“This is why you came? To give me one last set of instructions before I leave your little kingdom, highness? You shouldn’t have bothered. If I wanted to have my life run by bossy little vampires who’ve lived only a fraction of what I have, trust me, you’re easy to find.”

His fangs flashed when he spoke, and the familiar hot rush of desire seared her system. She didn’t understand why he pushed every button she had. After Caius, the men she’d been attracted to were sweeter and a hell of a lot more innocent than it was generally possible for an immortal to be, and that was fine with her. She didn’t like jaded and cynical, and she certainly had never had a thing for tortured…but even catching sight of him made her toes curl. It wasn’t just lust, either. She was too old to succumb so easily to something that simple. Lust was familiar. Easy. This was anything but. All of her reactions to Meresin were dialed up to eleven, and there wasn’t a thing she’d been able to do to stop it, or even soften it.

Maybe that was part of the attraction.

It took everything she had to project cool, calm indifference to his anger. She’d figured out a while ago that any other reaction was just asking for trouble. She settled her hands on her h*ps and gazed steadily back at him, ice to his fire.

“Oh, ouch, my feelings. I’ve never been accused of being bossy before. That’s the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

He blinked, looked momentarily confused, and then resumed his thunderous frown. She had to fight back a smile. She might be young compared to him, but that wasn’t saying much. If he wanted to hurt her feelings, he’d have to try a lot harder than to call her something that Justin had been grumbling over since before they’d been sired.

“Well…you are bossy.” He still sounded peevish, but all the fury had vanished. What tension remained between them was substantial enough, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Yes, I am. And you might be an electrically charged pain in the ass, but you’re a useful one. I want to make sure you stay that way.”

He didn’t look impressed, watching her warily from across the alcove.

“So you found your way up here just to tell me to be careful?” he asked blandly. “I feel so cherished.”

It was the first evidence she’d ever seen that Meresin had a sense of humor lurking under all that angst, even if it was a very dry one. Still, she wasn’t quite sure how to react to it…so she tried not to.

“No, I came up here to tell you not to go alone,” Dru said flatly. “You don’t listen very well.”

“Neither do you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Granted, but I’m not a ticking time bomb. Levi thinks you should have someone with you, too.”

Meresin’s snort was not encouraging. “Levi is smart enough to know I won’t agree to that. I don’t need a minder,” he said. “Even if Uriel had tried to force it, I would have refused.” He stared at her long and hard, and something in his eyes flickered and danced for the briefest moment before he jerked his head to look away. “This task is for me alone. Everyone seems to understand that but you. So why don’t you run along and find someone else to order around? Better yet, spare the city and just get a dog. I understand they need constant supervision. That should suit you.”

He sounded more haunted than angry, but that didn’t prevent her temper from flickering to life. Every conversation with Meresin was like enduring a thousand little cuts. He didn’t seem inclined to stop, and she appeared to be too stupid to just steer clear. She was, however, done with the insults.

“Look,” she said flatly. “You can barely go a week around here anymore without having a problem. You really think you’re going to just leave and stay cool and levelheaded for however long this takes?” She advanced on him while she talked, until she was only inches away.

He shrugged, his eyes defiant. “Whether or not I can isn’t your problem. I can see that’s a difficult concept for you to understand, but you’re going to have to try. Now run along, Drusilla.” The way he said her name was like silk whispering across skin, and even in her anger she had to fight off a pleasurable shiver.

He moved away to pick something up. She was dismissed. Dru stared at his neatly folded wings, feeling all her confidence and determination draining away as she grappled with what more to say. Wearied from the latest in what seemed like an endless line of skirmishes with him, she could accept the fact that she hadn’t really come up here with any hope of bending him to her will. She’d simply wanted to see him one last time. She sighed softly.

“Please,” she said quietly. “I don’t have any instructions, really. I’m just…concerned. What’s going on?”

He bowed his head, and for a moment she thought he’d just reply with another nasty comment. But instead, he shifted so she could see his profile, though he didn’t make eye contact, and when he spoke his voice was strangely gentle.

“Why on earth do you care?” he asked.

Dru considered her options and decided on partial honesty. “My brother says I have an unnatural interest in lost causes. That must be it.”

It shocked her to see the brief, faint curve of his lips, which transformed his face into something softer and even more sensual in the instant before he schooled his features back into an unreadable mask. “That would explain it. I…have to find someone. The one who made me what I am.”

His honesty floored her. It took a few seconds to gather her thoughts enough to respond.

“You have to go back to Hell?”

His breath came out in almost a laugh. “No. That would just be a one-way ticket to a quick death for me. Amriel is someplace else, and probably as strange as he ever was. Whether he can or will help me is…” He shook his head, cutting himself off. “Well, that’s the gist, anyway. Honesty for honesty. Now be satisfied, Dru, and leave me be.”

Meresin bent to extinguish the little oil lamp beside his pallet. The sudden darkness, even with her vampire’s eyes, took a few seconds to adjust to. She regained her sight just as he was trying to slink past her, a thing he was surprisingly good at for an incredibly tall man sporting wings. She reached out, catching the tightly corded muscles of his arm. He jerked to a halt, hissing in a breath so softly she might not have heard it if it hadn’t been so silent up here. Then those burning violet eyes were on her, twin embers in the dark. She didn’t shrink from the confused anger in them, dangerous though she knew it was.

She’d seen worse.

“This is the second time today you’ve done that,” he said softly. “One more time, and I’ll show you why no one else does.”

She refused to look away. “I’m not afraid of you, Meresin.”

