Rapacious hunger swallowed him. His fangs lengthened, growing with the need for blood, to ravage flesh. He fought the darkness, but couldn't hold it back. He tasted a drop of her blood on his tongue and a hard spasm of l.u.s.t convulsed in his shaft. He groaned in agony and ecstasy, sucking her neck, marking her with his possession.

She consumed him, overwhelmed his reason. He couldn't taste enough of her, couldn't feel enough of her. The fire burned, sizzled in his veins. He wanted to sink into hera"his fangs, his c.o.c.k.

Pain erupted in his groin, hot as molten metal searing his skin. He longed to thrust his c.o.c.k into her core and quench the fire.

He reached for her thigh, ripping her shift as he hooked around her knee and hauled her leg up to his hip. The violence felt good, but he wanted more, he wanted her to scream with pleasure only he could give. He bent his knees, coming up against her mound with a surge of strength that had her crying out in pleasure.

Her wet heat seeped through his breeches as he ground his engorged c.o.c.k against her c.l.i.t. He absorbed her scent, got drunk off her musky desire and frightened, aroused whimpers.

She'd awakened the predator with her tongue and anger. How good it would feel wrapped around his shaft, suckling him until he came inside her mouth.

The pounding of her heart beat against his chest, edging the blind desire to unexpected heights. Some distant part of his mind cried out in warning, recognized her desire had become fear alone. He halted his movements, his breath ragged against her neck, harsh as the frigid pain coursing through his veins.

How much the beast he'd become, fueled by desire and unable to resist destroying those weaker than himself. A shudder wracked her body, resonating in the hatred he bore himself.

He released her hands and moved away from her, watching as she tilted her head, covering her face and shame with her hair. She closed her arms around her chest, hugging herself as though cold. He knew she did it to protect herself, knew his actions had caused the change in her.

She hadn't feared him before. Now she knew the nature of the beast, knew the hunger he possessed a knew that he could not contain it in her presence. There would be no calming her, no opportunity to gain her trust now.

Did he truly want it?

He did not. He wanted only to part her soft folds and sink inside her and appease the greed of his soul. He cared nothing for human lifea"only for their nourishment and his own entertainment.

"Get to your room," he growled softly, angry at himself for losing control, angry at allowing her to break into his barriers.

Without a word, she scurried back up the stairs. Daegon watched her go, his anger dissipating but the eager arousal still thudding in his groin. He lied to himself, as he always did.

In the shadows, he heard a woman's whispering voice. A taunting song filled the hall, spidery words of a language long dead. She sang to him, as she did every night.

Tonight, the words pierced him with bittersweet longing a a longing to change the destiny he had created for himself so long ago in one act of unforgivable cruelty. But it was not to be.

Chapter Four.

Cerise slammed the door behind her and rushed to the wash stand, set the pitcher on the floor, and pulled the stand along until she could push it in front of the door. She tried the handle but couldn't budge the door open. Satisfied he could no longer sneak into her room, she threw back the curtains surrounding her bed and collapsed on top of it. Her hands shook, and she clasped a pillow to combat the agitation flooding her.

She lay still, waiting for the achy trembles to subside. Her womanhood felt unbearably slick from what he'd done to her. She breathed shakily in remembrance, hoping to never see him again.

She didn't know why he'd stopped, but she was thankful. With a few practiced moves, he'd made her mad to feel his touch. She couldn't handle such desperation. It was unlike her to need something so badly. And she knew exactly what it was he made her crave. The ache between her legs begged to be satisfied. She'd seen what happened in Raedan when night stole over the household. The servants and soldiers satisfied carnal needs in any dark corner they could find. Some became heavy with child.

Was Daegon Erlansson even capable of fathering a child? Would he create demon sp.a.w.n such as himself, creatures that drank blood to survive?

No matter how human he looked, she could not forget he was a creature of evil. His actions this night reinforced that fact.

She simply had to find some way of escaping him. Surely he would sleep some time, and without his guard, she would leave. She was fairly certain there was no one else in the castle. For all its beauty, there was something hauntingly cold about its halls, an emptiness that defied description.

If she didn't know better, she would swear it was haunted. She shuddered, hugging the pillow tight to her chest. But it was haunteda"by the undead.

The set of her thoughts brought her no comfort, only more questions and unease. She knew this place would drain her of life force, even if he did not.

