A Venetian Vampire

by Michele Hauf

  And if all went well, soon she could claim that taste for an eternity.

  She’d wanted to bite Dante last night.

  He was so irresistible. Would a little bite have hurt? He’d insisted it wasn’t something she was ready for. Why, though? Too intimate? Perhaps. Kyler guessed even though Dante claimed a mastery with women, intimacy was well out of his repertoire. So she’d have to live without a taste of her dark angel. This had been a one-night stand. A satisfying reward for a job well done. A memory to keep.

  And now to make her escape without some drawn-out explanation or an awkward goodbye. Damn, she wished he’d still been sleeping.

  After slipping on her flats, Kyler strolled down the hallway to the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs a worn fieldstone floor stretched to the right and into the foyer. The stones were as dark as the gray-painted walls. She’d not noticed the dark decor last night. She’d had her arms and legs wrapped around Dante. And her mouth on his. And, oh...his mouth all over her skin as they’d made fantastic love to each other. He had worshipped her body.

  As she veered toward the divan where she’d dropped the backpack, the shadows receded into a beam of subdued morning light. With a startled gasp, she noticed Dante sat there. With the backpack dangling from his fingers.

  And it was open.

  Chapter 3

  “What are you doing?” Kyler rushed over and grabbed her backpack. “You went through it? It’s—”

  “Empty,” he provided plainly.

  Dante stretched an arm across the back of the divan and crossed his legs casually. He wore dark slacks, and his unbuttoned white shirt revealed hard abs. That she had licked only hours earlier.

  “You had the egg last night before we came here,” he said. “I took note of the weight of the backpack.” He pointed toward the front door, and she spun to see that it was open a crack. “Someone’s been here.”

  Clutching the empty backpack to her chest, Kyler squeezed her eyes shut tight, then turned toward him to unleash her anger. “You liar! You did this! How did you know? Were you following me? I remember you confessed to following me. Then you had sex with me to distract—” With a heavy gasp, she managed, “You used me?”

  “Kyler, sit.” He patted the tufted cushion beside him. Entirely too calm, he infuriated her. But then he could afford to express casual disinterest. He now had the upper hand. “Raging at me is not going to solve the issue of the missing egg.”

  “You bastard! Of course. You should know. You took it. But how did you know I had it? You had to have been following me far longer than the few blocks near the flower shop. And then to trick me into coming here with you...you had this all planned out!”

  “I performed no such trickery. You’ll recall we shared a few drinks, and then it was you who eagerly suggested we finish off the evening here.”

  “After your suggestion you were open to having sex with me.”

  He lifted a finger. “A suggestion you took to with amorous enthusiasm.”

  “You were scheming. Hoping to get me alone so you could steal the egg from me. I can’t believe I fell for that! I wanted a night to celebrate and have wild sex—”

  He grinned deliciously. “It was a bit wild, wasn’t it, Kitten?”

  “Aggh! Where did you put it?”

  Dante spread his arms out in dismay. “I haven’t touched it. Though I admit I slipped down here while you were in the bathroom to do just that.”

  “Steal it?”

  He nodded. “Truth? I’d hoped to take it into my charge after you’d done all the hard work.”

  Jaw dropping open, she gaped at him.

  He shrugged. “I saw you yesterday afternoon in the auction house. Casing the place. I was there doing the same. Don’t get me wrong. I am not a thief. It’s simply my quest to acquire that specific Fabergé egg.”

  She lifted a brow.

  “Doesn’t require explanation.” He waved it off with a flick of his fingers. “It occurred to me that you’d probably strike the night before the auction, as I had intended. And I had the notion to see if you could manage the theft and bring the prize to me. Which you did. After following you from the auction house, I positioned myself at the bar, hoping you’d walk that way. It was a series of remarkable coincidences.”

