forward on the balls of his feet—now he wanted the element of surprise—Vail swung around the corner and into a dark alley cluttered with stacked terra-cotta flowerpots.
The man stood shoulders and back to the wall and the female was running her hands up his thigh and over his obvious hard-on. She wore a black scarf that covered all her hair, but Vail bet what was tucked beneath was long and blond. Clad entirely in black, the only spot of color was the red pointed shoes peeking from beneath the pant hem.
She leaned into the mortal’s neck, fangs glinting—then sighted Vail.
Palming a huge flowerpot to leverage his strides, Vail pushed it aside and behind him. It cracked and clattered on the cobbles.
The mortal man landed against Vail’s chest, groping to stand yet utterly confused about why he’d been pulled from the high of arousal. The scent of sex and cigarettes shrouded him.
Shoving him off, Vail tripped over the man’s legs and plunged forward, landing on the cobblestones. He looked up. The vampiress paused at a turn at the end of the alley. She flashed a defiant smirk at him and took off.
“It’s not going to be that easy to ditch me.”
Charging up from all fours, he performed a racer’s dash and made the corner, careening around it in time to spy the vampiress’s long legs slip into the open maw of a warehouse.
Taking in the building’s structure as he approached, he decided it was abandoned. The missing windows and flat, pebbled roof would provide her an easy escape while he wandered about in the dark trying to sense her. He could see well enough in the dark, but preferred to track her heartbeats.
Sniffing, he noted the jasmine and cherries. “You’re the one I want,” he said. “But I think I’ll let you come to me. Always prefer to be the one in control.”
He turned right and walked along the side of the building, tendering careful footsteps so he would sense any noise from inside. She wouldn’t be so stupid now she knew someone was after her.
At the opening to a main street, Vail got another whiff of jasmine. He eyed the stretch of apartment buildings and walk-ups directly across the street. Older, and likely lower rent, though this area was nothing to sneeze at. But dark. No streetlights to expose anyone’s secrecy.
“Perfect.”
“FUCK.”
Shoulders glued against the corrugated iron warehouse wall, Lyric listened for the stranger’s boot steps.
Why had he run after her? Who was he? And what a way to spoil supper. She hadn’t a chance to sink in her fangs and now she was beyond hungry.
All the adrenaline pumping through her system over the past twenty-four hours had stripped her energy and weakened her. In fact, she breathed heavily and panted. What was with that?
She’d gotten a quick look at him. Hair darker than Himself’s heart, slicked back like some kind of goth Elvis. Dark clothing and dark eyes. Really dark, like he used guyliner and smudged it.
Could be a druggie. Mortals, when high on meth, were strong, and if hurt or wounded, could still function without noticing the pain. That had to be it. He was a junkie who’d stumbled onto the scene of her trying to get the mark off, and decided he’d wanted a piece of her for himself.
Which meant she may get lucky and he’d forget what he’d witnessed and be diverted to a quest for more drugs.
Daring a peek around the doorway, she scanned the alley. The room she was squatting in was down the street. She could make a dash for it if she kept to the left side of the street in the shadows that hugged the walls. So she did.
Taking the back stairs up the side of the building to avoid the lobby, she then had to jump onto a neighbor’s balcony and lean over to slide through the window she’d left open a few inches. Years of training with Leo and her acrobatic skills aided her as Lyric mastered the leap and slipped into the apartment.
A twin bed with a lumpy mattress sat below the window. She landed on it in a roll and came up to sit on the edge of the mattress. The apartment, a recent acquisition, was dark. The full moon had cruised behind nasty gray clouds that promised rain before morning.
Could she do this? Actually pull it off? It wasn’t as though she’d ever spent time away from the family mansion. She possessed some facsimile of a social life, went clubbing and made dates, and hunted. But to live on her own?
Lyric sighed and wondered how long it would be before she dared go out again to look for supper.
“So, this is how the young and the kidnapped live.”
A tall, dark-haired man strolled out from the bathroom, leaned against the kitchen wall and hooked one foot up on the side of the butcher block.
Double fuck.
CHAPTER THREE
CAUGHT.
Eyes wide and mouth gaping. Blond hair tumbled from beneath the black scarf. Unbelieving. Now that was a look Vail would cherish.
“Who are you?” She backed toward the window, but he didn’t think she would bolt, because her body language said I want to listen instead of I’m out of here. “Who sent you?”
“Ah, now that is the question, isn’t it? Who sent me?”
“I just asked that. Got a hearing problem?”
“I found you by sound and smell, sweetie. That perfume is sexy, by the way.”
She rolled her eyes.
“And what’s a pretty little vampiress doing away from her kidnappers like you just were? They give you a long leash? Where are those rascally kidnappers, by the by?”
“Get out of here. This is private property.”
Vail looked toward the front door, where he’d had to break a security lock to get inside. The smell of jasmine wafting out from inside had told him this was the right place. Yet the fact he could enter without a proper invitation told him a lot. Vampires could only freely enter public property. Yet another frustrating hazard of living in the mortal realm.
“It may be private, but it’s not your property. Which makes it vacant, and that falls under the public category. You always come through the window?”
Standing and marching across the room, the vampiress tugged off the scarf and tossed it aside. She was trapped and, like prey, paced in abandon like they always did when seeking an escape. She worked it, though, her long strides swinging her narrow hips, which revealed a peek of sexy skin between waistline and the hem of her shirt.
Vail maintained his position.
“Who are you?” she demanded again in a remarkably authoritative voice, considering her slender physique and those gorgeous cheekbones. And look at all that hair. It wasn’t mussed at all, spilling like ribbons of white gold over her shoulders. “I need a name.”
“Vaillant,” he offered freely. “But you can call me Vail.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“Apparently, it’s the one my mother gave me.”
She pointed at his face and twirled her finger before her. “What’s that stuff beneath your eyes? It sparkles.” She gave him a sideways sneer. “Are you a freakin’ faery?”
“Such vitriol drips from your pretty mouth. What have the sidhe ever done to you?”
“Nothing.” She paced some more. “Everything! Just get out, will you? This is my place. Go find your own hovel.”
Vail leaned his elbows onto the butcher-block counter behind him and smiled as sweetly as he could manage. He didn’t do sweet, but he could get close to amiable if he tried.
“I don’t