Oh, hell. Simone couldn’t even wonder why the hell he was calling her a terribly accented ‘lemon’; it was no weirder than anything else tonight. The ‘need to hunt’ bit was concerning—had this guy been responsible for the victims they’d attributed to her earlier bounty? But no, there was security footage about the younger one, who had seemed almost to delight in carnage; her visitor seemed a little too self-possessed to make that kind of mistake.
A chilling thought. So was playing chauffeur to a vamp while her nethers tingled and her mouth was full of a strange, spice-candy aftertaste, like dessert after a buffet of every delicious meal she’d ever eaten.
However, if he let her get behind the wheel, she had a chance or two of escape. It was selfish to prioritize her own hide over the humans this vamp could probably drain in moments, but at the moment Simone didn’t care.
“I’ll drive,” she informed him, pulling against his hand. He let go—but only after a moment of keeping her wrist trapped, no doubt just to prove he could. “Can I at least get dressed?”You ripped up my favorite jeans.
She didn’t add that bit, but he nodded as if he heard anyway.
Was he telepathic? Christ, she hoped not.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, and rose slowly, balanced and controlled as a cat all the way through the movement. “Anythin’ you please.”
CHAPTER 8
He would certainly have preferredher half-clad if at all, but his new treasure seemed rather… high-strung. She had thrown herself against the seals without hesitation or restraint, and he had been too momentarily shocked to do more than catch her after impact.
The wanderer now had a number of dark suspicions about her former protector’s tastes and proclivities, and he was almost sorry the othersanguinantwas dead. Whoever—or whatever—had tormented this lovely creature until her responses were so full of flinching fear deserved the most lingering of punishments before finally breathing its last.
Even the fact that she was fully claimed, her new protector of ancient strength in the Blood, did not seem to comfort her.
Or perhaps he was laboring under some cardinal misapprehension, as he seemed to be in the matter of her language? A leman was so very precious, deserving of the most careful treatment. Had her former guardian instead been gentle, had she felt affection for them, and did not wish to sully the memory by accepting a new suitor? Difficult to tell. Her fascinating hazel eyes were wide with caution; her gaze roved,clearly weighing every avenue for escape, and the wanderer had not felt so interested, soexercised, in a very long time. The very presence of animprima, adeva—he could now remember more names for what she was, in at least four languages and another tongue long dead—tore successive layer after layer of dead age from mind and body both, honing him to a keen edge. The pleasure of anticipation, of moving to forestall almost before she could think of possible flight, was completely, intensely luxurious.
Her scent now lacked any hint of malnutrition, though she was still painfully thin, visibly anxious. And the new smoky haze-tint to her fragrance was his own blood in her veins, a mark of warning—and possession.
A continual wonder, watching her move gracefully through the small house-on-wheels, every motion denoting the ease of long familiarity. She yanked on underthings and a pair of denim trousers taken from a narrow closet, kicked the ruins of their torn clothing under the table almost violently, tied her hair back with casual roughness… but moved with slow, tentative caution to take a keyring from the large waxed-canvas pouch. Thecom-pu-terwas inside that bag as well, its black plastic edge peering out, and that was thought-provoking. So was her stripping away the shield over the vehicle’s front glass eyes, folding it with quick motions, stowing the result in a handy cubby.
And glancing at him all the while, as if she expected punishment. That was troubling, but he would focus upon encouraging some small measure of trust in her new sanguinant, bit by bit.
It was an intriguing prospect, and one he welcomed.
The vehicle’s design was wholly ingenious, and her casual movements gave each piece of modern innovation fresh luster. He often witnessed the mortals steering similar vehicles, large and small, but had never been inside one during movement.
He missed horse-drawn conveyances—far easier to enter, to feast within their jolting once they shifted past chariot to coach, and easy as well to exit unremarked. The innovation of greater speed meant more damage to mortals when such repasts provoked startlement in the driver, leading to collision or other accident. Messy, and unsatisfying in the extreme.
She dropped into the main seat, glancing repeatedly at him as he took the other, and he waited for direction.
“Seatbelt?” she said, finally, indicating the strap buckled across her own chest and lap. The word trembled, though her expression was entirely beautiful, mutinous, brittle bravado. “It’s safer.”
Safer?Did she think him a fledgling like herself? Outside the glass, the night was barely underway. It had not taken long to claim her, yet the entire universe was now entirely different, possessing a new central axis. The wanderer studied the view while reaching for the buckle, fastening the tough, smooth ribbon as he had seen her do, with a satisfying click.
“And the… that invisible stuff. Seals, right?” She swallowed, hard, her pulse fluttering. Indeed she was keeping to adorable, trembling calm only by a thin margin. “Is it going to move with us, or…?”
She was extremely intelligent; he looked forward to following her through the centuries, ambling in her wake as she discovered each new era’s secrets and hidden delights. He was almost lost in contemplating that starry prospect, but she required an answer.
More to the point, attempting to move this contraption while the seals held fast would indeed be a mistake.
“No.” A moment’s worth of attention, an internal shifting, and the familiar stillness of a sealed space vanished, a low brushing of wind now audible. The material of the conveyance’s outer shell was sensitized now, and would take less effort to ward later.
Sheerly wonderful that he couldthinkof later, no longer trapped in a maelstrom of chaos. Every moment in her company was peace, every breath freighted with divine grace. He seemed to remember long-ago mortals believing the mad were touched by gods; all he remembered of his own insanity was the pain, then the numbness, the constant striving to endure one more terrible dusk, one more empty dawning, one breath further, a single heartbeat?—
“Hello?” She was even more anxious now, the word spiraling up uncertainly. Her pulse, a sweet thunder, now almost humming-quick. “Uh, Mr. Vampire, sir?”
“They don’t travel,” he said, trying to pronounce the words as she did, following her vocal patterns. “Surprised your Maker didn’t teach you how. You must be… young, in the Blood.”
“You mean, being a vamp? Five whole years.” She inserted the small metal key, twisted it as he had seen mortals do. A shiver, a shudder, a rumble of combustion; the engine roused at her touch—what item, animate or the opposite, would not? “You’re the first one I’ve met who actuallytalks.”
A pair of remarkable assertions; for a few moments, he thought the madness had returned or his ability to understand her tongue faltered. He had thought her less than a half-century from receiving the Gift, certainly, but five small years was not even an eyeblink.