Her breath caught. “I hope it was as you left.”
“Not entirely,” he said, after a pause, and without meaning to, she caught his arms as if she meant to shake him.
“You stayed among them like that? Could they have killed you then?”
“Actually, they could have killed me anytime,” Saloman said, slipping his arms free, though only to take her hands. “Fortunately they didn’t know how. And now Travis and I are the best of friends. We’re even playing a game together. I didn’t know you worried about me.”
She tugged her hands free, as much in protest at his risk taking as at his accusation. “I’m not worried,” she muttered. “But what took you to Travis? I thought Severin was your best friend.”
His right eyebrow lifted. “Did you? I don’t recall telling you that.”
So he would know the hunters had. She didn’t think it mattered, and if it did, right now she didn’t care. “Are you playing them against each other so you can pick up the pieces?” she asked, eyes narrowed. Another thought struck her like a blow. “Saloman, you didn’t order Severin to come here and attack Travis?”
Saloman curled his lip. “Any attack under my orders is carried out with considerably more efficiency. Not to mention success.”
“Then Severin lost the fight? From what the—” Under Saloman’s sardonic smile, she broke off. “I thought he was still hanging around New York,” she finished defiantly. “Which doesn’t indicate defeat.”
“He stayed on in order to meet me, of course.”
“You’ve met him already? I thought you were visiting Dante Junior this morning.”
“I did that too. He and his sister were quite shocked about some of their father’s dealings, and quite amenable to my suggestions for the future.” His fingers gripped the bedclothes as if to anchor his thoughts. “I’m surprised no one told them before. I did some other things too, before your presence grew too close to Travis’s.” His eyes glinted. “As you know, I don’t care for other vampires stealing my dinner.”
“You’re trying to rile me,” she observed, though she couldn’t prevent her lips from curving into the faintest smile.
“Oh, no.” He lay back, stretching his long, lean body on the bed, and closed his eyes.
The smile died on Elizabeth’s lips. She swallowed. “Do you need to . . . drink?” she asked awkwardly.
“No. I drank on my way up.”
She frowned. “How did you do that?”
“I bit the parking attendant.”
Shockingly, she wanted to laugh, and the smile forming and fading on his lips betrayed that he knew it. Watching him, she asked, curious, “How did you get into Travis’s place?”
“Like Rumpelstiltskin, I stamped my angry foot.”
One stamp of his foot had done that? His power was terrifying, and yet now he looked no stronger than she. That was scary too, so she found other questions. “But how did you even get onto the roof in daylight?”
“It’s under a bridge—a flyover? I had to park very close. I’d have gotten a ticket if anyone were brave enough to police the neighborhood.”
He was silent and Elizabeth knew that he was waiting for her to ask where and how he’d learned to drive. She’d already resisted the same pressure as he’d driven her here from the airport in a hired car with blacked-out windows. Although curiosity niggled at her, she refused to ask, just because he wanted her to. Instead, she let her gaze drop from his calm face to his broad, muscled chest, the contours of which were quite clear through his shirt, and his stomach, then down his narrow hips to his thighs. At the juncture of his legs was a bulge she recognized, one that made her pulse race.
“Elizabeth.”
Guiltily, she dragged her gaze back to his face to find his eyes open and a smile playing on his sensual lips.
“We had fun at Travis’s, didn’t we?”
Outraged, she glared at him, her mouth already open to deny any such thing. Then she remembered the relief of his arrival, the blind faith that had lifted her spirits at the very sight of him, the certainty that now she and Josh were safe. And after that, it had been easy to fight, to feint and maneuver, back-to-back with him in perfect understanding of his next move and the purpose behind it. Like some intense, exhilarating game.
Something that was half laughter and half sob fought its way out of her throat.
“Yes,” she admitted. “We had fun.”
But his eyes were no longer laughing. The tiny flames she sometimes imagined burned there flickered yellow and amber in the darkness. “We should face the world together more often.”
