Diana's Hound: Bloodhounds, Book 4

by Moira Rogers

  “The third.” She shifted, sliding off him and onto the bed. “The end of the new moon.”

  Nate twisted to curl around her, drawing her to his chest with one arm around her waist. “Is this how it usually feels?”

  Diana shook her head as she settled into the curve of his shoulder. “No. Everything about this has been different.”

  His mind should have fixated on the mystery of it, on the scientific anomalies, but he couldn’t think past satisfaction that she hadn’t shared this with anyone else. “Good.”

  She craned her head back and caught his gaze. “Nate, if this goes wrong…” The words hung in the air as she trailed off and shook her head again.

  “It won’t,” he said firmly, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Together, we’re a perfect team.”

  Diana sighed. “You make that so easy to believe.”

  “Because I’m old and wise.”

  “Oh yes? And what does that make me?”

  Closing his eyes, he smiled. “I’m too wise to answer that question.”

  “Smart man.”

  It might have been the first time in his life he’d ever heard those words in a feminine voice, wreathed with exasperated affection, and the crumbling wall around his heart dissolved into smoking rubble. He drifted toward sleep with the words I love you in his mind and heart, but not on his tongue.

  Not yet. Not until they came out the other side, safe and whole. He’d already decided which of them would assume the risk if things went badly, and he cared for Diana too much to leave her mourning another love.

  Chapter Eight

  Steaming water poured into the tub, but Diana still shivered. It took marble longer than copper to heat, and belatedly she wondered if that mattered to the usual occupants of the suite. Did vampires get cold? Did they run their bathwater too hot, hot enough to redden skin, just to drive away that chill for a little while?

  She’d never pondered those kinds of things before. She’d never cared to.

  Nate’s footsteps whispered behind her, near silent. The rattle of dishes on a tray was louder, and she didn’t need his murmured, “They brought coffee.” Not with the scent of high-quality beans, freshly ground. Nate settled himself on the bench next to the tub and smiled. “I don’t know where Jonah gets his supplies, but Ophelia would kill for coffee like this.”

  “Maybe he does,” she teased. “We don’t know what kinds of things go on here in Eternity, do we?”

  Nate snorted softly as he poured coffee into a mug for her. “It wouldn’t surprise me, at that, for all that he seems an almost decent sort. For a vampire.”

  “For a vampire.” One with a human consort—no, that didn’t seem to be quite the right word. “What about Iris? Is she his ward or his lover? I can’t tell.”

  “His ward, I think.” Once he’d handed over her coffee, Nate took his time with his own. “He doesn’t speak of her to me, and is quite deft at turning the conversation.”

  He didn’t seem the sort to accidentally betray anything he hadn’t meant to share. Diana leaned against the back of the tub and grimaced at the coolness of the surface. “My friend Grace used to be like that. Wild horses couldn’t drag out her secrets.”

  “But you were still friends.” Nate’s finger brushed her temple, then traced the shell of her ear. “It takes bravery and strength to care for someone who has closed herself away from others.”

  “It takes bullheadedness,” she corrected. “Sheer, dogged—sometimes ill-advised—obstinacy.”

  “You have that.” He swept his thumb down her throat with a smile. “I’m a lucky man.”

  Diana tilted her head back and closed her eyes. The madness of the new moon had receded, but her instantaneous, electric response to his touch lingered. “Nate.”

  “Am I a lucky man, Diana?”

  The careful question mirrored her turmoil so closely that her eyes snapped open to meet his. “I don’t want it to end,” she whispered. “But I wonder if it will once we’re back to our everyday lives.”

  “Maybe.” His gaze was shadowed. Unfathomable. “Maybe it should, for your sake. I can’t offer a woman much of a life while I’m trapped in the basement.”

  The words chilled her more than the cold tub. Goose bumps rose on her arms, and she rubbed them away. “Do you want to offer me one?”

  Nate withdrew his hand. “If I did, I wouldn’t be a man worthy of you.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Isn’t it?” He sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry. I’m out of sorts this morning. I spoke to Jonah when he brought the coffee. He’s arranged a meeting, one that may answer many of our questions.”

