She needed to eat but knew she couldn’t face going out again. The room service menu that sat alongside the phone looked very enticing. She picked it up and thumbed through her choices. When she’d made her selection, she picked up the phone and ordered her club sandwich and ice tea, along with a brownie for dessert. They told her it would be about forty-five minutes to an hour wait. Long enough to have a shower and change.
Sonia flipped open her suitcase, drew out a pair of comfy sleep pants and a T-shirt and headed to the bathroom.
Chapter Two
Damek followed Sonia from a safe distance, always keeping her in sight, but never getting close enough for her to detect him. It was harder to remain hidden outside in the bright lights of the city, but not impossible. Not for him.
He kept one eye on her and the other on his surroundings. Old habits died hard, and even though no one in the city knew about him, other than a pack of werewolves whom he trusted, he wasn’t taking any chances. Vampire hunters were everywhere. He cursed Bram Stoker for creating the character of Van Helsing, even as he gave thanks for the rise of the Goth culture, which helped his kind blend in much more easily.
She moved quickly and competently through the crowd, her long legs eating up the distance to her destination. He wondered what those legs would look like bare and, preferably, wrapped around his waist as he thrust into her.
He paused and shook his head. She really had unsettled him. His body responded to her nearness, his cock swelling and lengthening without his permission. His body was always under his command, until tonight.
She took out her phone and talked to someone, smiling at whatever the other person had to say. A flash of envy bolted through him. He wanted to be the one who brought a smile to her face.
He growled and swore under his breath. He should turn around and go back to his club. This woman was trouble. He felt it in his bones, in his very soul. She could undo everything he’d built here. Why he thought that, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He believed it and that was enough.
He was about to head back to Inhibitions when an icy cold finger stroked his spine. Damek faded into the empty alcove of a closed bookstore and studied his surroundings. He narrowed his eyes, peered past the darkness and opened his mind to the thoughts of those around him. He was immediately bombarded by hundreds of images, words and feelings, many of them unsettling and dark. He picked through them at lightning speed, effortlessly discarding those not important to him.
There was a hitch in Sonia’s step and then she began to run. Damek quickened his step to keep pace with her, sliding through the shadows, searching for whatever had spooked her. A movement from an alleyway caught his attention. He turned his attention toward the area and found…nothing, even as his preternatural sense of hearing picked up a faint footstep. That in itself was disturbing. Few could naturally shield their thoughts from a vampire, although it was a skill that could be taught over time.
His blood began to simmer. Vampire hunter.
The tall, well-built man stepped out from the shadows and peered around the corner, his gaze settling on Sonia. Why was a vampire hunter watching Damek’s professor of folklore? Was he following her specifically? Were they working together?
Damek pondered his options. He should watch the man and see what he did and whom he talked to. All fine in theory, but then the man took a step toward the alley opening and Sonia.
Protective instincts he believed long dead rose to the fore, shutting out all reason. Damek uncloaked his presence and sauntered toward the man. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“Who?” The man squared his shoulders in a visible challenge. The human stood several inches above Damek’s six-feet and was obviously used to using his size to intimidate others.
The man looked at Damek’s smaller, leaner stature, the designer suit and shoes and dismissed him as unimportant. Really, all these hunter types seemed to think all vampires wore leather, had multiple piercings and hung out in Goth bars. It would be insulting if it weren’t so helpful to him. Plus, even he had to admit there were many of his kind who did just that, adding to the cliché.
Damek simply smiled and inclined his head toward Sonia as the crowd swallowed her up. “Ms. Agostino.”
The man’s eyes widened and his pupils dilated. Ah, so he did know who she was. “Listen, buddy.” The hunter’s voice was low, his posture threatening. “I don’t know who you are, but you want to stay out of business that doesn’t concern you.”
Damek let his power flare, filling the space between them and clouding the entrance to the alley so all those passing it would see nothing amiss. The man paled, shut his mind up even tighter and reached for the weapon hidden beneath his jacket. Damek smiled, letting his opponent see his fangs as he pushed past the rather impressive barrier and into his mind, taking control.
He was normally more circumspect in public, but his control was tenuous at best. Plus, the hunter was following Sonia. That pissed him off.
“Take your hand away from your weapon.” The man strained to keep his hand moving toward the knife, but his body would not obey him. “There’s a good boy,” Damek praised as he closed the distance between them.
The hunter was strong and Damek amped up his psychic attack, drawing on his reserves.
“Fuck you,” the man grated out.
“Tsk, tsk. Such an offer, but I’ll have to say no. I’m not into men.” Damek bored ruthlessly into the man’s memories. “Your name is John Barnes and you’re from Tennessee.” The man was sweating now and struggling against the hold of Damek’s mind.
“Why were you watching Ms. Agostino?” He could search for the information but it would take time. This man was adept at compartmentalizing his memories and Damek didn’t want to take the time to dig through them all. Sonia was out there alone and he had no idea if there were other hunters following her.
John gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw straining as he struggled not to speak. “We watch her because she studies werewolves, vampires and other paranormal abominations.”
“Spare me your tired political rhetoric.” Damek was sick of hearing how he had to be destroyed because he was different, a monster. Yes, many of his kind deserved to die, but not all of them, only those that were truly killers. A smart vampire kept a low profile—which he wasn’t doing at the moment—took only the blood necessary to survive and never, ever killed a blood host.
In this day and age it was even easier to go undetected. Blood banks were everywhere with their endless supply of nourishment. The last thing a vampire wanted was unnecessary attention shone his way. “Tell me more.”
“That’s it. I was told to watch her and report back on what she did and who she talked to.”
That wasn’t good. “Do you know where she went tonight?”
“Some fancy club. Inhibitions.” The man continued to struggle to move but Damek kept ruthless control of him while maintaining the shadows at the mouth of the alley. Years of practice allowed him to do it easily while he mulled over the implications.
He couldn’t allow the vampire hunters to know about him or his club. They would ruin everything he’d built in the past decade and he was nowhere near ready to give up his club and the life he had in Chicago. Not yet.
“Who do you report to? Are you alone in Chicago?”
John gritted his teeth. “Fuck you, bloodsucker.” He tried to resist, but Damek applied more pressure, drilling into the man’s mind without hesitation. This man was his enemy, and Damek treated him as such.