The Vampire Narcise

can’t—”

“I wasn’t going to,” he said, easing away from her fingers. A note of annoyance colored his tone. “I was going to say, I think it’s important to keep this from your brother.”

“Why—and how? He ordered me to seduce you—he’ll smell you all over me,” she began, confused and yet relieved that he wasn’t going to try to convince her to stay.

Giordan was nodding. “I know. But why? To see if it would work? To see if we have an attachment?” He frowned and Narcise was surprised when a wave of affection swept her at the sight of the furrow between his brows. She wanted to touch it. She wanted to touch him again, everywhere, in fact…to lie next to him in a soft, luxurious bed, naked and sated, and to hear him talk. He must have noticed the heat in her eyes, for he paused and, eyes narrowing with desire, he bent forward to kiss her.

Another sweet brushing of lips, but then she slipped her tongue out and there was still the essence of blood on him, and the kiss became deeper and more thorough. She curved an arm around him, sliding it along the curve of his bicep as a tingle began to grow inside her again.

When he pulled away, it was with obvious reluctance. His brown-blue eyes, ringed with black, now glowed with fire again. But then he blinked and it eased into seriousness. “I don’t trust anything about him, or anything he does,” Giordan continued. “But it seems as if he is trying to push us together. And if he wants that, then there’s a reason to benefit him. I think it would be best if you went back alone, and I’ll be along shortly. He’ll know you did what he bid, but he doesn’t need to know that we…well, that it was like this.”

His voice dipped low and sent another pang deep in her belly.

Narcise leaned forward to capture his lips again, sliding seductively against his mouth, her hand flat on his chest. “Very well,” she said, and left.

Giordan took his time returning to the parlor, partly to allow Narcise to make her appearance first, and partly because, aside of getting new clothing, he had things to attend to.

Narcise might think she was returning with her brother tonight, but that wasn’t going to happen. He’d take care of Moldavi himself, and then attend to Belial and his hostage in the carriage. Voss and Eddersley would help, and after that, they’d all go back to Moldavi’s residence.

Then all of the child hostages would be free, as would Narcise.

Giordan slid a stake into the inside pocket of his coat. A different weapon than what he used on the streets—then it had been a slender but wicked blade that slid between ribs like butter—but they were both used in the same way.

He was waylaid by a question from one of his footmen, and then Suzette, who’d been entertained by one of Giordan’s male vintages, caught him in the corridor to ask when he might plan another party. “I was hoping for a rooftop ball,” she suggested with a smile. “During the full moon would be perfect.”

Giordan smiled. “Very soon, ma cherie. Perhaps within a week.” He could introduce Narcise to his friends, and he imagined that she’d enjoy the fresh air.

He excused himself as quickly as he could and returned to the private parlor at last.

The first thing he noted was that Narcise wasn’t there. He frowned; she’d had ample time to return. Then, when he scanned the chamber and realized that Moldavi was absent as well, his stomach plummeted and a rush of anger stopped him cold.

“Where are they?” he asked Eddersley, who’d paused to look at him as if he were mad.

“The Moldavis? They left. Perhaps a quarter of an hour past.”

Giordan rushed out of the parlor, knowing it was futile, that they’d already gone…but somehow hoping that he was wrong.

But he wasn’t. Outside, beneath the swath of stars and sliver of moon, he found one of his grooms and demanded to know where the Moldavi carriage was.

When the groom explained that it had left some time earlier, and that, oui, the mademoiselle was with her brother, and, no, she was not in distress, she was walking of her own volition, Giordan stepped back and whirled away. His heart pounded violently and he knew his eyes were burning red and gold, fairly flaming with rage.

He had a terrible, sinking feeling that he’d never see Narcise again.

9

It was more than three weeks after Narcise seduced him that Giordan received word from Cezar Moldavi.

At first, he had no concerns about the silence. Playing the game he and Narcise had agreed upon, he waited for two days before contacting Moldavi again, under the guise this time of formalizing the details of the spice ship. When there was no response to that dangling carrot of business investment and money, Giordan was concerned, but not terribly so.

Perhaps Moldavi had been called out of town again.

He attempted to visit as Monsieur David again for Narcise’s painting lesson, at least in order to see her, and ensure himself that she was well. When he was turned away from the door with the explanation that mademoiselle was no longer interested in lessons, Giordan had that awful sinking feeling again.

What did that mean?

Another attempt to deliver fabric as an elderly merchant as he’d done once before was also foiled when he was advised that no one was in residence to see him.

Thus Giordan spent the next two weeks in varying stages of fear, fury and loathing. The helplessness was the worst. Was she alive? Was she dead? Was she here in Paris? Had she been fencing? Winning or losing?

He made personal calls three times after that, and each time he was turned away with vague explanations that the master was gone.

He began to plot with Eddersley how he might gain entrance to Moldavi’s lair through the catacombs, sneaking in through the rear.

He paid Mingo handsomely to debase himself and attempt to seduce any or all of Moldavi’s servants regardless of how homely they were when they visited the market, providing his own steward with enough funds to pay for an entire ship in order to incent tongues to wagging. The only information he was able to glean was that the mademoiselle was cloistered in her private apartments and had hardly been seen for more than a week. However, she had had no visitors at all.

“But she is well?” he demanded, his fangs flashing, his hand pressing his valet and steward’s chest against the wall.

Mingo’s eyes widened and he nodded. “So far as I can ascertain, she is well, sir.”

Giordan remembered himself and released his servant, turning away with trembling hands and a stomach that gnawed with emptiness. I should have forced her to stay with me. I shouldn’t have let her leave.

At last, he received a response to the five messages he’d sent, and the three he’d left in person. It was absurdly mundane: I would be honored by your presence this evening. Moldavi.

He had four stakes secreted on him when he entered Moldavi’s stronghold, and was determined to use at least one of them before he left. As he’d anticipated, three of them were discovered by the butler when he was offered entrance at the street level. But the fourth one remained tucked in the underside of his loose shirtsleeve.

Whatever he’d expected, Giordan had not anticipated the beaming, cordial host who greeted him as he entered the spacious, well-appointed parlor they’d used previously.

“I’m so terribly sorry for the confusion,” Moldavi said, gesturing to a pair of chairs pulled up cozily next to a piecrust table.

As always, he was dressed formally in well-tailored clothing: a snowy-white shirt, brocade waistcoat, knee breeches and stockings. Instead of the wigs currently in fashion, Moldavi wore his hair combed neatly over his face and ears, and his wide-jawed face was clean-shaven. Several rings winked on his fingers as he gestured with his