He battened his mouth on her, keeping Diana on the edge of desire, stopping his attentions to whisper an endearment or a promise before resuming, never allowing her to be swept away. She wanted satisfaction and the peace that came with forgetting, but he wanted this moment—filled with safety and intimacy—to last forever. Matthew turned Diana to face him. Her lips were soft and full, her eyes dreamy, as he slid slowly inside her. He continued his gentle movements until the upward tick in his wife’s heartbeat told him that her climax was near.
Diana cried his name, weaving a spell that put them in the center of the world.
Afterward they lay twined together in the final rose-tinged moments of darkness before dawn. Diana drew Matthew’s head to her breast. He gave her a questioning look, and his wife nodded. Matthew lowered his mouth to the silvery moon over a prominent blue vein.
This was the ancient way for a vampire to know his mate, the sacred moment of communion when thoughts and emotions were exchanged honestly and without judgment. Vampires were secretive creatures, but when a vampire took blood from his mate’s heart vein, there was a moment of perfect peace and understanding that quieted the constant, dull need to hunt and possess.
Diana’s skin parted underneath his teeth, and Matthew drank in a few precious ounces of her blood. With it came a flood of impressions and feelings: joy mixed with sorrow, delight in being back with friends and family tempered with grief, rage over Emily’s death held in check by Diana’s concern for him and their children.
“I would have spared you this loss if I could have,” Matthew murmured, kissing the mark his mouth left on her skin. He rolled them over so that he was on his back and Diana was draped over his recumbent form. She looked down into his eyes.
“I know. Just don’t ever leave me, Matthew. Not without saying good-bye.”
“I will never leave you,” he promised.
Diana touched her lips to Matthew’s forehead. She pressed them into the skin between his eyes. Most warmblooded mates could not share in the vampire’s ritual of togetherness, but his wife had found a way around the limitation, as she did with most obstacles in her path. Diana had discovered that when she kissed him just here, she also caught glimpses of his innermost thoughts and the dark places where his fears and secrets hid.
Matthew felt nothing more than a tingle of her power as she gave him her witch’s kiss and remained as still as possible, wanting Diana to take her fill of him. He forced himself to relax so that his feelings and thoughts could flow unimpeded.
“Welcome home, sister.” The unexpected scent of wood fires and saddle leather flooded the room, as Baldwin ripped the sheet from the bed.
Diana let out a startled cry. Matthew tried to pull her naked body behind him, but it was too late. His wife was already in the grip of another.
“I could hear my father’s blood vow halfway up the drive. You’re pregnant, too.” Baldwin de Clermont’s face was coldly furious under his fiery hair as his eyes dropped to Diana’s rounded belly. He twisted her arm so that he could sniff her wrist. “And only Matthew’s scent upon you. Well, well.”
Baldwin released Diana, and Matthew caught her.
“Get up. Both of you,” Baldwin commanded, his fury evident.
“You have no authority over me, Baldwin!” Diana cried, her eyes narrowing.
She couldn’t have calculated a response that would have angered Matthew’s brother more. Without warning, Baldwin swooped until his face was inches away. Only the firm pressure of Matthew’s hand around Baldwin’s throat kept the vampire from getting even closer.
“My father’s blood vow says I do, witch.” Baldwin stared into Diana’s eyes, trying to force her through sheer will to look away. When she did not, Baldwin’s eyes flickered. “Your wife lacks manners, Matthew. School her, or I will.”
“School me?” Diana’s eyes widened. Her fingers splayed, and the wind in the room circled her feet, ready to answer her call. High above, Corra shrieked to let her mistress know she was on the way.
“No magic and no dragon,” Matthew murmured against her ear, praying that just this once his wife would obey him. He didn’t want Baldwin or anyone else in the family to know how much Diana’s abilities had grown while they were in London.
Miraculously, Diana nodded.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ysabeau’s frosty voice cracked through the room. “The only excuse for your presence here, Baldwin, is that you have lost your senses.”
“Careful, Ysabeau. Your claws are showing.” Baldwin stalked toward the stairs. “And you forget: I’m the head of the de Clermont family. I don’t need an excuse. Meet me in the family library, Matthew. You, too, Diana.”
Baldwin turned to level his strange golden-brown eyes at Matthew.
“Don’t keep me waiting.”
The de Clermont family library was bathed in a gentle predawn light that made everything in it appear in soft focus: the edges of the books, the strong lines of the wooden bookcases that lined the room, the warm golden and blue hues of the Aubusson rug.
What it could not blunt was my anger.
For three days I had thought that nothing could displace my grief over Emily’s death, but three minutes in Baldwin’s company had proved me wrong.
“Come in, Diana.” Baldwin sat in a thronelike Savonarola chair by the tall windows. His burnished red-gold hair gleamed in the lamplight, its color reminding me of the feathers on Augusta, the eagle that Emperor Rudolf hunted with in Prague. Every inch of Baldwin’s muscular frame was taut with anger and banked strength.
I looked around the room. We were not the only ones to have been summoned to Baldwin’s impromptu meeting. Waiting by the fireplace was a waif of a young woman with skin the color of skim milk and black, spiky hair. Her eyes were deep gray and enormous, fringed with thick lashes. She sniffed the air as though scenting a storm.
“Verin.” Matthew had warned me about Philippe’s daughters, who were so terrifying that the family asked him to stop making them. But she didn’t look very frightening. Verin’s face was smooth and serene, her posture easy, and her eyes sparkled with energy and intelligence. Were it not for her unrelieved black clothing, you might mistake her for an elf.
Then I noticed a knife hilt peeking out from her high-heeled black boots.
“Wölfling,” Verin replied. It was a cold greeting for a sister to give her brother, but the look she gave me was even more frigid. “Witch.”
“It’s Diana,” I said, my anger flaring.
“I told you there was no way to mistake it,” Verin said, turning to Baldwin without acknowledging my reply.
“Why are you here, Baldwin?” Matthew asked.