His keen hearing picked up the sound of Brittany moving around on the roof. She had only called out for him the one time, then had resorted to muttering about the rudeness of men in general, him in particular.

  It had been ill-mannered to abandon her like that. But she had spoken about orgasms as if he were her maid, and contemplated kissing his forehead as if he were a boy in short pants. There were boundaries, and she had overstepped them.

  “Alex? It’s Brit.”

  Corbin frowned. Who was she talking to?

  “I know it’s late, but I thought you’d call me after your little soiree with Ethan. I want all the dets, and I’m not waiting until tomorrow, so spill.”

  Corbin didn’t know who Alex was, or what dets were, but he was curious how Brittany was carrying on a one-sided conversation with someone on the roof of the casino.

  He jumped up the side of the building, grabbed the edge, and hovered where he could see her, just the top of his head clearing the roof. Brittany was chatting on her cell phone.

  That should have occurred to him, but sometimes his brain still worked in a nineteenth-century fashion.

  “You suck!” she said into her tiny pink phone. Brittany was lying on her back on the asphalt, staring up at the sky as she talked.

  Her body was long, lean, her breasts obvious in a tight, molded T-shirt, her hips shapely. A ribbon of flesh showed above her waistband, and her thick, black hair hung down away from her face, a raven waterfall over her shoulders.

  one was a beautiful woman, and full of life, laughter. Even now she giggled, rolled on her side a little, and smiled for whomever she was talking to. The smell of her blood was enticing, rich, and her pulse beat strong and sure. There was vampire in her, on her, yet she seemed to know nothing about it.

  This woman was why he had done what he did. For those like her, who flowed with human life.

  For the ache inside him when he watched her.

  It occurred to him Brittany would be perfect for his experiment.

  “Would you care to tell me just what the fuck you’re thinking?”

  Ethan winced as Seamus railed at him. They were in Ethan’s office, a large sumptuous room with thick faux suede easy chairs. He was settled comfortably in one, a glass of Diabetic ‘87 in one hand to give him a sugar boost.

  Seamus was pacing back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, still wearing a tux from the dinner party, though his tie was dangling loose. They had been friends for a long time, he had actually been the one to turn Seamus, and he was sorry he had angered him.

  But he didn’t regret his actions. Not really. Not when he felt excited and reinvigorated for the first time in fifty years.

  “I don’t think this is the disaster you seem to think it is, Seamus. Brittany was not interested in me.”

  “You weren’t even trying with her! And the sister doesn’t work as a substitute, Ethan. She doesn’t have vampire blood. That is the sole reason for you to be involved with a woman right now.”

  Ethan could think of a lot better reasons to be involved with a woman. “So Alexis isn’t an Impure. Does it really matter? She is a mortal. I look good simply by having her next to me.”

  Seamus didn’t look appeased. He waved his Sidekick at Ethan.

  “The polls say they want you to be a reasonable, nonviolent president, that’s true. But the Impures are restless and want to know you stand for them. That you care about their concerns. Making it with a mortal doesn’t fix that very large problem. It’s you, the old school, versus Donatelli, the new order. The Impure population is growing, as more and more are discovered and turned, and if they decide not to vote for you, the presidency is gone.”

  “I understand that.” And he cared. He did. “But I cannot seduce a woman because it is a good political maneuver. I can’t make myself use a woman that way.”

  “You have a new woman every decade or so. Why is this such a hardship to play court to a beautiful woman? She’s sweet, thoughtful, a little naive, but charming. How hard can it be?”

  Ethan frowned, tilting his glass to stare at the blood as it rolled across the inside of the flute. “But I wanted those women. I was attracted to them. I am not attracted to Brittany, and that makes me uncomfortable. I can’t fake that interest, I can’t sleep with a woman when I am being dishonest in my feelings for her.”

  “Well, aren’t you the noble vampire?” Seamus had short dark hair, trimmed neatly, but he managed to muss it up by raking a hand through it.

