Dead After Dark

1

Drew Carlowe fingered the heavy iron ring of keys in his breast pocket as he pushed into the Goose and Gander. Grim satisfaction suffused him. He was about to get his life back, along with a heaping portion of the cold revenge that had filled his dreams for so long.

It had been nearly fifteen years since he'd set foot in the little tavern. He was making a huge wager that no one would recognize The Maples' young groom Andy. He had a ma­ture man's bulk of muscle from hard labor now, and his face had grown more angular, more lined with care. A scar ran across his cheek from a cutlass. It stood out whitely against the tan provided by the years at sea. His eyes looked much bluer, his hair much blonder with his new coloring. Young, guileless Andy Cooper, lover of horses and Sir Melaphont's daughter, was long gone.

The September evening was unseasonably hot and the tavern had all its doors and windows open, beaming light and raucous laughter into the darkness. It still smelled of yeasty ale and yesterday's cabbage and mutton special, as it always had. It was crowded with the working classes and a couple of gentleman farmers. The noise subsided at the en­trance of a stranger.

He bore their scrutiny and stepped to the bar. "A pint of ale and a beefsteak," he ordered. He didn't ask for a private parlor. The little inn didn't have one. He'd have to eat his dinner in the taproom with everyone else. So be it. He was famished and the risk had to be faced sooner or later.

"Yes, milord," the owner said, eyeing the cut of his coat and the polish on his boots. Barton didn't recognize him. That was good. Drew would have known Barton anywhere. The long fringe around his head never had made up for the bald pate that shone above it.

"Just plain Mr. Carlowe," he corrected.

"Carlowe, is it?" old Mr. Henley wheezed, sidling up to him. "Rumor 'as it ye mean to buy Ashland."

"Signed the papers this afternoon." The keys against his heart felt like a triumph.

The attention of the room was riveted on him now. Bar­ton slapped down a tankard of foaming ale in front of him. "Too bad," he muttered.

Drew frowned. He had expected them to be impressed. Ashland was second only to The Maples in grandeur here­abouts. It must be big news that it was purchased at last after standing empty for so many years. "I'll renovate of course." It had been half-ruined even when he was nineteen. "And I'll need a staff." That would be good for the neighborhood.

"Don't think nobody will work up at Ashland," old Mr. Henley observed, looking pointedly at his empty glass with a rheumy eye.

Did they know he was an imposter? Was that why no one would work for him? He'd studied carefully to remove all traces of the stable in his accent and avoid any lapse in his taste and style. "Why not?" he challenged.

"Th' place is 'aunted," Old Henley said, cackling.

Drew relaxed. Those rumors had been rampant even when he was a boy. "Every empty house has ghosts according to the locals." He motioned to Barton to give Henley a pint.

"This house 'as just got th' one," Barton said as he turned the spigot on the barrel. "A beautiful young woman."

"Perhaps I'll enjoy having a beautiful ghost." Drew grinned. He hadn't had a woman in a long time. Once he'd cashed out, he'd saved himself for Emily.

"Not when ye run screaming from th' 'ouse because th' ghost 'as sucked yer blood," a farmer guffawed. There were nods around the room and chuckles.

Drew smiled. "Vampires suck blood, not ghosts."

"I'll wager ye won't spend a full night in th' place," Bar­ton said. He wasn't smiling.

A little game of "intimidate the stranger." Every village played it.

"I intend to go up there later tonight. Shall we stake a pint of beer then?"

Barton set a pint down in front of Old Henley. "Ye're on."

There were things he wanted to know that the house agent hadn't been able to tell him. What better place for informa­tion than the Goose and Gander? "I'm sure my ghost can't compete with Sir Melaphont's daughter for beauty. The agent, Bromley, was singing her praises." Actually the agent for Ashland didn't know Emily, which could be thought strange since he worked for Melaphont. Melaphont acted for the fam­ily that owned Ashland, since they lived in some obscure corner of world. The Carpathian Mountains, wasn't it?

Old Henley cackled. "Pretty much th' same, they are, I'd say."

That brought knowing chuckles along the length of the bar.

A thought occurred. He was shocked he hadn't thought of it before. "Is Miss Emily Melaphont married?"

"Not any more," Henley remarked, pulling on his ale.

"Is. . . is she resident here abouts?"

"Why, Mr. Carlowe? Lookin' for a 'eiress?" A man to his left smirked over his tankard.

"No need." Drew smiled. "Made my fortune in ship­ping." True. Technically. "Always good to have young ladies of birth in the neighborhood, though. Gentles the place."

Old Henley looked thoughtful. "She's still 'ere. Ain't never left."

His heart expanded. He had known she'd wait for him. The years away had been painful. But he couldn't come back until he could hold his head high. Until he could look her in the eye and ask her to come away with him, knowing he could provide for her in the fashion to which she was ac­customed. It was a terrible risk he took now. But he was tired of living a half-life of regret, the victim of another man's spite. He didn't want to be a victim any more.

"Barton," he called then cursed himself. The man had never introduced himself. But no, it was all right. He might have heard the tapster's name from a customer. "Can you deliver supplies up there?" He'd have to make do for himself until he could find servants.

Barton looked uncertain.

"Surely someone has the courage to leave a package in the kitchen if they go in the bright light of day?" These su­perstitious villagers were far more annoying now than when he had been one of them. "I pay quite handsomely."

"I can get a boy to leave a box by th' door, I guess, though we're short'anded because of th' influenza." He motioned to a table where the serving girl was setting a sizzling beef­steak. "I'll send one up tomorrow, if ye're still 'ere."

Drew laughed and took his drink over to the table. "The devil himself won't keep me away."

Freya sat in the window seat, looking out through mullioned windows over what once were the formal gardens. They were overgrown with weeds and wildflowers now. The full moon rode low over the hot night. It was only nine o'clock. The darkness stretched ahead. Moles were making heaps. A fox trotted over the meadow beyond the gardens that stretched down to the cliffs and the sea. She saw well in the dark, of course, much better than humans. The fecund, salty scent of the sea hung in the still air. Not a breath was stir­ring, making one wonder how the cypress trees had been bent away from the cliff's edge. Freya caught herself. She didn't want to wonder anything. She wanted to sit, quietly, as she always did these days, not thinking, or feeling. They said time healed everything. What did they know about time?

She daubed the perspiration at the place between her breasts with a handkerchief. Even the diaphanous white gowns she wore seemed oppressive in this heat.

She heard the horse long before she saw it, of course. She stood, sighing. One of the young men from the village must have accepted a dare to stay in the house. She thought they had tired of that after the last one had wet himself as he scrambled for the door. He was so pathetic she hadn't even bothered to take blood from him. She hadn't been in need, having fed several nights earlier in Tintagel. That had been more than six months ago and she'd had peace and quiet since then. Or as much peace as her thoughts left her.

Tonight was a different matter. She did need blood. Per­haps it was as well that hubris and ignorance had sent this callow youth her way. She'd frighten him, take what she needed, and send him back to the village blubbering of ghosts with two drooling bites on his neck but otherwise none the worse for wear. That would keep others away.

She rose and turned into the room. The dust covers were still on the furniture. She hadn't bothered to remove them, though she'd been here a year. The only mark that she spent her days here was the bed, which was neatly made, and actu­ally had clean sheets on it.

The horse did not pull up at the front portico but headed round for the stables. That was odd. Usually they left their horses tied near the doorway so they could be away quickly. She glided out the door and down the dusty hall. Dust was the worst of her situation. It made her sneeze. And spider-webs, of course. Hastening down the servants' stairway and out through the kitchens, she saw a light flicker on in the stable.

Well, the intruder was certainly bold. She stepped quietly across the yard and slid through the open stable door into the shadows.

The horse heard her if his owner did not. He sidled away, snorting, as the intruder tried to uncinch his girth. The prowler was a man, not a boy. All she could see was his sil­houette, but no boy had shoulders like that, or thighs. How long it had been since she had had a man? The parasite that ran in her veins and made her what she was, her Companion, worshipped life. What surer urge to life than the sexual act? So she was easily aroused. That was her curse. She shut down those thoughts. She, of any of them, was not to be trusted with thoughts like that.

"Whoa, now, Darley," the intruder soothed, in a baritone that came from no callow youth. "What's wrong with you, boy?"

The horse quieted when she stilled herself. Animals al­ways liked her. It was the energy she emanated. The man heaved the saddle off and turned into the light to lay it over the edge of a stall door. His breeches were close about his thighs and bulged in just the right place. Hmmmm. Interest­ing. His riding boots were made by the finest of bootmakers. He was in his shirtsleeves, his collar open in the heat. His sleeves were rolled up over strong forearms, and his shirt clung damply to his body. He had blond hair, tanned skin, and very, very blue eyes. He also had a scar along his left cheek, white against his tan. That might distract the simpler of those he met into thinking he was not handsome. Hunger itched along her veins as she saw the pulse throb in the damp skin at his throat. He was definitely no boy. The lines in his face were as hard and unforgiving as the scar. But his mouth was soft and full. Incongruous. Interesting even.

But she wasn't interested in men. Not any more. She couldn't be trusted around them. She jerked her eyes to his horse, as he pulled the bridle over its head. The creature was magnificent: big, well muscled, with a piercing eye and flar­ing nostrils. Just now the horse was sweating from the ride up from the village. It would take quite a rider to master this beast.

"Good thing you were fed in the village, boy. There's no hay in this molding old place." He led the horse into a stall. "You'll have to make do." He followed the horse in and took some handfuls of old straw to rub it down. She watched the muscles move in his back and arms. The fine linen of his shirt was made almost transparent by his perspiration. She remembered that smell now, the scent of a man sweating. The throb began between her legs. She mustn't let the beast within her rouse itself. But she couldn't stop watching him. He looked up once or twice and peered around. He sensed her presence. He would feel her vibrations. Most humans sensed it only as vitality, an aliveness that made her incred­ibly attractive. But he shook his head and chuckled at him­self, apparently writing off his senses to the tales he must have heard about the place being haunted.

She glanced to a large valise that sat just outside the cir­cle of light from the lamp. No intruder had ever brought a valise. An uneasy feeling settled on her.

Nonsense. He'd be running down the road, leaving his beautiful horse behind, just after he nodded off. She'd see to that. And she'd have quenched her hunger.

Perhaps she should wait and go to one of the surrounding villages for her blood. Perhaps it was a danger to engage in the sensuous act of feeding with this one. She daren't give in to the rising pressure between her legs.

He picked up the lantern and the valise and, with one glance behind him, strode out the door. He certainly didn't look afraid. She'd fix that.

She glided after him. Where did he plan to wait for her? Probably in the front drawing room in the main wing of the house. He'd sit up with his lantern, pretending to read, just to say he'd spent the night. A wager no doubt. Which she would insure he lost.

But he didn't go round to the front again. He went in through the kitchen door. She slid after him. Holding his lamp high, he found another and lighted it, and another. He rummaged around until he found the candles she had ordered—her supplies were brought from three villages over in Tremail, far enough away that the house's reputation was not a problem. He lit a candelabra full of candles. Not good. The kitchen was fairly bright now. He looked around, sur­prised. She drifted into the maw of the pantry where the light did not penetrate. The kitchen was the one room she kept tidy. No dust here. And her supplies were in evidence if he looked. He did, peering into cupboards. He found the flour, the vegetables, the smoked ham. He stood, and after thinking a moment, he walked to the great kitchen fireplace. She sighed.

He held out his hands and felt the heat. When he kicked at the banked coals the ashes fell away, revealing the last glow of the fire she had used to heat water for her tea.

"Well, well, well," he murmured. "Ghosts, have we? More likely trespassers."

That didn't seem to frighten him, either. He pumped wa­ter into two buckets. Pouring the buckets into the cauldron to heat, he stirred the coals into a blaze. Then he took a lan­tern and started off to explore the house.

He settled on a bedroom in the main block that overlooked the gardens in the back, just as hers did from the ruined side wing. She watched from the shadowed dressing room as he opened the windows wide and flung the Holland covers from the furniture. Dust hung in the air, and she had to hold her nose to prevent sneezes. The man was not here for one night, at least in his own mind. He was moving in. He hung two coats and several shirts in the wardrobe, and placed folded cravats and smalls in the highboy drawers. Breeches went in the bottom drawers. She had to retreat to the adja­cent bedroom when he came in to rummage in the dressing room. What was the stupid creature looking for?

She heard him drag it out. A bathtub. This was not good. She slipped back into the dressing room. The door was left wide open. Not tidy, this man. He had the tub out in the middle of the old Turkey carpet in front of the fireplace. He took the candelabra and strode out into the hall. He was so . . . purposeful. Soon he was back with two huge buckets of water and some soap from her stores. He poured the steaming water into the bath and took off again. This time when he returned he had clean sheets tucked under one arm and two more buckets of water. He poured these into the bath as well and bent to remove his boots.

She could come back later when he was asleep and haunt his dreams. She was in danger if she stayed. Watching him would rouse everything she had worked to suppress.

He took off his shirt.

Oh, my. He was certainly strongly built. His shoulders were positively brawny. His biceps swelled as he worked at the buttons on his breeches. His chest was covered with curly blondish hair. His nipples were soft and browned, his belly ribbed with muscle. She should go. Was he as tanned all over as his upper body? He moved his breeches over his hips. She covered her mouth to prevent an appreciative sound escaping. No, he was not so tan all over. Though ev­erywhere had seen some sun. The nest of hair around his man parts was dark gold. He was well endowed, and she had seen many men. No wonder his breeches bulged in such an interesting manner. But it wasn't just his male equipment that fascinated her. The hips were slim, the thighs flaring with muscle, the buttocks in profile. . . oh, dear, firm, round. Tight.

Just like she felt inside.

He stepped into the bath, easing himself down with a sigh. He just sat in the steam with his eyes closed for a while. She half thought he'd gone to sleep. She, on the other hand, might never sleep again. She was so wet between her legs she practically dripped. She could relieve the torture if she left now. Or perhaps not. She was going to remember that body for a long time. So why leave when it was no use?

He sat up at last and washed himself briskly. She thought she might faint as he soaped his hands and then scrubbed his body under the waterline. She knew exactly what he was doing. She closed her eyes.

Why was she here torturing herself? You don't care about sex, she told herself. It had always been a job to her, no more. You turned vampires into Harriers, weapons the Council of Elders could use to protect your kind. And mak­ing Harriers meant teaching them the sexual arousal and suppression that increased their power. You never took pleasure in it. You did it because your father, the Eldest, demanded it.

And now she didn't even do that any more. Her purpose was gone. Her job was gone.

