He turned away from the table, away from the lure of her blood and her body and mind, and his completely inappropriate admiration of her. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d admired a human or a vampire, for that matter. He often appreciated them. His lawyers he appreciated for their legal skill. Human woman he appreciated for their beauty. Female vampires he appreciated for their grace. But he admired Claudia Donovan, a human woman who fucking hated vampires and reminded him that he’d once been human himself. The creature he’d become whispered that he should take her. Right now. Oh, how he wanted to finish what he’d started with her. “What a joy you must be to friends and family,” he said.
Donovan sat down on the pillows demons favored over chairs and beds. All that toughness and she continually spoiled things by letting softness show.
“Look, Korzha,” she said. “Can we maybe start over? I’m not Miss Congeniality. I never have been. If it was your daughter who was missing, I don’t think you’d be so easy to get along with either. So if you’ll just back off, I’ll try to do the same, all right?”
He knew she wasn’t trying mess with his head, not on purpose anyway, but that’s what she was doing to him. Tiberiu Korzha did not get involved with humans. Not like this. Not anymore. He stared at her, but she must have decided she had nothing to lose by staring back. He hadn’t fed from her deeply enough to feel a connection like this, a physical, sensual tug. Her eyes were ravishing, he thought; irises of deep, bittersweet chocolate, with long, thick lashes. A man would die to have those eyes watching him with passion. Korzha imagined the sensation of his teeth gliding through her skin upon request and only just managed to pull himself out of his reverie. He nodded. “Agreed.”
“Thank you.” After a bit, she said, “Can you really shield us from the demons?”
“Yes, but not without effort. And perhaps not infallibly.” With a shake of his head, he focused on their present difficulties, but he could still feel her. Doubtless, she felt it, too. “No more time for idle chit-chat, I’m afraid. Dress, and I promise you later we will talk. Questions will be asked. Some may even be answered.”
She looked at him. “The only thing I want is Holly.”
He was moved. “I swear upon my honor we will not leave Orcus without your daughter.” He picked up the knife she’d taken off the wall and set on the table. He handed it to her. “Don’t forget your protection.”
“I’d prefer my Glock. That’s protection a girl can trust.” She slid the blade from the sheath. The metal glittered blue-black. She blinked. “Wow.”
He tossed a satchel at her feet. “Fill it with anything you think might keep you and your daughter alive. Be careful,” he added. “That thing’s sharp.”
But, of course, she touched the blade. And, of course, she cut her finger because the dark knife was wickedly sharp. Her shoulders jerked. “Rats,” she said.
The smell of blood stopped him dead. Hunger burned in his mind. Donovan put her nicked finger in her mouth, and, thankfully, the smell dampened.
“You could kill somebody with this,” she said around her finger.
Korzha stared at her mouth. “In Orcus, Officer Donovan, you will find that except for another demon, such a blade may be all that kills our horrible friends.”
Without another word, the policewoman grabbed the clothing she’d selected and went into another room to change. Korzha shucked his Overworld clothes. Soon he was wearing a pair of light, close-fitting trousers of tolerable fit, and a sand-colored shirt that was a less tolerable fit. He stuffed his suit in the back of a cupboard. He found a pair of leather boots that fit reasonably well and put them on. His Mezlan Oxfords went into the cupboard, too. Alas. But, they were nothing he couldn’t afford to replace.
Donovan tromped back into the room with her old clothes stuffed under her arm. She’d found a pair of sandals two sizes too big and looked to have hacked several inches off the bottom of the pants. Despite the tight laces up her groin—how was he not to think of unlacing her?—the waist sagged below her navel. Her L.A.P.D. shirt didn’t do her any sort of justice but this new shirt did. Waist-length, exposed navel and all, it had a high collar and a vee opening that gaped invitingly over her curves. She looked damn good to him. She had her dagger and sheath tied around her thigh under an unwieldy length of belt that flapped uselessly from the belt’s buckle.
“Good girl.” Too bad they weren’t on familiar enough terms for him to put her on the table, unlace her pants, and make love to her. Yet another pity in a growing list of them.
