Jeaniene Frost - Eternal Kiss of Darkness

Kira. In Greek, her name meant “lady”. In Celtic, it meant “dark”. Which fit her better? Her appearance fit both meanings of her name—her face was delicate and beautiful, except for that strong jaw that warned of stubbornness. Kira’s eyes were pale green, but her brows were dark, matching the deep hue of her hair before it lightened to gold at the tips. Her hair was short for Mencheres’s tastes, falling to just above her shoulders, but it was so lush, thick, and curly, it practically invited him to twine it around his fingers.

Kira’s body was another contrast of femininity and strength. She was slender to the point of delicacy, but she held herself with a fighter’s stance, and her wide shoulders only served to better highlight her full breasts. She’d squared those lovely broad shoulders and that stubborn jaw when she’d snarled at him to stay away from her sister. Even though Kira knew he wasn’t human, she hadn’t hesitated to challenge him over the perceived threat to her family. Dark lady, indeed.

“Yes, please!”

The cry yanked Mencheres out of his musings. Gods, he’d been caressing Selene and unconsciously sending out strands of his power to stroke and stimulate her nerve endings. How could he have gotten so lost in his thoughts of Kira that he’d forgotten he still held Selene in his arms?

Mencheres pulled back his power and set Selene away from him.

“I’ve taken all I need,” he told her.

Her eyes opened as she pressed against him. “Let me give you more than blood,” she offered in a husky voice.

“No,” Mencheres replied automatically.

As soon as he uttered the words, he reminded himself again that he didn’t need to refuse. His wife was dead, so there was no more death sentence on any woman he took to his bed. If he wanted Selene, he could have her.

But it was ironic; after burning with unspent lust for longer than many civilizations existed, now, when he had a chance to indulge, he had no desire to. Selene was beautiful, willing, yet he didn’t want her.

Kira’s face flickered in his mind, but Mencheres wiped her image away before he allowed himself to dwell on it.

“No,” he repeated to Selene in a tone that brooked no argument.

She left after one last lingering look that he pretended not to notice. Selene, like all the others, didn’t only want him. She also wanted the power, security, and supernatural pleasure he could give, but somehow during Mencheres’s extended, forced celibacy, that was no longer an acceptable trade.

Selene had only been gone a few minutes before Gorgon, the only vampire Mencheres brought with him to this house, came into the library.

“Sire,” Gorgon said. “We have a situation with the human you brought home this morning.”

Mencheres rose, already striding up the stairs to Kira’s room, when Gorgon’s voice stopped him.

“Ah, sire? You might want to go outside instead.”

Kira dangled out the window on her makeshift rope, reminding herself with gritted teeth not to look down. It had taken hours to tie the bedspread, sheets, drapes, and shower curtain together until it was long enough to reach to the bottom of the house. Then she secured it around two corners of the bed, waiting tensely until after dark so she’d have less chance of being seen. It took another half hour of mental pep talking before she’d worked up the courage to heave herself over the window ledge, and she’d had a moment of sheer panic when the rope first stretched under her weight.

But the rope, the bed anchor, and her biceps had held. Slowly, Kira edged down, tangling the rope between her legs to slow her descent. You’re doing fine, Kira told herself as she carefully began to climb down the side of the house. With luck, she’d be safely on the bottom in just a few minutes. If she had even more luck, it wouldn’t take her long to find help. She doubted she was still in Chicago, judging from the lack of almost any houses or buildings within eyesight, but she had seen what looked like another home past the line of trees to the north. That’s where she’d try first—assuming the rope or the bed didn’t all of a sudden break.

When she reached the ledge below her window, Kira blew out a tight sigh of relief. One story completed, two more to go. So far, no one had sounded the alarm. Pretending to be a compliant captive had worked, it seemed. She’d even pretended to eat the food and drink the soda the blond-haired man with the scar running down his cheek had brought her, but in reality, she’d flushed them down the toilet. No way was she risking being drugged by touching that stuff. She’d swallowed some water from the shower when she cleaned off. That was more than enough to keep her hydrated, and she doubted they were clever enough to have drugged that.

Kira kept easing herself down the rope, amazed that her arms didn’t feel shaky. She’d lost a lot of blood this morning, but for some reason, her arms were steady, handling her weight with ease. That was unusual enough to concern Kira, but she decided to worry about it later. Like, when she was far away from this house and at the nearest police station.

She made it down another story, holding her breath as her rope brought her dangling directly in front of a window. The light inside glowed against the glass, making the interior clearly discernible to her. Kira prayed the darkness outside would make her almost invisible by contrast. She lightly kicked off to position herself away from the center of the window, and lowered herself a little faster. Should she risk looking down to check how much farther it was? No, Kira decided. She’d done well to get this far, considering her fear of heights. No need to ruin that by looking down now.

When Kira finally felt solid earth underneath her feet instead of more emptiness and rope, she almost whooped in relief. She stuffed her glee back, though, pulling the rope to the left of the windows and securing it by tucking the end under a potted plant. With luck, no one would find it until morning, and she’d be long gone by then.

Kira began to run as fast as she could in the direction where she thought she’d glimpsed the other house from her bedroom window. It was dark as pitch outside, but she was pretty sure she was headed in the right direction. Her heart thumped with joy and exhilaration. She was free!

She made it twenty yards before she ran into a wall.

Mencheres had watched Kira climb down the house with a mixture of wonder and amusement. She certainly was a tenacious female, stringing together rope made from various materials in the bedroom—and were those shower curtain loops she’d used as anchor points for her knots?

“Want me to get her?” Gorgon asked, his voice too low for Kira to hear him.

“No,” Mencheres replied. He was rather curious to see if she’d make it all the way to the bottom. If the rope broke or she lost her grip, he could easily catch her. But in the meantime, watching Kira maneuver down the side of the house was more entertaining than anything he’d done in the past several months.

“You may go back inside,” he told Gorgon, his mouth twitching as Kira delicately kicked away from the window. She was being very quiet for a human; but of course, with his hearing, she made quite a commotion.

Gorgon nodded once before disappearing back into the house. Mencheres stood on the darkest part of the lawn, where he’d be invisible from Kira’s sight, and continued to watch her. He tensed when the bed frame that the rope was anchored to creaked warningly, but her line held. When Kira made it to the ground, Mencheres smiled along with her. Well done, dark lady.