GoodHunting (3 page)

Instead, he laughed, at himself and at his clever Genevieve.
The sight of her in her underclothes, bright hair spilling over her shoulders,
was enough to make him ache for her. He needed to feel her in his arms, to
speak with her about his need for the game to change, but that would happen
soon.

Next time, he decided, he would not give her enough time to
be clever. Next time, he would not let her speak at all.

She would not leave the city, not now that he found her. It
was the same when she found him in Paris. After the first contact, the prey’s
ability to flee was limited to the city boundaries. There were rules, and she
would no more break them than he would. Venice was the world now, and somewhere
in the city, she was running.

Thoughtfully, he stroked the gold hairpin she had flung at
him. The spot where it had grazed his knuckle was already healed, leaving only
a smudge of blood on his skin, and he licked it absently.

“First blood to you, Genevieve,” he murmured.

The crowd’s cheering was deafening as the decorated gondolas
wended their way down the canal. Even in her plain brown cloak, the hood pulled
up well over her face, Genevieve still felt shockingly exposed.

He was here, she knew he was, and it was driving her mad.
She had managed to scent him twice over the last few weeks, but she had not
seen him at all. Daniel was approaching like a storm, but he did not strike,
and her nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

“You’re stalking me,” she muttered to herself, and there was
a rich laugh right behind her ear just as she felt the prick of something very
sharp directly under the soft flesh of her chin. In the heavy press of bodies,
she could barely detect Daniel’s scent.

“You’re right,” he whispered. “And now I’ve caught you.”

They were crushed together in the crowd, and in the midst of
the cheering and screaming no one could hear them speak to each other. He
pressed close to her back, and his heartbeat was loud in her ears.

“Is that my hairpin?” she murmured, striving to be
nonchalant. “How kind of you to bring it back to me.”

“I’ll do that and more besides,” he promised, laying one
heavy hand on her hip.

The crowd was pressed so hard around them that she could not
have moved, or indeed lifted a hand against him. Instead, she had to stand as
firmly as she could while his hand traveled from her hip up to her waist. Her
back was pressed flat against his chest, and his cock was blunt and hard
against her soft flesh. He caressed her side slowly, making her squirm. He
cupped her breast through the fabric of her gown, brushing her nipple with an
insulting slowness and attention.

“You ache for me,” he murmured in her ear. “You would let me
take you here.”

She made no response as he bit at her earlobe, teasing
nibbles that nonetheless showed her how very sharp his teeth were.

“You’re teasing me,” she said, unable to keep the huskiness
out of her voice. “Have done, Daniel.”

He pressed closer against her. The golden hairpin never
wavered against her tender flesh, and he dragged it down the elegant line of
her neck, just lightly enough to avoid drawing blood. He didn’t stop until it
was directly over the great vein in her throat, where stolen blood ran hot and
thick through her. She shuddered hard against him.

“Do it,” she hissed, and she no longer knew if it was a plea
or a demand.

He started to say something, but then the crowd lurched,
opening up before her, and almost against her will, she pitched forward. For a
moment, Genevieve paused, dazed, then she was off, darting through the crowd.
When she spared a glance over her shoulder, Daniel was trapped again in the
press of bodies. For a moment, she saw his face, dark and furious, before the
crowd swallowed him again.

Her hand sought the scratch at her throat, raw almost to the
point of bleeding and just beginning to throb. She dashed at it with the heel
of her hand, knowing that it would stop bleeding soon enough, and she darted
into one of the narrow alleys.

Genevieve stumbled into a couple kissing in darkened
doorways, swearing as they turned to look at her. They wore ragged skirts that
were hiked up to their thighs, marking them as two of the city’s many
prostitutes. Genevieve could see that their show of passion was for no one
except themselves, and when she was less in a hurry, she would have liked to
stop and speak with them, perhaps to buy them a drink and spend the night. As
it was, she knew that Daniel was likely hot on her trail.

“Are you in trouble?” one girl said, and Genevieve was
warmed by the concern in her voice.

“A man,” Genevieve agreed. “He’s chasing me.”

“Come here, we can hide you…” one woman began, but she
yelped instead when Genevieve caught her up in her arms.

The woman’s body was warm and soft from her lover’s embrace,
and Genevieve pressed her close. The woman’s scent would mask her own, and
Genevieve chuckled at her own cleverness.

