Midnight's Kiss(37)

More than anything, she wanted to sniffle and lean against his jeans-clad leg. She wanted a hug.

She really did want to haul off and clip him as hard as she could with her best right hook.

Gritting her teeth, she thought, I’ve got to hand it to you, soldier. There isn’t anybody else in the world who can tie me into such knots.

Meanwhile, her sense of urgency escalated. Justine might not be back for a day or two, and they had a long time to go until then, but Julian was right — it wouldn’t take Anthony long to hunt down some prey and to pick up food and water.

The pieces of her pick slipped again. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get the damn pieces in the damn lock. Her core overheated, and she started to melt down.

“Julian,” she said very low as she fought back tears. “I — I don’t think I can get this. The lock is too small, and I can’t hold the pick at the right angle and still get the other piece inside to trip the tumbler. I need thinner pieces of metal, and I don’t have any.”

Silence spun out. When he spoke, he sounded entirely calm. “That’s all right. Melly, look at me.”

All the antagonism was gone. This was the Julian who had looked into the camera and told her she would be okay.

Damn it, the bastard Julian didn’t bring her to tears anymore, but the nice Julian did. Blinking the wetness out of her eyes, she sat back on her heels and looked up at him.

He regarded her with an expression that was every bit as calm as he sounded, that wolflike gaze of his trained on her face. He even gave her a small smile. “It’s all right,” he repeated. We’re going to go to plan B.”

“I didn’t know we had a plan B,” she said raggedly as she swiped at her nose with the back of one hand.

“We’re going to make one up right now,” he told her. “Along with a plan C if we have to.”

Rising to her feet, she frowned. “What do you have in mind?”

“You need to get out of here,” he said. “And Vampyre Guy is the way to do that.”

“No.” She started shaking her head and decided not to stop for a while. “I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to. He knows the way out, and when he shows up here again, he’ll have brought in enough prey to keep the ferals satisfied until he can get out again. Meanwhile, Justine is busy doing other things. We don’t know if we’ll ever get another chance like this again.”

“I couldn’t convince him to make one lousy phone call,” she pointed out.

“You almost did,” he told her. “You have him half-seduced already, and you didn’t even put the full weight of those gorgeous green eyes of yours into the effort. If he walks away, he’ll have time to talk himself out of calling Tatiana, but if you talk him into taking you with him, you can make the phone call yourself.”

A small, feminine part of her perked up. He still thought her eyes were gorgeous?

Well, now she was just being pathetic.

Ducking her head to hide her expression, she rubbed the back of her neck. After a moment, she muttered, “I don’t know; it sounds really risky.”

“Can you take him, if you had to?”

The question brought her gaze back to his face. His expression remained calm and steady. This was the man who had become a Roman emperor’s most successful and celebrated general, and he was assessing her, not judging, maybe for the first time in twenty years.

Just the simple connection of his eyes meeting hers without antagonism shouldn’t feel so exhilarating, but it did. Resisting the emotional pull of it, she fought to become as analytical as he had.

“I think so,” she told him. “I’ve had a lot more training than most people realize. And he’s not only a young Vampyre, but he’s also taking a lot of his cues from Justine’s behavior, even if he’s doing so subconsciously. He doesn’t see me as a threat.”

“You think so, but you’re not sure,” Julian said. “Is that what feels so risky?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure how much training he’s had, and I’m not one to make that kind of mistake about somebody else,” she pointed out. “But no, that actually wasn’t what I meant. If Justine decides to come back before help arrives, and she finds me gone, you realize she’ll kill you. If she can’t torture you, you’ll have lost all value to her.”

“You can’t think about that.” He shook his head.

He sounded remarkably calm about the prospect of being murdered. Even as one part of her took note, she snorted. “You can’t tell me what to think, or not to think.”