Again, a shrug. His eyes followed the shift of moonlight over the hollow of her shoulder and he swallowed, clenching his teeth. “I couldn’t care less about anything in regards to you. Now, Dewhurst, if you please…I should like to return to my slumber. You interrupted a very delightful dream.”
“I don’t suppose I figured in your nocturnal visions,” he said, lowering his voice and allowing his eyes to glow a bit. “But you have appeared in mine. Angelica…” He dug his fingers into his thighs to keep from reaching for her…and to distract himself from the pain.
Her shoulders shifted back and her breasts thrust forward and he nearly lunged for her at that point. “Indeed you have,” she said, surprising him again. But her voice had dropped and, for the first time, it was unsteady. “You’ve figured quite vividly—in my darkest nightmares. This is the first night I’ve slept without Maia since I returned.”
Voss couldn’t breathe. Every bit of insouciance fled and he felt as if he’d been slammed in the gut.
“Angelica,” he began, searching for something…something to say that would truly placate her. Something real, something to heal her. His thrall seemed to have no effect on her, leaving him helpless.
Her eyes had become haunted circles. “Go away, Dewhurst. I’ll send a message to Rubey’s in your care. And I’ll return the chain then.”
Words failed him.
She truly meant it.
Anger, sudden and inexplicable, flared through him, surging to his hands, down his legs. His fangs shot forth, his eyes flamed hot and the dark room filled with a red haze. Voss’s fingers curled, ready to grab at her, to tear into her, and he even jerkedtoward Angelica—but somehow caught himself, turning before he touched the bed.
Somehow, somehow he fought through it, battling the white fury that ordered him totake, take, take…
Something helped him stumble to the window—the cold night air, the smooth slide of moonbeam—and he grasped its sill even as the blast of pain seared in his hands and behind his eyes. Lucifer was intent that he would do his bidding.
Voss held on so that he wouldn’t turn back. So he wouldn’t tear into her.
“Get out of here,” he managed to choke. She must leave…“Go. Now.”
In the recesses of his consciousness, he heard the rustle of the bedclothes. He battled needy red fog and the demands of his body, somehow focusing on the sounds of her sliding the door’s bolt and then the slide as it closed behind her.
When she was gone, he vaulted through the window and landed easily on the ground three floors below.
Angelica stumbledfrom her chamber still clutching the stake. Her heart pounded and her knees were weak, and she had one thought: to get away. As she turned to rush down the corridor, she slammed into something—someone—soft and warm.
“Angelica, what is it?” Maia automatically caught her in a comforting embrace.
Angelica’s arms went around her sister, but even as she did so, she had the presence of mind to push her down the hall, toward Maia’s chamber.
She didn’t believe Voss would follow her. He’d ordered her to leave, but she wasn’t certain. His face…it had been so terrifying.
Almost as if he’d turned into someone else.
Go. Get away.
No, he wasn’t coming after her.
But she wasn’t going back in that chamber again.
“What’s that in your hand?” Maia asked as they went into her room. She caught Angelica’s wrist and held it up so she could see the stake. “A stick?” Then her eyes went wide. “Oh.”
She remembered Granny Grapes’s stories, too.
“What are you doing awake?” Angelica asked, sitting on her sister’s bed. There was something about being in Maia’s chamber, with all of her things cluttering the dressing table, and more pillows than anyone could ever use piled high on her bed and chair, that made her feel comforted and safe.
“I came to check on you,” Maia told her. They sat on the bed facing each other. “What’s happened?”
Angelica considered whether to tell her sister. Maia would be angry and worried for her if she learned Voss had sneaked into her room, and she’d become even more managing and motherly and smother her to death.
But if she told Maia, then her sister would certainly tell Corvindale—likely in a high-pitched, demanding tone. And she was sure the earl would make certain it didn’t happen again.
And that would make her sleep so much easier.
