Raised in Fire (Page 19)
Cold washed through my body. “I’m sure any demons that know about me would also know where I live.”
“One would think. Still, it is wise to keep our eyes and ears open.” I felt his thumb rub against my neck supportively. Everyone was quiet for a moment.
Dizzy shrugged, looking at the leftover food. “There’s nothing we can do right now. We might as well enjoy the flight.”
“It was probably just a demon up for a joy ride.” Callie turned her mouth into a duck bill and nodded. “That’s probably all there is to it.”
I truly hoped so.
Chapter Twelve
“Is this room to your satisfaction?” Darius asked, standing just inside the large hotel room he’d booked for me.
We’d gotten the same treatment leaving the private jet as we’d had traveling to it. Darius had called ahead to make sure Dizzy and Callie had accommodations, and now we were all checking in and getting comfortable before the next thing.
I had no idea what the next thing was. I realized I should probably figure that out in the next hour.
The curtains had been left open, revealing a yawning blackness beyond. I knew from the walk to the room (there had been no formal check-in, simply Darius stating his name and waiting for the staff to run around like chickens with their heads cut off) that one side of the hotel overlooked the water. I seemed to recall overhearing it was a bay, but I had no idea which one. I hadn’t studied a map en route to our final destination. It seemed, however, that I would get to stare at the bay from the large windows of my room when I had nothing better to do.
“Looks great,” I said, looking over the leather chairs that formed a triangle with a cold fireplace in a hearth of stone. “It’s big.” A modern desk sat against the wall with lit candles on its surface.
Actually, upon closer inspection, they were lights made to flicker like candles. Which made sense. Open fire posed a hazard. I knew from experience.
“Through here…” Darius crossed the room gracefully. “You can easily reach me.”
He unlocked a deadbolt to a nondescript door that blended in with the wall. It led to the room next door—or so I realized when he used his magic to unlock the other side and pushed the door open.
“But this is a suite, right?” I gestured around me. “I didn’t realize suites connected with other suites. That’s kind of a weird feature. Super-rich people give their kids matching suites?”
Darius had already moved on with his examination. He stood in the threshold of my bathroom, which had a brick-red wall and a trendy sort of brown stone design that resembled my new bathroom at home. “That wall color is hideous.”
“It’s just a hotel, Darius.”
“This is the vampire wing, designed with our special needs in mind. One of my children owns this establishment. I helped him get it off the ground. He keeps up the rooms to change with the times, but he has badly missed the mark on this. It is gaudy. I will speak with him about it.”
I shrugged. If he wanted to waste his time, I’d get a drink at the bar while he made his complaint.
“Your room is commonly reserved for humans attending to their vampires.” Darius looked me over expectantly.
“I’m not attending to anyone. But I sure hope room service attends to me.”
“There is a young alpha shifter of a sub-pack in this town who has drawn Roger’s eye.” Roger was the head shifter of the pack that helped police supernatural activity in the Brink. “This alpha leads a pack to exterminate new vampires.” Darius’s lip curled aggressively. “I am on official business, focused on the issues concerning you, so I will not kill him and his whole pack, though they have killed one of my children in this area.”
“Do you have children all over the world?”
“Yes. Hence my need of a private jet,” he said, speaking slowly as though to an imbecile.
“Right. How stupid of me to ask.”
“Yes.” He paused. “The shifters might be sniffing around, getting under our feet.”
“I have no reason to deal with them—I’m here on human police business. Besides, the only shifters I have a problem with are from the New Orleans pack.”
“Reagan, you are rarely dimwitted. I’d prefer you didn’t make a habit of it now.”
I furrowed my brow at him, a silent rebuttal to his being an ass.
“They so seldom deal with elders that they might assume I can’t control myself, and therefore, will watch and report,” he went on. “I have to follow magical law to the letter to avoid an altercation.”
“Darius, honestly, I was up all day, and now I’ve nearly been up all night. I’m human, remember? I need sleep. So could you please get to the point? And following the rules is not it, because you did that just fine when we worked together on the last case.”
“Do you not remember my need for blood when we stayed at my house in the French Quarter?”
“So? Ask one of your friends to loan you a human for the night.”
“That would not be following the letter of the law, something the local wolf pack will make it their business to know. Their leader, Devon, has the ear of Roger directly. He’ll make sure my transgressions are made known and a witch hunt is organized.”
“Well…not really a witch hunt, right? Since you’re a vampire.” I squinted at him, feeling the pressure of a ball about to drop.
“We are not supposed to feed on humans in the Brink at all. That violates the rule of not revealing what we are. We have to limit our needs to magical people. Something you seem to have blocked out of your memory of late. It does not change your promise, however.”
A wash of tingles spread across my skin. Heat dripped down my core and puddled in a hot, sticky mess. I suddenly knew exactly where he was going with this.
“You promised Roger that if I needed blood, I could take it from you.”
A rush of breath escaped my mouth. I tried to shrug, but the sudden rigidity of my body turned the motion into something Frankenstein’s monster might do. My smile, intended to look blasé, probably resembled a grimace of pain, and the flush of heat in my face certainly gave away the pounding in my lady parts. All the sensual moments I’d ever experienced with Darius—his leans, his soft whispers, the flashes of hunger in his eyes, the few blissful kisses we’d shared—crowded in and invaded the conversation. My legs started to shake and a sheen of sweat coated my forehead.
“You filthy bastard,” I said, balling my fists. “No wonder you were in such a hurry to fire up the jet and tag along on this trip. Worried about me, my ass. You knew the scent of my blood, teamed with the danger I will surely find, would make you desperate to feed—not to mention the fact that there’s a pack of shifters prowling around. You were counting on it. Bing, bang, boom, you finally get to see if the curtains match the drapes.”
A teasing smile wrestled his lips. “I already know they do, since I have seen you bathe.”
“I meant, do I taste as good as I smell, you donkey.”
“I am greatly looking forward to finding out, ma chere.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m going to make you wait until you’re begging for it. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“A type of teasing I can easily reciprocate once you finally give in.”
“Oh no.” I waggled my finger at him. “No, sir. I didn’t say I would sleep with you; I said that I will keep you from killing a small village out of hunger by letting you feed from me. The two are mutually exclusive.”
He gave me a knowing smile. “It is nearly impossible to resist. I don’t think you’ll want the strength to be one of the few.”
“I know how hard it is not to give in, but for you, I’ll make the effort—”
I cut myself off because his whole demeanor had changed. He’d gone from loose and easy, with a teasing smile and sparkling eyes, to balanced and squared off, his muscles taut and his eyes flashing with a predator’s gleam.
“What just happened?” I asked. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if an intruder had broken in on the sly. I had been known to miss the obvious every once in a while.
“You have been with another vampire?” he asked in a rough voice. Menace crowded the room. “Was this recent?”
I let a smile drift up my face. “Aw, you’re jealous. How cute.” I patted him on the arm, ignoring the bulging muscles, and then proceeded to stoke the fires. He deserved it for knowingly backing me into this corner. For all I knew, he’d planned the whole thing. I wouldn’t put it past him. “Yes, I have been. You remember, I briefly mentioned it when we were in the Dungeon. I had a wild couple of years right after my mother died. I gave in to curiosity, let him bite me, and spent a solid month throwing my hands in the air as the O-Express took me for a ride. It was a good time.” My smile grew as the gleam in his eyes turned into something inhuman. Something monstrous.
I grinned. I knew what he was capable of, but he no longer knew my limitations. I’d grown in power, strength, and speed. Bring it on, swamp man.
“So yeah.” I shrugged. “I know how good it feels when your special serum spreads through the blood. So good. And the things that vampire did—”