Blood Sin (25 page)

Saloman, who’d been everything he’d hoped for and more—powerful, impressive, commanding—had also been surprisingly sympathetic at their meeting early yesterday morning. He seemed to understand both the loneliness of Severin’s position ruling his unruly people, and the blow of Maggie’s loss. Saloman had said he’d deal with Travis, that Severin should take his vampires home to safety. And he was right.

Except part of Severin demanded revenge for Maggie. Another part disliked being quite so submissive, even to so powerful an ally. Especially when this ally was also talking to Travis. Travis had made sure he knew about that, sending him a mocking, if brief, telepathic message that he and Saloman were gambling for the leadership of America.

Where exactly would Severin fit in? Disgruntled as he was, he found it hard to care. He missed Maggie, whose enthusiasm for Saloman’s new world had convinced him to come here.

And so here he still was, surrounded by his restless followers. And the unaligned vampire Jacob now stood patiently on the other side of the flimsy door. Severin’s senses could pick up no other vampire presence in the vicinity, so he jerked his head at his minions to let Jacob in.

With vague distaste, Severin watched him swagger across the room.

“Glad I found you,” Jacob said. His pleasure appeared to be genuine. “I met someone who’s looking for you.”

“Who?” Severin asked, without much interest.

“A girl. Human, but very strong. Not a hunter. She wants to know where you are.”

Severin curled his lip. “I presume she paid you for the information.”

“She will when I give it to her. I was wondering if you’d care to pay me to make the introductions on your terms instead.”

Severin let out a contemptuous laugh. “Do you really have nothing more on your mind than making money?”

“No,” Jacob said candidly.

Severin regarded him. “Does she have a name, this girl?”

“Presumably. But I don’t know what it is. She’s not American—British, I’d say. And I had the impression her interest was not friendly.”

Severin narrowed his gaze, thinking of the two humans who’d followed them to the office block after the previous night’s hunt. “There’ve been people sniffing around us since the fight. What does this girl look like?”

Jacob shrugged. “White. Red-blond hair. Pretty. Looks fragile as antique china.”

Severin frowned. “That’s not the one.” Standing up, he walked over to Jacob and sniffed. He hadn’t touched this human woman, for none of her smell lingered on him. Knowledgeable and strong and not a hunter. And British. A suspicion began to enter his head. Could this girl be trying to use him to get to Saloman himself? Could she be the elusive Awakener whom Saloman had failed to kill? Trying to lead the hunters to the Ancient before Saloman got to her?

Seeing his way at last, Severin felt his inertia fall away. He swung on his followers. “Anton, you and Frederick stay with me. Louis, you take the rest home. We’ll catch up.”

“Now?” Louis objected. “It’s nearly dawn and I—” Under Severin’s glare, he broke off and shut up.

“What are we doing, boss?” Anton asked eagerly.

“We’re going to catch a present for Saloman,” Severin said with relish. “Which should give us a little more leverage in this relationship. Jacob, you may arrange it.”

Gamble with that, Travis.

It had happened before—slipping into this cocoon of happiness and sensual pleasures that excluded the world and every notion of right and wrong that she knew. There was only Saloman.

Eternally fascinating, he held her in thrall once more. The remains of the night disappeared in the blissful excitement of lovemaking, punctuated, or even accompanied, by lethargic talk and laughter. She’d almost forgotten his wit and how he could make her laugh, even when she least wanted to.

Only as dawn broke, and she sprawled naked against the pillows within the circle of his arm, did she remember why he’d come here, and what he’d said in his tiredness yesterday evening.

“What game are you playing with Travis?” she asked lazily, running her fingertips along the veins of his hand.

“Hunt the sword. Winner takes America.”

She blinked and stopped caressing to stare at him. “Isn’t that a bit of a risk?”

“Not when I know where the sword is.” His hand moved, finding her breast and idly rolling the nipple between his fingers as he spoke. It made it harder to be angry.

“Where is it, then?” she managed.

“At Dante’s apartment.”

“You’re guessing,” she accused, wriggling under the growing pleasure of his relentless fingers.

“At this moment, yes. But it was there yesterday. In fact, if you hadn’t fallen into Travis’s clutches just at the wrong moment, I would have, er, reclaimed it. That’s the second time you’ve distracted me from that particular quest.”

Elizabeth couldn’t resist a crow of triumph, which made him smile, so she teased, “You don’t seem to regard it as a very urgent quest. Shouldn’t you have gone to get the sword last night? Even if just to keep it out of Travis’s hands?”

“I had better things to do last night,” he said, and when she glanced at him provokingly, his hand stilled on her breast and he added by way of explanation, “Fucking you and drinking your blood.”

The flush of heat rose swiftly into her face. “You used to say those things because you thought they would shock me.”

“Now I say them because I know they arouse you.”

Indignantly, she tugged at the hand, which had begun to torture her breast once more. “I’m not so shallow!”

“I didn’t say you were shallow, but you are damnably fuckable.”

“Saloman!”

“What?” he said, rolling her under him and stroking the sensitive wound on her neck, which he had broken and healed twice in the night.

“Aren’t you afraid Travis might have taken the sword?” she said, rediscovering her thread with some difficulty under his distracting fingers, which slid from her throat back down to her breast.

