any other vamp the tangled strings of power and influence that governed their worldbecause she'd seen it from every side.

Using that knowledge, she'd won the privileges of a prince, including the right of dominance in the bedroom. She'd not give over this hard-won power to anyone, for any price.

Mikhail might sympathize with her for a few moments. Once they'd been equals-friends-and in that he was different from any prince she'd ever known. But if he married her, he would expect her to submit, just like all the others. He'd arrived making imperious demands, armed with a rope that had been used to tame brides for centuries. The Faustins were nothing if not Old School.

Mikhail said, "I don't want to give you more scars."

She c.o.c.ked her head at him, confused.

"I want to heal your shoulder."

She held his gaze, trying to read his intentions. He stared back steadily, pushing at her with his will. If he were a lieutenant of hers, she'd throw him to the ground for staring at her like that.

Yes, vampire saliva healed. It had evolved to close wounds on humans, but it worked well enough on vamps too. But he wasn't proposing to close a tiny puncture wound-he wanted to suck on her torn-up flesh. The idea turned her stomach. But at the same time, she had to admit that the prospect of him tonguing her skin made her a little hot. I'm injured worse than I know. I've gone delusional.

"You've lost a lot of blood."

"Really? How did that happen?"

She drew her knees tight against her chest. Her body temperature was dropping. What she needed to do was move. Go to her room. Get warm. Clean up. Call her doctor. But she couldn't move.

"I know, it's my fault." He pried one of her hands off her knees and pressed her fingers between his own. "You're cold."

She yanked her hand from his. "That's what everyone says."

"Admit you need help."

"Tell me, is cannibalism an inherited or an acquired trait?"

The muscles in his jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed at her. She realized she kind of liked pushing his b.u.t.tons. He said, "First, you and I are meant to feed on each other, whether you believe that or not. Second, we have to stop your bleeding. Now."

Raising his hand slowly to show her he meant no harm, he lowered his fingertips to the crest of her shoulder. He didn't move, just let his fingertips rest there. She couldn't draw breath and he seemed to be holding his.

Turning his hand over, he hooked one finger under the strap of her nightgown-or what remained of her nightgown. "Let's call a temporary truce."