Beautiful Danger

by Michele Hauf

  Chapter 18

  “You sure you want to do this?”

  Lark squeezed his hand and snuggled up beside him as they strode the street toward the boat docks on the Seine. It was cool this evening, and she’d worn only a thin silk shirt that showed her hard nipples. Domingos had admired them only until he’d noticed her shiver, and then he had given her his coat. He liked seeing her wear his things. She was comfortable in them, and that strung a note of pride through him.

  Because if a hunter—whose husband had been tortured by vampires—could accept him—a vampire—then he must be doing something right. And he didn’t want to upset that right.

  “I’m sure.” He led her down the stairs toward the docks where the Bateaux-Mouche parked, tourists’ boats that sailed from the launch dock, right in front of the Eiffel Tower and down and around the Île Saint-Louis for half-hour cruises. “Hart is no longer in Levallois.”

  “Yeah, but if the guy was the one responsible for putting you in the cage...?”

  “He was following orders. Though I admit a certain amount of disdain for him, any wolf.”

  “Disdain must surely be putting it lightly. Am I going to have to referee a fight?”

  “That’s why we’re meeting on public grounds. Danni thought it best. We need to talk to her boyfriend if we’re to learn information about the pack that can help us both.”

  “Fine. But tell me about Danni. Is she an old girlfriend?”

  “No. She’s too young for me.”

  “Is that so? I’m barely twenty-eight. How old are you?”

  “Mid-thirties for the rest of my life. And you wear twenty-eight gorgeously.” He stopped in the middle of the wide stone staircase leading toward the docks and pulled her to him for a kiss. The breeze swept her loose hair across his face and mingled it with his. “But I’m going to age much more gracefully than you.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a teasing edge. “Do you really want to have a relationship with a woman who will age while you remain the same? Do I?”

  “I don’t know. Never tried it before. Have you?”

  “No, but I can’t imagine in a few decades how strange it will be.”

  He kissed her again. “I love that you think of our relationship in decades. But let’s take it a day at a time, eh?”

  “You’re right. The now is perfect just as it is. God, I love you. And I sure hope when I’m seventy you’ll be saying the same thing.”

  He swept her off her feet to a spill of giggles that settled his nerves. Because he was nervous about standing face-to-face with a werewolf. But with Lark by his side, he could accomplish anything.

  Decades with this woman? Yes, please.

  The boat was set to take off on the last tour for the evening, and was about a quarter full with tourists scattered randomly throughout the dozens of rows of metal benches. Domingos sighted Danni’s bright red hair at the back of the boat—she waved at him—and he paid for their tickets and boarded behind Lark.

  Tall, fit and always wearing some kind of military T-shirt and camo pants because she’d once served in the armed forces, Danni greeted them, shaking Lark’s hand and saying how nice it was to meet her. Then she put her arms around Domingos’s neck and hugged him. “It’s good to see you, Domingos. I’m glad they didn’t beat you.”

  “You can’t put a good vampire down. Not for long, anyway,” he added.

  Looking behind Danni, he nodded to the stoic man with broad shoulders and a stern demeanor. The side of his face and neck revealed long slash scars. From talons? Interesting.

  Danni slipped an arm around the wolf’s back and stepped beside him. “Lark and Domingos, this is Christian Hart.”

  The wolf offered his hand to Lark, who shook it, and then to Domingos.

  Domingos could but stare at the offering. His throat closed off and he was suddenly hot, then cold. The tingling in his fangs warned that he was hungry—for revenge.

  “I, uh—” Danni looked to the werewolf “—didn’t explain completely to Hart who you were, Domingos.”

  “You don’t remember me?” he hastily asked the wolf, who showed no sign of recognition. “Danni didn’t tell you about my adventure with pack Levallois?”

  “No, I—” He looked to the redhead, who still held him, and then back to Domingos. Memory moved behind the wolf’s pale gaze, and as the boat shifted into motion, swaying the foursome briefly, Hart shook his head. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry. You. The pet.”

