by Kresley Cole
He advanced on her until she backed up against the wall of a building. “Just a manwhore, huh?” They were in each other’s faces, her breaths smoking between them.
“That really bothers you?” They were fighting—she needed to stop glancing at his lips.
“Shouldn’t it?”
When his gaze dropped to her breasts, transfixed as she panted, she demanded, “What? What do you want from me?”
He faced her with his eyes narrowed, turning that fierce obsidian color. “The same thing I wanted this morning.” His voice grew husky. “To stop fighting with you and start kissing you.”
She swayed on her feet. He’d wanted that? “But you can’t.”
He shook his head. “I can’t smooth my fingers over the inside of your wrist.” With his gloved hand, he lifted her hair. “I can’t run my lips over your neck . . . or suckle your breasts. And it’s driving me mad.”
He eased his body even closer to hers, resting his forearms against the wall on either side of her head. His mouth was right at her ear as he asked, “Am I too close? Does this hurt you?”
She felt his erection press against her belly and choked back a moan. “No, no. . . . But how do I know you won’t bite me?”
“I won’t. I swear it.”
Just when she perceived his hips drawing back, and she knew he was about to thrust against her body, her ears twitched.
She shoved him away. “We’ve got company.”
Daniela had spotted something. “ Grab that one!” she cried, pointing in the direction of a garbage heap down the alley.
Murdoch spied a gray-haired gnomelike being with a miniature cane and traced forward like a shot. But the creature was fast, scurrying from him. It took several minutes of cat-and-mouse before Murdoch caught it by the collar, lifting it up.
The little thing had red cheeks and a kindly appearance, but looked terrified.
“That’s it!” Daniela called from a distance, hastening to catch up. “Now smack it around!”
He glanced back at her. “Smack it?”
Once she reached them, she jerked her chin at the gnome. When Murdoch turned back, it was twisting around to take a bite of his arm. Murdoch gave it a shake, and for the briefest instant, he thought he saw a reptilian-like visage flicker over its face. “Christ! What is this?”
“Can’t tell him, Lady Daniela?” it said. “He’s a Forbearer leech. But you might tell all if you became a vampire’s whore, like the Coveted One? How far you Valkyrie fall!”
Daniela strode forward and slapped it, stifling a wince at the contact.
The creature growled, then locked its eyes on Murdoch. “What are you doing with a cold bitch like this one?” it asked, becoming the first being to question why Murdoch was with her.
Now Murdoch cuffed it.
“Where is Ivo the Cruel, kobold?” Daniela asked.
Kobold? As Loa had spoken of.
“Why should I tell you?”
She lowered her voice, looking sinister when she said, “Because if you don’t, I’m going to freeze you solid, then chip away your flesh with your own little cane.”
The kobold swallowed. “I-I might have seen Ivo and Lothaire about earlier.”
“Where are they staying?”
When it hesitated, Murdoch gave it another violent shake.
“Outside the parish! In the bayou. Near Val Hall.”
“Near Val Hall?” Daniela repeated in amazement. “Have they no fear?”
“They’re different,” the kobold said. “You can’t fight them.” The same thing Deshazior had told them.
“How do you know this?” she asked.
“Heard it from a rat demon who heard it from one of the crocodilae shifters. That’s all I know—vow it to the Lore!”
“Toss him,” Daniela said. “Hard.”
Murdoch flung the kobold back into the garbage heap, and it skulked away with a gurgling hiss.
“Okay, vampire, you have plenty to go on now,” she said, still catching her breath from her earlier sprint. “Dawn’s only a couple of hours away, so I think this is where we . . .” She trailed off when she saw him frowning at her. “What?”
“Are you hot?”
“No, I’ll manage,” she said, but her skin was reddened, her face pinched.
