* * *
After dinner they all retired to a series of formal social rooms. Soft music played as staff passed through with trays of coffee, tea and after-dinner drinks. Rowan had already enjoyed three glasses of wine, so she switched to a cherry red port to go with the truffle she’d selected.
“I want you to know I have no patience at all with that little show Victoriana pulled earlier.”
Paola was the only female Scion, and she held a very powerful territory within the Nation. South America wasn’t that populated with Vampires, but the ones it had were very old and therefore they held a great deal of sway in the upper echelons of Nation politics.
They liked to be left alone. They didn’t much interact with each other, preferring to keep it to no more than one Vampire per several hundred miles. They liked their life. Liked their secret and did nothing to rock the boat. If Paola had opposed Rowan, it would have made the Treaty discussions much more difficult.
Rowan raised her glass slightly. “I’m not sure yet just exactly what her issue is. I didn’t know who she was yesterday. But I can take a guess.”
“It’s not that mysterious. My Vampires have no patience for such games in any case. Nor do they want to be policed by the Hunters.”
“We share that in common. I have no desire to go adding more things to my to-do list when it comes to Vampires. Believe it or not, I don’t like having to police your behavior. It cuts into my sleep time. It makes me cranky and the paperwork when I have to stake one of you is a huge pain in my ass. Nearly a year it took when I staked the last Scion in Vegas. And he was stealing from you.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish in that case. Fool. Why don’t you tell me why we’re not fit to handle this particular issue ourselves, then?”
Rowan finished the rather delightful truffle and let the sweet smoke of the port chase it before she spoke. “In most cases I’d wager you can. And frankly I hope you do because as I said, it’s a pain in my ass to have to do it. But in those situations where it doesn’t happen, like the one we just had, it took extra time, time that resulted in more deaths, just to get all the ducks in a row. If I’d known, or if the Nation had been organized to handle it, I wouldn’t be here now.
“The sad fact is, you all knew the blood barrier had been broken for crystal meth. You knew it as these women turned up dead. All addicts or recovering addicts. Targeted because of that. If I’d have known about the barrier being broken, it would have helped me sooner. But you knew. The Nation knew and still this rogue killed. I’d far prefer it if you had taken care of it. But in the times you don’t someone has to, and if it’s not in the Treaty it takes all my time playing these games to get basic cooperation, and let’s be honest, The First is my father and if I get caught up in red tape, how long would it take a run-of-the-mill Hunter?”
Paola nodded, clearly thinking it over.
“The changes we’re proposing for the Treaty only put into place a failsafe in the situation where the Nation does not do its job. I’m not out to control you all any more than you already have submitted to.”
“But in point of fact, Rowan, you will receive more control with this change. It’s one more area where the Hunters can interfere in our internal governance.”
“Because in the past you proved you were not willing to share the information you should have to protect not only humans, which Hunter Corp. are bound to protect, but the secrecy of your existence. I’m the one who had to protect you. At great personal expense, I should add.”
Valerie sidled up to them, and Rowan restrained an eye roll.
“I’m Valerie Portman from Hunter Corp. A Junior Partner. He didn’t introduce all of us by name.” She held a hand out to Paola, who stared at her for long moments before taking it. A Vampire as old as Paola would have expected a hand offered wrist up, open, on the way to a handshake. For Rowan, it would have shown her mark, said who she was, if she was protected. It was an old-school way of introduction, and there more than most places, it should have been honored.
Rowan tipped her chin in deference to Paola before she introduced her to Valerie. Hoping to smooth over the faux pas. “This is Paola Castel, Scion of South America.”
“Is this your assistant, Rowan?”
Valerie actually sputtered, and Rowan had to rein in her desire to backhand the other woman across the room.
“I’m no one’s assistant!”
Paola’s eyes widened for a brief moment, and then they narrowed. Offense had been taken quite clearly.
“Paola, I appreciate your time and your ear. I’ll speak with you tomorrow evening.” Rowan lowered her chin again but kept her gaze on the Vampire as she did. “I apologize for Ms. Portman’s manners.”
She clamped a hand around Valerie’s upper arm and squeezed tight enough to earn a yelp before Valerie could dig herself in any deeper with Paola.
“Just so.” Paola stepped back and Rowan hustled Valerie from the room. Across the hall, Celesse took the scene in and gave a brief raised brow in question, but Rowan shook her head and shoved a protesting Valerie into a smaller receiving room away from the rest.
“Get your hands off me!”
Rowan shoved Valerie away, squaring her shoulders and blocking the exit. “You will never show such vulgarity again as an official representative of Hunter Corporation or I will have you fired.”
“How dare you? I should have you fired for assaulting me.”
“Go ahead on and try. I’m a Full Partner, here in an official capacity. I know how to address an ancient Vampire. I know how to speak in a professional setting. When you shook Paola’s hand, you did not show your wrist. You called attention to The First not introducing you by name.”
“What? So?”
