by Michele Hauf
Of course it had been. Every move the man made was calculated. And she continued to fall for such trickery.
With a heavy sigh, she said, “Just show it to me.”
Dante strode in and at the bookshelf he tugged out a book with a red spine. That activated a mechanism that slid back a row of shelves populated by dusty books to the right. Behind it, fitted into the wall, appeared a small twelve inch by twelve inch safe, on which was centered a combination dial. Without need of the moonlight, which was blocked by the position of his back to the window, he spun it right, left and right again. The door swung open with a creak, and inside sat the egg, filling the small space. Nothing more.
“Satisfied?” he asked as she studied the dark interior.
“Take it out. If it’s in there, it’s yours. Out here, it’s ours.”
He lifted a brow, studying her. She hated him more than dirt right now because, once again, he had the upper hand. And she could still taste their kiss—quick as it had been—on her lips. And recall his sad confession. His mother...
Okay, so she didn’t hate him. How could she after learning what his early years had been like? Though a mild dislike was permissible.
“I’ll give you the combination,” he said, quickly closing the safe door on the egg. He strode to the desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a pen and paper. His hands illuminated by a stream of moonlight, he scribbled down some numbers and then handed the paper to her.
So she could open the safe at any time? She could deal with that. Kyler stuck the paper in a back pocket, then glanced at the book he’d pulled out and that still stuck out. A red spine with no writing on it. The rest of the books were darker colors and dusty.
“Will that suffice?” he asked.
“I’ll need a key to the palazzo.”
“You are a demanding woman, Kitten.” He sat on the desk chair and pulled open another drawer. After shuffling about inside, he produced a thin silver key tied with a frayed bit of red velvet and handed it to her. “I’ll want that returned before you leave Venice.”
“Why is that? Don’t you want me stopping by in the future for a booty call?”
He gave it some consideration. “Keep it then.” He sat back, putting his hands behind his head in a stretch. “It’s late. I’m not tired. You’re all hyped up on a power tirade. What shall we do with ourselves?”
“If you want me to tell you what you can do with yourself...”
“Why don’t we finish the conversation we never started at the hotel? About King.” He gave her a look that said, “I told you my stuff, now it’s time you did the same.”
“There’s nothing to tell about King,” Kyler said dismissively. “He asked me to get the egg for him, and I am.”
“What’s he holding over you to make you do such a thing?”
“As I’ve said, I want to do this for him.”
He assessed her calmly. Even in the darkness, those eyes of his permeated her skin and tasted her doubt and fear. It felt more intimate than if he had pierced her with a fang.
“You’re not a good liar, Kyler. The man is holding something over you. You don’t want to tell me. Fine. Let’s move on to the fact you’re working for a vampire hunter. I don’t get that. I can only guess that once he has what he wants from you he’ll whip out the stake and ash you.”
“You have no idea who I’m talking about. He’s certainly not a vampire hunter.”
“King is not a common name. Rather a narcissistic moniker, if you ask me. But really, I’m quite sure we are discussing the same man. Tall, sandy-brown hair, built like a dancer with muscles.”
“He’s tall and built, but I’m sure there’s more than one guy named King who has brown hair.”
“If I recall the one time I saw him he’s got a sort of Christian Bale thing going on. Not an unattractive man.”
Kyler sucked in the corner of her mouth. She had indeed thought King looked similar to the actor, perhaps taller and always with a fierce look in his eye. She could never tell what was going on behind that intense gaze. Maybe they were talking about the same man?
But still.
She shook her head and thought about laughing to throw him off, but it didn’t feel right. He had set her off her game, and she felt unmoored. Propping up a thigh on the corner of the desk, she leaned forward, meeting his gaze through a slash of moonlight.
“King—the King I know—is a vampire.”
“Can’t be. The man I know has killed hundreds, perhaps even thousands of vampires over the centuries.”
“I know he’s a vampire because he’s the one who transformed me.”
At that announcement, Dante leaned his forearms on the desk and peered deeply into her eyes. “You’re fucking with me.”
She shook her head. “You must be thinking of another King.” She paused, considering. Could it be?
“Your silence tells me I’m thinking of the same man you’ve been dealing with,” Dante said.
“He’s a friend!”
“Kyler, seriously? King is the one who made you vampire?”
She nodded, the unmoored feeling pushing her further out to drift. She wanted to reach out and cling to him for safety. Because she’d not had that help after King had changed her. He’d scooted her out of his life and on her merry way to fly solo. “Best way to learn,” he’d said with indifference.
She’d asked for vampirism because she’d wanted the fantasy of living forever and gaining freedom over life and death. King had sweet-talked her into his embrace, and she had fallen, willingly. That first night he had probably only expected to bite yet another donor and leave her in a thrall. But she’d pleaded with him. And two days later he’d found her and taken her to his home. The bite had been painful but blessedly welcome. Immortality had been hers.
