Laws of the Blood 1: The Hunt (18 page)

This is just a dream,
she told herself when she could think again. One he unknowingly pulled her into. Neither of them were responsible for the shape of the dream. They might not even remember it come nightfall. The collapsed weight on top of her didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a warm, sweat-slick, sated, slack-muscled male. She didn’t have to wonder if it had been good for him, too.
This did not happen,
she reminded herself
again. She wasn’t going to just lie there with a satisfied smile on her face and hold him in her arms until they both woke in their separate beds hours from now.

With great reluctance she made herself drift up out of the dream and walk into the mind that was doing the dreaming. Selim slept on in two different places: his body in Pasadena, and most of the rest of him created a dream that he was on a bed in Istanbul.
Where the sheets haven’t been changed in over two centuries,
Valentine thought at the sleeping prince.
I’ve stayed in some motels like that.

A part of Selim that wasn’t in California or Turkey but somewhere much more distant, farther and deeper inside him, stirred, stretched, yawned.
So have I.

This dreamer was blind, deaf, not really there. It had a voice, but not one Selim would hear when he was awake. This dreamer lived in the memories that couldn’t quite be caught, within the vague fears, the most absent part of the mind. It came in very handy for those who knew how to talk to it. She had never been able to reach this part of him for more than a few moments at a time in all the weeks she’d been riding him.

She wanted to ask him what they’d just—dreamed—had been all about, but some things were better left unexplored. She did say,
Honey, you need to get back together with your companion.

Siri.

It was a word, a name, and a prayer. It held all the love in the world. The boy had it bad, but then, she knew that. She admired his resolve, if not his methods, even if they were her own. She wanted to tell him to do what she said, not what she did, but this wasn’t a part of him that could listen to her. Besides, she wanted to know about his life, not interfere with it.

Keeping that in mind, she probed gently deeper into his store of knowledge. She figured she might as well get some work done as long as she was here.
Tell me about the child,
she urged.
Tell me all the details—and I’ll make you both famous.

• • •

The ringing phone woke Selim up.

“Oh, boy,” he said, staring blankly at the ceiling.

The discordant, jarring sound came again, and again. Staring didn’t change anything. Blinking didn’t help. There was no daylight coming in through the carved latticework of the roof. There was nothing but a blank white ceiling over his head. What had happened to the blue and white tiles on the walls? He stretched his hands across the width of the mattress, but no body shared this bed with him. Where was she?

“Siri?” he asked.

Who?

A vision of another face floated across his mind, blotting out the dull white ceiling. Black curls half obscured her big, dark eyes. His hands grasped with aching longing to hold the slenderest waist in all the world. The cursed noise kept calling to him. He reached out toward the big-eyed phantom even as she faded. Her rich, warm mouth was the last thing to fade, curved in a teasing smile, fangs pressed seductively against her full lower lip.

“Damn,” he muttered. Selim sat up, scrubbed sleep and the dead past out of his eyes. His soul weighed a ton. He felt like he’d been outside his skin but hadn’t put it back on right. The merciless telephone kept ringing. He grabbed the receiver. “What?” He was barely aware that he asked the question in Turkish.

“You left a message to meet you at Dar Maghreb.” The sound of Middle Eastern music underlay the harsh tone of Don Tomas’s voice. “Where are you?”

Not where he was supposed to be. Selim looked at the clock on the table beside the telephone. “Overslept. Rough day,” he answered. Bad dreams. Good dreams? He wasn’t sure. “Tom, do you ever—? Do you and Cassandra—?”

“What?” It was more of an annoyed growl than a word. Spoken in Spanish.

Selim shook away the last of sleep, the last of memory. Some things were better not to think about or to
know. Especially when the answers could bring death. “Nothing.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

The hard voice, the tautly strung together words, reminded Selim of this week’s reality. He told Don Tomas about the rising tension from the shooting. “What do you think?”

After a considerable silence, he received only a single-word answer. “When?”

Selim stretched and scratched his chest. The bedclothes were not rumpled. The room did not smell of sex. There was no sticky dryness of sweat and semen or blood on his body. There were no visible marks. No proof. But he was empty, physically, psychically, all the way to his soul. He needed—

What he hadn’t gotten last night. Needed those strong, sharp emotions that speared into him and kept him going.
We live on emotion,
was the first lesson he’d learned.
Blood is just for sex.
He didn’t want blood—liar!—he wanted to not be alone. That was what last day’s dream had been telling him.
She’d
risen up out of his subconscious to deliver the message he wanted to hear.

“I’ll get back to you, Tomas.” He stood up, looked wildly around. He checked the clock again. There was still time. “I have somewhere I have to be.”

“You wanted to meet with me.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” Don Tomas was not used to being put off or hung up on. Selim did both.

He hurried to get dressed and get out of the house. He could make it, running hard all the way to the Forum. Maybe afterward he could get Siri to give him a ride to his late-night appointment. Maybe she’d be there. If she wasn’t out with her blond. Maybe she wouldn’t show up, but he had a strong feeling she would. Sometimes he had to go with his feelings where Siri was concerned. Besides, Hunt or no Hunt, he hated missing a home game.

H
E DIDN
’
T HAVE
time for domestic drama. He didn’t have time to indulge his hobbies. He should be working right now. Time was short. The world around him was howlingly tense and short-tempered. He should be out patrolling the streets, keeping death-starved strigs and nesters in line.
Where’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I need to take a night off?
Selim wondered as he glanced at the empty seat beside him.