He swallowed. “Daniela, your breaths aren’t smoking.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE VAMPIRE STARED DOWN AT HER WITH ALARMED EYES.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, but she was still hot from the night before and had exerted herself too much keeping up with Murdoch’s chase. “It’s . . . nothing.” If she could get back to the meat locker quickly enough. How many blocks is it to my car—
He grabbed her hand. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“You’ll see.”
Suddenly she was in a cold, dark room. He traced me? She’d never been traced when she was fully cognizant, and it made her dizzy, as if she’d just stepped off a pitching ship. She warily darted her eyes around them.
The heat and sounds of New Orleans were gone. She and the vampire now stood in what looked like an old-fashioned drawing room with sheet-draped furniture. Extensive marble floors conducted the chill until it seeped right into her bones. Delicious. “Where have you taken me?”
“A hunting lodge in Siberia.”
“Siberia?” The very word connoted cold and made her toes curl with pleasure. “Why?”
“You were getting hot.”
“It happens, you know. You didn’t have to trace me out of Louisiana.” She started toward one of the soaring windows, taking in details as she crossed the spacious interior.
She could tell that Murdoch wasn’t actively living here, but the lodge was clean and in good repair. It was also opulent, with gilt walls and moldings inlaid with gems. Elaborate wood carvings adorned the doorways and the great hearth.
This place was a time capsule, like a tsar’s hideaway preserved from hundreds of years ago. At the window, she gazed out, then inhaled sharply at the night scene.
“If you’d rather go . . .” he said from behind her.
Snow. Everywhere. Danii adored monochromatic landscapes, and here white fluff blanketed the grounds—as it should. “Is this property yours?”
“Yes, it’s one of my war spoils.”
Then this was a kindness, bringing her here. Maybe he’d been right before—maybe when it really counted, he came through. “There are so many trees,” she said. Copses around the lodge led to the dense forest beyond. They were all coated with ice, their branches ponderous with it.
“Larch trees,” he said. “One of the few kinds that will grow here.”
In front of the manor, a lake lay frozen and glazed, reflecting the blue aurora borealis above. Stunning. Without tearing her gaze away, she asked, “You’ve kept this since the war?”
“Surprisingly, there’s not a large market for Siberian hunting lodges. I know, I scarcely understand it myself.”
Her lips curled.
“My brothers and I divided anything we won. Nikolai needed no residence, because he would have Blachmount, the family manor. This property lay in the middle of nowhere, with lands all the way to the Arctic Ocean, yet the lodge was incongruously lavish. I wanted it,” he ended with a shrug.
“Why is it so lavish?”
“It belonged to a baron. He owned a nearby diamond mine.”
“Do you ever stay here?”
“Sometimes I come here to hunt in the winter,” he said. “Lots of game, since we’re at the edge of continuous permafrost. It stays frozen almost year-round, only thaws for a month or two in the summer.”
She could tell he was already feeling the cold, though as an immortal, he could withstand some seriously harsh elements. The temperature here was getting to her as well, invigorating her, even as she felt herself relaxing from the stresses of the night.
Here there was no threat from the Icere. Or the vampire. For hours, she’d been both attracted to him yet
fearful at the same time, but no longer.
He wouldn’t be able to bite her here. She’d be too powerful.
“I haven’t seen snow in decades.” Were those sideways icicles? Her heart sang—that meant some formidable storms blew here. “I can have ice, but never snow.”
“You could visit cold climes.”
“I’d almost rather not,” she said. “Since it would be too hard to return.”
“But now you can’t return. You were leaving New Orleans tonight for good, weren’t you?”
“My suitcases are in my car,” she admitted, her mind working. Murdoch had taken her to the vastness of Siberia, which spanned a third of the northern hemisphere. She couldn’t find a better place to disappear. Tracing vampires couldn’t be followed. There’d be no travel arrangements for Icere assassins to unearth. No airports where she might run into Sigmund’s spies.