  “Bullshit.” She slammed the backpack on the floor, which didn’t produce as loud of a noise as she wished. Pacing the stone tiles, she ran her fingers through her hair. “What makes you believe someone stole it? We were awake all night. We would have heard a disturbance. No. I know you’re lying. This is another scheme. Make me believe someone broke in by leaving the door open a crack, and then when I’m gone you’ve got the egg all to yourself.”

  “Just stop, Kyler. Stand still.”

  She swung toward him. “Why?”

  “Close your eyes.”

  She shook her head in irritation and shook a fist at him.

  A trace of the Casanova smile tickled his mouth. “Humor me?”

  Why did the man have to be so pretty? She didn’t want to punch him; she wanted to hug him. And lick him. And allow him to touch her all the ways he’d done last night.

  With a huff, she slammed her hands to her hips and closed her eyes.

  “Now,” he said gently. “What do you smell?”

  About to reply that she smelled a bastard, she inhaled deeply, vying for a modicum of calm. She had to figure this out, a way to deal with him, to bargain perhaps and get the egg back. As soon as she got the call to hand off the prize, she had to be ready. Or bye-bye eternity.

  Wrinkling her nose, she took in the scents in the foyer. First being Dante’s after-sex warmth and musk. Mercy, could she have seconds? And thirds?

  Focus, Kyler!

  Beyond that annoyingly attractive scent lingered the dry coolness of the floor stones, and then—she opened her eyes. “Wet dog?”

  “Exactly. It was raining hard earlier this morning. We were awake but were focused on one another. A delicious focus, I might add. Easy enough for a werewolf to break in and nab the item with the rain to muffle the noise.”

  “A werewolf? Oh, please. Don’t you have security on this place?”

  He nodded toward the door. “Just a simple lock with key access. An easy crack. I never keep anything of value here, and oftentimes in the winter months I’ll leave the place open, available for friends to use.”

  “I cannot believe you are so lax with security!”

  “Yes, well. I’m paying the price now, aren’t I?”

  “How so? It was my nab! And there’s nothing you can say or do to change that. I did the work.” She thumped her fist on her chest in frustration. “I stole the egg. It’s mine.”

  “Do you have it in your hands?”

  She huffed at his need to state the obvious.

  “Then it’s not yours, is it? Whoever holds it owns it. As I learned when it was originally stolen from me.”

  “What?”

  He waved a hand, dismissing the comment. “Doesn’t matter now. What does is that I’ve come to Venice to claim the Fabergé egg, and I won’t leave without it.”

  “So you admit you used me—seduced me—to get what you wanted?”

  He lifted a finger. “The sex was not my original intention. I had not planned to use intimacy to obtain the egg. That was a fortuitous bonus.”

  “Liar. You took me home, knowing I had the egg on me. Then you fucked me and planned to steal it while I was sleeping or in the bathroom.”

  “I did intend to steal the egg from you. I won’t deny that. But the sex was completely separate from my larcenist goals. And I’ll thank you not to combine the two. What we shared last night was intimate and sacred.”

  “Sacred? Yeah right. You are a classic womanizer.”

  “I am n
ot a womanizer,” he protested. “I love women. All of them.”

  She blew out a breath. Was there a difference? “I don’t believe you,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. Right now, I’ve got to find the smelly wolf who stole my egg. You really think it was a werewolf?”

  “The scent is obvious. And the fact we can both still smell it means the culprit must have been here in the last hour or two.”

  “Then I need to track it.”

  She sniffed the air but couldn’t quite pick up the salty-wet scent. It was quickly dissipating. How to track a wolf? She’d never even met a werewolf. She knew it was safer to talk with them in their un-shifted were form than when they were in their shifted half human, half wolf form. She’d figure it out.

  But first. “Stand up. I want to search you.”