  Domingos winced at the label. Remy Caufield had taken malicious joy in calling him that. His idiot leech of a pet who wouldn’t die, no matter the tortures he was served. He’d been reduced to an animal, and had been labeled one, as well.

  “Oh, dude, I shouldn’t have said that,” Hart hastened to say. “I had no idea. Danni, you should have told me. I didn’t remain in the pack long after they took you in.” He stroked the scars self-consciously. “I know that’s no excuse.”

  “Doesn’t matter anymore,” Domingos said, shaking if off. “What’s done is done.”

  He could do this, and without screeching cats playing harmony. Lark clasped his hand, and he fought not to clench her fingers. For now, she anchored him.

  “I heard you’ve taken out half the pack.”

  “Close to that.”

  “Deserving,” Hart said. “Are you...okay?”

  “Does okay mean I have UV sickness that blinds me in sunlight and burns my flesh instantly, and puts crazed voices in my head and forces me to feed daily? Then...sure. Okay.” He grimaced at Lark. She offered him a comforting smile and a squeeze of his hand. “But we came to get information, not discuss my health.”

  “Sure.” Hart moved to the railing, now avoiding Domingos’s eyes. The wolf didn’t smell like the mangy pack wolves, but that didn’t mean Domingos was going to embrace him. “You’re a friend of Danni’s, and that makes you a friend of mine. I’ll tell you anything I can. I’ve been out of the pack for months, though. I don’t have current intel.”

  “Have you ever known the pack to have an association with the Order of the Stake?” Lark asked.

  Hart’s eyebrows rose. He looked to Danni, who nodded that he should speak.

  “Uh, yeah. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m a knight,” Lark said.

  “A woman?” Hart put up a placating hand. “Sorry, I’m saying all the wrong things, guys. The two of you have knocked me a little off-kilter. The Order of the Stake and pack Levallois? Yes. Well, not officially. One specific knight, to be exact. He and the pack leader, Remy Caufield, have been associates for a while.”

  “Associates?” Domingos said, while at the same time Lark asked, “How long?”

  Hart shrugged. “Few years? Let’s see. The pack started taking in a lot more vamps for the blood games, hmm...about two years ago.”

  “What does that mean?” Domingos insisted. “How are the blood games associated with the Order?”

  “This is information I shouldn’t even have—”

  “Tell them,” Danni insisted. “You have no alliance to the pack now. They were going to kill me, remember?”

  Hart lifted his girlfriend’s hand and kissed it, displaying a tenderness that Domingos could relate to, yet he wasn’t going to give the wolf any slack.

  Hart nodded. “Right. One of your knights has been providing the pack with vampires for the blood games for years.”

  “Gunnar,” Domingos guessed.

  The werewolf met his gaze, his pupils growing wider. “You know him?”

  “He’s the knight currently assigned to stake me,” Domingos said. “And I suspect he’ll take Lark out, too, if given the chance.”

  “A knight going after another knight?” Danni asked.

  “I was the one who was originally assigned to stake Domingos,” Lark
said. “I failed.” She planted a kiss on Domingos’s cheek, which made Danni smile and hug her wolf closer.

  “So, what does Gunnar do?” Domingos asked. “Bring the vampires he’s supposed to slay to the pack?”

  “I think so,” Hart said. “I was never in on it, not allowed access to that inner knowledge. But I saw him talking to Caufield a few times. And I did see him enter the compound with an unconscious vamp over his shoulder once. Had to unlock the cage to let him drop the bloodsucker inside.”

  That slur tipped him over the edge. Domingos lunged for the werewolf, yet was stopped not by Lark, but by Danni’s hands to his chest. Lark’s hand he felt smooth down his back, reassuring, but not stopping.

  The werewolf had not moved, nor did he show fear. “Let him have a go at me,” Hart said. “He’s owed that much.”

  “Not with a bunch of mortals on the boat,” Danni cautioned. “Though, if we were someplace private, I’d let him loose on you.”

