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Prologue
Eighteen months ago…
István caught the vampiress Angyalka by luck. If she’d noticed him, he’d never have been able to jump her in time, slam her back hard against his body, and shove the discreetly palmed wooden stake over her heart.
Now, if she made any move to escape, she’d impale herself on the lethally sharpened stick and disintegrate. It was a classic move, perfectly executed. But it gave him no satisfaction since their quarry, the Ancient vampire Saloman, had just soared through the skylight in the glass-domed ceiling of the vampires’ nightclub, taking Elizabeth, the hunters’ bait, with him.
Fear, anger, and guilt would all have to wait. István’s immediate goal was to prevent the fiasco turning into a bloodbath. His team leader, Konrad, openly brandished a wooden stake, an understandable act of aggression which had brought Angyalka flying over the bar in the first place. Now, the backward surge of humans and the forward surge of vampires halted abruptly as everyone stared up to the skylight through which Saloman and Elizabeth had vanished.
There was even an instant when, from pure surprise, the vampiress held herself motionless as she took in her own position, clamped between István’s legs, pinioned by his arms. She couldn’t go forward onto the stake, so she strained back into him.
He followed with the stake, piercing her skin. He felt the wetness of blood under his palm, between her firm, soft breasts.
She was strong. But she wasn’t stupid. She stilled once more and then unhurriedly tilted her face up to look at him.
Her beauty crashed into him, a blow of raw, powerful lust. Short, stylish black hair framed piquant, almost elfin features that seemed oddly familiar. Fine, straight black brows sloped upwards like a devil’s over mocking, mysterious blue eyes so dark they looked navy. She had delicate, hollowed cheekbones, a short, straight nose, and a full, sensual mouth that just cried out to a man to crush it under his—if he was brave enough.
Big, jet earrings dangled from her pale shell-like ears. One caught against the creamy whiteness of her cheek as she twisted to gaze up at him. She wore a short little black silk dress with full-length, black leather boots. Long, slender legs, slim, elegant body, tiny waist, shapely breasts, and an alabaster, swanlike neck.
She looked like the angel carving over the club’s front door.
Her thick lashes drooped and rose again. The other vampires, interestingly, didn’t move. Perhaps they understood Angyalka’s danger. Perhaps she told them telepathically to be still. Her strange, dark blue eyes held his while, deceptively casual, she recited the club rules: “No fighting, no biting.”
Even through the relentless beat of the surrounding music, her voice wrapped around his loins like velvet, soft, dark, and seductive as sin. And it carried to the other vampires, who made no further move toward the hunters. Konrad and Mihaela, realizing they wouldn’t have to fight their way out after all, began to run for the exit in pursuit of Elizabeth and Saloman.
Deliberately, Angyalka pushed her firm bottom back into István’s hips. “What about you, hunter? Are you leaving too?” She smiled, rocking subtly against the erection he couldn’t hide. “Or are you staying to dance?”
The terrifying thing was, even with Elizabeth at the mercy of the monster they’d come to kill, he was tempted. And seeing it, she began to sway to the music, playing havoc with the lust already raging through his body.
He was far too old a hand to fall for this trick.
He stepped back. But like lightening, as soon as her hand could move, it flew up to cover his on the stake between her breasts. Electricity zinged through his fingers. He knew an urge to drop the stake and just palm her breast instead. As if she knew it, her siren smile broadened. Without warning, she spun to face him, revealing her fangs and all the very real danger that lurked below the pretended seduction of her eyes.
He’d held her immobile in front of her people. He’d humiliated her in her own bar, and she wouldn’t forget it. But he’d no time to barter words with a vampire, not even this one. He had to find and save the woman he loved, who would never ever love him.
“No dance, then,” she hissed. “Next time, it will be different.”
He didn’t doubt that. Acknowledging it, he gave her a lopsided smile as he backed away to the door. Then he turned and ran from the club to begin the futile search for Elizabeth.
Chapter One
“So this is Budapest.” The vampire Basilio leaned his back against the side of the chain bridge spanning the River Danube and gazed beyond the passing traffic to the city spread out on either side.
Jacob looked too, although with less interest. He was sure the castle and the steep hills behind were very picturesque, and the large, grand buildings on the opposite bank extremely fine. But Jacob’s undead soul didn’t do beauty. He did humans and, more importantly, money. He reckoned there was plenty of both in this city.
The third and youngest member of their traveling party, Gabby, who’d been dead for only about ten years, regarded her maker, Basilio, with irritating adoration. “You mean you’ve never been here before?”
Basilio was an old vampire, like around five hundred years old. One tended to assume the supercilious old bastard must have been everywhere in that length of time, but apparently not.
“I’ve never left the Americas before,” Basilio said casually. Although his speech still bore traces of his Mexican origins, his English had been perfected over many long visits to the United States and Canada. He transferred his gaze from the castle to Jacob. “This had better be worth it.”
“It’ll be easy,” Jacob assured him. “We don’t even need to see Saloman himself to find a way of forcing his hand. We just need to find out from others what his weaknesses are. You can read anyone’s head; I can con anyone. She”—he jerked his head at Gabby—“can seduce anyone. Together we’re invincible.”
Basilio curled his superior upper lip. “Actually, I’m invincible alone.”
“So how come Travis rules in North America and acknowledges Saloman as his overlord?”
“Because Travis is beneath me, and I have not yet encountered Saloman.”
Sure, Jacob thought derisively—and unwisely, since it wasn’t easy to hide such spontaneous if silent comebacks from Basilio.
The old vampire fixed him with a chilling, mud-colored eye. “I don’t like you, Jacob. Don’t make me give in to that.”
Jacob threw up his hands and began to walk over the bridge in the direction of the strongest blood scent. “Whatever.”
Behind him, Gabby said throatily, “Hello, stranger. Where can I go to dance?”
Gabby, little more than a fledgling, was eternally hungry and had clearly targeted her first prey of the evening already. Jacob glanced back over his shoulder. The two young men Gabby had accosted were exchanging bemused glances, answering in their own outlandish tongue.
“Hey, they don’t even speak English!” Gabby complained to Basilio.
Basilio sighed. “They’re not obliged to in Hungary. Just pick the one you want and I’ll have the other.”
“What about me?” Jacob asked indignantly.
Neither answered him. Gabby wound her arms round the neck of one startled if rather excited-looking young man and sank her teeth into his throat. His friend, obviously picking up that something was wrong, said sharply, “Hey!” —clearly the same in any language—and reached out to separate them.
It was the last thing he ever did. In a blur, Basilio grabbed him, drained him, and dropped him contemptuously on the pavement before striding after Jacob. Gabby slurped more slowly at her own meal, writhing sensuously against her captive as she killed him.
Jacob glanced with distaste at the first dead man. To keep a low profile, they really shouldn’t kill their supper. Perhaps it was meant as a calling card for Saloman. Whatever, Basilio always made such a mess of people.
****
Two children whizzed past, shouting with laughter. One of them was Robbie, Mihaela’s adopted son. They seemed to be playing some boisterous hybrid of tag and hide-and-seek among the adult guests, adding to Mihaela’s liberating sense of unreality.
It was a bizarre housewarming party. Part of her still couldn’t quite believe she was hosting it, and no one knew better than she that it could all go horribly wrong. However, she’d recently stunned her colleagues in the hunter organization by buying this wonderful old house in Budapest’s castle district, renovating it, and living in it not only with Robbie but with the vampire Maximilian, who had somehow become her lover. And Robbie’s adoptive father. The least she could do was invite them all over to look. And in fact, it was fun to watch them playing “spot the vampire.” For Maximilian’s acquaintances were just as curious as hers and had arrived in unexpected numbers—although Maximilian had welcomed most of them with no more than a curl of his lip.
The neighbors and her other “civilian” friends, of course, had no idea what was walking among them. But Mihaela believed the presence of Maximilian, and of the vampire overlord, Saloman himself, would keep the undead in line. If not—well, she wasn’t yet too pissed to stake a few of them. And there were at least four other hunters present.
Mihaela opened the front door to greet her divorced neighbor, Andrea, and Lara, Andrea’s fun-loving friend.
