The room wavered and tilted, still tinged a dull red, due to his great loss of blood as well as the proximity of the rubies. He attempted to lift his head, but his best effort ended with him merely rolling from one side to the other.

How the hell am I going to get her out of here?

“My God,” Maia said again when she got to the top of his shoulder, where Lerina had bit. And then her breathing changed into another unsteady rhythm when she saw the other shoulder, the bite at its corner, and then down to his left biceps. Also wounded and oozing blood from Lerina’s pleasure.

He tried to snatch the rag from her hands, to clean himself up, but Maia was too quick and strong and she batted his hands away as if they were gnats. And so he was reluctantly complicit, so aware of every brush from her fingers, every waft of flower and spice from her sagging hair…the warmth of her body as she bent toward him, the dark shadow down between her breasts. The sensual arch of her neck.

“Corvindale,” she said suddenly, sharply, and he opened his eyes, realizing he’d started to tumble back into the depths of darkness…but this time, the depths had been warm heat, filled with her scent and silky skin. “What do you need? What can I do?” she asked, tugging uselessly at him, obviously trying to get him up out of the chair.

He looked at her, his veins surging with hope and heat, his fangs swelling inside his gums. His breathing was ragged and he could hardly focus the words. “Ru…bies…away,” he managed to say.

She stumbled back, chagrin on her face. “Oh,” she said, anger in her voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…” Her voice faded and he heard the soft sounds of the gems being gathered up. She hesitated, looking around the room as if uncertain what to do with them, but before he could gather up the strength to tell her, she rushed toward the door and went through it.

When she came back, her hands were empty and by then, Dimitri was actually breathing. His fingers had moved and the pain had centered back on his Mark, where he was used to it.

“Is that better?” she asked, coming closer to him. Too close.

His nose twitched as he inhaled her and a shudder rumbled through him. He wasn’t strong enough to push himself out of the chair, to stand…he needed blood. He needed sustenance.

Dimitri managed to nod and tried to tell her to stay back, but she kept moving closer.

“Let me look at you,” she said, right in front of him. She was examining the cuts on his cheeks. Her skirt brushed against the arm of the chair, where his ineffectual hand rested. “And I see that you can’t even stand.”

He tried to growl a warning and an argument, nothing but a dull groan escaped. She touched his face where the ruby had sliced his cheek. Dimitri closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him with such gentleness.

Never, never had a woman affected him so.

A little shudder raced through his limbs, turning into something hot and powerful and needy. When he opened his eyes, she was very close. Her cheek, smooth and white, a breath away. That intriguing scent filled his space and a lock of hair hung just in front of his gaze.

“Maia,” he whispered, turning his face away. “Get…away.”

14

IN WHICH INTRODUCTIONS PROVE UNNECESSARY

Maia heard the note in his voice when he said her name, and the tone made her insides plummet. It was a horrible combination of loathing and desperation. His eyes were hooded and shadowed, and she could see little but the dark shapes of them and the wounds on his face.

“Are you mad?” she said, trying to keep her own voice steady. “I’m not going to leave you here.”

She could hardly fathom that a man who was as large and dark and powerful as the earl had become little more than a rag doll, sagging in the chair. At the same time, she wanted to touch him again, but without the protection of the damp cloth. She knew he was injured, practically dead as much as a vampire could die, but she couldn’t stop looking at him.

The curtains on one window were open enough that light from outside—moon, stars, streetlamps—gave the chamber layers of gray color, and she could see the details of the man in front of her.

The wide breadth of his shoulders, marred as they were by small dark circles from what were clearly vampire bites, had felt so solid and warm beneath her hands. She’d seen his darkly haired chest from the door of his chamber, but now she’d touched the square curve of his shoulders and the sleek bulge of biceps, the skin smooth and firm. He had a strong, corded neck, the ragged edges of his dark hair plastered there and to his temples and cheeks.

“Get away…from me,” he said again, this time more fiercely. His muscular hand moved as if to shove her away, but it flopped loosely onto his lap, barely brushing her arm. “Get Cale.”

“Don’t be a fool. I’m not leaving you,” she said. “I went through a lot of trouble to find you and I’m not going without you. Aside of that, it could take me hours or days to find Mr. Cale. And I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

He closed his eyes again. “Just…go. Please. Maia.”