The water sloshed. She opened her eyes. He was drying himself in that unconscious way men had, because they didn't know how arousing it was to see their silken skin, slick with water, rubbed down. He stepped out of the bath and turned.

Her eyes widened.

His back was crisscrossed by dozens of ugly white troughs and ridges of scar tissue. He had been whipped. Someone had treated this man very badly. He opened the wardrobe and took out a nightshirt, but thought better of it. He flung it on the bed. Instead, naked, he went to the writing desk and opened a box he had set there. It was a traveling writing case. He removed paper, an inkwell, and a quill, and began a letter. After a few lines, he paused, growled in dis­satisfaction and crumpled up the paper, throwing it into the middle of the carpet. He was acting exactly like he lived here, not as though he was staying for one night, quaking, in a haunted house just to prove he could do it.

Unbelievable.

He couldn't live here. Her father owned this estate, though he hadn't come here in centuries. She had a right to the house. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted a small exis­tence. She wanted peace. And here this oaf came and stabled his horse in her stables, and moved in and took a bath and now was sitting, naked, writing a letter, and making her throb the way she didn't want to throb at all any more.

Well, it wouldn't last for long. She drummed her fingers on her arm. She had only to wait until he retired. She'd get the blood she needed from him and she would then send him packing, ashamed of his fear. If that idiot landowner her father had entrusted to oversee the place had rented it out, he would soon find that tenants were hard to come by.

Drew set down the pen and sighed. How could a letter he had composed a thousand times in his mind suddenly become so difficult to write? What did one say to a woman with whom you were wildly in love, but hadn't seen in fifteen years? She wasn't married, but did that mean she still pined for him? Were their stolen moments together, made all the more pi­quant by her father's certain disapproval, enough to last so long? He hadn't even made love to her. A few kisses, some heated promises, the pain of lust restrained. Did they have more than that?

Of course they did. For her love he had endured pain and humiliation, near death. He'd almost died a dozen times.

And for her he had turned himself into Drew Carlowe, respectable and very rich with an educated accent and excel­lent taste. The perfect husband, if one didn't count the scars on his back, or on his soul. In coming home he risked every­thing. But he was no longer a feckless youth. They'd have a hard time holding him, if they realized who he was and turned him in.

Drew sanded the letter. It was the best he could do. Had Emily's father turned her against him? She must still love him. She must. The best revenge on her father was to have his daughter in spite of all. She was of age. Drew was rich. Tomorrow, he would pay a boy from the village to deliver the letter into her hands alone. They would meet. He would woo her all over again if necessary, until she agreed to run away with him. He'd let his new father-in-law know just who his daughter had married sooner or later. That would hurt Melaphont. And then he'd take care of her father in some particularly personal way. Not right away. It was hardly con­ducive to a happy marriage to have one's revenge on the bride's father. But he had vowed to see Sir Elias Melaphont suffer for the suffering he'd caused Drew and Emily. He would not be denied.

He decided to let the letter dry before he put it into the envelope he'd addressed. He rose, gathered up the sheets, and staggered to the bed, rubbing his neck.

He'd had the oddest feeling all night that he was being watched. But he'd searched the house, all except the ruined west wing, and no one could be staying there. He was alone here. The supplies in the kitchen and the banked fire must have been arranged by the agent as a welcome to his new home, or by Melaphont himself. He didn't like to think that. He didn't want to be beholden to that cur for anything. Who­ever had left the supplies had been very thorough. The linen closet even held clean sheets. He was grateful for that.

It was too hot to put on the nightshirt. He piled the bro­caded coverlet in the corner and put the sheets on the bed himself. He realized why the villagers thought the house was haunted. It had a kind of electric feeling, as though something important was about to happen. He grinned as he plumped the pillows. The beautiful young ghost was just wishful thinking. Though here in Cornwall the supernatural was always foremost in people's minds. Pixies and ghosts were as real to the locals as Jesus and his disciples. Perhaps the two concepts were not so different. He'd lost all belief in God a long time ago. Bible stories were just tales these days.

He turned back the sheets and blew out his candles. With­out more ceremony he lay out on the bed, naked in the heat, and closed his eyes.

2

Did he have to sleep naked? The parasite in Freya s veins that made her what she was needed blood. It itched with anticipation. But the throbbing between her legs watch­ing him all evening was unwelcome to say the least. She had banished sexuality the day she walked away from her duty to her kind, the day her only remaining sister died through her fault. Her father was angry. But she couldn't do it any more. She had always done everything her father asked her. He was so old, so overpowering in personality. She had been tired, sick, her mind tattered after that day that changed ev­erything. It was her achievement, or her failure, that she had not gone home to Mirso. She had come to Ashland to heal, away from what she had been, not sure what she ever would be.

But she couldn't possibly heal if this naked man in her house aroused all the sexuality she wanted to suppress. She crept out of the dressing room as his breathing became reg­ular. He lay across the bed, one hand behind his neck, his body casually displayed. She didn't want to take blood from him this way. The sensuality of it prodded her most wom­anly parts even now. But she needed blood, and he was here, and her resolve was weakened by hours of watching him.

She glanced to the desk. He'd written draft after draft of something. What would such a hardened man write that he cared so much about? Cocking an ear for the rhythm of his breathing, she moved to the desk. The moon shone in through the open windows, laying a channel of silver across the letter. It was as clear as day to her, who never saw the sun.

My dearest Emily, if I may still call you that, I have returned at last. I know I was unworthy of you then. But I was not a thief. And in these years away, I have made myself into a man of means, one you will not be ashamed to claim as an acquaintance. I hardly dare hope to be more than that. If you do not wish to see me, I shall never approach you, on that you have my word. But if you will allow me to visit you, just once more, I should be honored and grateful. Send word of your decision back with the bearer of this message to

Your humble servant, Andrew Cooper, now Carlowe

That such an active, virile man, who wore a carapace against feeling in his features, could write such a letter was . . . surprising. She glanced to his form, spread out upon the bed. His muscles, quiescent now, still spoke of latent power. Men were usually so wrapped up in themselves, es­pecially men who looked like that. Yet this letter was tenta­tive, utterly without pretensions. He must love this woman very much. She was lucky to be loved so.

Freya had never loved, not in all her long centuries. It was not allowed in one who made Harriers. Sex, yes, almost constant sexual stimulation of the Aspirant to bring out his power, but not love. She sighed. Best get this over with be­fore she collapsed in self-pity.

She glided toward the bed, stopping when she was some few feet away. He was really quite a lovely looking man. She resolved to take the blood she needed, a cup or perhaps two in total, but that was all. She drew her power. Companion! she called to the thing in her blood, and it responded, send­ing a feeling of throbbing life up her veins. A matching throb in her loins was almost painful. When her Companion sent her power, the urge to life and to the sexual act was made stronger still. But she could resist. She must resist. The familiar red film oozed down over her field of vision. Her eyes would be glowing red now with her power. Time to wake him. She would feel his fear, fuel it by compelling his consciousness all during the time she fed from him, and then release him without the suggestion she usually left in their minds to forget what she had done. That way he would be able to spread the tale of his experience. He would scurry out to the stables and gallop away from her house. She wa­gered he would not even stop to put on his breeches.

"Andrew," she called softly.

He was dreaming of Emily, her fine blond hair, the swell of her bosom under the crisp white lawn of her morning dress . . .

"Andrew," she called and smiled at him. She had an ac­cent. Eastern European?

"Andrew." Louder this time, almost insistent, and he knew he was dreaming, but he didn't want to leave this dream and Emily.

"Andrew, wake up!"

He opened his eyes, irritated.

There, standing near his bed, was what had to be the ghost. She had red eyes that glowed in the darkness, translu­cent white skin, and hair black as midnight. An ethereal white dress wafted around her in the breeze that belatedly coursed in through the open window. If one could call it a dress. Two strips of diaphanous fabric hung from her shoul­ders and plunged to her waist, leaving her arms bare and a vee of white skin that revealed the swell of her breasts. The garment was bound by a jeweled girdle at her waist and fell in translucent layers to the floor. She was petite and beauti­ful. They hadn't lied about that. They hadn't lied about there being a ghost, either.

But he didn't believe in ghosts. There was enough mem­ory and regret to haunt one without the need for ghosts. So it must be a trespasser got up to look like a ghost. Though how one achieved those red eyes, he didn't know.

He sat bolt upright. "You can leave off with whatever game you're . . ." He intended to get up and loom over her and send her screeching from the room. But he didn't move. Her eyes got even redder—almost carmine. They seemed to hold him. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move at all. He just sat, one leg stretched toward the floor, the other tucked up under him.

It was frightening, to be helpless like that. She moved closer. Her hair hung, unbound, over her shoulders and down her back. She wore no jewelry other than the girdle and needed none. Her features were fine, and her eyes, though red, were sad. She seemed to float as she moved toward him, but he could see her bare feet peep out from beneath the translucent dress that trailed on the floor. Now he caught her scent. Cinnamon, and underneath that something sweet. What was it? Ambergris. The combination made a heady perfume.

He realized that the electric feeling he had experienced all evening came from her. It was an expectant vibrancy. Had she been near all night?

She reached out one small hand and touched his shoul­der. It was shocking—not shivering cold as a ghost's touch was supposed to be, but warm and terribly alive. She re­coiled and jerked back her hand, as though she felt a shock, too. Her eyes faded a little. He squirmed, but then her eyes went redder again and all hope of movement was gone. She moved her hands over his chest and again the sensation shot straight to the core of him. Must she thumb his nipples? They peaked and tightened. The sensation found its destina­tion and his loins grew heavy. He was getting aroused by a . . . a something who could hold him immobile while she touched him. The possibilities were frightening, and . . . ex­citing.

One hand moved over his hip, the other slid over his bi­ceps, as all the while she stared into his eyes. She glanced down. He knew what she would see. He was fully erect— almost painfully so. He had been saving himself for Emily for months. He couldn't be held accountable for his reaction to being touched by a beautiful ghost or trespasser, or what­ever she was, while he was naked. Maybe the reason he couldn't move was because somewhere deep inside he didn't want to move.

She pushed him gently backward, his head on the pillows that still smelled slightly musty. She made a very unghostly dent on the bed as she sat beside him. One hand cupped the nape of his neck under his hair, the other still moved over his bare chest. Her palm across his nipples made him feel like jam inside. The hand moved lower. Was she going to . . . ?

It brushed across his cock. He arched involuntarily. Lord, in a few moments she had him in such a state he was like to spill his seed right on his belly as though this were a wet dream when he was fourteen.

Maybe this was a wet dream. How else could he explain the red eyes? But his wet dreams had been the usual male expressions of his burgeoning strength and power, notice­ably lacking in this one. Still, the very thought that she could do anything to him while he was in this state was ex­hilarating as well as horrifying. He must tell her that he was saving himself for Emily. He made several ineffective grunt­ing sounds before she touched her finger to his lips.

"Shush now," she whispered in that very attractive ac­cent, "I won't hurt you."

That was a very strange thing for a ghost to say, even a ghost in a dream.

Why was she trying to comfort him? She wanted to frighten him. But the pounding of his heart against her palm could not help but bring a morsel of remorse. All the pain she and her sisters had given Aspirants, all the torment of raising their capacity for arousal and then suppressing their release, had become too much for her at the end. She didn't think what they did was right. So the last thing she wanted was to feel the thumping of his heart in fear or see the very pro­nounced erection she had caused. He was definitely aroused.

As was she, if truth be told. She was unable to resist touching his body. How long since she had felt the warmth of a strong male form, its miracle of soft skin covering the hard muscle beneath? And this was a very attractive speci­men. Actually it wasn't just that he was attractive. This man had written that letter. She trailed a hand across his hip again, so near the delightful erection she had just caressed so lightly . . .

She must not succumb to her desire. Under compulsion, any kind of sexual dalliance with him was nothing short of rape.

She'd just take his blood and let him go. He had to be frightened enough to keep others away. There was no way around that. But she didn't want him having some sort of apoplexy.

He was staring up at her as though he was the one who was hungry. But he wasn't of course, not for the same thing she needed. She turned his chin gently to the side, baring the big artery under his jaw. She felt his heart gallop a little irregularly as she leaned down, pressing her breasts against his chest. She kissed his neck, gently. His skin was salty from the heat, though the breeze had dried him. His smell, unique to each human male, filled her nostrils. His hips rose, his body arching as she murmured reassurances.

She let the power coursing through her veins run out her canines. She cradled his head in the crook of her arm and sank them carefully into the artery. He jerked against her, once. The twin circular wounds leaked sweet, copper-tasting life into her mouth, thick and satisfying. Her Companion practically purred. She let her canines retract and now there was only licking and sucking, making soothing sounds at him while she lapped. He did not relax as they sometimes did, though. Instead, his hips began to move against her in rhythm with her sucking. She could feel the hard rod of his erection pressing into her hip. How sexual this act was, for both the donor and the receiver of the blood, though nor­mally she managed to control its effects. Not now. She fairly hummed with arousal.

The blood is the life, she thought. It had been so for mil­lennia, tied as her kind was to humans in this most intimate of bonding. They lived one to a city, so that humans would not know vampires lived among them. It was a lonely exis­tence. The only place her kind could congregate was Mirso Monastery, for most of them a last resort when ennui or the insanity of eternal life had made them unfit for the world. She and her sisters had been born at Mirso, and lived out their lives making Harriers there. She had never lived in the human world until now.

She raised her head when she had taken enough. He watched her steadily as she licked her lips. "Thank you," she said, sitting up. "For your generosity." Even though he had no choice.

His eyes were big, dark blue in the moonlight, but they were no longer afraid. They were . . . speculative. That was not good. Was he wondering if she was real? If he told peo­ple there was a real woman at Ashland who drank blood, they'd be up with torches to burn her out. He had to believe the place was haunted and there was nothing he could do about it except leave.

She rose. "You have been touched by the spirit world," she intoned, and let her Companion make her voice echo. "You will go from this place immediately."

She called for even more power from her Companion. The familiar whirling darkness started at her feet and began to rise up over her knees. He sat up now that she had re­leased him. He was still erect. Two tiny rivulets of blood coursed down his neck. He stared in fascinated horror as the darkness engulfed her. His bedroom disappeared around her. One moment of familiar pain, and she popped into her own room. She hurried across the hall to look out the win­dows of a dank room whose ceiling was collapsed in one corner. It looked out to the stables. He was a brave man, and he wouldn't leave a horse like that behind.

What the bloody hell had happened here? Drew struggled to his feet, feeling light-headed. That was no doubt because his entire blood supply was currently engaged in the area of his loins. A woman had. . . Had what? Held him immobile while she drank his blood? Given him the most incredibly sensual experience of his life?

