Excerpt

Come to Me...

Prologue
1423, Maramures, Northern Transylvania
   Naked and full of mischief, Samira crept onto the bed of the ruling prince of Maramures.  She paid no heed to the wench who slept beside him, and crawled over the snoring girl as if she did not exist. 
   The prince, Dragosh, mumbled and twitched in his sleep, as if trying to dislodge a bug from his face.  Samira tilted her head, her long blood-red hair slithering over her bare shoulders, her black leathery wings fluttering once to keep her balanced as she peered into the face of her victim.
   This was one of the many moments she enjoyed as a dream demon:  perching on the bedcovers, gazing at a sleeping man's face, and savoring the power she held over him.  He had no idea what was about to happen, the poor fool.
   Prince Dragosh had a thick scar across his cheek, and deep creases etched into his square forehead:  creases from a lifetime of strife, she guessed.  Or maybe he was prone to indigestion.  Stomach troubles, she had found, had a peculiarly strong effect on the tempers of humans. Sometimes she thought they cared more about eating than they did about having sex.
   Silly creatures.
   The prince's lips were thin, his skin weather-roughened, his nose a much-broken fist in the center of his broad face.  Being a ruling prince probably meant he didn't have any trouble luring beautiful women into his bed, though.
   Samira glanced at the young woman who was sleeping next to Dragosh, and on whose stomach Samira daintily knelt.  Drool dribbled from the corner of the wench's parted lips, and a thin film of slime coated her exposed teeth.  Samira shuddered, and moved her wing away from the girl's gaping maw.  If this was the best that Maramures had to offer in the way of nubile young beauties, Dragosh had Samira's sympathy. 
   She turned her attention back to the nymph-deprived prince.  A fanning of lines spread from the corner of each of his eyes, speaking of hours spent squinting into the sunlight, surveying the field of battle and happily counting the bodies of the slain.  Or perhaps the lines spoke of kindness and humor.  One never knew.
   Dragosh was a strong ruler, she guessed.  Fair.  Hard.  Which meant a lot of people probably hated him.  Such was the perversity of humanity.
   Samira looked back over her shoulder at her friend Theron, standing by the door to the prince's chamber.  He was an incubus, a male dream demon who existed only to give dreams of sex to frustrated mortal women.  Samira was a succubus, and gave such dreams to sex-deprived men.  They were both demons of the Night World, winged beings who gave sexual fantasies -- and sexual nightmares, when warranted -- to dreaming mortals.
   The fantasies were fun, and the nightmares even more so.  Samira's nightmares were a punishment to men who had behaved badly:  men who ogled women's breasts while talking to them; who made rude remarks about the size and lumpiness of their wife's buttocks; who thought foreplay was for sissies; who passed gas in bed.  The list of tiresome male failings was endless, and Samira's inventiveness legendary amongst the succubi.  She had a natural flare for female vengeance, and enjoyed it if only because she was good at it.
   Dragosh, however, had done nothing wrong recently that called for a sharp slap on his nose, unless Samira counted finishing first when he'd made love to the wench, and then falling asleep on top of her.  A crime, yes, but so common among men as to go without remark.  No, Theron had asked her to deliver this nightmare to Dragosh as a favor to him, to fulfill his end of an outrageous bargain he had made with a human named Vlad.
   Some would say that it had been a bargain made with the devil.  And Theron wasn't the devil.  Delivering this nightmare meant breaking half a dozen rules of the Night World, but the stakes of the bargain were high enough that Samira was willing to help Theron.
   It was just another nightmare, after all.  How much harm could it do?  Dragosh had probably done something to deserve it.  No man was innocent.  She ought to punish them all just as a matter of course.
   Theron nodded for her to proceed.  Samira climbed atop Dragosh's barrel chest, squatting weightless upon his rising and falling ribcage.  Anticipation tingled through her, as it always did at the beginning of a dream delivery.  The prince¹s latent sexual energy was feeding her powers and rousing an echo of his own hungers within her ethereal body.  She had no physical desires of her own, and only felt lust when she reflected it back from a man. 
   She reached out and touched Dragosh's brow.
   A jumble of images and emotions washed through her.  Faces of men:  worry; anger; distrust.  The face of a young girl, tawny-haired:  love; protectiveness.  The vicious chaos of battle, Turkish armies in their foreign garb, with blood-stained spears and swords: fury; fear; bloodlust; determination.  Peasant farmers in their tunics, bent in the fields:  approval; paternal concern.  The greatest enemy of Dragosh¹s family, the black-haired Bogdan of Moldavia: distrust; grudging respect; anxiety.
