Voss drewin a rough breath and pulled away rather more abruptly than he intended.
“Thank the Fates,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
Releasing Angelica, he fought to steady his voice, to keep himself from sounding breathless. And to keep his damned fangs from showing.
Luce.
God.
He wasn’t certain whom to call on for assistance, and in response, the Mark on his shoulder twinged hot.
Good. Pain. Distraction.
His incisors retracted and he drew in a breath that sounded embarrassingly ragged.
“For what?” Angelica’s eyes were glazed and her swollen, crinkled lips parted. She’d sagged against him and he was certain she had no idea how sensual and beckoning she sounded.
With one side of the gown pushed half off her shoulder and her head collapsed back against the wall, she looked as if she’d been ravaged. He wondered what had kept him from doing just that…and more.
One moment, he’d been ready to drag the glove from her arm and sink his teeth in—or, hell, right into her bared shoulder, in that soft hollow above her collarbone. Her sweet ivory skin had been there, beneath his mouth, smooth and warm, moist andsalty against his tongue, her pulse racing madly against his lips…and the next moment, he was pulling away, setting her back from him.
Just as well he hadn’t. This wasn’t the place. She’d scream, there’d be a mess, he’d be found out.
The fact that Corvindale would not be amused was the least of the considerations. Dimitri could sleep on the point of a wooden stake for all Voss cared.
It took Voss a moment to realize Angelica was waiting for him to explain, looking up at him with shadowed bedroom eyes. A delicious expanse of creamy bosom and throat was exposed by the off-kilter V of her Greek gown. He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on everything else around them: the scent of gardenias attached to the hanging vines, the nearby roar of laughter and the spritely tune from the string quintet. The painful ache at the back of his shoulder and the dull throb of his cock. The pressure of his insistent fangs.
Everything but her.
He tried not to breathe too deeply, not to look at the smooth white skin in front of him. He fought to block out the lingering scent of blood—not hers, but it didn’t matter—and to keep his eyes from glowing. Too much.
“That bloody squeaking chair,” he said, having collected himself. And he stepped back.
She opened her eyes fully and looked at him. “Pardon me?” she said. “I don’t understand.”
He resisted the urge to reach over and adjust the shoulder of her gown. “One of the musicians is sitting in a chair that squeaks. I think it’s the violist, for his movement seems to match the squeak.” That, in part, had been what had dragged him from the depths of red heat and need. That incessant squeaking.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she told him, and cocked her head as if to listen.
He managed a bemused smile. “Most people don’t. It’s an affliction of mine. One of many, in fact.”
He couldn’t wait to introduce her to some of the others. Voss held his smile in check.
“Indeed?” she replied, and the look she gave him— an unlikely combination of innocence and sassiness—made him want to grab her again.
But before he could respond, she said something that turned his body to ice. “Your eyes,” she said, looking at him closely. “They were almost glowing, a moment ago. It must be a trick of the light, because his were, too.”
He forgot to be reticent and polite. “What?His?”
She shrank back a bit. “The man from outside. His eyes looked like they were glowing or burning. It must have been the moon?—”
A rush of comprehension blasted through him and he grabbed her by the arms.Satan’s black soul.“What did he say to you? You said he asked about your brother.”
Instinctively Voss turned, reversing their positions so he could see beyond the hanging vines. People were dancing, talking, laughing. The damned chair was still squeaking, the pianist fumbled a note… “What exactly did he do to you?” he demanded as he scanned the room, looking for anything or anyone that upset his instincts.
A vampire had no way to sense or otherwise identify the presence of another vampire unless one came face to face with him, and even then, it was more of afeeling.Even among the Dracule, they couldn’t always identify each other merely by sight.
There were ways, of course…subtle comments that might be made, or a certain way of looking at one to test the waters, so to speak. It was almost like being able to tell when a man preferredanother man in his bed, instead of the sweet bundle of female curves.