And more, something about this place called to her. Breathing deeply of the crisp air, she said, “It’s so lovely here.” With the natural cold permeating every cell in her body, she felt better than she had in memory. She grew more confident, brazen even. At that moment, she decided that he didn’t appreciate his Siberian paradise as much as he should. She would do a far better job of treasuring it.
Danii would be staying.
Now she just had to convince him. Should she prove unmoving and intractable as a glacier? Or should she dazzle him like a rare frost flower?
When she faced him, the look in his eyes made her decision easy. His gray irises were flickering with black, his mien showing hints of that possessiveness she’d detected earlier this eve.
I’ll show him frigid. . . . “You know, vampire, nothing feels quite so decadent as snow against my bare skin,” she murmured, slipping off her satchel. “And ice can be a wicked pleasure. If I’m . . . naked.”
As she began unlacing her dress, he swallowed audibly. She could see his shaft thickening in his slacks. “You’re getting hard. But then, you don’t need me for that anymore.”
He drew closer to her. “Maybe I want you for it. I’m hard—for you.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you treated me so badly.”
Again, he denied nothing, just gave a sharp nod.
“But perhaps there’s a way you can make it up to me.”
“Let’s hear it.”
She tilted her head. “Murdoch, do you spook easily?”
“I haven’t been known to. . . .” He trailed off when she turned to the door, heading outside into the night, stripping as she went.
TWENTY-TWO
ALL THOUGHTS OF I LEAD AND WOMEN FOLLOW vanished when he tripped outside after her.
As her delighted laughter sounded in the distance, he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this much excitement.
Christ, when she’d begun removing her skimpy dress . . . exhilaration had spiked in him, not to mention arousal.
He was so very rarely surprised by women. Now he had no idea what she’d do next.
Soon he came upon her little boots, kicked off in the snow, and he gave a low groan. Will she strip completely? Each second, his shaft was getting hotter, even as the temperature dropped.
A dozen feet farther on, he saw her discarded dress. He scooped it up, bringing it to his face to inhale her cool scent. His heart— which had begun beating for her alone—was thundering.
When he reached her, she was lying back in a snowdrift, stretching with her arms above her head—in nothing more than a wisp of black silk panties. Her perfect breasts were uncovered, her nipples so stiff they looked like they ached.
His fingers went limp and he dropped her dress, hissing, “Almighty.”
She laughed anew at his reaction. Not surprisingly, she had a musical laugh.
His jaw clenched. Where’s my control now? Seconds before, he’d found himself thinking, I’d follow her anywhere. “No compunction about being stripped in front of me?”
“Never. Besides, you’ve seen every inch of me.” She seemed drunk from the snow, shoveling her fingers through it, bringing handfuls up to her lips to kiss.
He turned away from her, disconcerted by how much she affected him, by how her laughter seemed to make something twist in his chest. Determined not to even glance at her until he regained some equilibrium, he sat back against a frost-coated tree trunk.
“You’re angry with me, vampire?” She was walking on her knees toward him.
Don’t look at her. His hands were fists by his sides. “Not angry.” Bloody confused, exasperated. “No, I’m—” He broke off when she was kneeling inches before him. In a strangled voice, he said, “What the hell is happening to you?”
Here in the cold, her appearance had begun to change. She was transforming.
Her hair had become laced with ice and lighter in color, so blond it was almost white. Shining tendrils were frozen in long streams, descending to cover her breasts or spreading out from her head as though whipped in the wind.
Her lashes were tipped with ice crystals, and more crystals formed semicircles around her eyes. Her lips were pale, bluish even, and were parted, but no smoke came from her breaths. Because they were freezing as well.
Delicate cobalt blue tracings swirled around her wrists in wispy patterns. Her eyes were bright beneath the aurora, a fiery blue matching that in the sky. They burned with an ancient knowledge.
Everything about this moment with her should feel foreign. But it . . . didn’t. I’ve dreamed of this. Would she think him mad if he told her he’d seen her like this in a vision?
