The Sweet Scent of Blood

He stayed silent, unmoving. What was he waiting for? Then the knowledge slipped into me. He didn’t want to take, he didn’t want passive acceptance, he wanted me to offer.

The feeling was curious, tantalising, seductive.

My pulse jumping under my skin, I arched my back, lifted my chin and gave him my throat. Something flickered in his eyes for an instant, then his expression changed, turning dark, predatory, and somehow more desolate. A tremor shivered through me. His hands closed painfully round my wrists as he bent his head and placed his lips to my pulse. I tensed, anticipating the pain. And the pleasure.

Then, too fast for me to even register, he was gone.

I lay there, limp, gazing up at the amber crystals hanging from my ceiling. Other than my own shuddering breaths, the room was silent.

But I could still hear his voice in my head as he spoke his message for Rosa.

An odd quiver of fear chased the lust and magic from my body.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Daylight woke me as a heat-laden breeze drifted through the window and ruffled the white sheet across my bed. The sky was clear and blue, and I wondered why there were no clouds. There’d been clouds in my dreams: black clouds filled with the echoes of Malik’s words. Clouds that flowed down my throat and froze me into a solid block of ice that slowly melted, leaving me drowning in a sea of blood. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, pressing a hand to my stomach to try and dispel the fear twisting there.

Just dreams, that’s all. Nothing more. Just my subconscious processing what had happened.

My bronze jacket, black skirt and even my torn briefs were neatly folded on the chair. I frowned at the small pile. Beneath the chair, my shoes sat side by side, clean. Malik had folded my clothes and polished my shoes. Something about that didn’t fit. I opened the wardrobe to put them away and caught my reflection in the mirror. For a moment I stared.

The honey colour of my skin glowed with a warm sheen, my eyes sparkled like polished amber, and my flesh had smoothed out over the angles of my bones. I looked so good I could sell vitamins, never mind that I was healed. If that’s what drinking a vampire’s blood could do, no wonder they were subtly billing themselves as the new elixir of life and beauty. The only thing marring my new healthy perfection was my breasts. They felt fuller, perkier—but that wasn’t the problem. The revenants had made a meal of me, and the evidence was still there.

I touched a fingertip to one fang mark, just above my right nipple. Why hadn’t they disappeared along with the rest of my injuries? Then I checked out my left arm. Sweat broke out on my skin. The bruises Malik had marked me with still encircled my wrist, faint but definitely there. A wave of dizziness made me sway. The mound at the base of my thumb was smooth and bite-free. My stomach clenched with nausea and I sprinted for the bathroom and retched into the toilet.

What was the message Malik had given me for Rosa? He’d spoken in a foreign language and I didn’t speak anything other than English. But I didn’t need to get it translated: I’d understood him, and I didn’t even want to think how that could happen.

For my love of Rosa, tell her I will strike the head from her body, rip the heart from her breast and sear her flesh until her bones are nothing more than ashes.

I heaved again, but there was nothing left inside me.

Jerking the shower on, I turned the heat up high and stood under the burning stream. I braced my hands against the tile, letting it scald down my back. Malik wasn’t the only one who wanted to kill me. There was last night’s little ambush to think about. I doubted Alan Hinkley had been in on the plan—he was probably nothing more than a mind-locked patsy—but I still had questions for him, once I got my phone back from the Blue Heart.

I grabbed a towel and briskly rubbed myself dry, then ran a comb through my hair; it would dry quickly enough in the heat. I scowled at the bites on my breasts. The scabs had washed away, leaving little pink holes.

Who had sent the two revenants after me? A vampire, obviously; but they’d have needed a witch to cast the stun-spell and attach it to the garden railings. And Malik had said he’d been hit over the head by a fae. Well, that combination wasn’t such a common one—in fact, the only vamp/witch/fae combo I could think of was at the Bloody Shamrock—but why would Declan want to kill me, a sidhe? There was no reason I could think of, at least none that fitted the larger picture in my mind.

But I was betting a certain cluricaun called Mick would be able to fill in some of the details that my picture was missing. And then there was the update I had for Declan about Melissa’s death—getting Mick to deliver the message was a much safer proposition than delivering it to him myself after dark.

Next stop the Bloody Shamrock.

As I stared thoughtfully at my reflection, blood seeped from the fang mark just above my nipple and ran down in a watery pink drop. Crap. I scoured the towel furiously over my chest, chucked it on the floor and yanked open the bathroom door.

I had a visitor.

Fi

I grabbed the towel and wrapped it round me. ‘Just exactly how did you get in, Fi

‘You’ve got no wards, Gen.’ He turned, his gaze flicking over me then settling on my face. ‘And the lock wouldn’t keep out most humans—’

‘Forget it,’ Angrily, I waved away his explanation and headed for the bedroom. ‘It’s my day off. I’ve got plans, and I’m sure whatever you want can’t be that urgent .You can just let yourself back out.’ I banged the door shut behind me.

I yanked on a pair of briefs, then delved inside my wardrobe, pulled out a pair of jeans and tugged them on. What the hell did Fi

‘I came round to see you last night, Gen.’ Fi

And damn Toni, with her stupid bet! What was she trying to do, play matchmaker? Why couldn’t she just worry about her own love life, instead of trying to organise mine? I grabbed a green strappy vest and jerked it over my head.

Fi

My anger started to subside and I briefly touched my cheek, then shivered as I remembered Malik doing the same thing in the taxi. One of the gremlins had thrown a spa

‘But you weren’t in,’ Fi

Please don’t be nice, Fi