Beautiful Danger itcov-1

by Michele Hauf

  She nodded. “I know that. But we both know there’s something more here. This thing between us. You...you desire me?”

  “That’s a stupid question.”

  Now he did break their embrace and wandered along the end of the bed dressed with a black-and-white-striped spread and one lone pillow. Always barefoot, the guy. It was sexy, his bare toes peeking out from under the slouchy hem of the leather pants. And a little sad. On the other hand, it gave him the advantage when cruising his highway of choice, the rooftops.

  Domingos lifted his defiant gaze to hers. “Would you ever allow a vampire to make love to you?”

  “I’d be thrown out of the Order.”

  He nodded. “That was a detour, not an answer. Yes or no? Would you make love with me, Lark? Answer me, and then I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”

  The way he asked her felt as if he were asking if she preferred salami over bologna. Or a quick and impersonal contact. Make love to a vampire? Hell no.

  Yet she wasn’t sure she wanted him to leave her alone. It had been a long time since she’d felt so comfortable with a person. He’s not a person. He is a cold-blooded killer. Yet he had once been mortal. The man once probably had a mortal lover, just as she once had, which made them ever more alike.

  When friends and family had visited her following Todd’s death, Lark had felt as if they hadn’t known how to speak to a grieving widow. As if she’d magically become something different from the day before when her husband had been alive. Overnight she’d become a piece of glass or fragile porcelain. It was silly, and had only heaped upon the grief she’d already felt, smothering her and forcing her further away from the offered kindnesses.

  She could breathe when Domingos was near. He did not smother her or worry about breaking her. And that frightened her.

  And excited her.

  “No answer?” he prompted. His resolute nod decided her answer for himself. “I had to ask. Until we meet again, hunter. I promise I’ll put up a fight next time you come at me with your fancy stake. I’ve a good dozen or more wolves to dispatch, but the distraction of evading you will keep me on my toes. To kisses on the roof.”

  He winked and went out the door from which he’d entered. The stairs lay in a twisted tumble on the ground, so he jumped and landed in the grassy back courtyard crouched like a cat. Tugging the goggles down over his eyes, he wandered off, and Lark had to stop herself from calling him back.

  He’d broken their connection. And now she felt cold and wanting.

  Chapter 9

  Time to kick this mission into gear and stop fooling around. The bargain was due to expire in an hour. Now Lark strode through the back door of the dance club, La Bouche. She never liked walking through the big red neon lips on the main street. It was far too conspicuous for a knight of the Order, and also just silly.

  This club wasn’t a paranormal club, but it was known to be a favorable spot for vampires on the prowl. Besides the dance floor that swayed with trance music and the exotic Indian/Electronic mix along with heavy-lidded couples that appeared half-stoned, there were the various rooms that offered illegal drugs and sex.

  Todd had found more than a few of his marks here. Lark remembered him telling her how much he hated the vibe of the place. But as she strolled along the dance floor, her thighs brushed by the shing of a dancer’s spangled skirts, and her body subtly moving to the throbbing beat, she decided she liked it. The vibe she got from it was a maharaja’s harem with a gothic yet funky twist.

  It wasn’t necessary to scan the dance floor for her mark. She suspected dancing was the last thing that would draw Domingos to this club, if indeed, he was here at all. She’d tracked him to this neighborhood, though, and there were no other clubs in the immediate vicinity.

  Shouldn’t the noise drive him beyond the madness?

  Maybe that was it. The noise might drown out the voices and violins he heard in his head. La Bouche could very well offer a comforting refuge for him, as ridiculous as that seemed.

  After politely refusing to join a slender blond man on the dance floor, she walked right into a man who gently grabbed her by the upper arm. Gray hair gave him a distinguished aura that felt wrong in a place like this. At once Lark could feel his persuasion forcing her to stay calm. Like imperceptible fingers stroking her brain, coaxing ever so slightly. She’d been trained to recognize and fight off a vampire’s persuasion, but with the music thrumming in her veins, it wasn’t so easy to find that calm center in her core and tap into it.

