That sobering reality was just enough to snap me out of the dream into which I had fallen. I realized I had been holding Veronica’s face as a scholar might hold a sacred relic. Interestingly, she had let me, though the fist persisted at her side. Would she fight if we gave her cause? The prospect of putting her body through its paces threatened to pull me away into fantasy.
“If you aren’t going to be forthcoming with me, I will be on my way,” she said as Seth started to walk away in the direction of the house. Veronica watched him leave, and a hot spike of jealousy rammed into my chest. I grasped her chin and turned her face back to me. “Don’t look at the jester in the presence of his king,” I advised her curtly.
Heedless of my words and shoving my hand away, she said, “Who is that?” Her eyes flicked in Logan’s general direction. “And that?”
“If you’re a good girl, you might find out.” The tide of my emotions rose so sharply and unexpectedly that I struggled to contain them.
“And watch who you’re manhandling, clanmaster.” If my tone had been short, hers was as thin and taut as piano wire. “I promise you are underestimating me.”
“Rich words from a woman who refuses to prove it,” I answered quietly.
Her fear was momentarily overshadowed by anger and heat. She was angry too, and curious. Her desires were far less bold than mine, but they were rooted and growing.
I didn’t want to turn her loose. It crossed my mind that the cellar was newly vacated of its unfortunate last tenant. She could take up residence there just as easily. The most immediate and complex problem was whether or not she could be convinced to stay put.
And if she was down there, I could count on being driven to distraction every minute by the physical craving gnawing at my insides. It was useless to deny that she held a strange and unforgiving power over me, just by virtue of being a woman capable of catching and holding my attention. My desire was to spend every moment with her, picking her apart, deciphering how and why she’d managed to take up residence in my mind so quickly. And then I ached to devour her until there was no doubt left that she belonged to me.
All of which made Veronica an incredible liability. Though it pained me to admit, there was no way in hell to bring her to the house without compromising everything.
Veronica stepped farther away and looked at me, saying, “Listen, Orion. As much as I appreciate this oh so magnanimous gesture, let’s get one thing straight, okay? I don’t owe you for this, no matter how much you want me to. You made your choice to not hurt me. Now we’re both going to have to deal with the consequences.”
The grain of truth in her words stung a little. Precious little had stopped me from flinging her over my shoulder and locking her in the cellar, but I was allowing her to roam free. Maybe it was because I knew in my soul that she wouldn’t wander far, that she’d keep returning of her own accord. Even then, perhaps I sensed that the fascination was mutual.
Also, it certainly helped that she wanted to destroy me. I chose not to tell her what a vain aspiration it was. The long span of my life had thus far been marred by countless dangers. One beautiful and eminently fragile human girl posed no threat.
In order to make sure she knew it, I closed the distance she’d put between us and locked an arm around her waist. Her hands braced against my chest to no avail. This time, I leaned down so close that my lips brushed her skin under her earlobe. “I’m not a man to whom consequences normally apply.”
A beat of silence passed. Then she faced me, mere inches away. “We both know you aren’t a man at all.”
I released her like a falconer releases his bird, pushing her off into the waiting embrace of the forest. Veronica hesitated for a fraction of an instant. Her gaze flickered between me and Logan. Then she was gone, her hair a flash among the shadows.
Goodbye for now, Veronica, I thought. For now…but not forever.
Chapter 9
Veronica
I spent hours in a barely contained rage after finally making it back to the hotel. The floor creaked under my feet as I paced around the suite in my socks, too worked up to sleep or even shower. Every word that sleaze Orion had said stuck in my brain. I wanted to scrub at my skin until I could no longer feel the unnatural coolness of his fingers on my neck.
“Who the fuck does he think he is?” I demanded out loud. Of course it was a rhetorical question, and unfortunately, his concept of self-lined up pretty well with his actual status. As clanmaster in Anchorage, his word was pretty much law, as far as the vamps in his clan were concerned. The master said to jump, they asked how high. No doubt he had a legion of henchmen at his beck and call. All he had to do was distribute my face to the troops, and I was doomed to have a very bad time.
It had to be a game to him, a muscle he flexed to try and make a fool out of me, and I hated him for it. I hated the way he so obviously viewed me as prey, and the way he had stared as if he was already entitled to the kill. The memory alone made me shudder.
But most of all, I hated my body’s reaction to his presence. Orion was not someone who should have held any appeal for me at all, and yet…some hidden magnetism drew me toward his clutches. I thought I’d done pretty well holding my own this last time, but the potential of the future scared me. What if my resolve weakened for an instant?
He’d gotten so damn close. If I closed my eyes, he might as well have been standing right beside me, his presence lingered so strongly. I’d never met a vamp like him, though I had certainly been warned about the old ones, the ones who seemed able to bend the human psyche to their will. Maybe Orion was used to hapless mortal women falling all over him in the blink of an eye.
Then there were his two accomplices. One with black wings, and the other with smoke wafting from the corners of his mouth and nose. Those two weren’t vampires, though what exactly they were, I wasn’t too sure yet. Demons? Why was Orion with them anyway and not with more of his own kind?
The next couple of days that followed our accidental rendezvous down by the inlet shore were full of me buckling down on my resolve to get to the bottom of the rash of violent crime Lian called me about. The desk in my room disappeared beneath pages of notes I compiled of my findings, complete with drawings, charts, and diagrams. I listed every conceivable reason I could think of as to why a vampire from Seattle might have been found dead so far from home.
Still, despite my best efforts to explore every angle, there were pieces missing. I just didn’t know enough about the way the region had developed in the years since I had last been local. I certainly didn’t remember such a robust supernatural presence. Then again, I had a lot of other things to think about.
But I did know someone who was more than happy to fill in the blanks. Lian’s huge, rambling house began to feel more and more like home again with each visit. We always ended up on the long, overstuffed sofa in the den, covered up by blankets, flames crackling in the fireplace. It was kind of strange to be sitting there all cozy, eating fresh baked goods and drinking from steaming mugs of coffee or hot chocolate while we discussed everything hiding in the city’s darkest shadows.
“I’m not sure when it started, exactly.” Lian sat cross-legged on the sofa, cradling her mug in her lap. She frowned, thinking. “A year ago, or maybe eighteen months. I was helping Dad with the books, and I started to notice all these new names on the payroll. I mean, like a dozen at a time. So I asked him about it and he told me there was an influx of transplants looking for work.”