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It was all I needed to push me into action. I left the carriage and ran to her door. I shot an evil glance at her mortal servants, which rendered them virtually powerless, and threw open the doors for myself.

I rushed up the marble steps. I found her going madly along the walls, pounding the mirrors with her fists. I found her shedding blood tears and shivering. There was broken glass all around her.

I took her wrists. I took them tenderly.

"Stay with me," I said. "Stay with me!"

Quite suddenly behind me, I heard the presence of Arjun. I heard his unhurried step and then he entered the room.

She had collapsed against my chest. She was shaking.

"Don't worry," said Arjun in the same patient tone he had used with me in the Duke's palace. "We can talk of all these things in a courteous way. I am not a wild creature, given to acts of destruction. "

He seemed the perfect gentleman with his lace handkerchief and high-heeled shoes. He looked about at the broken pieces of mirror which lay on the fine carpet, and he shook his head.

"Then leave me alone with her," I said.

"Is this what you wish, Pandora?" he asked.

She nodded. "For a little while, my darling," she said to him.

As soon as he had left the room, and shut the tall double doors behind him, I stroked her hair, and I kissed her again.

"I can't leave him," she confessed.

"And why not? " I asked.

"Because I made him," she answered. "He is my son, my spouse, and my guardian. "

I was shocked.

I had never supposed such a thing!

In all these years I had thought him some dominating creature who kept her in his power.

"I made him so that he would take care of me," she said. "I took him from India where I was worshiped as a very goddess by those few who had set eyes upon me. I taught him European ways. I placed him in charge of me so that in my weakness and despair, he would control me. And it is his hunger for life which drives us both. Without it I might have languished in some deep tomb for centuries. "

"Very well," I said, "he is your child. This I understand, but Pandora, you are mine! What of this! You are mine, and I have you in my possession again! Oh, forgive me, forgive that I speak so harshly, that I use words such as possession. What do I mean to say? I mean to say I can't lose you!"

"I know what you mean," she said, "but you see, I can't turn him away from me. He has done far too well in what I have asked of him, and he loves me. And he cannot live under your roof, Marius. I know you only too well. Where Marius lives, Marius rules. You will never suffer a male such as Arjun to dwell with you on my account or for any other reason. "

I was so deeply wounded that for one moment I couldn't answer her. I shook my head as though to deny what she had said, but in truth I didn't know whether or not she was wrong. I had always, always thought only of destroying Arjun.

"You can't deny it," she said softly. "Arjun is too strong, too willful, and has been too long his own master. "

"There must be some way," I pleaded.

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bsp; "There will come a night, surely," she said, "when it is time for Arjun to part from me. The same may happen with you and your Bianca. But this is not the time. And so I beg you, let go of me, Marius, say farewell to me, and promise me that you will eternally persevere and I shall give you the same promise. "

"This is your vengeance, isn't it?" I asked quietly. "You were my child and within two hundred years I left you. And so you tell me now that you won't do the same to him¡ª. "

"No, my beautiful Marius, it isn't vengeance, it is only the truth. Now, leave me. " She smiled bitterly. "Oh, what a gift to me this night has been, that I have seen you alive, that I know the Roman blood drinker Santino was wrong. This night will carry me through centuries. "

"It will carry you away from me," I said, nodding.

But then her lips caught me by surprise. It was she who kissed me ardently, and then I felt her tiny sharp teeth pierce my throat.