“Which comes down to luck as much as timely intervention on my part.”
She smiled. It was both amused and calculated, and warned that there was a sharp mind behind all the sexual playfulness. “Ah, but your timely intervention wouldn’t have happened had we not made a phone call.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d been paid not to intervene?”
“The operative word being ‘me.’ While he asked that I keep my fledglings back and control their hunger, he made no mention of them interfering with proceedings in other ways. So one made the call.”
“One who sounded like Ivan himself?”
She nodded. “We knew about the stripper. He has been here several times to visit Ivan. He is a big man, a strong man. His presence might have been enough to scare off the rogue.”
It might not have been, too. While Ben was a big werewolf, the rogue was a vamp, and vamps would win over regular weres each and every time. It wasn’t just strength, it was speed.
“So did the rogue say why he wanted to slice and dice Ivan?”
She shrugged. “I tasted the need for revenge on him. More than that, I don’t know.”
“So you didn’t ask?”
“It was a large amount of money. Not asking questions was part of the deal.”
So was not offering Ivan help in any way, but she’d gotten around that little clause just fine.
“Why did you perform the ceremony with Ivan?” My gaze went briefly to the toga-clad teenagers behind her. “He’s nothing like the rest of your get.”
“As much as I love my toys, a vampire cannot exist on them alone. Ivan is a very good investment advisor. That will be useful in the future.”
“If he’s such a good investment advisor, why is he living here?”
She smiled again. Deep in her brown eyes, hunger flickered. Not blood hunger, but rather a hunger for money. Or power, which often came hand in hand with money in this wealth-oriented world of ours. She might not be a force in the vampire world just yet, but she certainly intended to be. And I had a feeling she wouldn’t particularly care how she went about it.
But couldn’t that be said of all vampires? Most of them couldn’t ever be classed as the caring, sharing types.
“Simple,” she answered. “He tithed me his apartment in Brighton as payment for the ceremony. He has enough money to live elsewhere, of course, but he remains close because his death is imminent. His choice, not mine.”
“So if you hate this place so much, why not move in to his apartment?”
She raised dark eyebrows. “It’s a simple matter of logistics. We are forty strong here, and that number simply will not fit into a two-bedroom apartment, no matter how luxurious.”“Isn’t that a large number of vampires to have living together? And whatever happened to that whole ‘vampires are territorial creatures and don’t share’ line I keep hearing?”
She smiled again. “Blood vampires are territorial. We are not of a bloodline. For us, the bigger the community, the better. Community nourishes us.”
“So those who haunt the downstairs rooms are fed by the goings-on up here?”
“Something like that.”
“So it wasn’t the bloodshed that was stirring their hunger, but rather the emotions being broadcast?”
“Yes.”
She shifted, placing her feet on the floor and sitting up straight. The teenagers behind her gathered together, so that their bodies were pressed tightly against one another. The contact sent an odd sort of humming flaring across the air. It didn’t feel like the aura of their master, and yet it possessed a similar sense of power. Although maybe it didn’t feel the same because it wasn’t actually aimed at me. Maybe it would seem similar if it had been.
Either way, goose bumps skittered across my skin. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t want to be here when feedings were happening.
But as much as I wanted to just get the hell away from this place as fast as I could, there was still a question that needed to be asked.
“Did the rogue vampire happen to mention his name?”
She smiled again. “I was wondering when you’d get around to asking that.”
“Meaning yes, he did?”
“Of course. No one gets through my door without me first knowing their name.”
“Then would you mind telling me it?”
Amusement played about her lips. “What are you going to offer in exchange?”
I looked at her for a moment, then said, “How about I not call the Directorate on you?”
“You’ve already reported our presence. There’s another guardian patrolling outside, isn’t there?”
“He’s there to catch Ivan’s attacker, should he decide to come back.”
She waved a hand. “But the Directorate will come to investigate us regardless.”
“They will. But investigating is not cleaning out.”
“You would not ask them to go that far. You are not the type.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Lady, you have no idea what type I am.”
“I can taste it in the air, little wolf.” She considered me a moment, then smiled. “You are honorable, in your own way. And at the moment, you are also very wary of what you sense in this room.”
Mainly because what I sensed in this room was nothing like anything I’d come across before. “I can’t pay you.”
“I’m not asking for money.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
“A kiss. Just a simple kiss.”
There was nothing simple about a kiss. Not when it involved this vampire. “Why?”
“Because I want to taste you.”
“I thought you weren’t a blood vampire.”
She rose from the sofa, her long skirt billowing briefly around her in cloudlike wisps of bloodred organza. Surprisingly, she was my height and build. She’d seemed so much smaller and daintier on the chaise lounge—another carefully placed illusion, no doubt.
“I am not a blood vampire,” she said softly. “And I give nothing for free. If you wish the name, guardian, you pay with a kiss.”
I stared at her, wishing I could read her mind. Wishing I knew her motives. Wishing I understood why the whole kissing deal filled me with such indecision. Hell, if it were a man asking the payment, I’d be doing it in a second.
So was it just the thought of kissing a female that was making me hesitate? Or was it more to do with the fact that I didn’t know what she really was, or what she could do?
I’d love to say it was the latter rather than the former, but the truth was, I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to kiss another woman. It was as simple as that.
But I was a guardian, and sometimes guardians had to do things they really didn’t want to do. Especially if lives were on the line.
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “No feeding, no aura—or whatever that sexual heat thing of yours is. If I sense any of it, I’ll shoot the fucking lot of you.”
She smiled. “I think you mean that.”
I think I did, too. I flexed my fingers, feeling the dampness on my palms and not liking it. “And no tongue,” I added. “I’ll bite it if I feel it.”
She laughed, a warm merry sound that had lips twitching. Mine included. And that only made my wariness and need not to do this even stronger.
“One would think you’ve never kissed a woman before.”
“I haven’t.”
She raised an elegant eyebrow. “What, not even as a friendly gesture of hello?”
I could’ve pointed out that I wasn’t the social, friendly type, but I wasn’t about to give her that much information. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“As you wish.”
She stepped closer. My nostrils flared, sucking in her scent, tasting flowers and springtime and something else, something I couldn’t quite define. Something that felt dangerous and exciting all at the same time.
She stopped so close that her wispy gown swirled around my legs, encasing them in a sea of red. I clenched my fingers, fighting the desire to step back, to escape the heat and feel of her, and watched her face. Watching the anticipation in her brown eyes grow as she drew closer.
Then her lips brushed mine. Tentatively, gently. They were surprisingly cool and soft, and not unpleasant, however much I wanted them to be. I didn’t react, holding myself still, not wanting to prolong the contact.
She opened her eyes, stared deep into mine. “A kiss takes two people, guardian. React, or the payment will not be accepted.”
Her lips touched mine again, and after a moment of hesitation, I moved into them, kissing her gently but thoroughly. It was a strange kiss, a passionless kiss, and yet it was a kiss that had my nerves tingling and pulse racing. It wasn’t desire. It was fear of the unknown.
I had a bad, bad feeling that more than just lip-tasting was going on.
I pulled away, felt the coolness of the room caress my skin, washing away the heat of her. She smiled, and flicked her skirts away from my legs. “You do not taste like a wolf, guardian.”“You got your kiss, vampire. I want my name.”
She considered me for a moment, then said, “Aron Young.”
“Got that,” Sal said into my ear. “Instigating search.”
“Thank you,” I said, more to Sal than Vinny. I stepped back again, relishing the distance each step was giving me. “If he happens to return, Vincenta, please call the Directorate straightaway.”