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A thirty-something Hispanic man with thick black hair cut short above his ears held a sign reading Melbourne. He was shorter than Kit, but so muscular in the torso it gave him the impression of being wider than he was tall. Four or five wiry hairs perched on his upper lip, making up in attitude what they lacked in volume.
“Dayrunner Melbourne?” he asked, already letting the sign fall. When she nodded, he continued. “I am Dayrunner Rivera. They were right. You look like him. You could be his sister.”
“How kind of you to meet me at the airport,” she replied, to imply she was honored that Red Rock’s Guild Leader sent his own Dayrunner rather than a mere flunky, although they both knew that Red Rock was small enough that its Guild Leader probably didn’t have much in the way of flunkies.
“El Patron has asked me to show you every courtesy. Do you need anything before we leave Phoenix? Red Rock doesn’t have big city luxuries.” Dayrunner Rivera reached forward to take her bags.
Kit was tired and didn’t want to offend his masculinity, so she handed the heaviest one over. “All I need is information, but that can wait until we are in the car. Do you have a driver?”
“A driver?” Dayrunner Rivera turned to her and slowed his walk. “No. I don’t have a driver.”
“Great. I don’t know how your boss is, but mine is a stickler for privacy. Loose lips sink ships and all that.”
He smiled politely and led her to the parking garage. The heat hit her like a blast from an oven door. Dayrunner Rivera kept his suit jacket on all the way to the car, but Kit shucked hers immediately and fanned herself with her itinerary printout. Her silk blouse was soaked in sweat by the time they put the luggage in the trunk, and it still wasn’t dry by the time they got on the freeway north, despite the fact that she turned the air conditioner on and redirected the vents towards herself.
“You said you had questions, Dayrunner Melbourne?” Dayrunner Rivera had the annoying habit of staring at the passenger when he talked. Kit looked out the window at the gravel and concrete slopes lining the freeway, hoping he’d take the hint and concentrate on his driving.
“My first question was how to address El Patron. Sometimes these things are very important, especially with the older vampires.”
“You may address him as ‘sir.’ In fact, our Marshal will insist upon it.”
“And the others? Do you address one another by last name as well?”
“Yes, Melbourne, or can I call you Kit?”
“I’d prefer to keep this formal if you don’t mind, Rivera.”
He nodded, nearly missed his turnoff, and drove over the gore point to make it to the exit ramp. Kit tried not to clutch the seat too much. She had been spoiled by her husband’s cautious-daddy driving.
They passed through suburbs, through desert, more desert, and then back into a city. Red Rock was growing. A handful of buildings shimmered in the heat, and a crisscross of new roads scarred the sun-flogged mesa. Housing starts sprung up even here beyond the city’s edge, some complete with rolled sod and ‘now leasing’ flags, others with stacks of HOA approved tiles stacked neatly on roofs, awaiting crepuscular contractors.
“The last time I was here, this was just a little mining town,” she said.
It had been a slag heap, really, with boarded up warehouses and sullen teens waiting to leave for a city with more than a couple night spots. A few years ago, only a handful of touristy rock shops and an annual new age convention brought in outsiders. Lesser known than mystical Sedona, and lacking Flagstaff’s university, Red Rock’s only influx of residents had come from poorer retirees who cared for neither a night life nor cold weather. Kit noted the skeleton of a modern new office plex ahead. “Now it looks like a place that expects to grow big in a hurry.”
“It will,” Rivera asserted. “The county decided to grant huge tax breaks in an effort to get new business. Execorp and Fidesun Financial were the first, and I hear two more are coming as well. We’re on our way to becoming a company banking town. This is going to be a good place to be in a few years.”
“But not yet.”
“No.”
“What’s the population here?”
Rivera screwed his mouth shut and watched the road, like a man unwilling to air his family’s dirty laundry. “Less than five thousand.”
“For almost twenty vampires.” She tsked as she did the calculations. “Very top heavy.”
“More than this town can find hosts for. Don’t you webfoots realize what we’re up against down here?”
“Webfoots?”