And let's get back to the "woman" part. What woman could do what that one did?

"There are no such things as ghosts," he murmured to himself. Ghosts weren't warm to the touch. Thinking about how warm she was, and what she had done with that touch, was definitely not redistributing his blood supply. And what ghost made a dent in the bed when she sat on it?

On the other hand, what human had red eyes and disap­peared in a whirl of blackness?

His head ached so he couldn't think. He ran his hands through his hair. Wait! He strode to a mirror, fingering his neck. It was too damned dark in here to see. He crashed about looking for the candelabra. When he finally found it by nearly knocking it over, he felt for the flint and lit it, then took it over to the mirror on the dressing table, craning to see his neck.

Two tiny wounds drooled blood. "Christ Almighty!" he whispered. What had happened here? He held the candela­bra high and looked around the room. A shiver starting down his back was ruthlessly suppressed. He went to the window. It was a sheer thirty feet to the ground. But there were some vines crawling halfway up the wall. Not enough. She hadn't got out that way. He whirled. Maybe she was hid­ing in the dressing room. Flinging open the door, he saw it contained only shelves for shoes, a headless mannequin that held coats for brushing, and a tangle of clothes hangers, just as it had when he'd come in to get the hip bath. She wasn't here now. He opened the door to the room beyond. The dust on the carpet was disturbed near the door. But no trail of footprints led to the hallway. She had not escaped this way either. He went back to the dressing room. Nothing said she had ever been here.

Except the faint perfume of cinnamon and ambergris that lingered in the air.

She had watched him from the dressing room.

Perhaps all evening. He had felt that strange electric en­ergy all night.

As he bathed? She had ducked into the room adjoining as he got the bath, standing near the door. Had she watched as he wrote, naked, at the desk? As he slept?

It was intolerable. And strangely erotic. He had never experienced anything more sensual than that light touch on his naked body and the gentle sucking at his neck. Even now his cock was stubbornly erect.

He took the candelabra back into the bedroom and set it down. His eyes fell on the letter he had written to Emily. He steadied himself. That was why he was here. To find love again that would bring him revenge and heal the wounds he had suffered so long ago, deepened by bitterness until they had eaten away part of his soul.

He wasn't going to let some ghost, or some trespasser pretending to be a ghost, shake him from his resolve. She could order him to leave this house as much as she wanted. He had survived much worse than a little erotic haunting. He was not about to turn tail and run before he tried to claim what was his. Drew wouldn't miss the look on Melaphont's face when he finally recognized him for anything in the world.

He folded the letter and put it in its envelope. Tomorrow he would have this letter taken to Emily, and he'd know where he stood. She was no longer married, and she must remember their love. Now, if her father had not poisoned her against him, he had a chance. If the bastard had, well, then Drew would be sorry. And then he'd skip the part about Em­ily and take revenge on Sir Elias Melaphont in some more direct and forceful way.

He stalked to the bed, blew out the candles defiantly, and eased himself down in the bed. He did not need light to stave off what lurked in the dark.

That didn't mean that he would sleep.

Drew strode into the Goose and Gander rather later than he intended. He had fallen asleep after all, whether it was from loss of blood, or just the adrenaline subsiding, he wasn't sure. And he had dreamed, waking with another erection. The dreams had not been of Emily.

The whole thing seemed outlandish in the light of day, except that he had to tie his cravat rather carefully to cover up the twin wounds on his neck.

Still, he'd decided that it was a trespasser, not a ghost. Didn't some Portuguese friar practice an oriental version of Dr. Mesmer's animal magnetism to exert control over men without using magnets? Abbe Facia. That was the fellow's name. That was how she had controlled him. She must have used some trick of light to make her eyes glow like that. They'd looked just like animal eyes glowing when light shone on them at night, except red. And the wounds? A pair of tacks perhaps—he hadn't seen a knife. The whirling darkness was no doubt a swoon on his part from loss of blood. Well, he was going to search the place in earnest for her later and send her packing.

"Barton," Drew called. Old Henley was about the only one in the taproom at this hour. He was nursing an ale in the corner. The tapster stuck his bald pate out from a curtain that separated the kitchen from the taproom. He looked pale and drawn. The sheen of sweat on his brow caught the light.

"Didn't expect ta see ye here this mornin'. Did ye spend th' night?" Barton asked.

Drew had forgotten the wager. "Yes," he said in clipped tones.

"Did ye see th' ghost?" Henley wanted to know.

"I saw someone." He didn't care to go into detail. "I think I've got squatters up there."

Both Barton and Henley snorted. "Squatters doesn't suck blood," Henley remarked. "Did she suck yer blood?"

Drew felt himself coloring. He did not want to have this conversation. "Barton, do you have a boy who could take this note round to The Maples?"

"Jem took th' cart into Camelford for supplies," Barton apologized. "And Billy's come down with th' influenza. His ma says he's bad." Barton wiped his forehead with his hand­kerchief. His hand was a little shaky.

"Damn," Drew said under his breath. He didn't want take the note himself. Was he afraid of meeting Emily?

"I'll take it fer ye." Old Henley had somehow appeared at his shoulder and was peering at the envelope. He looked up at Drew with a strange expression on his face. Pity? Ah, he had seen it was addressed to Miss Emily Melaphont. That likely wasn't her name any more since Henley had intimated that she had once been married.

"I'll make it worth your while." Drew fished in his pocket. He didn't care if delivering notes to young widows wasn't respectable behavior.

"Save it. Ye can deliver it yerself. I'll show ye th' way. I'm goin' right by there."

No one "went right by" The Maples. It was four miles from the village and stood in its own impressive grounds. He hesitated. Still, Henley was already starting out the door.

"Don't ye want to collect yer pint?" Barton called.

"Later," Drew flung over his shoulder. Henley didn't give him any choice.

Drew had to pace his long strides to the older, shorter man's. The creature was still spry for all his years. Drew thought he would have to field a lot of questions. But Henley was silent. Drew's pulse raced. He might meet Emily face-to-face in a matter of moments. Henley turned off the road. Drew looked around, disoriented. They were heading up the hill to the church. It was a small affair, fifteenth cen­tury, its rough stone mellowed golden with age. His pulse quickened. Perhaps she was dressing the altar with flowers. Would she know him? They had been in love. How could she not? The expression on her face the instant she recog­nized him would tell everything. He and Henley crunched up the gravel path to the ancient wooden doors, carved with undecipherable pictures in bas relief. He was reaching for the great iron latch when Henley pulled him to one side.

"Around th' back, son."

He started off, eager. Then his steps slowed. The church­yard was back there. Was she putting flowers on a grave? Perhaps her husband's.

There was no one in the churchyard. A breeze leavened the heat up here. The grass between the graves still smelled of summer.

He knew then. His intestines knotted and threw a loop around his heart. He couldn't seem to breathe. Henley was pointing. He didn't have to. Drew walked slowly to the area fenced off with iron spikes topped with tiny fleur-de-lis. The Melaphonts were all buried there.

His eyes filled so he could hardly see the inscription on the stone.

Emily Margaret Melaphont Warner. 1788-1806. May she and her unborn babe find peace everlasting in Jesus' arms.

A year. She'd lived only a year after he'd been sentenced. She'd married so soon? Had Drew meant so little to her? She'd died while he was still on the prison hulk. All these years of longing for her had been so useless. She'd been pregnant, too. Who was this Warner fellow she'd loved? He felt cheated. All his dreams of making her love him again, of marrying under the nose of her father in spite for all he'd done to Drew, seemed foolish.

Drew felt Henley come up behind him. Anger surged up from his belly. "You said she wasn't married, that she was still here."

"Aye. Truth, when ye come ta think on it."

He didn't know what to ask. What difference would any of it make now? His throat was so full he thought he might choke.

" 'Er father found 'er a 'usband before th' summer turned brown th' year ye left," Henley said philosophically. Drew saw out of the corner of his eye that Henley had taken out a pipe and was tamping down the tobacco in its bowl. "'E were a nice enough lad. Family was weavers, I think. 'Ad factories up ta Cumberland. Paid 'andsome for th' Mela­phont name." Henley took an old flint striker from his pocket and lit the pipe, drawing on it to make it catch. "Melaphont made 'em live under 'is thumb up at Th' Maples while 'e put on th' new wing with Warner's money. Said she were poorly and 'e daren't let 'er go. But you know 'im. 'E just wanted control of th' both of 'em." Drew knew. Puffs of smoke curled into the air. "Warner went back to 'is people when she died."

Poor Emily. Sold off to provide a new wing for The Ma­ples. It had always been a symbol of Melaphont pride. Wait. Through his haze he had let one fact slip by. "The year ye left." Henley knew who he was. He turned fierce eyes on the old man. "Don't think to spread my identity about. You'd find me a formidable foe." He hoped the threat did the trick. He wouldn't actually harm the old man.

"So ye slipped yer chains," Henley mused. "They can throw ye back inta prison if ye ain't served yer full time. Must 'ave wanted ta come back fair bad."

"I have a marker to redeem," Drew growled. "You wouldn't want to hold one of my markers, old man."

"No. Expect I wouldn't," Henley said. " 'Ard to believe an old fool knows 'ow to 'old 'is tongue, Carlowe, but I do." He stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe. "Just ye 'ope ye don't get what ye think ye want right now. Bad business, that. Rots a man's soul."

Drew managed a sneer. It was a good defense against his hollow feeling. "I haven't got a soul, old man. Remember that." He turned and stumbled down the hill, hardly know­ing where he was. Everything had changed. Emily was dead.

He collected Darley from in front of the tavern and gal­loped back toward Ashland, anger churning in his belly. All those years he'd dreamed, not knowing she was dead. Not fair. And now he'd have to find another way to exact his re­venge on Melaphont. Because those years were Melaphont's fault.

So the first thing to do was to eject his beautiful squatter. He was going to be spending some time at Ashland while he evolved a new plan to take his revenge and carried it out. He had no desire to spend another sleepless night, or to lose any more blood.

3

Unbelievable! Carlowe hadn't run away last night and now after Freya was sure she was rid of him, he was back, banging around the house, poking in every room. No one could get a good day's sleep with that going on. He hadn't come into the ruined wing yet. But she had to keep a wary ear out.

The sounds subsided. This day had been difficult in many ways. When she thought he had gone, she should have been glad. But she found herself thinking about what had hap­pened last night between them. It had kept her in a state of semiarousal all day.

Boot heels sounded on the servants' stairs. Thank good­ness for her vampire hearing. Where was he going? Outside? She slipped over to the heavy draperies and pulled one out from the window just enough to see. The late afternoon light cut at her eyes and she squinted. She was very old, and could withstand some sunlight, but it certainly wasn't comfort­able. Yes, there he was, in shirtsleeves and breeches, fists on his hips, looking up at the ruined wing, examining each set of windows. That was not good.

He started off at a run. Her window was the only one with draperies intact. Where could she go? This was ridicu­lous, on the run in her own house. She needed someplace she could darken to protect against the sunlight.

Footsteps thudded in the hall. He was counting door­ways. No time to think! She called her power and imagined the room across the hall. The familiar moment of pain washed over her.

Drew pushed into the room. It was dark. Only the channel of light made by the open door revealed the features of the room. He didn't have to wonder whether it was hers. He could smell her marvelous scent and feel the electric energy hanging around him as if she had disappeared into thin air a moment ago. And actually, in view of her performance last night, that might just be what had happened.

He was being ridiculous.

He stared around the room. The furniture was still shrouded in Holland covers. But the bed was freshly made, the sheets crisp. Ashes stood in the fireplace. And there had definitely been a path where the dust had been disturbed in the carpets in the hall outside. There was no dust on the car­pets here. And no leaks apparently. Someone could live here.

He pulled open the drawers of the highboy, and stood, transfixed. These were like no woman's underthings he had seen before. And he had seen his share. No chemises, no stockings. There were only filmy, lacy . . . somethings that would hardly cover anything. His loins tightened. He couldn't help but remember the sensuous feeling he had ex­perienced last night when she had . . .

He strode to the wardrobe and swept open the doors. Dresses, if one could call them that, like she had worn last night, all sheer layers, and all white. A traveling cloak of black wool lined with white satin and edged with ermine, delicate slippers, and even little heeled, white leather boots. There could be no doubt to whom the room belonged.

But she wasn't here. How could he throw her out if he couldn't find her? Rage boiled up inside him, because he couldn't find his lovely trespasser, because Emily was dead and he was fourteen years too late to mourn and because all his dreams of getting back the eager and optimistic boy he had been by claiming her were dashed.

It was all Melaphont's fault. The bastard had taken Drew's innocence, his love, his very life from him. Drew pulled the clothes from the wardrobe and flung them around the room. He snatched drawers from the highboy and dashed them against the bedposts until they splintered and strewed their contents across the carpet. He wanted to stop. But he couldn't. He wanted destruction more. He pulled the pocket-knife from his breeches pocket, flipped it open, and slashed the pillows on the bed. Feathers floated everywhere, uncon­trolled, just as he was. The coil of hatred in his belly con­trolled him. He threw himself on the mattress, stabbing it over and over until he was left gasping as feathers floated to the floor around him like drifting snow.

His shoulders sagged. How could he lose control like that? Emptiness ate at him. He turned and lay in the ruined bed, dry-eyed and exhausted. The room was dark, its heavy draperies totally shut out the light. The open door cast little light into the room any more as the windows in the hallway dimmed with sunset.

He felt the hum of energy at the edge of his conscious­ness.

He sat up. How long had she been here?

"You can come out now." Had she seen his reckless dis­play? But no one emerged from the dressing room. He pushed off the bed and flung open the dressing room door, but there was no one there.

His anger deserted him. He felt . . . helpless. He couldn't find the beautiful trespasser, though he was now sure she was somewhere in the house. The evening stretched ahead. His stomach rumbled and he realized he hadn't eaten since mid-morning. He stalked down to the kitchen. If she ap­peared later tonight, he wanted to have all his wits about him.

What was she going to do? Freya paced the stable. The horse looked at her with interest. She'd used every way she knew to frighten her unwelcome houseguest last night, and he wasn't frightened enough to leave. He had just shown how deranged he was. When the draperies in the room across the hall proved too tattered to keep out the sunlight, she'd crept back to the dressing room and watched the destruction. She couldn't have anyone living in her house, let alone a mad­man. Why was he so angry? His actions wouldn't frighten away a real ghost, so he obviously didn't believe she was supernatural.

She didn't want to hurt him. What other way was left to her? Reason, perhaps. But with a madman?

