Angels' Flight(104)

12


The night passed with painful slowness. Unable to sleep—and trailing her right wing on the floor like one of her charges—Jessamy walked into the Tower library in the gray time before the paintbrush of dawn streaked the sky. A lamp burned within, and the man who stood by the mantel, a glass in hand, was taller than her, slender in the same way, and had no wings on his back. “Lady Jessamy,” he said in a languid tone that was a purr over her skin.

Dangerous, she thought, keeping her distance. “You have the advantage.”

“Ainsley at your service.”

“Ainsley?” It in no way fit this vampire whose very voice was an invitation to sin.

His lips quirked up, the lamplight igniting the ruby red of the liquid in his glass to glittering brilliance. Blood. “That’s why I usually kill people who use my given name,” he murmured. “Most call me Trace.”

A strange name. Her eyes took in his lithe form again, made the connection. “Is that what you do?”

An easy nod. “It’s wild country out here. Many things get lost. I find them.” Sipping at the blood, he continued to hold her gaze with eyes that might’ve been darkest green or unbroken ebony. “You’re a tall woman.”

Yes, she was. Even among angelkind. Though standing next to Galen, she felt positively petite. And when he took her into his arms…“What are you doing in the library at this time of the morning?” she asked, resisting the need to rub a fisted hand over her heart to ease the ache within.

Trace brought up the hand at his side to reveal a book. “Poems.” An almost sheepish glance out of those eyes that had no doubt coaxed more than one woman into addictive decadence.

Jessamy rethought her initial conclusion—that he was dangerous was indisputable, but he was also not a man who would harm a woman. He enjoyed them too much. “Poems?”

A slow smile creased his cheeks. “Would you like to hear?”

No man had ever asked to read her poetry. But then, her whole life was changing. So she said, “Very well,” and crossed the carpet toward him.

They took seats opposite each other, and, putting down his glass, Trace read her haunting poems of love and loss and passion in a rich, evocative voice meant for seduction. It was only after the third poem that she realized she was the target. Startled, she looked at that face of sharp, angular beauty, that shock of silky black hair, that slender form she was certain could move whiplash fast when necessary, and wondered at his motivation. “There are other women in the Tower,” she said when he paused for breath.

A look through his lashes, his eyes revealed to be the deepest green she’d ever seen. “I know that full well, but I’ve wanted to run my fingers over your skin since the first time I saw you at the Refuge.” Another pause, his perusal more open and frankly sensual. “The only reason I didn’t court you then was because I was told by more than one person that you preferred solitude, and it would distress you to be approached.”

“I see.” His words caused a tremor inside of her, dramatically reshaping her world. It was one thing to consider that perhaps she had been the cause of her own isolation, another to know it. “You realize my wing is not what it should be,” she said, and it was a question within a statement.

A shrug, fluid and graceful. “You’ll notice I can’t fly either.” Finishing off the liquid in his glass, liquid that sang with life and death both, he said, “Tell me, do you belong to him?”

There was no need to ask who he meant. “If I do?” she said rather than answering, because what she had with Galen was precious, private.

“I might be many things,” he murmured, “but I don’t steal women… at least not those who don’t want to be stolen.”

“It’s time for me to go.” The night and this morn had thrown everything she knew into confusion—it was no time for her to be crossing words with a vampire who was clearly an expert in the art of flirtation.

“Until next we meet, my lady.” The dark promise followed her as she left the library and walked up to the roof, and out into the crisp morning air. If Trace spoke the truth—and he had no reason to lie—then it might well be that other men would approach her now that they knew she was open to the idea of a courtship and relationship.

“If that’s all you feel, it’ll cut me in two, but it won’t stop me from being the best friend you will ever have… You’re free.”

Her heart clenched at the thought of never again tasting Galen’s kiss, but no matter if it made her bleed inside to accept his decree, he was right in this. If she gave in to the unquenchable need deep within her, need that bore Galen’s name, and went to him now, the specter of gratitude would always lie between them. It would hurt and it would corrode, and it would destroy. No, she thought, nails digging into her skin, she wouldn’t do that, not to Galen, and not to herself.

The first rays of the sun hit the horizon at that very instant, its golden fingers bringing the world to life.


Word came two days later.

“Alexander Sleeps,” Dmitri said, joining her and Galen where they stood on a high Tower balcony, “in a location known only to him.”

“The vampire who attacked Jessamy?” Galen asked, expression grim.

“An acolyte of Emira, the vampire you”—a nod toward Jessamy—“described as being with Alexander the day you spoke. Emira was one of his elite guard.”