The Bloodline War (12 page)

Truthfully, the scientist in her might have been fascinated, had these people not been so completely screwing up her life.

The latest outrage was that these freaks had broken into her topside house and packed up her stuff. Stuff, as in all of her clothes and most of her personal items: photos, jewelry, books, bathroom products. Then they’d brought it all down here for her, the idea being to make her feel more at home. Yes, thank you so much, she felt
so
much cozier now. Behind that generosity was the scarier idea that they obviously planned to keep her here for quite some time.

On top of that, some goober named Cleeve was answering emails
in her name
; her hospital had been informed that she was on emergency personal leave, and her mother and brother were being fed some crock about Toni being out of town at a hematology seminar. So no one even knew she was missing. No one was searching for her. The Cavalry wasn’t going to charge to her rescue any minute. She truly was on her own if she intended to escape this lunatic asylum.

If that meant she had to employ the help of a group of “dragon” women who thought they were married to “vampires,” then so be it.

The warriors live in the mansion on the same floor as you do, so you might be able to get access to a key card. Give it a try
.

Here they came now, in fact. Toni heard the first group of warriors returning from their mid-morning training session.

Pushing away from her balcony, she crossed her bedroom and listened at the door.

“…should’ve seen the dump I just took, man. It came out like a small, greased-down squirrel, I kid you….”

“…just have to drain the main vein, then we’ll grab the football and….”

“Dude, you’re an idiot. The length of a woman’s legs doesn’t determine the size of her….”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have to check with your wife before you can scratch your balls, too?”

As the warriors’ voices faded and the last of their bedroom doors closed, Toni cracked open her own door.
All clear
? She poked her head out.
Yes
. She slipped into the hallway and took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm. If anybody asked, she was just out for a stroll. She had been given free run of the mansion, after all; a big bonus that had turned into a little bonus as soon as she’d discovered that any room worth entering was kept locked, including the warriors’ bedrooms. Because of that whole pesky locked door situation, she was going to have to search for a key card while one of the men was actually
in
his room.

She crept to the bedroom across the hall, her heartbeat racing despite her efforts to remain calm, and pressed her ear against the Colosseum; in this mansion, the doors were painted with murals of famous European cities to distinguish one room from another. This one was Rome. Hers, to go along with her French décor, was Paris, replete with a soaring Eiffel Tower.

She leapt back, nearly crying out as she was hammered by some kind of raging rock music cranked to near eardrum-bursting volume. Jesus! Hurrying away from the pounding, howling cacophony, she moved on to check Oslo and then London. No luck, until finally she heard a shower running at Dublin. She inhaled-exhaled.
Okay, here goes
.

She opened the door and darted inside, making sure to—

Wow
. Whose room was this, anyway? The décor was extraordinarily tasteful, done in warm and inviting earth tones, hunter green, mauve, and chocolate brown predominating, the bedspread a patchwork combination of all three. A CD of the Cowboy Junkies was spinning on a state-of-the-art sound system, filling the room with soft, bluesy music. Even more surprising, a floor to ceiling wine rack stood against the far wall, large enough to house more than a hundred bottles and nearly full. In front of it was a small table laden with all of the paraphernalia an expert sommelier would need.
Well
. Whoever lived here had taste and class, and she couldn’t imagine which warrior that could possibly be.

Not that she had time to figure it out.

She stole over to the dresser and started to rummage through the drawers. Only clothes, damn it, and a…Penthouse magazine. So much for taste and class.
Ugging
silently, she shoved the magazine back underneath a stack of shirts and moved over to a chest, lifting the lid to see if—

The shower shut off.

Crap! She sprinted soundlessly across the room, grabbing the doorknob and quickly and quietly yanking it—

Ho, shit!
Her breath rammed into her throat, log-jamming right next to her heart as a large hand shot out over her head and slammed the door shut again. It’d taken the occupant of this bedroom exactly one millisecond to open the bathroom door behind her and then arrive at her back.

“Looking for something?” a dark, smoky voice drawled into her ear.

