“You have no right.”

Something other than anger sharpened my words. Deep down, I was also afraid. Didn’t he see that he was crippling our marriage? We already had different backgrounds and a six-hundred-year age difference to overcome; how did he think we’d make it if he kept insisting that my opinion didn’t matter about my own life? I might have put myself in hypothetical danger last night, but with all his enemies, Vlad put himself in real danger every time he left the house, yet you didn’t see me expecting him to become a recluse. And sure, as a former prince Vlad was used to being obeyed, but I thought he’d learned how to compromise in our relationship—

“You gave me the right,” he breathed against my lips, “when you made me admit that I loved you.”

At those words, I remembered what Maximus had said the last time I saw him. I love Vlad and I’d gladly die for him. But whenever he loves something, he ends up destroying it. He can’t help it. It’s just his nature.

At the same time, my hated inner voice crowed, I TOLD you it would never work between you two!

Vlad released me, walking out of our room without another word. I let him go, fighting to get control over my wildly swinging emotions. I wanted to go after him, but he’d made it clear that he wouldn’t change his mind and he wasn’t even close to being sorry, so what was the point?

After he left, I stared at the wedding ring on my hand, refusing to believe I’d made a mistake. Despite his infuriating act, I still loved Vlad and he loved me. Not so long ago, that was all I wanted out of life. Now that I had it, I needed to make it work without surrendering my will, identity or abilities.

It wouldn’t be easy. Vlad had survived for hundreds of years by being ruthless and calculating. No wonder he treated our marriage like a war he had to win. Guess I should’ve expected what he’d done, not that I intended to stand for it. My abilities were part of me, and Vlad couldn’t just decide to rip out the parts of me he didn’t like. I couldn’t do the same to him, which was why both of us would have to compromise if we wanted our marriage to last.

Still, how did you show the world’s biggest control freak that the secret to lasting love meant giving up control? I didn’t know, but I intended to find out.

Chapter 4

I sat next to Vlad in his luxurious private aircraft. Instead of holding his hand to make sure I didn’t accidentally short-circuit the plane’s electrical system, I wore specialized rubber gloves. We hadn’t touched at all since his domineering stunt three days ago. Compromise Lesson One: Pull a dick move, and your dick gets denied. Every woman knew that, and now, so did the vampire sitting next to me.

If his new abstinence was bothering him, he didn’t show it. In fact, it might be messing with my emotions more than his. I’d gone to bed the past three nights in the ugliest pajamas I could find; Vlad walked naked from the shower, and with the size of his bedroom, that walk was longer than a model’s runway. It gave me plenty of time to see the steam rising from his hard, heated flesh as the drops clinging to him evaporated, plus see how his hair looked wilder and darker when wet, and don’t get me started on the way he’d look at me as he slid into bed. If my ugly pajamas were a proclamation of “you can’t touch this,” his challenging, sensual gaze practically screamed “you know you want to touch this.”

Yeah, I did, but I had to focus on the big picture. If Vlad thought a few days of flashing his skin—glistening when wet, highlighting those ripped muscles, hollows and sinews while that steam reminded me of how hot he felt deep inside . . . dammit, focus!—would be enough to make me forget what he’d done, he was wrong. Abstinence was merely the first step in my plan. Compromise Lesson Two involved Vlad doing something he didn’t like for the greater good of our marriage. I didn’t know what yet, but I’d figure it out.

Hopefully soon, because Lesson One sucked.

In Romanian, the pilots announced that we were about to land. I glanced out the window, seeing mostly darkness below. Wasn’t Paris called the city of lights?

“Why the sudden trip to Paris?” I asked in a casual tone, as if I hadn’t been wondering this for the past few hours.

“Not Paris, Payns,” he said, enunciating the word more clearly than he had when he first told me we were going to France. “I’m looking for someone and I believe this is where he is.”

“Szilagyi?” I guessed before logic told me it couldn’t be.

An eye roll preceded his response. “If I thought he were here, would I have brought you?”

No, of course not. If he thought I was too reckless to search for Szilagyi’s people among his self-proclaimed allies, Vlad certainly wouldn’t bring me to his long-awaited showdown with his enemy. I stifled a snort. It’s like he’d forgotten all about the times I’d saved my own butt through my abilities, starting with how we’d met.

After a bumpy landing, the plane taxied to a stop. When the door opened, I was surprised to see we were in a small clearing in the middle of a field. Payns must not have an airport, but wasn’t there somewhere else we could have landed? When the pilots immediately switched the plane’s lights off, I understood. Vlad didn’t want anyone, even a local control tower, to learn about his visit tonight.

“Stay here,” Vlad told the pilots as he descended the steps built into the plane’s door. I followed after him, not speaking until we were too far away for the pilots to hear.