“One more little drink,” he said huskily, “just because you recover so fast. And no,” he added against her skin. “Someone has taught Dante an object-masking enchantment. I doubt Travis could see through it.”

“Where can Dante have learned . . . ? Oh, Jesus,” she whispered as he pierced her skin and she felt again the blissful pull of her blood into his cruel, tender mouth. But this time, it lasted only a moment, just long enough for him to push himself inside her once more, thus distracting her from her perverse disappointment as he healed the wound so soon after making it.

“It isn’t natural to make love this often.” She gasped, holding on to him as he rode her.

“It is for me. And you don’t appear to object.”

She didn’t. Her body soaked him up like an addict, although she couldn’t imagine it even tolerating this amount of attention from anyone else. She was also aware that at some point she really would need to sleep.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “Even when everything hurts, as soon as you touch me it turns back into pleasure and I want you all over again. That isn’t natural either.”

His eyes darkened impossibly as he moved above her, his face pale and shadowed in the shifting dawn light. “It is for me.”

When she woke, the travel clock beside the bed told her it was just after nine o’clock, which meant she’d been asleep for only a couple of hours. And yet she felt almost luxuriously refreshed as she stretched alone in the large bed and saw Saloman through the open doorway, sitting at the desk in the living area with his back to her.

Perhaps she needed less sleep as her physical strength grew. She’d killed several vampires yesterday and some of them had been strong.

Or perhaps she was just happy.

Between her legs was a dull, pleasurable ache that became more than part tingle as she gazed at Saloman. Impossible to want more sex. She’d shatter.

Smiling at the ridiculous thought, she rose from the bed and padded across the room, pausing to pick up her green nightdress from the floor and drop it over her head as she walked through to the living area.

Saloman, dressed in a loose white shirt and dark trousers, glanced up and smiled, the rare, full smile that warmed her heart. She’d seen it a lot in the last twelve hours.

“What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.

“Researching paranormal sources,” he replied unexpectedly, reaching one arm around her.

She blinked. “I thought you knew more than all the books put together!”

“I do, but Dante doesn’t. You made a good point last night. He must be getting his information from somewhere.”

“Yes, but would you find those kinds of books online? The hunters’ libraries aren’t available,” Elizabeth pointed out.

“I’m looking for other sources. Rare books in private or public collections. But I’m not finding much that could have given Dante the knowledge he has.”

“Maybe his relationship with Travis is long-standing. Travis could have told him everything he knows.”

“Possibly.”

Elizabeth slid reluctantly out of his arm to go to fetch her phone from the dressing table. Mihaela might well have discovered some connection between the two unlikely allies. Or some clue as to Severin’s whereabouts that might make the dubious Jacob redundant. But the only message waiting for her was from Josh.

“Oh, dear,” she said ruefully, and when Saloman glanced across at her, she almost wanted to laugh. “Dante’s left New York. Do you suppose he’s taken your sword?”

Chapter Twelve

H
aving decided to go together to Dante’s apartment to allow Saloman to “feel” for the sword, they took longer than expected to finally get out of the hotel—largely because the sight of Elizabeth fresh from the shower inflamed Saloman all over again. With her sunny hair toweled and rumpled and glistening with dampness, the snowy-white bathrobe that was too large for her drooping across one graceful shoulder, she looked adorable in a completely different way from the compassionate, almost hesitant siren of last night.

He couldn’t watch her padding across the bedroom without touching her, and her reaction to being touched—an oddly delightful one of mingled surprise and pleasure as she turned in his arms—made him kiss her. And after that, the rest was inevitable.

However, as he took her to bed once more, arousing her further with hands and lips that knew her body increasingly well, he surprised himself by his powerful urge to care for her. He was aware he’d exhausted her last night, had taken more from her body than was good for a human, and not just in terms of the blood she regenerated so quickly now. And so he took his pleasure in pleasuring her, always a joy and now given an exquisite edge by his deliberate restraint.

Ignoring the clamor of his own body, he did not enter Elizabeth’s, but made love to her only with tender hands and lips, teaching her new rapture that she welcomed with gratifying wonder. And when he finally took his lips from her convulsing sex and moved up her body to kiss her mouth instead, she clung to him in a way that made his heart soar and ache at once, especially when she shifted to make her body more available to him.

“I think you’ve had enough for now,” he whispered.

Her eyes were both soft and deliberately tempting. “Have you?”

“I’m teasing myself by waiting for the night.”

Her eyes searched his, as if for some dissatisfaction, and then, presumably finding none, she pushed him with a mischievous grin, rolling him over to straddle him. But he lifted her off and set her on the floor.

“I want my sword,” he said with mock severity.

Laughing, she ran back into the bathroom, although this time she left the door open, like a symbol of their new intimacy, while she called through the doorway with spontaneous curiosity, “Don’t you ever need to shower?”

“My body cleanses itself from the dirt of the air. And since I produce no bodily toxins or sweat, I have no need of water.”

“That’s bizarre.” The sound of the shower spraying her naked body once more added to his suppressed arousal. Over the splashing, she added, “It used to bother me—how you always smelled so good when I’d never once seen you wash!”