Page 117

I swallowed hard. Or Emmaline.

The more time I spent with Cora, the less that fact mattered.

“I still can’t believe you picked Ravenwood. Of all the names, you had to pick the one where it’s rumored they intermarry.” She shook her head, but accepted the second medallion. She looked down at her cleavage, which was leaving nothing to the imagination, and let out a huff. “Pocket it is then.”

Once it was tucked away, she eyed me. “If we are going in disguise, you can’t look like yourself.”

I lifted a mask from the trunk. “That is why I brought this.”

“A scrap of black satin will not make you less conspicuous. You’ll still look like a vampire.” She drew her wand and moved to the edge of the seat. “I’ll glamour you.”

“You cannot glamour a vampire,” I said flatly.

Her eyes brightened. “Is that a challenge?”

“It’s a fact.”

“You sound very certain, Your Grace,” she said, giving me a haughty look and pushing her chest together in a way that tested my self-control.

“Five hundred years affords a man time to be certain about a few things.”

Like how certain I’d become about her. This woman, who was not my mate, but somehow made me feel like I’d known her my entire life. It was as if my human soul recognized hers.

I leaned back against the velvet seat. “How about we make a wager? If you can successfully glamour me, I’ll bite you, and then you’ll understand exactly why I drink out of a cup.”

“You say that as if being bitten is a prize.”

I grinned. And without a single drop of irony, I said, “For you, it would be.”

Her lips parted, but she recovered quickly. “And in the unlikely event that I can’t glamour you?”

“You allow me to teach you the Verengue.”

She hesitated. “What is that?”

“A dance.”

“Fine.” She removed her wand like someone removing a knife. “I missed you,” she whispered against the wood, pressing a kiss to it.

Her attention flicked to me. “All I need is a drop of your blood.”

“Clever,” I said.

“It’s not clever. It’s a magickal principle. Blood magick is what turned your hair from white to that rich brown and turned your incisors to fangs.” She ran her tongue along the seam of her lips. “Didn’t you learn anything as a Witch of the Light? Or is that why your library is so big now?”

Chuckling, I removed the barbed thimble I kept on me and pricked the pad of my thumb. Her fingers closed around my wrist before it could heal over and touched the tip of her wand to it. Just as quickly, she grabbed my chin and began tracing the wand beneath my jaw.

Red light flashed in her eyes as the heat of the spell tingled against my skin. She dragged the magick down the length of my throat, then back up again. Pressure formed behind my eyes and over my nose, changing my features without pain. Cora kept working, pausing every once in a while to study her progress.

I enjoyed watching her work. She was an incredibly powerful witch, but I could tell it wasn’t just magick to her. It was more.

At last, she sat back, clearly satisfied. “There.”

I reached for the hand mirror inside the trunk, and a stranger looked back at me. My hair had changed from dark brown to pale gold and fell straight across my brow. My eyes were gray, my nose narrower, my jaw less severe. Even the tattoo along my neck had vanished. Nothing about the face belonged to Yves Allard. Nothing except the gold hoop in my ear.

I turned my head. “You left the earring.”

Her gaze dropped to my open collar, then lower. “I kept the other ones too. And before you ask, yes, it’s because I like them.”