Kiss of Crimson(30)

Behind the cover of dark sunglasses and the flickering light of strobes in the dance club, Dante scanned the crowd of flailing, gyrating humans. Since picking Chase up from his Darkhaven residence a couple of hours earlier, they‘d run across only one Rogue, a rangy-looking male who‘d been sniffing out prey among the homeless. Dante had given Harvard a quick lesson in the miracle of titanium when it meets a Rogue‘s corrupted blood system, smoking the suckhead on the spot.

More‘s the pity, because Dante was still itching for some up-close-and-personal combat. Before the night‘s patrol was through, he wanted to get bruised and bloody. Call it attitude adjustment, after the clusterfuck way he‘d kicked things off tonight.

Harvard, on the other hand, looked like he‘d kill for a long shower. Maybe a cold one, Dante thought, following the vampire‘s gaze across the club, to where a petite female with a long mane of cascading pale blond hair was standing with some other humans. Every time she tossed some of that flaxen silk over her shoulder, the Darkhaven agent seemed to crank tighter. He watched her hungrily, tracking her slightest movements and looking like he was ready to pounce.

Maybe she sensed the heat of the vampire‘s stare; human nervous systems tended to respond instinctively to the feeling of being stalked by otherworldly eyes. The blonde twirled a length of hair around her finger and cast a sidelong look over her shoulder, zeroing in on the Darkhaven agent with dark, inviting eyes.

―You‘re in luck, Harvard. Looks like she digs you too.‖

Chase scowled, ignoring Blondie as she broke away from her pack for an obvious flyby. ―She is nothing that I want.‖

―Could have fooled me.‖ Dante chuckled.

―What, you Darkhaven types don‘t do hot and interested?‖

―Unlike others of our kind, I find it personally degrading to give in to my every urge, like some kind of animal who can‘t be brought to heel. I try to maintain some level of self-control.‖

There was certainly something to be said for that, Dante thought irritably. ―Where the hell were you with that advice a few hours ago, Dr. Phil?‖

Chase shot him a questioning look. ―Excuse me?‖

―Never mind.‖

Dante gestured to a knot of clubbers near the other end of the place. Among the humans was a small group of Darkhaven vampires, young civilian males who seemed less interested in the females throwing off fuck-me vibes than they were in whatever one of the human males appeared to be peddling in the center of the rowdy crowd.

―Some shit going down in the far corner,‖ he told Chase. ―Looks like they‘re busting out party favors. Come on, let‘s go crash—‖

He‘d barely gotten the words out before Dante realized what he was seeing. By then, all hell had broken loose.

One of the vampires took a hit of something, snorting it hard. His head snapped back on his shoulders and he let out a deep howl.

―Crimson,‖ Chase snarled, but Dante had already gathered that.

When the Darkhaven youth‘s chin came down again, he roared, baring long fangs and feral, glowing yellow eyes. The humans screamed. Chaos sent the small group scattering, but it was a clumsy break, and one of the females wasn‘t quite fast enough to escape. The vampire lunged for her, leaping on top of her, knocking her to the floor beneath him. The kid was lost to sudden, swift Bloodlust, his sharp teeth stretching longer in anticipation of his kill.

Two hundred people were about to witness a very bloody, very violent—and very public—

vampire feeding.

Moving too fast for human eyes to see, Dante and Chase sliced through the crowded dance floor. They were closing in on the catastrophe taking place in the corner when Dante caught a glimpse of the human who was standing there holding a spilled vial of Crimson powder, his jaw slack with horror in the split second before he bolted out the club‘s back door.

Holy hell.

Dante knew the son of a bitch.

Not by name, but by face. He‘d seen him just a few hours ago—with Tess, at the art museum. The Crimson dealer was her boyfriend.





CHAPTER Eleven



Go after him!‖ Dante called to Chase. Although his gut impulse was to leap on the fleeing human and shred the bastard before his feet got their first taste of pavement, Dante had a bigger problem to deal with right here in the club. He catapulted onto the back of the raving Darkhaven youth and peeled him off his shrieking human prey. Dante threw the vampire into the nearest wall and crouched low to spring on him again.

―Get out of here!‖ he ordered the stricken female when she lay there at his feet, immobile in her shock. Everything would be happening too fast for her human mind to sort out, Dante‘s voice no doubt coming to her ears as a growled, disembodied command. ―Move, damn it. Now!‖