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.”“Armanita.”Reggie looked down at his hands, “I actually attacked her.I should have known she was a vampire because I watched her bite his neck, but I attacked her anyway.She could have killed me right there, instead she picked me up by my neck and read my hospital ID.Then you know what she told me? ‘There are not enough Reginalds in today’s world.’ She dragged me to her limo, and then she drank from me.In all my life, I have never been shown the slightest hint of mercy.Nita was the first.Then, you.Claudius seems to be okay, but he’s a little too cold for me.”I reached out and patted his shoulder.“That’s his happy face.You should see him when you fuck with his piano.He gets positively glacial.” I shivered.There was going to be hell to be pay for breaking it.I heard some grunting.Reggie’s forehead furrowed a bit as he heard it too.We crossed over to the opposite side of the balcony and looked over the railing to see two vampires really getting into the nasty.I dropped a hand over my eyes.Oh, yeah, just like the high school prom.We looked at each other and burst out laughing.The grunting stopped, and we booked it away from the railing.So, this was the crème de la crème of Vampire Society.We were so screwed.I leaned against the railing on the other side, and looked across the ballroom at the band setting up.I could see Marcus’s sable locks from here.He bent over to pick up some sheet music.His pants pulled tight across his gluts.My mouth went dry.“Sunglasses,” Reggie whispered to me.“Your Flame is showing.”I pulled up the cat mask I was wearing and slipped the welder’s goggle glasses down.So what if they weren’t that fashionable.I didn’t feel like going blind and having Armor spit in my eyes again.Damn, just looking at that fine example of a male frame made me want to Flame.Was this lust or love? Or was it just mental conditioning, just the Vampire version of Pavlov’s dogs, with sex the reward of drooling over Marcus/Armor?“So which one is your man? Let me guess.” Reggie pointed to a blond setting up…what was that? A cello?I wrinkled up my nose.“No?…hmmm, it can’t be the hottie I think it is.”“Which one is that?”“Broad shoulders, narrow waist, nice ass, brown hair, brown eyes.”“That’s my hottie.No touching.I’ve discovered I’m a possessive sort of vampire.”Reggie leaned forward, setting his elbows on the railing.He flipped his head to the side so his red hair flared out behind him.“I like my hands just where they are.That’s Marcus, eh? I didn’t get a good look at him back at the photo shoot.You’ve snagged the mother lode, X.Marcus Du Bussey, the Master of the Territory and Head of the House, and not hard on the eyes.You’re set for life…er, however long that is.”“Can I ask you a personal question, Reggie? You can tell me to take a flying fuck if you don’t want to answer.”“Well, you won’t know until you ask it, X.”“Why did you turn down the Covenant? Don’t you love Nita?”Reggie stilled for a moment, then lowered his head.His red hair fell forward, hiding his face.Then he sighed and started talking.“I’m alive for a reason, X.” He pulled his cuffs back and rubbed his thumb along the numerous scars sliced into his young flesh.“This isn’t the first, nor the third.I tried five times to die, and something always happened every time to save me.A cop, a concerned john, a passerby.Someone always came along before things got too far.So, I’m meant for something.I’m still here because I have something to do.I don’t have a clue what it could be—I don’t think being Armanita’s sex toy is it.I just know I’m not meant for eternity.”He turned and set his ass on the railing.He flipped his hair back over his shoulders.He was too damned young to be so old.He glanced over to me.“Just being in Nita’s house gives me a peace I never had before.From the beginning, she would call me to her table almost every other day.I didn’t care what the others thought.She drank from me.When she drank, I found things in me that I didn’t even know existed.I had peace.I had contentment.My demons were silenced.“In return for my cooperation, I was given regular meals.I even got a job after the Rothchilde staff realized that I wasn’t going to be dessert.It wasn’t much, but I got to be her gopher.Eventually, I cleaned up.There was no way she was allowing drugs into her house, and besides, everything I had taken the drugs to silence, was being silenced through her bite.I starting filling out.I was dressed to household standards, so the shops that would have called the cops on me before were falling over themselves to fill an order from the House of Rothchilde.“When I found her staring at your kilt photo with such longing, I knew I wanted to make that sadness go away.It wasn’t until I first saw myself in the mirror with your red hair that I knew I loved her.I never knew I was capable of love.Nita has given me many gifts, Xavier.Gifts that I have no chance of returning or repaying.I have no doubt that I would have been found dead in an alley somewhere, either by my hand or by some john.She actually cried when she offered the Covenant and I told her no.Nita saved my life, but I can’t live for her.You probably don’t understand that.”“Don’t be so sure.My life wasn’t all wine and roses.Not as bad as yours, but if Marcus had offered…” I broke off, stunned at what I just said.Reggie straightened.“Holy shit, X.Don’t ever say that aloud again, anywhere.Ever.”I grabbed onto the railing, still looking down at Marcus as he moved around below.I was surrounded by vampires every moment of the day.While they might love me to one degree or another, this was different.I had to tell someone, anyone.No, not anyone.Someone I could trust.I needed a confessional of sorts.I snaked my hand into Reggie’s hair and pulled him close so my lips were almost pressed to his ear.I spoke with an almost silent whisper so Vampiric hearing couldn’t eavesdrop on us.“He kidnapped me off the streets.He didn’t ask, he took.He just changed me without offering the choice of Covenant.”“Still…Geez, X.What the hell are you still doing with him? I would have booked my ass out of there as soon there was an opportunity.” Reggie wrapped his arm around me, holding me close.“Somewhere along the line, I fell in love with him.Am I stupid?” Reggie didn’t say anything, but I meant it as a rhetorical question.There were moments when I wondered if I were stupid by involving myself more fully into the Du Bussey household, which in turn meant the House of Assassins.I didn’t want to be number two, much less First.“Marcus, isn’t he a mind reader? Nita said that ability is rare and that he could be scary brutal when it came to interrogations.Couldn’t he have made you think that you’re in love him?”“My Marcus has always been brutally honest [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]