Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(14)

“We’re done here,” she said through her teeth. “Now leave my home.”

He stared at her, his expression turning hard. Deliberately, calmly, he raised one hand to blot the blood that dripped down the side of his face. She saw that the wounds were already closing over.

She could not stand to look at him any longer. She whirled and stormed away. She barely knew where she was going. Anywhere, away, as the wild upsurge whirled through the cemetery in her head, blowing leaves across gravestones.

He made her feel things she had not felt in a winter’s age. How many centuries had it been since she had known desire? It had been so long she had forgotten. She should not feel such things as desire, or yearning, or to look even for the barest moment at the possibility of a branching off in her life toward something hardly seen and deathly beautiful, for it could never be hers.

Desire was not a gift to someone like her. Instead it was a beautiful agony.

“I am a bad woman,” she whispered to herself. Two tears slid down her cheeks. There was certain symmetry in that as well.

She was a bad woman at the end of a very long, bad life.

Rune stood and wiped the rest of the blood off his face as he watched Carling storm away. Aroused and furious, he breathed hard and fought for control as the predator in him roared to give chase. Tension vibrated through his body and made the world shake.

But we’re done here, she said. And no means no.

I gotta hand it to you, Carling, he thought. It’s never something mundane with you.

He was free to go, his obligation paid. The favor had been wasted with a spendthrift hand, as if she were a spoiled child who had been given too many toys. His lips curled back from clenched teeth.

In the end, it was not the predator, his common sense or his intelligence, but his pride that won out. He snatched up his duffle. He had left the waterproof container Duncan had given him down on the beach. It was time to move on. He could sneak in a few days of R & R before he headed back to New York. Get his head screwed back on straight before he went home to deal with Dragos again. By God, he had earned that much, at least.

He yanked open the arched double front doors and strode down the path toward the rest of his life. The hot blaze from the yellow morning sun was a welcome blast in his face. The chill bite of the ocean when he swam back to sanity would be even more welcome. There were a lot of fun things to do in San Francisco. He would check into the suite at the Fairmont Hotel, get him some of that five-star treatment and go on the hunt for some scotch and a plate of beef bourguignon as he debated how much time he should take for himself before he got in touch with Dragos again. Maybe the Fairmont had beef bourguignon on their room service menu. Hot food, booze, five-star service and a good game on a plasma TV. Or maybe he could find an old Gamera movie on cable. He loved that giant flying Japanese turtle. Yeah baby. He heard it all calling his name.

“Sentinel, wait!” Rhoswen called behind him. Her urgent call was accompanied by frenzied high-pitched barking. “Damn it, you piece of shit, get back here!”

Excuse the f**k out of me? Incredulous, he tilted his head and pivoted with slow precision.

Rhoswen stood in the shadow at the open front door, well back from the lethal spill of sunshine, while a small puffball with fierce black-button eyes and tiny white teeth hurtled down the path toward him.

Rune’s eyebrows rose. If he was not mistaken, that puffball was a Pomeranian. He certainly saw his fair share of them, living as he did in New York.

Let’s review.

He looked up at Rhoswen. Vampyre. Then he looked down at the ankle-biter. Pomeranian.

He double-checked. Vampyre. Pomeranian.

He said to Rhoswen, “You have a dog.”

“No,” she said. The look of loathing she gave the ankle-biter was clear even from a distance. “Carling has a dog. I’m just cursed to look after it sometimes.” She hissed at it, “Come here!”

It snarled at Rune as it sank its teeth into the hem of his pants leg.

Rune’s normal good humor resurfaced and he started to grin. “Carling has a dog,” he murmured to himself. “No, Carling has a rude Pomeranian.” He raised his voice and said to Rhoswen, “I don’t think he can hear you over all the noise he’s making.”

“The little freak never hears me,” Rhoswen said. Frustration vibrated in the Vampyre’s beautiful voice. She gave Rune an apologetic smile. “Would you mind terribly bringing him back over here?”

“Not at all,” Rune said. He scooped up the ankle-biter in one hand and held it up for a closer inspection.

All four tiny paws scrabbled in the air as it growled at Rune. He noted two of its legs were crooked. Rune said, “What a little Napoleon you are.” He strolled back to the doorway. “Why does Carling have a dog?”

“I have no idea,” the Vampyre said. “You would have to ask her. Seven months ago we were traveling from a Nightkind function back to Carling’s San Francisco town house when she saw this thing by the side of the road. It had been hit by a car. I was going to snap its neck and put it out of its misery, but then Carling cast a healing spell on it and insisted we take it to a vet.” Rhoswen looked up at Rune in outrage. “She cooks it chicken.”

Rune handed the little Napoleon over to her. Rhoswen clutched the squirming dog to her chest, and her eyes filled with tears.

He frowned. He had never seen Rhoswen as anything but composed. He said, “You’re not crying because Carling cooks chicken.”