He’d been hard for her before, but now he was throbbing. These changes attracted him fiercely. He feared he could go off right in his pants. No, I never lose control.
Keep telling yourself that, Murdoch.
“You like?” she murmured.
“What is this?”
“This is how I’m supposed to look. And how I’m supposed to feel.”
The cold clearly aroused her. His greedy gaze took in her shallow breaths, her trembling lithe body. Her little claws had turned blue and were curling sharply.
I know what that means now. At the thought of her sinking those claws into his back as he plunged inside her, he had to stifle a groan.
Behind her, lightning speared through the aurora. “The lightning is yours.” He was surprised his voice was steady. Her gaze was mesmerizing.
She nodded. “Valkyrie give it off with emotion.”
“I dreamed of you like this, Daniela.” Connection.
When she cast him a doubting expression, he said, “Don’t believe me? Those lines of blue trace along your lower back as well.”
Her eyes widened. “What else did you dream?”
“I took your virginity,” he blurted out.
She shivered. “And how did I react?”
“You wanted me to. You wanted . . . me.” You let me take your neck. His eyes fixed on her supple flesh, and his fangs ached for her. He raked his tongue along one of them for a shot of blood, pretended it was hers.
“Come closer, vampire.”
In a flash, he was up on his knees before her.
Without removing his coat, she began unbuttoning the shirt underneath, spreading the edges. “Will you be too cold?”
“I can take it.”
Once his chest was bared, she drew closer until her lips were less than an inch away from him. She eased down his torso like this, her breaths like little bites of frost, as if she were running an ice cube along his skin. He shivered—but not from cold.
As she made her way back up, she said, “Murdoch?”
“Uh?” was all he could manage.
She leaned up to whisper right at his ear, “You’re going to let me stay in this place.” When she nipped his earlobe with her teeth, his cock jerked in his pants, his sac tightening.
Wait, what had she just said?
She moved to his other ear. “Would you like to do that?” she breathed, making him shudder with want. “I’m
going to install myself—a female—in one of your properties. And I’m going to decorate it as I see fit.”
Can’t . . . form . . . words.
“You want me to, don’t you?” She slowly gazed up, looking at him from under a lock of shining, icy hair. She nibbled her plump lip, and he was finished, defeated. He watched, bewildered, as his gloved fingertips traced the crystals at her temple.
“Yes.” I can’t believe I’m saying this. “You can stay.” He’d always wanted to discard females—not move them into his home.
He was dimly aware that the seducer was being seduced. The player had just gotten played.
Yet he was still in the game. “You’ll stay here. But first we need to seal this deal, Valkyrie. And I know just how.”
“Oh?”
He took out the gloves Loa had given him. “Put these on.”
TWENTY-THREE
HE BOUGHT ME GLOVES? “What did you have in mind?” Danii asked as she gamely drew them on. For the first time in ages, she felt powerful. The ability to bring this massive warrior to his knees was heady.
“You’ll see.” His voice was rough with need, his expression one of single-minded intent.
With each second, she grew more aroused for him. Yet then the wind came up, and the snow-covered limbs raked the drafts. They soughed like music, like secrets. The sounds, the scents, teased her. Something within the dark depths of that cold beckoned. . . .
“Daniela?”
Murdoch competed with the pull. She faced him once more, gazing up into eyes grown black with desire.
Anticipation. Danii felt it, was getting caught up in it.
When he took a lock of her hair and used a curl to stroke her nipple, she gave a cry and arched her back. The cold amplified every whisper of touch—she needed more. “Put your hands on me, vampire.”
He groaned, covering both of her breasts with his gloved palms, molding them, cupping as she panted. With a master’s skill, he tormented the tips, puckering one, then the other. Once he’d made them throb, he placed a hand flat against her chest, pressing her back.
As she stretched out in the snow, he curled his fingers in her panties, dragging them from her. Yet then he merely gazed over her naked body for long moments, his shaft bulging.