The Darkest Kiss (Riley Jenson Guardian 6)

"Which comes down to luck as much as timely intervention on my part."

She smiled. It was both amused and calculated, and warned that there was a sharp mind behind all the sexual playfulness. "Ah, but your timely intervention wouldn't have happened had we not made a phone call."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought you'd been paid not to intervene?"

"The operative word being 'me.' While he asked that I keep my fledglings back and control their hunger, he made no mention of them interfering with proceedings in other ways. So one made the call."

"One who sounded like Ivan himself?"

She nodded. "We knew about the stripper. He has been here several times to visit Ivan. He is a big man, a strong man. His presence might have been enough to scare off the rogue."

It might not have been, too. While Ben was a big werewolf, the rogue was a vamp, and vamps would win over regular weres each and every time. It wasn't just strength, it was speed.

"So did the rogue say why he wanted to slice and dice Ivan?"

She shrugged. "I tasted the need for revenge on him. More than that, I don't know."

"So you didn't ask?"

"It was a large amount of money. Not asking questions was part of the deal."

So was not offering Ivan help in any way, but she'd gotten around that little clause just fine.

"Why did you perform the ceremony with Ivan?" My gaze went briefly to the toga-clad teenagers behind her. "He's nothing like the rest of your get."

"As much as I love my toys, a vampire cannot exist on them alone. Ivan is a very good investment advisor. That will be useful in the future."

"If he's such a good investment advisor, why is he living here?"

She smiled again. Deep in her brown eyes, hunger flickered. Not blood hunger, but rather a hunger for money. Or power, which often came hand in hand with money in this wealth-oriented world of ours. She might not be a force in the vampire world just yet, but she certainly intended to be. And I had a feeling she wouldn't particularly care how she went about it.

But couldn't that be said of all vampires? Most of them couldn't ever be classed as the caring, sharing types.

"Simple," she answered. "He tithed me his apartment in Brighton as payment for the ceremony. He has enough money to live elsewhere, of course, but he remains close because his death is imminent. His choice, not mine."

"So if you hate this place so much, why not move in to his apartment?"

She raised dark eyebrows. "It's a simple matter of logistics. We are forty strong here, and that number simply will not fit into a two-bedroom apartment, no matter how luxurious."

"Isn't that a large number of vampires to have living together? And whatever happened to that whole 'vampires are territorial creatures and don't share' line I keep hearing?"

She smiled again. "Blood vampires are territorial. We are not of a bloodline. For us, the bigger the community, the better. Community nourishes us."

"So those who haunt the downstairs rooms are fed by the goings-on up here?"

"Something like that."

"So it wasn't the bloodshed that was stirring their hunger, but rather the emotions being broadcast?"

"Yes."

She shifted, placing her feet on the floor and sitting up straight. The teenagers behind her gathered together, so that their bodies were pressed tightly against one another. The contact sent an odd sort of humming flaring across the air. It didn't feel like the aura of their master, and yet it possessed a similar sense of power. Although maybe it didn't feel the same because it wasn't actually aimed at me. Maybe it would seem similar if it had been.

Either way, goose bumps skittered across my skin. I had a feeling that I wouldn't want to be here when feedings were happening.

But as much as I wanted to just get the hell away from this place as fast as I could, there was still a question that needed to be asked.

"Did the rogue vampire happen to mention his name?"