Seized by the Vampire Lord (Dark Lords) (3 page)

Slowly, she peeled her garters and stockings off, checking her legs, finding nothing.  Which left one place….

Steeling her nerves for horror, Cerise widened her stance, but it wasn’t enough, and she was certain she looked wholly ridiculous in the position.  Face aflame with embarrassment, she propped one foot on the wash stand.  It put her too far from the mirror to really get a good look, however.

Cerise blew out a frustrated breath, planted a hand on each inner thigh, and bent over.  She couldn’t … quite … see. 
Just a little more
.  Cerise tipped her bottom higher, pressing her hands to spread her lips, carefully maintaining her balance.

Two black booted feet came into her line of sight, one propped against the baseboard in a casual stance

Cerise screamed and straightened from her precarious position, covering her privates futilely as she whirled around to see if her mind had split and was playing tricks on her.

It was
him
!

Wearing snug breeches and a billowing black silk shirt that hung open far down his chest, he looked the epitome of the rogue.  And his interest was centered wholly on her nakedness.  Arms crossed over his chest, emphasizing the muscles exposed by the slit of his neckline, he arched one brow, dragging a leisurely gaze down her body.  He looked as if he’d been standing at the bed for quite a while, enjoying the show.

Cerise flashed at least three shades of red, frozen in place, unable to move for fear she’d expose herself more, but more so because shock had paralyzed her muscles.  Her hair covered her breasts, but it left far too much exposed to risk movement.  Cerise thought she would die from mortification on the spot.  That she didn’t proved the gods favored mankind over women.

* * * *

Daegon watched every emotion flit across her face.  He couldn’t look away, couldn’t move.  Neither fear or surprise held him rooted.  His inability to move stemmed from an unwillingness to risk breaking his control by allowing himself to come near her.  He skated the edge, caught between desire and need.  A step closer to her, to the subtle, blossoming scent of her lingering arousal, the flame of her embarrassment, and he could slip.

Swift, searing lust had rushed his groin the moment he’d walked in and saw her stripping her stockings off in a way that suggested she teased knowingly.  He knew she did not, for he’d used his power as was habit and disguised his entrance into her room.  She’d had no way of knowing he watched her from behind and in the mirror, groaned internally as she’d rubbed her hands up and down her legs.  The soft shake of her breasts mesmerized him.  The shape of her buttocks beckoned the slip of his cock between her cheeks, beguiling formed like the halves of a heart.  He burned to taste those sweet curves and bury his tongue into her from behind, to smear her cream over her lips and lick the dew from her core.

She was a fierce creature, lithe and strong, unlike any woman he’d ever known, for she did not fear him as she should, and it was not a matter of a lack of intelligence.  One look into her eyes confirmed she was quick-witted—a survivor.  He could not remember being so intrigued by a woman before, so mentally stimulated.  Her fire amused him, and he yearned to know how brightly it would burn.

His blood swarmed thinking of diving into her heat.

When she’d finished examining her legs and bent over, tilting those pink lips up for his eyes, he thought he’d explode.  Now she stood, covering herself ashamedly, her pretty nipples peeking from the glorious cascade of her red hair.  The brilliant, deep red enhanced the pale luminescence of her skin, striking contrast with the delicate blue lacework of veins on her flesh.  Her nipples were small, untouched by man, never suckled and plucked by a man’s ravenous mouth.  His salivary glands spasmed with sharp pain as the need to taste took hold, resonated in the swift flow of blood to his cock.  His breeches were too tight to contain him, and he longed to free the beast and satisfy its appetite.

Needs surfaced, restrained for longer than he could remember.  A hunger lit inside him, a hunger unappeased by mortal woman.  Had she that power, the power to calm the rage of his mind and bring fruit to the emptiness of his soul?

She looked at him now, unafraid, anger blooming in her cheeks and darkening her emerald eyes.  He wanted that fire to burn in desire, to have her look on him not in fear or hate, but in desire.  Lust burned brighter, consumed all in its path.  The temptation to succumb to human carnality was great.

