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“Oh yeah?” I turned, giving my best grin to whoever was trying to cut in on this dance.
And was suddenly face-to-face with Davos Kent.
Chapter Eighteen
I’d come to the bar with the sole intention of finding Davos, but the moment I was actually confronted with him, it was like my whole brain shorted out and I had no idea what to do with myself.
As I blinked stupidly at him, he waved off the other vampire, who retreated to the shadows without a word.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked.
“J-Jessica.” The stammer wasn’t even put on for affect. I was so damned surprised to see the honest-to-God Davos Kent this close to me that making language was hard.
At this point I was willing to admit I should have thought this through beyond just find the bad guy. I was notorious for only planning two steps ahead, when a much smarter person would have had an idea of what they were going to do when their plan really worked.
For now, I had him circling. I had to hook him on the line.
I coyly played with one of my curls and looked down, then back up at him through my lashes, that classic flirt move that said, I’m shy, but don’t go anywhere.
For some reason it was a move super-predatory dudes loved. It seemed to say to them that a willing victim was afoot. I was of the opinion that there was no such thing as a willing victim, but for the time being I needed to play one.
“What brings you here tonight, Jessica?” His voice was smooth and as cool as marble. It retained a hint of a Slavic accent, though he’d been in America quite some time. I was always intrigued by vampire accents. Some vampires I knew held on to their history that way, while others seemed willing to let it go. Holden, though he’d been born in England, barely had an accent at all anymore.
He did sometimes drop mate and love into conversations, as if they were perfectly normal things to say.
Davos was watching my keenly, waiting for my answer. “Just looking to make some friends.”
“I’m told I make a very good friend,” he replied without missing a beat.
This guy was good. He was handsome in a way that wasn’t pretty, and might have even been ugly from certain angles. He was rough around the edges, like he’d taken a few too many beatings in his human life, giving his nose a battered, crooked appearance. He had heavily lidded eyes and dark hair gelled back from his face.
He looked, I realized, as if he was trying to milk that whole Dracula aesthetic. It worked for him.
He had thin lips curled up in a smirk, and cheekbones so sharp I could have used them to open my mail.
It was the kind of face that would have been really compelling in a painting. Was he beautiful? Was he grotesque? Somehow he was both at the same time, and it was an intriguing package.
“A good friend would offer to buy a lady a drink,” I suggested.
He waved to the bartender without looking at him, and said, “Are we the type of friends who share drinks, Jessica?” His gaze wandered to my exposed neck. “I hope so.”
I blushed, which wasn’t something I could fake. The naked hunger on his face was enough to render me a bit uncomfortable. Thankfully, the overall effect made me look like a nervous doe being circled by a wolf. The uptick in my pulse probably read as excitement and not a fight-or-flight response gearing up.
All of it worked in perfect harmony to transform me into a tantalizing little morsel for a hungry vampire.
Davos handed me my new drink, and I set the empty glass from my first one back on the bar. The vampire offered me his arm, which I took as if he were my undead prom date. He guided me into the gloom, where two big, meaty vamps were standing near an empty table.
I widened my eyes to feign being impressed, while I tried to get a read on how old and strong these bruisers were if I needed to fight my way out of this.
When I was part vampire, I could get a read on another vampire’s power with a quick glance. I could feel how old they were in my very bones. That was unfortunately not something I’d retained when I’d given up all my powers. But over the last five years I’d slowly started being able to pick up on things that hinted at a vampire’s capability.
The oldest and youngest ones were easiest. It was those two-hundred- to four-hundred-year-old ones I still had trouble getting a read on.
These guys were split. The one with curly brown hair on the right was old. He’d probably been with Davos a long time. The bald one on the left was new, practically a baby. I could tell by the way he let his guard down for a second to watch me walk by. He was hungry, and I was betting Davos let these guys have his scraps. Enthrall a girl and then pass her around to his buddies as a reward for their hard work.
Gross.
There still weren’t laws against that sort of thing, but in my minor governmental capacity I had certainly made the suggestion that there should be laws related to the willing sharing of blood. And more specifically the unwilling.
