The harsh light of day. Or night, Myst mused. The harsh light of waking was upon her.

Instead of the shame and disgust she should be feeling, she was treated to big, warm hands massaging her back until she was a boneless heap of bliss. She moaned, her mind dimly registering that vampire lovers might be vastly misunderstood. Perhaps she was in the know and enjoying early-adapter status.

"I have to go meet with my brother for a couple of hours. Can you content yourself here?"

"Uh-huh," she mumbled.

"Don't leave."

Huh? She wasn't going anywhere. She was too at home and relaxed here.

He bent down to murmur in her ear. "I've left clothes laid out. Will you dress for me, milaya?" And then he disappeared.

Strangely lazy, it took her another hour before she finally got up. She raised an eyebrow at what he'd set out for her - a stiff satin bustier fringed with transparent lace that just covered her nipples, intricate garters, fishnet hose and thong - all in jet black. She shivered. General Wroth had a wicked streak.

He wanted her to dress for him, and she didn't have a problem with that - she was pleased that someone would finally enjoy her fabulous silks and lace. And it made a huge difference that he'd asked when he could have commanded. But as she soaked in a bath, she mused that she was still in a position where she had to depend that he would continue to show the same consideration. Which was intolerable for a creature like her.

She'd half-expected her sisters to have arrived already - Nïx often could find her - but knew if they hadn't come by now, she would have to win her freedom with her own tools and talents. He'd said he would return the chain when he was confident she would never leave. How hard would it be to act as though she wanted to stay forever?

She dried off, tilting her head at the lingerie laid out. Why not use seduction to let him think she desired him above all others for all time? Play at love and act at surrender. As she smoothed the hose up her legs, she wondered if deception had ever sounded so delicious.

She began trembling as she donned the bustier, and the material at the top skimmed over her hard nipples so sweetly. She was already wet with anticipation.

After dressing, she lay on the bed, fantasizing about him inside her as his big hands worked her body. Would he drink her? She pictured him driving into her from behind, the length of his body stretched over hers to take her neck as well.

Her fingers found their way down her belly and into her panties. He was supposed to be back soon, but did she really care if he caught her? She'd already done it for his pleasure, and what would he do if he found her like this and didn't like it - break up with her?

A stroke on her clitoris had her back arching. Had she ever been so wet? No, not until she'd impatiently waited in a vampire's lair in tight black satin to seduce a warlord.

Her eyes closed and her legs fell wide as she ran her finger lower. When she opened her eyes, half-lidded, she found Wroth staring at her from the foot of the bed.

"Couldn't wait?" His voice was husky, his eyes dark. He was already ripping off his clothes, his shaft bulging against the material of his pants.

She shook her head.

Wroth had known his Myst was a pagan, but she'd never truly looked it until he found her pleasuring herself in his bed in black hose, garters and satin, legs spread with abandon. Her glorious red hair haloed out along the pillow and her hand was in her panties delicately stroking her sex.

She hadn't stopped at his arrival.

"I couldn't have dreamed you'd be like this. I believe I'm dreaming now."

She arched her back.

"Were you thinking of me?" Say yes... He didn't think he'd ever wanted to hear anything so badly.

Her whiskey voice was as sexy as her body. "Yes, Wroth."

He groaned. "What were you thinking of?"

"Of you drinking me while you were inside me," she said, moaning the last words.

Craving his bite too? "A dream."

She licked her lips. "In your dream do you make me wait for you much longer?"

"You want this freely?" He reached to unbuckle his belt, surprised to find how difficult it had become. Finally, he just tore it apart. Her hips rolled in reaction.

"Yes."

"No games?"

"No," she panted, "just need you inside me."

"Your body wants to be fucked?"

She gasped, her fingers teasing quicker. "Yes."

"By me?"

"Yes," she moaned.

He'd anticipated it would take months of planning to wear her down, until she truly wanted him, and they wouldn't have to play at commands and power.

Yet here she was stroking herself in his bed as she awaited his return. In his bed, waiting. It was too impossible, and he grew suspicious. "Convince me."

