The day was unproductive, for the most part. Stormy knew now that it was possible an ordinary mortal, not Vlad, had stolen the ring. And she knew the police had the tape from the video surveillance camera, but not whether anything was on it.

Maybe the night would provide more answers.

She'd pleaded exhaustion and gone to her room early. But she wasn't tired. She was eager and afraid and excited and terrified. He would come to her tonight. She knew he would. The fear made sense. Not the longing. Never that, she told herself, knowing she was lying.

She opened the windows, one after the other, so the night wind whispered into the bedroom and the curtains sailed like ghosts. And she left them that way while she headed into the bathroom for a long, steamy shower. When she stepped out again, dried herself off and padded, naked, back into the bedroom, he was there. Waiting for her.

He sat in a chair, in the shadowy corner. She wasn't surprised or startled or even embarrassed to be standing naked in front of him. It felt normal, natural and expected.

"Hello, Tempest," he said softly.

She felt herself tense as she reached for a robe. "I knew you would show, now that the ring has surfaced. So tell me, Vlad, was it real, last night?"

He got to his feet and came to her, took the robe from her hands before she had a chance to pull it on. Her heart skipped and her belly tightened. And even then, she felt that foreign presence stirring, deep inside her.

"I like looking at you. Give me that, at least," he said, very softly.

"You know I can't, Vlad. You know what it would do to me." She stared into his eyes, wondering if he even gave a damn about that. "Even now, she's waking up, trying to take over. Just being close to you-"

"I know, Tempest. Believe me, I know."

"Of course you do. It's why you're here."

He seemed surprised but didn't let it throw him. "I've never been far from you," he told her.

That got her. True or bald-faced lie, her heart went for it, and seemed to go soft and squishy in her chest.

"I've missed you so damn much," she whispered, a wrenching confession.

He bent his head and kissed her, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her nude body against his clothed one. His tongue delved into her mouth, and she took it, loved it, welcomed it, as she arched against him. But the other was coming alive, clawing her way to the surface, demanding possession of Stormy's own body.

She pulled free of Vlad and took a step back.

"I want you." His words were nearly a growl. And, she noted, he didn't say her name. She suspected he was speaking to Elisabeta, not her.

When she spoke, her voice was broken, trembling. "It wouldn't be me. You'd be making love to her. My body, her soul." She met his eyes, held them hard. "Maybe you wouldn't mind that so much. She's the only one you really want."

"Does it matter, Tempest? I don't think you would refuse me. And I know she wouldn't."

"Do it, then," she said.

She saw him frown. "Tempest?"

"Yes, it's still me, dammit. Do it. Take me and see what happens. But I warn you, Vlad, if you put that ring on my finger-"

"I don't have the ring."

She went silent, staring at him, trying hard to see if he were telling the truth or lying. But, for the life of her, she couldn't tell.

"Please don't lie to me, Vlad. Please-"

"I don't have it, Tempest. I did come here for it. But someone else got there first. Until last night, I had assumed it was you."

She closed her eyes, wanting to believe him.

"I made a discovery last night, Tempest," he said softly. "And you know what it is, don't you? Elisabeth can't invade your dreams. Everything but that. Last night, I came to you in your dreams. And she didn't take over your mind. She couldn't. Your dreams are you own. Safe ground, apparently."

Stormy blinked her eyes open and stared at him. "But it was only my mind you invaded."

"No, Tempest. It was real. I touched you, kissed you. I wanted-" He closed his eyes.

"I didn't know getting a woman's permission was on your list of priorities, Vlad."

He lowered his head. "You still don't. It's only a token effort, really. I heard you, cursing me, just before dawn. I'm still unsure how much of it was sincere. But I think we both know I'm going to take you either way."

She didn't want to think about that, not now. "I don't think I believe you."

He looked her squarely in the eyes. "Refuse me and find out."

She lowered her eyes and didn't answer. Her body was screaming for him. She wanted to tell him yes, to take her in every imaginable way. She wanted to tell him no and enjoy being ravaged by his will rather than her own. She wanted. She just wanted.

"I brought you something." He reached over to a night stand and picked up something she hadn't seen there before. A videotape.

"What is this?" she asked as he handed it to her.

"The museum's surveillance footage from the night the ring was stolen. I liberated it from the police department."

Her brows rose. "Is there anything on it?"

"I don't know. I haven't viewed it. I'll leave that to you and ask you to tell me what you find."

She blinked, shocked by the gesture. "You're showing a hell of a lot of trust in me to give me this tape. What makes you think I'll tell you what's on it, though? My goal is to keep you from getting the ring, not to help you find it before me."

"View it. At least then you'll know I don't have the ring. I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit through hours of footage, nor easy access to audio-visual equipment. And if you choose not to tell me what you find, it will be a simple enough matter for me to command you to tell me, or simply invade your mind and read what is there."

"You want me to find it first, don't you?" She scanned him with her eyes narrow, wondering what he was up to.

"I don't care which of us finds it first. If it's you, I can take it from you without so much as exerting any effort."

