“Contestant?” He scowled. “No, of fucking course not. I don’t buy my blood. What are you doing here, Frankie? Did someone rope you into being a server for?—”
The rest of his question dried up on his tongue like week-old blood. A shock coursed through him, visceral and cell-changing, when her guilty gaze met his.
A server wouldn’t wear a gown.
Not even vampires were that ostentatious, and the party Easton had apparently organized wasn’t about being treated to expensive alcoholic synth. Tonight’s entertainment wasn’t gambling — that was a fringe benefit for the spectators — or even an orgy. It was something ancient and violent and best left in the past.
Tonight there would be Blood Games, and he was speaking to the prize.
His blood rushed in his ears as he stared down at the fragile creature looking defiantly up at him. Bare toes peeked out from beneath the hem of her slightly too-long gown, and the lips that he’d kissed just the night before were tightly pursed, as if she awaited his disapproval. Everything about her screamed of vulnerability.
It was like catnip to any vampire, but for a man like Luis, it was much worse.
Trying and failing to catch his breath as he stared into the abyss of certain madness, he barked, “You’re the prize?”
Heavy brows arched. Being looked at like he was a few drops short of a pint wasn’t exactly unusual for him, but somethingabout the defiance in her expression made him want to nip her. He couldseeher rallying, putting up her defenses, and all it did was make him howl to tear them down.
Toes curling into the carpet, she sniffed, “If you’re not a contestant, then what does it matter? You probably shouldn’t even be here.”
“I’m looking for the man who organized the Games,” he snapped. “Rumor was that he had a prize worth the hundred thousand dollar entry fee. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Those pillow-soft lips, painted a devastating blood red, pressed into a firm line. “I might.”
“Oh, Frankie,” he breathed, gaze darting from one perfect feature of her face to another. The pieces clicked together in his mind to create a hair-raising picture. “Is this why you told me you were leaving? You volunteered to be a prize?”
She looked like she’d rather pull a fang than give him what he wanted, but she eventually answered, “Yes.”
FOUR
Luis likedto think he was slow to anger. He was tightly controlled — perhaps too tightly, if one asked his mothers — and it was an asset in his line of business. If no one could fluster him, no one could get the best of him. If no one could read him, then no one could beat him.
It’d served him well in business and even better as a Dom.
But for the first time since he’d set his sights on winning Francesca, that meticulously maintained charade slipped.
Stalking across the plush carpet, Luis’s voice cracked like a whip through the room. “Absolutely fucking not!”
For just a moment, she shrank. Her slim shoulders curled and her eyes went wide in a look he knew well — the panic of a sub who likes to please getting in trouble.
And then, like a switch flipped, she thrust her chin in the air. That look shuttered. “I’m sorry, but since when do you get to tell me what to do?”
“Sincenow,”he growled, closing the distance between them. “Get your shit. We’re leaving.”
An incredulous laugh burst from her. “You think because we’ve talked a few times and kissedonce,you get to tell me what to do? You’ve lost your damn mind.”
Her defiance actually had a calming effect. Luis knew how to deal with bratty behavior. It helped him find his footing again, allowing him to summon his control once more.
Brushing the underside of her chin with the pad of his middle finger, he asked in a softer voice, “Do you know who I am, Frankie?”
He could see it took everything in her not to shrink back. “No. You’ve never told me.”
“And you never asked around?”
She looked away again, hiding her expressive eyes. “No. I was told not to. And I… I didn’t want to invade your privacy.”
The first time they met, he knew she had no idea who he was. A woman who knew the Amauris would’ve reacted differently when she stumbled upon him, hung-over in his living room. Whether she batted her eyelashes or ran out screaming was a toss-up.
The fact that she did neither spoke of a fact much more troubling than the family’s reputation possibly being not quite as terrifying as it should be.