Neither was my bed.
Now, that was curious.
I opened my eyes as I pressed myself up from the chilly stone. I was completely naked. Except for the locket, which hung against my heart. But it was no longer crusted with age and grime. It was shining and perfect, the brilliant gold glinting in the deep blue stillness of early morning.
I was frantic for a moment, my arms crossed over my chest, my eyes searching the strangely quiet woods around me. The stone slab was in a foggy clearing surrounded by a ghostly ring of birch trees. A few birds began to sing, breaking the silence. But their songs were somehow wrong.
Then I laughed to myself.
I was dreaming, of course.
Just another one of my crazy lucid dreams.
I’d had realistic, colorful, full-sensory dreams my entire life, and I was quite accustomed to this moment. In my dreams, I left behind the self-doubt and worry that had dogged me for the past few years. I was stripped down to the essential Tish—the me I wanted to be. I reveled in the lack of consequences. In my dreams, I was free. And yes, frequently naked.
No big deal. I could do anything I wanted to.
Time to explore the world.
After hopping off the stone, I dusted off my dream-butt. I spun slowly in a circle, looking for a path to follow, some sign of where the dream would lead.
I was startled when I saw him there, leaning against a birch tree. Seconds before, I was sure I was alone, and then he appeared as if by magic.
It was the man from the locket. He had the same insolent, daredevil, knowing smile, the same unruly hair. One tall black boot was kicked up against the tree behind him, and his arms were crossed over his chest, stretching the shoulders of his black tailcoat.
“You’re here,” he said simply.
“Do I know you?” I asked, which came out more haughtily than I had intended.
“You will,” he answered, kicking off the tree and walking toward me. “After all, you’re wearing my locket. And I’ve been waiting for you.”
His accent was clipped and British, just as I would have expected.
“I imagined you with more clothes,” he said.
“And I imagined that you ended at the collarbone,” I said.
He threw back his head and laughed, a laugh so full of fierce joy that it was unsettling. No one laughed like that in the real world. They were too self-conscious of what people would say. I hadn’t laughed that way in a long, long time.
“Come along, then, love, and let’s get you covered,” he said, and he began to unbutton his coat.
“I don’t normally talk to strangers,” I said, arms crossed.
“And I don’t normally escort naked hoydens about the countryside,” he said. “But if you stand around here uncovered for too long, something even more dangerous than me is going to find you. Besides, I can’t take you home like this. It has to be respectable.”
“What has to be respectable? And where do you think you’re taking me?” I asked, but he was already shrugging out of his coat and holding it out to me.
“Go on,” he said. Then he grinned like a wolf, showing his teeth. “It won’t bite.”
I wasn’t too worried about being naked, but if he wanted me to wear his coat, that was fine. The air was chill and clammy, raising gooseflesh on my arms. I shrugged into the coat, and he buttoned it up to my neck. As he twisted the top button right under my chin, our eyes met, and I had to blush and look down. Too intense, his gaze. He was just a little taller than I, rangy but muscled, as I could see through the open neck of his shirt.
I wasn’t used to things tight around my neck, and I struggled to unbutton the top button.
“Mustn’t,” he said, his glove catching my hand. “That’s the most important one.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I growled as he swatted my hand again. “What is this—Victorian England? No one buttons anything up to the neck, unless it’s snowing,” I complained. But I left the button alone.
“Victorian England?” he said. “Never heard of it. But showing your neck is dangerous here. Showing any skin, really. If it were anyone but me, you’d most likely be dead.”
He held out his arm, and for lack of options, I took it. His black coat was worn but thick and beautiful, fitted and darted in a way that made me feel curvy and pretty, even with nothing else on. His own shirt fluttered in the breeze, the scarlet waistcoat enhancing the paleness of his skin.
As we began to walk, I breathed in the scent of his coat. It smelled lovely, like berries and wine and something sharp and green. I got a little light-headed, drawing in the aroma.
