And there she was again, caught between Saloman’s confidence and the hunters’ safety. The hunters’ documents put Luk’s murder down to Saloman’s insane quest for total power, together with the side issue of jealousy after Tsigana, Saloman’s human mistress, had gone to Luk. The surviving texts gave no hint of the love that had once bound the cousins, or the pain that had consumed Saloman since he’d killed Luk. And those things weren’t Elizabeth’s story to tell.
She said, “I may need help pushing the stake right in, but I have no other problem with killing Luk.” She sounded too haughty, too defensive, but there was nothing she could do about that.
“He isn’t like Saloman,” she blurted. “Saloman wasn’t insane when they staked him, whatever your sources say. Luk was.”
The Hungarian hunters exchanged glances.
“Horse’s mouth?” István asked.
“Horse’s mouth.”
“Let’s do it,” Konrad said impatiently. “Elizabeth, take these. This is the Ancient detector,” he added, shoving the strange, spiked instrument into her hands. “Look, I’ve just reset it, so it’s as accurate as possible. The needle shows the direction of the Ancient; the display shows the distance.”
“How did you come up with this?” Elizabeth asked.
“István took temperature and other readings from Saloman during the rescue at Buda Castle,” Konrad said smugly. “And if you recall, Saloman bled in that room.”
Elizabeth’s mingled admiration and annoyance at being kept in the dark vanished in the face of a sudden, blinding memory: Saloman’s bloody hand shoving Dante across that bare, stone room into the wall, and Dante sitting slumped on the floor with the scarlet handprint on his yellow shirt. “Shit. That’s how he did it!”
Rising to their feet, the others paused.
“Dante,” she explained. “He had Saloman’s blood on his shirt—could he have used that?”
“I suppose he could,” István said thoughtfully. “But there can’t have been much of it.”
“Enough to smear a taste on his lips,” Elizabeth said without thought, then felt her body flush with quick embarrassment. Somehow it was too late to explain that when she’d done this to Saloman it was because she’d accidentally dripped blood on what she thought was a valuable statue and was trying to wipe it off.
She stood, still clutching both small detectors and her wooden stake. “I’ll go this way,” she muttered.
“Elizabeth.” It was Mihaela, dropping something else into her pocket. “Buzzer. Attach it your phone. And don’t go too far.”
The buzzer connected directly to those the hunters carried and was a quick means of raising or receiving an alarm. As a sign of warm friendship, it might not have been much, but Elizabeth found she was grateful even for that. It would take time to win the others around to her adjusted views about not all vampires being evil. She’d always known that. But it wasn’t impossible.
She smiled her thanks and sauntered out of the wood into the open.
Luk placed one heavy foot in front of the other, blindly following. Somewhere, between the strands of mist that clouded his mind, he was aware it should be him leading those weak fools, that he could outstrip them easily in any contest he cared to. He simply didn’t care to. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be . . . wherever he’d been before.
Grief consumed him, drowning his rage, because the memory of before had faded almost entirely and he wanted it back. That was what he wanted, not the existence Grayson kept reminding him of, Luk the Guardian, whatever that was. He wanted peace. Not this hunger, this fury, this unutterable boredom with the present or the reasonless knowledge that this reality was somehow wrong.
Ahead of him, sprinting up the hill, was Grayson, his fledgling, his “child.” Even that act made him uneasy, though he didn’t understand why. He’d just been lonely and Grayson his only companion, his helper who found him human blood. Now they’d found two more “friends,” bestial idiots living like wild beggars in the hills. In fact, the idiots had found Luk and Grayson, as if drawn by some invisible rope over a considerable distance. Luk had had to stop them from killing Grayson at their first encounter, but now they behaved, accepting the leadership of Luk’s “child.”
The idiots, new vampires not so much older than Grayson, had clearly been made by some ignoramus who’d applied neither the correct enchantments nor the right teachings. Luk frowned. He couldn’t actually remember what the right teachings were, nor what they were for, but he knew there were some. Instinct more than knowledge had turned Grayson. Now Luk wondered, vaguely, where he’d learned the enchantments.
