He touched her cheek with an oddly reverent motion. “An elemental.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth went dry. “What the hell is that?”
The slender fingers slid down the line of her jaw creating all sorts of unwelcome havoc.
“I’m afraid that I’m not the one to ask for explanations. I’ve only heard rumors of such creatures.”
She stepped back. Conde Cezar might be the most arrogant, aggravating pain in the butt she had ever met, but his touch could still turn her mind to mush.
“I’m not a creature.” She sent him a telling glance. “At least not until I met you.”
“Anna, the one thing I do know is that elementals are born, not created. I had nothing to do with your powers.” He studied her sketpical expression before giving a shake of his head. “We can’t linger here in the open.”
She stubbornly stood her ground. It had been stupid to rush to Chicago and confront Cezar. She wasn’t about to make it worse by happily skipping off in the dark with a self-confessed vampire.
Her bizarro talents weren’t nearly dependable enough for that.
“What makes you think someone is trying to kill me?” she demanded.
“Would there be any other reason for a fire to be started outside your door?”
“It could have been an accident.”
He looked at her as if her elevator couldn’t possibly be going all the way to the top.
And maybe it wasn’t.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her aching temples. How long had it been since she had slept? Or ate? She couldn’t even remember. “Christ, I’ve gone way past my crazy threshold. This day couldn’t get any worse.”
“Never tempt fate, querida,” he warned softly. “It’s a lesson that I learned at my peril.”
She snorted as her gaze skimmed over his dark, knee-buckling beauty. His bronzed features were just as elegant, just as exquisitely carved as they had been two centuries ago. There wasn’t even a strand of gray in the thick black hair to mar his perfection.
“You don’t look as if you’ve suffered over the years.”
Something dangerous flashed through his dark eyes. Dangerous enough to make her take a hasty step backward.
“You have no idea, sweet Anna,” he said coldly. “But for now I’m more interested in discovering who’s trying to kill you and why. Do you have any enemies?”
She licked her dry lips, realizing she had touched a nerve that was best left alone. What she knew about vampires might fit into a thimble, but it seemed an overall good policy not to provoke one. Not when they were standing alone on a dark street.
“I’m a lawyer who battles the world’s most powerful corporations on a daily basis,” she admitted. “I have an endless list of enemies.”
“Any who want you dead?”
“No, of course not. That’s ridiculous.”
“You’ve lived over two centuries,” he pointed out. “You were bound to piss off a few people.”
Anna grimaced as she thought of the endless years she had lived in near solitude, taking menial jobs to survive, and constantly moving from one town to another to avoid notice.
“Until the past few years I’ve lived very quietly. It’s not easy to explain why I don’t age while everyone else around me grows old.”
The coldness faded from the black eyes. “Yes, I’m somewhat familiar with the problem.”
Oh, right. He would be. Anna briefly wondered just how old Cezar was. A few hundred years? A few thousand?
She shoved away the thought. It made her head spin. After all these years immortality still seemed like a strange, absurd dream.
“At last I decided I was tired of hiding,” she continued. “If I’m going to live forever I should at least do something to make the world a better place.”
The wicked amusement returned to the dark eyes. “By fighting corporations?”
“And what do you do?” she charged.
He flicked his gaze down her slender body, lingering on the plunge of her neckline. “I protect beautiful women from the things that go bump in the night.”
Anna swallowed a small groan as she could tangibly feel the heat of that sinful gaze. Cezar had always been able to seduce with a mere glance. “I’ve told you that I don’t need you to protect me.”
“Well that’s too bad, because that happens to be my current job.”
“Job?” She frowned at his odd choice of words. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He reached out to tap the end of her nose. “Precisely what I said.”
She smacked his hand away. She didn’t believe for a moment that he was some sort of Good Samaritan who went about protecting women. Hell, he was the thing that went bump in the night.
“Then consider yourself fired.”
His smile was mocking. “You don’t have the power to fire me. My orders come from those much more powerful than you. At least for the moment.” He stilled, his head tilting back as if testing the air. Then without warning he had wrapped her in his arms and pressed them both into the shadows of the nearest doorway. Anna opened her mouth to protest only to have his hand clamp over her lips. “Ssh,” he whispered close to her ear. “Someone is coming.”
Belatedly Anna could hear the sound of approaching footsteps. Turning her head, she was startled to see Sybil Taylor making her way down the street, pausing at each building to peer into the windows as if she was looking for something.
Or someone.
Anna caught her breath even as Cezar whispered words in a language she didn’t understand and the shadows deepened around them. In an instant they were wrapped in complete darkness.
Nice trick. It was no wonder vampires managed to remain below the radar of most people.
Cezar’s attention remained firmly trained on the woman approaching them.
“Now that is intriguing,” he murmured.
She pried his fingers from her mouth. “What?”
“Why would the fairy be searching for you?”
“How do you know that she’s searching for me?” His arm tightened around her waist, sending a zing of pleasure through her body. She was trying hard to ignore the fact that her back was pressed firmly to his hard, perfect body. And that his sandalwood scent was making her head spin and her palms sweat. At the impatient squeeze of his arm, she realized she wasn’t succeeding. She sighed and forced herself to concentrate on more important matters. Such as why she would even question the fact she was the one Sybil was searching for. It was too much a coincidence that the elegant woman would arrive in Chicago the exact day and attend the exact party for her not to be somehow involved in this current disaster. “Okay, stupid question.”