“Drop dead, Korzha.” She grabbed the empty satchel he’d given her and started opening cupboards and drawers, looking for useful items to take.
“I meant that,” he said, “in the very nicest way. A compliment. And, please, you must call me Tiberiu. Or Tiber.” He thickened his accent. “Which you prefer, yes?”
She gave him the finger. But he smiled at her and she spoiled the effect of her defiance by laughing. “Do you know how to use a pump?” he asked. He threw two leather skins at her and pointed to the lever that worked a well. “Fill them. You’ll need water.”
She saluted. “Yes, sir.” But she didn’t move.
“Do it.”
“Yes, sir,” she muttered. But she still didn’t move.
“Just do it.”
“Fuck you, sir,” she said under her breath. But at last she picked up the skins and went to the pump.
He laughed. “I heard that.”
This time, she just mouthed the retort, pumping herself water. Korzha rifled the rest of the house. After she’d filled the skins with water, she ransacked the pantry. When she was finished with that he said, “Let’s go.”
“Just a minute.” She laid the excess length of her belt on the table and knelt on the floor with the heel of her palm on the belt. She leaned back to get tension. Her shirt raised up, exposing her soft, human skin. Korzha stared at her stomach. It didn’t pay to get involved with humans. It just didn’t. It seemed to him he felt the connection with her more intensely than any bite justified. But theirs had been a connection of spectacular intensity. He’d been leagues deep in her head. Fathoms. She was his.
When the belt was taut, she sliced through the leather. Her blade went through with frightening ease. “Much better.” She slid the knife back into its sheath and grinned at him. She had a nice smile. It’d be good to see it more often. “I’ll go anywhere with you, Kemo Sabe.” She held out a hand and gave him another smile that wasn’t much of a smile. He helped her up. “As long as it includes getting Holly.”
Korzha picked up the remnant of the belt and considered its cleanly cut edge. He must be out of his mind to involve himself here. This couldn’t end except with his teeth in her. He dropped the scrap of leather. At least the sex would be good. His eyes shifted, taking in the room, feeling outward. He heard the demons call again, too far away for Donovan to hear. “They’re closing in on us now.”
“Have you got a plan, or are we improvising?” she asked.
His mouth twitched. “I have a plan.”
“Well.” She shrugged. “Okay.”
It would be dangerous. Very. But these were parlous times indeed. “I want us out of the city for a while. Let them wonder if somehow we’ve made it back through the portal. In the meantime, we’ll circle around and come at Holly from another direction.” She looked worried, and he took pity on her. “We’ll be out of the city one or two nights. No more than three.”
“I don’t get you, Korzha. Why are you helping me when you have your deal with the demons?” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s in it for you, fang?”
“Besides the portal?”
“Besides that.”
“I gave you my word about your daughter,” he said softly.
“So?”
“Family Korzha survives because everyone knows I never break my word. Not in public and not in private.”
“That’s it? You make one stupid promise in the heat of the moment and now you have to help
me no matter what?”
“It’s politics.”
“Politics.”
“I am not a kind man. Do not think otherwise of me.”
She picked up one of the satchels. “If you’re not careful, fang, you’re going to blow your cover. There’s gonna be a big headline in The Post when we get back. ‘Tiberiu Korzha Reveals Self as Big Fat Softie.’”
He grinned. “My lawyers are far meaner than I, Officer Donovan, and I rely on them utterly to protect my reputation. Now, are you ready? Or do you have a better idea?”
“Not at the moment.” She took a breath and then made a face at him. “Let’s go.”
Korzha knew Donovan expected they’d go out the door, but they didn’t. Instead, he opened the room’s single window in the back and heaved himself out and up. A moment later, his upside-down head stared in at her. He waggled his fingers. She slung her satchel across her shoulders, put her hands in his and climbed out. For a moment she dangled face out over the street. He hauled her up and onto the roof. She practically somersaulted over him, he pulled up so hard. But, for a human, she had good reflexes and recovered well. She lay on the tiles, staring up at the sky. “Jeez,” she whispered. “The moon sure is beautiful.”
