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to go, and no one to care for her.
    She shook off her melancholy mood. She was young. She was healthy and strong again, thanks to the stranger in the hospital, and the good food and care she had received at Mrs. Thornfield's hands. Other young women managed to survive on their own, and so would she…
    Analisa.
    His voice. She heard it so clearly in her mind that she glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see him there, surprised to find she was alone in the room.
    Analisa.
    Hardly aware of what she was doing, she stood up, drew on her robe, and left her chamber.
    Her slippered feet made hardly a sound as she made her way through the quiet house and out the back door. Compelled by an impulse she could not deny, she moved down the narrow stone-lined path that led through the gardens and around the decorative hedges, past the pretty little lake that shone like a dark mirror in the moonlight, past the maze, until she came to the far end of the property. Tall trees grew here, arranged in a wide circle, and in the center of the circle there was a raised tomb made of white marble.
    A bright beam of moonlight shone down on it, illuminating the writing etched into the stone. She leaned forward, sounding out the words.
    "Here lies Ale-Alesan-Alesandro de Avallone. Born the seventh day of June in the year of our Lord 1435. Left this world the twenty-second day of Jan-Janu-January, 1469."
    Below that were the words "I am not an answer to a prayer—nor a whisper—nor a dare—I am but a thought—across time."
    She ran her hand over the cold stone, wondering if the Alesandro who had so generously given her the hospitality of his house had been named for the man buried here.
    "Alesandro." She murmured the name aloud, liking the sound of it.
    "Analisa."
    It had been no voice within her head this time, and she whirled around, her heart leaping into her throat when she saw a man standing in the shadows. A man she had seen before. A man she would never forget.
    "You," she murmured.
    He moved out of the shadows and into the moon's light. He was as tall and lean as she remembered. Clad all in black as he had been in the hospital, he seemed to be a part of the night itself. A long cloak fell from his broad shoulders. Silver moonlight played over the sharp lines and angles of his face.
    He took a step toward her, and she stumbled backward, afraid without knowing why.
    His eyes burned with a familiar deep blue flame as he gazed at her.
    He held out his hand. "Analisa." His voice was a whisper, a caress, a command.
    Unable to help herself, she moved toward him even though every instinct she possessed screamed at her to run away.
    And then she was standing in front of him, staring up at him, helpless to move, to resist. And he was bending toward her, his gaze swallowing her up, until she felt as though she were drowning in the heated blueness of his eyes. She felt her limbs grow weak, felt herself falling, falling, into the never-ending depths of his eyes…
    She was warm and pliant in his embrace, helpless to resist his call. He had told himself he would never do this again, yet, like her, he was unable to resist. Her life force had called to him every night she had been here, in his house. He had been deep underground, seeking the sleep of his kind, and yet her essence, her nearness, had permeated his soul. Even wrapped in the arms of the earth and trapped in the darkness, he had heard her footsteps as she walked his land, heard the rhythmic beat of her heart. The siren song of her blood had called to him in soft tones of desire and insistent hunger, until it had drawn him from the depths of the earth to her side.
    And now he stood poised above her, about to do what he had vowed never to do again. His gaze held hers captive while he listened to the seductive call of her heartbeat. She was his, to do with as he wished. His, for this night, or for every night as long as she lived. His. He had but to take her.
    "Analisa." He whispered her name, and