She pressed the emerald to his naked hip. He tried to jerk away, but she pushed it into his flesh. He smelled the sizzle of meat before he screamed. It wasn't just a burn. It felt like his veins were being stripped from his body. This time the pain was briefer.

"Just testing this stone. I'll keep you too weak to escape, but not too weak for my other purposes." She put the stone back in its silver box as Gian lay gasping. But she left the box open and the little tongs laid across it, within her reach. "I think the stones can kill you. Perhaps we shall find out, if I tire of you. But not yet." She unfastened the clasp of the cloak she wore. "You know, I gave myself to you so generously. I didn't use my will on you at all that time in Capri. But I did expect you to acknowledge me, my abilities, my life force, as superior."

"You wanted submission," he gasped. "Like those poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in your harem."

"They do their best. But after a while, one needs new earth to turn." Her eyes went red.

Companion! he called silently. But there was no answering buzz of life along his veins. The world did not go red. Fear made his mouth dry. He had never felt powerless before. She could do what she wanted with him. He wasn't surprised to feel the throbbing in his loins. She could compel arousal, and that's exactly what she was doing. His c.o.c.k responded, swelling. "You can't attract a man, so you resort to rape?"

She laughed and leaned over him. "I attract all men, my dear Gian. They are drawn by my beauty and personality. I am larger than they are, in every way. That's why it is my destiny to rule. Even you are not immune. You're just willful. We can't have that." His c.o.c.k was rock-hard along his belly. His stomach churned. "So I will do what men have done for millennia, I will make you acknowledge me."

It wasn't about s.e.x for her. It was about power. She straddled his loins and lifted his member, then settled on to it. She was wet and ready. She'd been stimulated by his pain or his forced submission. "You're twisted," he managed to gasp.

She moaned in satisfaction and slid up and down. "I am a force of nature, Gian dear, and like a great wind, all in my path bow to me, even you. Now, you will move as I direct."

Chapter Fourteen.

"What is the fastest way to Ravello?" Kate asked the hostler at the posting house yard in Castellammare di Stabia. "My map shows a line going over the mountains. Is it a road?"

The hostler pulled his forelock in apology. Kate was glad she had the veil, or he probably would not have been able to take his eyes off her scar. "Not for a carriage," he said. "Touch-and-go with a horse. Donkey or a goat'd be best."

Not for the first time, or the fiftieth, she wished she knew how to ride a horse. "How long will it take to go round the coast?"

They'd lost so much time already with the broken axle.

"Well." He scratched his head. The hairline low over his forehead made him seem a little dim. "Two and a half days, maybe.

Three. Very twisty round the coast. And narrow."

She wanted to scream at him.

But she couldn't. The feeling of dislocation that was becoming so familiar washed over her. A vision took her and shook her.

This man would see his child die of smallpox, and it would change him forever. She shook the vision off. They were happening so frequently these days, they had started to seem almost normal. And that wasn't normal at all.

But she'd have to think about that later. So she didn't scream at him. How could she, when she understood his coming trial?

"And how long to ride over the mountains direct to Ravello?"

"Day and a half," he drawled.

If Gian had gone across the mountain and they had to go round the coast it might be only a day's difference. But she had been eight days on the road, and she started two days behind Gian. She gave the hostler a gold coin and strode into the inn, ordered some sandwiches, and watched the horses being changed out.

This was senseless. What could she do for Gian if Elyta had him? What kept her at this maddening journey? She was a girl who could pick pockets and read tarot cards. She had visions of the future, but she never saw herself, so they didn't tell her what to do.

She loved him. She remembered a Kate who would have suppressed that feeling and just... moved on. She'd have built scar tissue around the wound and done what she must to survive. Survival was always the lesser of two evils. Yet here she was, ready to sacrifice everything, including likely her life, on some quest for which she was totally unprepared. She couldn't even ride a horse, for pity's sake.

But she was all he had. So she must do what she could. Was that a sense of duty? She was beginning to sound like Gian. She shook herself. It wasn't duty. It was just that the lesser of two evils had changed if surviving meant suffering your whole life knowing you hadn't tried to help Gian. Proceeding, even though she might be killed, was now the lesser of two evils.

She handed Luigi and the groom their sandwiches and got into the carriage, waving away the groom's efforts to hand her in.

There was no time for courtesies.

