The Sweet Scent of Blood

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tiny flares lit in Malik’s pupils, then winked out, leaving his expression enigmatic. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘you are well.’

‘Well?’ I shouted in disbelief. ‘It’s your fault I felt crap in the first place!’ I tried to lift my arms, but found I couldn’t. A thickset man with a lined, saggy face was gripping my wrists like his life depended on it.

I glared at him. ‘Let the fuck go of me.’

The creases in his face rearranged themselves into a lopsided grin. ‘Sure thing.’ He dropped my arms. ‘My Rocky was always mad when she came down.’ His grin disappeared. ‘She’s bin dead near three years now, ’course.’

Malik inclined his head to the man. ‘Thank you for your assistance. You may leave us.’

The man turned and ambled off.

I stifled an urge to slug Malik and looked around instead. I took a deep breath, then wished I hadn’t. Ammonia and the throat-gagging stench of pine disinfectant assaulted my nose. Even if I couldn’t see the row of stainless steel urinals, thankfully unoccupied, I’d have still known we were in a public toilet. I grimaced in disgust. The night just kept getting better and better.

Malik followed my gaze. ‘We would have been too conspicuous in the Ladies’ facilities,’ he said.

I snorted. ‘And we’re not in the Gents?’

He gave an elegant shrug.

Oh, just great—and then I remembered the office, and Darius. A queasy feeling settled in my stomach.

‘Listen, pal: next time you want to show me something, send me a DVD.’ I shoved him out the way. ‘Better yet, don’t bother.’ I headed for the exit. ‘If I wanted to watch sucker porn, I’m sure I can find something better than that nasty little effort.’

Malik fell into step next to me. ‘Where are you going, Genevieve?’

‘None of your business,’ I snapped.

‘But we will work together.’ He grasped my wrist and pulled me round to face him. ‘We agreed this, you and I,’ and then he smiled. And never mind he was male, he was beautiful, and my heart flip-flopped in my chest and lust pooled hot inside me and my magic almost leapt into life. One smile, and I was ready to jump his bones. Shit. I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the ways that being attracted to him was such a bad idea. And I couldn’t even blame my reaction on mesma. He wasn’t using any.

I shook him off. ‘No. You made that decision. I had nothing to say about it.’ I checked my watch. ‘Well, I really can’t say it was nice meeting you, and we certainly didn’t have fun. So please feel free to never call me.’

One side of his mouth lifted. ‘As you have not yet given me your number, that is a rather empty request.’

I flipped him the finger and stalked towards the exit, my heels slapping against the tiled floor.

‘Genevieve,’ he called after me, amusement in his voice, ‘you might wish to adjust your clothing before you go any further.’

I looked down. My ripped top was hanging round my waist like an apron and my jacket was flapping open, flashing my tits at anyone interested. Gritting my teeth, I buttoned the jacket—it still left a deep V of cleavage—but at least I wouldn’t get arrested for indecent exposure. I untied what was left of the top and shoved it into a nearby waste bin, throwing a toxic glare at a couple of leering teenagers. Threading through the crowds in Leicester Square, I made for the queue of taxis.

I yanked open the taxi door and said, ‘Hungerford Bridge, Victoria Embankment Side, please,’ and slumped onto the back seat.

The cabby grinned. ‘Right ho, luv.’

The door locks clicked shut, the lights glowing like tiny red eyes in the dim interior.

I shivered and reached for my phone to check for any messages. It wasn’t there. Damn I chewed my lip in annoyance. It must’ve dropped out, probably in all that rolling around with Rio. I sighed, letting my head fall back, and contemplated the roof of the taxi. Well, no way was I going back to look for it now. And what was Rio up to? It sounded like she was plotting some sort of palace coup, but what did that have to do with Melissa’s death? My gut made me think it was connected, but there were so many bloody dots appearing on the page that I was having trouble joining them up.

Then I realised the taxi hadn’t moved.

I tapped on the glass behind him. ‘I’m in sort of a hurry here.’

His head bobbed again. ‘Just waiting for your friend, luv.’

‘What the—?’ Damn vampires! I flung myself back in the seat and a moment later, Malik opened the cab door and gave me another heart-flopping smile.

‘Genevieve.’ Settling himself on the seat, he stretched out his long legs. His meaning was so obvious even an animated mud-troll would have got it. If I wanted to get out, I’d have to get past him.