  “Hey, you wouldn’t do it either. Admit it. It’s wrong. If I were attracted to Brittany, it would be different, but I’m not. I’m attracted to Alexis.”

  Seamus made a face. “Damn it, you’re right. I wouldn’t do it either. But I suspect Alexis will be more detriment than asset. She is a bit…vocal.”

  Ethan laughed. That was a polite understatement. “It’s that very thing that I find so incredibly arousing about her.”

  “I don’t need any details about your arousal, thank you very much.” Seamus threw his hand up in the air. “But if Alexis already knows what we are, then that is a plus. Having a mortal wife is better than no wife at all, and her sister is an Impure. You need tc tell Alexis about Brittany, you know, or she’ll be angry with you when she finds out.”

  “I need to tell her a lot of things. But I’m easing her into everything.” And that night he had come perilously close to easing himself‘into her. It was too soon for that, and he knew it intellectually, even if his body disagreed. He should be grateful Alexis had slammed the door in his face.

  “Sit down, Seamus, and have a drink. You’re much too tense, it’s starting to grate on my nerves.” He sipped and reflected on his friend’s words. Even when he had discussed the strategy with Seamus regarding Brittany, he had never really believed he could marry her, even before he’d realized they wouldn’t suit.

  In more than nine hundred years he had not taken a wife, not even as a mortal man, and the thought of taking a mortal wife now did not appeal to him any more than it ever had. Some vampires did marry mortals for short periods of time—ten or twenty years—then left them or divorced when their spouses aged and became uncomfortable with their differences. Ethan had always thought it seemed so temporary, so unfulfilling. That at the end, it would leave you lonelier than when you started.

  But vampire marriages were rarer still, because it was a bond that could not be broken. Once mated, the marriage lasted for eternity, and most of their kind were unwilling to risk get ting stuck in a relationship for six hundred years after the bloom had worn off the rose. Those who did spoke of a knowledge, a love, that told them this was their chosen one. Their destiny. Their love.

  Ethan wanted that or nothing at all. Not a tepid, tomato juice marriage with a mortal when he could someday have a hot, satisfying pure blood passion for the rest of his undead life.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Seamus. I’m not ready to talk marriage to anyone. At this moment, I am fascinated by Alexis Baldizzi, that is all.” And suspicious. He’d felt something when he’d kissed her, something he never had before. Something that confused him. He’d felt… knowledge. A sense of Tightness.

  Like he had met his chosen one.

  Hands in his tuxedo pants pockets, Seamus studied him. “You could turn her.”

  Ethan couldn’t deny the excitement that leaped in him at the thought. Or the fact that it had already occurred to him. That he had embraced it, dissected it, rejected it. “Perhaps. But it would be wrong and you know it.”

  “This isn’t about you, Ethan, this is about all of us. Our way of life. Our future.”

  That made him snort. “Don’t be melodramatic. The end of the world as we know it does not rest on my love life. If it does, then we deserve to go extinct as a species.”

  Seamus didn’t laugh, which made Ethan realize between the two of them, they had become very uptight vampires. Until Alexis had karate kicked her way into his life.

  “So let’s talk about something else then. Like who tried to kill you.”

  That sounds like fun. Give me the report, I’m just dying to hear it.”

  “Cute, Carrick.” Though Seamus didn’t really look like he thought it was cute at all.

  Ethan shook his head, amused. It seemed everything, every thought, circled him back to Alexis. “You’re the second person to call me that today.” And he had really liked it when Alexis had said it.

  Astonished at himself, he rubbed his chin.

  Good God, it was worse than a midlife crisis. He was falling in love.

  If he wasn’t careful, he’d be buying flowers and going down on one knee, making an ass of himself. He’d be spouting poetry and begging her for a lock of her hair. He’d trail after her like a faithful hunter and obsess over getting her into his bed.

  It sounded like hell.

  He wasn’t doing any of that crap. He’d gone nine hundred years without falling in love, he could damn well go another nine hundred unscathed.

