His bright smile had an edge to it. “Yes, I’m one hundred forty-eight years old.”
Angelica had never been very good at arithmetic. “I find it inconceivable. Yet I believe you. After all, I’ve seen…evidence of it.”
She strolled around the edge of the small, round table between the two chairs, trailing her finger on it, feeling herself wanting to move toward him. Despite all of it.
“Recall that I, too, have told you my deepest secret. My own burden.”
“I was—am—very flattered. You carry a great strength about you, Angelica.”
Something unfurled in her chest. He made her feel something that no one else did. Important, worthy…
She said, “You awoke, you saw the picture and how did you know that this…whatever it is…had happened?”
“When I walked outside that morning, into the sunlight…after realizing I wasn’t hungry for the eggs and ham that had been served. That was the last time I’ve been in the sun. Those brief moments I spent there were agony.”
“But you look as if you belong there,” she said, the words coming out before she could stop them. So she continued. “Your skin is so golden. And warm.”
Angelica.His lips moved silently and his eyes heated to pure gold. Her heart thumped and she took a step closer, leaving the table behind. His fingers moved on the coverlet next to him.
What am I doing?
He can’t hurt you. He’s said it himself. You’ve seen the proof.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, walking closer. “I don’t wish to hurt you, my lord. But…”
“It’s no great pain…just…as if I cannot breathe. I grow weaker the closer you come.”
She stopped, took a step back, gauging his expression. “I don’t seem to be able to stay away.” Again, the words came without her thinking.
“It’s no great thing…I find I cannot breathe around you regardless.”
This made her want to smile and cry at the same time. “If I wear this, I can come close to you, safely…but you’re hurting.”
“The pain is only too great if the plant touches me. Take care.”
Take care.
Was he giving her permission to come to him? To touch him?
The answer was clear in his eyes.
Angelica’s palms were damp; her heart raced.What am I doing?His shoulders were so wide, and the shirt damp from his hair.
His breathing shifted, lowered and became rough. But his eyes focused on her, pulled, lured…
“What of the way vampires can hypnotize?” she asked, stopping suddenly, remembering more from Granny’s stories. Was that all this was? His manipulation? Was he tricking her, just as Lucifer had tricked him? “Are youtrickingme?”
Voss managed a sharp laugh. “The Fates,no.”He drew in a breath. “Yes, the thrall—my thrall—is real. And very effective. Except with you. You seem…impervious to it.”
Angelica straightened and looked at him with interest. She was perhaps five paces from him, from the bed on which he sat like a rigid soldier. The corners of his mouth were tight.
“I? Impervious?” she asked.
He made a frustrated sound. “Blast it, Angelica, if you weren’t…well, you’d likely be able to call me Voss. And you wouldn’t be wearing that damned necklet.” He looked at her hotly, and the bottom dropped out of her belly. “You wouldn’t want to. I promise you that.”
The tips of his fangs were showing now, just beneath his upper lip, and the burning in his eyes shone like red-gold flames.
“What is that on your back?” she asked again. “May I tend to it?”