It took an effort not to cross the room and fling her to the floor, to free his cock and ram it inside her.  Every instinct hummed with the need to take, commanded to conquer.  He dug his fingers into his arms, drawing blood to the surface of his skin, bruising his own flesh as he fought to control himself.  How long had he lived alone?  How long had it been since he’d fed the gnawing hunger that consumed his black soul?  The questions left him as frustrated as the pain in his groin.

He could not remember and knew that he must seek to appease the raging want or risk hurting her unintentionally.

With ease born from centuries of use, he covered the ravenous need with amusement.  He would not give her to know how dangerous he was in this mood.

“Quite the picture you make,” he drawled, lazily perusing her as if she were a buffet of tempting morsels.

* * * *

There was a hungry intent in his eyes, shadowed with humor, but unmistakably there.

Cerise pulsed all over with heat.  She bent and quickly snatched up her shift, outrage slowly replacing mortification.  “How dare you come in here!  Have I no privacy?”

Daegon ignored her remarks as if she had not even uttered them.  “What, pray tell, were you doing?  Besides so lovely exposing your pert bottom for my amusement?”

“You should know,” she said accusingly, feeling quite like there wasn’t enough fabric in the world that could keep his burning stare from searing her flesh.  The shift draped in front of her legs, but she dared not lift her hands to put it on.

“I do not.”

Cerise glared at him.  “I was checking for bite marks.”

A black brow arched with intrigue.  “Oh?  And did you find any?”

“I don’t know.  That is, I was
interrupted
.”

His mouth quirked in a way that made her stomach tighten.  “Do not stop on my behalf.  Pray, continue.”

Chapter Three

Cerise gasped indignantly. “I will not!”  She couldn’t believe he would suggest something so … so obscene.  She couldn’t believe he would even jest about such a thing.

“Pity.”  His eyes flickered with something indistinct.  She saw now they were a deep blue, the color a fair man would have, not one dark as he, and certainly not red or a soulless black as she’d imagined.  She’d known some fair-haired men whose hair had turned dark with age.  Had he once been a child?  It was hard to imagine him as a boy.  And then she was angry at herself for even noticing the color of his eyes and forgetting what position she’d been put in by his actions.

“Get out of my room,” she said in a quietly demanding voice.

He made no move to comply.  “Why should I?”

Because a gentleman would do so
.  “So that I may dress.”

One corner of his lips twitched.  “This is my room.”

“Then I shall leave.”  She bent and snatched her garments from the floor, watching him with half an eye.  She was too angry to care if he saw anything.  Hadn’t he seen it all already?  And in any case, she didn’t care what he thought of her, or how he looked at her with those eyes that made her blood sizzle.

Arms full, she stopped when she came abreast of him, not missing his gaze as it raked down her one final time.  Still, he hadn’t moved, hadn’t so much as straightened from his casual stance against the bed post.  “You’re not going to stop me?”

He gestured toward the door with one sweeping arm.  “By all means, go.”

Knowing she showed her surprise in her eyes, Cerise tossed her head haughtily and strode from the room, feigning more confidence than she held at that moment.  She felt his eyes scorch her backside as she left and put an extra sway in her step for meanness.  She passed through the doorway into a hall, and immediately felt the difference in the air and on the floor.

Without breaking stride, she checked her pile of clothing for her stockings and located one, stopping to roll it up one leg.  She picked through the pile for her other stocking, but she’d somehow managed to leave it behind, and she was not going back.

Cerise slipped the one off again and dropped her bundle to the floor as she pulled her shift over her head.  She felt immediately better now that she was covered once more.  Pulling the ends of her hair free from the shift, she stooped and pushed through the pile, looking for her corset.

It wasn’t there.  She was certain she’d picked it up.  Instead, she found the missing stocking underneath the gown.

