A Mermaid's Ransom (Daughters of Arianne 3)

Those weren't his thoughts of course, but the emotions he was emitting had hints of that in it, like a hummed song where the listener could almost understand the words from the feelings evoked by the notes.

He slid a hand across the top of the car. Intrigued, she reached out, met his fingers tip to tip, since her arm was shorter and couldn't quite reach. "What was that for?" she asked softly when he pulled back.

"Touch eases your mind," he explained. "And I like touching you."

He could relax with her. He couldn't do that with an angel escort. She'd survived the Dark One world, for Heaven's sake. She could survive being a vampire's tour guide.

"Okay, let's go."

ALL right, maybe she couldn't. "Dante," she explained for the tenth time, "I can't answer questions about everything you see, because I'm driving. If I look to see everything you're pointing at, I'll wreck the car. Though you may be indestructible, it won't be pleasant. And I like my car. We'll walk later today, and that way I can tell you about things right when you see them."

"Why can't we stop and walk now?"

"There will be time to do it all," she promised. "I just have somewhere I'd really like to take you first. There are too many people on the sidewalks. I'd rather you get used to having people around you in a more . . . low-key environment."

He seemed dissatisfied with that, but subsided, though he continued to watch the passing scenery with intense interest. She was beginning to think her comparison to an infant was not inaccurate, though it was still amusing, given that the last thing she wanted to do when she looked at Dante was shake a rattle at him or coo.

Of course, he was plundering all information around him, including her mind, so she was pressed into an explanation about babies and their entertainments.

Maybe she was more like a new mommy than she wanted to acknowledge. She was intrigued by his reactions to everything, and still nursing a nervous flutter about having him out on her own. No mother had ever been so distracted by her infant's profile or how his jeans fit his thighs, though. Plus, an infant would have been behind her, strapped in a child safety seat. She suppressed a smile as he turned a narrow gaze to her.

"Oh crap." The fuel light. In her distraction, she'd forgotten to stop and get gas, and Heaven only knew how long that had been blinking. If Dante had been practically hanging over her shoulder, as he'd wanted to do in order to watch the way the instrument board worked, she was sure he would have noticed it earlier.

They weren't far from her destination, the community center, so she pulled into the Korean grocery on the corner. The bars on the windows and door, the graffiti on the cinder block side walls and concrete island, advertised this wasn't the best neighborhood, but that didn't concern her. Her gift protected her from unfriendly advances.

The community center had been built in such an area to be accessible to low-income families, and she didn't mind supporting the Korean grocer that stuck it out here, despite constant robbery attempts. She enjoyed showing Dante how to pump the gas, talked him out of pouring some on his hand to smell it and left him leaning against the car, watching the numbers tick by, while she went in to pay. She'd told him how to finish up and put the lid back on, so that gave her an extra minute to pick up another candy bar and a bottle of juice. The healthy breakfast she'd consumed while explaining everything to him had helped steady her, but she wanted to be prepared, just in case.

However, her pleasure that things were going so well was disrupted by the storekeeper waving her back up to the front. "Your friend may have trouble," he said.

Leaning across the counter to see out the window, she swore under her breath. A car full of gang members had pulled up to the pump on the other side, and the members had spilled out, a couple coming toward the store while the others propped on their vehicle, engaging Dante in conversation.

"I can't leave the register," the grocer said, a worried look on his lined face. "I'll call the patrol officer and ask him to drive by for your friend, but he may take a few minutes."

"It's not my friend I'm worried about." Paying for the gas, Lex grabbed the items she'd bought and hurried back out toward the car.

Dante was still leaning against their vehicle, his arms crossed, sunglasses hiding his expression, but from the stillness she felt from him, he was aware he faced trouble.

"It's a pretty white boy. A really white boy," one of the gang members was taunting, as several others circled her little hatchback, hooting at her fairy and flower static clings. "Got any money to pay for our gas, pale boy? Hiding under that cute shirt you're wearing? Look at all that pretty hair."

Dante glanced down at himself quizzically and then back up. "No. I do not have money."

"Sure you don't. Think you ought to let my friends here check."

