She didn’t have long to wait. Mercifully, weakness overcame her, and darkness flooded her vision. Maia slipped into it gladly.

Dimitri stared down at the note. His body had gone cold and then numb, then his mind shattered into terrified pieces. Now it was working its way into blazing fury.

He couldn’t allow terror into his mind, so he focused on the fury.

I have something you desire.

That was all the missive said, but he needed no other information. Lerina’s scent, along with that of Maia’s blood permeated the paper.

Dimitri stopped his thoughts as soon as he smelled it. No. Going down that avenue would turn him mad. Focus on the facts, on what he knew.

Maia had left early that afternoon, many hours ago, to call on Bradington. She’d taken a hack instead of one of his carriages, a fact which he didn’t learn until supper when Angelica pounded on his study door to inform him that her sister hadn’t returned.

Even then, he hadn’t allowed himself to be too concerned, instead, torturing himself with the image of two lovers reuniting and forgetting the passage of time. But now…

He forced his mind to remain calm and empty. To go through a list of steps with logic and objectivity. Obviously Lerina wanted him to come. Obviously she had something planned.

Obviously Maia wouldn’t be killed, at least until he got there. He hoped. Lerina wasn’t Cezar Moldavi.

He’d need assistance, someone to have his back. He wasn’t that foolish. Giordan. Chas was still in Scotland, blast. Iliana. Even Voss. Eddersley. Gehrington. Perhaps Eustacia, the woman who sometimes practiced fighting with Iliana, if she was back from Rome.

Not that he would wait for any of them to arrive. But at least they’d be coming behind him.

Thus Dimitri kept his thoughts cold and steady as he barked orders to Crewston to send messages to Rubey’s, to the back rooms at White’s and to Dewhurst. He called for Tren and Iliana, giving Hunburgh direction on how to secure the house and whom to contact in the event the worst happened.

He wouldn’t think on that.

Where would they be? She’d given no direction, no indication…they had to be at the same place they’d escaped before. Or, at least, he had to start there and track them if necessary. He wished he had his dogs, but he never brought them to Town.

These thoughts, these cold, steely thoughts, kept him calm as he removed his waistcoat and changed into clothing meant more for a tradesman than an earl. Loose trousers with pockets and a shirt, sturdy shoes. And a coat with more pockets, where he put stakes. He picked up his sabre that masqueraded as a walking stick and walked out of the house as prepared as he could be.

He disdained the carriage that was waiting, for a saddled horse was much faster, and Tren, quick as he was, had prepared both. The carriage would follow once the others arrived.

If they did.

Dimitri galloped through the streets, grateful for the full moon that lit the world nearly as brightly as the sun. It was well into the night, and dawn would be only hours away.

When he got near the abandoned, shrouded house near the fishermen’s wharf where he and Maia had been imprisoned, Dimitri slid from the horse before he even stopped. He landed on the ground and gathered up the reins, looking for somewhere to tie the beast, or some urchin to pay to watch him. The house was several blocks away, and he wanted to approach it as secretly as possible.

Despite the fact that it was long past midnight, the docks were by no means deserted. Fishermen and sailors walked, talked, fought, loaded and unloaded. The air was filled with noises of altercation and jollity. The smells of fish and sea-water mingled with something burning nearby and the ever-present odor of garbage.

Still calm, icily so, he looked around. And then he saw them.

Lerina stood in the center, in the narrow street. She was flanked by two men—likely vampire makes—and she watched Dimitri as he approached. Her eyes glowed faintly and she stood regally, as if she were a queen and he a subject approaching for obeisance.

“Where is she?” Dimitri demanded, his control slipping when he scented Maia on Lerina…and on the man standing next to her. Bradington. Whose eyes glowed mockingly.

Alarm rising inside him, Dimitri fought it back. So that was how Lerina had managed to get to Maia. He allowed his eyes to glow just a bit, to show the very tip of a fang. They were no match for him in strength or speed, and Lerina must know it. Even she, without the use of rubies, was no threat to him. And he sensed no rubies on her or her companions.

That fact filled him with unease.

“I wasn’t certain you would still want her. Now that we’ve finished with the little chit,” she replied. “Although I can see now why you’ve enjoyed her. She’s a tasty piece.” A lift in the breeze brought a stronger waft of fish accompanied by the smell of flame and burning wood.

“Where is she?”

