Deep Kiss of Winter (11 page)

That little witch . . .

“I understand you had a reputation for being popular with women,” Kristoff said as he collected
Nikolai's bloody shirt from the table. “You'd better recognize that a Valkyrie is not exactly your typical woman.”

“Forbearer scum.”

“Ignorance is bliss, leech.”

“Go sun yourself.”

Being met with insults was the only way Murdoch and his men could determine that they'd even approached Lore beings in their search of the Quarter.

Hours ago, Murdoch had mapped out the rest of the city for the other Forbearers, and then they'd split up, each elder with two men under him. Murdoch had taken his old friend Rurik, an Estonian who'd served under him in the war, and they'd been stuck with Lukyan, the hotheaded Russian. Kristoff could insist that the former political alliances of his soldiers had been nullified by those of the Lore, but the wily king always put a Russian with Estonians, and vice versa.

Over the course of the night, Murdoch had grown better able to recognize the Lore beings—they seemed more adroit, more suspicious, and often more drunken than the humans—but he still didn't know what they
were
.

And not one of them would offer information. The females hadn't given him enough time to charm them. The males had looked ready to fight on sight.

The closest he'd gotten was with a scantily clad female who'd painted her skin with leaf designs. She'd at least given him a few moments to state his introduction and questions, not that she'd
listened
. She'd merely been ogling him while nodding dimly and murmuring, “Uh-huh, baby boy, you keep talking, Trixie's lis'ning.”

She'd kept this up until another female, dressed and painted like her, came charging between them to harangue the first one. “He's a
vampire
. You really are a ho-hum whoreslut of a nymph, aren't you?”

“No, you are!”

Then they'd lunged at each other, deep-kissing as they went tumbling to the ground.

All in all, the Forbearers had learned nothing about Ivo's whereabouts.

Now, as midnight neared, Rurik, Lukyan, and Murdoch stood on a balcony overlooking the crowd. The other two were arguing over various topics, while Murdoch was silent in thought, mired in unease over Daniela.

Of course, he knew
why
she'd played the prank on him. And he knew why it would be best if he never saw her again. So why did he feel this urgency to find her? He craved the sight of her, needed to have her scent fresh in his mind.

This eve, he'd seen pretty women, but he had
no interest in them. Though he knew so little about Daniela, the blooding made him think of her constantly.

It forced him to recall her vulnerability when she'd said she wanted to see him again. It made him remember with a disturbing tenderness the way she'd lifted her arms to him so trustingly.

As a mortal, he'd had a happy-go-lucky personality. Women had trusted him with their pleasure but little else. Yet Daniela had believed in
him
to remove the arrows in time to save her life.

Tomorrow night, he could go to Blachmount and ask Myst how to contact her sister. But then, Myst might refuse to divulge that information. If all else failed, he supposed he could try to find the Valkyrie coven, despite Daniela's warning that they'd kill him on sight.

Another source of his unease? He couldn't stop mulling over how the Wroth brothers had gone down in Lore history for their deeds, or misdeeds. After the continuous battles and hardships they'd all suffered, Nikolai had been remembered as the self-sacrificing general, and Murdoch had been classed as the man-whore?

He also suspected that this bothered him solely because that was how Daniela saw him—

“What say you, Murdoch?” Rurik asked.

“What? I didn't hear you.”

“We were speaking of Brides and Valkyries.”

Murdoch almost coughed. “Were you, then?”

Rurik's scarred face creased into a frown.
He can
tell something is going on with me—has known me for centuries.
Rurik had been one of five dying war compatriots who'd accepted that fateful deal Nikolai had brokered with Kristoff.

But cunning Kristoff knew that these men were loyal to Nikolai and Murdoch, and always would be. Demonstrating his shrewdness yet again, Kristoff had dispatched the other four—Kalev, Demyan, Markov, and Aleksander—in separate directions on the continent to search for the Daci, a rumored hidden enclave of natural-born vampires.

Rurik alone remained, and only because of his weakness: an uncontrollable temper when in conflict. Not the best trait for a potential ambassador.

“I heard at Mount Oblak that Nikolai's Bride was fine beyond words,” Lukyan said. He was a bold and skilled fighter—as a Don Cossack, Lukyan had been bred for war—but Murdoch didn't trust him. There was something off about him, even beyond the fact that he'd died on the other side of the same battlefield Murdoch had perished on. “You saw her. Is she that beautiful, then?”

“She is.”
But not more so than Daniela.

“I haven't really
looked
at a woman in so long.” Rurik's gaze fell to the street below. In his human life, he'd been a simple farmer, a gentle giant, until he'd gone into battle; then he would go berserk. He didn't wield a sword—he carried a war hammer.

Rurik's father had often liked to say that the men in their family were descended from berserkrs. After Rurik had been turned into a vampire and learned
this new world existed, he'd had to wonder,
literally descended from berserkrs?

“Wouldn't matter if you'd looked at women, you'd only see half of them,” Lukyan said with a smirk.

Rurik had the war wounds to show for his rages. He walked with a marked limp and was missing an eye under his rakish patch. Ignoring the Cossack's comment, he said, “Have females been showing this much skin the whole time?”

Murdoch understood his comrade's puzzlement. He himself had been disinterested in women to the point of oblivion. Until the Valkyrie.

“Christ, look at that one,” Rurik said in an awed tone. Murdoch remembered that even before he'd lost his eye, Rurik had been unlucky with women. He wondered if Rurik remembered that.

With a leer, Lukyan said, “Maybe she's the one who'll tempt me back to life.”

Pinpricks skittered along the back of Murdoch's neck as he turned to the object of their attention.

Daniela. Just there.

The gnawing ache he'd been experiencing redoubled at the sight of her.

