SEVEN
Raniero stuffed her with mind-blowing sensations, his cock a searing length buried halfway to her throat. Amaris tossed back her head and began to work her thighs, thrusting, grinding, driven by a burning whip of need.
Bracing her hands on his rock-hard belly, she gazed down at him as she rode. His face was drawn tight and stark with hunger, black eyes wild, fangs bared. His long hair tumbled around his bare and brawny shoulders. Sweat and streaks of blood marked his skin, muscles flexing in hard relief with each powerful driving thrust.
She wanted to free him. Wanted to experience all that feral passion, to know exactly what those black eyes promised. To feel his bite, his kiss, his hands on her breasts.
He shouldn’t be any man’s captive. Especially not Korban’s.
Give him your blood, temptation whispered.
She imagined what it would be like—the stinging pain of penetration, the magical connection binding them together in drugging pleasure as he drank.
She could almost see his big body surging with the power of her blood, snapping the chains. The guards would have no chance against him. He’d free her and Marin, and they’d flee together.
Red God, she wanted to trust him. And every instinct she had swore he’d never play her false.
He surged upward so hard he lifted her clear of the bed, his body bending into a bow until only shoulders and heels touched the pallet.
Her climax hit like a ball of fire, blazing its way up her spine, detonating in her skull. She screamed, dimly aware of his roar of pleasure as he found his own peak.
Until she collapsed over him, both of them gasping, sweating skin to skin in a dazed heap.
Raniero had known Blood Roses—too well, in fact. His stepmother had only been the first. They might be beautiful and seductive, might even seem kind if it suited the moment’s purposes. Yet their focus was always on their own advancement. Any vampire who forgot that was a fool who’d soon find himself paying the price for his gullibility who’d soon find himself paying the price for his gullibility.
As he had.
But none of those women would have risked their lives as she’d done.
Still, that left him with one nagging question. He asked it as they lay together, panting in the limp aftermath of passion. “Why do you work with Korban? Especially considering he seems to have formed some kind of alliance with the Varil.”
She lifted her head off his chest and met his gaze, her sensual lips pulling tight. “He seeks a way to breach the Great Barrier. He’s at work on the spell now. He believes his allies will make him ruler of Ourania after the conquest.” Amaris snorted, a surprisingly indelicate sound. “More like he’ll find himself king of rotting corpses.”
“So why in the name of all the gods do you aid him? Even if King Ferran manages to drive the Varil back and repair the breech, hundreds will die. And without those peasants to work the fields, there’ll be famine. Death will pile on death.”
“I know.” She rested her hands on his chest and propped her chin on them, her expression brooding.
“Then free me.” Raniero lifted his head to meet her eyes in urgency. “At least let me taste your blood that I might free myself. I can alert the king and stop Korban before he destroys us all.”
She considered his proposal for a long moment before she finally shook her head. “It’s not so simple.”
“But it is.” He searched her face. She looked torn, as though she struggled with herself. “If you fear his threats, I can protect you. I have power, and the skill to use it. I would not be the king’s investigator otherwise. I can get you away from that madman and his plots.”
“It’s not myself I fear for.”
“Then who?” When her eyes slid away from his, he felt an inexplicable surge of jealousy. “A lover?”
Amaris blinked at that, and a quick, ironic smile flashed across her face. “Hardly.” She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself to trust him. “It’s my sister. She is but three years old, an innocent, yet she has great potential power. That’s why Korban sent my father to kidnap her. Tannaz murdered my mother and stepfather and forced us to accompany him.”
Suddenly too much became far too clear. “Breaching the Great Barrier will require vast magical resources. He means to sacrifice the child for the power it will give him.”
She nodded tightly. “The Varil gave him a magical object called the Blood Orb, so called because it requires a death to trigger it. Fortunately, there’s some part of the spell he still hasn’t mastered. Once he does . . .”
“The child is dead.” He flexed his fists restlessly. “Amaris, surely you see that I am the only chance you and your sister have. But we must act now, before . . .”
She bit her lip.
He ground his teeth. “You don’t trust me.”
“If you had my father, you would know why.” She grimaced. “And my lover once tried to rape me. So no, I do not find trust an easy thing.”
Raniero stared at her, appalled, unable to fathom a vampire who could so abuse any Rose, much less Amaris.
It was little wonder she was skittish.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford her doubts. He met her eyes, willing her to believe. “Amaris, I swear to you on my honor—I will free you and your sister, or I will die in the attempt. I will not allow Korban to sacrifice that child, not to power his spell, not for any reason. I will not fail you.”
