Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

them with all the diplomacy she possessed. Staying away had not been an option. She longed too fiercely for the company of her kind. Perhaps they could teach her what she sensed her master had neglected. Sadly, far from teaching her, the English circle met her overtures with hostility, calling her spy and forcing her into situations where, had she been less strong and quick, she easily might have died.
     
    Only when they discovered her skill at commerce did they begin to warm. Money they respected, money and ambition.
     
    Ironically, finding them made her lonelier than ever: feeling so separate from those she should have been most like. Auriclus cared for humans. These upyr saw them only as animals to exploit.
     
    In defiance, she gathered a mortal harem, three youths flush with manhood who vied for the privilege of fulfilling her every need. That was the beginning of her love affair with humans. She chose them for what they could teach her, about life or business or the mysteries of the spirit. Minstrels succumbed to her, adventurers and dukes. To her delight, her business grew by leaps and bounds. She never thralled the humans with whom she dealt; that did not seem fair play. Even so, her conquests at the court of Suleiman were productive, winning her trading rights few could boast. If cleverness failed, she did not scruple to use her immortal body as her coin. Sometimes it bought her influence, other times merely pleasure.
     
    She remembered the pleasure now: hands, kisses, the passion-tensed curves of sweat-streaked skin. Men driven to madness by desire. Gasping. Trembling. Nearly bursting with their lust. Take me, they'd plead as she slid her tongue along their veins. Take anything you want.
     
    Someone gripped her jaw and turned her face to his. Martin. Beautiful, noble Martin.
     
    "Luisa," he said, his voice commanding, "this is not the way to face your fears."
     
    His eyes burned like the center of a flame. She reached for him, her hand falling limply against his chest. "I want you more," she whispered, the truth freed by the drug. "More than any man I have known."
     
    His gaze went black. She saw him swallow, his Adam's apple moving strongly in his throat. Never mind his oath. Part of him wanted to bed her now.
     
    "Luisa," he said, "remember why you are here." She sighed like the melancholy finish of a tale. Then she did as he advised.
     
    ***
    THE drug was meant to let him into her mind, but what he found there shocked him. The things she had done with those men, those many men, were beyond what he imagined. He knew, naturally, what the procreative act entailed. Growing up as he had, in communal tents and inns, the basic facts had been his from an early age. The more esoteric were part of his education since coming to Shisharovar. After all, the union of male and female essences had spiritual meaning, too.
     
    What he hadn't known was the sheer physical joy one could take in sensual exploration. He had been there with her, had felt her body vibrate with longing and her teeth itch teasingly in their sheaths. He'd wanted to be those men, touching her, tasting her, forging thickly into her sex. One pair of hands was not enough. He wanted to be them all.
     
    And the places she had traveled! Stormy seas. Opulent palaces. Even England, so wet and dreary compared to the sunny sparkle of Tibet, possessed an appeal he could not deny. What, he wondered, were those curious platelike collars women wore around their necks? For what reason did they hang those fancy curtains on their beds? Velvets he'd seen, and lustrous embroidered silks, the exotic, nested backdrop to her play.
     
    She was almost childlike in her love of her possessions, though he could not deny a discriminating mind lay behind her greed. Here in Tibet, a painting was an act of worship; no artist would sign his name. In her homeland, Luisa had gleefully added luster to the name of scores. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, and Titian: her patronage had helped them all.
     
    In truth, her life was a foreign jewel. The more he turned it, the more the facets shone. He reminded himself these were temporal pleasures that would soon pass away. The key to Luisa's freedom lay far from such glittering bits of stone.
     
    When she told him she wanted him, though, more than she had wanted any man, the admission struck a resounding triumph in his soul, momentarily drowning out truths he knew.
     
    She lured him because of what she was, not in spite