  Unless Alexis really was his chosen one. Then he might not have a choice in the matter.

  He remembered the way his head had spun and his heart had swelled when his lips had touched hers. The beautiful way she had sighed into him, and the way his body had pulled taut in anticipation. How much she fascinated him…

  Shit. It looked like making an ass out of himself was in his future.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” Alexis told Brittany for the third time as she paced her hotel suite, still wearing Ethan’s sweatpants and shirt. “It was a reception kind of thing with a bunch of stuffed-shirt types running around in tuxedos.”

  Then Ethan had been shot, confessed his vampirism, and kissed Alexis, but nothing major had happened that Brittany needed to know about.

  “And where are you, Brit? It sounds like you’re on the runway at the airport and a jumbo jet is flying over your head.”

  “I’m on my patio and a jumbo jet is flying over my head.”

  “Oh. Well, go to bed. Don’t you have to work tomorrow?” Alexis was eternally grateful she didn’t have to. There was no way she could wrap her brain around a molestation case that was on her desk when her head was full of the fantastical. Vampires up for reelection. Jesus.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so no. And are you sure nothing interesting happened? I got the feeling that Ethan was attracted to you. He didn’t even try to kiss you or anything?”

  “Just once.” She didn’t want to admit to that little lip-touching episode, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie straight out to her sister either. Their relationship was the most important one in Alexis’s life, and she had always played it straight with Brittany, even when their mother had overdosed.

  The excited scream that ripped through her cell phone almost shattered her eardrum. “Alex! So help me…”

  There was a shuffling sound, and Alexis waited, rubbing her temples. This was so embarrassing. She had kissed a vampire. Celibacy did strange things to a woman. “Brit? Did you drop the phone?”

  No, I don’t need help, it’s my sister. But thank you, that’s so sweet.”

  “Who the hell are you talking to?” It must be one of Brittany’s neighbors in her apartment complex. Probably wondering why she was screaming into her cell phone on her patio at one in the morning.

  “Hmm? Oh, I’m so glad you and Ethan are getting along. I think he really needs someone like you.”

  According to Ethan, he needed a wife, and she wasn’t going that route. Had always known she wasn’t ever going to get married. Not that he had “suggested anything of the kind, but if she ever lost her mind enough to think she wanted marriage, it wouldn’t be with a dead guy.

  “Yeah, he’s okay. Now let me go to bed, please.”

  “Sure thing, Alex. I’ll see you tomorrow?” There was a rustling sound as Brittany shifted the phone and said, “Don’t go. I’m hanging up now.”

  “Who are you talking to?” She’d forcibly removed Brittany from the company of vampires. If her sister now took up with some yahoo, Alexis was going to be seriously annoyed.

  “I’m talking to you.” Brittany giggled. “No, not you. Her.”

  Alexis groaned. “You know what? This conversation is beyond me right now. I love you, good night, lock your doors, see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Alex. I love you, too.”

  Hanging up the phone, Alexis went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth.

  Her mind still racing, she wasn’t sure she could sleep just yet, so she decided to check her e-mail on her cell phone. “Only seventeen messages, a light night.”

  Nothing but crap. Irritating e-mails from coworkers who couldn’t think without someone holding their hands, an advertisement from Ticketmaster for “Yanni Live,” and an invitation to join something.

  “What is this?” Alexis hovered the cursor over the invitation. “From The Redeemer? Doesn’t sound like porn.” Against her better judgment, but curious enough to risk it, she clicked on the e-mail.

  Hello! You’ve been invited to join VampireSlayers@yahoogroups .com. We are a group dedicated to the destruction of the unholy undead. Join us for lively discussion and strategy planning on this private list. Your invitation will expire in seven days.

  Okay. Alexis read it again. “That’s freaking weird.” She double-clicked on the sender—The Redeemer—and saw the e-mail address was theredeemer@yahoo.com, which told her nothing except the sender was grandiose in his view of himself.