She groaned out loud, recognizing that voice. Of all the warriors who could’ve possibly caught her, why did it have to be Devid who…. Hold on.
This
was Dev’s room? She spun around and—

Immediately she wished she’d kept her face pasted to the back of the door. The man was stark naked, dripping wet, and standing right in front of her. One hand was still planted on the door by her head, the awesome breadth of his shoulders eclipsing her view of the rest of the room. Her pulse spiked, and it took every ounce of resolve she owned to keep her eyes from sproinging out at him like a Bug-Out Bob doll.

“Curiosity finally got the better of you, did it? Out of your room at last….” His silver eyes brightened with a teasing light. “Maybe you’d like to give me that medical examination now?”

Was the room shrinking? She cleared her throat and pointed a remarkably steady finger at the bathroom behind him. “There’s a towel right in there, Mr. Nichita. Perhaps you’d be good enough to make use of it.”

A thoroughly masculine smile curved his lips. “I’m sure I don’t have anything you haven’t seen before, right, Doctor?”

Riiiiiight. She would challenge any female physician in the Western Hemisphere to pull off viewing this man’s body with solely a clinical eye. Not that
she
was looking at it.

“Or maybe not.” He took a step back, his smile growing as he held his arms out from his body, presenting himself to her in all of his naked glory. “See anything new?”

Her eyes latched directly onto the area between his legs. Impossible to stop herself. It was…
that
was quite a sight. Clinically speaking, it pretty much shot directly past racehorse dimensions and right into elephant-penis status.

Tearing her eyes away, she made what she hoped was an offhand gesture. “You’re right,” she agreed, “you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”

He lowered his arms, the air seeming to sweeten and thicken as he asked softly, “Maybe a set of fangs, then? That’d be new, I bet.”

She crossed her arms firmly beneath her breasts, secretly clutching herself. “Actually, no, it wouldn’t be. I’ve seen plenty of those teeth which you people call ‘fangs.’” Everyone in this town had their canines filed down into sharp points.
Ouch
.

His deep laugh reverberated through the room, sending a shiver through her. “Ah, but you haven’t seen them elongated, honey, that’s the thing. But never fear, Dev is here.” The gleam in his eyes sharpened as he took a step toward her.

She jerked backward, dropping her arms and pressing her spine against the door.

A single black eyebrow arched upward. “I have to get close to you to show you, sweetheart. Fangs can only be provoked to lengthen when the Vârcolac himself is…stimulated.”

Her lungs grew tight, the air suddenly burning inside them.

“By the smell of blood,” he went on as if she’d asked, “aggression, or sexual arousal.” A brow arched again, devilishly.

“That’s a rather convenient set of parameters for you, isn’t it, Mr. Nichita?” And no wonder none of her mate-choices had shown her a set on demonstration day.

He chuckled. “Well, I guess you could always ask Jaċken. He and his brothers are the only ones who can control their fangs voluntarily.” Dev’s eyes danced with amusement. “You want to go see if he’ll give you a demo?”

“Thanks, but no.” Maybe if she pressed her back to the door hard enough she’d be able to rearrange her molecules and slip right through. “And although I do appreciate that lesson in Vârcolac taxonomy, Mr. Nichita, I think I’ll also have to decline your offer. I have no desire to slice my wrist open or,” she snorted, “do a lap dance just to see you
elongate
.” His eyes flew up, and she smiled tartly into his startled expression. “Or are you offering to get into a fist fight with me?”

His answering smile was a knee-melter. “Ah, honey, all I need to do is tuck my face right in here,” he pressed his thumb lightly to the artery in her throat, his fingers curling around the back of her nape, “and I’ll be able to smell your blood just fine.”

Her pulse reacted crazily to his touch, the wild drumbeat of it pounding from her vein into the pad of his thumb.

His pupils dilated, a feral darkness seeping into his gaze. “Don’t be afraid.” His voice was thick velvet over her skin, a palpable sensation of warmth and seduction, stirring a singeing heat to life in her blood.

She pressed her palms flat against the door.
Dear God, what
…
what
…? She had the alarming desire to throw back her head and present her throat to him. And if he wanted to fondle her breasts that would be just fine, too.

