The Vampire Dimitri

dangerous situation shouldn’t do, and she was determined to be intelligent about her predicament.

After listening for quite some time—she heard a clock tolling the quarter hour in the distance, and then a second toll—Maia concluded that she was either alone in the house, or whoever was there was either sleeping or very quiet. She also took stock of the room she was in, half pulling herself up on her side with her elbows. Sheets covered chairs and tables, making the chamber appear ghostly.

Her wrists were bound with a chain of large links that were looped around the leg of the chaise on which she reclined. Her bonds were loose and shifted up and down her arm, and Maia tried for some time to slip them over her hands. But her thumbs were in the way, and try as she might, she couldn’t curl them flat enough into her palm to slide free.

Her next effort was to carefully climb off the chaise, taking care to make as little noise as possible in case she was wrong and the building wasn’t deserted, to see if there was a way to unhook the chain.

Excitement bolted through her when she saw that it might be possible. The way the chains were looped and if she could lift the chaise and pull them free…

It took countless efforts, most of them aborted when the chains slid the wrong way as she struggled to lift the chaise with bound wrists and a short length with which to work…but finally, she worked it loose and at last pulled away from the chaise.

Her wrists were still bound, but she was free.

Moments later, she had figured out how to unravel herself and left the chains in a heap on the floor. Maia’s first instinct was to start out of the chamber, but she forced herself to wait and listen for another quarter of an hour.

Her patience was rewarded when the house remained quiet and the gray outline around the windows had disappeared into black. The last thing she did before leaving the chamber was to take up the poker from the fireplace, and also to search for something that could be used as a wooden stake. The only possible article was an umbrella in a corner stand, and she used her foot to break its handle.

Thus armed, she tiptoed to the door and eased it open.

Through the glaze of pain, Dimitri saw the door in front of him ease open.

He closed his eyes, his head tilting back against the chair. Again? So bloody soon?

She’d visited him more than three times in however many hours and days he’d been here. His only measurement had been the light filtering through the curtains, and even that was inaccurate as he went in and out of consciousness. Lerina had opened one of the sets of drapes so that a slice of sun cut over the headrest of his chair close enough to sizzle his hair.

And as a parting gift, she’d taken off her last ruby necklace and hung it around his neck so that it settled against his bare torso.

The pain…

It had finally dulled to something merely excruciating.

How long had he been like this?

He dared not move during the day for fear the sun would fry his skin, keeping his head at an impossible angle, hardly able to breathe in the wake of pain and paralysis. All the while, he was left with only his thoughts, his fears. Dark and ugly, swirling over and over in his mind.

It was because of that mad vortex of fear and anger that he didn’t just allow the sun to burn him. He remained intact, fueled by the desperate knowledge that he must, somehow, escape. He must get to Maia before Moldavi did.

A figure that was not Lerina had moved through the door way and into the chamber. Dimitri’s labored breath caught. This was new. This was—

Maia.

Was he dreaming it? Hallucinating now, his brain turned to mush? He was too weak to even discern her scent.

But no, the glance of moonlight over that amazing bronze-gold hair and elegant nose confirmed his worst fears.

No, no, no! What are you doing here, foolish blasted woman?

He struggled violently, but nothing moved but for the intent, deep inside.

She didn’t see him at first; the room was dim and he was too weak to make a sound. But then she did, for she cried out and rushed to his side, dropping whatever she’d had in her hands.

“My God,” she whispered, suddenly there in front of him, close enough that he could smell her at last.

Such a clean, welcoming perfume after hours of his own blood and sweat mingled with the desperate essence of Lerina. His eyes hooded as he drank in the pure, fresh pleasure.

“What has she— Oh, God.” Her hands were everywhere, peeling away the blood- soaked shirt that hung from his shoulders, tugging at the rubies that bound him to the chair. When she lifted the necklace that had settled against him he was at last able to draw in a complete breath.

Even once he was loosened from the ruby manacles, Dimitri found he couldn’t move. He sagged in the chair, at once infuriated by his weakness and focusing on gathering up strength again. Trying to lift even a finger was impossible.

She’d taken much blood from him. Much. Too much, and the hours encapsulated in his Asthenia had drained him to little more than a loose pile of skin and bones.

Dimitri tried to speak, and managed only to say, “A…way.”

He was trying to tell her to take the rubies that she’d tossed to the floor away, far away, but Maia misunderstood. “I’m not going anywhere, you idiot man. Look at you.” There were tears in her voice, and fear, as well. “You need water. Something.”

Water was not what he needed.

No indeed.

Dimitri closed his eyes. Now that the incessant pain had ebbed a bit, his body was reawakening in a different way. Warmth stirred deep inside him, flowering into need. Soon, once he recovered his strength, it would be uncontrollable. No. Not now.

Maia—there was no use forcing himself to think of her as Miss Woodmore any longer; that shield was gone —had moved into the shadows and he dimly heard a dull clink. The next thing he knew, she was back, holding a pitcher.

It was a wonder there was any water left in it, after Lerina had dumped it on his head or splashed it in his face numerous times in an effort to awaken him. Perhaps she’d replenished it. Regardless, the cool water had been the highlight of his experience here, and now Maia applied it in a much gentler fashion that made his skin heat and leap.

She’d torn off a piece of sheet that covered a chair and used the wet cloth to mop up the grime and blood from his face. Dimitri closed his eyes, allowing the cool rivulets to trickle down his jaw and neck, concentrating on gathering what little energy he still possessed.

The room wavered and tilted, still tinged a dull red, due to his great loss of blood as well as the proximity of the rubies. He attempted to lift his head, but his best effort ended with him merely rolling from one side to the other.

How the hell am I going to get her out of here?

“My God,” Maia said again when she got to the top of his shoulder, where Lerina had bit. And then her breathing changed into another unsteady rhythm when she saw the other shoulder, the bite at its corner, and then down to his left biceps. Also wounded and oozing blood from Lerina’s pleasure.

He tried to snatch the rag from her hands, to clean himself up, but Maia was too quick and strong and she batted his hands away as if they were gnats. And so he was reluctantly complicit, so aware of every brush from her fingers, every waft of flower and spice from her sagging hair…the warmth of her body as she bent toward him, the dark shadow down between her breasts. The sensual arch of her neck.

“Corvindale,” she said suddenly, sharply, and he opened his eyes, realizing he’d started to tumble back into the depths of darkness…but this time, the depths had been warm heat, filled with her scent and silky skin. “What do