She had no other choice. She peered out the stable door. Lights flickered in the kitchen. He was probably getting din­ner. She slid out into the evening. If she were going to try reason, she'd need to open the priest's hole where her father kept a copy of the deed.

She'd wait for him here, in his room. She laid the fragile roll of paper on the desk and began to pace impatiently. It was some minutes before she noticed the shreds of paper on the floor. She paused, peering down. The envelope from last night. She could still see parts of the address. She picked up a corner. It had still had the letter inside it when he ripped it up.

Oh. That's why he was angry. His ladylove had rejected him. Well, that meant he wasn't precisely a madman, and her reasonable approach might actually work. It also meant he might be just as glad to leave this place.

She heard him coming up the hall. She didn't bother to transport herself out of his way this time. He threw open the door, holding his candelabra high. He seemed distracted. It was a moment before he saw her.

"You," he accused. "You have no right to be here, and don't tell me you're a ghost."

"Very well," she said. "I am not a ghost."

He looked satisfied. "I thought not. You must tell me sometime how you achieved your effects." His gaze swept over her and noticed the fragment of envelope in her hand. He strode forward and snatched it from her. "Leave my things alone."

"I'm sorry your suit did not prosper, but you should not take it out on me."

The anger, the hurt in his eyes were palpable. "The lady has been dead for fourteen years. So my suit was unlikely to prosper. Now get out of my house, whoever you are."

"Your house. This is my house." The insolence of the man!

His eyes narrowed. "I bought this house yesterday."

She practically gasped. "I beg pardon, but since I was not selling it, you could not have."

He went to the desk and opened his writing case. He no­ticed her scroll. "What's this?" he snapped, taking it up.

"Be careful, brute. It is very fragile." She took it, and carefully pulled the ribbon. The scroll unfurled a little. "It is the deed granting the property to my . . . ancestor." She'd almost said her father, and since it was made out in 1564 that would seem a lie.

"Let me see that," he barked. He set the candelabra down on the desk and Freya smoothed out the scroll. The spidery, ornate writing sloped across the parchment. The s's looked like f's and continued below the line. But it was clearly read­able. His eyes darted back and forth across the lines, then lingered on the seal of the young queen.

"And you are a descendent of this Rubius Rozonczy?"

"Yes." If he ripped up the scroll before her eyes, she had no other proof. Her entire ploy depended on him having honor. A man with a scar like that across his cheek. Was she the one insane?

"How do I know that?"

"I have the deed." That didn't really prove her identity, but then what could?

"There could have been an intervening sale that was quite legitimate."

"There was not." A thought occurred to her. "From whom did you buy it?"

He must have had the same thought she did, for his brow darkened. He could look quite fierce with those lowering golden brows and that scar that stood out so whitely against his cheek. "Bromley. He acted as agent for the owner."

"Isn't he Sir Melaphont's agent, too?"

He nodded and chewed his lip. "And Melaphont was the caretaker of the property while the owner was away in—"

"In the Carpathian Mountains," she finished for him. "Transylvania to be exact. Sir Melaphont probably needed money, and thought my family would never know of his perfidy."

"Bromley would have to have been in on it," he mused.

"I am sure he was well compensated."

Carlowe's face fell. His shoulders sagged, just as though the air had been let out of him, like one of those hot air bal­loons people were always careering about in these days. "Melaphont wins again."

"Did you pay much money for this place?"

"It isn't the money," he said, his voice dull. "I've plenty of that."

"With my deed, and the receipt for the property, could not your law help you? I'm sure you could persuade Bromley to testify against him."

He combed his fingers through his hair. "That would take years."

"I suppose you could call him out," she offered. "Is that not what one does these days?" Especially if one was a man interested in honor. And this one had honor. He hadn't de­stroyed her scroll. And he didn't seem to question her right to the place.

"That would draw a bit too much attention to myself." His mouth was wry.

Ahhhh . He had something to hide.

"Besides, that would be a quick death. Much too good for him." His eyes went harder than she had ever seen a human male's expression. Only her father could look more impla­cable. "But I will have my revenge on him, for everything he's done. I'll find a way." His eyes took on a gleam. "Per­haps I could take a page from your book and haunt him. Bedlam would be a fitting end for him." He glanced up at her. "I suppose I owe you an apology for ripping up your room."

She shrugged. "You thought it was your room, and I an intruder."

He nodded then sucked in a resolute breath. "I shall relo­cate to the tavern immediately."

All she had wanted was to have him out of her house, and now when he was going, she found she did not want him to leave at all. There was a familiar full feeling of arousal in her woman's parts. That was almost expected. But it wasn't her physical attraction to him that filled her with regret. Something about this man was incredibly ap­pealing. He was a mystery, hard with his need for revenge, tentative in his feeling for his dead love, honorable, dam­aged in some complex way that went deeper than the scars on his back.

This was not in her plan. She was resolved to have no contact with the world, no painful engagement with anyone, until she knew who she was and what she wanted.

"Don't go tonight," she found herself saying. It was al­most shocking. But she realized that what she wanted was to know this man better. "It's getting late. In fact, you might as well stay here while you plan your revenge. I promise not to bother you. I sleep during the day."

He looked doubtful.

"The tavern is noisy, I'll wager. The curious will poke you with questions."

He pressed his lips together and she knew she had him. "Very well," he said, his voice tight. Was he thinking of last night, dreading that it might happen again, or that it might not? Because that was what she was doing—dreading both possibilities at once. She was insane for allowing temptation inside her very doors. Or maybe she was mad to refuse temptation.

She smiled. It was the first time she'd smiled in . . . in a year. It made her mouth feel strange. "I'll get fresh sheets and make up another room for myself."

"You'll need some help," he growled to her surprise and opened the door for her.

Freya chose a bedroom down the hall from his with red bro­cade draperies that would hold out the sunlight nicely. They had stripped the Holland covers off the furniture, and were making up the bed. They said nothing, perhaps because this feeling of electric attraction between them was almost sti­fling in its intensity. Could she be thinking of having sex with a man who had lost his love today? But she was. Imag­ining him naked, aroused, plunging inside her, consumed her thoughts. How could all the restraint she had managed in the last year be cast aside so . . . easily? She was shame­less. Despicable. Worse, he might be giving way to imagina­tion, too. The smoldering looks he was sending her from across the bed were not something she could mistake. To take her mind off her very vivid imaginings and to remind him why he should not be interested in having sex with her, she said, "I did not say I was sorry for your loss earlier. I am." That would dampen things.

He froze in the middle of putting a pillow into its case. "Ahhhh. Yes. Thank you." He shook the pillow down into place and threw it on the bed. Then he paused. "You know, I was nineteen and she seventeen when we shared a few kisses and told each other how much in love we were. But are you at that age? In love? I mean"—here he turned to face her—"what does one that young know of love? I still don't know what love is. But I'm not sure that was it. Perhaps I was in love with the idea of being in love with her. That idea kept me alive when her father had me charged with horse stealing. He passed sentence himself, supervised the lashing and condemned me to be transported to the prison colony at New South Wales."

That was how he had gotten those horrible scars. No wonder he hated Sir Melaphont.

"There was no ship available, since so many criminals were being transported. So I was sent to a prison hulk in Portsmouth." He must have seen her look of puzzlement. "They pack six hundred prisoners on a dismasted ship and float it in the harbor. Foul conditions. I nearly died of fever there, while my back healed."

"How could Sir Melaphont do such a thing?"

"Because he is a magistrate, and I was a bastard groom in his stables who dared to love his daughter."

"But you did not stay transported, and you do not talk or dress like a groom."

"The transport ship foundered in a storm. I made it to an island." He pulled the sheets up and tucked in the blanket as he talked. "I was rescued by free traders of the sea."

"Pirates?" She'd only read about pirates. What a roman­tic life he had lived.

"Yes. And they took me on. I was a strong lad. I learned the sea." They pulled up the brocaded coverlet together. "Did you know that pirates elect their captain?"

"You were a pirate captain." She believed it. It gave him that very dangerous feeling.

"I prefer to say I made my fortune in shipping." He smiled a very attractive smile—almost a boyish grin. It was the first time she had seen it, and it was . . . dazzling. "We did well. I sold out. I'd learned mathematics in order to navigate, so I knew I was not stupid. I hired tutors to teach me the skills of a gentleman. Much easier than mathematics. Voila, Drew Carlowe."

He called himself Drew. Lovely.

He stood, surveying his work, but she knew from the way he frowned that he wasn't seeing the bed. "I may have cared for Emily only for the revenge winning her would have wreaked on her father. Not something to be proud of. I would have made her a damnable husband if that was the reason I wanted to marry her." He sighed. "I'd make a dam­nable husband to any woman, I suspect."

"Some women don't want husbands," she whispered.

He looked up and his eyes were alight. Now she'd done it. They raked her body. "Why do you wear clothes like that?"

What did he mean? "I've always worn clothes like this."

He came round to her side of the bed. He was stalking her, almost like the pictures she had seen of panthers, all powerful grace, deadly. "Those clothes say you know of sensual things. Most women would never dare wear them."

"I am not most women." That was true. She was not even human.

He took her upper arms in his hands, and immediately the sexual part of her began to throb with the beat of her heart. She was already wet between her legs. He just stared at her. "I don't know what you are." Oh, dear. His teeth were gritted, as against some pain. "And I don't care."

That was better.

"What is your name?"

"Why do you care about my name?"

"Because I generally do not make love to women whose name I do not know." He laughed. It sounded on the edge of hysteria. "As a matter of fact, lately, I do not make love to women at all."

"That's not healthy," she whispered. Wasn't that true for her, as well?

The muscle in his jaw clenched. "Don't play with me. I won't force myself on you."

"You needn't. I'm of age." Oh, yes. Centuries of it. "And I am not inexperienced." Sex was the one thing she knew how to do. She'd done it almost constantly before this last year, as she and her sisters made Harriers for her father. She insinuated herself against his body and was pleased to feel the hard erection at his groin. She ran her hands lightly over the front of his breeches and felt him take a ragged breath. She was going to do this, consequences be damned. Not because it was her job, but because she wanted to do it. She was going to give this man, who had known pain and hard­ship in his life, a glimpse of ecstasy.

She pulled at the end of his cravat. The knot unraveled and she stripped it from around his neck. There were the two bites she'd left from yesterday, already healing. He was strong, this one. She opened the button at his collar. He was undoing the buttons at his waistcoat. She pulled the shirt out of his breeches and worked at the buttons at his cuffs. So many buttons. . . He pulled it over his head. Ah, yes. The light dusting of hair, the tanned nipples, peaking now in anticipation. She rubbed her hands over his pectoral muscles.

All those years of hard work at sea had left him . . . impres­sive. He was pulling at the buttons on his breeches. She pushed him back against the bed, and he let her.

"Let me pull off your boots." She was stronger than he was, though she couldn't let him know that. They slid off as though they were loose.

He didn't seem to notice, but pushed his breeches over his hips as she stripped off his stockings. His erection, freed, hung between them. She stood and let the tip rub against her belly as she moved her hands over his shoulders. The ridges of his scars almost broke her heart.

Surprise replaced the lust in his eyes, followed immedi­ately by chagrin. He reached for his shirt. "I forgot myself. I. . . have scars which would be distasteful to a lady."

"I saw them last night." She took the shirt gently and tossed it on the floor.

"You're sure," he said doubtfully.

She nodded, suppressing a smile, and pulled his neck down. Heat flashed back into his eyes. She thought his kiss would be fierce with the need she felt in him. But he brushed his lips across her forehead, down her temples. Tiny kisses he placed on her cheeks, even as he slipped her dress from her shoulders. She pressed her breasts to his bare body, her own breath coming harder, and he found her lips. She licked his with the tip of her tongue. She felt his surprise and then he opened her mouth and deepened the kiss, probing her with his tongue. How she loved kissing. She had never kissed the Aspirants. In some ways it was more intimate even than intercourse. Kissing him was some signal that this was dif­ferent than all that mechanical arousal she had engaged in to train the Aspirants and develop their power.

She slipped the clasp of her girdle, and it fell with a metallic jingle to the carpet. Her dress floated after it. It was just their naked bodies, hers wet and soft, his hard. His arms slid around her, even as his kisses made her almost dizzy with desire.

He stiffened when her palms caressed the ridges on his back. She didn't stop, just continued kissing him while she rubbed her hands down over his buttocks and cupped them, pressing his groin against her, rubbing herself against his erection.

"What do you call your man part?" she asked. She had not been out of Mirso in so long and she didn't want to seem strange.

He drew away, smiling, puzzled. "My . . . my cock, I sup­pose. It's a good Saxon word."

"Then may I say, Drew Carlowe, that I would like to pay special attention to your cock for the next few hours."

My God, Drew thought, the woman might not be a ghost, but she was certainly a witch. Special attention for a few hours? He might just die.

"Only if I may pay special attention to you," he mur­mured, sweeping her up into his arms. The accent was in­credibly sensual, along with everything else about this woman. He laid her on the bed. Her petite form was perfect; her breasts peaked with delicate, dusky-colored nipples. And her skin was the most translucent, creamy perfection he had ever seen, almost as though it had never seen the sun. Her scent was erotic, cinnamon and ambergris mixed with a woman's musk. And the vibrancy he always felt around her seemed to find the life force inside him and pluck it like a string, so he vibrated in sympathy. He crawled up after her and laid himself beside her. He was almost painfully erect, his cock straining against her hip.

"We will go slowly," she whispered as she turned into him. Her tongue snaked out and licked his nipple. "So that you have the maximum amount of pleasure." Her hand cupped his balls and lifted, gently massaging the stones in­side across each other. He groaned. It slid up along his cock, softly, her thumb finding the drop of clear fluid at the opening and smoothing it across the head. He bent to her throat, which she bared to him. He kissed down the delicate column to the notch where her pulse beat and licked there. She was running one finger down the big vein in his erection, lightly. He wanted to scream the sensation was so acute. He buried his head in her breasts and found her nipple with his lips. He suckled, gently, and she arched to present him easier access.

"Oh, Drew," she moaned. "You have the hidden talents."

"You haven't seen the half of them." He slid his hand down to cup her mound. She was wet and ready. "I want you shrieking many times tonight."

She opened her eyes, surprised. "I thought the En­glishman, he wanted only to spill his seed without caring for the woman's pleasure."

"What Englishmen do you know? That is not the way to entice a woman to your bed more than once."

She gave a throaty chuckle. "You are most practical, Drew Carlowe." He slipped his finger inside her then drew her slickness over the nub that gave a woman pleasure. She hissed and clasped his cock firmly. She didn't rub it, thank God, or he wouldn't have been able to hold out. He rubbed her, though, even as he kissed her thoroughly. It was only moments before she was rocking against his hand and giv­ing small yips of satisfaction as she coiled tighter and tighter. And then unwound, wailing.

