"No." He took her hands and stretched them out over her head as he rolled on top of her. "I'm going to do that."

The spiders showed him the long lines of beetles marching up the trunk of the oak tree, flashing green bio-luminescent light from their abdomens until there was enough to illuminate Nicola's face and body.

"Your eyes shoot laser beams, too?" she asked, looking up.

"Fireflies," he told her, fascinated to see that she had a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. What other parts of her were dusted with these little gold specks? She shifted under him and tried to pull her hands free, but he held her tight. "Be still."

"I can't." She lifted her hips, driving them into his. "I've been wanting you all day. All my life. I don't want to wait another second.

Hurry up."

"Shhhh." He put his mouth on hers, opening her lips with his tongue and tasting her with slow, deep strokes. He lifted his head and breathed in her gasp. "You will have me."

Gabriel stripped off her T-shirt, taking her bra with it, jerking open his own shirt so that he could feel her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his skin.

He peeled her jeans down and off her legs, inserting his hands between her knees to coax her thighs apart. The pants she had borrowed from Jean Laguerre were loose enough for him to shake off, but he couldn't wait now, not smelling the delicious dampness of her exposed s.e.x. He reached down to push them out of the way, taking his c.o.c.k and guiding it to her.

She felt plump and hot and meltingly sweet against the dry, tight bulb of his p.e.n.i.s head, sending a surge of answering wetness through his shaft. It had been so long-too long-since he had put himself in a woman's body that Gabriel feared he would spill his seed before he fully penetrated her.

"Oh, my man."

Through the many he saw that she was looking down at their bodies, her eyes narrow and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. He watched her face as he worked in the head of his c.o.c.k, finding the angle of her sheath and pushing in past muscles tight with nerves. Her arousal eased the way, but the rest of her body was as tightly wound as his.

"Take me as you did with your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, your mouth," he said, kissing her brow.

"No soap," she whispered. "No water."

He moved his hand to cup her s.e.x. "Feel how wet you are?" His fingers made a vee around his c.o.c.k, ma.s.saging her with her own moisture. "So soft and smooth."

Gabriel exposed her c.l.i.t and tucked two fingers on either side of it, pressing and stroking the insides of her l.a.b.i.a but not touching it. At the same time he sank deeper into her, making her take more of him, feeling her lower l.a.b.i.a stretch around the thickest part of his shaft.

Nicola had caught her breath; now she seemed to forget how to release it. Her eyelids lowered and opened, and she stretched under him, arching and tightening until he impaled her fully, and then she uttered a moan that nearly sent him over the edge.

Not yet, not yet.

He recoiled, pulling out of her until only his head remained embedded in her, and then thrust back inside her with one long, smooth stroke, angling higher, catching the tiny bulge of her c.l.i.t and dragging at it. Their body hair tangled and her hips rolled as she shuddered under him, not there yet but speeding toward it.

Gabriel wanted to tell her how lovely she was, how good she felt on him, but the words would not come. His b.a.l.l.s had tightened as much as his throat. So he showed her with his fingers and mouth and p.e.n.i.s, working her as sweetly and slowly as she clasped him, putting his mouth to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and his teeth to her nipples, licking the drop of blood from her lip before giving her his tongue and kissing her as deeply as he was f.u.c.king her.Nicola thrashed under him, trying to force him to thrust faster, but he held her down and buried himself inside, feeling the head of his c.o.c.k nudging the mouth of her womb. It was agony not to move, but he brought his hand to her breast and cradled it, holding it up for his mouth. He held her like that until she trembled and whimpered, and then he put his dents acerees to her breast, grazing her skin with them before he sucked hard, and then drew back and drove his c.o.c.k into her as deeply as he could, once, twice, three times.

Pleasure so sharp it might have been pain surged out of him and gushed inside her, mingling their fluids and wrenching cries from both of them. Then Gabriel pulled out and up, working the beating pulse of her c.l.i.t against the base of his shaft until she came again, the contractions dragging his c.o.c.k back inside her body and milking the last drops of s.e.m.e.n from him.

Gabriel slipped from her and eased to her side, his hand still cradling her breast, his softening c.o.c.k caught between her thighs.

An eternity later, Nicola's eyes slowly opened. "d.a.m.n. I could have had that."

He ran his hand through her curls. "You just did."

"I could have had that this morning." She tapped his shoulder with a limp-fisted mock punch. "You held out on me in the shower." She touched her breast where his fangs had grazed but not pierced her skin. "You can also bite me while you're having s.e.x with me anytime you like. It was... I thought I was going to... Well." She sighed. "d.a.m.n."

A distant rumble of thunder made him send the spiders to do other work, and he used the fireflies to see Nicola. "What color is your hair?"

"Mud brown."

He kissed the part in her hair above her left brow. The hair close to her scalp was much lighter than the rest of it. "I meant, under the mud brown dye."

"White. I'm really a little old lady of sixty who's had two hundred face-lifts." She laughed.

