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Revolution

Chapter 1

Fifteen years later The Estate of the Voivodina of Moldavia

Narcise curled her fingers around the slender grip of her saber and steadied her breathing Her fangs had sprung free, filling her s thrusting long and bold as he lifted his own blade Its silver gleaht that danced around the edges of the chaer, and thus he was certain he&039;d take her down

That bravado, that certainty, was apparent in the haughty glint of his burning red eyes, the swagger in his step, and the ready bulge behind the flap of his trousers

He wasn&039;t fighting for his sanity

But Narcise was fighting for hers

She wore her hair scraped back in a tight knot to keep it fro ht tunic that bound her breasts close, along with sli trousers They allowed her not only freedo for her partner to grab on to Her feet were bare

She started it, knowing her best chance was to take hiuard and to keep him that way She rushed toward hied aardly and swiped his sword through easp of anticipation for a good fight It ca just above them in the balcony, but Narcise spared no attention for her brother Cezar and his coht to leave this chaht, to be sent to her private room unaccompanied and untouchedinstead of with the man who now spun on his feet and leaped back toward her

Her lips closed around her fangs, she pivoted and ducked beneath the swing of sword blade She felt the heat of her own eyes, burning with fury and intent, and knew they glowed just as red-gold as the candles studding the walls and the blaze of fire in the corner Blood rushed and pounded in her veins, her body&039;s reaction to the desperation and fear she tried to quell

Her opponent grinned as he vaulted over the table after her, his feet landing heavily on the stone floor on the other side There were two chairs in the space as well, and a tray of food and wine that wouldn&039;t get eaten-for Cezar liked to set the scene It wasn&039;t ladiators, where the fighters were released into the arena No, he had to

It enhanced the pleasure of watching his sister fight for the right to sleep alone that night

Narcise felt the stone wall behind her, and a flicker of fear as her attacker stepped closer, blocking her view of the space behind hi and his lips wet and full Her mouth dried and she fiercely drove the apprehension back

I will not yield

She glanced to the left, drawing his attention that way, and then streaked like a cat beneath his ar herself over the table and landing with a little bounce on two steady feet A soft murmur of approval froive in to the distraction of those atched her as if she were so bear

No sooner had she landed on the far side of the table than she vaulted back, once again taking her larger, slower adversary by surprise when she used her hands to spring from the tabletop and slaasped, stumbled backward, and she followed hi over him Before he could blink, she had the blade settled at the side of his neck, and, firmly in her hand, the wooden stake she kept jammed into the knot of her hair

"Yield," she said, pressing the e into the side of his neck

If he did not, she had no co either the sword or the stake to send hirowled, his eyes flashing with red fire

Narcise kept the stake in her hand and the blade poised just-so "Drop your weapon," she ordered She&039;d been caught unawares before by a challenger who&039;d yielded, only to attack her moments after she released him

That had only happened once And that hy she had yet another stake shoved in her tight sleeve

With a furious grimace, he tossed the sword to the floor and, still with the blade in place, Narcise kicked the other one far away, under the table She noted with grie of his cock had softened into nothingout his breeches She liked it when the bastards wet their trousers, but apparently this one hadn&039;t been sufficiently frightened for his life

"Too easy!" shouted Cezar fro with mirth "She bested you too easily, Godya! You lasted a nored her brother and, keeping the blade in place, stepped back and motioned for the man apparently named Godya to rise "Slowly," she warned, her eyes never wavering until he&039;d risen and she&039;d backed hie of her blade

She&039;dher rival only once before No one could ever say she didn&039;t learn from her errors

Not until the door closed behind Godya did she lower her blade and turn to look up at Cezar

"So sorry to have ruined your evening&039;s entertain for the man

"No sorrier than I, dear sister," he hissed morosely "I can&039;t reave us a real show"

Narcise did It had happened eleven o, when she&039;d tripped over the blade of her saber as it caught on the rug She&039;d lost her balance and rhythue, whose name she&039;d never cared to learn, had wasted no ti her hands pinned above her head as he used his own blade to cut down through her tunic and tear it away

In an effort to add to the entertainment for the audience above, he&039;d fondled her breasts with rough fingers, then, breathing hot and hard, shoved his fangs into her shoulder He saainst the reflexive rush of arousal that always came when her blood was released thus

Then, with her torso bare and her wrists pulled behind her back, he&039;d dragged her off to what she thought of as The Chaht

She hadn&039;t lost a battle since and, in fact, had sent three Dracule perements

Now she sneered at Cezar "What a pity I didn&039;t provide enough entertain if you had a big enough bag between your legs to take me on yourself"

And then I could skewer you with a stake and I would be free

But of course, he would never risk it Nor would he dirty his pasty-white hands

Her brother was older than she in both mortal years as well as vampir years He&039;d been twenty-then Lucifer visited him and offered him a life of poealth and io, and he looked exactly the same as he had at that time Even the crooked tooth and the aard set of a broken jaw that had never healed properly reave his voice the faint lisp

