She looked at him searchingly. “Is that so?”

“Of course it’s so,” he replied, more angrily than he’d ever spoken to her. “How can I expect to break the covenant, to distance myself from the devil, if I act like the demon he turned me into? If I take from people, feed on them, pull their very life from them, how can I ever become human again?”

“So you’ve fed on a mortal, for the first time in decades, and you believe that action has destroyed your chance to be released from the Fiend? Oh, yes, I can see that a century of self-denial has already gotten you so very close to your desire.”

He glared at her mutely. She was looking at him with a sort of arch expression that he’d never seen before. “You don’t understand,” he said tightly. “I fed from a person. I drank her blood. I…” His voice trailed off as saliva filled his mouth. Even now, he could hardly control the physical reaction of his long-denied body. He could still taste it. Feel the energy, the life flowing through him. “It’s a violation. A sin.”

“But has denying yourself done anything but make you a cold, hard, empty shell? Hardly a person at all.”

To his shock and eternal mortification, Dimitri felt a stinging in his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose fiercely before any tears could form. “My…dislike of social engagement has nothing to do with the problem at hand.

I’ve never been…particularly social.”

“Have you read the story I gave you?” Wayren asked.

Dimitri frowned, blinking hard. “The fairy tale about the beast? A bit of it. I found nothing of relevance.”

“Indeed?”

Impatience flooded him, and he made a sharp, frustrated gesture with his hand. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.

I thought…” He shook his head sharply, pressing his lips together.

“Dimitri of Corvindale,” Wayren said. Her voice had gentled. “If you want to become truly human again—no longer bound to the Fiend—first you must allow yourself to live again. To feel again.”

“I feel,” he snarled.

“Do you? Or do you snarl and growl—as you’ve done here, today—and then run in the opposite direction when ever something begins to soften your heart?”

“Earls don’t run,” he snapped, but something shifted deep inside him.

She smiled at him. “No, not this one. Instead you lock yourself away within a barricade of stone walls so that none can touch you, so that you can keep yourself from feeling anything.”

It was safer that way. Easier. Less complicated. “I lock myself away so I can study,” he said. But even to him, the words sounded false. “I don’t like to be bothered.”

Wayren gave him a sad, soft smile. “But that’s why men are here. To be bothered. To feel. To live. To love. And…to be loved. That is what makes you different from every other creature. And that is what makes man ultimately more powerful than the Fiend. Do you not see? He’s taken your soul, and with it, he’s taken your very humanity. The very part that could save you.”

His belly twisted tightly and his head throbbed. Maia’s face filtered into his memory, then was supplanted by Meg. And Lerina. He shook his head, but at the same time, something small and warm moved in his chest. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Wayren was watching him. “Very well, then. Dimitri of Corvindale, I wish you all of the best.”

During the ride back to Corvindale’s residence from that of the sharp-eyed Rubey, Maia tried to keep her mind blank. She had so much to think about, so many emotions to sift through and to determine which ones to focus on, that she dared not begin it until she was in the privacy of her own chamber.

Preferably during another bath, where she might wash away the remnants of the interlude in Rubey’s parlor.

She shivered, a little flutter of heat streaking through her. That episode alone was enough to send her thoughts spiraling into confusion. But she dared not let herself think about it now. About: Nothing need change. We need tell no one.

Her lips tightened. Corvindale was addled if he thought nothing had changed.

When the carriage pulled up in front of Blackmont Hall, the first thing Maia noticed was another familiar vehicle parked there. Her stomach became a mass of fluttering bird wings.

Alexander.

As if she didn’t have enough to contend with. Biting her lip, she opened the little door behind the driver and asked him to take her around to the servants’ entrance.

It simply wasn’t done, of course, for a lady of the peerage to come through the rear entrance. But that would be preferable to trying to explain to Alexander why her hair was a mess and why there were four delicate marks on her neck. And shoulder. And on her gloveless wrist.

Thus, she slipped into the rear entrance and through the warm kitchen, down into the hallways that weren’t quite as gloomy as they had been when she and Angelica had arrived here. At least some of the windows were unsheathed from drapes now, so many weeks after their arrival.

Maia sent a message down to Alexander that she’d arrived and was safe, asking him to come back later in the afternoon, for she needed time to rest.

