MILLS & BOON

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      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Prologue

      Fifteenth Century

       Romania

      “We have to bury her, my son.”

      Vlad stood in the small stone chapel beside his beloved new bride. Elisabeta’s skin was as cold as the stone bier on which she lay. She wore the pale green wedding gown the servants had found for her on the day their hasty vows had been exchanged. The skirt draped on either side of her, swathing the stone slab in beauty. Her hair, pale as spun silver and endlessly long, spread around her head, as if pillowing her in a cloud.

      “My son—” This time the old priest’s words were accompanied by his hand, clasping Vlad’s shoulder.

      Vlad whirled on the man. “No! She is not to be put in the ground. Not yet. I won’t allow it.”

      A little fear joined the pity in the old man’s eyes. Not enough, not yet. “I know this is difficult—I do. But she deserves to be laid to rest.”

      “I said no,” Vlad repeated, his tone tired, his heart dead. Then he turned from the priest and focused again where he needed to focus: upon her, upon his bride. Their time together had been too short. One night and then part of a second before he’d been called into battle. It wasn’t right.

      The priest still hovered.

      “Get out, before I draw my blade and send you out in pieces.” Vlad’s words were barely more than a hoarse whisper, yet filled with enough menace to elicit a clipped gasp from the cleric.

      “I’ll send in your father. Perhaps he can—”

      Vlad turned to send a warning glare over his shoulder. Brief, but powerful enough to reduce most mortals to tears.

      “I’m going, my liege.” The priest bowed a little as he backed through the chapel doors.

      Vlad sighed in relief when the doors closed once again, leaving him alone with his grief. He leaned over Elisabeta’s body, lowered his head to her chest, and let his tears soak the gown. “Why, my love? Why did you do this? Was our love not worthy of a single day’s grieving? I told you I would come back. Why couldn’t you have believed in me?”

      A soft creaking sound accompanied by a stiff night breeze and the gentle clearing of an aging throat told him that his respite was over. Vlad forced himself to straighten, to turn and face his father—for truly, the man had become as much a father to him as any had been, since Utnapishtim.

      The old king was pale and unsteady. He’d lost a daughter-in-law he’d been close, already, to loving—and for three days he had believed that he had lost his son, as well.

      He crossed the small room, his gait uneven and slow, then wrapped his frail arms around Vlad’s shoulders and hugged him hard, as hard as his strength would allow. “Alive,” he muttered. “By the gods, my son, you’re alive after all.”

      Vlad closed his eyes as he returned his father’s embrace. “Alive, father, but none too glad to be, just now.” As he said it, he looked back at his bride.

      His father did, as well, releasing his hold on Vlad to move closer to the bier. “I cannot tell you how it grieves me to see you in such pain, much less to witness the loss of such a precious young woman as Elisabeta.”

      “I know.”

      “Your friend, the foreign woman—she told you what transpired?”

      Vlad nodded. “Rhiannon is…an old friend. And a dear one. She said she arrived here for a visit just after I was called to defend our borders.”

      “So she did. We put her up. Fussy one, she is, and I don’t believe she thought highly of your chosen bride. Were the two of you…?”

      “As close as any two people can be,” Vlad told him. “But we had no claims on each other. She would not have been jealous.”

      “She called the princess a—now what was the word she used…? Ah yes, a whiner,” the king said softly. “To her face, no less.”

      Vlad nodded, not doubting it.

      “When word came that you’d been killed on the field of battle, poor Elisabeta took to the tower