    These were the echoes of the prince's thoughts, the impressions of his days, the bits and pieces of his history.
   Again, and even more strongly, Samira sensed the tawny-haired girl.  She knew already, from Theron, that she was Dragosh's youngest sister, Lucia, a miracle child born when their mother had been the astonishing age of forty-five.  Samira sensed Lucia¹s purity in Dragosh's mind.  Innocence.  A deep love and pride in Dragosh, that this fragile angel amongst mortals should be his responsibility to protect and cherish, and to keep untouched by the foul, lewd hand of man. 
   Samira continued to invade Dragosh's mind like smoke through a house, discovering the paths of his emotions and the images that touched them off.  From those inner emotions and images she began to weave the requested nightmare:  Dragosh's beloved sister, the innocent, tawny-haired Lucia, was standing on a table in the great hall of the despised Prince Bogdan of Moldavia.  She wore only a thin sleeping shift.
   Dragosh gurgled in surprise and distress. 
   Bogdan's five sons sat around the table.  Samira didn't know what they looked like, so she made the barbarian princes black-haired and dark-eyed like their father, and dressed them in the colors of Moldavia with the silhouette of a wolf on the shoulder.  The wolf, the symbol of the ancient Dacian race from which they claimed descent, and which had inhabited Moldavian lands for millennia, present long before the Romans had come to stake their claim fifteen hundred years ago; and present after those Romans, their empire crumbling, had retreated to their homeland. 
   The young princes drank and thumped their goblets on the wooden table around Lucia, their lustful gazes centered on Dragosh's innocent, untouched, pure-minded sister.
   Samira made Lucia quiver at being the center of such crude male appraisal.  She shivered in the cold, her nipples hardening, the points visible through the thin linen of her garment.  She tried to cover herself with her arms, but the movement caused her shift to fall off her shoulder.  Her hair draped against her cheek as she bent her head forward, leaving the back of her neck exposed.
   There was something vulnerable and deeply sexual about her pose on the table.  Dragosh sensed it, and flinched away.  He tried not to look directly at Lucia, her blatant sexuality touching on a deep taboo within him.  She was his sister.  His little sister.  As far as he was concerned, she was a blank doll beneath her clothes.  She did not have the body parts of a normal woman, and certainly none of the desires. 
   Samira watched Dragosh's reaction with amusement.  He was bothered that it was his Moldavian enemies who surrounded Lucia, but even more disturbed by seeing his innocent sister in a sexual situation.
   It was supposed to be the Moldavians who were the focus of the nightmare, but Samira was suddenly inspired by Dragosh's reaction to watching his sister.  She decided to throw in a little extra torture for him, via Lucia herself.  This could be fun.
   One of the Moldavian princes grabbed hold of Lucia's hem, pulling on it from behind so that her breasts and the curve of her belly stood out clearly, as well as the smooth muscle of her thigh, and the shadowed valley in-between.  Samira made the dream-Lucia toss her tawny lioness¹s hair back, a salacious glint in her eye, a hungry grin forming on her soft lips.  She thrust out her chest, giving the Moldavian men a better view of her breasts.
   A soft cry of distress escaped from deep within Dragosh's throat.  He tried to lunge for the table and snatch his sister away, but he was held helplessly in place by Samira.  "Lucia!  What are you doing?" he cried.
   His sister winked at him, and then cast a come hither look to one of the more handsome of Bogdan's sons.  She slowly licked her lips.
   Dragosh gasped, his body going tense.  "No, no, no, no!" he scolded, and loudly clapped his hands together, as if startling a cat away from a bowl of cream.
   Lucia gave as much heed as would a hungry feline.
   The Moldavian prince pulled again on Lucia's hem, harder, and she dropped to her knees, grinning.  The other Moldavian in front of her offered up his goblet, his eyes lightening to the golden tone of a wolf's.  She refused the goblet, laughing, shaking her head, but he grabbed her by the hair and tilted her head back, pressing the goblet to her lips.
   "Drink it, little cat!" the Moldavian ordered.
   "Drink!  Drink!  Drink!" his brothers growled, their sharp teeth shining, the thud of their own goblets on the table a drumbeat that matched the beating of Dragosh¹s frantic heart.
   "They¹re filthy beasts, Lucia!" Dragosh shouted, and fumbled at his side for the sword that wasn't there.  "Don't let them touch you!"
   Lucia pulled her mouth away from the edge of the goblet.  She was smiling wickedly, her eyes shining.  "They rut like beasts, too!  They're animals, and hung like--"
   Dragosh gave an unmanly shriek.  "You stop that!  You're a good girl!  You don't know anything about men!"
   "Hung like bulls."
