"Why bother?" Blows would be better than this faux intimacy. He was her enemy. "Just what do you think is going to happen here?"

"I can't see past five minutes from now."

Hunger gave his voice a raw edge. Her resolution slipped, and her own voice cracked as she made her last protest. "I can see the future, quite clearly. Even if I let you do this, I'm not going to marry you. We will fight again. I promise you it won't end well."

The grim turn of his mouth told her he understood, but he was going to do what he wanted anyway. Of course he would. He was a knyaz.

He peeled her hand off the wound. The pain flooded in with the fresh air. Wincing, she turned her head aside.

"Wait," she said. "Do you have any blood in your mouth?" No way was she going to end up bonded to him through accidental fluid exchange.

Solemnly he spat into his palm and showed her the clear fluid, then wiped his hand on his trousers.

She turned her face away again.

He bent to her shoulder and dragged his rough tongue across the ragged hole.

Maybe he'd mistake her gasp for pain-she hoped so-but all the pain vanished at the first stroke of his tongue. After that, every precise lap, every gentle, sucking kiss gave her nothing but pleasure. Obscene, shameful, disgusting pleasure.

Jaded as she was, she'd never experienced anything quite so kinky. She closed her eyes and inhaled the mingled scents of blood and gunpowder and chlorine and...Mikhail. His scent had always reminded her of fresh gra.s.s and new leaves.

He lifted his head from her shoulder. She gave him her best poker face, so he wouldn't know she was as perverted as him.

"Your back?" His tone was clipped, but a hint of a growl slipped into it nonetheless. She knew what that growl meant and her body responded. Years of training, years of fulfilling the whims of haughty, dangerous princes taught her to be open and wet when they wanted her.

She gave him her back, but as she did, she slid her hand under the sofa cushion and found the knife she kept stashed there.

He circled the exit wound with his tongue, and the absurd pleasure began all over again. Just as intense. More. As he lapped, his hands inched up her waist, and she let it happen.

Not good. Not good at all, Alya.

She clutched the knife hilt, but sighed as his hands cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. All she wanted in the world was for him to thrum her nipples while he sucked at her flesh. And as if by magic, he did exactly what she wished. She could not repress a low moan of pleasure.

"Do you trust me?" he murmured against her skin.

"No. Do you trust me?"

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

She could not help but be thrilled by the low timbre of his voice. Or rather, the power that vibrated through it. He swept her hair to one side and kissed her nape. "So, when are you going to use that knife on me?"

"Soon. So soon."

Pushing his luck, he pulled her onto his lap. She spun in his arms and pressed the point of her knife under his chin. He grinned.

It was the first real smile she'd seen out of him, and what a smile it was: crooked, brilliant, reckless. The smile of a man about to jump out of an airplane. She wanted to kiss him for it. She wished she could be that reckless.

Instead, she twisted the knife in warning. "A prince can't trust anyone. He sits facing the door. Sleeps with a blade under his pillow."

"That's true," he said.

"A prince can't even trust those closest to him."

"I trust my family."

Figured. Those smug, virtuous Faustins, all Beaver Cleaver cozy in their little Brooklyn brownstone.

He continued. "And I'd trust my wife."

"Then you'd be a fool."

They were so close she could see a tiny, star-shaped scar marring the skin under his right eye. So close she could count the sunburst rays of white that surrounded his pupils. Those h.o.a.rfrost stripes were what made his eyes uncanny from a distance.

His lips softened and parted, just a little. Electricity crawled thick between them.

This was a dangerous, dangerous desire. Her wound was closed and the pain gone. She didn't need him anymore. There was no reason to stay this close to him.

And there was no way she could walk away.

d.a.m.n it, what's happening to me?

Her mouth dry, her heart loud in her ears, she eased the point of the knife from his chin, tilted it, and slid the flat of the blade up his cheek. A shiver pa.s.sed through him and he lowered his eyes, his long silver lashes sweeping his cheeks. In anyone else she'd take it as a gesture of submission, but she guessed he was battling for self-control. A knyaz took what he wanted, when he wanted it. Mikhail was being too good. He was up to something.

His intentions deserved to be tested.

Tilting her head, she brushed her mouth over his. Both of them had bruised, swollen lips. Even a light kiss hurt. Mikhail made a short, pained noise, but drew her closer, threading his fingers through her hair.

Again she kissed him, open mouthed this time. He groaned again. Anguished. He stopped being careful and good. She caught fire. They pressed one another hard, the pleasure of their kiss laced with pain, the pain spurring them on.

Mikhail took her down to the floor. He wedged himself between her legs, his c.o.c.k pressed exactly where it wanted to be. But there was a problem. She'd gone still.

He raised his head and looked down at her. Her eyes were wide. Fear? Not likely. Anger, maybe. The knife glinted in her hand.

"I won't. You can't top me," she gasped, breathless.

"Top you how?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "That's cute, Faustin."

In one slippery move she flipped him on his back and straddled him. He grabbed her wrist, staying her knife. She didn't fight his grip. All he could focus on was how much he wanted to kiss her.

Her knees tightened against his ribs. "This is how I play. I call the shots."

He opened his hands. "Tell me what you want. I'll do it."

"Anything at all? I find that hard to believe, knyaz." She gave him a sardonic little smile that he found unspeakably s.e.xy.

Anything to be inside you again. "Try me."

She stood. "Get up and strip."

He knew she didn't expect him to obey, but he was more than happy to be rid of his cold, wet clothes. It seemed she believed power resided in control. To him, it meant getting what he wanted.

In a couple of quick movements he threw off his shirt and peeled off his clinging pants. He couldn't remember ever being so hard, so heavy, so tight.