  Dante stood and raised his arms out from his sides. His shirt opened, and his abs flexed magnificently. Kyler spread her fingers before her, deciding where to touch him first. No place on his person to hide an egg the size of a skull. Had she counted those ridges last night? That was definitely more than a six-pack, now that she considered it. And she could smell his leather-and-musk heat wafting through the atmosphere, tempting, teasing—

  “Forget it.” She gazed about the foyer to distract her waning fortitude, and as she did Dante pulled her into his embrace. She struggled against him, but he wrangled her into compliance with ease. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want this from you. You didn’t mean any of it last night.”

  “I meant it all, Kyler. I promise you that. I take intimacy with a woman very seriously. Look at me.”

  She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

  “Fine. And you’re right. There’s time later to argue the semantics of our ill-timed love-making session. We need to track the wolf before the trail goes stale.”

  “We? I don’t think so. The egg is mine. I am out of here.”

  “I’m right behind you!” Dante called.

  Kyler didn’t listen. With the backpack in hand, she slammed the front door behind her, then, thinking to look for a clue, she studied the door handle and sniffed. Yes, maybe a faint scent of wolf there. The sidewalk was still wet, so she couldn’t see tracks or decide which way the trail led. Tracking people was not her forte. Just as thievery was not.

  But falling for some scheming, too-pretty womanizer? Sign her right up. Apparently she was a professional when it came to being seduced.

  “I can’t believe last night happened.”

  But she’d do her damned best to forget about her lack of discretion now. To forget the scent of him on her skin and at her mouth and—

  “Aggh! Focus, Kyler. You are a vampire. You’ve got skills. You can do this. And no,” she muttered as she strode down the street, tugging down her shirt, “this is not a walk of shame. I am without shame. Really.”

  Mostly. At the very least she could be thankful her hair wasn’t in a tangle and she wasn’t wearing a spangled miniskirt and sky-high heels.

  She sniffed the air again. Tracking werewolves had not been a part of her paltry Welcome to Vampirism 101 education. Because she’d never received that complete course. Her creator had been too busy, unwilling to divulge more than a handful of details, and—

  “Uninterested,” she said with a sigh. So why was she here in Venice now trying to help that very vampire out?

  Because she did appreciate the gift of vampirism he had given her. And that was all there was to it. She owed him.

  She walked slowly, trying to pick up clues, scents, anything. As she struggled to fix on a doglike scent, it became horribly obvious she’d never find the wolf unless it walked right up to her.

  * * *

  Dante quickly dressed. He kept the palazzo stocked with suits. Rarely did he wear leisure clothing such as jeans, though he could manage a relaxed élan that would blend him in with the tourists. He preferred a suit. A well-dressed man could get through most difficulties life flung at him. But he hadn’t time for the whole attire. Clean, pressed trousers and a white dress shirt would have to serve. He left the red silk tie lying on the bed, grabbed his door key and rushed out of the palazzo. He locked the front door, but, as had been proven, it mattered little. He must look into having one of those newfangled digital locks installed. He struggled with new technologies.

  Then again, as he’d said to Kyler, he kept no items of value in this palazzo, so did tight security really matter? He wasn’t a man who collected things. What mattered most to him were experiences. Visceral, tangible moments that were fixed into his brain forever after. Such as having sex with Kyler. She had been a hot one, and he’d like to handle her again.

  He rarely spent more than a night or two, sometimes a week, with a woman. And he shouldn’t risk another night of passion with a woman whom he, by all rights, should deem an enemy. Well, she had been when she’d held the egg.

  Now that neither held the prize? He’d reserve judgment on labeling her as foe or ally.

  It was early morning, and tourists had yet to flood the streets. Gondoliers were polishing their conveyances and sidewalk café staff washed tables and metal chairs. The sun was hidden behind clouds, for which he was thankful. He hadn’t taken along a pair of sunglasses, and the sun was not his favorite star.

  He didn’t have to go far before he found Kyler walking slowly, her hands extended out at her sides as if to feel the air and her eyes closed as she strolled to a stop at a corner. Her silhouette reminded him of a 1940s pinup girl, rounded at the hips and breasts, and all that gorgeous hair swishing about in curls below her shoulders. The memory of her soft purrs against his skin last night made him smile.

