Master of Darkness (3 page)

Eden folded her hands on the black marble tabletop and stared at the vampire. It surprised her that he didn't sound like he approved of his own kind's policy of screening the candidates who tried to escape from Tribe life. Of course, they were all still vampires no matter what their affiliation. But the Clans did have a better track record for blending into the modern world.

Or maybe they were just better at hiding their crimes against humanity. The hunters didn't have strong evidence of overt evil, so they kept truce with the Clans, and mostly with the Families. The Tribes were fair game, and the Tribes were the problem right now.

“I notice you didn't mention anything about Tribe females changing sides,” she said.

For a long, dangerous moment he looked at her like he thought she was crazy. In fact, there was a smoldering outrage in his eyes that frightened her.

Then he blinked and smiled faintly. “We don't know much about Tribe females.”

Eden suspected this was a lie, but let it go. Gaining insights into vampire society was fascinating, but it wasn't worth alienating her partner just because they were touchy about their females.

She couldn't blame the Prime for his attitude. Once upon a time, human hunters had made a concerted effort to kill all vampire females. The reasoning was that if they couldn't breed, the monsters would die out. The monsters didn't take kindly to this attempt at genocide, and the resulting war had been devastating on vampires and hunters alike. It was one of the few times all three types of vampires had joined forces to work together. Though this had been back long, long ago, in the 1300s, Eden suspected the vampires still held a grudge. Heck, as long-lived as the vampires were, Wolf might have had close relatives involved in the conflict.

“How old are you?” she asked him.

“Do you know the Police song ‘Born in the Fifties'?” he answered.

“Who are the Police?”

He sighed. “What passes for music these days…Let's just say I'm not quite old enough to collect Social Security. No, I'm lying,” he added, and looked startled at the admission. “I'm older than that. It comes from living in Los
Angeles where youth really matters.” He tilted his head to one side and gave her another thorough looking-over. “I never ask a lady her age.” He grinned. “But I'm good at guessing.”

Eden almost didn't hear what he said; she was trying too hard to control the wave of sensual heat sweeping through her. It didn't get any better when he took her hand and ran his thumb in a slow sweep over her palm. Her breathing became ragged and the whole world centered around the point where skin met skin.

“You see, this is the sort of thing you should not let a Prime do,” he said. And broke the spell by taking his hand away. “Not during business hours, at least.”

Her flush of desire turned to one of embarrassment. “Lesson learned,” she gritted between clenched teeth.

He gave a brisk nod. “Don't worry, Faveau, we'll get each other trained. This is my first assignment, too.”

She hadn't said anything about this being her first assignment, but she let it go.

“I've never worked with humans before, but I do have plenty of experience on the streets,” he reassured her. “What are the Tribe boys doing that has the hunters working with the Clans?”

Eden blamed herself for getting so off track.
So she straightened in the chair and spoke quickly. “There's a drug known as Dawn. It's a knockoff of your daylight drugs. We don't know who is making it, or who is distributing it to the Tribe primes, but San Diego is the source. That's why the sudden influx of vampires into the city.”

“Dawn?” His eyes lit with interest, when righteous indignation would have been more reassuring. “A way to bypass the strictures of the Clans and the Tribes.”

“It's dangerous for them.”

He nodded. “But I can see why they'd risk it for a shot at a daylight life.”

“No. I mean it's
dangerous
for them. And for us. There are psychotic side effects. After taking Dawn for a while, they go nuts. Like that pair that attacked you.”

Chapter Three

L
aurent almost laughed at the notion that Tribe Primes ever
needed
a reason to attack. He doubted this rip-off drug could cause his Tribe brethren to behave psychotically; Dawn probably just gave them more waking hours to be themselves.

And he wasn't here to help Eden, even if her earnestness almost made him forget himself for a few minutes. He was Laurent of the Manticores, merely pretending to be of the pure-hearted, noble Clan Wolf.

And he wasn't even
exactly
pretending. She'd seen a vampire being attacked by other vampires, and made a rash assumption. The mistake was hers.

This arrogant female would pay for her mistake when he gave in to his strong natural desire to taste both her blood and her body. Arousal sparked off her, and he savored the tension of fighting his own response.

There was a part of him that almost wanted to protect Eden Faveau from her mistake. But she'd killed a vampire right before his eyes. She'd saved his life, but she'd killed one of his kind to do it. His gratitude was mixed with wariness, when he should have nothing but contempt for this human.

Okay, he
might
have killed the guy himself, but that was his right as a Prime fighting another Prime.

She was a female, a soft creature of warm flesh and hot blood meant for use. She needed him, as a partner and ally, and his reaction to that disturbed him. He could make women want him, but need in any way was new, different—nice.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered.

He'd definitely spent too much time in the presence of Clan boys lately; all that concentrated nobility must have messed with his head. But his time among the Jackals, Foxes, and Crows had also taught him how to
act
like one of them. And maybe some insight into this Dawn drug.

He almost opened his mouth to tell her, but luckily she interrupted this idiocy.

“Hell what?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“But—”

He waved away the question and rose to his feet. He was here to use her, and it was time they got going—before the real Sid Wolf showed up to complicate Laurent's life even further.

He pulled back her chair to help her stand, which seemed like a gallant Clan sort of gesture. She brushed against him as she got up, and the contact stunned him. He became almost painfully aware of her warmth, and of her scent. His arm came around her waist, and he pulled her against him before he could think about it.

“What the hell—!”

She struggled, and that woke up his need to hunt, control, and dominate. Oh, yeah, he was Tribe all right! The elbow she jammed sharply into his stomach would have brought him back to his senses, but Laurent had already felt the presence of the others a moment before the pain registered.

