A lot of the twinkle left his eyes then. In fact, he looked a bit grim when he said, “The sharks, huh?”
Ildaria sighed and shrugged unhappily. “We did take them out to see and feed sharks if we could find any. We also served themcheese trays and punch made with really watered-down alcohol in it.”
“Watered down because you didn’t want to drink alcohol filled blood.”
He sounded angry again, but she ignored that and nodded.
“When did you feed on them?” he asked grimly.
Ildaria shrugged uncomfortably. “We weren’t supposed to feed on them until we reached international waters. That was the wholereason behind Vasco doing this. To get us the blood we needed without leaving us homeless, or having to go without it untilwe were so desperate that we inadvertently attacked a mortal on land and were executed.”
G.G. was silent for a minute, his gaze disapproving. “You weren’t supposed to feed on them until you reached internationalwaters,” he murmured her words almost thoughtfully, and then said, “But you did, didn’t you?”
Ildaria’s mouth tightened. “What? Now you’re a mind reader?”
He shook his head. “No. But you said you ‘weren’t supposed to,’ not ‘we never fed on them until we reached international waters,’” he pointed out in a low rumble.
Ildaria’s mouth twisted at that and then she looked away and sighed. “I usually did wait. I always tried to. But there werethree, maybe four times when one or the other of the idiot mortals managed to corner and try to rape either myself or oneof the other women.” Her mouth firmed with anger at the memory, and she confessed, “Those ones I fed on early and in the mostunpleasant way I could think of.”
G.G. didn’t comment at once, and after a moment she huffed out a breath, letting go of her anger as she said, “Unfortunately,I couldn’t leave the memory with them so it was really a stupid, useless thing to do that taught them nothing and endangeredboth myself, and Vasco, who didn’t deserve that kind of trouble.”
“Then why did you do it?” G.G. asked reasonably.
Ildaria hesitated and then shrugged unhappily. “I couldn’t help myself. I just . . . I really hate men who think they canjust take what they want and rape a woman.”
Ildaria turned her gaze back to her drink then, staring at it grimly and refusing to meet his gaze after that admission. Whenhe remained silent, seeming to be waiting, she added, “That’s why I decided to leave Punta Cana. So I wouldn’t make troublefor Vasco and the others anymore.”
“And you moved to Montana,” G.G. put in.
Ildaria nodded. “Jess invited me to stay with her while I figured out what I wanted to do. She’s the one who suggested I get a degree at college or university.”
When she stopped talking again, G.G. said, “And you chose accounting at university, but then your friend was raped.”
“Yeah.” She breathed the word unhappily. “I didn’t have enough experience to wipe her memories, but I did what I could toblur them for her. Soften them so she wasn’t so terrified and traumatized.”
“And then you went vigilante,” G.G. suggested, bringing her gaze sharply to his. Smiling at her expression, he shrugged. “LikeI said, the Night Club is gossip central. I did hear a little of why you are now in Canada and being watched like a hawk byLucian and the boys.”
Ildaria grimaced, and took a sip of her drink, but then nodded. “Yeah. Well, when I read her mother’s mind, I saw that they’dlearned that Alicia wasn’t the first victim of this rapist. They suspected the same man was responsible for at least threeother attacks. There was a serial rapist on campus, but they weren’t advertising it because they didn’t want the female studentsto panic, and risk female enrollment dropping,” she said bitterly. Angry that the school would choose profit over concernfor its female students. “So, I donned leathers and started going out at night looking for the bastard.”
“Leathers?” G.G. asked, distracting her from her anger.
She blinked at him and then shrugged. “Injuries mean a need for more blood, and while I was working full time as a waitress, making great tips, and my rent with Jess was ridiculously low, university is expensive. I couldn’t afford a lot of extra blood,” she explained. “Short of a Kevlar bodysuit or something, leather is the best thing you can wear to avoid or reduce injury. So I bought black leather pants, a black leather jacket and whatnot, put my hair in a ponytail or bun to prevent it being used against me and went out looking for him.”
“Did you get him?” G.G. asked when she fell silent.
Ildaria shook her head slowly. “No. But I got a lot of other assholes up to no good.” A small smile played around her lipsas she recalled the people she’d helped and the criminals she’d dumped in the hands of local mortal law enforcement. But aftera moment, she sighed, and added, “Unfortunately, there are a lot of fricking people out there with cell phones happy to filmanything and everything everybody is doing. I got caught on film once or twice, which was bad enough. But then one of thepeople I rescued was an FBI agent . . . and didn’t that just make them hot to catch me?” She rolled her eyes, thinking thatwas gratitude for you, and then said irritably, “Which, of course, caught the attention of the North American Council.”
“Ah,” G.G. murmured, picking up his own drink, but merely holding it as he said, “Which is how you ended up here in Torontounder Lucian’s eagle eye.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “In truth, I was lucky. He could have had me executed. I was drawing attention that could have led tothe discovery of our kind, and that’s a no-no with every Council so . . .” She breathed out unhappily. “I just wish I’d caughtthe bastard who attacked Alicia before Lucian caught on and came to Montana to shut me down.”
G.G. was silent for a minute, his expression thoughtful, and then he asked, “And what happened here?”
Ildaria
