Blood of Angels (21 page)

Angyalka kissed her way from his throat to his mouth, was almost relieved as well as glad when his lips clung and kissed her back with profound, satisfied sensuality.

She smiled against his mouth. “The sweetest farewell.”

“Not yet. We have the rest of the night, don’t we?”

Her eyebrows twitched with uncertainty. She drew back.

He moved lazily inside her. “Don’t we deserve that much?”

“We’re just making it harder,” she whispered. The anguish was back.

“Angyalka, I’m beginning to think it couldn’t be any harder.”

His eyes were too serious, his meaning too deep. She squeezed him with her internal muscles. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said throatily and was rewarded with a breath of laughter that swept the grief away. Until morning.

Slowly, he withdrew from her and tucked himself back into his jeans. Her dress fell back into place without being tugged or pulled. He smiled at her, his eyes darkening again. “Fuck, you’re sexy.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Sir, is that the language to use to a lady?” She held out her hand commandingly for his arm.

He gave it, walking forward on legs that shook slightly. “Yes, if the lady has just screwed him exquisitely under a lamppost.”

She laughed, hugging his arm to her, and let peace enfold her as she walked along the quiet street, back to the Angel, her Angel, for a last night of passion with the man she was already calling her ex-lover.

The short walk back was rather more relaxed than the slightly fraught outward journey. A little tension-relieving sex helped, of course, and a heady dose of hunter blood. But still, it wasn’t unmixed with anxiety. She hadn’t really intended their “date” to expand to a whole night. Part of her knew it would make the parting harder on both of them. And yet, having made the decision to end the affair, she didn’t doubt her strength to carry it through.

Walking with him, almost entirely free of the fear of outdoors that had haunted her for a century, she was damned if she’d substitute one dependency for another. It was time Angyalka stood entirely on her own feet. It was what she’d so loved about being a vampire in those heady early days of total freedom.

But she liked to feel the man walking by her side, holding his arm close in to the side of her breast. She liked his quiet company and the sense of anticipation of the night to come. Sex with István was unfailingly exciting.

Gradually, she became aware of people outside the club. And once again, there appeared to be trouble.

A lone human male seemed to be taunting a vampire, hurling verbal abuse and vitriol at the top of his voice. The vampire stood in front of him, listening with his head tilted to one side, as if in amused fascination. Other vampires lurked in the vicinity, but Angyalka couldn’t see them. She doubted the yelling human could either.

Finally bored, the vampire shrugged and turned away toward Angyalka and István. He didn’t run, merely strolled away, but the human appeared to take that as contempt and screamed his insults all the louder. Then, in a rage, the human pounded after the vampire, who sighed audibly and turned to face him, still slowly.

“Uh-oh,” István murmured, walking faster.

The human, who either had no idea what he was dealing with or no sense of when to back off, hurled himself at the vampire, throwing two punches in quick succession, which, given vampire speed, had no chance of hitting their target. The vampire blocked them easily on either arm, and on the second gave his attacker a shove that sent him flying backward into the gutter.

This time, the vampire had had enough and went after him. But without warning, István leapt between them. He faced the vampire, stake in hand.

Angyalka sighed and stood poised, ready to intervene.

The vampire sniffed the air. “I smell hunter,” he said with distaste. “I’ve got no quarrel with you, but I’ll have that son of a bitch cowering behind you.”

The son of a bitch roared with fury and launched himself up from behind István. István caught him by the shirt. “I’ll take care of him,” he said steadily.

The vampire sneered. “Not to our satisfaction.”

Which was when the other two vampires stepped out of the shadows.

Oh shit.

István didn’t back down. “Tough,” he said, finally getting an armlock on the wriggling human.

The vampire laughed. “You’re going to fight us all with one arm? Hunter, he isn’t worth it.”

With something like shock, Angyalka realized that was just what he would do. He wasn’t even expecting her to help him. It was just what he did, what he’d done all of his adult life—protect humans, worthy and unworthy, from vampires, from beings like her.

Oh yes, it was over.

She moved across the road to stand beside István. “Actually, there’s no need to fight,” she said. “The stupid human is the victim of an enchantment. He doesn’t know what you are or even why he doesn’t like you. He just feels compelled to attack you—and me,” she added as the man tried to lash out at her with his feet.

