Whispers of ‘comarré’ filtered through from the forgotten crowd and brought his head up. The crowd was transfixed on something above him. Echoes of a familiar heartbeat built in his head. He glanced toward Dominic’s balcony. The glass railing was cracked and the French doors open, but the balcony was empty. A streak of red marred the fractured railing.
No way in hell could Chrysabelle have been here. Seen him. Of everything he wanted, that was not one of them.
If praying would have helped, he would have willingly set his tongue on fire to do so. He pushed to his feet as the adrenaline drained out of him, leaving him foggy and numb. The beast and the voices went deathly quiet.
His hands hung at his sides, Ronan’s blood dripping off them. He had to find her. Talk to her. Figure out why she had been here.
But those were questions for another time. The poison regained his system, and a second later, his legs buckled. He fell to the concrete as cold and lifeless as the fringe he’d just been trying to kill.
Chrysabelle stumbled blindly through the streets of downtown. Her hand ached. Her head hurt. Her stomach verged on rebelling, but sheer will and righteous indignation kept her dinner down. She wanted to scream. To lose her cool. To be very uncomarré.
If Mal thought he still owned her blood rights, which he very well might, then he had every right to drink the blood she’d sent. But why tell her he hadn’t? Was that his way of punishing her for not helping him? Was he that afraid of kissing her again? And how had Ronan gotten her blood? Dominic was at some secret penthouse on some island she’d never heard of. Surely his driver had delivered the blood Dominic had asked for. Or not. Maybe Dominic hadn’t even sent that note.
Nothing about tonight made sense, but with enough thinking, she’d figure it out. She needed a plan. Maybe she should go back to the freighter and confront Mal when he returned. Get it straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were. No, she might kill him if she did that without calming down.
Calming down. That was a good plan. Although killing him didn’t sound that bad either. Blood dripped off her fingertips. She needed to go home and take care of her hand. Killing something sounded much more appealing.
The sensation of being watched gnawed through her thoughts. She looked around and realized she wasn’t exactly sure where she was. Great. How far had she walked? Her car and driver were parked a few blocks away from Seven, but she wasn’t sure where that was from here. Seven was not, apparently, in a great part of town, but then Paradise City had more questionable areas than safe ones. Figured Dominic would pick this area. He’d probably gotten the building for a steal.
She checked the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, but just as before, they were empty. She rubbed the back of her neck, her hand brushing the reassuring hilts of her sacres. Wrapping her hand through one of the straps that crisscrossed her chest, she walked to the curb and started across the street to loop back the way she’d come.
A whisper of laughter brushed her ear. Several dark shapes flickered past the waning light of the next streetlamp. Dawn was coming and the solar was weak. She turned in time to see more dark shapes in the street behind her.
The slightly musty stench of fringe vampires rose off the asphalt like steam. Considering the blood trail she’d been leaving, it was no wonder she was being tracked. Blood speckled the front of her tunic and the side of her pants. The scent alone must be driving them mad. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. A little swordplay was just the thing for her current mood, and if someone got ashed, so much the better. All that solo training was fine, but there was nothing like a little field-work to hone one’s skills.
The fringe swept closer, dancing in and out of the shadows. She’d done nothing to cover her signum, so they probably knew what she was. Or thought they did. She spun in a slow circle, trying to count how many there were. More laughter. They thought she was easy prey.
How very, very wrong they were.
She gave way to the anger coursing through her veins. It bloomed bright and caustic, filling the marrow of her bones with a sense of indestructibility. Comarré were taught to suppress their anger, to banish it. Anger made a fighter vulnerable. Tonight she didn’t care. Comarré rules hadn’t helped her very much lately. All that propriety and sense of duty worked within the confines of noble society, but Paradise City was as far from noble society as heaven was from hell.
One after the other, the streetlights popped, shattering glass over the sidewalk in frosty shards. Laughter echoed down the empty road, bouncing off the abandoned buildings.
‘Come and get it,’ she whispered into the moonlit night.
Oily fringe-shaped stains leaked out of the shadows and closed in. A tall fringe, his hair a spiky mess, jumped onto the hood of the closest car, denting its hood. His attitude announced him as leader. He planted his hands on his hips and smiled at her. ‘Well, well. Dinner has come to us tonight.’
A female fringe emerged from the shadows and leaned against the car. She glanced at him, then grinned at Chrysabelle. ‘This one smells sweet, Frankie, like candy.’ She strolled toward Chrysabelle, winding a strand of screaming-red hair around one finger. ‘I like candy.’
The rest of the crew surrounded Chrysabelle, posturing in their worn leathers and hard-edged grins. At least fifteen of them altogether. Not quite the