He shifted closer, his nostrils quivering. “You smell so damned good, Toni.” He caressed his thumb along the length of her artery.

Her eyes sagged in their sockets.
Hmm, really, you don’t say
?
Maybe we can
….

Forcing her teeth together, she blinked past her dizziness and shook the spellbinding fog from her brain. “Stop it, Devid. Whatever you’re doing.” She grabbed Dev’s wrist, jerking his hand from her throat. Then she made use of the YMCA Self Defense Training Course she’d taken a few years back. She gripped the sensitive area between his thumb and forefinger and pressed her own thumb in, hard.

His eyebrows soared in surprise. “Ow.”

She hauled his arm down, throwing him off balance, then gave him a shove. As he stumbled backward, she spun around and shot out the door. Not putting it past a man like Dev to chase after her without benefit of clothing, she didn’t even try to make it back to her own bedroom. She dashed directly into Berlin next door.

Shutting the door hurriedly behind her, she gulped in deep breaths as she listened for—

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She whirled around.
Oh, damn
. Deflating back against the door, she cursed the universe. Couldn’t she ever catch a break?

Jaċken.

Chapter Twelve

Big, Dark and Murderous was standing over by a black entertainment center, his hands planted on his hips and a scowl knitting his eyebrows into a fierce vee. The proverbial tower of manhood and menace. He was dressed in that super sexy all-black workout gear the warriors wore for training, and although he was still his usual scary self, he also looked surprisingly…well…super sexy.

Toni’s stomach gave a start and then a funny flutter at the sight of him. Powerful muscles stood out in rigid relief against the tight fabric of his gear, his body so clearly articulated with grooves and crevices he could’ve been held up in anatomy class as an example of the perfect male specimen.
These are the quadriceps, class
,
this, the tibialis anterior, and
this
part right here between his legs is the…oh, my. Let’s just all make a ‘yum’ noise, shall we
.

Toni briefly closed her eyes. She really needed to get some help.

“Well?” he pressed in a peeved tone. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, I’m…uh….”
I’m here to steal a key card so that I can instigate an escape plan
. She covertly scanned the room for inspiration on another excuse, figuring the truth wouldn’t go over well with a man of Jaċken’s temperament. It was then she noticed just how black his bedroom was: black wooden dresser and entertainment center, sleek black lacquered wet bar, black bedspread with a dark gray geometric design on it.
Sheesh
. If her bedroom was Louis XVI, Dev’s like a cozy room out of a château, then this bedroom—in keeping with the whole French theme—was Marquis de Sade all the way. Well, at least the bedroom fit the man this time.

“I just came to see if, um….” Her gaze zeroed in on a stack of DVD’s in his entertainment center. “If you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed a movie.”

“You ever hear of knocking first? I was about to get into the shower. I could’ve been standing here naked, lady.”

That gave her pause. Despite all logic, the thought of Jaċken naked wasn’t a wholly unpleasant prospect. Not at all, in fact. Clearing her throat, she started forward. “I’m a doctor, Mr. Brun,” she said in the kind of overly patient tone she knew would annoy him. “You surely don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.” Mmm,
that
was about as big a joke as it had been with Dev.

She drew up right in front of him, and startled as a tingle of sensual awareness lit off a short burst of heat in her belly. She was close enough to smell him now, clean male sweat and a hint of Old Spice deodorant and Irish Springs soap; everything that was completely masculine and just about curled all the fine hairs on her body. An immense power radiated off of him, like the force of a tornado barely held in check, along with determination and confidence and ruthless intelligence, and something…strangely raw.

Her lips parted on a small breath, all that was feminine in her helplessly reacting to him. What was it about this man? How was it that she was even more aware of all the glorious differences between men and women while standing here with Jaċken than she had been with Dev, when he’d been naked as a jaybird?

“Would you mind backing the fuck up?” Jaċken ground out, his nostrils flaring white at the rims. “Being this close to your smell is about as much fun as a fork in the eye.”