“She isn’t here,” replied Moldavi, his gaze growing hotter. “I took the precaution of removing her from the premises.” He looked up into Giordan’s eyes, his lips parted slightly in a provocative show of fangs. “There’s only one way for you to have her.”
Revulsion and fury took hold, and Giordan slammed the stake down into Moldavi’s chest, propelling himself closer with the effort. The man jolted, grunted against him—but something stopped the pike from penetrating fully. Armor.
His adversary looked up at him, his pale, beringed hand suddenly fisted in Giordan’s shirt, holding him still, leaning into him with his own vampiric strength. His fangs were fully visible, his breathing rough.
Luce’s black soul.
Giordan pulled free and spun away. His heart was pounding, his stomach roiling, the stake useless in his hand. “What do you want?”
“Don’t be a fool. You know what I want.” Moldavi’s voice was hard, and yet sensual at the same time. The words hung there for a moment.
He stepped away from the wall where he’d remained after the attack, and adjusted his waistcoat. “Perhaps you’d like a bit of incentive, Giordan? I wanted to show you what I’ve had made for Narcise. What she’ll wear when I give her to Belial if you and I don’t come to an agreement.”
He turned back to the table and finished removing the top to the box. As Giordan watched, his host removed a lacy, filigree object that looked like the same black lace of Narcise’s gown. It was a cloak or cape, and it shivered and flowed as Moldavi shook it out, holding it by the collars.
Then he turned it around so that Giordan could see the other side.
It was lined with brown feathers. Rows and rows of them.
“No,”he whispered, turning to Moldavi in shock. “No,by Hell.”
“Now, then,” he said. “Are you ready to negotiate?”
“Negotiate?” Giordan said. The numbness had eased away to cold fear and impotent anger. “You seem to hold all the cards.”
Moldavi liked that, and he laughed with delight. “I do hold most of them, that’s true. I spend much of my time arranging things.”
“I want Narcise,” Giordan said, his lungs aching, his knees watery. “Name your price. Whatever it takes to get her out of here.”
Moldavi showed his fangs, a light dancing in his malevolent eyes. “I want you.”
Even though he’d expected it, Giordan couldn’t control the sharp, dark twist in his middle. “Be more specific,” he managed.
“Three days and three nights. Naked. Willing.” Moldavi’s smile couldn’t even be described as maniacal; it was too calm and controlled. “Is that specific enough?”
PARTII
LIBERTY
10
March 1804
Every so often, the memory came hurtling back into Narcise’s mind.
Although it was more than ten years since Giordan Cale had destroyed her, every nuance of the moment, every sight, sound, color, scent…even the remembrance of the way her being simplystoppedand then imploded…it all came back.
As if it were happening again.
Anything could trigger it: the sight of a piece of charcoal on her drawing table. The sound when her maid dropped a handful of hairpins that scattered on the floor. The glimpse of a head of brown curls. The scent of a peach.
Whatever it was would send her mind shooting back to that moment when she walked into Cezar’s private chambers.
Even now, her belly shuddered, threatening to send her last meal spewing forth, but try as she might, Narcise couldn’t keep herself from going back there, reliving the very minutiae of a time she’d kill to forget.
She’d been looking for her brother—something she generally avoided doing, but there was no help for it, for she hadn’t had a fencing lesson or a painting session for three weeks, including the false one with Giordan Cale—and she wanted to find out if and why he’d cancelled the meetings with her tutors.
Cezar had been unusually absent since the night he’d brought her back after she seduced Cale, and Narcise had welcomed the reprieve, knowing how difficult it would be to hide her feelings about Cale in front of her brother.