  Danni pushed Domingos away, and he came to a stand, but his ire fluttered high now and the irritant inner wailing spun. The whispers were so loud they grated against the curves of his skull. He gripped his head, and Lark shuffled him back a few steps, putting herself between him and the other two, gentling him with her presence.

  “Don’t let it win,” she whispered. Her sweet scent threatened to still the madness. “You’re better than that.”

  “You don’t know what it was like being caged,” he said, tucking his head against hers, not willing to let the wolf see his pain and anger, but unable to push it completely away.

  “I know, lover. I don’t ever want to physically know. The boat has turned and is heading back. Another fifteen minutes. Can you make it?”

  “Of course I can. I’m not an imbecile.” He gave his head a good shake and pounded it once. That seemed to joggle the whispers to background noise, and the mangy cats fled.

  Cats. Heh. Fighting the wolf with a screaming invisible cat. Yep. He was a certified nutcase.

  “Gunnar Svedson,” Hart offered. “That’s the knight you want.”

  “Thank you,” Lark said, and stayed beside Domingos as the lights from the buildings onshore reflected across their faces in haunting flashes. “Give us a minute, will you?”

  And she wrapped him in her arms, her hair falling over his face and her body crushing against his, surrounding him with her brightness and sweetness, and forcing him to think only of her. His luscious lover, his beautiful hunter, the woman who spoke to his soul.

  His beautiful danger.

  “What are we going to do now,” he asked, “about this information?”

  “Nothing tonight. I’m going to take you home and make love to you and not think about anything like hunters or werewolves or nasty cages. Just you and me, lover. Then in the morning we’ll face reality.”

  “I thought you were my reality.”

  “Yes, and all that other stuff is my new wrong. You’re my right, Domingos. Do you understand that?”

  Those words whispered over the noises inside his head and conquered them. “Yes.”

  Domingos held Lark until the boat docked, and while Hart disembarked right away, Danni remained to give him one more hug.

  “He feels bad,” she said about the hulking wolf who waited for her on the landing, his hands stuffed in his front jean pockets.

  “I hold nothing against him,” Domingos offered. “The wounds are still sore, though. Give me some time before you invite us over for cocktails.”

  “I will, but I will also consider that a date. We gotta stick together, we, the few vampires unaligned with a tribe. We can protect one another, yes?”

  “As best I can, I will always be there for you, Danni.”

  “I know you will. You’re a good man, Domingos. Goodbye, Lark. It was great to meet you. Take care of him.”

  They watched Danni and Hart wander off, hand in hand, a vampire and a werewolf, and both agreed that if those two could manage a relationship, then they could, as well.

  * * *

  Instead of returning to Domingos’s home, he led her to the right bank and through the busy streets that glittered with lights and tourists still lingered, gazing into the windows of closed high-scale clothing and jewelry shops.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “My home is too dark and broody for us tonight. I want to treat you. Make love to you in style on fancy sheets.”

  “I don’t need fancy, lover. I just want you.”

  “Yes, but I want to see you in fancy. Indulge me?”

  She shrugged. “Lead on. The glaring headlights don’t bother your eyes?”

  “Nope, only UV light. I have definitely become a night creature, eh?”

  “That was a surprise to me when I was learning about your breed, that vampires can walk in the day. Though I know there are a few strains of vampire who can’t do the rays. So you’re not a member of tribe Zmaj anymore?”

  “No. I didn’t return after escaping from the Levallois compound. I didn’t want to inflict my crazy on them. And their new leader, Slater, is not exactly friendly. I’m thankful Danni is still my friend. She’s right, we need to stick together.”

  “Maybe form your own tribe?”

  “Maybe. There is something to be said for strength in numbers.”

  “When you’re feeling more like your old self, perhaps,” she agreed.

  They walked toward the Place des Vosges, an elite shopping area in which Lark had once loved to spend the entire day. High-heeled shoes had been her crack, and with Todd’s small trust fund she had indulged. After her miscarriage, she’d cut down on the spending, but not the window-shopping. A girl had to have some dreams to take her mind away from the real world on occasions.