“Wow! Your party’s jumping!” Andrea approved, hugging her and dropping a bottle into her hands.
Mihaela laughed. “What, before your arrival? How can this be?”
“Sarcasm ill becomes a hostess.” Andrea grinned. “Now, I confess Lara and I have had a few already, so steer me away from the married men.” She paused, and her beautifully made-up eyes began to gleam. “Tell me that one isn’t spoken for. But of course, he’s bound to be…”
Hoping her neighbor hadn’t fixed her hopes on a vampire, Mihaela turned to follow her gaze. To her secret delight, her friend and fellow hunter, István, stood with his shoulder against the side of the staircase. His dark eyes were watchful as they always were, yet something in their fixed, unblinking gaze was almost predatory, as if his long recovery had made him hungry for more than Mihaela’s home baking. Dressed in light chinos, open-collared black shirt, and a smart-but-casual jacket, he looked both elegant and handsome, with no trace of the terrible injuries that had almost killed him six months ago.
Although his lips twitched in response to Andrea’s inviting smile, he made no move toward the group at the front door. Mihaela had the odd impression he was waiting for someone. But perhaps he was just keeping track of the vampire Dmitriu, who sat on the stairs only a few feet above his head, with two human girls draped around his neck.
“Not married,” Mihaela reported. “Nor spoken for—to my knowledge.” She could be wrong. István rarely discussed his personal life, although, being a hunter, he was unlikely to have much of that.
Andrea shook out her bracelets, as if metaphorically rolling up her sleeves. “Introduce me,” she commanded.
Obligingly, Mihaela took her arm, but they hadn’t gone more than a pace before Andrea’s friend Lara suddenly stopped them in their tracks. “No, wait,” she said urgently. “I know that guy.”
Mihaela blinked at her. “You do?”
“István,” Lara said slowly. “István Királyi. He’s bad news, Andrea—stay away from him.”
Mihaela narrowed her eyes. “He is not,” she said dangerously, “bad news.”
Lara looked away, smoothing out her pretty top in a flustered kind of way before she again met Mihaela’s challenging gaze with what seemed to be very conscious bravery. “Sorry if he’s a friend of yours, Mihaela, but I was at school with him, and ‘tearaway’ just doesn’t cover it.”
“School?” Andrea scoffed. “Lots of us were tearaways at school. And look at me, a mature, respectable member of the community!”
“Yes, well, he isn’t,” Lara said bluntly. “I heard he got worse after school. A friend of mine saw him stabbing someone in a back alley only a few years ago and reported it to the police, but István’s obviously got friends in high places, if you know what I mean, because nothing ever came of it.”
Damn. Lara was probably right. István was no doubt seen killing a vampire, but even with a name and a witness, the police wouldn’t have pursued him. Without a body, the investigation would have been squashed by the hunter network. Friends didn’t get much higher than that.
“Hearsay,” Mihaela retorted. “István is not a thug.”
“With respect, Mihaela, you don’t know that,” Lara said tightly. “I think he’s into organized crime. You should keep your distance from him. And so should you, Andrea.”
“He has got rather dangerous eyes,” Andrea observed doubtfully.
Mihaela blinked. István? Dangerous eyes?
Well, perhaps he had. She and István fought on the same side; to her, he was a completely trustworthy and reliable ally as well as an understanding friend. But if she thought about it, he was also totally ruthless. Like her. A hunter had to be to survive, and, like her, István had survived a lot.
He was, probably, her most trusted friend. And yet seeing him through her guests’ eyes made him suddenly a stranger. She really didn’t know anything about him at all.
As if bored by their overt and covert scrutiny, István eased his shoulder off the wall and strolled in their direction.
“Oh fuck,” said Lara. Andrea’s breath caught, and her tension zinged through to Mihaela. But István merely turned into the living room, from where strains of Bob Dylan drifted out to the hallway, and kept walking away from them.
Andrea hissed, “Look at the way he walks, so deliberate and controlled…” Her gaze appeared to be on István’s retreating bum. Out of sight of his “dangerous eyes,” she quickly reverted to type. “Maybe he’d make an uncomfortable companion on a dark night,” she allowed, licking her lips, “but I’ll bet you anything he’s a fantastic lover.”
****
István couldn’t deny these were fascinating times.
A vampire with a bottle of beer in one hand watched him malevolently from the opposite corner of the living room, spotting him as a hunter. István picked up his own previously abandoned bottle and raised it casually to the vampire before he drank. No harm in letting him know he was spotted too.
Damn, how many people had Mihaela invited to this affair? He hadn’t expected there to be so many vampires here, and yet the one he’d been so sure of seeing was maddeningly, elusively absent.
Once Mihaela had ushered her latest guests in the direction of the kitchen, he moved restlessly back into the hall. One of those women watching him had looked vaguely familiar. Someone from school, perhaps, though no one he’d known well. Lara something, he thought suddenly. Studious girl, much too straight and disapproving to appeal to his teenage self. Come to that, she still looked bloody disapproving, although what he’d done to offend her by standing in Mihaela’s hallway was lost on him. Her friend was pretty enough, though, and he hadn’t missed her unmistakable interest.
Sexual desire stirred. It had been a long time, and he wanted a woman. He wanted to lose himself quite urgently in hot, meaningless sex, and he wouldn’t be averse to pursuing the woman with the bracelets. She had graceful wrists and long, slender legs encased in tight-fitting jeans… Maybe later. After he’d found her.
And eased his bloody, aching legs and back. All this restless pacing and standing around wasn’t good for them, and the knowledge annoyed him.
Some of the kids, including Mihaela’s Robbie, were bolting upstairs, calling to others already up there, as they climbed over the vampire Dmitriu, who still sat there with the same two human girls nuzzling his neck. No wonder his eyes gleamed. Dmitriu caught István’s gaze, shrugged, and stretched his pale lips into a lopsided smile.
“The times, they are a-changing,” sang Bob Dylan from the front room.
“No kidding,” Konrad murmured in István’s ear. He nodded with distaste at the scene on the stairs. “Are we really meant to be okay with that? To just walk away?”
István, who believed Dmitriu was too polite to drink from Mihaela’s human guests, at least while they were in her house, merely nodded and turned to distract his team leader. Since Konrad was still sensitive enough to see that István needed to sit down, he walked beside him without complaint until they sank onto the vacant sofa in the living room. One of Mihaela’s younger neighbors had just put himself in charge of music and was removing Bob Dylan from the CD player in favor of something livelier.
István, mostly to redirect Konrad from the health questions he could see forming on his lips, said, “It’s good to see you here. Mihaela was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“I was surprised she asked me. I know she bears a grudge about my sending Cyn and John Ramsay to Malta for Robbie.”
“Well, you know my views on that too.”
Konrad curled his lip and looked around the room. The same vampire still lurked in the corner shadows, watching the dancers who’d sprung to life around the new CD. Through the door to the kitchen, the Ancient, Saloman, overlord of all the vampires, was visible, still incomparably elegant although perched on a work top with a glass of champagne in one hand. Through the other door, they could see Dmitriu fondling the girls who couldn’t seem to get enough of him.
“Is this it, then?” Konrad said disparagingly. “Détente between vampires and humans? We’re just meant to let them bite people in public?”
“You know vampire-related deaths are drastically reduced. Almost nonexistent in Hungary. I think this party is a good idea.”
“For Mihaela?” Konrad demanded. “Or for Saloman?”
“Both,” István said mildly.
Konrad stared at him. “You really have bought into this? You don’t see anything wrong in that?” He waved one impatient hand toward the hall door, and Dmitriu’s little ménage à trois on the stairs.
István let out a breath of laughter. “I admit I can’t shake off a sense of responsibility. But I don’t think those women would thank me for escorting them safely home right now.”
“They would if they had any idea what he was!”
“Maybe,” István said noncommittally. In fact, there was no way of knowing whether or not Dmitriu’s admirers were among the increasing numbers of humans who’d become aware of vampire existence over the last year.
For a moment, Konrad looked as if he’d let anger get the better of him. Then Mihaela walked through the room from the kitchen, slightly tipsy, judging by her grin. She waved to them in passing, looking so uncomplicatedly happy that even Konrad shut his mouth and smiled back.
