She had pulled her tangled hair back into a braid. He had almost forgotten how she could do that. Her hair was curly enough that it could stay in a braid without a tie for at least an hour, if it wasn’t disturbed, but when they had been together, he had rarely been able to leave her alone for long enough to let that happen.

The relief that overcame him was more intense than any other emotion he had felt in a very long time. He said hoarsely, “What are you using to pick the locks?”

She spoke around the butt of the flashlight she held between her teeth, and while the words were a bit distorted, they were also easily understandable. “Pieces of a hairpin.”

A rusty, ragged sound came out of him like a cough, making the open wounds all over his body throb. With surprise, he recognized the sound. It was a laugh. “That might be the first mistake Justine has made since she took you.”

Melly glanced at him, large eyes flashing, and then she focused on her work again. “Well, she got most of them, but they weren’t handling me all that gently at the time, and a few slipped into my bra.” She raised her eyebrows, and somehow, despite the flashlight between her teeth, managed to look quite regal. “I chose not to inform them of that fact.”

They had manhandled her. Rage exploded in a supernova, but he didn’t have the reserves to sustain it. As fast as it hit, it dissipated into a dull red glow. “Like I said, stupid of them.”

She finished picking the lock, and pushed the door open while she took the flashlight out of her mouth. “I find it useful when people underestimate me.”

Exhausted and in pain, he closed his eyes to avoid looking at her as she walked toward him. Disheveled as she was, she looked too beautiful, and his insides were in a riotous mess. Gladness, relief and anger — the old anger at Melly, and the new, hot rage at Justine — and something else that lay twisted into a knot deep in his heart. He chose not to examine that last bit too closely.

“Not a mistake I’d ever make with you,” he heard himself saying. “I’d have done a body cavity search.”

“Same old suave Julian. I never know when you’re flirting.” Her reply was acerbic, but her hands were gentle as she touched the wounds on his chest. Her intake of breath was all too audible in the dense silence. When she spoke next, her voice had turned small and tense. “Gods. They didn’t just bite you. They tore at you, and you haven’t healed.”

“Too much blood loss,” he muttered.

“Here.” Something warm and soft nudged his lips. It smelled like her.

He opened his eyes.

She held her wrist to his mouth, her expression warm and concerned. While she was tall for a woman, because of the difference in their heights, she had to stand very close to him to hold her arm up at the correct angle to reach his mouth.

He could feel the heat from her body against his bruised and torn skin, and her scent twined around him in an invisible embrace.

He hadn’t been so physically close to her since the last time they were together. Always afterward, whenever they had to see and interact with each other in public, he had kept at least a few feet of distance between them.

The sight, scent and sensation of her closeness pierced through him, right into the tangled knot lying deep in his heart. Sharp, raw pain flared up, as bewildered and jagged as it had been the day he had been given evidence of her infidelity, incontrovertible evidence that made a lie of every sincere-seeming glance from her, every affectionate gesture or quietly whispered words of love.

Reflexively he jerked his head away.

Silence stretched taut between them, so heavy and complete he could count the beats of her heart.

She said in a tight, brittle voice, “You have to feed, even if it’s from me. If you don’t, you won’t heal. You’ll stay weak, and that won’t get either of us out of here.”

He looked at her. Her expression had turned pinched, and her eyes glittered.

Much as he didn’t want to bite her, she was right. “You startled me, that’s all,” he growled. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

The curve of her full mouth drew tight, but she held her wrist up to his mouth again.

He didn’t want to drink. He didn’t want to need her in any way. Reluctantly, he forced his fangs to descend.

No matter how he tried, he could never let go of his anger at her. He could forget about it, sometimes for months at a time, but whenever he was confronted with the reality of her again, it all surged back in a hot, violent whirlpool that swept over his mind and clouded his thinking. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever be able to let it go. He was a mean, unforgiving bastard at the best of times.

But as angry as he was, he couldn’t strike at her. Instead, he put his mouth against the tender flesh of her inner wrist and eased into the bite as gently as he could. As his fangs pierced her delicate skin, her fingers curled tight and the tiny intake of breath was clearly audible in the tomb-like silence.

Instinctively he paused, giving her the chance to adjust to the bite. There was etiquette to this sort of thing. At first the pain would be sharp, like an IV needle, but the properties in his saliva would ease that away within moments. Civilized Vampyres only began to draw from a bite once their participant began to feel pleasure.

In pain and as depleted as he was, he adamantly refused to allow Justine’s abuses to drive him into behaving like the animals that had fed from him. So he waited until her fingers relaxed, unfurling like shy, slender flower petals. Only then did he begin to suck.

The rich, warm tang of her blood flowed into his mouth.

Good Christ. He had thought he’d braced himself for the impact of her taste, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t. There was no way to brace for this.

Like the differences between types of wine and different wineries, each person’s blood carried a taste that was unique to them.

Nothing else in the entire world tasted like Melisande. Nothing.

Before he had become a Vampyre, he had lived a rugged life in the Roman army. He had been almost constantly outdoors in all types of weather, yet that brief human experience had occurred two thousand years ago.

He had long since forgotten what warm sunlight felt like on his face, yet the warmth in Melly’s blood reminded him. Like her smile, it was infectious. It stole into him and pushed back the icy darkness that had begun to take him over.

Her blood was unbelievably rich with the magic that came with her heritage, along with an ability she had never bothered to cultivate. She had never cared about any inherent magical talent and preferred to explore her other talents and attributes, but he could taste all of it on his tongue.

She tasted like home and hot sex, like laughter and intimacy.

She tasted like realization.

Before her, he hadn’t known that he had been slowly expiring of thirst over the centuries. No matter how many people he tasted or how many lovers he had taken, he had been dying inside. Dying. Then she had lit everything up inside of him — only to snatch it all away again, leaving him bereft and alone as he approached the midnight of his life.

As he drew on her, he made a sound at the back of his throat, and she echoed it softly. Endorphins flooded her blood, and as he drank, her pleasure became his.

It was every bit as powerful as the first time the night of the Masque, when he had taken what a tipsy, mischievous goddess had offered him. The same kind of shock, the same intensity of connection.

Memory became entwined with the present.

Then, at the Masque, her breath had hissed in a sexy little catch, and she swayed as he sucked so gently at her delicate skin. Still feeding and hungry to feel her curvaceous body against his, he pulled her into his arms, and she came readily to nestle against him, the curve of her pelvis rubbing against his erection. Astonished intoxication bolted through him.