“That’s—”
“Oh, I get it. Webbed feet, because it rains so much up in Seabingen. That’s very clever.” She should tell Holzhausen about the resentment. “But tell me about the rogues.”
“Steel Fang’s clan.”
“Steel Fang? What kind of a name is that?”
“A pretty stupid one. Feel free to tell him that if you meet him face to face. Steel Fang is the oldest of them, and their leader, we think. They say El Patron killed his sire, a vampire named Raoul.”
Had El Patron started that rumor? She’d have to thank him. She had killed Raoul in self-defense, but in a world that thought vampires only existed in books and on the silver screen, murder was murder. “You’re tailgating that Miata.”
Rivera slowed down with only four feet to spare and got back to his narrative. “Raoul had two progeny who have survived, a five yearling who called himself the Black Wolf, and a seven yearling. Steel Fang.”
“Black Wolf is dead, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s joined us.”
“Joined you? You can’t be serious.”
“Recruit, kill, or exile, Melbourne. Those are El Patron’s options. He’s driven many out, and some he allowed to join the Guild, conditionally. Black Wolf was one of them.”
“I wouldn’t trust him.”
“El Patron trusts him enough,” Rivera said.
“And the others?”
“Kaltenbach took out some of Raoul’s old fledglings, but she didn’t get all of them. One of the survivors was a yearling named Karl B. He joined up with Steel Fang and they started making a new pack. Karl B. is dead now. He had a run in with our Marshal, but Steel Fang made more to replace him. We, that is, El Patron and the Marshal, took out all but the last few who are holed up in their place. They call it Wolfe Ranch. We think there are three left, but there might be five. Two are unaccounted for”
“Five. That’s not that bad.”
“You think you know vampires, but let me tell you, once they got their teeth in, they are dangerous. I’ve seen a teenage fledgling two years of the blood tear a man’s throat out with her teeth. Maybe you’ve taken some judo or something, but you don’t know fast, you don’t know strong until you find those cold hands wrapped around your neck before you had time to reach for a gun.” His left hand was gripping the wheel and the car had started to drift into the other lane.
“I know,” she replied.
Those of the Guild in Seabingen were civilized, urbane. Their hosts were well paid and discreet, not cooling in an alley. But rogues, rogues were different. If a rogue was a drinker, he’d sweet talk you into thinking he was a pacifist vegetarian right before your jugular pumped a meal down his throat. She patted her backpack, feeling through the fabric for the comfort of silver beads. Silver alone wouldn’t do much more than give a vampire a green ring around his finger, but silver beads netted with tiny cubes of fresh chopped garlic would ward off bites to the neck until the garlic dried and its potency faded. Several hours of difficult beading for several days of neck protection. It was a bargain.
“Are you allowed to tell me what El Patron would like me to do while I’m here, Rivera? Am I going to be asked to fight rogues?”
Rivera’s eyes flicked towards her, but this time he kept facing the road. “There’s a meeting tonight.”
“And will the council tell me?”
“The meeting is an hour after sunset. You can set your phone to tell you when that is.”
Fine, if that was the way he was going to be about it. “The council meeting is in the hotel?”
“Where else would it be?” Rivera asked, surprised.
Kit shrugged. She’d have to tell Holzhausen that El Patron didn’t have an established Guild House yet.
“You’re going to have a late night. We’re still an hour from sunset if you want to nap.”
“Good advice.” She rolled her jacket as a pillow and closed her eyes.
***
She changed and showered when she got to the hotel, and after that she spent ten minutes debating whether or not to carry her stakes with her. If she left them at home, she would be unprotected. If she brought them along, it might be seen as an offensive threat. If she left them at home, she’d appear weak. If they didn’t bother to search her, that was on them. Better safe than sorry. Kit tucked the enchanted rowan wood stakes into the inside pocket of her suit coat. They lay flat along her ribs and were short enough to not show even when she bent over. If they frisked her, they’d find them, but El Patron might not have bodyguards yet. Kit checked herself in the mirror one more time and headed down to the hotel conference room.
