If Ivan hadn't arrived when he had she felt sure that might have been her last few moments on this earth.
It had been foolish to walk alone in a city she did not know. But even more foolish had her blood not had the power to repel vampires.While Ivan's goal to secure the Grande Grimoire was magnanimous, she knew he would then ask her to reverse the spell.
Could she do it? Condemn witches to the mercy of vampires worldwide? While the Gray Council's discussion had provided some good defense-there would be a few casualties initially, but the vampires would quickly back off-Dez wasn't so sure.
I must think on this.
"We're here, ma'am."
She hadn't realized the cab had stopped. Dez paid for the ride and stepped out into the fresh sea-misted air. Breathing in deeply, she infused her wanting soul with the cool dampness of the world. And instantly she began to feel better. Home always felt right.
The rose vines stirred as she approached the front door. A warning. They would not otherwise have movement.
Unless there was reason.
As she gripped the doorknob, Dez's heart began to thud. Was there someone inside? Had her house been robbed? By vampires?
Maybe it would be wise to call the police.
"I can handle a few vampires," she muttered. And then, rubbing her bruised elbow, she realized she probably could not.
The door was still locked. No windows were broken. If it had been a vampire, he would have had to leap to the roof to find the attic window, which she remembered now she hadn't thought to close and lock before leaving with Ivan.
"Shoot."
Calling up a white light, she pulled it over her body and spread it out in a perimeter of ten feet. If there was an intruder inside, she needed the wall of protection to keep it back. It would give her time to summon a spell to counterattack whoever may be inside.
Pushing open the door, Dez stepped out of her high heels so her steps wouldn't click on the wood floor. Quiet hummed loudly.
What did she own that a burglar would want? Not a thing, save her oils and simple necessities. All spellcrafting articles-silver athames, minor spell books and a few priceless gemstone amulets-she kept securely in another realm, waiting for her to call them out for use.
Perhaps whoever had been inside was now gone?
No, the roses would have been still then. Ivan's suggestion to cut him a path had been answered with a smirk. He knew better.
A floorboard creaked beneath her heel. Dez cringed. Forgot about that one. But as she peeked around the corner into the living room, she abruptly cut off a rising scream.
"Ivan?"
He sat on the wicker chair, smiling, arms held out for her.
Fear shedding quickly, Dez rushed to him. The white light stopped her ten feet from her lover's arms. "Sorry, I didn't know who was inside."
She dismissed the light with a slashing gesture before her body and crawled onto his lap. A kiss released her apprehensions, and she snuggled in for a hug. Until now, she hadn't realized how much she missed him. And it had been less than eight hours.
"I thought you were in Paris?" "I couldn't go. Sorry if I surprised you. The white light was entirely warranted. I flew directly here after I changed my mind and decided I'd sit and wait even if it took you days to arrive home. Smells like you here. Like every scent in the world."
"The roses didn't give you trouble?"
"They did. But I heal."
That he'd suffered the torment of those thorns to wait for her further deepened her guilt.
"What made you change your mind about going to Paris? You can't refuse Himself's task to bring his bride to him."
"I can."
"At great suffering and the sacrifice of all chance of ever getting back your soul. Ivan, this is the hope that you've never known."
Could she allow him to make that sacrifice? She wanted to. It was a selfish desire.
"Listen," he said, as he kissed the crown of her head. "I couldn't stop thinking about this nameless woman as I was waiting for the jet to taxi onto the runway. Who is she? What horrors had she experienced when Himself pursued her? What right do I have to make her again suffer? And who says one soul is a worthy trade for thousands? Isn't one soul as valuable as many? Whoever she may be, she is not insignificant. I won't do it. I won't condemn her to a dreadful fate."
An immense relief waved through Dez's body. Melting into Ivan's strength seemed the easiest thing. He was a good man after all.
Now, how to convince him of that?
"I'll have to find another way to get back the grimoire. I'll...have to stand and fight alongside my father. Perhaps together we can hold back the vampires. If only we can bring about a pause, a moment for both sides to stand back and catch a breath. To think."
"This war is worldwide, Ivan. It is an immense task." But she wouldn't call it impossible.
She had no right to dissuade him from such a valiant goal. Dez had sent many a knight off to battle with her favor as promise. The champion needed that support-that hope. "I will join you in the fight. I..."
She hadn't opportunity to think further on the decision to reverse the spell.
"Do you remember the spell?"
"No." She clung to her lover, curling up her legs and snuggling even closer. "Sorry. I need the grimoire. There are no words, but I need the intonations to get it right."
"But you'll do it if we get it back? Reverse the spell?"
"For the first time in my long life, I'm not sure what to think, what decision is right. Or rather, which decision is better, because neither can ever truly be right. You won't sacrifice one soul for thousands. So why should I reverse a spell that could result in the deaths of many to save many more tens of thousands?"
Ivan's sigh echoed her indecision.
"I will abide by whatever the council rules," she decided. "Perhaps this dilemma shouldn't be left to one person."
"I'll be there for you, Dez. I swear it. No more rushing off or leaving you to fend for yourself against vampires."
"It was stupid of me to leave you, especially in your condition." "I've healed. I always do."
"Do you?" She pressed her ear to his chest. His heart pounded soft, steadily. That night in Ivan's bedroom she had seen things she had never seen before. Hideous torture. Her lover suffering. It hurt to remember it. "What of your heart? Does that ever heal?
Ivan, I may have many centuries of living to claim over your few decades, but you...you've survived tremendous opposition. How do you do it? What keeps you standing?"