Her gaze flickered over his face, her eyelids heavy as she slowly, sensuously drew her fingers away from herself. She rose, sauntered to the wall, then tugged aside the flimsy string of her wisp of underwear.

Without a word, she simply spread her legs and leaned forward until her forearms rested against the wall. When the position raised her ass and bared her lush sex, he rasped, "You make a compelling argument." He was overwhelmed by the sight of her flesh waiting to be filled and by the fact that she began this, had masturbated to thoughts of him fucking her...

He kicked his boots off, ripping his clothing away, then stood behind her. He slipped his thumb into her tightness, briefly closing his eyes to find her so luscious and slick. Her entire body was trembling, which affected him so much. With a groan he replaced his thumb with one, then two fingers. "In my dream I do fuck you. But I start slowly, feeding my cock into you inch by inch. When you're dripping wet and ready, I fuck you with all the strength in my body."

With a little cry, she bent down more, raising her ass up higher. "What do I do?" she breathed.

"You come again and again from no command, just from pleasure."

He spread her, grasped himself, then fought not to plunge into her when the head touched her dewy heat. He shuddered violently from the battle, but wouldn't reward this gift from her by hurting her tight little sheath.

Yet the head was barely inside her when lightning exploded outside - because she was already coming, clawing furrows into the wall, gasping, "Wroth, now...please!"

"I am..." he groaned, clutching her hips, straining his every muscle to enter her slowly, to make this good for her -

His eyes widened when he felt her claws sink into his ass to yank him into her.

"Hard," she growled in a throaty voice.

"Don't hurt," he choked out, then with an answering growl, he thrust into her, forcing his cock through the squeezing spasms of her orgasm as though through a tightened fist. Even when he was seated deeply, she continued to climax around him. He could have stilled and let her body milk him.

But he wanted to fuck her. To take her so fiercely she would forget other men. To brand her as his own. He clenched her hips, withdrew, then rocked into her, hitting the end of her sex.

"Yes!" she cried.

"Can you know what that does to me?" he rasped, grinding his hips, stirring her. She moaned, hanging on to the wall. "To see you finger yourself to thoughts of me?" He withdrew completely then fell into her with another brutal thrust.

"Ah Wroth...yes, oh, God..." She came again suddenly, the manor shaking from the lightning. "Drink," she sobbed to his disbelief. "Oh, God, please drink from me."

He ripped the lace to bare her breasts, then covered them with his hands, fingers pinching and tugging her nipples as he pulled her to his chest.

"You want my bite?"

"Yes," she moaned.

"As much as you want my cock?"

"Yes! Wroth, put everything in me, yes, yes, yes," she repeated, panting between her words, shoving and circling her hips back into him. His fangs pierced her skin just as he thrust.

She cupped his head to her neck hard so he wouldn't stop - then came again, moaning his name so that he felt her words as he bit her. He didn't stop, just snarled into her skin as he ejaculated, mindlessly grinding against her, hands squeezing her heavy breasts. Her blood scorched him inside as he pumped his come into her in wave after wave.

Afterward, when thought returned, he caught her up to his chest because she was unsteady, but then so was he. He withdrew slowly, then scooped her into his arms, crossing to the bed.

When he gazed down at her, he saw her eyes were silver and her lips were curling into a smile.

He stared, still disbelieving. "Like that, did you?"

She nodded.

"Want more?" he asked as he tossed her on the bed.

In answer, she went to her knees, pulled aside her hair and offered him the unbitten side of her neck.

His voice was ragged with lust. "That wasn't quite what I meant, but we can work something out..."

The more hours toward dawn that they spent licking, fucking and both of them biting, the more overwhelming the mind-boggling pleasure - the less he could believe that this was his Bride, happily - no, aggressively - partaking.

And at the end of the night, he stared down at her in puzzlement. He didn't know which facet of her he liked better. The siren in black satin that made his cock and fangs ache or this angel with her bright red hair spread across his pillow - who made his chest ache.

