Blood and Destiny (3 page)

Even reminding myself of it for the third time, I could hear the echo of the lady protesting far too much about her innocent intentions. Were my intentions totally innocent? Could I have turned to someone else to identify Betsy Vincent’s mysterious lover?

Probably, but Marcus really was the shortest road down the path. After a week missing, short paths were the only way I could find her alive. If she was still breathing on her own, that is.

Settling into the alcove facing the stairs, I watched the sexiest dead man I’d ever seen glide toward me. It took some effort to remind myself that alive was better than dead, any day. Really.

“So, what brings you back to me, Destiny?” Marcus went straight for the seduction purr as he pushed the gauzy curtain aside to join me.

“For starters, I’m not back to you. I’m here on a mission.” I tried to make it sound firm, but my voice wavered. His mouth curled up a touch at the sound of it. He knew exactly what effect he had on me.

“Business first. Pleasure later.” If anything, the purr in his voice was even smoother with the suggestion. My reaction to it gave me the ammunition I needed to put my defenses back into place.

“Just business, Marcus. I need some help on a case. Your kind of help.”

His gaze sharpened and he settled on the couch next to me. Summing up the case to the bare bones, I brought him up to speed and waited. While he pondered his course of action, I took the time to soak him in. He’d let his hair grow out a bit, but it didn’t make him look shaggy. It added a certain rugged appeal. The only past I could be sure he didn’t have was Viking. He was far too short and dark for it. Not that he was short, but he wasn’t excessively tall, either. Before I was through looking, he turned those startling blue eyes toward me.

“This could be bad.”

Wow, no moss on that stone.

“It could be,” I agreed.

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“You have the photographs at your office?”

“You’ll come look at them?” Hope tinged my tone and I didn’t bother to keep out my surprise.

Until that moment, I’d thought our personal baggage pretty much ensured he’d send me packing.

Something clouded his expression for a brief heartbeat, but it was gone before I could examine it.

“Of course. If her lover is a member of my tribe, I’ll have him brought in to tell us what happened the night she disappeared. You’re sure Frank didn’t see anything suspicious?”

“Nope. He saw a car turn up the street and swears he glanced away to grab his pen so he could jot down the tag number. When he looked up, it was two hours later and there weren’t any cars to take note of.”

“That’s what his report says,” Marcus corrected.

I ignored his laughing tone. Something about our little professional rivalry was amusing the hell out of the underworld. When you’re practically immortal, I guess small things were more entertaining than big ones.

“This time, I believe the report. If he thought he could have solved the case, he would have kept it to himself. Whatever made him lose that time scared him enough to pawn it off on me right away.”

Marcus simply smiled and stood, offering me his hand. I made no move to take it as I looked up.

“I’ll make sure to send him a very nice present to thank him for his generosity. Now, if you want me to leave with you before I eat, you’ll have to pay the toll.”

I knew it had been too easy. “Toll? What toll? I thought you were going to help me because it could help you too?”

“Well, you didn’t ask me to do it out of the goodness of my heart, now did you? You simply asked for my help and waited. Considering the way we parted last, I don’t think a small token is too much to ask.”

Staring at the hand, I finally put mine into his and let him help me to my feet. He tugged with sufficient force to pull me against him, but I was agile enough to resist. He chuckled softly as I managed to end up at his side instead of plastered to his front.

“Define small token.” I put all the suspicion I felt into the demand.

“A dance. Nothing more. One dance while we wait for the car to be brought around.”

“Your date won’t appreciate that.” I grabbed the easiest defense I could think of.

“Maria’s gone on for a more promising evening with someone else.” His tone was dismissive as if his dinner entrée was of no consequence.

“We’re not dating anymore.” Why was I the only one who seemed to remember that? Worse, why did I feel the need to remindhim of the fact? Or was I reminding myself?

“Yet, here you are.” His tone was droll and I knew he wasn’t going to budge. It wasn’t the dance he truly wanted, it was the concession.

I hate it when my words are used against me, even if he didn’t realize it. The irony of the situation brought a reluctant grin and capitulation. “One dance. Business, no pleasure. I’m not here to make

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up.”

“One dance, and then we go back to your place.” His tone was agreeable, but the words had too many interpretations to argue with. After a moment, I shrugged and let it go. We could argue about it later. It was hard to ignore the stares as he led me down to the spinning circle where people were writhing to the music. The crowd parted as he stepped onto the platform. Even feeling the eyes of the tribe on us, I couldn’t resist the thrill of pleasure. The man was a king in every sense of the word and he wanted me. I was vain enough to allow that to stroke my ego as I gave myself up to the music.

Heat flashed across his face as he moved into me, pressing his body against mine. Without warning, the music changed into something I didn’t recognize. It was wild and the cat in my soul responded. Closing my eyes, I let it race through me as Marcus’s hands found my waist and pulled me closer. Time, distance and history faded away as he lowered his mouth to my neck. I could no more stop from turning my head to give him fuller access than I could have stopped the tide turning. Bottom line, we might not be dating anymore, but part of me wanted those fringe benefits.

His kiss was hot, wet and greedy on my pulse. His arms slid around me to pull me even closer as he teased me with his teeth. I knew what he was asking. A few months ago, it would have been foreplay, but tonight it wouldn’t be. I couldn’t let it be. The same issues that had driven me out the door were still hiding in the shadows between us. I didn’t move closer to give him the permission to feed like he expected so he pulled back enough to cover his teeth.

“Later.” To anyone else, my whisper would have been lost in the fervor of noise around us.

Marcus stiffened and sealed the deal with a firm kiss against the pounding of my pulse. Any person with an ounce of self-preservation avoids making promises to vampires and the devil. The fact I was so free with them went to show that I was either desperate for information or for another taste of the dark side. I tried very hard not to examine my motives as he pulled me back to the edge of the floor and spun me off with firm hands on my waist.

