in her suddenly tired, confused head.
Yannick. How strange that she thought of him by his Christian name. Only hours before he had been, in her mind, a lofty earl or an evil vampire. A stranger but not a stranger. And now he had tasted her in places she had never even dared touch.
If she slept, what would she dream? About Yannick and the other man again?
That snapped her wide awake. She opened her eyes.
He was leaning over her, smiling down at her as he smoothed her hair. With the other hand, he cupped her waist, letting his thumb stroke the underside of her breast “Before you go,” she whispered, “Can you tell me what happened to you and your brother? Why you were imprisoned and how it happened?”
The second brother of the Demon Twins. Was he the other man from her dreams? Yannick’s brother?
His brow lifted in surprise but she sensed him shut off other emotions from her. “Your father never explained our story?”
“No.”
He sat up, lifting his hands from her. Althea felt bereft to have his heat leave. She wanted to reach out and touch him one more time—put her hand on his bare back, or caress his big, naked shoulder, but stopped herself.
I will come to you tomorrow night, Althea, and tell you everything. He stood up from the bed, standing in the moonlight, which seemed more ethereal now, fainter and less distinct.
Tomorrow night might be too late.
But he bowed and stepped back into the gloom, which was gray, not black, as dawn touched the sky.
Tomorrow. Let me explain all tomorrow. But do not let your father open the crypt.
Guilt burned through her and she looked down. She would have to help her father. It was what she had always done.
And she shouldn’t trust Yannick so easily. Shouldn’t let seduction convince her to throw aside all she had learned. Over a decade, she had seen what vampires were.
He is unlike any other vampire, her inner voice whispered. He controlled his bloodlust with you. He saved your father. He is different.
No. She couldn’t fall under a vampire’s erotic spell.
Althea, my love.
She stilled as his deep, beautiful voice called to her. Was this what the dreams meant? Love? She couldn’t fall in love with him. She couldn’t.
And what about the last dream? She couldn’t love two vampires!
Althea looked up to find Yannick watching her. His brows were drawn together, his mouth turned down at the corners.
“I will wait for you tomorrow,” she promised. “We won’t open the crypt.”
His lips lifted. Before she could blink, he vanished. She felt the faintest stirring of the air. The beat of wings. They fluttered over her hand like a caress—as though he was bestowing one last chivalrous kiss.
And then she was alone.
Althea crossed to the open window, shivering as the damp breeze flitted over her naked body. The sky had lightened. Deep purple splashed over the black, glowing with the soft sheen that promised daybreak.
Dawn was so close.
She prayed Yannick found safety.
Yannick closed the lid, crossed his arms over his chest. Her taste lingered on his lips. Her rich scent was on his face, on his fingers, on his slumbering cock.
What did the dreams mean? He had never dreamed about any other woman this way. And since becoming a vampire, he had never visited a woman without drinking from her. Nor had he visited any woman more than once.
Fortunately, he had found a maid beginning her day before daylight and had drunk from her. She’d offered him her tits and quim first, but he’d politely declined. He’d left her weak but healthy, with no memory of his bite, and had gone to where his box waited, placed as per his instructions.
Yannick closed his eyes. Drifted into sleep, still oddly conscious. He was even sure his eyes were actually open, yet the scene played out before him.
“Can you imagine both our mouths on you, love?”
He stood behind Althea, his hands on her slim shoulders. She wore a thin, almost translucent chemise. It fluttered with her quick breaths. Her hard nipples poked against the fabric.
He could smell her lovely feminine skin, could taste it as he bent his lips to her neck.
“Can you imagine my hands and his worshipping you?”
What was this? Bastien lay on the bed, grinning as he reached for the buttons of his bulging breeches.
He was to share Althea with Bastien?
Not this time. Not this woman.
But as the dream played out, he felt himself harden, the erection stealing his fading energy. Yannick tried to will it away, but damn his unruly cock, it stood up defiantly. Hell and the devil, it was a curse to sleep while aroused.
Even after all the women he’d shared with his brother, he watched in shock as Bastien stripped naked and approached Althea. Then they caressed her together and all that mattered was her pleasure.
But he’d never shared a woman that he—
Never a woman like Althea.
“Can you imagine the erotic pleasure of having both of us bite you?”
In the dream, his brother’s fangs launched out. As Bastien leaned to her neck, Yannick gripped his brother by the hair and yanked him back.
“Don’t you want to possess her?” Bastien demanded.
“No. I am not taking her from life. Not just for me.”
“For us.” His brother’s grin widened, arrogant and goading. “For both of us.”
His brother laughed and the dream exploded into a blinding white light, then faded into twinkling dust.
Bastien’s mocking laugh echoed in his head. Yannick fought to block it out.
Before Althea had come to him in his dreams, he’d planned to let his time run out and evaporate into dust. He hadn’t intended to use the incantation and release Bastien—once he was dead, Bastien would be freed anyway. Why in hell would he want to fight for his existence? He’d hidden the truth for ten years—if he continued to exist he would have give up everything. His title. His home. His country. People had begun to notice he never aged. His peers in London already joked that he’d sold his soul.
But to die now would be to leave Althea for Bastien.
He would be dead, so why in hell would it matter if Bastien captured Althea’s heart?
Day sleep stole over Yannick, pulling him deeper into darkness. He willed his fingers to move. They responded slowly, several heartbeats after he sent the impulse.
He remembered the way Althea’s lashes had shielded her eyes. The way her wide green eyes had darted away as he walked nude into the moonlight. He had caught her expression of guilt. He’d attributed it to a virgin’s shyness after tumultuous sex.
Damn, it was because she was lying to him.
4
Resurrected
Touch us, Althea. Stroke us both.
She was dreaming again. In the shadowy bedroom once more, she lay in the middle of the massive bed. Soft lamplight spilled over the crimson bed hangings, flitted along the fluted posts, and danced across her skin. She was naked, her hair loose and fanned over her bare breasts. Althea kept her thighs pressed together and her hand rested demurely over her nether curls, hiding them.
An embroidered silk counterpane stretched beneath her, smooth and soft against