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I guess I passed out. Because the next thing I knew was waking up in a strange bed, in a strange room, with a strange city view outside a small balcony. But the man standing in front of the window, leaning on the open French door, was familiar. Mircea’s dark hair was blowing in a slight breeze, the same one that was ruffling the thin silk of his dressing gown as he turned his head toward me.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did I. He just walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning to brush my sleep tumbled curls out of my face. “Are you cold?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t wearing anything under the comforter, but it was thick and warm except for my feet, which were sticking out of the covers. They were a little chilly, but also pink and whole and perfect, a gift from Mircea, I assumed. The rest of me felt pretty good, too; tired, but also warm and whole and clean and alive.
I decided I didn’t mind the temperature. It felt good to feel cold. It felt good to be able to feel anything.
Mircea must have thought so, too, because he pulled me in a little more, until he could rest his chin on the top of my head. I usually disliked that; there wasn’t enough hair up there to cushion the bone. But tonight . . . tonight I didn’t mind.
“Your mother was an extraordinary woman,” he murmured, after a moment.
“Hm.”
“Much like her daughter.”
I thought about that for a moment and then twisted my head around, so I could see his face. “I thought I was just . . . lucky.”
Mircea’s lips twisted. “I am not going to be allowed to forget that, am I?”
“Probably not.” At least not anytime soon.
He pulled me back against him and ran a hand through my pathetic hair. “I have never doubted you.”
“Mircea—”
“It’s true.”
“Then what was all that in the tunnel? What has been going on all week?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I thought maybe he wouldn’t. Master vampires weren’t in the habit of having to explain themselves, except possibly to their own masters. And Mircea had never had one of those.
“We talked about my parents,” he said, after a moment. “A few days ago. Do you remember?”
I nodded.
“Did I ever tell you what happened to them?”
“I know what happened to your dad,” I said. “Sort of.”
Mircea’s story about his father’s death and his own near miss changed depending on the circumstances. When I was a child, he’d made it sound almost comical: crazy nobles trying to bury him alive when—surprise—he’d been cursed with vampirism more than a week before. Later, I’d heard a less amusing version, including a late-night flight barely ahead of the torch-wielding mob who had killed his father and blinded him, before leaving him six feet under.
Mircea had crawled out of his own grave and gotten away, still half blind, his newly vampire body struggling to heal itself with no food, his mind reeling from shock and horror. He’d had no master to help him, no one to go to for advice or shelter. And yet, somehow, he’d survived.
“I know all I need to know,” I told him, tilting my head back to look up at him.
His hand tightened on my arm. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t think you do.”
He drew the covers around us, probably on my account. It takes a lot to get a master cold. And then he told me
the whole story. The one I doubted he’d told too many people before.
“In 1442, the pope decided to call for a new crusade against the Ottoman Turks, who had conquered much of the Middle East by that time, and were making inroads into Europe. It was felt that someone needed to bring them to heel, and the king of Poland was elected. He had dreams of glory, but at barely twenty, little battlefield experience. He relied on the guidance of a soldier of fortune named John Hunyadi.”
I didn’t have to ask if Hunyadi was the bad guy. Mircea’s tone was the same one a devout Catholic would use to say “Satan.” “I take it you didn’t think much of him.”
Mircea’s hand ran lightly up and down my arm, causing a wave of goose bumps to chase his fingers. “Hunyadi did have military skill,” he admitted grudgingly. “But his ambitions often overruled his judgment. Such was the case when he and Ladislas—the Polish king—met with my father on their way east. Napoleon famously said that God fights on the side with the largest battalions. That was centuries later, but it fairly sums up my father’s opinion. Which is why all his diplomatic skill could not keep the horror off his face when he saw their ‘army.’ ”
“It was that bad?”