Cerise stood from the bed and strode to the window, looking out on the nightscape. As far as she could see under the pale light, there were nothing but woods for miles. She had no notion how far it was to reach home, or even what direction Raedan lay in. She'd wanted to help her sister but realized now, she needed her own hero to sweep her away. Of course, Cerise had no intention of waiting for rescue. She would have to take care of herself.

Bianca was the eldest, and she felt if anyone could survive in a harsh environment, it would be her. As to herself, she didn't intend to remain in the vampire lord's castle for long.

Her stomach gave a loud rumble, and she rubbed it absently, wondering how long she'd been there. The last thing she remembered eating had been luncheon, and then she'd lost her horse soon after, along with her supplies.

She would need to replenish her supplies for her trip and, if possible, find some means of conveyance. At the least, she had to find st.u.r.dy slippers, a coat, and another gown to protect her from the chill settling on the land. She wondered how much she could gather from the castle without him becoming aware of it. Then too, there was the matter of the hounds outside.

Feeling the weight of too many questions and not enough answers made her tired. Cerise turned from the window and took the pitcher up she'd set on the floor when moving the stand. She quenched her thirst and set it down again, dowsing the candles as she went.

She crawled into bed, snuffing the candle flame beside her, wondering how long her respite would last.

Daegon watched the even rise and fall of her chest, the peaceful expression on her face, feeling the longing that embraced him every night when the moon reached its zenith and descended. She was blessed and she did not realize it, advantaged by such a simple act, as every living being was.

She slept.

Envy embittered him, as it always did when encountered with one of the many simple pleasures he could not enjoy. Yet he did not wish it otherwise for her. He enjoyed watching her slumber. She was unaware of her sensual nature in bed, the way she rubbed her legs together as she turned, the way she moved a ticklish lock of hair from her throat. She even talked in her sleep, and he found it fascinating to listen to the jumble of expressions that poured from her mouth.

When first he heard this, he'd been surprised and thought her awake. She was amazingly coherent, until he began talking back to her, asking her how she felt. Then her words grew bizarre, as bizarre, he imagined, as her dreams were. Touching her to calm her only enflamed her, it seemed, for she'd begun moaning and begging for his touch.

He grew aroused remembering what had happened only a few short hours ago. Night surpa.s.sed the day as winter's hand neared. *Twas hard to believe he'd found her so soon after dusk, harder still to know that morning was but a breath away.

Morning, night, it hardly mattered to him. Both were the same, both everlasting torture. Exhaustion enveloped him, but he did not sleep. He couldn't. He had not in so long, his mind had cracked into insanity and he'd been brought back from the brink with the sheer, innumerable pa.s.sage of time.

He knew she would not allow him respite in madness, nor in sleep or any other means of escaping his eternal existence. The accursed knew no bounds.

Daegon frowned and closed the curtains, turning away from her sleeping form as he set the tray of cheese, fruit, and bread he'd carried inside down on the bedside table.

He wasn't sure why he had come to her again, what made him crave the burn of her hatred. Perhaps it was the mere need for human contact, perhaps not. Whatever the reason, it angered him to give in to it, even more than it angered him to feel any softness toward the woman.

He faced her again, whisking the drapes aside. Her mouth parted on a sigh. He wondered if she dreamed of him, of the kiss he'd stolen. He would steal it again, if only to feel her breath and know the taste of life.

Daegon bent and smoothed silky tendrils of hair from her cheek, caressing her jaw line with his thumb. He bent and brushed his lips against hers, warming to the feel of her lips pliant and soft against his own. She moaned breathlessly, and he pulled back, sweeping from the room before she could awake.

Such sweet torment he craveda.

Cerise startled as a rush of air danced across her skin. She shivered and sat up, blinking and looking around the room. Unable to see, she fumbled against the table, searching for the flint, and encountered a tray of food.

Cerise turned back to the room, peering in the darkness, but she felt he'd gone already. She was angry and frustrated that he'd broken through her barricade, but not surprised. He was all powerful, after all. It did surprise her, however, that he'd antic.i.p.ated her hunger and brought her food. The simple acts he performed for her left her confused. It was something any servant could perform, but the fact that he looked after her needs struck her as incongruous. She didn't imagine immortal beings would possess empathy for the lesser kind. That he considered her comfort while she slept was strangely pleasing and unlike the predator she'd seen in the foyer.

