A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(48)

Quinn turned to find Arturo watching the sorcerer's retreat with a small frown between his eyebrows.

"What?" she demanded.

He shook his head, his expression clearing as he met her gaze, then he rose and held out a hand to her. "We should go before Cristoff joins us again."

She placed her hand in his. "You'll get no argument here."

A smile lit Arturo's eyes as his fingers closed around hers. She followed him down the stairs to the nearest exit and took a deep breath when they'd escaped into the empty hallway, leaving the noise and horrors behind.

Her hand was still caught firmly in Arturo's, but she had no desire to tug it away. There was safety here, with him, or at least the closest she was going to get to it in this place.

She glanced at him. "Now what?"

"Now . . ." He gave her a rueful look. "I take you back to your room. I'm sorry to have to leave you there, but I have responsibilities elsewhere." Together, they started back down the hall.

"I thought you were the one guarding me."

"No one will bother you here. No one would dare cross Cristoff in his own castle." He glanced at her, and their gazes met, his expression unreadable. "I can bring you books or a deck of cards when I return," he offered after several quiet moments.

"Both, please. If there's anything that might teach me about sorcerers, I'd like to start there. I know nothing."

"I'll ask Grant."

"You don't get along with him very well." It wasn't a question.

"Grant Blackstone has never been particularly good at hiding his hatred of vampires."

"Then why doesn't he leave?" But she knew. "He'd revert to his true age, wouldn't he?"

"Yes."

"That wouldn't be pretty," she murmured.

Arturo laughed, surprising her. "No, it would not."

His smile burrowed inside of her, warming her. It was a mistake to like him. He was such a complex, contradictory man. Yet in a lot of ways she did like him. And she'd been attracted to him almost from the moment she'd first realized that he didn't intend to kill her.

As they descended the stairs to the prison level, the thought of returning to that tiny room sent a flutter of claustrophobic panic to flight in her mind. Locked up there, she'd never find a way to escape.

The vampire stopped, taking her arm and pulling her around to face him in the empty hallway. "What is it, cara? Something disturbs you." He acted like he cared.

Quinn shrugged. "Everything about this place disturbs me. I was just thinking about my home sweet jail cell."

"You do not wish to return just yet?"

"You're kidding, right?" She raked the hair off her face with both hands. "I'm going to go stark raving mad if I have to spend much more time in there. I need to run. I need some fresh air to clear my lungs, then a hot shower to wash off the depravity that feels like it's coating my skin half an inch thick."

"A run is impossible, of course."

Quinn rolled her eyes and dropped her hands. "Of course." Unless she found a way out of here, then she would never stop running.

A gleam entered his dark eyes. "The shower, however, might be arranged."

She looked at him with surprise. "Are you playing with me or telling me the truth?"

His mouth kicked up on one corner. "I would very much like to play with you, tessoro."

"Don't, Vampire. Don't even tease about sex right now. Not after what I just saw."

His expression lost all hint of playfulness. "I wish you had not looked."

"Trust me, so do I. I'll never get that vision out of my head."

He turned back, waiting for her to follow, and she fell into step beside him, a decided bounce to her stride. He led her down another, far shorter hallway to a door, then ushered her outside, onto a brick patio. Outside! Quinn had begun to wonder if she'd ever see the steel gray of day again. The air was warm and humid, gusts of sun-heated breeze brushing against her skin interspersed with cooler air, as if night and day had tried, unsuccessfully, to mate.

"Where are we going?" she asked warily. While she was thrilled to be outside the castle, even if only for a little while, she was still firmly within the castle's walls. Cristoff's prisoner.

"The showers are outside."

She gave him a hard look. "Open showers?"

"Trust me a little, cara. They are not open. You will have your privacy."

The tension leached out of her shoulders. "Okay. Sorry."

"Forgiven."

Her mood lightened as they started across the patio. "Do you get weather here?"

"Whatever weather you get in your world, we get here." Arturo took her hand and she let him, liking the feel of his long, cool fingers wrapped around hers. "Rain, wind, snow. Even the summer heat, though not nearly as hot. It is always cooler in the dark. Sometimes, we even smell the diesel from your trucks."

"The smells carry, then. But not the sounds?"

"Not the sounds." He ushered her down one of several brick pathways that branched off the patio. This one led to a group of buildings at the back of the mansion's walled compound, where something seemed to be going on. If the mansion had been silent, the yard was anything but - resonating with the sound of voices and the loud clank of hammer to metal as if a blacksmith had a workshop back there.