Stay the Night (22 page)

It didn't work very well, but it was better than talking to him.

Robin parked in front of an ancient-looking edifice and came around to open the door for her.

Chris was out of the car before he got there. “Nice. Looks about a thousand years old.”

“Four hundred, I'd say.” He put her arm through his. As a young Italian couple passed them, he murmured, “Stop scowling like that. You resemble a tourist.”

There was no elevator; they walked up an old but beautifully preserved marble staircase to the apartment on the top floor. Robin unlocked the door and paused to input a code on the alarm system keypad inside.

That upset Chris more than the Mercedes. “You made her give you her security codes?”

“How else were we to get in the place?” he countered. “Besides, it will provide a measure of protection for us during the day. Unless you wish to guard the door and windows personally?”

“Never mind.” Chris looked blindly at the chic decor and warm colors of the apartment. There were several paintings on the walls, but none of them were museum quality.

Robin's mobile phone rang, making Chris jump.

“Excuse me.” He walked away from her as he answered it, stopping and tensing as he listened to the caller. “I'll be there,” was all he said before he shut off the phone and pocketed it.

“Who was that?” Chris asked.

He glanced at her and then shook his head. “No one important.” He went to the windows and opened the curtains, looking down at the street.

“You're lucky this lady is single.” She took off her jacket. “Her husband might have thought we were burglars breaking in and come after us with a gun.”

“If someone shoots at you, use me as a shield,” Robin said, walking around the apartment and opening the rest of the curtains.

She followed him. “You're wearing a bulletproof vest?”

“No.” He paused to pick up an expensive column of multicolored blown glass and admire it. “Bullets cannot harm me.”

She took the vase out of his hand and replaced it on the shelf. “I'll remember to have that engraved on your head-stone. Right over ‘beloved son of international art thief.' ”

“I may not be anyone's beloved,” he said, “but I am rather hard to kill.”

“So you're planning on dying of old age? With your lifestyle?” She made a contemptuous sound. “Maybe if you get consecutive sentences.”

“I do not age.” He gave her a narrow look. “My kind are immortal.”

Here we go again
. “Right, I forgot. Vampires live forever. But wait, you said that you're not a vampire.” She was too close to him, too angry to move away. “Does that make you a god, or a half god, or an elf, or what?”

He didn't like that. “I have explained this to you. Very patiently, I might add.”

“Yet I'm still confused,” she said sweetly. “Maybe you should buy me a deck of the cards or the rule book, so I can keep all the characters straight.”

He moved closer to her. “I have trusted you with the truth of what I am.”

“What are you?” Chris spread her hands. “Maybe you need to reread the rule book, though, because your special talents are all mixed-up. You drink blood, but you're not a vampire. You rose from the grave, but you're not a zombie. Bullets can't hurt you, but you're not Superman. By the way, is the contessa also immortal?” She folded her arms. “Or did she get another superpower when she rolled the special-abilities dice?”

“I brought a full bottle of Valium from the plane.” He gestured to the case he'd brought in. “Perhaps you should take one and lie down.”

“What happens if I don't? Are you going to knock me out, or lock me in the bedroom again?” She shoved him, or tried to. He didn't move an inch. “I know—why don't you make
me
an immortal? I'd like to have bullets to bounce off me, and I'd be very happy to spend the rest of eternity hunting down your thieving ass.”

“You have no idea what you are saying.” His gaze burned into hers. “What it has been like for me and my kind. The centuries of being tormented. Hiding among you, trying to make a place for ourselves. Being treated like animals.”

“You're right; I don't. But then, I'm the sane one in the room.” Tired of sniping at him, she turned away. She was in a beautiful flat with a handsome man whom she was probably going to fall in love with right before he stole another priceless treasure, this time out from under her nose, and it was the last place on earth she wanted to be. “God, what am I doing here with you?”

He turned her around to face him. “Given a choice, I assure you, madam, I would have left you in Atlanta. I have no time for your human tantrums.”

“You're immortal,” she goaded him. “All you've got is time.”

“You should watch your tongue.” Copper heat glittered in his eyes. “Or put it to better use. Is that it?” He cocked his head. “Do you need my direction again?”

Chris felt something inside her snap, and she drew back her arm and punched him in the face.

 

Phillipe of Navarre had served as seneschal to Michael Cyprien since their human lives, when his master had taken him from the fields to serve in his household. At first Phillipe had been reluctant to trade his scythe for a sword—he was a villein born and bred, trained from the time he could walk to work the land—but his family had been overjoyed. No more would they go hungry during the lean years; Phillipe's position would provide for them. And so he had, even after he took his vows with his master and went to fight with the Templars in the Holy Land.

He had never forgiven himself for the final gift he had brought back for his family from the Crusades. The sickness that had put him into the ground had taken his parents and sister first. Unlike him, they never rose to live as Darkyn.

Centuries had passed since he had held his futile vigil at their graves, waiting for them to join him. It had been Cyprien who had coaxed him away, Cyprien who had kept him from going mad with grief. Stronger than even the curse on their souls, Michael's kindness and understanding had sealed the bond between them. Phillipe pledged to spend the rest of his long life in his master's service.

So he had maintained that bond until five years ago, when after centuries of walking the night alone, Michael Cyprien had found Alexandra Keller, a mortal physician who had become his
sygkenis
, his life companion.

Once Phillipe realized how serious the bond between his master and the doctor had grown, he had tried not to resent Alexandra. She had not been very fond of him, either, but in time they had become reluctant allies, and then friends.

In truth, Alexandra reminded him a great deal of his older sister, Maeve, another petite, strong-headed woman. That Alexandra loved Cyprien as much as Phillipe did he had no doubt. The doctor had given up nearly everything from her human life to be with Michael.

She had not made peace with her choice, however, and at times he feared that she never would.