Even her laughter made him hard. "You should pay your plastic surgeon triple his fee. His work is flawless."

"It won't help us much with the holy freaks." She sat up. "We should get out of here before those two come back with reinforcements."

"You brought your bike here; they will think we left the house. My watchers will alert us if anyone comes into the forest. I want to be with you." He pulled her back to him and lifted her left leg to ease inside her. "You make me feel alive again. Feel so much, so many things."

"You've been locked up for a couple of years." She curled her leg over his hip, stiffening for a moment and then relaxing into the rhythm of his movements. "I think we can do better than 'd.a.m.n.' "

Gabriel buried himself in Nicola's eager young body, taking her as many ways as she could manage. She never turned him away.

Each touch inched him away from thoughts of oblivion, until he could not imagine not being a part of her, moving in her, kissing her and holding her as she found her pleasure and brought him to his.

He kept her unaware of the thousands of spiders above them, some serving as his eyes, the rest weaving a tent of protective silk around them. When he drifted off into the night-lands, he felt a contentment he had never before experienced.

In the nightlands Gabriel found Nicola standing over him, naked, a stiletto in her hand. It did not alarm him. Nothing about her could. Still content, he watched her use the knife to cut her way out of the tent of webs.

Where was she going? Afraid of alarming her, he sent his watchers after her.The spiders skittered through the forest, catching up with Nicola in Dalente's neglected garden, where she was drawing water from the old well.

"Okay." She flicked out the stiletto and stared at it. "He's gorgeous and sweet and sets my body on fire. I let him f.u.c.k my brains out because we both needed it. He needs someone to take care of him. Just because I'm falling for him doesn't mean I get the job."

She used the blade to cut up a shirt, and then soaked the pieces in the bucket of water before pouring a bottle of dark, watery fluid over them. Gabriel directed his spiders to climb up the sides of the well so that he could better see her face.

"I don't need a blind boyfriend. He doesn't need my s.h.i.t. I'll just take him to the others and get him safe and forget about him."

She sniffed and rubbed the back of her hand against her nose. "It's the only way."

Nicola was talking herself out of caring for him, something that after the events of the night he could well understand. Still, that she would abandon him so ruthlessly tore at him, until the many moved to where they could look upon her countenance.

The wet marks on her face ran from eyes to chin. She was weeping.

Unaware that she was being watched, Nicola put the soaked strips of fabric on the edge of the well, turned the bucket over to dump out the water, and then propped her leg on the bottom of it.

"If you love something, you have to let it go." The blade flashed as she brought it down, stabbing herself in the back of the leg.

"So let him go, Nick; let him be free or you'll f.u.c.k up his life too."

Nicola. He almost sent the many to her, to wrench the stiletto out of her hand.

"It'll be for the best. He'll be happy. I'll get over it." She worked the knife from side to side. "Maybe in a couple hundred years."

A dark, deformed slug dropped with a b.l.o.o.d.y splat into a patch of chickweed, and she grabbed the soaked fabric, pressing a wad of it to the back of her leg- "Nicola."

Gabriel woke with a lurch, turning at once to grope with his hands. He found her curled up beside him, her head pillowed on her hand, and ran his fingers over her. No gunshot wounds marred her bare legs, although he checked over every centimeter of her skin twice.

It had been his imagination, a fantasy that had played out in his head. But if it had been only that, then why had he been blind? In all of his dreams, he could see perfectly.

His hand strayed up to her face and felt the cool, damp remnants of tears.

Sometimes dreams are just reality turned inside out.

Gabriel lay back, pulling her to him and holding her against his pounding heart.

Although Michael Cyprien had been to Dublin countless times over the centuries, the lack of skysc.r.a.pers and two- and three- story buildings in the city allowed him to recall the place as it had been before the age of steel and concrete. Dublin was still something of a squat, overgrown village divided in half by the river Liffey, with its back against the pewter sea.

There were changes, radical and subtle. Perhaps the most lasting was the Irish resentment of British colonialism. Dublin displayed it very subtly, as with the street signs written in English and Gaelic, as if to remind visitors that the inhabitants had had their own language, even if no one spoke it anymore. Yet the Irish wanted respectability, and tried to project it with the many buildings prefixed with tall, white Grecian columns.

As Richard's people monitored all of the best hotels in the city, Michael had directed Phillipe to book them in a small, somewhat dismal bed-and-breakfast on Dublin's working-cla.s.s northside. The proprietor, a widow whose wardrobe seemed to consist only of long-skirted black crepe de chine dresses, warned them that she had gone along with the city's ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants, and would eject them the minute she smelled tobacco or caught anyone lighting up in their rooms. To Michael's displeasure, the innkeeper proved to be one of the rare humans who had a natural resistance to l'attrait. It had been a relief to leave the place and take Leary down to the local pub for a meal.

"So you've just come up from London, then?" the dark, wiry bartender asked Cyprien as he handed him a gla.s.s of wine.

