He paused a moment outside the hotel’s revolving door, had to give the appearance of sobriety. He couldn’t let the d’Argent pup see and capitalize on his present weakness. Squaring his shoulders, Louis stepped forward, grasped the handrail. Still trying to feign sobriety, he stared at a dark-haired young man wearing jeans and a dark sweater as they passed through the revolving door.
Through the haze of alcohol, he searched his memory. There was something familiar . . . yes, that was it. The eyes. Clear, green. Not cool, but smoldering with emerald fire. D’Argent eyes. This must be another of the Young Ones. It wasn’t Alexandre, the reckless youth who’d challenged him in a vampire bar in Argentina, apparently under the illusion that silver bullets would have done him in. And it wasn’t Stefan, who’d staked him the other night in Atlanta and would have destroyed him if not for his terrible aim. Louis strained his seriously impaired memory for a name. Claude. Youngest son of Alain, founder of the d’Argent clan. He’d been in Buenos Aires with Alexandre, had spirited that one away before Louis could finish him off.
Bumbling fools, every one of them. They’d been chasing him halfway around the world, but he kept outsmarting them. “You won’t get me, y’know.” The words came out slurred, even to Louis’s own ears. “I’m Reynard. The wily fox.”
The young vampire’s steady gaze seared Louis’s back as he stumbled toward the elevator. Bile rose in his throat, the taste of fear. In his present state, he’d be no match for even the youngest and weakest of the d’Argents. Nausea rose, threatened to spill from his lips. He couldn’t fight, so he darted from the hotel through a handy fire door.
He allowed a moment’s regret for the comfortable bed he’d been anticipating but decided it was prudent to disappear for now, in case his shadow decided to challenge him.
Chapter Four
“What?” Stefan sat up on the sofa in Julie’s living room, his ears still ringing from the shrill bell on his cell phone when Claude began to talk, his speech broken up by hard breathing, as though he were a human who’d just run in a marathon. “You say Reynard came back to the hotel and then left again?”
“Yes. I lost him somewhere between the hotel and the south entrance to Lincoln Park. Thought you’d want to know. Sorry about the cell. I’m still not great at initiating mind-to-mind contact.”
“Thanks.” What time was it? Stefan glanced out the window, saw dawn had not yet broken. Streetlights cast eerie shadows on the tree-lined boulevard. From a distance away came a rumble from a passing commuter train. Otherwise all was quiet. “Did you say Reynard was drunk?”
“Looked like it to me. When he came into the hotel, he was staggering all over the place. Must’ve fed on somebody who had just tied one on.” Claude paused, as though considering the scene. “I guess he must have recognized me just as he was about to go into the elevators, because he ducked out an emergency exit. I should have been quicker. I might have been able to tail him.”
“You’re not the only one who has let the bastard slip through your hands.” Stefan bitterly recalled their struggle in Atlanta. No matter. His mission had been—still was—to keep Julie safe. “Come meet me outside Julie’s house. I want you to guard her for a little while. After I return, you can go on back to the hotel, get a room and rest up. Reynard will return once he’s recovered. I’ll need you in fighting shape later.”
After he hung up, he moved quietly, opened Julie’s bedroom door and looked in on her sleeping form. Though he’d have given a hundred years of life to get Reynard in his clutches, Alina was right. The key to defeating the wily vampire was protecting Julie. By doing so, they could catch their prey unaware when he went on the attack.
Wherever the bastard was now, chances were he’d be sleeping off his indirect overindulgence. Pity Stefan couldn’t read Reynard’s mind when he was asleep. Disappointed that he couldn’t locate and destroy the killer in his weakened state, Stefan at least was reassured that for the time being Julie was safe. He dressed, pocketed the key to the patio door and let himself outside. He wouldn’t be gone more than an hour at most, would be back long before Reynard could have slept off his drunk. Not wanting to leave Julie for a moment longer than necessary, Stefan walked briskly toward Lincoln Park. He’d feed and then return before Julie awakened.
There was Claude, his face visible among the sparse leaves on a shrub across the street. “Where are you going?” he whispered.