Excitement leapt at his words, along with a surge of longing to make it happen. To enjoy all the new abilities of her body and the confidence of her mind side by side with him, fighting battles they could both believe in.
Only there weren’t so many of those. Her next battle would be as his enemy.
The truth was, the most powerful—and feared—vampire in the world had little common ground with her. Wishing for it wouldn’t change that. He wouldn’t falter in his pursuit of power, whatever the consequences for anyone, for the world itself. So she forced down the yearning, and the pain.
“No,” she said firmly. “We shouldn’t.”
Before she could change her mind, she stood up. Rudy and Cyn had offered to meet her in Central Park much later on, when, Elizabeth had hoped, Saloman would be out hunting. But she’d never have a better chance than now, when he was too weak to follow her. “I thought I might go down to the bar, maybe go for a walk. You can rest while I’m gone.”
“Thank you,” he said politely. “Are you going to dress first?”
“Of course,” she muttered, reaching for the jeans and T-shirt she’d laid out already on the chair.
Shouting from the bathroom seemed easier. Because she couldn’t see his face while she did her best to betray him.
“If Travis is based in Queens,” she called casually, zipping up her jeans and thrusting her feet into comfortable sneakers, “where is Severin hanging out?”
“I’ll take you,” Saloman said, his voice so unexpectedly close that she jumped and spun around to face him. “If you’re desperate to go.”
Elizabeth stood still. Saloman offered the quickest and safest way of locating her prey. He was the only lead she had, and Severin could leave New York at any time. Did Saloman suspect she had a mission from the hunters? It didn’t really matter. Whatever the greater good, she couldn’t bear to use Saloman in this way.
“Hardly,” she muttered, brushing past him to pick up her bag from the table.
Travis waited until the Ancient had left, by the same means he’d entered, until he could no longer hear the retreating engine of his car. Then he sprang into action, turning on his still subdued underlings with a snarl that barely hid his glee.
“Clean this shithole up! I want the ceiling repaired and new furniture in here by the evening. Al, you’ll be in charge. I have a little business to take care of.” Which should get the dangerous Ancient off his back once and for all, and send Severin scuttling back to LA. Provided, of course, that Saloman was an honorable vampire. It was hard to tell on short acquaintance, but at any rate it would take the arrogant bastard down to size.
Leaving his minions sweeping up, Travis strode off toward the parking lot.
He’d had a special semitransparent blind fitted to the side window of his car, so that he could leave it open and still keep the sun off himself. It was useful for smelling out enemies and, in this case, friends. The scent of Grayson Dante was still in his nostrils. It was easy to track him, even among the busy traffic, easy too to find the parking garage under his apartment building, just by following the senator’s trail. And there, keeping his eye on the senator’s car, he settled down to wait for darkness. He’d had bad experiences before, visiting humans in daylight—he still had the burn scars to prove it.
The waiting was easy for a patient vampire. The hardest part of the expedition turned out to be persu
ading the doorman to let him into the lobby. In the end he had to use a mesmeric stare to get the man near enough the glass door to mouth through it, Senator Dante.
Fortunately, the man then released the lock; Travis had no desire to kick in the glass and cause an incident for his new ally.
“Sir, the senator isn’t at home.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Travis. “His car’s down there. Just call him up, will you? Tell him I’m here. My name’s Travis.”
“Ah, Mr. Travis. One moment.” Under Travis’s irate gaze, the man dived back behind his desk and produced an envelope, which he held out placatingly.
Travis snatched it and ripped it open.
“Dear Mr. Travis. I’m pursuing other options in Budapest. Will be in touch. D.”
“Shit!” Travis crumpled the paper in his fist. He wasn’t stupid enough to imagine that Dante had left the sword in his apartment, so how the hell was he to get it now?
He began to think that making a deal with Saloman had been a big—a very big—mistake.
