"Nothing. No one. I've never been in love." Her cognac eyes darkened before she looked away. "I don't know how. I don't think I can."

"Then I will show you. I am a man; you are a woman." He pressed her back against the pillows. "I am hard: you are soft." He shifted his hips, settling between her thighs. "I am the blade; you are the sheath. Watch how we fit together. This is us. This is the love we make."

He rubbed the swollen head of his shaft against her, parting her as he pressed in. Their violent joining earlier must have left her tender, for as he worked his penis into her she made soft sounds in her throat and lifted her hips, adjusting herself around his girth.

"Are you hurting?" Robin asked once he had penetrated her completely.

"Not anymore." She arched her back, rubbing her breasts against him as she tried to smile. "What about you?"

"Some of my parts are aching." He slid out of her several inches before carefully easing back in. "This one particularly, Christiana."

"I don't know any Christiana, but I could give it a massage." Her hand moved down and curled around the base of him. As he came out of her, she tightened her fingers. "Hmmmm. You must be in a lot of pain. I can feel it throbbing."

"That it is." He clenched his teeth as she held him. "Let me in, love, before it bursts."

She released him only to cradle the delicate sac beneath as he pushed in. His balls tightened against her palm, ready even now to pump her full of his seed.

"You need to come," she said.

"Not yet," he begged, stroking faster, pressing higher. "I want you with me."

"I don't think…" She closed her eyes as he used his fingers to open the folds over her clitoris so that every thrust dragged his shaft across it. "Yes, there. Oh, God. Right there."

Robin fucked his cock into her body over and over, working her into her pleasure until he felt her muscles clasp him and the ripples inside her spreading. She came around him with a thin cry, and he buried himself in the center of the storm, shaking and groaning as she pulled at him, filling herself with the furious streams of his semen. He collapsed on his side, shifting her before their bodies separated so that he could feel his penis soften inside her.

"So good." She buried her face in his chest, her breasts heaving, her hands still clutching.

When this was over, Robin thought, stroking her shoulder slowly, he would not give her up. She belonged to him now, and for all that had been taken from him, he deserved her. He would move heaven and earth if need be, but he would have her, and be the love that she had never had, for the rest of their lives.

I'm human; you re not.

Luisa watched the nurse change the bandages covering her left hand and felt bemused. In one of her visions, she had seen Alexandra Keller do the same thing for a Frenchwoman who had been badly burned, right before she held her hand and told her something that made her cry.

Bad news, she'd thought, and had deliberately shut down the vision.

Some things were never meant to be shared. She had never told the doctor or anyone that the men who had attacked her were Brethren. Like the lost book, and the painful choices that would have to be made because of it, that truth was not for Alex Keller or the Darkyn to know before the proper time.

Luisa.

The connection she shared with the shadow prince allowed him to call to her, too, but she had to wait until the nurse left her room before she could answer him.

I'm here. She closed her eyes so that anyone who might walk into her room while she was in the waking dream wouldn't see her eyes change. What's wrong?

She saw that almost immediately. Her prince stood over the small, unmoving body of a baby deer. It lay on the grass next to a highway, and although it was still breathing, the twisted condition of its legs and the blood soaking the ground under it told her it wouldn't be for much longer.

Will it die?

Yes. She felt his despair match her own. Unless you can help it.

For the first time since he had come into his talent, he wanted to try. He began taking off the glove covering his right hand. Only his fear of failure made him stop. I can't.

Then do nothing. She hardened her heart. It's only roadkill.

The shadow prince picked up the fawn and carried it into the woods, away from the road. He laid it gently on a bed of leaves and took his gloved hands away.

Luisa watched and held on to hope, thin as it was. However much she wanted the fawn to live and the prince's wounds to heal, she couldn't choose for either of them. She could only pray that the baby deer would cling to its life, and the prince would overcome his fear of death before the poor creature bled to death.

Why won't you help me?

He wanted her to push him to do it, Luisa thought, a little startled to learn that he thought she had that much influence over him. I can only see, and dream.

I'll trade you.

That hurt. You aren't the only one who never asked for this to happen to them. Don't you think I would give it back if I could?

But you wouldn't give it to anyone else.