Protocol, protocol. Kit knocked twice, paused, then knocked twice again. The door opened, and she found herself face to face with Dorothy Kaltenbach, a six-foot-tall blond vampire with more than a little Native American blood and a scowl that caused merriment to stop in its tracks. She'd been turned when she was fairly young, younger than thirty, but her skin was like the leather of a saddlebag. She'd grown up on the prairie, where weak women died and tough women got tougher. Kaltenbach tolerated very little stupidity or weakness, and generally presumed that all non-vampires had received a double helping of both.
“Who seeks entrance to the Council of Night?” Kaltenbach asked formally, as if she didn’t know exactly who Kit was and why she was here. As if they hadn’t worked together before.
“I am Dayrunner Melbourne, acting as emissary for my master, Guild Leader Holzhausen of Seabingen. Please grant me leave to enter, Marshal Kaltenbach.”
“Do you bear arms?” Kaltenbach stared at the jacket as if she could see through the linen to the stakes beneath.
“I do.”
“Remove them.”
“Only if I may be granted full protection of the Guild of Red Rock, upon the honor of El Patron.”
Kaltenbach looked over her shoulder for orders before nodding. She took the jacket without searching the pockets and held the coat so that the cloth didn’t touch more than her fingertips.
Kit stepped into the room. She’d expected a circle of old vampires looking official and spooky. Instead, it looked more like a business meeting, with five vampires gathered around a large conference table. She recognized Black Wolf, and there was another woman who looked familiar, but Kit couldn’t place her. And then there was the Spider, also known as Thomas, who had been a recent emigrant from the internecine conflict in Toronto. The Spider was one of the oldest vampires there, even though she couldn’t be more than eighty. She had jet black hair with dramatic bangs and an expression between aloof and smug contempt. The last time Kit had seen her, the Spider had been with people who had kidnapped her and threatened to send pieces of her to Holzhausen.
El Patron had short brown hair of the shade that would be blond if it received sunlight, and even features that would have been only moderately handsome if he weren’t clad in the self-confidence of power. He appeared to be in his early thirties and wore a tailored suit with the ease of a display window mannequin. His arms were quite muscular, as though he had deliberately bulked up to make himself more intimidating. How much weight would a vampire have to bench in order to bulk up? Kit mused to herself.
El Patron sat regally in his leather upholstered chair and regarded her without moving.
She glanced at the faces above the suit collars and then turned her eyes to El Patron, leader of the Guild of Red Rock. Kit bowed low, as though to her sensei. “Greetings to El Patron of Red Rock from the Guild Leader of Seabingen.” Don’t thank him for granting the audience, Holzhausen had advised, it would show too much weakness and supplication.
“We greet you, Dayrunner Melbourne.”
He used the royal we. She almost wanted to smile at his arrogance. King of the vampires in Red Rock. King of the floundering colony. King of the slag heap. And yet she wanted to smile at his confidence. Why shouldn’t he be brave in the face of adversity?
“We are pleased to hear from our cousins up north. Is there peace in your city?”
“Yes, sir, and yours?”
Oops. She wasn’t supposed to ask that because it would point out that she knew how fucked up things were down here. They all knew that El Patron was barely holding on to this town with grit and bullets.
“We fare well here,” he said, “but pray tell what business you have with the Council of Night.”
“Sir, the Guild of Seabingen wishes to reestablish our mutual connections, and to offer assistance as needed.”
“From you yourself, perhaps?”
Kit bowed and spread her hands wide. “Sir, my master has loaned you my services, as per the contract.”
“And what would the price be to have your assistance permanently?”
She blinked and swallowed. What was he getting at? He wanted her to move to Red Rock? Yeah, right. With their house in the middle of renovations, and a baby on the way, she was going to just pack everything up and move to a small town in the middle of Arizona? Was he smoking crack? “I’m flattered by your interest, sir.”
“Is that a no?”
Damn straight it was, but it would be rude to refuse him in front of his Council. “Sir, please allow me time to consider your offer before answering.”
