Burning Up (17 page)

She lifted her head off his chest and met his gaze, her sensual lips pulling tight. “He seeks a way to breach the Great Barrier. He’s at work on the spell now. He believes his allies will make him ruler of Ourania after the conquest.” Amaris snorted, a surprisingly indelicate sound. “More like he’ll find himself king of rotting corpses.”

“So why in the name of all the gods do you aid him? Even if King Ferran manages to drive the Varil back and repair the breech, hundreds will die. And without those peasants to work the fields, there’ll be famine. Death will pile on death.”

“I know.” She rested her hands on his chest and propped her chin on them, her expression brooding.

“Then free me.” Raniero lifted his head to meet her eyes in urgency. “At least let me taste your blood that I might free myself. I can alert the king and stop Korban before he destroys us all.”

She considered his proposal for a long moment before she finally shook her head. “It’s not so simple.”

“But it is.” He searched her face. She looked torn, as though she struggled with herself. “If you fear his threats, I can protect you. I have power, and the skill to use it. I would not be the king’s investigator otherwise. I can get you away from that madman and his plots.”

“It’s not myself I fear for.”

“Then who?” When her eyes slid away from his, he felt an inexplicable surge of jealousy. “A lover?”

Amaris blinked at that, and a quick, ironic smile flashed across her face. “Hardly.” She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself to trust him. “It’s my sister. She is but three years old, an innocent, yet she has great potential power. That’s why Korban sent my father to kidnap her. Tannaz murdered my mother and stepfather and forced us to accompany him.”

Suddenly too much became far too clear. “Breaching the Great Barrier will require vast magical resources. He means to sacrifice the child for the power it will give him.”

She nodded tightly. “The Varil gave him a magical object called the Blood Orb, so called because it requires a death to trigger it. Fortunately, there’s some part of the spell he still hasn’t mastered. Once he does . . .”

“The child is dead.” He flexed his fists restlessly. “Amaris, surely you see that I am the only chance you and your sister have. But we must act now, before . . .”

She bit her lip.

He ground his teeth. “You don’t trust me.”

“If you had my father, you would know why.” She grimaced. “And my lover once tried to rape me. So no, I do not find trust an easy thing.”

Raniero stared at her, appalled, unable to fathom a vampire who could so abuse any Rose, much less Amaris.

It was little wonder she was skittish.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford her doubts. He met her eyes, willing her to believe. “Amaris, I swear to you on my honor—I will free you and your sister, or I will die in the attempt. I will not allow Korban to sacrifice that child, not to power his spell, not for any reason.
I will not fail you.
”

R
aniero’s gaze was dark and utterly steady. He believed what he was saying. And she found herself believing him, despite the times she’d been betrayed.

He was no betrayer.

They had barely known each other a day, yet that didn’t matter. She sensed his bedrock decency with a certainty that went beyond logic, beyond experience. It was a truth that rang in the soul.

Like magic.

Her heart began to pound, hard thumping lunges. “Feed, then. Take my blood.” She sat up until she could straddle his chest and bend over him, pressing her bare, sweating breasts to his chest, her throat to his mouth.

Raniero froze as if unable to believe she was yielding herself. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked. “You will not regret your trust.”

He kissed her leaping pulse, his lips lingering and tender.

And then he bit.

Amaris jerked at the hot sting. It had been years since she’d fed a vampire, since she’d dared let one get this close. She’d forgotten how it felt, the hot intimacy of trusting a man with her blood, the slide of fangs into flesh, the movement of lips and tongue.

And the surging tide of magic that rolled up from somewhere inside her, deep as bone and heart, a glittering tide that ran up her spine in shuddering waves.

He jerked, absorbing it, drinking the power in with every swallow. She gasped as he moaned against her skin.

Somewhere over the sound of her pounding heart, she heard a metallic crunch, the ring and rattle of chains.

Raniero’s arms came around her, hard and sweating and strong. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized he’d broken his bonds.

Orel would have pushed her away, rolled to his feet, and gone for the door. Raniero cradled her as if she was something precious, his hands stroking over her skin, caressing her backside, exploring the dip of her waist, sliding his fingers into her hair.