“Moreover, after acting as if you’d been raised in a barn, you did not wait to be introduced to her by me. You shoved up into her personal space, you interrupted my conversation with her—about the Treaty changes, I might add—and then you looked her directly in the eye, dumbass. You insulted her when you sputtered your outrage at her question. You acted like a mannerless cur.”
“I know how to deal with the rich and powerful. She’s the one who was rude by asking if I was your assistant. If you hadn’t been so jealous I was out for your job, I’d have had her charmed in five minutes with a clever compliment about her clothes. Even if they were pedestrian.”
“These Vampires care nothing for your idea of elbow rubbing. They don’t talk about who they’re wearing on the red carpet. Your ideas of what is powerful are pathetic. That Vampire you just showed your ass to is over a thousand years old. She’s got more power than you can even wrap your tiny, feeble brain around. She cares little for designer labels and everything about whether or not she is shown the position and respect she has earned by being the most vicious bitch on an entire continent.
“You were briefed about protocol. I should know as I created the materials. I am not, nor would I ever be jealous of you in any way. Or threatened by you. This job is mine. It will be mine tomorrow and next year and I will be qualified for it a million times and again before you can even contemplate why you are so wrong for it. You are a social-climbing, useless twat, and you are on very thin ice. This is not the opportunity for you to try to charm anyone with compliments about their clothes. This is business. This is big leagues, life-and-death stuff that concerns the well-being of billions of people. If you can’t get behind the point of this Joint Tribunal, that is to get this amendment passed, you need to get yourself out of here and back to London. The goal has been clearly outlined. Let me add that you will not act like a cretin again with these Vampires or I will beat you bloody and then send you home on the bus where you will be met at the doors of Hunter Corp. with your meager belongings in a box. I will end you. Do you understand me?”
Valerie blinked, and Rowan could see the other woman still didn??
?t get it.
“You can’t fire me. You can’t threaten to beat me like a common criminal. The Treaty protects these monsters and it’s time they realized who their betters are. I’m supposed to show my vein to that thing in there? Are you out of your mind? She should be staked! They all should. The Treaty only protects them.”
“Oh, is that so? First, I will beat your ass bloody. I will break your fucking arms and legs and while I’m at it your nose too. Hunter Corp. would do nothing but congratulate me for knocking your ass down a few pegs. You are unfit to even have an opinion on the Treaty. You’ve not done even five minutes of field work your whole useless life. You have this job because your mother’s boyfriend is a Full Partner. And I’m sure even he knows you’re a dimwitted cow. This is your only warning. If I catch you pulling shit like that again, you will spend the next year healing from what I will do to you.”
Rowan turned her back and stalked to the door. “If you’d been thinking instead of social climbing you’d have remembered they’ve got amazing hearing.” No one liked to be called a monster.
Rowan went out into the hall and kept walking until she had arrived in the main room again.
Celesse would get an earful from Valerie, but Celesse would back Rowan. Especially when she found out what Valerie had done. Still, she did hope Valerie pushed it because she wanted a whole lot to punch her right in the face until her nose crunched.
Chapter Eight
Rowan wasn’t surprised at the knock on her door about half an hour after she’d left the gathering downstairs. She’d had enough time to get out of her swanky clothes and take a shower before Clive came up.
She opened, always so pleased at the sight of him in a perfectly fitted suit. Wearing a tie she’d foolishly bought him because it had been the same green as his eyes. She’d been so embarrassed giving it to him, so much she’d tried to snatch it back, but he’d gotten quite cross and told her he loved it and that one simply did not give gifts only to take them back.
“You’re still awake?” His gaze took her in with so much intensity the hair on the back of her neck rose.
“Nope. I’m sleeping right now.”
He sighed and came into the room, loosening his tie as he did. She locked up, including the connecting door to David’s suite, and leaned against the doorjamb, watching him remove his suit jacket and carefully fold it, laying it over the back of a chair.
“Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class, Scion?” She held back her smile. He needed to squirm a little about Collette.
He winced. “I wanted to tell you before dinner, but she...I had to discuss her presence with The First. That took more time than I’d intended. I was nearly late for dinner as it was. I’m sorry.”
“If you had to tell Theo, it means she tried to recruit you for her nefarious whatever. I mean, more than to get you back in her bed. And I can’t blame her for that, though I don’t share. Doesn’t mean I won’t stake her if she pets you again.”
He scrubbed hands over his face, and she allowed herself a pleased smile while he wasn’t looking.
“Can we do this in your bed?”
She dropped her robe and walked past him into her bedchamber and slid under the blankets. The plus of having a fireplace in your bedroom was that it kept the cold at bay. Even in a castle.
“Is it that bad then? That you have to be naked to tell me? Are you trying to captivate me with your penis first? Or is this farewell sex? If so, I might bite you or break something. It might be wise to tell me after.”
His annoyance wisped away as he pulled his shirt off. “I believe you would break something, my darling Hunter. But if you truly thought I was going to give you the brushoff, you should know me better than to think I’d do any such telling before I placed my softer bits anywhere near you.”
