The Vampire Narcise

victim—shuddering against her. He muttered something low and desperate in her ear, grinding the bulge in his trousers against her hip as his mouth found hers. He was sloppy and warm, and the taste of his own blood must have excited him, for he pulled her closer, urgent and needy.

Narcise twisted her face away and returned to his shoulder to lick at the bitemarks she’d left there. It made the wounds heal quickly and cleanly, and helped the blood to stop flowing.

As she pulled back, a glance behind her indicated Chas Woodmore, completely naked and wavering on his feet, clutching the bed as if he were about to pitch over any moment. The feverish light was in his eyes, but determination tightened his face, and she saw that he held a piece of splintered wood in his hand.

Their eyes met across the room, and she recognized horror and revulsion burning there…and yet an underlying layer of lust that was echoed in the lift of his own cock.

Her insides jolting in surprise and something else she didn’t understand, Narcise turned away and pulled herself and her victim to his feet. He sagged against her and she propped him against the wall with one hand, much stronger now that she’d been nourished, and yanked his sagging breeches back up into place. His cock still filled them out, but she had no interest in this young, lanky man. The image of another male body—mature, muscled and powerful—had lodged in her mind.

Yet, the blind lust had eased and she was back inside her own control—if not fully aware of Chas Woodmore in a completely different way. Another dull thump had her attention swiveling back to the vampir hunter, even as she restrained Philippe’s enthusiastic and insistent hands. Wood-more had managed a step or two, then collapsed once again.

Narcise turned her thrall back onto Philippe with new intent, and coaxed him into her world. This time, she lulled him into a dreamlike state that would eliminate from his memory everything that had happened since she turned her thrall on him.

When she finally released him, he was back in front of the fireplace and she was sitting in the chair just as she had been. Woodmore, whose gaze burned in its own mortal fashion as he dragged himself back to his feet, had sunk weakly back onto the bed in a feverish stupor.

“Merci,” she told Philippe as he gathered up the pails and tub. The marks on his neck were hidden by his shirt, and hadn’t left even a drop of blood on the pale linen. “Would you be so kind as to bring a new bath?”

“But of course, madame,” he said, his eyes still a bit feverish…as if he couldn’t quite remember what had happened, but sensed that something had.

She smiled at him and gave a little flare of glow in her eyes, then sent him on his way.

Then she turned her attention to Woodmore. His breathing was off rhythm, rough and ragged, and if anything his skin had become hotter. His cock had softened back into a relaxed state, and his eyes remained half open but unfocused.

Narcise’s trill of panic returned and she looked again at the wound on his hip. It was likely causing the fever. The swelling around it, and the stench… The physician had helped, but the smell told her that he’d not been able to stop the infection.

And then a thought struck her. It was so unexpected, and yet so logical she could hardly believe it hadn’t occurred to her before.

If there was bad blood there, gathering and clotting around the wound…she could take it away. She could draw the infection from him, and then use her lips and tongue to cleanse and heal in their own effective way.

It could work.

And, she thought, swallowing hard as she looked down at his tight, battered body…it would give her an excuse to taste him.

Something she hadn’t realized how much she wanted.

14

Chas opened his eyes to find bright sunlight blazing through a half-shuttered window.

He lay there for a moment, looking up at the wood-beamed ceiling festooned with random cobwebs, then off to the side and around an unfamiliar chamber. He couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d come to be here.

Yet, shifting in the bed on which he lay, Chas felt hardly a niggle of concern. There’d been many a night that had taken him places he hadn’t expected to go; many times he’d awakened after too much drink or women or both…quite often after routing a group of vampirs.

But as he turned, he saw her, lying on her side on the bed next to him. And with that sight came the rush of memories—some strident and clear, others murky and hot and red.

But first, before he tried to make sense of what was real and what had been dreams…he just looked. Such beauty, such exquisite beauty was breathtaking. Even in repose, she appeared unimaginably lovely.

Her cheek, perfectly ivory, without a flaw, rested on hands folded as if in prayer—an irony in and of itself. The position caused her already full, sensual lips to plump out even more enticingly, and an endearing pudge to her face. Her eyes were closed of course, but that was one thing he remembered clearly: the intense blue-violet color in them, ringed with black, flecked with dark colors.

Long, shiny hair, the color of coal, clung to her face and throat, tumbling into a pool on the bed between them. He reached over and touched it to see if it was as silky as it appeared. It was.

He could see the shadow of her breasts where they showed through a low neckline of the chemise she was wearing, the curve of them as they bunched up against the mattress. A ripple of attraction seized his belly, but he ignored it.

This was Narcise Moldavi.

He was in bed with a vampir—and one he’d meant to kill, at least at some point.

Chas sat up gingerly, noting that Narcise slept on the side of the bed farthest from where the sun would stream through the window, and felt the remnants of aches and pains throughout his body. His naked body.

With that realization of pain, more details came filtering back…Cezar Moldavi and his metal spikes and the burning poker…the fencing match between him and Narcise…the smoke packets that had worked almost as well as they had during their trials…perhaps they’d gotten a bit damp during the trip across the Channel.

Things were murky after that. He remembered everything being slow and dark and red, of pain and agony with every movement, the world tilting and spinning. There were times of running, stumbling along as if forever and ever…up some stairs…

Here. Into this chamber.

There things turned darker and hotter, and memory confused with dreams and nightmares. He closed his eyes and saw an image of Narcise, rising naked and glistening from a bath…there, in the corner…of her with eyes red-gold and hot, her fangs long and white and lethal…blood… there was blood and pain, and he had an image of her on top of someone, tearing into him…

Narcise stirred next to him and then she opened her eyes.

When she saw that he was awake, she sat up abruptly. “You’re alive.” Her eyes were wide with shock and happiness, making her even more beautiful with her dark hair swirling about her shoulders against a thin white shift.

Chas felt another loosening inside his belly, deep and fluttery. She was right there, she was lovely and sensual and they were alone. He wasn’t so weak that he couldn’t reach over, pull her to him—

He closed his mind to the temptation. She was a vampir. She’d coerce, coax, lull…seduce him…drag him into the Devil’s dark world.

“I don’t remember much,” he said.

“You nearly died,” she said. “From an infection. The doctor came, more than once, but he wasn’t certain if you’d live.”

Chas sank down onto his back, remembering even more. The screaming pain on his side, the cool, quick hands administering to his wounds, the haze of heat and confusion that followed, Narcise… He stopped his