by Kim Harrison
The vampire breathed deeply as he stood on her threshold, pulling in her mood the way she inhaled a rare fragrance. Sensing her rising agitation, Art rocked into motion, rounding her desk and easing himself down in her leather office chair in the corner. Her face blanked as her pulse quickened. Art was the only person to ever sit there. Most people respected her attempts to avoid office friendships—if her sharp sarcasm and outright ignoring them weren’t enough. But then, Art didn’t like her for her personality but for the reputation he had yet to get a taste of.
Eyes on her immaculate desk, Ivy exhaled. He was dead, and she was alive. They were both vampires driven by blood: she sexually, he for survival. A match made in heaven—or hell.
Art reclined, smiling, with his long legs crossed and an ankle on one knee, managing to look powerful and relaxed at the same time. He brushed his hair back, trailing his fingers suggestively across his face kept at a clean-shaven tidiness as he tried to blend in with the younger crowd who would be more receptive to what he offered.
A shiver of anticipation rose through her. It didn’t make any difference that it came from Art pumping the air full of pheromones rather than true interest. The desire to satiate herself was as much a part of her as breathing. Inescapable. Why not get it over with? The gossip was because she was resisting, not because it was expected. And that was why he sat there in his expensive slacks and shirt with his two-hundred-dollar shoes and that confident bad-boy smile. The dead could afford to be patient.
“Tying off some of your loose ends?” she said dryly, glancing at the packet of papers and leaning back. She wanted to cross her arms over her chest, but instead put her boot heels up on the corner of her desk. Confident. She was in control of herself and her desires. Art could turn her into a pliant supplicant if he bespelled her, but that was cheating, and he would lose more than face, he’d lose the respect of every vamp in the tower. He had to bid for her blood. Playing on her bloodlust was expected, but bespelling her would piss Piscary off. She wasn’t a human to be taken advantage of and the paperwork “adjusted.” She was the last living Tamwood vampire, and that demanded respect, especially from him.
“Homicide,” he said, his teeth a white flash against his dark skin that hadn’t seen the sun in decades. “We can get there before the photographer if you’re done with your . . . lunch.”
She allowed a sliver of her surprise to show. A homicide wouldn’t come with that much information. Not anymore. She had pulled their solved ratio high enough that they were often among the first on the scene. Which meant they’d get an address, not a file. As her eyes returned to the papers he had set over his crotch, he moved them so she was looking right where he wanted her to. Irritation flickered over her. Her eyes rose to meet his gaze, and his smile widened to show a glimpse of teasing fang.
“This?” he said, standing in a graceful motion too fast for a human. “This is your six-month evaluation. Ready to go? It’s clear across the bridge in the Hollows.”
Ivy stood, part habit and part worry. Her work had been textbook exemplary. Art didn’t want her moving up the ladder and out from under him, but the worst scenario would be a reprimand, and she hadn’t done anything to warrant that. Actually the worst would be that he’d give her a shitty review and she’d be stuck here another six months.
Her job in homicide was a short stop on the way to where she belonged in upper management, where her mother had been and where Piscary wanted her to be. She had expected to be on this floor for six months, maybe a year, working with Art until her honed skills pulled her into the Arcane Division, and then to management, and finally a lower-basement office. Thank God her money and schooling let her skip the grunt position of runner. Runners were the lowest in the I.S. tower, the cops on the corner giving traffic tickets. Starting there would have put her back a good five years.
Confident and suave, Art brushed by her, his hand trailing across the upper part of her back in a professional show of familiarity that no one could find fault with as he guided her out of her office. “Let’s take my car,” he said, plucking her purse and coat from behind her door and giving them to her. A jingle of metal pulled her hand up in anticipation, and she caught his keys as he dropped them into her waiting palm. “You drive.”
Ivy said nothing, her faint bloodlust evaporating in concern. That he was pleased with her evaluation meant she wouldn’t be. Arms swinging as if unconcerned, she walked beside him to the elevators, finding herself in the unusual position of meeting the faces of the few people eating at their desks. She hadn’t made friends, so instead of sympathy, she found a mocking satisfaction.
