No censure colored his expression, and the emotions that slid over mine had the soothing caress of satin. "All vampires are overly possessive when it comes to what's ours."
I could blame my seething jealousy on vampirism? Done!
Then Vlad began to bind my wrists with multiple lengths of chain. With how strong he was, I doubted this was necessary even if Cynthiana had managed to add a vampiric form of hara-kiri to her linking booby trap, but if it made him feel better . . .
"Going to save some of that for later?" I joked.
The look he gave me made me forget how unpleasant the silver felt against my wrists.
"When I tie you up, I'll use silk, and I'll leave your hands free because I love to feel them on my skin."
Not if. When. Despite the erotic promise, being chained up while in his ex's bedroom should've cooled my response. Instead, I felt all the desire Vlad usually elicited in me along with a visceral urge to assert my claim on him in the very place that someone else had dared touch him.
Overly possessive? Yeah, I had it bad.
"If you leave my hands free," I asked in a throaty voice, "what's the point of tying me up?"
His wicked smile affected me as much as the heat that swept over my emotions, lashing me with thousands of invisible, sensual whips. Then he leaned in, the soft sandpaper of his jaw grazing my cheek.
"Why tell you when I can show you?"
I closed my eyes, taking in a breath to smell the rich spiciness of his scent. Now I knew how I wanted to spend the rest of the evening, but first things first.
He drew back, continuing to drape chains around me until they went all the way up to my elbows. If I still had circulation, my hands would have been numb. Then he threaded more silver through them to secure my bound arms to my body with more loops of chain. Now all I could do from the waist up was wiggle my fingers and bite.
Satisfied, he dropped the remaining chains onto the floor and went over to the bed. I tensed, but all he retrieved was a lamp from the night table.
"Gently," he warned as he held it out to me.
Did he think I'd never touched something fancy before? I grasped the smooth crystal base with my right fingers - and it shattered like I'd smashed it with a crowbar.
"What the hell?" I exclaimed.
He gave me a sardonic glance as he brushed the shards from my hand. "You're not used to your new strength. Until you are, treat everything as though it's more fragile than eggshells, and whatever you do, don't touch a human."
I looked at the glittering shards with a wince. Now I had another reason for not giving my sister a hug good-bye later.
"Were those dried flowers on the mantel hers?" I asked, seeking something that wouldn't cost a lot if I broke it.
"She picked them, yes," Vlad replied, pulling a chunk out of the arrangement without care for how that spoiled it.
I told myself it wasn't petty to enjoy seeing something of Cynthiana's ruined. She'd killed me, after all.
I stroked the flowers when Vlad held them out. Most of them disintegrated on contact, telling me I was still using too much strength, but something flared in the remaining batch.
There you are, I thought with dark satisfaction, and then everything around me changed.
I walked through the meadow, adding flowers to the growing pile in my basket. Vlad's staff would be happy to add to the garden outside my room, but I was careful not to have all the spell's ingredients in one place. Just in case someone recognized the significance of these particular flowers.
The beautiful spring day did nothing to improve my foul mood. It had only been six months since the last spell, yet Vlad was already acting distant again. I yanked out a handful of lilacs, damaging them in my frustration. Any other man would be madly, irrevocably in love with me, but after seven spells, I could barely keep Vlad from leaving me.
The problem, of course, was the same reason why he was such a valuable protector. His power. It was why I'd worked so hard to gain his attention in the first place, and also why he was practically immune to my spells. I didn't dare use stronger magic on him. He might dismiss all the flowers as feminine fancy, but he'd notice ingredients for darker magic. What the Law Guardians would do to me would be nothing compared to his wrath if he found out I'd been using spells on him.
I grabbed another handful of lilacs, refusing to dwell on the repercussions of being caught. That wouldn't happen as long as I was careful, and besides, I had no choice. Most vampires had Masters to protect them. Others had enough strength to protect themselves. The rest of us - Masterless with only average power - were left to fend for ourselves. After my sire was murdered, lovers gave me the protection other vampires took for granted. When that wasn't enough, magic made up the difference. The day I became a vampire, I swore no matter the cost, I'd never be helpless again. I had my fill of that as a Scottish peasant living under English rule. I brushed off those memories to give a critical look at my basket's contents. Perhaps more mallow would make the spell last longer . . .
When I morphed back into my own mindset, I stared at the crumbled bits of dried flowers in my hand, torn between rage and incredulousness.
"Do you know what these are?"
He shrugged. "Lilacs, poppies, amaranth - "
"Ingredients for a spell," I cut him off. "Lilacs to prompt love, red poppy for true love, mallow for being overwhelmed with love, blue poppy for the unattainable made possible, amaranth for undying love . . . see where she was going with this?"
"I never loved her."
His voice vibrated with forcefulness. I smiled grimly.
"Yes, and it ticked her off that you were too strong for her spell to fully work. Still, you stayed with her for the better part of three decades so her efforts weren't a total bust." Vlad opened his mouth and . . . nothing. I'd never seen him speechless before, but finding out your free will had been messed with would be upsetting for anyone. Finding it out when you had his level of arrogance would be stunning.
"See if you can find her" was what he bit out. I wouldn't want to be Cynthiana for all the money in the world right now.
I stroked the dried flowers again. The memory of her picking them was fainter now, allowing me to push past it to focus on her essence trail.
There. Like a fishing line with her swimming at the end of it. I concentrated, but every time I pulled on that line, I came back with nothing. I kept trying, an internal clock pitilessly noting the passage of time as I continued to fail to reach the other side. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Forty.
"Leila, stop."
Vlad brushed the floral bits out of my hands. Frustrated, I watched as they scattered to the ground.