Ungently, István yanked him out of range.

“Take him back to the Angel,” Angyalka said, then nodded dismissal to the vampires. “Better hunting,” she wished them and turned her back.

They could have rushed her. But she was used to dealing with unruly vampires. She could have handled two and left the third for István.

But they knew Angyalka. Or they feared Saloman. Whichever was their prime motive, they chose to leave.

At the Angel door, Angyalka dragged the human and shoved him up against the wall hard enough to wind him. She stared into his dazed eyes, digging for the compulsion patterns she recognized and ruthlessly cutting them out. Then she added a quick compulsion of her own to make him forget and pushed him along the road in the opposite direction from the vampires.

She walked through the door of the Angel, without half so much relief as she expected. “Shall we?” she asked.

István glanced down at her. Amusement seemed to be struggling with something more serious in his dark eyes. But abruptly, they clouded, and lust won out clearly over both.

“Oh, we shall,” he said fervently and followed her inside.

Chapter Sixteen

They kissed in the elevator. But although István held her close, he made no effort to tear her clothes off as on a previous occasion. He was relishing too much the night to come and savoring every stage of the journey.

When the doors opened, she frowned, dropping her arms from his shoulders and mouthing clearly and silently,
Béla is here
.

Reluctantly, István let her go. She walked straight into the living room, presumably to Béla. István, who had no desire for another face-off with the vampire who had, he suspected, rather deeper feelings for Angyalka than the vampiress herself was aware, wandered into the kitchen in search of a drink.

“You should get a glass of water,” Angyalka had said to him brazenly in the bar, knowing very well that any dehydration was down to her drinking from him.

He’d smiled, remembered the strange, exotic pleasure of her drawing the blood from his veins while he fucked her. “In a minute,” he’d said huskily, lifting the bar hatch.

Now seemed as good a time as any. He didn’t want Béla interfering in their final night together. Was it really over?

It didn’t feel over. It felt exciting and new and—
What the…?

Béla knelt on the kitchen floor, his back to István, gazing at a painting—Maximilian’s enchanted painting—which he held in both hands. He was murmuring so low that István couldn’t make out the words, but they still made his flesh crawl. Béla was enchanting.

Abruptly, Béla stopped speaking. It was the only warning István had before the vampire jumped to his feet, spun around, and leapt at him, fangs bared. He moved so fast, he blurred before István’s eyes.

It was only training and the reflexes honed by years of experience that enabled him to sidestep the worst of Béla’s attack. He had an arm up to block access to his throat and with the other snatched the stake from his pocket. But by then, they were grappling together, too close for the stake to be any use.

István swiped with one foot to unbalance Béla, then kneed him hard in the groin, to give himself time. But Béla fought through the pain, instinctively blocking István’s plunging stake with his arm, which bled all over Angyalka’s kitchen floor. Then, taking István completely by surprise, he charged, still doubled up and head-butted István in the stomach.

Béla’s head was like a boulder, and István flew back across the room on his ass, just as Angyalka appeared in the doorway, her eyes stunned, her jaw dropping open. István had no time to take in more. He twisted as Béla fell on him, pushing hard so that at last he had Béla underneath, straddled, and he raised his stake for the kill.

“No!” Angyalka yelled. The stake was ripped from his hand, and Angyalka glared at him. “Get up! Both of you! What the hell is going on?”

“I brought you the boxes,” Béla muttered. “He took me by surprise.”

“That’s probably true.” Watchfully, István eased himself off the vampire and stood up. “I still have the disruption gadget switched on.”

“But I told you I was here.” Angyalka frowned at Béla.

She must have told him telepathically. The idea of their private communication prickled at István, irritating him without reason.

“You didn’t mention
him
,” Béla said with a malevolent glare.

“You realized she was in another room,” István guessed. “You thought you had an extra minute to finish whatever enchantment you were performing on that picture.”

For the first time, it seemed, Angyalka took in the painting which had fallen on its back. Hastily, she picked it up and turned it away, facing the wall. Béla didn’t deny István’s accusation, just stared at him with sullen hostility.

Angyalka straightened and turned back to them, gazing from one to the other. “Why would you enchant the picture even more?” she demanded.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Béla muttered.

“In this case, I do,” István argued. “I’ve watched Elizabeth enchant, and that’s exactly what you were doing.”