"Stop this," Alexis said. She pushed past one of the boys to move in front of Dante, ratchetting up the angelic light of her aura. While it would momentarily confuse their intent, she was touching excessively battered consciences jacked up on chemicals, clouding their receptors. "We're just going to visit the community center. Please let us go."

"Oh, one of them do-gooders. How about you give us some money for our gas, pretty boy's bitch?" The one in charge gave her a raking glance and rubbed his crotch suggestively. "You fine looking, girl. You let your bitch do your fighting for you, pretty boy? She looks tougher than you, that's for damn sure."

She had a tart response for that, for she already sensed this was more show than intent, performing for his boys, but she'd forgotten how fast a vampire could move. She didn't even know Dante had left her side until the gang member squawked for air. He was being held off his feet, his back slammed against the gas pump. As his face went red, headed toward blue, the boy's sneakers kicked ineffectually against Dante's legs.

Dante, please don't hurt him. We can't let you--

Even as she began the admonition, she registered the tremor in Dante's back, smelled burning flesh. Dropping the sack, Alexis lunged forward, caught hold of his shirt. "Put him down. Stop hurting yourself!"

Dante complied by tossing his victim away from him, which took the young man twenty feet across the parking lot. He landed on the broken asphalt with a bone-breaking thud and a shrill shout of pain. As two of the gang ran to his assistance, Dante closed a hand on Alexis's arm, holding her at his side as he removed the sunglasses. The other three closing in confronted pure flame. His mouth was taut with pain or rage, she couldn't tell, because both vibrated from him. Lex saw dark rivulets running under his skin, burns from the steel collar. The metal was dull orange, but a moment ago it had been stove top red-hot, like sword steel pulled from a smelter's fire.

"She is not yours to touch or threaten," he said, and the coldness of his voice should have chilled that steel to ice. Then he bared his fangs.

She thought they set Olympic records, scrambling away from him, piling back into their car. The two who had the gang leader didn't come back at all, helping him up and taking off toward the street, the car peeling out and picking them up before they sped down the road.

At least they wouldn't be scurrying to the nearest police officer to report their strange encounter. She told herself that, hoping to calm her shaking. She'd been right. They couldn't do this. It was too close a call. Taking lives was a simple thing to him, not even creating a ripple in his conscience.

She watched numbly as Dante knelt, picking up the items that had fallen out of the grocery sack, examining the candy bars, sodas and juice she'd chosen. When he brought them to her, he closed his hand over her trembling one.

"You are correct, Alexis. You're my guide, not my keeper. If this is distressing you, I will explore on my own and come back to your place later, when I am ready."

"You can't. They won't let you do that. They said--" She blew out a breath at his expression. "Why are you staying with me, then, if you don't feel like they can keep you here?"

"Because it is easier to do this with you."

Of course. It was easier

to have someone to translate and explain what he was seeing, and be a ready-made meal when needed.

The paper crackled between them as he moved close to her. She was standing on the island, so her eyes were almost level with his. Sliding a hand into her hair, he wrapped it around his fingers, tightening so he brought her to her toes and pressed his mouth over hers. Slow, devastating, but hot and needy as well, so that the paper complained further as she clutched it. By the time he lifted his head, she was leaning into him for balance.

"I translated magical texts in a Dark One world. Figured out how to create a new rift there, deep in the earth. Conjured a dream portal to capture you. If I wanted to understand the things in this world, I could. I prefer you at my side."

She swallowed. "I can't be objective. It's not safe."

"That is not something you can control, so that is irrelevant."

He was right, but it didn't make her feel any more comfortable with herself, or at ease with the situation. She couldn't stop thinking of his words and what they meant. I prefer you at my side. "Your sunglasses . . . you really should put them back on."

Lifting a brow, he brushed a thumb across her mouth. She couldn't help it, she parted her lips, bit down. He held the digit there, pushed it a little more aggressively against the corner of her mouth, like a horse's bit, stretching her lips as his other fingers curved around the side of her throat, holding her in a way that made every nerve ending electrify. "I assume it is not appropriate to take you here. That this is also public."

"Way public," she whispered. "But I wish it wasn't."