  As a knight she made a moderate salary, but she’d been sticking that money away for the future, which, in her new dreams, involved a cozy little cottage out in the country and maybe a studio in which to practice.

  “Will you ever tell me about your mortal life?” she wondered as they strolled hand in hand down the street. “Intel reports you were a studio musician.”

  “I was, and I played with a few local orchestras. Was getting into some alternative rock ’n’ roll stuff, as well. I’ll tell you all about it sometime. If you’ll tell me how a pretty girl ended up married to a vampire hunter, and then became one herself.”

  “You know the part about me saying yes because I was pregnant. There’s not much else to tell. But whatever you want to know about my life, I’m an open book. But I warn you it’s boring.”

  “Boring sounds pretty damn good to me.”

  “I bet it does.” They turned down the Champs-Élysées. The street was always lit as if for a grand celebration. “Danni is pretty, and her boyfriend seems like he could be a nice guy. For a werewolf, that is. He was nervous around you, and very apologetic.”

  “Yeah, but those scars on his face and neck. They should have healed. Something wrong with that.”

  “No doubt.”

  “No more talk about wolves, eh?”

  “Right. Wait.” Larked recognized the elegant black wrought-iron porte-cochère before the hotel foyer. The doorman in regal forest-green livery nodded to them. “Are we staying at the Shangri-La?”

  “You like?”

  “Like? I’ve always wanted to stay here. It’s supposed to be ultraluxurious.” She rushed ahead toward the tall white, paned doors that led into the hotel. “Can we order room service? Something decadent that you can watch me eat?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Oh, my God, I love this!”

  They checked in and Domingos secured them a suite overlooking the Tuileries Gardens, which were currently lit with decorative lighting strung through the chestnut trees in celebration of Bastille Day. The
view from the patio was amazing. Across the river the Eiffel Tower twinkled, lit up like a Christmas tree. And on the Seine the boats cast golden waves in their wake across the darkened waters.

  Right away, Lark called up room service and ordered champagne, caviar and rice pudding with rum-soaked currants. Sounded decadent, and she had a craving for something sweet.

  Domingos stood on the threshold of the opened patio door, shirt unbuttoned and hands slack at his sides, watching the bustle in the royal gardens below while Lark pulled back the soft Egyptian cotton sheets and fluffed the pillows. She then wandered into the bathroom to inspect the soaps and shampoo and the soft, plush guest robes. Something about staying away from home was such a treat that she couldn’t contain her joy. Made her forget all the dire things that she probably should be thinking about.

  “In the morning,” she decided with a wink to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Tonight is for us.”

  Shrugging off Domingos’s coat and her shoes, and following with her clothes, she slipped on the thick terry robe, then tiptoed up behind her lover and ran her hands down his chest. He smelled like the air outside, mingled with smoke and a tint of the river. She sensed his arousal and then felt it as she glided her hand lower and gave his erection a firm squeeze.

  “I want you now, lover,” she said.

  He turned from the sights and stepped into the room. “What about room service?”

  “Threesomes are not my thing.” Tugging him toward the bed, she shoved him hard and he landed splayed across the emerald comforter. “Unless you want to invite the delivery guy in when he arrives?”

  “No way, just the two of us.” With a tug of her hand, he pulled her onto him, and the hard crush of their bodies was an exquisite pain.

  Domingos let out a harsh chuckle that he noticeably fought to control.

  Lark bracketed his head with both hands and stared into his eyes. “No, not now,” she said to the intruders that inhabited his thoughts, perhaps his very soul. “He’s mine, and I will take him away from you.”

  Such a Cheshire smile appeared on Domingos’s mouth she thought surely it wasn’t him, but instead the cats or violins, or those mysterious whispers. But he gripped her hips and flipped her onto her back, straddling her and planting a hard kiss at the side of her neck.