Page 51 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
“A few decades of my third century was spent running. Literally. From priests. From my own kind. I fed on whoever I had to, and stayed just enough in the shadows not to get staked or worse — the peasants used silver to weaken someone they thought might be a vampire, and then put them into a pillory on a stage to await the sunrise. To see if they burned.”
She looked up, surprise flickering across her face. “That’s more than I expected.” She rested her cheek back on his chest. “Thank you for trusting me with more of you.”
“You asked for real. Before I was terribly strong, being brutal and terrifying kept me alive, but over the centuries,” he caressed over the top of her hair, took a second to bring them back to the music. “I made myself too much of a nightmare. I had to go into hiding from my kind after…”
Why had he started this story? “I was safe under the master I’d oathed to, but when he was challenged and lost, I wouldn’t have been safe under the new master.”
He rubbed her back again. “I survived until I could find another coterie who’d accept me, but it was a bad time to be a loner living outside human villages.”
Her fingers tightened on his shoulder.
“I’m glad you survived. Glad you were there to save me and my mom. Glad you’re here. Now.”
He didn’t respond, not out loud, but his hands pulled her in closer, and when he kissed her, it wasn’t the teasing kind. It was slow. Deep. A seal pressed by moonlight.
They swayed together on the slow-moving, historic paddleboat until the band took a break.
He pulled her toward the railing, gestured for her to lean out over the water so her hair blew in the wind, and was happy for the huge smile it brought to her face. When she straightened, he reached behind her ear and produced one of the wrapped chocolate mints available at the bar.
She laughed and took it. “How did you do that? More vampire tricks?”
“Just old-fashioned showmanship.” He unwrapped it for her, held it to her mouth. She wrapped her lips around his fingers as well as the treat, and slid them away to accept the chocolate.
“Your home’s in Egypt. Are you planning to move here?” she asked quietly once she’d swallowed the treat.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to? To get permission, I mean?”
“I’m doing everything in my power to make it happen. I think the odds are in my favor, but there are no guarantees.”
He let the silence stretch between them, anchored by jazz and starlight.
Until she frowned. Glanced back over her shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I thought I felt something. Probably just paranoia after…” She sighed. “Now that I know ghosts are real, and aren’t nice, it’s a little freaky. Ruby told me about sage, and walked all around her apartment while burning some, waving smoke into every corner, even the closets. She assured me it would make sure no ghosts or bad spirits orwhatevercame into her space. I’m going to smoke my cottage all to hell and back with it the next time I go home.”
He tensed beside her, looking out over the river, the banks, the parking lots and buildings. Too many places for someone watching them to hide.
“Thankfully, one doesn’t regularly run into ghosts. Maybe try not to go places where they’re supposed to be, in the future, and you won’t have any more run-ins.”
She nodded, but a dip into her head told him the feeling hadn’t passed.
He ordered wine for her at the bar, whiskey for himself, and they sat to drink them, and to rest her body a little before dancing away the magical night once again, watching the city lights reflect on the water when the old riverboat finally returned to its dock.
Chapter 15
Axel kept a close eye on their surroundings, walking away from the river towards their car, and his body went tight when he caught the barest scent of Giovanni.
No, the bastard wasHumphreynow. He tried to adjust the name to fit the scent, but it would take time to think of him as anyone but the Renaissance-era vampire — elegant, scholarly, and obsessed withtasteand legacy. He’d worn silk robes, sponsored human musicians, and styled himself as the philosopher-king of a small but refined coterie in the walled Adriatic port city of Dubrovnik. The preening fuck would’ve have preferred Venice, but he was barely strong enough to hold the tiny territory he ruled as his personal demesne.
Then came the piracy boom, and the vampire underworld adapted as it always does: ruthless, shrewd, and unscrupulous as fuck. Those in port cities formed their own profitable enterprises, buying loot from the pirates and finding buyers who’d pay handsomely for the treasures.
But Giovanni was stuck in his Renaissance fantasy, so the Concilio sent Axel to drag the fucker out of his velvet-lined fantasies and bring him to heel.
He’d intended to merely kill him, become Master long enough to get everything back on track, and then appoint a newMaster he thought could maintain control before going on his merry way again, but the velvet-wrapped cunt had pissed him off, so Axel had enslaved him rather than killing him. Worse, he’d used the dolphin shifter Giovanni loved as leverage to force him to Axel’s will.