“That is the payoff,” István murmured. “I never thought I’d see Mihaela so contented.”
“And you think that’s a good thing? With a vampire?”
“Actually, yes.”
“And Elizabeth with Saloman?”
It had hurt once. Now, he could say with almost total honesty, “Yes.”
“It’s just sex,” Konrad said in disgust.
István jerked his beer bottle with irritation, “I don’t think either Elizabeth or Mihaela would have had to look very far just for sex, do you? We have to allow them to be rather more than their hormones.”
Konrad made a sound like a snort and demanded, “When are you coming back to work?”
“Got a meeting tomorrow with Lazar,” István said vaguely. “Not really up to much more than a desk job,” he added. He tried not to care. He tried quite a lot. The fight for the hunters’ library last autumn had changed many things, made Saloman their ally, shifted the role of hunter more toward policing the undead community and the humans who came in contact with it. He wouldn’t think of personal injuries, not tonight. He was being positive.
“Want a drink?” he asked Konrad, easing himself to his feet. He could really have done with a longer rest, but he couldn’t be still.
Konrad shook his head. “No, I’ve done my duty. I’m going to head off before I kill something and piss Mihaela off even more.”
István clapped him on the shoulder. He felt for Konrad, knew he’d have to pull him out of this mire of hate and frustration before he did something stupid. But not tonight. Tonight, he had a mission—self-imposed it was true, but a mission nonetheless; and Saloman was among the company.
Abandoning Konrad, he made his way toward the kitchen. In the doorway, he almost bumped into the woman with the bracelets. Wryly amused, he watched a startling array of expressions flit across her face—a gleam of almost triumphant pleasure, twinges of alarm and guilt and defiance—before she finally smiled. His old schoolmate, Lara Whoever, must have remembered him and blabbed about his teenage follies.
And yes, there she was like a mother hen, glaring at him over the other woman’s shoulder.
“Lara, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly.
Lara blinked, as if taken aback by the courtesy of mere acknowledgment. Had he really been that obnoxious at school? Perhaps he’d stolen her parents’ car. “I’m surprised you remember me,” she said with quite unnecessary aggression.
“Likewise.” He glanced from her to her friend and returned reluctantly to the disapproving Lara. “So what are you doing with your life?”
“Teaching,” Lara said. Her eyes gleamed as if about to deliver the victory punch. “What are you doing with yours?”
“Security,” István said briefly. It was the standard answer of the hunters, but he could see it astonished his old schoolmate. Not surprising, really, since when they’d last met he’d been all too often on the wrong side of the law, and in school, those things got around.
“Security,” she repeated, blankly, as if this put a whole new complexion on things.
István turned to her friend, who looked unaccountably smug. “We haven’t met before, have we? I’m István.” He offered her his hand.
She took it with alacrity. “Andrea. And no, we haven’t. I live in the house across the road. So how do you know Mihaela? Or are you Maximilian’s friend?”
“Mihaela and I work together.”
Andrea cast Lara a look of such triumph that it was István’s turn to be startled. What in the world had Lara accused him of? She was looking confused now, and rather more attractive for it. He found himself smiling at her and felt Andrea’s glare like a dart in the side of his head.
Too complicated, back off, he told himself ruefully. “Excuse me, just getting another beer,” he said aloud and walked past them into the kitchen. There, he dropped his bottle into the bin and found himself a fresh one before he surveyed the unlikely kitchen occupants.
The Ancient vampire overlord, Saloman, the oldest and most powerful being who’d ever existed—probably—still perched on the work top, incongruously casual for so large and forceful a personality. Supernaturally still and handsome, he smiled at something said by his human companion Elizabeth, who sat at her ease at the nearby table with a glass of orange juice. Beside her, in the shadows, lurked Saloman’s elder creation, Maximilian, Mihaela’s enigmatic lover. If he was uneasy in so large a company, as he often seemed to be, he hid it well. In fact, he seemed more relaxed than István had seen him.
Catching sight of István, Elizabeth toasted him with her orange juice. István raised his bottle to her. Even here, she glowed like sunshine, the woman who’d saved his life and was making him better every day. She hooked her ankle round a chair to position it invitingly.
“Take a seat,” she suggested. “Max and Saloman are being wine bores.”
“I’m afraid I want to bore about something else,” István returned, sitting carefully. He’d already spent more time on his feet than any other day since his injury. Time to be sensible, before he ruined everything. “I want to pick Saloman’s brains.”
Saloman’s eyebrows rose. “Intriguing. What about?”
“Angels.”
The Ancient had the deepest, most unreadable eyes István had ever encountered, and yet something flickered there at the word “angels.” It might have been surprise or interest or simple amusement. Or a combination of all three.
Saloman’s lips curved slightly. “A massive subject. What can I tell you? Except that I’m not one.”
“That much I’ve worked out for myself,” István said dryly. “But what is their significance to you? Just symbolic? Or does the image have actual power?”
Saloman sipped his champagne. You couldn’t make out his fangs. “What makes you think that?”
“I’ve been reading up on enchantments and on combing and harnessing that kind of power. Angels keep coming up in the discussions, from medieval times to the present. And then I remembered seeing Elizabeth’s photographs of your tomb after she first wakened you. There were angels all over it. Weirdly Christian, I thought at the time. And then I found it even more bizarre, considering it was built not by your friends but your enemies—why should they want angels to watch over you?”
Saloman eased himself off the work top and reached for the champagne bottle, all without taking his eyes off István. “And what conclusion did you come to?”
With growing excitement, István knew he was on to something. Saloman was too interested, too encouraging.
István said steadily, “That they weren’t there for your good but to somehow harness or strengthen the power of those who ‘killed’ you, to keep fresh the enchantments that would keep you hidden from your friends.”
Maximilian muttered something and wandered away, understandably put out by the discussion, since he’d been the most important of the killers, although he’d had nothing to do with the burial. Saloman’s gaze flickered after him, then back to István.
“Very good,” he approved, like a teacher applauding a breakthrough in a slow child. He poured himself a fresh glass of champagne.
“So how does that work?” István pursued. “Why angels? Why should a lump of stone cut into a particular shape have more power than any other?”
Saloman took a sip, and when he lowered the glass, his lips were smiling. “It isn’t in the stone, or the shape.”
István frowned, searching the unreadable eyes that should have scared him witless. Would have if he hadn’t been on a knowledge quest.
Abruptly, István’s breath disappeared. “The word? It’s in the word?”
Saloman’s lips quirked. “Words have their own power. It’s how enchantments work. In combination with certain individuals, of course.”
Words. Names. Individuals.
One who wasn’t here tonight. István couldn’t kid himself any longer. She wasn’t coming. Or at least, not before his legs gave out. But he was pretty sure he knew where to find her.
“What,” Elizabeth said as István walked abruptly away, “was all that about?”
“István’s new gadget,” Saloman replied with satisfaction, watching the hunter’s back disappear through the living room. “Which we might conceivably need one day.”
****
István paused under the grubby angel carving and stared at it until it showed its true colors: an exquisite work of art, carved by a Renaissance master. You could easily walk past this battered door and its guardian angel above without noticing it—it was enchanted to make you do just that—but István had been here before. And besides, a new art gallery had opened up next to the anonymous door of the vampires’ Angel Club.
Although István had heard of it, he’d never seen the gallery before. The sign above the window proclaimed “Angel Art—antique and contemporary artwork.” Interesting, and much more attention grabbing to most than the exquisite carved angel above the club door.
He took a few photographs of it and stuffed the little camera back in his jacket pocket. The other, slightly bulkier instrument in his left hand measured temperature and other environmental factors. István wanted to see if those changed when the enchantment had to work harder. One day he’d bring a ladder and get right up to the angel. Or maybe for speed, he’d get Mihaela to do it. Some night when she wasn’t having a party.
On the other hand, the urge to actually touch it was strong. The angel was extraordinarily beautiful. Like her, its model, who owned the dangerous nightclub it protected.
István dragged his gaze downward and, watching the dials of his instrument, pushed open the door. He walked inside, let the door swing shut behind him, but there were no significant changes, other than those you’d expect going from outside to in.