Raniero’s gaze was dark and utterly steady. He believed what he was saying. And she found herself believing him, despite the times she’d been betrayed.
He was no betrayer.
They had barely known each other a day, yet that didn’t matter. She sensed his bedrock decency with a certainty that went beyond logic, beyond experience. It was a truth that rang in the soul.
Like magic.
Her heart began to pound, hard thumping lunges. “Feed, then. Take my blood.” She sat up until she could straddle his chest and bend over him, pressing her bare, sweating breasts to his chest, her throat to his mouth.
Raniero froze as if unable to believe she was yielding herself. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked. “You will not regret your trust.”
He kissed her leaping pulse, his lips lingering and tender.
And then he bit.
Amaris jerked at the hot sting. It had been years since she’d fed a vampire, since she’d dared let one get this close. She’d forgotten how it felt, the hot intimacy of trusting a man with her blood, the slide of fangs into flesh, the movement of lips and tongue.
And the surging tide of magic that rolled up from somewhere inside her, deep as bone and heart, a glittering tide that ran up her spine in shuddering waves.
He jerked, absorbing it, drinking the power in with every swallow. She gasped as he moaned against her skin.
Somewhere over the sound of her pounding heart, she heard a metallic crunch, the ring and rattle of chains.
Raniero’s arms came around her, hard and sweating and strong. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized he’d broken his bonds.
Orel would have pushed her away, rolled to his feet, and gone for the door. Raniero cradled her as if she was something precious, his hands stroking over her skin, caressing her backside, exploring the dip of her waist, sliding his fingers into her hair.
Until at last he drew his fangs from her flesh with exquisite care, then ran his tongue over the tiny wounds. Amaris felt his magic dance across her skin, healing the punctures.
“Thank you,” he breathed in her ear.
She straightened, drawing reluctantly back until she could sit up astride him and meet his dark gaze. Still he stroked her, sliding his hands along the curve of her thighs, cupping a breast, rasping a thumb across an erect nipple.
He gazed up at her with those dark, bespelling eyes. “You are so beautiful.”
Simple words. She’d heard them before from other men, other vampires. So why did they have such power coming from him?
“We’d better go.” Amaris licked her dry lips and tried to steady her voice. “If we’re going to free Marin, we have to strike now.”
Raniero let his hands drop away. Her skin felt curiously chilled without them. “I know.” His gaze searched hers. “But later, when this is over . . .” He hesitated.
Her heart had slowed its frantic pound, but at those words, it leaped again. “When this is over?”
“When this is over, I want more of you.” His eyes didn’t falter as he stared into hers. “All of you.”
Amaris couldn’t seem to help her giddy smile. “You’ll have me.” Then she remembered everything that stood in the way—freeing her sister, fighting their way past the Varil, Korban’s men, Tannaz, and Korban himself. “If we live.”
Raniero’s lips thinned with determination. “We’ll live.”
The door to Raniero’s cell jerked open, and Amaris appeared around it, eyes wild, hair disheveled. “He dies!” She wrung her hands, staring at the four guards in the corridor. “Help me!”
They exchanged a wary look. “Judging from the sounds half a sandglass ago, he was healthy enough.”
“I think it’s some spell. Mayhaps Korban’s enemies move against him.” She glared at them, magic lighting her pupils with a warning glow. “Or would you rather go to Korban and tell him why you let his prize captive die?”
Considering their lord’s reaction to the last guard unit’s irresponsibility, that was a message none of them wanted to carry. “Very well, woman,” the guard sergeant said. “You two, stay in the corridor. Kriso, with me.”
Drawing his sword, he flung the door wide and stalked inside—where Raniero wrapped a length of broken chain around his neck and broke it with one ruthless jerk. Kriso fell to the magic blast Amaris fired at his head. She grabbed his sword from his hand before he hit the ground.
The other two guards shouted in alarm and rage, but Raniero was already in the corridor like a cat among pigeons, the sergeant’s sword in his hand. He killed them both in the same smooth motion, cleaving one man’s head from his shoulders before running the other right through the breastplate.
Raniero turned to aim a wild, glittering grin at Amaris. “I think the sergeant’s armor will just fit.”
She eyed the carnage. “I doubt he’ll argue. But hurry—I want to get Marin away from her witch of a nurse before someone stumbles on these four.”
But they found the nurse just leaving Marin’s room, a bundle of possessions in her arms. She gasped the truth around the fingers Raniero dug in her fat throat. “Milord came for the child. He said he has no more need of me. He told me . . . he told me nothing more!”
“The Great Barrier,” Amaris whispered in numb horror as Hetram fell unconscious to the steps. “Korban has finished his spell.”