Brovik sat up, pale hair falling into his eyes. "Ethan, she's overcome by the bonding."

Ethan towered over us his expression closed and dark. "I should never have brought her to you."

Brovik collapsed back against the mattress laughing, while Ethan pulled on his clothes, and strode from the room. Minutes later, one of the cars screeched out of the tunnel to the ferry slip.

Brovik shrugged as if he were used to it. "He'll get over it- in two or three decades perhaps."

"But... "

"No questions." He slid into me again. "Conversation isn't required."

Brovik wasn't like any man I'd ever encountered. I had a weakness for danger, and he was pure devastation. Ethan could only aspire to his heights.

He insisted I share with him alone, and when I did, a terrifying vision a.s.saulted my psyche. Mist gathered then parted, and in a dawn-red haze, a woman appeared, dressed in flowing gossamer silk, black hair floating about her, as if she was under water. Brovik was there now, bearded, hair long and flowing, dressed in clothes of a long gone age. She slowly raised a knife high above her head, striking a tremor of deep, dark, primal fear. Then, just as suddenly as the vision appeared, it exploded into a ma.s.s of colored dots and was blown away.

Brovik lay on his back panting as I snuggled up to him.

"Who was she? The dark woman?"

He rose up, clutching me by the shoulders. "You saw a woman? What else did you see?"

I evaded his question. "Just a woman."

"Does Ethan know you can see in the blood?"

"Can't everyone- every Immortyl Immortyl that is?" that is?"

"It's a rare gift. I've known only one other who possessed it."

"Ethan says they're hallucinations."

His eyes veiled. "Have you discussed this with any other Immortyl Immortyl?"

"No, it seems rather, well, personal."

"Keep this secret. It is best others don't know."

"Why?"

"It could bring you harm."

I remembered the terror gripping Brovik because of this woman, and sensed wheels turning in his ancient brain. He abruptly rose, pulling on his clothing as I retrieved my own from the floor. His room was a surprisingly spare and tidy place. The furnishings were spa.r.s.e, the large low bed covered in plain white quilts and sheets, a small chest for clothes, two chairs and a small radio. A telescope and some instruments of navigation sat on a small plain table. Books were arranged on a low shelf, mostly about birds, animals and the sea. No poets for Brovik. No starry-eyed dreamers to borrow from. Brovik was was poetry. poetry.

He stood by the window, holding his hand out to me. "Come, let me show you something." I joined him and he put his arm around my shoulders, gesturing out to the beautiful night. The tower was gla.s.s on all sides so that the sky was visible for three hundred and sixty degrees. The strange light of the aurora played over his features. His eyes looked far beyond and into the past.

His head tilted slightly back, the straight fair hair falling back from his brow as he spoke, "Our Ethan has reached a crucial time in his existence. After a hundred years all ties to the mortal past have died away. The survivors gone, the times change; nothing looks or sounds or feels the same. He mourns the children he left behind, the infant sons he hardly knew. They grew into men, grew old, and are now dead and gone. He clings to what has slipped beyond his grasp." He turned to face me. "It's all dust you see, and gone, poof, into thin air." He gestured again to the snow-covered pines, the fiord fiord and sea beyond. "This is eternity, Mia. It will continue when even we are dust. Ethan cannot love this earth as we do. He's doomed to seek the unattainable. He blames me for his sorrows, although when I encountered him he was desperate to leave his world behind. I tried to persuade him not to buy the house, too many ghosts there, but you know how stubborn he is." and sea beyond. "This is eternity, Mia. It will continue when even we are dust. Ethan cannot love this earth as we do. He's doomed to seek the unattainable. He blames me for his sorrows, although when I encountered him he was desperate to leave his world behind. I tried to persuade him not to buy the house, too many ghosts there, but you know how stubborn he is."

"I live with a shadow." I lifted his hand to my lips. "Let me stay here."

"Kurt would enjoy company his own age."

"What was that comment about following someone to a funeral pyre?"

He smiled, drawing his hand away. "I was trying to get his goat as you say. An Old Norse burial rite- when one of our important people died, his slaves were gathered together. It was asked of them, 'Who will go with him?' Usually a slave girl agreed to go. She was sacrificed and buried with him."

Why was I shocked? "She volunteered? Why?"

"Who can say, perhaps she loved her master so much that she could not bear to be parted from him?"

"Maybe they drugged her?"

He chuckled, picking up a small, carved wooden box from which he removed a golden ring. "Come. See what I have for you."