He looked. She was right. He rolled over her, snaked a hand around her waist and stared into her eyes. The back of his head tingled, and something stirred in him. Called to him. It was a very human moment, actually. One he hadn’t felt in a long time. He wanted to kiss her. Softly at first. Sensually. Then he wanted to fuck her silly, he reminded himself.
“Korzha?” she said.
The sound of his name broke the moment. He got to his feet and held out a hand. “Yes?”
She slapped her palm against his. “He’s coming. Now.”
Fire erupted far above their heads. A signal? A high, keening scream broke out, a wail of rage. In the street below, all noise ceased. Doors slammed. Windows clanged shut. The demons of Biirkma were terrified.
Korzha got an arm around her, and she held on for dear life as he ran. Given the pursuers were in the air, he thought it foolish to fly himself and make an open target. Instead, he cannonballed across the rooftops, keeping low and in the shadows, leaping the gaping chasms of the streets, inexorably heading west, toward the moon. Fast. Faster yet. Their only hope was to flee beyond the pursuing demon’s ability to sense Donovan.
Eventually, he succeeded. Korzha’s speed was barely enough. Even when he’d outrun the demons, he continued zigzagging until he reached the last houses before the city wall, at which point he moved along the rooftops searching for the house from which he sensed the least energy. There. Ahead. Perfect. Animals, yes, but no demons.
The house was tucked against part of a wall that was disintegrating into rubble. Beyond lay an expanse of rolling earth. At the horizon, black mountains peppered with white lifted toward the sky. With a pulse of thought, Korzha silenced the dog that raced, maddened, in the house’s tiny interior courtyard. The animal was a dog in the way a Mastiff was a dog compared to a Chihuahua. The thing looked like a cross between a mountain lion and a wolf. With the size of an Irish Wolfhound and a close, curly coat and pointed, tufted ears that quickly broadened at the base, it wasn’t any domesticated dog from L.A.
Sleep. Deep, canine sleep, he demanded of it. The creature whined once and settled to the ground.
With his mouth by Donovan’s ear, Korzha whispered, “Stay here. I’m going to look around before we do anything.”
She was riveted by the dog. As well she should be. Something that size looked more than capable of taking down a human. “Scout’s honor?” she asked.
“Scout’s honor.” He cocked his head, jumped down and walked to a side building. He went inside, and a few minutes later came out leading a horse. It was a pure-blooded Friesian unless he missed his guess; and he knew he didn’t. It was subtly altered, though, from the medieval horses of his memory. He kept reaching up to stroke its nose. Pointing to the mountains, he said, “That direction. East. Then southwest, around the city. We go as far out of range of the demon’s senses as possible.”
“How?” She looked at the horse.
He nodded. “We ride.”
“Why can’t we fly? I’ve seen you fly.”
Korzha shook his head. “No. They’ll be looking for us in the air. Staying on the ground is the only thing that’s kept us alive so far.”
“Oh.” She eyed the horse again.
“Yes. ‘Oh.’” He laughed.
“I never pulled horse duty on the force, Korzha,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know how to ride one of those things.”
He shook his head again. “You better hope you’re a fast learner, because I am not carrying you the whole way.” He laughed again and vaulted onto the beast. He held out a hand. It had been years since he’d been on a horse yet he felt right at home, even without a saddle.
“Show off,” she said.
He waggled his fingers. “Afraid?”
She glared at him and put her hand in his. “Not on your life.”
“Good girl.” He pulled her up and with an embarrassing degree of bumbling, they got her astride in front of him. He breathed in. She smelled and felt warm. She had a fantastic ass, too, right against his crotch.
Donovan glanced over her shoulder. “We better ride like hell.”
Chapter Twenty
They took cover from the dawn in a cave formed of an outcropping of gleaming black rock. Korzha grabbed Claudia’s hand, and she slid off the horse with the fervent wish that she would never have to get on one ever again, which wasn’t a wish likely to come true. The vampire whispered something to the horse and let it go. Already, the sky was turning to charcoal, and around the edges of the night the promise of dawn tinged the sky. Korzha dove straight for the opening. As he passed her, a flash of pale-red moonlight lit his face. His skin was tight over his cheeks, and his eyes seemed set deeper in his head than she recalled. She wondered what he’d been doing since Jaise was killed. Had he been injured during the Bak-Faru’s attack?