She knew him as an enigma, strange parts that made up a whole she couldn't begin to fathom. He could have killed her at any time, yet he didn't. He could have harmed her when she angered him, but he only kissed and touched her.

His responses were unlike what she'd expected, and that unnerved her. He was too unpredictable. Thankful as she was to be unhurt, she couldn't risk that he would tire of her and change.

Still, she could enjoy what he'd given her.

"Thank you," Cerise whispered to the empty room, feeling more than a little foolish.

Taking a morsel of food, she devoured it hungrily, thankful to have something to fill her belly, even if it was an odd hour. She ate only a few bites and left the rest to break her fast, settling down to sleep.

She'd slept far too little when the clear light of morning burst through the window with the blare of a trumpet call. Cerise groaned into her pillow, hating the daylight, but knowing it was her one opportunity to explore and not chance meeting her captor.

The wash stand, she saw when she crawled out of bed, had been mysteriously moved back into place and fresh water had been brought in.

That d.a.m.ned vampire just traipsed in and out of her room and she none the wiser. She was irritated more at herself for her oblivion than for his entrance. How like her to sleep like the dead with danger nearby.

Along with fresh, hot water, he'd also left her a comb, hair pins, and a fresh gown laid out on the chair. There were also new stockings, garters, and a shift, each piece trimmed with the same lace as a matching set. He'd neglected to bring back her corset, however. Just as well, for she hated wearing the contraption.

Cerise cleaned herself, combed and pinned her hair up, and dressed. She felt more than a little odd wearing garments he'd selected for her and wondered how he'd come by them and how they could fit her so well.

Cerise shrugged and went to the door, finding it unlocked to her surprise. She half thought she'd have to crawl out the window. He knew, of course, that as long as the h.e.l.l hounds remained outside, she could go nowhere.

Deciding she would first search the upper levels of the castle for the supplies she needed, Cerise peered out into the hall. The candles had snuffed themselves out sometime during the night, and the wide pa.s.sage swam with shadows unstirred by light. She went back in and retrieved the candelabra, lit it, and continued on.

Somewhere, he had to have a store of women's garments. If she could find it, she could retrieve some slippers and a coat, possibly some sort of pack as well.

Shadows danced as the flame flickered from the movement of her progress. She found several doors along the way, but checking inside each, she only managed to find rooms full of dusty cobwebs. In one, there was an abandoned desk with a dull letter opener laid atop it, filmy with dust. Finding nothing else of use, she took the slim-bladed knife and proceeded to the next room.

They were grand apartments, or were once upon a time. Each looked as if no soul had pa.s.sed through them in a century or more.

Inside the next room she searched she found a tight, woven bag filled with dead flowers that crumbled to dust when she shook them out.

Other rooms were the same, yielding nothing she could use. When she reached the end of the hall, however, she found a locked door that mirrored her own at the opposite end. She became immediately intrigued. There was only one reason to lock a room.

Cerise pressed her ear to the door, listening for sounds of movement. She couldn't hear anything, and felt fairly confident Daegon used the room to lock away secrets, things he didn't want her to see or have. That meant they were like as not to be highly useful to her.

Taking the letter opener from her bag, she set it and the candelabra on the floor and slipped her blade in the tight s.p.a.ce between the door and jam. She hammered the hilt with the palm of her hand, working it into the crack. Giving it a little bend as she pushed her shoulder into the door, she popped the door open.

A gust of wind whistled through the open doorway, soft and eerie as a voice, snuffing the fragile flame of her candle. Cerise shuddered and stepped inside. Sunlight shafted through a window on the far wall facing the doorway. A desk and chair stood in the center of the room, facing the window, and along the walls were books. Leather and oil saturated the room with a warm, cozy scent that beckoned her deeper inside despite the chill that initially gripped her.

The covers were all the same, midnight blue trimmed in gold, perfectly aligned on the shelves. Above her reach to her right, she could see a stack of parchments with broken seals and some with frayed ribbons hanging down.

She didn't see anything particularly special about the room. It looked like nothing more than a study.

Cerise walked to the desk and sat in the chair. Atop its surface lay another book, this one open to blank pages. She laid the knife down and idly flipped back through the pages, encountering a bold scrawl.

