Hunting Karoly Read online

  For a second, a frown puckered his smooth, pale brow. Then, to my amazement, a definite glint of amusement sparked in his inhumanly cold eyes. They shifted to my throat. “Thank you for taking the trouble to answer me. Do you eat your vegetables?”

  I didn’t doubt his meaning. Besides, he started to walk toward me again, so I backed away from him, desperately cudgeling my numb brain for the correct defense against a vampire. But if anyone had told me such useful information in any of the training sessions I had snoozed through over the last four months, it had already got lost in among my treasured lore from Dracula and Anne Rice.

  Stumbling backward into a table, I knocked over a lamp. The vampire leapt forward so fast that he actually blurred before my eyes. I tried to scream, though only a pathetic squeak actually broke from my terrified lips. But the vampire didn’t attack me. He caught the lamp before it smashed on the floor. Then, coming back into ordinary focus, he carefully set it back on the table, his beautiful, lean body bending over mine to do so. His kilt swished coarsely against my thinly covered thigh, the sleeve of his shirt brushed my bare arm. My entire body froze with fear and something else I couldn’t name.

  He straightened slowly. No warmth, none at all, radiated from his flesh. His gaze traveled from my hips up over my waist and breast to my neck, where it lingered before moving on to my lips and finally, my eyes. A strange, flickering gold danced among the pale green of his, a faint, clearly predatory smile on his lips. If cats could smile, I thought, they’d do so exactly like that while playing with the mice they were about to consume.

  Weirdly enough, my other thoughts were to do with the awful pink dress I wore. Maggie’s mum had chosen it for me. It wasn’t cheap, but it was a typical bridesmaid’s dress, full of flounces and frills, and it did nothing for me. It reflected the bride’s mother’s taste, not mine, and for some reason it seemed important to explain this to the vampire before he drank my blood. I even opened my mouth to say God knows what when, mercifully, the undead spoke again.

  “Well? What do you eat, little vampire hunter?”

  Vampire hunter? Who did he think I was? Buffy? Right now I would have given much for just one of the Slayer’s powerful kicks. Even the ability to shuffle one foot would have been good. Still, at least I managed to gather my wildly confused wits enough to demand, “Did you hurt Maggie?”

  “Who is Maggie?” he asked without much interest. His gaze had fallen to my throat again. One thin, pale hand lifted, two long, finely tapering fingers brushed the skin of my neck. I gasped. Though neither warm nor cold, they didn’t feel remotely neutral. Electricity sparked, tingling through me, and more worrying than anything, it wasn’t even unpleasant. The opposite, in fact.

  “The bride!” I gasped. “She just left.”

  “Poultry and cheap red wine,” he said disparagingly, without looking up from my neck. His fingers stroked my skin and those sparks were getting worse, shooting right through my whole body, creating some half-understood but overwhelming desire that was only mostly to do with sex.

  “You did bite her!” I accused, trying to distract him before I became totally lost in what he was doing to my throat.

  “Of course I did,” he chided. “I’m a vampire.”

  His fingers slid around to the back of my neck and closed. I gasped again, involuntarily twisting my head. I prayed he would mistake my reaction for fear, but the truth was his touch gave me some fearful pleasure I had never encountered before, triggering new desires that were almost scarier than him.

  Suddenly, every inch of me was aware of his tall, strong body. Backed into the table as I was, I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried and now I didn’t want to. I wanted him to touch me more. And the knowledge that it was wicked and forbidden and dangerous only added to the excitement. He hadn’t killed Maggie or Davie, after all, and he must have known that even if I recognized him for what he was, I was no threat. I wondered, with trembling anticipation, what his bite would feel like.

  His fingers caressed the back of my neck. Without warning, his body came to rest against mine. This time there was warmth—or perhaps it was just my own flushed body heating his—and something hard, his sporran, pushed sweetly against my crotch. I realized I was moist down there, growing wetter and hotter by the instant. A sound like a moan escaped my lips. My nipples felt painfully tight and hard against his chest and I wished very badly that I’d been laid in the last few months so that I didn’t disintegrate so quickly into this gibbering glob of desire for someone—something—so evil that even I had felt it across a crowded room.