She'd just have to use what she was and what she had to hand. Improvise. That was what you did on the streets of London to survive. That's what you b.l.o.o.d.y well did in the salons of Europe or any night in your lodgings with Matthew. The carriage lurched off. So she'd improvise.

Elyta shuddered and grunted with her o.r.g.a.s.m. But she didn't let that distract her from controlling Gian. She kept his mouth and tongue at their job and his c.o.c.k erect. It had been a long night. The woman was insatiable and she loved gloating.

At last she raised herself from where she had knelt over him. She pulled him up and locked his wrists back in the manacles, then curled on the thick fur she had laid beside him. The control that commanded him washed away, leaving him hollow. Despair slunk round him like a wolf waiting to lunge in and rip out his heart. He was helpless. And Kate had put him here.

"Very skilled." She sighed. She ran her hands over his body. "And very, very pretty." She stroked his c.o.c.k. "I think you deserve release after that."

"I don't want release," he said through gritted teeth.

"When I've kept you erect for three nights without e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n? Of course you want to come. You're crazy for it." She rubbed her thumb over the head of his c.o.c.k and made his breath hiss in his throat. He would not give her the satisfaction.

But she was relentless. Soon he was breathing hard. He tried to think of other things. The vampire wars in Africa, blood spurting from a young boy's headless corpse, even Kate's betrayal-anything he thought might soften him. It didn't work. She sank her teeth into his throat and sucked in rhythm to her strokes. Even that didn't dampen the urge. He was on a path of no return. He grunted with the first spurts of s.e.m.e.n, and hated himself for his weakness.

Elyta pulled away. Her mouth was smeared with his blood. He felt it drooling down his neck. The twin wounds did not heal immediately as they once would have. Elyta took up a cloth and a small knife with which he was only too familiar. She wiped his belly.

"Your blood is sweet." She licked her lips. "I worried about the danger of ingesting your Companion. But it's so weak I can hardly even taste it." She took the knife and made a neat incision just in from his hipbone. There were cuts all over his body now, as well as the burns from the stones, in various states of healing. She leaned down and licked at the welling blood. Her tongue worked the wound. It would not even begin to heal until her saliva dried. By continuing to lick it, she could keep it open for hours. And he was healing slowly these days. It had taken all he had to heal the burns from the sunbeams coming in through the little round window yesterday. What would happen today?

She made another slice in his chest over his nipple. She liked to cuddle and talk and sip his blood after using him. "I think I'll base in Paris, since no vampires live in France. And France is influential." She bent and licked the wound at his chest. "Asharti was wrong to make a vampire army. Why create compet.i.tion for blood? That woman was a lunatic."

As if Elyta wasn't mad?

"Made vampires are an abomination. It's almost the only thing the Elders have right. And you needn't make vampires. Just supplant the key ministers of a human government with our own born vampires, and you can rule a human population for generations. I could rule all of Europe with the French army at my service."

Gian felt the blood at his hip begin to congeal. She noticed that and leaned down to lick it. "Is that what you want, to rule a human country?" Gian tried to distract her."I want to be valued for what I am," she snapped, looking up.

"I thought you planned to use Rubius's influence to get yourself a seat on the Council."

"Just like a man." Her voice dripped scorn. "Why must I have influence only through Rubius? Rubius sent me to Scotland to retrieve some formula he thought was a cure for vampirism as though I was a pet dog. He was so blind he didn't see that I would take the formula myself. What could one not do if one controlled a cure?" She laughed, then sobered. "It all came to nothing.

There was no cure." She bent and lapped at his chest. Then she sat upright, licking her lips. "And who would want to rule in Mirso anyway? A hundred ascetics, denying their pa.s.sions. The Elders are dried-out old men who suffer women only when women pretend to be exactly like them. Well, I am a living, breathing woman, more intelligent and more alive than they are. They should beg me to join their ranks, bow to my intuition." She was hanging above him, almost hissing in his face. A bit of spittle hung at the corner of her mouth. "They don't value women for what they are. Mothers abandon their daughters, instead of coddling them and cooing over them like your mother dotes on you."

So, her mother had abandoned her. She had been a disappointment, whether because she was a girl child, or she had demonstrated her instability at an early age, it was impossible to tell. She wanted to be a man. And she hated everyone for the fact that she hated herself. She didn't know what femininity was, or how to be comfortable with it.

"They won't like you controlling a human government," he observed.

She grinned. "The stones will take care of anyone they send after me."

She really was insane if she thought Rubius and the other vampire Elders would tolerate her rebellion.

