She certainly had strange ideas. Hewishedhe didn’t have a conscience. Then it would have been easier to ignore how much they had in common. He followed her to the fountain but stood a fair distance back while she scrubbed the black sludge from her hands. He’d already risked her figuring out his nature during the fight. Having her discover his nature because of a lack of a reflection in the water would be just his luck.
“Surely, you haven’t always hated them,” he said. He wasn’t sure why. As a hunter, it was her duty to kill his kind. Expecting her to do anything else would be like getting angry at a house cat for chasing down a mouse.
She exhaled a cloud that vanished above their heads. “No. I didn’t even care about becoming a hunter once. I told my parents I wanted nothing to do with their mission.”
“What happened?” Curiosity would be the death of him.
She stared at the ground. “One of them came to my house. A woman. It killed my parents right in front of me.” Her lipsthinned. “If that weren’t bad enough, after Uncle Ethan took me in and helped me recover from the shock, he forbade me from tracking down my parents’ killer. Not that it mattered. The demon left no trace.”
So, a vampire had murdered her parents. He shouldn’t have cared. Her family had slaughtered thousands of his kind. But the hardness in her voice reminded him of how furious he’d been after Marcus had refused to let him chase after their maker. Jonathan had hated his elder brother for years for that decision.
“They never knew,” she whispered. “They died thinking I wanted nothing to do with being a hunter.” She sniffled.
He rubbed his hands together. “Are you crying?”
Tears dripped down her cheeks. She dashed them away. “No.”
He’d never been able to handle a crying woman. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “If they were alive, I’m sure they would be proud. After all, I don’t know many ladies who could wield a sword with such skill. Who taught you? I can’t imagine you received lessons in swordsmanship from your governess.”
She laughed weakly. “No. It was my uncle.”
A silence descended between them, and it was then that Jonathan realized how close they were. It would take only a slight movement of his head to reach the veins flowing through her neck.
God, how he wanted to taste her. He had never drunk from a hunter before. He could almost feel her bitter, metallic blood coating the inside of his mouth.
He leaned in just as she turned, and their lips met in an awkward kiss.
A heady sensation throbbed through him, which was definitely the only reason he tilted his mouth against hers.
She whimpered and curled her fingers in his shirt.
He shouldn’t have been doing this. She was the enemy. But the sluggish heat unfurling in his abdomen urged him on, as did the soft noises she made when he ran his tongue along her lower lip and the increasingly potent honeyed scent of her blood.
She opened her mouth. He surged inside, only for her to meet him stroke for stroke, a worthy opponent despite her obvious innocence.
He slid his hands down her sides. She tossed his hat away and dug her fingers into his hair. It was the sensation of her nails cutting into his scalp that caused his fangs to extend. He quickly withdrew and trailed kisses down her throat.
She shivered at his touch. “Oh, yes.”
His cock and fangs throbbed in unison. He reached the place where her pulse hammered and was about to bite when a familiar itching started inside his skull. He lifted his head and spotted a tall figure dressed in black standing in the alley across from the fountain, silhouetted by moonlight.
It was his eldest nest sister. Seraphina. Watching him, probably reporting his activities to Cordon and Marcus. Knowing she was watching dampened his desire. He forced his fangs to withdraw, clasped Felicity’s shoulders, and pushed her away.
“You should return home.”
“What?” She swayed slightly. “Why?”
He tightened his grip. “Because if we don’t stop, you might have another reason to use that sword.”
Chapter Nine
The first timeFelicity nearly dropped something she was holding—a bundle of cloth, thank God—it was because she was remembering how Mr. Drake’s cold lips had felt pressed against hers. She cursed but resolved not to let him disrupt her day further. The second time was because she was recalling how his fingers had dug into her hips, a memory that caused her to fumble a fourteenth-century stone tablet. It split into four jagged pieces on the tile floor of the tightly packed conservation room and nearly made her scream in frustration.
The damned man had infiltrated her thoughts, and she couldn’t shake him loose. It didn’t help that if it hadn’t been for his intervention, she might not have survived the encounter with the fledgling. Every time she turned a corner, she expected him to appear, his hands tucked into his pockets, his hair roguishly tousled.
She was getting distracted again. She exhaled slowly, then scrutinized the silver coins she’d been cataloging. They were nestled on the soft, green velvet of her sorting tray, the disembodied heads stamped on their surfaces, judging her from hundreds of years in the past.
There had been something so familiar about that fledgling. She was certain she’d seen its garish burgundy suit before. Perhaps it had been a guest at the museum before being transformed into a crazed monster. That frenzy had been unlikeanything she’d ever experienced. The thing would have torn her to pieces if not for Mr. Drake. His slim frame disguised remarkable strength, judging from the ease with which he’d flung her attacker. When he’d held her, she’d shamefully wished that they’d both been wearing much less clothing, although then he would have been even colder. The poor man had been so chilled, she was surprised his lips hadn’t turned blue.
