using a dagger to cut through the handkerchief, and Narcise was free just as the door opened before them.
With a rebelling stomach and weak knees, she forced herself to walk into The Chamber.
She heard the sound of the door closing behind her, and of the metal bolt being shoved into place with its familiar, ominous
Gathering all of her courage, Narcise turned to face Cale and said, “How do you want me? Shall I fight you and make it rough, or shall I lie there and let it be easy?”
4
Giordan stilled at her words, at the revolting offer.
Narcise stood no more than ten paces away from him, straight as a rail, her ivory face paler than usual and without its normal luminescence. The dark, scraped-back hair gave her an even starker appearance, verging on gaunt. Her fencing attire, those close-fitting tunic and breeches, had damp spots from perspiration and one red blossom on the shoulder from where someone had nicked her.
Her blue-violet gaze was cold and dark, without a hint of Draculean glow.
“Is that how you normally do it? Give an option?” he asked, legitimately curious and at the same time, repulsed by the very thought.
“Not at first,” she said conversationally, though there was the faintest tremor in her voice. “I fought them all at first. It took me some time to realize that it was less painful, and often over sooner, if I lay there like a dead fish.”
His gut tightened as his attention was drawn automatically to the large bed off to one side. The images flashing into his mind were unpleasant and dark; yet he couldn’t deny that the vision of her lying on the bed, naked and spread out, was compelling. More than compelling. Desire flooded him, compounded by the fact that the very room smelled of her—of that heavy, rich ylang-ylang and vetiver—and of coitus and blood.
His veins began to swell as his fangs threatened to show themselves. He forced himself to look away from the bed…which wasn’t an altogether prudent thing, for his gaze then lit upon a variety of other accessories in The Chamber.
Chains with manacles hanging from a plastered and painted, rather than stone, wall—which gave it an absurd appearance of civility. A rack of whips. A small metal box. Carved ivory phalluses, of varied sizes. Even small knives: too dainty to slice one’s head from one’s shoulders, but certainly dangerous enough to cut decorative nicks into one’s flesh.
Giordan’s belly churned, knowing that each of those items had been used many times over. And those were only the items he saw at a glance.
“So which shall it be?” she pressed, her voice a little more tense now. She was as rigidly controlled as he struggled to be. “Surely it cannot be that difficult a decision.”
“Where is the peephole?” he asked. For now, he must ignore her question. The very thought was enough to weaken his already stretched control.
She looked at him blankly for a moment, then her eyes skittered to the wall across from the manacles and chains. Cezar hadn’t attempted to even hide the small holes through which he must observe. They were hardly larger than the arrow slits in a medieval castle, but there were several of them, at varying heights, in the plastered wall. Not obvious enough to distract one from one’s pleasure, but certainly there.
Without preamble, Giordan walked across a thick rug to the wall and spoke into the dark slots. “I don’t wish to be spied on, Moldavi.” He could scent the stew of male need and lust through the holes, and knew that at least several of them from the previous room were there, prepared for even more entertainment. And, indeed, as he looked into the dark spots, Giordan saw the faint glow of several pairs of orange and red eyes, burning, blinking and then turning away.
He suspected that his host might be annoyed, perhaps even furious, at his statement, but Giordan was confident that the man wanted badly enough to buy into the spice ship he was sending to China, and that he would acquiesce gracefully.
His need for fresh opium was a strong incentive.
But of course, too, Cezar Moldavi needed always to be in control, and a conflict that he couldn’t win—such as this with Giordan—would make him appear to be out of control.
So, once the male scents had faded and he knew they were all gone, he turned back to Narcise. She was watching him warily, and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t moved.
“What is it to be, Cale?” she asked a third time. “You only have until dawn.” The edges of her full lips were white with tension.
“Neither. I’m not going to touch you,” he said.
A strained silence settled over the room.
“Are you mad?” she whispered. Her hand had moved, and he could see its faint tremble as she rested it against her throat. A bit of color rushed into her face.
“Just a bit.” Giordan pulled his attention away and said, “Is there anything to drink in this torture chamber?” Blood whiskey would take the edge off his senses.
Narcise didn’t reply; perhaps she didn’t trust herself to speak, either. But she walked over to a cabinet he’d hardly noticed and pulled out a bottle of, praise the Fates, brandy or whiskey. As soon as she removed the cork, its warm, pungent scent filtered through the air, telling Giordan that while Cezar didn’t provide his best brandy, it was still a far sight better than what most of the taverns in England served. The rush of the amber liquid sloshing into a small glass was the only sound for a moment. She poured a second one, surprising him faintly, and then turned to look at him. She left one of the whiskeys on the small table and stepped away, sipping from her own glass.
“Your name…it isn’t French,” she said suddenly. Although they had conversed briefly before, Giordan hadn’t truly appreciated the low duskiness of her voice. But now, it curled around him like a smoky serpent and his belly twitched in response.
“No, it isn’t, unless it is some shortened version of a name or place. Or perhaps my father was English. I don’t know. I don’t know much about my origins. I’m fairly certain my parents were from the countryside,” he said, willing to follow the brief diversion, for of course he’d been telling the truth when he told her he didn’t mean to touch her. Aside of that, conversation might perhaps relieve the pulsing gums pushing at his fangs and the bulge in his breeches.
He walked over to pick up his own drink, wondering if leaving it there was a play for control on her part, or if she didn’t trust him to get close enough to hand it over. “They came into the city and then I don’t know what happened. We were poor. I have vague memories of my mother, but nothing very solid.”
“But you are no longer poor. Was that…” She hesitated, looking at him with desperate eyes this time. “Did He promise you riches?”
Giordan knew precisely what she meant. “Lucifer visited me after I was well on my way to becoming as wealthy as the king.” The old niggle of unpleasantness wormed into his belly. “He merely promised that things would never change, and that I would enjoy great wealth for eternity. And I… But I’d lived on the streets, slept in the alleys and beneath the sewer bridges. Once you’ve been hungry every day for five years, and haven’t had shoes or a clean shirt for a twelve-month, you are desperate to keep that from happening again. At least…I was.”
He took a large gulp and pursed his lips, ignoring the doubts and darkness that weighted him at the memories of his past. Why had he agreed to follow this conversational path?
“Did Cezar make you?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “But in a matter of speaking, yes. It was he who arranged for Lucifer to visit me. If he hadn’t…” She shrugged. “If he hadn’t, he would only have had a plaything for perhaps two decades instead of eleven.”
Her tones were nonchalant; something that Giordan could hardly accept. How long had she been her brother’s prisoner? And what could he do to take her away? “Luce came to you in your dreams, then?” he ventured, keeping his thoughts away from what he could not change. Yet.
“Is that not always how celestial beings deliver their messages?” she said wryly. “Or invitations?”