“Crap.”

“For God’s sake, Béla.” Angyalka was clearly distressed, staring at him with eyes that pleaded to be proved wrong. Why had he once found her so hard to read? She felt betrayal just like anyone else would. “What the hell
were
you doing?”

Béla dragged his fingers over his bald head, as though still looking for hair to pull out, even after all the decades of his undeath. “I was
dis
enchanting.”

István closed his mouth. Angyalka went closer. “Why, Béla?” she asked in a cold, hard voice. “I told you not to.”

“I know that.”

“Were you hoping to cover your tracks?” István asked.

Béla leaned against the wall, kept his gaze on Angyalka’s face. “Not my tracks,” he said at last.

Although the words didn’t make much sense to István, relief seemed to tug Angyalka’s shoulders downward from their previous high tension rigidity. She even put her hand on her henchman’s arm. “You know who did this,” she said softly. “You know who enchanted the picture.”

“Saloman would have found out,” Béla said flatly. He shrugged. “Hell, he’d probably have found it even if I
had
unraveled the spell, but I had to try.”

“Why?” Angyalka demanded helplessly.

“Because I don’t want his memory sullied. And I don’t want you feeling guilty.”

A frown twitched her brow. “His
memory
?”

Béla threw his head back, gazing at the ceiling, then slowly brought his attention back to Angyalka.

“György,” he said. “György wanted the old days back. He enchanted Maximilian’s painting to see if he couldn’t stir up a bit of trouble and force them back.”

György. The vampire bouncer Konrad had killed outside the Angel before he sent in his undead bomber.

“You
knew
he’d done this?” Angyalka asked harshly.

“No, I didn’t know. I knew how he felt, though. And I knew he’d done lots of work on the gallery in the lead-up to opening. When you first brought the picture upstairs, I thought I recognized his signature. György and I go way back. I was right. So when I brought the boxes for you, I thought I’d try—” He broke off with an impatient shrug.

He thought he’d try to save his friend’s reputation and preserve Angyalka from a load of guilt. Emotions not so very different from those which motivated humans.

“Would you have killed me to keep György’s secret?” István asked.

Béla glanced at him. “I don’t know. Maybe. Before my brain started to work again. Killing hunters isn’t good for business.”

“I should stop sneaking up on you.”

“I’d appreciate the courtesy.”

It doesn’t matter. I won’t be around after tonight.

Béla touched Angyalka’s hand once, then lounged toward the door, where he paused and glanced back at István. “Would
you
have killed
me
?”

He didn’t need to speak. Béla clearly read it in his eyes. The vampire’s thin lips tugged into a smile. “That’s what I thought.”

His footsteps crossing the hall to the open elevator were almost inaudible.

“Well,” István murmured. “That’s closure of a sort—one mystery solved.”

Angyalka brushed past him, took a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with water from the tap. “If you’ve finished getting into fights for the night,” she said, handing it to him, “sit down and drink.”

She walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, so he followed her, his mind going over the two encounters. He sank onto the sofa beside her, still thinking as he drank his water. After a few moments, he became aware that she was watching him, a sad little smile playing around her lips.

She said, “You’re wondering why I waited so long to intervene when you faced the vampires outside.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But if you’d defended me, I’d have been even more unmanned by being rescued by a female—again.”

“I’ll always defend you,” she said, as casually as if she might have been promising to wear a coat. “Other humans, no. Especially ones I don’t like who aren’t in the Angel. I saw no need to defend him.”

He gazed at her. “And if the vampires had killed him?”

She shrugged. “Then they could take it up later with Saloman, who might or might not have killed them in return.”

“And that’s okay with you?”

“Yes. I’m a vampire. But I know it’s not okay with you.”

He wasn’t even going to mention the fight with Béla.

“It’s
all
closure, István,” she said. “For us. You don’t have to stay tonight.”

He drank in her pale, beautiful face, her full, rosy lips, and her huge, profound eyes—unreadable and yet surely unbearably sad. His gaze drifted over the elegant column of her throat and her sharp, delicate clavicles emphasized by the deep slash neckline of her inevitable black dress. There was no rise and fall of her perfect breasts inside the silk dress. She sat quite still, alien, incomprehensible and yet completely and utterly desirable.

