“The pain is only too great if the plant touches me. Take care.”

Take care.

Was he giving her permission to come to him? To touch him?

The answer was clear in his eyes.

Angelica’s palms were damp, her heart raced. What am I doing? His shoulders were so wide, and the shirt damp from his hair.

His breathing shifted, lowered and became rough. But his eyes focused on her, pulled, lured…

“What of the way vampires can hypnotize?” she asked, stopping suddenly, remembering more from Granny’s stories. Was that all this was? His manipulation? Was he tricking her, just as Lucifer had tricked him? “Are you tricking me?”

Voss managed a sharp laugh. “The Fates, no.” He drew in a breath. “Yes, the thrall—my thrall—is real. And very effective. Except with you. You seem…impervious to it.”

Angelica straightened and looked at him with interest. She was perhaps five paces from him, from the bed on which he sat like a rigid soldier. The corners of his mouth were tight.

“I? Impervious?” she asked.

He made a frustrated sound. “Blast it, Angelica, if you weren’t…well, you’d likely be able to call me Voss. And you wouldn’t be wearing that damned necklet.” He looked at her hotly, and the bottom dropped out of her belly. “You wouldn’t want to. I promise you that.”

The tips of his fangs were showing now, just beneath his upper lip, and the burning in his eyes shone like red-gold flames.

“What is that on your back?” she asked again. “May I tend to it?”

Again, a short, sharp laugh. “There is naught you can do.”

She was close enough that if she reached out, she could touch his face. Or shoulder. His breathing was rough, and she realized hers had become unsteady as well.

“If I come closer—”

“Please,” he said in a soft groan. Please, his lips moved silently.

She did. Empowered by the talisman around her neck, compelled by desire and curiosity, reassured by his need, she went to him.

His shoulders trembled as she rested her hands on them, lightly, taking care that he wouldn’t be in pain. She felt him vibrating beneath her touch, and understood that he was fighting, struggling against something.

Under her palms, Voss was warm, hot even. Solid. Broad. The ends of his hair brushed the tops of her fingers and she could smell the citrus and rosemary from his bath. His shoulders rose and fell in little jagged movements.

She looked down and saw his fingers curled up into the coverlet, wrinkling and gathering it into great bunches. His shirt gapped away from his strong, golden neck and she could see down into the back of it…the heavy black tendrils of scarring there on bronze skin.

“My God,” she breathed, and without thinking, she pulled the neckcloth away, pulled aside the opening of the shirt so she could see more of it. “What is it?”

They were like little purplish-black ropes, and seemed to pulse and throb as she looked down at them. Shiny, coursing…the pain must be beyond comprehension. They grew like roots from beneath the hair he kept long at the nape, down over the right side of his back, concentrated at the shoulder but spreading like cracks in his flesh past his rib cage.

“Mark…of Luce…ifer,” he managed to say. A trickle of sweat ran down his temple, and she saw that his skin had gone shiny and damp. “Please…Angel…ica…”

She thought he meant for her to move back, to give him relief, but when she began to shift away, he made a sound of negation. No.

Her hands trembled, and she was hot and shivery all over. Something fluttered in her stomach and Angelica felt something deep inside her curling, unfurling, swelling.

Take care.

She remembered his warning, so when she leaned forward, she bent carefully, holding the necklace tight to her skin so that it wouldn’t fall against him, her other hand on his uninjured shoulder. And she lowered her lips to his.

15

AN UNFORTUNATE SLIP

Voss’s world was a war of agony and relief. When her soft lips touched his, half parted and sweet, he nearly cried out from the pleasure, then gasped against her at the sudden, searing pain that followed, driving him to take more. Oh. God.

The hyssop, small amount that it was, was so close that he could barely lift a hand, could barely uncurl his fingers from the bedding beneath him. The delicate curve of her throat was right in front of him, the V of her robe, the golden necklace, there…so close. Yet he couldn’t move to touch her. He felt his muscles slowing, becoming heavy, even as the rush of desire surged through his veins.

And all the while Angelica’s mouth tasted his, and his fought to taste hers back, the Mark on his skin twisted and throbbed, knifing beneath his skin, tempting him… Take, take, take.

Slick and full, her lips molded over his, nibbling and licking as her body strained closer. Her breasts, right there, free and loose just beyond his reach. Her nipple strained against the thin material. The druglike mix of lavender and orange and Angelica, warm and sweet and sensual.