Her tension rose, and she kept her breathing to a measured pace to force her pulse to slow. Whatever Art had scrawled on her evaluation was going to keep her here—her family name and money had pulled her as far as they could. Unless she played office politics, this was where she was going to stay. With Art? The luscious-smelling, drop-dead gorgeous, but lackluster Art?
“Well, screw that,” she whispered, feeling her blood rise to her skin and her mind shift into overdrive. That was not going to happen. She would work so well and so hard that Piscary would talk to Mrs. Pendleton and get her out of here and where she belonged.
“That’s the idea,” Art murmured, hearing only her words, not her thoughts. But Piscary wasn’t going to help her. The bastard was enjoying the side benefits of her coming home frustrated and hungry from Art’s attempts at seducing her blood. If she couldn’t handle this alone, then she deserved the humiliation of picking up after Art the rest of her life.
They halted at the twin sets of elevators in the wide hallway. Ivy stood with her hip cocked, frustrated and listening to the soft conversation filtering in from the nearby offices. Art was attractive—more so given the pheromones, God help her—but she didn’t respect him, and letting her instincts rule her conscious thought, even to move ahead, sounded like failure to her.
Leaning closer than necessary, Art pushed the UP button. His scent rolled over her, and while fighting the pure pleasure, she watched his eyes go to the heavy clock above the doors to check that the sun was down. She could feel his confidence that the sun would rise with him getting his way, and it pissed her off.
Her booted foot tapped, and her image in the double silver doors did the same. Behind her, Art’s reflection watched her with a knowing slant to his pretty-boy features. He was an ass. A sexy, powerful, conceited, ass. Because of who she was, it was assumed that she would rise in status by way of her blood, not her skills or knowledge. It was how business was done if you were a vampire. Always had been. Always would be. There were papers to sign and legalities to observe when a vamp set his or her sights on anyone other than another vampire, but having been born into it, she fell under rules older than human or Inderland law. That she had been conditioned to enjoy giving her blood to another left her feeling like a whore if it ended with her being alone. And she knew it would with Art.
As her mother had said, the only way out was to give them what they wanted, to sell herself and keep selling until she reached the top where no one would have a claim on her. If she did this, she would be promoted out from under Art and someone a little smarter and more depraved would be her new partner. Everyone would want a taste of her on her way up. God, she might as well break off her fangs and become an unclaimed shadow. But she had grown up with Piscary and found that the more powerful and older the vampire, the more subtle the manipulation, until it could be confused with love.
Taking a slow breath, she touched the ponytail she had put her hair in this afternoon, pulling the band out and shaking the black waist-length hair free. It and her brown eyes were from her mother. Her six-foot height and pale skin she got from her father. Accenting her Asian heritage was an oval face, heart-shaped mouth, thin eyebrows, and a leggy body toned by martial arts. No piercings apart from her ears and a belly button ring Skimmer had sweet-talked her into while high on Brimstone after finals, kept as a reminder. Twenty-three, and already tired o
f life.
Art was gazing at her reflection beside his, and his eyes flashed black when she melted her posture from annoyed to sultry. God, she hated this . . . but she was going to enjoy it, too. What the hell was wrong with her?
Pulling away from Art, she set her back casually against the wall and put one foot behind her, balancing it on a toe as they waited for the lift. “You’re a fool if you think I’m going to let an evaluation keep me in this crappy job,” she said, not caring if the people in earshot heard. They probably had a pool going as to where and when he’d break her skin.
Art moved with an affected slowness, eyes pupil-black. He knew he had her; this was foreplay. Her eyes closed when he placed the flat of his arm beside her head, leaning to whisper in her ear, “I like you following behind me, tying off my loose ends. Picking up my slack. Doing my—paperwork.”
