by Juliet Lyons
I place a finger over his lips. “Stop. I really don’t see that it matters anymore.”
He grabs my hand, kissing my fingertips and threading his fingers through mine. “It does matter. I didn’t know then I would be robbing you of a chance to regain your humanity. How would you have felt, if you suddenly became human again when Anastasia died? Would it have made you happy?”
I sigh, picking at a corner of the duvet cover. “When I heard about her being destroyed, I was angry. With you, mainly, and with myself. I suppose it would have been a second chance. It might have been nice to date without the whole immortality elephant in the room. But on the other hand—aging, Botox injections, IVF, the astronomical cost of funerals these days… I’m not sure I want any of that.”
Ronin stares into the gap between our bodies, his brows creased. “There’s still a chance for you. If you wanted it to happen.”
“You mean witchcraft? Karolina Dobrescu hasn’t been seen or heard from for quite some time.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
He suddenly looks very young, forlorn. How can two such different creatures exist in the same body?
I shrug. “We can’t change the past. Besides, it’s not like you knew what would happen to Anastasia.”
Anxiety melts from his face, his gaze running over my naked body. “Is it time for the sympathy sex now?”
My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me?”
He shifts, his head resting against the headboard. “I’m ready when you are.”
“After seeing all that in your life essence, sex is the last thing on my mind.”
Except that it isn’t, and rather than climb off the bed and grab my robe, I allow my eyes to drift down to his erect manhood. “Doesn’t that thing ever give up?”
He grins. “Not around you.”
I pause, the urge to ask him about what all this between us means gaining momentum inside me. But how am I supposed to ask a notorious womanizer like Ronin McDermott if he plans to embrace monogamy after a thousand years of carnal philandering? Besides, the idea of a future with Ronin McDermott is nothing short of ludicrous.
I crawl on my hands and knees up the bed, until I’m hanging over him. His pulsing length nudges my tummy, turning my insides to mush.
We’re silent, our faces inches apart. Then slowly, as if for the first time, our lips meet. He brings his hands up, delicately brushing hair from my face and holding it at the nape of my neck. I wriggle forward until I’m astride him, my palms flat against the satiny muscled planes of his chest.
The kiss is soft, gentle, and I give myself up—mind, body, and soul, wanting to crawl into this moment and live inside it forever. I knot my fingers into his hair, pulling him deeper into the kiss, encouraging the gentle flicks of his tongue as my body merges with his.
When he enters me, we both cry out. I sit up, riding him, clenching around his thick length as he thrusts inside me. Our hands are clasped together as if we’re drowning and the other is the only thing keeping us afloat.
Not in all the years since I lost Jonjo, with lovers long or short term, have I ever let myself go quite like this. I’ve always been afraid. Always had to hide who I am. But as I move on top of him, those fears melt away, and there is a split second—a brief flash of perfect calm—before I’m struck by fresh horror. Because this relationship with him—a demon—is as cursed as Ronin’s conception that night on the mountain.
* * *
Ronin
As soon as Catherine begins to doze, I turn onto my side and resume my position from last night—head propped up on one arm, gazing at her sleeping face like some teenage Romeo.
I’m still amazed that I let her see my essence, allowed her to witness the full extent of my murderous beginnings. Even more surprising is how she seemed to accept it. But then, Catherine and I belong to an exclusive club—a dark club for the takers of lives. A place from which there’s no return.
I reach out and brush a wild curl from her cheek, running my fingertips over her porcelain skin. My mother would have approved of her, I think as I trace the delicate arch of her jaw. She, too, possessed the same inner strength, that almost unbearable sense of pride. Perhaps that’s why I feel the way I do about Catherine.
Peering at the clock on the bedside table, I realize with a stab of regret that it’s already one in the morning. My third night absent from Soho. Trying not to disturb Catherine, I ease myself from beneath the sheets and cross the room to where I discarded my trousers, fishing out my phone from one of the pockets.
I switched it to silent before I arrived at Catherine’s apartment, and now I have twenty missed calls and a dozen texts. I open the first one from Harper, sent a few hours ago.
Get to the club, now.
I frown. Since when did he start dishing out the orders? Beneath my irritation, however, I’m gripped by a wave of fear. Something must be going on.
I pull on my clothes, staring all the while at Catherine’s sleeping face. If I leave without saying goodbye, she’ll be livid, and there’s no time to write a note. I shake her gently by the shoulder, half-dressed, one leg in my trousers and one leg out.
“What is it?” she mumbles, her eyes slowly opening.
I lean across, the sweet scent of her perfume and spent arousal sucking me in. Despite the drama, my cock jumps to attention. “I’m needed at the club,” I whisper.
She stirs, rubbing her eyes and glancing over her shoulder at the clock. “Now?”
“Yes. I think something might have happened.”
“Okay,” she says, staring up at me, her eyes wide and vulnerable.
This is it. The moment I should tell her how I feel—that she’s not some sexual conquest to be tossed aside like a cheap umbrella after a rainy day. That I want to share things with her, share myself.
