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He raised a brow. “It’s very lucky that she didn’t, or someone may have been triggered into throwing a death spell. Where in the world did a quiet librarian learn a spell like that?”
I licked my lips. “Books. Never underestimate a librarian, particularly the quiet ones.”
His eyes turned darker. “Your spell still stings, Miss Morell. If I were a different vampire, I would be quite upset at your attack.”
“No, you’d be dead.” I offered him a small smile and stepped away from him. “I’ll need Horace’s signature.”
He studied me for a few more seconds then shifted as if feeling the effects of the spell. Slowly he took a sheet out of his inside suit pocket. “Here you are.”
He slid over the marble desk so he was on the other side, smooth, but not nearly as quickly as he could move. He was being careful so that he didn’t frighten the little librarian rabbit into throwing another death spell at him. How humiliating to react like that. I shouldn’t have gone right for a death spell, not in the library where anyone could have gotten hit. I took his paper and read through it, forcing myself to focus on the words when I just wanted to have a nice public meltdown.
I nodded after I’d managed to make it through the entire sheet, much longer than it should have taken me, but I wasn’t going to apologize for my nerves. “Very good. Did you?—”
He handed me the neatly filled in release slip. “Of course. If that’s all, I’ll take my leave.”
He reached for the books, but I blocked his hand with mine, sending a shaft of fear through me that mingled with an odd wistfulness, not that I paid any attention to feelings. “I’ll have to give you the spell key. Show me your palm.”
He hesitantly turned his hand over, showing the curved claws that were clean and neatly trimmed. I swallowed hard and then wrote the symbol of unbinding into his strangely warm flesh, warm for a vampire anyway, but there were a lot of things about him that weren’t right for a vampire.
“You don’t have vampire eyes,” I said as I studied his hand before I could stop myself. It was fear making my tongue slippery.
“No? I assure you that I am quite the blood-thirsty monster with all the usual traits, but I have lived long enough and worked with enough magic and science to not be your typical blood-sucking beast.”
I flinched and stepped back, crossing my arms and wishing I couldn’t still feel the trace of his warmth on my fingertips. “That explains it. If you need these sources for longer than six months, you’ll have to bring them back for protection renewal spells. Enjoy your reading.”
I turned away from him and picked up the papers that had scattered in my moments of mindless fear. Well, he probably wouldn’t suspect me of being an experienced assassin with a reaction like that, even if I did cast a death spell at him. What was wrong with me? Attraction, fear, and violence? It was too much.
Fifteen minutes later, I could still feel a trace of him on my fingertips, not quite heat, but something, like the scent after a lightning strike, extra energy, movement from his flesh to mine.
He was the most powerful vampire I’d ever met, and for some reason he was stalking me, or he wouldn’t have stepped in front of me like that, wouldn’t have roared, staking a claim on his territory.
One thing was perfectly clear: Horace needed to give me a raise.
Chapter
Five
The next day was thankfully free of trauma, spent shelving books, working in document preservation, and translating a text in both ancient Arabic and Chaldean, which was a delightful puzzle that took me hours to unravel.
Friday morning came, and with it, an uneasy feeling. The awareness had finally faded from my fingertips, leaving me with a dissatisfaction and emptiness that was only the barest brush with the all-encompassing obsession that precluded life with a vampire.
I hadn’t seen him or his young friend since Wednesday, and probably wouldn’t until he finished with his texts and returned them. I was grumpy for no reason as I worked until I finally got absorbed with translation until Jessica came to tell me that Horace wanted to see me in his office.
I exhaled a breath before I knocked on the smooth wooden door.
“Enter.”
I pushed open the door and then stopped when I saw Michael Stead seated on a chair to the right, keeping his gaze focused on Horace where he was shuffling through papers on his desk.
“Miss Morell, so glad you could come. The Scholar would like your notes on the translations to the books he requested, if you wouldn’t mind.”
I held my breath for a moment before I frowned and cocked my head at Horace. “I’m not a professional linguist, so I wouldn’t trust my translations. I’m just a hobbyist, and I’m sure there are many errors that would impact whatever research Mr. Stead is doing. I am flattered that you would even consider my rough work, but I’m not qualified to put those out as legitimate translations. It would reflect badly on the library when it got out that there were errors.” All of those reasons were true, but there was more to it, of course, because my notes had my personal thoughts on the nature of heavenly or infernal fire that weren’t found in any texts, ancient or otherwise.
Horace tapped the papers in a mesmerizing rhythm that made my hair stand up on end.
“Mr. Stead is not going to hold any errors against you, I assure you. However, you do raise a compelling point. You are not an official translator at this edifice any more than you are a preservationist. You are a hobbyist who is lucky enough to find a place for you to practice all of your dynamic interests.” Was he threatening my job? I loved my job and did what no one else was willing to do to keep it.
“You are lucky to have her,” The Scholar murmured. “If she isn’t interested in releasing her notes, then that’s all there is to it. Beg your pardon for the interruption, Miss Morell.”
