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is?” Renata asked, pinning me to her with that one long arm. “Do you think you are strong enough to resist or evade me, Epiphany?”
    Her hand swept between my legs, caressing the inside of my thigh with a touch as soft as a feather’s brush.
    “Answer me, Epiphany.” Her breath was warm against the side of my neck.
    I couldn’t move. I froze. If I moved, it wouldn’t be away from her. If I moved, I would’ve offered my neck to her. She was my creator, my Queen, and had once been my lover. It was an intimate thing, the sharing of blood between vampires, and I had spent too many years knowing the joy of her mind and body to be able to forget it.
    “No.”
    She laid a gentle kiss upon the pulse in my throat.
    The muscles in my body clenched tight as I battled a century’s worth of memories.
    “You couldn’t, could you?” She squeezed my thigh over the leggings, whispering in my ear, “So tense…more tightly strung than an archer’s bow.”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    Renata’s distracting hand moved to my hip, her thumb playing over the jagged bone. “I have missed you.”
    “You should’ve thought of that before you cast me out.” I glared at her, at her damned beautiful face.
    For a moment, I thought I had startled her, that I’d shocked her by having the courage to say such a thing. It wasn’t courage. In part, it was stupidity, but mostly, it was anger. The anger tainted everything, all my qualms, all my worries. Any other emotions I had were suddenly paper thrown in a fire.
    Her eyes darkened, and my anger was eclipsed by fear. If the anger had been fire in my veins, the fear was ice.
    Renata grabbed a handful of my long hair and pulled until she exposed the long line of my neck. “Your blood,” she whispered, and her fingertip traced the vein in my throat, causing my heart to beat faster against my skin, “is mine. You may have grown bold, but you are not bold enough to challenge me, Epiphany.”
    “I am not challenging you.”
    She touched my cheek and I flinched, looking away from her. Her thumb slid across my lower lip. “So much anger. I never knew that casting you from my bed would breed such resentment.”
    I felt it then, beyond the tides of my anger, a small wisp of remorse went through her. I never understood why she’d cast me out. I still didn’t understand it.
    “What did you think it was going to breed in me? Did you think I’d come groveling at your feet, begging for your touch, begging for one more night with you?”
    “Yes.”
    I laughed then, bitter and sour. “You’ve always known me so well.”
    The room reeled in my vision. My back hit the mattress. Renata used her lower body and hands at my wrists to pin me to the bed.
    I didn’t fight her. If I fought her, she’d only overpower me.
    She smiled softly, almost sweetly. “I know you better than you think I do, Epiphany. I can break your anger. You may show it to me, but I know what lurks beneath it.”
    “And what is there, Renata?”
    “Love,” she said in a silky voice. “You still love me.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “No,” I tried again.
    “Your anger is only a mask.”
    She bent at the waist, bringing our faces closer together, her hair an onyx canopy.
    “Epiphany,” she whispered against my cheek. “Do you miss me?”
    Her lips brushed my cheek, seeking my mouth. I turned my head and forced myself to stare at the stone wall. “I don’t understand.”
    “What is there to understand?” She tried to catch my mouth and again I turned my face away from her. Her fingers dug roughly into my jaw. “Look at me.”
    This time I refused, gazing fixedly at the stone wall. “You may be Queen, but you can’t rape me. That is against our laws.”
    “Rape?” She said dryly. “Epiphany, you are fooling yourself. It wouldn’t be rape, cara mia.” Her hand slid down the front of my dress. I shuddered both at her touch and at hearing those words from her, words that were once spoken so deliciously.