The Vampire Dimitri (Regency Draculia 2)

Instead of the thunderous rage that might have—perhaps should have—flooded him, Dimitri felt only a wave of shock. “How do you know this?”

She merely looked at him. “It matters not. However, might I remind you that your selections from here have ranged from Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis to Malleus Male-ficarum, as well as a wide variety of Bibles and kabbalistic literature. Even some from the Hindis. And you’ve even asked about moksha. All of them have had aught to do with recognizing demons or calling to them, or of the word and teachings of our God. And so,” she said, still holding him with her gaze, “one draws conclusions.”

Dimitri wasn’t precisely clear on how she’d drawn such a conclusion—albeit a correct one—based on his purchases, but earls didn’t lower themselves to arguing with shopkeepers.

Instead, he said stiffly, “There is one large difference between myself and Herr Doktor Faust.”

She nodded, as if she already knew and was waiting for him to speak it.

“Faust called Lucifer to him. I did not.”

She nodded again. “But he came to you when you were at your most vulnerable. That is how he works.”

“Who are you?” Dimitri demanded, suddenly flooded with the memory of that dark, hot night when Lucifer visited him in his dream. A night of fitful sleep, filled with smoke and ash and the heat of London’s Great Fire.

“My name is Wayren. This is my shop.” She spread an elegant hand around the space. Then she looked at him. “What do you seek, Dimitri?”

“I’ve been searching,” he said in a subdued voice he hardly recognized as his own, “for a way out. A way to break his hold on me.”

“You’re certain there is a way?” she asked, her eyes steady on him.

“No.” Despair washed over him. “I’m certain there isn’t. For if there were, I swear I’d have found it by now.”

Without waiting for her response, he spun on his feet, confused and unaccountably furious, and left.

Dimitri snarled at his footman as he opened the door to the carriage waiting in the moonlight.

Nearly four days since the invasion of his study, and he, Woodmore and Cale had been unable to locate Voss in London. He’d been there that night, the cocky bastard, in Angelica’s chamber…but somehow, he’d gotten away before Chas arrived. And since then, he seemed to have evaporated into darkness.

Probably with the blessing of Lucifer.

Dimitri would have suspected Voss had made his escape from London if he hadn’t received a terse message from him today. Voss’s message said that Belial was intending to attack the Woodmore sisters again tonight, and warned him to be on his guard.

As if Dimitri ever let his guard down. Voss knew better than that.

Chas was off tending to Narcise somewhere in London, keeping out of sight of anyone who might notice his presence while trying to find Voss. Dimitri didn’t know where he was, nor did he have any safe way to get the word to Woodmore that his sisters were in particular danger, although he did leave a message at White’s and Rubey’s, as well as the Gray Stag and a few other locations Chas might visit. Using blood pigeons—ones that the Dracule specially trained to fly by following a particular scent of blood to deliver the message—wasn’t secure enough, for Cezar had been known to intercept them.

Cale was spending the evening with the woman named Rubey. She was a mortal who operated an establishment catering to the pleasure needs of the Dracule, and she was also a friend of Voss, who could be contacting her—which was Cale’s official excuse for the visit.

But Dimitri was required to attend to the ladies tonight at some party for some lord or viscount or earl named Harrington, where, according to Iliana, who’d heard it from Mirabella who’d presumably heard it from the sisters, rumor had it that the guest of honor was going to make a proposal of marriage to Angelica Woodmore.

If Iliana hadn’t come down with some sort of sniffle and headache, complete with red, dripping nose and hacking cough, she could have ridden in the carriage with the young ladies and left Dimitri to follow in his own vehicle or even on horseback to ensure their safety along the dark streets.

But he dared not chance leaving them unattended in the carriage, and so he climbed into the blasted thing.

Assaulted immediately by perfumes and powders and acres of skirts and wraps and trailing-off giggles, Dimitri settled onto his seat with nary a word and hardly a glance at his companions. Silence had fallen, in fact, as soon as the door opened and he ducked in, as if his mere presence put a cork in their conversation.

One thing to be grateful for.

But as he adjusted his coattails and the carriage lurched off, Dimitri was assaulted by something else entirely. Something heavy and dark and crushing, over his chest and onto his lungs.

Rubies.

He looked up and around, already feeling slow and weak, already hardly able to breathe, trying to maintain an empty expression even as he felt his strength draining away. Where in the dark hell are they?

Then he saw them, dangling from Angelica’s ears. Ruby earbobs. Large ones, too. She was watching him, as if she noticed his sluggishness, and he pressed his lips together to hide the affliction. The gems were strong, but they weren’t enough to kill him or even to burn him…unless they touched his flesh.

But they made him feel as if he were deep in a pool of hot, red water…slow and murky, his limbs heavy. Before they came to Blackmont Hall, he’d made certain none of the women had rubies; all of his staff understood that no gems were to enter his home without approval from him.

How had Angelica come by these, then?

Miss Woodmore shifted at that moment and Dimitri saw that she, too, was wearing them. Ruby earbobs.

And then he knew precisely how they’d come about getting the stones, for his brain worked just fine even if his body was leeching into bonelessness.

Damn Voss to his dark hell.

He’d done it. Probably when he visited Angelica’s chamber that night. It would be just like the man to leave them for the sisters, mainly as a jest to Dimitri—to let him know that Voss had breached his residence and found a way inside.

He wouldn’t have expected them to all be confined in a carriage together, where the proximity made the potency of the jewels even worse.

“Lord Corvindale!” Angelica said, as Dimitri tried to fight back the fury at his realization, strangled and weak.

“Are you ill?”

All three women suddenly fluttered about him as if he were an injured child, and everything became a flurry of pastel skirts and perfumes and wide eyes. Which of course made the whole situation worse, as the rubies swung closer, and Dimitri angrier, resulting in an even more heavy strangling and crushing of his torso.