“Explain this,” Angelica said, sitting on one of the chairs. She hooked a finger under the necklace and lifted it from her skin. Her fingers trembled but she kept her voice calm. Her belly was in knots.
Voss gave her a crooked smile. “Again with the irrelevant questions, my dear. All you need know is that it is a great deterrent to me.”
“To you? Not to anyone else?”
“I’m afraid not.” He turned away and Angelica gasped. The shirt he’d donned was not only worn so thin that it was nearly transparent, but the fact that his skin was damp and caused the fabric to cling made it easy for her to see the ugly, dark lines through it.
“My God, Dewhurst…what is that?”
He looked back, frowning. “What?”
But she’d already risen from her chair, moving toward him automatically, reaching for the shoulder where she’d seen something that looked like horrible scarring. Twisting black lines radiating from the back of his shoulder and along his arm, down past where the shirt no longer stuck to his skin. It was no wonder he could hardly move.
“Don’t,” he said, but it was too late…she’d already moved close enough to touch him.
Remembering the necklace, she stopped and stepped back a pace. “Does it pain you?” she asked, once again lifting the leaf-entwined chain, smelling its mint, now damp from her bath.
His face drawn, his lips flat, Voss nodded, then gave a shrug. “A bit.”
She stepped back again and saw that his chest moved in an easier breath. Odd, fascinating…and a bit frightening.
Angelica sat in a chair across from him, leaving what she judged was space enough for his comfort. “Is it the proximity? The smell? The sight? I thought it was silver that repelled vampires. That was the way Granny Grapes told us.”
Voss smiled and moved carefully to sit at the edge of the bed, leaving more space between them. “Your grandmother sounds like a fascinating woman. I wonder how she knew so much about the Draculia. That,” he added, “is what we call ourselves.”
“Her grandmother was my great-great-grandmother, the Baroness Beatrice Neddelfield, whose much-older husband died when she was merely twenty. The baroness fell in love with a blacksmith, who happened to be the son of a Gypsy from Romania. The way Granny tells it, they fell in love at first sight and Beatrice would have no one but Vinio for her husband. Since she was a widow, she no longer cared what Society thought, and they wed—living happily ever after.” Angelica shrugged, thinking, as she had done many times in the past, about the way some people seemed to find a strong, intimate connection to another person so quickly and easily without any explanation or logic. And how, for others, it was something that seeded, rooted and eventually blossomed.
And how some people seemed empty and remote for all of their lives.
“That explains it, then,” Voss said. “The Gypsy blood, the Romanian heritage…the first of the Draculia was Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula of Transylvania. And the rest of us are all descendants of his. For obvious reasons, if they choose to do so, Dracule tend to make very good marriages—albeit temporary ones, due to the immortality factor. Many of our antecedents wed titled members of European aristocracy. But the choice to become Dracule is only offered to some of us.”
“Such were my granny’s bedtime stories,” Angelica agreed. “Not of the variety commonly told to English children, however.”
“Thank the Fates for that, or how many more of them would grow up wishing to be like your brother.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Voss shifted. “Because you aren’t asking the ones you ought to, Angelica.” His eyes glittered and she felt warm and flushed again.
But no longer apprehensive.
“I’m certain I’ll learn the answers in good time. You obviously can’t leave the hotel during the daylight, so we are here for some time. And for now, I want to understand how this plant…whatever it is…affects you.”
He sighed. “It’s not something one discusses, Angelica. It’s of a personal nature. Incidentally,” he added with a bit of a rueful smile, “that’s precisely the reason Corvindale and Cale, and even your brother, are displeased with me. Because I make a point of learning about their…weaknesses. So to speak.”
“Lord Corvindale is one, too?” Angelica gasped. “And Mr. Cale?”
“Ah. Yes, indeed. I’m sorry to shatter your illusions. They are also Dracule.”
“And my brother…Chas works with Lord Corvindale? How can he work with the man he hunts?”
Voss shrugged. “I don’t know the details of the history between them, but as I told you before, there is bad blood between two Draculean factions—those of Corvindale and Moldavi. Aside of the fact that Corvindale has his own reasons for disliking me, I confess, I admire his situation. Having a vampire hunter on one’s side is a smart move on Corvindale’s part.”
“What about Mirabella? She can’t be a vampir, can she? For…well, she’s gone shopping with us.”
“No, it’s my understanding that Dimitri found her as a babe and raised her as his sister. I don’t believe she knows the truth of her origin, either.”
“How many of you are there?” She couldn’t help the distaste in her tone, and from the expression on his face, she saw that he noticed. His features flattened just a bit, just enough to let her know she’d insulted him.
“Not so many as it would seem,” he said. “We don’t generally reproduce.”
Silence reigned for a moment, and Angelica found that she couldn’t keep her eyes from him. The necklace gave her an unfamiliar, heady sort of power. Courage and even boldness. She no longer feared him.
And the fact that he’d thought to prepare such a talisman for her—to offer her a way to protect herself—gave her much to think about.
“Have you always been…like this?” she asked, rising to her feet. Her heart was pounding and her palms had begun to dampen.
Voss shook his head, his hair gleaming rich and bronze. His hand was splayed wide on the bed next to him, pressing deeply into a thick coverlet. She couldn’t help but notice the length and fine shape of his fingers.
“No, one isn’t born Dracule,” he replied. “One is… invited.”
Angelica raised her brows in question and realized she’d taken a step toward him.
“You wouldn’t believe me.… Well, perhaps you would,” he amended with a rueful smile. “You who have the Sight, and know that extraordinary things do exist. It was Lucifer. He came to me in a dream.”
“The preferred method angels use for communication,” Angelica said lightly, after a moment of shock. “Fallen from grace or otherwise.”
His lips quirked. “Apparently so. He offered power, strength and immortality. I was twenty-eight, at the prime of my manhood. It was a dream; it wasn’t real, but it was tempting. Of course I accepted.” Now his mouth flattened. “And neglected to ask what he expected in return.”
“Or perhaps the state of being in a dream wouldn’t have allowed you to do so.” Angelica had come to recognize his expressions by now, and what she saw was grief and pain. And yet…bravado. He would soldier on. Perhaps make light of it. “What did he expect in return?”
“Allegiance…not overt fealty, but he has ways of influencing one’s actions. And there is the understanding that, if bidden, a Dracule is meant to do Luce’s work, to be called up to arms, so to speak, if the day comes when we’re needed.”
Horror had begun to filter through Angelica as his words sank in. “The devil’s earthly army? To be called up at his whim?”
“I didn’t understand that part of it, or really, any of it, at that time,” he replied. His voice was testy and sharp. “If I had…”
What sort of a person would agree to such a thing? Angelica couldn’t speak. The knowledge that she sat here, with a man who’d sold his soul to Lucifer, was inconceivable. Chilling.
Worse yet was that she wasn’t frightened of him, and in fact…she felt connected to him. They, like Beatrice and Vinio, had had that instant, compelling connection.