The entrance and the long, winding staircase were both deliberately unprepossessing. Even the homeless would think twice about curling up in the dank, spider-ridden corners, not so much for fear of rats as because the whole place gave you the creeps. As it should, since it was full of vampires.
The detector in his other pocket warned him that one lurked at the top of the stairs. The club bouncer, there to deter and disarm trouble. He’d know István was here, might even sense that he was a hunter.
Abruptly, something moved at the top, a swishing of fast footsteps, a sudden blast of music and shouting, cut off like a switch as if the club door opened and closed.
István’s pulses raced. The bouncer might have been going to report the presence of a hunter, although he could probably have done so telepathically without leaving his post. But that brief burst of noise had sounded to István like trouble.
To go in there, he needed fitness, permission, and backup. He had none of these.
Fuck it. He’d come here to study angels, hadn’t he? This particular, bizarrely named angel.
Hastily, he grabbed his latest invention—which he thought of as his “bungee reel” — from his inside pocket, tied it around his waist, aimed it at the wall above the first turning in the staircase, and pressed the release switch. It worked like a dream, shooting the length of elastic like an arrow into the wall where it clung by its tiny, powerful claws. He felt the jolt as it locked and then it dragged him after it at almost the same dizzying speed.
He staggered on landing, but at least he hadn’t actually crashed into the wall. Another button released the claws and reeled in the elastic with one speedy snap. He aimed at the next landing and did it all again. And again.
On the whole, he reckoned he reached the top a couple of seconds faster than a fit man running. Pleased with himself, István pocketed his useful new device and took hold of the old, familiar one: a sharpened wooden stick.
Madness. How are you going to deal with trouble in a vampire bar in this state?
It didn’t matter. Old habits died hard. Earlier, he’d had to walk away from two willing human girls who’d draped themselves over the vampire Dmitriu at Mihaela’s party. That no longer counted as trouble. And he’d been away from real action for so long that he yearned for the old excitement like an adrenaline junkie.
Willing strength into his legs, which were inclined to shake slightly after their several flights and abrupt landings, he walked the few paces to the club door and pushed.
It gave at once, releasing the noise of recorded rock music and human shouting over the top. As István walked inside, something crashed to the floor amid the lighter tinkling of breaking glass.
Someone hurtled right at him, a knife blade glinting in his flying hand, a roar of anger on his lips as a vampire threw him across the room.
From sheer instinct, István caught the knife man, spun him, and dragged both arms behind his back in an unbreakable hold. The knife clattered to the floor, and the man, a young guy still in his early twenties, struggled to break free.
But István’s arms were strong. Compensating for the weakness of his lower limbs over the last six months, they’d had to be. Although the force of the man’s struggles knocked him back against the closed door, István merely used that to support himself while he held on and gazed beyond his captive to the vampire who’d thrown him across the room.
She really did resemble the angel above the front door.
****
Although she’d been expecting it, the trouble, when it came, still took Angyalka by surprise.
There was a crowd of them, all young men in their early twenties, she guessed. One of them she’d seen before: he had an aggressive glint in his eye more reminiscent of an angry vampire than a human. Plus, although they drank plenty, they didn’t seem as interested in the music as in the clientele. Still, they kept their hands, if not their eyes, to themselves, right up until the evening was drawing to a close when, without warning, they got up and walked onto the dance floor. In no time, their hands were all over the women and they were shoving at the men who took exception to their behavior.
It was a recipe for a full-scale fight, and since Angyalka did not want her club drawn to the attention of the human police—it had existed for centuries without any official control or interference of any kind—she stepped out from behind the bar to deal with it.
Her vampire bouncers were already marching purposefully toward the dance floor, which was clearing with some annoyance. Angyalka held the vampires back with one telepathic word and walked up to the ringleader, the youth she thought she knew, who had his arms around a blonde girl who quite clearly did not want to dance with him, let alone have her neck nuzzled.
“Cutting in,” Angyalka said brazenly, yanking him off the girl and into her own far more distant hold. “Time to dance with me, on your way out. If you dance well, I might even let you back in next time.”
He blinked, slightly stunned by the speed and ease of his detachment from his chosen, if reluctant, partner. Then, recovering, he grinned and tried to pull her closer. A disconcerted frown tugged down his brow when he found he couldn’t.
“You’re strong,” he observed.
“Very,” Angyalka agreed, dancing him irresistibly off the dance floor to his own table. His friends, seeing something was up, began to hurry back toward them, clocking the bouncers who were closing in on the table.
Without warning, one of the humans lunged and upended the table, spilling drinks and glasses everywhere. There were screams from the patrons, laughter from the troublemakers, who started swinging punches and kicks at the bouncers. None of them connected, which seemed to both bewilder and frustrate the aggressors. But it was something else which distracted Angyalka. She smelled hunter.
Just what they didn’t need right now.
“I know why you’re so strong,” Angyalka’s captive taunted. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”
She had his arms and his legs under control. But what he did next took her completely by surprise. His head plunged suddenly for her neck and bit. Hard enough to hurt; hard enough to pierce her skin, even with blunt, human teeth.
There was no thought, just instinct and acute disgust. She plucked him up in the air and hurled him across the room with enough force for him to have hurtled to the bottom of the stairs, breaking the door on his way out.
Except that the door suddenly opened, and the last man in the world she expected to see walked in and caught her troublemaker, much as he’d once caught her.
The crash sent him stumbling back against the now-closed door, but he didn’t let go. Which was when the knife she hadn’t even seen fell from the troublemaker’s suddenly limp hand.
She stood perfectly still, staring at the newcomer, as did the others of that little group in front of the door, as if frozen in a photograph.
He was tall, lean almost to the point of lanky, and yet she knew well the hardness of the muscle beneath his casual clothes, the strength in his steel-like arms. He had straight, unstyled brown hair that tended to flop forward over his high, intelligent forehead. Calm, steady dark eyes met hers without fear or anger.
He was supposed to be crippled, paralyzed by the insane Luk during the fight in the hunters’ library. Clearly reports had been somewhat exaggerated, for this was undoubtedly the hunter called István, the one who’d held her humiliatingly immobile on their last encounter when the hunters had tried fruitlessly to capture Saloman. The one who’d reacted with gratifying spontaneity to her teasing. It had been some balm for her humiliation.
Once, she’d thought his own more permanent immobility was enough revenge for such a slight. Now, seeing him so hale and hearty, in perfect control of her vulgar attacker, she wasn’t so sure.
His eyes, gazing at her across the frozen carnage, were veiled for a human’s. Overanxious to give nothing away. Intriguing.
One of the troublemakers threw a punch at Béla, her right-hand helper, who dodged the blow with ease and grabbed his assailant. The hunter, István, obligingly slid along the door to the wall, where he lounged, as if at his ease, still gripping his wriggling, swearing captive, watching as the group of troublemakers was efficiently ejected.
Béla, with his own assailant in his right arm, took István’s captive from him with his left and dragged them both outside.
Angyalka’s human staff began to right the fallen tables and sweep up the broken glass. Most of them, if they worried at all about such occurrences, only did so the first time they saw it. Thanks to the speed of her security, none of them was ever hurt. And as for her human customers, they came to this place for its edge, its atmosphere of danger bubbling just below the respectable surface. Already their attention was returning to their drinks and to the dance floor.
All this Angyalka absorbed without releasing her gaze from István. He didn’t move, just continued to lounge against the wall as if quite at ease. Only he wasn’t. He was tense as a coiled spring.
“Well,” she drawled at last, gliding toward him. She let her gaze slide over him, took in the dragged-down pockets of his smart jacket—clearly he’d been to Maximilian’s party—and his right hand thrust casually into one of them.
“Is that a stake in your pocket, hunter?” She smiled. “Or are you…? Don’t make me say it.” Her eyes lifted to his and found a hint of amusement there.
He said, “I’m pleased to see you too.”
Chapter Two
“Good hunter,” she purred. “Flattery is always polite.” She came to a halt in front of him, and István straightened. “You didn’t stand up for the humans,” she observed.
