you imagine I came alone?”
“Yes, actually. I can sense your kind, you know. It’s a gift. Or a curse. You’re the last vamp crowding my space tonight.”
The vampire didn’t take the bait of that taunt and showed itself.
“I suppose you’re drawn to the scent of this place.” Rhys waved at the tattoo parlor.
“As were you,” the vampire returned, with far too much insight.
“I’m not attracted to blood, you know. It does not sustain me,” Rhys said.
“What does?”
“Current goals. Old vows.”
The vampire floated out of the shadows—a middle-aged bloodsucker, turned in his fifties, Rhys presumed. Tall, thin and dressed in a tattered black suit, this child of the night smelled like he’d been in the earth a few years too long. This was no fledgling, after all.
“One cannot thrive on old vows alone,” it observed.
Rhys nodded. “I have also cultivated a taste for wine over the past hundred years.”
The vampire had no sense of humor.
“You came to her aid,” it noted.
Rhys applied new energy to his voice. The vampire had been watching that fight, watching his white-haired companion.
“For reasons you would likely not understand or want to go into,” Rhys said.
“Perhaps I would understand. I followed her here, too. I am not immune to what she represents,” the vampire returned.
“Would that be dinner?”
“The pale one would be a veritable feast,” the vampire agreed. “Whipped cream on a blood-red cake.”
Rhys said calmly, “She isn’t human, you know.”
“All the better.”
This bloodsucker had also tuned in to the power the woman radiated. Did the creep believe he could sink his fangs into an immortal and get away with it, when that would have been impossible?
“Trying something like that would be a misuse of your energy,” Rhys warned. “Your fangs won’t penetrate her skin, you know.”
And even if they could, her blood would make this creature choke. White blood, underscoring the colorlessness of her skin.
“Can’t hurt to try,” the vamp remarked.
“Looking for what? The fountain of youth? You do realize that’s a false rumor, and that no such thing exists?”
Agitated, the bloodsucker moved sideways. “Can you tell me this truthfully?”
“No fountain of youth,” Rhys promised.
Although the Knights had been resurrected by a blood gift sipped from a golden chalice, they weren’t vampires. Though they had fangs, the Knights ate and drank only slightly less than the rest of the world’s population. Their blood wasn’t a restorative that could heal a reanimated corpse. He and his brethren weren’t gods. All seven had been human once.
“I don’t think you understand,” Rhys continued. “The point I’m making is that this woman is not for you. Not any of your concern.”
“Is that not so for you, as well?”
Rhys wasn’t entirely sure how to reply to that. Like the vampire, he had left his human existence behind and accepted the invitation to exist forever. But he had done so willingly. He doubted this vampire had chosen his afterlife’s direction, or that many would choose to live off the life force of others.
The Seven had been called back to life by a higher power than the black hand of Death. That beginning set them apart. His heart had been restarted for a golden purpose. Only through the miracle of a chalice often referred to as the Holy Grail had his heart and soul been retained.
“I suggest you take your hunger elsewhere,” Rhys warned. “Quite honestly, I’m not always this generous with your kind.”
The vampire bowed its head. “I find that I’d like to see her again. I will stay out of your way, however, for now, since you’ve asked so nicely.”
With a flurry of kicked-up street grime, followed by the sound of loose roof tiles creaking over Rhys’s head, the cheeky fanged bastard disappeared. The way they had of doing things like that was creepy, even to an immortal with equal abilities.
Nevertheless, Rhys’s interest in the pale immortal he’d kissed had just increased tenfold. Other creatures had found her twice, for some reason, when their usual MO was to avoid him and his kind. The creep he had spoken with was too interested in her, and that wasn’t right. If vampires spread the word that a pale immortal female had taken up residence, other monsters might come calling for reasons Rhys didn’t fully understand.
Did they honestly believe the snowy-haired female could help to reinstate their former lives? Change their fate? Too many vamps appearing at once to test that claim might not bode well for anyone on London’s streets after dark.
But it suited Rhys.
Taking out a bunch of vampires at once would help those unsuspecting mortal souls stay safe.
It was late. He had taken too much time here. Pulling his coat tighter, setting his intentions on a new course, Rhys followed the whiff of scent and the barely visible ribbon of light that were the angelic immortal female’s calling cards, which took him to the alley where she had first appeared.
Glancing up at the building beside him, hearing her warning about not finding her without an invitation, Rhys smiled and muttered, “Who can resist such a sweet-scented warrior?”
* * *
He was coming.
Either her powers of persuasion had dimmed considerably, or this Knight’s abilities had grown lately. Due to the strength of the feelings for him that she had sealed away, Avery couldn’t allow herself to be caught.
The choices were to run or face her dazzling nemesis one more time. Keep her secrets, or tell him the truth and see what he would do.
Roll of the dice. Which is it to be? Go or stay?
It wasn’t much of a choice, really. The Knight was right. After finding her, having his hands on her, there wouldn’t be anywhere for her to go in this city that he couldn’t find if he tried hard enough. One kiss and an old blood bond had seen to that.
But she could not leave London. Leaving would mean losing the opportunity to search for the things so important to her after exhausting her search elsewhere. The things that had been hidden from her, belonged to her, called out with a distant, elusive hum, as if they also craved a reunion. Caution was needed, though. She had been fooled before.
Avery was aware of every step toward her the Blood Knight took.
“You
