Beautiful Danger

by Michele Hauf

  Lark was amused but couldn’t manage a smile. It was true. The knights kicked ass and sacrificed all for the cause. Rarely did the knight have a family and friends, though certainly Todd had tried. He had known his job demanded all. He just hadn’t realized a family life would demand as much of him. Nor had she.

  “How’d a chick ever get accepted into the Order?”

  “By proving I was worthy.”

  “I wager you had to go above and beyond to do that. Even the most pro-feminist of men have a hard time accepting that a woman could stand as his equal. I heard a rumor that a real king heads your little death club.”

  “That is a rumor. His code name is King. That’s it. And the Order didn’t want to accept me—they knew the story with me and Todd—but I barged in on training one day and wouldn’t leave even when I was forcibly removed. I just kept going back, until finally they tolerated me. I was determined. Still am.”

  “To make all the vampires pay for what happened to your husband?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Even though none of the ones you kill are directly related to his death?”

  “Vampires are ruthless killers. Present company included.”

  Yet Lark’s fingers flinched on the stake as she said that. That hadn’t been a lie to herself, had it?

  “I will accept that I have become what the werewolves have forced me to become—a broken bit of fang and flesh. A monster,” Domingos said with a confidence that poked at Lark’s heart. “But I was not always this way. I had embraced my unasked-for vampirism and had been living without suspicion among the mortals. Yet now, unlike you, I am only taking revenge against those who were directly related to my capture, imprisonment and torture.”

  “And that proviso redeems your heinous crimes?”

  “We were talking about your heinous crimes, Lark. The last time I heard of a group dedicated to exterminating an entire race, well...”

  He let the accusation hang. Lark knew what he insinuated. It was a cruel comparison. But was it? She’d never given the idea of exterminating an entire race much thought before. And to do so now...

  Was the Order a death club?

  Don’t let his big sad crazy act get to you. You weren’t able to stake him tonight because you got too close. You should have never looked into his eyes. Step back. Distance yourself and get Todd the hell out of your brain or you’ll never accomplish this challenge.

  “So, until tomorrow?” Domingos held out a hand for her to shake.

  Lark stared at the offering. Don’t cross that line. He’s manipulating you. You’re smarter than that.

  When she didn’t reach to shake his hand, he leaned in, grasped her hand and shook it. Lark tugged away.

  Domingos moved swiftly, lunging over her and pinning her back flat onto the roof with his body, one knee to her thigh, but not so roughly that she couldn’t shove him off.

  Lark did not push the predator away.

  He gripped her by the head, and she saw her death by broken neck flash before her eyes. Better than the fang, she thought wistfully, because that would be too much to live down should the Order learn she’d been taken out by the tooth.

  The vampire kissed her. Hard. His fangs cut her lip, and as the minute pain and blood trickled into her mouth, she struggled against him. She did not want him to taste her blood. He would not relent, deepening the kiss, invading her with his tongue and making her want what she should not want—the hardness of him, the utter urgency, his desperation.

  So like you. Too much like you? Or just close enough to understand?

  Ceasing her struggles, Lark clutched at his borrowed shirt, pulling him onto her and hooking a leg over one of his. He moaned at her rough acceptance. It was too easy to fall into the moment, to take what she needed. Connection. Unrelenting desire. A slap in the face to those who hadn’t believed in her capabilities.

  She’d always made the right choices. Her decision to marry Todd had been encouraged by her mother after she had learned he’d graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in the States. (She’d not told her mother she was pregnant.) Todd had told her mother he had studied to be a lawyer. All lies. But she’d had to get married. It hadn’t been a necessity, but a surprise pregnancy had prompted a proposal, which she had gratefully accepted.

  She hadn’t wanted to face life and all its struggles alone.

  Why had she allowed that lie to linger over her life?

  Charm, a tiny voice whispered. You’re not a nun, and just like any other woman, you can be won with seduction and promises of a happy future. He was going to keep you safe. Keep your family safe.

  Even after the miscarriage, Lark had played the devoted housewife. She’d loved Todd. But the choices they’d made within the marriage had not involved her life. She’d done everything for Todd, to accept his secret job, to put up a smiling face when he returned home after two, sometimes three days’ absence, to simply please him. And he had been pleased.

  But the right choices regarding her pleasure? She didn’t even know what that meant. Because she’d known the truth of Todd before marrying him and, despite her reluctance, had gone through with it. For family—a family that had never been given a chance to begin.

  Domingos’s breath was hot upon her lips as he kissed the corner of her mouth. She devoured what he gave her, pulling him closer, drawing him down and begging him with a silent acceptance. He pulled her out of her irritating need to do right by others and plunged her deep into the unknown. The forbidden. The impossibly wrong.

  Kissing down her chin and to her jaw—he hissed and retracted from the intimate exploration. Blood dripped from his lip. The blades at her collar had served their purpose.

  Gripping her coat, he pulled it open and pushed back the lapels to expose her neck. Eyes wild, he caressed her skin, tapping her carotid with a fingertip. The glint in his eyes spoke of something completely different than passion. Had the madman emerged? Or was it simply the vampire who needed human blood to survive?