Until at last he drew his fangs from her flesh with exquisite care, then ran his tongue over the tiny wounds. Amaris felt his magic dance across her skin, healing the punctures.

“Thank you,” he breathed in her ear.

She straightened, drawing reluctantly back until she could sit up astride him and meet his dark gaze. Still he stroked her, sliding his hands along the curve of her thighs, cupping a breast, rasping a thumb across an erect nipple.

He gazed up at her with those dark, bespelling eyes. “You are so beautiful.”

Simple words. She’d heard them before from other men, other vampires. So why did they have such power coming from him?

“We’d better go.” Amaris licked her dry lips and tried to steady her voice. “If we’re going to free Marin, we have to strike now.”

Raniero let his hands drop away. Her skin felt curiously chilled without them. “I know.” His gaze searched hers. “But later, when this is over . . .” He hesitated.

Her heart had slowed its frantic pound, but at those words, it leaped again. “When this is over?”

“When this is over, I want more of you.” His eyes didn’t falter as he stared into hers. “All of you.”

Amaris couldn’t seem to help her giddy smile. “You’ll have me.” Then she remembered everything that stood in the way—freeing her sister, fighting their way past the Varil, Korban’s men, Tannaz, and Korban himself. “If we live.”

Raniero’s lips thinned with determination. “We’ll live.”

T
he door to Raniero’s cell jerked open, and Amaris appeared around it, eyes wild, hair disheveled. “He dies!” She wrung her hands, staring at the four guards in the corridor. “Help me!”

They exchanged a wary look. “Judging from the sounds half a sandglass ago, he was healthy enough.”

“I think it’s some spell. Mayhaps Korban’s enemies move against him.” She glared at them, magic lighting her pupils with a warning glow. “Or would you rather go to Korban and tell him why you let his prize captive die?”

Considering their lord’s reaction to the last guard unit’s irresponsibility, that was a message none of them wanted to carry. “Very well, woman,” the guard sergeant said. “You two, stay in the corridor. Kriso, with me.”

Drawing his sword, he flung the door wide and stalked inside—where Raniero wrapped a length of broken chain around his neck and broke it with one ruthless jerk. Kriso fell to the magic blast Amaris fired at his head. She grabbed his sword from his hand before he hit the ground.

The other two guards shouted in alarm and rage, but Raniero was already in the corridor like a cat among pigeons, the sergeant’s sword in his hand. He killed them both in the same smooth motion, cleaving one man’s head from his shoulders before running the other right through the breastplate.

Raniero turned to aim a wild, glittering grin at Amaris. “I think the sergeant’s armor will just fit.”

She eyed the carnage. “I doubt he’ll argue. But hurry—I want to get Marin away from her witch of a nurse before someone stumbles on these four.”

B
ut they found the nurse just leaving Marin’s room, a bundle of possessions in her arms. She gasped the truth around the fingers Raniero dug in her fat throat. “Milord came for the child. He said he has no more need of me. He told me . . . he told me nothing more!”

“The Great Barrier,” Amaris whispered in numb horror as Hetram fell unconscious to the steps. “Korban has finished his spell.”

EIGHT

“C
an you find her?” Raniero demanded, his black eyes glittering through the slit in the helm he’d taken from the guardsman. “Track her with magic, since she is your blood?”

The suggestion arrested the panicked reel of Amaris’s mind, helped her think again. “Yes. I should be able to . . .” Biting her lip, she drew on her magic and reached out for her sister. It was an old, familiar spell, one she’d used a hundred times to keep track of an active child prone to disappearing. Sometimes literally; Marin had particularly loved using that invisibility spell . . .

There.

She felt the solid tug of the little girl’s life, and her knees went weak with relief. Not dead, then.

Not yet.

“I’ve got her. Come on!” Amaris spun from the room and shot down the snaking stone hallway. Behind her, Raniero’s booted feet rang on the stone, and his armor creaked as he raced after her.

“Which way?” he demanded as they ran.

“Up.” She spotted a stairway and took them. “Feels like she’s about fifty feet up, and maybe twice that far to the right.”

“Battlements,” Raniero grunted. “Makes sense.”

