Blood of Angels Read Online Free PDF Page B

allow it in humans. They objected to being asked to leave, tried to rouse the rest of my patrons into a full-scale brawl. So we ejected them. The fool you intercepted finally caught on to the fact that I’m a vampire and thought it would be fun to bite me .”
    His gaze dropped to her neck, and she realized she was rubbing the already healed spot in an involuntary gesture of self-protection. Something flashed in his eyes and was gone. It might have been compassion or understanding or even anger. It was gone too quickly to tell, but in any case, she didn’t like it. If István imagined she couldn’t have ripped the throat out of her attacker in less time than it took him to open his stupid mouth, he was dangerously mistaken.
    The hunter dragged his gaze back up to her eyes. “And so you threw him across the room.”
    “I did, didn’t I?” she agreed cordially. “It’s as well you caught him. He’d have gone right through the door. And then I’d have had the police and Saloman and probably a whole lot more hunters cluttering up my bar. Closing down my bar.”
    He smiled faintly. “You’d have a promising career in shot-putting.”
    “I have the wrong build.”
    “Oh no,” István said, just spontaneously enough and fervently enough to take her by surprise. She felt an annoying blush begin to rise through her neck to her face and raised her glass to hide it.
    He didn’t look away, so she set down her glass with a definite bump.
    “And so,” she mocked, “you’re asking me to believe that you left your friend’s party to come here for the sake of my— beaux yeux ?”
    “Why not?” he countered. “Why else would I come? Alone?”
    She leaned her head back against the sofa to regard him. “Because you’re bored,” she guessed and saw immediately that she’d struck home. At least to some extent. His eyelids drooped, but she kept going. “Because you like to break rules occasionally. Because you’re researching how my enchantments work.”
    She might not have seen István, the scientific hunter, in eighteen months, but she’d heard about him. There was talk among the vampires that he was developing some instrument to store enchantments.
    His eyebrows lifted. His gaze remained steady. “Why would I do that when I have an enchantress closer to home?”
    “Elizabeth?” she guessed before answering his question. “Because mine harness the energies of those in the club to mask the whole building.”
    She had the impression that now it was István’s turn to hide, or at least to buy himself some time, by drinking champagne.
    He said, “You’re surprisingly open about it.”
    “Why not? You know that already. It’s why you’re here.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “I run a bar,” she said dryly. “I hear things. And the latest thing I hear is the hunters’ project to harness psychic energy in a physical tool, as the late and unlamented Gavril did with the child Robbie to cause earthquakes.”
    István tried not to stare. “Vampires talk about that?”
    “It’s of great interest to vampires. Most of them haven’t even worked out how this place is protected, so trust me, yes, they’re interested.”
    “In what way?”
    “Every way you can think of,” Angyalka said. “Isn’t it as well we’re no longer enemies?”
    “As I understand it, we still have enemies. Just not necessarily the same ones.”
    “As evidenced by your presence? And the fact that in tonight’s brawl you grabbed the human and not me? Of course,” she added as he inclined his head, not quite seriously, “the night is young.”
    A smile began to play around his lips and eyes, as if he were happy to banter with her some more. Unexpectedly, something fluttered and tingled in the region of her stomach and slid lower. Oh yes, she could banter with him and a lot more. It was curiously fun, with an edge that, because he was a hunter, awoke every nerve in her body.
    Memories of their previous encounter bombarded her: