One With the Shadows (25 page)

“Well, well,” Elyta cooed. “How touching. The tragically scarred thief has fallen in love with you, Gian, and has gallantly come to save you. But then, everyone does fall in love with you. You count on that. Everyone except me.” She motioned to the two vampires who stood beside her. They stepped forward and grabbed Kate. “How good, Frederico, that you made one final check before we retired.”

Elyta knelt beside Gian and held out the shackle.

“Let her go, Elyta,” he rasped. “She is nothing to you.” Elyta raised her brows. He put his raw wrist back inside the shackle and she snapped it shut.

“Let her go? When she obviously cares so much for you? I think not. Perhaps she’d like to stay and watch us frolic tonight. She would love to see your cock stand to attention, eager to service me. I know Sergei and Illya have been pestering me to watch.”

Gian jerked against his chains. Kate heard the threat to herself, but all she could think about was that he had … had made love to Elyta, after what she had done to him.

Elyta laughed. She looked at Kate, much struck. “But no, why should they not play too? You can have her, lads, before we suck her dry.”

The image of vampires sucking all her blood out danced before Kate’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t want the likes of her,” one of the pair spat.

Kate flushed. Ahhhh. The scar. Perhaps it had its uses.

“Take her from behind, you’ll never know the difference, Sergei,” Elyta advised. They both laughed this time. Kate felt her stomach roll and wasn’t sure whether it was from the thought of Sergei and Illya, or the thought of Gian with Elyta. She glanced to the vampires.

The melting of her surroundings that presaged a vision clamped down and held her rigid.

She saw the vampire named Illya falling overboard in the dark of a storm at sea. A great wave scraped him from the deck of a ship like he was nothing, and she
was
him and he was rolling over and over, water filling his lungs. Panic seized him. But then she felt the realization that he couldn’t drown. Relief washed through him. His Companion sent a surge of power up through his veins and he thought of the ship. There was a sear of pain, but he was used to that. Then he was standing on the deck again. He scrambled to the hatch and threw himself down into the relative safety of the hold as the deck rolled and pitched.

The vision faded.

“What’s wrong with her?” Elyta was barking. “Are you having some kind of a fit?”

“No,” Kate said as calmly as she could. Could she turn her vision to advantage? “I saw his future.” She nodded toward Illya. “You were swept off the deck of a ship. But don’t worry.” She made her voice kind. “You are frightened, but of course you can’t drown. You survive.”

“Nonsense.” Elyta snorted. “Don’t try your flummery on us.”

“I’m not. I had a vision of you touching Gian with the stone. That’s how I knew where to find him.” She pointed to the window. “I looked for the window I saw in my vision.”

“I don’t believe in supernatural powers,” Elyta said.

“Strange for a vampire. But neither did I. There you have it though.” Kate shrugged.

“She’s valuable to you,” Gian croaked. “Think what you could do if you knew the future.” He was trying to protect her.

“These are easy things to say.”

“There is proof.” Was Gian daft? There was no proof at all until something she saw came true, and who knew how long that might be? “The stones don’t drive her mad.”

Brilliant. She could use that. “The reason they don’t affect me is that I already know the future. My brain sorts out the true line of events.” It might not be true, but it was a good story. “As a matter of fact,” she said, pretending to be much struck, “I didn’t actually have a vision until after I saw the stone. Perhaps it triggered something in me.”

Kate could see Elyta sorting through the possibilities.

Elyta put a finger to her lips. “I wonder—would you dare to lie when proving the assertion is easy and lying would be so deadly?”

“Give me one of the stones.” Kate held out her hand.

Elyta fished in her own reticule, and came out with the silver box. She handed it to Kate. Her eyes were steely hard, but they glittered with avarice.

Kate opened the box and took out the great emerald. She walked over to the candelabrum Sergei held and raised the stone to the light. Immediately the rolling coils appeared in the depths of the stone, glittering with scales. The scales grew larger, flashed into pictures, each a scene, flipping ever more rapidly as the serpent within coiled itself. And then they flickered more slowly and finally resolved themselves into a stream of pictures. She watched Elyta, standing in a desert, triumph writ large upon her face. Kate wanted to see what was happening more than anything else in the world. But she couldn’t lose focus now.

