Blood of Angels (18 page)

Emotion chased through his eyes too quickly for her to read. It might have been shock or compassion. She looked away.

“You agreed to become a vampire?” he asked conversationally.

Angyalka laughed. “In those days, no one asked my opinion, let alone my permission for anything. Aranyi was stupid and lonely and thought he’d make himself a companion. He found me asleep on the street and killed me.”

“And turned you…”

She spread her arms with mockery. “As you see.”

To her surprise, he shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t see. Did you magnify his power during the change? How did you become so strong a vampire so quickly? Only Saloman’s creations—and Luk’s—have ever avoided the bestial fledgling stage.”

Straight to the heart of the matter as ever.

His eyes widened. His lips parted. “Maximilian,” he said slowly. “Not a purebred Ancient but created and taught by Saloman. Aranyi didn’t turn you, did he? Maximilian did.”

The need for secrecy had passed with Maximilian’s return from isolation. It no longer really mattered if it got into the hunters’ records, or the vampires’ knowledge.

“Aranyi didn’t finish the job,” she admitted for the first time ever. “He took all of my blood, gave me a dribble of his, then pushed me off his vein to have sex with me instead. Maximilian came out of nowhere. It was his shadow period, haunting the streets incognito immediately after Zoltán’s victory. Aranyi ran away when Max pulled him off me. I was half undead, half true dead, utterly helpless either to move or to die in earnest. Maximilian gave me his blood and the enchantments that preserve the inner being.”

She crossed her legs and smiled as devilishly as she could manage. “After which I lived—and indeed will live—happily ever after. Using the word ‘live’ at its loosest.”

His lips curved into a smile. “Well, I suppose that explains a lot… Whose idea was it to name this place? Yours or Maximilian’s.”

Angyalka shrugged impatiently. “I named it.”

But a sudden flash of memory struck her: Maximilian nodding with agreement, a rare smile lighting up his troubled face. He’d approved, all right. He’d known it would give her and the bar added protection, although he’d never bothered to tell her so. She wasn’t sure she liked that. She wanted to have made the Angel what it was on her own.

She shifted restlessly, disliking the whole conversation. It was almost like going outside, that feeling of control sliding away from her. But István didn’t let up.

“Does Saloman know you carry his blood through Maximilian?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure he guesses.”

He frowned again. “But this doesn’t explain how you magnify enchantments.”

“
If
I do,” she retorted. “Maybe I carry the Ancient gene, like Elizabeth, like Robbie.”

“Maybe,” he allowed, nodding. “Angyalka… Was Angyalka always your name?”

“In powerless life and mighty undeath,” she mocked, “the name was always the same.”

“But until you met Aranyi and Maximilian, you’d never encountered the supernatural, no enchantments of any kind.” He sat forward in excitement. “Maximilian, a strong vampire carrying the blood of Saloman himself, finished your turning, gave you enchantments which repeated your name, magnifying his own considerable power in your person. It
is
in the name, in the word ‘angel.’”

She’d never discussed her strength or the reasons for it with Maximilian. Vaguely, she’d been aware that he was pleased with her progress, but in those early, heady days of her undeath she’d been too enamored of her new existence to question the origin of her power or even compare it to anyone else’s. Even now, she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to be special; she wanted what she’d always wanted, to run her bar and be treated with respect. Not be dissected and analyzed.

Without warning, something fell into place in her brain, illuminating and shattering.

She leapt to her feet. “Experiment on Robbie,” she spat. “If you can get past Maximilian and Mihaela.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” He rose with her, facing her. “Experimenting on you?”

“Aren’t you?” she retorted. “Gadgets, angels, magic kisses, and sex under the stars… I can’t say it hasn’t been fun, István, but it’s getting old now, so bugger off and let me digest my meal in peace.”

For a moment, he stood quite still, a stunned expression on his face. “Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly.

Her hand itched to hit him, to throw him across the room and
hurt
him in retaliation for her own stupidity. Hadn’t it always been about the balance of power between them? Each trying to obtain information from the other that might give them the edge. When had it stopped being that for her? When he’d held her captive in her own bed for the best sex she could remember? When he’d given her the night and his blood and she’d mistaken his motivation for trust, for feeling?