"Oh, dear man. You are very skilled," she breathed when it was done.

"You were ready." But he was proud she thought him skilled.

"I was ready last night. I have been ready all day. It has been torture." She raised herself on one elbow. "But I prom­ised close attention to your cock and I have been shirking." She pushed him onto his back gently and stroked his hip. "Now, we are going to play a game."

A game? He could feel his eyes widen. Her hand strayed to his cock.

"Do not look at me so. You will like this game." She was right if it had anything to do with continuing exactly what she was doing to him now. He was having trouble getting his breath. "The game is that I play with your cock, and you try not to come." She looked up at him. "You say 'come'? Ejac­ulate."

" 'Come' is fine," he gasped.

"This will increase your pleasure. And if you think you cannot hold it, tell me."

He jerked a nod. "Yes. Yes."

She stroked him, her thumb pressing on the head as it slid up off the underside. He sucked in a breath. She scooted down. He was taken by surprise when he felt her tongue fol­low the trail her thumb had laid. "Where did you learn that?"

"Shhhhh. Go within yourself. You feel the sensation, savor it." She licked again. "Held in the suspension of end­less pleasure. You find your center, and you just.. . stay there."

Would he disappoint her? Already the sensation was so intense he thought he might come. "What if I can't?"

"You can." She left off with his cock in the nick of time and kissed his inner thigh. "We will rest periodically, and you will make me come, and then we will begin again. A virile man can remain hard for hours with practice. And you are a very virile man."

How did she know these things? But he didn't have time to wonder, because now she was lying between his legs with her arms over his thighs. She pulled up his cock and her tongue swabbed along its length and flicked over the vein that fed it and she sucked very gently on the tip before she took the whole into her mouth and he felt the head rub against her throat. He thought he might die of sensation. He arched his hips up against her, groaning. She pulled away just in time, leaving him gasping. All the feeling in his body seemed to have pooled in his genitals. They had never been so hard, so needing.

She stroked his body with her hands, making comfort­ing, soothing sounds while he caught his breath. And then she began again. Off and on, and off again just as he was about to explode. It seemed she knew a man's body, his body, so thoroughly that she was in complete command of it. She hadn't learned that in a brothel. Brothels held women who went mechanically through the motions of pleasure without taking any pleasure in it themselves, or really car­ing about their partner's pleasure. Not this woman. She was perfectly attuned to him, as though they were connected somehow. Perhaps she was a courtesan, trained in some subtle way . . . Or perhaps their connection was even more elemental.

God, she was starting again.

He really was quite virile, this Drew Carlowe, she thought with satisfaction. Her reassurance to him had turned out to be true. It was good to put her talents to giving pleasure, not training men to be Harriers. The difference between work and pleasure. And she knew for certain she had been giving him pleasure for more than an hour. He was trying very hard. She could feel him focusing inward, finding his center. She had not yet had to help him hold himself with a little compulsion, but she could when it was necessary. He was a determined man. It was time for a longer respite, and that meant she would get another orgasm. She liked orgasms. It was one of the few benefits of slaving away to make Harriers at her father's command.

She waited for the moment when he was just beginning to slide over his brink and pulled away. She wormed her way up toward his chest, kissing him lightly as she went, inhaling the scent of him. His cock was red and throbbing, lying swollen along his belly. He was covered with a light sheen of sweat, courtesy more of her efforts than the hot night.

He gathered her into his arms. "You are a witch," he mur­mured, "a witch who deserves pleasure in return." She ex­pected him to want to plunge his cock inside her. She'd definitely have to hold him with a little compulsion if he did that.

He surprised her by simply holding her in his embrace, his cock hard and pulsing against her thigh. His hands moved over her body. The remains of calluses said he had once labored. A chink in the armor of the man he had cre­ated. She didn't mind. It occurred to her that he had made himself into what he was out of sheer determination, some­thing she was unable to do. She didn't know who she was, apart from the maker of Harriers her father wanted her to be.

He raised her chin from where she burrowed into his shoulder and kissed her with such slow tenderness it made tears spring to her eyes. It was . . . generous. In all the sex she had engaged in over the years, no one had ever shown her tenderness. She had been a tutor and a demanding one, no more. He worked her mouth open gently, and probed her thoroughly, all the time his hands moved over her, now rub­bing her shoulders, now cupping her buttocks. The throb between her legs began to be almost painful. She had come quickly and very forcefully the first time—almost as soon as he began rubbing her. She had been too long without re­lease. But this time he seemed determined to draw out her experience. She smiled into his mouth. Very well.

She let him control the pace. That was new for her. Al­ways before it was she who controlled, whether the Aspirant was the one receiving stimulation or it was her turn. It might be a matter of trust, this deciding to let him control. He suckled at each breast attentively. She wanted his cock thrusting inside her so badly she almost wanted to scream. But she did not. Why did she trust this man? Perhaps be­cause he had written that letter. Perhaps because he had not seized her deed. He rolled her onto her back. But again he surprised her. He slid down between her legs, and she real­ized that he was going to reciprocate by using his mouth. The very thought made her squirm in anticipation. Who would have thought an Englishman knew how to do that?

But he did. He opened her carefully and lapped across her moist tissues. How glad she was that she had bathed, earlier. He began to tease her point of pleasure with his tongue. She squirmed against him, and tangled her fingers in his hair. He brought her slowly but relentlessly toward climax. He began to hum some sailors' tune. The vibrations nearly sent her wild. His hands slid up to her breasts, and fondled her nipples as he began to suck in earnest.

The orgasm, when it struck, was savage. It took her and shook her and made her roll her head convulsively from side to side as she shrieked and strained her hips toward his mouth. It broke over her, wave after wave of it, until her hips jerked away of their own accord and she collapsed into a pool of sensation that subsided only slowly.

He crawled up beside her, wiping his mouth. She opened one eye and saw that he looked very satisfied with himself. She smiled. He should. She wasn't certain she had ever ex­perienced an orgasm like that in all the many thousand thousands in her life. Was it because he was tender? Was it because she trusted him enough for some strange reason to open herself to the full impact of it? What he had done to her was more than just to give her pleasure. He had showed her an emotional closeness she had never known.

That thought brought tears. It felt like a gigantic knot of tension had been released inside her, one that had been building over centuries. He must have felt her crying against his chest, for he rocked her, soothing. No one had ever done that for her. She wanted to give him something in return. She raised her head and smiled at him. It was time. She would love keeping him at the edge of insanity. The sexual act would be an act of giving, not demanding performance. She sat up and pushed him gently to his back. Then she straddled him. She wanted to feel him filling her. And now that she was sated, she could be attentive to just how long he could stand the strokes inside her. How long could he hold his release tonight? She was going to find out.

It was the wee hours of the morning. But Drew wasn't tired. The hours of making love to this woman seemed to fill him with energy rather than drain him. He had brought her to release several times now. And he had held his in abeyance. That should have been onerous. But it wasn't. Even now she was caressing his cock as she sucked at one of his nipples. She was so skilled, the sensation so intense, he seemed to find some core of stamina that allowed him to appreciate the pleasure she gave him for what it was in the moment, not the orgasm it would bring. Several times he had felt that con­striction in his testicles that came with lust unreleased. She seemed to sense it. Perhaps his balls tightened. Always she would massage them gently until the aching passed. Once or twice when he was on the brink of orgasm, her eyes seemed to glow red again. He was so centered in the moment he could not focus on the questions that raised. She would whisper, "Find your center," and he would regain control again.

He had never felt closer to a woman. She was so gener­ous, so attentive. He was only glad he could return the favor. She rolled on to her back, her breasts flattening, and opened her knees to invite him in. He hung on his elbows above her, positioned his cock.

"Fill me. Please," she whispered.

He sheathed himself in her wet warmth. She bit her lip in pleasure. He began to stroke in and out, slowly. He could do this. He went inside himself again, trying to get lost in the rhythm.

Until she changed it. She wanted it faster now. "I'm not sure I can hold it," he panted.

"Now is the time to stop trying," she breathed.

He blinked. Now? Then he grinned. He repositioned himself so that his cock touched her on that spot that women liked the most, just in front of the entrance to her womb proper, and pumped in and out a few times to stimulate it. That made her open her eyes. They slapped together in deli­cious counterpoint. His loins were so tight, his genitals so heavy and sensitive, he thought he might burst. But he had to wait a little longer. Surely a woman as sensual as she was could reach ecstasy just once more tonight. He grabbed her buttocks as he knelt upright, his knees wide. She wrapped her legs around him. He plunged into her harder and harder, as if he could never get enough of her. He felt her begin to contract around him, and he let go.

The explosion was like nothing he had ever felt. His seed pulsed into her, on and on, stripping him of all his fluids. His vision contracted to a single point of light. He could hear himself grunting from somewhere far away, a bass counterpoint to her shrieks.

They both collapsed, finally, nothing left of themselves to share. He cradled her against his body. This most sexual of experiences had felt almost. . . spiritual. He'd started to­night as one kind of person—alone, inviolate, sure of his purpose. And he'd ended as someone else, a man who needed someone else.

He'd never needed Emily, except as revenge on her fa­ther. He'd never even known her. He'd certainly never loved her. He knew that now. But this woman, with whom he'd shared only a few words, he knew with every fiber of his being.

He just didn't know any facts about her. And now that he was not buried in the sensation of the moment, there were definitely questions.

Well, he'd have to remedy that.

4

She snuggled against him. They had been drowsing to­gether for a while, but he knew she was awake. He had been wondering where to start with his questions. His pre­occupation with his mission to find Emily, the incredible sexual attraction they'd felt—all had distracted him and made his denial of those questions easy. But he could no longer ignore them. He would come round to red eyes and disappearing and the wounds at his neck. He was not fright­ened of her, not after tonight. But he could not dismiss them as mere tricks. He would start his questions with what had happened to him. What he really wanted was to know if she had experienced it, too. "I've never felt anything like that."

She stretched and pressed her breasts against him. He thought she'd stripped every drop of semen from his body, yet still he felt a stirring in his loins.

"Good," she said, her mouth softening into a smile.

"What. . . what was that?"

"The closeness we felt?"

We. He nodded, brushing his lips across her hair. She had felt it, too.

"It is the teaching of the Tantra. It comes from the Hindu, though Buddhists and Jains practice also."

"They teach sex?" You could study sex? Apparently. She must have.

"Well, more it is the meditation that they teach. They believe the physical is an expression of the divine. And physical acts can bring you closer to God. Like sex, if you do it correctly."

"You do it correctly," he murmured, holding her close. Had she done this thing with others? To distract himself from that thought, he asked, "Will you tell me your name now?"

She looked conscious, as though she didn't realize she had never revealed even this much of herself to him. "Freya. My name is Freya."

After the Norse goddess of fertility and plenty. That was appropriate. "Freya." He savored it. "Well, Freya, why do you live here alone, without even removing the Holland cov­ers from the furniture and make the villagers think you are a ghost?"

She stiffened and he thought she would push away from him. Then he felt her soften. Maybe it was resignation. Her voice was small, and she did not look at him. "I am a bad person, Drew. I have done bad things. My father required them of me and of my sisters but we did not protest. One sister went mad from doing them. And I never even thought to refuse. I had never been away from my father's . . . house until he sent my remaining sister and me to England. We were doing this thing, and it was dangerous, and it had per­haps eaten at her mind, as well. I told her she must quit. But she wouldn't. And . . . and then I couldn't do it any more. So I stopped. And that meant I didn't support her. She . . . died." She took a shuddering breath.

Her sister had died. Perhaps she had as many scars as he did. He waited for her to go on, just holding her.

"But my job, evil as it was, it was all I knew," she said at last. "If I was not that, who was I? But I knew if I went home

I wouldn't have the strength to stand against my father when he wanted me to pick up where I left off. So I did not go home. I came here."

He wouldn't ask her what she did. She was not ready yet to tell him. Not that he thought whatever it was would be evil. He knew she wasn't evil on some deep level he couldn't explain. "And the ghost act was to keep people away."

She nodded. "I needed time to think. And these English, they are so strict with all their rules for what a woman must not do, and how she must be attended always by servants, and receive callers and live just so and I could not stand this. So I lived outside their censure."

"What were you thinking about?" he asked softly, mov­ing a strand of her midnight hair away from her forehead.

"Who I was."

He could understand that. He'd defined himself as a bas­tard, a servant in Melaphont's stable, a lover of Emily, a prisoner, a pirate, and now a gentleman. He wasn't sure he was any of those, not really. He nodded, and waited. •

"I look back on all those months." Her voice was pensive. "I was half-alive. Not thinking, though that was what I came here to do. Not feeling." The silence stretched.

"Does that mean you know who you are now?"

She chuckled. "No. I am more confused than ever. I know only that I was not living."

"Well, that's something."

"Yes." She looked up at him and smiled.

He could not help but swell a bit with pride. He might not be alone in the sensation of joining tonight. But if there was any way forward together there were other things he must know.

"So tell me about the red eyes and the disappearing." He didn't dare mention the wounds at his neck.

"Must you ruin all with your questions?" she snapped, pushing away from him and sitting up. "Can you not just live in the moment?" She looked around, as though she realized where she was for the first time. She got out of bed, glori­ously naked, and pulled the heavy draperies closed. "It will be light soon. I must move my things from the other room."

"I'll help," he said. But he felt bleak inside. The bond he'd felt to her had snapped.

He got hold of himself. He couldn't dally with a woman anyway. The revenge he'd desired for fifteen years had to be planned all over again. Melaphont must be his focus, not this tiny woman who had ravished his soul as well as his body tonight. She had secrets she would not share. He had no time to pry them from her. Where was his determination now? He forced himself to think about revenge. Money. Money was what Melaphont cared about. That and his house. Then those things were what he would lose.

By the time she had finished moving her things, it was day­light. She was getting sleepy. The room was over warm, but she couldn't open the draperies to catch a breeze. Drew was sweating and pale. She could not make him suffer here. "Go to your room and get some sleep." She managed a smile.

He examined her face, nodded once. And he left.

She felt bereft. She had trusted him last night with her fragile psyche as well as her body. And she had felt al­most .. . reborn. Until he had ruined everything with ques­tions that reminded her what a gulf there really was between them. They were not even the same species, no matter how close they had felt. She lived forever and he but a blink of time. The feeling of being joined spiritually was only the effect of the Tantric exercise she had always made the Aspi­rants practice. It wasn't real closeness, and certainly not anything else she might name. She had just been surprised by his tenderness.

