With the speed of a striking snake, his hand curled around her forearm and he dragged her closer.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice gruff.

“Please, don’t.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. If he hadn’t been a vampire, she might have thought he was praying. More likely, he was saying grace, she thought with morbid humor.

She glanced around the cell again, looking for something she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing save for a dim lightbulb that hung from a knotted cord outside the cell.

And then he was looking at her through those hellish red eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and folding her into his embrace, he pulled her shirt collar aside and bent his head to her neck.

Kay shuddered when she felt the sharp prick of his fangs against her skin. It was useless to fight, she knew. He was larger, stronger, deadly, but her instinct for survival quickly took over. She pulled his hair and scratched his face. Her nails left bloody furrows down his pale cheeks. She sank her teeth into his arm, and lashed out with her feet. All to no avail. It was like trying to punch her way through a brick wall.

Winded from her struggles, growing weak from the loss of blood, she closed her eyes and waited for death. And then a strange thing happened. As soon as she stopped fighting him, her fear slipped away. There was no pain as he drank from her, only a sense of pleasure that was oddly sensual.

It was her last thought before she drifted away into oblivion.

Gideon gazed at the woman in his arms. She was lovely. Her hair, Indian straight and black, fell past her shoulders, her inky lashes were thick and long. Her complexion was pale now, but her cheeks had been rosy before he drank from her, her skin the color of pale copper. Her eyes were a warm golden brown. She had been right about one thing: He hadn’t liked the taste of her blood. It was strong, bitter. Had he not needed nourishment so badly, he would have spit it out after the first swallow. Had it not been for the sour taste, he would have drained her dry; instead, he had taken only enough to take the edge off his hunger.

He eased her down onto the floor, oddly reluctant to let her go.

Standing, he paced the narrow cell from one end to the other. He had been a vampire for three hundred and sixty years. Wasted years, he thought, looking back through the corridors of time. True, he had traveled the world many times over, seen countries and kings rise and fall, but what had he ever accomplished? Nothing. Lisiana had bequeathed him a long life, but she had robbed him of the chance to have a home and a family. Tied to no one, he had lived like a vagabond, always on the move, drifting through the centuries, leaving no mark of his passing.

Of course, he’d had little incentive. In the beginning, hunger overrode every other desire, every other need. For a time, he had indulged his every whim. He had taken what he wanted, heedless of the consequences to others. He wasn’t particularly proud of his behavior back then, but being a vampire had put him outside the law. Clothing and carriages, horses and homes, gold and wine and women. He had used his preternatural power to take them all, and blamed Lisiana. She had stolen much more than that from him. Didn’t he deserve to get even?

Eventually, he grew weary of such a life. Without realizing it, he had accumulated a good amount of money, which had enabled him to buy lairs in London and Paris, in Madrid and Portugal.

And then he had come to the New World. And ended up here, in what was, for all intents and purposes, a prison. Considering how he had spent his existence, perhaps it was where he belonged.

Swearing under his breath, he shook off his maudlin thoughts.

He paced back and forth, never tiring, until he sensed the sun’s rising, and then he stretched out on the floor and closed his eyes.

Once, he had dreaded the beginning of each new day, hated the darkness that dragged him down into nothingness. But that was before Verah had trapped him. Where he had once dreaded the darkness, he now welcomed it as his only escape from reality.

* * *

Chapter 5

Verah stood outside the cell, her brow furrowing as she stared at the captives sleeping on the floor. The vampire had one arm around the girl’s waist, almost as if he was trying to protect her.

The girl had been here for the last two days and nights. Verah tapped her fingertips against her lips. She had thought to find the female dead by now, since Gideon had not fed in quite some time.

Verah glanced at the goblet in her hand. She rarely bled the vampire during the day, mainly because he was trapped in sleep and therefore immune to the pain and humiliation. Where was the fun in that? But she had just received a rush order from an old friend.

A wave of her hand unlocked the cell and she stepped inside, her skirts rustling over the cement. She never entered the cell at night. Weak or not, shackled or not, he was still a vampire. Only a fool would underestimate him. And she was not a fool.