Cezar had waited three years, until Narcise turned twenty, before he arranged for her to be offered to Lucifer During that time, their elder brother, who&039;d becoe, had conveniently diedand Cezar hadthe new voivode Their father and the original voivode had died just after their brother&039;s wedding, and Narcise had come under Cezar&039;s control shortly thereafter

She always counted herself fortunate that she&039;d inity to aturned into an iet with child-for they didn&039;t have their monthly flow

Since then she&039;d had little power over her own body

The door behind her opened and Narcise didn&039;t have to turn to knoas there The rush of weakness flooded her and she gritted her teeth against the wave of paralysis

It was, she thought dully as two of Cezar&039;s thugs approached, a good thing that her brother liked to watch her win more often than lose For, despite his earlier co for tool, if he didn&039;t have his sister to beat up his friends and enemies alike

Narcise remained still as her brother&039;s men flanked her on each side One of them fastened a cuff around her wrist Woven of three brown feathers that were soft and delicate against her skin, and yet burned as if they were a branding iron, the bracelet leached her strength by its very proximity

Her knees treht as she could It never ceased to a in the world that could weaken her, there needed to be two strong, burly Dracule who escorted her back to her cha that kept her hopeful as, day after day, she lived an eternity under her brother&039;s control

The knowledge that they were all terrified of her

God and Lucifer help theot free

Paris September 1793

The first ti for her safety

It was yet another of countless evenings of entertainment for Cezar, and this tile coht, curly hair and handsoant features

Normally Cezar liked to display his sister&039;s capabilities to a s her abilities But tonight, there were only the two of theht with soered her brother

Her orders, tonight, had been to fight to the death, and Cezar had warned that she wouldn&039;t be released from the small arenalike chamber until she either killed her rival, or he bested her-which didn&039;tworse

The poor fool was no ht in swordplay and other acrobatic fighting skills by the best trainers Cezar could find He wasn&039;t about to have his favorite ary eneht, her opponent was a "made" vampir, one who&039;d been turned Dracule by another va invited into the Draculia by Lucifer himself Narcise wasn&039;t aware of what he&039;d done to insult her brother, for, in truth, Cezar could interpret the twitch of an eyelid or a sih as an insult She didn&039;t particularly care

Nor did she spare much pity for the man She couldn&039;t afford to if she wanted to remain unscathed

But as she whirled around to face her adversary, readying the saber for its cleaving blow, she glanced over and happened to catch the eye of her brother&039;s co her intently, and she had the brief impression of a tanned wrist and hand settled with its index finger thoughtfully against his mouth

She also noticed, in that blink of an eye, that, rather than focusing on her, Cezar sat back in his seat, covertly studying his cothe head fro with her back toward the dais, and her audience, Narcise remained thus as she wiped her blade with a pristine white tablecloth Then, with no acknowledged soul was filtering per for the door to be opened and her guards to appear Grateful that tonight&039;s competition had been relatively easy, she slipped the clean saber into its sheath

She could hear the htly sibilant hiss of her brother&039;s voice, and the answering rumble of his coe them Any intimate of her brother&039;s was automatically an enemy of hers

It wasn&039;t until weeks later that she even learned his name

Giordan Cale was all about money

His ability to earn it, find it, inherit it, save it-and then, to ot him into the predicament he was in: an immortal lifetime in which to spend more money than Croesus ever dreamed of In fact, it seemed that Giordan couldn&039;t lose money if he tossed buckets of it into the Seine, or had the servants burn it in his fireplace, for the funds si-shot invest due, or even an inexplicable inheritance

And it was precisely his flair with funds that drew him to the attention of Cezar Moldavi

But of course Giordan had heard of the manand his sistereven before Moldavi arrived in Paris, for the world of the Dracule was exceedingly sraphy of the earth, the members of Lucifer&039;s secret society traveled and resided in only the largest, ue, Rome, Morocco and of course, Giordan&039;s beloved Paris And they tended to congregate at the sah levels of society, a happenstance which Giordan used to his financial benefit He was the owner or a majority shareholder in the most luxurious and private of these havens in every major city except London And, he determined, it was only a matter of time until he was established there as well

He had an eternity to make it happen, no?