She was strolling the street below them, her white-blond hair swaying about her shoulders with each of her graceful steps. She wore a wrap of black silk around her hips, with a thin swath of the material climbing up over one breast, around her neck, and down over the other.

Could she have revealed more of her perfect
flesh? Her back and arms were bare, as was a good bit of her chest and flat belly. The only jewelry adorning her were those exotic armbands. A satchel was slung over her shoulder.

Damn her, she was noticeably braless. And now he stood spellbound by how her high breasts bobbed as she nimbly wound through the crowd.

She seemed oblivious to the men she left ruined in her wake. They froze, gaping after her as if they loved her and would do anything for her.

When one male spoke to her and she smiled up at him, Murdoch's fangs sharpened. The blooding at work again?

He shook himself, disconcerted by the violent drives racking him.
Get control.

“She's got to be an immortal.” Rurik's voice was rough with appreciation, and Murdoch had to check an impulse to hurt his old friend. “Do you think her blood would be like that of Nikolai's female?”

It would be, God help me, it would be . . . .

Lukyan said, “Bedding an immortal. Can you imagine how much experience that one has?”

Can't rip out his throat.
Murdoch wanted to bare his fangs at them, to growl that she was his. But it would only make Lukyan more determined to meet her.

What if Daniela blooded one of these vampires? Was that even possible? He had to get them away from her.

“Back to work,” he ordered them. “I'm starting
at the head of the street. You two come from the other end. We'll cover more ground.”

Once they'd reluctantly traced away, with lingering looks that almost got them killed, Murdoch descended to the street, then strode toward her.

What the hell was she doing out here alone? There could be more of the Icere out in this city. To risk her safety like this . . .

Without warning, a memory arose. “I don't understand why men get so jealous over possessions, or over their women,” he'd once told his father.

His father had seemed deeply disappointed when he'd answered, “Son, that's because you've never cared about anything enough to fight for it—or to fear losing it.”

“Oh, no, no. This isn't happening,” Danii muttered as she jogged backward three steps, then whirled around in the opposite direction from the vampire intently approaching her.

It's him!
Earlier when she'd reached the Quarter, she'd asked around for Nïx, but instead had found out that Forbearers, led by a very big and handsome vamp, were going door to door, canvassing the streets for someone.

She'd joked to herself that maybe it was Murdoch out seeking her—laugh, laugh—to abjectly apologize. Had she been not far off the mark?

Or maybe he still wanted to throw her down and drink her.

“Wait, Daniela!”

When he traced in front of her, she halted with her palm raised to her lips. “Come any closer, and I'll fill your lungs with ice.”

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“No? You were going to bite me earlier.”

He didn't deny it, just gave a curt nod.

“So what's different now?”

“I've replenished the blood I've lost. And I'm not surrounded by the scent of yours.”

“Sounds like you're trying to make
your
loss of control
my
fault.”

“No, it was solely mine.”

“If not to bite me, then what do you want?”

He didn't seem to know how to answer that. At length, he said, “Just to talk to you.”

“Is that why you and your henchmen were looking for me?” Predictably, he'd need to see his Bride.

He ran his palm over the back of his neck. “We . . . weren't . . .”

“You're
not
looking for me.”
How embarrassing.
“Then who?”

“We seek Ivo the Cruel.”

A Horde baddie. “Good luck with that,” she said between gritted teeth, turning to leave.

He followed her. “You know of him?”

“Of course I do. I'm not the one batting for Team Oblivious like you are.” She snapped her fingers and made a face of realization. “Oh, but wait, you're no longer quite so clueless since you
grilled me last night
.” Again he didn't deny it. “Did you tell all the Forbearers about what I said when I was delirious?”

“I've told no one,” he said, his handsome face darkening into a scowl. “What in the hell are you doing out here alone?”

“I'm looking for someone myself.”

“Who?” When she didn't answer, he said, “You should be where it's safe. There could be more Icere.”

Like he cared. She picked up her pace, refusing to spare him a glance—and failing. He seemed to be puzzling over what to say to her.

Finally he decided on: “You gave me the wrong number.”

He called?
Her immediate high promptly nosedived. Of course, he'd only called for help with Ivo. “You have a lot of nerve bringing that up.”

“Why would you do that?”

“For—fun.”
To get your hopes up and then have them dashed. Like mine continue to be.

She reminded herself that any “hopes” she might have had about him were firmly in the tense that was past. “And for the record, I wasn't seeking to wed you, vampire”—
I
might
have been right after we came together
—“and I wasn't even looking for an exclusive relationship.” Unless he'd been interested in one. With that, she stormed off.

He was right behind her. “Where are you going?
Why won't you give me two seconds of your time?”

I don't think my battered ego can take it.
Like her body, it hadn't quite recovered.

“You've easily forgotten that I saved your life last night!”

She rounded on him. “Which wouldn't have needed saving if you would've just shut up and moved on!”

He didn't even seem to be listening—instead his gaze raked over her, from her chest to her uncovered navel. “What are you wearing?” he grated. “For someone whose skin is in danger of being burnt, you show enough of it.”

Too late, he was acting like a domineering vampire with a Bride he considered worth having. “Because otherwise I'd burn up!” She wished she could criticize his clothing, but he looked irritatingly GQ in his tailored slacks and expensive shirt. His black cashmere jacket fit his broad shoulders to perfection.

Normally, she'd have been ecstatic to be seen with such a man.

“Then why do you live in this warm city?” he asked.

“Because this is where my coven is. For now.”

“For now? Is it moving?”

She narrowed her eyes up at him. “Don't you have someone to be searching for? I'm sure you need to catch up with all the other little Forbearers.”

He cocked a brow at that. “We've split up. You could help me.”