  “Will you step aside with me, please?” he asked politely, his grip directing her to the left.

  He didn’t seem as if he wanted to get lucky with her, and his intrusion upon her mental struggle to fight back calmed her even as she inwardly argued that she was not calm.

  Lark placed a hand on the stake beneath her coat, but she wouldn’t whip it out inside the club. Not unless it was necessary to protect her life, and she didn’t feel danger from this vampire. Or was that the persuasion settling her? To be controlled by another so easily angered her, yet she walked beside him, reasoning that to make a scene would only draw undesired attention.

  He walked her toward a hallway that glittered with red and gold spangles and tendrils of smoke that misted vanilla incense. When she thought he might be luring her toward a private room, he stopped, forcing her shoulders against the spangled wall, and leaned in close.

  “I’m Vincent Lepore. I’m with the Council. I know you’re with the Order. And I’ll ask you to leave.”

  Her distinctive coat was the giveaway. The blades reflected the disco lights in intermittent flashes. And a Council member? This guy had rank within the paranormal realms. The Council was a group of various breeds who oversaw the paranormal nations. They and the Order were diametrically opposed and would never work with each other, though they had historically walked a wide circle around each other, never engaging, because the two organizations had never been given reason for such defense.

  Also, Rook liked to say that the Council was a group of milksops who sat about discussing retribution and punishment, yet never actually got their fingers dirty for fear of mussing their coifs.

  Lark wasn’t about to change the history books by showing Lepore her aggression. It wasn’t worth the embarrassment, or Rook’s disappointment. And she wasn’t sure she could, even if she tried. Hello, persuasion.

  “I’m just looking around,” she said over the music. He smelled like spice, and it annoyed her that she liked it. Must wear the same cologne her hus— She didn’t want to think about him right now.

  “Whatever you’re looking for, we don’t need that kind of trouble,” he said, not raising his voice, yet she heard over the din. “Nor does the Order. You armed?”

  She nodded.

  “You should never have made it past security. You’re out of here.” Now he grabbed her forcibly by the upper arm and walked her toward the back entrance.

  Fine. She wasn’t about to cause trouble when her brain was feeling a bit like jelly and was sending that mushy feeling down to her arms. But the humiliation of being escorted out by a vampire would undo her.

  Lark shrugged from Lepore’s grasp. “I can see myself out. But I’ll have you know there’s a wolf slayer walking around the city. Don’t you think the Council should do something about that?”

  “Wolf slayer?” He laughed, and any modicum of respect his position might have granted him was lost with that callous disregard. “Since when does the Order of the Stake concern itself with werewolves?”

  She’d said too much. And he’d only cemented her distrust of the Council.

  But seriously? Since when had the Order given a fig what werewolves asked of them? And why had she never considered as much before?

  Mushy brain, Lark. He’s making you question everything and even the stuff you shouldn’t.

  “Sorry to have disturbed you,” she said, and marched out of the club and across the narrow parking lot past a few groups of patrons either making out
or getting high on the latest designer drug.

  Inhaling the warm summer night air, she focused on shaking off the persuasion. Deep breaths through her nose and heavy exhales did the trick, and it was surprising how she could feel the veil lift from her brain to clear her thoughts.

  The street behind the club was dark, empty of cars—most in the city traveled by Metro—and she strode down the way, close to the dark-windowed retail buildings that could never compete with the elite shops on the Champs-Élysées.

  Spinning the stake through the fingers of her right hand like a majorette’s baton, Lark admonished herself for allowing the vampire to piss her off. And for his easy control over her mind.

  They were all alike. Among the paranormal breeds, vampires possessed a superiority complex, thinking they were better than most and putting on airs. That was the first time she’d felt overpowered by one of them, and he’d been polite and had barely touched her.

  “Stupid longtooth.”

  “So now I’m stupid?”

  Domingos joined her side, hands in his pockets, bare feet keeping time with her boots thudding upon the tarmac.