"My parents instilled extreme stubbornness in me. I guess I have them to thank. Not that it's been easy. And now, I have a reason to want to go on. You. Is that...okay?"
"You and I?" The warmth of him seeped into her flesh. Dez tilted up her head and kissed him under the chin. In his eyes she saw the strife, the utter desolation he must suffer daily. "Yes. I love you for saving one soul before thousands. And I love you for wanting to save the thousands as well."
Sex with a vampire? Never in eight centuries had Dez given the notion credence. Her idea of the vampire presented as unruly, easily aggravated and untamed. And while every girl entertains dreams of a bad boy, at some point in her life, Dez had had her share.
So why was she crawling over the incredibly toned body of a half-breed vampire, dragging her tongue up his abs and aiming for his nipple?
Because she wanted to. Because she'd couldn't not touch him.
"Would it spoil the mood to ask how many lovers you've had?" Ivan groaned, as Dez flicked her tongue over the hard jewel of his nipple. "Just curious. You've been on this earth for so long."
"Too many to count," she said, and nipped his flesh in punishment for the question. "You like it rough, eh?"
"I get enough rough stuff with my night job."
Yes, his night job. Sun beamed across the pale white floorboards. The high noon bells rang in Willow Cove. She was safe.
"You know, history tells us the missionary position was most oft used in medieval times," she said. "Only now are humans becoming more exploratory in sexual positions. But I know for a fact quite a few different positions were very popular in my younger years."
"Is that so? You going to demonstrate?"
"Slide those pillows up under my stomach and let me show you."
The man took orders well. Dez, rolling to her stomach and adjusting the pillows before her knees, slid her arms along the sheets and curled her fingers over the end of the bed.
"I love you this way," Ivan murmured, as he moved behind her and gripped her hips.
"I like it when a man takes control."
"I could never control you, Dez. But I will master you." He slid inside her completely.
Mastered by her vampire lover? Oh yes.
They woke to spy the moon, full and white, at the corner of the bedroom window. Sex all afternoon had lured them both to a drowsy, blissful slumber.
Ivan sat at the end of the bed. His short black hair spiked every which way. The powerful muscles strapping his back flexed as he leaned forward. Creases from the sheets had carved lines into the back of one of his arms.
Dez crawled across the bed and pressed her breasts against his cool back, and wrapped her legs around his hips. "Master," she whispered.
"Only in bed, all right?"
"Of course. We both know I rule when it comes to magic. I could have you on your knees with a mere flick of my fingers."
He pressed his head back aside her cheek. "I'd like that."
Tracing the dark design that stretched from the bottom of his skull down to midback, Dez drew away when he flinched.
"Sorry. This tattoo, it's sensitive?"
"It's not a tattoo," he said, his tone strangely weary. "You know vamps can't keep the ink in their flesh because we heal so fast."
"That's what I've always believed, until I saw this. Then what is it?"
"I call it my shadow. It's Himself's mark. It digs deep, Dez, way into my gut. I can feel Himself before he even arrives in the nerve-scraping tingle that vibrates from that damned mark."
"Like a witch mark, then. Except this one is for real."
"What do you mean?"
"In medieval times, suspected witches were tormented and very often murdered if it could be proven they bore a witch mark. It was a sure sign she was in league with the devil. Most often the woman was not a witch, yet she believed so strongly that she convinced herself she had powers. And the marks were moles or birthmarks that colored the skin like port wine. Such a pity to watch the senseless murders."
"Well, I am in league with the devil. Should the inquisition come sniffing at my heels, let them have at me. I'll give them a fight they won't see coming."
He drew her hands up and kissed her thumbs. One, then the other. "I have to leave."
"The coercion?"
"Yes. It prickles along the shadow. I think I've another task waiting for me. But whoever is waiting to deliver it can't enter your warded home. I'm sorry."
"You shouldn't piss off your master. Go. But not without one more kiss."
Ivan turned in Dez's arms and they spilled across the bed. The pale pink sheets billowed in the wake of their motions. Ivan kissed her and pressed his tongue over her lips and into her mouth. And he moved his cock inside her. Easy, slow, finding a lazy rhythm that pleased them both.
"Would it be silly to say you fit like you were made for me?" Dez whispered.
"No more silly than me confessing I never want to make love to another woman again. I want you forever, Dez. Is that asking too much?" "You've a lot of centuries ahead of you."
"I live in the moment. Yesterday is gone. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?"
"Tomorrow will bring another tomorrow, and yet another." She hadn't forgotten her own whispered confession that she loved this man-made just moments after Himself had ripped Ivan's insides out.
Had she meant it? What of her staunch insistence they not begin a relationship?
"I love you so much."
This is what you've craved, Dez. Connection. Not the group of chatty hens who only want you in their club for what you can give them. You want this. And you should do as he insists: love for the moment, not the future.
"I love you, too, Ivan."
And he came inside her, his body tremoring and his arms shaking as he supported himself above her. Tension tightened his face, and then he gasped and surrendered to it all. His entire face smiled. Those whiskey eyes danced.
This expression Dez could look at every morning, night, and every moment in between. It felt right. She loved this vampire, who was also a witch. Who was also chained to Himself.
A kiss to the top of her breast and he delivered a teasing nip in its wake. "Duty calls."
"Off to pummel the evil and demented?"
Ivan rose from the bed and searched for his pants. "You know it." He flashed a fang her way. "Besides, the scent of you is so strong."
The glint of that sharp fang intrigued her, but Dez knew well to remain where she sat and not invite his hunger any more than her mere existence already did.