“You didn’t stay at the house last night,” he said, sliding into the passenger seat of Marc’s sleek BMW sedan. There was no way Marc could have gotten to the airport so soon after sunset if he had. The house was more than an hour away.
“No. There’s a crash pad for low-level vamps nearby. No questions asked. I didn’t want you to wait in that hangar any longer than necessary. You hungry?” he asked. “Or should we go straight to the house?”
“I’m hoping to meet Anthony later tonight, so I’ll need to change at the house. But I want to be at full strength for the meet, so let’s hit a bar first. Someplace quiet and discreet. I don’t want to announce our presence too loudly before I’ve had a chance to talk to Anthony.”
“Quiet it is. There’s a place in the new neighborhood.”
“Good. I’ll call Anthony en route and see what his availability is for later tonight.”
“Think he’ll take your call?”
“Mais oui. By now, Raphael will have contacted him and given him the happy news that I’m their new ally. He’ll take the meet.”
Marc snorted. “How’d Raphael and his people react?”
“Raphael is practical. It’s part of what makes him so successful. He saw the value of what I offered, and that was it. His people were less sanguine about it, especially his mate. In her eyes, I’m not only one of the European invaders, but Mathilde’s child, to boot. She’s not even inclined to like, much less trust, me. Raphael doesn’t trust me either, but I think he honestly wants the strongest candidate possible to win the South.”
“As long as it’s someone he approves of.”
“Someone he can work with,” Christian corrected. “I have no doubt that if Raphael didn’t think I’d be good for the South, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. I’ve heard stories of his power—it was all Mathilde talked about sometimes. But it’s one thing to hear of it, and another to stand ten feet away from it.”
“You’ve power enough to win the South on your own merits,” Marc said loyally.
“I do, and I will. But I did the right thing in speaking to Raphael first. It’s a matter of respect,” Christian said, as he speed-dialed Anthony’s office.
“Lord Anthony’s office, how can I help you?” The woman’s voice was creamy smooth, with just a hint of sexy purr beneath words that flowed with the musical drawl of someone born and raised in New Orleans. The sound of that voice struck Christian so hard that he pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, wondering if her physical reality could possibly match that wonderful voice.
“Christian Duvall here,” he said finally. “I wish an audience with Lord Anthony and assume an appointment is required,” he added, cursing himself for sounding stiff and humorless. He doubted that she of the lovely voice was even remotely as entranced by his voice as he’d been by hers.
“Well, Mr. Duvall,” she said smartly, but with a touch of humor. Probably because he’d sounded like a stuffy old man. Okay, so he was an old man at 239, but he didn’t look it and, despite all evidence to the contrary, he didn’t normally act it either. Fuck!
“Excuse me?” he was forced to ask, since she’d been talking the whole time he was scolding himself, and he hadn’t heard what she’d said. Even better. Now, she thought he was stuffy, old, and stupid.
But she only laughed, a sound that made his dick hard. Mon dieu, he was like a randy teenager. Had it been that long since he’d had sex? He’d fed regularly since arriving in Texas. It was always easy to find willing young women. He never took more than he needed, and always left the woman with sensuous memories, but he hadn’t actually had sex with anyone in . . . he thought back . . . nearly two months. No wonder the mere sound of this woman’s voice was doing him in.
“—not sure when his secretary will be back, but I can check with Lord Anthony for you, if you’d like?”
Christian blinked, aware that he’d drifted into his own thoughts again. “That would be kind, Miss . . ?” he said leadingly. He wanted this siren’s name.
“Natalie,” she provided. He’d have preferred the full name, but he would get that later. He might have failed miserably in this phone encounter, but when he and Natalie met, he would do better. He was, after all, French. And, say what you will about the French—and the Americans had plenty to say—they had perfected the art of seduction centuries ago.
“Natalie,” he repeated, tasting the syllables. “Is Lord Anthony currently in his office?”
“He is. Would you like to hold?”
Christian didn’t, in fact, want to hold. He hated being put on hold. But he wasn’t going to tell Natalie that. So he said, “Of course.”
“Be right back.”
Christian nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. Maybe she didn’t think he was stuffy. After all, Natalie of the siren’s voice worked in Anthony’s office, which meant she was accustomed to dealing with vampires, many of whom reflected the manners of the age they’d grown up in. Which meant she might only think he was stupid. He frowned.
“Problem?” Marc asked, glancing over as he made the connection that would cross the beltway surrounding the city of Houston. Bush Intercontinental Airport was north of the city, while the house that Christian had purchased was just west of the city center, about thirty-five miles south of the airport, and all of it clogged with traffic.
Christian gave him a questioning look.
“You looked . . . pensive.”
He smiled broadly. “Thinking of beautiful women, and all I can do with them.”
Marc laughed. “The best kind of problem there is. You—”
Christian cut him off with a raised hand as Natalie’s intriguing voice sounded in his ear.
“Lord Anthony’s in a meeting right now, Mr. Duvall, but he did say you should come on by later tonight. How does 12:30 a.m. sound to you?”