He sat down on a convenient rock to think about it. He should teach Grayson, teach all of them. But he couldn’t be bothered. He wanted to feed; he wanted to go back.
“Luk!” Grayson called, using his newly acquired, much louder vampire voice. Luk frowned. Why didn’t he just use telepathy? Because he didn’t know how. How do I know? “Luk!” Grayson yelled again. “Come on!”
Sighing, Luk stood up. He could refuse to go, but if they left him, he couldn’t bear the loneliness. In any case, it didn’t really matter where he was. Did it?
Before he could take a step forward, a scent assailed his nostrils that held him frozen.
Blood. Human blood. Her blood . . .
He didn’t know what that meant, didn’t even know who she was. But the echo of some powerful longing curled inside him, a memory lost in time and sleep. For an instant, he struggled to remember, then gave up because that didn’t matter either. He turned on his heel and walked away from the others, in the direction of the irresistible female scent.
“Luk!” Grayson called after him in frustration. “Where the hell are you going?”
Go on. I’ll catch up. His telepathic instruction clearly took Grayson by as much surprise as it did Luk himself. For an instant, Grayson’s struggle to accept and reply filled Luk’s mind, before Luk shut him out, uncaring whether he was obeyed. The important thing was to find the source of the smell.
Luk began to run, and as his limbs stretched out, he remembered their strength and what they could do. A surge of excitement urged him to speed up, to run around the entire world and never stop. But her scent was close and sweet, and as he leapt down the final fifty feet to land right in front of her, he grew dizzy.
Startled, the woman fell back, her dark hazel eyes huge in her beautiful face. Hair the color of a long-forgotten sunrise whipped against her soft cheeks in the breeze. Blood pumped through her delicate veins. The sound and smell of it drove him to new hunger, but this was one human he’d never kill.
“Tsigana,” he whispered.
The name held Elizabeth frozen. She’d had an instant’s warning from the Ancient detector, which suddenly, after indicating his slow plod away from her, went nuts, the readings obviously failing to keep up with the speed of the vampire who leapt out in front of her a bare instant after she’d known he would.
She’d had time to press her buzzer, at the same moment it had gone off in warning. The others knew. So she backed off, giving them time to get here, holding the stake poised for the vampire’s attack that didn’t come. He stood unmoving, staring at her.
The ordinary vampire detector in her pocket was still and silent. So the Ancient was alone. She prepared to attack, targeting the spot in his chest that she needed, but before she could fly at him, he said, “Tsigana.”
If he’d said her own name, if he’d called her Jane or Esmeralda or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she wouldn’t have hesitated in the slightest. But he said Tsigana, as if he’d seen straight to her one weakness, a jealousy that amounted almost to fear of the long-dead human woman who had once held Saloman’s heart.
Her fingers curled convulsively on the stake, altering its aim by accident, and she had to readjust it. The Ancient who was Saloman’s cousin, his onetime friend and his betrayer, one of Tsigana’s three vampire lovers, continued to stare at her. She had the impression that if he breathed, he’d have
been panting, but weirdly, she sensed no threat from him. He lifted his arms slowly, reaching out to her with intense, weirdly unfocused longing. Understanding slammed into her like a blow.
“I’m not Tsigana,” she said between her teeth. “I’m Elizabeth, the Awakener.” And she flew at him, aware her aim was true. She summoned every ounce of strength, every ounce of power she believed in. Because she didn’t know how long the hunters would take to get here, she had to try to do it alone, as she’d once tried to kill Saloman alone. She still believed she could have slain him, using her power as his Awakener, but she’d never found out for sure, because her heart, not her body, had prevented it. There was no such prevention here; Luk was the cause of most of the unbearable pain that had haunted Saloman for centuries. He was as good as dead, and she couldn’t even regret her lack of compassion.
But he didn’t wait for her. He leapt back so fast she didn’t even see him move. Her stake sliced through air, almost overbalancing her.