But the words don’t come. I’m suddenly afraid that by sharing my feelings I’ll scare her away, upset the delicate balance of our situation. It’s the last thing I want, especially now that things are so much better between us. “I had a good time tonight,” I say.
She wrinkles her nose. “Just good?”
“The best. Will I see you tomorrow?”
She flashes me a mischievous smile. “Unless Mrs. Colangelo has rounded up a mob to run me out of town with pitchforks and torches, I’m sure I’ll still be around.”
I kiss her quickly on the mouth. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
I swiftly slip into the rest of my clothes, giving her a last lingering stare. She is a goddess in a tangle of white sheets, her hair spilling over the pillows in a pool of black velvet. I step away from the bed, mentally ordering the bulge in my trousers to calm the fuck down.
She waggles her fingers in farewell. “See you soon.”
I back slowly toward the door. Before I change my mind and stay here forever, I depart the room in a blur of speed, racing through the chilly night air to Soho.
Vampires and even ancient demons like me cannot fly in the traditional sense, but we can move fast. I leap across the buildings as if they’re stepping-stones in a stream, and before long, I’m back on Broadwick Street.
Despite the late hour, Soho pulses with life. Groups of revelers amble leisurely along the sidewalks, taxis and cars weaving paths through the brightly lit streets. For this crowd, the party is just getting started.
Usually by this hour, a handful of hopefuls wait in line outside number sixty-six’s polished door, ropes and stainless-steel posts holding them in place while Charlie or Stiven or one of the other security staff regard them with suspicious eyes. Tonight, there is no one. On the door, crudely attached, is a laminated sign: Closed. We apologize for any inconvenience.
I tear it off as I tap in the code. Closed. We’ll see about that.
The corridor inside is dark and silent, the lights on the wall switched off. Before I push open the
door into the club, I pause in the gloomy hallway, palm flat against the wood, and extend my hearing into the room.
The four individuals inside are all vampires. There’s not a single heartbeat in the whole building. I pick up the scent of Harper’s aftershave right away—some musky commercial crap he likes to drench himself in. Stiven or Charlie is probably inside too, judging by the aroma of boot polish tickling my nostrils. Another scent baffles me though—Chanel No. 5 laced with old blood. I shove open the door, expecting to be greeted much like yesterday morning. But nobody is in the main room. The lights behind the bar are the only source of illumination.
“Harper,” I call out, clenching my fists in annoyance. “Get out here.”
He emerges from the back and immediately I know something is very wrong. His eyes are red, his usually slick hair standing on end, as if he’s been running his hands through it in frustration.
But instead of acting concerned, I hold up the laminated sign. “What the fuck is this?”
Harper shakes his head, averting his gaze as if he can’t bear to look at me. “It’s Charlie,” he says, voice breaking. “He’s dead.”
I take a step back, his words sucking the air from my body like a blow to the chest.
“Hassan found him,” Harper continues. “In a dumpster outside his building. The head was recovered a few feet away.”
A wave of nausea rocks me to the core as I double over, the blood I took from Catherine rising up the back of my throat. I shake my head vigorously. “No,” I manage to say between ragged breaths. “No, no, no.”
Loyal, honest Charlie. Probably the best of all of us. The worst thing is, it never dawned on me until now just how much I liked him. “When?” I ask, staring at the slightly sticky floor beneath my feet.
“Hard to say exactly,” Harper says. “Where were you? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
I swiftly transform my sadness into anger as I straighten up. “That’s none of your business and you know it. I hope you’re not suggesting that my absence has somehow caused this tragedy?”
Harper shakes his head. “There’s something else you need to know.”
But before he gets any further, the door beside the bar crashes open and a tall, dark-skinned woman with silky, black hair and violet eyes slinks across the room toward us, her high-heeled boots clipping against the floor like gunshots.
Esme. New York’s finest.
“Hello, Ronin,” she drawls, as if she owns the club and I’m the one visiting.
I have difficulty swallowing as I briefly close my eyes. “I suppose she is the something else I need to know,” I say to Harper, cutting the ancient a glare of pure contempt.
Esme puts a hand on her hip. “Not the warmest welcome, but I’ve had worse.”
“I bet you have,” I say with narrowed eyes.
I turn my attention back to Harper, who is gaping openmouthed at Esme, a strange mixture of admiration and lust etched into his handsome features.
“Fetch us some drinks,” I say. “God knows I could use one.”
Esme arches a perfectly penciled brow. “Appletini,” she says, batting her eyelashes in Harper’s direction.
He scurries off to the bar like a trained rat.
Esme and I stand for a few moments, weighing each other up like prizefighters in the ring. Despite the modern clothing—a cropped, cream-colored fur jacket with skin-tight leather jeans—she is exactly as I remember her: tall and elegant, like the queen she claims to be. Her mother was supposedly an Amazonian princess who copulated with a blood demon. Though whether there is any truth behind the tale is anyone’s guess.
“It seems I’ve caught you at a bad time,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Without motioning for her to join me, I cross to a booth and sink into a leather seat, rubbing my temples.
Esme follows suit, taking the seat opposite and pouting. “Sorry to hear about your poor servant. Strange though—until I arrived, I was rather under the impression that Roger was a one-off. Then I find out that there was a murder before Roger was killed—Isaac Levine.”
