Blacker than Black (19 page)

Jhez looks back at me, expression a mixture of confusion and duty. “You’ll be fine. I can handle one feeble old vampire, I think.” There’s a trace of amusement in her tone, and she steps closer, folding me into a hug, mouth hovering beside my ear. “And if nothing else, Garthelle will make sure you’re safe, right? Just . . . don’t rile him up. Please?” she whispers, warm moist breath tickling over my earlobe.

Like she needs to warn me? I sigh and give her a squeeze. “I promise to behave myself,” I vow, letting an edge of sarcasm leak into my voice.

Garthelle grabs me just below the elbow and steers me away from Jhez, nodding toward the door behind her. I look back over my shoulder as he leads me down the hall, but she’s already knocking. Focused elsewhere. Trying to reclaim my arm proves futile. His grip doesn’t hurt, but it’s not breaking. Not without me making a scene in the middle of the hall.

“This isn’t necessary, you know.” His behavior is boorish but there’s one benefit. I can feel his aura tangling with mine where his hand is, the material of my shirt no barrier to the energies. It’s faint, but definitely there.

“What isn’t?” At least his stride is sedate enough for me to walk easily beside him.

I twist my arm, sliding it beneath his hand with the assistance of my silk shirt. The sensation is far from unpleasant, and that startles me. The last thing I expected is for the friction to send a tingle of warmth up my spine. “This,” I manage to grate. “Dragging me down the hall like I’ll run away at the first opportunity.”

He slows down, falters to a stop and half-turns. “That’s not what it is at all.” He stares down the corridor, mouth pursed into a flat line. I study his features, and this close the marks of tension are obvious. Furrowed brow, narrowed gaze birthing creases at the corners of his eyes. His attention falls to where his fingers still wrap loosely on my forearm, and his hand clenches, a spasm of muscles, before he releases his hold. “You say you want to understand.” An underlying hint of derision, disbelief, in his voice.

I bob my head in a wordless nod and swallow hard as he meets my gaze. His attention skitters away quickly, though, shifting past me, at something over my shoulder.

“I am inclined to believe your curiosity is driven by the fact that you’ve never filched chi from a
lyche
strong enough to turn the tables on you. As I did.”

“Partly.” I’ll not deny that. “I’ll admit to a certain curiosity about you, specifically. Cats.” I arch my brows. “And then, breaking what appears to be a rather sacrosanct restriction, at least for you, to feed off me.”

“My investigation was going nowhere.”

What investigation? I lick my lips and bolster my feeble courage. “So then, this dampened state should be a relief. The aural sympathy would wear off in time of its own accord, as it has previously. This just minimizes the interference it causes in the meantime.”

“Interference.”

Not the best word choice, but close enough for that warm fuzzy lack of tension every time he’s close to me. It certainly interferes with my brain function, for starters.

His shoulders shift, lifting sharply, and his mouth curls into a smile. As if he’s suppressing the desire to laugh. “I cannot say for certain whether the sympathy will dissipate, as you say it’s always done in the past.” His smile fades. “I have no experience from which to draw, and to be closed off from my awareness of you is . . . unsettling.”

 “Why would you doubt my years of experience?” I shift to face him fully and fold my arms. My fingers trail over the place where his grip rested, the echo of his touch still lingering on my skin. In my aura, despite the fact that I can’t register his, not even this close.

Footsteps reverberate faintly, reaching us from somewhere down the corridor. Leonard’s head snaps up, tension stiffening his entire body. Whoever it is, wherever they’re going, the steps fade and silence descends within moments. But he doesn’t relax. His left hand flexes, contracts into a fist, again and again. I reach out and touch the back of his hand with my fingertips, below the edge of his sleeve peeking from his cuff. Like a hint of something I shouldn’t see, the way it contrasts against his skin tone and black suit.

He glances down at my fingers on his hand. The tension doesn’t leave him, and he still won’t actually
look
at me for some reason. “At this point, I’m not the only one monitoring
Dragulhaven
. Not with this many factions present. I’d rather discuss it in a . . . more private setting. Tonight, perhaps.”

The corner of his mouth curls upward, but it’s a stiff, lopsided expression, and doesn’t last more than a fraction of a second. He lifts his left hand away from my touch and points at the nearest door just a dozen feet down the hall.

“The Durrams’ suite.”

Okay, fine, we’ll go do something constructive for a little bit. But I’m not letting him off the hook that easy. Passing strange, his behavior, and I’m struggling to get a grasp on him.

I’d be willing to settle for a physical grasp, even.

When the door to the suite closes, leaving us alone in the hallway again a half hour later, Garthelle looks more frustrated than ever.

And my irritation is mounting. Thickening, like a coagulating puddle of blood. None of which has anything at all to do with the reason why we came to speak with the twins in the first place.

I turn and walk off down the hall, not caring that I’m heading
away
from his office, or that I have no idea where I’m going. The monsieur’s behavior was more than passing strange during that interview. Not once did he look at me or meet my gaze, not even when I addressed him directly, asked him a question.

The dampener only makes it all that much more frustrating. I could see there was something going on between him and Alyn earlier. It was a blatant power struggle of some kind. I was more than willing to pass if off as vampire quirks,
lyche
politics, until I witnessed the exact same behavior between him and the Durram twins.

