“That doesn’t sound very helpful!”

“Perhaps not, but there are no hard and fast rules in survival. I did what we all do when faced with something we believe beyond our abilities.”

“And what’s that?”

“The best I could.”

“And when that wasn’t good enough?” I whispered, finally admitting what I’d been trying not to think about. That I wasn’t good enough. That the former Pythia had said it herself, in what I was beginning to think had been a prophecy: that I’d be either the best of us or the very worst. I had no idea what that first part meant, but I could really see the latter as a possibility.

“I found help.”

“Such as?”

“The family,” he said simply. “They stood behind me. Gave me something to fight for besides my own survival. Helped me believe that we would triumph, even when I sometimes doubted it myself.”

“The family,” I repeated dully. The very thing I didn’t have.

“Not the one of my birth. It was shattered, first by Father’s death and later by Vlad’s betrayal. But in time, I built a new one. I had Horatiu, then Radu and, eventually, others.”

Great advice—for another vampire. But I couldn’t just go out and make a family for myself. And every one I’d ever had had disappeared through murder or betrayal or bad luck.

“Well, some of us don’t have a family to fall back on,” I said bitterly.

“You have a family, dulceata?,” he told me, pulling me close. He moved slowly, giving me time to protest, to move away. When I didn’t, one hand circled my waist, the other cupping the back of my neck, his touch careful but sure. “You’ve always had one.”

“The family is loyal to you, not to me.”

“But as I am loyal to you, it amounts to the same thing.”

“Are you?” I searched his face. It was beautiful, flames dancing in those dark eyes, shining on his hair. And as usual it told me exactly nothing. “I’m a seer, not a telepath, Mircea. I’m not even as good as a vamp at telling when someone is lying.”

“What do you feel?” He was breathing softly through his mouth and I felt it on my lips, warm and heavy. For a second, the memory of his mouth was so vivid I wasn’t sure we weren’t kissing right now. It was all too easy to imagine loving Mircea. It was even easier to imagine the problems it could cause.

“The last things I can trust are my feelings!” I told him unsteadily. “Especially for you!”

“Ah, dulceata?,” he murmured. “You will learn as I did: family are the only ones you can trust.”

He took my face in his hands and smiled against my lips, and when I felt it, I couldn’t help smiling, too. I could feel his chuckle where my hand rested against his chest, and the thud of his heart picking up speed. I clung to him, my hands finding warm skin under his shirt, spreading across his back.

When he finally kissed me, it was nothing like Pritkin’s touch. Mircea was certain, but unhurried. Instead of bruising strength and dominance, he used a gentle, sure pressure that caught at my senses just as thoroughly. His hand stroked over my cheek as his tongue teased mine, warm and silky, transforming sweetness languorously into heat. The only word for the way Mircea kissed was “lush.”

“Your skin is cold,” he murmured, settling me against him. His body heat was at my back while the fire warmed me from the front. My dress had ridden up, above my knees, and the dry heat of the flames felt good on my legs.

I knew I couldn’t let this continue, but I was exhausted and my defenses were low. And that familiar voice was back, the one that told me I could put a stop to this, in one more minute. Nothing would happen in just a minute, I’d be so careful…One of Mircea’s hands stayed on my waist, while another found its way underneath my skirts, skimming up my left calf before sliding around to the back of my thigh. He began stroking lightly, rubbing small circles through the silk stocking. Suddenly my pulse was pounding, my vision going blurry, my skin warming all over.

“We can’t,” I told him unsteadily, trying to remember why that was important.

His fingers had found the band at the top of my thigh-high. They tightened, flexing and unflexing, scraping blunt fingernails over the lace. When they dipped under the top, I couldn’t help but shiver. “Oh, I am fairly certain we can,” he said.

I met his eyes, brimming with heat and humor, and felt something inside expanding, decompressing. It was as if it had been there all along but there hadn’t been room for it until now. I was suddenly afraid that we could, too.

Chapter 24

I realized that the dress was being undone, but then nails scratched lightly down the length of my back and I forgot why that was a problem. The double heat from Mircea’s body and the fire had caused sweat to pool between my shoulder blades, hovering on the verge of trickling down my spine. As each ribbon pulled loose, his tongue was there, licking up the salt drops, tracing patterns on my skin. His lips brushed lightly over me, closing briefly on the individual knobs along my spine, sucking gently.