"You're that sure of yourself. Of your power?"

He met her eyes, smiled slowly, evil lighting his face. "Where you're concerned? Yes, Tempest, I am. You'll do whatever I command."

He glanced at the bed. She did, too, and she knew what he was thinking. She was thinking the same thing. Her pride wanted to refuse him, but she told her pride to go to hell. She wanted him-it was a force she didn't even try to resist. Was he compelling her to feel this way, even now? Was it Elisabeta's desire burning her up inside? Or could it be her own?

It didn't matter. She wanted him so much she was trembling with it. Her breaths came short and hitched, and her heart pounded. She walked to the bed, put the videotape on the night stand and peeled back the covers, then lay down, pulling them over her. She closed her eyes. "I'm going to sleep now, Vlad. And you are more than welcome in my dreams. You... you always have been."

He moved to the bed, sat on its edge. "Open your eyes, Tempest."

She did, and found his locked with them. "Don't blink, and don't look away. Just look into my eyes. Know my will. Feel my will. Do you feel it?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Good. Close your eyes now. And sleep. Sleep, Tempest, sleep. Be alert, and aware, and remember everything-but sleep. And do not wake until I tell you to wake."

"Yes." She licked her lips as the last vestiges of control melted away from her hands. "Make it good, Vlad," she whispered.

She was asleep. And yet... not. Vlad was pulling the covers away from her, bending over her, touching her body, and she felt everything, all of it, but for the life of her, she couldn't move or respond. It was as if she were a marionette and he was holding her strings. When he wanted her to move, she did, but of her own will, there was nothing in evidence. Nothing.

His hands moved over her breasts, rubbing and squeezing them. And then his lips followed, and he kissed and suckled her. She wanted to clutch his head and hold him closer, but she couldn't do that. Her arms would not move. Not unless he told them to.

His hand slid between her legs. Open to me, he whispered inside her mind. And then her legs suddenly had the power to move, but only if they moved the way he'd instructed, to part, and when she thought they were wide enough and would have gone still, his will pushed them farther, wider, and she lay there, more exposed than she had ever been. He touched her then, explored her with his fingers, probed deep inside her, pinched her pulsing nub lightly, then harder.

She heard herself whimper in response to that rough touch, and to his teeth on her nipple, mimicking the motion of his fingers. Pinching, tugging. Hurting so deliciously that it felt good. She wanted to arch her back, to push her breasts up in offering. She wanted to wriggle her hips in time with the motions of his hand. But she was motionless. Paralyzed. Helpless.

And then he was sliding down her body, his mouth moving wet and hungry over her belly, her abdomen, before settling finally over her center.

The sensation was too much, and she would have tugged her thighs together to slow it down, but they would not budge. If anything, they opened wider-he made them open wider, made her hips tip upward to give his mouth even greater access. His tongue snaked out, lapped over her lips and then between them, and then deeper, plunging inside her. Too much. She wanted to draw back, to slow it down. Instead her body obeyed his will, not her own, and her hips thrust upward, grinding her mound against his mouth. He fed from her, licking her as if in a frenzy of hunger. His teeth scraped her, caught her and bit down just enough. And then his hands were on her, spreading her wider, laying her open to his plundering mouth. He ravaged her, and his puppetmaster mind made her own hands go to her breasts, made her own fingers twist her nipples and pinch them.

It was his will, all his. She was no more than a ragdoll, awash in sensation, with no ability to do or say anything in her own defense. He could do what he wanted, and that was precisely what he did. She would not, could not, resist or refuse. And God help her, she didn't want to.

His mind whispered to hers, Give yourself to me. Come for me, Tempest. Do it now.

Her body responded to his command, as he bit and sucked her harder than before, and forced her hands to pinch her nipples harder, until they throbbed and grew hot. She exploded at his command, and he plundered on, taking her while her body convulsed. She wanted to twist away, the sensations were so overpowering, and yet he wouldn't let her, made her lie there, open and utterly helpless to him, until he had taken his fill and reduced her to a shuddering, whimpering mass of sensation.

And then, even before the convulsions had stopped, he was moving up her body and sinking himself deep, deep inside her.

"Again," he whispered as he began moving deeper, withdrawing, moving inward again. "Move with me now."

She did, even though the actions brought too much sensation to bear. And the passion began building before it had even ebbed.

He held her, and drove into her over and over, so deeply he drove the breath from her lungs. And this time, when he neared climax and she did as well, he sank his teeth into her throat, and he drank her essence, her blood.

The power of it nearly made her body shake apart with the release. It was above and beyond any orgasm she'd ever experienced. She felt everything. His body hard and pulsing, invading hers, filling her.

His teeth embedded in the flesh of her throat as his mouth drained the very lifeblood from her body. She was his, utterly and completely his, and her mind and body exploded around him, because he commanded it. And it was powerful.

So powerful, in fact, that she woke from her lucid sleep to find him lying there, still inside her, on top of her, holding her, kissing her neck and licking at the wounds he'd left in her throat, even as he began moving again to rebuild the fire.

