Sex, Lies, and Vampires

I stepped closer to him and gave her a firm look. "A cot will be lovely, thank you. Adrian can sleep on the cot, and I'll sleep on him."

She had the grace to look away, her cheeks slightly rosy as she hurried off to the next room. "I will get the key to the pub."

"Nell," Adrian said. I watched in amazement as his eyes changed from deep sapphire to a light steel-blue. "I know what you're thinking."

I raised my eyebrows in faux horror. "You know I am planning on jumping your bones the second I get you alone?"

"I know you are planning to slip out once I'm asleep. I know you intend to free Damian without me."

My eyebrows dropped back to their normal position as I slipped into the most innocent look I could muster. "I never once thought that."

"No?"

I couldn't meet those knowing eyes. I glanced down, picking at a piece of invisible lint on my sleeve. "No. Not seriously. The idea might have flitted through my brain, but I didn't consider it. Not for long."

"Good. It is an idea that goes beyond foolish. To attempt to best Asmodeus without me to help you would be suicide, and that"—his fingers caressed my chin as they tilted my face upward—"I could never allow. You are too important to me."

"Face it," I said, rubbing the tip of my nose on his. "You're madly in love with me. You'd be lost without me. I'm your earth and sun and everything in between."

I held my breath as I waited for his response to my half-joking statement. I knew he desired me, knew he needed my blood, knew we were bound together in ways I couldn't begin to understand, but I had no idea whether or not his feelings for me were more than physiological.

His lips parted to speak.

"I found the key for you. It would probably be best if you two entered the pub via the back way, so no one will see you."

Adrian turned away as Belinda entered the room. I swore to myself, cursing her bad timing. What had he been about to say to me? His eyes were shuttered, giving me no clue, and now I wouldn't know.

I would just have to find out once we were alone. Adrian gave Belinda instructions to wake us a few hours before sunset, so we would have time to prepare for the ritual I'd be conducting—or trying to—that evening. I accepted the package of food she'd made up for me, and waited by the door attempting to hide my impatience, praying Adrian would finish talking so we could make our escape to the office below. Tired as I was, I had plans for him… plans which included not only a little therapeutic lovemaking, but the consumption of breakfast as well.

"You know, I have a very good feeling about this," I said over my shoulder to Adrian as I marched down the stairs from Belinda's apartment to the outside door. He was a shadow on the dark stairs, being clad in his coat and hat, with a black scarf that Belinda had dug out of a closet wrapped around the lower part of his face. "We've been dealt a few blows, but we're still on top. It's all going to be downhill from here, just you wait and see!"

I reached for the doorknob, jumping away as it suddenly swung open toward me.

A man in a black overcoat and hat loomed in the doorway. Behind him, a woman in sunglasses limped toward the door.

Christian stared at me in surprise—probably the same amount of surprise that was visible on my face.

Only I was quicker. I lunged forward, shoving him backward through the door, slamming it shut and twisting the deadbolt closed as I quickly traced the binding ward on the door.

"They found us!" I hissed over my shoulder to Adrian. He didn't need any further explanation. He grabbed my wrist and started dragging me back up the stairs to Belinda's apartment.

I grabbed the newel post to stop my ascent, my gaze riveted on the door. I watched with amazement as the ward I had drawn began to unravel, the green ward dissolving bit by bit. Right before my eyes!

"What the hell?" I pulled myself free from Adrian and ran the few steps to the door, touching the unraveled end of the ward, quickly redrawing it into the pattern of binding.

The ward glowed green for a second, started to fade, then glowed again as it once more began to unravel.

"Nell, leave it! There is a back way out of Belinda's flat!"

I touched the ward with the tip of my finger, gritting my teeth as it fought my touch. "You go," I said, focused on the recalcitrant ward. "I'll stay here and hold the door."

"I am not going to leave you," he snarled, jumping down the stairs to grab me.

"It's that Allie woman," I said, fighting with the ward to keep it from undrawing any more. "She's trying to unmake it on the other side of the door."

"Nell, leave it. We must escape now."

I twisted the unraveled edge of the ward back onto itself, tying it in a knot, watching it for a second to make sure Allie wasn't going to be able to undo it quickly. The ward quivered and strained, but held.