Darkness Rises

Page 34

Breath catching, she rose onto her toes and slid her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts to his chest, her hips to his arousal.
He swore silently when she tore her lips from his.
“I want you, too,” she admitted.
He groaned and kissed her again, teasing her lips apart and sliding his tongue within to stroke and dance with hers.
“Whoa!” Cam blurted.
Etienne had been so distracted, he hadn’t even heard his Second approach.
“Ah, hell,” Sean said. “I knew it! I knew she was falling for him!”
Krysta dropped onto her heels, her lips abruptly leaving his.
He tightened his hold momentarily before letting her go with a sigh.
Cam stared at him as Krysta took a couple of steps back and sheepishly met her brother’s unsettled gaze.
“What?” Etienne demanded irritably.
“Nothing,” Cam responded. “Just . . . I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Krysta frowned. “We were just kissing. It’s not like you walked in on us having sex.”
Etienne fought back another groan. Don’t put that image in my head. I’ll be hard all night.
She tossed him a startled look, then grinned. Nice.
He shook his head. Not when we’re fighting vampires, it isn’t.
She laughed.
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Cam told Krysta, pointing at Etienne. “Kissing is big for this guy. He hasn’t been on a single date since I started serving as his Second.”
“Really? How long have you been his Second?”
“About as long as you’ve been hunting vampires.”
She winked at Etienne. “Cool.”
Damned if that didn’t make him want her even more.
Shaking his head, he motioned for the door. “Let’s get out of here before I do something that will embarrass you in front of your brother.”
Sean held up a hand, alarm crossing his features. “Wait. You’re just going hunting, right?”
Krysta rolled her eyes. “No, we’re going to park in Lovers’ Lane and spend the next several hours making out. Of course, we’re going hunting.” She headed past the duo and out into the hallway.
Cam raised his eyebrows as Etienne approached. “You have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be here if you need us.”
Etienne followed Krysta down the hallway and out the front door. “Relax,” he heard Cam say inside. “Etienne is a good guy. You can trust him.”
Cam was a good guy, too. Steady. Somber. Reliable. (Unlike Sheldon, who was still learning and could be a handful.)
Etienne’s last Second had been killed in a car accident. Etienne hadn’t been able to believe it at the time. The man had survived twenty-five years of backing up an immortal who hunted vampires for a living, then had died because some dumbass had been too busy texting to stop for a red light.
“So,” Krysta said, skipping down the front steps, “how are we going to do this? Do you pick the campus we investigate or do I and how will we get there?”
“I thought I would pick the place—I’m thinking Duke again—and drive us there.”
“Duke sounds great and, for some reason, you driving a car seems weird.”
He laughed and led the way to the Tesla Model S Cam had backed out of the garage for him while he and Krysta were in the armory. “Why? Because I can run as fast as one?”
“Yes. And that is totally cool.”
It really was.
“Speaking of cool,” she said, admiring the shiny black sedan, “this is nice. Very sleek.”
“Thank you. It’s electric.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Are you serious? I thought all electric cars looked like a toddler’s shoe. This . . . looks like money.”
He opened the passenger door for her. “I like it, too. There are zero emissions, so my sensitive nose gets a break from exhaust fumes, and I can go up to three hundred miles on a charge.”
“Daaaaaamn. I—and my bank account—really need one of these. The price of gas has been kicking my ass.”
He smiled down at her as she sank into the comfortable seat and fastened her seat belt. “You’ll get one if you come to work for us. Every job working for the Immortal Guardians comes with a low or no emission, fuel efficient car of your choice.”
“No way!”
He nodded. “Sean will get one, too.”
“Wait. We’ll each have our own car?”
“Absolutely.” He closed the door, zipped around to the driver’s side, and sank into the seat Cam had pushed all the way back from the steering wheel.
The engine started as he buckled his seat belt.
Krysta’s eyes widened, then fastened on the touch screen.