She brushed the backs of her fingers along his face. "Wroth, I want this to grow naturally between us without the chain," she whispered up to him. "Vow you'll give it back in two weeks time. Just give us a chance, give me a chance to want this freely."

He wanted to believe in her - and in himself, that he could convince her to stay. He'd already wanted to command her to close her eyes and open her palms, and then see her face once he'd poured the chain into them.

Two weeks to win her. "Yes, milaya, I vow it."

Nothing in his human life or his vampire existence had prepared him for living with a Valkyrie.

Myst had boundless energy, she was powerful, and she exuded an almost otherworldly sensuality that set his blood on fire. Each night he traced her to different locations to make love to her. He'd had her against the foot of a pyramid, gazed in awe as she rode him on a moonlit beach in Greece, licked her sex beneath a redwood until she begged for mercy...

Throughout those nights, once he and Myst had worked the edge off their need, they talked for hours and he learned more about her and her kind. He'd given her the cross she'd admired at Oblak, but when the jewels glinted in their room's gaslight, she'd seemed to go into a trance. Finally, he'd covered it, and once she'd shaken herself, she'd admitted, "We all inherited Freya's acquisitiveness. Shining things, jewels and gems...We can't tear our gaze away without training for years and sudden glittering is sometimes irresistible."

Wroth had inwardly cursed that she had this vulnerability. He'd thought the Valkyrie were an almost perfect creature - no need to eat, immortal, strengthening with age - but he'd since learned that they were one of the few species of the Lore that could die of sorrow. And if one was weakened the others suffered since they were all connected with a "collective" power.

He couldn't always be there to protect her. Though he'd tried to use the chain as little as possible, he'd whispered to her as she slept that she would no longer have these weaknesses.

Wroth would have been content to hear only about her, but she'd been surprisingly curious about his past. He found himself revealing things he never had to anyone, yet feeling unburdened from it.

He'd told her of the pain he and Murdoch had felt to return home and see their other six siblings and their father dying of plague. Myst's eyes had watered as he'd spoken of the gut-wrenching decision to make them drink. Then came the agonizing vigil as they wondered if their family would be reborn, any of them. In the end, they'd lost their father and sisters, but regained their two brothers.

The night he himself had "died" seemed to fascinate her, and she repeatedly asked him to tell her the story of how he'd made demands of Kristoff. She never failed to tell him how proud she was of him. That comment had made him feel particularly uneasy. These days there wasn't much he was proud about. He avoided Kristoff, telling him little when they did meet. He was coercing his Bride to stay with him, and he suspected that if, at the end of the two weeks, she wanted to leave him, he'd break his vow to her in a heartbeat's time.

He sought any hint that might tell him how she felt and what she might decide. At times he was optimistic. When they fought mock battles with a game based on military strategy, she seemed to enjoy herself - and to like the fact that he always beat her. She wasn't a strategist, she'd explained to him. She was "front-line badassness" but she appreciated his talent. One time she had stood and sidled over to straddle him, placing his hands on her breasts. As she slid down his shaft, she whispered in his ear, "My wise warlord. You make my toes curl you're so good." He'd shuddered violently and had to fight not to come in an instant.

In fact she seemed to delight in every reminder that he'd fought and warred. She'd admired his sword, eyes widening at the considerable weight of it, only to narrow on him and grow silver with want. Her eyes had only to flicker silver and he went hard as iron.

And last night, as they lay spent in bed, he'd finally asked her, "What do you find attractive about me?" That could possibly compete against a demigod with a "mind-shattering kiss."

Without hesitation, she answered, "Your scars."

His brows drew together in surprise. "What? Why?"

"They're evidence of the pain you've survived. Pain survived builds strength." She traced down his stomach. "This is the one that killed you?"

"Yes."

"Then this one I admire the most." She brushed her lips so tenderly over it. "It brought you to me."

But his contentment was never whole. He'd never been in love, didn't believe he'd even slept with the same woman twice, yet now he wanted everything from this pagan immortal, was sick with wanting her. He wanted to strip her soul bare and make her give all of herself, all of what she'd been in the beginning before time twisted her.

