Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(78)

“Eve,” Gloriana said, all warmth and sweetness and apology. “I only wanted to meet Michael, as he’s Amelie’s newest child. I am a curious creature, I know. I mean nothing by it.”

“Eve, chill,” Michael said. “She just came over to say hello.”

“I see.” My voice sounded flat and pissed, even to my own ears. “That’s great. Now she can just say good-bye, too.”

“I meant no offense, most surely. Here, I’ll be going.” Gloriana stood up and extended her hand to Michael, knuckles turned up. “It was charming to meet you, Michael Glass.”

He took her hand and looked briefly confused about what to do, then lifted it very formally to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Not kissed kissed, more of a brush of his lips, but it still made me feel light-headed and sick inside. “Welcome to Morganville,” he said. “Hope to see you around.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Gloriana laughed. “After all, the sign says You’ll never want to leave—isn’t that true? I already find much to like about Morganville.” She flicked those green eyes toward me. “Eve. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Yeah. Don’t forget to take your blood with you.”

Michael gave me a look. I gave him one right back. While we were doing the silent stare thing, Gloriana retrieved her cup and headed for the door. Michael moved past me to open it for her, and handed her a big, floppy black coat and hat to throw on. “There’s an entrance to the underground a block down,” he said. “Look for the glyph. You can bring the coat and hat back later.”

“Thank you,” she said, and swaddled herself up in the sun-defying garb. She looked like a waif playing dress-up. “You are so kind, Michael.” She pronounced it French, like Meeshell. “I will return the kindness soon.”

He watched her go. I watched him watch her go, and then he shut the door, locked it, and without looking at me said, “So, just how mad are you?”

Without a word, I turned and walked down the hall, into the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water. I wasn’t thirsty, but there was a burning pain in my throat, and besides, it gave me something to do with my shaking hands.

I heard the door open as Michael followed me in. “Seriously,” he said. “Eve, I was just being friendly. She’s new in town.”

“Oh, so the hand-kissing, that’s just being friendly? I never see you doing it to Oliver.”

“A lot of these older vamp women, it’s what they expect. They don’t shake hands, Eve.”

“Well, they need to bring their undead asses into the twenty-first century, then, because hand-kissing went out with the guillotine, didn’t it? And since when do you do what’s expected, anyway?”

Michael shook his head and leaned back against the counter. “It’s not like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I want to take her to bed, which is what you’re thinking, Eve.”

I couldn’t believe he’d gone and said that right out loud, even if I was thinking it. Not in such polite terms, though. “Then what’s it like?”

“Like I’m . . . curious. Look, she’s friendly, not like a lot of the others. I can ask her things, about being . . .” There was more color in his cheeks than normal; that was the closest a vampire could come to blushing. “About being what I am.”

“What kind of things?” I demanded.

Michael met my eyes. “Like how likely I am to lose control and hurt somebody close to me. That kind of thing. Especially when I’m hungry and we’re together.”

Oh. That hurt, in all kinds of unexpected ways; these were personal things, and it wasn’t just personal for him. I was the one who’d drawn the line with him, who’d said I was never, ever going to let him bite me, especially not that way. And it wasn’t something we talked about, not ever. Especially not with third parties who might be named Sexy Hell Kitten. “And you thought it was okay to discuss all this with a vamp you met, like, thirty seconds ago.”

“We’ve been talking for an hour, Eve. It wasn’t like it was the first thing out of my mouth.”

I swallowed. “Did you kiss her?”

“Eve!”

“Did you?”

“Jesus, of course not.”

“Did you want to?”

Michael just looked at me for a few, fatal seconds, then said, “She’s got that effect on guys, so, yeah, I guess I thought about it. But I didn’t do it.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. Gloriana would be back. At the very least, she’d return the hat and coat, and if I wasn’t here, he’d get all cozy with her again, and . . . things could happen. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Michael—I did, I really did—but . . . she wasn’t just any random chick. She hadn’t stopped in just to pay a social call; Gloriana was hunting.

She was stalking my boyfriend.

“Over my dead body,” I murmured. Michael looked startled. “Sorry. Talking to myself.”

He sighed, straightened up, and crossed to stand right in front of me. He took the water glass out of my hand and put it carefully on the counter, then leaned in and kissed me, sweet and hot and hard. He braced himself with his hands on either side of me on the counter, and damn, the white fire of that just about wiped out anything else I had on my mind, including Gloriana’s sly, sweet smile, or the way Michael had looked after her when she’d gone.