“That really bothers you?” They were fighting—she needed to stop glancing at his lips.
“Shouldn’t it?”
When his gaze dropped to her breasts, transfixed as she panted, she demanded, “What? What do you want from me?”
He faced her with his eyes narrowed, turning that fierce obsidian color. “The same thing I wanted this morning.” His voice grew husky. “To stop fighting with you and start kissing you.”
She swayed on her feet. He’d wanted that? “But you can’t.”
He shook his head. “I can’t smooth my fingers over the inside of your wrist.” With his gloved hand, he lifted her hair. “I can’t run my lips over your neck… or suckle your breasts. And it’s driving me mad.”
He eased his body even closer to hers, resting his forearms against the wall on either side of her head. His mouth was right at her ear as he asked, “Am I too close? Does this hurt you?”
She felt his erection press against her belly and choked back a moan. “No, no… But how do I know you won’t bite me?”
“I won’t. I swear it.”
Just when she perceived his hips drawing back, and she knew he was about to thrust against her body, her ears twitched.
She shoved him away. “We’ve got company.”
Daniela had spotted something. “ Grab that one!” she cried, pointing in the direction of a garbage heap down the alley.
Murdoch spied a gray-haired gnomelike being with a miniature cane and traced forward like a shot. But the creature was fast, scurrying from him. It took several minutes of cat-and-mouse before Murdoch caught it by the collar, lifting it up.
The little thing had red cheeks and a kindly appearance, but looked terrified.
“That’s it!” Daniela called from a distance, hastening to catch up. “Now smack it around!”
He glanced back at her. “Smack it?”
Once she reached them, she jerked her chin at the gnome. When Murdoch turned back, it was twisting around to take a bite of his arm. Murdoch gave it a shake, and for the briefest instant, he thought he saw a reptilian-like visage flicker over its face. “Christ! What is this?”
“Can’t tell him, Lady Daniela?” it said. “He’s a Forbearer leech. But you might tell all if you became a vampire’s whore, like the Coveted One? How far you Valkyrie fall!”
Daniela strode forward and slapped it, stifling a wince at the contact.
The creature growled, then locked its eyes on Murdoch. “What are you doing with a cold bitch like this one?” it asked, becoming the first being to question why Murdoch was with her.
Now Murdoch cuffed it.
“Where is Ivo the Cruel, kobold?” Daniela asked.
Kobold? As Loa had spoken of.
“Why should I tell you?”
She lowered her voice, looking sinister when she said, “Because if you don’t, I’m going to freeze you solid, then chip away your flesh with your own little cane.”
The kobold swallowed. “I–I might have seen Ivo and Lothaire about earlier.”
“Where are they staying?”
When it hesitated, Murdoch gave it another violent shake.
“Outside the parish! In the bayou. Near Val Hall.”
“Near Val Hall?” Daniela repeated in amazement. “Have they no fear?”
“They’re different,” the kobold said. “You can’t fight them.” The same thing Deshazior had told them.
“How do you know this?” she asked.
“Heard it from a rat demon who heard it from one of the crocodilae shifters. That’s all I know—vow it to the Lore!”
“Toss him,” Daniela said. “Hard.”
Murdoch flung the kobold back into the garbage heap, and it skulked away with a gurgling hiss.
“Okay, vampire, you have plenty to go on now,” she said, still catching her breath from her earlier sprint. “Dawn’s only a couple of hours away, so I think this is where we…” She trailed off when she saw him frowning at her. “What?”
“Are you hot?”
“No, I’ll manage,” she said, but her skin was reddened, her face pinched.
He swallowed. “Daniela, your breaths aren’t smoking.”
CHAPTER 21
The vampire stared down at her with alarmed eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, but she was still hot from the night before and had exerted herself too much keeping up with Murdoch’s chase. “It’s… nothing.” If she could get back to the meat locker quickly enough. How many blocks is it to my car—
He grabbed her hand. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“You’ll see.”
Suddenly she was in a cold, dark room. He traced me? She’d never been traced when she was fully cognizant, and it made her dizzy, as if she’d just stepped off a pitching ship. She warily darted her eyes around them.
The heat and sounds of New Orleans were gone. She and the vampire now stood in what looked like an old-fashioned drawing room with sheet-draped furniture. Extensive marble floors conducted the chill until it seeped right into her bones. Delicious. “Where have you taken me?”
“A hunting lodge in Siberia.”
“Siberia?” The very word connoted cold and made her toes curl with pleasure. “Why?”
“You were getting hot.”
“It happens, you know. You didn’t have to trace me out of Louisiana.” She started toward one of the soaring windows, taking in details as she crossed the spacious interior.
She could tell that Murdoch wasn’t actively living here, but the lodge was clean and in good repair. It was also opulent, with gilt walls and moldings inlaid with gems. Elaborate wood carvings adorned the doorways and the great hearth.
This place was a time capsule, like a tsar’s hideaway preserved from hundreds of years ago. At the window, she gazed out, then inhaled sharply at the night scene.
“If you’d rather go…” he said from behind her.
Snow. Everywhere. Danii adored monochromatic landscapes, and here white fluff blanketed the grounds—as it should. “Is this property yours?”
“Yes, it’s one of my war spoils.”
Then this was a kindness, bringing her here. Maybe he’d been right before—maybe when it really counted, he came through. “There are so many trees,” she said. Copses around the lodge led to the dense forest beyond. They were all coated with ice, their branches ponderous with it.
“Larch trees,” he said. “One of the few kinds that will grow here.”
In front of the manor, a lake lay frozen and glazed, reflecting the blue aurora borealis above. Stunning. Without tearing her gaze away, she asked, “You’ve kept this since the war?”
“Surprisingly, there’s not a large market for Siberian hunting lodges. I know, I scarcely understand it myself.”
Her lips curled.
“My brothers and I divided anything we won. Nikolai needed no residence, because he would have Blachmount, the family manor. This property lay in the middle of nowhere, with lands all the way to the Arctic Ocean, yet the lodge was incongruously lavish. I wanted it,” he ended with a shrug.
“Why is it so lavish?”
“It belonged to a baron. He owned a nearby diamond mine.”
“Do you ever stay here?”
“Sometimes I come here to hunt in the winter,” he said. “Lots of game, since we’re at the edge of continuous permafrost. It stays frozen almost year-round, only thaws for a month or two in the summer.”
She could tell he was already feeling the cold, though as an immortal, he could withstand some seriously harsh elements. The temperature here was getting to her as well, invigorating her, even as she felt herself relaxing from the stresses of the night.
Here there was no threat from the Icere. Or the vampire. For hours, she’d been both attracted to him yet fearful at the same time, but no longer.
He wouldn’t be able to bite her here. She’d be too powerful.