“Do you know why they all refer to me as M’Lady?”

   “An endearing nickname?” I said, trying to sound casual, because I was pretty sure we were getting closer to the painful part of things.

   She smiled, looking down demurely, though it looked like a practiced gesture and not a real one. Something you do because it’s expected, but you don’t mean it. “Because to say my name aloud is considered bad luck. To come to my attention at all is considered ill fated.”

   I licked my lips and fought to keep my pulse even. “I heard that,” I said.

   “Allow me to demonstrate.” She offered her hand to Rodina, who raised a slightly startled face, but she had no choice but to take what was offered. M’Lady helped the other woman stand but kept their hands entwined.

   “M’Lady, what have I done to offend thee?”

   “I do not like your attitude today, and your brother’s loyalty is in question. Do I need to question yours, as well?”

   “No, M’Lady, you do not.”

   “We shall see,” the vampire said, and one minute Rodina was standing tall and sure of herself, except for a slight uncertainty in her black eyes, and then her knees buckled. My skin ran with goose bumps just being close to whatever was happening.

   “Please, mistress,” Rodina said through gritted teeth.

   “I like my servants humble, Rodina, and you and your brothers never quite get there.”

   The kneeling woman’s face was so pale that her freckles stood out like ink against her skin. She looked as if she might faint. “Please.” She hissed it, as if words were about to fail her.

   “Say my name, girl.”

   “M’Lady,” she said, sweat breaking out on her face as if she had a sudden fever.

   “No, my real name.”

   “Moroven.”

   “No, my real name.”

   “Nemhain,” the kneeling girl said in a voice that was strained as if she were in pain.

   “Scream my name, girl.”

   “Do not . . . make me . . . do this, please!” Her words were pulled from between her teeth as if she were afraid to open her mouth too wide, for fear she’d throw up. I could feel the power rolling off Nemhain, but I still didn’t know what she was doing to the woman on the floor.

   “I will pull every horrible moment in your long life from your mind and make you relive the terror of it. All you have to do to stop me is to do what I ask. Is that so harsh a burden, Rodina?”

   The girl shook her head, lips tightly closed. She was swaying on her knees now. She kept shaking her head as tears started to roll down her cheeks. “Nemhain! Neeemhaaainn!” She screamed the name until it echoed against the stone walls.

   The vampire let go of her hand and Rodina fell to the floor, one shaking arm catching her just before she would have lain on her side. She looked like what she really wanted was to curl up in a fetal position and weep, or throw up, or all three, but she fought to stay upright. She fought not to faint; she fought to save as much of herself as she could from what had just happened.

   Nemhain turned to me with a smile, most unpleasant. “Now, it’s your turn, Anita. I suggest you call out my name much sooner than she did; after all, you are merely human and do not have the reserves of strength that a shapeshifter does.”

   I tried not to tense up, but I couldn’t help it. I breathed out fast and tried to relax into it. It helped with a beating sometimes, and this was just another type of beating.

   She reached out that pale hand, and I couldn’t help but jerk back from it. She laughed, high and wild, the kind of laugh that only comes out of supervillains and the truly insane. “Keegan would enjoy holding you for me, Anita, or you can take your medicine like a big girl like Rodina did.”

   Keegan came up behind her, and there was something in his brown eyes that made me not want him to touch me, ever. Rodina’s voice came shaking and weak sounding, but she still said it. “Just take it. Don’t make it worse.”

   Strangely, in that moment I trusted the crazy bitch on the floor more than the one standing in front of me. I looked into Nemhain’s pale blue eyes and said, “Just do it.”

   “So brave. I will break you of that before I am done.”

   “Talk is cheap, girlfriend. Do it, or don’t.”

   She frowned at me as if it wasn’t the reaction she wanted, but she laid her hand against my face and called her power. We were both done being nice.

79

   MY SKIN RAN in shivering goose bumps with all the power she pushed into me, but it was like standing in the middle of a river that flowed past the rock of me. I could feel the water, knew I was getting wet, but I was still above water, still safe and unmoved by the torrent.

   I looked into her blue eyes from inches away, with her hand cupping the side of my face, and all that energy flowing around, but not into me. Just like in the dream, she couldn’t get past my shields.

   “No.” She whispered it.

   I looked at her and said, “Do you still want me to say your name?”

   “This is not possible,” Keegan said behind her.

   “I cannot see into your mind. I cannot draw your fears to the surface of it. The chains you wear are like the blade that slew your tiger. They are enchanted to separate you from all your other parts. Jean-Claude cannot help you while you wear them. You are a vessel for power, nothing more. I should be able to do with you as I like once you are shorn of all the other powers that aid you.”

   “Surprise,” I said softly.

   She poured more energy down her hand and put a second hand on the other side of my face so it looked like she was moving closer for a kiss. “No!” She shouted it, so angry, centuries’ worth of rage. I could smell it like something sweet and bitter rising off her skin. She was right on one thing: She had cut me off from all the other people I was connected to metaphysically. It was supposed to make me weaker, but in that moment, I realized I was like a loaded gun, and whatever she had done to me had taken off my safety. For the first time, I had the ability to feed on anger, thousands of years of untapped rage, and had no one in my head or heart with more practice at controlling their hungers.

   I didn’t think it was a bad idea, or a good idea. I just fed on her. I fed on her hands as they cupped my face. I fed on the look in her pale eyes as they widened in surprise. I fed skin to skin, draining her down as she held me. So—much—anger. I felt my eyes fill up with my own power. I watched her face grow peaceful as she fell into my gaze, and still I drank her rage. I’d never tried to drain anyone like this, but then I’d never had anyone who’d offered such a feast of time and ire.