  But the truth was, I wished vampires fucked and I wished very badly that this one would fuck me quickly, here and now.

  Involuntarily, my hips pressed forward into his and I saw him smile as he bent his head. Something flashed in his eyes just as they passed out of my view. His fingers gripped my nape more firmly, his other arm suddenly swept around my back to hold me to him and I closed my eyes, letting the wild sensations of pleasure and desire wash over me, fill me.

  I felt his lips on my neck, silky smooth. My head fell back against his arm, my mouth opened with a soundless cry of want and anticipation. My hands clutched his biceps, clinging to the hard, muscled flesh for support. His lips felt so good, teasing, sensuously sucking, that I wanted them everywhere on me. His tongue flickered across my skin, tasting, and it was so wonderful, sending such delicious shivers of pleasure through my whole body that I would happily have died just to feel it again. But I wanted more, I wanted his teeth, which I would surely feel any moment. I wondered if it would hurt, what sort of weird, perverse joy it would give my suddenly depraved body…

  But his lips were still. I could hear my heart pounding. My fingers gripped convulsively on his arms, waiting. But he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he lifted his head. His eyes were so dark they looked black, almost opaque save for those flashing flecks of gold as they stared down into mine. Bewildered, stupid with unsatisfied hunger, I stared back.

  He said, “Do you know, I drank from a homeless man when I first came here and I was out cold for three nights?”

  I drew in my breath, hearing it shudder.

  “What is it with me?” I demanded. “Why do men only want to talk?”

  Unmistakable laughter flickered in his beautiful face, lightening his stunning green eyes, curving his smooth, sculpted lips. And at last the humiliation—not just at his rejection but at my pathetically easy surrender—jerked me into action.

  Letting go of his arms, I balled my hands into fists and pushed violently against his chest. Nothing happened. He might have been a tank or a stone wall for all the impression I made. So I tried instead to push back the table behind me with my bum, using his chest as leverage. The table rocked and I heard the clank of glasses knocking together before he did the blur thing again and grabbed whatever I was knocking down. He did it, however, without letting me go, so when I could see him once more, I was icily sarcastic.

  “For a vampire who drinks the guests’ blood, you’re very careful of the hotel’s property!”

  “I don’t want to attract attention.”

  “That’ll be the reason for the Bonnie Prince Charlie outfit and the ‘children of the night’ accent.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he said tranquilly. The hand not holding me was busy doing something behind me. I heard the sound of liquid splashing on to glass. “Besides,” he added, straightening and presenting me with a glass of red wine, “if we’re offering criticism, you are singularly inept for a vampire hunter.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, snatching the glass from his fingers with the vague idea of dashing the contents in his face. “They’ll love this down at the Centre!”

  His hand released me. Casually, he reached behind me again, his nearness causing a fresh stab of desire to slice through my stomach. He came back into view with another glass half full of the same ruby liquid. Unless it was blood.

  He said, “There is a Centre for vampire hun
ters now?”

  I took a hefty swig from my glass. The remaining contents would still make a fine mess of his pristine white shirt. “For psychics of all kinds, people with ESP who can fight evil spirits.”

  His eyes mocked me over the rim of the glass. “That’s what you do?”

  “No. It’s what they do while I’m setting fire to my hair.”

  His lips twitched. “So that’s what happened to it?” Unexpectedly, his free hand ruffled through my short spikes as if I were a Labrador. “I thought it was a little martial for bridesmaids’ fashions.”

  “Yes, yes,” I snapped, “and it doesn’t go with this stupid dress either!”

  “Oh I don’t know. I like it. It makes you look like a street urchin dressing up in someone else’s posh clothes.”

  “And that’s good how?”

  “I don’t know if it’s good at all,” he said, elegantly sipping his wine, “but it’s certainly sexy.”

  I blinked in astonishment. “Sexy? What do vampires know about sex?”