This was the second time he’d called her by her name, and the sound of it, so low and rough, made her knees weak. She couldn’t leave him. She didn’t know where she was or how long it would take to get a hack—and it was nighttime, as well. She didn’t know when Mrs. Throckmullins was going to return—or whoever she was working with, and she certainly couldn’t manage to drag the earl from the room. He’d crush her if he put even half his weight on her.

Maia’s heart started pounding hard as she realized what she had to do. She licked her lips, trying to subdue a flash of nerves and titillation. It wasn’t just the rubies. He had four or perhaps five wounds, bites, plus the cuts on his face. He’d lost blood. Lots of it.

“You need to…drink. You need blood,” she said.

He jolted in the chair and growled. “No.”

But she saw the sudden catch of his breath, then the rough rise and fall of his chest. The pulse pounded in his throat and his eyes fastened on her, dark in emotion, fiery in hue.

Her mouth dried and her stomach fluttered as she remembered her dreams. Even the room tipped a little at the flash of temptation that rushed through her.

“Corvindale, you must.” She settled herself on the arm of his chair.

He’d turned away again and his jaw, dark with shadow, shifted. “Go.”

She drew in a deep breath and thrust her arm in front of his face. “Please.”

“I…can’t.” He was so close to her, her arm brushing against his bare one, his male scent and the warmth radiating from his skin filling her being.

“My lord, please,” she begged, somehow generating a ripple of angst from him. “I can’t get you away from here if you’re so weak. And I’m absolutely not leaving without you. If she comes back…” She let the threat hang there, for, if she knew one thing about the earl, it was that he took his responsibilities gravely.

Surely he wouldn’t want his ward to be here if Mrs. Throckmullins came back.

He remained mute and stoic, and Maia realized she was going to have to force the stubborn fool into it. She remembered the night in the carriage when he’d scratched her with his fang; the arrested look on his face when he’d noticed the blood.

She was just about to get up to search for something to cut herself with—for she simply couldn’t stomach using her own fingernails—when he made a low sound. Deep, like a struggle, rumbling from his throat.

Maia turned toward him just as he moved, curling his fingers around her arm. She looked down and met his eyes.

“Get…rubies,” he said. “Quickly.”

“What? Have you gone mad? Isn’t that how you got—”

“Get…rubies,” he said between tight jaws. “Argue. Always.”

“Corvindale…” But she saw the fury in his eyes and she decided that he was probably right—this wasn’t the time to argue. She’d known the man was mad since the night he bundled her up in the curtains and tossed her on the patio.

But he’d saved her then, hadn’t he?

She rushed out of the room to get one of the necklaces from where she’d tossed them in a pile far down the corridor. When she returned to the chamber, she saw that he’d shifted in the chair and was sitting more upright than he’d been.

His eyes fell on the dangling chain of red gems, then lifted to hers as she approached slowly. Whatever expression might have been there was unfathomable in the dim light.

“What do you want me to do with them?” she asked, already noticing the change in his breathing and the stiffening in his limbs. From the mere presence of the jewels. She found it fascinating and frightening at the same time.

He glanced to the side, made a very faint gesture to the table next to his chair. “There.”

Maia thought she was beginning to understand. He wanted them nearby so that…he’d remain weak? Her heart lunged into her throat and suddenly the prickle of anticipation turned into prickles in her belly. What was he afraid he’d do?

She laid the necklace on the far edge of the small piecrust table and then faced him, looking down at his dark hair and stony face. His eyes were closed again, brows furrowed, his hands clenched into fists down at his sides. The rise and fall of his chest matched her own. The bright white of his tattered shirt shone next to his dark skin and trousers.

“Corvindale,” she said, and then, holding her breath, sat down on the arm of his chair again.

“Use them,” he said, and she knew he meant the rubies.

“If you…need.”

Heart in her throat, she swallowed hard and offered him her wrist.

At first, she thought he would refuse again, but then he grasped her with surprisingly strong fingers. A bolt of fear shot through her and then, as he lifted her wrist to his mouth, she saw his fangs clearly for the first time.

She closed her eyes as she felt his breath on her flesh, and then, to her shock and surprise…not the bite of pain, but the brush of lips. Soft, moist, followed by the gentle touch of his tongue.