“The article was in the Tribune,” Temple went on. “They’re exotic photographs from all over the world, and some of them are from a female adventure photographer. She’s taken photographs in some of the most dangerous and unique places—like from the top of Notre Dame in Paris. The article said she climbed up one of the spires to get the shot.”
“When is the exhibit?”
“Tonight. Mayor Dever is opening the exhibition, so it’ll be a very high-society reception. Tickets are hard to come by, but I’ve managed to snag three of them—don’t ask me how. I have my ways. I know it’s Saturday, but I can close up for one night. You should go to bed and rest up. You look like you could use a night out without the undead, sister—and the Good Lord knows I could. Aunt Cookie wants to come, and you know she’ll make sure we look our best. Be at her shop by five, and she’ll take care of everything.” Temple seemed almost giddy at the thought. “Who knows—there might even be a vampire or two lurking about, and you can kill two birds with one stake.”
Her eyes danced with unusual levity, causing Macey to wonder if the woman had secretly been hitting the gin. Though blunt as a dull knife, Temple was usually more dry and pragmatic.
“All right, I’ll go,” Macey said. Mayor Dever was going to be there. Perhaps she could talk with him and see what she could find out about “Baron Politano.” “There’s just as likely to be undead there as anywhere else.” Maybe even the so-called Italian baron himself. She suppressed a little shiver.
“How many vamps did you find tonight?” Temple was well aware of the current dearth of vampires lurking about the city and that this apparent lack of undead could only be the calm before the storm.
“Not enough. I got five, and so did Chas.”
“You and Chas?” Temple gave her a speculative glance and looked like she was about to speak again.
Macey forestalled the curiosity lighting her friend’s eyes by gesturing toward the stack of glasses yet to be put away. “How about pouring me a little something to help me sleep? I liked that stuff we had the night—the rosy-gold stuff Sebastian kept in the safe,” Macey said.
The liqueur was so thick it was just about like syrup, but it burned along with its unique sweetness. There was also a spiciness as well.
Temple didn’t comment, but pulled out the bottle in question. “Never saw this when he was still around,” she muttered, working off the fancy triangular stopper. “Sebastian was holding out the best stuff on us, sister. Wish I knew why he kept it locked up in a lead box. And wish I knew where to get more of it.” She filled a glass and slid it across the counter, then held up the bottle and squinted at it. “Looks like someone’s been helping themselves.” She eyed Macey balefully, and that seemed to bring her back to the previous topic. Unfortunately.
“So…you were with Chas last night,” Temple said. “He hasn’t come back yet. Do you know where he is?”
Macey shrugged, feeling the weight of her friend’s interest settling on her. “It’s not my job to keep track of him.” She couldn’t control the soft heat in her cheeks.
Temple didn’t look away. “You’re playing with fire there, sister. You know that, don’t you? Chas Woodmore’s not like other men.”
I’ll say. But Macey declined to speak. She wasn’t giving Temple any more ammunition for a lecture. It was none of her business what Macey and Chas had done in the back alley tonight after slaying six vampires in five minutes flat.
Temple had no reason to know how they’d turned to each other, panting and exhilarated after the wild battle that had ended much too soon, chests heaving, eyes glinting with satisfaction and yet still looking for something more. How Chas’s dark Gypsy gaze clashed with hers, hot and wild. How Macey grabbed him by the front of the shirt and spun him, then threw herself at him so forcefully he stumbled back into the brick wall.
There in the dark alley, amid broken crates and soggy cardboard boxes, the stench of rotting waste mingling with the scent of undead ash that still clung to their hair and shoulders, they’d devoured each other. Mouth to mouth, hot and sleek, tongues clashing, hands everywhere. The abrasive alley wall was behind him as she tore at the fastening of his trousers, plunging her hand down into the heat, closing around him as she groaned against the moist, warm skin of his neck—then suddenly, Macey found herself lifted. He gathered her up, pivoted, and shoved her against the wall, holding her with one powerful hand at her throat as he yanked up the skirt of her dress.