He smelled like leaf ash, dusky and thick, and the scent went right to the primitive part of her brain and flicked a switch. Her breath caught, then came fast. She hesitated, then with a feeling of self-loathing she knew would fade and return like the sun, she breathed deeply, bringing his scent deep inside, coating her dislike for him with the sweet promise of blood ecstasy, silencing her desire to avoid him with the quick, bitter lust for blood. She knew what she was doing. She knew she would enjoy it. Sometimes, she wondered why she agonized over it. Kisten didn’t.
Letting his keys drop to the carpet with her coat and purse, she curled an arm around his neck and pulled him close, an inviting sound lifting through her, realigning her thoughts, shutting down her reasoning to protect her sanity. “What do you want to change my evaluation?”
She sensed more than saw his smile widen as she leaned forward. His earlobe was warm when she put her lips on it, sucking with just a hint of pressure from her teeth. He slid his fingers along her collarbone to rest atop her shoulder, easing his fingers under her shirt. Eyes closing at the growing warmth, her muscles tensed. He exhaled against her, a soft promise to bring her to life with an exquisite need, then satisfy it savagely.
The elevator dinged and slid open, but neither of them moved. Art breathed deeply when the doors closed, an almost subliminal growl that touched the pit of her soul. “Your paperwork is above reproach,” he said, his fingers moving to grip the back of her neck.
A jolt of blood-passion lit through her. Without thought, she jerked him forward into her, spinning them until Art’s back hit the wall where hers had been. Breath fast, she met his hunger-laced eyes with her own. She felt her jaw tighten and knew her eyes had dilated. Why had she put this off? It was going to be glorious. What did she care if she respected him? Like he respected her? Like any of them did?
“And my investigative skills are phenomenal,” she said, maneuvering a long leg between his and hooking her foot behind his shoe, tugging until their hips touched. Adrenaline zinged, promising more.
Art smiled, showing his longer canines that death had given him. Hers were short by comparison, but they were more than sharp enough to get the job done. Undead vamps loved them. She likened it to how a sexual pervert loved children. “True,” he said, “but your interpersonal skills suck.” His smile widened. “More accurately, you don’t.”
Ivy chuckled low, deep, and honestly. “I do my job, Artie.”
The vampire pushed from the elevator, and together they found the opposite wall. Ivy’s jaw clenched as he tried to physically manipulate her, making her feel as if she was moving on animal instinct. She had been putting this off so long that it might last all night if she let it.
“This isn’t about your job,” Art said, his fingers tracing the trails he wanted his lips to follow, but there was a strict policy against bloodletting in the tower. She could tease and flirt, drive him crazy, let him drive her to the brink, but no blood. Until later.
“It’s about putting your time in,” he continued, and Ivy shivered when his lips touched her neck. God help her, he’d found an old scar. Pulse hard and fast, she pushed him away and around again so he was between her and the wall. He let her do it.
“I am putting my time in.” Ivy put a hand to his shoulder and shoved him back. He hit the wall with a thump, black eyes glinting from behind his black curls. “What is my evaluation going to say, Mr. Artie?” She leaned into his neck, taking a fold of skin between her lips and tugging. Her eyes closed, and as her own bloodlust pulsed through her, she forgot that they were standing in the elevator hallway, deep underground, amid the hum of circulation fans and electric-lit black.
Art rode the feeling she knew she was instilling in him, letting it grow. He had been dead long enough to have gained the restraint to string the foreplay out to their limits. “You’re argumentative, closed, and refuse to work in a team environment,” he said, his voice husky.
“Oh . . .” She pouted, gripping the hair at the base of his scalp hard enough to hurt. “I’m not bad, Mr. Artie. I’m a good little girl . . . when properly motivated.”
Her voice had an artful lilt, playful yet domineering, and he responded with a low sound. The bound heat in it hit her, and her fingers released. She had found his limit.
He moved so quickly, she sensed more than saw the motion. His hand abruptly covered hers, forcing her fingers back among the black ringlets at his neck and making them close about them again. “Your evaluation is subjective,” he said, his eyes stopping her breath as time balanced. “I decide if you’re promoted. Piscary said you’d be a worthwhile hunt, pull me up in the I.S. hierarchy as you resisted, but that you’d give in and I’d have a better job and a taste of you.”