“That sounds perfect.” He didn’t add that pretty much anything she said would sound perfect. That would have been too much, too fast, and the art of seduction, when done well, was slow and subtle.
“I’ll put your name on his schedule. Do you need directions?”
“I don’t, but thank you, Natalie. À toute à l’heure.”
“Oh!” she said, sounding flustered for the first time. “Well. Bye-bye then.”
Christian was still smiling when he disconnected the call and looked around. Marc had gotten off the highway, but Christian didn’t recognize the neighborhood. He’d visited Houston a handful of times in the last few months, mostly to look at houses. He’d been to Anthony’s estate house once, too, and had known immediately that it wasn’t what he wanted for himself when he became Lord of the South.
He hadn’t been specifically invited that time. He hadn’t even officially been living in the territory. But Anthony had held a loud, noisy party to celebrate the New Year—which was a big deal in vampire circles—and the guest list had been long and porous. Christian had shuffled down deep in order to avoid calling any attention to himself, and he and Marc had slipped in with a lively group of young vampires.
The house had been wide-open for the most part, and a few of them had taken the opportunity to visit Jabril Karim’s infamous basement. Jabril had been Lord of the South for decades before he died, and the basement was where he’d imprisoned and tortured both his enemies and his stable of blood slaves. Anthony had walled off a portion of the space, and ordered a sleeping vault built for his people, but the rest of it had been stripped down to bare walls and left empty. Despite the intervening years, and several intensive cleanings, Christian had still been able to smell the blood that had been spilled so cruelly within those walls.
When he became Lord of the South, he’d give the damn house back to the Hawthorn heiresses, the two young women Jabril had tried to cheat of their inheritance. And if they
didn’t want it, he’d raze the building to the ground and sell the land.
No matter what happened, he would never live there.
“Christian?”
He was pulled out of his dark thoughts to see that Marc was parking in front of what appeared to be a very busy nightclub. There was a long line of people at the door, and the parking lot was nearly full.
“Have you been here before?” he asked.
“A couple of times last week, with some of Anthony’s guys. It’s not a blood house, but the owner sees the benefit of having vamps hanging around. The ladies do love us,” he added with a grin.
“Dress code?” Christian asked, retrieving his black leather jacket from the back seat.
“You got your boots on?”
“Of course.”
“Then you’re dressed enough.”
Christian laughed as he pushed the car door open. “You know,” he said conversationally, as the two of them started for the front door, “it was pure serendipity that we ended up in the South, but I think I’m going to like it here.”
“No argument from me,” Marc said, and then turned to greet the doorman. “Hey, Wilson,” he said. “Big crowd tonight.”
“Big crowd every night since you all started coming around,” the doorman agreed with a smile. “The ladies come to see you, and the guys come to see the ladies,” he explained and unclipped the velvet rope to admit the two vampires. A group of twenty-something guys near the head of the line muttered in protest. But the women standing in front of them eyed the two vampires up and down, their stares bold and inviting.
Christian walked past with nothing but a polite smile. His only purpose in being here tonight was to feed, and he preferred the more anonymous encounters afforded by a dark and crowded dance floor.
Marc slipped a hundred dollar bill to the doorman as he and Christian entered the club, walking down a short, musty hallway to a pair of padded double doors that opened onto a landing directly above the club’s main dance floor.
Christian stopped long enough to draw in a long, slow breath, taking in the scents of perfume and alcohol, along with the ever-present aroma of human sweat and a touch of marijuana. Cigarette smoking was prohibited in most restaurants and bars in the Houston area, but someone had apparently decided weed didn’t count.
“This is what I call a target-rich environment,” Marc said, flashing a grin worthy of Tom Cruise.
Christian gave his lieutenant an amused glance and shook his head. Marc loved American movies. He’d lived the last two and a half decades in France, but he’d been born in the U.S., and he was thrilled that Christian had decided to challenge for a territory here.
“Does this mean you’re going to sing for your supper?” Christian asked him dryly. The movies might be Marc’s obsession, but Christian had spent hours watching films with him. If nothing else, it was a good way to practice his American English.
“Nah, you won’t sing with me, so it’s just not the same.”
Christian laughed. “I don’t think you’re going to have a problem,” he commented, noticing the number of speculative looks he and Marc were getting.
It always surprised him how certain women in places like this seemed to recognize the vampires almost instantly. When Christian looked in the mirror, he saw a man like any other. Better looking than average, perhaps, certainly healthier, but that alone wasn’t extraordinary. So how did these women identify them as vampires? Maybe he should ask one of them someday. Before he sank fang and banished any semblance of rational thought from her mind, that is.
“Just a quick bite, Marc,” he cautioned. “I want to stop at the house and change before my meeting with Anthony.”
“In and out, it is. And I mean that in the most culinary sense.”
“Go,” Christian said, laughing. “Meet me back here in an hour, but don’t leave the club. I have a feeling Houston is about to become a dangerous place for us.”
“You want to stay together, then? Double up?”