Her hands brushed over his hot skin and he felt the flesh on his face tighten beneath her fingers. He lifted his chin and her touch slipped to cup his jaw. More, more…he wanted more. His lungs no longer worked and he felt as if he were drowning, spiraling into a vortex of pain-matched pleasure.

Her hip pressed against his torso, the fabric of her robe slid along his thigh. His fangs thrust hard and sharp, his gums swollen with the same need that filled his cock. Voss tried to say her name, but he couldn’t drag his thoughts together enough to take the breath.

The next thing he knew, she was lifting his shirt, pulling it from his trousers. The cooler air was good against his damp skin, and her hands were there…over his shoulders, his chest, along the tops of his arms. Tentative, so tentative and light that he wanted to groan with frustration.

She gasped in horror when she brushed over his Mark, and it leaped and pulsed beneath her touch, shooting dark, evil pain through him. “Oh, God, Dewhurst…” Angelica breathed.

Voss. Call me Voss.

He didn’t know why it was so important to him, but he wanted it. He wanted her. Deep within, his body strained and writhed with so many battling demands, weak and on fire.

Voss closed his eyes, tried desperately to block out the agony, to gather the strength to touch her. If he didn’t, he would die.

“Dewhurst,” she said, her voice penetrating the blaze of pain. She was close, her words warm on his desperate skin. He managed to lift a hand, though it felt like a hundredweight, and touch her face. “I’m going to take this off.” She lifted the necklace.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Luce. Oh, God, please, yes.

Voss drew in his breath as she closed her fingers around the chain. He struggled, his back was on fire, his body wouldn’t work…yet it strained and throbbed and needed.

No. He moved his lips. No.

He tasted blood—his own blood, and knew in a moment, if she pulled on that chain, if she yanked it away, it would be her blood. In his mouth. Her skin, her blood. Hot and sweet, so thick and filled with her…sliding down his throat, warming his belly, filling him. Yes, yes.

Voss was shaking as he fought it. Squeezed his eyes closed. No, he whispered. “No.” A single breath was all he could manage.

Angelica stepped away, taking her warmth, and he opened his eyes. Her fingers were still closed over the chain. Her dark, velvet-brown gaze covered him, wide and hot with pleasure. Beckoning. Her lips, full and well kissed, half parted. Her chest and breasts, nipples outlined, straining against the robe, rose and fell. Thick waves of her hair had come undone, half tumbled over her shoulders, a strand caught against her damp neck.

If he’d been able to breathe, he would have groaned at the pure beauty of her.

“If I remove some of the leaves…some of it?” she asked, and began to pluck at them. “Will it be…better?”

Voss swallowed. He couldn’t speak; he could formulate nothing. He managed a short nod and wondered, what next?

How long could he live through this torture?

Angelica felt the smooth leaves beneath her fingers, and watching Voss, breathless from the expression on his face, she pulled some away. Careful to gather them in her palm so they could be disposed of, she picked from the necklace.

Three, four clumps. A quick glance in the mirror showed her that more than half of the original remained. It also showed her a woman there, with unbound hair and flushed, rosy skin and parted lips. Nothing beneath her robe and shift but skin. Unbound, her breasts felt full and ready, and the place between her legs hot and damp.

Turning away from the alluring image, Angelica took the small handful of leaves and put them into the small metal case in which they’d come. And then she turned back to Voss.

His eyes hadn’t left her. Dull, glassy with pain, yet hot and wild with desire, they followed her. The edges of his lips were white and he remained on the bed, half sprawled against a mound of pillows. The discarded shirt was a crumpled white heap on the floor; the awful neckcloth that predicted his death a snake on the rug.

And his chest, golden and broad, with sleek, hard muscles so different from her own soft and curvy torso. Hair grew there.… She’d never imagined hair on a man’s chest, a generous patch of gold and bronze over slabs of muscle. His shoulders, square and smooth, the skin soft and hot, called her back to his side. So beautiful.

What am I doing? she asked herself again.

But she closed her mind to the worries, the concerns, the propriety. Let herself feel.

She was in control. Safe. And she wanted to touch him, taste him. He wanted her to. His eyes begged her to, yet his face drew tight with pain. White near his lips, his skin shiny and damp from struggle.

This time when she came to him, he moved a bit, as if some of the restraint was eased. It had worked, then, she thought dimly as she bent to kiss him again. The necklace flipped forward, and he jolted when it hit his skin. His body whipped taut beneath her hands, bowing sharply. Angelica pulled away, slamming her hand over the plant stem, smashing it against her chest.