Combine my inability to sense a fucking thing, and my general lack of familiarity with their culture, and this just . . . blows. It feels like he’s being possessive, protective, watching him place himself between me and any vampire in the vicinity. While I can appreciate the gesture in theory, the execution is . . . many things. Irritating, first and foremost, simply because I’m unfamiliar with having a protector.

I take a few random turns, lost in my thoughts. It doesn’t even occur to me to wonder where Garthelle is until I hear the footsteps behind me. Matching my own. When I pause, so does whoever is shadowing me.

It sends chills up my spine. Stupid and thoughtless of me to go waltzing off that way, through a castle filled to the gills with a bevy of vampires. When I turn and look over my shoulder, though, the Monsieur of York is standing a dozen paces down the hall, casual as you please.

Hands in his trouser pockets, staring at a statue on display, inset in the stone of the wall.

Should have figured he wouldn’t let me wander off into reckless endangerment.

“Are you done yet?” he asks, not looking away from the statue.

“Probably not, since I’ve no idea what it is I’m actually doing.” I turn around and watch him, curious. “Or what it is you’re doing, either, come to think of it.”

His head turns toward me a fraction. “What I’m doing.”

“Yes. That little display back there, with Alyn. I know little enough of what’s acceptable, what isn’t. I don’t expect to be educated overnight; even I can see that’s a ridiculous notion. But I’m not defenseless. Far from it.”

“Quite the opposite, in fact.” He turns and takes a step in my direction, but his gaze wanders over the pattern of flagstone tiles in the floor. “It still baffles me, your strength. That the theft unit couldn’t acquire either one of you. That I was able to, with such ease.”

“My strength.” First a mention of some investigation, now a theft unit? I’m confused. And this just makes me wonder what else he isn’t telling us.

He takes a few more steps, then stops. Blinks, looking openly startled. “Yes, even with the drugs in your system. I can still . . .” He trails off into silence. The tendons in his cheek bulge and twitch visibly, a play of shadow from the ambient lighting.

“Still what?”

His shoulders lift and fall. “Feel.” He shakes his head. “Not you or the sympathy specifically, of course, but the pull is still there. Like an ache.”

As if something is missing that should be there. A crucial part of anatomy gone numb. That’s how it feels to me. It’s not just the aural visibility that’s defunct as a result of the concoction Blue provided.

Curious, I close the distance between us to something less than arm’s length and reach out, trying to sense him. His energy, his aura. I get a faint tingle just before my fingertips brush against his chest beneath the hollow of his throat.

His nostrils flare as he inhales. “What are you doing?” His voice is low, a harsh rasp barely above a whisper. He has his face angled away, eyes half-hooded, directed toward the floor still.

When my skin touches his, a flare of heat rushes up my arm and floods through my entire body. Not entirely uncomfortable, but startling in its own right, beyond my ability to describe it. My breath catches in my throat with the shock of it, and I watch the tension bleed from the vampire’s body as he leans forward, swaying into the contact.

One fingertip becomes five, and then my entire palm against his exposed flesh. The surge of heat, like the radiant warmth of the sun, becomes a tidal wave. Emotions manifesting, increasing in distinction. Arousal, lust, affection, anger, rage, jealousy, possessiveness, fear. So many that I just open up and let them move through me, resist the urge to analyze or capture any of it.

“You should definitely stop now.” His voice sounds slurred, as if highly intoxicated. And yet despite his words, he makes no attempt to move away. If anything, he leans a fraction more into my touch, the contact. “Please.”

The intimacy of it is profound. I watch his face, pale skin over flawless bone structure, hooded gaze flicking furtively in my direction but not quite meeting mine. He licks his lips, grits his teeth, but still makes no effort to move away. Frustration laces through into my body, resentment, burgeoning anger.

I pull my hand away, snatching it back and cradling it against my midsection. Step back a few paces, frowning. I honestly have no idea what just happened. The vampire gives his head a shake, opens his eyes fully and glares at me. No avoidance now. Full-on assault, gaze flashing with anger.

“Why did you do that?”

“Do what.”

He steps forward, and I take a step back. Maintaining the gap between us. “Manipulate me.”

What?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just wanted to know if the sympathy was still there, even though I couldn’t feel it. That’s all I did.” The words come out in a babbling rush as he keeps coming at me and I keep backing away.

“That’s all you did.” Voice flat, face unreadable, he holds my gaze with relentless force. His emotional reaction feels entirely out of synch, disproportionate.

What the hell? Even if I did something I’ve no awareness of, surely it’s no more than what he did to me that first night. When he had me curled fetal on his carpet, screaming my throat hoarse.

Footsteps reverberate down the hall, the source growing closer. I can’t look away from him, though my curiosity is strong. His intensity has me thoroughly ensnared.

“Did you require something, Monsieur?”

It’s his butler. He speaks with a gentle, noninvasive tone, as if keenly concerned with upsetting the Monsieur of York in some way.

“Yes. Escort Black back to my study, if you would. I expect Jhez is waiting there already, and I’ve a few things to see to. Ensure the limo is available for their use when they wish to depart.”

He tears his focus from me abruptly, and a shudder of pain ripples up my spine. Strangest reaction I’ve ever had to a vampire’s gaze. I don’t know what causes it, not the first clue. I turn slowly and track his retreat down the hall, hands still shoved casually in his pockets, until he moves around a corner and out of sight.