Curious, she studied the writing for several moments. It was unfamiliar and hard to read, but slowly, she began to make out the words and began to read. She realized fairly quickly that it was a personal journal. She was tempted to see what he might have written about her, but the thought of the embarra.s.sing moments she had endured since meeting him killed the temptation abruptly.

She decided she really didn't want to know what he might have written about her and turned to the beginning of the book. It seemed to be a recording of thoughts and events earlier in the year. After a few moments, she began to feel a little uncomfortable reading his thoughts and feelings. She sat the book aside and rose from the chair, wandering down the wall of books, searching for t.i.tles. To her surprise, she saw that each book appeared identical in every way to the book she'd found on his desk except for the fact that there was a number picked out on the spine in gold.

Confusion filled her for several moments, and she turned and looked at the books that surrounded her. They couldn't all be journals. It dawned on her that he was a vampire. He might have lived for eons. She dismissed that thought. Vampire or not, he couldn't be that old. Perhaps it was only that he was bored and wrote quite a lot about his daily activities.

She had no business, she knew, prying, and yet she was curious about this man who had taken her prisoner. She would've liked to lie to herself that it was a search for some tool that she might use in her own defense, but the plain truth was he fascinated her. She wanted to know how he had come to be as he was today.

Moving down the shelves, she began searching for his earliest journals, wondering even as she did so, how old he was when he became a vampire. Had he been born one? Or had something terrible happened to him?

The first book she picked up and thumbed through was written in a more childish handwriting than the book on the desk, and she knew without even reading, that it had to be from his childhood. She looked through it, reading pa.s.sages here and there, beginning to get an image in her mind of a happy, carefree child. He could not have been born a vampire, she decided.

There was nothing in the book to indicate such a thing. Slipping it back into its place, she took another book out and began to look through it in the same manner. The handwriting was still immature, however, and so too the thoughts recorded on the pages. Returning it to the shelf, she counted the volumes, deciding that each represented a year.

Finally, she stopped when she reached the thirtieth volume and pulled it from the shelf. Moving to the window seat where she had more light, she scanned the pages. Her heart skipped a beat when she read the pa.s.sage *My beloved wifea'.

She gasped. It had never crossed her mind that he had been married. Her thoughts turned chaotic. She closed the book abruptly, her heart hammering erratically in her breast. This, she knew, absolutely, that she had no right to intrude in. She stared down at the book in her hands, fighting the curiosity that gnawed at her. She desperately wanted to know what had happened between him and his wife. Had she died long years ago, leaving him to mourn endlessly?

Cerise opened the hard-cover, nervously fluttering the pages between her fingers. Finally, unable to resist, she opened the book to the first page. The book, she discovered, began in his thirty fifth year. She scanned through several pages that spoke of unrest.

She had just discovered a pa.s.sage that mentioned his beloved wife, when the door slammed open, striking the wall so hard several books fell from the shelves.

Cerise jumped, dropping the book from suddenly nerveless fingers as she gaped at the man standing on the threshold. Rage had transformed him. He was almost unrecognizable.

Leaping to her feet, Cerise nudged the book with her toe, pushing it surrept.i.tiously beneath the drapes that surrounded the window seat. "Daegon," she exclaimed. "You're awake."

Chapter Five.

Daegon's eyes narrowed. "Obviously this comes as a great surprise to you."

Cerise smiled at him a little weakly. "Vampires sleep during the day, don't they?"

He eyed her for a long moment, but instead of answering her question he glanced around the room. "Curiously enough, I was under the impression that the door to my study was locked."

Cerise glanced guiltily at the letter opener she'd left on his desk and then focused her gaze on the floor at her feet.

"Ah," Daegon said, striding to the desk and lifting the letter knife, studying it thoughtfully. "I was wondering where I'd left my letter knife. Where did you find it, my love?"

She looked up at him wide-eyed. "On your desk?"

"I'm certain it wasn't there the last time I looked."

Cerise took a deep, shuddering breath and decided to make a break for it. "Well, I'm glad you found it, my lord," she said, smiling brightly and scurrying for the door.

Daegon caught her arm as she tried to rush past him, pulling her to a stop. "Bored, my dear?"

She gaped at him, wondering where this was leading. "Why no, why do you ask?"