Maeve, he thought. A fitting name for such a lovely woman, with her pale skin and dark red hair that tumbled down her back in the style of maidens who’d dwelled in the villages and farms of his father’s lands. They’d cast covetous eyes on him back then, but for all the wrong reasons. They’d cared nothing for him personally. He’d been a trophy, a stud whose services had been highly prized, but only as a bragging piece. Every lover he’d ever claimed back then had worn a charm crafted by the local hedge witches, spells designed to ensure his seed never took root in their wombs. They’d wanted to fuck him, but never to mate or marry. One didn’t create a family with a monster, even if it had been the goddess herself who’d made him that way.
But Maeve had always spoken to him with kindness and compasssion. Sitting fearlessly in the shelter of his taloned wing, she’d conversed as if he could hear and respond, though she couldn’t have known his true predicament. Couldn’t have known a living man was trapped in the stone. She still didn’t know, for all that she’d been the one to release him, however inadvertently.
He strode for the small wooden door she always used, instinct telling him he had to escape this house at once, before Sotiris sensed the collapse of his ancient curse and returned to capture him with a fresh spell. One with no escape this time.
MAEVE MOVED QUIETLY down the narrow servants’ stairs to the statuary on the first floor. If one wanted to sneak about, this hidden- away staircase was the way to go. She’d found nothing amiss so far, though she’d stopped to listen at every turn of the stairs. She hadn’t taken the time to search the third floor, confident that the crashing sound had come from below. On the second floor, she paused long enough to open the door for a few minutes. Not knowing what she was waiting for—breathing or a stray footstep, maybe—she was certain there’d be some evidence if anyone was there. In her head, she kept playing back the crash she’d heard, convinced it had come from the statuary room, with its marble floor.
Worried that one of the smaller statues might have toppled over somehow, she rounded the final set of stairs and listened at the closed door to the statuary. As if that was going to do any good—statues didn’t move on their own. Hearing nothing—of course—she reached for the door knob . . . and fell back with an undignified squeak when someone, or something, pulled it open from the other side.
DRAGAN REACHED out instinctively, trying to catch Maeve before she fell and hurt herself. She batted away his hand, staring at it in disbelief for a moment before she tried to stand, only to fall back against the hard wooden stair with a gasped breath. “Ow,” she said, then glared at him as if it was all his fault.
Her glare didn’t last more than an instant, however, as her eyes widened and she scrambled backwards up the stairs, reaching for the weapon—the gun—she’d dropped when she’d fallen. “Who the hell—?” She shot a glance around behind him, and he knew the moment she saw the pile of dust and broken stone that had been his prison. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, her stare returning to him in recognition. Tightening the grip on her gun, she jumped to her feet and ran up the stairs. “Oh, my God!”
“Maeve,” he said, using the magic in his blood to gentle his voice to a seductive call. He had enough magic left for that, at least, though the usual heat of it had been dulled by his long captivity.
She stopped and turned, moving slowly, but gracefully, as if not completely reluctant to face him. Her heart was thudding, but still she studied him carefully, staring with intelligent eyes that were filled more with curiosity than fear. “It’s really you?” she whispered. “But how . . .?”
“It’s a long story,” he replied quietly, still wary of spooking her. “Perhaps we could sit somewhere more suitable and . . . “
“Of course. Forgive me,” she said immediately, then scowled. “Wait a minute. I don’t even know who the hell you really are. I should—”
“You know me.”
“No, I don’t,” she insisted. “Because what I’m thinking is impossible.”
He smiled. “You live in this house filled with magic, yet you speak of the impossible?”
Her gaze caught on his upturned lips, before her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you know about this house? Is that why you’re here? To burgle?”
“Burgle?” he repeated, trying to make sense of the word.
“Steal, thieve, the usual.”
Dragan knew he should be insulted at the very suggestion, but he was more amused than anything else. “I know what’s in this house because it sings to my blood. And because I know the filthy bastard who lives here. Not including your lovely self, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, pretending an ease that her eyes gave lie to, her fingers shaking almost imperceptibly as she pushed a stray bit of hair behind her ear. She scanned his form, taking in the tattered clothing, and the sword he carried in one hand, held down to his side so as not to threaten her. She stared at the blade a heartbeat longer, before her attention whipped back to his face. “It is you,” she whispered, then slumped back to sit on the stairs again, one hand rubbing her face. “I must be dreaming. That’s it, I’m asleep. Or maybe I hit my head, fell on my ass. Or my head. Whatever.”
Dragan laughed, charmed at her utter lack of pretense. “If I promise to explain, can we please sit somewhere else? I’ve been standing a very long time.”
She threw up her hands. “Sure, why not? Embrace the delusion. Come on. I’ll make you a cup of tea. Like Alice in Wonderland, but with less dirt.”
He watched her go, enjoying the sight of her hips swaying up the stairs, which was a very different view than any he’d had during her daily visits, he thought, then immediately cast his gaze downward. She was far too young for him, no more than her mid-twenties, which he only knew because she’d once spoken of birthday gifts from her family. It didn’t matter that he’d been only a few years older than that before his imprisonment, or that he’d spent the last thousand or more years frozen in time. His worldly experience was vastly different from anything she could have known.
He tightened his jaw and followed her, taking the stairs two at a time.
MAEVE KEPT GLANCING back as they climbed, trying to convince herself that this was actually happening, that it wasn’t just a romantic dream about her warrior. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to prove he was real. She hadn’t found the courage yet, but even so, his existence was difficult to deny. There was a woodsy scent about him, not at all what she might have expected from a man who . . . who what? Who’d been a fucking statue less than an hour ago? She shot another quick look over her shoulder. His footsteps on the wooden stairs were light for such a big man—and good God, he was big. If she’d been asked before—she stumbled over the thought, before what?—she’d have said the size of the winged statue was an exaggeration for dramatic purposes. But the man behind her, with his weary gaze and gorgeous smile, was no exaggeration. She squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the banister to avoid tripping on stairs she’d climbed more times than she could count.