Despite his desperate effort to demean her, she took no offence. “Exactly,” she said noting how his wandering eyes betrayed him, how easily they revealed the truth he would not speak. “You should change out of your wet clothes. Sylvester has put a shirt and breeches on the bed, and you’re welcome to bathe in my water.”
He glanced at the copper vessel; inevitably the thought of relaxing his cold and tired muscles proved too tempting to resist. “Very well.” Even in those two little words, his tone held a supreme confidence in his ability to overthrow her in this battle of wills. “But I’ll keep the sword with me.”
“I can leave the room if you’d prefer.”
“No. You will stay where I can see you.”
On
her part, it was another test.
Stripping him bare would create a certain vulnerability, a realisation that they were merely people: flesh and bone, living, breathing. He would remember this moment if he ever dared to wield his weapon.
Of course, it would also give her the opportunity to test her resolve. Would his body be as magnificent as she remembered? Would she be just as eager to break the oath she had made before God?
Ivana slid the loose white gown over her head and then sat down on the bed to brush her hair. “Shall I ask the servants to move the dressing screen? It will allow you a little privacy.”
He snorted as his black cloak fell to the floor. “You’ve drunk my blood, ripped my soul from my body. You’ve taken everything I have. What need is there for me to hide away in the shadows?”
She had not taken everything. Some things he had given freely.
“We have shared much,” she said watching him unbuckle the leather straps at his shoulders. “Things you do not remember.”
When his linen shirt joined the cloak on the floor, she drank in the sight of his broad chest, her gaze focusing on the branding she’d had no choice but to burn into his chest. The muscles in her core pulsed; her heart was beating so fast she struggled to swallow.
She had felt this way about him from the very beginning.
When he unbuttoned his breeches, she tried to feign indifference. But his arrogant gaze met hers as the garment slithered down over his hips.
Ivana could not suppress the soft moan that left her lips as lascivious images of the nights they had spent together flooded her mind. Desire burst bright inside. She wanted him — just as she had wanted him on that first foggy evening three years ago.
“You are just as I remember,” she said before running her tongue over her teeth for fear her fangs would protract, for fear she would drain him dry as she took him into her willing body.
“Once again, you appear to have an advantage,” he said as he climbed into the tub and bent his knees to let the water lap his shoulders.
“Then perhaps it is only right I even the odds, so to speak.”
Ivana ignored the voice of reason telling her she was out of her depth, telling her that to reveal anything was sheer folly. Utter madness. But lust clawed away at logic. She focused her thoughts, roused the image of him lying naked on her bed, relived the moment he had thrust inside her for the first time.
A pleasurable groan escaped from his lips as his head fell back against the copper rim. She looked over at him, conveyed the true depth of the passion she had experienced at his hands — almost lost herself in transferring the erotic memory.
“What are you doing to me?” he groaned, relinquishing control to the power of her mind as she let him feel the emotions they had shared upon finding their release. “Oh, God. Why … why am I seeing this?”
“I am giving you a taste of what happened here. I am letting you see it was not all as horrifying as you believed it to be.”
He shot up, water spilling out onto the floor. “It is some sort of evil trick,” he spat yet his eyes were glazed, his lids heavy.
“It is no trick,” she whispered as the ripples of desire subsided. “I stole your memories when I stole your humanity. In seeking an explanation for what I did to you, you are seeking the truth. Whether you wish to accept it or not, you were a willing party in most things.”
“No.” His wide eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets. “I … I would have remembered.”
“Your licentious conduct in the tavern marked you as someone deserving of a life of agonising torment,” she said. “And I’m certain when you hear all I have to say you will not blame me for it. But if you want answers, you must accept that you were the one who made the ultimate decision.”
“Decision,” he repeated sounding somewhat delirious. “What decision?”
Ivana smiled. “You begged me to bite you, Leo.”
Chapter 5