  “I have a stake, vampire. Be warned.”

  “I see that. Up for a little clubbing tonight?”

  “I’ve got slaying on my mind,” she said curtly. “Next vampire to piss me off gets titanium through the heart.”

  “I’ll try not to piss you off.”

  She stopped and swung around, walking him backward into a tight alley that fit them single file and that reeked of ripe fruit. “Why must you test me like this?”

  “I’m not testing you.”

  “You follow me like a hungry stray.”

  “You were following me, hunter. I felt you on my back the whole way through the fifth quarter.”

  “Yeah?” The truth wasn’t going to win him any points. “Well, now you’re the one following me.”

  He shrugged. “Our deal is still in effect for another hour.”

  Huffing out a breath, Lark slammed her fist, clasped about the stake, against his shoulder. “I’ve been given an ultimatum. If you’re not dead by midnight, I’m off this job.”

  “Midnight is right around the end of our deal.” He rubbed his palms together gleefully, ignoring the stake at his shoulder. “This could get interesting. So I assume you’re not going to let me out of your sight for the next hour. Wouldn’t be a very smart hunter if you did.”

  “You’re already dead, vampire. Why prolong the agony? Just ask for it right now, and we can be done with it.”

  “You’re very cheeky.” He guided the stake away from his shoulder with a finger, and Lark relented, holstering it at her hip. “Thinking I’m some kind of creature who would ask for his own death to be free of the torments he suffers?” He chuckled and shook his head, then made a show of sniffing the air. “I can smell the lingering persuasion on you. Who was it?”

  She tugged at her ponytail, adjusting it over a shoulder to hide the eerie shiver that sent goose bumps crawling up her neck. “Vincent Lepore.”

  “Council vamp. You’re making friends in high places.”

  “He’s not a friend. He stuck his fingers into my brain and stirred it up. I don’t like being manipulated or lied to.”

  “I would never lie to you.” He resumed following her as she strode onward. “I don’t think I could manipulate you if I tried.”

  “You haven’t persuaded me?”

  “What would be the purpose? I don’t want you to forget you spoke to me.”

  “You could make me forget I want to stake you.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair play.”

  “Oh, and you’re all about fairness.”

  “Have I given you reason to believe otherwise?”

  No, he had not.

  It frustrated Lark that, more and more, the vampire proved himself a worthy being, someone—were he not a creature—she could entirely see having as a friend. And he was a musician? She hadn’t chattered about music with someone for years. Of course that would detract from her mission, and—hell, just being around Domingos LaRoque was proving a distraction.

  The vampire nudged her gently with an elbow. “Come with me.”

  And he walked away without waiting to see if she cared to follow, a shadow clad in darkness that moved as if he were a ghost of mortality past.

  Lark stopped in the center of the alley, feet spread and trigger hand flinching near her hip. She would not do as a vampire commanded.

  But you already have.

  Maybe the only reason he hadn’t used persuasion on her was that he couldn’t access that power since his torture? Domingos was strong physically, but perhaps his vampiric powers had been diminished. Like his inability to will up his fangs.

  The shadow walking away from her turned a corner. He was right about one thing. A wise hunter would not lose sight of her prey.

  Lark picked up the trail, swiftly gaining the corner and turning into an even darker, narrower pathway. Paris was a twisting labyrinth of passageways that she enjoyed navigating only so long as she didn’t end up at a dead end or walking into someone’s house, which happened on occasion.

  Halfway down the block, Domingos strode haphazardly, swaying every now and then as if drunk. Vamps could get drunk off the blood of an alcoholic or someone who’d imbibed too much. Had he bitten someone from the club?

  “Probably just the madness,” she muttered. A thought that was, strangely, more appealing than knowing he might have drunken blood.

  She didn’t rush to catch up to him. She had time. Less than an hour, though she hadn’t a watch. For some reason she wagered the vampire would announce the midnight hour to her, defying her to grant his death.

