Page 30 of Vampire's Choice

“If you wish to kiss her in the manner you did, you require permission. My permission. Do you understand?”

“I do. Sir. My lord.” She cleared her throat. “My apologies.”

“No apologies are needed. But if you do it again, far greater amends will be demanded.” Without waiting for a response, the angel rose into the air, a gentle take-off that didn’t jostle Clara.

Ruth watched the wings, the flex of Marcellus’s shoulders, and drew in an unsteady breath as he disappeared over the hill. That quake in her lower belly was one of her favorite feelings, even if she had to hide it when it was caused by someone, instead of being manufactured by her own fantasies.

Concealing the reaction when she hadn’t been expecting to be hit with such a powerful dose of it was difficult, but any evidence of it would pass under the not-untruthful guise of respect for a being powerful enough to obliterate all memory of her existence. And no one else was around to notice anyway.

Or so she thought.

“You respond to him.”

Lack of situational awareness was an automatic fail for Bodyguard 101. She needed to do better.

Her irritation over that, her concern for Clara, and those worrisome lingering tingles, didn’t put her in the best state. But she wasn’t backing down from a challenge.

She turned to face Merc.

He leaned against one of the trees on the border of the forest. It was a deceptively casual pose, one wing folded forward, feathers brushing the shoulder and upper arm it was draped over. The other was tucked behind him to clear the tree trunk. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and had changed into a T-shirt. Same sinfully well-fitted jeans.

This shirt had artwork, a demon perched on a church. Intense dark eyes, forked tongue, horns, and a barbed tail wrapped around the steeple. A stone angel, sculpted on the roof edge, stared up at him in frozen horror. Had he bought it to annoy Marcellus?

“You didn’t deny it,” he said.

She forced herself to remain indifferent as he moved toward her. A lazy predator, ready to engage a burst of speed and take down his kill. She raised a brow.

“You didn’t ask a question. But any female would respond to him. It’s the tattoos,” she offered blandly.

Ink appeared along Merc’s arms, intricate art that picked up the theme of the shirt, showing a wrestling match between angels and demons. Then it was gone, his skin unmarked again. A deft piece of magic.

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t a physical trait that made you go still, made your knees weaken, ready to drop you to the ground if he bade you do so.”

Several more steps. He didn’t choose a straight line, instead moving to the right to gaze at the lake, where Medusa was again practicing with the mermaids.

“Mermaids and sirens are often confused as being the same, because they look the same,” he noted. “The way most vampires are assumed to be the same, because they look and act the same. You try to act the same, but you fail at it.”

“I’m done sparring for the day,” she said. “I’m going to check on Clara.”

“He said a half hour.”

“I was being polite. My mistake. I don’t want to be around you.”

She pivoted and stopped as he landed in front of her, still in bare feet. “Do you ever wear shoes?”

“Yes. I didn’t say you could go.”

“I don’t recall needing your permission.”

“But you need his?”

“He’s an angel, and projects that in a way hard to ignore.” Her eyes narrowed. “The women here avoid being alone with you. Why is that, Merc? Would you hurt them?”

“Yes. Quite possibly.” He blinked at her, like a hawk being asked if it would raid a bird nest and eat the fledglings.

Something was off about it. She wasn’t buying the simple acceptance of his monster side, though she had no reason to doubt it. Nothing but her gut. Which could be her sexual response to him, fucking with her head.

Knowing she was playing with fire, she nevertheless took one measured step toward him. She noted the flaring of his nostrils, the kindling of his gaze. “How can you hurt them?”

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