He was watching me, and he chuckled. “Do you know how a man tames a wolf?” he asked me.
“No,” I said.
“You get some clothing you’ve been wearing for a while, and you toss it in with her. In the cage or the cavern, where she sleeps. That first one, she rips up, shreds it to nothing. The second one, she just mouths it a bit, gets a taste. Inhales, like you’re doing there. The third bit of clothing, she starts dragging it around, loving on it, sleeping with it. And then you’ve got her under your spell. She’s got the scent of you, wants to keep it around. She’ll follow you anywhere.”
“Are you calling me a wolf?” I asked.
“Are you calling me a man?” he said.
“What else would you be?”
He shot me a wicked grin full of pointy teeth. I started and then shook it off.
“I’m not scared,” I said. “It’s my dream. Nothing can harm me.”
“A dream?” he said, one arched eyebrow raised. “You think this is a dream?”
“I know it is,” I said coolly.
He grinned. “Sweetheart, you couldn’t conjure me if you tried.”
We glared at each other then, a battle of wills.
Motion caught my eye, and I looked down to see a small brown rabbit tenderly nosing out from the wood. It hopped and halted, hopped and halted, almost to us.
“Did you dream that?” he said.
“The rabbit? Sure, I suppose I did,” I said. “He’s a cutie. Probably represents my kindness. Or innocence. Something like that.”
The rabbit sniffed my foot, nose twitching, eyes bright. I smiled.
And then it bit me, sinking fangs into my bare ankle.
I shrieked and, without thinking, kicked it. It shrieked, too, tumbling head over fluffy white tail through the air and landing with a thump in the grass. When it finally righted itself, it turned to hiss at me before darting back into the underbrush.
Hmm. That was different.
I looked down. My ankle was bleeding from two puncture wounds. And it hurt. Bad.
“You’ll have to watch out for that one now,” the man said with another sly grin. “He’s got a taste for you.”
“Still not scared,” I said. “Just a bunny, fangs or not. It’s all in my head.”
“He’s got friends,” the man said. “And they’ll be back, and they all have fangs. And you’re bleeding. If you think you’re strong enough to fight off a warren of bludbunnies, I assure you that you’re wrong. You’d better come with me. Now.”
Click through for an exclusive sneak peek at the next sexy romance in the BLUD series by Delilah S. Dawson
WICKED AS SHE WANTS
Available from Pocket Books Spring 2013
I don’t know which called to me more, his music or his blood. Trapped in darkness, weak to the point of death, I woke only to suck his soul dry until the notes and droplets merged in my veins. Whoever he was, he was my subject, my inferior, my prey, and his life was my due. What’s the point of being a princess if you can’t kill your subjects?
His blood was spiced with liquor; I could tell that much. And as I listened, stilling my breathing and willing my heart to pump again, I realized that I didn’t know the song he was playing.
It wasn’t any of the Freesian lullabies from my childhood, nor was it anything that had been popular at court. I could even pick out the sound of his fingertips stroking the keys without the telltale muting of suede gloves. Peculiar. And no wonder I could smell him, whoever he was, if he wasn’t protecting his delicious skin from the world. From me.
He stopped playing and sighed, and my instincts took over. The attempt to pounce was painfully foiled by . . . something. Leather. I was trapped, tucked into a ball, boxed and balanced on my bustled bum like a snail. When he started playing again, my hand stole sideways toward the musty leather. With one wicked claw, I began to carve a way out.
The tiniest sliver of light stole in, orange and murky. Fresh air hit my face, and with it, his scent. It took every ounce of well-bred patience for me to remain silent and still and not fumble and flounder out of whatever held me bound like a kraken from the deep. My mother’s voice rang in my mind, her queenly tone unmistakable.
Silence. Cunning. Quickness. That is how the enemy falls, princess. You are the predator’s predator, the Bludman’s Bludman. The queen of the beasts. Now kill him. Slowly.
