Page 4

four

T roi fought the Dawn Slumber. His body lay still and heavy while his mind raced. He would never go back to the prison of sleep. He had to get out.

When his limbs finally moved, he heaved a sigh of relief. He sat up, rubbing his face.

This was no cruel trick or once-in-a-century reprieve. He was awake for good. Thanks to Celandine. Her vibrant aura filled the manor, which had been empty of any living presence for so long.

She most certainly had not been a dream. If he had conjured a beautiful rescuer to grant him the boon of her blood, a Pavo would never have been the object of his fantasies.

He focused on shutting out his awareness of her, but that only made him focus on her . He gave up, muttering curses upon the Blood Union and the invading princess.

Troi put his feet on the floor for the first time in one hundred years and tried to stand up.

He knees buckled, and he landed in a heap like a child. If his men could see him now, he would never live this down. Iovian, with his razor-sharp humor, would have roasted Troi around the fire in every camp for the rest of their military careers.

Troi rested his forehead against the side of the bed. Had invincible Remus’s luck held, and had he lived to retire with the man he secretly loved? After Marto had died a hero’s death, had his widow been able to provide for their children without Troi’s aid? He would never know.

But he did know what they would have done in this moment. Get back up.

He dragged himself to his feet. Step by halting step, he followed Celandine’s aura down to the great hall. He found her sitting on his throne in his velvet robe, devouring an entire goose leg.

He glowered. “Go ahead, Your Highness. Make yourself at home.”

“It’s about time you got up, slugabed.” She licked her finger.

He recalled how that finger had felt in his mouth. His fangs strained in his gums, and he swallowed hard, his throat dry as sand.

“My compliments to your cook,” she said, “and whomever cast the wards that kept this food fresh.”

He picked up a nearby goblet of wine and sniffed. Indeed, it smelled as if it had just been poured. He took a long swig to wet his throat, but the mortal drink did nothing for the burn of eternal thirst in his gullet.

Troi glared at her. “If you want my help unseating Rixor, get your arse out of my chair.”

With a half smile, she lounged back. Only when the goose leg was reduced to bone did she stand up, delicately wiping her hands on an embroidered handkerchief.

Then she fished in the large basket at her feet, which overflowed with fine garments.

She must have raided every trunk and wardrobe in the manor.

She strolled down from the dais, a long string in her hands, and stretched it from his shoulder to his wrist.

“What in Hypnos’s realm are you doing?” he demanded.

“Measuring you.” She circled him, stretching the cord across the back of his shoulders. “I need to take in your clothing, as well as update it for the latest fashion.”

“I can rip out Rixor’s throat in sackcloth as well as velvet.”

Celandine knelt at his feet and looked up at him. “You will never get inside his summer ball in sackcloth. It’s on the seventh night of the Summer Solstice festival, so I don’t have much time to bring your wardrobe into this century.”

Troi should have paid attention to what she was revealing about her plan, but as she measured his leg, her fingers brushed the inside of his thigh.

Her mouth was a hand’s breadth away from the laces of his breeches.

Before he could stop it, a hunger-induced image filled his mind of the Princess of Aligera on her knees in front of him with her lips full and rosy around his cock.

He hauled her to her feet. “Those measurements will be useless to you by tomorrow night.”

Anger flashed in her eyes, snapping like sparks in her aura. “Unhand me!”

He wanted to shake her, but he set her away from him quickly so he could lean his hip on the table next to him for support.

Crossing his arms, he tried to appear intimidating.

He couldn’t allow her to see how that small exertion had drained him.

“My measurements will change. The more I drink, the more muscle I will regain. Don’t change the size of my clothes. ”

She pressed her lips together. “Very well. But you will wear what I put on you without protest. We have no room for error.”

He smirked. “So the jewel of the Pavones is reduced to the role of seamstress. What did you do to warrant such vindictiveness from Rixor?”

“I was born female. Do not disdain women who wield thread. We spin everyone’s fates but our own.”

“I never held any woman in my household in disdain. I was known for providing well for my dependents.”

She arched a brow at him. “That’s not how history remembers you. The songs are all about your curse, when they aren’t about your conquests. The ones on the battlefields and in bed. It sounds as if all you did before becoming a bloodsucking monster was fight and fuck.”

