by Kresley Cole
When Loa had taken over the shop for her grandmother, Loa Senior, a voodoo high priestess, she’d assumed her new role almost too well.
Danii recalled telling her at her first open house, “There’s something puzzling about this island vibe you’ve got going. Loa Senior told me her granddaughter was raised in a ritzy suburb outside Parsippany and graduated from Notre Dame. So how’d you get the Caribbean accent?”
Loa had narrowed her bright amber eyes and answered, “Loa Senior tells tales to impress a Valkyrie.” Then she’d added under her breath, “Don’t try to stuff me into one of your little mental boxes. I won’t fit—any more than you would.”
“Well, Valkyrie,” she said now, making the word sound like Vakree. “Slumming with vampires, I see. If your sisters found out…”
“They won’t. Because you won’t tell them if you want to stay in business.”
“What are you thinking, bringing a vampire into my shop? Can you not read the signs?”
Loa’s attitude rankled. Her red, curve-hugging dress rankled. “Probably not as well as you can, since I don’t have a fancy college degree from Notre Dame.”
Between gritted teeth, Loa said, “Damn you, I did not go to Notre Dame.”
“Go Fighting Irish, rah-rah.”
“I’m Murdoch Wroth, of the Forbearer order,” the vampire interjected smoothly, extending his hand. Loa offered her own out of habit, then clearly thought better of it, but he’d already leaned down and kissed the back of it. “And you must be the incomparable Loa.”
Could his deep voice be any sexier? It reminded Danii of how he’d sounded in bed this morning.
Loa gazed up at the vampire, looking a bit thunderstruck. “Murdoch Wroth? Aren’t you one of the legendary Wroth brothers?”
“One and the same.” He cast Danii a superior grin.
“If I recall, you were the wayward, bed-hopping one.”
Danii thought a muscle ticked in his jaw, but he was all polished composure as he said, “Only when around women as lovely as you.”
Loa actually tittered. “Well, I suppose if your eyes are clear, I could make an exception to my no-vampire rule.”
“Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet such a beautiful proprietress.”
I’m going to be sick. Except I don’t eat.
“And I can hear that you’ve been blooded,” Loa said. “Surely not by the ice maiden?”
“Yes, by her,” he answered in a noncommittal tone.
Loa smiled. She should. Vampires simply didn’t flirt like this once they’d been blooded. At least, not with anyone but their Brides.
“What a rogue this one is, ice maiden. You’ll never tame him, child.”
“Don’t want to.”
“So you won’t mind if I put you two in Loa’s betting book? The notorious rake blooded by the ice queen—but how long can her frozen clutches keep him from straying?”
Knowing Loa would do it regardless, Danii affected an unconcerned demeanor. “Knock yourself out.” Cold as a block of ice.
“I suspect we’ll soon be calling you the Forbearer’s forsaken one—”
“Can we just get to what we came here for?” Danii interrupted sharply, her cold façade cracking.
“Ah, yes,” Murdoch said. “Loa, have you heard any information about Ivo the Cruel?”
Loa turned to Danii. “Why ask me?”
“Ivo’s in the city.”
Her lips parted, her amber eyes excited, glowing in the candlelight. “Vampires overrunning us, Lykae hunting these very streets… It’s the Accession. Finally!”
“And you sound like you’re looking forward to it?” Danii demanded. “What? Do you want to have an Accession sale or something?”
“Some people benefit. People like me.”
“Alumni, rah?”
“Ladies.” Murdoch seemed to find Danii’s surly behavior amusing. If she were surly, it was only because the air was hot in here. Danii always got irritable when hot.
“This makes sense,” Loa said. “I’d heard Lothaire is here, and he often travels with Ivo.”
At the mention of Lothaire, Danii stifled a shudder. Ivo was an evil, sociopathic fiend, but he was at least manageable.
Lothaire, the Enemy of Old, was incomprehensible. No one knew what he wanted, and no one could predict what he’d do next.
“You know where they might be?” Danii asked.
