Prince of Twilight Read Free

is,” Melina said, eyeing several tarnished silver pieces in another case. Bowls, urns, pendants.
    â€œWhere what is?”
    â€œWhat you need to see. But it won’t be here for long. It’s part of a traveling exhibit. Artifacts uncovered on a recent archaeological dig in the northern part of Turkey.”
    Stormy eyed her, waiting for her to say more, but Melina fell silent and moved farther along the hall, among line drawings and diagrams of dig sites, framed like pieces of art. Then she turned to go through two open doors into a large room. There were items lining the walls, all of them safely behind glass barriers. Brass trinkets, steel blades with elaborately carved handles of bone and ivory. Stormy glanced at the items on display, then rubbed her arms, suddenly cold to the bone. “You’d think they’d turn on the heat in here. It’s freezing,” she muttered. Then, to distract herself from the rush of discomfort, she snatched up a flyer from a stack in a nearby rack and read from it. According to it, the items found didn’t match the culture of the area in which they’d been located, and many were thought to be the spoils of war, brought home by soldiers who looted themfrom faraway lands and conquered enemies. The dig site was believed to have been a monastery of sorts—a place where men went to study magic and the occult.
    â€œHere it is,” Melina said.
    Stormy dragged her gaze from the flyer to where the other woman stood a few yards away, in front of a small glass cube that sat atop a pedestal. Inside the cube, resting on a clear acrylic base, was a ring. It was big, its wide band more elaborately engraved than the gaudiest high school class ring she’d ever seen. Its gleaming red stone was as big as one of those, too, only she was pretty sure this stone was real.
    â€œIt’s a ruby,” Melina said, confirming Stormy’s unspoken suspicion. “It’s priceless. Isn’t it incredible?”
    Stormy didn’t reply. She couldn’t take her eyes off the ring. For a moment it was as if she were seeing it through a long, dark tunnel. Everything around her went black, her vision riveted to the ring, her eyes unable to see anything else. And then she heard a voice.
    â€œInelul else al meu!”
    The voice—it came from her own throat. Her lips were moving, but she wasn’t moving them. The sensation was as if she had become a puppet, or a dummy in some ventriloquist act. Her body wasmoving all on its own, her hands reaching for the glass case, palms pressing to either side of it, lifting it from its base.
    A hand closed hard on her arm and jerked her away. “Ms. Jones, what the hell are you doing?”
    Stormy blinked rapidly as her body snapped back on line. She saw Melina holding her upper arm while looking around the room as if waiting for the Canadian version of a SWAT team to swarm in.
    Stormy cleared her throat. “Did I set off any alarms?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Melina said. “There are sensors on the pedestal. They kick in only if the ring is removed.”
    Frowning as her head cleared, Stormy stared at her. “Why do you know that?”
    â€œIt’s my job to know. Are you all right?”
    Nodding, Stormy avoided the other woman’s eyes. “Yeah. Fine. I…zoned out for a minute, that’s all.”
    But it wasn’t all. And she wasn’t fine. Far from it. She hadn’t had an episode like that in sixteen years, but she knew the sensations that had swamped her just now. Knew them well. She would never forget. Never. She hadn’t felt that way in sixteen years, not since the last time she’d been withhim. With Dracula. The one and only. And though her memory of the specifics of that time with him was a dark void, her memories of…being possessed remained. And memories of Dracula or not, she’d heard his voice just a moment ago, whispering close to