Where was Siri when he wanted to see her? He always wanted to, damn it! That was the whole point of having a companion: companionship. Plus sex. Damn, he missed the sex. A bit from last day’s dream floated to the surface, sending a shock wave of lust and remembered lust through him. Whatever he’d dreamed wasn’t quite clear. It had been intense, off, wrong. Not Siri.

What was he going to do if she showed up, drag her under the seating area? Why not just make love to her right here in the third row center court seats? Because he wasn’t going to make love to her. He just wanted to see her, be with her. That was all. He bunched his fists tightly as a reminder against sprouting claws. He kept his mouth firmly closed, didn’t run his tongue over his
teeth. He kept his temper under control and tried not to contemplate how much he had enjoyed killing Jager and how much he was going to enjoy running down the next one who got out of line. It wasn’t sex, but it was something.

“Please,” he murmured. “Let the next one be blond.”

She wasn’t going to come. Why should she? He’d started this. She was doing what he wanted. Who said he wanted it? What made him think he could live alone? He was a selfish bastard. He was sick of worrying about her. He could call her. He would. No he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t break his vow of abstinence. He gave her free will, as much as possible. Free mind. Free choice in everything but when and how they made love.

It was still early, he reminded himself. The game was only in the first quarter. The crowd energy hadn’t gotten going yet. He’d lose himself in the energy soon. It would ease the lonely ache a little. It was Siri who brought him to his first game. He’d caught her addiction immediately. There was a psychic art as well as athletic skill to this sport, like chess in motion, like war as ballet. And when the teams’ and the audience’s excitement took off—delicious!

Basketball, the sport of vampires,
he thought and sank glumly down in his seat. Siri was off somewhere enjoying the freedom he’d pushed on her.
Who cared about some stupid game?

You do,
she answered, and sat down beside him. “You missed me,” she stated as Selim sat up straight with more than human speed. Heads turned their way, but no one could look away from the playing for long. She put a warning hand on his arm. He stared at it. She wore a black pearl ring he’d given her on their first anniversary. Did she always wear it? He couldn’t remember. Females noticed jewelry. Males noticed . . . women.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her, but the sudden roaring of the crowd blew the words away. “It’s only been a couple of nights,” he reminded himself, as much as
her. “But I missed you more than I thought.”

Her smile was slight but fierce. Her tone smug. “Good.”

Selim caught himself and considered biting his tongue. Biting her breasts would be better. The insides of her thighs. The tiny scar on her back where her waist began to flare into the lovely round curve of her ass—the scar she’d had the clasped hands and heart of a
clad-dagh
tattooed around. The Irish marriage symbol was a memento of the first time he’d tasted her, though neither of them were Irish. The scar would remain, there was magic in that, called a witchmark by ancient witch hunters who knew what they were talking about. Pity the tattoo was beginning to fade as her immune system strengthened. There was something sexy about a woman having a tattoo in a spot where only her lover could see it.

The crowd’s excitement was getting through his shields, rattling him, making it easy to let his own emotions out. A year of restraint had just blown out the window, and here he and Siri were, grinning at each other like a pair of newlyweds. He noticed that they were holding hands. He reminded himself why there’d been a year of restraint, though the reminder didn’t help much.

“So,” he said, trying to chill the mood—and because he was jealous. “Who’s this blond you’ve been seeing?”

Siri snatched her hand out of his. She waved it airily, “Oh, just a guy.” She sounded unconcerned, but she radiated confusion, uncertainty, sudden fear. She leaned close to his ear to whisper. “Watch your eyes.”

Not just his eyes. His senses shifted. It was too bright under the lights. He saw too much: body heat, and emotions that rose like coloredflavored steam off the people around them. His hearing was keener as well. Hunger was a leashed need. And the Hunting instinct—

An image formed in his mind of jumping onto the court, of taking the players down one at a time before
the gaping crowd. The pale, polished wood ran with red, circles of paint were covered with slippery blood. He threw back his head and laughed.

Siri hit him, a hard smack on the shoulder. “Down boy.”

Selim blinked. What happened? Oh, yes, a fit of jealousy threw him over the thin edge of sanity a moment ago. He was back now. A quick check of play on the court reassured him that he’d only been hallucinating. Good. Eating the players was no way for a fan to behave during the playoffs.

Selim pressed his palms against his temples as he heard Siri say to someone nearby, “He’ll be fine. He got into some bad acid in the sixties.”

The someone laughed. “He wasn’t born in the sixties.”

Selim lifted his head and looked deeply into the concerned citizen’s eyes. “I’m older than I look. Go away.”

Siri was equal parts frightened and flattered by Selim’s erratic behavior. “Yevgeny,” she promptly answered his no-nonsense look once they were as alone as it was possible to be in a crowd of many thousands. “It was business,” she promised as he continued to glare. “I think he was with Jager. He was pissed about being cut loose, wanted to talk about it but couldn’t quite bring himself to trust me. I’ve seen him twice.”

“Twice?”

“In public both times—if that’s any of your business.”

“It is.”

“I met him at a strig hangout on Sunset the second time, when Jager came after me. It wasn’t a date.”

“You were wearing something sexy.”

“I’m glad you noticed. I had to blend in, didn’t I?”

Selim’s eyes were large and dark, but in a normal way as he listened to her explanation. The expression in them was stern and suspicious, but there was nothing otherworldly about it. She was just glad to have his attention. “I almost didn’t come tonight,” she told him.
“I did my best to stay away from you. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

His hand closed over hers again. “I need you with me.”

“As personal assistant?” She bit her tongue after the bitter question was out. Damn. She hadn’t come here to get into a discussion of their problems. But if he wanted to get into a discussion—

“You feel like a woman with a grim purpose,” he said, as the quarter ended.