“To feed.”
“Thought you just came back from Paris.”
Stefan grimaced. “I did.”
“Let Julie get to you, did you? She is one hot mortal chick.” Claude’s fangs gleamed in the moonlight when he grinned.
Smart-mouth seventy-five-year-old kid. But Claude was right. Julie was so hot, she’d gotten his usually cool blood to bubbling in his veins. That had caused him to burn off energy—energy he needed intact to confront Reynard. “For a newlywed, you’re awfully observant of other women.”
“Marisa won’t mind if I look. And I’ll lay odds you’d fight me if I wanted to touch.”
“You’d be right about that.” Stefan shouldn’t have let himself become so aroused. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be famished now, desperate to find a likely source of nourishment. Chicago’s Gold Coast apparently had no vampire bars. None he’d been able to find, anyway, and he’d looked all along Rush Street yesterday. Jazz and blues bands had warred with each other in crowded clubs, where all they served was beer and liquor—and solid food of every imaginable description. Mortals’ nourishment.
Too bad Stefan wasn’t all that familiar with Chicago. And that he hadn’t been able to think of a fellow clansman who was, at least not quickly enough to dope out area food sources. Too bad that, unlike humans, vampires didn’t compile and share useful information—such as where, in a strange city, to find nourishment without resorting to feeding direct from the source.
Stefan visualized a vampire database—a travelogue of sorts. Perhaps at some point he’d put one together and share it on the Internet. No, of course he wouldn’t. Neither would any other vampire, as long as there remained a strong likelihood that such a list might be obtained and used by people who thought all vampires ought to be eradicated.
Only two days ago, Stefan had drunk his fill. Now he had to feed again, and he dared not leave Louis unwatched for as long as it would take him to return to Paris and Les Sang des Rosiers. He dared not even leave his prey long enough to search more of Chicago for a bar that catered to his kind. Not now, when he felt certain Louis intended to strike again in four short days.
“Claude, you’re certain you smelled alcohol as well as blood on Reynard?”
“Positive.” The younger vampire shook his head. “I told you he could barely walk. Thought for sure I had him until he disappeared right before my eyes.”
“It’s all right. We’ll get him. Meanwhile, I want you to stay here and watch Julie’s house while I’m gone. Call me if she goes out or anyone tries to go in.” With that, Stefan took off for the park, jogging easily in the pale light of dawn.
Reynard must have found an unsuspecting drunk in an alley somewhere and drained his victim dry. Stefan shuddered. When he imagined his adversary awakening many hours from now with the hangover from hell, though, he felt a fiendish sense of satisfaction.
He tipped his baseball cap to a pair of Chicago cops making early morning rounds through the park. A couple of early morning joggers passed him, sweat already soaking the lightweight T-shirts and shorts they wore. Perhaps he could delay, find a vampire bar somewhere . . .
No. He loathed the mere idea of feeding from a mortal, but he had to keep up his strength. Stefan pictured Julie, so beautiful, so vulnerable, as she’d been when he looked in on her moments earlier. She was depending on him. For Julie—and for Alina—he could do this.
He’d wait until he encountered a lone jogger in an area where there would be no witnesses or unexpected visits from the patrolling officers. No need to attract undue attention. Winding pathways snaked o
ff either side of the park’s main jogging path, some shaded by ancient elms, others open to the sun. Stefan chose a narrow jogging trail curtained by the lush spring growth of bright green elm leaves, set himself an easy pace, just another jogger doing his morning route. He spied his prey, though he winced at the thought. A male. Young and healthy-looking, a fellow runner.
Stefan delved easily into his potential victim’s mind. And saw hunger. The mortal was fantasizing about a huge, succulent breakfast, the kind of meal Stefan had observed that many American mortals favored—stacks of bacon, fried eggs and a huge pile of pancakes garnished with glistening, sticky syrup. The other man’s thoughts weren’t all that different from Stefan’s, except that he was anticipating having a small, quick feed on the other man’s blood.