“The Great Barrier is closest to the castle there.” She knew the spot. Korban had once dragged her there for one of his mad rants. She’d listened to him go on and on about the power the Varil would give him, watching the glowing curtain of magic shift and glitter in the night.

If the barrier fell, his own people would be the first to pay the price, but Korban really didn’t care.

Amaris reached the top of the stairs, but before she could charge out onto the battlements, a big hand grabbed her shoulder and dragged her to a stop.

“Guards,” Raniero murmured. “Where are his guards?”

“I doubt there are any,” she whispered back. “It’s one thing for his people to know what he intends. But to work the spell in front of them, when they know they’ll be the first the Varil will kill . . . Nay, he’ll not want witnesses.”

They slipped onto the battlements together, stolen swords in hand, Raniero with a guard’s shield slung over his shoulder. The sky overhead was black with scudding clouds. The icy wind whipped Amaris’s hair, carrying the sound of chanting to her ears. She didn’t recognize the words of the spell, but something about the hissing alien syllables made the hair rise on the back of her neck.

“I do not like the sound of that,” Raniero said grimly, shrugging his shield down onto his left arm. “Which way?”

Amaris indicated the direction with a gesture, and the vampire took the lead. She padded after his broad back, straining to hear any approaching enemy over the moan of the wind.

Abruptly Raniero jerked back and froze, lifting a warning hand. She stopped to peek around his brawny shoulder.

And caught her breath in dread.

The two Varil warriors stood just ahead, backs turned as they watched the scene ahead with snakelike intensity.

Tannaz held Marin pinned to a stone altar as Korban chanted, holding a glowing knife poised over the child’s chest. The Blood Orb floated above her head like a demonic bubble, crimson energies swirling sullenly inside its glowing heart.

Amaris reached down into the core of her magic, felt its hot leap, and shouted a spell that sent it boiling from her fingertips. The blast hit Korban’s knife and knocked it from his hand, spinning it over the stone wall.

Korban snatched for the blade with a shout of startled rage, but he was too late. Furious, his face going scarlet with rage, he whirled to glare at Raniero and Amaris. “Kill them!”

The Varil whipped around and charged, huge blades lifted, fangs bared. Amaris dodged between them, avoiding their flashing blades. She had to get to Marin before Korban could complete his spell. Behind her, steel clashed on steel as Raniero engaged the two reptiles.

“Oh, no you don’t, you traitorous little bitch!” Tannaz leaped into her path, brandishing his sword. Behind him, Korban wrapped an arm around Marin and dragged her off the altar, ignoring the child’s shrieking struggles. The Blood Orb floated after them like a dog begging for a promised meal.

Tannaz swung his blade in a furious stroke, obviously thinking he’d kill her quickly. Amaris ducked his overconfident stroke, her sword slashing across his armored ribs even as she sent a spell rolling down the blade. Her magical attack sliced through his armor like parchment. Tannaz howled in startled pain and clutched his side. Amaris spun, whipping the sword around to slice his thigh to the bone.

“Oh, you’re going to bleed for that!” Ignoring the wound, he charged her with a vampire’s flashing speed.

She sidestepped like a dancer, and he missed, though she felt his sword snag the fabric of her gown. It tore with a ragged sound.

Damn, but she wished she had her armor.

Being a Blood Rose gave Amaris speed and strength beyond human, but she was still no match for a vampire as powerful as Tannaz. He would inevitably wear her down and kill her . . . Unless she could goad him into stupidity.

“Mother always said you were a bully and a coward. She underestimated you.” Amaris gave him a slow and vicious smile. “You’re also a murderer and a traitor.”

The rage that flashed over his face chilled her blood. He attacked, his sword slamming into hers with force enough to numb her arm to the shoulder. Before she could shake it off, he attacked again.

And again. And again. Amaris scrambled backward, parrying frantically as he rained blows on her, sometimes overhand, sometimes in flat, brutal arcs, sometimes targeting her thighs or arms. In minutes, she was bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds, though she managed to avoid anything more serious.

She was losing. Simply staying alive wasn’t enough; she had to land blows of her own. Yet attacking him was impossible when it was all she could do to keep him from driving through her guard and gutting her.