My fingernails had grown overlong and sharper than was fashionable in court, and the rest of the leather fell away in one long curve. I lifted the flap with one hand and dared to peek out.
The room was dim and mostly empty, with a high ceiling and wooden floors. Spindly chairs perched on round tables. Across the room, lit by one orange gas spotlight, was a stage, and on that stage was a harpsichord, and playing that harpsichord was my lunch.
Seeing him there, the princess receded and the animal took over. Body crouched and fingers curled, I sidled out through my hole, my eyes glued to my prey. He didn’t notice the creature hunting him from the shadows. His eyes were closed, and he was singing something plaintive, something about someone named Jude. I wasn’t Jude. So that didn’t matter.
The refined part of my brain barely registered that I was dressed in high-heeled boots and swishing taffeta. I knew well enough how to stalk in my best clothes, and had been doing so since my days in a linen pinafore and ermine ruff. As I slipped into the shadows along the wall and glided toward the stage, hunger pounded in time with my heartbeat and his slow keystrokes. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I had last eaten. And maybe it had. Never had I been so empty. So drained.
I made it across the room without detection. He continued moaning about Jude in a husky voice so sad that it moved even the animal in me. I stopped to consider him from behind deep red velvet curtains that had definitely seen better days. But I didn’t see a man. Not yet. Just food. And in that sense, he had all but arrayed himself on a platter, walking around with his shirt open, boots off, and gloves nowhere to be seen. Exposed and reeking of alcohol, he was an easy target.
He broke off from his song and reached for a green bottle, tipping it to lips flushed pink with blood and feeling. I watched his neck thrown back, Adam’s apple bobbing, and a deafening roar overtook me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I was across the stage and on him in a heartbeat.
Tiny as I am, the momentum from my attack knocked him backward off the bench. The bottle skittered across the floor, and he made a pathetically clumsy grab for it. I had one hand tangled in his long hair, the other pinning down his chest, long talons prickling into his flesh and drawing pinpoints of delicious blood to pepper the air. I took a deep breath, savoring it. The kill was sure. I smiled, displaying pointy teeth.
His red-rimmed eyes met mine in understanding, and he smiled back, a feral glint surprising me. Something smashed into my head, and he rolled me over and lurched backward with a laugh. Red liquid streamed through my hair and down my face, and I hissed and shook shards of green glass from my shoulders. The uppity little bastard had hit me with his bottle. If I hadn’t already had plans to kill him, I now had just cause.
As I circled him, I wiped the stinging wine from my eyes with the back of my hand. I was dizzy with hunger, almost woozy, and he took advantage of my delicate condition to leap forward and slice my forearm with the jagged ends of his blasted bottle. I hissed again and went for his throat, but at the last minute something stopped me short. He didn’t smell so good, not any more.
The beast within receded, and my posture straightened. My arms swung, useless, at my sides. His finger was in his mouth, and when he pulled it out with a dramatic pop, his lips were stained red with my blood. Now he just smelled more like me. And less like food.
“Not today, Josephine,” he said with a cocky grin.
I struggled to stand tall and not wobble. Now that he had swallowed my blood, the beast wasn’t controlling me, and there was nothing holding me up. I was empty as a cloud, light as a snowflake, beyond hunger. My heart was barely beating. And I felt more than a little dizzy.
“Oh my,” I said, one hand to my dripping hair. “I do believe I might swoon. And you’ve ruined my dress as well. Your lord is going to simply draw and quarter you.”
I did swoon then. As the world went black, I felt his hands catching me, his delicious—if no longer maddening—blood pumping millimeters away from my own.
“Easy, little girl,” he said. I smelled fumes and sadness on him and something else, something deep and musky and not quite right.
I was delirious as he gently helped me fall to the ground. I could barely mumble, “I’m not a little girl, and you’re the most badly behaved serf I’ve ever met.”
I fell away, and his laughter and music followed me into my dreams.
