Diana's Hound: Bloodhounds, Book 4 (11 page)

Thoughts. He could read the unguarded thoughts of the guests, if he tried. Lord, how he wished he’d spent the last few months learning how to control this gift instead of choking it out of existence by starving himself of fresh blood.

Jonah met them at the bottom of the staircase. “Word has traveled fast,” he murmured.

“In a good way, I hope?”

“The room is abuzz with gossip and conjecture.” Jonah studied Nate and nodded decisively. “A grand improvement. I take it you won’t require a blood companion?”

“I think not.” He practiced his indulgent smile and imagined the look he gave Diana was probably more enamored. Ah, well. Close enough for now. “None could compare.”

“I see.” He turned to study Diana. “I’ve never been adept at sensing others’ thoughts. Even earlier, I could discern very little from you, and now… Nothing.”

Perhaps Nate’s loss of control would have an unforeseen but welcome side effect. “A blood bond?” he asked.

Jonah tilted his head. “Perhaps. A bond with her master
would
shield her utterly.”

“Good.” Diana whispered, closing her hand tightly around Nate’s.

Jonah cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of insinuating that your decision to bring April to auction was one of desperation. Money troubles?”

April. Not Diana. He
must
remember it, somehow. “A gambling problem,” he confirmed, ignoring Jonah’s knowing gaze. “I’m afraid I can’t resist a game of cards…and can’t manage to win, either.”

“Better if you don’t say so. Better still if you deny it.” He gestured toward the large mahogany doors tucked into the wall almost behind the stairs. “Come.”

“April, my dear?” A glance to Nate’s right showed Diana’s dress barely clinging to her full breasts. Every breath brought a glimpse of areolae, enough to have him holding his own possibly unnecessary breath. How little he’d have to tease at the fabric to spill her nipples free, and how wrong it was to be distracted by such a possibility.

“Yes, sir.” She opened the door and lowered her gaze, waiting for him to escort her inside.

Nate squared his shoulders and entered with the confidence of a brilliant Guild inventor who believed every person he met was beneath him but knew they would never agree. That mix of entitled belligerence would be perfect for a young vampire who’d done the impossible by capturing a bloodhound.

Three steps into the ballroom, Nate knew his acting attempts would go unappreciated. Every gaze in the room snapped to Diana as if she was magnetic north. And as much as she tried not to meet all those curious eyes, her chin lifted in defiance. Insolence.

She slipped her hand into the crook of Nate’s arm once more. “Shall we sit, sir?”

“Find us a good spot, pet.”
April
made her feel small, and he couldn’t heap that further torment on her. Not under so many ravenous, greedy eyes.

The crowd melted away a bit at their approach, and a small smile curved Diana’s lips. “I do believe they look frightened,” she murmured, not quite low enough not to be heard.

Wicked, wicked girl. Nate smiled wide enough to bare his fangs. “Now, now. Promise not to bite anyone.”

“On the contrary, I believe I may be the only person here
not
uniquely suited to biting.”

“It doesn’t stop you from trying.” Nate nodded a greeting to a pale man and guided Diana to a straight-backed chair with cushions strewn at its feet. “Sit, pet.”

She dropped to a cushion, still looking dangerous despite the submissive posture. She managed to walk the narrow line between predator and prey, and every vampire in the room stared at her, entranced. Their companions stared at her too, though their expressions bypassed hunger, lingering instead on anger, jealousy, even pity.

A blonde vampire with two chained men trailing behind her approached, a charming smile on her red lips. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she murmured to Nate, holding out one gloved hand. “Aurora Bannister.”

“Oliver Powell.” Her floral perfume couldn’t hide the scent of
vampire
as he brushed his lips over the back of her hand. Not death—not quite—but something cold. Ice and the iron of blood and the dirt of the grave she’d escaped. “It’s a pleasure.”

“The pleasure’s mine.” Her gaze lit on Diana. “She’s breathtaking.”

