and magic and surrender.
Years ago, he made a bargain with the red power. To bring his children back to life, it had demanded magic—it devoured every kind of power. It wanted the magic of youth. The energy released in sex. It had demanded the power of other magical beings. In that decade, before he had been banished into imprisonment by Elizabeth, one of the vampire queens, he had drained the energy of some foolish angels and a few demons, and like a slave, he had turned that energy over and waited obediently for his dream to be realized.
What a damned fool he’d been.
He had quickly understood what the red power intended to do. It would always hold his children as a prize, as a lure to make him serve it. But it would never give him what it had promised.
But now he knew a way to take control of the red power. He could take Miranda’s magic and use it to first tempt the red power, then blackmail the red power into giving him what he longed for—his children.
He ached to see them. He yearned to hold them again.
But to claim her power, he had to bring three words to her lips: I love you. It would open her heart and break through her defenses. In that moment, he could take her magic force and make it his own.
This was more than just a physical seduction, more than a game. He had to break through to her heart.
Miranda kicked out wildly. “Y-you can force me to feel pleasure, but you will never seduce me!”
Zayan jerked his attention upward to see Lukos stroking his fingers along the neckline of her pelisse. Miranda opened her eyes wide. They locked with his. Hers were vivid blue—the brilliant shining blue of the waves that lapped at the southern shores of Italy.
She didn’t look frightened. She looked…hopeful. It shocked Zayan so much, he straightened from her wrist. Strangely, he could not draw away from her steady, determined gaze.
“You won’t seduce me,” she said again. “No matter what you do. But I want to touch you. I believe I can return your soul, Zayan.”
Did she really think she could save him, the naïve child? His answer was harsh. “You can’t, angel.”
“Let me touch you,” she said.
He had not expected this. She spoke to him as his wife used to. He was the general, but his wife had spoken sharply to him, had expected him to obey her command.
Zayan jerked back as the woman’s hand struck his chest, her fingers splayed wide. Heat surged through his pectorals, a hot spear through his muscles, a fiery grip around his heart. Her power held him transfixed. He couldn’t move.
By the gods, she was strong with magic.
Far more than he’d guessed.
His temperature soared; heat raced through his veins as though he were being consumed by fire. Could she make him burst into flame? Could her touch make him explode, burn to ash?
“Oh! Oh!” she cried. Her body was convulsing. She moaned. She moved her hips in the fierce bounce of a woman caught in the throes of a powerful orgasm. Her lips opened wide as she rode out the pleasure.
Zayan’s nostrils flared at the tang of her juices. He could scent her cunny becoming wet and creamy. Lukos could scent her, too, he knew. Lukos could shift shape and become a wolf, which made the demon even more primal about sex than Zayan was.
“What in hell is she?” Lukos growled.
Still enduring the blasting heat, Zayan could barely speak. “Not a demon,” he managed. “Not a vampire.” He drew in a deep breath as the heat began to ebb. He wasn’t going to go up in a ball of flame. “An avenging angel?” But he didn’t think so.
Miss Miranda slumped back against the seat. Her chest rose and fell. Zayan saw the horror in her eyes. The stark fear. She stared down at her own shaking hands.
She didn’t understand her own power. He read it in her thoughts before her intense emotions became a blur that he couldn’t understand. He’d never had that happen before. The only minds that could shutter themselves from him were those of vampire queens, and demons who had been Lucifer’s apprentices. But he had glimpsed the most powerful emotion Miranda felt—she was afraid of herself.
You don’t know what you are, do you? he asked softly in her thoughts. He tried to shield them from Lukos but doubted he was successful. Zayan was the older vampire—and stronger, he believed. But not quite strong enough.
Helplessly, Miranda looked at him. “It’s never felt like that before. That’s never…never happened. I don’t know if I did anything.”
Sweetheart…Zayan had only ever spoken so softly and gently to his children. What exactly were you trying to do? You can’t believe your touch could return my soul.
Miranda couldn’t let them find out the truth. “I-I thought you could be saved,” she lied, “by a good soul.”
Lukos chuckled. “You thought what? The touch of a virtuous woman would drive his demons out?”
Mute, Miranda nodded her head. She prayed they thought she was just some impetuous do-gooder. What a fool she’d been to reveal herself. But she’d thought it would work. She had saved Aunt Eugenia, her brother, Simon, her sister-in-law, Caroline, the young boy in the park, and others over the last twelve years. She’d thought she could save a vampire.
Miranda rubbed her hand. It felt as though it had been burnt. She’d felt the heat and even thought it had gone into the vampire. It had seemed to bounce back into her.
That scorching heat had turned into desire—desire and arousal she didn’t want and couldn’t control. It had grown so strong. She’d ached and throbbed, and had needed to rub between her thighs. She had squeezed them together, unable to fight the yearning. Then she’d burst—she couldn’t explain it any other way.
She hugged herself. That explosive feeling must be what drove her brother and his new wife to their bedroom so often and was responsible for those agonized moans Caroline made that could be heard through the bedchamber walls.
It had to be. Her pleasure had been so intense she’d feared her heart might stop, or burst.
Her cheeks still burned. She couldn’t catch her breath.
Miranda stared at Zayan. He smiled at her. He still had fangs. So it hadn’t worked. And she didn’t believe she had returned his soul.
Why not? What had gone wrong?
Was it because he was not dead but undead?
She remembered the terror she’d felt when Simon had drowned, when she had been eleven and he had been thirteen. It had been like her heart had stopped along with his. She’d been almost physically sick, her stomach leaping upward, bile in her throat. Tears had been streaming down her face. She’d begged him to live. She’d touched his heart. Then he’d coughed and sputtered and had thrown up a lot of horrid, slimy water.
It had been the same when she had saved Aunt Eugenia—she had desperately wanted her aunt to be alive again. With her parents, she’d never had the chance. Her mother had died when she was very young; her father just over three years ago, but on shipboard while