Cezar Moldavi had co several decades in Vienna, where, apparently, there had been an unfortunate incident with another of the Dracule-along with soiven to Moldavi&039;s propensity for bleeding children There were those who risked their lives in order to hunt those of the Draculean world, sometimes even successfully Giordan understood that Moldavi had decided it was best to evacuate from Vienna before one of those so-called vah to stake him to death

Aside of that, one couldn&039;t stay in one place forappearance being remarked upon, which required these powerful men to uproot and move their households every few decades or so And now, after living in Vienna, Prague and even A his ho hiround therein

Paris herself had changed during the last five years, during which Giordan had been in Morocco Now, his City of Light roiled with tension and fear Nerves crackled on the very rues, unease simmered in the Seine-for The Terror lived and seeped into every corner of the city It had begun with the execution of the king by guillotine-and then shortly after, his wife Marie Antoinette, sniffing vials of her personal perfume tucked inside her bodice, met the same fate And now every day, as Robespierre and his cronies struggled torevolution,silver blade and relieved of their heads

One as required to live on the lifeblood of ht find it convenient that the reat nuuillotine-that caused their des and other random murders fueled by desperation and suspicion), for it certainly provided a vast opportunity for sustenance But while Giordan Cale had no qualeneral, he found such rampant, widespread actions distasteful and unnecessarily violent

This was, apparently, only one of the many ways in which he and Cezar Moldavi differed

In fact, there were painfully feays in which he and Cezar Moldavi were in agree only a brief time with a bottle of excellent wine (which Giordan had sent over) and discussing a possible investment with Moldavi, Giordan came to the conclusion that his friend Dimitri, known as the Earl of Corvindale across the Channel in England, was being kind when he described Moldavi as being the lowest for, bitch-in-heat, Lucifer&039;s-cock-biting bastard

Giordan had just decided that, since he had no interest in continuing any for to excuse hireat expedience and decline to watch the swordplay entertainment he&039;d been promised But before he opened his mouth to do so, the man&039;s sister entered the opposite part of the cha in his mind whirred into silence and he found that his body, too, had stilled

She was carrying a long, sheathed sword, with a slightly curved blade A saber, then: a type of single-edged weapon just coht, slender blade such as an epee, or even a blunted foil The lethality of this blade was Giordan&039;s first indication that the wo in sport

"My sister, Narcise," Moldavi estured to their empty cups on the table, and his steward moved quickly to fill theround to a halt and he reh a vampire couldn&039;t die from suffocation, one did have to breathe or become weakened

She was lovely Incredibly lovely

He&039;d heard about her, of course Who hadn&039;t? Rumor had it that Cezar Moldavi&039;s sister was bait, a tool, and even a bargaining chip for her brother But Giordan, who&039;dhis travels hadn&039;t expected to be so thoroughly entranced, and from a distance

Fro to be objective And yet, one could be objective and still describe her as the most beautiful woman one had ever seen

She was tall for a woht knot at her nape Her skin glowed like a pearl; it was fair and yet rosy lu blue eyes that tended toward the violet end of the spectrum They were outlined by dark lashes that yptians had to emphasize their eyes But for her, it was a natural occurrence, and such artifice would be unnecessary

And her face Her features were incredibly perfect, ht, delicately formed nose

If her face was exquisite, one could hardly expect that her figure wouldshe wore, unusual garb that clung to every curve, including her bound breasts, displayed the fact that Narcise Moldavi was this ure that could launch a thousand ships

The only ele the perfection of countenance and for that veiled her expression, clouded her eyes She was an empty doll, an emotionless puppet

So distracted by his exaure was he that Giordan didn&039;t listen to the short coiven by his host, nor did he notice at first when another man joined them in the rooer and stronger than she, and like Narcise, he carried a deadly sword But his was a broadsword, dual-edged, and heavier than her ant weapon For the first ti bout with foiled blades

He turned to his host, intending to ask-and demand, if necessary-not to observe such an unesture "Watch," he said And then to the rivals, who stood mere feet away from the raised table, he said, "To the death"

Giordan stifled a reflexive response, and felt his muscles ready themselves to interfere if it became necessary And surely it would

Even the fierce expression that transformed Narcise&039;s face didn&039;t ease his concern, yet the change in her countenance Giordan found fascinating and quite striking Her eyes flashed with loathing and deterant next to her burly rival

And when she whirled into action, all taut grace and feline ain He was alternately entranced and tense, watching and waiting like a parent seeing their child make a jump on horseback for the first ti fro the walls, her slender ars extended, were bared with ferocity But her eyes did not burn red, and she seemed calm Very much in control

Giordan watched closely, his concern easing, as he saw her weight shift on her feet, and how she changed her center of balance to launch herself smoothly over one of the chairs, then used herthat very chair back toward her rival Ad technique whileher body in a more forceful, combative fashion than such an activity normally required

He almost missed the nearly imperceptible circle ht hi his lips, Giordan&039;s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward to watch y This wasmatch, with parries and ripostes and the foreand yet she went through those motions like an expert

And thenshe ducked ni opponent&039;s arm, spun around behind him, sliced her saber down the back of his shirt and then reat, ringing clash ofreverberated in the close rooain, she stepped out of the routine and somersaulted away as the ed for her

After that, the neat fencing bout deteriorated into a battle-field matchup of two lethal weapons Giordan felt his arlance toward Moldavi But his host atching hiuest&039;s reaction to the battle, his gaze contemplative and yet hooded

As their eyes lass and sipped, then slid his attention to the battle beyond