His dreams reminded him of her past, preventing him from falling for her completely. Though he'd thankfully never seen her making love to another - and for some reason, he believed he never would - he drove himself mad with the mere idea of the lovers she'd taken into her body. He made himself crazed wondering how he compared to them. Each wicked thing she did to him that had him staring at the ceiling in an agony of pleasure and shock had him wondering later where she'd learned it.

How many had she had? She was two thousand years old. One bedmate a year? Two a year? One lover a month...?

And how could he compete with gods for her? She was a creature so passionate and beautiful, it was clear she'd been made to be loved by them alone.

The dreams kept him from believing and falling into the life they could share - the life he wanted so badly he could taste it.

He dreaded sleep and took no succor from it, growing weary with each day though her blood built his muscle, making him physically stronger than he'd ever imagined. Each sunset, he treated her coldly, so she asked about his dreams. But he lied.

She would accept his reassurance, smiling over at him from her window seat. Her smile could bring down an army. Probably had.

How had he thought he was a match for it?

My apologies, Myst thought as she gazed down at Wroth, rolling her hips on him, but she was enjoying the hell out of her vampire.

His eyes were so fierce, his gorgeous, sculpted muscles rigid beneath her claws as she leaned forward to cup her breast to his mouth. He suckled and groaned around her nipple as he tensed to come, and when she exploded, he shot hotly inside her. She fell limp on top of him, loving it when he put his arms around her and clenched her into his chest as he shuddered for long moments afterward.

When he finally let her go with a kiss so he could dress and leave for Oblak, she said, "Okay. I'm down with being your dirty little secret out here - for now. But I can't just sit in this room for hours when you leave."

"What do you need, love?" he asked, piling her curls atop her head. He seemed fascinated by her hair, always touching it.

Wait, he'd called her love? Cool. "Do you know what an Xbox is? No? Well, your Bride has a teeny little addiction to it..."

She wrote down the model of the console and the games she wanted as he showered and dressed. Just before he traced, she took his hands and gazed up at him solemnly. "Bring this back and you might as well have slayed a dragon for me."

As she waited, she painted her toenails - Valkyrie loved painting their nails since it was the only way they could semi-permanently alter their appearance - and reflected on how easily she'd settled in here.

In fact, there were only three things that prevented her from being truly comfortable in this situation. The first? Though they traveled most nights, he wouldn't take her to meet his friends and family and wouldn't let her see hers either. He'd explained that he wanted her undivided attention for these two weeks.

She suspected he was waiting until their relationship was cemented, which he believed would be in three days - the end of what she called the two-week vampire demo. Had it resulted in a sale? She knew it would mean pariah-hood in the Lore and having to give up her family. She could just imagine bringing Wroth to the coven. Her sisters would thank her for the surprise then pounce on him, swords and claws flying with glee.

As twin sister to Furie, Cara alone would fight him to the death simply for what he was. And though Wroth was incredibly powerful, Cara was quick, with thousands of years more experience and the boiling hatred of a separated twin. The two of them together would be like Godzilla versus Mothra, or some serious epic shite.

Her second concern was her worry for him. He often traced to Oblak, and each time she wondered if he would face some faction of the Lore intent on killing him just for being a vampire. She believed him when he told her of Kristoff's agenda and saw no conflict of interest with her covens, so call her an awful person, but she'd turned informant, teaching him how to protect himself.

Her third beef was that each sunset when they woke he was unbearably surly and curt with her. She feared he'd seen memories of her flirting or even making love - though Nïx had once told her that recipients of visions never saw things they couldn't recover from and usually only witnessed major, life-changing events. He'd assured her again and again that it was nothing, but Myst had suspicions. Yet she could tolerate his moods because he spent the rest of the night treating her like a queen.

Just when her toenails had dried, he returned with the slayed dragon and its attendant games and set them at her feet. He looked at her with his brows drawn like he'd missed her, and her heart did funky twisty things in her chest. The impulse came to jump him, so she did.

Only after he'd squeezed her up in his arms did she realize she'd run to get within them.