"Don't look at me like that!" she shouted.

Definitely insane. And he lay weak and bleeding in shackles at her mercy. He gathered enough courage to ignore those facts.

"Being head of a government is so public. There are other ways to influence."

"Like your mother?" she scoffed. "I want people to know who pulls the strings."

He changed tactics. "Are you sure the path to power is not more attractive to you than actually getting it? Wielding power is rather dreary work."

"You are advising me to be satisfied with what I am?"

"I'm telling you you'll never be satisfied with what you are."

"You arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She reached for the tongs. "You think you're better than I am?"

The stone sizzled into the wound still open on his hip. He bit his lip and twisted away, trying not to cry out, but she held it there until he couldn't suppress the scream. When she finally took it away, he collapsed.

How long can she keep me here? How long can I take this?

Elyta stood. Her figure swam before his eyes. "I'll teach you some respect before I go. Or maybe I'll take you with me. You're no threat, now." She turned on her heel and let herself out through the door to the chapel. The bolt clunked into place on the outside. They'd changed the lock, just as they'd put these shackles in the chapel's walls.

Time pa.s.sed. He might have lost consciousness.

The sun rose over the mountain that loomed behind the villa in the east. Gian blinked. He still knew where the sun was. That might be the only thing left of being vampire. That and the need for blood. His Companion was screaming inside his veins for it, longing for the strength it would give to speed his recovery. But there was no blood.Sweat had dried on his body. His erection had subsided. He buried his face in the crook of his arm. The shackles held his wrists just above his head. So this was what rape felt like. This was why women feared men. Maybe they hated them, somewhere deep down inside. He hated Elyta. But he had to admit he understood her too. She was brilliant. She was beautiful. She was pa.s.sionate and intuitive and alive. And no one valued her. Her mother had abandoned her. And that had festered in her until the canker had swallowed her heart.

He didn't have the strength to hate right now. Soon the room would be bathed in light. Painful. But in the afternoon, the sun would shine through the aureole window above the door. Elyta had chosen well the location of his chains. Would the healing stop altogether if enough of his power was siphoned away? Maybe the stones would kill his Companion. Death was better than her keeping him for recreational rape and torture. Once he thought eternity had grown boring. Now he longed for ennui, and failing that, death.

Perhaps his mother was dead even now. He didn't want to think about that, or the way she would have ended.

And Kate. He didn't want to think about the fact that she had betrayed him to this fate. He took a labored breath. She had many things in common with Elyta. Both had been abandoned, never valued. Kate had been even more a victim than Elyta. He understood being a victim as he had never understood that before. That was why Kate built up the carapace of cynicism. So she couldn't be hurt. Maybe their experiences had had a similar effect on the two women. They'd been twisted like the little trees the j.a.panese made to grow in dishes.

He just had realized what they were too late. And his mistakes had put the emerald in Elyta's hands. She had two stones now.

He wouldn't say she couldn't rule France. Paris was in for a shock. And Europe for that matter. And his mistake had cost him his pride and his life. Let it end soon.

Kate opened the door to her room above the tavern on the piazza of the tiny village of Ravello. The sun was rising.

She had sent Luigi out to gather intelligence last night while she tried vainly to sleep as she waited for the right time. As if she could sleep knowing what might be happening to Gian even now at the Villa Rufolo. That was his home according to his mother.

The image from her vision of Elyta torturing him floated before her eyes, waking or dozing. But she had to wait until daylight. She wanted the vampires asleep and Gian alone. She was no match for Elyta and her crew. The problem was Gian. How would he escape in the sun?

She carefully folded a blanket from the narrow bed in her room and tucked it under her arm. She could only hope that wrapping him up would let him make it to the shelter of the carnage where Luigi could take them away. The room lightened. She tiptoed down the stairs and out into the stable yard behind the little hotel. Luigi was waiting with the carriage.

"Well? Are they there?" she whispered.

He nodded. "Four visitors. They arrived four days ago."

Four days. She wouldn't think about that.

"No one has seen the servants lately. Provisions are being delivered and left in the kitchens. They say the owner hasn't been about for years."

But he was there all right. She swallowed. "This is dangerous, Luigi. These people will kill you and the groom if they find you. So you mustn't take any chances."

He nodded, nervous but determined. He, like everyone else, was devoted to Gian.

