A Blood Seduction (Vamp City #1)(57)

"Will you continue to lie to me?"

The charmer smile blossomed. "I am what I am."

She laughed despite herself. "A hopelessly unapologetic reprobate."

He grinned, his eyes going tender. "A pretty sound, your laughter. I would hear it more often." He kissed her forehead. "I fear I am a reprobate who cannot stop thinking about you." His lips brushed her cheek. "About the beauty of your br**sts or the feel of your satin flesh beneath my hands." His mouth teased the corner of her own. "Or the cry of your passion when pleasure breaks over you." His lips grazed her jaw, then slid to her neck. "The sweet smell of your skin invades my thoughts at the most inopportune times, and your taste." Once more, he rose and claimed her lips, sliding his tongue deeply into her mouth.

Quinn moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving herself up to his kiss.

As he pulled back, she pressed her hand to his cheek, marveling at the feel of him. No longer cool. "Kissing makes you warm."

"Only when I kiss you." He smiled, running his fingers lightly down the sides of her neck. "You may smell like sunlight, but you taste of peaches, utterly delectable." Their gazes caught and held until she thought she might happily drown in those dark pools. "Someday soon, you will open your arms and your thighs and welcome me, cara. But not today." He gave her nose a tiny kiss, then released her. "Sleep, Quinn." A moment later, he was gone, the lock clicking into place.

Quinn leaned back against the door, running her own fingers through her hair, hair he'd been playing with just moments before. He made her feel soft and excited, warm and unsatisfied. At once marvelously content and thoroughly frustrated on so many levels. He was stubborn and unbending and yet . . . sweet. Loving. And what strange, strange words to attribute to a vampire.

With a sigh, she pushed away from the door and poured herself another glass of wine. He'd told her to get some sleep, which meant she wouldn't see him again for hours. And she didn't even have a clock or a window to give her any clue of the time.

She picked up the book Grant sent and sat on the floor beside the washstand. Starting at the beginning, she quickly began to skim, searching for any reference to a Blackstone. Soon, the words began to run together, and she knew she was about to nod off, which wasn't a bad thing. Sleep was the best way to make the time pass. But as she flipped the page to see how many more she had until the end of the chapter, her eyes started playing tricks on her. The type beneath her fingers began to dance and fade.

As she stared at the page, the type slowly disappeared, handwriting appearing in its place - a tight male scrawl she could nevertheless read clearly.

Her pulse began to race.

My dearest Quinn,

I am writing to you in sorcerer's text, which you will be able to reply to by writing over the same page with your finger. Only another sorcerer can see it, so our communication is perfectly safe. It is being said that you escaped V.C. in a sunbeam. Is this true?

Your humble servant,

Grant Blackstone

For long minutes, Quinn stared at the writing, reading it over and over as chills ran down her spine. This was true magic.

Finally, she set her finger to the page beneath Grant's note.

Yes. The sun burst through outside Arturo's house, and I could see my world in it. I ran into the sunbeam and out of V.C.

Now what? She supposed she'd have to ask Arturo to send the book back to Grant and hope -  New writing appeared, overlaying the old.

It is rare for one to see either world from the other, even in a sunbeam. Is that how you found your way into V.C. in the first place?

She pressed her finger to the page and replied.

If this is one of the parlor tricks you were talking about, Grant, I can't imagine what kind of power . . .

She stopped. She'd been about to write, a real sorcerer might have, but that would probably offend him. Especially since she was supposedly one herself. Good grief, his father had created V.C. Created this entire world. That was real power.

She started a new line.

Yes. I'd been getting short glimpses of V.C. for several weeks. Then a friend went missing, and as my brother and I searched for her, I saw your world clearly in front of me. My brother and I got sucked inside. After I escaped, I returned to look for my brother and ended up in a slave auction. So much for brilliant plans.

Your brother?

My half brother, Zack. I have to find him and Lily, who is the friend who went missing. I suspect she might be here, too, somewhere.

She stopped writing, then pressed her finger once more to the paper.

Can you help me find them?

She waited for a response. And waited.

Was that it, then? Was the exchange over?

And suddenly the original text reappeared, the finger-written conversation bare shadows on the page. Shadows she suspected only a sorcerer would see.

And now yet another person refused to help her find Zack. Well screw them both. She'd find Zack herself.

The righteous determination left her on a defeated sigh. Who was she kidding? She was trapped as completely as any rat in a cage. Escaping Cristoff would take a miracle.

Or a hell of a lot of magic.

Chapter Twelve

The next morning, Arturo led Quinn out the back of the mansion to where several horses stood, their reins held by vampire guards. The dirt had turned to mud in the overnight downpour. The morning had dawned dark - as they all did around here - and stiflingly humid, a light fog obscuring what little she'd normally be able to see. There was a reason this part of D.C. had been named Foggy Bottom at some point in the distant past.