Blood on Silk (26 page)

She shied away from that thought. She was living in the moment, because she was still alive when she’d thought she would be dead. Because whatever he was and whatever he’d done or would do, he’d given her the most amazing night of her life—of anybody’s life, surely.

There was no sign of dawn seeping through the heavy velvet curtains. She was glad, because sunrise would bring the rest of the world and the consequences of this night, whatever they were. Right now, the night stretched forever, and she was happy.

Happy . . . Had she ever been truly happy before?

She reached up to touch his cheek with wonder, and his hot eyes moved to hers. Most of his face was in shadow, dark and mysterious—and sexy. Her breath caught. “Were you always like this?”

He leaned closer, and she lifted her open mouth to receive his kiss. He took her hand, guiding it to the cool hardness of his erection. Heat flamed through her.

“Randy?” he inquired. “Oh yes.”

“Undead,” she reproved. “Or did you never die? Were you always immortal?”

“I died.”

Fascinated enough to be distracted from the caresses of his hand, and the feel of his throbbing erection in hers, she asked, “When? Where? What were you in life?”

“You would call me a prince.”

Of course. Anything less just wouldn’t have been believable. “Here? In Hungary?”

“Not originally. East of here, Asia. I traveled here with my people when I was a very young man, and I died of the same illness that killed so many of them, including my father.” His thumb flicked her nipple, over and over, spreading warmth and icy tingles of need. “My people preserved a balance in those days. Perhaps originally we sprang from the same race as humans, but by my time we were a distinct and separate race with certain powers over nature—you would call it magic—and over death itself. We could revive our dead. Our undead lived among our living, and we all existed beside humans, even the ones who made us ill.”

“Why?”

“It was our duty. To care for them. A council of elders, including the king, decided which of the dead should be revived. Normally, undead were chosen only from alternate generations of each family, but my father’s death happened too quickly, so they revived me instead.”

“Did you want it?” she asked curiously.

His gaze lifted from her breast to her face, an arrested expression in his dark, once unreadable eyes. “I didn’t want to die. Yes, I wanted it. I reached for it with both hands.”

From his appearance, if that was any way to judge his race, he had been younger then than she was now. It was natural to hold on to life, to grab at it any way you could, only . . .

“A life without light?” she whispered. “A life sustained on the blood, on the death of others?”

“It’s necessary. And there are compensations for living out of the sun.”

“What, for God’s sake?”

He cupped her breast and smiled, presumably by way of illustration. “Heightened senses. I can hear your heart beat from the next room, the blood rushing through your veins. I can feel and identify your presence in a city full of people. Every touch is intense, every pleasure, and ecstasy you can only dream of. Though perhaps I can help that dream along.”

Her fist tightened on his shaft, and at the instantaneous flash of fire in his eyes, she squeezed and caressed until he lifted her in his arms and strode with her to the bed.

“Again?” she breathed.

“Oh yes.”

“You will so need to change your bedding. . . . Do silk sheets wash well?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I like the feel of them. Like your skin, Mistress Silk.” He laid her on the bed, kneeling, and took off her shirt before embracing her from behind, one hand over her breast while he turned up her face with the other and kissed her.

He knelt behind her, his long, muscular thighs holding her captive as he caressed and kissed. His erection nudged between her cheeks, nestled between her thighs and found its now-familiar way inside. Before tonight, she’d never cared much for penetrative sex. It had never measured up to her vague and possibly naïve romantic desires. Tonight, however, she’d discovered there was no greater joy than Saloman’s shaft in her, working its magic inside while his hands and lips worked their own on the outside.

She pushed back against him, blissful as he thrust in long, slow strokes. As things grew more heated, his hand slipped down between her legs and she cried out. The sharp intensity of pleasure his fingers brought to her clitoris set her orgasm climbing.

“Take it all,” he whispered into the skin of her neck, mingling the delight of his thrusts with the joy of his fingers. And God, she’d forgotten the sensitivity of her neck, the weird, cold pleasure of his teeth’s grazing and caressing and biting. . . .

As the tide crashed over her, his teeth clamped down. Her hands, clinging to his thighs, opened wide with shock and pain. But she couldn’t stop the ecstasy convulsing her; she couldn’t stop the insidious rush of need as he pierced her skin. Then he began to suck, and the force of the new pleasure hit her like a blow, fierce, scary, and overwhelming. Pushing ecstasy into her below, he sucked the life from her veins into his cruel, tender mouth, took her blood with her body, and kept taking.

Helpless, lost in endless, mindless pleasure, reaching for it with both hands and her entire, greedy body, Elizabeth knew she’d discovered total joy at last. In death.

Saloman gathered it all to him, her vulnerable body, convulsing on his cock, bringing him joy; her strong, sweet blood, spilling over his teeth and down his throat, strengthening his hungry veins with the power of the Awakener, with the potency of his killer, Tsigana. Two lovers, one bloodline.

