Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(12)

She stirred. A few of her snakes had lifted to the open window, tongues flickering to taste the desert air. To his amusement, a few others rested on his right shoulder. “I guess I can understand that,” she said. “Sunlight is so lethal for you.”

He nodded. “We live side-by-side with death. It’s always there, just a few hours ahead or behind us, around the corner, or a few steps out from the shelter of a roof. But when Carling turned me, I told myself that I would not become like those other Vampyres. I would take sensible precautions but never live in fear.”

“What kind of precautions do you take?” she asked.

“Well, for one thing, I do have a large house,” he said. “If I have to take shelter from the sun, I refuse to feel cramped when I do. All the windows have metal shutters that operate on a timer. They automatically close and lock from sunrise to sundown.” The system took a manual override code to open them any time during the day. Nobody was letting sunlight spear into Duncan’s home without his express permission.

“I’ve heard of those shutters,” she said. “Don’t Carling and Rune have the same kind of thing in their new home too?”

“Yes.” He slanted a glance at her. “And I can’t tell you how exciting it was when full spectrum sunscreen became available. I would slather it all over and comb it through my hair before sunscreen spray made that a lot easier. For a while I looked like a throwback to a 1940s mafia kingpin.”

She chuckled and relaxed. “So it really helps?”

“It does,” he told her. “It protects against accidentally coming in contact with direct sunlight, and it can give a Vampyre up to ten minutes of leeway time to find shade. It has limitations—no Vampyre in his right mind would totally trust his life to waterproof sunscreen and go swimming in the daytime. But it’s especially effective at dawn and dusk, like now, when any sunlight is indirect and fading fast. And I always wear it whenever I go out in the daytime.”

“Good to know,” she said. “I suppose you use sunscreen clothing too.”

“Of course,” he said. “All of my clothes are made of UPF 50+ material that blocks up to 98 percent of UV rays. On its own, it’s not enough, but it is added insurance. And whenever I have to go out in the day, I always keep a cloak nearby, which is also made with sunscreen cloth.”

As he gave her the information, he could see that her natural scientific curiosity had taken over and her nervousness eased. The silence that fell between them after that was thoughtful and companionable, and he smiled to himself.

He’d have to be a liar or blind to claim he wasn’t affected by her beauty, because he was, but what really engaged his interest was her quick mind. It was such a goddamn pleasure to seduce an intelligent woman.

Because that’s what he was going to do. Seduce her. Yeah, this lowdown dirty dog was going on the hunt. He would coax her into sharing her secrets of warmth and passion while candlelight gilded the insanely gorgeous iridescence of her skin. Just the thought of it made his fangs descend, and the whip of the night air turned exhilarative as his groin tightened painfully.

His urges and feelings were in an uproar every time he thought of her or let his imagination run unleashed. So much for compartmentalizing his appetites.

Maybe he would bite her.

Maybe she would bite him.

He kept his mouth shut and his jaw clenched, and he was savagely glad for the deep shadows in the car, and that somehow he managed to keep the vehicle steady on the road.

Maybe she would bite him all over.

Goddamn.

Despite the fact that they had left the city behind and drove in full desert, traffic picked up again when he turned onto State Road 342. Soon a glow of light shone like a dome against the darkness of the night sky, and Duncan knew they were getting close. He followed the flow of vehicles which slowed to a crawl on the two-lane highway, until they came upon a shadowed wall of rock that rose on either side of the road.

“There it is,” Seremela whispered.

An elusive tingle of land magic brushed his senses, along with a sense of other magic sparks flaring in the distance.

Their headlights flashed on a historical marker. Duncan caught a glimpse of the text but it was too small and dense to read. Several yards past the marker, a large, clapboard sign had been erected. Written in orange neon spray paint, the words jumped off the board.

The sign read:

Devil’s Gate

Pop: 28, 993 suckas

69,345

Past 100,000

Who the f**k knows?

He glanced at Seremela who looked back at him, wide-eyed. Then they both burst out laughing. Seremela said, “Even if the tent city is outlandishly bloated, medusae are rare enough that it won’t be hard to find her. People tend to take notice when we are around.”

“I’m sure they do,” Duncan said. Giving in to impulse, he trailed his fingers down her warm, slender forearm and clasped her hand. Her breath caught, the tiny sound all but inaudible, but with his sharp Vampyre’s hearing, he heard it easily.

She didn’t pull away. Instead she turned her hand over and held his, palm to palm. He rubbed his thumb along the smooth skin on the back of her hand and wondered how she could sit there so calmly, because good gods, he was on fire all over for her, and she seemed completely unaware of the fact. He knew he had a good courtroom face, but he didn’t know it was that good.