  Without conscious thought, her eyes drifted over to the open drapes at the hotel window. She yanked them shut. Granted she was twenty-some floors up in the air but it made her feel better. The e-mail gave her the creepy feeling of being watched.

  “How could someone know who I am? Or my e-mail, or who and what Ethan is.” Grabbing her room key and still holding her cell phone, she went into the hallway and pounded on Ethan’s door. He needed to see this.

  There was no answer, even when she hit the door with the butt of her hand six times in a row. It occurred to her that as a vampire he Probably slept during the day and worked at night. There was no guessing where he was.

  “Argh.” She stomped back to her room, went to the minibar, and grabbed herself a Coke. After popping the top, and taking a huge sip that made her eyes water, she sat down on the couch in her little sitting area.

  And clicked on the //smc join this group! button.

  Four hours later she lost the fight to keep her eyes open, and fell asleep on the couch, cell phone clutched in her hand.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Ethan jerked straight out of sleep. He sat up, scanning the dark room, and assessed what he had sensed. He had been born the son of a warrior, he himself had fought in battle, and his undead instincts had averted him from many a danger. No longer needing a weapon, since he could kill any mortal or young vampire with his bare hands if necessary, he still had the habit of reaching behind his head for his dagger.

  Naked, arm stretched up, and feeling like he’d been doused in freezing lake water, he heard violent knocking on his door. “Ethan! Get up, damn it.”

  Relaxing his tense body, he sighed and rubbed his eyes. No threat there—just Alexis, having no respect for the sanctity of his sleep and privacy. Maybe if he was quiet, she’d go away. Sleep was a luxury he’d discovered later in his life, when he had time, money, and better security. It was a gift he’d taken to really well, and he liked his eight hours uninterrupted.

  From the way his head felt, he’d only gotten about four.

  Sitting still, he held his breath when the silence continued. Maybe she’d gone back to her room. He hoped. That was the downside to involvement with a mortal. They were awake during the day, something he was decidedly out of habit doing.

  Probing with his mind, he tried to find his way into her thoughts since she couldn’t see him and might not be guarding against him. There was nothing. No feelings, no snatches of thought, no real sense even of her temperament, mood, or posture.

  It was frustrating to feel so merely mortal around her. To not have the benefit of one of his greatest vampire gifts.

  Then again, maybe she had left and that was why there was only silence.

  “Ethan! Come on, I want to talk to you.”

  So much for hope. With a groan, he got out of bed and stretched. He felt sluggish and tired, perhaps residual effects of losing so much blood the night before. Or getting ripped out of sleep by a persistent, loud, short woman.

  Not bothering to put clothes on, he went to the door. If she was going to force him out of bed, she was going to get him as he was. In the flesh.

  It gave him a sick sort of anticipation to know he was going to shock her. Nine hundred years didn’t necessarily bring profound maturity when dealing with women.

  Ethan pulled the door open, knowing he was probably smirking.

  Alexis paused with her hand in the air. She was wearing jeans and a tank top, which did nice things to her breasts. Tight, snuggly things that gave him the sudden urgent need to suck and bite her nipples until she moaned.

  “Oh, there you are. Were you sleeping?” Alexis blinked innocently, like she hadn’t just been making direct contact with her fist on his door.

  “Yes, I was. Is there something I can help you with, my dear?” He leaned on the doorframe, crossing his arms and ankles.

  She glanced down. Where he had expected blushes and squea-mishness, he got a bold, direct stare. Her head tilted a little, her eyes widened. Maybe with a little surprise, yes, but mostly with interest.

  Which had him reacting to her interest.

  Her tongue slipped out and licked her lower lip, while she tucked her loose, wavy hair behind her ear. He may not have been able to read her thoughts, but he could see the desire on her face. Or at least, the very real sexual curiosity.

  “Morning woody?” she asked, eyes still trained on his erection.

  “I imagine so.”

  “Hmm.” She made a little sound in the back of her throat. “Well, I can admit it. I’m impressed.”

 

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