“Not Tsigana,” Luk repeated. He sniffed the air.
“Tsigana is dead.” Again she leapt, this time before she finished speaking, but again he evaded her. A howl rent the air, like a dog or a wolf in agony. It had to be coming from Luk, as his distant figure leapt back up the hillside at impossible speed, the bloodcurdling wail fading with him into the night. Not because he’d stopped crying, but because he was too far away to be heard.
“Shit,” Elizabeth whispered. With shaking hand she retrieved the Ancient detector from her pocket. The pointer indicated the hill up which Luk had vanished, the display counting madly as the distance increased. Then it went dead. Elizabeth delved for her phone, just as the needle swung rapidly several degrees to the west, and the display galloped forward.
Oh, hell, he’s doubling back. He’s gotten over Tsigana and now I’m dinner.
There was no time to phone. She jabbed the buzzer again and hoped fervently that the hunters were getting this reading too, before running over the jagged ground to flatten her back against a large rock outcropping.
Her heart thundered, but at least she’d stopped shaking. Jealousy of a woman who’d been dead for three hundred years was an unworthy as well as an inconvenient emotion. What the hell was it about Tsigana that tore up all those powerful vampires?
Focus, Silk! Change your tactics. He moves too fast. You have to wait for him to get close enough. Then stake the bastard, and stay the hell away from his teeth. . . .
She gripped the stake, bracing her free hand against the rock. She didn’t need the detector anymore. She could sense Ancient.
He moved differently, like a shadow around the curve of the hill, gliding over the boulder a yard away from her feet. And instead of attacking, he stood still on top of the boulder and regarded her in silence. Only his long hair stirred in the breeze.
Slowly, Elizabeth lowered her stake. “Saloman.”
Chapter Four
Saloman stepped down from the boulder and walked the distance between them. She tried to speak, questions and information tangling in her head and on her lips. In the end, she never made more than an inarticulate gurgle, because the words vanished as his sheer presence overwhelmed her. There was only his name in her head, his profound black eyes to drown in, his body pressing her flat into the rock. The hilt of his sword, a turning gift from Luk, brushed against her hip.
Wordlessly, she lifted her face to his. But he didn’t kiss her mouth. His silken lips took her neck in a strong, urgent pull. The hard shaft of his erection pressed between her thighs, and inappropriate lust galloped through her. Well, it had been a long time, several weeks. . . .
It seemed he felt the same. His tongue lapped at her vein and without warning his teeth pierced her skin. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pain that vanished into the surge of fierce, familiar pleasure. She gripped his arms hard, letting herself glory just for a moment in the blissful weakness of her blood rushing into his mouth in answer to the tug of his lips.
So lost was she in the blood kiss that it was a moment before she realized he’d unzipped her jeans and pushed them and her panties down over her hips.
“Saloman, the hunters are here,” she managed. “They’re coming now.”
His cool, stroking hands left her hips, perversely disappointing her, until he seized the Ancient detector from her frozen hand and hurled it into the night. Before she could object to this vandalism, he lifted her and entered her body in one swift, gliding movement that shattered the remnants of her resistance.
Blood and sex and Elizabeth, he said inside her head.
Bastard. Can’t you even say hello?
He detached his teeth from her neck and flicked his tongue over the wound to heal it. His burning gaze lifted to hers.
“Hello,” he said huskily, and took her mouth.
Her gasp was at least part sob as she threw both arms around his neck and met his thrusts with desperate urgency. It was insane, the danger of discovery far too great, and yet the very knowledge of that drove her excitement beyond what she could resist. She was Saloman’s. The world knew she was Saloman’s. His hands spanned her chest, running down over her breasts, tugging them free of her clothing for more intimate caresses.
In the distance, Elizabeth could hear the voices of the hunters, anxious and questioning, but she couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. There was only Saloman and the wicked pleasure she reached for without inhibition. He ground her into the rock, hammering pleasure into her while he sipped again from her neck, dividing the attentions of his lips between the wound and her mouth. She could taste her own blood among the intensity that was Saloman, and it all became part of the same massive, necessary joy that tore her apart in his arms.