Chapter Eleven
Sitting alone on a bench in Central Park after dark was not, Elizabeth knew, generally advised. Perhaps she was overconfident after her escape from Travis’s vampires, but for some reason she didn’t feel afraid. She was a little tense, certainly, and her fingers curled constantly around the stake hidden in her bag. Every sense reached out for the faintest signs of approach, but she had no real fear of attack, either by muggers or hungry vampires.
Interestingly, two youths in hooded tops, whom she might have suspected of criminal intent, gave her a wide berth, and she wondered if she actually looked too suspicious—like a decoy for some serious professional muggers. The vampires, she was sure, would come very soon, drawn by the scent of her powerful blood. Rudy and Cyn had claimed it was a haunt of vampires by night, and word would have circulated around the vampire community from Travis that the Awakener was in New York. Surely someone would notice her and be tempted to bite.
But it seemed she was wrong, and the native vampires were in no great hurry either to drink from her or to “gift” her to Saloman. As the hands crawled around her watch face, tiredness dragged at her eyelids. Five more minutes, she told herself, and then, for her own safety if for nothing else, she’d have to give up for tonight. She shook herself to stay alert.
She didn’t hear it, or even feel it. There was just the tiniest prickle at the back of her neck, and then the thing flew at her from behind, knocking her off the bench. Before she hit the ground, she’d twisted to face it, so when it jumped on her again, it half impaled its shoulder on her stake. Elizabeth glimpsed a youngish woman with furious yet surprised red eyes and long, sharp incisors, before the vampire reared up with a yell of rage and wrenched the stake out of her own shoulder. Hurling it at Elizabeth’s head, where it bounced side-on with a sharp smack, she lunged again for Elizabeth’s throat.
The vampire was a snarling, wriggling mass of bestial anger. Elizabeth felt saliva dripping on her neck as she pushed desperately at the vampire’s chin with one hand, and with the other scrabbled to find the discarded stake.
As her fingers finally closed around the sharpened stick, the vampire jerked her chin free and raised her fist to smash it into Elizabeth’s face. Elizabeth dragged up the stake and plunged. Her first wild blow caught the vampire’s punching arm, distracting her long enough to let Elizabeth take better aim. The second stab was true, and in midyell, the vampire exploded into dust.
“Damn,” Elizabeth muttered, picking herself up. She’d meant to ask questions before killing. Even instead of killing, but the option just hadn’t presented itself. Her skin prickled again and she gripped the stake tighter, whirling to face the trees on the left of the bench.
A shadow stepped into the moonlight. A young man in jeans and a dark T-shirt.
“Well,” he observed, apparently watching the particles of dust disperse into the night. “She didn’t last long.”
“Fledgling,” Elizabeth said briefly. She didn’t move, aware that for the first time ever, she didn’t know what she faced here: vampire or hunter. He had to be one of the two.
The young man came closer. “Only a week old,” he agreed. Lifting his head, he sniffed the air, giving her the clue she needed. “Your blood is strong,” he observed. “No wonder she didn’t wait for my order to strike. Are you a hunter?”
“Not exactly.” But none of this was going according to plan. Shouldn’t he know from her scent who she was? Travis had known. “Who are you?”
The vampire smiled and halted a couple of feet away from her. “Jacob.”
“I met your leader this afternoon. Travis.”
“Strong vampire,” Jacob allowed, “but not my leader.”
Bull’s-eye. Elizabeth’s heart beat faster. “Then you came with Severin from LA?”
Jacob smiled. “Hardly. New York born and died. Are you going to use that thing?”
“What?” Disappointed with his answer, Elizabeth took a moment to realize he was talking about her stake. “I haven’t made up my mind.”
“Neither have I,” Jacob admitted. “I want your blood very badly, but I’ve a feeling you’d stake me before I could take it.”
“I would,” Elizabeth agreed, fortunately sounding far more certain than she felt. She hadn’t encountered a vampire quite like this one before. “You’re very honest,” she observed, dividing her attention between his face and his hands, alert for the faintest threat.
“I’m not known for it,” Jacob said. “In this town, a vampire who holds apart from Travis has to make money where he can.”
