Prince of Twilight. Maggie Shayne

me, first. Answer my questions,” he told her.

      She twisted in the bed, pushing at the blanket until it slid and bunched up around her waist, leaving her upper body bare and fully exposed.

      He shivered at the sight of her. Still so incredibly beautiful, with creamy skin almost begging to be touched. Hips a little wider than before, body a little fuller. It wasn’t the body of a twenty-three-year-old now. It was a woman’s body, and he burned with desire to bury his own inside it.

      “Tell me why you have to find the ring.” He cupped her untouched breast with his other hand, and squeezed and lifted it, then pinched the nipple softly, because he loved the way she gasped and shivered every time his fingers closed tighter on the hard little bud.

      “If you have it, you’ll kill me.”

      “I would never hurt you, Tempest.” Another pinch. Harder this time. She sucked air through her teeth. Gods, he wanted her.

      “Use your mouth,” she whispered.

      “Tell me why you think I’ll kill you.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her breasts. He wanted to taste them. And he didn’t have the will to do otherwise. He bent his head, squeezing her breast in his hand, so the nipple thrust upward, and lapped its tip with his tongue.

      She gasped. “More.”

      He loved this part of her, this new part. The girl she’d been would have waited to see what he would do, how he would touch her, then reacted when he did. But the woman she had become told him exactly what she wanted. And it made him all too eager to comply.

      “Tell me, Tempest, and I’ll give you what you want,” he whispered, his breath bathing her sensitive skin as he spoke.

      “If you have the ring, you’ll put it on me. You’ll perform the rite.” She arched her back. “Please, Vlad.”

      He closed his mouth around her nipple, suckled her deep and hard for a long moment. Her hands closed in his hair, and she held him to her. He bit down a little, and she arched against his mouth, silently begging for more.

      He stopped. “Keep talking, Tempest. Tell me what I need to know.”

      Breathless, she whispered, “If you perform the rite, I’ll die. My soul will go away. And she’ll take my body. Take you.” She pressed her breast to his lips, and he took it again, drawing on it, nipping and tugging.

      She writhed beneath him, arching and moaning until the blanket fell to the floor at the foot of the bed, leaving her completely naked and exposed to him. Vulnerable to him.

      Gods help him.

      His hand slid over her body, across her belly, to the soft curls between her legs. She let her thighs fall open wide, arching her hips against his hand.

      “What will you do with the ring when you find it?” he asked.

      “I can’t tell you. You’ll stop me.”

      He slid his fingers between her folds. She was wet. Dripping, and so hot. “Tell me, Tempest,” he whispered, and he thrust his fingers inside her.

      She shuddered from her head to her toes, and pressed him deeper.

      “Will you give the ring to the woman? Melina?”

      “I don’t know her. Don’t trust her,” she said. Then, “Harder!”

      He drove his fingers into her more deeply, withdrew and did it again. “Tell me what you’ll do with the ring.”

      “I’ll…destroy it,” she whispered.

      He went still. Shocked. Destroy it? By the gods, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

      Her eyes fluttered.

      He saw it, knew she was starting to lose her grip on sleep, and called up the full power of his mind. “Don’t you dare wake up, Tempest. Sleep. Dream. Enjoy.”

      She relaxed a little, and he rewarded her by sliding his fingers into her again. In, and then out. Over and over. “Give yourself to the pleasure, my beautiful Tempest. Give yourself to me.”

      “You’ll hurt me…destroy me.”

      “If that’s my will, there is no point in fighting it. Surrender to me, Tempest. Let go.” He worked her body and her mind, bending to take her breast in his mouth again, in his teeth, using his thumb to torment her clitoris while his fingers drove deeper into her, until he felt her give way. She writhed and moaned as the orgasm gripped her, and he spoke to her mind, commanding her to remain asleep, to remember it all as no more than a pleasant dream. Her body jerked and shuddered with her release, and she whispered his name over and over as she came.

      He caressed her until the last shivers finished, until the spasms eased and she calmed slowly back down. He stroked her body and, leaning close her ear, whispered that she was his, that her will belonged to him, and that she would trust him, believe what he told her and do what he bade her, always. He tugged the blankets over her body and tucked her in tightly.

      “You’ve hurt me,” she whispered. “You never came back to me, Vlad. You only came now for the ring. And now you have it!”

      She was getting agitated. He soothed her, stroking her hair, her cheeks. “I don’t have it Tempest. I didn’t take it.”

      “You don’t? You didn’t? But you want it. And you have to know…have to know… Even Melina knows.”

      “Knows what?”

      Her head twisted from side to side on the pillows, her eyelids beginning to flutter rapidly without quite opening. “You don’t care, do you? You want to clear the way for her to come back, even if it means my soul. You want me dead. Nothing can hurt more than that.”

      “You will trust me, Tempest. Your will is mine. I own your soul. Know that, and stop fighting it. You’ll do my bidding, whatever that might entail. But for now, sleep, Tempest. Just sleep.”

      She relaxed slightly, and as he continued petting her, rubbing her shoulders and neck, she calmed down, bit by bit.

      “I love you, Vlad,” she whispered. “I never wanted to. But I do.”

      He didn’t know how to respond to such a declaration. It shocked him. He’d hoped, secretly, that she still harbored feelings for him, because it would make doing what he had to do easier if he could do it with her cooperation. But he’d never imagined those feelings could be so intense, especially since he’d erased her memory of the time they had spent together.

      She rolled onto her side and relaxed as he gently urged her mind into an even deeper sleep, a dreamless, restful sleep.

      He rose then, went into the bathroom, washed his hands of her scent, her essence, with no little rush of regret, and then splashed cold water onto his face.

      He hadn’t intended what had just happened between them. And yet, he’d learned far more than he’d ever hoped to learn. He knew now that she wasn’t working for the Sisterhood of Athena—not really. She didn’t know anything about them, didn’t trust them any more than he did. He knew that she hadn’t stolen the ring. But she intended to find the ring and destroy it, and he knew why. She feared that ring—feared wearing it would be the death of her soul, and would result in her body being surrendered to an intruder.

      And so it would.

      And he’d learned that she loved him. Tempest loved him, and it hurt her to believe that he didn’t love her in return. That he would choose Elisabeta over her. Even if it meant her life.

      Above all else, he’d learned something more vital than anything else. Tempest believed herself immune to invasion from Elisabeta in her dreams. But she was wrong. Elisabeta had been there. She’d heard, felt, experienced, all of it. He’d felt her there. Why she hadn’t come into full control, he didn’t know. It might be that she was too weak after so much time. Or it might be that she was waiting, listening, trying to learn the same things he was.