“I look for knowledge wherever I can find it,” he said slowly. His eyes began to clear and soften. “God knows you’re fascinating on any level. And I’m not used to separating my professional and personal lives. They’re one and the same thing. I’m a hunter. All my friends are hunters too.”

“Like the two women who were here tonight?” she sneered.

It didn’t have the expected effect. He began to smile. His eyes glinted, suddenly predatory. “Are you jealous?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! I can’t—”

She broke off as he grabbed her with one arm, hauling her against his hips, and crushed her mouth under his. Sheer surprise parted her lips, and after that, the sweet surge of lust carried her beyond the point of throwing him off.

“Angyalka,” he muttered into her mouth. “Angyalka, I don’t care how it began. I don’t even know anymore. Everything about you fascinates me, every encounter drags me deeper. I want you. I want everything. If I ever knew why, I don’t anymore…”

It seemed that now he’d started, the quiet man couldn’t stop talking. She interrupted him. “Shut up. You can’t talk and kiss at the same time.”

His lips smiled against hers, and she nipped them. “Yes, I can,” he said.

“Try now,” she invited, and, throwing her arms around his neck, she fastened her mouth firmly to his and kissed him with deep, aching sensuality. His erection grew and hardened against her abdomen. His hand tangled in her hair, stroked her head, and held it steady. His arm tightened, lifting her, and as she realized he was laying her on the floor, she hung on without breaking the kiss, dragging him down onto her, wrapping her legs around his waist. He began to move on her as if they were naked, as if he were inside her already, thrusting against her with slow, even strokes.

Since her dress was round her waist, it was easy enough for her to tear the thong to give him easier access, but he kept moving and she kept answering until orgasm hovered. With a little animalistic cry, she pushed his chest up without releasing his mouth. He raised his body, letting her unfasten his jeans and shove them over his hips. He pushed them the rest of the way down, then slid right inside her, so big and hot and wonderful that she began to come.

He kept his strokes slow and even, building the climax and holding her there, kissing her trembling mouth as she convulsed around him in a thousand joyous pieces.

When she could control her body again, she rolled on top of him, breaking the kiss at last and sitting straight to feel him deeper within her. She smiled and rode him hard and fast to his own climax. The feel of his hot seed shooting into her threw her over the edge again.

Abruptly, he sat up, facing her, still moving and she cried out at the added intensity. He pulled her dress off, over her head. She ripped his shirt in an explosion of scattered buttons and fixed her mouth to his warm, velvet chest. Still undulating together, one loving turned into another, long and slow, changing, oh, so gradually, with every stroke and caress and twist, into wild and frenetic.

“You have staying power for a human,” she murmured as she lay back contentedly in his arms. The carpet felt rough under her skin, but she didn’t care.

István said, “I never seem to get enough of you. I could make love to you all night.”

“Now there’s a thought.” She ran her fingers over his chest and laid her palm flat over his galloping heart. He smiled, stroking her hair. And she returned to her last pre-sex thought. “So who are they if they’re not your friends? Andrea and Lara?”

His hand stilled. “I met them at Mihaela’s party. Turns out I went to school with Lara. We weren’t friends then, and she certainly doesn’t like me now. Andrea does, though.” He frowned. “That was the odd thing: they said my friend told them about this place. I never got around to asking them who that friend was, or what they were told, but I can’t imagine Mihaela sending them here for any reason.”

Angyalka raised herself on her elbow, then propped her chin on his chest. “Firstly, Lara does like you. She doesn’t want to, but the attraction is certainly there. I could smell it. Secondly, in my brief glimpse into her mind, Andrea had rather wild suspicions about me sucking people’s blood—along with a sizeable dose of hatred and an instinct to exterminate. But when I unraveled the compulsion, she was completely ashamed of such ‘fantasy.’ She considers herself an intelligent and civilized woman. So whatever your friend told them, it wasn’t the truth.”