Phillipe spent most of his time at
le conseil supérieur
with the other seigneurs' seneschals, discussing household matters and trading tales of intrigue. As the newcomer, Phillipe was pressed for many details about Cyprien and life in America, as well as his opinions on some of the more controversial decisions his master had made.

“My lord Sevarus had a choking fit when I gave him the news about the woman seneschal Seigneur Cyprien made suzerain of the Realm,” Connor, a cheeky Irishman, told Phillipe. “He proceeded to lecture for me for more than an hour on how I must not get ideas above my station.”

Derek, a burly Norwegian who served Gilanden, grunted. “That did not sit well with my master, either. He has one use for females, human or Kyn, and it does not involve rule.”

“ 'Tis said she is a mannish woman, Navarre,” Helmut, Solange's seneschal, added. “Does she swive females, or only dress the part?”

“Suzeraina Jayr took Lord Byrne as her seneschal and her
sygkenis
,” Phillipe said, enjoying the stunned reactions on the faces around the table. “I wager she has no time to trifle with anyone else.”

“At least your master's leech is content to nurse the sick, as women should,” Poldar, who served Tristan, observed. “I shudder to think of a female at the tribunal, deciding our fate.”

Garza, Cordoba's man, snorted. “ 'Twas better when we owned them, like villeins and land. Then they could not wear our garments and take up sport and curse like the lowest of sailors. Why, some of our females have petitioned my lord, asking if they may take classes on these wretched computers and learn more of the mortal world.”

“That is why my master had our humans ban access to the Internet in our homeland,” Shalan, Zhang's seneschal, put in. “It put too many ideas in their heads.” He glanced at Phillipe. “What about your female? Does she talk of such things?”

“I keep no woman of my own,” Phillipe admitted, catching a trace of the other man's scent, like that of an ocean breeze.

“I thought not.” Shalan drank from his goblet, but didn't explain his assumption.

After they had shared another half dozen bottles of bloodwine, the coming dawn sent Phillipe to retire for the day. His room, which adjoined Cyprien's chambers, was small but comfortable, and after he bathed he stretched out on the bed. That was when he smelled the blend of rose and lavender seeping into his room from the crack under the door, discovered how thin the walls between their rooms were.

At most I may last another minute
.

You know what I want
.

Phillipe pulled a pillow over his face to muffle his groan. He tried never to listen to the pillow talk between his master and his
sygkenis
, but they were active, passionate lovers, and in certain situations it could not be avoided.

You want a taste of me before I make you come
.

Alexandra's voice always went low and smoky when she was pleasuring the master, and she often said such blatant, sexual things during the act that Phillipe's ears sometimes burned. But it was Cyprien's voice that he tried hardest not to hear, for when aroused his master's silky tenor changed to a hard, demanding rasp.

A rasp that made Phillipe go hard every time he heard it.

Closing his eyes, Phillipe listened to his master's voice and reached down. He should have felt shame when he wrapped his straining cock in his fist, but he didn't. Knowing Cyprien preferred women, he had never revealed his secret desires to his master, but instead endured them in silence. The solitary relief he occasionally sought kept his desires in check, and helped him accept what could never change.

Tonight, however, playing voyeur was not enough. He was weary of feeding off the desires of the two people he loved most in the world.

He rolled out of bed, pulled on his trousers, and left his room, making his way through the gardens until he found a small, white marble gazebo tucked away in a remote corner. Although the suzerain and his lady kept their grounds meticulously maintained, for some reason ivy and other trailing vines had been permitted to grow around the elegant structure, very nearly concealing it altogether.

A private trysting spot,
Phillipe thought as he parted the vines and stepped inside. Here the air was thick with the smell of greenery and the ever-present, lingering perfume coming from the flowering trees in the orchard. He noted the wide benches lined with soft cushions, and a heavy silk shawl that had been left where it had fallen on the inlaid marble floor. He bent to pick it up and brought it to his nose.

“It belongs to Lady Braxtyn, I believe.”

Phillipe turned, the scent of warm apricots fading as he smelled the wind from the sea and spotted the smaller Kyn male sitting in a shadowed corner. “Forgive me, Shalan. I did not see you here. I do not mean to intrude.”

“You assume your presence is an intrusion, when it is quite the reverse. I followed you here.” The Asian man tilted his head, allowing his long black hair to fall over one bare, broad shoulder. Like Phillipe, he wore only a pair of trousers. “Do you have to listen to them every night?”

“It is late.” Phillipe moved to leave, and looked down as Shalan appeared before him and put a hand to his chest, his smooth, narrow palm oddly warm against Phillipe's cool flesh.
He must have just fed.
“I do not discuss my master's habits with others.”

“Then will you confirm two rumors I have heard about you, Navarre?” Slowly Shalan let his hand drift down until it traveled over the front of Phillipe's trousers. Calmly he turned his palm, adjusting his touch to allow for the bulge now growing beneath the fasteners. “They said that you wield an impressive sword. It seems they do not exaggerate.”

Phillipe regarded the other seneschal's dark eyes carefully. “You inquired after my . . . weapon?”

“Not directly. Like you, I understand the need for discretion.” Shalan curled his fingers, cupping Phillipe easily as he lightly rubbed. “But even Kyn who are not like us talk openly of men they admire. You, Navarre, are greatly envied.”

Kyn who are not like us.
Phillipe slid his hand under the dark fall of Shalan's long hair, caressing the strong neck beneath it before tugging him closer. “What else do they say about me?”

Shalan moved his hand aside, pressing his hips forward until his own confined erection nestled against the length of Phillipe's shaft. He licked the pad of his thumb, caressing it with the curl of his tongue before using it to dampen Phillipe's lower lip. “That you do not cross swords with just anyone who comes along.”