  Diana waited for the sting of rejection, but it didn’t come, just a curious numbness that gave her the detachment to sound almost calm. “The rogue hound?”

  “I believe so. The auctioneer said he had someone who wanted to verify the legitimacy of our claims. Another bloodhound would be able to sense what you are.”

  “Or a vampire who decided to risk a nibble.”

  Nate’s jaw tightened. “I made it clear that was not an option.”

  “Why not?” She reached for the fresh bar of French milled soap in the basket on the side of the tub. “I’m in favor of whatever gets us out of here in the most expedient manner.”

  The cup in Nate’s hand shattered, and he cursed as he rolled to his feet, spilling broken porcelain and hot coffee to the floor.

  Diana watched a shard from the cup float down through the bathwater, and the numb haze around her began to dissolve. “What did you expect, Nate? That you’d tell me what’s best for me, and I’d be fine with it?”

  “I didn’t—” He snapped his teeth together. “You said it yourself. This would likely end once we’re back to our ordinary lives.”

  “I said if.” She didn’t want to cry. Anything but that. “You said should.”

  Frowning, he swiped coffee from his vest. “No man who cared about you could be happy with the idea. You’d be tying yourself to a man hunted by the Guild and trapped between two lives. Perhaps I’m not pleased with how selfish I turned out to be.”

  “You’re not the only one in danger. If the Guild even knew I existed—” She clamped her mouth shut.

  His face hardened, firmed into a mask of resolve. “We won’t let them find out.”

  Of course he would default to that, without even listening to her. “My point is that both of our lives are dangerous, Nate. Not just yours.”

  “I suppose they are.” But she could tell by his eyes that he’d already shut down. “They’re particularly dangerous this morning. We have to be ready for anything at this meeting.”

  Then she’d best attire herself carefully. “Will we be checked for weapons?” She shook her head, frustrated with herself for her pain and distraction, for asking a stupid question. “No, it doesn’t matter if we are. A hound would know I wouldn’t come unarmed.”

  He nodded shortly and started for the exit, his back stiff and his gaze trained on the door. “I have several weapons you can wear discreetly. I’ll lay them out on the bed before I go to change.”

  Before I go. Her pain boiled up. She had no words to express it, no idea what she even wanted to say, so she threw the soap instead. It sailed over Nate’s shoulder, hit the gilt-edged wallpaper with a thump and skittered across the floor.

  Nate paused just shy of the door, his hand on the knob. “I assumed a bloodhound would have better aim.”

  “I wasn’t trying—” Her voice cracked, and Diana had to stop herself from hiding her face. “Get out.”

  “Diana—”

  “I swear to Christ, Nate, if you don’t get the hell out of here right now, I’ll…” She’d what? Scream? Hit him? Make herself look even more foolish by betraying how very much it hurt to have him walk away after the last three days?

  She couldn’t do any of it.

  He didn’t force her hand. He left without a word, gently pulling the door shut behind him.

 
; If ever a man had gone from sweet kisses to cold shoulders more quickly, Nate would be amazed. He’d always excelled at everything he attempted, but Nate had never planned to turn such skill to infuriating Diana, much less hurting her.

  That pain had been the real mistake, and he regretted it even more as she sat stiffly next to him in a gondola so gilded and adorned that Nate spared a thought to wondering how it managed to float at all.

  Seated across from them, Jonah seemed as unruffled as ever. Thick fabric formed a canopy over their heads and trailed into four walls that protected the vampire passengers from any hint of direct sunlight. It put the passengers at the mercy of the man rowing the boat, but Jonah seemed unbothered by that too. He sat, placid and calm, and Nate hated him just a little.

  Not enough to show it, though. “How much farther to the meeting place?”

  Jonah didn’t stir. “My man will tell us when our arrival is imminent.”

  There was no point in trying to mend fences with Diana while Jonah watched, so Nate turned his attention to the only thing he could—the job at hand. “If the worst happens…will we leave you and Iris in a precarious position by association?”