His Hesperine conscience needled him again. As a mortal, Troi’s violent deeds had earned him nothing but renown, as had his seductions. He had relished all of it. Until he had received the Gift of immortality along with the burden of immortal empathy.

Celandine peered at him. “You’re looking green again. Here.” She held out her wrist.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I need you fit for our dancing lesson.”

He looked down his nose at her. The top of her head came up to his collarbone. He would not think of how well her body had fit against his as he had drunk down her pleasure. “I don’t need instruction from you. I am an excellent dancer.”

“Do you know the Widow’s Weave?”

He scrambled to remember any dance by that name.

“I didn’t think so,” she concluded. “Some of the dances from your era are still popular, but there are many new ones you will encounter once we’re inside.”

“This is your plan? We are to dance into Rixor’s Solstice festivities and—what—kill him with the minstrels looking on?”

“We must make an impression at the ball in order to secure an invitation to the feast. We will take on the identities of the prince and princess of Clementia, who never socialize in the city. They won’t be here to expose us, and everyone at the ball will be eager to meet the elusive royals.”

“You expect me to pose as a Pavo?” Troi protested in outrage. “And your husband!”

“Do you have a better idea for getting near Rixor?”

“Yes. I’ll conceal myself with Hesperine magic and be close enough to kill him before he even knows I’m there.”

“Do your Hesperine skills include breaking through the Anthrian wards he surrounds himself with at all times? The wards made of magefire, your greatest weakness? You don’t seem to have made any progress against the ones at your own door, after all.”

Troi gritted his teeth. “And how is a fugitive mage of Chera to get through such wards?”

Celandine pulled a spindle from her pocket and smiled smugly. “Fortunately for you, I am an unspinner.”

The revelation sent a chill down Troi’s spine. With her talent, not even the Sanctuary wards on his home could keep her away from him. “Why am I your chosen partner for this plot? What need have you for a Hesperine?”

“You shall see. I get you inside. You commit the assassination. Rixor dies in my chair with me looking on.”

Pure rage throbbed in her aura, the fury of an animal lashing out at the one who had chained it. Troi had best not give her a reason to want him dead, too.

He had to regain his full power before she turned on him. His strength would be short-lived between drinks until he was fully recovered from his starved sleep. His only way to protect himself from her was to accept her blood. Without further protest, he took her offered wrist.

He braced himself, but nothing could have prepared him for another taste of her.

He bit back a groan as her complex flavor bloomed on his tongue.

Her anger and grief filled him, companions for his own.

But somewhere under those bitter notes, he tasted the rich sweetness of a passionate woman who had once loved life.

It would be all too easy to lay her back on the nearest banquet table for a true feast. He released her before he lost his head.

She picked up a cloth from the table and wiped her wrist efficiently. Troi rubbed a hand over his mouth, willing his fangs to recede. They didn’t heed him.

“Do you feel able to dance now?” she asked.

“Yes.” With her life force rushing through his body, he felt he could levitate to the moons and back.

“Show me what you can do on the dance floor, then, Taurus.”

Every time she said his old family name, he was rankled by a mixture of emotions he had no wish to sort out. “As long as we are plotting murder together, call me Troi.”

She held out her hand to him. “Very well, Troi. I expect you to call me Celandine. If I hear you say ‘corpse witch’ or ‘Pavo harpy,’ I will hound you back to your bed with my distaff and weave a new curse around you.”

“I wouldn’t dare insult my blood supply.” He took her hand.

She led him to the open aisle between the banquet tables and pressed their opposite palms together. “This is the starting position.”

“You touch hands as the first move of the dance?”

Her peal of laughter filled the hollow room. “I never expected a heretic to sound so scandalized! Yes, Grandpapa, men and women touch hands during dances these days!”

She had no right to possess such a delightful laugh.

Troi scowled. “I am not scandalized, merely surprised. We always maintained rigid decorum during dances.” He smirked at her.

“It was part of the chase. Pushing the boundaries of what the dance would allow was a skill, and after the ball, the private dances in the dark were the reward.”

Faint color rose along her sharp cheekbones. “Do not push any boundaries at Rixor’s ball—or tonight during our lesson. This isn’t a chase. It is a matter of life and death.”

“Seduction always is,” he found himself saying.