"She won't talk. I've interrogated enough to know she'll hint but never truly divulge. And she hates vampires."
Kristoff pinched his forehead. "Then tomorrow night if we haven't gotten information from the rest of the prisoners, we treat her as the Horde she hates would. Torture her for the information if you can't get it any other way."
Wroth nodded, but the idea sat ill with him. As a human he'd been merciless to his enemies, but he'd never tortured a woman. She wasn't truly a woman, he reminded himself. She was a female among the Lore, and their army's survival could depend on the knowledge she held.
Perhaps he'd never tortured a woman because he'd never needed to.
The creature had been right, Wroth thought as a guard showed him to his new chambers. He was going to call her up to him.
To do what with her, he didn't know.
Chapter Two
"Did you miss me? Because I missed you," she said when the guard escorted her inside his bedroom. Out of habit, he stood when a lady entered, and she flashed him a brilliant smile. "A gentleman warrior. Who cleans up very well." She fanned herself with her hand. "I think I'm in love."
He didn't answer, and she didn't seem to mind as she casually scanned the room. "Retro Dracula. Not necessarily what I would have done, but then I'm not married to sun-proof shutters like you might be..." She shrugged, then headed for the bathroom. "Taking a shower if you don't mind," she said airily over her shoulder, making him raise his brows.
At the doorway, she unbuttoned her tight blouse and shrugged from it, leaving only a transparent black bra. She turned to him, revealing her scarcely covered br**sts, he knew, just so he could see the creamy flesh spilling from the lace when she bent over to remove her boots. What he didn't know was why.
Was she truly mad? Most people who were mad didn't think they were, but she seemed to be proud of it. He was usually quick to determine people's motives. Yes, she wanted her freedom, but for some reason he knew she wouldn't sleep with him to receive it.
If he had to guess, he would say that she simply didn't see stripping in front of him and making herself completely at home in a stranger's bedroom as odd. In fact, he suspected she didn't see them as strangers at all.
As he stood, concealing his surprise, she untied the fastening of her silky skirt at her hip, and it too fell to the ground.
A fine gold chain around her tiny waist caught his attention. It was unusual, the design appearing very old, but it glinted like new when she moved. Once he could take his eyes from it, he found her in only that wispy bra and scanty, black underwear so intricate he was shocked anew. They were like a work of art - or a like a ribbon decorating one.
She gave him a teasing smile. "Vampire like?" she purred, unclasping the front of her bra to toss it with her other clothes. He scowled because he did like. Very much. He ran a hand over his mouth, wondering if her high, plump br**sts could be any more beautiful. She had coral pink ni**les that he could spend hours tonguing and alabaster flesh he wanted to cup and palm. He began to speak, then had to cough in his fist to continue. "You'll strip in front of a vampire when you don't even know his name?"
She gasped with mock horror and covered her br**sts with her hands. "You're right! So what's your name?"
"My answer will be as forthcoming as yours. What do you want it to be?"
She smiled at that but then replied to the question, "Some kind of name that fits a battle-scarred, overgrown vampire warlord."
Battle-scarred? Overgrown? He wondered why in the hell he cared how she saw him. She was divinely wrought, but mad. He'd take his scars with his sanity. "Nikolai Wroth," he grated.
For the briefest second he thought he saw recognition flicker. But then she eyed him archly and breathed, "Oh, you are good. Wroth, the old word for rage? That's a bingo idea for a name." Her hands dropped. "I'll just call you by that," she said, then gave him a second look, shaking her head with a rueful smile as if she couldn't believe he was so clever.
...as a hatter.
She leaned back against the doorway, raising her bent arms above her head to grasp her elbows. Displaying her mouthwatering br**sts and flashing a flirtatious smile that would've dropped most men to their knees, she asked in her whiskey voice, "Care to join me, Wroth?" She winked when she said his name and rolled her hips up off the doorframe.
"No," he bit out the word with difficulty. He didn't want her to know how his body didn't respond to her. His mind did, his vague memories of being human did. But not his body. He was the walking dead. No respiration, no heartbeat, no sexual need - or ability. Not until he found his predestined Bride and she "blooded" him fully. With his blooding, something inside him, some essence - maybe even his soul - would recognize her as his. He would see her as the one he was meant to spend eternity with, the woman he could love without measure, if one believed in that, and his body would wake for her.
In the past he'd yearned for his Bride because of the power she would bring him - he would finally be as strong as blooded vampires, his senses as acute as theirs - but he'd never missed the sex before this. And Wroth knew after this display that she was not his. For this should've blooded any vampire.
She shrugged, the simple movement a sight to behold, then turned the corner to the bathroom. When she emerged fifteen minutes later clad in a towel, she crossed to his closet. He was almost certain she'd used his toothbrush.
Which...charmed him for some reason -
The towel dropped, leaving her with only her chain and him with a view of her perfect ass.
He swallowed. "Have you no modesty?" Never in his life had he encountered a female so quick to be naked. Of course, he'd never in his life encountered a female who should so utterly be naked at any chance.