  He would have her again.

  Quickening his pace, he grabbed her hand. Following the werewolf scent he was still able to track, he tugged her along to the left when he presumed she might have turned right.

  She protested with a tug. A gentle one. “I told you I didn’t want to see you again!”

  “Quieter, please.” He made show of looking about. “We are on a mission. You’re a thief. You must know how to practice stealth?”

  The look she gave him made him immediately question that suggestion. But really, she had to be experienced to have walked out of the Cannaregio Casa d’Aste with a priceless artifact in hand. But why so impudent? He should be the angry one—she’d stolen from him. For now he attributed her anger to their current estranged intimacy. He’d make amends. All night long.

  “Like it or not,” he said, “we are now a team. This way.”

  He veered toward the canal and then left alongside a brick building that boasted a narrow sidewalk between it and the still canal. The werewolf scent faded because the salty, stale water overwhelmed his senses, but with intense concentration Dante was able to keep his focus on a tendril of wolfish odor.

  Pleased Kyler hadn’t further protested their working together, he took selfish pride in the fact that he’d fucked her well last night. She may hate him, but she still wanted him. And she freely held his hand now, trailing behind him as they neared a diminutive metal bridge arching across the narrow canal.

  The scent of wolf assaulted his nostrils like a rotten egg. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. This was not a stale trail they followed.

  Dante pressed Kyler to a stop. “They are close,” he whispered. “Can you scent them?”

  She nodded and closed her eyes.

  And he was able to pick up voices...most likely belonging to the wolves.

  “When do we leave Venice?”

  “Tonight. We gotta get out of here before news of the theft will make leaving the city difficult. And there’s the full moon. You smell that?”

  “Uh...oh, yeah. Like musk and...blood. Vamps!”

  “Shit.” Dante pushed Kyler toward the narrow stone steps that descended into the clear green canal under the
bridge. “They’ve picked up our scent. Get in!”

  “But—” She didn’t continue the objection. Instead she stepped quickly down and sank under the surface, and he followed.

  Kyler didn’t utter a word as the cool waters tugged them downward and he directed her to swim under the bridge. Their movements were sinuous as they glided underwater. Vampires could breathe for extended periods underwater; werewolves had about as much skill with that as humans.

  They resurfaced beneath the bridge. Treading water, Dante pressed his finger over her mouth. Her bright blue eyes held such trust, not a bit of worry. Why trust him? According to her previous reasoning, he was the guy who had tricked her and stolen the egg. Perhaps she was so far out of her element even she didn’t know what or whom to trust. Poor little girl. He really would like to be that kind of man—the one a woman could trust—but it wasn’t coded into his DNA. He’d never trusted women, so why shouldn’t they return that favor?

  They averted their eyes upward as footsteps gained the bridge, and the familiar scent of werewolf kept their cautious movements to tight hand swishes and steady kicks to keep their ears above water.

  On the bridge a male said, “I thought I smelled vampires. I know I did.”

  “Yeah, but they’re not this way. Maybe it was around that other corner? Doesn’t matter. We should head back to the vampire’s palazzo in San Marco. Have stakes. Will kill vamps.”

  “We were told not to kill anyone.”

  “You complain too much.”

  “And you think you smell vampires everywhere.”

  “Yeah, well, they are nasty bloodsucking longtooths. And who’s going to know if we stake ’em?”

  “I do feel an itch to dust a longtooth. Let’s go.”

  The footsteps tromped off the bridge.

  Dante’s eyes traced Kyler’s face from her crimped brows to her sucked-in lower lip. Now she sought reassurance in his gaze. He could offer false security, tug her into his arms and supply some hopeful words, but it always ended in seduction. And right now he wanted to get out of this smelly water and onto dry land.