No. Luisa felt her own bitterness twist in her breast. Not even to the men who hurt me.

The shadow prince bowed his head for a moment before he stripped off his gloves and placed his big hands over the fawn's neck and back. He murmured something she couldn't hear—a prayer?—and then closed his eyes.

His sun had set an hour ago, but light began to stream down through the thick boughs overhead, pale and silvery, the memories of moonbeams. They settled around the shadow prince, setting him aglow, and danced over his dark face before gliding down his arms and pooling in his hands.

The fawn twitched, and then it lifted its head and looked at the shadow prince with its large, soft eyes.

As he took his hands away and the light faded, the tiny creature struggled, thrashing its hooves before it scrambled upright. It stood on straight, strong legs, spellbound and trembling, but it did not run.

The shadow prince held out his hand and stroked the animal's small head before he, too, rose and stepped away.

The fawn found its legs and dashed off.

Luisa let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. You did it. That wasn't so bad, was it?

He looked up through the trees at the grinning moon and shook his head. You expect too much from me, Princess.

Despite his success, Luisa knew he wasn't ready to accept what he was. She wanted to see him come out of the darkness into the light so much that she thought she might scream, but the wisdom that had come with the sight made her understand.

Like her, he needed more time. At least they both had plenty of that.

Luisa felt a vision rising, one of another dark prince. I have to go now.

He reached out to her one last time, showing her a rare glimpse of his own longing and loneliness. Come to me in my dreams.

I will.

Luisa pulled back into herself, taking the vision with her, and opened herself to see. The other man's lust filled her as she looked through his eyes, and she felt his anger and envy as he watched the lovers.

The man in the building directly across the street from Signorina Lorena DeGrazzi's apartment lowered the binoculars he had been using to watch the couple having sex and released the bulge straining at the front of his trousers.

As he pumped himself with his own hand, he imagined the red-haired mortal straining under him as he plowed into her, her dark eyes on his face. Only when her face changed into that of another did he jerk with hollow pleasure as he came alone in the empty room.

He washed his hands before he picked up the phone to place the call.

She answered with, "Well?"

"I tracked them from the airport to an apartment in the city," he told her in the ruined, whispering rasp that she thought was all that remained of his voice. That his voice was slowly coming back and growing stronger by the day was something he had to conceal until he had his revenge. Then he would use it to tell the truth and right the wrongs committed against him by his cousin and the Americans. "They appear to be staying in for the night. Your call worked."

"You sound jealous of Locksley, my lord," she said. "Perhaps when you are finished with him and his little mortal, you will come and stay at my villa for a few weeks."

He would rather perform the oral arts on a diseased-riddled whore on the steps of the Vatican, but saw no reason to tell her that. "Perhaps."

She laughed. "Such enthusiasm. But I know you are eager to collect your reward. Everything is prepared. You have but to stay out of sight until sunset tomorrow."

"What about the woman?"

"You will need to keep up your strength, yes?" she purred. "I believe that he also cares for her, so whatever you might do to her in front of him might prove most amusing." Her voice grew crisp. "All you must do is bring the manuscript to me, and you will have your revenge. Until tomorrow, my lord."

He put down the phone and returned to his seat by the window. Idly he touched the ring of scar tissue around his neck. Most nights he did not regret the miracle that Alexandra Keller had performed on him. She had told him that he would never speak again, but that part of his throat had somehow grown back in the months since the operation she had performed on him. But tonight he felt the weight of the world and all it had taken from him, and almost wished the pretty little doctor had finished the butchery he had been subjected to instead of repairing it.

If I am to live in purgatory, then I will see him in hell first.

Guy of Guisbourne, Lord Nottingham, lifted the binoculars to his eyes again.

Chapter Thirteen

"Good evening, my lords," Richard Tremayne, high lord of the Darkyn, said as he looked down the long table and the men seated around it. "Thank you for making the journey here."

As Geoffrey's footmen filled their glasses with blood-wine, Michael surveyed the other six seigneur who had traveled from the four corners of the earth for le conseil supérieur. As the first seigneur of North America, Cyprien had never before attended such a gathering, but years of discussing Kyn policies and decisions had given him an idea of what to expect.