I tilt my head to the side, thinking of the stack of papers I left on my desk last night when I left to visit Catherine. “Had yourself a good root around my office, did you?” I ask in an accusing tone.
She shrugs, leaning back into the seat. “When it concerns my vampires, I have every right to pry.”
I sigh. Ordinarily, I’d be raging, but the news about Charlie has sapped the fire from me. “What do you want, Esme? London? Is that it?”
Esme smirks, her violet eyes luminous in the gloom. “It’s a nice club you have here. Your man over there”—she nods in Harper’s direction—“has been filling me in on all the fun things that go on. I’d love to give the dating nights a whirl.”
I snort incredulously. “I’ve heard dating is tough in New York, but I hardly think you’re a prime candidate for speed dating.”
Esme smiles brightly at Harper, who appears beside us with a tray. As he places Esme’s drink in front of her, she winks, treating him to a flash of pearly-white teeth.
While she’s busy gazing at his retreating back, I say, “Tell me why you’re here, Esme. Charlie is dead, and he wasn’t a servant. He was part of the family here at the club. I’d like to make arrangements for him and investigate these deaths before I lose someone else I care about.”
A sudden pain shoots through my chest as I think of Catherine. If anything were to happen to her, I would never recover. Ever. I’ll need to take extra care to ensure she’s kept out of this.
Esme jerks in surprise, brows raised. “There’s a change in you. The old Ronin wouldn’t have given two hoots about a security guard.”
I slam a fist down onto the table, leaving a hand-shaped dent in the polished wood. “What do you want?” I growl.
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. If you must know, I’m here for my necklace.”
I recoil as if she’s just announced she’s in the running for London mayor. “Oh, come on.”
“It’s Tiffany,” she says, holding her hands up. “I had air miles. Sue me.”
“Really?” I say, face screwed up.
She shrugs, a smirk playing at the corner of her lips. “Well…I suppose I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit curious about Roger’s murder and everything you’re not doing to solve it.”
“I’ve been doing everything within my power to get to the bottom of this,” I lie, averting my eyes. Because really, who am I kidding? Aside from drafting Vincent, who rather fortuitously works as a private investigator now, the only thing I’ve been using my power for lately is getting under Catherine Adair’s skin—and, more recently, clothing.
Esme sighs loudly. “From what I’ve seen so far, that’s debatable.”
I shake my head but keep silent.
“Tell you what,” she continues brightly. “Why don’t I help you out?”
“Help me out how?” I ask, frowning.
“Finding the killer. Life in New York has been dull lately and I’m here now. Two heads are better than one.”
I shoot her a glance. As always with Esme, it’s difficult to tell whether she’s being sincere. But what choice do I have?
Slowly, I extend a hand toward her. “Deal,” I say as she places her cool, slender fingers in mine.
Esme grins. “Deal.” She throws a look in Harper’s direction. “This is going to be so much fun.”
Chapter 18
Cat
When Ronin calls later the next day to say he won’t be around in the evening, my heart sinks like a stone in a river. Though he explains the reasons—his doorman has been murdered, a New York ancient has rocked up on his doorstep—I’m hollow with disappointment.
Though seriously, what did I expect out of this? A relationship?
It doesn’t help when I arrive
back at the apartment to find Mrs. Colangelo loitering in the hallway. A massive crucifix on a silver chain adorns her withered décolletage, her trademark dressing gown knotted tightly at the waist.
She points at me with a bony finger, gold bangles jangling on her wrist. “You,” she says, her black, kohl-lined eyes narrowed to slits.
“Yes,” I say wearily. “Me. Your friendly neighborhood vampire.”
“I reported you,” she continues, eyes flashing, “to the police. For intimidation and threat making.”
I scoff, too exhausted to be cross. “Really? Is that a thing?”
“Don’t change the subject, young lady. The police will contact you soon. Threatening a poor, defenseless old lady in her own home. Shame on you!”
“Are we done?” I ask, holding up the brown paper bag I picked up at the 7-Eleven around the corner. “I have a dozen candy bars in here and I’d like to go home and eat them.”
“We’re done,” she sneers.
I stride away up the hall. “Have a good evening, Mrs. Colangelo,” I call over my shoulder.
“Candy bars are very bad for the teeth!” she yells after me.
“Good night, Mrs. Colangelo.”
As I pass Peter’s apartment, he flings open the door, grinning broadly. “Hey,” he says, gray eyes twinkling. “You made it past the troll.”
“I can hear you!” her voice calls from below.
I roll my eyes. “Apparently, the police are coming for me.”
Peter chuckles, shaking his head in amusement. “I think East London’s constabulary will have far more important crimes on their agenda, don’t you?”
I smile. “Even if they don’t, I have friends in high places. I’m pretty sure I’ll be safe.”
Peter’s smile falters. “You have friends in the police force?”
“Yes. A long story.” I hold up my brown bag in farewell. “Well, good to see you. I would stop and chat, but I have a date with Lucifer.”
Peter stiffens. “L-Lucifer?” he stammers.
“The TV show.”