"Wait at the gates to the villa. They open off the west end of the piazza. Be ready to leave at a gallop, If I'm not back in an hour, I'm... I'm not coming. In that case, get yourself and the boy out of danger. Return to Firenze and give the contessa the news." "And what would I tell her, Signorina Sheridan?"

"Tell her I'm dead, and that when she is better, she must track down Elyta Zaroff in case her son is still alive." If she never recovered, at least she could send her vampire friends.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. "Don't go, signorina." His brow was puckered with worry. "There is nothing a girl like you can do to help him. He is strong and wily. He has been in sc.r.a.pes before and come out whole."

"Not like this one." She took a breath and mustered a smile. "Don't worry. I'm wily myself. Now promise me you'll leave in one hour."

"Oh, I promise, signorina. I am wiser than you are."

She gave a nervous laugh. "I should hope so." She took off her veil. She'd need all her vision. Then she hurried across the empty piazza in the graying light to the gates of the Villa Rufolo. She removed a pin from her hair and turned to lean on the gates, trying to look as though she was waiting for someone. Her heart was thudding in her chest. She felt for the tumblers in the huge old padlock. They were almost too heavy for her hairpin. They slipped.

Focus, you b.l.o.o.d.y little fool, she thought, and closed her eyes.

The next hour was the most important of her life. She could hardly believe she was going to try to best four vampires and steal Gian out from under their noses.

The tumblers clicked into place.

She pulled open the lock. It might be ancient, but it was kept well oiled like the gates themselves when she pushed them apart to slip inside. She shut them behind her, left the hasp through the handles to keep the gates shut, and picked up the blanket she'd brought. The wide graveled carriageway was overhung with trees and lined with ferns and flowers. Kate kept to the shadows along the edge as she stuck her precious hairpin back into her knot of hair. The house loomed behind plane trees, pines, and cypresses in the early light. It was wide, with a tile roof and thick, whitewashed walls. The architecture went from very old on the left, perhaps twelfth century, to more modern on the right. On what looked to be the first story of the more modern part, the lights still shone in several rooms, revealing they had been decorated in the Baroque style. That part was perhaps sixteenth century. A silhouette crossed the room and then another. Men. Or more accurately, vampires. They had not retired yet. She waited behind the bole of a large tree. The day grew brighter as the minutes jerked slowly by. She stole glances up at the rooms until finally she saw only a single silhouette closing up the shutters. Better.

She darted across the open drive for an archway over a walkway. Off to her left squatted a square stone tower. The bottom was covered in vines. A heavy door stood half open. A tower might seem like the ideal place to hold a captive, but peering round it she saw no aureole window. Her vision said that Gian would be held in a room with an aureole window.

She headed around the end of the twelfth-century part of the house. Stone walls had pointed arches on the windows that pierced them. She came to a door under a portico. This had probably been the main entrance at one time. She stopped and sniffed the air. No cinnamon here. She stepped off the walk into the flower beds. She had worn soft slippers, the better to be stealthy. The last thing she wanted was gravel crunching under her weight. Now she was round to the back. Through the huge trees she could see a long terraced garden with columns and pergolas, and beyond that the sea. Waves crashed against cliffs somewhere below.

The whole place was scented with flowers, and under that, the fecund brine of the Mediterranean. The line of the house stretched away. She craned her neck to see through the foliage.

There! An aureole window.

She hurried ahead. A narrow wooden door under the window, all iron straps, had a heavy padlock very like the one at the gate.

She dropped the blanket, took her trusty hairpin and bent over it, listening to the mechanism. This lock was not as well cared for as the one at the front gate though. The tumblers were stiff as well as heavy.Strange that she didn't smell cinnamon. She couldn't feel Gian's electric hum of energy either. It didn't matter. This was her best chance. One tumbler. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. The second one was bending her pin. She held it with one hand and pulled out a second pin.

A loop of hair escaped with it. Inserting the second hairpin, she worked with both hands now.

She wanted to scream in frustration. An agonizing moment-lifting with one pin, catching with the other... The tumblers slipped.

She let out a breath and jerked on the lock. It opened with a clunk. She threw the bolt with another clunk and pushed on the door. It creaked. Did everything have to make a racket? She opened it only wide enough to slip through. The place was cast in shadow. Only a dim glow of the dawn from the round window and the door ajar broke the darkness. But she could hear breath rasping in and out of lungs.

"Gian?" she whispered.

"Kate!" The baritone was his but its usual air of command and arrogance was gone. Now she could make out his form in the shadows. He was chained to the wall, naked.