Dayrunner Rivera nodded almost imperceptibly, as though pleased with the answer. Shouldn’t he be threatened by the offer? No, he seemed pleased that she hadn’t refused. Rivera couldn’t be happy that there was another candidate for his position, which meant that it wasn’t the Dayrunner position she was being offered. What was he offering her then? There was no human position in any Guild higher than Dayrunner, and he could hardly think she would be satisfied with less.
“Sire?” The vampire next to El Patron, the one who looked vaguely familiar, said something Kit couldn’t hear. Sire? El Patron sired a vampire? But no, that was impossible. She was six, and he hadn’t been here that long.
“Dayrunner Melbourne, some of my people are unaware of your abilities. Perhaps you would be so kind as to demonstrate?”
It took Kit a minute to figure out what he was talking about. She’d learned so much magic since becoming Dayrunner. She’d learned to make wards, to repair wards, to alter wards to let people in or keep them out. She’d learned ways to defend herself from witchcraft and ways to make her belongings come back to her. She’d learned how to see under glamours and even how to tinker with her own glamour (a souvenir from the Realm of the Faerie) to make herself look more attractive, though it took her forever to get it right. She’d learned to make stakes that could kill vampires. She’d even learned faerie enchantments from an actual Clanfaerie in the Realm, the questionably ethical ability to convince a hostile person to align with her motives and believe what she wished them to believe, skills which she’d been honing as much as she was able.
But El Patron didn’t know about all that. He only knew about her ability to make herself invisible.
It wasn’t a true invisibility. She was still perfectly, completely detectable. The spell, if you could even call it that, just made people not notice her. It worked best in places where people had no reason to believe she was there. It worked best when she was not nervous. It worked best with people who were not biologically attuned to her human scent. Doing it under fluorescent lights in a room with strange vampires, all of whom were staring intently at her, was the worst possible condition under which to perform.
Kit closed her eyes and took a breath. She thought about the meditation class in which the teacher had guided them to completely and utterly relax her body. She thought about doing that with all her emotions, emptying them out so they did not cling to her. She thought about making herself unobtrusive, about the way it felt to slip sideways into a place that was not there. She pulled herself invisible.
Kit heard a gasp of surprise and tried not to let herself feel the corresponding blip of satisfaction. She remained underwater in this quiet and dim land of not-really-there. Sidling around the perimeter of the room, she picked up her jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it back on. She thought about sneaking up behind El Patron, but, as amusing as that was to her, would be seen as too hostile. And anyway, the vampires were all looking around the room for her, which meant that sooner or later, someone would spot her. Directed attention usually broke through her invisibility eventually.
“Enough, Melbourne.”
Kit released it and felt the eyes all turn to her.
“Are you satisfied, Medina?”
“Yes, Sire,” the woman said.
Brenda. It was Brenda. She had darker hair now, and looked more grown up, but it was the same woman who had broken Kit’s wrist the last night Kit was in Red Rock. And she called El Patron Sire? Wasn’t Steel Fang her sire?
“Very well. You’ll forgive us if we must curtail your audience, but the Council of Night has much to discuss. You are dismissed.” He turned to Rivera and nodded to him as well. “Dayrunner, see our guest out.”
Dayrunner Rivera stood and gathered his belongings. Kit bowed again to El Patron and the Council of Night, and when she straightened, she saw that Rivera was waiting to escort her out.
Rivera closed the door behind them and walked down the hallway. “El Patron will meet you after the Council adjourns.”
“Will that be late?” Kit asked him.
“Around an hour. They don’t have much to talk about tonight, but the Council wants some time without a human in the room.” They passed a small table and chairs, and Rivera sat down to stuff the paperwork into his laptop case, not quickly enough to hide the fact that he had the exact expression of a little brother not allowed to join a pickup baseball game.
“I’m not permitted in Council sessions at all,” she said, to counteract his bitterness.
The laptop slipped from his grasp with a soft thud. Rivera leaned down to pick it up again. “Don’t they want to have a mage attend?”
“A mage?” Kit raised an eyebrow.
“That was magic.” Rivera nodded and slipped his laptop case strap over his shoulder.
“A party trick.” She shrugged modestly. “I don’t know much else.”
