His eyes quicksilver with excitement, Balthasar bared his fangs with a hiss, needle-sharp tips gleaming as he prepared to bite, and extended a hand toward me.
“A kiss for a lovely woman,” he said.
The closer I drew, the more the rest of the world faded, until he was the only thing I could see . . . and the only thing I cared to.
The silver in his eyes spun like sugar, and he looked like the hero from a Gothic poem, with sable hair and fresh-cream skin, his lips flushed crimson with desire . . . for me, for only me, because he and I were the only ones in the world.
He would bite me. He would pierce skin and vein, and he would take from me, and I would never want for anything else. I would never need anything else, because he would be everything . . .
His hand gripped my arm and drew me closer, my eyes drifting shut as his bared fangs promised simultaneous pleasure and pain, the vampire’s gift. His lips found mine, made contact—
“Arrêter!”
Ethan’s voice boomed through the room on a shock wave of fury. Suddenly, he was beside us, hauling me away. Balthasar dragged himself from my mind, the separation leaving me cold and empty. Without his bolstering magic, the floor rushed toward me like I’d been thrown against it. I landed on my knees with rattling force. Nausea welled as the world spun, and I squeezed my eyes closed until I felt the carousel slowing.
Malik was suddenly at my side. “I’m going to help you to your feet.”
I nodded, unsure I’d be able to form words, and Malik put an arm around my waist, drew me to my feet. My knees wobbled but held.
“I won’t let you go,” he said quietly, and guided me toward the couch and away from the scuffle.
Even still, there was a terrifying part of me that didn’t want to go, that didn’t want distance from Balthasar, from the pleasure he promised.
Ethan grabbed him by the lapels, shoved him back against the bookshelves with enough force to snap wood and spill books and crystal to the floor.
Balthasar’s laughter was cold as ice. “Perhaps you’ll think twice the next time you lay hands on me, mon ami.”
Ethan’s voice was cold and sharp as Balthasar’s, and he pushed him again into broken wood and glass to punctuate the words. “If you touch her again, come near her again, I will tear you apart with my own bare hands, Master or not.”
Balthasar raised his hands between Ethan’s arms, attempted to break Ethan’s hold. But Ethan was driven by fear, love, and fury, and he had the upper hand.
Balthasar’s voice was a cobra’s hiss. “You would do well to release me.”
“You’d do well to remember where you are. In my House, in my city, surrounded by my people.”
“Your people?” Balthasar said. “I made you, mon ami, and a continent will not sever the bond between us. They are mine as much as yours.”
“You misunderstand the nature of things.” Holding Balthasar back with one arm, Ethan pulled a small dagger from his jacket with his free hand, held it in front of Balthasar’s face.
“They are my people, every one of them, blood and bone, mind and soul. I will warn you once, and only once, to stay away from them. I am not the child you once knew. My priorities have changed, as has my willingness to act.”
This was Ethan at his fiercest. If there’d been any doubts that vampires were alpha predators, the swirling fury in his eyes, the gleaming fangs would have erased them.
“Do yourself a favor,” Ethan said. “Leave Chicago tonight, and don’t look back.”
The office door burst open. Lindsey, Brody, and Kelley—another Cadogan guard—walked inside, swords in hand.
Ethan slammed the dagger into the wood beside Balthasar’s temple, where it vibrated with force. And still Balthasar’s expression didn’t change. “Bored contempt” seemed the most accurate description.
Ethan stepped back, kept his malevolent glare on his maker. “Get him out of here. Now.”
Balthasar stepped away from Ethan as the guards surrounded him.
“I will take my leave from your House tonight,” he said. “But I’m only just getting acquainted with your fair city.”
Luc gestured toward the door with his katana’s curving blade, and Balthasar followed without comment. But he turned back in the doorway, found my gaze.
“Our reunion, so sweet, has only just begun. Until we meet again.”