"Yesterday." Michael looked over at Phillipe and Marcella, who had taken a table in the corner of the pub and were watching the doors. Between them, Leary sat slowly masticating his way through a plate of corned beef and cabbage.

"Lovely cities the Brits have, don't they? Five or six thousand pubs in London alone. Can't build a proper beer in any of them, but you're in Ireland now, lad." The bartender patted his arm. "You're safe."

Michael remembered the last time he had tasted Irish beer. In that era it had been dark, rough, and almost chew-able-not very different from this brew. "Thank you."

A couple of men dressed in overalls and smelling offish came in, drawing the bartender down to the other end of the bar and giving Cyprien a moment to think.

On the journey to Ireland, Marcella had told him that sending Phillipe and Leary into Dundellan was too dangerous. She didn't believe his seneschal could make a convincing pretense of being yet another drug addict Leary had brought from the streets, or that Leary could be trusted at all. She disdained what she called old siege tactics and wanted to use more modern methods to gain entry to Dundellan.

Cyprien had disagreed. The guards would recognize all of the Kyn, if not by sight then by smell, and the only way to penetrate the castle's defenses was with humans.

Michael was not worried about getting caught-he had every intention of confronting Richard-but like Marcella, he worried about Leary. The man had sat in the very back of the pa.s.senger van, his hands and ankles bound to prevent him from making another attempt to escape, but leaving London had not disturbed him. When told they were going to Ireland, Leary had smiled and even giggled.

"Seigneur."

Michael turned to look into haunted dark eyes. "What is it?"

"I am leaving for the village now," Marcella told him. "I would speak to you privately before I go."

He glanced over at Phillipe, who nodded before speaking in a low voice to Leary. Cyprien paid for their drinks before he followed Marcella out of the pub.

"This plan is not sound," she told him as they walked down the street of old brick buildings and brightly colored doors. "Richard holds the advantage. Leary cannot be trusted. We are only three. If you mean to besiege Dundellan, let us return to America and raise a proper army."

"This is not the fourteenth century," he reminded her. "I cannot invade England."

"Very well. There is one thing more I would say to you." She led him around a corner and onto a street of furniture stores. "I did not speak of this when I agreed to serve as your second because it was not my place. Phillipe will not tell you because he is your man."He lifted his brows. "No one wishes to talk to me?"

"Not in your present mood, my lord." Her mouth twisted. "We are all very fond of our heads."

"I vow not to touch a hair on your head. There." He spread his hands. "Say what you will."

"The bond a Kyn lord shares with his sygkenis is for life, but yours and Alexandra's is particularly strong," she said carefully.

"Testing such a bond results in serious consequences, as I well know."

Michael frowned. "You have never belonged to a Kyn lord."

"My brother Arnaud lost his sygkenis during the Revolution," Cella said, her voice falling to a whisper. "Madness and sorrow nearly destroyed his life. It is why we came to America. To escape all of the things that reminded him of his loss."

Michael remembered how Thierry Durand had also lost his mind after believing that his wife had been tortured to death. "You think I will go insane?"

She shook her head. "I fear that you will be made the victim of your feelings for Alexandra."

Michael fought back a surge of anger. "The separation will soon be ended."

"The strain of being apart from Alexandra is affecting your ability to make rational decisions now. You are becoming more and more reckless. Such as your decision to bring Leary with us." She halted in front of a mattress and bedding shop that promised, no more back pain or your money back! on the advertis.e.m.e.nt posters plastered in the windows. "There is something very wrong with this man. Have you not heard him muttering to himself?"

"I have heard him muttering." It was all the man seemed to do. "His prayers appear to comfort him."

"He is not praying," Cella said sharply. "He whispers filth under his breath. He is obsessed with some woman, and plans to do great harm to her. What if he means to harm your sygkenis?"

"I have taken away his fear of the Kyn," Michael said. "He has no reason to hurt Alexandra, but if he tries, Phillipe will be there to protect her."

"I hope you are correct." She flagged down a taxi. "I will be waiting in the village. G.o.d be with you, seigneur."

Cyprien kissed her cheeks and helped her into the cab, standing and watching as the taxi headed out toward the northbound beltway. His temper had become quicker to flare since leaving the States, but they were all on edge.

A hand touched his arm. "Master."

"Take Leary to gather his quota," Michael told Phillipe. "As soon as he collects them, we leave for Dundellan."

Chapter 14.

The captain of Tremayne's guard, Korvel, had just finished cleaning the wounds on John's neck when Alexandra and another guard came into the castle infirmary. Or, rather, John's sister strode in with the guard chasing after her.

"Doctor, you are not permitted in this part of the castle," the guard said in a strange, pleading tone. "If you would-"

Alexandra turned and punched the man in the face, knocking him across the room. He hit the floor and sat there rubbing his jaw and looking more like a crushed schoolboy than a wounded man.

"Hey, John," his sister said as she came to him. "Korvel, take Stefan and get out of here."

John knew that tone. "I'm all right, Alex. She didn't take enough to hurt me. It just left me with a headache."