She ripped her eyes away and managed a smile. “Uncomfortable. But the futures do resolve themselves after a moment.” And then another possibility occurred to her. She fingered the jewel. It wouldn’t work. But she had to try.

Kate lunged at Elyta with the stone. But fast as she was, the vampires beside Elyta were faster. They moved in a blur. One grabbed Kate’s wrist. She screamed and struggled. The creature banged her hand against his knee. The stone clattered to the marble floor.

Elyta drew herself up, breathing hard. One of the vampires scooped up the stone with the edge of his coat and deposited it in the silver box.

“You’ll be punished for that.” Elyta grew thoughtful. “But not killed. You will have your uses.”

Kate knelt, panting, and looked at Gian. He was straining against his shackles. She’d failed. The only sliver of hope was that Elyta intended to keep her alive. Of course, neither she nor Gian had told Elyta that she could not control when the visions came or what she saw. That disappointment could come later.

“Doesn’t mean she can’t serve two purposes,” Illya pouted.

“Yes it does,” Gian said. His voice had grown rather stronger. Now that she looked at him more carefully, some of his wounds had closed a little. His healing was slow but not gone. “Haven’t you heard that only virgins can peer beneath the veil of time?”

Elyta raised her brows and chuckled. “And you’re telling me she’s a virgin?”

“Look at her.” Gian’s voice was flat.

Kate swallowed and flushed to the roots of her hair. She knew they would believe the lie, humiliating as that fact was.

“Do you want to take the chance, just to serve these three a night of fun?”

“The day progresses.” The room had indeed lightened. Elyta turned to Gian and Kate. “We’ll just lock you in here with your friend today while we rest.”

“Locks don’t seem to hinder her,” Sergei muttered.

“She can’t pick a padlock on the outside of the door from the inside.” Elyta examined Kate and held out her hand. “Still we want Gian locked in place right where he is today. Hairpins please.” Kate pulled the pins from her hair. “Really, Gian, how could you even associate with one straight from the gutter? Picking locks.” She snorted in derision.

Kate tossed the pins to the floor. Elyta frowned and motioned Illya to pick them up. While they were distracted, Kate slipped the one pin still in her hand down the back of her collar and shook out her hair over it.

“Your reticule and your cloak?”

Kate slipped it off her wrist and whirled her cloak off her back. Elyta took them both. Her tarot deck was now lost. Her former identity was slipping away.

Sergei picked up the candelabrum and the blanket. Frederico, swathed in his cloak, braved the sunlight to lock the door from the outside. Blackness whirled around Elyta and the other two. “Stay away from him. He’s dangerous to you today,” Elyta warned.

And they were gone.

What did Elyta mean, dangerous?

Fifteen

Kate turned to Gian, blinking as she thought about what to do next.

“I’m sorry you came.” His voice was barely a whisper, his eyes sad. All the strength he had mustered to face Elyta was gone.

“I am too.” She was, now she knew he had made love to Elyta, even though she was torturing him. Was he
that
besotted? That was twisted in ways that shocked her, hardened as she was. And what he and Kate had done together meant nothing to him. She took a breath. “But I promised myself I’d get you out. That is, if you are sure you want to leave her.”

He looked incredulous before realization hit him. “You don’t think I … I … serviced her of my own free will, do you?”

“Men can’t be coerced into sex.”

He swallowed. “Look, there is a quality about vampires … it’s called … compulsion.”

“I know about that. Like hypnotism. You tried it on me once, and so did Elyta. I actually let her and the others compel me, so they would believe me about your destination.”

“Well, it … works on … arousal as well. Now that I’m weak, she can compel me to do anything.” He paused and looked away. “Even have sex.” The words were a hoarse whisper.

“That’s rape.” The true horror of his experience over these days began to sink in.

“Yes.” His tone was flat. It covered pain.

All right. She accepted that vampires could compel. Then she could accept that he’d been raped by a female vampire.

“We must find some way for you to escape.” He squinted around without much hope.

“Don’t look so glum. We’re not beaten yet.” The room was growing brighter still.

“I’m too weak to translocate.” He meant that whirling darkness, and he was ashamed.