“They’re definitely staying in the area.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Lothaire has been seen night after night,” Loa replied. “There are kobolds camping in the sewers by the river. Ask some of them.”
“I’ll do that. Have you seen Nïx?”
“Aye, she came round and bought… She made a purchase. But I don’t know where she went. Now, back to you, Murdoch.” Loa leaned over the counter onto her elbows, displaying more cleavage than Danii could manage with a thousand water bras.
When he raised his brows in admiration, Danii stormed from the shop. “Going to make a call outside.” She refused to watch any more of this. After Lafitte’s, she’d gotten her hopes up about the vampire, again, only to have them dashed now. Do I need to see a neon sign flashing THis GUY’S A PLAYER?
“Directly outside, Daniela,” he ordered, surprising her that he’d even been aware she was leaving—and making her bristle at his commanding tone.
On the street, fog from the river was stealing over the Quarter, wrapping it in haze. She took a deep breath of low-tide air to calm herself and debated ringing up Nïx. Usually calls were reserved for emergencies, because you never knew when a Valkyrie might need silence for stalking something.
Deciding this was an emergency, Danii pulled her sat-phone from her satchel, then dialed Nïx’s number.
And heard Nïx’s Crazy Frog ring tone going off in the next alley over.
CHAPTER 20
“I am astonished she’s even talking to you,” Loa said after Daniela had walked out, her tone turning decidedly neutral.
Murdoch narrowed his eyes. She’d been flirting for the Valkyrie’s benefit? “Why give Daniela such a hard time?”
“Ooh, the vampire doesn’t like Loa toying with his Bride.”
“Answer me.”
“Because she wants to be treated like other Valkyrie, and that’s how I treat them,” the priestess said. “Want some advice?” When he grudgingly nodded, she said, “Watch for her claws curling, vampire. In a Valkyrie, that means she needs a male to sink them into.”
Daniela, with her claws sunk in my back as I took her—
“Oh, and here. These are on sale,” Loa said as she bent down behind the counter. “For the ice maiden.” She tossed him a pair of gloves. “Tell her I said to handle you with care… ”
When Murdoch left Loa’s, he wore a victorious grin. He’d purchased the gloves and had garnered a secret about the Valkyrie that could be very helpful to him.
But by the time Murdoch emerged to the now foggy street, Daniela was gone.
He started back toward the main thoroughfare. After several moments, he spied Lukyan at a distance, still intently prowling the streets for Ivo. The Cossack always seemed to be devoid of fear, almost as if he had a death wish. Vigilant Rurik traced on the roofs above him.
Yet there was no sign of Daniela.
Danii rushed to the sound, peering down the stygian alley. Finally, she spotted the soothsayer, talking to some figure in the shadows.
“Nïx!” By the time Danii reached her, the figure had hastened away. “Who were you talking to?”
“Hmmm?” Nïx’s raven-black hair was wild, her golden eyes vacant as usual—she often saw the future more clearly than the present—but she also looked frazzled and tired. Though she wore an immaculate white dress, her hands were filthy.
“And why are you so dirty?” Danii asked her.
“I’m dirty? You’re the one getting busy with a leech. You naughty, freaky minx.”
“Answer the question,” Danii gritted out
. “Who was that?”
“Who was who?”
Typical Nïx—she could be playing innocent, or she truly could have forgotten who she’d just been talking to seconds before. “What are you doing here?”
She blinked at Danii. “Laying low like po-po?” At Danii’s glare, Nïx’s mien turned playful. “Trolling for some strange! No? Composing a tweet?”
“Nïx, are you following me?”
“Do I need to be?”
Danii inhaled for patience. “I was looking for you. I need to tell you about—”
“Myst. Don’t concern yourself. She’s taken care of. As for your next question, you should go somewhere that is not here.” She gazed around as if they might be overheard, then loudly whispered, “There are dempires about.”
“Dempires?” Danii had never, in her long life, heard the term.
“And Lykae all around as well.” Nïx jerked her chin in the direction of the main drag.