The cab rumbled off, diesel engine drowning out my huff of frustration. No way did I want Malik tagging along to my meeting with Alan Hinkley, not with Alan’s text about his finding a nervous fae informer who would only talk to me. So I needed to get rid of the pretty vampire—only short of stabbing him again, I didn’t see how I was going to make that happen.

I frowned at him. Something was different—he seemed tougher, less sophisticated—then I realised he’d swapped the fancy suit for more of a street-goth look. In the Armani, he’d looked slim, almost slender, but now his black jeans with studded belt and black short-sleeved T-shirt moulded over a body that was hard with muscle. Whatever he’d been when he’d accepted the Gift, he hadn’t been a couch potato. A platinum ring set with a black gem similar to the one in his ear banded his thumb. I looked, but he had no spells about him. An errant part of my mind wondered what he would look like without the clothes and mentally I rolled my eyes. My mind could imagine all it wanted, but that so wasn’t going to happen. Vampires, even hot-fanged eye-candy like Malik, were too dangerous to even think about flirting with, never mind anything else.

So instead I tried to sort through all the nuggets of information I’d unearthed at the Blue Heart, work out which were golden and which were just dross. But in the quiet and dark of the cab, all I could think of was the tear running down Darius’s cheek, I crossed my arms and hugged myself and gazed blindly out of the window as we inched slowly through the traffic-clogged streets of London.

As if he knew what I was thinking, Malik said softly, ‘If you are concerned about the human, he had already witnessed Rio’s particular style of feeding before he chose to become part of her household.’

I sighed. Did that mean Darius had enjoyed being abused like that? It hadn’t looked like it—but who was I to know?

‘He can always petition for another Master, should he wish,’ Malik continued in the same soft tone.

I scowled out at the cars passing in the other direction. ‘Like Rio’s ever going to let that happen.’

‘It would not be up to her. The decision rests with the High Table.’ His voice hardened. ‘We are a tiny minority compared to humans. It is our capacity to uphold our own customs and traditions that allows us to continue to govern ourselves in these matters.’

‘Save the propaganda for someone who cares.’ I turned to face him. ‘Rio wasn’t the only one getting off in there.’

He stared at me, black eyes cool. ‘I am vampire. There was blood. What did you expect?’

I gave him a level look back. ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing.’

He reached out, traced a finger under my left eye. ‘You are no stranger to violence.’ He pressed his thumb into the tender spot on my cheekbone.

I tensed at the small hurt, trying not to flinch.

‘Or pain,’ he murmured.

Something twisted inside me. I knocked his hand away.

‘But you would condemn me for that which you yourself desire.’

‘This,’ I pointed at the bruise, ‘was caused by a client, not from some sort of sadistic game-playing.’

‘Blood, sex, violence.’ His elegant fingers pushed back a fall of black hair. ‘You view these with a somewhat human perspective, which is odd in one of your race. You are much like a newly gifted vampire having a crisis of conscience. They feel horror and disgust at their need to feed off their erstwhile companions, but then they discover their almost absolute command over humans, a god-like power of life and death.’ He looked at me. ‘The knowledge that they can do whatever they desire, and their victim will not stop them. That they can even decide on their victims’ emotions: fear, pain, hopeless-ness, comfort, delight, lust.’ He gave no inflection to the words as he spoke. ‘These are realisations that most new vampires travel through. It is interesting, do you not agree?’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘You’re being very chatty all of a sudden.’

‘This is true.’ He turned the ring on his thumb. ‘It has been a long time since I have been able to speak as I wish, to use words without having to weigh and judge each for its impact, if it might give those around me some advantage. It is’—he shot me a glance from beneath his lashes—‘pleasant.’

‘Lonely, more like,’ I said, my voice flat.

He looked down, considered his feet in silence.

I shifted in my seat, looked out of the window. No way was I going to feel sorry for him. In front of us, I could see the huge Catherine wheel of the London Eye towering above the Thames, lights bright against the night sky. We were nearly at our destination. Going by the amount of Saturday night traffic, walking the rest of the way would be quicker, but I didn’t have that choice.

‘You are correct, Genevieve.’ His voice slid over my skin like the cool touch of silk. ‘I am lonely.’ Elegant fingers circled my wrist. ‘I have been for longer than I care to contemplate, but it is not an emotion that I would deny, despite it displeasing me.’

The street lights washed his face from shadow to light and back to shadow. Something the cocktail girl had told me about Melissa wormed its way into my head. I narrowed my eyes. ‘Is that why you were having a fling with Melissa? Because you were lonely?’