Nate couldn’t say the same of the men shadowing Aurora. One wore the chains heavily, his face a numb mask of hopelessness. The other tracked his vampire mistress’s movements with the unbroken adulation of one bound by magic. Not a ghoul—ghouls were empty shells, their human souls destroyed—but enchanted nonetheless.

Nate did his best to hide his disgust. “She is, indeed. And fiery enough to require my undivided attention.” He let a hint of worry crease his brow with those words. It wouldn’t take long for the assembled vampires to taste the weakness of his power and assume he could barely control Diana.

The vampire made no comment. Instead, she eased closer to Diana. “Surely you’re not the one of whom Jonah spoke. The auction?”

“Perhaps.” It was a struggle not to rise and place his body between the vampire and the hound. Instead he dropped one hand to Diana’s head, stroking his fingers through her hair. “It’s true that I intend to part ways with her after the new moon.”

“After—yes, of course. May I?” Without waiting for an answer, Aurora tipped Diana’s chin up with one finger, then turned her head to and fro, studying her rather like an animal.

Diana’s eyes burned, and she smiled slowly, baring her teeth.

Leaning forward, Nate caught the vampire’s wrist in a grip strong enough to bruise. “I wouldn’t. She’s a bloodhound, and would be happy to relieve you of several of your fingers.”

If anything, the warning sparked a matching fire in Aurora’s eyes. “Delicious.”

He agreed, but not for the reasons she did, he’d wager. “I have little time left with her, and what I have I’ll guard jealously. You can look, but you cannot touch.”

She drew back her hand with a nod. “My apologies. I forget myself sometimes.”

Nate’s jaw hurt as he forced a smile. “Should I take your forgetfulness as a compliment to her allure?”

“Impossible!” The booming voice reverberated through the room, preceding a short, balding man in a straining waistcoat. Power rolled off him in waves, and Nate felt Diana stiffen beside him as the man stomped across the parquet floor.

Aurora paled. “Linton Kelley, this is—”

“A damned liar, that’s who it is.” The vampire stroked his mustache and stared down at Diana. “She’s no more a hound than I am.”

Nate raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t make such a preposterous claim if it were not true.”

“Desperate men do desperate things.”

“And how would you like for me to provide proof?” Nerves settled in Nate’s belly as he leaned back in the chair, marring his attempt at casual, but that would only work to his benefit. A young vampire facing down so many stronger ones
should
be nervous underneath his bluster. “I could grant her permission to slay one of you.”

He snorted. “As if she—”

Diana shot up from her spot on the floor and slammed into Kelley, knocking the vampire back—and off balance. He crashed into a small parlor table, shattering the sleek marble top and polished legs. A moment later, he bolted upright, eyes red and fangs bared.

Too late. She moved easily in spite of her attire as she snatched up one of the table legs, a wickedly splintered fragment of walnut, and drove it deep into the vampire’s chest. Kelley’s scream of rage turned to one of pain, then melted into an echo as he dissolved into dust.

Pure silence reigned in the room as Diana rose and dropped the makeshift stake into the fine gray remains of Linton Kelley.

They were doomed. For one frozen moment, no other thought would come to Nate. A dozen vampires stood between them and the door, and hundreds more between the door and anything approaching safety. Here, in the heart of Eternity, protection was little more than a dream.

And yet, silence reigned. Still.

Nate cleared his throat. “That’s quite enough, April.”

“Hubris.” Jonah walked slowly across the parlor and smilingly offered Diana a small goblet of wine. “Even the best are crushed by its weight.” He glanced around. “Does anyone else have any questions?”

If anything, the covetous glances cast Diana’s way grew more intense. The silence erupted into the rustle of skirts and whispers barely given breath, but the buzz in the back of Nate’s head swelled into audible snatches of conversation, each fading in and out and twisting around the next.