When leaving his home the morning after the transformation, she had seen notes on his table about an eternity spell along with a diagram of the Nécessaire egg. He’d told her it was a valued family heirloom that had been stolen. He’d been searching for it for decades and was getting closer to finding it. She’d asked him about the spell, and he’d explained the difference between immortality and eternity. The definition of immortality had been an eye-opener to her. She’d thought she’d gotten forever with his bite, but she hadn’t.
When King had told her how determined he was to have eternity, she had eagerly reminded him she was a thief and, should he ever need her assistance, she could help him. It had been a desperate ploy to keep his interest. He’d told her he would come for her if the egg ever emerged on the scene.
Dante sat back in the chair, crossing an ankle over his knee. He rapped the desktop and then rubbed his chin. “Well, well. King is a vamp? Valuable information. Though, mind you, I’m still not going to believe you one hundred percent. It makes little sense.”
“Why do you think King is some kind of hunter?” Kyler leaned onto her palm. “A vampire wouldn’t kill his own kind.”
“King is the founder of the Order of the Stake. You’ve heard of it, yes?”
She nodded. King had, almost as an afterthought, told her to beware hunters with stakes, among others such as werewolves and angels, and even faery dust. But she couldn’t believe King was allied with vampire hunters. The founder of such a vile organization? Doubtful. As Dante had said, it made so little sense.
“In the mid-twentieth century one of his knights slayed a friend of mine,” Dante said. “While King stood watching. I assumed it was an initiation of sorts. Rook was there, too. He ever mention that man’s name to you?”
King hadn’t talked about much that first night they’d had sex, other than to offhandedly suggest she might lose a little weight. And when he’d returned to offer vampirism...their encounter had been depressingly businesslike. She’d wanted more from him but had cautioned her crushed hea
rt to be thankful for what he was giving her.
Though, maybe...he’d taken a phone call as she’d lain in his bed, feeling her heartbeat race with the delicious new future she’d been granted. He’d spoken the caller’s name. Yes, because she recalled thinking how crazy it was that a man named King had a friend named Rook.
“He did mention him,” Dante guessed. “Rook is vampire, too?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I only heard the name once. And that was spoken casually to someone on the phone as he was walking around picking up my clothes.” In an effort to get her to leave. But that detail wasn’t necessary for Dante to understand. “The Order of the Stake? Impossible.”
“As far as I know, the Order has been around since the sixteenth century. Founded by, as rumor tells it, King. I’ve never given consideration over what he was, beyond immortal, for he’s been around for centuries. Yet everything makes perfect sense if the man is vampire. Immortality and all that. But why kill his own kind?”
“He’s not a killer. I was with him—”
She couldn’t confess she’d been the man’s lover but once. Hardly enough time to get to know him. She should have gotten the hell out of there the moment her still-mortal self had found out he was vampire. Instead, she’d followed him. Because of desire for what he could give her.
“So you are King’s lover? He’s not going to like hearing that you’ve slept with me.”
“I’m no man’s lover. I sleep with whom I want, when I want.” And Dante didn’t need to know she and King were not currently lovers. Need to know, baby.
“If you insist. Let me get this straight, then.” Dante sat forward. As he spoke, he gestured firmly with both hands before him. “King bit you and then tricked you, I take it?”
“He’s never tricked me. I asked for vampirism.”
“I got that. But what I want to know is when did King come out and ask you to get him the Fabergé egg?”
“Well...after I saw some notes on his desk. But he just contacted me a week ago. The egg hadn’t appeared until then. I had actually forgotten about seeing the notes and telling him I could do him a favor.”
“Ah.”
“Ah? Would you ask whatever it is you really want to ask?”
“So King knew you were a thief before changing you to vampire? He had to. He’s calculating.”
“Well, no, I just—when we first met, it was at a coffee shop. Just a casual bumping into one another over the cream and sugar, and we ended up chatting for over an hour. I was attracted to him, and sensed he was to me, as well, so it turned into flirting. I did offhandedly mention I had a thing for stealing to him. But I never said I was an art thief.”
“Because you are not.”
“Because...” Kyler exhaled. Was it that obvious? On the other hand, she had pulled off the heist. “You think he transformed me just so he could get me to steal the egg?” She had mentioned she could steal the egg if it ever turned up merely as a means to impress him. Had she been so desperately smitten? Oh, the idiot things a woman did when in lust. “That can’t be right. He hadn’t even found the egg when he transformed me.”
“Possible. But he knew he would require a thief eventually. So you told him at your first meeting, and then he transformed you two days later. The man probably laid out the notes on the egg expecting you’d see them. He took you to his home to transform you, yes? And after the deed had been done, you casually happened to notice those notes lying within eyesight? It’s the only explanation for the situation you are in now. Unless you are on his side and you’re playing the fool to me. Are you a vampire hunter, Kyler?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I may be a thief, but I’m no murderer. You’re wrong about King heading the Order. You have to be.”
But she couldn’t convince herself of it. This information was startling. If King were a vampire hunter, why would he want an item that granted vampires eternity?
Did he really kill his own kind? It was difficult to wrap her head around it all.
Dante stood and ran a fingertip along the desk until he landed at her leg. “Why did you ask for vampirism, Kyler?”