She could never even tell him she was vampire. It was strictly against the Rules established by her father and the Council of Elders. Even if it wasn't, she couldn't trust him enough for that. He would be appalled, as humans always were.

She slept fitfully until nightfall. No light leaked from his doorway as she went to the kitchen. She heated water for a bath. A roast chicken he must have prepared sat, untouched, on the cutting board with some greens she did not recog­nize. The English always overcooked their vegetables. She ate standing. The night was hot again. Thunder sounded in the distance. Lightning threw the kitchen into periodic bright relief. She bathed, sorry the soap washed his scent from her body, then dressed and wandered to the front of the house. But there were no lights on in that wing. Where was he? Perhaps the stables.

His horse had his nose stuffed in the manger, and the barn was filled with contented grinding. The creature didn't seem to mind the storm outside as long as he had his oats and hay. There were several bales piled neatly at the end of the barn aisle, and his stall was clean and filled with fresh straw. The place smelled of hay, and saddle soap and oil from the freshly cleaned tack. But there was no sign of Drew. At least she knew he wasn't far. He wouldn't go any­where without his horse. She realized she'd been worried he might have left.

She wouldn't want that.

She headed back to the house. The skies let loose in pelt­ing rain. Drops bounced off the gravel and flapped in sheets across the stable yard. She was soaked to the skin instantly. Breaking into a run, she made it to the kitchen.

His room. It was the only place left. Had he been sitting there in the dark? She, who had wanted nothing more than to be alone for the last year, without thinking or feeling, was now atwitter to know what he was doing and what he felt. She changed into a wrapper and laid her gown out to dry. Then she stalked purposefully to his room.

"Drew Carlowe," she called, rapping softly.

A hoarse voice said, "Go away."

Was he that angry with her? "I. . . I want to talk to you." He didn't know how much it cost her to say that.

"You c-can't come in." He sounded strange—not like himself at all. "I'm . . . b-busy."

She tried the door. It was locked. "Are you . . . well?" She didn't have the faintest idea what sick people sounded like. She had grown up among vampires and they were never sick.

"I. . . I might have a t-touch of the influenza." He was trying to sound casual. But she could hear the lie in that. Pursing her lips, she twisted the knob until the lock creaked and broke. She pushed her way in.

He was huddled in the dark in a chair in front of the empty fireplace with a blanket round his shoulders. He sounded strange because he was shivering uncontrollably.

"Go away. You m-might catch it."

Not possible of course. Her Companion killed all disease. She was immortal, for God's sake, to all intents and pur­poses. She hurried over to him, frowning. "I won't catch it. You must have a doctor." One got a doctor for a human who was sick.

"No n-need," he managed.

She ignored him and put a palm on his forehead. He was incredibly hot. "How long have you been like this?" Had she weakened him with a night of sex?

"It got bad t-this afternoon. I'll be all right."

"Let's get you into bed." She pulled him up.

"I'm all right." But he had to turn away, as a dry, hacking cough took him. She could have carried him bodily, but she didn't want to frighten him with her strength.

"Don't be childish." She practically dragged him to the bed and pushed him up into it.

He was already in his stocking feet. She began to undress him.

"I'm perfectly c-capable," he protested. But he made no move to help her. That frightened her more than anything else. His flesh, wherever she touched it, was burning hot. When she had him naked and tucked under the sheets, she drew up the comforter to quiet his shaking. It didn't help.

"I'm going to get a doctor."

He gave a breathless chuckle. "No one will c-come up here at night."

He was right. Her stupid ghost impersonation had insured that.

"I don't need a doctor. Besides, I expect he's b-busy. I think Barton h-had it yesterday at the tavern. A good p-place to spread it." He dissolved into the cough again.

She came up and stood over him, frowning. "Can you die from this?"

"Only the frail die. I'll just be a little unc-comfortable for a few days. You'd b-better keep your distance, though."

"I told you. I can't get it from you. So," she said briskly, "I'm the perfect sickroom attendant." She drew up a chair. Actually, she felt rather helpless. What could she do but watch him shake with fever?

That's what she did over the next hours. He didn't com­plain but the racking cough and the shaking seemed to ex­haust him. Finally he subsided into a restless sleep. She lit a single candle and pulled over a book he must have been reading. It was a story about a man named Faustus. She could barely concentrate on the words. Was this what it was like to be human, prey to every sickness, every wound? Her only consolation was that it was only uncomfortable. He wasn't in any real danger.

He broke out in a sweat halfway through the night. That was a good sign, wasn't it? She peeled off the comforter and found the bedclothes soaked. So she went down to the kitchen and brought up several pitchers of water and cloths.

When she returned he appeared to be awake. His eyes were slitted, but they were open. Still, he was nearly insen­sible. She pulled back the sheet and poured her water in the room's washbasin. The thunderstorm appeared to have bro­ken the unseasonable hot spell. She opened the windows to the night air, which now held the hint of autumn September should bring. Then she wetted a cloth and wiped him down.

"Better?" she asked when she was done.

He roused himself. "Thank you," he murmured. "You are kind."

She touched his forehead to push back his soaked hair and he flinched. "What's wrong?" This man had undergone torture. What could make him flinch?

He tried to smile. "Headache." He squinted against the dim candlelight. "I feel like I've been put on the rack. Hell, my hair hurts."

"What does this mean?" she asked, alarmed.

"It means I have influenza." His eyes closed. "It will pass soon."

It didn't. She added blankets when he was shaking, and left him naked to the air as he broke into a sweat. She tried to cool him by wiping him down with a damp cloth periodi­cally, but always he was hot to the touch. Morning came and she closed the draperies against the sun. But the fever wouldn't let him go. He had periods of insensibility. You couldn't call it sleep. He refused all food though she made him drink water. He must replace the sweat he was losing. He roused himself to use the chamber pot, though infre­quently.

In the late afternoon he opened his eyes. "How are you?"

He seemed to consider. Then his eyes opened wide. "Damn!" he whispered. "Darley." He struggled up on one elbow and pulled at the covers. She pushed him back down.

"I'll feed him. Only tell me what to give him."

He sighed. "Two flakes of hay and two scoops of oats."

She turned to the door. "And water."

"Of course." She smiled. "I'll be back shortly."

By the second night, she had begun to worry. He had said a few days. Surely a few days included time on the mend, as well. So shouldn't he be getting better? He seemed to be get­ting worse. She had to steady him to use the chamber pot at all. His lips were cracked and dry, his eyes glazed and over-bright. He still flinched at her touch. And always he was hot.

She laid him back in the bed near morning.

"You're good to me," he murmured. There was a softness in his eyes behind the fever.

"Anyone would help you."

He shook his head ever so slightly. "You're a generous person."

"No one has ever called me that."

"Then they didn't know you . . ." He closed his eyes.

That startled her. Perhaps no one did know her. She had been an anonymous extension of her father at Mirso Monas­tery. She had the benefit of his position. He was the Eldest, after all. No one dared give her offense. But no one thought of her as anything but his daughter, either. She had always depended on him. He knew everything, having lived so long. And he always told her what to do.

But here she was on her own. And she didn't know what to do for Drew.

A doctor would know. She'd get a doctor up here today, no matter that Drew said he didn't need one, if if were the last thing she did.

The village street was deserted, though it was still an hour to sunset. Freya had bundled up in her hooded cape, with gloves and half-boots to protect her from the sun. Still its stinging needles reached her, even through the lined wool.

She lifted the hood and squinted around. Where was she go­ing to find the doctor? Actually, where was everybody?

A sign creaked back and forth in the wind rising on the threat of sunset, goose and gander it said. A tavern. Drew thought he had caught this influenza there.

She pushed in through the doors, grateful for the refuge from the sun, and slipped back her hood. The tavern was deserted except for one old man in the corner. Well, that was more people than she had seen anywhere else.

He studied her over an empty glass.

"Excuse me, sir," she said. "Can you tell me where I might find a doctor?"

He rose and went to pull another pint for himself. "I ex­pect he's up to The Maples."

Freya was fascinated with very old humans. After all, her kind stopped aging at maturity. She had never seen an old person until she left Mirso last year. The wrinkles, the rheumy eyes, the joints she could actually hear creaking and cracking, all held a dreadful attraction. What would it be like to feel death approach as your body failed? This was the fate that waited for Drew.

"Which way is this Maples? I need the doctor quickly."

"Yer foreign, ain't ye?" he asked, without answering her question.

Freya went wary. These English were quite provincial. They did not take easily to anything strange. "I am from Transylvania." He would never know where that was, or what it might mean.

"That would be where th' Carpathian Mountains are, I'd 'azard. Would ye like a pint? It's on th' 'ouse at th' moment, since Barton's dead."

She shook her head. Wait! Drew said he caught this influ­enza from Barton. She sucked in a breath. "Was this Barton old like you?"

The old man shook his head, sighing. " 'Earty as a 'orse one day, stiff as a board th' next. Fever took 'im."

Freya felt her heart contract. Drew was wrong. He could die from this sickness. "Please, I must have a doctor."

"Someone got th' influenza? This is a bad bout, certain." He sat back down. " 'Alf the county's down with it."

How could he be so calm? "Yes, yes," she said, sitting across from him, leaning forward. She must make him un­derstand the urgency. "Mr. Drew Carlowe has this influ­enza."

"I thought so. Yer th' ghost, ain't ye?"

She went still. Then she mustered a laugh. "Do not be nonsensical." She touched his hand. The skin was paper-thin. "Quite corporeal, I assure you."

His pale blue eyes were quizzical. "Then ye've been play­ing ghost. Naughty girl."

She sighed. Maybe the truth would make him tell her how to get this doctor. She nodded. "I wanted to be alone and in England this is impossible for a woman. I frightened people away."

"Th' bites?"

Oh, dear. "Some were more stubborn than others. I pricked them with a knife point."

He pressed his mouth together and nodded. "Th' disap­pearing?"

"People see what they want to see. And I wore a white dress that seemed to float." "Red eyes?"

She shrugged and tried to look confused. "Did they say I had red eyes?"

He sipped his ale. "Must 'ave been a shock when Carlowe bought th' place."

"Yes, especially since I own it."

"Ahhh, th' absent landlord. Or 'is daughter. Guess Mela­phont got a little overanxious."

"He is a greedy man, this Melaphont." She frowned. "And he has been very bad to Mr. Carlowe." She was going to take care of Melaphont for Drew, after Drew was well again. She'd start by making him give Drew's money back for the house. After that. . .

"He's about to get his due, I expect."

She couldn't spend any more time here. "Please, please tell me how to get to this Maples."

"I doubt th' quack'll come. Melaphont's an important man around 'ere." She glared at him. He sighed. "Th' road turns up into the 'ills three miles past Ashland. It's marked."

"Thank you, thank you, sir." She rose. "What is your name, if I may ask?"

"’Enley."

"Mr. Enley, I hope you do not catch this influenza. I would not wish you to die."

He looked surprised. "Thankee, young lady. I would not wish it, either."

She curtsied in the English fashion and rushed from the room, pulling up her hood, then hurried behind the tavern, drew her power. She must get to The Maples.

The dusk was settling in as she materialized in the wood at the edge of the road to The Maples. She threw back her hood, freed of the itching pain of the sun at last. The doctor had to come, though it was growing dark, even though he thought Ashland was haunted. She could not compel him because she needed his medical judgment and under com­pulsion there could be no judgment or creativity. She would just tell him it was she who haunted it, as she had told Hen­ley. He had to come. She stepped out onto the road.

The Maples turned out to be even larger than Ashland, with twenty chimneys poking up from a late-sixteenth-century facade of stark gray stone. It stood across a man-made lake, lights blazing from every window, a solid vision of wealth and power. On one side, a new wing rose, half complete. Its style did not match the rest of the house. Mela­phont had no taste. She hurried over a bridge that crossed a stream that fed the lake and crunched up a wide gravel drive to the portico. Up shallow steps, she took the great knocker and banged on the door.

A very severe man with a mouth that turned down opened the door. He said nothing, but stared at her in disapproval.

A woman alone could not be either wealthy or of good character in England. "I must see the doctor," she panted.

"He is engaged with Sir Melaphont." The man began to shut the door.

"But there is someone who needs his help!" she pleaded, stopping the door with one delicate hand. She did not wait for another refusal, but pushed past him.

"See here!" he protested.

Twin staircases wound up from the far end of the im­mense foyer. She couldn't search this entire pile looking for the doctor. She drew her power even as she whirled on the majordomo. The world went red. "Take me to the doctor. Now."

His gaze became vague. He nodded and moved off to­ward the stairs. She followed. In the broad hallway of the first floor a young man paced. He affected a curl of dark hair that he let hang across a pale brow, but there the likeness to a portrait of Lord Byron she had seen in books stopped. His face was pudgy and petulant.

"Grimshaw!" The boy started forward. "The damned doctor won't let me see my father."

Grimshaw said nothing of course, because he was under Freya's compulsion. He just opened the door and ushered her inside.

"Grimshaw! I say—"

The door shut in the young man's face. The bedroom was huge. A portly man stood with his back toward her, his hand on the wrist of an immense figure only dwarfed by the great, curtained bed in which it lay. The figure emitted wet, gasp­ing sounds and the room smelled of blood. A basin of it sat on the table by the bed. What was this? The doctor turned at her entrance.

"I said no visitors, Grimshaw." The doctor glowered.

Freya willed Grimshaw out of the room. He closed the door behind himself. The younger Melaphont could be heard protesting in the hall.

"Who are you?" the doctor said. He was an austere older man with luxuriant mustachios and iron-gray hair swept back from an intelligent forehead.

"Never mind that. Mr. Drew Carlowe needs your help. He is at Ashland."

"The new owner? It's influenza, I assume."

She nodded. Her glance darted to the figure in the bed. This was Drew's nemesis. He was immensely fat, his jowls dripping down over the collar of his nightshirt. His face looked like it was melting. Still, there were cruel lines about his mouth. She could believe he had lied about Drew and punished him unjustly. Now he was like pale yellow dough, still, his eyes closed. The doctor laid his patient's hand back on the coverlet.

"And I would come if I thought it would do any good, young lady," the doctor was saying. "But there's really no use. Oh, I bleed them, because one must do something. But there is really nothing to be done but make them as comfort­able as you can and let the disease run its course."

Freya was stunned. "You . . . you cannot help him?"

The doctor looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. He shook his head.

Freya felt tears of frustration well up. Her throat closed. These humans were at the mercy of some silly disease that wasted one away with fever? And the doctor only bled them. This would weaken them for their fight with the illness. She if anyone knew that the blood was the essence of life. One did not drain it lightly. This whole effort had been useless, and she had left Drew alone. The doctor turned back to his patient. A dreadful gurgling sounded then silence.

