The Mate Mistake(The Woolven Secret 3)(33)

Except that would make her just like him, wouldn't it?

"Hey, gorgeous. Where'd you go?"

"I was thinking about that man today. About The Greasy Lamb."

"He'll be dealt with."

"Will he?" she asked softly. "You must have considered he might've been sent to rile us up. To make us sloppy."

"Of course he was, but that doesn't mean we'll let it go unanswered." He pulled her close. "There's plenty of time to think about war. For now, think about taking care of yourself."

"Are you trying to spoil me?" She eyed him. "Because I like it. A woman could get used to this."

"You should get used to it. No point in having money if you can't enjoy it."

"I guess you're right about that." She settled against him and, in her head, time stopped. She burrowed into the moment, committed it to memory.

Something told her in a quiet whisper that it was all about to come crashing down around them. If it had been that voice screaming in her head since the outset, she'd have ignored it. This was something different. Something that would not be ignored.

It was as if every bit of sand through the hourglass was a razorblade slicing away this future she'd pretended she could have.

She'd never be free of her father or the murder until she faced them both.

But she wasn't ready.

Running and hiding was what she did best.

When they arrived at the spa, she was led to one room and he to another. Every part of her body vibrated with the wrongness of it, but she didn't listen. It wasn't telling her anything new.

She went.

Belle allowed herself to be led to the spa room, stripped and lowered into a blood bath. All of her cells were instantly rejuvenated and she was filled with all the joy and relief each donor felt when they'd been paid for their blood.

This had cost him a pretty penny indeed.

In the ancient days, before she'd known it was wrong to take blood without permission, before she'd known it came from living, thinking, feeling creatures, she'd demanded a blood bath once a week.

And the citizens of Ur had only been too happy to provide it to keep the Asakku happy and out of their homes.

"I knew your dog wouldn't be able to resist this," a voice said from the shadows.

She struggled to get up, preparing to defend herself, but the dopamine in the blood was making her high. She felt too good, too languid to do anything but sit there and absorb more of the elixir.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice sounding not at all authoritarian.

"You know what I want. What is it you're calling yourself now? Belle? Yes, you know what I'm after." He stepped from the shadows, a winged darkness.

A demon.

A devil.

He was big, bigger than any mortal man. This creature who stood before her didn't seem as if he'd ever been human. Not with the mouth full of fangs and the flat, cold, reptilian-like hunger in his eyes as his gaze was drawn to the bath of blood.

"Does it feel as good as it smells?" he asked, licking his lips.

His skin was sallow and pale in the soft glow of the candles, the light playing across his sharp features like a scene in a shadow box.

"Yes."

"That doesn't quite fit with your no human blood lifestyle, now does it? Are you finally ready to come home?"

"It's humanely harvested. The humans are paid for their blood. They're paid well." She licked her lips as more of their euphoria infused her.

This vampire could rip her apart, and she couldn't bring herself to care. She was too stoned on blood and bliss.

"Tirigan sends his love."

Tirigan, her father, didn't know how to love. But she didn't say that. She wasn't going to debate the finer points of anything with this brick of undead flesh. "Was that all you wanted? To bring me my father's love?"

"And a boon."

"What's that?"

"Come with me now and, hell, I'll even let you finish your blood bath. I'll take you back to Tirigan, and he'll let your pet mongrels live."

She laughed. "Oh, I think we both know that's a lie."

"He swears to Enki and Enlil."

"I know his tricks. If I didn't see him swear—"

"He will swear it before the full moon. As you, too, must swear to never leave him again. Otherwise, the Woolvens will suffer the same fate as those at The Greasy Lamb."

Her emotions weren't her own, but she supposed that was a blessing. He couldn't use them against her.

"Not a chance in hell."

"He may just kill you, too. You've gone sour. Rotten."

"Sour and rotten things don't walk in the sun."

"Your little spa day just put you out of the sun for a year."

Actually, it hadn't, but he didn't need to know that. As long as she didn't drink it... "Do you want some?" She held out her bloody hand to him.