She began to understand. “So you hang around Central Park to mug the muggers?”
“I wouldn’t like you to mistake my morals.” Jacob sounded amused. “I’ll mug anyone, scam anyone, kill anyone who can’t kill me first. Why are you so strong for a human, Miss Not-Exactly-a-Hunter?”
Saloman, she thought in sudden, furious understanding. Only luck, not the scent of Awakener, had drawn Jacob and the fledgling to her. Her question about Severin had been too pointed. Saloman was tracking her and masking at least some of her identity—whether for her own safety or because he’d guessed her plans. She hadn’t known he could do that, even at full strength.
“It doesn’t matter,” Elizabeth said hastily. And in fact, neither did Saloman’s interference. “Would you like to make money from me?”
“If it doesn’t involve coming close to you while you’re armed.”
“It doesn’t.” The vampire, she suspected, was a con artist, among other things. She had absolutely no intentions of dropping her guard, or of trusting him. But perhaps they could use each other. “Do you happen to know if the vampire Severin is still in New York? And if so, where he’s hiding?”
“No,” said Jacob. “But for the right price, I can find out.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Good answer.”
Elizabeth woke to darkness.
Still heavy with sleep, she struggled for a moment to orient herself, to realize someone else was moving in the bedroom with her. She tensed, remembering the stake in her bag beside the bed, but as her senses reached out, she knew it was Saloman by his faint yet distinctive scent, his silence, his quickness, and then his stillness.
He hadn’t asked her where she’d been when she’d returned to their room. He’d simply risen from the bed, informed her of the room service meal on the table—which proved he knew she hadn’t done more than pass through the hotel bar—and sat down by the computer. Elizabeth hadn’t mentioned Jacob either, or questioned him about masking her identity. In his company, the whole idea of trying to locate and kill his supporter seemed absurd. Saloman was always one step ahead of her.
Now no one moved; no one breathed except her, and yet she was aware that he stood at the bedside. She kept her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, even while her heart hammered in her breast.
Saloman wouldn’t tolerate more betrayal. She’d put herself in more danger than she’d bargained for wi
th this mission.
With his fingertips, he touched her cheek, her lips, so softly it could have been her imagination, except for the instant tingle of her skin in helpless response. She was afraid to breathe; she wanted to weep because of his tenderness, because it was clear to her he sought nothing from this. He wanted to touch without waking.
Shame filled her, along with the gnawing pain she’d brought on herself by trying to choose two opposing sides. It wasn’t just idealism either. She wanted to help the hunters, to ease Mihaela’s burden.
She felt Saloman’s gaze on her face for a moment longer, and then the air shifted as he walked, almost glided, away from the bed toward the window.
Elizabeth opened her eyes, so moved by the incident that she began to wonder if she was right to keep herself from him. But the reasons that had parted them hadn’t changed. Saloman hadn’t changed and neither had she. But that tiny sign of affection seemed to intensify her love for him. The ache of need spread through her like wildfire and she wondered if she dared to call him back. What difference could it make, after all? She was beyond help, long past the time when staying away from him could prevent her hurt. What difference would one night in his arms make to that? To the world? One snatched night of happiness couldn’t worsen the pain of parting; it could only ease the present, for him as well as for her.
For this moment, this night, Elizabeth, I love you. That was what he’d said to her in Budapest. Seven weeks later, in St. Andrews, she couldn’t doubt that that precious flame of affection still burned. I will never kill you, he’d promised, because it was too hard to kill what you’d loved.
Memory of the unexpected meeting in Dante’s Highland house swamped her. She remembered the passion of his kisses and wanted more, wanted to be in his arms so much it frightened her.
She couldn’t make decisions in such a state. He was here with her, and that would have to be enough. She closed her eyes firmly and reminded herself she’d come to New York for good reasons: to warn Rudolph Meyer, to find and kill Severin, to investigate Dante and protect Josh, who at least believed her now.
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