He ignored my question. ‘Unlike you,’ he said, pulling me round to face him and catching hold of my other wrist, ‘I do not choose to lie, even to myself.’

Fear slicked up my spine. With all the chat, I had felt sorry for him. I’d half-forgotten what he was, what he might want.

I tried to jerk away and his grip tightened. ‘Or was it because Melissa was a faeling?’ I spat out. ‘Did that make her more of a challenge, more exciting, that you hurt her and didn’t have to hold back? Did it make the pain more real for you?’

Bright pinpricks of anger glimmered deep in his pupils.

My pulse pounded under his fingers. ‘She saw something, didn’t she?’ I yelled over the blood racing through my veins. ‘When she was with you.’ My skin flushed with heat, with need. I gasped, clenching my fists trying to ignore the feelings.

Damn vampire tricks.

‘Even now, you lie to yourself.’ He turned my wrists, holding my palms upwards. ‘You tell yourself that you do not want what I can give, but your body betrays you.’

My fingers relaxed and opened with no conscious thought from me.

‘See, Genevieve, this is what happens when you deny the truth. You make yourself weak. How else would I find it so easy to bypass your defences, to bend your body to my wishes, if not by using your own desires against you?’ He pulled me towards him, eyes flaring with rage. ‘Much as you did with Rio.’

I blinked. Why was he angry? Then I realised what his words meant and my own anger made me lean into him. ‘You were watching, weren’t you,’ I made it a statement, ‘in the Théâtre—but that’s what you do, isn’t it?’ I curled my lip. ‘You spy on others.’

‘It was not wise to tease Rio like that.’

‘What, you think yanking her chain was wrong? You heard her, she’s ambitious, she already had plans for me, and I’m betting they had nothing to do with my wellbeing. The fact that she’s changed them isn’t going to make any difference in that respect.’

His hands squeezed my wrists until I thought he would snap the bones. I pressed my lips together to stop myself whimpering. Then the glow in his eyes flickered and snuffed out.

‘No, it will not make a difference.’ Slowly he loosened his fingers and placed his lips to the throbbing pulse in my left wrist and my stomach plunged into free-fall.

He released me and I scooted back to my side of the cab, trying to ignore the feelings inside me ... and the pieces fell together in my mind.

I laughed, short and derisive. ‘You knew, didn’t you? All that sneaking around, that hiding-in-the-shadows trick you do: you already knew what Rio was planning—only now I’ve gone and kicked you out of the loop. That’s why you’re so angry.’

He smiled and my stomach fluttered, not with fear but with warmth. ‘The way your mind works is almost as interesting to me as your body, Genevieve.’

Yeah, right, like distracting me is ever going to work. I smirked at him. ‘Oh, and thanks for the compliment.’

He arched a brow. ‘I didn’t know I had given you one.’

Yeah, yeah. ‘I bet you know what they’re all up to; you probably even know who killed Melissa—and why.’

‘If I know so much, then why would I invite you along to help me?’

Ha! That one was easy. ‘There’s some sort of spell,’ I said, ‘you all want it, and you all think I can find it.’

He laughed, a deep rich laugh that sent lust fizzing in my veins and heated my blood right down to my toes.

I clutched at the door handle, glaring at him. ‘It’s not going to work, you know: getting me all hot and bothered isn’t going to make me forget.’

Almost in slow motion he reached for my hand, lifted it to his mouth and blew heat on my fingertips, his dark eyes never leaving mine. ‘Why would I need you to forget anything, Genevieve? What I want is for you to remember.’

As his words sank in, I frowned. ‘Remember what?’

‘Why, what I told you before.’ He placed a kiss against my fingers, but I felt the touch on my lips. ‘I wish to conclude this little episode to my own satisfaction. I do not require knowledge of any spell to succeed at my task, so I have no need for you to find it.’

I wet my lips and the taste of Turkish delight sweetened my tongue. Damn mesma. Why didn’t he want the spell when the rest of them did? And why had he sent me the invitation if he didn’t want the spell?

The taxi slowed to a stop. ‘That’ll be nineteen pounds twenty, please, mate.’

Malik produced a fifty, handed it to the driver. ‘Please. Wait here for us.’

The locks clicked open. ‘Cheers, mate. No worries.’

‘No way,’ I said, ‘you’re not coming with me.’

‘Genevieve, we agreed—’

‘Go home, Malik.’ I repeated his own words to me, and jumped out of the cab.