No sooner had she sent off her maid with that task, and to order a bath, than the door to her chamber was assaulted by an insistent knock. Before Maia had the chance to bolt the door—for she well knew her sister—said sister burst into the room.

“Maia! Oh, thank heavens you’re back!” She threw herself into Maia’s arms, and nearly bowled her over onto the bed, for not only was she enthusiastic, but Angelica was also a bit taller and heavier than her elder sister. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

“I’m not hurt at all,” Maia replied, “except for the fact that you are squeezing the life out of me.”

Her sister released her and stepped back. “Is that better?” she asked. And then her face froze with shock. “Is that what I think it is? On your neck?”

Maia touched the bite marks, which were what had caught her sister’s eye. “If you think they are vampire bites,” she said in a much lower volume than Angelica, “you would be correct.”

“One of Moldavi’s vampires?” Angelica asked, sitting next to her on the bed. “Were you terrified? Did they kidnap you? All I heard from Corvindale’s message was that you’d been found safely.”

“Yes, I’m safe, and uninjured. Have you heard anything from Chas?” she asked in an effort to avoid Angelica’s question about the bites.

“Chas has not been in contact, but we’ve sent a message. He’ll be here soon. Alexander is below.”

“I know that, but I sent word that I would see him this afternoon. I need…to freshen up.”

“He’s refused to leave. He says he’ll wait here until you’re ready to come down.”

Maia closed her eyes. Noble. So noble. “It will be some time before I come down. Perhaps you can tell him for me, that I am well, but I must freshen up.”

“I shall do my best, but he’s as stubborn as you.” Angelica looked at her sharply. “What happened to you, Maia? Where did you get the bites?”

“I don’t wish to discuss it,” she replied firmly. “But I do wish for a bath.”

Despite Angelica’s protests and questions, Maia managed to send her from the room with direction to talk to Alexander. Then she indulged in her second bath of the day, along with her second bout of confused tears.

Whatever was she going to do about Alexander? How could she marry him after what had happened with Corvindale? How could she marry him when she was in love with another man?

In love with another man.

Those words jumped up out of her mental whirlwind of thoughts, freezing in her mind. Maia paused, water and tears mingling and dripping from her face.

In love with another man who happened to be a vampire.

How could she be in love with him? The thought was absurd. He was rude and arrogant and he raised his voice to her and he argued about everything. He condescended. He insulted.

He kissed her. Oh, how he kissed her.

He argued with her, but for all that, he didn’t ignore her. For all his annoyed comments, he nevertheless seemed to listen to her. He was honorable. Intelligent.

He could never picnic with her, under the sun. He could never ride or accompany her anywhere during the day.

But the way he looked at her…with something in his eyes. Something…needy. Something lost. Something lurked there.

She let her hands fall into the warm, vanilla-and-lily-scented water, causing it to splash over the rim.

What a fanciful notion. That she was in love with a vampire. With the earl. With a man who could hardly stand her presence.

And if she were in love with him—truly in love, although how could she be, truly?—what difference did it make? He certainly couldn’t love her. And…

She was to wed Alexander. A good man. Who possibly loved her, and who at least held her in high regard. Even if his kisses were boring and his conversation not nearly as interesting, if not as explosive, as Corvindale’s.

The wedding was to have been…dear heaven…tomorrow!

In the blur of Corvindale’s disappearance and Maia’s own abduction and return…she’d lost track of time. She was supposed to have wed Alexander tomorrow. No wonder he wouldn’t leave.

Maia bit her lip again, noticing that it was tender from all of the worried gnawing she’d done on it…and perhaps from the rough kisses of earlier today. She closed her eyes, a flush of memory warming her. Pleasure stabbed her belly.

What was she going to do? She’d already postponed the wedding when Corvindale disappeared, but now that he was back and so was she…they must decide on another date.

What am I going to do?

Cold truth settled over her. She had to marry Alexander.

She was ruined now, thanks to the earl. She could even be carrying his child.

That thought turned her alternately hot and then cold again. It was followed by rage that Corvindale meant to pay her off by settling a dowry on her for her wedding, after he’d ruined her. To pay for the child, if there was one.