He had survived so long, reaching elder status and a certain fame. Yet he remembered little of a few past centuries save the violence, the constant work of ensuring Father’s safety, the games a patriarch liked to play.
Lamps burned upon the bedside tables, smokeless captive lightning casting loving gold over the curve of her cheek, the blue tones shimmering in her hair, the soles of her heavy boots—of fine quality, her footwear, though far too heavy for such slim, dancing feet.
Think about it, the new, nearly uncomfortable clarity of thought whispered.Who are you, really? Do you know anymore?
A name was superfluous. Yet was notNemesisa title? The soldier’s eyes half-closed; he stared at a rosy, slumber-chained nymph and wondered what she would call him.
Even that uncertainty was wonderful, sending faint shivers down his back, tingling in his fingertips, the padded hammer of her pulse strike-spreading through every inch of him in warm, overlapping waves. He had been numb for so long any emotion at all was a dangerous blessing.
Now, he possessed a divine cornucopia.
Dawn was nigh. He did not need a fledgling’s daylight rest, especially with a near-glut filling his veins, but the sunlight was an enemy to be dealt most carefully with. Just as her fear and fragility, for a leman could be broken or injured beyond repair if their sanguinant were not cautious—or ruthless—enough.
Even shattered or feral, she was too precious to lose. Still, only a fool wasted a god’s gift.
Father could be the most dangerous enemy of all, if he did not assume Nemesis dead of age or failed attack. Worst wouldbe if the patriarch realized what the soldier had found and taken, for Antinous held back his own calcification by simple dint of acquisition—territory, treasure, fledgling toys to break and consume, mortal power and influence, all sought bit by bit to add to his stores, to provide a moment’s diversion.
It had never occurred to the soldier that there might be something worth the trouble of disobedience. A murmur, a slight movement as the nymph upon the bed fought to awaken, and trembling, absolute certainty took the place of his former loyalty.
Best spoils belonged to the emperor, of course, and the general took first pick of what remained. But even the lowliest of an army’s humming hive knew how to hide his own share, whether scraped from the hovels of a burning city or reflexively hidden by a sanguinant who dimly understood one day he, too, would be expendable to his master.
His fangs were out, upper and lower all painfully sensitive. He had to force them away, invoking a control which grew slimmer with every passing moment.
Committed, now. There was no possibility of retreat. In its own way, the lack of choice was a comfort.
Softly, increment by increment, the soldier released thequietus, and waited to see how his prize would wake.
CHAPTER 5
No Pete don’tfor godsake don’t leave me here?—
Layla thrashed, body and mind spinning on a dark wine-colored flood of vertigo. For an endless, sickmaking moment she was certain whatever had grabbed Ben and Steve had also killed her, but there was bright yellow light in her eyes and the faint squeak underneath her was a huge, soft…
A bed.
King-sized, in fact, with a cabbage-rose coverlet plus tonally matching pillow shams, the entire shebang set smack-dab in a big, pleasant room which whisperedhotel, but a nice one, so mind your manners. The air was still and dead, blessedly cool in a way that meant someone had paid their HVAC bills recently, and her head gave an amazing flare of pain before subsiding into a dull pounding ache.
All of which was beside the point. She scrambled, impelled by an overpowering, instinctive desire to getaway, and ended up half-crouching in a mound of decorative bedding, her back pressed against the headboard. Something rattled overhead—a framed print, its lower edge digging into her shoulders. The back of her head brushed the glass, her hair falling into her eyes.
Pinkish carpet, washed-out candy cane wallpaper, floor-length drapes pulled tight over what had to be a huge window, maybe even a tiny balcony. Two nightstands, both with clunky pink ceramic lamps turned up to full. A flatscreen television bolted to the wall over a dresser trying too hard to impersonate rosewood. A door, slightly ajar, showing the dark cave of a bathroom, reflected light gleaming dimly on a suggestion of white industrial tile.
And a vampire.
“What.” The word was a mere husk of itself, falling into humming silence. Her voice shook, her throat so dry it could give the Sahara lessons. “Thefuck.”
The biter stood at the bedside, looking mildly at her. His eyes were very dark, his mouth relaxed, and even though his hair was a tumble of black curls each looked perfectly planned, falling in precisely decreed disarray. Straight-backed, hands loose at his sides, wide shoulders at strict angles, chin absolutely level; he looked like a military statue, in fact, since the posture could only be defined asat attention. Same black wool sweater with vertical ribbing and well-worn leather patches at the elbows, same indeterminate-dark Carhartts—they weredefinitelybrand-name, broken in by hard use—and she was pretty sure he was probably wearing the same boots as in the file photo.
Next to all that, she was a goddamn mess. Her T-shirt was awry and her hair entirely rumpled; her own steel-toed tacticals crushed the pillows and counterpane, and she felt a brief flash of guilt at wearing shoes on a bed.
Which was entirely nuts since she had only seconds left to live, if that. Because there was the red-stripe-skull-and-crossbones vampire, and he waslooking right at her.
Fuzzy dark flowers dilated at the edges of her vision. Her heart buzzed, pounding like she’d slammed the world’s biggestenergy drink; the nice cool air had turned to glass and her lungs couldn’t drag any in to fuel her starving brain.
The vampire stirred, the fingers of his right hand twitching. Layla shrieked and tried to push herself through the wall, her legs stiffening uselessly.
A puff of cool air caressed her cheek. The mattress gave a sharp groan because he’d leapt onto the bed, his boots sinking in hard, and his hands clamped around her bare upper arms. Fever-warm skin, callused but oddly gentle—he didn’t squeeze, simply held her motionless.
“Be calm,” he said, quiet but with absolute authority. “Or I will use thequietusagain and make you.Breathe, little Leila.”