Hadn’t she told him already? He’d told her—ah, no, she hadn’t. She hadn’t wanted to take away from his sadness by jumping in with her sad tale.
She had already given him too much. She should take the damned egg and run. Take her chances passing through security at the docks. She could bite the policemen, enthrall them and be gone with the prize.
“Talk to me, Kyler. I told you why I asked for it. It was because I wanted immortality, to live life. Forever.”
“It was because you feared death. Because of your mother,” she said on a whisper.
“It was.”
“Me, too.” She bowed her head and wrapped her arms across her chest. “Do I really need to do this right now?”
He tilted up her chin and held her gaze with soulful, understanding eyes. “Please.”
She sighed. “My mother died of breast cancer over a year ago. It was a terrible time. I quit college—I started late, after a failed attempt at a homemade jewelry venture—to move back in and take care of her. She died slowly, an agonizing death made all the worse, I’m sure, by the chemicals the doctors pumped into her system.”
Kyler flinched when Dante tried to embrace her. He put up his hands in deference, yet remained close. His leg against hers felt warm, reassuring. So she spilled all.
“I was angry and scared after she died. Alone. Unsure. I wanted to die and then I did not. I wanted to be bulletproof. To never fear death. My mother had made me promise, as she was dying, that I would use the trip to Paris she had gifted me for my birthday. We’d planned to go together—this summer, actually. I didn’t want to go without her, but then I decided it would be a great remembrance of her if I did go. She loved Paris. Had been there half a dozen times. So I used the vacation.
“A week into it I met King. At a coffee shop, as I mentioned. He charmed me. And I took him home with me, and he bit me. He was going to leave it at that, get dressed and slip out in the early morning hours, but in a moment of desperation, or maybe pure determination, I asked him to make me like him.”
“Then you would never have to fear death,” Dante said quietly. “A son or daughter should never have to watch their mother die at such a young age.”
She nodded. “Never. There’s still the chance of death for me. Stakes and all. But I have a future ahead of me now that I was unsure about before. I want this life, to never fear cancer or disease, to fear suffering as my mother did.”
Tears dropped from her eyes and now she did let Dante hug her. She fell against his chest and dropped her head onto his shoulder, clinging as he rubbed her back. He really did understand her, even if his grief had been long ago. She felt he was a kindred soul, and that she could tell him anything. And she needed to because he was the first person who offered her quiet understanding.
“I was going to school for fashion design when my mother was diagnosed,” she said with dreamy reverence. “I had the world in my hands. I was pretty and sexy. But then, when I moved in with Mom, I started eating my stress. During her hospice I put on thirty pounds and started doing desperate things. Stealing items we needed like drugs and food. I’m not a professional thief by any means, but I told King I could handle a heist. I wanted to impress him. It’s stupid stuff we women do when we are flirting with a handsome man and want him to notice us. So when King contacted me a week ago, all the feelings I’d had for him reemerged, and I thought maybe we had a chance at getting together.”
Dante looked up at her. His gaze asked her so much.
She nodded. “I’m not good with letting go. And when a handsome man calls me...” She sighed, thinking that her current relationship with a handsome man could very well mirror the one with King.
No. It was different
with Dante. He’d not asked anything of her. Just the egg.
“Anyway, once I got to his place I realized that all my pining for him was in vain. He was the consummate businessman. Offered me a glass of water and pushed the notes about the egg toward me. It had surfaced in Venice, he told me, and if I wished to honor what I’d promised him six months ago, I could give it a go. Get the egg for him.”
“I see.” Dante pulled away enough to meet her gaze. He took a moment, nodding, perhaps running what she’d said over in his thoughts. With a stroke of his thumb along her lower lip, he said, “I’m sorry about your mother. But that you were there for her must have meant everything to her.” He kissed her forehead. “No one should have to experience such suffering.”
“Thank you. We share that same grief. You must still think about your mother?”
“At times. She was so beautiful, Kyler. I can’t believe she succumbed to the vicious taunts from her younger workmates.” He kissed her cheek. “Never believe you are not beautiful.”
She bowed her head against his and took the moment to accept the compliment and not deny it, as was easy to do at times. He meant it, and she felt his regard infuse her all the way to her soul.
“Thank you. But look at me. I took the easy route. A way out of death.”
“As did I. But vampirism is never easy or an escape from death. Only it does afford the luxury of time. I can understand you wanting that. We are alike in that desire and our fears. You must never feel badly for asking for such a gift.”
“I don’t.”
“You do, else you wouldn’t feel the need to assuage your guilt by giving King such a gift. You said you believe the spell contained in the egg grants a vampire eternity?”
She nodded.
“This information about King troubles me. What to do with it?” He strode past her out of the office.
Kyler glanced down the moonlit hallway but didn’t see Dante. Troubled by a vampire who wished for eternity? It hadn’t bothered her at all to learn such a thing. Yet what she knew now about King...
Vampires, by nature, were secretive and manipulative. Or at least, that was what she had believed from the media and fiction. Now that she thought about it, King had spoken oddly about the vampire species. Mentioning that those who killed deserved the hunter’s stake.