  “Give me a day,” Lark hastened out.

  He tilted his head, wondering. Blood from his cut lip trickled onto her throat. The creature temporarily subdued, wanting to hear her out before tearing open her neck.

  “A day without biting me in exchange for another day without staking you,” she offered.

  “Deal.” He kissed her hard and quickly.

  Too quickly Lark’s dangerous plunge into the unknown, the free fall into the forbidden, ended.

  Pulling away and standing, Domingos stepped over the top of her head and ran along the spine of the roof, an aerial acrobat of the night. He was off to hunt werewolves. She knew it as she knew the taste of her own blood in her mouth.

  A crazy new torture had entered her life.

  And she had opened the door wide and invited it in.

  Chapter 7

  The wolf didn’t see him coming. The idiot dog stood outside at the back of an SUV, arms crossed over his chest, eyes closed. He was probably dozing on his feet, waiting for a passenger or not.

  Domingos had tracked him from the fifth quarter rooftop, where he’d left the female knight, to this dark street behind a redbrick warehouse with few windows, and those windows were barred with iron rods. He didn’t want to think about what could be contained behind those caged windows, but he suspected captive vampires a likely possibility.

  If so, they needed help.

  Domingos wasn’t a superhero. He couldn’t save anyone but himself. And he’d never get back to saving himself until all in the Levallois pack had fallen.

  For once the whispers in his head agreed. The wolves needed to die.

  Lunging for the wolf, he slashed the silver blade he’d pinched from the hunter through the air and brought it down hard across the wolf’s chest, diagonally from shoulder to hip. The blade sank
in deep and he felt little resistance as it cut through rib bones. The silver would enter the bloodstream, and before the wolf could even open his eyes—

  The phoenix inside Domingos let out a maniacal chuckle and reached inside the wolf’s gaping wound, punching through rib bones, and gripped the moon-dog’s heart. He jerked out his hand and thrust the slippery organ to the ground, where it landed beneath the SUV’s front grille.

  The creature clasped at his chest and growled. He swore at Domingos, and stepped forward once, but that was the last step the wolf could manage.

  The cut gaped and the wolf bent over backward, arms flailing madly. Then its body collapsed and began to boil from inside. Within minutes the silver poisoning would reduce the dog to nothing but a mass of goopy flesh and bone. The heart on the ground had been spared the silver poisoning and would remain intact.

  Nasty mess for the mortal police to find, but that wasn’t Domingos’s problem. Most good paranormals called in a cleaner to take care of their messes. He’d never claim even a portion of good.

  Wiping his bloodied hand down the front of his shirt, he kicked a stone at the SUV’s tire, then peered inside the vehicle. No other wolves. But this was a pack car. He could smell the mangy scent indicative of Levallois. It was something he’d never get out of his head, that horrid feral odor of twisted entitlement and the thirst to watch blood be spilled.

  He eyed the warehouse. What he hadn’t noticed when reconning from the rooftops, he did now—smoke billowed out from a barred window.

  “No,” he whispered. The utterance wasn’t out of fear, but rather in answer to his rising conscience to protect those inside who were weaker. “Not my place to consider a rescue attempt. Never again.”

  Stringed instruments howled inside his brain, doubling Domingos over before the warehouse. He clutched his hair and tugged, gritting back the yowl that he wouldn’t give the dying werewolf the satisfaction of hearing. Slamming his head against the brick wall, he pounded his skull with a fist.

  The phoenix wanted to turn around and kick the wolf, rage at the indignities it had been served.

  The vampire in him pleaded for the compassion the mortal man he’d once been had possessed—and won.

  Domingos ran inside the building. Smoke siphoned into his throat, making him choke, but he pushed onward and passed a man who was on his way toward the open doorway. The wolf didn’t notice him as he raced out to the car, yelling about a fire.

  Go get him!

  Domingos paused inside the threshold, smoke fogging about his legs and hands. One more kill, the phoenix whispered. So close. So easy. He could jump the wolf from behind and slash its throat, then roll it over to dig out the heart.

  A yowl from inside the warehouse skittered up his spine and annihilated the screeching violin chord that had haunted him for months. Twisting down and pressing the crown of his head against the wall, he clutched at the wall and tried to press his skull through the wood.

  There were others inside. Vampires, he suspected. Fire would not kill them, but the flame would damage them irreparably. Drive them mad, surely.

  No man deserved the madness he carried in his soul. A quick death—hell, the stake—was preferable to madness.

  Domingos turned and ran through the smoke until he collided with iron cage bars.

  * * *

  Curiosity had prompted her to follow the vampire after their rooftop bargain had sealed their fates for another twenty-four hours. Lark had watched him kill the werewolf with unflinching grace. Not a blink, nor a wince. As if dashing a mark in the air, he’d drawn the silver blade down the wolf’s chest. And then he’d torn out its heart and tossed it aside. Cold. Unrepentant.

  It’s how you do it.

  How she used to do it before she’d met Domingos. Never had it taken her so long to accomplish an elimination.

  “I’m losing it,” she muttered. “He’s throwing me off my game.”