  The vampire straightened his coat sleeves. “On the contrary, I’m sure Iris and I can manage to be as baffled as everyone else.”

  At least a daylight meeting would give Nate and Diana a slim chance of escaping the city intact. Servants and ghouls would still present a problem, of course, but Diana could cut a path through a dozen of those, and with her blood still raging in his veins…

  Her blood. God, he’d taken too much of her, and now she damned him for not taking everything. What a nightmare.

  She shifted, her arms moving beneath her cloak—reaching for the reassuring hilts of her blades, that much of her he knew. The cloak and a meticulous coif were her only concessions to appearances; beneath the soft wool, she wore trousers, a leather corset and a man’s shirt. “Where are we—?”

  A shout and a splash carried through the canopy. A scream echoed over the canal, and something heavy dropped under the overhanging fabric. It thunked onto the bottom of the boat, rolled and settled at Jonah’s feet.

  A grenade.

  Jonah sprang up, but Diana dove for the floor, her cloak flying up behind her as she threw herself onto the clicking cylinder. Nate had only a heartbeat to consider that sound, but that frozen moment expanded into a lifetime. His brain called forth the shape of the silver container from memory, identifying the particular model popular with the Guild. Hell, he should know it well enough, considering that he’d been the one to refine the design—

  Click.

  So many things could fit in a bloodhound’s modified grenade. Sunlight wouldn’t harm her as much as the explosion would, but some grenades were laced with silver shrapnel, which would tear through her body as easily as a vampire’s.

  He started to reach for her, and time resumed its forward motion with a lurch. The grenade exploded, filling the small space with heat and a light that would have been blinding if not for Diana’s body and cloak blocking it. The boat rocked with the force of the explosion, pitching Nate hard against one of the carved columns supporting the canopy.

  The craft began to list to the side, bringing sunlight slicing between the curtains as the first hint of smoke reached him. Leaving Jonah to protect himself, Nate lunged for Diana, hauling back her cloak only to find flames.

  Fire licked over the wool, and acrid smoke billowed up, obscuring his vision. Diana slapped his hands away and snatched at the heavy fabric, ripping open the clasp at her throat. “Bloodhound,” she rasped. “I feel him.”

  Nate felt nothing but quickly building rage. Perhaps whatever parts of him were bloodhound were close to the surface, because being trapped beneath smothering fabric, blind to his enemy, was intolerable. “Can you swim?”

  Instead of answering, she shoved the one small revolver he’d been able to press on her into his hand and drew her knives. “Just get ready to shoot.” With that, she stabbed one blade into the side panel of the canopy and drew it down the length of the gondola in a high, vicious arc.

  The fabric folded down, and Jonah grabbed the smoldering cloak. “Will you be safe in the sunlight?” he asked Nate quickly.

  “Yes.” He checked the ammunition out of instinct, even though he’d loaded it himself. Modified silver rounds, the kind that would tear through vampire and hound alike. Making weapons had always been his calling.

  Now it was time to use them.

  The boat was on fire.

  Diana’s mind whirled as she swung up onto the front platform where Jonah’s driver had sat. Now, a messy spray of blood marred the polished wood, and the man was nowhere to be seen.

  A ghoul clawed up the side of the platform, and she kicked him square in his screaming face. Ghouls meant vampires, and the sudden possibility that the entire city could know who they were and want them dead almost made her whimper. But something else caught her gaze as the ghoul flailed and fell—a man on the stone walkway lining the canal, dressed in rough leather, his face uncovered, a crossbow in his hands. A crossbow much like the one Nate had tried to foist on her.

  Shit.

  He swung the bow her way, and she dropped with a curse as a wicked-looking bolt flew over her head. They were easy prey on the water, and Diana had to hope Nate and Jonah realized it.

  She had a bloodhound to kill.

  They began to pass under a low-hanging bridge. Diana grabbed the balustrade and used it to swing herself over to the walkway, landing with a roll. Another bolt whistled past her, far too close, and she drew her blades as she rose.

  The hound paused in reloading his bow, his eyebrows drawing together. “Well, fuck me. You’ve got tits.”

