I woke up with a groan at the sunlight streaming in. My sleep had been interrupted by dreams that had me waking with my heart pounding and my nightgown damp with sweat. They weren’t nightmares where I relived Jackal kidnapping me, but they did feature a vampire. One who hadn’t been doing anything against my will, but had left me gasping and pleading for more—and my dream lover hadn’t been Maximus.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was no stranger to wanting something I couldn’t have, and there were two remedies I knew that could help. One I couldn’t indulge in because the mind-reading vampire who haunted my sleep would know what I was doing, and worse—he’d know I was thinking about him while I was doing it. That left the other remedy.
Even though I still felt like a piece of meat someone had hammered for maximum tenderness, I got up and went over to the dresser, pulling out a pair of pants and a runner’s bra. Maximus told me this house had an exercise room. I was going to find that room and burn off all my misdirected, useless lust until I was too tired to fantasize about anything except a nap.
Once I was dressed, I went downstairs. The great hall looked empty, but I knew better.
“Hello? I need to know where the gym is,” I stated.
Before I could mentally count to three, a figure slipped out from behind one of the tall stone pillars.
“It is below this floor,” the vampire said, an Irish brogue adding a pleasant cadence to his speech. “I will escort you.”
I’d started to smile in thanks when a familiar, far more subtly accented voice made me freeze.
“No need, Lachlan. I’ll show her where it is.”
I mentally groaned. It was bad enough trying to exorcise Vlad from my thoughts when I only saw him at dinner. If I ran into him during the day as well, I didn’t stand a chance.
And thanks to his damn mind reading, now he knew that.
Lachlan bowed to Vlad and vanished again. I waited, not turning my head. A scarred hand slid along my arm, leaving gooseflesh in its wake more from my reaction to his touch than the result of his heated flesh compared to the hall’s chillier temperature.
“Are you always this warm?” I asked, not looking at him.
Something tall and dark filled my peripheral vision. “If I’m utilizing my power, I’m even warmer, but you know that. If I’m asleep, my temperature drops to that of a normal vampire.”
So every part of him would be at least this heated. Didn’t that invite musings I was better off not having?
“Gym,” I managed to say. “Where is it?”
His fingers closed over my arm. “Come with me.”
He knew I’d follow him, so his hand on my arm wasn’t necessary. He’d chosen my right side, too, so if I wasn’t careful, my hand would brush him and I might glimpse that erotic vision again. I never do anything unless I’m sure, he’d said. Was he daring me to see if that vision remained unchanged?
Vlad had to hear what was churning inside my head, yet he made no comment. He also didn’t drop my arm or move even an inch away. Instead, he led me down a staircase located behind the winter garden that ended in an enclosed stone hallway.
“What else is down here?” I asked to break the silent standoff between us.
“Aside from the gymnasium, there are the lower kitchens, laundry rooms, servants’ entrance, storage facilities, swimming pool, root cellars, and humans’ living quarters.”
I did look at him then. In shock. “You keep your live-in blood donors in the basement?”
“It’s a very nice basement. Much better than the dungeons. Those tend to be quite cold in winter.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious. He might indeed think nothing of housing his blood donors next to his root cellars, or he might find it hilarious to let me believe that.
“I’d love to meet them one day,” was what I said.
His lips twitched. “Would you, or are you trying to discover if they’re shivering in a dark room even now?”
“I never said that,” I muttered.
He stopped walking, but his hand remained on my arm. “I don’t shirk my responsibilities, and everyone here is a member of my line directly or indirectly. Their living quarters contain normal bedrooms, and you are welcome to see that for yourself.”
“Thanks,” I said, adding, “I didn’t really think you kept them housed in tiny underground cellars.”
His mouth quirked. “You gave it fifty-fifty odds.”
“Well, you do have an active dungeon,” I pointed out.
He laughed, the sound rolling over me more than once with the echoes in the enclosed hallway. His laughter was so unique—part amused growl, part purr, and all self-assured male. Its effect on me was tangible, turning up my own lips and making me step closer to him before I realized what I was doing.
Emerald flared in his gaze and his fingers tightened on my arm. A throb started inside me, low but unmistakable, making my mouth go dry and my pulse begin to speed up. One more step would have our bodies touching, we were standing that close. But that single step would probably seal my vision into reality. Don’t let it happen, Marty had urged me. He’ll break your heart and ruin your life . . .
I took not one but two steps backward, slipping my arm out from Vlad’s grasp. He let me go without trying to stop me, and I expelled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Anxious to defuse the unspoken tension, I pointed at a door with stone ivies carved around the frame.
“What’s in there?”
“The entrance to the chapel,” he replied.
I let out a nervous laugh. “Maximus told me this place used to be a monastery, but you actually kept the chapel?”
“No, it was destroyed,” he said, not commenting on my edginess or the reason behind it. “I had this one rebuilt on the ruins of the old citadel tower. Would you like to see it?”
“No thanks,” I said at once.
“How emphatic. Not the religious type?”
“No, why? Don’t tell me you believe in God?”
“Many vampires do. The story of our origin states that the mark of Cain was God turning him into the first vampire by forcing him to drink blood as penance for murdering his brother.”
Then he leaned forward and his voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Surprised? Is it impossible to believe that I think a day will come where I’ll be held accountable for each life I’ve taken, every drop of blood I’ve spilled . . . and yet I continue to do whatever is necessary to keep my people safe?”
I swallowed, as unnerved by that thought as I was by his nearness. Vlad was such a study in extremes that I couldn’t figure out if he was being rhetorical or serious, but maybe that was for the best. It was easier to walk away when I wasn’t being pulled further into his intriguing complexities.
He still stood very close. Without thinking, I rubbed the place on my arm where his hand had been. The spot felt oddly barren now. Ridiculous, I told myself. You came down here to unload tension. Quit stockpiling more of it with your idiocy.
His lips curled as he glanced at my arm. He’d heard that, of course. How I wished I could shut him out of my mind.
“Is the gym far?”
He inclined his head toward a door on the opposite wall.
“Right there.”
We’d been standing only a dozen feet away and he hadn’t said a word? I would’ve demanded to know what sort of game he was playing, except I didn’t think he was playing one. Instead, as his brow rose in silent challenge, I wondered if he was doing something worse—intensifying his pursuit of me.
If so, then the next move was mine, and with my attraction to him growing, I didn’t know if I’d choose wisely.