Before I had my feet steady on the floor, he strode for the door with my hand on his arm to sweep me along. It annoyed me, but I gritted my teeth with the reminder that I had come to him, not the other way around. Voices rose in an excited babble as the doors swept open ahead of us. Peter was already in motion to step between Marcus and the crowd of waiting patrons behind the red rope. At the rope, Marcus handed me into the waiting car before following me inside. I caught Peter’s frown as the door closed, taking the noise level down to a bearable level.

The car immediately drove away from the curb and I knew Peter wasn’t in it. Not even a vampire moves that fast, especially in front of humans.

“Peter’s not coming along for the ride?”

My question seemed to startle Marcus. He looked at me with one of those mercurial gazes that made me very much aware that I was female and he was interested.

“He will come with your car shortly. I thought it best if we appeared to be leaving for more entertaining options so we weren’t followed by an overly enthusiastic petitioner.”

Petitioner, he said. I couldn’t help but wonder how many disillusioned people like Betsy Vincent were out there begging to be saved. Instead of asking, I made conversation. Beating around the bush was a necessary skill in my line of work.

“Does that mean you get followed often?”

Marcus turned to face me on the posh leather seat. The artful arrangement looked casual, but I

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knew him too well to believe it. The burn of awareness rose a notch and I repressed a shiver. Not well enough, though. He reached out to trace a finger up the line of my thigh. It made me wish I’d worn a skirt so I could feel that careful finger against my skin. Grabbing his hand, I flattened it against the middle of my thigh.

“Marcus…”

“Hmmm?” His gaze locked on our hands, but I knew I had his full attention.

“Stop.”

“You don’t want me to stop. Isn’t this why you came to me?”

Those blue eyes slowly rose to return my stare. I was taken aback by what I saw there. It was like staring into a tumultuous sea where none of the colors stayed constant. He trapped me as surely as the erroneous myth teased that he could.

I opened my mouth to deny it but knew the lie wouldn’t work. Instead, I tried honesty and hoped he would be gracious in his victory.

“Maybe. But I need to find this woman before she lets herself get dragged into something she’s not prepared for.”

“If it’s too late?” The way he said it made me believe he already suspected the same outcome I did.

“Then I need to know what happened so her husband can move on.”

Our gazes battled until he leaned forward. He stopped an inch away from me. His breath smelled of fine wine and herbs. It only reminded me that I’d taken him away from his dinner, not once but twice.

“And then what?”

It took a moment for his whisper to reach my brain. It took even longer for the implication to register. When it did, I put as much space as I could between us by pushing myself into the corner of the car.

“Good times are over. I’m still looking for a man who’ll love me enough to be faithful.”

Temper stretched the lines of his face across those sculpted bones and made him even more attractive, if that was possible. Leaning back, he settled himself into his own corner of the car.

“I have to eat.” Well, yeah. The argument was old, but I went on with it anyway.

“Food and sex don’t have to mean the same thing.”

“So you’d have me pay for my meals with a different coin?” He replied with enough snap to his tone to break something in my heart.

“It’s not the Middle Ages anymore. Women line up to bare their necks to you. You say I can’t feed you every night and you’re right. I’m still not willing to be your Wednesday and Saturday girl while you cuddle up to your other mistresses. We’re at the same impasse we were months ago.

You’re not willing to change and I’m not willing to fall back into a routine that doesn’t work for me.”

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He gave an exasperated sigh and flung his arm across the back of the seat. The limo was wide enough that I’d have to make an effort to take the hand he inadvertently offered. I reached out and placed my hand over it. It made him look at me and I searched for something to put an end to the fight. Not because I needed him to identify the mystery lover in the photographs, but because I cared too much for him to let this go on tearing us apart inside.

“We want different things. You’re going to outlive me by hundreds of years. When I start to age, you’ll move on to someone else. I’ll be left alone with nothing to warm my heart. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is what it is. Let’s not ruin our friendship over needs that we can’t meet for one another.”

Tension rushed out of him in a tight breath. His hand flipped up and he wrapped his fingers around mine. It was a peace offering. I took it.

“I will not stop trying to change your mind.”

“As long as you’re not going to act like a child when the answer is no and don’t interfere with my own attempts to find someone else.”

His laugh was spontaneous and the sudden joy in it was a rich undercurrent. “You always know what I’m thinking. Do you understand how rare that is?”

We shared a smile and the tension in the car faded into comfortable silence. I didn’t resist when he tugged my hand to urge me closer. There’s something sweet about a man who will wrap you into his arms knowing he’s not going to be getting anything out of it.

Too soon, it seemed to me, the car stopped at my front door. Marcus set me from him gently so he could step from the car ahead of me. He reached in to help me out as if I were wearing heels instead of my serviceable loafers. It was probably habit, but it still gave me a warm feeling.

Groaning, I realized I’d left my keys at the coat check at the club. Marcus’s soft laughter made my temper flare even as I watched him remove a slim ring of keys from his pocket. With no apparent effort, he flipped to one of the keys. Amazed, I watched him stride to my door and unlock it.

Walking through the opened door, I disarmed the alarm system before turning to glare at my companion as he pocketed the keys. I had the grace to wait until the driver closed the door to leave us in privacy before stating the obvious.

“You have a key to my office.” A key that hadn’t come from me.

“From before, yes. I thought it might come in handy on those rare occasions when you might be open to a little indulgence.”

Put that way, it seemed a little obnoxious to be unhappy about it. I settled for leaning against the wall of the foyer with my arms sullenly crossed. It didn’t work. Marcus had always been immune to my less admirable character traits. He didn’t bother to respond to my ire.

“Shall we get business taken care of so we can move on to more pleasant things?”