“You don’t lie so good.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Rivera stood and stared at her with an unfocused gaze, using the knack, she guessed. She had nothing to hide. Underneath she appeared to be a young woman, less beautiful, but no less human. His eyes stared at her face long past polite. Kit smiled blandly. What was he expecting? Did he think that she would try to cast a spell on him?
“An hour. Be in your room.” He walked off.
***
When El Patron knocked at Kit’s hotel room door that evening, she opened it and stepped back far enough to let the door swing in.
“Well, Dayrunner Melbourne, am I invited in?”
She held the door open and put a hand on her hip. “Can you come in without an invitation?”
“I’d rather not try. I know what you’re capable of.” He had the same wry smile she remembered.
“Well, then, I invite you in.”
He stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him. They stared at each other, and then he crossed the room in half a heartbeat and swept her into a hug. She grinned and hugged him back, picking her feet up so that she spun in a slow circle. He set her down and held her at arms distance, then lifted one of her wrists to his lips. “Ah, Kit. It’s so good to see you again. You look fabulous. I don’t remember you being so beautiful.”
“And you haven’t aged a day, Fain.”
El Patron chuckled and kissed the other wrist. “I never expected to see you bow and call me ‘sir’ like you do with Holzhausen.”
“You deserve to be treated with the courtesy due your office.”
He reached forward and touched her face, sliding his fingers up to her hair as if six years hadn’t passed since they were lovers. “Do you still have the bindi?”
She lifted her bangs to show him the enchanted jewel pasted to her brow. “I wear it all the time.”
“And do you still wear those satin panties?” he asked, sliding a hand around the back of her skirt.
“Fain ...” she warned, sidestepping.
“Allow me to flirt with you just a little bit. I like you,” he stared at her with his gold flecked eyes and took her wrist to kiss again. “And you still like me, or are you going to try and deny it?”
She couldn’t pretend to be entirely immune to his charms. He had been an excellent lover, the kind of lover who treated a woman as seriously as an artist treated light and shadow. The sight and smell of him reminded her of hours spent exploring each other’s skin beneath sweaty sheets. His touch made her clench; half in reluctance, and half in anticipation. He kissed up her arm, lips savoring each inch of flesh. She didn’t pull away, not wanting to make a big deal out of him kissing her arm, though she knew that it was more than casual flirting.
At the crook of her elbow his tongue flicked out as if to taste the veins beneath. Kit gasped, but even as her heart pounded at the threat, Fain kissed up farther, towards the point of her shoulder, lips and cheek brushing against her freckles. And then he leaned closer, and his mouth touched the hollow of her throat.
“Don’t!” She jerked away, instinctively, as though from a snake. Her fingers crept into the pocket, touching the bewitched wooden stakes for comfort. The loose drawer on the bedside table began to rattle.
“Forgive me. I remember how sweet you taste.” He held himself still, watching as she backed away. “Thought you might let me have a little sip if I asked nice enough.”
She shook her head, holding the stake by her side.
He spread his hands wide and crept forward. “I wouldn’t drink without your permission. I wasn’t going to—”
Kit still backed away, holding the stake like a knife. The window started rattling now, and the door lock, and one of the tissues in the tissue box fluttered free. “Fain, don’t. Please. Don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to yourself. Please. No sips, no tastes. Promise me you won’t drink my blood.”
“Not even a little?” he asked lightly, stepping forward.
She backed up farther, until her thighs were touching the bed. The tissue sailed up to the ceiling and crept along it, like a swimmer at the top of a very deep lake. “Promise me. Not even if I get a head wound and lie dying on the asphalt. Swear you’ll never drink my blood again.”
“Kit, you don’t trust me anymore?” He reached forward, slow by vampire standards, but too quick for her comfort.
“Fain, please! Swear to me!” She shouted, half a stage whisper, and held a hand to ward him. The lock on the door rattled, opening and closing with a rumble of tumblers. “Swear on something you believe in.”
Fain took her fingers again, kissed them gently, and held them to his heart. “I swear on the blood of the martyrs, on Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, I will never taste your blood without your permission.”
She let out the breath she had been holding and put the stake back in her pocket. The locks grew silent.
