froze, horrified.
“As have you,” Zayan growled. He was watching her, his gaze hot and intense. “I would like to know what you are. Not a normal, flighty, empty-headed woman of society, are you?”
Miranda twisted her bound hands. Her entire body tensed, but she tried to look rather stupidly at Zayan. “Of course I am just an empty-headed, ordinary woman.”
But he held her gaze, seeing through her, she was certain, with his mirror-like eyes.
She had slid along the seat to put as much space between them as she could. But he reached out and caught hold of the bindings at her wrist. With two fingers, he tore the cloth. She wrenched her arms apart, fighting at the fabric, even as he unwound it.
Oh. Her hands tingled as feeling returned.
Zayan reached for her hand. “Isn’t a kiss on the hand the way a proper English gentleman begins his seduction of a lady?”
His hand clasped hers; his fingers threaded through hers. Like a perfect gentleman, like a man she might have dreamed about, he raised her hand to his lips.
“No, don’t do this.” She could not bear a mockery of courtship before she was killed and her blood taken. “No, I know nothing of magic. I didn’t even really believe in vampires!”
Soft and full, Zayan’s lower lip touched the back of her bare hand. A jolt of warm pleasure ignited there at the brush of his mouth. He kissed her hand as no man had ever done before—a tantalizing play of mouth and tongue. She’d had no idea a kiss to her hand could make her blood rush madly through her. Could make her nipples lift against her shift.
But Lukos was not going to simply watch, she realized. He had moved to their side—he was on his knees. It startled her that a vampire, a demonic creature, would be on his knees for her. “I do not share,” he growled, looking like a defiant boy. “We could have her choose—”
“Choose!” she cried. “I’d never—”
“But we can both compel her thoughts,” Lukos continued, ignoring her outrage. “I propose a competition. An amusement for a long journey.”
The fiends were speaking as though she were not even there. And butterflies took flight in her belly at the word competition.
“No magic?” Zayan asked.
“Magic is allowed, but only for seduction, which will begin like this…”
Miranda held her breath. Lukos bent to her neck. She felt him approach. Her skin seemed to anticipate him, tingling before he touched her.
His lips brushed her, and she moaned with desire. What was wrong with her? Zayan suckled her fingers one by one, and the sensations left her dizzy. She could not fight the…the heated desire rising in her. They were competing for her, like she was a prize.
What if she touched them? What if she touched them as she did to others who had died? Could she bring them back? Could this mysterious power she possessed do that—to men who had been vampires for centuries?
Did she dare try? If she could change them, they couldn’t kill her.
The shade rattled away from the carriage window. Barely any light filtered in.
The sun had set. She had to try now. She did not have any more time, and this might be her only hope to live.
London, at that moment
“An innocent from a good family will cost you, sirrah.”
James Ryder drew out a handful of gold sovereigns and dropped them, one by one, into the greasy silk glove on the madam’s outstretched hand. “Gentlemen pay at least five hundred pounds for my virgins, sir.” She reached out to return his money.
Five hundred. He had it, but he hadn’t wanted to part with so much. There were houses where that handful of coins would buy him the use of every cunny in the house. That amount of money would let him do whatever he wanted to the girls.
But he wanted to dip his wick here. In this place that was the exclusive domain of earls and dukes. In this place where he could take the maidenhead of a woman he would not be allowed to address on the street.
Tonight, Miss Miranda Bond had evaded him. To ease his frustration, he had destroyed a vampire, and the excitement of battle now sang in his veins.
He wanted the best. And he could pay for it.
He caught the madam’s wrist. “That is a small gift for you, madam. I am willing to pay the price for quality.”
“Who are you, then, sir? You are not known to me.” She sniffed and looked down her beak of a nose at him.
How in bloody hell did she dare look down at him?
“I am a son of the Marquess of Hiltshire.” The truth, though he was a bastard son. He pulled out a wad of notes and pushed those into her hand, forcing her to drop the sovereigns on the gleaming parquet floor.
The coins clinked. Her hand squeezed around the money. She stared down, her hand-drawn eyebrows arched in surprise.
He made a move to pick up his hat and start for the door.
“Wait!”
He turned to see her stuffing the money between her large, plumped-up tits, wadding the notes down below the scooped neck of her bodice, between the sweaty lumps of her flesh.
“I have a girl available. A vicar’s daughter, left homeless. She is most definitely a virgin. A true innocent, quite frightened and apprehensive, even though she goes willing to her fate for the welfare of her younger siblings. She was promised to the Earl of Huntingdon. She could, however, be yours, for one thousand pounds.”
Christ, it was a bloody fortune. But to steal the virgin who would have spread her thighs for the Earl of Huntingdon? It would be worth it. He wrote a vowel for the rest, and to his surprise, the madam accepted it.
No doubt, she thought he would return after he’d sampled the vicar’s daughter. He’d crave another virgin, just as her noble clients did. With a snap of her fingers, she sent a brawny footman to lead him to the bedroom. He found it empty. He sat on the edge of the bed but would not begin to undress until the girl was brought to him.
He’d trusted once—bought a virgin and stripped down in preparation, only to find the brothel was more interested in stealing his money, beating him blind, then throwing him out. But the stupid madam and her brutes had not understood what a vampire slayer was capable of doing with a weapon.
Ryder drew out a cheroot. He moved to the fireplace and lit the smoke from the licking flames. The room was opulent, a sign that it did cater to refined tastes.
God, he was hard with anticipation. His John Thomas strained against his linens. His arousal made him restless, angry. He should be in pursuit of Miss Miranda Bond tonight.
But he knew where she was headed. He would be on the road after he’d had his little treat, and he would travel faster than her.
With a click, the door opened. He swiveled on the bed as the footman brought in a tall, slender girl who wore a ghastly gray dress. A dress she’d worn from her home, or a costume? Her face was plain—freckled nose, pink cheeks, ivory skin. Her lashes were as mousy brown as her hair, but her skin and hair promised to be peach soft.
No seasoned whore could clean up like that. This girl was genuine. Her spine was stiff, her fists clenched. “Do you want me to take off my dress, sir?”
She was doing this to save her family. That sent a rush of blood to his rod. She thought she was going to nobly sacrifice herself.
“Let me undress you, love,” he said. “I’m very good and I’ll be gentle. This will be enjoyable for you.”
Her back twitched.
She looked nothing like Miranda Bond—who was blonde, with large blue eyes. Miss Bond was stunningly beautiful. But