"I'm a guardian," he said, coming to a halt about half a dozen paces away. Which was about half a dozen paces too close for my liking. "We're paid to patrol the streets, to keep humanity safe."
I scrubbed a hand across my nose, and half wished—and not for the first time in my years of dealing with vampires—that my olfactory sense wasn't so keen. I'd long ago given up trying to get them to take regular showers. How Rhoan coped with being around them so much, I'll never know.
"You only walk the streets when you've been set loose to kill," I said, and motioned to the club. "Is that what you've been sent here to investigate?"
"No." His brown gaze bored into mine, and an odd tingling began to buzz around the edges of my thoughts. "How did you know I was there when I had shadows wrapped around my body?"
The buzzing got stronger, and I smiled. He was trying to get a mind-lock on me and force an answer—something vamps had a tendency to do when they had questions they knew wouldn't be answered willingly. Of course, mind-locks had been made illegal several years ago in the "human rights" bill that set out just what was, and wasn't, acceptable behavior from nonhuman races when dealing with humans. Or other nonhumans for that matter. Trouble is, legalities generally mean squat to the dead.
But he didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding with me, thanks to the fact I was something that should not be—the child of a werewolf and a vampire. Because of my mixed heritage, I was immune to the controlling touch of vampires. And that immunity was the only reason I was working in the guardian liaisons section of the Directorate. He should have realized that, even if he didn't know the reason for the immunity.
"Hate to say this, Gautier, but you haven't exactly got the sweetest scent."
"I was downwind."
Damn. So he was. "Some scents are stronger than the wind to a wolf." I hesitated, but couldn't help adding, "You know, you may be one of the undead, but you sure as hell don't have to smell like it."
His gaze narrowed, and there was a sudden stillness about him that reminded me of a snake about to strike.
"You would do well to remember what I am."
"And you would do well to remember that I'm trained to protect myself against the likes of you."
He snorted. "Like all liaisons, you overestimate your skills."
Maybe I did, but I sure as hell wasn't going to admit it, because that's precisely what he wanted. Gautier not only loved baiting the hand that fed him, he more often bit it. Badly. Those in charge let him get away with it because he was a damn fine guardian.
"As much as I love standing here trading insults, I really want to know what's going on in that club."
His gaze went to Vinnie's, and something inside me relaxed. But only a little. When it came to Gautier, it never paid to relax too much.
"There's a vampire inside that club," he said.
"I know that much."
His gaze came back to me, brown eyes flat and somehow deadly. "How do you know? A werewolf has no more awareness when it comes to vampires than a human."
Werewolves mightn't, but then, I wasn't totally wolf, and it was my vampire instincts that were picking up the vamp inside the building. "I'm beginning to think the vampire population should be renamed the great unwashed. He stinks almost as much as you do."
His gaze narrowed again, and again the sensation of danger swirled around me. "One day, you'll push too far."
Probably. But with any sort of luck, it would be after he'd gotten the arrogance knocked out of him. I waved a hand at Vinnie's. "Are there people alive inside?"
"Yes."
"So are you going to do something about the situation or not?"
His grin was decidedly nasty. "I'm not."
I blinked. I'd expected him to say a lot of things, but certainly not that. "Why the hell not?"
"Because I hunt bigger prey tonight." His gaze swept over me, and my skin crawled. Not because it was sexual—Gautier didn't want me any more than I wanted him—but because it was the look of a predator sizing up his next meal.
His expression, when his gaze rose to meet mine again, was challenging. "If you think you're so damn good, you go tend to it."
"I'm not a guardian. I can't—"
"You can," he cut in, "because you're a guardian liaison. By law, you can interfere when necessary."
"But—"
"There are five people alive in there," he said. "If you want to keep them that way, go rescue them. If not, call the Directorate and wait. Either way, I'm out of here."
With that, he wrapped the night around his body and disappeared from sight. My vampire and werewolf senses tracked his hidden form as he raced south. He really was leaving.
Fuck.
My gaze returned to Vinnie's. I couldn't hear the beating of hearts, and had no idea whether Gautier was telling the truth about people being alive inside. I might be part vampire, but I didn't drink blood, and my senses weren't tuned to the thud of life. But I could smell fear, and surely I wouldn't be smelling that if someone wasn't alive in the club.
Even if I called the Directorate, they wouldn't get there in time to rescue those people. I had to go in. I had no choice.
TEMPTING EVIL
On sale March 2007
Training sucked.
Especially when the main aim of that training was to make me something I'd once vowed never to become—a guardian for the Directorate of Other Races.
Becoming a guardian might have been inevitable, and I might have accepted it on some levels, but that didn't mean I had to be happy about the whole process.
Guardians were far more than just the specialized cops most humans thought them to be—they were judge, jury, and executioners. None of this legal crap the human cops were forced to put up with. Of course, the people in front of a guardian's metaphoric bullet were generally out-of-control psychos who totally deserved to die, but stalking the night with the aim of ending their undead lives still wasn't something that had reached my to-do list.
Even if my wolf-soul sometimes hungered to hunt more than I might wish to acknowledge.
But if there was one thing worse than going through all the training that was involved in becoming a guardian, then it was training with my brother. I couldn't con him.
Couldn't flirt or flash a bit of flesh to make him forget his train of thought. Couldn't moan that I'd had enough and that I couldn't go on, because he wasn't just my brother, but my twin.
He knew exactly what I could and couldn't do, because he could feel it. We mightn't share the telepathy of twins, but we knew when the other was hurting or in trouble.
And right now Rhoan was fully aware of the fact that I was trying to pike. And he knew why.
I had a hot date with an even hotter werewolf.
In precisely one hour.
If I left now, I could get home and clean up before Kellen—the hot date in question—came by to pick me up. Any later, and he'd see me as the beaten-up scruff I usually was these days.
"Isn't Liander cooking you a roast this evening?" I said, casually waving the wooden baton I'd been given but had yet to use. Mainly because I didn't want to hit my brother.
He, however, didn't have the same problem, and the bruises littering my body proved it.
But then, he didn't really want me to be doing this. Didn't want me on the mission drawing inexorably closer.
"Yes." He continued to circle me, his pace as casual as his expression. I wasn't fooled. Couldn't be, when I could feel the tension in his body almost as well as I could feel it in mine. "But he has no intention of putting it on until I phone and tell him I'm on my way to his place."
"It's his birthday. You should be there to celebrate it with him rather than putting me through the wringer."