Christian weighed the idea, but rejected it almost right away. He and Marc had shared their women more than once, sometimes one woman between them, and sometimes a pair of women, whom they’d take back to their house or hotel, and then trade off partners during the night. But as enjoyable as that was, it was also time-consuming.
He shook his head. “There’s not enough time to do it right.”
“One hour then,” Marc agreed and, taking the two steps down to the dance floor, quickly melted into the crowd.
Christian lost sight of him almost immediately, but he could still sense him nearby. Marc was his child. They had a connection that could only be broken by final death—the kind that ended in a pile of dust, a possibility too painful to contemplate.
Reminding himself that Marc was a strong vampire who was more than capable of defending himself, Christian turned to his own purpose in being here. And that was to feed, to gain strength before his meeting tonight with Anthony. A meeting that was important to both his and Marc’s future on this continent.
He scanned the crowded room. Several women returned his assessing gaze, but most were too aggressive for his taste, too blatant in their invitation. Christian liked intelligent women, even bold women, but bold didn’t mean brash. He preferred subtlety in all things.
His eye fell on a lovely young thing standing with a group of friends. The women were all casting glances his way, whispering among themselves. Most stared openly, their hunger for what he offered transparent. But the one who’d caught his attention dared only fleeting looks before lowering her eyes. It might have been an artifice, but he didn’t think so. And, frankly, he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to mate the female, he only wanted to sink his fangs into her neck, and take what he needed. And, of course, leave her trembling in sexual ecstasy in return.
Christian captured her gaze the next time she ventured a look. It took only the smallest hint of his power. She wanted him; she was simply too shy, or too frightened, to demand it the way the others were doing. He descended to the dance floor, the crowd parting before him like a bow wave.
One of the club lights was shining almost directly down on his target, gleaming off her cap of short, dark hair, her big, brown eyes as round and startled as a doe’s as she watched him approach. Her friends preened as he drew close, but their excitement gradually turned to disappointment, and in one case, anger, as they realized who his target was. The angry one, a bottle blonde with big hair and deep cleavage, tried to insert herself in front of him, but she withered before his cold stare.
He turned instead to his doe, drawing within a few inches of her. Close enough to see the tremble in her fingers as she clasped her hands to her chest, to hear the tripping beat of her heart and detect the sweet scent of her arousal.
“What’s your name, bichette?” he asked, using the French term for the little doe she resembled.
“C-Carmen,” she said nervously.
“Would you like to dance with me, Carmen?”
She looked confused for a moment, as if she’d expected him to grab her right there on the dance floor and sink fang. Was that how the local vampires behaved? If so, there were going to be some changes when he came to power.
Christian pulled her gently into his arms and began swaying to the music, as he moved them deeper into the crowd and away from her friends. The song was an upbeat tune, but he didn’t care. He found a low, throbbing rhythm within the music, and moved gently from side to side, one hand holding Carmen’s fingers against his heart, the other circling her slender waist, his fingers spread over her lower back. Slowly, her muscles relaxed, the tension leaving her body as the song continued. Before long, her head was resting against his shoulder and he tightened his hold, letting his fingers drift down farther, to just above the curve of her ass.
The song ended, fading out a
s another began, the DJ making the switch seamlessly. The new song was slower, something soft and bluesy, and the lights dimmed to reflect the new mood. Christian lowered his head to the curve of Carmen’s jaw, drawing in the scent of her skin. And beneath that, the sweet perfume of her blood, rushing temptingly close to the surface, the big vein in the side of her neck plump and inviting.
He placed a kiss right beneath her ear. She shivered in anticipation and pressed her body closer to his, until he could feel the hard points of her breasts pushing against his chest. She gave a needy little moan, as Christian slow-danced her into a shadowy corner of the already dark club.
Carmen looked up at him with wide eyes when her back hit the wall. She blinked several times, as if waking from a dream, but then her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips. Christian’s dick twitched. He wanted to push himself against her, to grip her tight, little ass and rub his cock against the heat he could feel pulsing from her pussy. Without warning, she raised up on her tiptoes and kissed his mouth. She was awkward and inexperienced, but Christian wasn’t.
Suddenly impatient, he took over more than the kiss. He took command of her body, arms tight around her back as he lifted her higher, crushing his mouth against hers, his tongue thrusting, demanding she respond in kind. She moaned again, in surprise first, and then in hunger, her arms circling his neck as she mashed her mouth against his, tearing the delicate skin of her lip and flooding his senses with the taste of her.
Christian growled hungrily, his tongue sweeping out to take in every drop of her spilled blood, before he lowered his mouth to her neck. She gasped as he licked and sucked her velvet skin until her jugular was a swollen line, pushing beneath the surface, as if offering itself up to his bite.
His gums split as his fangs emerged. Sharp spikes of pain were quickly forgotten with the bounty of Carmen’s hot blood so close that the rush of its passage was a faint vibration against his lips. He brushed the tip of one fang along her neck, and she groaned in need.
Christian (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 10) Page 3