“You don’t understand. The geis—” I stopped because a particularly hard shiver had caught me. I had the definite sensation of being on a train with no brakes heading straight off a cliff. Mircea chuckled, which wasn’t anything like reassuring, and it was also a little alarming how fast the clothing was coming off. But then he was murmuring low, musical Romanian against my shoulder, and I understood every word down to my bones.

I felt the silk slip and start to fall as the material pulled apart. He laid me on the rug and bent over my right leg, touching his lips to the inside of my thigh. My shiver turned into goose bumps when his tongue met skin through the silk, and his teeth closed around the lace top of my stocking.

“Mircea, listen to me,” I said quickly, to cover the stab of arousal caused by watching him pull my stocking down with his teeth. “The geis went wrong. It isn’t the original spell anymore, it—”

“Is delightful,” he said, having tugged the stocking completely off.

“Now, maybe. But it gets stronger!”

Mircea had curled his hand around my other thigh, his thumb resting on the lace edge of my remaining stocking. He started absently moving it a little bit up and down until he hit a particularly sensitive spot and paused. He stroked lightly, as if he somehow knew exactly what his touch was doing to me, while I tried to remember how to breathe.

“I look forward to it,” he whispered, before pulling me into a kiss as slow and luxurious as cold honey.

Things became a little hazy for a few moments after that. I remember him stripping me slowly, his expression hungry and intent and strangely tender. I remember swift fingers slowing to stroke over bare skin while he watched me with suddenly dark eyes. I remember being stretched out on the blanket with big, careful hands, and touched everywhere, while the fire muttered smokily to itself and the snow fell harder outside.

“Mircea—” I stopped because a finger painted my lips with wine, silencing me before he kissed it away. More wine followed, running down my torso in dark red rivulets. I inhaled a deep, stuttering breath as he started licking a trail downward.

He brushed over a nipple, sucking gently as I shivered, tracing patterns on my skin with his tongue. Every touch of his lips, every breath, caused pleasure to run like wildfire along my nerves. I guess I finally know how he takes his wine, I thought hazily, before he suddenly thrust into my navel and I lost all thought.

Wine dribbled down my stomach, over my hips, down my thighs. He looked up, eyes gleaming with more than just candlelight, as he stroked over the center of me. My whole body tightened with longing for what I’d never gotten to have, what I’d never stopped wanting. I shuddered and pushed back against the fingertips when they passed over me again, and the hand withdrew.

I stared down the length of my body at him, aching, uncomprehending, until one finger returned, coated with wine, and slowly pressed inside. Tension leapt in my muscles at the intrusion, even though I’d wanted it, but the instinctive tightening of my body couldn’t stop the slow, deliberate penetration. Then it withdrew and a warm tongue replaced it, chasing the wine, tasting it, tasting me, as his thumbs traced restless little circles on my hips.

I was the one to break eye contact first, molten heat flooding out reason, my head dropping back to the rug even as I arched upward. His tongue talked softly to me, some unknown language of the body. But it seemed that part of me understood, part of me was pretty close to fluent, because ripple after ripple of pleasure spilled through me. He teased me by flicking his tongue just a little too slowly until I whimpered helplessly.

The darkened windows reflected the impossible sight of that proud head bowed over me, that clever tongue pleasuring me. I closed my eyes and breathed through it, desperately; almost too much sensation. He had begun with a gentle touch, but it quickly grew more assured, more demanding, until his hands tightened on my hips, jerking me nearer in an almost greedy way. And I guess my body must have been talking to him, too, because somehow he knew the pace I wanted, knew exactly the touch I craved. Pleasure slid up and down my spine like hot wax until it gave up and melted entirely.

Without being asked, I shifted my legs farther apart for his touch. And the geis instantly rewarded me: the feeling I had whenever I resisted, like my chest had been caught in a vise, suddenly eased. I took what felt like my first full breath in days.

And it terrified me.

I’d been a fool to think I could control this, crazy to let it go this far. If I became Mircea’s servant things would be bad, but if he became mine, they might be even worse. I didn’t think the Consul would be too pleased about having one of her senators under anyone’s control, especially mine. I didn’t even have to guess what her response would be: if I didn’t stop this, I was either a slave or dead.

My body was no longer taking orders from my brain—I literally wasn’t in control anymore—but I could still talk. “Mircea, listen to me. We have to—” I stopped suddenly, unable to finish; I was too busy swallowing the groan that wanted to slip free of my throat.