city of dragons 02 - fire storm Read Online Free PDF Page B

vampire, he’d been pretty pissed at me for taking the law into my own hands, as he called it. But I thought that if there was ever going to be anything besides a work relationship between us, I would need to be honest with him about this stuff.
    So, I told him what had happened with Felicity earlier that day and how we’d dealt with it.
    He rubbed his temples. “Vampires stalking drakes for magic? Really?”
    “Unless they had some other reason for attacking her,” I said. “You’re a vampire. You have any idea why else they might want to hurt her?”
    “I don’t go around biting people,” he muttered.
    Without thinking, my hand went to my neck, where he’d done exactly that.
    He got up off the couch. “Maybe I’ll have a drink after all.”
    I started to get up.
    He waved me down. “I can pour it myself.”
    I watched as he filled a glass with wine. “I know you don’t do things like that,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to accuse you. I never even see you drink blood.”
    He sat back down and had some wine. “I don’t like doing it in front of people. I try to drink as much as I need to survive as quickly as possible, and then not think about any of it anymore.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I can see that.”
    “Being around you makes that hard,” he said. “That’s why I haven’t…” He sighed. He set down his wine glass on my coffee table.
    “Look,” I said. “Maybe it was all just a mistake between us. Maybe it would be better if we tried to put it behind us, forget it even happened.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you want?”
    “Is it what you want?”
    “I asked first.”
    I drank more wine. I didn’t say anything.
    “I could understand why,” he said. “I’m not any kind of prize these days. I work too much, and I’m depressed, and I don’t feel like I have anything together, and on top of all of that, you must be frightened of me.”
    I arched an eyebrow. “Frightened? Lachlan, no offense, but I think I could take you if I needed to. I breathe fire.”
    His voice was rough. “The time that I almost… took too much of your blood. You were weak. I hurt you.”
    That had been frightening. I swallowed. I took another drink of wine.
    He picked up his wine glass and surveyed the liquid.
    “It’s not what I want,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to forget about what happened between us. Maybe I am scared, but not that you’d hurt me. At least not… I’m afraid of trusting anyone with any part of myself again, I guess. I’m afraid of opening up. Being vulnerable. That kind of stuff.”
    He took a drink of wine. He nodded.
    I waited. Crap, I’d just opened up like that, and he must not feel the same way, and he was trying to figure out how to let me down easy. “But if, um, if you want to forget it even happened—”
    “I don’t.” He ran his finger around the rim of the wine glass. Then he raised his gaze to me. “You make me feel out of control. When I’m near you, I want…”
    My heart started to speed up. “Yeah?”
    He set the glass down again. He got off the couch and crossed the room to the window. He pulled aside the curtains and gazed outside. His voice wasn’t steady. “When I’m near you, all I can think about is how badly I want you.”
    My heart pumped faster. I stood up too. Should I go to him? Should I touch him?
    “Every time I look at you, I think about the way you taste.” There was a bitter tinge to his tone.
    Taste? “When you say you want me, do you mean…?”
    He turned back to look at me.
    My voice was a whisper. “You mean you want my blood?”
    He nodded.
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Not just your blood.” He was whispering too. “You’re beautiful and strong and full of light, and you… you dazzle me, Penny.”
    Funny, hadn’t I thought the same thing about him earlier that day?
    “But,” he continued, “your blood is… is…” He picked up his wine glass and gulped half of the wine down. “I should