AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And because of that hope, I’d grown complacent. I still trained, sure, but each day that passed made me less sure that I’d ever meet the man who’d turned his back on Franco Fiorino.
“You’re late, Eli,” I said, unable to ignore my curiosity.
“You’ve been waiting for me?” he asked, a hint of a smile in his tone.
“Not waiting exactly.” I reached for the light switch, but froze when my fingers met with a hard body beneath smooth fabric. He’d moved from his spot across the room to immediately beside me and I hadn’t heard a goddamn thing. Not even the tickle of a breeze as his movements displaced the air.
His hand circled my wrist and my pulse sped faster, louder in my ears. “He told you about me.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know I am ancient. Fighting me would be futile.”
I swallowed hard, annoyed by the loud sound it made in the quiet shop.
“Nod if you understand.”
Nod, because he could see me in the dark, while I was rendered blind. So I nodded. I would give him the answer he wanted, but I had no intention of going down easily.
And, this time, thanks to Vinny, I was armed.
“You reek of vampires. Do you offer yourself up to monsters, little girl?”
My blood boiled at the insinuation and my jaw clenched. “No,” I forced through clenched teeth.
He sniffed and I went rigid as his nose came dangerously close to the skin of my cheek. “Two vampires. Young, the both of them. Babies, really.”
He got all that just from their scents? Jesus. How old was this guy?
“I was born in sixteen-oh-eight, petit colibri.”
I gasped and he laughed, the sound a deep rumble that sank into my bones.
“With age comes many things. Wisdom, yes. Boredom, most definitely—”
“And you can read my thoughts.” With one hand still held firmly within his grasp, as slowly as I could muster, I reached for the stake at my hip.
He leaned closer and I froze, then shivered as his nose brushed that sensitive place just below my earlobe. “Only because my blood flows through your veins.”
My mouth dropped open.
The hand that had been reaching for my weapon flopped to my side.
The vampire breathed deeply, then sighed. “I, too, am surprised by this development.” He paused and I tried to still my racing heart, but it was no use.
His blood ran through my veins?
What the fuck? How?
“How, indeed.” He sighed again, and it wasn’t the sigh of irritation but something else. A bone-tiredness I couldn’t fathom. “Come, petit colibri. Let’s go upstairs and have a civilized conversation.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Oh, do try to cooperate. We have so much to discuss.”
“I doubt we have anything to discuss.”
He tsked again. “Please don’t test me, petit colibri. I’m positively famished.”
