“I would be the first to applaud your desire to share your life, so long as it is with me, but what does this newfound need have to do with recklessly endangering yourself?”
She shrugged, ignoring his frigid displeasure. Stupid, of course. Only a fool would willingly cross swords with a vampire.
But over the past months she had been plagued with a growingly restless need to break free of the fear that had held her captive for far too long.
“Truly being a part of the world means taking risks, as my mother taught me. Whether it is with your heart or with your life.” She sent him a challenging frown. “Do not try to convince me that you would not do whatever necessary to rescue a vampire who had been kidnapped.”
“It is my duty as clan chief.”
“Well, this is my duty as a…”
“Yes?”
She yanked her arm from his grasp. “As a mongrel, I suppose.”
His brows snapped together at her brittle tone, but before he could continue his lecture, she was moving down the tunnel, refusing to halt until she reached the heavy metal door that blocked the passage.
She pressed a hand to the wall of the tunnel, knowing better than to actually touch the door until she was certain there were no nasty surprises. Her brow pleated with concentration. Unlike full-blooded demons, she did not possess finely tuned senses that allowed her to easily determine every nuance of her surroundings.
Which only meant she had to work harder, she grimly told herself.
Ignoring the annoyed vampire hovering protectively at her shoulder, Juliet pushed out with her senses, nearly going to her knees at the staggering odor of unwashed bodies and barely leashed panic.
Her every instinct urged her to turn around and flee, just as it had all those years ago when she had been in the bowels of the slave ship. Hardly unexpected. No creature with the least amount of sense would be eager to confront whatever was behind the door.
But now, as then, she called on the thought of her parents. Her fierce, fearless mother who defied her own coven to be with the imp she loved. Her impulsive, charming father with his ready laugh and open delight in his only child.
They believed in her, never allowing her to accept she was less because she was a mere mongrel.
Tonight she would make them proud.
“There are more than just humans,” she muttered.
“Sprites,” Victor determined with annoying ease. “A few nymphs.”
“Gargoyle?”
“Not mixed among the others.”
She snapped her gaze to his wary face. “But Levet is here?”
His lips thinned; he was no doubt regretting his promise he would never lie to her.
“Yes.”
Relief surged through her. “Thank God.”
“No god would be so cruel,” he drawled.
She ignored Victor’s callous indifference toward her friend. Vampires considered any demon not a vampire as a lesser demon. Even werewolves.
“First we must release the captives,” she decided.
Victor scowled. “Juliet, you do realize this might very well be a trap?”
“Do you sense—”
“I do not need to sense danger to know it is there.”
“I am doing this with or without you, Victor.”
The silver eyes flashed with mocking amusement. “Ah, when you have need of me I am Victor, eh, little one?”
She clenched her teeth, belatedly realizing she had indeed allowed his name to slip. It was a luxury she never indulged in. Not when she needed the formality to remind herself that Victor was a forbidden temptation. Just as she pretended she did not notice the manner in which his silk shirt clung to the chiseled muscles of his chest, or how precisely his pantaloons outlined the hard lines of his legs…
“I have several other names if you prefer,” she muttered.
With an impatient sound, Victor captured her face in his hands and leaned down to steal a kiss that jolted through her with stunning force.
“Let us be done with this,” he rasped against her mouth. “I have a far better means to spend the evening.”
She shivered, the image of the delicious vampire sprawled on satin sheets, his fangs latched onto the vulnerable throat of a woman, searing through her mind.
“I can imagine.”
He pulled back, a wicked smile curving his lips at the thickness of her voice.
“Soon you will not have to imagine,” he promised.
Annoyed with the indecent ease with which he could make her heart pound and her body ache, Juliet turned her attention to the heavy door blocking their path.
“Magic?” Victor softly demanded.
She held out a hand, lightly touching the dull metal of the door handle, stiffening when the door slid open with shocking ease.
“There are no hexes or curses.”
“No silver,” Victor deduced. Like most demons, vampires were lethally allergic to silver. “A spell?”
Juliet shook her head, ignoring the urge to gag at the putrid scent of unwashed bodies and human waste as she stepped to peer into the gloom of the cavern.
She expected the dozen or so people huddled against the far wall, and even their deplorable state of misery. Whether human or demon, being held as a prisoner was a ghastly fate.
No, but what did surprise her was the realization that none of them were bound in any way.
No cages, no shackles, no magic.
She turned to stab Victor with a puzzled frown. “What is keeping them in there?”
“Pure fear.” His expression hardened. “There is nothing to be done, little one. So long as the prisoners are held captive by their terror, then nothing will induce them to leave.”
“Could you glamour them?”
“I am powerful, but there is no vampire who could glamour so many at once.”
She gnawed her bottom lip, considering their limited options.
“Then we must discover something that will convince them that it is more dangerous to remain than to flee.”
His brows arched at her odd request. “I do not believe you would appreciate my means of convincing them just how dangerous I can be.”
“No, I did not mean you,” she hastily said, appalled at the mere thought of the poor creatures being tormented by a rampaging vampire. “I know a spell, but I have not attempted to use it for years.”
The silver eyes flickered with a wary surprise. “I did not know you could perform magic.”
She reached into her pocket to pull out her mother’s amulet, ruefully wishing she possessed the sort of power that would frighten a vampire. Then perhaps she would have the courage to accept Victor as her lover.