The Immortal Hunter(68)

Yay, colonials, Dani thought grimly, although she hadn't a clue what a no-fanger was.

Leo was apparently reading her mind again because he turned on her and said, "Oh, see, now that's the kind of thing that's going to make me have to punish you again. If you don't learn a little self-control, this could be even more painful than I planned."

Dani remained silent. There was nothing else she could do.

Nodding with apparent satisfaction, Leo led her through the dark room to a door. He opened it, flipped a switch to turn on the lights, and then urged her down into a laundry room in the basement.

Dani glanced around at the concrete floor, cheerful pale yellow walls, and then to the washer and dryer against the wall as he led her the few steps to and through an archway into a much larger room. It was obviously the husband's workshop. The wall opposite them was covered with pegboard. Tools of every description hung from hooks slotted into its holes. The wall on the left was taken up with a long workbench. The wall on the right had shelves holding sanders and paint cans lined up on either side of a wide archway into what appeared to be a small, dark room taken up by a large boiler and the other workings of the house. But Dani barely gave all of this a glance. Her attention was on the three chairs set in the center of the room and the elderly couple, each one bound and gagged and tied to an end chair, leaving the one in the center empty.

"Come. Let me introduce you to our hosts."

Dani stumbled forward when he tugged her arm, her gaze shifting between the couple. They were older, perhaps in their late fifties to early sixties. The husband had skin darkened and leathery from years in the sun, and a grimly determined expression that refused to show fear. The wife had wide eyes full of tears, fear, and pleading as she gazed at Dani from above her gag.

"This is Mr. Dani's-Dinner and Mrs. Dani's-Midnight-Snack," Leo announced, bringing her startled glance to him as he explained, "They're my surprises. They're going to help you through the turn, my dear."

"Turn?" she asked sharply. "I thought you were going to trade me for your sons?"

"I am," he assured her in a soothing voice, and then grinned. "Actually my original plan was to kill you to punish Decker for staking my sons, but then I realized he was only following Lucian's orders and a lesser punishment would do... for him," he added darkly. "Lucian is another matter entirely. He's lorded it over the rest of the immortals for far too long. It's time he-" Leonius stopped suddenly, his anger falling away. Shrugging, he said, "But I digress. We were talking about you. Come sit."

He urged her toward the center chair, taking control of her and making her sit between the older couple when she resisted.

Dani sank onto the seat and turned to look first at the husband and then at the wife. The husband peered at her pityingly, the wife with despair. She turned back to Leonius and said the first thing that popped into her head, "But I don't want to be a vampire."

"I know," he murmured, smiling down at her in a way that suggested that didn't bother him at all. "So sad really. Don't you realize there are women all over the world who would pay good money to be one?"

"Well go turn them then," she said at once.

Leo burst out laughing. "You are so adorable. No. I fear it's you or no one."

"Why?" Dani asked with frustration.

"Because Decker has to be punished," he explained patiently.

That logic just bewildered her. "But I'm his life mate. He'd probably turn me himself if given the chance. He'll hardly think it a punishment for you to turn me."

"He wants to turn you into one of his kind," Leo said. "I'm going to turn you into my kind. You'll be a no-fanger, and he won't like that at all. In fact, I'm afraid he and the rest of them despise our kind, my dear, so don't expect a warm reunion should you be foolish enough to escape. Lucian and his bunch have hunted us ever since Atlantis, nearly to extinction at one point. They killed my father and all my brothers. The only reason I survived is because they didn't know about my mother or that she was carrying me in her womb. So"-he smiled cruelly-"this will be a punishment to Decker. I have taken his beloved life mate and am turning her into one of the despicable no-fangers he and his kind loathe so much. He'll really want to kill me then... and you."

Dani stared at him with a combination of confusion and fear. "I don't-"

"You don't know what a no-fanger is?" he asked, apparently plucking the rest of the thought from her head. "Oh my, Decker has been very remiss. But I suppose he was busy doing other things, wasn't he?"

Dani flushed at the insinuating way his eyes traveled over her, and recalled his saying earlier that he'd seen what they'd gotten up to in the barn.

"Is that a bite mark on your neck, Dani?" He suddenly bent at the waist to bring his face closer to look, and then he asked in a stage whisper, "Are there any other places he bit you, I wonder? More... intimate places perhaps?"

She caught the hand that was suddenly sliding up her thigh and leaned her head back to glare at him. The man was crazy as a loon. One thought could make him suddenly angry, while another that should be insulting amused him. She had no idea what he was talking about when he said no-fanger, but she wanted none of it.

"It's an immortal without fangs," Leo said, apparently poking around in her head again.