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Vlad kept his distance fro theled about by young tour guides He slipped into the Anatolian exhibit, which was housed in a roolass case Me into his mind, into his soul, but he drove thee it onto Elisabeta&039;s forefinger, the only one it ca He remembered hoithin an hour, she&039;d wound it around with twine, toit on herand powerful on her small, delicate hand It seemed to denote his claim to her It seemed to mark her as his own
"Sir? Excuse me, sir?" a woman asked
Vlad blinked the memories away and turned to face the uniformed woman who had approached him He hadn&039;t even been aware of her presence, much less of howat the ring
"Thesir You&039;ll have to leave now"
"Ahh Yes, of course"
She left hi It was the one He&039;d found it at last And yes, he would leave thefrom him
He closed his eyes, turned and left the museuht, he sensed so he had not expected
"Te the air, feeling for her energy, certain she was close
And she was He began to , drawn by the feel of her Like following the trail left by a coht, the sparkling energy that was hers alone
He wouldn&039;t get too close He couldn&039;t, not with-out running the risk of her knowing In all these years, all this time, he hadn&039;t come close to her, despite the te as he&039;d kept his distance, Elisabeta had slept She&039;d been dormant, deep inside Tempest Somewhere He knew she hadn&039;t left this plane She hadn&039;t died or moved on She was still there He felt her there But she hadn&039;t stirred
As long as he stayed away froht, she wouldn&039;t It was easier on Beta that way, or he hoped it was Let her rest and bide her ti out for both of the, he almost didn&039;t dare to hope there could be a chance Yet he couldn&039;t help but hope
So he followed her trail as her presence hummed in his blood, stroked his senses like a bow over the strings of a violin, until his longing for her vibrated into a pure, de tone It was more powerful now, he realized as he drew closer, than it had been before Even harder to resist, perhaps because he was allowing himself to move closer to her than he had in sixteen years It drew him, drove hi up at the room where every sense told him she was
God, it was all he could do not to clio to her
Always before, he&039;d been prepared to resist his own urges Always before, he&039;d had tiy But this had been entirely unexpected He hadn&039;t co His plans beyond that were uncertain Without the scroll, the ring was useless
Why was Te, as well? Why? How could she know?
He couldn&039;t let her obtain it, if that was her goal For her to possess it would be far too dangerous
As he stood there, staring up at the roo and gazed out into the night
He couldn&039;t take his eyes from her And his preternatural vision didn&039;t fail hied to drink in every detail of her face in a way he hadn&039;t been close enough to do in far, far too long
The blush of youth had faded fro In its place were the angles of a female in the prime of her life Her face was thinner, her eyes harder, than they had been before Her hair was still blond but not as pale; still short but less severe Its softness framed her face and moved with every touch of the breeze She still bore a striking reseers in those sunlight-and-honey strands, to bury himself inside her; to feel her shiver under the power of his touch
She wanted hi for him And she kneas close She sensed him, perhaps not as powerfully and clearly as he sensed her, but it was there And consciously or not, she was calling out to him She wanted him still
He had to school himself to patience He had to knohy she was here, what she was doing He&039;d waited sixteen years to be with her again-more than five hundred before that Surely he could wait one ry He needed sustenance, blood to satisfy his body and perhaps cal to her, for just a little while longer And then, in the early hours just before dawn, he would go after the ring
And that was precisely what he did But when he got to the , sirens blaring and the ring
Gone
Storh the hotel rooh her eyelids She rolled over in the bed and hid her face in the pillows, but the hly than the sun ever could have
She&039;d dreamed about Vlad
But she hadn&039;t drea love-which was odd, because she&039;d dreamed of that many times over the past sixteen years, never sure whether it had actually happened, or if it was just part of her senseless yearning for hi of her intruder or one of her memories
No This dream had been more like a memory Until the end Then it had beco there on the shores of Endover, where she had first met him His castle-like mansion hovered on its secret island behind hi in between He&039;d been just standing there, staring at her
Wanting her
Calling to her
The wind had been whipping through his long dark hair, and she&039;d reers through it
His chest had been bare, probably because, in her mind, that was the way she preferred to remember him His chest Next to his eyes, and that hair, and his mouth, it was her favorite part of him She&039;d touched that chest in her dreams She&039;d run her hands over it and over his belly Had it ever been real?
It felt real More real than anything else in her life
She rolled onto her back and pressed her hands to her face "God," she et over him?"
But she already knew the answer If she hadn&039;t been able to forget Dracula in sixteen years, it wasn&039;t likely to happen anytime soon He had a hold on her Maybe it was deliberate Maybe it was hiet hiether Or maybe it was because of that other soul that lurked inside her Because, though it had been dor time, Storun to doubt it, Elisabeta&039;s recent appearance had driven the truth hoet Vlad? Or was it just because he was the only ry for him Certain no one else would ever suffice
And no one else ever had Or ever would She couldn&039;t even climax with another h, had he? He&039;d never made contact, not once in sixteen years And it hurt, far more than it should Some days she convinced herself it was because he truly did care about her That he was keeping away to protect her from the inner turmoil Elisabeta would cause if he did otherwise But most of the time she believed the more likely reason It was, after all, Elisabeta, not Stormy, he loved And since he couldn&039;t have her, he couldn&039;t be bothered with Stormy at all
She closed her eyes, and revisited, mentally, the initial parts of her dream-and knew it had been a memory A snippet of the weeks Vlad had erased from her gled her there inside a casket She&039;d awakened in his castle, furious with hio? God, why had he ever let her go?
Groaning, Stored herself out of bed, shuffled across the roo out of her path She went to the door and hoped, for the hotel staff&039;s sake, that her standing order had been delivered on ti service tray, with a silver pot full of piping hot coffee and a plate with several pastries beside it There were a cup, a pitcher of creaar and other sweeteners in colorful packets Beside all of that was a neatly folded-and hot of the presses, by the smell of the ink-issue of the daily newspaper
Her order had been filled to perfection-assuood-and delivered on tiht to her roo of her stay between 7:30 and 8:00 am, and that it be left outside her door so that her sleep wouldn&039;t be disturbed
Yeah, she was a pain in the ass as a hotel guest But given what they charged for rooht to throw in a little extra service, the way she saw it Not that they were throwing it in, exactly She would be billed, she had no doubt But the agency was thriving, so what the hell?
She wheeled the cart into her rooed a cheese and cherry Danish It wasn&039;t Dunkin&039; Donuts, but it was the closest she could get at the moment Then she sat down to enjoy her breakfast and unfolded the newspaper
The banner headline hit her between the eyes like a fist
BOLD BREAK-IN AT NATIONAL MUSEUM-PRICELESS ARTIFACT STOLEN
"No," she whispered But she already knew, even before she read the piece, what had been taken The hole in the pit of her stoht
According to the article, the burglary had been a graceless srab So was on display, so they clearly knew right where it was They had set off every alarone before the security guards even made it into the room
It didn&039;t seem a likely MO for Melina Roscova Storrace, more finesse, fro?
The answer came before she had time to blink Vlad That ho
She&039;d dreaht Had it been coincidence? Or had it been his real nearness ? Just what kind of power did that thing have?