Claimed by Shadow

be able to do much at all.

Tomas bent over to kiss me gently. His lips were soft and warm, and before I realized it, I was kissing him back. I'd wanted to do that for so long, it seemed as natural as breathing. Just touching him pushed away the memories of the attack, cleansing some part of me the bathwater hadn't been able to reach. Tomas deepened the kiss until I could feel it all the way to my toes, like tendrils of sunshine were curling through me. He tasted like wine, dark and sweet and burning, and I felt like I could never get enough.

But after a moment, I pulled back. It wasn't easy-the geis had recognized Tomas and the Pythia's power agreed that he would do fine to complete the ritual. Their need overrode my aversion to even thinking about intimacy at the moment. I wanted to fill my mind with thoughts and sensations that didn't involve horror and pain. I wanted him to touch me with those long, elegant hands, to have his mouth hot and demanding on mine. The look in his eyes was a caress itself, and an invitation. But the consequences for a few moments of passion would be severe.

Tomas let me go, an expression that I couldn't name flashing across his face. 'I'm sorry, Cassie. I know I am not the one you want.”

What could Tomas know about what I wanted? Most of the time, I didn't know myself. 'What I want isn't the point,' I said, trying to ignore the way his hand was playing along my side from breast to hip, over and over in a lazy, sensual stroke. It made my heart speed up and breathing difficult, like someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Oh, yeah, the geis liked him fine.

'What do you mean?' Tomas' hand stilled on my hip. That was not a great help to my blood pressure. Despite the fact that I had moved back, we were less than a foot apart. I struggled not to look down and failed miserably. The blanket had slipped off the front half of Tomas' body. Long legs shifted in the shadows, and between them was ample evidence of just how recovered he was.

'I can't,' I said, trying to remember exactly why that was. My fingers traced a line down his high forehead to the tender eyelids that fluttered closed under my touch, to the proud nose and warm, full lips. It was a perfect profile, burnished bronze in the lamplight like the head on an ancient coin, but his appearance wasn't what had attracted me to him. I'd loved his kindness, his strength and-I'd thought at the time-his honesty. Now I merely craved a warm body and soft skin next to mine, and a face that was familiar and caring.

'You saved my life, Cassie, even though I once put yours at risk. Let me do something for you.' Tomas' voice was at its best, whiskey deep and smoky, as if golden liquor had been magically turned into sound. It had always been one of his most attractive features, partly because, unlike the carefully contrived outfits and blatant attempts at seduction, it was unconscious. It was more the real Tomas, and so alluring that I wondered why he'd bothered with the rest. But of course I knew why-because Louis-Cesar had ordered him to, after Mircea decided that he would do to fulfill the ritual. I suppose they'd worried about the possibility of me recognizing one of Mircea's people after so many years at Tony's, where they came and went on a regular basis. But it hadn't been fair to Tomas, and for the first time I wondered whether he'd resented being used.

'I don't see what you can do,' I said, 'unless you can talk the king into letting us go, or make my power work here.”

Tomas smiled. 'Or lift the geis?”

Chapter 12

My brain came to a screeching halt. 'Run that by me again.”

'I was told that a geis had been placed on you to protect your virtue as your ward protected your life. But as a precaution against anything going wrong, an escape clause was added. If you slept with Mircea or someone of his choosing, the spell was broken.”

My mind reeled. That was it? That was the big secret? It seemed ridiculously simple, not to mention undermining the whole point. 'But why would he do that? He wants to control me!”

Tomas smiled bitterly. 'No doubt. But through so clumsy a device as a spell?' He shook his head. 'It would hurt his pride, Cassie. Not to mention that controlling someone as powerful as the Pythia with such a clumsy stratagem would be extremely dangerous. Why do you think the mages take initiates so young, and brainwash them throughout childhood? I am sure they would prefer to use a spell to keep them in line, if such a thing were possible. But the Pythia's power might override it, and the controller become the controlled. I cannot imagine Mircea risking that!”

'But why place the geis on me, then, if he never intended to use it?”

“To protect your chance to become Pythia. A brief affair could have ruined everything, for you and for him. The geis seemed the simplest way to ensure that didn't happen. And to afford you added protection at Antonio's. You did not know about this?”

'I didn't even know about the geis until yesterday!' I sat up abruptly, my mind racing at the implications. I could break the geis by sleeping with Tomas. It was so simple that it was ludicrous-if he was telling the truth. But Tomas didn't need to resort to lies to get a woman in his bed, and his explanation made sense. I'd thought it strange all along that Mircea would think he needed magical help to manipulate someone as young and clueless as me, especially when I was already infatuated with him. There were far more subtle ways of exercising control, and he was master of them all.

Of course, even if Tomas was right, there was no way to know whether Mircea's get-out-of-jail-free card would work on a double spell. And even if it did, there was a catch. A big one. If I broke the geis, I'd fulfdl the ritual's requirements and be stuck with the Pythia's position permanently. That would put paid to any hope of passing the power on to someone else, or of working something out with the Circle. Heirs could be unseated, as Myra had found out, but the Pythia held the position for life. If I completed the ritual, the mages would have no choice but to kill me if they wanted their candidate on the throne. And the same was true of Pritkin, if he really did favor Myra.

Unfortunately, things didn't look any better if I kept the geis. It was almost certain that the Senate would find me sooner or later. They had too many resources, including Marlowe's intelligence network, for me to have any illusions about that. And even if Tomas was right and Mircea couldn't use the spell to control me-a big 'if,' in my opinion-he also couldn't break it. The duthracht had lived up to its reputation and gone haywire, and there was no telling what would happen if the bond completed itself. It was supposed to be under the control of one of the participants, but what happened if, as seemed to be the case, neither of us was in the driver's seat? I didn't know what a geis in control of itself might do, and I didn't want to find out.

One thing was certain: if we met again, Mircea and I would certainly complete the bond. It was embarrassing to have to admit, but the only reason we hadn't done it already-and in front of about a thousand spectators-was his self-control, not mine. And that would complete the ritual, which would bring me back to square one.

'Damn it!' Both options were unacceptable, but there wasn't a third. There was no way to get rid of the geis and avoid completing the ritual. Or, if there was, I had no way of finding it stuck in a cell in Faerie.

Everywhere I looked, I hit a brick wall. I hated not having options, of having someone or something deciding my life for me. It had been that way as far back as I could remember. Either Tony or the Senate or the goddamned Fey were making me a victim, taking away my right to choose. I'd never had the power to fight back, to forge my own life or just to keep myself and the people I cared about safe. I couldn't even deal with one rogue initiate! And, I realized, if things continued as they were, I never would.

'What is it?' Tomas' hand was delicately stroking the small of my back, trying to soothe, to comfort. It was comforting, I admit, but not soothing. Neither the ritual nor the geis cared if he was hurt, or if I was ambiguous about the idea of having sex in a dank, chilly dungeon with Billy probably listening in. The compulsion to turn around and take Tomas up on the offer he'd been making ever since I met him was so strong, I had to bunch my fists in the coarse blanket beneath me to keep them still.

I forced my mind back to the problem. I'd been telling myself that I could pass the power on to someone else, but who exactly would that be? There didn't appear to be any other candidates for the job who could be trusted not to fall under the control of the Circle or of Pritkin's faction, neither of which I trusted. There was a war on, and