As I dragged Vivien off, Timothy stepped forward.
“What’s he going to tell her?” Vivien asked in a sulky tone. “That I’ve been a bad vampire, and you need to put me back in my kennel?”
“He has a talent for making questions and problems disappear, whether by explanation or money.” Though I doubted from Ms. West’s demeanor she’d be amenable to bribery, but that was yet another quality that made Timothy invaluable. He’d find some way to explain why I dragged a young woman off.
I pushed us through the throng of vacationing tourists. “And here I thought you’d appreciate being allowed to stay in such a nice kennel.”
“Mad I chewed through the bars?”
I turned on her so fast, she almost ran into me again. “Do you think it wise to test me so, when your existence is only permitted based on your usefulness?” Despite my efforts to stay cool and in control, she was skating on my last nerve.
Her gaze flew to where I held her arm between us, then up into my eyes. Judging by her gasp, I’d let my death mask flicker through.
While her aura was bright before, Vivien shone as bright as a star now. She was nearly unrecognizable since she’d cleaned up. Her long hair was not a dark, muddy brown, but a glossy auburn. Transformed from straight and limp, it was now a voluminous, textured mass that begged for fingers to wrap in it. No longer streaked with dirt and grime, her face was the shade of cream with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Before, she was attractive. Now, she was a wild kind of beautiful that made me think of jungle cats and the lush, inviting jungles where they played. The shade of her hair reminded me of a sunset I wished would never end. Her eyes still crackled with the same energy as when we first met, warning me not to rub the soft skin of her forearm, though my thumb itched to do so. If she was aware of her power over me, she didn’t show it.
Instead of cowing down, her expression hardened as she leaned in until we were almost nose to nose. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I not being useful enough? Should I have been cleaning the toilets in your penthouse? Making lunch for you, or perhaps sitting still and quiet until you come to retrieve me like a pair of house slippers?”
“You are infuriating.”
“You want everyone to be afraid of you, but guess what, buttercup? I’m not.”
Despite her irksome behavior that inspired me to lock her up in an actual dungeon, I couldn’t help the twitch at the corner of my mouth. “Did you call me buttercup, bloodsucker?”
She responded in a haughty tone. “I prefer the term sekhor. Seems more formal,your majesty. No, you’re right. You’re so easily shook, buttercup is a much better nickname for you.”
Blood rushed in my ears. Her green eyes crackled with electricity and she pressed the tip of her tongue behind her front teeth as if goading me to start a fight with her. She very well might have seen what I was capable of in the antechamber. She knew I was death itself, yet she was baiting me.
A select number believed they could defy death, many out of arrogance. Some offered money, others challenged me, thinking they were above theend. But when I revealed death’s true face, they all cowered. Vivien wasn’t defiant because she wanted to stop me from doing my duty. From what I could tell, she provoked me for the sheer joy of it.
A hand slapped me on the back as the stench of cheap beer and sweat assaulted my senses.
“Haha, get a room, you two,” slurred a twenty-something boy with a popped collar and cap turned to the side. When he stumbled back to his buddies, they all laughed and punched each other on the arm.
“Uck, dude-bros are the worst,” Vivien muttered.
For once, I didn’t disagree.
I led her back to Sinopolis, not liking how easily she provoked me. I told myself I was on edge after such a long day of work; that, coupled with the stress of this vampire problem, and I’d lost my temper with this insignificant sekhor. But it was no excuse for me to lose my cool. I couldn’t afford distractions, but she was a flashing neon sign with screaming bells and whistles. Hard to ignore, and harder not to toss out a window.
A trio of men were about to pass by, when one of them halted. His face drained of color as he regarded us.
“Fan of yours?” Vivien asked, her tone dry as the martini I planned on having later.
The man was average height with brown hair and blunt features. He wore cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. But he wasn’t looking at me. Vivien received the full force of his startled, wide-eyed gape. He stared like a rabbit confronted by a hunter.
He took off sprinting, knocking into people as he made his way across the hotel, in the opposite direction we were headed.
Vivien followed him, but I yanked her back.
“Did you see that? He recognized me. We need to follow him.”
“He wasn’t a vampire,” I said, not giving her an inch.
Vivien still strained against my grip, trying to keep him in sight, though he was fast making a getaway. “He knows who I am. We can ask him how he knows me.”
“I would guess a past lover based on his speed,” I muttered.