At that, Ivy paused, jealousy clouding her. Art was conceited enough to believe Piscary was giving her to him when the truth was Piscary was using Art to manipulate her. It was a compliment in a backward way, and she despised herself for loving Piscary all the more, craving the master vampire’s attention and favor even as she hated him for it.
“I am giving in,” she said, anger joining her bloodlust. It was a potent mix most vamps craved. And here she was, giving it to him. The only thing they liked more was the taste of fear.
But Art’s domineering smile surprised her. “No,” he admonished, using his undead strength to force her back to the elevators. Her back hit hard, and she inhaled to catch her breath. “It’s not that easy anymore,” he said. “Six months ago, you could have gotten away with a nip and a new scar I could brag about, but not now. I want to know why Piscary indulges you beyond belief the way he does. I want everything, Ivy. I want your blood and your body. Or you don’t move from that shitty little office without dragging me with you.”
Fear, unusual and shocking, trickled through her and gripped her heart. Art sensed it, and he sucked in air. “God yes,” he moaned, his fingers jerking in a spasm. “Give this to me . . .”
Ivy felt her face go cold, and she tried to push Art off her, failing. Blood she could give, but her blood and body both? She had flirted with insanity the year Piscary had called her to him, breaking her, lifting her to glorious heights of passion her young body could scarcely contain before dropping her soul to the basest of levels to pay for it, to make her kneel for more and do anything to please him. She knew it had been a studied manipulation, one practiced on her mother, and her grandmother, and her great-grandmother before that until he was so good at it that the victim wept for the abuse. But that didn’t stop her from wanting it.
True to his word, she got as good as she gave. And she almost killed herself from the highs and lows as Piscary carefully built within her an addiction to the euphoria of sharing blood, warping it, mixing it with her need for love and her craving for acceptance. He had molded her into a savagely passionate blood partner, rich in the exotic tastes that evolve in mixing the deeper emotions of love and guilt with something that, at its basest, was a savage act. That he had done it only to make her blood sweeter didn’t matter. It was who she was, and a guilty part of herself gloried in the abandonment she allowed herself there that she denied herself everywhere else.
She had survived by creating the lie that sharing blood was meaningless unless mixed with sex, whereupon it became a way to show someone you loved him or her. She knew that the two were so mixed up in her mind she couldn’t separate them, but she had always been in a position to choose who she would share herself with, avoiding the realization that her sanity hung on a lie. But now?
Her eyes fixed on Art’s black orbs, taking in his mocking satisfaction and checked bloodlust. He would be an exquisite rush, both beautiful and skilled. He would let her burn, make her weep for his pull upon her, and in return she would give him everything he craved to find and more—and she would wake alone and used, not cradled among sheltering arms that forgave her for her warped needs, even if that forgiveness was born in yet more manipulation.
Jaw clenching, she shoved Art away and moved to get her back from the wall. He fell back a step, surprised.
She did not want to do this. She had protected herself with the lie that blood was just blood, and had been prepared for the mental pain of whoring that much of herself. But Art wanted to mix blood with her body. It would touch too closely to the truth to keep the lie that held her intact. She couldn’t do it.
Art’s lust shifted to anger, an emotion that crossed into death where compassion couldn’t. “Why don’t you like me?” he questioned bitterly, jerking her to him. “I’m not enough?”
Ivy’s pulse hammered as they stood before the elevators, and she cursed herself for her lack of control. He was enough. He was more than enough to satisfy her hunger, but she had a soul to satisfy, too. “You have no ambition,” she whispered, instincts pulling her into his warmth even as her mind screamed no. Art’s jaw trembled, and his heady scent sang through her, starting a war within her. What if she couldn’t find a way past this? She had always been able to avoid a test between her instinct and willpower by walking away, but here that wasn’t an option.