“I heard they were giving you a little trouble.” He had a nice voice, she realized, now that he’d finally spoken to her. Deep, quiet, peaceful. The whole humiliating incident over Saloman had occurred without him uttering a word.
“Trouble?” she repeated. Of course the hunters would know about that. Saloman wanted her to involve them, although so far she’d resisted and he’d let her. “From time to time,” she admitted. “Can you believe that one tried to bite me?”
“What a bastard,” the hunter said gravely.
She smiled, acknowledging the joke. “I guess he watches too much Twilight. Or thinks the girls do.” She regarded him, tilting her head slightly to one side. There were lines of strain around his eyes, thinning his rather handsome lips. No wonder he was tense. He’d walked alone into the vampires’ den. Very intriguing.
“Well,” she said with decision, “if you haven’t come to use your stake, please do take a seat.”
“I’ll try and keep it under control,” he promised. “Will you join me?”
So he’d come to see her, was even prepared for banter and innuendo. Why?
She didn’t take her eyes off his as she inclined her head and spread one hand in invitation for him to precede her.
He strolled across to the nearest booth. He had good, lean hips and a fine, neat rear, but he walked too stiffly. She didn’t remember that before. Why was he so wound up now when no one was offering him a fight? What had he come here for?
Hastily she concentrated her senses on the building and the area immediately outside. No powerful humans, no hunters. So she let her senses surround István instead.
Since he wasn’t telepathic, she couldn’t pick up his thoughts. But, being deeply empathic, she caught his mood: edgy, wary, excited. And he was definitely hiding something. When he sat, she felt his relief like a flood. Relief and pain.
Now that was most intriguing of all.
It was noisier in the booth than at the door and bar areas, yet it had been designed to give the illusion of more privacy. Since the live band had played earlier in the evening, now there was just her DJ playing an eclectic selection of rock. The music was one of the reasons her nightclub stood out for certain humans. She couldn’t bear the current dance music of most human nightclubs.
As she slid onto the high-backed velvet sofa beside him, she felt every nerve, every tiny hair on his body, stand up in awareness of her nearness. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation for her. Far from it.
“So,” she said, “what brings you back here after all this time?”
His eyes flickered, as if surprised she’d actually remembered him. She almost laughed. Apart from the fact that vampires always remembered hunters, she had fantasized about killing this particular one for some months after their first meeting. Most of those fantasies had involved a certain amount of sexual gratification as she drained him of his powerful hunter blood. The memory made her smile. He was undoubtedly a sexy human, and she’d have no objections to fitting her body around the hard angles and planes of his. She could smell his blood, hear it pumping through his veins just a little too fast. He was definitely restless, his body curiously unquiet, whether or not that was anything to do with her and sexual attraction.
And that had certainly been present on their first encounter. She’d felt his erection pressing against her hips as he’d held her, heard the galloping of his pulse as she’d deliberately, teasingly wriggled against him. It had felt good, too good considering her humiliating position at the time. And yet if that was really why he was back, why would it have taken him eighteen months?
“I was passing,” he said evasively.
She raised her brows. “Was Mihaela’s party so dull?”
“On the contrary. Bizarre, perhaps, but never dull.” He leaned back on the sofa slowly, almost gingerly. “I was surprised not to see you there.”
She leaned her elbow on the table to turn and see him better. “I’m surprised you noticed.”
This time she thought his smile was spontaneous. “Oh, come, Angyalka, you’re nothing if not noticeable. And besides, you’re known to be a friend of Maximilian’s.”
“Has Mihaela taken it as a slight?” she asked. “Or a sign that I’m really after her lover?”
“Are you?”
“If I were, it wouldn’t do me any good,” she observed. “Maximilian has chosen his companion.”
“Not just a human, but a hunter.”
“I know who she is,” Angyalka said dryly. As a lover, Maximilian was well back in her past. What interested her was that István appeared to be fishing. Perhaps he was looking out for Mihaela.
She sat back at last, regarding him. Time to step up the interrogation. “I know who you are too. István.”
Again, the flicker of his eyes, the surge of excitement in his blood. “I’m flattered that you know my name.”
“Oh, come, István,” she mocked him. “You’re pretty noticeable too. You don’t say much, but you get the job done. And you’re the one who’s taken the trouble to study us rather than simply kill us. What’s the matter?” she added, since even his face gave away his surprise now. In fact, just for an instant, he looked confused. “Do you imagine we don’t study you too?”
“Know thine enemy,” he remarked, as the waitress, Maria, laid a tray on the table. She was human and had a smile for István as well as for her boss.
“Champagne,” István observed as Angyalka nodded dismissal to Maria.
“Don’t worry, it’s on the house.”
“Really?”
“No. I’ll stick it on Saloman’s bill.”
“Shit,” István said. “I’ll pay.”
When she laughed, his breath caught. Something warm and deeply arousing flashed in his eyes before his lashes swept down and hid them. Angyalka stuck to the safer discovery.
“You’re not afraid of him either,” she observed, expertly removing the cork from the champagne bottle without it shooting round the room.
“Either?” István pursued, watching her pour the bubbling liquid. “You mean you’re not afraid of him?”
“I meant your hunter friend, Mihaela.”
He said nothing. But not, she suspected, because he had nothing to say. He was protecting Mihaela, preserving her privacy. On some level, of course, they were all afraid of Saloman. You’d have to be an idiot not to be. But Angyalka knew Mihaela had seen beyond that fear to Saloman’s vision, perhaps through Maximilian, perhaps through her own intelligence. And Angyalka rather thought István had too. So why the hell was he here?
She pushed one of the sparkling glasses toward him and lifted her own in a toast. “To Mihaela,” she said. “And Maximilian.”
István inclined his head and sipped the champagne, watching her with open fascination now as she lifted her glass to her lips. As if he’d never seen a vampire drink anything but blood. In fact, Angyalka rarely did, but the advent of a hunter, this hunter, in her bar seemed to call for some special mark.
She made sure he couldn’t see her fangs, though.
“So why,” she asked, lowering the glass after a sizeable sip, “are we sitting here to toast them rather than doing it in their own house at their own party?”
“Because you weren’t there.” Deliberate flattery colored his voice, and yet she picked up no sense of an actual lie.
Why had he wanted her to be there? She had absolutely no intention of telling him or anyone else why she wasn’t, although, just for a moment, she remembered her temptation, her fantasy that she would go. She’d known he, István, would be there…although she’d imagined it would be in a wheelchair. He’d have been dead without Elizabeth’s extraordinary healing powers, which were obviously even more powerful than Angyalka had known.
Exactly what was he up to? Under her steady regard, his lip curled in self-deprecation. She let her gaze hover between his mouth and his eyes but didn’t quibble with his answer. There was no point. Instead, she said, “I have a business to run.”
“A slightly more dangerous business these days, from what I hear.”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” she said, keeping her tone bored. Was that his mission? Checking out her security for the hunters?
“What started it off?” he asked, casually enough.
She shrugged. “Tonight? As usual, young men looking for excitement, something new on which to vent their aggression. They’d obviously heard rumors about this place and had come for a fight. They began by touching up my female patrons—humans as it happened—and trying to nibble their necks. I don’t let my own kind bite here, so I’m damned if I’ll allow it in humans. They objected to being asked to leave, tried to rouse the rest of my patrons into a full-scale brawl. So we ejected them. The fool you intercepted finally caught on to the fact that I’m a vampire and thought it would be fun to bite me.”
His gaze dropped to her neck, and she realized she was rubbing the already healed spot in an involuntary gesture of self-protection. Something flashed in his eyes and was gone. It might have been compassion or understanding or even anger. It was gone too quickly to tell, but in any case, she didn’t like it. If István imagined she couldn’t have ripped the throat out of her attacker in less time than it took him to open his stupid mouth, he was dangerously mistaken.
The hunter dragged his gaze back up to her eyes. “And so you threw him across the room.”
“I did, didn’t I?” she agreed cordially. “It’s as well you caught him. He’d have gone right through the door. And then I’d have had the police and Saloman and probably a whole lot more hunters cluttering up my bar. Closing down my bar.”
He smiled faintly. “You’d have a promising career in shot-putting.”
“I have the wrong build.”