—obviously can’t handle her, but with a strong hand—

—share her with the others—

—delicious bit of impertinence—

—too much fire for a—

—need to watch your back and pet that one right,
Aurora’s voice whispered, as if directly in Nate’s ear. The other woman still stood several paces away, her bright-eyed gaze fixed on Diana.
But so very worth it.

Fixing a blank expression on his face, Nate held out an imperious hand. “Return to me, pet.”

Diana accepted the wine from Jonah with a careful bow and walked back to sink at Nate’s feet. She held the glass aloft, her eyes downcast. “Sir?”

He took the offering, his hand clenching around the goblet as he struggled against the instinct to lift her face. He wanted to see her eyes and judge the emotion there, to comfort her or give her leave to kill every last vampire in the room.

He wanted to see her on her feet, proud and strong, instead of brought low. He swallowed and forced his gaze from her downturned head before he revealed too much. “Thank you.”

A bearded man on a settee across the room stroked his chin. “Do you drink from her?”

Nate rested his fingers on the back of her head again, because he
had
to touch her in some small way, if only to remind her she wasn’t alone. Answering the question posed to him proved more difficult. Their plan had always rested on assuring the vampires that Diana’s blood wasn’t toxic. Once the words left his lips, there would be no containing them. Vampires would know of a female hound with safe blood, and they would hunt her to the ends of the earth.

It was the plan. She’d agreed to it,
suggested
it. She’d demanded his trust and his faith in her strength, and he wouldn’t betray that promise. “Naturally. It seems bloodhounds created in the wild lack the protections of their cousins made by the Guild.”

“Thaddeus Lowe had one,” another woman, a tiny redhead, piped up. “A wild hound. I heard his court would climb all over itself for a single taste.”

Hunter. Nate couldn’t keep himself from tensing. He’d been in Thaddeus Lowe’s court, too, a captive bound by blood to Lowe. When bribes and threats had failed to coerce Nate into bending his skills to the vampire’s will, Lowe had had him turned. Death had beckoned then. Old and worn down, Nate’s body hadn’t been able to tolerate the change.

So they fed him Hunter’s blood, and an alchemical transformation had overtaken Nate, one beyond the imaginings of any Guild inventor. Not youth prolonged, but youth restored. The elixir of life, the philosopher’s stone given human form.

If they knew what Hunter’s blood could do—what
Diana’s
blood could do—the ends of the earth wouldn’t be far enough. They’d pursue her through this world and into the next.

Chapter Seven

When Diana dropped her earring for the third time, she had to take a deep breath and count to five before reaching for it again, just to keep from crushing the damn thing in her fist.

Nate wasn’t nearly so patient. “I don’t want to join him for a meal.”

They didn’t have a choice. There was too much to do before nightfall, before the moon went dark and uncontrollable lust gripped her. The previous night had been difficult enough, alone in the big bed, her body aching and every one of Nate’s quiet breaths like cannon fire in her ears.

Even now, the memory of her half-sleeping fantasies tightened her nipples, and she grasped the edge of the vanity. No, she wouldn’t make it far past dusk. “We don’t have a choice.”

He stalked past her, his shirt still gaping open and his vest balled in one hand. He threw it at the bed with a snarl and resumed his pacing. He’d started the restless movement before dawn, his path taking him from the heavily curtained windows to the bathroom doorway and back in an endless loop. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him seeing you.”

She straightened in alarm. “What does that mean, you don’t want him seeing me?”

Nate froze mid-stride with a stumbling step that would have been comical under other circumstances, and he grimaced. “Them. Any of them. I’m tired of the way they look at you.”

Her fingers trembled on her powder brush. “Jonah isn’t one of them. He’s our ally.”

“A slip of the tongue.” He resumed his pacing, each movement a study in intense irritation. “I’m unsettled.”

“Are you?” She wasn’t so sure. Diana slipped from her padded stool and reached out, her fingers brushing his back through his shirt.

He stiffened and missed another step. “I slept poorly. I find being privy to the thoughts of vampires even less pleasant than I’d imagined, for all that it gives us an advantage.”