Elisabeta came to fierce, fighting life, and Stormy barely had time to whisper "No" before she was gone. Her time with Vlad was over. The invader had driven her out.

When her nails raked his back, Vlad realized she had changed. No longer responding only to his mind's suggestions, Tempest had instead taken control. She was moving frantically beneath him, making demands of her own, unspoken but clear in the movements of her body. He drew back to stare down at her, wondering how she had managed to escape the power of his mind, and he saw that her eyes were wide open and blazing...

... and jet-black.

"Tempest... "

"She's gone. And I won't let her come back. Not this time, Vlad. This body is mine." Elisabeta wrapped her arms around his neck to draw him more deeply inside her.

He drove once, twice, then closed his eyes and gave in to the passion that rose up in him. He was shaking with desire and need. And it didn't matter who owned the body any more than it mattered who owned the blood that he needed to stay alive. He took what he needed from anyone he pleased. He always had. This was no different.

And he took her. He took them. Elisabeta, Tempest, both of them. Neither would have turned him away. He wouldn't have cared if either of them had.

Harder and harder he rode her, until she was panting and gasping beneath him, her nails raking his back until the pain burned along every path she made, but it only enhanced his pleasure. The bed slammed against the wall with the force of his thrusts, and he pushed her still harder. He didn't care if he hurt her.

"Elisabeta!" He growled her name as he spurted into her, holding her hard and mercilessly as he drove to even greater depths and then held there, pulsing, throbbing, into her.

She grunted, perhaps in pain or maybe in pleasure. He couldn't be sure and told himself it didn't matter. Slowly he eased himself out of her, but he didn't lie there on the bed to embrace her. He got up. Got to his feet, began reaching for his clothes.

"I've come back to you, Vlad," Elisabeta whispered. She twisted in the bed like a contented cat, hugging the pillow, clutching the sheet. "And this time, it will be forever."

"Is she dead, then? Have you managed to evict her from the body without my help after all?"

Beta thrust out her lower lip, sitting up in the bed. "Why do you care? I'm the one you love. I'm the one you're meant to be with. Your wife, Vlad. I'm your wife."

"You don't have to remind me of that. I've been trying to find you again since you died, Elisabeta."

"But I didn't die," she told him. "Not completely. Your magicians and your sorcerers wouldn't let me die. They imprisoned my essence in some in-between state-they bound it to the ring. I couldn't have moved on even had I wanted to. But I didn't want to, Vlad. I didn't want to leave you. And I haven't."

She blinked those huge, dark eyes up at him, and he saw them fill with tears. "Vlad, why aren't you happy? Isn't this what you wanted?"

"It's all I've wanted," he told her. He put on his clothes, but she was still weeping, and he didn't have it in him to turn a cold shoulder to her. Even as unused as he was to showing affection, he couldn't remain cold. Not to her, not to his Elisabeta. He sank onto the bed and pulled her into his arms, holding her gently. "I've never stopped loving you, Beta. Nor stopped wishing you could return. But I have to know-is she dead?"

She stared at him, and he knew, before she even spoke, that she would lie. So he pressed his lips to hers to stop her from speaking at all, and as she melted in his arms and opened to his kiss, he entered her mind as easily as a warm knife through butter, and he read what was there.

But there were no specific thoughts, no answers. Just a sense of vehemence, hatred and fury that shocked him, and he drew away from her kiss as if burned by it. He also felt Tempest still there, alive, but trapped. Like a captive inside her own body.

"My love?" Elisabeta whispered. "Can't you stay with me? Just for a short while longer?"

"No, Beta. I must go. And so must you. Tempest's friends will be coming for her soon. They'll know what you've done unless you... recede. Go back to sleep inside her, and wait until the time is right."

Her lips went tight. "I won't. It's too hard to get control. If I release it, I might never get it back again."

"You will," he promised. "I'll help you. Don't you trust me?" He cupped her cheek. "Please, Beta. Let her come back to herself. Just for now."

She held his gaze, and for a moment he saw anger glittering in the depths of her eyes. But then she blinked it away, averted her face and nodded once. "All right. I'll do as you ask. For now."

She lay down in the bed, pulled the covers over herself, and closed her eyes. In a few moments her breath came slowly and evenly.

Vlad touched her face, her hair. "Tempest?"

She didn't reply, just kept on sleeping. He tried probing her mind but found it blocked to him. She'd taken refuge, put up the blocks she'd somehow learned to build-most likely by years of working with and for his kind-to keep him out.

Elisabeta. She wasn't the woman he remembered. But whatever she'd become, he knew he bore the blame. Imprisoned, trapped for hundreds of years-how could she not lose herself to fury and anger and... perhaps even madness?

"I'm sorry, Beta. I'm sorry for what I did to you. I promise I'll make it up to you, no matter what I have to do."

Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he rose from the bed and went to the windows and leapt to the ground, but never landed. Instead, he changed forms and flew as a nightbird over the walls of the Athena mansion.