“Oh no,” István said, just spontaneously enough and fervently enough to take her by surprise. She felt an annoying blush begin to rise through her neck to her face and raised her glass to hide it.
He didn’t look away, so she set down her glass with a definite bump.
“And so,” she mocked, “you’re asking me to believe that you left your friend’s party to come here for the sake of my—beaux yeux?”
“Why not?” he countered. “Why else would I come? Alone?”
She leaned her head back against the sofa to regard him. “Because you’re bored,” she guessed and saw immediately that she’d struck home. At least to some extent. His eyelids drooped, but she kept going. “Because you like to break rules occasionally. Because you’re researching how my enchantments work.”
She might not have seen István, the scientific hunter, in eighteen months, but she’d heard about him. There was talk among the vampires that he was developing some instrument to store enchantments.
His eyebrows lifted. His gaze remained steady. “Why would I do that when I have an enchantress closer to home?”
“Elizabeth?” she guessed before answering his question. “Because mine harness the energies of those in the club to mask the whole building.”
She had the impression that now it was István’s turn to hide, or at least to buy himself some time, by drinking champagne.
He said, “You’re surprisingly open about it.”
“Why not? You know that already. It’s why you’re here.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I run a bar,” she said dryly. “I hear things. And the latest thing I hear is the hunters’ project to harness psychic energy in a physical tool, as the late and unlamented Gavril did with the child Robbie to cause earthquakes.”
István tried not to stare. “Vampires talk about that?”
“It’s of great interest to vampires. Most of them haven’t even worked out how this place is protected, so trust me, yes, they’re interested.”
“In what way?”
“Every way you can think of,” Angyalka said. “Isn’t it as well we’re no longer enemies?”
“As I understand it, we still have enemies. Just not necessarily the same ones.”
“As evidenced by your presence? And the fact that in tonight’s brawl you grabbed the human and not me? Of course,” she added as he inclined his head, not quite seriously, “the night is young.”
A smile began to play around his lips and eyes, as if he were happy to banter with her some more. Unexpectedly, something fluttered and tingled in the region of her stomach and slid lower. Oh yes, she could banter with him and a lot more. It was curiously fun, with an edge that, because he was a hunter, awoke every nerve in her body.
Memories of their previous encounter bombarded her: clamped against his body by his steely arms, his palm just touching both breasts as he held the stake over her heart; the ridge of his erection growing and hardening to the teasing of her hips…
“Young by vampire standards at least,” she continued, filling the silence. “Although the humans are beginning to leave.”
“It’s midweek,” he managed, as though annoyed with himself for missing some vital opportunity. He picked up his glass and downed the contents. “They work for their living.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You think I don’t?”
“On the contrary. You have at least three businesses that I know of.”
She reached for the bottle. The jet bracelet on her right wrist jangled against the glass. A matching ring adorned her middle finger. She liked the set.
“So what do you think of my latest venture?” she inquired, refilling his glass and topping up her own half-full one.
“The art gallery downstairs? I don’t know. I couldn’t see in the window.”
“You should come in the daytime when it’s open,” she advised, lifting the glass. She drank a little. “Or I can give you a private viewing on your way out.”
István paused, the glass halfway to his lips. “Are you trying to mug me or just get me to fuck off?”
Laughter bubbled up. “No, I’m still trying to guess why you’re here now. You can research enchantments any time. And unless I’m very much mistaken, Saloman, the master of all enchanters, is at Maximilian’s.”
His smile broadened. His gaze dropped to her lips; his breath seemed to catch, and, suddenly off balance, she took a sizeable gulp of champagne. The bubbles soothed and excited her at the same time. Much like the hunter himself. Every inch of her was suddenly aware of him sitting so still by her side, not even touching.
How long was it since she’d made love with a human?
A strong, quiet human with the mind of a scientist and the fit body of a fighter. How did he kiss? How did he love? Dangerous ground…
The club was gradually emptying. The music was slow, insinuating. Angyalka held István’s gaze, keeping her own faintly amused, as was his.
Then he said, “Maybe I came to ask you to dance.”
For a moment, she couldn’t hear his heart for her own. She let her eyelids droop and rise. “Did you?”
“I can’t remember anymore.”
He was sure she’d refuse. He wouldn’t have asked her otherwise. She was empathic enough to pick up that much. Foolish hunter. Angyalka had thrived for centuries on doing the unexpected.
She stood. “Why not? It’s the last of the night.” Perhaps it was her moment to immobilize him. Just to show that she could.
Surprise flooded him, allowing something very like fear to show in his eyes, speedily hidden behind an excitement she could swear was genuine. As he stood and led her, still not touching, onto the dance floor, the blood rushed in his veins. She just wasn’t sure of the cause. He was a hunter; he didn’t have sex with vampires.
Mihaela does.
Don’t think about Mihaela.
There were only a few scattered couples left on the dance floor, one in a rather desperate-looking clinch. The others looked more sleepy than anything. István turned, looking directly at her, as if he knew exactly where she was simply by the reaction of his body. Or perhaps he used one of those vampire detectors the hunters favored these days.
Slowly, he raised one arm and took her hand. His skin was warm. Warm human male… He stepped closer, laying his free hand in the small of her back. His blood smelled heady, strong and tempting. She clasped his fingers lightly, placed her other hand on his shoulder, and looked up at him. His eyes were clouded, sultry. She could almost imagine he had nothing on his mind except mild lust. Maybe even not so mild. Humans had passion too. She could just about remember that far back…
But it was as well to keep her mind on this particular human. The hunter who seemed so ordinary and so very definitely wasn’t.
“How nice,” she observed as they began to sway lethargically, “to see your face this time.”
He blinked. “It’s kind of you not to snarl.”
“Snarl?” she exclaimed. But he was right. In her anger, when he’d released her that night, she’d deliberately shown him her fangs, to terrify him, threaten him. But Jesus, she wasn’t an animal…
“It was a very sexy snarl,” he said, grinning.
She narrowed her eyes. “No, it wasn’t.”
The smile died on his lips. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Then and now, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Again, his words started her borrowed blood surging into her face, although she hoped the dim lighting of the dance floor would hide it. She was more than two hundred years old. There shouldn’t have been anything left in the world to make her blush, and yet it was a human habit she’d never managed to break.
She searched his eyes, lifting her chin to show she wasn’t so easily fooled. “You really are good at this flattery thing.”
He drew her closer with the hand at her back. If she hadn’t wanted to come, there was nothing he could have done to make her. Not this time. And yet she allowed it, settling against his lean, hard body. Her breasts brushed against his chest as they danced; her hips fitted with his like a jigsaw. The stiff ridge of his erection pressed against her pubic bone. Hot pleasure and lust shot through her with such force that it took her several sweet, almost fearful moments to deal with it.
He was a hunter. One who’d already bested her.
And so she curved her lips into a smile. She raised a mocking eyebrow. “My,” she murmured. “You still have that stake in your pocket.”
“I never go anywhere without it.”
She moved in his arms, dancing, relishing his heat, letting herself rub deliberately against his erection, just to see what he would do. He swayed with her, pushing more closely into her body. Her nipples hardened against his chest so that he was bound to feel them through her dress and his shirt. His arms tightened.
It was a game. Another game to see who came out on top, and until she discovered why he was here, she was quite prepared to play. Besides, it seemed such a natural thing to do, to lay her cheek against his shoulder and slide her hand around his neck.
She wondered how it felt to István, to know that here, in a vampire bar, with a reputedly powerful vampiress in his arms, her fangs were only inches from his throat. Did he close his eyes and lose himself in sensuality, in the simple delight of learning another being’s body through dance? Probably not, which was a pity, because Angyalka couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so aroused.
To her secret amazement, he laid his cheek on the top of her head. She heard him inhaling the scent of her hair, and smiled with genuine pleasure. Mostly it was triumph, but some of it was definitely physical.
She moved her head under his so that her lips fluttered against the base of his throat when she spoke. “Does that pulse beat for me, hunter? Or for the treachery you’re about to commit?”
She’d surprised him again. He took too long to answer.
Then he said with odd ruefulness, “It beats for you.”
“I excite you?” she pressed.