Salivating, yet hating the necessity of doing this, Stefan again wished desperately for a vampire bar, a blood bank, any source of blood that would allow him to satiate his hunger without sinking his fangs into the throat of an unsuspecting human. Perhaps Alina had been right. He had become too fastidious. Too accustomed to the rites of civilization to feel comfortable drinking from the bottle, so to speak.
This time, preying on a victim could not be helped. Stefan increased his pace, overtook the jogger and moved easily along beside him until he spied a shaded bench. He made eye contact, giving a gentle push to the man’s mind so he’d overlook the abruptness of the suggestion and the fact that his own jeans and shirt were hardly typical jogging attire. “Want to take a few minutes’ break?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Stefan’s companion favored him with a grin that turned his blood cold. Fuck, he’d inadvertently hit on a guy with a taste for men. For him, he surmised from the glittery look in the mortal’s eyes. Not that Stefan had anything against gay men—he had a couple of gay vampire buddies back in Paris—but that wasn’t his taste at all. He couldn’t help noticing that the man’s pale blue eyes almost matched the jogging suit he had on.
Hunger warred with a reluctance to have such intimate contact with another male, vampire or mortal. Hunger won. Matching his victim’s smile with a wide one of his own, Stefan joined him on the concrete park bench and slipped an arm around the mortal’s broad, muscular shoulders.
The man laid a hand on Stefan’s thigh, too close to his crotch for comfort. “My name’s Keith.”
“Stefan.” Keith was having visions of them both naked, Stefan bending him over the bench, his hand stroking Keith’s spine, down toward his ass. Now he was imagining Stefan dropping his pants, putting on a lubricated condom . . .
Deliberately, Stefan shut down his reading of Keith’s mind. Some of the man’s thoughts he’d rather not know. Keith would have no memory of this encounter once it was over. Because Stefan would remember, he wanted to make the memory short and sweet. “Come closer. I want to taste you.”
Some of that same wave that drove Keith came over Stefan, affected him, reminded him of the sensual pleasure of feeding on warm human blood. He’d almost forgotten, had made himself forget that surge of erotic pleasure, the ability feeding gave to feel the soul and essence, the beauty, of one’s victim . . . one’s mate. Julie. No. Not Julie, but a stranger chosen only to quench a desperate thirst.
Keith moved with unseeming haste to accommodate him, and as Stefan zeroed in on a pulsating vein in Keith’s throat, he felt a hand move in to fondle his genitals through the rough denim fabric of his jeans. It felt weird—but surprisingly arousing. For the first time in his four hundred fifty-some-odd years of life, Stefan was getting aroused by another male.
You don’t want this. You want to feed, not to enjoy it. Remember, it’s your own fault you’re out here feeding on a mortal. If you’d fought the arousal last night, blocked out those lusty thoughts about the woman you’re here to protect, you could have gone at least another week without feeding.
A small voice in Stefan’s head reminded him that his victim deserved a climax, so he splayed one hand over Keith’s broad chest and scissored his fingers over a nipple. When Keith moaned with apparent pleasure and squeezed Stefan’s cock a little harder, he slid his hand lower and returned the favor through the other man’s soft exercise pants.
He caught his index finger in a ring that protruded from the end of Keith’s rigid flesh. Damn. Having that thick, heavy ring inserted through the head of his penis must have hurt like hell. Stefan couldn’t help admiring Keith for having endured what he himself couldn’t imagine doing solely to adorn his sex. He caught the ring in the material and gave it a little tug before he resumed stroking the distended flesh it decorated.
Stefan breathed in the fishy air off Lake Michigan then sank his fangs into the pulsating vein in his victim’s neck. The sensuality of feeding this way after so many years nearly overcame him. He had to take care. Mindful of the danger of gorging himself—danger to his victim, not himself—he drank moderately, trying to squelch the sexual high that threatened to make him hard as stone beneath his victim’s searching hand. As he lifted his lips from Keith’s throat, he felt Keith’s hand go limp, fall away.