  His smile took my breath away. For an instant, his amazing eyes went dark again, drinking me in, swallowing me.

  “Everything.”

  Heat flooded my body. My pussy was so wet the moisture began to trickle down my legs. I had a brief, insane vision of him licking it clean. What was the matter with me? I could sense his evil, so why did he affect me this way? Just because he looked as he did? As if he knew precisely what he was doing to me, he smiled, moving away to sit on the sofa facing me, one arm casually along its back. The kilt, of some muted blue and yellow tartan, dipped between his powerful-looking knees. My gaze, inevitably, came to rest at his crotch, where I made a discovery.

  “You’re not wearing a sporran!” I exclaimed. So what in God’s name had I felt digging into me? “Oh…!”

  He smiled again. I took a huge gulp of wine, then another before I asked blatantly, “How do vampires get erections when they have no blood?”

  “Of course we have blood—it’s just not our own.”

  I shut my mouth. Against my better judgment, I crossed the room and sat down beside him. I needed to sit somewhere before my knees gave out. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

  “Why, what do vampire hunters usually talk about?”

  “I’m not a vampire hunter,” I said impatiently. “I’ve never even seen a vampire in my life, apart from you. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I was never the one doing the hunting!”

  “But you’re still here.”

  I frowned. “Why am I still here?”

  By way of answering, he lifted the wine bottle.

  I sighed and held out my glass. “You think I’m a total wino. You think if you drink my blood you’ll pass out for three nights.”

  “I’d certainly get a little tipsy.”

  “I’m not tipsy,” I confessed. “I’m completely rat-arsed.”

  Glancing at him to see the effect of this admission, I saw the gold lights dancing in his eyes. Was he laughing at me again?

  He said, “That’s another thing about this city. I speak seven languages fluently, including English, yet I understand only one word in five of anything that your people say to me. What the hell is ‘rat-arsed’?”

  “Drunk,” I said. “Extremely drunk. Like Eskimos have lots of words for snow, Glaswegians have a thousand for drunk. Fu’, maroculous, arse-holed, stocious, pissed, steamboats…”

  “Steamboats?”

  “Don’t ask. And don’t mock. This is a fine city.” I sniffed, growing maudlin. “Oh it has its problems, sure, but there’s nowhere better…”

  He blinked at me. “Are you encouraging me to stay in your fair city, vampire hunter?”

  “Why should I care?” I muttered into my glass. “I won’t be here.”

  “You will be at your Centre, fighting spirits?”

  “Or not,” I said darkly.

  “How did you set fire to your hair?”

  By the time I’d explained that, both of our glasses were empty and he was laughing quietly. More surprisingly, perhaps, so was I, realizing for the first time that it was a funny story more than a personal tragedy.

  Reaching across him for the bottle, I hiccupped. “All right, Charlie,” I said, splashing the last of the wine into the two glasses more or less equally, “What’s your story? What’s with the accent?”

  “I do not have an accent,” he said with dignity. “My English is perfect.”

  “Leesten to heem,” I mocked, “creature of the night…!”

  “It’s been a long time since I tasted a vampire hunter,” he said conversationally.

  I hooted derisively into my wineglass. “You won’t touch me—I’m too pissed for your refined taste buds.”

  “Are you sure about that?” His deep, suddenly soft voice caused my stomach to lurch. I glanced up to find his darkened eyes on my lips. Worse, his hand resting on the sofa back moved and grasped my hair. Not that there was much for him to get hold of, but he managed to pinch enough of it between his strong, cool fingers to tug my head back.

  His touch on my scalp was electrifying. Terror and lust seemed to have become the same thing, especially when his mesmerizing gaze dropped to my exposed jugular.

  “A word to the wise, little vampire hunter,” he whispered. “Never bank on it.”

  His other hand, still holding the wineglass, came up. Two of his fingers uncurled from the stem and he brushed his knuckles across my neck. I shivered. “Besides, although you have a delectable throat, there are other ways to taste.”

  His long, pale fingers trailed down the length of my throat and lingered over the hammering pulse at the base of my neck. His lips curved, very slightly but enough to reveal the points of his lethal fangs.

