Page 53 of Blind Date with a Werewolf
Asil:I would know Bonarata’s scent, and it is not his, though it is familiar.
Angus:One of his lieutenants?
Asil was old. He had met a lot of vampires over the centuries, and Bonarata surrounded himself with a mass of servants…minions…lieutenants—vampires and other creatures who did his bidding, whatever they wanted to call themselves. Those changed from time to time, but most of them Asil felt he would know.
It was in the raging time that we met this vampire.His wolf was thoughtful.Or I would be of more immediate help. I will consider that memory further and let you know when I remember.
Asil didn’t ask if by “raging time” his wolf meant after Sarai died or centuries earlier, when the wolf had first quit speaking to him. He didn’t want to distract the beast from his self-assigned task. The wolf had a longer and better memory than Asil did for scents.
Angus:Bonarata is no one to play with, my old friend.
Asil:Is he not? It has been a while since the Lord of Night and I engaged in a dance.
His phone chimed almost eagerly.
Angus:I can dance, too.
Asil smiled. That was more like the Angus he knew than the mealy words of caution.
Asil:I will keep that in mind.
“Good news?”
Asil looked up to meet the eyes of the driver in the rearview mirror. In his day, a servant would never draw attention to himself. But modern manners were different, especially in this hotbed of democratic thought he now lived in.
“I have friends who enjoy a waltz now and then who are envious of my evening plans,” he said with absolute truthfulness.
The driver held his gaze as long as he could—which was longer than most people. And when he looked away, Asil was not absolutely certain that the traffic was a convenient excuse for looking away—or the actual cause.
Interesting.
No more than ten minutes after they left Asil’s hotel, they pulled into a parking garage beneath one of the modern skyscrapers. The driver got out but left the car running.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I will go escort Mrs.Alvarez to the car. Won’t take long.”
Asil waved to him dismissively, sparking another assessinglook. Asil supposed that male escorts paid two thousand dollars for their services did not generally treat drivers the way that eighteenth-century aristocrats treated servants. Ah well, he wasn’t here to win an Oscar for best performance.
The car was parked so that Asil had a clear view of the elevator. He watched the driver—who had not introduced himself. It had taken Asil this long to notice that, because in the old days, a servant would never introduce himself. But here and now, that was unusual.
There were creatures out in the world that you wouldn’t want to give your true name to.
He sent a text to Angus.
Asil:It is possible that your vampire has been treating with the fae. His human minion is oddly reticent about giving his name.
Angus:My vampire?
Asil didn’t respond to that. He was still pondering on other reasons why the driver would not want to give Asil his name, when the elevator door opened and a woman, dressed in the long ice-blue gown in the photo he’d received, stepped out. The light caught her face.
It was a countenance he knew. For an instant he stared at the face of a dead woman.
Then Asil’s wolf went mad and Asil had more immediate concerns.
Asil won his battle by a razor’s margin. When he couldfocus on his surroundings again, he found himself outside of the car and about eight feet away. The back door was open but not damaged. One of his hands gripped the concrete support post like it was all that kept him still.
Very little time had passed; he could tell because the driver and Asil’s date for the night were still having an intense, unhappy conversation by the elevator doors. Asil struggled to steady his breathing as he stared at the woman.
Mariposa, growled his wolf.