Cerise blew out a frustrated breath and hopped on one foot at a time as she slipped her stockings up each leg.  Her garters were gone too, she found, and nothing stopped the tops from rolling down to her knees.  She reached beneath her shift and pushed them back up, clamping her thighs together to hold them in place.

Looking down at the floor, she was dismayed to see the gown gone and her corset in its place.

A masculine chuckle erupted behind her.

Cerise whirled around, glaring at him.  He held the gown, his eyes glinting with mirth, a barely repressed smile teasing the corners of his lips.

Flabbergasted, she reached for the gown, but he snatched it back.  “You … you….”  She frowned at him, incredulous of the lengths he’d go to merely for entertainment’s sake.  She wondered just how accurate the stories were of the damned vampire lord.  He certainly hadn’t acted the part in the length of time she’d known him.

Cerise growled under her breath.  “I’m glad you find this so amusing.”

Cerise turned her back on him and trudged down the hall, looking for some branch that led in the direction the window in her room faced.  The shadowy hall extended as far back as she could see, but she soon came upon a wide staircase.  A huge chandelier hung above, glowing with the brilliance of a rainbow refracted from the teardrops of thousands of crystals.  The glowing piece sparkled as though alit with magic, and she stared up at it in wonder.

“There are many such wonders in my castle,” Daegon said quietly behind her.

Cerise shook off the enchantment binding her in place.  “A pity I am not staying to see them.”

He made no response.

Cerise followed the wide, curving staircase down into a foyer encased in marble work shot with rose veins.  She had never seen such marvelous stone, or such craftsmanship.  The stonework curved around doorways, carved into bass relief around the perimeter of the room.  Around another door, it resembled an archway of vines and roses, like the gateway into a wondrous garden.

Pretty it was, but she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by ornamentation.

Set in the center of the wall facing the stair was a huge door standing between her and freedom.  Here, her attention riveted.  She looked at it longingly, wondering how far he would allow her to go before snatching her hope away.

Cerise took a step toward it, but her progress was interrupted by his voice behind her.

“What of your gown?”

She glanced over her shoulder.  He propped against the banister, watching her as he swung the gown in one hand.

“Keep it.  It is yours, after all.”  She rushed for the door, meaning to escape before he could stop her.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Some warning tone in his voice stayed her hand from turning the knob.  “Why ever not?  I have no sane reason to remain.”

“There are hounds out there,” he said simply.

She could handle hounds if that was all that stood in her way.  When he did nothing more to halt her, she pulled the door open and raced outside, stopping after only two steps toward freedom.

Huge, slathering dogs, like shaved wolves, brought their heads up as they caught her scent.  Black in the moonlight, they stared at her, eyes glowing blood red, teeth gleaming wicked as broken bones from torn flesh.  Her heart froze as they put their heads to the ground and bounded across the clear courtyard straight for her.

Cerise shrieked, dashed inside, and slammed the door behind her.  She heard the dog’s talons scrape the stoop.  Their growls rumbled through the door and into her back.

When she finally managed to catch her breath, Cerise looked up at Daegon with a killer glare.  “Those are
hell
hounds.  You could have warned me.”

He shrugged, dropping the gown as he stepped off the bottom stair.  “I did.”

She could have been devoured.  He was completely devoid of softer, human emotion.  A creature incapable of even remote redemption.  Cerise strode forward and scooped the dress up, itching to slap him, but not daring so far.  “You are as accursed as those beasts outside.”

Darkness swallowed his eyes with smoldering anger.  “You are a fool to goad this beast,” he snarled.

Cerise blanched as he seized her wrist with breath-taking suddenness, forcing her nerveless fingers to drop the gown.  Finally, she’d aroused the predator inside him, the vampire lord of legend.  The tempestuous emotions he’d brought out in her before were nothing in comparison to what she felt now.  Terror and excitement raged out of control in her.  Her heart pounded with a fierce rush of adrenaline, so hard she swore he could hear the race of her blood.