Boldly, he slid his hands farther down her back to the swell of her bottom and pulled her closer in over his erection. “You know you do.”
Oh yes, that felt good.
“And yet,” she pointed out, “it took you eighteen months to come back.”
He smiled into her hair. She felt the stretching of his lips, heard it in his quiet voice, “You mean you wouldn’t have ripped my throat out?”
“I hadn’t decided. I still haven’t.”
“Are you trying to scare me? Or test me?”
“I’m looking for clues, hunter. As you are.”
“Clues to what?”
She lifted her head to look him in the eye. “You.”
A frown twitched between his brows. “And have you reached any conclusions?” he asked.
His hips trembled against her, as though his lust were barely controlled, and abruptly, she wanted his clothes gone. She wanted him naked in her arms, as she wrapped her legs around him and drew him into the wet, desperate depths of her body. She wanted his hands all over her, his mouth on her breasts. She wanted to climb all over him, bite into the strong column of his throat and drink his blood, then scream with ecstasy while he pushed into her, over and over…
And he was asking about conclusions. She’d keep that one to herself. Curiously, desperation was breaking out of his carefully veiled eyes, and behind that, as if it were increasingly difficult to hide, was a deep, dreadful pain. When she stopped thinking of her own lust, she could even sense it enveloping him. His fear wasn’t of her, and his pain was physical.
If she’d had breath, she’d have lost it in that moment. She understood. Not why he’d come in the first place, but why her readings of him were so confused.
He’d fallen back against the door when he’d caught her troublemaker, made no further move to join the fight. He walked with a stiffness that certainly hadn’t been there when she’d watched him walk away from her eighteen months ago. He’d only asked her to dance because he’d assumed she’d refuse, and the trembling of his hips, his legs now, was nothing to do with her body but with his. He’d only just learned to walk again, and yet rather than admit it, he’d put himself through this.
Not so much unexpected as reckless to the point of madness.
“My conclusion?” she said softly. “That I thank you.”
A quick frown contracted his brow. “For what?”
“For using the last of your strength to dance with me.”
He stilled. She stilled with him.
He must know she was aware of what had happened to him. She was one of Saloman’s inner circle. She knew he was only alive because of Elizabeth’s healing. Lunacy to have come here in this condition. His very stillness told her he knew it.
It was a good revenge for what he’d done to her eighteen months ago. Except, of course, that her humiliation had been public, but it was enough for his to be in her presence.
And yet, as she stood in his arms, enjoying the lust betrayed by his pounding heart and his raging erection, she felt robbed of her satisfaction. Because there was little joy in defeating a weakened enemy? Because he could still be setting her up for something?
Whatever, it was his cue to leave, to drop his warm arms from her body and walk stiffly away before his legs refused to work anymore and he simply fell down. But the moment stretched, and he didn’t move. Perhaps he couldn’t.
He could, however, still surprise her.
He bent his head, closing the inches between their lips, and kissed her.
His mouth was firm, sweet, and exciting as he parted her lips. She grasped almost convulsively at the hair at his nape, but she allowed it. She even pressed her lips back against his for the barest instant before he released her mouth.
“Thank you,” he said huskily.
Retrieving his pride, perhaps. It didn’t matter. This was her territory, and she was happy to play. She tilted her face invitingly. “Again.”
His breath hitched. Like a revealed gate-crasher amazed to still be here, let alone be invited back. But the heat of desire drowned the confusion in his eyes, and he took her mouth again.
This time, she opened her lips wider for him. His tongue dipped over her teeth and into her mouth, gently exploring. She caressed his lips with hers, slid her tongue along the length of his. Heat and lust and the remnants of cool, bubbling champagne… He tasted good, alluring, and he kissed so well that she gave her whole mouth to him. He took it with alacrity, with aching sensuality and growing fierceness. He licked her fangs, and she moaned deep in her throat. He brought up one hand to hold her face steady, to caress her cheek with his roughened palm while his fingers tangled in her hair.
She began to dance again, and he molded her to him, kissing her as if he couldn’t stop. Desire surged through her like a long-forgotten song. She welcomed it, rubbing her pebbled nipples against his chest, her hot, tingling stomach against the ridge of his erection. This, at last, felt like winning.
And so, when the music stopped, Angyalka slowly, carefully detached her mouth from his and opened her eyes.
“What a very surprising hunter you are,” she whispered.
“I can do more than kiss.” His eyes blazed with lust; his voice was thick with it. Anything was possible after a kiss like that, and Angyalka wanted all of it. Now.
But he was a hunter, and whatever his game, she wouldn’t be caught.
She slid her hand down from his neck and pushed it between their bodies. He seemed to stop breathing.
She found the stake easily among the metallic objects in his pocket and brought it up to flash in front of his eyes. “You promised not to use it.”
His involuntary laughter sounded like a groan, yet it was beguilingly genuine. Angyalka liked him.
Chapter Three
“Put it away,” István said, “before your bouncers throw me out.”
She drew her other hand free of his to hold open his pocket and drop the stake back in. “What exciting pockets you have,” she murmured as she drew back out of his arms.
“You have no idea.” Lust still raged painfully in his pants, and yet weirdly, his whole body felt cold because of the lack of her coolness against it. Had she been cool? He couldn’t remember. He wondered if she ever got really warm.
Fortunately, his legs still worked, although they seemed unnecessarily lethargic as he walked beside her across the empty dance floor. Lights came on, brightening the place, reminding him of the twice he’d been here, in daylight, drinking coffee and making plans. Angyalka seemed content to stroll.
“My staff will call you a taxi,” she said politely, like the perfect hostess rather than the woman who’d set his blood on fire with a kiss. And fuck, she kissed as if she meant it, even after guessing his weakness. Humiliation and triumph no longer had any meaning. But she was right. He needed a taxi quite urgently.
“Thank you. I have my own number.” Sense had returned, along with unease. Only a fool would accept a taxi summoned by a vampire.
“Fine, I’ll show you my etchings while you wait.”
In spite of everything, he grinned at that.
Angyalka called a couple of instructions to her staff, ending with, “Lock up here. I’m going to try to sell this gentleman some art, so he’ll use that exit.”
He just hoped there was a banister. He really didn’t want to fall down the stairs, and yet he refused to admit either to himself or to her that he couldn’t manage them. He needed sleep, rest, and at least ten minutes with Elizabeth.
Angyalka opened the flap in the bar and led him through into the inner sanctum. He looked around curiously as they walked through a kind of staff restroom. The ceiling here was much lower than inside the public part of the club. There must be rooms above. Perhaps storerooms, perhaps rooms where Angyalka lived. But there was no time to explore. And besides, his legs almost buckled with relief when he saw the elevator door.
In a human, he’d have called it kindness. In Angyalka, he really had no idea. He had to beware of ulterior motives.
In the cramped space of the lift, alone with her, he fought lust and weakness that combined to make him dizzy. But he was damned if he’d give in. He said, “I’ve already given Mihaela and Maximilian a housewarming present. I don’t feel obliged to buy his art as well.”
“No one is obliged to buy. I thought you were interested. In my business.”
He turned his head and met her gaze. Did she know he was still recording lots of environmental data?
The elevator stopped, and the door opened onto darkness. Angyalka preceded him out of the lift and threw a switch that lit up an office, complete with computer and filing cabinets. Ignoring these things, she walked across to another door and opened it. The large room beyond, the gallery itself, was already lit up.
“Doesn’t this place affect the security of the club?” he asked, following her.
“You mean why disguise the presence of the club with powerful enchantments when this place is lit up like a Christmas tree right next to it?”
“Exactly.”
She shrugged. “Times are changing. There won’t be any point, soon, in trying to hide the club. Word is spreading among humans.”
“Like the arseholes you threw out?”
“And the arsehole you threw out,” she amended. She frowned suddenly. “That’s where I’ve seen him before. He was in here yesterday, looking at paintings.”
“Did he buy anything?”
“No. He wasn’t interested. He was with a girl.”
István, who knew his legs would begin to shake again soon—curiously, they’d stopped while he’d kissed Angyalka—forced himself to wander around looking at the pictures on the walls, the sculptures and jewelry displayed on plinths. A small, classical sculpture, about ten inches high caught his attention.