Kicking his clothes aside, he met her gaze again, only to find her gaping at him, completely aghast. Was he that repulsive?

Pointing at his chest, she said, "What have you done to yourself?"

Ah, that.

The monogram she'd cut into his chest should have faded quickly, but he'd made it permanent. Using a broken pen in his hotel room, he'd rubbed ink into the lines of the A, giving himself a prison tattoo.

It was gratifying to see her in a state of complete shock. He just stood there, waiting, until she managed her next question. "But...why?"

He shrugged. He couldn't even explain it to himself very well. The A was an oath to himself that he would never retreat. A preparation for battle. A means to remember her touch.

"You are seriously disturbed."

That made him smile. Smiling hurt his face, but it also helped wake him from his long stasis, just as kissing her did. She shook her head as if he were a hopeless case, but her lids lowered as her attention drifted downward-toward his c.o.c.k. Just knowing it had her attention, it hardened by a few more excruciating degrees. She'd been the first person to touch it. And later, under the willows- h.e.l.l. He could come just thinking about it. It was time to move this along.

She murmured, "This is such a bad idea."

But she wanted him. Out of practice as he was, there was no mistaking the gleam in her eye, or the quickness of her breath.

Before she could change her mind, he said, "What do you want me to do?"

She pointed at the sofa with her knife. He sat, and she stepped between his knees. Drawing her fingernail up the length of his shaft, she said, "Do you have a condom?"

Mikhail stared at her, blank, rendered an idiot by her touch.

She said, "I don't. I haven't f.u.c.ked another vamp in a good ten years."

Her toys couldn't impregnate her. He could.

"I suppose you came here ready to start breeding."

He snorted. No. Mostly he'd been thinking about survival. But yes, breeding seemed...dandy. Breeding seemed like a fantastic idea. His c.o.c.k seconded the motion.

"Don't tell me you don't carry one? Or do you only do humans, too?"

"I haven't f.u.c.ked anyone in ten years, vamp or human."

She went very still, wary as a prey animal.

Maybe she thought he was lying, but it was true. After she'd left him, and the grey veil descended, he'd gone through the motions. He took a lover, and then another, but he had nothing to give them, except, ultimately, indifference. They learned to hate him, and rightfully so. Eventually he gave up maintaining any semblance of a relationship.

When he needed s.e.x, he'd find a female vamp in the park who had just hunted, and approach her. Feeding made the blood run hot, so they almost always agreed to take him. Those rough, anonymous couplings sustained him for a long time. But even they lost their thrill, eventually, and he became a monk.

Alya recovered herself and crossed her arms. "So you come to me with my initial tattooed on your chest and ten years of seed stored up in your b.a.l.l.s."

"I thought I'd make myself irresistible."

That almost made her smile. Almost.

"Look at you, Mikhail. You say you'll do whatever I want, but it's not in your eyes. It's not in your posture."

"I am a knyaz."

"See? You don't even say knyaz. You purr it. You're just like all the rest."

"I am not like them." He'd glimpsed things he didn't like in her blood. Images, memories, fears-he didn't know what they were exactlybut he didn't think her princely lovers had been kind to her. "There is no one else like me."

She put her hands to her head. "Ugh! They all say that. You are exactly like them."

He couldn't talk any more, couldn't understand all these barriers. Yes, he was a prince. Who else would be fit to mate a queen like her? He stood. She jumped back.

Holding his hands in the air, he walked forward until the head of his c.o.c.k grazed the thin, wet silk that clung to her belly. She didn't move away. Carefully, he lowered his hands onto her smooth, cool arms. "Forget what I am. Tell me what would make you happy. Happy right now."

Flushed with anger, or something more than that, she spat out the answer. "I want to see you lose control. I want to see you beg."

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and his c.o.c.k slid an excruciating inch across her belly. "Believe me, I'm very near to losing control."

"That's the problem."

"I thought that was what you wanted."

She stepped backward, and as she did, she cooled. The hints of anger and fear he'd sensed in her vanished beneath a smooth veneer. It seemed she'd made a decision. "You're going to do as I say."

Her words weren't playful. They were sharp as a lash.

No one spoke to him like that. Ever. He opened his mouth to snap back at her, but curiosity got the better of him, and he changed his mind.

If he refused, they'd be back at zero. Fighting. At this point she was weak enough that he'd win, but as he'd already determined, a "win" like that would be hollow. If he wanted to understand her, he had to enter her world.

He awaited orders.

"Sit there." She pointed to the low leather bench instead of the sofa. The one he'd used as a shield. The one she'd eviscerated. Foam protruded from its split hide. He righted it.

"The other end."

He moved to the far end, and sat facing a mirror on the wall. One side of his face was sc.r.a.ped up, and the eye on that side was swelling shut. Hardly an inch of his body was not bruised, and the spidery letter A crowned his many other scars. His c.o.c.k stood at the ready, flushed and ridiculous.

She couldn't possibly want him. This was some kind of trap.

But she came to stand in front of him, unarmed and equally battered. With slow, deliberate movements she tore her nightgown down the center and peeled off the transparent sc.r.a.ps. Hard muscle defined the sinuous curves of her long torso. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were heavier than he remembered, the nipples high and dark. A white scar arced around her right breast. He longed to tongue it. She stepped out of her panties. Her long, strong legs were built for speed. Her pubic hair was shaved into a thin strip.

Straightening, she studied him for a long moment, stern as a G.o.ddess. His pulse sped up while he waited for her next move. He tried to keep his breathing even. He tried to stay still when all he wanted to do was drag her to the floor and f.u.c.k her until there was nothing left of either of them.