Page 14 of The Doctor and the Devil
I’d expected a servant to enter, but Rafael stepped into the room. My heart seized in my chest and my breath caught, as it did every time I looked at him. Rather than his customary all-black suit, he was clad in a loose, white linen shirt, soft leather breeches, and a floor-length red silk dressing gown, open and trailing behind him like a royal robe. The gold embroidered dragons of his family crest glittered in the low firelight, making them look almost alive.
He padded into the room on bare feet and came to sit at the foot of the bed. I shifted slightly, pulling away from the all-too-intimate move.
He noted my discomfort and smiled.
“I’m glad to find you awake, little Mina,” he soothed in his deep baritone. Seeing the obvious wariness on my face, he continued. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
I sipped at my water and narrowed my eyes.
“That remains to be seen, Rafael.”
He tutted and leaned down onto his side, propped up on one elbow.
“It’s twice now that I’ve saved your life. Still, you recoil from me. Is it from our past, I wonder? Or something else?” He grinned at me, the scant light glinting off his lethal fangs. Beneath his teasing, I sensed something sad in his words, but my mind felt too fuzzy for me to explore it properly.
I gripped the water goblet tighter in my hands. I knew he could sense my emotions—not that it would take a vampire’s keen senses to perceive my distress—and I didn’t want to give him any more of an edge than he already possessed.
“What happened?” I asked tightly. “How did I come to be here—whereverhereis?”
I wasn’t sure what I expected, certainly not a straight answer or the bold truth of what happened. Rafael had been a spoiled young man and had enjoyed teasing me too much when we were younger. He loved playing mind games and speaking in riddles, and he had the patience of eternity to frustrate anyone unlucky enough to get drawn into a verbal battle. Sitting across from him now, I felt like a mouse staring down a rather large, rather hungry alley cat.
“Mina,” he purred. “You are still overcoming the effects of the drug you were given. You’re weak…tired…cold.”
On the last word, his gaze dropped from my face to my nipples visible from beneath my worn cotton chemise. Despite the dim light in the bedchamber and the blackness of his eyes, I recognized the shimmer of lust. Self-conscious, I tugged the thick coverlet up to my neck.
“Yes,” I lied, not chilled in the slightest. “It’s frigid in here.”
He quirked one sharp black brow at me, then waved his hand at the waning embers in the fireplace. With a soft word in an unrecognizable language, the flames roared to life.
My eyes widened. “Not a side effect of the blood plague?” I questioned. “Is this from the curse? Or have you been studying witchcraft?”
“Perhaps I made a deal with the devil, and he took whatever was left of my pitiful soul after all,” he quipped drily. “In exchange for a wealth of varied dark powers.”
I glared.
He laughed again and rose from the bed, his lean muscles flexing like a lithe jungle cat.
“Later, Mina. For now, you need rest and food and drink. Restore your body and then I will give you the answers that will satisfy your mind.” The low timbre of his voice and the heat in his eyes set my skin aflame.
I sipped at the water again to try to cool my temperament.
“Whose blood was it?” I asked suddenly.
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “Why?”
I was glad that he didn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“I want to know,” I answered. “Are they still alive?”
He tilted his head at me in a curious way, as if observing a specimen in a bell jar.
“Not on this plane of existence, no. Why do you want to know?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t want to be responsible for any more deaths.”
“You are not.”
“Let me judge that for myself,” I replied. “Whose blood was it?”