The fresh night air brushed her bare thighs as Chas lifted her over him, settling her with her legs around his waist. Her fingers were deep in the thick, wavy hair on his head as she kissed and licked and nipped at his throat, yanking his shirt wide open.
So needy. She needed, needed.
Needed something.
The beads on her dress caught and scrubbed against damp, rough bricks as he found the slit in her knickers, then slipped his fingers inside to feel how hot and ready she was. He moaned against her temple when he found she was, and with one quick shift then thrust, he was inside her.
Macey tightened her legs around his waist and moved with him—fast, hard, wild—the back of her head scraping against the wall, until finally she found her peak. She made no effort to stifle her cry of release, and felt another roaring sweep of pleasure when his deep, heartfelt sigh reverberated against her hair.
She sagged back against the wall, balanced on his hips as he leaned forward, braced by one hand against the bricks, while the other held her up at the waist. Panting, gasping, at last he eased her to her feet. She landed there, unsteady for a moment as her loose shift slinked back into place over her thighs, then was suddenly shocked back to reality when she saw a figure pass by at the end of the alley.
What was I thinking?
She looked at Chas as she straightened her frock, pulled up her sagging, twisted stockings. Still weak-kneed, still reeling from the flood of lust and passion, she saw that he was studiously putting himself to rights as well. Without looking at her.
Dammit.
“Well that was…unexpected,” she managed to say, wondering how many beads were left on the back of her dress.
“You’ll get no complaints from me, lulu,” he said in a rough, rumbly voice. “Sure as hell beats the way I…used to do it.”
“In a bed, you mean?” she teased, trying to break the awkwardness.
“With fangs,” he said curtly.
Macey snapped her mouth shut. There was nothing she could say to that, for she well knew what it had cost Chas to admit such a thing.
She wasn’t clear on the details, but she knew Chas had fallen deeply in love with a vampire woman. He’d lost her—Narcise was her name—to another man. Then Chas had spent the last decade trying to forget her—and at the same time, battling his need to be fed upon by an undead while having sex.
It was an untenable condition: to be a vampire hunter addicted to the bite of an undead, to be attracted to that enthralling loss of blood and control while in the throes of passion. To need it.
Macey shivered, and her last bit of warmth and pleasure evaporated. She’d been fed upon by Nicholas Iscariot, and though she feared and loathed the vampire, she’d felt the base stirrings of lust mingling with the evil and darkness that came along with being enthralled.
She couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Chas.
“That must’ve been some memory.”
Temple’s voice jolted Macey back to The Silver Chalice and the glass sitting in front of her with the rosy-gold liqueur.
She looked up to find her companion’s eyes on her, far too shrewd and knowing, and Macey took the opportunity to lift her glass and place a barrier between them while she sipped. Somehow the liqueur didn’t feel quite as warm and soothing as she remembered.
“We got trapped in an alley with six vampires,” she explained. “It was a very intense few moments.”
“That explains the mortar crumbles in your hair and the—er—condition of the back of your dress,” Temple said blandly.
“Like I said…it was intense.”
“You’re going to get hurt,” Temple told her, slamming her hand onto the pointy bottle stopper a little harder than necessary to shove it home. “Ouch.” She looked at her palm, then up at Macey. “Or he is.”
“I’m already hurt,” Macey said flatly, and slid off her stool. Now she didn’t feel much of anything but weariness and apprehension. And cold. Empty cold.
Even the hot, wild moments in the alley hadn’t changed that. The thing that frightened Macey the most was the fear that nothing ever would.
She changed the subject again. “Did you see the paper last night? The evening edition?”
Temple sobered. “Yes. Iscariot right on the damned front page. Have you been in touch with Wayren?”
“No,” Macey said, then continued in a burst of frustration, “No, I haven’t heard a thing from her since that night…the first night we had this.” She lifted her glass with the special liqueur, then set it back down without drinking.
“I’ve been studying the prophecies a bit more,” Temple said. “Going back further, and ahead a little more too. A bit of light reading, shall we say, before bedtime.” Her voice was flat and ironic. And maybe a little lonely.