  “Charming observation.” She folded her knives back against her arms and edged closer.

  He didn’t seem concerned. If anything, the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. “So you’re what the traitors are trying to hide. Did one of them get lonely and pull out a rib?”

  “Once upon a time, a hound attacked me. I didn’t quite die.” She watched him carefully as she circled.

  “I don’t believe you,” he replied, pivoting to keep her in his field of vision as he lazily reloaded his weapon. “Hounds don’t run around attacking pretty ladies, and even if a mistake happened during the full moon, no one survives that. Not strong men in their prime, and sure as hell not a young woman.”

  True disbelief lined his frown, and despite his drawl, he moved with a brisk surety that spoke of business, not clandestine conspiracies. “You’re not a rogue,” Diana whispered. “The Guild sent you.”

  “A rogue?” He huffed and shook his head. “Is that what they’re telling you? Honey, my boss is higher up in the Guild than anyone west of the Mississippi. Maybe anyone west of Washington. You’re the rogue.”

  Past the bridge, Diana spotted Nate climbing out of the canal, dripping but quiet. All she had to do was turn the hound around a little more, and they’d have him boxed in.

  Perhaps she could keep him talking. “Don’t think you can pull rank. Ephraim Phillips trained me.”

  “Ephraim—” The hound bit off the name with a curse and lifted his crossbow again, all humor gone. “Someone’s taught you what to say, that’s for sure. But Phillips died decades before you were born, girl, and that’s a fucking fact.”

  Nate drew the modified revolver from inside his vest and pulled back the hammer. “Put down the crossbow, boy. And don’t think you can fire it before I kill you. I designed that model, and I know exactly how it works.”

  The hound froze. Diana lunged across the space between them and knocked the bow from his hands. It skidded across the stone and dropped over the side of the walkway, into the dark water. “Are you here alone, or did the Guild send others?” she demanded.

  “He mentioned a boss.” Nate’s voice was even. Cold. “I’ll have the name now, hound, or she’ll put you in the canal and I’ll find him myself. You’re too young to
hold any real influence.”

  The man’s jaw tightened. “Fuck you, vampire.” He spat the word.

  “Perhaps you need remedial training, if it escaped your notice that I’m not on fire.” Nate met Diana’s gaze, and she saw his frustration. Every moment they lost gave potential enemies more time to rally and decreased their chance of escape. “An important hound, is it?” he continued, his voice still sounding bored. “And you mentioned Washington, so who is it? Clements? Barton? Vance?”

  The hound blanched at the last name, chanced a quick glance back at Nate and swore. “I know your face. I’ve seen pictures.”

  “Eugene Vance,” Nate said flatly. “And what is the Senate’s adviser for military affairs doing in Eternity? Arranging secret auctions? Fundraising, maybe?”

  Whatever lunacy was occurring, the hound wasn’t part of it. Diana was sure of that, a certainty only confirmed by his expression—equal parts bewilderment and indignation. “He doesn’t know, Nate. He thinks they’re here for us.”

  Growling, Nate shifted his grip on the revolver and slammed the butt of it into the hound’s head hard enough to send him slumping to the cobblestones, unconscious. “If Eugene Vance is in Eternity, we need to leave. Now.”

  “How?”

  His gaze skimmed past her and lifted toward the sky. “Think you can get us to the dock?”

  She looked up long enough to catch a glimpse of the gray stone building with its rooftop dock, now heavily moored with ships. “I think—” A sound drew her attention back to the ground—the hustle and shuffle of clumsy feet—and she grabbed Nate’s arm. “We don’t have a choice. Ghouls.”

  “If I had my kit—” His expression tightened as he gripped the revolver again. “You’re the bloodhound, Diana. Get us to the ships, and I’ll do the rest.”

  If she’d thought the canals were narrow in this part of Eternity, it was nothing compared to the tiny, cluttered alleyways between the buildings. The water and the confined spaces made sounds echo strangely, so that even as Diana ran, she rounded each corner half-thinking she was about to come face-to-face with the shambling horde.