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“If you get past me, fine, but if you don’t, then I win.”

“That doesn’t seem fair; you have only to stand your ground, but I must walk past you.”

We both stopped about two feet away from each other. I coaxed my power, whispered to it what I wanted. I wanted him to obey me. I’d never tried this so overtly against any vampire. A Master of the City was probably not the place to start, but it was too late now.

He swayed on his expensive shoes. “I will not.”

“Will not what?” I asked, but my voice held the power that was breathing around us. My voice knew what.

I expected him just to keep resisting. I should have remembered that there were other options.

“You want me, Anita, you can have me. I can do what I wanted to do all along, and Jean-Claude can’t even get mad.”

I hesitated, stumbling in my mind, the power flickering. “What…”

He moved faster than I could follow, closing the distance, taking me in his arms. I was suddenly pinned against his body, my arms trapped. My power pushed at him, but his power pushed back.

“I feel it, your power, and God, you are powerful. If you were just a necromancer you might even win, but you aren’t just that, are you?” He lowered his face toward me, as if he meant to kiss me.

“Stop, I command you to stop.”

He actually hesitated, swallowing hard, closing his eyes, but when he opened them, it was as if his power had taken a catastrophic leap. The gaze from his eyes stopped the breath in my throat. “Strong, but not strong enough.” He flexed his power, like some invisible muscle, and that flexing shot through my body. It bowed my spine, and only his arms kept me upright. We half fell to our knees, as if my collapse caught him by surprise. He ripped my controls away from the ardeur. He did it better and quicker than Thea had dreamt of. He brought the ardeur, with my body wrapped in his. He brought the ardeur knowing that once it rose like this, he would be my food. Which, of course, was what he had meant. He could do what he’d wanted to all along, and Jean-Claude couldn’t even get mad.

8

PASSION LIKE SOMETHING touchable, solid, spilled up through my body and over his. Lust like some thick, heavy paint flowed over us, covering us, trapping us.

I froze, afraid to breathe, afraid to speak, afraid most of all to move. I’d gone from finding Auggie handsome, arrogant, and beginning not to like him, to wanting to be naked with him. Even for the ardeur it was an abrupt switch.

I wanted to ask him what had he done to me, but was afraid to move that much, and even more afraid to draw his attention to me. Afraid of what he would do, no, not true: terrified of what I would do.

I stayed frozen in his arms. Perfectly still, only my pulse moving. If I could simply not move, I could hold on. I’d won the fight. Auggie was offering himself up as food; that made me the winner. Vampire rules: food loses. All I had to do was hold on until Jean-Claude came. I could do that. He was close. I could feel him coming down the stairs. Minutes, minutes away from help. But fighting the ardeur by not acting only works if the other person involved wants it to work. It needs two people trying to fight it. Auggie didn’t want to fight it. He wanted to lose.

His eyes closed, and his head fell back, almost as if the sex had already started. His voice was hoarse as he said, “I had almost forgotten how it feels to be consumed by passion.” He lowered his face so he could meet my gaze. “I try to forget the touch of it, Anita. I almost succeed in convincing myself it wasn’t real, that nothing ever felt so amazing, then she sends me a dream.”

I knew who she was, because when any of Belle’s line said her, or she, of course, you knew who she was. Belle Morte. It was always Belle Morte. Their dark mistress, the creator of them all.

“Did you hear me, Anita? Did you hear me?” His arms moved so that he was gripping my upper arms, our bodies still pressed too close together. There was room to try to fight, to try for a weapon, but it was too late for that. If I went for a weapon, I wasn’t certain