“That’s you,” he observed.
“His best new work is of Mihaela and Robbie, but he won’t sell that.”
István lifted his gaze to hers, then back to the statuette. There were tiny wings at its back, an expression of mischief on its lovely face. A smile tugged at his lips. “I don’t know. He’s caught you rather well. Is it really Maximilian’s?”
She nodded. He moved on, knowing he had to get out of there before he fell over. And yet he was stupidly reluctant to leave. He noticed a wild, rocky seascape, and a portrayal of Budapest in the snow, both vaguely familiar.
“Are they all Maximilian’s?” he asked.
“No. But there’s a lot of his stuff here. It was really Max—or at least Mihaela—who gave me the idea. She told Max he should sell his work, which he hadn’t done in about four hundred years. It got me thinking about other vampire artists. And a few humans without the right connections who could use a break.”
“I hadn’t realized you were so philanthropic.”
Her devilish eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’m not. It all serves to make this place just a little different from all the rest. It makes me money.”
“There are no prices.”
“I change them, depending on whether or not I like the customer.”
“Doesn’t that make it difficult for your staff?”
“No, they can exert their own preferences too.”
“I don’t think I believe you.”
“Try me.”
“All right. What would you charge me for the statuette of you?”
“Fifteen thousand forints.”
István blinked. “And here I thought you liked me.”
“Maybe I want you to appreciate it.”
Tired and aching, he really couldn’t think of a witty retort to that. Instead, he gazed again at the sculpture. Maximilian was good with expression. Along with just the right curve of her elegant bones, he’d caught her air of teasing, and the sultriness behind her eyes which had been carved, if not colored. And something else he couldn’t quite read. It might have been sadness, or his own tiredness. Whatever, right now it was more intriguing than the Mona Lisa’s smile.
He dragged his gaze away from it and back to its model. His left leg began to shake. “Thank you,” he said abruptly. “I have to go.”
“Did you call a cab?”
“No, I’ll do it from outside. I could do with the fresh air.” He could do with the seat on the gallery windowsill once she’d gone.
“I’ve bored you,” she observed without expression as she walked past him to the door.
He followed, trying not to limp. “Hardly,” he said, but he was concentrating too hard on remaining upright, on forcing his feet to keep planting themselves one in front of the other, and the word didn’t sound sincere. Aware he was spoiling whatever connection there had been, he just wanted out of there, and she seemed to sense it.
She opened the door without a key or any other obvious unlocking action. It was a trick Saloman used. And vampires didn’t need physical alarm systems. They had their own.
His fellow hunters might tell him that he was lucky to get out of there with his life. István knew he was luckier to get out without falling over. As he brushed past the vampiress, he glanced at her face, which was closed and expressionless. She seemed unaccountably stiff, as if he’d done something wrong. Apparently it was as easy to offend a vampiress as any other woman.
“Good night,” he said gently.
“Good night, hunter,” she murmured.
He stepped over the threshold, and almost immediately, the door closed behind him. He heard the locks click into place, and a moment later, the lights went out. It was a relief, and yet as he sank down on the stone windowsill and reached for his phone, he realized he was piqued by the speed with which she obviously wanted rid of him.
He’d read too much into a dance and a bit of banter. And a kiss. She’d been playing him for her own ends. Again. Or…
István had always regarded himself as pretty self-sufficient. Before his injury, he had been. With revulsion, he wondered if he was somehow leaking neediness now. The very idea appalled him far more than it could ever repel Angyalka.
At the corner of his eye, something moved in the shadows. István released the phone in his pocket and instead flipped the switch on the vampire detector. But there was no time to prepare. By the time he’d hauled himself to his feet, there were four shadows converging on him.
Not vampires, but humans. The one in the lead was the man he’d caught at the club entrance, more by luck than design. Payback time.
Resigned, István blocked the first wild swing and lashed out with his elbow to fell the man closing in behind him. He was used to fighting beings with much faster reactions than semi-drunken humans, but there were four of them, and his legs refused to function.
He was, as Elizabeth would say, mince.
Still, he got in a couple of good punches, infuriating his attackers by the strength behind them, before they kicked his legs from under him. He head-butted the first to fall on him, lashed out with his fists at another, before a boot crashed into his side, and he knew it wouldn’t be long.
****
Angyalka closed the door with relief and slid the locks home manually. It should have made her feel better, and yet something uneasy remained. Something to do with the hunter.
Disappointment at the speed of his departure. He’d been fun to tease and flirt with. And he could certainly kiss better than most vampires with centuries of practice behind them. She smiled a little at the memory, touching her lips with her fingertips. It didn’t feel like revenge anymore.
She wondered if it would take him another eighteen months to come back this time. With the lights out, she turned to watch him.
His outline pushed against the windowpane, as if he’d sat almost immediately on the sill. He was a hunter. He’d never admit weakness before a vampire, even when she’d already guessed. It would be suicide in many cases. His kisses, extracting her response, had been his fight back. She didn’t mind that, since he was so good at it. And since she had the suspicion they’d gone well beyond his original intention.
He was bound to be freaked.
Smiling faintly, she began to turn away and return to the club, when his silhouette heaved itself to its feet and lurched out of her line of vision. It could have been his taxi arriving, but alarm bells went off in her head. There were other humans out there. Running at him.
Instinct propelled her to the glass door, and she pushed the blind aside. Four men, the same men who’d been ejected from the club when he’d first arrived. And they were about to take out their anger on the man who’d helped do it.
“Damnation.” Angyalka frowned. István could barely stand. They’d kill him in this state unless she intervened. Fear clawed at her stomach. This wasn’t the revenge she’d planned for him, and it certainly wouldn’t bring her any personal satisfaction.
Bastard human thugs.
Am I really going to have to go out there?
“Oh Jesus,” she whispered. “Oh fuck…”
She’d unlocked the door again without conscious thought. Now she opened it with trembling hands. The men had jumped István. He was down, and they were on top of him.
He was strong. Whatever the injury to his spine and his legs, his arms were like iron. He could hold them off until she got Béla and György down from the club to help… Couldn’t he?
She peered out into the darkness, hearing her own heart beat like thunder in her ears. It shouldn’t do that. She was a vampire.
A bloody terrified vampire watching a bunch of human thugs beat the crap out of a man who was her prey. A man who’d danced with her and kissed her…and barely had the strength to stand upright. The whole thing was downright rude, and she couldn’t allow it.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whispered, forcing her feet over the doorstep. With a wild yell to encourage herself rather than intimidate the thugs in the street, she flew at them.
Through her red mist of sickness and fear, she saw the man who’d bitten her leave off kicking István to turn and face her. Even in her condition, the vicious, murderous glare of his eyes shocked her. It was pure, inhuman hatred.
Angyalka buffeted him with her elbow on the way past—enough to send him sprawling. István, from the ground had just floored another of his attackers. He grabbed the ankle of a third and yanked, but Angyalka caught the bastard and threw him down the street. She plucked the rising one from the roadside and kneed him in the groin before shoving him into his friend.
Still screaming, she saw that she couldn’t fight them all without killing. In their drink-fueled bloodlust, they didn’t feel their injuries as they should and kept coming back for more. And as for the ringleader, the biter, no way was he giving up.
And so when he flew at her with flailing feet, she jumped above his head, grabbed him, and bit into his throat. It only took her a few moments to drain him.
“No!” István gasped, trying desperately to rise. “Angyalka, stop!”
Too late. She hurled the dead man contemptuously into his advancing, suddenly unsure friends, who yelled with horror. Screaming again, she grabbed István’s arm, hauling him to his feet, and staggering backward into the gallery doorway. By the time they arrived there, he was all but carrying her. It was he who shut and locked the door while she collapsed on the floor and curled up like a fetus.
“They’re running off,” he said coldly, through her pounding heart, her terror, and her shame. She was vaguely aware of him sliding down the door to the floor. “Except the one you bit. Did you kill him, Angyalka?”
Somewhere, beneath the inner shock, she wanted to laugh, because although she’d just killed for him, saving his self-righteous neck, he was far from grateful. Bloody hunters.
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