She laughed, leaning against the pillow, loving the sight of his body as he unveiled it bit by bit until he was totally naked.
“Doesn’t look like any bits are soft, Scion.”
He shook his head. “Incorrigible.”
“Oh? Do you want to play stern headmaster and naughty schoolgirl again?”
This made him laugh as he slid into bed and got very close. He was warm.
She slid her palms up his chest. “You fed again? You must have some strenuous plans for me.”
“Liquid courage to tell you an ex of mine had shown up and offered me a position in the opposing camp.”
“I guessed that part. Why didn’t you tell her how amusing I am?” she teased.
“I told her you were dangerous and not to play with you or it would end badly for her. I doubt she’s going to listen, Rowan. I told her no, in case I wasn’t clear.”
“To her bed and her political invite too?”
“Both are things I’m not interested in. Not in the slightest.”
“So the Blood Front is going to come at Theo. Here in his Keep? So openly?”
“You got that information rather quickly.”
“Once I had some keywords it wasn’t too hard. Carey had already started before we spoke the first time, and by the time I was ready for dinner I had a dossier. She hasn’t tried very hard to keep her details quiet. Ego is always the Achilles’ heel of younger, powerful Vampires. Clichés with fangs, one and all. Sure, Victoriana is powerful, but Flavius had other, older children. Why not one of them instead of her?”
“I don’t know. She’s being rash.”
It didn’t need to be said that rash was a stupid way to come at Theo. It was beyond rash. A Vampire didn’t get to be as old as Victoriana or amass as much power by being rash.
“I think I’m missing something. Maybe she’s got a death wish and she’s too afraid to just walk into the sun. Also, the Blood Front? Ugh with the dumb names. Victoriana of the Blood Front. It sounds like bad anime. Or one of those movies Hollywood pays a jillion dollars to make with eighteen very pretty young actors and it has no plot, lots of special effects and the hero is a broody Vampire with a dark backstory.”
“I have accepted I don’t understand about sixty percent of your cultural references. But the hero should wear a Saville Row suit. I’m broody.”
“You’re not broody. You’re utterly civilized. You grew up in a two-parent home in an upper income bracket. I mean, hundreds of years ago, but still. Your backstory is not dark. But until me you had really questionable taste in women. I bet she titters and makes men open jars of things even though she’s got Vampire strength.”
“Enough about Collette please. It was a century ago. I’m sorry you were blindsided by this. It’s uncivilized and hurtful.”
“My feelings are not hurt. I don’t care that you hit it a hundred years ago with her. You’re hitting it with me right now.” She shrugged, kissing the spot on his neck where his pulse would throb if he had one. But he still had plenty of nerve endings there.
His body relaxed against hers as he reached down to grab two handfuls of her ass and haul her closer. “I take it back,” she murmured against his collarbone before running the edge of her teeth there.
“What?”
“You’re not utterly civilized.” She fisted his cock, sliding her hand up and down a few times. “When it comes to fucking, you’re unleashed. It’s my favorite part. Knowing that just beneath all that elegant veneer, beneath the suits and perfect manners, lies a man who will growl orders at me to suck his cock.”
He groaned. “You’re enough to make a man forget his manners.”
He pushed her to her back, looming over her. She smiled up at him. “Yeah? That’s a really good compliment.”
Shaking his head a moment, he leaned down to brush his lips over hers before he cruised down her neck, leaving gooseflesh in his wake.
There was no need to discuss any of the rest further that night. She let him off the hoo
k, instead remembering there were only two hours until sunrise and she wanted to use the time for things far better than talking about Clive’s ex-girlfriends.
He kissed the words away. His tongue sliding between her lips and into her mouth. His taste—cognac, she thought—suited him. Though he was warm from feeding, her skin was hot against his, bringing a hiss at how good he felt after two weeks away.
She gave his bottom lip a nip, just shy of bringing blood. His hips jutted forward and he brushed his cock against her until she shuddered, widening her thighs enough to wrap them around his waist, exposing herself fully to him.
He snarled something unintelligible in some other language. Italian, she thought. Whatever. It worked. “In me.”
“Not yet.”
She nipped his bottom lip again, undulating, rolling her hips to slide her pussy against him. “Why not? In me!”
His laugh was a tease as he moved past her mouth, sliding his body down hers, kissing to her left breast where he licked over her nipple until she writhed at how good it felt.
“Because I’m in charge right now. I want my mouth on you before I put my cock in you.”
Oh. Well. Like she’d argue with that.
He bit, tugging, just shy of real pain, just on the very edge of drawing blood. The tension of that ramped up between them. She knew he wouldn’t, not without her permission. But he pushed that line until the danger of it got them both off. For all his growling and snarling, his control was exquisite.
His tongue soothed the sting right before he bit and tugged again, only to start over with the sweep of his tongue. She lost track of time as he drove her insane with want.
His lips brushed over her ribs. Lower and lower, over her belly button, until he breathed over her pussy and she nearly jumped off the bed with delight.