Masks Read Free Page A

stretched tight around a truly desperate need.
    A small smile began to play around her lips.
    “He’s pretty enough—” the condottiere insisted.
    “For a commoner, perhaps. I need courtiers.”
    “But he’s noble—”
    “So you say.”
    “He was trained as a knight! I know the kind of muscle hefting a sword builds!”
    She shrugged. “Keep him for your watch, then.”
    “I’ve better things to do than nurse an infant.”
    “As do I,” she murmured, and began to stroke.
    Mircea stared at her in disbelief, even as his body cried out for release. Did she actually expect him to perform for her, to spill himself like a whore for the amusement of her friends? It seemed impossible, ludicrous. But her actions were unmistakable, as was her power. It thrummed through him, tightening his body, escalating his need.
    But there were other needs, and outrage lent them strength. In his own land, he had been a prince. Death had robbed much from him, almost everything, but it hadn’t taken that. It could never take that. And he did not perform like a trained monkey in a square!
    And it seemed that in this, at least, she could not force him, because she abruptly let go.
    But only to strip off her glove.
    “He doesn’t need strength to roll around in the sheets,” the condottiere said contemptuously.
    “But he does need refinement—a great deal of it.”
    “Trimming those eyebrows alone might take a week,” a blond murmured. He was male, Mircea realized with a shock. He hadn’t noticed before, since the peacock had been dressed every bit as sumptuously as the women, with a ridiculous red velvet cape that fell in costly excess to the floor.
    “And the more I have to do to make him useful, the more it costs me.”
    “Damn it, Martina!” The condottiere exploded. “You told me to find you something different—”
    “And you interpreted that to mean an over muscled oaf?” One delicate eyebrow went up.
    “Then what
do
you want?”
    The blond cleared his throat, and made an exaggerated bow. The condottiere cursed. And the vampire Martina grasped Mircea again, this time skin to skin.
    And he’d been wrong, he realized in creeping horror. It wasn’t the glove that was scaly-smooth. It was the hand underneath.
    His body shuddered as she met his eyes, revulsion battling with desperate need. And fury and shame and more than a little fear. But greater than any of those was confusion.
    Why was she doing this? If she wasn’t interested, why didn’t she leave him be? Go find herself some other poor bastard who better fit her demanding specifications?
    “I have other buyers—” the condottiere threatened, apparently wondering the same thing.
    “Then sell him to them.”
    “But I acquired him with you in mind. I wanted to give you first choice—”
    They kept haggling, but Mircea was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. Perhaps because she had turned her attention to the globes between his thighs. The horror of her touch caused them to try to retreat into his flesh, but her power forced them to drop heavily into her grasp, like two ripe fruits.
    “Forty?” the condottiere was outraged. “That’s the price of a nag of a horse! I couldn’t take less than two hundred.”
    “And I can’t offer more than fifty.”
    “Now I know you’re joking. I could get more for a human slave than that!”
    Martina said something else, but Mircea didn’t hear. She had started rolling him across her palm, as expertly as a gambler manipulating a pair of dice. And the slow, deliberate, over gentle pressure was maddening.
    Until she suddenly squeezed and twisted, and he let out a gasp that froze in the chilly air between them. His fists knotted, his thighs corded, his buttocks clenched and jerked, his whole body begging for release no matter the cost. He snarled and denied it.
    “Oh, this should be fun,” the blond sighed, walking off to examine one of the others.
    “That has yet to be determined,” his mistress said