  He, being the vampire she seemed to prefer kissing over staking. What was her problem? If watching him rip out some werewolf’s heart wasn’t enough to fortify her determination to slay him, then nothing else could.

  Yet she’d watched Domingos vacillate about approaching the smoking building, and when finally he’d walked toward it, her heart had beat faster and her fingers had clasped about the iron railing in anticipation. He’d paused at the threshold, thrashing his head about and fighting some inner demons that she couldn’t understand, and then he’d rushed into the flames.

  He’d been in the burning building five minutes. Fire engine sirens trilled about a mile off. Would they find a dead vampire inside? Fire couldn’t kill a vampire, only melt off his skin, a wound that would probably never completely heal, even though their breed was known to regenerate masterfully and could even regrow a severed limb, according to the Order’s teachings.

  Lark believed that as much as she believed vampires had a moral compass.

  Yet her gasp stifled her harsh thoughts. A tall dark-haired man stumbled out from the burning building, dragging two men behind him by their arms.

  “Domingos. He rescued them?”

  Clasping the cold railing to keep from rushing down the iron stairs to hug him, Lark chided her ridiculously romantic heart. Heroes did not exist. They belonged in movies and books, not real life. The vampire must have an ulterior motive for doing something so selfless. She had just watched him murder without conscience!

  He dropped the men on the sidewalk and rushed back inside, disappearing into the black smoke that raged like storm clouds. The men on the street managed to stand, and one of them grabbed the other and they ran away as the sirens loomed closer.

  “Vampires?” she wondered.

  That could be the reason the werewolf had been standing outside, like a posted guard. The Levallois pack? Made sense. Domingos had been set on killing only members of that pack. For revenge.

  Just like you, Lark. How can you fault him?

  She didn’t fault him. But that didn’t mean she condoned his actions. So he’d saved lives. Vampire lives. Vampires who should have burned, for all Lark cared.

  A twinge of remorse pinched at her spine. When had she become so cold?

  “Stupid question, Lark.”

  Domingos emerged in a cloud of dark smoke with a man’s body draped across his shoulder. He set him down on the sidewalk and slapped his face, rousing the vampire who must have inhaled smoke, yet who seemed to rally with a few deep breaths of fresh air.

  The fire truck rounded the corner, and both men took off, Domingos tugging along the one he’d rescued. Wouldn’t be wise, or easy, to explain to a fire brigade why the smoke hadn’t killed them, or at the very least, knocked them out. And most certainly vampires would have to refuse mortal medical care.

  And then there was the mass of dead werewolf on the ground before the SUV—and that still-beating heart.

  “He’s not so crazy, after all.”

  Tugging out her cell phone, Lark dialed up Tor, the Order’s spin doctor. Generally, when a crime scene contained remains, such as the werewolf, or in other cases, partially ashed vampires, the knight contacted Tor and he arrived to smooth things over with the public and any reporters who might be nosing about.

  The dead werewolf—and the heart lying under the truck—would definitely require some spin.

  * * *

  Lark returned to find Rook waiting inside the safe house. His salt-and-pepper hair that teased at gentle curls was slicked back over his ears, and a scar at the corner of his left eye lifted it higher than the other, giving him a shifty appearance, even though she knew the man was all about honor and integrity. Armani business suits, always, and shoes so highly polished she wondered if he spent more time on those than, say, waxing his car, which was something ridiculously expensive and probably rare. She had learned he appreciated the finer things
in life and could afford them easily.

  She didn’t like the guy, but she didn’t hate him, either. Respect was due, and he had earned that from her. Rook had not once given her a break during her training—not that she’d expected one. The man was the only means for a member of the Order to speak to King. You had to go through Rook to get anything, and he kept a tight fist on all operations. He had a way of looking at her—at anyone—and seeing her truth. She suspected he wasn’t mortal, yet she had never dared ask him what he was or how he was able to divine truths.

  She’d been knighted by King but hadn’t been personally introduced to him during that brief ceremony. Didn’t know the founder’s name, beyond which, she again suspected, was code: King. Didn’t know if in fact he was or had been a king, as was the rumor. The other rumor whispered about the Order was that their leader was actually a vampire. She always stopped herself from trying to figure out if it was truth. To know she was working for the one breed she hated most? Well. It just didn’t jibe.

  She’d only just spoken with Tor, so she suspected he wouldn’t have had time to report to Rook yet, and so decided to keep the information about the fire need-to-know right now.

  “Rook.”

  He set down the cup of coffee he’d brewed. Sure, make yourself at home. Wasn’t as if it was her home. He’d probably already searched the closet and the bathroom, inspecting for God knows what. Good thing she’d cleaned the shower, washed the towels and adjusted the clothing in the closet after Domingos had left. So she’d never lost her domestic bone; sue her.

  Lark sat on the sofa and slid the coat off her shoulders.

  “Hard night slaying?” he asked.

  “You could say that.”

  “You smell like smoke.” The man didn’t miss an eyelash. But he had to be mortal. On the other hand, mortals weren’t always what they appeared. That much she had learned while studying the paranormal breeds during training. “Kill Domingos LaRoque?”

  “Couldn’t find him.”