His eyes narrowed. “I know.” He tugged at his arm, but she held tight. Before she could think better of it, she stepped close, rose up on her tiptoes, and placed a light kiss on his cheek. She knew he would chafe at this repeat invasion of his space as well, but this time she took pains to keep it platonic, even though it was one of the harder things she’d ever done. He smelled like moonlight and summer storms. She wanted to wrap herself around him, but knew that would horrify him.

“Just be safe,” she whispered against his skin, “and come back. Not everyone wants you to stay gone.”

He bolted like a startled animal the instant she released him, though she would swear she felt the light brush of shaking fingers down her cheek before he vanished in a rustle of wings. Then she was alone in the dark. Not such an unusual position for her to be in. It only felt a million times worse right now. She was obviously out of practice.

And stranded, just as she’d been warned.

She looked back once at Meresin’s nest, considering, and then walked away. His jumble of possessions wasn’t hers to touch any more than he was.

“Murmur,” she called softly, closing her eyes when she heard movement in the dark. For just a moment, she let herself pretend that it was Meresin returning to tell her…something. Anything. Then she opened her eyes and accepted reality.

“You look about as happy as I expected,” Murmur said. “Want to go get drunk with some of us? It’s a really bad idea. Should be a good time.”

Her smile was small but genuine. Normally, she would refuse. A few drinks with friends was entirely different than partying with a bunch of demons. One was fun, the other was potentially life threatening. But tonight, she felt reckless in a way she hadn’t in centuries.

“Why not?” she replied.

His brows shot up. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Justin says I need to get out more. No time like the present.” It was time to accept what was, and what could never be. Even if Murmur’s grin gave her pause as he held out his hand.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Let’s make it a night you’ll wish you could forget.”

She would never admit it to a soul…but it already was.

Chapter Five

She had started the evening looking like vampire royalty. She was going to end it bearing far more resemblance to a zombie, wandering around the pretty little beach town of Mirage, Florida, in the middle of the night, sloppy and pissed off and minus one of the heels on her boots.

“This sucks,” Dru muttered, stumbling sideways and only barely managing to balance before falling onto the sidewalk. A warm breeze ruffled her hair, and she stilled, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. She loved the smell here. So much better than the stink of stale beer and the weirdly acrid scent of the fog that had been manufactured for the dance floor in DC. Why was she here, again? She hadn’t been drunk since one rather ill-fated night in Paris in the eighteen hundreds. What a great reminder that it was still a dumb idea.

There was a crash somewhere in the distance behind her, followed by a burst of masculine laughter and howls of approval. Dave’s Party Time Beach Bar, she remembered. Which was neither close to the beach nor much of a party…at least not until she and her merry band of miscreants had arrived. Now it was a dive bar of champions. She wondered if it would still be standing by the time the sun rose. If not, it wouldn’t be a great loss.

She swayed, opened her eyes, and looked at the sky. There were still a couple of hours before sunrise. Hopefully she’d manage to find her way back down to the city before then. She took one unbalanced step, cursed, and stripped off what had been a very expensive pair of boots.

Dumping them on the side of the road in a sad-looking heap, she wiggled her toes and sighed with pleasure. Her stomach growled pitifully, and she frowned down at it.

“Not right now,” she said. “Everybody’s asleep, and I’m not gonna…not gonna go climbing in a window for a bite.” Maybe the Half Light would still be open when she got home. Her favorite hangout was usually open late. Otherwise, she had no doubt there was a healthy supply of blood in the kitchen at the palace. And man was she hungry…but she had a hankering for fresh blood at the moment. Really fresh. Like sinking her fangs into tender flesh while some helpless human quivered with pleasure in her arms.

She gritted her teeth and tried to quash the urge. This was what happened when a vamp drank straight booze, which she would have remembered if she’d given this outing more than two seconds thought. Now she could barely think at all.

When her stomach growled again, she growled back at it. Then she blew out a long, boozy breath and tried to orient herself. What she found surprised her. She’d actually made it to the edge of downtown, or what passed for it. The beach was a soft, rhythmic rumble nearby. To her left was a pretty Spanish-style church, its stained-glass windows dark. A hand-painted sign out front proclaimed it to be the Church of the Angels. She frowned at it as she remembered Uriel giving her one of his patented stern and somber lectures earlier.

“It has to be this way, Dru. I appreciate your advocacy for him, but Meresin’s particular issues will soon make it impossible for him to stay in Terra Noctem. Something has to give. To stay, first he has to go. He has to change. I don’t know if he can.”

She kicked the sign and was rewarded with a bright shock of pain. She hopped on one leg, cursing Uriel, the sign, the church…and herself for forgetting she’d removed her boots. When the pain had gone, she stood swaying in front of the sign, daring it to mess with her again.

“Church of the Assholes,” she said. “That’s what you are.”

Nothing flew out of the sky to smite her. She still didn’t feel any better. And she was drunk. Really, stupidly drunk, and hitting the stage where she knew it, had a sneaking suspicion she might be sick sometime soon, and was very much aware that there was not a damn thing she could do about it.

All things considered, breaking into the church to see whether her continuing complaints might be heard a little more clearly wasn’t the worst idea she’d had all evening.

It was easy enough to stumble around to a side door and force it open. Even now, she managed to use her incredible strength with enough finesse not to break anything but the lock itself. She stepped inside, the marble floor cool on her bare feet. She inhaled and was surrounded by the scents of wood oil and incense and candles—surprisingly soothing. The religion might be different, but something about these older Christian churches took her back to the temples of her youth, when the blood had still run hot in her veins.

Then she saw the marble statues in the alcoves on either side of the altar, and her breath stilled. They were angels, beautiful angels. One held a sword, its face lifted to the sky. The other had its arms filled with flowers. She swept her gaze over the dark and empty pews. The moonlight streamed in through windows that featured even more angel imagery.