  Was that it? Maybe he desired death and couldn’t bring it upon himself. For the pain and mental torture he appeared to constantly suffer, it was a rational conclusion. And yet he didn’t want to die until his revenge mission had been completed.

  Well, if he thought to string her along until then, and then ask for the stake, she had another story line for him to read.

  Surprised he didn’t jump to a roof, Lark followed him at a distance through the thirteenth quarter and eventually they landed in an industrial neighborhood in the fourteenth.

  Very near the ring road nestled a quiet neighborhood that looked like a scene out of a Tim Burton movie, dark and brooding, as gothic as could be. She guessed he was leading her to his home. That would put her opponent to the advantage come midnight, but she welcomed the challenge.

  Had he prepared for her? Set traps to ensnare the hunter?

  “Bring it,” she muttered, and strode through an open wrought-iron gate set in a brick fence.

  The vampire led her toward a narrow mansion tucked between other limestone mansions, which might have been built during the 1700s, and edged by high, fragrant hedgerows and a crumbling brick fence. He walked through the front door—painted black with a stained-glass inset depicting a white rose—leaving it open behind him.

  Lark marveled that the overgrown vines and plants spilling across the small front courtyard could be nightshade or wolfsbane or some other wildly macabre plant. With what else would a vampire choose to landscape his dread lair of horrors? The leaves touched her boot toes, and she was cautious only until she realized how ridiculous her thoughts had become.

  Crushing a white bloom into the cobblestoned walk, she strode up the crumbling steps to stand before the open doorway. She’d never been inside a vampire’s home, and she paused at the threshold. No invitation was necessary for her, a mortal, unless he’d had it warded.

  She tested the air before her but was not repulsed, nor did she sense an invisible barrier. She expected a trap, and had been trained to foresee the unexpected. Should a vampire claim a hunter kill, especially a knight of the Order, his fellow vampires would revere him.

  Just as you are revered by the knights for your tally? Seventy-one lives destroyed in half a year’s time.

  Was that really something to be
proud of?

  Of course not. Pride was not in her lexicon. Nor could she claim heroics, such as racing into a burning building. She’d even caved and staked her own husband, for Christ’s sake. That made her less than human, and closer to the creatures she stalked.

  Lark swallowed and tested the threshold with a boot toe.

  You go inside, and forget what the Order taught you, you break every rule Todd had and become something he was not.

  “Free,” she whispered, not knowing why that word came to her, but also feeling it in her heart as truth.

  Domingos appeared before her and gave her a wondering look—the Mad Hatter sizing up Alice’s moxie—and offered his hand. The edge of that hand was scarred with what looked like a burn patient’s skin. She’d not noticed that before. Had he been out in the sun recently?

  Sliding her palm over his and tracing a finger along the scarred skin, she noted that it felt fragile, almost papery. He bent to kiss her hand and then tugged her inside and slammed the door shut.

  “Frightened?” he asked as he walked her down the dark hallway toward a room lit by a low-watt lamp.

  Lark checked her nerves and kept her calm. “I told you I’m only frightened by falling.”

  “You’ve fallen into la maison du vampire,” he teased.

  “I entered freely and of my own will.”

  Oh, Lark. Did you really just quote Dracula?

  She’d read the book in high school and had identified with Renfield for reasons beyond her ken. Lucy and Mina had seemed too flighty and easily led by the menfolk.

  Domingos’s chuckle unhinged the first of her nerves. It was so bellowing and deep and shameless. And yet its masculine chord strummed at her innate desire for protection by someone bigger, stronger and male. And curiosity got the better of her as she followed the vampire deeper into Wonderland.

  She strolled the gray shadows of the hallway, through the kitchen, where she was surprised to see it looked normal. Gray granite countertops boasted a mica gleam, and black leather bar stools queued neatly before the counter. In the living room, where one wall was completely windows shielded by heavy maroon damask draperies, she ran her fingers along the back of the leather sofa, noting the creases from wear and age.