“Thank you,” she whispered, pressing a coin into the woman’s
hand, and with a leap and a grab, she pulled herself into the low window above
the doorway where the prostitutes stood.

Not a minute later, Daniel came around the corner, sparing
only a single glance for the women who called invitations to him from the
doorway. Genevieve held her breath, waiting to see if she would be found out.

“Did you see a woman come by here?” Daniel demanded. “Short,
with golden hair. She was wearing a cloak and a green dress underneath it.”

“Oh come on, you don’t need her when you have us,” one of
the women teased, and Daniel growled at her, ready to go on until the other
girl called him back.

“Maybe we did. What’s it worth to you?”

Genevieve watched with dismay as Daniel turned, and she made
herself stay silent as he flipped the waiting woman a coin. She was tensed to
leap when the woman replied.

“She ran down that way.” The woman pointed. “She ran to the
left, and she was saying something about finding an inn.”

Daniel nodded shortly and ran on.

When she could no longer hear his footsteps, Genevieve
dropped down to the alley again.

“Thank you,” she whispered, embracing them both, and the
taller woman shook her head.

“He looks angry with you,” she observed. “Are you sure
you’ll be safe,
bella
?”

Genevieve grinned, her close miss making her reckless.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

* * * * *

The storm blew in from the ocean, striking the city like a
fist. Merchants closed their doors, and the only people in the streets were
madmen and foreigners. Business was poor, but still, women stood along the
avenues, braving the weather for men who might give them coin.

In her green linen gown, Genevieve hoped she passed for one
more of the city’s many whores. She was no prostitute, but the men who sought
them had money and dry houses.

A hunted animal needs a place to go to ground, she thought
to herself, even as she smiled at the men passing by.

It had also been too long since she had last fed, and she
knew that the longer she went without, the slower and the stupider she would
grow. It would be too perfect a victory for Daniel to find her racked with
hunger and unable to run, and so she scanned the avenues.

The man who approached her was dressed in the flamboyant
outfit of a private guard, and the pikestaff that he carried and his glare
would keep most people at bay. He spared no glance at the women beside her, and
he addressed Genevieve coolly.

“Donna, my mistress has business for you.”

“Mistress?” Genevieve blinked. “And what will she pay for my
business then?”

“She is a rich woman, you would be well paid for your time.”

Genevieve bit her lip, but it only reminded her of how
hungry she was. A perfumed lady, clad in silk and with skin just as soft…

She nodded her assent and followed the man through the
streets. For a moment, she had no thought of Daniel and only of the pleasure of
feeding and hot blood in her mouth.

The man led her through the wet streets, and finally they
came to an inn set far back from the canals. It was a fine place, or at least,
it had once been so, and neither the innkeeper nor the sullen girl wiping the
table spared them a second look as the man led her up the stairs.

He rapped on the door once, and nodded that she should
enter.

The room was lit with a dozen candles, and the bed that
dominated the center of the floor was draped with rich velvet. It was a place
where men met their favorite lovers, and the woman who lounged in the center of
the bed was as lovely as an angel.

“You honor me,” she began, stepping closer to the figure,
and like a snake sensing an earthquake moments before it broke the ground, she
knew there was something wrong. The woman, propped up on the pillows, was deep
in an unnatural slumber and just as Genevieve turned to escape, iron arms
locked around her body, pinning her as neatly as a bird.

“No,” Daniel rumbled in her ear. “You honor me.”

She would have moaned in a panic at her capture but his hard
hand drifted up to her jaw, stroking the side of her face and tracing a finger
along her full lower lip. Almost involuntarily she licked her lips to taste his
skin.

“Sharp,” he muttered, grazing a finger against her sharpened
canines. “You’ve gone too long without feeding.”

She wished that she had some witty retort for him, some kind
of stinging reply that would have made him throw her on the bed and kiss her
until she saw stars, but instead she could only whimper plaintively. He was
right, and even now she ached with hunger, for him and for red, living blood.

“Darling Genevieve,” he purred. “You would never want for
anything if you stayed at my side.”

He loosened her hair, causing it to fall down in waves
around her face, and he wound it twice around his fist. It was better than a
leash and he forced her closer to the bed where the woman slept.