Since he wore only enough to cover his loins, it was easy to find a place to bleed him. Chanting softly, she made a quick incision in his thigh. Dark red blood flowed from the cut into the goblet.

She stood when the goblet was full. There was no need to bandage the wound. Vampires healed quickly from all but the most severe wounds. Even in his weakened condition, the cut in his thigh was already little more than a faint pink line. It would be gone before she left the basement.

It wasn’t until she started toward the door that she noticed the female was awake and watching her, a look of horror on her face.

“Do not bother to ask for your freedom,” Verah said before the girl could speak. “You will never see daylight again.”

With that, Verah stepped out of the cell, locked the door behind her, and left the basement.

Kay stared after the fair-haired woman who had so casually sliced into the vampire’s leg and drained his blood. What did she do with it? Surely she didn’t drink it. The mere idea made Kay gag. Perhaps she used it in casting spells.

Kay glanced at the vampire. His arm was curled around her waist, trapping her in place. Asleep, he didn’t look so frightening. His features were strong and masculine; some might even think him handsome. His cheeks, so pale when she had first seen him, had a hint of color this morning, no doubt due to the blood he had taken from her. She noticed that the wound in his thigh had already healed, leaving no trace of a scar.

She had never seen a vampire before. She had heard of them, read about them, but she hadn’t really believed they existed. Kay lifted a hand to her neck. She knew differently now.

Almost as frightening as the realization that vampires existed was her certainty that the fair-haired woman was a witch, and a black witch at that. Unlike white witches, black witches were evil creatures who drew their power from the pain and fear of others.

It took considerable effort to lift the vampire’s arm so she could slip away. Rising, she noticed the dark brown splotches on the cement. Dried blood, she thought, grimacing. Would her life’s blood be the next to stain the floor?

Kay straightened her clothing, ran a hand through her hair. She was hungry and thirsty. And more frightened than she cared to admit.

With nothing to occupy her time, the hours ahead seemed endless. She slept and woke and slept again, her dreams filled with eyes that blazed red as hellfire in the gloomy cell.

When next she woke, those eyes, calm and gray now, were watching her.

Gideon sat up, bracing his back against the wall. He scowled when he caught Verah’s scent. “She was here?”

“The witch?”

“You know what she is?”

Kay nodded. “She bled you while you slept.”

“She does that from time to time.”

Sitting up, Kay scooted to the far side of the cell. “What does she use it for?”

“She drinks it. It keeps her young and vibrant.”

“Really? Couldn’t she just cast some kind of illusion and get the same effect? It would be a lot easier, and a whole lot less disgusting than drinking blood.”

“An illusion only works on the outside. My blood not only keeps her looking young, it gives her the inner strength and vitality of youth.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. And what she doesn’t use, she sells to others, claiming it has magical healing properties.”

“Does it?”

“I don’t know if works for others. It certainly works for her.”

Kay frowned as her stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in days. “I don’t suppose she’s going to feed me?”

“Probably not. She’s never bothered to feed any of the others.”

“The others … how long … ?” She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “How long did they last?”

“A few days, perhaps a week, depending on how often the witch steals my blood, and how much she takes.”

Feeling suddenly cold all over, Kay rubbed her hands up and down her arms. A few more days, perhaps a week.

“I’m sorry,” Gideon said quietly.

“It’s not your fault.”

He frowned at her.

She made a vague gesture with her hand. “You’re a vampire. You’re only doing what comes naturally.”

He stared at her a moment, and then he grinned. “You are a most unusual woman, Kiya Marie Alissano.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I’m a vampire,” he answered, as if that explained everything.

“Most people call me Kay.”

“Do they? I think I prefer Kiya.”

She shrugged. What difference did it make what he called her? “Do you have a name?”

“Gideon Marquet.”

“Have you been a vampire very long?”

“A few hundred years. How did you wind up here?” She wasn’t like any of the other women the witch had brought him. The others had all been helpless, poor, down on their luck. Mostly women who would not be missed. Judging from this girl’s appearance—well-kept hair and nails, designer clothes—she came from a different class of people. Someone, somewhere, would be looking for her, though they would never find her, living or dead.