Page 35 of The Vampire's Hunter

Revenge was a cyclical thing, or so she was discovering.

“Thank you for joining us, Quinn,” she said, her voice dripping with venom, “since it was your idea that I return to this world in the first place.”

If her brother was going to look down his nose at her and her choices, she planned to remind him of the role he’d played in getting her here at every opportunity she got.

At that, Quinn seemed to hesitate a little, tipping his Stetson as if he were giving in. “You’ve made your point, Dani,” he drawled. “Now explain to me what I’m doing here.”

“We need your help,” she said, using his own words against him. “TheCosa della nottesyndicate that is.”

Beside her, Kharis sputtered on his drink. If Corbin’s underboss had expected he knew how this meeting would go, this clearly wasn’t it.

Corbin, on the other hand, didn’t so much as flinch.

“I’m listening,” Quinn said, urging her to go on.

Dani held her head high, going in for the kill. “We need the Execution Underground’s resources, if you expect us to hand over Lucien, that is.”

“Us?” Quinn echoed.

“Yes,us,” Dani said, feeling more than seeing the prideful smirk that undoubtedly pulled at Corbin’s lips. “That’s how exchanges work, you see. They go both ways. You get what you want and so do we.”

Quinn scowled. “And what exactly is it you want?”

“Immunity,” she said, trying and failing to ignore the way Corbin’s cock had grown stiff against her bottom, his desire for her seeming to increase with every word. “For the next ten years or more, you leave the syndicate alone.”

Quinn laughed then, placing his hands on his hips as he shook his head. “And why the hell would we make a deal like that?”

“Because we’re not just going to give you Lucien,” she said, preparing to deliver the final blow. “We’ll give you every other boss in the syndicate, so long as you leave Corbin in charge.”??

“I don’t like this.I don’t like this one bit.”

“No one ever asked for your approval, Kharis, only for your cooperation.”

Corbin stepped inside the empty church, his steps falling heavy on the cathedral’s marble flooring. The darkened rafters of the vaulted ceiling loomed over them, the backlit lights of the city illuminating the colors of the several stained-glass windows within view.

It wasn’t as if vampires couldn’t stand upon consecrated ground, but somehow, since his own death, Corbin had always found the atmosphere of churches and religion to be quite eerie.

“Cooperation?” To his left, Kharis scoffed. “Youof all vampires truly feel as if you’re in a place to demand that?”

“He has a point,” Dani answered, squeezing where she held his hand a little.

Corbin rolled his eyes at Kharis in dismissal. “What’s that phrase you Americans say?” Corbin asked, glancing toward her. “Go big or go home?”

“In this case, ‘going big’ means risking our bloody necks,” Kharis hissed, his voice echoing through the candlelit dark.

Corbin sighed for what felt like the thousandth time this evening. “You’ve already lived several hundred years, Kharis. If tonight is truly the end, you hardly have place to complain.”

Kharis muttered something fowl under his breath, striding further into the church as he shook his head, murmuring something or other about the pitfalls of loyalty, until Corbin and Dani were left standing there alone, holding hands in the church’s main aisle.

Corbin stared up at the stained-glass window just below the altar ceiling overhead.

“Were you Catholic?” Dani asked softly, breaking the silence between them. “Before you were turned, that is?”

Corbin took a moment to consider, before he answered, “Yes. Or something like it.” He looked toward her.

In the flickering glow of the church candles, she was so beautiful it almost pained him.

Perfect and flawed. A match for him in every way.

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