When they drew closer, she saw that the woman was
raven-haired with an oval face that was unlined and pale. There was an elegance
to her beauty, but her plain clothing told Genevieve that this was no lady. Her
bodice drew her breasts up taut and they were scattered with freckles, dark and
sweet on the woman’s olive skin.

“Oh, beautiful,” she murmured, and at her words, the woman’s
eyes drifted open. She was startled but unafraid, and when Daniel reached out
with his free hand to stroke her face, Genevieve felt a stab of jealousy.
Daniel’s rich, low laugh told her that he knew her thoughts, and he shook his
head.

“Sweet Marielle simply wishes to be of service, darling,” he
whispered, “and you did look so very cold and hungry standing in that alley…”

Marielle gave a little sigh at Daniel’s words and turned her
face away. It was no rejection, for it bared her neck to Genevieve. Genevieve
was briefly maddened with hunger, then Daniel was forcing her forward, toward
the vein at the base of the girl’s throat.

Genevieve moaned helplessly, then her fangs were buried in
Marielle’s flesh, seeking the hot blood that she could smell even before she
pierced the skin. The girl wailed, resting her hands on Genevieve’s shoulders,
but instead of pushing her away, she drew her closer. Behind her, Daniel’s
breath came faster and his cock stiffened against her.

Long before she thought she would be satisfied, Daniel tugged
her hair sharply, pulling her away. Genevieve made a sound that was akin to a
protest, but then she saw that Daniel was right to do it. Marielle lolled
against the pillow, paler but with a sweet, dreamy smile on her face. For all
intents and purposes, she looked like a drowsy girl ready for bed. Even the
wounds that Genevieve made had closed themselves, leaving only a yellowing
bruise behind. More and the girl would sleep for a month, but now she only
rested quietly, tired and languorous.

“Marielle,” Daniel said clearly. “There is a room next door.
Go there and sleep well. In the morning, you will rise well-rested and go home.
Do you understand?”

“Of course, sir,” she said softly.

Daniel’s trick with humans, one that Genevieve had never
mastered, was the ability to control people for short times, and Marielle would
do precisely what he said in a sweet fog. Later, she would be sure that it was
all her own idea, and have only hazy memories of the woman who drank so
greedily at her throat.

They both watched as Marielle drifted out of the room like a
sleepwalker, and Daniel turned Genevieve’s face to his.

“Greedy darling,” he whispered. “You spilled.”

He flicked out his tongue to catch the drop of blood on her
lip. His kiss was like coming home, and Genevieve wondered if she could ever
leave him again.

They had known each other for more than two hundred years.
In the rhythm of chase and be captured, run and be pursued, nothing had ever
broken the deep and fierce love they had for each other, and for a moment, Genevieve
was overwhelmed by the fact that she didn’t want to hunt him again after this
night was over.

“I want…” Genevieve started, and she yelped when Daniel
pushed her to the bed. He loomed over her like a wolf over its prey and she
felt a delicious trill of fear run up her spine.

“You’ve kept me waiting too long, love,” he growled. There
was a hint of the beast in his voice and he ran a possessive hand down her
clothed body. She closed her eyes to savor his touch and she felt his hands at
the neck of her low bodice.

She started to protest but then he was splitting the garment
down the middle, baring the glaring white satin of her corset. He palmed the
sharp nip of her waist, feeling the steel bones that shaped her flesh.

“I would tear that as well,” he said, “if I did not like the
look of it so much.”

She pulled herself up out of the ruin of her once-fine dress
and Daniel ran his hands over her corseted waist, admiring the swell of her
hips below and her plump breasts above. He leaned down to run his lips over her
breasts and she sighed before a sharp nip made her moan.

It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but it was close and he
kissed a line over her soft breasts to her throat, where the stolen blood
thundered like a river.

“Beautiful,” he groaned, and she could tell that he was as
hungry as she had been.

“You’re starving,” she said, and it came out huskier than
she intended. It sounded like a taunt, and he frowned at her darkly, giving her
another punishing nip with his teeth.

“You should be more afraid of me,” he said, sliding one leg
between hers. The legs of her scandalously narrow drawers were connected by
nothing more than a cord at the waistband, and her humid flesh pressed against
his trousered leg with nothing between them.

She purred but then she looked directly up into his eyes.