István frowned. “So they had two totally separate reasons for coming here?” He lifted one hand from her hip to shove his hair back off his face. “That’s so unlikely as to be bizarre.”

“There are too many bizarre happenings right now for my liking. Something is going on. Your colleague put a vampire up to bombing the Angel. Humans are attacking vampires because of an enchanted picture in my shop. Foreign vampires are here. Digging for information for unknown purposes.”

“Foreign vampires? Like my American burglar? He said he was working with others.”

Angyalka paused in the act of kissing his nipple and raised her head. “If he’s who I think he is, then yes, at least one of his companions is American. What did he look like?”

“Young, medium height. Dark hair. Ordinary. Spoke English with a definite American accent.”

“Yes, sounds like the one who’s been snooping around here.”

“Getting involved with local malcontents, or stirring it up?”

“I don’t really know. It’s the other one, the older one, who scares me. Wait…”
Igor,
she called telepathically.

There was a pause, then came a very surprised,
Angyalka?

Igor was one of the most open, best-natured vampires she knew. She could make that work for her rather than against her.

Sorry. Help me out here, Igor,
she suggested, appealing to his pride in his local knowledge.
Who are your new American friends you were with here the last couple of nights?

Jacob and Gabby,
Igor replied with alacrity.
They hang around with Gabby’s creator, Basilio
—
strong vampire based in Mexico.

What brings them here?

A mental shrug reached her.
Curiosity, I suppose. They’re
very
curious.

Yes, they are,
she agreed.
Just curious? Or unhappy?

Seem pretty happy to me.

She passed this on to István, watched him commit the names to memory. The hunter network would be buzzing tomorrow in search of information on these characters. It might even help.

She felt her lips stretch into an involuntary smile. “I believe we’re working together, hunter.”

István smiled back, and his gaze seemed to melt her bones. “I believe we’re doing quite a lot of things together just recently.” His arms tightened, and he shifted, pushing her under him so that he could look down into her face. “I like all of them.”

She touched his throat, where her puncture wounds had almost vanished, then kissed it, sweeping her tongue over the injured skin to complete the healing. He shivered. Against her leg, he began to harden once more.

She whispered, “I never thought you would say that to me and mean it.”

“I never thought you would care.”

“What are we admitting to here, István?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Not yet,” she said and kissed him.

When it ended, he murmured her name and sank back into her mouth for another. Enchanting as this was, she had more to say, so after a few moments, she pulled back reluctantly.

“Before you get all hot and sweaty again, there’s something else. Igor—the vampire who almost died in the bombing—told the foreigners about Elizabeth’s pregnancy. I think all the vampires she healed that night must have felt it. Word is out now.”

He blinked, as if forcing his sex-befuddled mind to focus. Angyalka liked that idea, though she wasn’t so keen when he suddenly sat up, pushing his hair out of his face with one hand while he reached for his jeans with the other.

“I have to warn Elizabeth,” he muttered, dragging his phone out of the pocket.

“István, she knows. I told Saloman earlier this evening. He’s probably curtailing this leg of his world-domination tour as we speak.”

István stared at his phone, unmoving, and Angyalka suddenly remembered the first time she’d seen him, charging to the rescue of Elizabeth, the bait in the trap the hunters had so foolishly set for Saloman. For one unguarded instant, his face had been anguished.

“What is the Awakener to you?” she asked and immediately wished the words unsaid. She wasn’t used to jealousy and didn’t like the way it made her feel and react.

“She’s my friend,” István said. “I owe her my life and my body’s recovery.”

She wanted to leave it there, shrug, and move on. It was nothing to her, and Elizabeth was Saloman’s. But she couldn’t look away from István’s stern face. Without warning, his frown smoothed and his expression softened. A rueful smile tugged at his lips as he dropped the phone back into his jeans pocket.

“If you want the truth,” he said, “I once wanted her to be more than that. I thought I was in love with her.”

Love. Human love. Elizabeth and István would have been so much more right for each other… It shouldn’t hurt like this.