Prince of Twilight Read Free Page B

these symptoms. Blacking out, speaking in a strange language, becoming violent, attacking even her best friends and, usually, remembering nothing. It was as if she were possessed by an alien soul, as if her body were a marionette with some stranger pulling the strings.
    Max said her eyes changed color, turned from their normal baby blue to a dark, fathomless ebony, during those episodes.
    Through hypnosis, she’d learned the intruder’s name. Elisabeta. And she knew, in her gut, that the woman had some connection to Vlad. An intimate one.
    Vlad had been under attack, had taken her hostage to aid in his escape. Even then, she’d beendrawn to him. His muscled, powerful body. His long, raven’s wing hair. His eyes—the intensity in them when he looked at her. She remembered kissing him as if there were no tomorrow. Or maybe that had never happened; maybe that was fantasy. A delicious erotic fantasy that left her with a deep ache in her loins and her soul. She remembered hoping he could help her solve the mystery of who Elisabeta was and why she was haunting Stormy. Trying to take over. And maybe he had. But though, upon her return, Max had told her that she had been Vlad’s captive for than a week, Stormy remembered nothing.
    She only knew that since her return, she’d felt almost no sign of that intruding soul’s presence. And she’d determined that it was Vlad’s nearness that stirred the other to life. As it would stir any woman.
    She was still there, though. Stormy had never doubted it. Hoped she was wrong, but never truly doubted. Elisabeta, whoever she was, still lurked inside her, waiting…for something.
    Stormy stopped pacing and held her head in her hands as she stared into the mirror that was mounted on one of the lush hotel room’s antique replica dressers. “Dammit to hell, I hoped you weregone,” she whispered. “I honest to goodness was beginning to let myself believe you were never coming back. Not a peep out of you in sixteen years. And now you’re back? Why? Will I ever be rid of you, Elisabeta?”
    A tapping on her door startled her and brought her head around, and she swore under her breath. She had things to work through, and there was a nice hot bath—and maybe a few tiny bottles from the mini-bar—in her immediate future.
    â€œPlease, Ms. Jones,” Melina Roscova called from the hallway. “Just give me ten minutes to explain. Ten minutes. It’s all I need.”
    Stormy sighed, rolled her eyes and stomped into the bathroom to turn off the faucets. She pulled the plug on the steamy water with a sigh of regret, then went to yank the door open. She didn’t wait for Melina to come inside, just turned and paced to the small table at the room’s far end, yanked out a chair and nodded toward it.
    â€œWe are investigators, ” she told her unwelcome guest, her tone clipped as she bent to the mini-bar and yanked out a can of ginger ale and a tiny bottle of Black Velvet. She popped the tops on both and poured them into a tall glass that sat beside anempty ice bucket. “Not thieves for hire. We don’t break the law, Ms. Roscova. Not for any price.”
    â€œCall me Melina,” the woman said as she sat down. “And all I want you to do is listen to what I have to say. That ring…it has powers.”
    â€œPowers.” Stormy said it deadpan, dryly, without a hint of inflection. Then she took a big slug of the BV-and-ginger.
    â€œYes. Powers that could, in the wrong hands, upset the supernatural order—perhaps irrevocably.”
    â€œThe super natural order?”
    â€œYes. Look, this is very simple. Just…just let me make my pitch, promise me it will remain confidential, and then, if you still refuse, I won’t bother you again.”
    Stormy downed half the drink and sat down. “And my word that this will remain confidential is going to be enough for