She followed, not having much choice since Korzha had a death grip on her hand. She stumbled now and again as they ran, more frequently when they reached the back of the cave where not even moonlight penetrated. They turned a corner and Claudia found herself in complete blackness. She smacked into Korzha’s back. He didn’t budge.
“We’ll rest here.” From the sounds, she guessed he slung his satchel off his shoulder. She heard him lay out a blanket. “Stay in here, Officer.” His voice echoed in her head and bounced off the walls too, giving it a doubly hollow sound. She still felt the off-kilter sense of his presence. He was too close. Deliciously, awfully close.
“Okay.” The air felt cooler here than outside, and she was pretty sure she heard rustling overhead. Bats. Had to be bats. Right?
“I can’t guarantee your safety if you leave my side.” He turned while he spoke, which she knew because of the directional change of his voice. “Go to sleep, Officer Donovan.”
“I can’t see a thing.” Keeping the panic from her voice took just about everything she had. She hated the dark. But she fooled him in that, because he only sighed.
“I sometimes forget humans do not see as we do.”
“Yeah, well, I’m limited.” The events of her time in Orcus were catching up with her. Pretty much, she wanted to puke. Or to go sit someplace where she could see her hands in front of her face.
Korzha made a noise and a moment later, her satchel or something hit the ground with a soft thud. There came the sound of another blanket snapping and settling on the ground. Was it the darkness that made him feel so insistently present? She sighed, took a guess at where the second blanket had landed, and sat down in dirt. A miss. But not by much.
She scooted onto the blanket. He’d cleared away the largest of the rocks, leaving a layer of cold sand. Still, it was a more comfortable surface than one might hope to find in a cave, she guessed. She’d never been in a cave before. She managed t
o locate her satchel without bumping into the vampire she had for company. Leather pack on her lap, she started feeling around inside.
“What are you doing?” Korzha asked.
By feel, she found one of the water skins, got it open and took a swig. “I’m thirsty. And hungry.” A heartbeat passed. The vampire’s ability to be silent unnerved her. Every other creature breathed now and again. She never heard him do that. And she jumped when he spoke.
“So am I,” he said.
Her hand froze somewhere near the center of her bag. One wry rejoinder from him, and she was reminded in a flash of cold that not only was Korzha not human, but that even among vamps he wasn’t well-behaved. Just how hungry was he? He could do whatever the hell he wanted to her here. “Not on your life, Korzha.”
He laughed. “It’s your thirst that’s important right now, not mine. Much as it may surprise you, Donovan, I haven’t drunk illegally in years. Until Masters, I hadn’t killed an innocent human in even longer…” His voice went soft again, like he was remembering something that saddened him. “She was the first in a very long time.”
Claudia rested her head on her knees. “Killing a human is a Class One paranormal felony.” Korzha didn’t talk too much about himself, but she had a feeling there were circumstances she didn’t know about. “That makes you subject to the no-strikes law, presumption of intent, no pleading out, no appeals. If you’re convicted it’s straight to the Lompoc Federal Detainment Center for Paranormal Offenders for you.”
“You going to arrest me, Officer?” In the dark, his voice sounded sexy. Wouldn’t it be something to have a man with a voice like that be interested in her?
With a soft laugh, she said, “I don’t think the Penal Code applies in Orcus.”
“Does it matter?”
Moved, and surprisingly so, she reached toward the sound, searching for the creature whose desolate voice tugged at her heart. Her fingers landed on his hip, right by his crotch. Oops. In the darkness, his hand closed around hers, moving her hand away. “For what it’s worth, Korzha, I think you’re okay. For a vamp.” They’d been off-and-on allies, and she was getting a better sense of who he was. Imagine that. Why, she was practically friends with a fang. It was always better to judge a person by his actions, not rumors.
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