Freya was stunned. "He is dead?" It could happen, just like that?

"I'm afraid so," the doctor said. "He was my most impor­tant patient, too."

Freya did not wait to hear more, but pushed out of the room, past the petulant son, and out into the night.

5

Freya hadn't slept for days. She'd insisted Drew take broth as she held him in her lap. He had to keep up his strength. Supplies had mysteriously arrived the day after she'd gone to the village, in spite of the fact that she had made no order in Tintagel, where she got her own victuals. The delivery had included a salve which she put on Drew's lips to keep them from cracking, and some apple vinegar she used in the water in which she bathed him. It seemed to cool the inten­sity of his fever.

If he were vampire he would live forever, barring some bizarre accident of decapitation, or murder by the same means. They wouldn't be a different species any more. Could they become even closer? He would be even more easily aroused than he was as a human, have even more stamina. The prospect would have given her shudders of anticipation if she could feel anything but anxiety.

If she had made him vampire before this happened she might have prevented all this. She couldn't do it now. He was too weak to survive the ravages of ingesting her Com­panion. It was a difficult transition, until the immunity she gave with her blood could take hold.

But there were so many reasons she couldn't make him vampire, then or now. It was against the Rules of her kind, for one thing. And for another he would never agree to be made a monster like she was. That's what she would be in his eyes if he knew what she was. Vampire. The very word struck fear into the hearts of humans. Yet another reason she couldn't tell him. A gulf had opened between them. Why did she struggle so vainly against it?

In the wee hours of the fourth day, his breathing grew wet and labored. It sounded only too familiar. She brought pillows from other bedrooms and propped him up. That seemed to make his breathing easier. His eyes opened and, as always during these past days, he thanked her. This time he only whispered it before he drifted away.

She sat on the side of his bed and took his hand. "Don't die," she ordered to his closed eyes, as though it was in his power to decide. "Don't die." This time it was a plea. What should she do? What could she do? Nothing. Nothing but wait.

Hours passed. The sun rose. Her kind always felt the ex­act position of the sun. She sat, listening to Drew's breath­ing. She was so sorry she had pushed him away when he wanted to know about her. Not that she could tell him she was vampire. But he had trusted her with his story, with his pain, and she had not returned his confidences in full mea­sure.

She turned her head. She had neglected to close the heavy drapes on one of the windows. The sky was reddening over the tangled gardens that looked east. She rose to twitch them shut, then sat heavily in a chair.

She woke with a start. How long had she slept? Hours. She jerked upright and went to Drew. His breathing was definitely easier. She placed a hand on his pale forehead. It felt.. . cool.

She sucked in a breath. He opened his eyes. They were clear. Exhausted but clear.

"Welcome back," she whispered.

Drew reclined on the divan in the drawing room. The win­dows were thrown open to the dusk. Freya put down a tray with tea and preserved fruit and scones. He watched her as from a distance. Everything seemed distant these days. In­fluenza had left him weak and strangely lethargic in his mind. He lived in the moment, as Freya would say. Hell, he was just glad he had moments.

"Is this not a pleasant room?" Freya asked, as she poured and handed him a cup. "I must say living here is much easier with an army of servants."

"An army?" He smiled. How could one not smile when one looked at beautiful Freya?

"Well, six. Mr. Enley sent two granddaughters to set the house to rights and a cousin as cook, and a nephew to take care of the stables. And the two young men—are they his family? No, I think not. They are beginning to cut back the overgrown gardens."

"I thought the house felt more alive," he murmured. He didn't correct her about Henley's name. "I seem to be keep­ing backward hours, sleeping all the day."

She blushed. "You keep my hours. I. . . I have a sensitiv­ity to light."

Well, at least she was saying something about herself. He had not pressed her further about what she was. Such con­siderations seemed far away. Or was he afraid to drive her away?

"I noticed," he remarked. "Why has Henley had a change of heart? He was a proponent of the 'ghost who drinks blood' theory. I shouldn't think he'd send his relatives to serve here."

"I told him I was not a ghost when I went to the village."

"You went to the village?" He found himself mildly curi­ous. That was a new sensation. It must come with leaving his bed for the first time.

"I tried to find you a doctor."

"That was good of you." How she had exerted herself to care for him. He would never have asked it. In fact, he had never been so dependent upon anyone as he had been on her in the last days. She who had never wanted a houseguest, especially a needy one, had been exceedingly generous and tender. She hadn't even allowed the new servants to relieve her. "I expect the doctor was busy and couldn't come."

She turned her eyes away as though concealing some­thing. "He said he could do nothing but bleed you in any case, and I knew that would do more harm than good."

He nodded and sipped his tea. Old Henley didn't seem the type to just accept a strange woman with an Eastern Eu­ropean accent showing up. But he must have. He had sent half his extended family to help out. "Do you need money to pay the servants? I shall write a letter to my banker in Lon­don."

"I have no need of your money, Drew. I pay them in gold." She sounded haughty. Then she screwed up her face and shook her head. "I am sorry. A foolish arrogance, when I use my father's money and live in my father's house. He left gold in . . . storage here, against need." She sat abruptly back in her chair. "I suppose I will never be independent of him."

Drew was not independent himself. He'd been dependent physically on Freya. He wasn't independent of her psycho­logically, either. He couldn't imagine waking and not seeing her calm, almost black eyes rise from her book.

He'd forgotten all about his obsession with Melaphont.

The thought was like a cutlass tearing the shroud of dis­tance that enveloped him. What was he doing, lolling here and thinking of Freya when Melaphont no doubt strode around his precious house, directing the building of his new wing with his chest puffed out? Did the villain ever think of the boy he had wrongly ruined? No. But he would.

Drew set down his teacup too bluntly. It sloshed tea onto the table. "It's time to get back to my purpose. I've an idea how to make Elias Melaphont regret the day he sentenced me."

"Had you thought that by ruining him, you would also ruin his son?"

Drew blinked. "He has a son?" He set his lips. "Then maybe that is the way to get to him." He threw off his blan­ket and pushed himself off the divan. His legs were so cursed weak. He sat down again abruptly.

"You mustn't worry about Sir Melaphont now," Freya soothed. "Have you overtired yourself? I'll help you to your room."

"Damn it, Freya," he fumed. "I can't lie here when that worm is up there gloating."

Freya went still. It was as though she was gathering her courage. "He isn't gloating."

Drew frowned, "How do you know?"

"He is dead. Of the influenza. I saw him die."

Drew felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. "Don't make jokes about this, Freya."

She raised her brows. She was right. She didn't joke.

"The bloody man went and died before I could give him back his own?" Drew heard his own voice crack. Not fair! Not fair in a long line of things that were not fair. "Then I'll have my revenge on his son."

"No you won't, Drew, not when you think about it. That poor creature has suffered enough, with that man for a fa­ther."

The air went out of him, along with something else. It was as if the energy he'd expended in that flash of vengeful rage had used up whatever he had left. He looked away. "You're right." His life stretched ahead, without purpose. He took in the heavy wood furniture in the Tudor style that lit­tered the room, now gleaming with wax instead of dust. Why was he here? It wasn't his house. It had no meaning now that Melaphont was dead. It had only been a means to an end, like Emily.

He staggered out the salon door toward the stairs. Freya moved to help him but he pushed her hand away. "Leave me alone," he growled, and pulled himself up the stairs by the banister.

Freya sat in her room on the window seat, looking out over the night garden. Things had not changed much after all. Oh, the gardens were being slowly pruned into shape. And the dust covers were gone. She was no longer alone in the house. But the distance from herself she had felt for over a year had come back to nest in her heart, as though it had never left.

It had been two days since she'd seen the horrified look on Drew's face when he heard his nemesis was dead. Last night he'd tried to leave. She'd stopped him, of course. He was too weak to travel and he knew it. But his eyes were dead. He didn't see any reason to go on, now that the ven­geance he'd been planning for so long was useless. It was only a matter of time until he went. She didn't want him to go this way, drifting and half-alive like she was.

For a week or two she had felt . . . connected again, inter­ested in living.

It was because of Drew Carlowe. Her tragedy was that she . . . cared for him. The way she had never cared for any­one in her long, long life. Vampires did not fall in love. That's what her father always told her. Especially not with humans who lived for only a flicker of time. Not long enough to love, he said. And Drew would be horrified if he knew what she was. So he would never know. So there could be nothing between them but that lie.

But if she cared for him, she couldn't let him suffer. How to prevent the emptiness from consuming him? She remem­bered the feeling of wholeness their sexual union had pro­duced. Maybe she could bring him back from the brink. The very thought of leaving herself open to his rejection was alarming. But she had to try.

She rose from the window seat and drifted through the dark room to the doorway. Light leaked from behind the closed room of his door. She turned the knob. The lock was still broken. He sat at his desk, just as she had seen him that other night, writing a letter. Only this time he wasn't naked. He looked up. The pain in his eyes was startling. He quickly masked it with indifference.

"I. . ." He was casting about for a lie. His shoulders slumped. He was deciding to tell her the truth. "I was just writing you a letter."

"Perhaps you should say your message in person."

He looked away. "It was mostly 'thank you.'"

"Was it?" He had lied again. That had her curiosity up.

He nodded. He wasn't going to tell her what it really said. She noted that there were several crumpled drafts around the carpet. Whatever it was, apparently it was not easy to say. Dread suffused her. You have to try, she reminded herself.

She stood behind him and rubbed his shoulders, knead­ing the knotted muscles there. It wasn't just the shock of at­traction that shot through her. Something deeper flashed inside her that she'd never felt with a man before. It warmed her heart as well as her loins. His shoulders relaxed and he rolled his head, giving a satisfied growl. She ran her hands under his shirt collar to the silken skin on the nape of his neck.

Then he was standing. He had her by the shoulders. "I'm so weak," he whispered, angry.

"I. . . I am sorry. I shouldn't have . . . You've been sick. I know that."

"I mean I'm weak to want you so." He took her in his arms and kissed her fiercely as she turned up her mouth to his. Kisses were so intimate. "I shouldn't give in," he said, between kisses. "You don't even care enough to tell me what you are." He was panting now. He dragged her to the bed by one arm. "But I want you, Freya, just once more."

She ripped his shirt getting it off him. He popped buttons on his breeches as she unbuckled her girdle and let her dress drop in a pool at her feet. Naked, he picked her up and laid her on the bed. He was already erect. The lingering effects of influenza were not enough to cool his ardor, apparently. She stroked his cock as she sidled up beside him. One of his hands covered her breast as he held her to him and kissed her thoroughly. Her breasts felt swollen and tender. When he bent to suckle, she arched up into his mouth, moaning.

"Forgive me, my love, but I must feel you around me right now."

She opened to him, nothing loath. She wanted him to plunge himself inside her, pry open her most secret parts and fill them with his strong cock. She wanted to be de­manded of, not to demand. They took the simplest of posi­tions, and somehow the most satisfying. She would not ask him to control himself. He had been sick, and probably had little stamina. And if they did not achieve the closeness of the first time, well, that was as it may be.

Wait. What had he called her?

He hung above her, and his eyes were hungry. "My love." It was a figure of speech, no more. He wanted her skills at sex, and she would give them to him, as long as his strength held.

Drew lay back and drew Freya down with him to cradle her in his arms. Not bad for an invalid. He'd brought her to ec­stasy three times, and even come twice himself. Now he should be lethargic, but he was consumed by a strange en­ergy, vibrating in sympathy with her energy, as she lolled against his chest, her curtain of hair covering her face. It didn't matter that they hadn't played her Tantric games. He felt just as close to her as he had the first time they made love all night. That's what it was. Making love. It wasn't just sex. Just sex was what he'd had with every other woman.

The letter he'd written her told her that he loved her, though he knew she didn't love him in return. She didn't even trust him enough to tell him what she was. And she was something all right. He remembered her lifting him bodily into bed when he was fainting as he tried to use the chamber pot. She carried him as if he was a child. No ordi­nary woman could do that. He had told Henley that first night in the tavern that vampires drank blood, not ghosts. Perhaps that was what she was. It was an ugly word. His stomach churned. His head said vampires didn't exist. His heart said it didn't matter to him what she was. She had not hurt him. On the contrary. She had cared for him and set him free in a way he had never imagined possible.

He wouldn't burden her with his presence. A partner who lingered on after he was no longer wanted was annoying. His eyes filled. He lay there, thinking about the emptiness ahead. His revenge on Melaphont was thwarted. But that didn't matter any more. In the last days, Melaphont had seemed to shrink in importance. Drew had been consumed by his past, but now his eyes were on the future, a future without Freya in it.

He was a coward. He couldn't face a future like that. All his resolve to go washed out of him. She didn't love him. He would be rejected. But he had to try.

"Freya?"

She lifted her head. Her great dark eyes were soft. She smiled an inquiry, waiting.

He swallowed once. His mouth had gone dry. "Marry me."

Her eyes widened in shock. "What?" It was a frightened whisper.

He was at least as frightened as she was. "I love you. I haven't the courage to leave you. I know you don't love me. But if. . . if you let me stay, I could . . . I could take care of everything for you. You wouldn't have to deal with the ser­vants, or. . ." He tried to think of how he could make him­self useful to her.

"I can't." Her voice broke.

There it was. He gathered her into his arms. He wouldn't let her know that something inside him had just shattered. "It's all right. I knew it was a long shot. Had to try, though."

He felt the convulsion of a sob shake her. He stroked her hair. "Don't cry. I won't importune you. You could never love a man like me." He tried a laugh. "And I told you I'd make a damnable husband."

"I do love you, you stupid man," she choked.

"You . . . you what?"

"I love you." She jerked her head up, apparently angry. "I love you past all sense."

"My God." His heart swelled. He frowned. "Then why won't you marry me? That is the customary thing when two people love each other."

She sat up, her lovely breasts hanging above him. She set her lips. "I am going to tell you what I am sworn not to tell anyone, so that you may know why I cannot marry you." She took a breath and let it out. "I am vampire." She watched for his reaction.

He swallowed carefully. He'd guessed. But to have it con­firmed was . . . horrifying. He hoped it didn't show on his face. He had to get past the word itself to Freya. He needed to buy time. "So you did drink my blood that first night."

She nodded.

"Tell me about it. Being vampire, I mean."

She looked wary. "Well. I have a parasite in my blood. We call it our Companion. It gives us certain . . . qualities."

"The sensitivity to sunlight." He could start there. That wasn't so bad.

"Strength. Heightened senses."

He could deal with that. "Red eyes?"