Danii glanced over and spotted three Lykae walking by, twins and one more. All of them were striking examples of heart throbbing maleness, but then, Lykae often were.
Now they stopped, turned toward Danii and Nïx, and sniffed the air. All three tensed with awareness of other Loreans. A standoff. Danii drew ice into her palm.
Then Nïx wiggled her dirty fingers, beckoning them. Looking scarily crazed with her wild hair and unsettling eyes, she cooed, “Come, puppies. Come meet Destiny.” Out of the corner of her mouth, Nïx stage-whispered, “Destiny is my fist’s name.”
When the trio spoke in Gaelic, and carried on, Nïx chuckled.
“What? What’d they say?”
“That we weren’t worth the bother. That you’re the frigid one and I’m crazy. Seems they’ve got our numbers!”
The frigid one. Lowly Lykae thought of her like that? My ego’s on life support. Prognosis grim.
“We’re eventually going to be allies with them, you know,” Nïx said dimly. “In-laws, even.”
Danii snorted. The Valkyrie considered the Lykae little better than animals. “You’re joking, right?”
“Would I joke about something like this?”
“Emphatically, yes. Now tell me, why did you predict I’d get fixed last night?”
“I said you might. Look at the upside: you got to enjoy a male who wasn’t an Icere bounty hunter and who didn’t have designs to murder you. At least, not until he got peckish.”
“Would Murdoch have hurt me? Will he?”
Nïx tilted her head in the direction of Loa’s shop. “I used to be able to read him as easily as his brothers, like open books. But now I get little on him. I just see that you’ve got him confounded, not knowing up from down anymore. At three hundred years old, he’d thought he was quit of uncertainty like this.”
“Wait, you said brothers? Does more than one live?”
“You’d better get back to the vampire, he’s about to spot—”
“Daniela!” Murdoch’s voice boomed down the alley.
Danii glanced over her shoulder at him, then back, but Nïx had already vanished. Damn it. She swiftly hit redial on her phone, yet all was silence.
When Murdoch reached her, Danii saw genuine concern on his face. “Why did you leave?”
She hiked her shoulders. “I thought you’d be longer in there.”
“Now who’s jealous?”
“Hardly.”
“I just wanted to prove that I’m not gruff and brooding,” he said. “Or that I only am with you. And besides, I was just flirting to get information.” When she still glared, he said, “Admit it, you were jealous.”
“No, I’m embarrassed. Because everyone would expect you to be possessive and intent only on me. They’re going to see this as a failing in me.”
“You said the blooding didn’t make one want his Bride.”
“No, not if the Bride or mate or whatever was objectionable. But am I really that objectionable?”
His brows drew together. “You truly can’t understand any hesitation on my part?”
He was making her feel like more of a freak than anyone had in two thousand years.
But that was a lie. There’d been the Roman…
“Vampire, I think you’re afraid to settle down—with anyone. You were single for years and celibate for three hundred more. And now you have bachelor’s panic.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“BP? It’s when a man irrationally fears a woman he especially likes. He gets ascared of said woman’s toothbrush breaching the perimeter of his man cave, et cetera.”
“Panic? I don’t panic,” he sneered the word. “Daniela, you can’t be touched.”
The frigid one. Enough of this. “No, you can’t! Your heart’s colder than mine. You are the untouchable one.”
She turned from him, wanting away from this vampire with his unflinching honesty. Because it… hurt. The life I have inside my head…
Murdoch followed her. “Just because I’m not ready to blindly accept a Bride I hardly know—for eternity — makes me coldhearted? I’d say it makes me rational.”
“Oh, so maybe it’s not me, it’s you? Make up your mind!”
“Even if you were all things perfect for me, I would resent this situation. The Forbearers have learned to fear bloodlust because it makes vampires crazed and out of control. But so does the blooding! Yet we’re supposed to welcome it?” He hastened in front of her, blocking her way. “It’s making me behave in ways I normally wouldn’t. Would you wish this for yourself? To have your personality completely rewritten?”