Hell, if a cool car would entice her to join them, he’d see that she got two of them. He really didn’t want her to continue hunting. She was mortal. Vulnerable. Fragile. It was only a matter of time before tragedy struck.
And he didn’t want to think about that.
Krysta strolled through Duke’s campus, Etienne at her side. Her mind raced with everything she had learned earlier. Her heart raced at his nearness.
Oddly, it almost felt as if they were out on a date.
Maybe he was just naturally gallant, opening the car door for her, often guiding her with a hand on her lower back. Even his speech sometimes seemed old worldish.
He was from another era.
“This is so weird,” she said.
“What is?” he asked, his sharp eyes searching every shadow.
He had said he loved strong women. Well, apparently she adored strong men, because in his warrior mode he was breath-stealingly, heart-racingly appealing.
Tearing her gaze away from her gorgeous companion, Krysta kept an eye out for glowing orange auras. “Me walking and talking with a man born in the nineteenth century.”
“Actually, I was born in the eighteenth century. Seventeen eighty three, to be exact.”
Unreal. She was lusting after a man born over two hundred years before she had been born. “So, you lived through the French Revolution?”
He nodded. “The Reign of Terror.”
Honestly she had forgotten almost everything she had learned about the French Revolution and knew only the dates (roundabout) and that thousands had died under the guillotine. She wanted to ask if he had lost anyone to Madame Guillotine, but thought it too morbid. “That must have been . . .”
“Bad,” he said, his face clouding.
She shouldn’t have said anything.
Then she realized . . . “You lived during Napoleon’s reign?”
He nodded. Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he smiled faintly. “Your mouth is hanging open again.”
“I’ll bet it is.” This was so crazy. “Was Napoleon really short like everyone says?”
“Oui.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Not many. I’m fluent in half a dozen or so and know a phrase here or there in half a dozen more.”
“That many?”
“Older immortals know far more. Seth knows them all. David, too, most likely.”
“All?”
“Even those that have long since been forgotten.”
Krysta wished she were fluent in more than one language. She had learned Spanish in high school, but had forgotten most of it. And her college career had been cut short by a vampire attack and her resulting obsession with hunting vamps.
“Say something else in French,” she requested.
A series of lilting indecipherable words flowed smoothly from his tongue.
“What did you say?” she asked curiously.
“Something I can’t repeat without you either blushing furiously or striking me.”
“Was it naughty?” she asked with a smile.
His smile turned wicked. “Very naughty.”
Now she really wanted to know what he had said.
“Does it trouble you?” he asked hesitantly.
“What? You talking dirty to me in French?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “No, that I’ve lived so long.”
“No.” And she wasn’t sure why. “Maybe because you don’t look your age.”
He grimaced. “I should hope not.”
Quiet fell.
A breeze ruffled their hair. His, she knew from burying her fingers in it, was thick and as soft as silk.
“This isn’t working,” he pronounced.
Crap. She shouldn’t have brought up his age. “Why? Is it because you think I’m too young for you?”
“What?” He stopped walking and faced her. “No. I was talking about our . . . outing.” Hunt, he added in her head, in case someone out of sight was listening.
“Oh. Right.”
“You aren’t too young for me.”
“Of course I’m not.”
He frowned. “Do you think you’re too young for me?”
“No.”
“We’re both adults.”
“Yes, we are.”
“There will be cultural differences, of course.”
“Could make things more interesting.”
He looked around, eyes sharp. Returning his attention to her, he tilted his head to one side. Moonlight filtered down through the trees and highlighted his handsome face. “What do you say we do this your way?”
Krysta wasn’t sure how to answer that. Were they talking about pursuing their attraction to each other or hunting? Or both? “What exactly are we talking about?” she asked, just to be sure.
His lips twitched. “I was talking about our outing. Why? What were you talking about?”
Smiling, she hit him in the shoulder. “Stop teasing me.”
He grinned. “Absolutely not. I’m enjoying it too much.” Again, he surveyed the campus around them. “As much as I love your delightful company, I think I should leave now. I’ve work to do and the night is passing quickly.”