Chapter One

The Spider Spins His Lair

Melancholy masts speared upward above the black ship, their rough-gripping ropes binding the straining sails, making them prisoners spread-eagled on the yardarms. A sullen midnight moon gleamed through the haze scooting out from the approaching shore.

“Are you sure this is the place? I want your crew to finish unloading before the first light of dawn reveals our coming.” The tall, cloaked, and scarved man gripped the captain’s arm with a powerful, bony hand. His voice rang faintly with a middle-European accent.

“Aye, Baron, have no fear. I’ll get ye and yours safely off a’fore first light—after I gets yer gold, o’course.”

“My gold is with me, and your price is too high...”

A hiss welled up in the captain’s throat.

“...But I shall pay what you ask. My need is urgent, and my people expect me to shield them from unfriendly eyes.”

“Ar-r-r-r...” The captain turned away and growled a hushed command to the helmsman at the wheel.

“Is that it, Vartan? Are we in Scotland at last?” The tall, mare-faced woman glided up to the man and swathed her arms around his shoulders.

“Yes, my darling Yeva. Look to the left of the rising moon, on top of that cliff, you will see the dim silhouette of a castle—our castle.”

“It looks so abandoned—so forsaken.”

“Yes, my dear, just like us.”

“Will we ever be allowed to go home again?”

“This is our home, now, Yeva. It must be. We can never go back to Voldavia.”

She buried her face in his white silk shirt. “Oh, Vartan, I am so homesick—the mountains, the rushing streams vaulting over the precipice. The midnight arias of the owls.”

“And the girls, Yeva. I miss the girls.” He lay his cheek against the silken cloud of her long, raven hair. “The pretty young girls you lured into our castle and brought to me. How you delighted in making their chained naked bodies squirm and struggle as you thrashed them for my delight.”

Yeva looked up at Vartan’s face, her scowl darker than the inky shoreline. “They were common servants—low-born scullery maids—and yet they laughed at my scar, called me names behind my back; ‘Mare-face’, Cut-cheek’, ‘Madame Werewolf’. How I loved hearing them cry and beg for mercy as we tied them down in our bed. I laughed as they screamed while you fucked them.”

Vartan smiled and tenderly caressed her scarred cheek. “And then we exposed the velvet, creamy skin of their necks, the throbbing pulse of our passion as their terrified hearts drove the red blood coursing through their neck veins.”

Her face brightened and she grinned wolfishly into his pale gray eyes. “And then, we bit them.”

The captain strode across the deck toward them. “There’s the dock, she’s just ahead. We’ll tie up, then my crew will begin unloading yer possessions—that is, after ye pay.” His smirk faded as the brightening moonlight revealed the pointed canine tooth in Vartan’s snarl.

***

“Careful with that!” A short, stocky young man waved his hands in anguish as the sailors dropped the long, tapering wooden chest on the floor of the castle cellar. His voice grated with a guttural accent. “My master, Baron Vartan Reznik, will have your skin alive if it damages or marks in the slightest degree.”

“Easy, mate,” one sailor replied. “It’s strong as a pirate’s chest, and heavy, too. Looks like a coffin, and big enough to bury someone in it. What’cha got in there, bricks or stones?”

The man drew himself up to his full stature, five-feet, two inches tall. “I am Chilovyeki Dagan—that’s Mister Dagan to you. No one will call me ‘mate’.”

“Aye,” he touched his cap in mock respect, “have it yer way, Mister Dagan.”

“This chest is the last of the lot,” the second sailor said. He slid his cap back and wiped his sweaty forehead as he puzzled over the strange wood and metal frameworks they had carried down into the dark cellar. “Let’s get out o’here. This place gives me the creeps. What’ar ye going to keep down here, mister, a zoo?” He waved his hand at the row of cubicles with barred doors.

“Confine your attentions to tasks you do,” Dagan said. “I shall report disrespect to your captain.” He opened his arms and shooed them up the narrow stone stairway yawning up at the brightening sky in the east.

When they were gone, Dagan returned to the cellar. He smiled and sidled up to the huge wooden crate. “We’re here at last,” he whispered, caressing the thick boards. “Soon you will awaken, and I will lock you into one of these barred chambers. No one will bother you here, and we will share the new ones together. Do not weep for our old home in Voldavia. I will bring you what you desire and make sure you are happy here, my friend.”

***

“Safe in our new home at last,” Vartan said. He and Yeva stood at their south bedroom window looking out at the new day. The freshening October breeze danced with the opened curtains.

Yeva laid her hand on his chest. “We have much work yet, my darling, before we can really feel at home. We must have servants.” She wiped her finger across the polished stone window sill and grimaced. “Filthy!”

“I’m sending Graveston into the village this afternoon. He will inquire in the pubs about servants for hire.”

“Graveston? That lean-faced English butler that met us when we arrived? Is he—reliable?”

“Oh, yes, my dear. His references said he has a troubled past. Fathered a child by his last employer’s daughter, they say. Not the first time he’s been caught forcing a young girl. Gambling debts, too. He was quite grateful when I paid them off at our European bank.” Vartan cupped his lover’s chin and kissed her quivering lips. “He’s been banned from the villager’s homes in England, you see. Had to move away to Scotland to find employment.” He embraced her warm, voluptuous body. “No, I understand this man’s appetites. We will not have to hide anything from Graveston. I expect him to be content with the clandestine entertainments only we can provide him.”

“What a lovely forest and vineyard in the distance. Is that part

of our lands, too?”

“No, my dear. That is the northern border of Sir Richard Cailean’s family holdings, Blackthorne Estate. Even though Blackthorne House is twelve miles away, they are our closest neighbors.”

“What are they like? Will we have problems with them?”

“We shall soon know, my dear. Graveston will deliver my invitation to them this afternoon. They are to be our dinner guests next Saturday evening.”

Yeva drifted across the large bedroom to the cavernous closet and rippled her hand across her clothing. “I shall wear my most alluring gown and seduce them.”

Vartan strode quickly across the room on his long legs and leaned against the closet door frame. “From what I have heard about the Cailean family, I expect it will be a mutual effort on their part, both their men and women.”

“Good,” she replied. “It will be like the old days again. I miss the wicked games we played with our friends in Voldavia, don’t you?”

Vartan fingered one of Yeva’s flimsy silk nightgowns. “Everyone enjoyed them, but no one more than you did, my dear.”

“You think me too bold and shameless, darling?”

“I am speaking of perfection, you sly minx.” He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the huge brass bed, dropping her roughly and plunging on top of her body, her legs already spread open in welcome.