“If I had your personality? Ab-so-lutely. Because here’s the thing—you’re not special anymore. You’re not unique in the Lore. You’re a leech who used to have it easy getting laid. And now, you’re just predictable.”
He advanced on her until she backed up against the wall of a building. “Just a manwhore, huh?” They were in each other’s faces, her breaths smoking between them.
“That really bothers you?” They were fighting—she needed to stop glancing at his lips.
“Shouldn’t it?”
When his gaze dropped to her breasts, transfixed as she panted, she demanded, “What? What do you want from me?”
He faced her with his eyes narrowed, turning that fierce obsidian color. “The same thing I wanted this morning.” His voice grew husky. “To stop fighting with you and start kissing you.”
She swayed on her feet. He’d wanted that? “But you can’t.”
He shook his head. “I can’t smooth my fingers over the inside of your wrist.” With his gloved hand, he lifted her hair. “I can’t run my lips over your neck… or suckle your breasts. And it’s driving me mad.”
He eased his body even closer to hers, resting his forearms against the wall on either side of her head. His mouth was right at her ear as he asked, “Am I too close? Does this hurt you?”
She felt his erection press against her belly and choked back a moan. “No, no… But how do I know you won’t bite me?”
“I won’t. I swear it.”
Just when she perceived his hips drawing back, and she knew he was about to thrust against her body, her ears twitched.
She shoved him away. “We’ve got company.”
Daniela had spotted something. “ Grab that one!” she cried, pointing in the direction of a garbage heap down the alley.
Murdoch spied a gray-haired gnomelike being with a miniature cane and traced forward like a shot. But the creature was fast, scurrying from him. It took several minutes of cat-and-mouse before Murdoch caught it by the collar, lifting it up.
The little thing had red cheeks and a kindly appearance, but looked terrified.
“That’s it!” Daniela called from a distance, hastening to catch up. “Now smack it around!”
He glanced back at her. “Smack it?”
Once she reached them, she jerked her chin at the gnome. When Murdoch turned back, it was twisting around to take a bite of his arm. Murdoch gave it a shake
, and for the briefest instant, he thought he saw a reptilian-like visage flicker over its face. “Christ! What is this?”
“Can’t tell him, Lady Daniela?” it said. “He’s a Forbearer leech. But you might tell all if you became a vampire’s whore, like the Coveted One? How far you Valkyrie fall!”
Daniela strode forward and slapped it, stifling a wince at the contact.
The creature growled, then locked its eyes on Murdoch. “What are you doing with a cold bitch like this one?” it asked, becoming the first being to question why Murdoch was with her.
Now Murdoch cuffed it.
“Where is Ivo the Cruel, kobold?” Daniela asked.
Kobold? As Loa had spoken of.
“Why should I tell you?”
She lowered her voice, looking sinister when she said, “Because if you don’t, I’m going to freeze you solid, then chip away your flesh with your own little cane.”
The kobold swallowed. “I–I might have seen Ivo and Lothaire about earlier.”
“Where are they staying?”
When it hesitated, Murdoch gave it another violent shake.
“Outside the parish! In the bayou. Near Val Hall.”
“Near Val Hall?” Daniela repeated in amazement. “Have they no fear?”
“They’re different,” the kobold said. “You can’t fight them.” The same thing Deshazior had told them.
“How do you know this?” she asked.
“Heard it from a rat demon who heard it from one of the crocodilae shifters. That’s all I know—vow it to the Lore!”
“Toss him,” Daniela said. “Hard.”
Murdoch flung the kobold back into the garbage heap, and it skulked away with a gurgling hiss.
“Okay, vampire, you have plenty to go on now,” she said, still catching her breath from her earlier sprint. “Dawn’s only a couple of hours away, so I think this is where we…” She trailed off when she saw him frowning at her. “What?”
“Are you hot?”
“No, I’ll manage,” she said, but her skin was reddened, her face pinched.
He swallowed. “Daniela, your breaths aren’t smoking.”
CHAPTER 21
