I know. Loving you wasn’t on my bucket list, but it just kind of happened. One moment we were friends with beneficials, and then boom. I knew it was love. Not the movie star sort of love, either. This is bigger. More encompassing. I want to share everything with you, even when you’re makingme angry. Stop making that face like you’re annoyed, because I can feel how warm and squidgy the fact that I love you makes you feel.
It’s not wise at all.
“Like that stopped anyone from falling in love?” I smiled at him, allowing him to feel the blossoming love that started in the tiniest atoms of my being, and grew out until it filled my body. “And don’t think I’m going to demand that you tell me you love me, too, because I’m not. I know you’re fighting centuries of conditioning to not feel anything for anyone. I’m content to wait until you come to your senses and realize that you can’t live without me.”
He sighed dramatically. “I have no doubt you’ll remind me of that daily until I tell you something suitably romantic, like the fact that you brought light and warmth to a life of despair and hopelessness, that you fill my thoughts until nothing has much meaning unless it can please you, and how the merest thought of you can ease the pain that is my constant companion.”
I widened my eyes. “Was that a declaration of love, or were you saying that’s what you will say when you realize just how much you love me? Because if it was the former, it was the most romantic thing ever, even better than something that one of C. J. Dante’s vampires would say. I think I might cry. Or tear off your clothes and have my womanly way with you.”
One side of his mouth twitched. “Much as I’d like that, we can’t stay up here if Carlo is about.”
“You’re right,” I said, putting aside the need to kiss and touch him, and tell him again how much I loved him. “Let’s go catch my evil cousin so we can turn him over to the cops.”
There was a whisper in my mind, a faint shadow of a thought that said,He won’t end up with the mortal police,but I decided it was better if I ignored that and focused on being helpful.
There would be time later for me to molest Merrick as he so very much deserved.
Wrapped in a warm glow of happiness, I helped Merrick check all the rooms on both the top and second floors. Ellis and his friends had cleared the ground floor of the auction people, and had Ciaran propped up, giving him copious amounts of advice.
“Beefsteak. Beefsteak is the answer to any crisis, or so my daddy used to swear,” Ellis was saying when we entered the main room. “Mind you, he said the same thing about Jack Daniel’s, cocaine, and trips to the local strip club, but the man knew how to take the redness out of a black eye.”
“He doesn’t have a black eye,” Armande pointed out,tsking when Ciaran, still obviously a bit rummy, brushed a clumsy hand over his twisted-up shirt. “No, no, you are making it worse. Allow me.”
“How are you?” Merrick asked his friend. Ciaran looked up and grimaced, putting his hand to the back of his head.
“Something hit me.”
“Carlo?” Merrick asked him.
Carefully, Ciaran shook his head. “I don’t think so. I could see him in the doorway when we came in the back. There was someone behind me. Behind Nico and me. Another man.”
“I had the impression of two men, as well.” Merrick eyed the vampires collected.Who are these Dark Ones? I don’t know any of them.
The one in the yellow shirt is my friend Ellis.
He shot me a look of surprise.
That’s what I wanted to tell you. Carlo had Ellis turned into a vampire.
Dark One.
When I rescued Ellis, he was with Armande and his band of dancing vampires.
I beg your pardon?
That’s what they want to do—be exotic dancers. Vampire ones. They don’t like being prostitutes.
Merrick rubbed his face.I must have been hit harder than I thought. Prostitutes?
I patted his arm.I know it sounds unlikely, but to be fair, the whole day has been weirder than ...
An otter named Aloysius?
You got it.“Ellis, have you seen Carlo at all? Or that other man who was with him?”
“No. We put Michel on door duty at the back. Michel? Has anyone tried to leave?” Ellis called.
“Non,”came the answer.
