Mircea pressed hard against the stone, to keep the rest of the towel in place. And because he didn’t have a choice. Reawakened from a two-year drought, his body was ravenous, and Marte looked good enough to eat.
And tasted it, too, when she thoughtfully bent down, putting wine-colored lips within reach. They were plump and sweet when she pressed them against his for a moment, before sliding them down to the chords in his neck. “Mmm. Virgin territory,” she murmured.
“Hardly.”
She chuckled, and mouthed his Adam’s apple. “I meant, she didn’t bite you.”
“Who?”
“Your senator, of course. Who else?”
“No.”
The lips paused against his skin. “Well. We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”
“Why? What difference does it make?”
She pulled back and looked at him. And for once, the brown eyes actually appeared serious. “If she doesn’t bite you, she isn’t hooked. She’s just playing with you.”
“Isn’t that the idea?”
A slender eyebrow went up. “The idea is to engage her emotions. Make her want it. Nuzzle her neck. Let her feel your heartbeat against her skin. If she doesn’t get the idea, put your mouth on her, just over the pulse—”
“You expect me to take her blood?” Mircea asked, incredulous. One didn’t even do that to an equal without permission. He’d never heard what the penalty was for feeding—or attempting to do so—from a senator.
But he could guess.
“Not unless you’re tired of living,” Marte confirmed dryly.
“Then why—”
“Who said anything about blood?” she asked. “Or teeth? Use your lips. Taste her skin. Roll her heartbeat under your tongue. Let her feel your need grow, your hunger. If she doesn’t object, start to suck—without teeth. Raise your own bloodlust; make her feel it. If you’re lucky, your need will ignite hers.”
“And if it does? Say she bites me. Then what?”
“Then, my dear, you might have just won yourself a patron—and a powerful one.”
“You sound like Jerome.”
“Yes, I heard what he said to you. He has a point.”
“For him, maybe. I don’t want money—”
“This isn’t about money,” the voice sharpened. “If you play your cards right, this could be about a master.”
“I don’t want a master, either.”
“You want to take advantage of your opportunity, while you have it,” Marte snapped.
Mircea looked at her, confused and a little angry. “I think that’s my affair—”
“Yes, and a hash you’re making of it. Look at Auria. She’s been waiting for a chance like this for the better part of a century—”
“Then perhaps Martina should have sent her,” Mircea said stiffly.
“Perhaps she should,” Marte said, and then sighed when he started to turn away. A small hand found his shoulder, and turned him back. To where a rueful smile greeted him. “I’m sorry. It’s just—I like you. I don’t want to see you ruin this for yourself.”
“I’m not.”
She shook her head, hard enough to make the curls bounce. “You are, you just don’t know it yet. Like you have no idea how fortunate you’ve been; no idea what a patron like that could do for you.”
“I can make my own way.”
“You can’t.”
“You seem to be doing all right.”
“Seem being the word,” she responded, and there was no humor in her face this time. “That’s all any of this is, Mircea. All any of us are—an illusion. We wear fine clothes, live like our betters, tell ourselves we don’t have to be like all the rest. That we don’t need a master; we’re better, more capable, more independent than that.”
“Maybe we are.”
“We’re not. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The illusion can be stripped from us, all of it, anytime, with no warning. Merely for angering the wrong person.”
“There are laws—”
“Yes, and how well did they protect you?”
Mircea had no answer to that.
“The only law our world understands is power. You either have it, or you’re under the protection of someone who does, or you are defenseless.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I lived like that for two years—”
“Two years. Try two hundred. Try forever,” Marte said, her eyes dark. “We live on sufferance, and we toady, and we crawl, and we take whatever they dish out because we know, and they know, that we don’t have a choice. Most of them pay us, but they don’t have to. Most of them don’t hurt us, but they can. We know it, they know it, and it colors everything between us, every thought, every action, every emotion. Everything . . . that might have been.”
Mircea didn’t ask who she was thinking of when she said that. But he did put a hand on her shoulder—and had it abruptly shrugged off. He still wasn’t used to that, to just how strong frail looking women could be when they were also vampires.
Angry ones.
“This isn’t about me,” she told him heatedly. It took him aback, because he’d never seen that expression on Marte’s gentle face. “Right now, everything you have, everything you are, should be concentrated on one thing. Don’t waste the opportunity because it came too early, and then spend the rest of your life regretting it!”
“I don’t know what chance you think I have,” Mircea said, more quietly. “I’ve seen her all of twice—”
“Exactly. And the second time never would have happened if you hadn’t intrigued her. Now you just need to pull her in. Remember, a plaything can be cast aside, forgotten like the momentary amusement it was. But a lover . . . stays with you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
A lover stays with you.
The cottage was swathed in darkness like the rest of the tiny village, except for the pale, formless mass hovering above it, softly lit by moonlight. The smoke from cook fires streamed out of chimneys and straight up into the air, becoming indistinguishable from the low hanging fog. To the point that it looked like they were creating it.
There was no other light, except for the little golden rectangle of a doorway.
And the two people silhouetted within it.
No. No, he didn’t want to do this again. He didn’t want to see this again. Mircea struggled, trying to move.
As always, it didn’t work. He didn’t have the strength to rise during the day, unless someone much more powerful was aiding him. Not even for long enough to throw off a dream.
It left him trapped inside his head.
And with his memories.
Mircea couldn’t see inside the room behind the softly talking couple, other than for a red flicker from the rough stone hearth. But he didn’t have to. He could close his eyes and let his newly sharpened senses paint the scene he knew so well.
There were scents of wood and smoke, of fried pork fat and cabbage rolls, of wet leather from her boots. There were traces of the sweet grass and flower sachets she made up in summer, the sharp bite of a mug of plum wine, the scent of basil from a pot she kept in the window to keep it growing in the colder months. In spring, it would be on the cracked earth just outside the door, the traditional sign that the owner was awaiting a visit from her lover.
A lover who would not come.
But he could see it—God, so well. He could see himself walking over the crunching snow and fallen limbs, ducking under the low lintel not made for someone who topped six feet, and into the one room where he felt at home anymore. He could see the heavy woven hangings that covered the walls, in the warm hues that were her favorites. The bright copper and earthenware pots that hung from the rafters. The old table that sat near the hearth, protected by a cloth she’d embroidered herself and covered by a fragrant meal.