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She never answered the question, but she came with me. I led her through the stone chapel to a small door in the back.

"What of the servants who placed you here?" she asked. "If they return to check on you, they'll be shocked to find you gone."Advertisement

"They will not return to check on me. They've heard too many rumors. They fear me."

She lowered her head as we exited and moved through the night. I led her to the meadow, where my stallion grazed alone.

"He grazes by night?" she whispered. "While the others are all penned up in their stalls?"

"By my command. If I'm about by night, it's logical my mount should be, as well."

"It only stirs more gossip," she told me.

"My very existence stirs gossip," I said with a sigh. "I should leave this place."

"Why haven't you?"

I sent a thought to my horse, and whispered, "Come, Soare. " He swung his head toward me, shook his mane, then galloped across the meadow, stopping beside me. I leapt upon his back, and reached down for her.

"Soare," she repeated. "Sun. A strange name for a horse as black as midnight."

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"Not so strange to me." I took her hand and pulled her up, settling her in front of me.

"No stranger, I suppose, than a horse who wears no saddle, bears no reins."

"I don't need them to direct him."

"He seems, almost, to hear your thoughts."

"He does. You can, too." I gazed down at her as Soare carried us away, and I thought, You are beautiful, Elisabeta.

She gasped and stared up at me in surprise.

"You see? It's not all bad, being as I am."

"Then it's true. You are what they say you are? Undead? Vampyre? "

"That's what some call what I am. But it tells you nothing about what I truly am, 'Beta. It tells you nothing about me, " I said, thudding a fist to my heart.

"Then tell me. Tell me about you, my prince. Tell me why you stay here, when you are so very unhappy, and when the villagers speak of you only in fear-filled whispers. Tell me that above all else."

I nodded, and guided Soare with my thoughts, to take us over the twisting path through the forest. "I came here because it was once my homeland. I truly am a prince of this place, you see. But the gossips have one bit right. The king is not my father. I am, in fact, one of his forebears."

"It's beyond belief."

I nodded. It was, to most. "I used my powers and my strength to convince the king that I was his son, when in truth his son died in battle several years before my arrival."

"How could you convince the king to believe such a thing?"

The way her body rested against mine gave me a feeling of warmth I had seldom known, and I relished it. She wasn't afraid. Not yet. "I can...control the thoughts and minds of many."

She lifted her gaze. "Mine?"

"I've no wish to try, 'Beta. Never fear."

She smiled. "Go on with your story."

I nodded and went on. "You see, there is a woman. An immortal, like me, who has certain gifts of...prophecy. Necromancy. Divination."

"What is her name?"

"Rhianikki. Or it was. She changes it from time to time. She was a princess and priestess of Egypt. One who accepted the gift when I offered it to her."

"So you're here because of a woman."

"Because of what that woman told me. What she saw in my future. She told me I would find my soul's true love, here in this place. That's why I've stayed. But until I saw you, on the cliffs last night, I had given up hope."

Her face went as still as stone. "You mean...you believe it's me?" pqdm.com