   "Lucia!"  He gulped for air.
   "And they have tongues like dogs."
   "Tongues?" Dragosh asked, startled, momentarily confused.  "What of their tongues?"  His eyes were wild and fearful as he awaited her reply.
   "They lick me, lick me, lick--"
   Dragosh moaned in horror, squirmed and twisted, then shook himself all over.  "Wicked child!"
   "I'm wicked, and I like it.  Just like I like their huge--"
   Dragosh yelped, and tried to lunge again for his lecherous sister, trying to snatch her off the table as if doing so could somehow turn her back into a good girl.  Samira held him helpless, leaving him only the power of his voice.  "Lucia!  You don't like being touched!  You¹re a virgin!"
   "Where am I virgin?  They¹ve been everywhere!" she shouted in glee.  Then she laughed, throwing back her head.  The Moldavian prince poured the drink in, and as she swallowed in great gulps, one of the princes behind her pressed his palm to her buttocks, then slid his long fingers into the dark, damp place between her thighs, her thin shift the only barrier between his hand and her flesh.  Lucia arched her back in pleasure.
   Dragosh slapped his hands up over his eyes, unable to watch.  This was his sister -- his sister! -- engaging in sexual acts.  Samira forced his hands down, and he yowled in protest, squeezing his eyes shut, shaking his head in denial.
   The Moldavian prince holding Lucia¹s hair tossed the goblet aside and lowered his head to her breast, his wet mouth sucking hard at her nipple through the cloth, making animal noises of greed.  Lucia moaned and rolled her head, her thighs parting in invitation.
   Lucia's head turned to the side and she opened her eyes, meeting the gaze of her mortified brother.   'You gave me to them, and now I¹m their whore," she said.  "Thank you, Brother, for I have sinned!"
   "No!  I forbid it!" Dragosh cried in his sleep, thrashing at the bedclothes, the sound of his cry echoing in the dark, cold room where he slept.
   Another Moldavian prince lifted Lucia, straightening out her legs and then laying her back upon the table, the backs of his hands becoming coated with dark fur, his nails turning into claws.  He shoved her shift up past her hips, exposing the dark golden curls of her sex.  He lowered his face, its front elongating into the muzzle of a dog, and breathed in the scent of her.  His tongue, long and pink, came out and lapped her through her curls.  The hair on his face seemed suddenly heavier, his ears growing pointed, his features transforming into something half canine.
   In the Waking World Dragosh cried out again, his eyes moving wildly behind his closed lids as he was forced to watch intimate acts performed upon his sister by his monstrous enemies.  His body tried to rise, but he was paralyzed by the bonds of sleep, and by Samira perched upon his chest, holding him in dream thrall.
   Lucia cried out in pleasure, the fur-covered hands of the enemy princes slowly pulling her legs open yet wider.  They fondled her breasts, and another long tongue plunged into her mouth.  The prince between her legs latched his lips tightly to her sex, sucking and licking, shoving his face at her with a force to rock her hips and make her breasts sway to the movement.
   Dragosh's entire body stiffened with revulsion, and the scene of the dream wavered as his mind fought with every ounce of its strength to destroy it, repulsed as much by seeing his pure sister in sexual acts as he was by who -- or what -- was doing them to her.  Samira c ung tight to Dragosh, using all her powers to keep him locked in the horrifying dream.
   Lucia raised her arms, and then wrapped them around the neck of the prince kissing her, her fingers digging into his hair to hold him closer to her as she took his tongue into her mouth.  She parted her thighs wider, and lifted her hips to meet the mouth and hand of the other prince.  That one pulled away, and one of his brothers took his place, climbing onto the table with his hose untied and down around his knees, an impossible, nightmare-sized erection standing stiff and ready.
   Lucia moaned, lifting her hips, the pink lips of her sex wet with desire.  The prince planted one hand at the side her body, and used the other to guide his manhood towards her waiting sex.  He groaned his pleasure as flesh met flesh, and his engorged head began to part her.
   "Noooooo!" Dragosh cried in his sleep, thrashing at the bedclothes, the sound of his cry echoing in the dark, cold room where he slept.  The wench beside him snorted and half-woke.
   "They're wolves," Lucia said to her brother, her eyes glowing, the pupils turning into vertical slashes, like those of a cat.  "Dacian wolves.  We're cats and dogs, and oh! how we snarl and fight!"
   In the Waking World Dragosh cried out yet again.  The wench beside him stirred and opened her eyes, blinking half-asleep at the dark room, then with eyes still full of dreams she made out the winged shape of Samira perched atop Dragosh.  The wench shrieked as if the gates of Hell had opened before her.