  Oh Jesus.

  Those devastating fingers moved on, tracing a line down the center of my chest to my cleavage, where they parted so that each could brush the naked curve of a breast. His gaze lifted to mine, to see, perhaps, if the heaving of my breasts was due to desire or fear. Then he slid both fingers down between my breasts.

  I gasped and he smiled, slowly withdrawing his fingers so that both knuckles and fingertips grazed my skin. The effect was more arousing than most sex I’d ever had, but my erratic—all right, my pissed—mind was distracted by other matters.

  “How do you do that without spilling any wine?”

  The laughter I’d become so attached to sprang back into his eyes. He released my head and drew back a little.

  “Practice,” he answered. “And sobriety.”

  “Sobriety?” I hooted. “After drinking half a bottle of wine? To say nothing of Maggie and Davie.”

  Somewhere, in the tiny part of me still remotely attached to reality, I couldn’t believe I was being quite so blasé about all this. Several unreadable expressions flitted across his pale, beautiful face. None of them detracted from the drunken companionship I felt for him by now, particularly as his hypnotic green eyes as well as his lips were still smiling at me. I was very aware of his arm still resting along the sofa top, just touching the back of my head.

  “You were telling me,” I reminded him, “about the accent.”

  He said, “I was born a Magyar, in what is now Romania.”

  Grinning, I said, “Transylvania?”

  “If you say so. I am traveling for my health.”

  I stared at him. “You’re taking the piss.”

  “Mental health,” he corrected. “In a word, I was bored. I arrived here a week ago.”

  “And the Prince Charlie stuff?”

  His lips twitched. “While I was out cold…”

  “After biting the wino?”

  “Exactly. He stole my clothes.”

  Breathless with suppressed laughter, I gasped out, “Oh dear…”

  “This was outside the back door of Kelvingrove museum. I lay naked under a carpet undisturbed for two nights. On the third, I followed the night guard inside and stole this.”

  I frowned. “Why didn’
t you just steal the guard’s clothes? They’d have been less conspicuous!”

  He shrugged. “I liked this better. Anyhow, no one questions me. I come here every night. Someone is always getting married, so I blend in with the wedding parties, although on the whole it is safer to drink from the staff. I limit my intake from the guests.”

  Involuntarily, I glanced over at Davie, still sleeping like a baby in the corner. “Do you never kill anyone?”

  “Of course I do. I’m a vampire.”

  Uncertainly, my eyes came back to him. He didn’t look sad or ashamed. He didn’t look proud or scary either. He simply stated a fact.

  “If I’d ever believed vampires really existed,” I said, “I’d never have believed in one like you. And I can buy into every kind of vampire you like—the aloof and evil kind, the savage animal kind and the vampire with a soul kind. I’ve been in love with Anne Rice’s Louis since I was fourteen! But you’re just weird.”

  To some, my words might have sounded like a criticism, a statement of disappointment. He actually seemed flattered. I saw a definite softening in his cold eyes and the skin around them actually crinkled as he smiled. Fascinated, I watched the smile die and the skin smooth out almost as pristine as a child’s once more.

  For some reason, my breath caught. I felt his touch, featherlight on my cheek. His head bent nearer mine and I saw his lips part. My heart began to drum because he was finally going to kiss me. The butterflies in my stomach went wild with anticipation. Then the door of the conservatory crashed open, letting in a sudden wave of noisy laughter and music. The overhead light blazed, blinding me, and Nick’s voice called out, “Oi, Jenny! Davie! Are you in here? Maggie and Jack are leaving!”

  I blinked to clear my vision and a frisson of renewed fear rushed up from my toes. Though close enough to kiss, the vampire’s presence had changed suddenly—or perhaps I’d just woken up to the fact that his idea of drinking companion wasn’t mine. His cold, hard eyes gazed beyond me, presumably at Nick, as if assessing his next meal.

  With a sickening jolt I realized my pleasant private party was about to turn nasty and that the only possible winner of the fight to come was the vampire.