He smiled and kissed her fingertips again. “I’m sorry. You’re right, you know. It was hell, going through that. I hated you for it.” He gave a brittle laugh. “After hate, I loved you again, and forgave you. Funny. I forgave you, for poisoning me with the blood I stole from your veins.”
“Thank you.”
He waved a hand. “I suppose you forgive me as well, or you wouldn’t be here.” He walked to the ice bucket and started putting cubes into two glasses.
She sat down on the bed and pulled her legs up under her. Her heart was starting to slow down, but the taste of adrenaline left a residue in her mouth. She had told Fenwick she trusted Fain. She hadn’t meant to lie to her husband. At the time she thought it was true.
“Water under the bridge, my dear. Besides, you know what they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—except malaria, we used to add.”
The subject change caught her off guard, as it was no doubt meant to. “You had malaria? Where was this?”
“In Pennsylvania. I told you I was born there. That’s one thing I don’t miss about being human, all the terrible agues.”
“How did you get malaria in Pennsylvania?”
“The things they don’t teach you in school.” He shook his head. “My dear, we all had it. The east coast was malarial for most of a century. They used to call it the American disease, did you know?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, anyway, as I was saying before you distracted me, your blood has made me stronger, it’s changed me. I have a tolerance to it now.”
Fain walked to where the ice was melting in the glasses. He leaned over and fetched a coke and a small bottle of rum out of the mini fridge. “What would you like to drink?”
“Nothing, thank you.”
“No?”
“You’re not supposed to drink when you’re pregnant.”
Fain tsked. “My mother drank a pint a day when she was pregnant and it never did us any harm. Have a soda, so I don’t have to drink alone. And congratulations. When’s it due?”
“Not till January. I have a ways yet.”
“This is your second, isn’t it?” He opened a ginger ale and handed it to her.
“Number three,” she admitted proudly. “Our daughter is four now, and our son is two.”
“Already? It seems like just yesterday you two got married. You have been busy.”
“Fenwick wants a big family.”
“And you? What do you want?”
“I want Fenwick to be happy. I love him.”
Fain poured the rum and half the soda into a glass. “You love him still? And here I thought marriage was a surefire cure for that. I had my hopes.”
“You flirt. I had hoped things would work out between you and Ms. Varga, but you haven’t mentioned her.”
“Ah, Mercedes. Lovely woman, but she hates being a vampire.”
“That’s a shame.”
“She was made against her will.” He swirled his ice cubes. “There’s a period of resentment to get over before those type recover. She’ll come around eventually, but for now she shuns anything vampiric. She doesn’t hate me as much as she hates Steel Fang, so she agreed to join my Guild if I agreed to leave her alone as much as possible.”
“So, where is she?”
“She married a human and moved up to the hills. Last I heard they’re trying to start a family.”
“Is that possible?”
“No. The baby would become infected with her blood. She’d need a host mother, and I don’t think Mercedes is willing to do that.”
“She’s going to hate you when she realizes you kept that secret. I always hate it when people do that.”
“I never kept secrets from you.”
“No, we had other issues, like the fact that you don’t respect me.”
“That’s not true either, though I won’t argue with you now.”
“What’s with Brenda calling you Sire?”
“I adopted her.” Fain sipped his drink.
“Is that a thing?”
“Kaltenbach started it, when she adopted Brian Coulter,” Fain said. “To turn someone into a vampire is a responsibility. It’s not easy to learn how to hunt. Like I said, especially when someone is turned against his will, there’s a period of resentment to get over, a grieving. A fledgling should have a sire to guide him.”
“How many have you adopted?”
“Two. I have also adopted Wolfe.”
“Who’s Wolfe?”
“You knew him as the Black Wolf.”
“That guy? I was going to ask you about that,” Kit said. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? The guy tried to kill me, and Kaltenbach, and now he sits on your council? He’s only, what, six? Plus the Spider. She helped a rogue kidnap me and threatened to send parts of me to my boss. What kind of show are you running here?”
