Archangel's Shadows(86)
“Oh, God.” Tears wet the eyes of the blondes, and the girl in the green jumpsuit leaned subtly away.
“So,” he said, “you must be very, very careful. Oui?”
They nodded immediately.
“There is bloodlust in the air,” he continued, able to see Khalil feeding from a willing woman ten feet away, the vampire having shoved his hand down her blouse to viciously squeeze her breast. “Warn your friends that even previously trustworthy vampires may become a risk.”
Dmitri had to be briefed on this; the longer Janvier sat here, the more his instincts told him the blood was boiling beneath the surface. It wasn’t yet at critical, but it would be within days if not handled with brutal decisiveness.
A rustle at his feet. “I’ve never met a vampire like you,” the boy said, his heart in his eyes as he looked up from his position curled up against Janvier’s leg. “If you’re looking for a long-term donor . . .”
Janvier caught a glimpse of Ash stalking back into the bar. “You deserve a lover who will cherish you,” he told the boy, being as gentle as he was capable of being. “I’m afraid I’m rather attached to the hunter about to descend on us.”
The four looked like deer caught in the headlights as Ash zeroed in on them.
“You can’t even last five minutes!” she yelled when she got to him. Her eyes shifted to the girl wearing the jumpsuit, her smile razor sharp. “Would you like me to separate your head from your body, sweetie?”
“N-no?”
“Then I suggest you get yourself away from my man.”
Jumpsuit jumped up and so did the others, while Janvier reveled in the claim. It was drama, but it was nice to hear the words anyway. “Bébé,” he said, deliberately using the term again because it totally did not fit his hunter, would amuse her. “We have just been having a drink together.”
“Yeah,” the male said, looking at Ash in naked awe. “You can sit with us.”
Ash pointed a finger at the boy, then the blondes, then Jumpsuit. “Away. Now.”
The group hauled ass.
“You’re magnificent,” Janvier whispered. “I think my new friends would go home as happily with you as with me.”
“What now?” she murmured when he stood to place his hands on her hips, her arms still belligerently crossed.
“I seduce you into forgiving me.”
23
Janvier was starving for the taste, the feel of Ash, but as he’d told her, for him intimacy wasn’t a spectator sport. So he nuzzled at her, but didn’t speak the hot, erotic words he wanted to whisper. Instead, he began to name all the liqueurs at the bar, using his sexiest voice.
“Stop that,” she said, lips firmly set as she fought valiantly not to laugh.
He wanted her to laugh with him during sex, wanted her to play with him. “Do you think you’ve been seduced enough?”
“Did you discover her name?”
“Felicity Johnson.”
“Then, I’ve been seduced enough.”
The snow had begun to fall in earnest when they hit the street again, but there was no wind, the world a serene sheet of white. Before doing anything else, he made a call—while Ash pretended to check out the well-lit window display of the sex shop next door. His purpose was to touch base with a combat-trained Tower vampire he knew patronized a nearby dance club. Emaya didn’t miss a beat when he asked her to keep an eye on Khalil.