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The fake Jean-Pierre stood next to her. She turned toward him and backed up. The image of her warrior, her man, wavered. The Upper ascender shook himself like a dog emerging from water.
“Well, that was fun, but the security alarm was so loud. Ouch. My ears hurt.” He laughed.
She took another step back.
The Upper ascender was exactly as both Jean-Pierre and Marguerite had described him: long curly dark hair, a narrow nose, quite handsome, full, sensual lips, deep brown eyes, almost black. He wore very snug pants and she kept her gaze away from what he must be intent on displaying. She felt her cheeks grow warm.
So how exactly was she supposed to escape a vampire with Third or Fourth powers?
The man’s gaze drifted down her face, her throat, her br**sts, all the way down then back up. “I like that you’re tall.”
She swallowed hard and gathered what remained of her courage. She lifted her chin. “I know of you, but we haven’t met. I’m Fiona Gaines, taken from Boston in the late 1800s. And you are?”
“Casimir.” His smile was slow, lascivious. “Eastern Europe, from sometime in the middle of, oh, the third millennium BC, I guess. Yes I think that’s right. Time takes on such a different meaning as the years wear on. They call it ‘millennial adjustment.’” He still smiled and for good measure his tongue made an appearance, rubbing back and forth over his lower lip.
Jean-Pierre would have gone ballistic at the sight of Casimir’s smile alone. His tongue? A declaration of war.
He walked in a circle around her, a very slow circle until he faced her. He hooked his thumb in his pants, which of course drew her gaze right where he wanted it. She looked away. The man was aroused.
“How sweet,” he crooned as he circled once more. “You’re actually blushing. I think that’s adorable.”
When he was behind her, the hairs on the nape of her neck rose once more. She felt the urge to run. She would have bolted but suddenly he took hold of her arms and she couldn’t move. The snakes in the pit of her stomach began to writhe. Her heart pumped hard and she had to part her lips to breathe.
“I would never hurt you, Fiona of Boston. Really.” But he laughed deep into the well of his throat. “I feel you trembling. So frightened. I confess, it’s an elixir.” He breathed in, a slow hissing sound, close to her neck.
She felt his mind against her mind. I have known obsidian flames before. Your kind is rare, very rare, and quite unpredictable. I can feel the power inside you, very deep, and building. I’d like to be inside all that power. Can you feel your power building?
No. And that was the truth.
Interesting. Aloud, he said, “But then, this is all very new to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” So the man liked to chitchat before he slit her throat or whatever it was he had planned for her.
Fiona took deep breaths and tried to still the slamming of her heart. She couldn’t believe this had happened to her again, that she was once more in the power of a man. But no ordinary man. An Upper ascender.
What the hell was she supposed to do now? She didn’t have power like Alison, certainly not like Endelle. She couldn’t throw a hand-blast and hope to drop the man to the floor. Her folding skills were nominal. So exactly how was she supposed to defend herself?
She could channel the powers of others, but whose power in this situation? She needed outside help. She really did, some power she could channel.
“So where exactly is this place?” she asked, thinking she would be wise to gather information.
“Las Vegas Two, beneath one of my favorite theaters. Do you like it? I had it carved out for my own personal use.” She glanced at a long slab of dark granite supported by a massive boulder. An altar? She shivered.
“Come out, Rith.”
Fiona grew very still at the mention of Rith’s name. She glanced around and there he was. The man she had been hunting for so long suddenly emerged from between an almost invisible breach in the cavern wall. He was followed by—oh, God—two pretty-boys, and they were all focused on her.
She had never seen a death vampire this close before.
The two looked almost identical: porcelain skin with a bluish cast, long wavy black hair, dark eyes, and so much beauty. Her heart began to feel tremendous ease and well-being as she looked at them.
Enthrallment.
The specialty of death vampires.
She closed her eyes and fought the strange pulsing sense of peace that flowed over her, that made her legs and arms feel limp and useless, that spilled euphoria over her mind.
She drew upon her new power, reaching deep into the gold stream of obsidian flame. The power flowed up and up, covering her, flooding her thoughts, pushing all that false ease out of her head. She opened her eyes and the death vampires were … just men.
Very nice, Casimir sent. “I’m impressed.” He released her arms and moved to stand beside Rith.
Fiona settled her gaze on the man who had been her captor for so many decades, who had essentially killed hundreds of women to acquire dying blood. She forgot about Casimir and about the death vampires, even though the latter moved to create a semicircle around her, one on each side. All she could see was Rith, and the long list of women who had died in his Burma blood slave facility.
She felt her power begin to build deep within, a faint rumbling in her soul. She wanted this man dead more than anything in the world. She wanted him to pay for what he’d done and she wanted him incapable of enslaving any more women.
His eyes flared and he took a step back.
“Are you afraid of obsidian flame?” Casimir asked. “You needn’t be. She’s young in her power. She doesn’t yet know what she can do. She may never know. It happens with this particular variety.”
“She’s glowing.”
“Yes, she is.”
Fiona hardly heard this exchange. All she could think was that Rith was here and if she could just channel the right kind of power, she could take him down right now.
Her mind flew, picking up ideas and casting them aside. Her instincts spread to encompass all four vampires. She couldn’t physically overpower any of them; nor did she have the power to blast her way out. She couldn’t fold out of the cavern and, most important, she knew she would be unable to contact Jean-Pierre or Seriffe or even Endelle—she could sense the shield that Casimir had placed around this location.
But as her intention of doing harm to Rith became more and more focused, her power sharpened and she knew there was one entity she could contact, nothing could prevent her, not Casimir’s Fourth ability, nothing.