“I am El Patron. Here in Red Rock, I choose my Council. My Council does not choose me.” That arrogance came back. King of the slag heap. She had liked him better when he was just Leo Fain, who occasionally dated human women. He sat down on the bed again, close enough to touch, and leaned in until their faces were inches from one another, staring into her eyes. “Do you desire immortality?”
She raised her eyebrows skeptically.
“I’m offering to sire you.” His voice was low, seductive. “I could do it tonight. No two years of initiation.”
She stood and walked across the room, one arm folded across her belly. She pretended to admire the print on the wall, a pastel drawing of two Native American pots on a background of pinkish beige. “Have I ever given any indication that I wanted to become a vampire?”
Fain followed her as well, speaking softly into her neck. “You will have a place on my Council.”
“Kaltenbach would hate that.” She swiveled to regard him, leaning back suddenly when she realized they were close enough to kiss. “A new vampire ranked as high as an eighty-year-old one? She’s never liked me as it is.”
“It’s not her concern.”
“It’s a generous offer, Fain. Extremely generous.” She sidestepped him and was about to sit on the bed, but, thinking better of it, chose the desk chair. “Why so much for me?”
“Perhaps I just want you close to me again.” He sat on the bed, leaning forward to gently trace his finger along the bottom hem of her skirt. “Or perhaps, like Holzhausen, I value you for your mage skills.”
“I’m not that much of a mage.”
“You can make wards.”
Kit shrugged. “I’m Holzhausen’s apprentice.”
Fain drained his glass and set it down again. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “You have secrets from me.” He finished his drink and poured himself another one.
“I have secrets from everyone.” Kit looked away, using her glass to hide her mouth.
“Even Holzhausen?” Fain asked.
“Why do you always use that tone of voice when you say his name?”
“I’m jealous, my dear Dayrunner Melbourne. I would love to hear a beautiful woman such as yourself call me master.”
“You lost your chance to play out that fantasy.” She tapped his shoulder. “And anyway, the only reason I called him master is out of respect for the Guild. To be honest, it really pisses me off that you guys see humans as either a tasty unclaimed bone, or a bone belonging to a bigger dog.”
“And you belong to him?” A shrewd look came over his face. “Ask Holzhausen what price he would accept for you.”
“It’s not his decision to make.”
“You called him master. I know you. You will obey him. If Holzhausen told you that he had sold your contract to me, you would move to Arizona.”
“No. I have other obligations in Seabingen that keep me from joining you. Like, a husband and children I adore.”
Fain narrowed his eyes just a hair. “Ask Holzhausen what price he would accept for you.”
“I won’t move here.”
“Well maybe you don’t have to ask him. Maybe you could just come.” Fain was suddenly in front of her, not touching, but close enough to kiss. He lowered his voice. “Immortality, Kit. Vampire strength, vampire speed. I can make you of the blood. Do you doubt it?” He whispered along her throat, threatening, teasing.
Kit half-closed her eyes, trying not to let herself be attracted to him. She remembered the spicy bite of his fangs in her neck at climax, the feel of his hands along her skin, his century and a half of lovemaking experience. “How do you know it would work? I’m fey.”
“My blood is also tinged with it. I drank from your veins. Take from mine and become a vampire. I need a mage. You’re not the frightened girl I once knew. People are starting to talk about Holzhausen’s Dayrunner, Kit. Old vampires speak of you with respect and fear.” He slid his arms around her and began to kiss up her shoulder, murmuring softer as he approached her ear. “Can you blame me for wanting to steal you for myself?”
Fain was dangerously sexy, and the bastard knew it. She was weakening, and if he knew how attractive she still found him, he wouldn’t let up until she was in his bed. It wasn’t fair. Only women were supposed to use sex this way. She stepped away from him and held her arms out to get some distance.
“Stop being so sleazy. You know I’m married. Tell me about this problem you have that only a mage can solve,” she said, turning away from him. “I’m not going to lose my job over this, but I’ll do what I can to help you, assuming Holzhausen is cool with it.”
Fain had been reaching for her again, but he folded his arms in front of him, a small smile of victory perched on his lips.
“Come.” He held up a hand. “I’ll show you.”