He came with her, shuddering in rare silence, even while he sealed her wound once more and held her upright against the hill’s slope. His climax was different from those of the human males she’d known, though quite how, she’d never properly analyzed. Sometimes it felt as if her body absorbed everything he gave it.
She reached up and took back his mouth.
“Hello,” she whispered against his lips. They smiled on hers.
“Go find your hunters. Tell them I’m here and I’ll call later to talk.” He kissed her again, hard, and slid out of her before fastening his trousers. He readjusted the sword, which she saw through his enchantment only because she knew it was there.
“You’re leaving again?” she said, bewildered by the speed of this new change.
“I’ll be back.” He pulled her jeans up over her hips, as if now, now, he was in a hurry. With sudden pique at being so casually treated, she brushed his fingers aside to refasten them herself. When she glanced up again, he’d gone.
“Elizabeth!” Mihaela gripped her shoulders so hard they hurt. “Are you all right? We found your detector—”
Elizabeth hugged her back, too briefly because of her own guilt, and yet she couldn’t help being touched by the show of friendship. “He threw it away,” Elizabeth blurted, and perhaps fortunately was misunderstood.
“My God, he got that close?” Mihaela gasped. “Did you stake him?”
Elizabeth drew a little away from Mihaela. The other hunters, Turks as well as her Hungarian friends, used flashlights now that seemed blinding after the all-but-impenetrable darkness. Everyone gazed at her with round, avid eyes.
“He moved too fast. I knew in theory they could do that—I’ve seen Saloman run across cities.” And been with him while he did. “But I guess he never troubled in any fights with humans. . . . He was alone,” she added abruptly. “And he ran off back the way he’d come, far too fast to catch.” She drew in her breath. “I don’t think he’s got any idea what’s going on. He called me Tsigana, although I’m told I look nothing like her, and then he ran away as if genuinely distraught when I said Tsigana was dead.”
“And when he came back?” Mihaela urged.
“Ah. He didn’t come back. That was Saloman.” She forced herself to meet each gaze in turn. She just wished s
he didn’t feel so childishly defiant about it.
“So he is here,” Konrad said flatly.
“Apparently. I think he’s pursuing Luk, but he said he’d call later to discuss things.”
“What things?” Mihaela demanded.
“How the hell should I know?” Elizabeth snapped. “Ask him when he turns up. Trust me, I am not his bloody keeper!”
She marched off in the direction of the car without looking back. After about five minutes of striding that probably looked more like stomping, István fell into silent step beside her.
“Sorry,” she muttered at last. “I’ve had a trying day. Seems I can’t take the constant suspicion when I’m tired. I’ll get over it.”
“She isn’t suspicious. She’s worried about you. We all are.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Look, I don’t blame any of you for the suspicion, but I do know it’s there, whether you want it or not. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. I’m not walking out on you over a disagreement about Saloman.”
“I know that. We all know that.” He pointed his key into the darkness and something chirped in response. He shone his flashlight on the car with a grunt of satisfaction and they made their way toward it.
“Where are we going now?” Elizabeth asked.
“To the house. To sleep. The Turkish hunters are going over to the commune. We’ll go tomorrow.”
“What house?” Elizabeth asked, latching onto the first point.
“It’s a holiday villa in one of the hill villages. Very nice. Modern. Fantastic views.”
She regarded him with half-amused fascination. “Does nothing faze you, István?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you go from vampires to villas with as much effort as breathing.”
István shrugged. “All part of life.”
You sound like Saloman. She bit her lips before the words tumbled out, but the thought remained.
The villa was substantial and built in a traditional Turkish style, although it was too opulent to blend in with most of the other village houses. Guarded by a pair of tall wrought-iron gates, the surrounding garden boasted an olive tree and some nice rosebushes, as well as some dry, scrubby-looking plants and a kidney-shaped swimming pool.
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