She raised her brows. “And who said I was depending on you to get us out of this?” Bravery she didn’t feel. She turned and peered up at the small round window. “Won’t the light make you uncomfortable?”

He chuffed a weak laugh that turned to choking. “Yes,” he gasped. “And from about two to three in the afternoon, it won’t be a pretty sight.”

“Well, you’re not a very pretty sight now anyway.” She could release him from the shackles to avoid being in direct sunlight, but still there would be plenty of light in the room as the day wore on. If only they hadn’t taken the blanket and her cloak. She glanced around. A fur on the floor, no doubt designed for Elyta’s comfort. It wasn’t big enough to shelter him, even if he crouched. Still … She studied the window. It was small. Too small for her shoulders? No time like the present to find out. How good that she had worn these little slippers with the suede soles. She grabbed her skirts and knotted them around her knees.

“What … what are you about?” he asked.

She untied the fabric belt at the waist of her dress and knotted it around the fur. The stone of the walls was old, the mortar worn away. The deep grooves it left between the stones would give her good purchase. She reached for a stone above her head and pulled herself up. A perfect handhold. She placed her right foot on another protruding stone. Almost easy. Like a spider she climbed the wall until she reached the little window and peered out. Eighteen inches, twenty at the most. Enough, perhaps, though she was no longer nine. Clinging with one hand, she shoved the fur into the wide curved bottom of the window created by the thick walls and balled it up. Not perfect, but better.

She dropped to the floor and brushed her hands. “There.” She unknotted her skirts in the dim light. When she looked up, he had managed a smile.

“I’ve never seen a girl do that.”

“I expect not, with the insipid kind of girls you probably fancy.” The bulge of muscle at his biceps, the hard planes of his chest and the ribbed abdomen were hypnotizing. Maybe he
could
compel her, in some ways. She wouldn’t look lower. But she couldn’t escape the impression of a dark nest of hair at his groin to match the hair in his armpits and the light spray across his chest. God, what was she that she could so desire a man who was injured? Taking herself firmly in hand, she removed the hairpin from her collar at the nape of her neck, and held it aloft. “And now for these shackles.”

Elyta’s words came back to her. Should she release him?

She shook herself mentally. He was Gian. And if she was anything, she was an excellent judge of character. He was arrogant and intelligent and maddening. But he was not violent toward women. Indeed, he had been kinder to her than anyone in her life. She descended upon him, determined to ignore the throbbing inside her that he evoked.

“I never knew what accomplishments I should … desire in a woman.”

“I’ll wager sleight of hand or breaking and entering were not at the top of your list.” She worked the lock until the mechanism clicked. “Now you can move around our little cell to escape whatever sun gets past that fur.”

“It won’t matter. She’ll be back tonight.” Despair lurked in his eyes.

There were things she had to know, since he was so weak. He was too big for her to carry or drag. “What effect would going out now have on you?”

He took a breath. “I’d burn in seconds.” He shook his head. “Normally I’m old enough to go out in the sun briefly. We toughen with age. But right now I’m … I’m fairly weak.”

That was an understatement. “With clothes?”

“Noticeably absent.”

“With clothes?” she insisted.

He closed his eyes as though he didn’t care to argue anymore. “I’d burn less.”

She wasn’t going to subject him to any more torture than she must. How much was that? “If we wait until late afternoon?”

“Kate, we’re not going anywhere.” He looked at her expression and relented. “But late afternoon is better.”

All right. Late afternoon. The later, the better. But not too late. When would Elyta rise and come for him? Kate’s mind was racing. Luigi would be gone. Either he had returned to Firenze, or he and the groom were dead. She and Gian were alone against Elyta and her crew. She was only human, and Gian hardly more and maybe less right now. She took his hand and felt the thrill of touching him. But his flesh was cold even though the early mornings of May were warm. It was a mark of his poor condition. How could she give him strength?

She sucked in a breath as she remembered the contessa’s restorative. Kate knew what would help Gian. Human blood. And they had some of that. It was running in her veins.

That’s why Elyta said he was dangerous to her. He needed blood. She found herself blinking rapidly as the voices inside her argued back and forth.