“We've got company,” he whispered in her ear. “Time to leave.”

The woman immediately became alert to the danger, all business. “How many? Where? How did they find us?”

He was aware of her annoyance at herself for
asking a question she knew wasn't necessary to their immediate problem, but this was the question he chose to answer. Just not necessarily truthfully.

“The one that got away must have picked up your scent. They'll want revenge for the one you killed,” he said, providing only half an answer.

Or at least not completely accurate. They might be after her, too. Revenge was a big part of Tribe culture.

“Me?”

He kept his arm around her waist as he considered possibilities, and felt her start of surprise. “Don't worry, partner. We'll be fine.” If he told her he'd protect her, he'd likely get an elbow in the stomach again. He concentrated for a moment. “Two, maybe three in the parking lot.”

“Then I guess we go out the back door.”

“When you said we'd go out the back, I thought you wanted to leave.”

She'd insisted that they do a little recon. Eden looked at her vampire companion. “Most of my equipment's in my car.”

“You can come back for it later.”

“I want my car.”

They were crouched on the roof of the coffee
shop, looking down on the parking lot of the small strip mall.

“There are three vampires down there.”

“Do they know we're up here?”

She watched Wolf close his eyes and concentrate. He looked like a radiant angel when the frustration left his features, though Eden figured the radiant part might have something to do with how his pale skin looked in the moonlight. She didn't know why he was being so willing to run away.

All right, so she agreed with his
“Live to fight another day”
argument. But she didn't like the thought of having those
things
on her tail. She didn't have any psychic talents to help her detect their presence. All she had was her wits, her training, her stuff—and him.

“Well?” she asked Wolf.

He opened his eyes. “You could call for backup.”

“You're my—”

“I knew you were going to say that.” He looked back down at the lot as a car pulled in. Another car pulled out. “One of the reasons they haven't attacked us yet is because this area is busy.”

“There's an all-night pharmacy, the convenience store, and the coffee shop.” She glanced at
the sky. “Maybe the concentration of traffic will keep us safe until sunrise.”

He also looked up at the sky. “If they're using the drug, sunrise isn't going to be
their
problem.”

He sounded worried. “Whose problem will it be?” she asked suspiciously.

“You could call your friends from earlier tonight,” he suggested. “Strength in numbers, and all that.”

She sighed. “They're busy. Besides, I'm supposed to be working with you. The fewer people involved in an operation the better.”

“Why?” He suddenly looked disgusted. “Don't tell me you hunters play by the same sort of outmoded stupid rules that hog-tie the Clans
and
the Tribes?” His hand landed on her shoulder. “Why, oh why, can't we all forget about the past and behave sensibly? Just once?”

She shrugged away from his touch. Even if she did see his point, she was still appalled—in a knee jerk sort of way—to hear a vampire Prime speaking like this.

“What's the matter with you? I thought the Clans were supposed to hate the Tribes as much as we do. What are you doing here if—”

“Maybe they sent someone who doesn't feel
rabid, fanatical hatred for anyone,” he snarled at her.

His eyes were glowing. It was enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Eden was slowly reaching for the garlic spray in her pocket when Wolf got himself under control.

“I'm a peaceful kind of guy,” he asserted. “Live and let live, I say. Except when terminating with extreme prejudice is absolutely called for.”

She glanced down at the parking lot. “Like now?”

“No.”

“Fine. I'll do it.”

She stood up. He dragged her back down. She was surprised by the lack of effort it took him. She knew vampires were stronger and faster than humans, but personally experiencing the results of these heightened senses was a much more visceral experience. She'd have to remember to mention that in her audiotape report.

But first they had to get out of here. “You're supposed to be helping me,” she reminded him. “Are you afraid of the odds?”

“Afraid?”

This time he was the one who surged to his feet, but Eden didn't try to stop him. He practically
vibrated with indignation and gave her a look so haughty it was blood-chilling.

The next instant, he leapt off the roof into the center of the busy mall lot, landing on the roof of an SUV. Then he jumped again, landing on the vampire sitting on the hood of her car. She could hear the sound of bones breaking from up here—and hoped they weren't Wolf's.

“One down,” he called up to her.

She saw two shadows rushing toward him, and rushed to the ladder behind the building. While she ran around to the front of the mall, she heard honking and shouting and the crash of glass and metal.

“So much for discretion,” she murmured.

He was causing a hell of a scene. She was sure that cell phones had been popped out by now and that the cops had been called. There were witnesses to a weird, high-speed brawl. This was not the way the night games were supposed to be played; there were rules. Centuries-old rules. Everybody—vampires and hunters included—had a tacit understanding that it was safer for the general population to keep the supernatural side of the world carefully hidden away.

Wolf was opening her car door when she dashed across the lot to his side. He barely looked mussed.

She looked around frantically. There were humans gaping at them from inside their vehicles and at the doors of the stores, but she didn't see any of Tribe Primes.

“They took their wounded and left,” he said. Then he grinned. “Truth is, they ran when all the noise started. Sometimes breaking the rules is the only way to solve a problem,” he added before she could point out what he'd done. “Get in the car. Wait,” he added.

Then he grabbed her and kissed her before she knew what was happening. His mouth was hard on hers, and his tongue demanding. She felt like a match being struck. All she could do was tilt her head back against his arm and ride the sudden blaze.

It was over in a moment.

He stepped back, and said “Shall I drive?” cool and calm as you please.

Eden had to lean against the car, too full of heat and confusion to think for a few moments. She finally managed to lift her head and angrily demand, “What was that about?”

Wolf was totally insouciant, totally unashamed. “That's one of the old rules, isn't it? That the hero gets to kiss the girl he just saved.”