He dropped a ring engraved with a pattern of interlocking circles into my open palm. "It's a symbol of my people, meaning unity," he said, slipping it onto my finger. It fit perfectly. "All members of my house have them."

I thought of the sewer rats on the beach, and the markings on them, suddenly the ring's weight felt oppressive. He shut the box and stood, unreadable, mysterious, and serene, reaching out to take my head between his hands. Terrified, I looked up into his eyes. My breath came harder. How many times had I been told to beware him? Yet, I found myself falling under his spell.

His fingers brushed over my face. "Don't be frightened, Bird of Prey Bird of Prey. Tell me how this game evolved?"

"Ethan got the idea from the Ibsen play he saw me in. It became his life's work."

"We needn't be rivals, Mia."

He ma.s.saged my temples with his fingertips. My eyes closed for a half-second, then opened full on his calm blue gaze. I stared at him, open-mouthed, forgetting all the careful training of my senses, completely captivated. The sight, sound, taste, and smell of him, drew me. Wasn't this what Ethan cautioned against? His lips parted, tongue lightly moistening them. His breath warmed my skin. I longed for that mouth all over my body.

His fingers traced the line of my brow bone, down over my nose. "Understand, I'm the moon and you're the tide, without my favor you cease to be, but if you do as you're told, go smoothly, and don't make waves, my love and favor are yours. There's work for you. After the council forbid us to pursue science, Gaius swore he'd work together with me for this cause, but I suspect greed recently got the better of him. Through Kurt's contacts with the little rats, we've learned that Gaius has abducted many of their number, and many shipments of an unknown nature have been made to the Palazzo. It could be nothing, Gaius is a great collector of art as well as flesh, but if he's my compet.i.tor I must know. He's recently made another offer for you. Dirk is coming into his portion, and Gaius wishes to bestow on him the gift he most covets. Your power to see in the blood is an a.s.set to this house. Go with Ethan, as if he intended to negotiate a settlement with them, and then contrive to be alone with Dirk. Use your gift to uncover information. In the end, Ethan will refuse Gaius's offer... "

"Dirk will hurt me. Nothing gets him off like my pain."

"Don't fear." I fell under the spell of maddening stroking of my temples, struggling to retain my will. "Nothing will harm you. You have my promise. I know your deepest desire." He slashed his wrist, pressing it to my lips. His consciousness poured out, filling me along with his blood. I reached out to catch the rays shining from his face. "See what I will give you... "

Kurt, as I first saw him, in the moonlight on the terrace, the G.o.d of love, surrounded in cascades of roses. His hand stretched out and I went to him. He was too real to be mere fantasy. I smelled his blood and heard his heartbeat. I was no longer in the tower room but somewhere on a beach with him, waves rushing as a brilliant, blood-red sun rose before us.

Brovik's voice insinuated itself around my brain. "My boy is beautiful. Feel him inside you." Kurt's smooth fingers and mouth caressed my skin. His hands cupped my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I bore his light weight, his teeth and tongue on my throat as he moved inside me. "Imagine a world, where the two of you would be free."

I shook and shuddered with pleasure. "Yes-s-s!"

"Do as I say and it will be so. Mia!"

I blinked my eyes. Kurt was gone. I met Brovik's steady gaze, fully aware of what had just transpired, but not quite sure if it was just my imagination.

He nodded to me. "It's nearly morning. Ethan will be back soon."

"I'm afraid... "

"I'll protect you. Go, do as I say."

Later, I lay awake as Ethan opened the door to our room. "Still awake? Have you finally learned all you desired, Pandora?"

"I understand understand your need for him, Ethan. Nothing in the world is as powerful as the hold he has over you." your need for him, Ethan. Nothing in the world is as powerful as the hold he has over you."

"And now he has that hold over you."

"I'm part of you, just like we're both part of him."

"Wh.o.r.e! Nothing can ever be the same!"

I dropped my voice to a whisper, "Is that what you really think?"

"Don't play games. What does he want from us?"

"Nothing... "

He grasped my shoulders. "Liar!" He slammed me against the wall, smacking my head. A jolt of pain traveled from the back of my skull down my spine. Tears came, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I rose and squared off, slugging him back. He hissed and knocked me to the ground, placing his foot over my throat. I didn't dare move. For once I really believed he might kill me, but he lifted his foot away. "I warned you but you fell for him anyway!" He dragged me by the hair to throw me face down onto the bed, forcing my hands behind my back. This couldn't be happening. I was numbed, not believing he was doing this to me, oddly detached from it all, as if I watched the proceedings from afar. He threw his body over me. I attempted to drag myself forward only to find myself pinned by his greater strength. He laughed. I never hated anyone as much as I hated Ethan at that moment.