* * *
Before my eyes were open, before I was actually awake, I was drinking. Four great gulps and I gasped for more. I clawed at the little glass tube held to my mouth and flung it to the ground.
“More,” I rasped. “I demand more.”
“How long have you been hiding in that old suitcase?” someone asked.
I opened my eyes, suddenly aware of the unladylike nature of my predicament. A man’s arm was around my shoulders, his ungloved human hand holding another vial to my lips as I drank the blood as greedily as a child with holiday sweets. My hair had fallen into disarray, and some of the straggling locks around my face were tinted red with what smelled like old wine. I slapped the vial to the ground—after I’d finished the last drop, of course.
“You,” I said. My eyes narrowed, focused on him. I’d never seen so much exposed skin on a serf who wasn’t being offered as a meal. His eyes were bright blue, regarding me with curiosity and a noticeable absence of fear and respect.
“What did you do to me, offal?”
He chuckled and grinned. He had dimples. “I’m pretty sure I saved your life, right after you attacked me. I don’t hold it against you, though. Looks like you were drained.”
“Drained?”
“You can’t even stand, little girl.”
“Let us understand each other,” I said, enunciating every word. “I am not little, and I am not a girl. I am twenty-seven years old, and I am a princess. And you, whoever you are, are my subject. You owe me obeisance, fealty, and blood.”
“Come and get it, then,” he said with unexpected good humor. He held up a sparkling vial, the amber light glinting off the glass.
“You know very well I cannot,” I spat, struggling for control. I had never been so helpless, and it was untenable. Once I was strong again, he was going to pay.
“Then, we’ll have to strike a bargain, won’t we?”
“I don’t bargain.”
“Then, good luck.”
He stood and began walking back to his harpsichord. Long tangled copper hair rippled over his stained white shirt, and I pledged that I would one day make a mop out of it. Rage consumed me. Rage, and hunger.
“Wait,” I gasped, my black hands scrabbling against the ground. I heard my long white talons scritching over the wood, their sharp ends useless against the effects of being drained. He had to be right; only draining
could reduce me to mewling like a kitten. To begging and desperation.
“Hmm?” he asked genially, turning around to grin at me again with those hateful dimples.
“Let’s make a bargain.”
“I knew you’d see it my way,” he said. He walked back to me, pulling another vial from his shirt pocket. He sat down cross-legged, just out of reach, and began flipping it over his knuckles. It reminded me of a wolfhound my father used to have, the way she would gulp under her jeweled collar when he forced her to balance a bone on her nose until he gave her the signal to eat it. I gulped, too.
“First of all, who are you really?” he asked.
I closed my eyes, fighting for control of my emotions. I had never begged before, never been in any position that didn’t involve absolute power. I had definitely never been helpless at the bare feet of a Pinky, a serf, a paltry human. My hands made fists in the wine-colored taffeta of my gown, the talons piercing the ruffles and digging painfully into my palms.
“I am the second princess of Freesia. My name is Ahnastasia Medevna Krovnova. My father is the Blud Tsar of Freesia, and we reside in the Snow Palace of Muscovy.”
At mention of my name, his face underwent a strange ripple of emotions, from recognition to understanding to what appeared to be pity.
“Bad news, princess,” he said. “I follow the papers. You were declared dead four years ago.”
He cocked his head at me, squinting his eyes as he looked me up and down. I was accustomed to seeing awe, fear, and a polite admiration in a Bludman’s eyes. I had never had a human look so brazenly into my face, seeming to reach down into my soul and question what was found there. But this man did just that. And the answering look on his face showed pity. I flinched under his scrutiny.
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” I faltered, and closed my eyes. “I need more blood,” I whispered. “Please.”
With another look of pity, he uncorked the vial and held me up just enough for me to sip it. I allowed him to touch me, and gulped the blood as politely as possible. I emptied the vial and licked the lip of the glass clean.