“I wasn’t certain about your feelings for her the first time,” Lerina was saying conversationally. “After all, you were under duress. But you did feed from her—your control and abstinence are legendary, you know, and it was a shock to find that something had caused you to give it up. And then there was the way you looked at her…well, I had my suspicions. So of course I had to see for myself. It was rather amusing the way she came to your assistance, that night at—”

Dimitri moved sharply and had Lerina in his hands, a stake poised over her generous bosom before she could finish. “Where is Maia?”

Her eyes widened in blatant admiration and she arched a bit toward him, her hips bumping his. “Luce’s cock, you can still set my heart fluttering, Dimitri. All that power and rage rumbling beneath.” She shrugged in his arms, her breasts pressing beneath them as she tipped her head back as if to give him a better target. “Go ahead, do what you will. But if you kill me, you won’t know where to find Miss Woodmore. And time is running thin.”

Frustrated, fighting rising alarm, he released her, trying to keep his thoughts from scattering into wildness. “Tell me where she is.” He glanced at Bradington, who’d taken a step back and looked a bit less confident than he had a moment ago.

“Ah, feel free, Dimitri. I’d love to watch you, and he was merely a tool to get to…here. Right here, right where I wanted you.”

“And so I’m here.” He glanced behind her when another blast of smoke reached his nostrils and noticed a low glow in the distance. All at once, his senses went dead. The house, the very house in which they’d been imprisoned, was in flames.

“Yes, Dimitri. She’s in there,” Lerina said.

But he was already pushing past her, flying toward the house. His heart in his throat, he tore through the night, knowing there had to be some sort of trick…some sort of surprise waiting for him.

She could be dead. She could be made. She might not even be in there, it might be some sort of ruse… Even Cezar could be waiting inside.

Tongues of flame snarled through the windows, smoke poured from the roof. The house was wholly ablaze. If she was inside, how could she be alive?

For a moment, Dimitri was propelled back in time to the Great Fire, and he slowed for a moment. A mere moment, and then he went on, as strong and fast as before.

For this was different. This was Maia, this was now, and he was a Dracule. Fire didn’t harm him; it merely lashed around in a reminder of what hell would be like. Hot, searing, but without actually eating into him. If he could find Maia, he would be fast enough to pull her out, to cover her and streak safely through the flames with her.

If he could find her. If she was still alive.

His mind was three steps ahead of his feet, and he tore off his shirt, plunging it into a rain barrel. Wet and damp, it would help to protect Maia if—when—he found her and brought her out.

This time, as he approached the building, he didn’t have to find an opening that wasn’t burning. He crashed through a flaming door and found himself in a dark, hot place, filled with smoke that blinded him though he could normally see through the dark.

“Maia!” he bellowed, inhaling a lungful of the hot smoke and ash as he tore through the lower level, looking for a place that wasn’t aflame. He tried to smell her, to find her scent amid the soot and burning wood, and he caught it at last as he came to the stairs.

She was here. She was here.

Or she had been here.

“Maia!” he shouted again, ducking as a flaming beam tumbled from the ceiling. The entire place was in shambles, the sheets that had covered furnishings gone up in flames.

Fire snarled through spots in the walls, and the roar like a powerful windstorm filled his ears.

He called her name over and over as he dashed up crumbling stairs, down the hall to where they’d been imprisoned—he could tell by scent more than sight—and back.

There was no one there.

Tears stung his eyes, and they burned with the grit from hot ash and the heat. He used the dripping shirt to wipe it away. She had to be here. She must—

And then he heard something. Faintly.

“Maia!” he shouted, stumbling over a half wall as he turned toward the sound. He wasn’t certain where he was any longer in this building, he just listened, smelled, and then…

No.

He realized the trap before he even got there, for the weakness took hold.

He found her, coming into the very deepest part of the house, and stumbled into the chamber.

There she was, sitting in the center of the room with flames licking the edges, smoke swirling above. Maia was slumped in the chair to which she was tied.

Bound by ropes and ropes of rubies.

20

HELL

A great roar started deep inside and Dimitri fought it back. He would do it. He had to do it.

Dimitri started toward her, panting, sweaty and hot, but his limbs wouldn’t work. They weakened, slogging him to a slow halt as if he were fighting to run upstream a violent river. He released the shirt clutched in his fingers and grasped at the ground, trying to pull himself along using his fingers between old rotting floorboards. But they were weak. He was weak. His lungs tight, his limbs like lead.