He whispered in my ear, "Rape is child's play compared to what I have in mind for you."

His mouth closed on my throat and punctured the carotid. I tried to wriggle away, as his arm closed tighter around me. I burned all over. Veins alternately exploded and collapsed as my head threatened to crack open. My thirst grew as my body rushed to stave off death, saliva flowing freely down my chin. Throbbing pain pulsated through my flesh. I begged for mercy as so many of my victims had. My fingernails raked his skin, but he didn't budge. The mouth that had given pleasure in the past brought only pain.

Consciousness grew misty as I slipped into a shadow realm. His face swam around me in a circle as he crouched beside me, studying. The look of contempt was gone, now he simply observed my ordeal, detached until he dissolved into millions of black specks. "Tell me what he asked of you!"

The dark prince materialized before me, dragging me toward a dark pool in center of a garden. He grabbed my head, pushing it down under. I flailed, drowning.

Suddenly, I was pulled out into the arms of another. "You'll never take, what she won't give, you fool! She'll die first." Brovik's voice blended with the fair demon's, thundering through the mist, "Mia, drink! Now! Do you hear me? Drink or you'll die!' Brovik's voice blended with the fair demon's, thundering through the mist, "Mia, drink! Now! Do you hear me? Drink or you'll die!'

My mouth was forced open.

I regained consciousness to find Brovik standing over me, my mouth fastened to his bleeding wrist, and Ethan, looking miserable.

A wave of revulsion swept over me. "Monster!"

Brovik chided him, "Who's the barbarian now? Are you proud of your handiwork?

A strangled sob came from Ethan, "What have I done?" He threw himself protectively over me. "I'll see you rot in h.e.l.l, Brovik!"

I pushed Ethan away. "I hate you!"

Ethan clambered to his feet, grabbing Brovik by the shoulders. "You did this!"

"You did this, not me," Brovik said, extracting himself from Ethan's grasp.

"You can't bear for me to have something of my own!"

"She's no more yours, than you are mine!"

Ethan stared at him dazed. "What did you promise her?"

Brovik stared Ethan down. "She sees visions in the blood, did you know? Imagine what she's seen inside you?" He turned away and left us all alone.

I gathered my robe around me. "Don't ever touch me again!"

Ethan stood heaving. "I told you he could bend minds like stalks of wheat, but you couldn't resist him... "

"Can you you?"

"Everything about him is a lie."

"You're ridiculous, clinging to your past. Go back to Virginia and haunt your stupid house, you malevolent ghost!"

"You're a mere child. You know nothing. You will see, Mia. In time, you will see."

TWELVE.

Convinced he was no longer the center of my universe, Ethan retreated ever farther into shadow, while Brovik welcomed me into both his arms and bed on a regular basis. It took a great deal of persuasion on Brovik's part to place me there, but Ethan eventually succ.u.mbed. Who could resist Brovik? It was folly, and I a mere p.a.w.n in the game between them, but I didn't care.

On the final night of our visit, as we three lay bathed in the glow of the aurora one long night, I questioned Brovik about Kurt. He opened a drawer and showed me a picture from an old newspaper clipping, twelve year-old Kurt, whose impossibly large eyes looked even larger.

"Ethan and I had seen this brilliant, young musician's concert, not imagining one day our paths would cross. Kurt struggled so valiantly to live... I couldn't turn away." Ethan scowled as Brovik looked on the clipping fondly. "Such beauty must be cherished and protected."

"Why don't you call him home?"

"Put that thought out of your head," Ethan growled. "I won't stay under the same roof."

"He speaks." Brovik took the clipping and replacing it in the drawer he had taken it from.

Ethan lay back with his eyes closed. "Filling her head with tales of your imaginary Viking exploits is one thing, but spinning romantic fancies about your paramour is another."

"You always profess to be free of pointless standards of morality."

"You know what I mean."

"Has the boy usurped your place? Have I taken away anything of yours because of him?"

Ethan didn't answer.

"Kurt works hard. He's not a mere plaything. He's sharp, loyal, and does what's asked of him without complaint. And I don't need to tell you what joy his music brings."

"I don't have to listen to this."

"Get used to the idea, I rely on him absolutely."