Gently, for Stefan had no wish to hurt the mortal who’d just fed him, he laid Keith out on the bench, hands folded over his chest. When the man awakened in a few minutes, Stefan would be long gone. The only souvenir Keith would have of their encounter would be two faint, pink fang marks. Stefan doubted he’d even notice them, though Keith undoubtedly would notice the semen stain on his jogging pants and wonder what manner of fun he’d missed out on.
Though it was too early for Julie to be rising, Stefan headed back to her. The eagerness with which he was looking forward to being in her company again told him that, unfortunately, this might not be his last early morning foray into the park.
Chapter Five
Stefan could barely wait to see Julie again. Every cell in his body ached at the prospect of seducing her. Before he rounded the corner, he spied Claude. His young helper still stood right where Stefan had left him, concealed better now behind a full evergreen shrub.
“Not a sign of Reynard. Or anybody else for that matter. Julie’s still in bed, sound asleep,” Claude reported, his expression earnest.
“That’s good. Thanks for keeping watch,” Stefan commented. “Go on back to the hotel, call your bride and then get some sleep.”
Claude shook his head, dropped his gaze for a moment to stare at his feet. “Okay. Will do. It’s almost morning anyhow. And late enough that Marisa should be stirring. It’s only been a day, and already I miss her.”
“Young love.” Though the words came out lightly, Stefan couldn’t manage to stifle the momentary twinge of envy that Claude had found—and turned—his mortal lover at the tender age of seventy-five, while he was still alone at six times Claude’s age. “Go on. Call her. I know you must be pining away.”
Stefan parted ways with Claude and slid inside through Julie’s patio door. Stretching out on the sofa, he tried to summon Alex telepathically. Stefan located him with no difficulty, but it soon became evident Alex was too involved to zero in on Stefan’s brain waves.
He might have known his cousin would be chasing some hot young female around the Marais district of Paris. He’d most likely headed there the moment his mother had agreed to let him out of bed, if for no other reason than to use his legendary prowess with women to prove himself fit. He’d be chafing at the bit to get Alina’s permission to leave Paris, come to Chicago and return to the hunt.
Stefan couldn’t blame him. Sometimes with Claude’s assistance, Alexandre had tracked Louis from Melbourne to Buenos Aires with several stops in between. Even if he hadn’t tangled with Reynard and taken a vicious beating in the process, he’d still have needed a break. Stefan imagined Alex was ready for some release of pent-up sexual energy. When he’d been Alex’s age, Stefan had indulged his raging libido at every opportunity until the day he’d destroyed Tina with his unbridled lust.
The way he now feared he’d do with Julie unless he held himself in check. No, he wasn’t the impul
sive boy he’d been with Tina. He could skim his hands over Julie’s warm, satiny flesh. He could arouse her, seduce her, taste her sensuous juices and claim her—without giving in to the temptation to sink his fangs into the slowly pulsating vein at her throat and take more.
The hell he could.
But he had to.
He had to save her from himself as well as Louis. Had to keep in mind her mortality, her vulnerability to the most base of his desires. No matter how difficult it would be—and he imagined it would be practically impossible—he had to restrain himself from tasting her sweetness, mingling her mortal blood with his own.
Because with her, he sensed he wouldn’t be able to stop with just a sip.
Stefan closed his eyes, but sleep eluded him. Restless, yet too exhausted to attempt mind-to-mind communication again at the moment, he fished his cell phone from his valise and put in a call to Alina. “I need Alex here. Claude’s doing well—very well considering he’s had so little experience at the hunt. But we’re going to need our best if we’re to put an end to the Fox. That’s Alexandre. If he’s well enough.”
Alina sighed. “Alex has escaped his sickbed. At the moment, he’s thoroughly enjoying his R&R. My spies tell me he’s holed up with a dhampir stripper named Madeleine. You may know her.”
Stefan did. The stripper’s best-known attribute was an ability to give head that was unsurpassed by any other woman in the pleasure palaces of Paris. “Hope she doesn’t sink those fangs of hers too deep in our cousin’s flesh.” He’d never had any particular desire to let a vampire lover feed on that part of his anatomy. True, he healed quickly, like all of his kind. Still, the idea of having sharp objects buried in the sensitive flesh of his penis made him cringe.
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