   The wench's shriek let Dragosh break the bonds of sleep.  His eyes flew open and he screamed, sitting up in bed, the covers falling off his shaking body.  The dream shattered, the images falling away into the night, their shards leaving deep gouges on Dragosh's soul.
   Samira fluttered off Dragosh, hovering in the air.  For a moment he looked directly at her, the fog of dreams that still lingered in his mind letting him sense her presence, or perhaps even see a beat of black wing or a brief glow of blue eyes.  The wench in his bed was babbling in terror, but Dragosh ignored her.
   Dragosh stumbled to his feet, his pale body ghostly in the moonlight, his bare feet as bony and white as a skeleton's against the stone floor.  He ran to the door, his long grey hair wild about his head.  He passed within inches of Theron, who watched in surprise as the haunted man went by. 
   Dragosh pulled the door open, startling the men on guard outside.  He ignored their queries, running naked down the shadowed corridor, his flabby buttocks quivering with each slap of his feet upon the floor.  His men followed in confused pursuit.
   Theron and Samira followed.  "What did you do to him?" Theron asked.
   Samira shrugged, amazed herself at the dramatic effect of the nightmare.
   Dragosh came to another guarded door, that he pushed open without ceremony, stopping in the threshold.  His breathing was labored and rough, catching on sobs, and he stood and stared with the eyes of a madman into the darkness within.
   Samira looked in the doorway over his shoulder, and with her perfect night vision made out the slumbering form of a young woman; a girl, really, no more perhaps than fourteen human years.  The brown-and-honey tangle of hair on the pillow told her that this was Lucia.
   After a long moment Dragosh's breathing quieted, as he gradually realized it had all been a dream, and his sister remained as yet untouched by the bestial hands of his enemies. 
   In Dragosh's heart, though, Samira knew that his sister was no longer innocent.  He now believed the wickedness of Eve to be a seed within her, awaiting the chance to sprout and grow.
    Although the dream had been nothing more than a made-up story, it had touched him deeply enough that he would take it as a warning from the heavens.  There would be no convincing Dragosh that Lucia would remain chaste, if given the least chance to do otherwise.  He was certain that a nymphomaniac lurked inside her, awaiting the chance to break free and rut with beasts and Moldavians.
   The aging prince turned away from the doorway, and with glazed, sightless eyes walked slowly back down the corridor towards his own room.  His movements were stiff, as if he were made of wood, and the dry skin of his soles rasped against the stone floor as he shuffled along.  He moved as if something within him had broken on this night. 
   A whisper of human regret pierced Samira where her heart should have been.  Dragosh's love for his sister, restrained and conditional as it had been, had yet formed the purest part of his soul.  It had been as if Lucia were the chalice that held what remained of his own innocence, and his own belief in what was good and right. 
   Every time he looked at Lucia now, he would see the wolf-like sons of Bogdan lapping at her breasts, and her ecstatic acceptance of their touch.  Innocent though Lucia yet remained in reality, in her brother's eyes she was tainted.
   Samira wondered what frightful changes might happen in Dragosh himself, now that she had destroyed the one pure place in his heart.
   She was surprised by her own concern, her own sudden sense of guilt.  It wasn't her way to feel such things.  Then again, neither was it her way to break the rules of the Night World.
   "Go," Theron said, interrupting Samira's thoughts.
   She looked up at him, a question burning inside her.  Was Theron's bargain worth the cost they had just made Dragosh pay?
   Theron touched her hair, his long, strong fingers combing through a silken red lock, and then he let his hand rest heavily on her bare shoulder.  He had never touched her before.  She felt his sexual power coursing through his hand, setting off involuntary responses in her own body that were echoes of the responses he had roused in thousands of sleeping women through the centuries.  "You did as I asked, and I thank you.  Now go."  His hand tightened.  "This shall not be spoken of beyond you and me.  Promise me that."
   She shivered, aware of what Nyx, the Queen of the Night, might do were she to discover this deed they had done, and all the rules they had broken.  When Samira nodded her agreement to be silent, he released her.  Her shoulder stung where he had touched her, seared by the unexpected power in his hand, even as her sex throbbed in the shadow of stolen mortal desire. 
   She was eager to be away from both Theron and the scene of this misdeed, as if by escaping both she could forget it had ever happened; forget that she had spoiled the protective love of a brother for his innocent sister; forget that she had driven him half-mad, and seared images into his memory that he would never be able to forget.  She began to slip away into the plane of the Night World, but before she was gone she glanced back, once.
   Theron stood on the threshold of Lucia's doorway, his glowing eyes gazing intently upon the sleeping, innocent princess of Northern Transylvania.