She chewed her lips. "This thing in our blood has power we can use. The red eyes happen when we call the power."

"And what does the power do?"

She gave a tiny shrug. "I can . . . influence minds." Her voice was small.

And he had though she was a proponent of "animal mag­netism," like Dr. Mesmer.

"And if I draw enough power, the field collapses in on it­self in a whirl of darkness and I pop out into another place."

"I . . . guess I. . . saw that once."

She nodded. "And if I die, the parasite dies with me. It has a keen urge to life. So it rebuilds its host. Forever."

Drew closed his mouth to prevent his jaw from dropping. "Immortal?" he managed.

"Unless I am decapitated." She looked down at her hands. "I am very old."

"How old?"

"Nine hundred years, or thereabouts. So you see why I couldn't marry you."

"I'd get old. And you wouldn't." He shook his head. "You must think me a baby, naive, uninteresting."

She reached out for his hands. "No, no. You make me see that I have not been living at all. You . . . you showed me how to make love."

"I showed you? You're the most skilled practitioner of the art of love I can imagine."

She straightened her shoulders. "That's because sex was my job. It wasn't love." She must have seen his shocked ex­pression. "The Companion gives us a heightened sexuality. By using our sexuality, increasing it, we can increase our power as well. My job was to use Tantric teachings to train selected men of our kind to increase their power. They be­came Harriers, the weapons my father sent against those who threatened our kind by making other vampires." She looked down at her hands. "He used them against those who threatened his power, too."

He had to go slowly here. There was so much. "Your fa­ther made you have sex with these apprentices?"

"I wanted to serve our kind. It was a kind of sexual tor­ture in some ways, this training. But I did it to them, for the greater good. But then he sent my sister and me to kill one we had made. I came to understand that what we were doing was wrong." She stared out the open window directly across from the bed into the night. "I realize now that she had gone a little insane with the power we had over the Aspirants. She liked the torture. It was dangerous, the training. And when I wouldn't help her with it, it killed her."

"So it wasn't your fault she died."

"Oh yes it was. I knew it could happen. But she had to be stopped. I carry the guilt of stopping her." She turned back to him. "So never think I knew love. I didn't even know ten­derness and sex could exist together until I met you."

She hadn't known love in more ways than one. What fa­ther could do that to his daughter?

"But," she said, making her tone light. "You see why marrying me would be a bad idea. One can't marry a vam­pire who lives forever."

A little thought darted through his brain. He pushed it down. He sat up and put his arms across his knees. "What about the blood?"

She looked down. "I need about a cup every fortnight or so. That must seem horrible to you. But I don't kill anyone. And I can erase their memory, or supplant it with some bet­ter one; that they had wonderful sex, for instance, or that they are handsome."

So far, so good. He could live with that. "And do they become vampires?" If they did, he might already be one.

She gave a weary chuckle. "Of course not, else the world would be littered with vampires. No, our kind survives in a delicate balance with humans. It is strictly forbidden to make a human vampire."

"And how does one do that?" He made his voice as neu­tral as he could.

"Well, you have to get some of my blood in your system somehow—an open wound, for instance." She tried on a smile. It came out lopsided. "I've been very careful, though. You're not infected. You'd know because you get sick im­mediately, and you'd die without infusions of a vampire's blood for the first three days, to give you immunity to the effects of the parasite on the human system."

"So, let me get this straight. Strength. Heightened senses. Heightened sexuality. The ability to compel others. You can disappear, and you're immortal. And the blood. Anything else I should know about?"

She raised her brows. "That is all, I think."

"And you love me. And you believe I love you."

She nodded slowly.

He took a breath. In for a penny in for a pound. He couldn't imagine life without her. And if she stayed with him and left him human, the differences between them would drive them apart. "So why not make me vampire?"

She hugged herself, covering her breasts. "I told you, it is forbidden."

"We're not talking about making hundreds here. Just one."

"If you covet eternity, let me tell you, it is a terrible bur­den, not a benefit."

It was as though she had slapped him. But he forged ahead. "Do you really think that of me?"

She shook her head, but she was growing more agitated by the moment.

"It would be easier with two facing eternity together."

"You don't understand." She was almost pleading with him. "When love dies you'd be left a vampire. Did I mention it is impossible for us to commit suicide? The Companion's urge to life doesn't allow that kind of escape."

"And what if the love doesn't die, Freya? If I'm not vam­pire, our differences will stand between us. It might be bet­ter if we parted now."

"I know," she whispered. Her eyes were big with pain.

She was giving up. Tears rose to her eyes.

It was up to him, then. He reached out and took her shoulders. "Be bold, Freya. Seize what we might make of this. Take back your life from your father, and all these rules you've been forced to live by. Let's carve our own place, make our own rules." He couldn't keep the pleading out of his voice.

Drew felt a hum of life against his spine. There was a new energy in the room, more powerful by far than Freya's. They both turned. A whirling blackness, darker than the dim room, spun in the corner. Drew set his jaw. This could be bad.

6

Freya knew exactly what the whirling blackness was and who the vampire about to appear would most likely be. In some ways she had been waiting for this moment for over a year. She grabbed for Drew's shirt, which lay across the end of the bed, and pulled it over her head, her thoughts col­liding. First Drew's outrageous proposal, which was every­thing she wanted but shouldn't have. She couldn't take him up on his offer, of course. Drew didn't know what life would be like as a vampire. Then came his accusation that she had ceded who she was to her father and to the Rules. And now . . . this.

Her father materialized in the dim room. She tried to still the thumping of her heart and see him through Drew's eyes. He would hardly look as dangerous as he was. He had a great paunch under the plain brown wool of his habit. His beard was white, his eyes piercing blue. If anything, he looked like the pictures human children had of St. Nicolas. But he was no kindly elf. He was the Eldest. He ruled Mirso Monastery, the final refuge for vampires sick with the bore­dom and repetition of eternity. She had lived there her entire life before this last year. Actually, all she had ever seen were the tortured vampire souls who took refuge there and the Aspirants she trained to be Harriers. Were there vam­pires who lived full lives out in the world and never needed Mirso? The thought had never occurred to her.

Her father's hard eyes swept the room. Drew scrambled out of the bed and stood beside her, naked. He put his arm around her shoulders for support. "Who are you?" he barked.

Her father didn't deign to answer Drew. "Well, Freya, have you tired of your little rebellion?"

It annoyed her that he didn't even acknowledge Drew. "He is known these days as Rubius Rozonczy," she said to Drew. "Father, this is Andrew Carlowe."

"It is time to return to Mirso, Freya. We have need of a new Harrier, and now you alone are able to produce one."

She had been trying to prepare for this moment for a year. "I cannot do that any more. Did you not read my let­ter?"

"Your petty preferences are not at issue," he said sternly. "You are a trainer of Harriers."

"No, Father." She wished her voice did not sound plead­ing. "The training is painful for them. And the endless arousal and suppression . . ." She broke off in confusion. In the end it had been torture for her as much as for them. "Sexual intercourse should be an act of trust and pleasure between two people. It . . . it shouldn't be like that."

"It is your calling, Freya. Vampire kind needs a Harrier." He glanced to Drew. "If you wish, you can bring your play­thing with you. Use him for pleasure, if you need a respite."

She felt Drew stiffen. "He isn't an amusement, Father. I love him, and I'm not coming back to Mirso." There. She'd said it. Her mouth went dry. He was so much more powerful than she was, he could take her back by force. They both knew it.

Her father narrowed his eyes. "You are my daughter. I am the Eldest. You will obey."

"She's not doing anything she doesn't want to do." Freya started at Drew's intensity. He moved in front of her, as though that could protect her. "God, man, what kind of fa­ther makes his daughter engage in sex like it was a job? Fathers are supposed to love and protect their offspring."

"You know nothing, human." Her father's eyes roved over Drew's naked body. "Are you the reason my wayward daughter has grown disobedient? I can remedy that prob­lem." His eyes went the deepest crimson. He stalked toward the two.

Odin and Loki, but he was going to kill Drew. He would, without a thought. Freya felt panic sweep through her. She was no match for him. He was the Eldest. Still, she called for power. Companion! The surge up her veins snapped the world into red.

"Father, no!" she shouted.

But he kept coming. Companion, more! She thought about pressing him back. He hesitated, looking over at her. Did he feel her push?

"You can't stand against me, child. You know that." His voice was a boom, amplified by his power. He reached out and grabbed for Drew's shoulder.

Drew struggled in her father's iron grip. He couldn't es­cape. Her father would just twist his head off. She had seen him do it. All would be over in an instant. Irrevocable.

"No!" she shouted. Her father had both Drew's shoulders. Companion, more! As much as you have ever given.

The world went white. That was shocking. Where was the red? What was happening? Her veins throbbed with power. Her father put both hands on Drew's head as Drew tried to twist away. A glow spread out from her like a white corona. She thought about pushing at her father. She even thrust her hands out. They glowed white, too. She knew that glow.

Her father jerked back, taking Drew with him. He turned his crimson eyes on her. They widened and he gasped.

"Let him go, Father." Her voice was like the wind, a whooshing sound she did not recognize.

Her father turned to her, seeming to forget Drew entirely. Drew slumped to his knees. "You . . . you are a Harrier, daughter. I have never seen such power."

The corona of light contracted and the room went back to dim. Freya was left gasping. How had this happened? She had seen the corona of power on other Harriers and knew what it could do. She had trained a hundred Harriers over the years. But how had she become one? "I. . . I guess all the time I was training Aspirants, I was also training me."

"Excellent." Her father actually rubbed his hands. "Now we won't even have to wait through the training of another Aspirant for our Harrier."

She was as powerful as her father. How odd. And that changed everything. "Don't think I'm going to be your emo­tionless instrument of revenge, Father. I'm staying here with Drew, and now I am almost certain there is nothing you can do about it."

He snorted in derision. "Humans are not worth the aban­donment of your true purpose, Freya. What can they under­stand of the scope of our existence? They do not even live long enough to become wise."

In some ways that was the best thing he could have said. All became clear to Freya in that moment. "There is a wis­dom of the heart that you have lost, Father. Or maybe you never had it." Tears sprang to her eyes. She looked past her father to where Drew was struggling to stand. "Drew is al­ready wiser than you are, for all your age. I only hope I can learn from him."

Her father looked back to Drew. Did he see the softness in Drew's eyes? Would he recognize it for what it was? Freya was fairly certain it was love.

When her father snapped his head back to her, he said, "Remember the Rules, Freya." She smiled. He recognized the look, all right. And he knew what she intended. She did intend it, though she couldn't name the moment she had de­cided.

Drew was standing now, his feet apart. Lord, but he was magnificent. "A father has to let his daughter go, Rubius. Even if she makes mistakes. Your mistake was that you never learned that." Freya was proud of him.

And wonder of wonders, she saw her father look away. Was he ashamed? He took a breath and let it out of his mas­sive chest. Maybe the fact that he recognized the look in Drew's eyes meant something. "You must have loved some­one, Father, or been loved."

He didn't acknowledge anything. He looked at her. "Had it occurred to you that I might want you by me because I missed you as well as needed you? If you want to see me, you will know where to find me. I'll find another way to make Harriers."

The whirl of blackness engulfed him in mere seconds, much faster than she had ever been able to muster. He was . . . gone.

She turned to Drew. "Are you all right?"

He nodded, and ran his hand through his hair, half laugh­ing. "You have one scary father, my love." He shot a glance her way. "How do you feel?"

The smile that welled up in her brought a threat of tears with it. "Good." She shrugged, trying to make light of the fullness she felt inside. "Maybe . . . whole."

His eyes widened in memory. "You . . . you were quite amazing."

"I amazed myself. That was a demonstration of a Harri­er's powers, in case you're interested."

"I love a young lady whom I can truly call accomplished."

But did he? "Having second thoughts now that you know who I really am and have seen my very scary father?"

"I always knew who you really were, if you did not. And I think your father loves you in his very frightening way." He stepped in to her. They stood a handbreadth apart, not touching, the surface tension of attraction and hesitance in perfect balance. "And no, no second thoughts. You should have asked if I'm afraid."

"Are you?"

"Oh, yes. But you'll be there, won't you?"

Warmth suffused her. She reached up and slipped one hand around his neck under the curls at his nape. "I will, Drew Carlowe. And do you want this?"

"I do, Freya Rozonczy."

She smiled and felt the tears spill over and course down her cheeks. That was not her last name. To her knowledge she had no last name. But it was fitting she acknowledge that, for all his faults, she was her father's daughter. And she was her own person, too, for the first time. Drew led her back to the bed, climbed up and pulled her up beside him. He lay back, his strong body even now calling to the core of her. She asked for power, enough to run out her fangs. Her eyes would be glowing faintly red. She let him see the teeth ex­tend. He must have no illusions. "There is no going back."

He pulled her close and kissed her, running his tongue over her fangs. "Then let us go forward." She felt his erec­tion rising against her thigh. She throbbed in response.

He turned his head toward her and raised his chin, expos­ing the artery in his neck. But she wanted this to be special, sacred even. She reached down and caressed his cock. He was fully aroused now. So was she. She kissed her way from the pulse in his throat to the place directly under his jaw. "Not yet," she whispered. Her breasts rubbed against his chest hair. He rolled her to her back. She spread her knees. She wanted him to impale her, plunge himself inside. He positioned his cock and she pulled his buttocks into her. The sweet sensation of being filled possessed her. He moved in and out with controlled intensity. Sensation built and she did not want to stop it, prolong it, or deviate from its inevitable course. She turned the tables after a while and rolled him on his back. She straddled his hips and rocked up and down, back and forth. He groaned. She bit her lips, licking them. The saliva would keep the wounds from healing immedi­ately, but there wasn't much time. He bared his throat again.

She took a breath. She was about to baptize her newfound self by an act her father would find repugnant but that she was sure was very right. Drew's trust as he exposed himself to her would not go unreturned. She bit down, gently, rock­ing against his cock. He moaned, but she didn't think it was from the slight pain of the twin wounds she had inflicted. He was hard and needing inside her. The copper tang of thick life filled her mouth. She could feel the blood on her lips mingle with his. For better or worse, it was done. She sucked lightly, caressing his shoulder as he thrust inside her. She could feel his release building. Her own was moments away. The sweet sensation of sucking at him even as they raced toward orgasm in some complex and most intimate exchange of fluids, body to body, soul to soul, enveloped her. Her world thrust outward, blood and semen and her own wild juices mingling in chaotic abandon as Drew exploded inside her. They slumped together, Drew crushing her to his chest. She felt her lips heal as though the cuts there had never been.

"The blood is the life, my love," she said. "For both of us," he whispered.