Because he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and touched her hair, her cheek. “I don’t really know what I feel about that stuff. Right now it doesn’t matter. Because you’re near me. And I wouldn’t give up your parting gift for the world. If you still want to give it.”

She didn’t speak. The time for words had passed. She leaned across him and took the glass from his fingers, laying it down on the corner table beside her. Then she rose and held out her hand.

He took it, pushed himself to his feet, and let her lead him into the bedroom. His heart was hammering like a teenager anticipating his first time. But that was rubbish too. He’d never felt like this as a teenager. He’d never felt like this at all, not even with her.

It’s a farewell fuck, István,
he told himself brutally.
Take it and step back. Don’t get more enmeshed than you already are…

Then she stepped into his arms and fastened her mouth to his, and his inner voice of caution drowned in sensuality.

****

István was in love with her breasts. Having made love to her twice, he was temporarily exhausted and entertained them both by trying to make her come just by caressing her breasts with his hands and mouth. She was gloriously responsive, her passionate body growing increasingly demanding as she writhed under his hands and lips. She grabbed his hand, pressing it hard to the juncture of her thighs as if for comfort. It was all doing wonders for István’s renewed arousal, when she suddenly flipped him on his back and took his growing cock into her mouth.

He groaned, catching her head in his hands, and she took him deeper, caressing his sac with his hands as she sucked and took him in and out of her mouth in a strong, relentless rhythm. It was heaven. He wanted to close his eyes in rapture, except then he’d have lost the sexiest sight of her kneeling between his legs, watching him as she swirled her tongue around his shaft and moved her mouth up and down him. The pressure was incredible, the pleasure impossible to maintain for long, and yet when she released him, he groaned with frustration.

Not for long. She straddled him and sank onto him with a long, low moan. He seized her hips, caressing the cool, silken skin, and thrust upward, hard, determined to heat her cool, tight sheath with the friction he needed. She seemed to have the same idea, and the finish was wild, almost violent, and overwhelmingly pleasurable.

István came hard, shouting her name, and, with a final slam onto him, she fell too, falling forward onto his chest to kiss him while orgasm convulsed them both.

He turned onto his side, still inside her, cradling her in his arms. His body wanted to sleep. His mind had lost its fear of sleeping in her company. And yet he lay awake, just holding her, stroking her hair and thinking numbly that this was it.

And yet he couldn’t be sad while her silken flesh enveloped him and her contented lips traced kisses along his shoulder. He knew he had to leave now, basking in the afterglow, sated and happy. Leave her smiling.

They didn’t speak. It had been unusually silent sex. Because they’d nothing left to say, or because their bodies talked for them? It didn’t matter. Five more minutes, and then he’d go.

Over her shoulder, he gazed at his watch on the bedside table, his limbs tangled with Angyalka’s, her soft flesh almost one with his. He bathed in the sweetness while not five but ten minutes ticked by too fast.

Then he moved. For the tiniest instant, he could have sworn her arms tightened around him. Then she released him, and her lips were smiling when he kissed them.

There were things he meant to say. They stuck in his throat. He could only kiss her, run her short, silky hair through his fingers one last time, and touch her cheek with tenderness. Then he rose from the bed, climbed into his jeans and shirt and socks and picked up his jacket and shoes.

He had to finish dressing in the living room or he’d have crawled back into bed beside her. She didn’t want that any more than he did. Not in the real world. As he tied his laces and shrugged into his jacket, his gaze fell on her neat shelves of travel videos. He hoped she’d visit these places in person now. He felt a twisted smile tug at his lips. It would have been good to see them with her.

Pulling back the heavy curtains, he saw that it was still dark, although dawn wasn’t so very far away. He picked up his satchel and walked to the elevator.

He wondered, vaguely, if he could get out through the club. At this time of night, there would only be vampires present. Oh well, he’d got out of worse situations.
No fighting, no biting.

When he got into the elevator and turned, she was there at the door, a long, loose dress flung over her nakedness. It was a deep, dark red, and he realized he’d never seen her wear any color but black before. This was what she wore to relax, to hide from the hostess persona she’d become over the centuries. Just how he knew this he wasn’t sure, but he recognized it as her last gift.

She looked like the angel of her name, even flushed with sex, and his heart tripped.

She said, “It was a good dance, hunter.”

The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “The best. And you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”