He got no further than that. His hand had been outstretched as he was in the process of introducing the woman to his immediate left, but Lydia interrupted him. “Spare me your pretentious, insipid titles,” she said. Lydia sat in an ornate chair facing them without ceremony. “You’re Blackthorne. Fine. And you are?” she looked to the poised but plainly surprised vampire princess beside him.
“Lady Anastacia Illyana Kanatova,” she said in a cultivated Russian accent.
“Of course. And you,” Lydia said to the third. “I assume you have a much shorter name. Thorne? No, that’s already partly taken here. Ice? Ash? Blaze. No, wait. Caine. No? Shade?”
“Lucien,” the third vampire said with a scowl.
“Two syllables,” Lydia noted with a lifted eyebrow. “I’m impressed.”
“We did not come here to suffer petty mockery,” Anastacia said coolly.
“No, of course not, but that can’t be helped. I’ve met too many of your kind over the years. We’ll cut right to it, then. You know who I am?”
“Our court loremasters have explained all we need to know,” Blackthorne replied.
“Loremasters,” Lydia murmured. “Of course. Well. You may call me Lydia. I may be in this city for some time. I offer you the courtesy of establishing a working relationship now rather than working one out after months or years of shadowy intrigue and friction.”
It was Anastacia’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Again, though, Blackthorne did the talking. “Why should we wish to establish such a relationship with one such as yourself?”
“Because, little vampire, I know all about your kind. I have power and resources and I have none of your weaknesses. That said, I have no need to wrest control of the shadows of this city from you-such control as you may or may not have. But if it comes to it, I’ll be happy to confirm through experimentation whether or not current literary trends are true and see if you lot now merely sparkle in the-”
“What do you want?” Anastacia asked. Her face remained placid, her voice still cool. Blackthorne and Lucien bristled under Lydia’s blunt disrespect, but Anastacia maintained her self-control.
“Your kind spread throughout any city’s nightlife. I am in search of two individuals, a young man and a woman. The male’s name currently escapes me. The woman goes by the name of Lorelei. I have their likeness here,” she said, holding out the sheets of paper. “I wish your assistance in locating and investigating them.”
At a nod from Anastacia, Lucien stepped forward and took the pictures. He looked them over, shrugged, and showed them to Blackthorne. Anastacia kept her calm gaze on Lydia. “And in return?” she asked.
“In return, I shall respect your territorial boundaries. I will help you manage an impending shift in organized crime so that no undue harm comes to your interests. I will also agree to come to your aid some time in the future when you face a challenge to your crown or throne or whatever it is you call it,” Lydia sighed, waving a dismissive hand.
When the vampires did not respond, Lydia conceded, “And I may be inclined to demonstrate a greater degree of respect.”
Anastacia favored her with a tight smile. “How very generous of you.” She sat back down in her chair. “Tell us the details.”
* * *
“If you get bored, I want you to let me know,” Alex said, sitting behind the wheel. The sun had gone down just a couple of hours earlier, leaving them with a surprisingly clear, comfortable night for late September.
“I’ll have no trouble keeping myself amused,” Lorelei assured him. She sat beside him, clad in an even smaller and even sexier little black dress than she had worn the night before. Her hands were folded demurely in her lap. Her innocent posture and playful tone sent out blatant signals.
“Seriously, though. This is gonna be a lot of college students, and most of ‘em aren’t sure what they’re doing with their lives. Probably most still claim to be psych majors, for fuck’s sake. Hardly any of us have real jobs. And I don’t even know a lot of them besides the hostess and a few of her friends. I kinda doubt you’ll find everyone interesting. They’ll all be blown away by you, though,” he added.
“Alex, not everyone I have associated with has been some highly-placed aristocrat or potentate. Far from it. I have spent much more time in simple farms and villages than in castles or mansions. Mortals fill their lives with complexities and meaning regardless of their place in society. It’s all just a matter of perspective.”
“You’re just saying that to be tactful.”
“You know I would not do that, Alex,” Lorelei replied. “If I didn’t want to go with you to this party, I’d have seduced you into staying in the hotel with me. Your friends will be there, won’t they? I rather enjoyed their company the other night.”
“Well, there’s my close friends, and there’s people I know from school, and their friends. I’ve gotten along at these parties, sure, but I wouldn’t call just any one of them up at night to see if they wanted to go catch a movie.”
Lorelei shrugged. “Not every pleasant association can lead to something life-altering.”
Arriving at their general destination, Alex began looking for a parking space. As he did, he asked tentatively, “Demons don’t ever have friends, do they?”
“Not among our own kind. There is occasionally the pretense of alliance or loyalty, but it is all out of self-interest, and all know it. I have felt…a passing appreciation for some few mortals in my life, but I kept my distance,” she explained as Alex parked the car. “You and yours are the first friends I’ve ever had.”
He turned to look at her then, and found her solemn gaze telling him a hundred things. “I want you to have a good time at this party tonight, my love.” She shifted a bit in her seat, sliding black lace down from underneath her short dress and off her legs. Lorelei dangled the lace between herself and Alex without ever breaking her stare. “A very good time.”
They were parked out on a residential street at night lined with cars against both curbs. It was Magnolia again, the same neighborhood where Alex met Raymond Cordingly and confronted the reality of what Lorelei was for the first time. Their destination wasn’t as opulent or large a home as Cordingly’s, but it could hold a big party. Parking was scarce. Alex and Lorelei had a couple of blocks to walk before they got to the house.
But before that, Alex opened Lorelei’s door, offered his hand in helping her out, closed the door… and then took a knee before her on the pavement. His hands slid up her thighs, pushing up the hem of her dress. With his eyes on hers he gently, lovingly invaded her wet flesh with a kiss.
Lorelei’s eyes closed. She moaned out loud in response to his affection. He didn’t keep it up long, meaning it as a kiss and an indulgence rather than a full service, and she knew it. He let her down easy from that height of pleasure, then rose to stand in front of her.
Lorelei slung one leg over his shoulder just as he stood, straightening it and bending it upward at the hip with easy grace. Wordlessly, she loosened his jeans and pushed away his button-down shirt. Lorelei’s intense stare held as he pushed into her and said, “I love you, Lorelei.”
She almost returned his words, but the pleasure of having him inside her instead drew from her a wordless announcement of pleasure, and then another. His hips pushed her bare ass up against the car. She threw her arms around him, deciding to reciprocate his love physically rather than in words.
Swept away by mutual urges, neither thought to have Lorelei employ her supernatural knack for hiding in plain sight. A BMW passed by, slowing long enough for the older woman at the wheel to yell out in disgust, “Hey! Go inside! This is a decent neighborhood!”
Laughing happily, Lorelei called back to the woman, “Not tonight, it’s not!”