Triumph flowed through him. He never wanted to stop taking Elizabeth, drinking Elizabeth. . . .

And it seemed she could take a lot of pleasure on her own account—more, far more than he’d expected. But then, she had the semimystical power Tsigana had taken from him by the act of killing. It was a cycle of power and pleasure, and he longed to keep it going forever. He wanted to feel Elizabeth’s teeth in his throat, piercing the vein and feeding from him—at the instant of her death.

With a howl that sounded wolflike, even to his own ears, he dragged his mouth away from her and forced himself to be still, because she couldn’t take any more. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, her glazed eyes staring up at him. Shaking like a man with ague, he bent and licked the wound in her throat. He couldn’t help savoring the last taste of her blood as he did, regretting the loss as the punctures began at once to close and heal.

Her eyes were still open, huge in her white, exhausted, pleasure-blasted face.

“You drank from me,” she whispered. “You did it after all. . . .” A single tear hovered at the corner of her eye, glistening. Fascinated, curiously stricken, he watched it tremble and fall. “Bastard,” she said with surprising clarity, and collapsed.

Saloman laid her on the pillow, feeling for her sluggish pulse. He’d taken a lot of blood, but she wouldn’t die. She wouldn’t even need a transfusion since Tsigana’s inherited blood cells would regenerate in her veins while she slept.

Saloman covered her with his silk sheet and sat back cross-legged to watch her sleep. She was beautiful, pale, lovely, and strong. A smile played about his lips. He was proud of her, and he rather thought she’d just changed all his plans.

He’d let her live, let her be the temptation to all who sought his downfall through killing her. But they wouldn’t succeed, because she’d be with him, making him not weaker, but stronger.

Reaching out, he touched a scarlet spot on his white sheet.

“Blood on silk,” he whispered, and began to laugh. “Elizabeth, you’re mine.”

He found Mihaela’s flat without difficulty. It was easy to trace Elizabeth’s residence now that her smell, her footsteps, her presence, filled his every sense. It was in a pleasant old house filled with unexpected light. No trace of her dark work littered the vampire hunter’s home, just white walls and bright pictures and curtains that let in the early dawn light. He’d left it late. It was going to be hard to do all he meant to.

He broke in through the locked windows of the living room, carrying Elizabeth in his arms, wrapped only in his shirt and the cloak he’d worn for his three-century sleep. The flat was empty. Mihaela would be out with her colleagues, scouring the city for Elizabeth and for him. He hoped they hadn’t wrecked the Angel; if they had, Angyalka would be spitting with rage.

He found the tiny spare room that was Elizabeth’s temporary home. It was full of her stuff—the bags he remembered from Bistriţa, papers, tape recorder—all in a chaotic mess. Saloman laid her on the bed and opened the cloak as if it held a rare gift. For an instant, he gazed down at her. Then, with his fingertips, he touched her lips, the almost-vanished wound in her throat, and her steadily beating heart.

“I’ll be back,” he murmured, “after I’ve taken care of a few loose ends.”

She didn’t answer, but he was fairly sure she’d remember the words when she awoke. It didn’t matter that much. She was his, and she’d come to him when he was ready. Until then, the vampire hunters would keep her safe.

From the open window of the living room, he saw a car draw up at the curb. It contained Mihaela and the Hungarian hunter. The woman got out, looking both defeated and angry. Well, at least she’d be happy when she got home. He’d left the bedroom door open, so she’d see at once that her friend was there.

“Sometimes,” Saloman said to the breeze, “I surprise myself.”

He leapt off the ledge into the wind. The two below glanced up in instinctive alarm, but all they would see were fading shadows fluttering over the rooftops toward the river, and Buda.

It was time to take care of Lajos—he’d made the rat squirm for long enough over exactly when the ax of vengeance would fall.

E
lizabeth woke with a raging thirst and a sore head. When she opened her eyes, with no more profound hope than to discover a glass of water on the night table, she saw Mihaela sitting on the edge of the bed. And beyond her, arguing in low voices while Mihaela watched them, were Konrad and István.

“What . . . ?” she began, but had to break off because her voice came out as a feeble croak, and because as soon as it did, memory rushed on her with enough force to keep her silent for a very long time.

All three heads snapped around to her.

“Elizabeth,” Mihaela said in obvious relief. “Are you all right?” Since she leaned forward as she spoke, helping Elizabeth to sit up before passing a glass of water into her grateful hands, there was time to let it all flood in, and to keep from answering by drinking. She felt weaker than a newborn kitten.

“You’re alive,” Konrad stated, with as much amazement as gratification. “He let you live.”

Beyond the glass, which she still held to her lips, Elizabeth recognized the sleeve of the soft silk shirt she wore, and beneath the covering sheet, something made of black wool and, surely, fur. . . .

“Why did he do that?” István demanded. “Why didn’t he kill you?”

Elizabeth lowered the glass with reluctance.

“Did he hurt you?” Mihaela asked urgently.