Rurik drugged me, then offered me up as a pet. I couldn’t afford to be this naïve.
He continued forward, closing the gap quickly, and traced his tongue along my bottom lip.
I raised my eyebrows and reflexively reached up to touch where he’d tasted me. My fingers came away with a little blood. The split in my bottom lip still bled. Something squirmed inside my stomach. I remembered how I felt watching the feeding at the party—a twisted combination of arousal and revulsion.
He brought my bloody fingers to his mouth and delicately sucked on them as his gaze burned into mine.
I pulled them from his mouth and watched, fascinated, as a lazy smile curled his lips.
He sighed. “Thank you for sharing. I love the way you taste.”
“Uhh, you’re welcome?” Was that the right response? This was weird, even for me.
He folded the cool washcloth neatly and handed it to me. “Keep it pressed to your lip. It will help with the swelling.”
I held the cloth to my mouth and hid the blood from his sight. “How did you find me?”
If he used some kind of mind trick to locate me, I needed to know. Dragos wasn’t like Rurik. If he could find me in the same manner, I could kiss my sweet ass goodbye.
The lazy smile still graced Rurik’s face. “I saw you walking along the street and followed you.”
Relief flooded me—no tricks, just dumb luck. Something else disturbed me though. “How did you get into my room?”
“Do you always ask so many questions, Connie?”
That was the first time he’d used my name since we’d met. I’d graduated from being a main course to a person. I glared at him.
He relaxed back onto his hands and tilted his head, flirting with his seductive eyes.
I wasn’t buying it, at least not for the next minute or so.
He reached over to remove an errant curl from my eyes. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t injured.”
“Yeah ... but how did you get in my room?”
His fingers trailed down my arm sending a shiver up my spine. My resolve dissipated as well. “Is your lip the worst of your injuries?”
“Yes.” I swallowed as his fingers moved back up. “Did you bribe the clerk? Use vampire mojo on him?”
His hand paused and his eyes flicked back to mine. “Mojo?” The lazy smile turned into a wicked, amused grin. “No mojo. I saw you standing on the balcony. You seemed so very sad.” The silence grew as I waited for his answer. We stared at each other and Rurik’s grin grew as well. “You left your balcony door open, so I came in.”
“We’re seven floors up!”
“I used my vampire ‘mojo’.”
“Oh.” Seven floors up—that was pretty high—even with mojo.
He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against the pulse in my wrist. The soft caress against my skin made me long to have him touch those lush lips to my other pulse points. Similar thoughts seemed to heat up his stare but he released me. “It’s almost dawn and I need to go. I had fun tonight.”
“You have a peculiar taste of fun.”
He stood from the floor in one fluid motion then came and plucked a scrap of paper out of my curls. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.” He kissed me on the top of my head and grimaced. “You need a shower, Rabbit.”
“Really? I kind of like the stench.”
He chuckled under his breath while he walked out to the balcony.
“Rurik?”
He turned and looked at me, the lights from my room reflecting off his eyes, making them swirl like black pools. The cool breeze played along his body while he stood outside the balcony doorway.
“I was attacked by a vampire in an alley nearby. Just as I couldn’t defend myself anymore, he suddenly disappeared.” I watched his face for some hint of recognition. “Do you know anything about that?”
He still grinned. “Maybe it was the smell.”
“You followed me.”
“I offered you my protection.”
“If I pleased Dragos. I didn’t do anything.”
His grin softened and he blew me a kiss. “You pleased me.” Then he was gone. Just like that. Poof.
He didn’t go over the side, I would have seen that. Staggering to stand, I wandered onto the balcony, dumbfounded for the second time that night. I think he went ... up. The washcloth dripped water onto the floor, forgotten in my hand.
The shrill ring of the bedside phone shattered my wonderment. It made me jump as if struck by a cow prod.
Chapter Six
I knew who it was before I answered the phone. “Colby?”
“Are you all right?” His voice dripped with anger.
“I think so. One of them followed me here.” I regretted those words as soon as they popped out. Exhausted, my brain must have malfunctioned.
“Is it still there? We can be at the hotel in minutes.”
A twister of emotions raged inside my heart. I didn’t want to tell him it was Rurik.
“Connie? Are you there? Connie, if you’re in trouble, this would be the time to use one of those code words I made you memorize.”
“No need for the Double-O-Seven stuff. He’s gone.”
“Did he bite you?”
“No, I convinced him to leave ... I told him I belonged to a stronger vampire.” Technically Rurik gave me to Dragos as a present. I wasn’t lying. Colby would want to dissect every nuance of my conversation with the Overlord of Budapest. The details of vampire politics and laws I’d learned at the party needed to be shared but our conversation in my hotel room was private.
“What? That worked?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Tonight was a clusterfuck. Report in five minutes at the front entrance, there’ll be someone waiting for you.”
“But—” The dial tone cut me off. I needed a shower. He could use a lesson in phone etiquette. My ride could sit there and grow roots. I was taking a shower. I had unidentified alley fluid dripping off the hem of my dress, vampire saliva on my chest, and eyeball remains under my nails. Colby could park his mercenary ass and wait ten more minutes.
A driver waved me over and held the door for me as I exited the building. Sunlight chased the stars away with its nimbus of pink light in the east. My ponytail dripped warm drops of water onto my t-shirt as I climbed into the back of a cab. I finally felt clean and comfy in my sweatpants. Our destination was a mystery to me. As a rule, the bait never gets informed. Basically, it’s a need-to-know relationship and a safeguard.
Good bait was hard to find. Can’t exactly place an ad in the classifieds. “Vampire lure wanted. No prior experience needed. Great benefits!” I snorted at the thought. Getting groped, chased, and then enthralled were not my idea of benefits. However, when a plan worked and a killer got dusted, it made up for all the other stuff.
Colby saved me from my first vampire encounter. It was a dismal time for me. The recent loss of my husband, Laurent, to cancer, cut a huge hole in my soul. Captain Morgan and I prearranged a date every night. I had nothing left and the prospects of joining my husband sounded nicer each passing hour.
Colby saved my life twice the night we met, the first time from the vampire and the second time from myself.
The cab stopped in front of a church and the driver looked at me through the rearview mirror. “When you get inside, go down the first set of stairs on the right.”
I stood on the curb and watched the cab fade into the growing traffic. The church loomed above, a giant stone monstrosity from a time when religion ruled the people.
Inside the entrance, I found the stairway, but something drew me further into the church. An altar stood on the dais in front of an enormous stained glass window. The weak sunlight, the only light in the room, filtered down around the altar and made pretty patterns of pinks and blues on the floor. Tranquility filled me. A small island of peace after the storm I’d just experienced.