Page 326 of Dragon Slayer

Shaking, vibrating out of his skin with a fury so potent he couldn’t hope to understand it, Jake said, “You really are insane.”

Vlad said, “For most of my childhood, I was held hostage by my father’s enemy. A man whose son would go on to defile my little brother and keep him as a concubine. My father’s own people turned on him, killed him. My little brother nearly cleaved me in two six-hundred years ago, and then I returned the favor.

“These are things that happened. Because of selfishness – and because of protectiveness, also. Brutal things are always simple, Major Treadwell, even if youremotionsare not. I saved Adela’s leg; I made her immortal and ungodly strong. Now: are you glad of that, or do you wish she’d lost her limb?”

Jake bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood.

“Are the two of you lovers?”

Shut up!he wanted to scream. He couldn’t answer, afraid of what he might say if he opened his mouth – and what Vlad might do in retaliation.

But the prince was calm. He set the knife down on the desk and linked his hands together over his flat stomach. He had large, long-fingered hands, rough with prominent calluses in places not caused by modern weapons. His lips tipped up the slightest fraction in the corners, and he looked almost amused.

“No need to answer, Major, I can tell that you aren’t. I would have smelled it if you were. I might think you wanted to be her lover, but that’s not quite the truth, is it? You just don’t wantmeto be.”

“If you’re mind-controlling her–”

“I can’t do that.”

The chair armsgroaned.

“I possess no psychic abilities whatsoever,” Vlad explained. “Though it appears I’m stubborn enough to resist the compelling efforts of mages even as strong as our stupid Mr. Price. I have no way to compel Adela, though.”

Jake forced his fingers to uncurl from the wood; they were bloodless and aching from the pressure.

“I have done innumerable violent things in my life, and I’m not sorry for them. But I’ve never forced a woman against her will, and I have no plans to do so now. There are more important things at stake than sex,” he said, dismissive, and turned back to his map. “I have need of a second in command, and I thought that might be you, if you are capable and willing enough.” One last, lazy glance, only half-curious, but assessing.

Jake took a series of deep breaths, his heart pounding against his ribs so forcefully that it hurt. It hit him then, with an unreal sense that the floor was tipping out from beneath him, that he’d made a terrible error in judgement.

Tigers could kill, and tigers could escape. Tigers could creep up silent in the half-light of dusk and gut you open. But the thing he’d forgotten? Tigers weresmart.

So was Vlad.

This was no rabid beast foaming at the mouth for violence. Not something depraved who feasted on chaos. Vlad was colder and more calculating than any military man Jake had ever met. Vlad weighed the odds and acted on logic.

And sometimes, logic was the most monstrous motivation of all.

~*~

Adela checked her watch and was surprised to find that it had only been five minutes since she’d checked last. She’d covered nearly two miles in that time. Earbuds pumping music, she lifted her head and pressed on. Nikes digging into the loose pebbles and hard-packed dirt of the trail, arms swinging, lungs working with a strength and regularity that was almost mechanical. She jumped a branch, skipped over a set of hoofprints, and started up the next hill with a fresh burst of speed.

She’d always been athletic, but this was…this was something else entirely.

Dr. Talbot hadn’t wanted her to leave the mansion. Agent West had said “under no circumstance,” his face pinched and pale.

But Vlad had stepped in. “She goes where she wants.” And his word was law, now.

Agent West had been on the phone, hiding in corners, having hushed, furious conversations. She’d eavesdropped without any effort: calls to Washington, to the secretary of state, on hold with the president, requests to speak with the joint chiefs. There was a real possibility he might try to call in an airstrike on the manor just to get rid of Vlad.

But Adela knew this whole thing was bigger than ego or the lives of a few underlings. The US government had spent seventy-five years and uncountable millions trying to find Vlad Tepes; if he wanted to control a manor house, he could control a manor house.

She had no idea how the rest of it would shake out, only that she was now a part of it in a way she’d never expected, and there was no going back.

She flew the last distance, taking the wide stone steps two at a time. She was out of breath and tired when she reached the double front doors, but in a pleasant way. The familiar ache of lactic acid, the rush of too much oxygen in her lungs, the dizziness of dehydration, yes – but she wasn’t going to cramp, or faint, or need a nap. She could feel energy in a reserve now, dormant in her blood, ready to be tapped into with a sit-down and a snack and a bottle of water. Vlad had told her she was strong now, and she was.

She paused in the vestibule to take out her earbuds and slip them in the pocket of her shorts. She looked down at her feet.

The surgeon who’d performed the transplant of the donor leg had done a magnificent job. The donor had been the same shoe size, and of a very similar build. She’d been Latina, and shared Adela’s slender calves and ankles. Still, it hadn’t been aperfectmatch; no such thing existed. The skin tone hadn’t been an exact match; then there had been the scar…

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