Page 4 of Sleeping With the Vampire

I was not quite prepared for how she would be in person. Ragnar had described her physical beauty as well as her strength, it was clear he had admired her as a bounty hunter and had pitted himself against her. He had avoided a fight with her, instead snatching her bounty more as a challenge to her than anything else.

So I knew she was a good candidate.

But she was so much more than that.

She was special.

Apart from her great beauty, she had a strength of character and virtue that pointed at a maturity way older than her years. She had insight and temperance, the capacity for self-control. She did not fear me, even though she was wary, and alert, which I admired. But there was something else.

Izzy was an original.

This was probably the quality I valued most in anyone. It was so rare and precious. After over two hundred years of meeting so many people, I had rarely encountered an original being. Most were variations of each other. People looked like each other, acted in similar ways, wanted the same things. Power, success, money. But not Izzy. She didn’t want any of that, I could see it. I would have liked to talk to her about what she wanted for herself, apart from finding her father’s killer. I found myself wondering about who she really was.

I had never met anyone like Izzy before. So sure of herself, so fearless and yet at the same time, humble and unaffected.

I thought of the women in my life, the very small number I had let in. The last, Tanata, had been by my side for eighty years and even though there was not much love between us, ours was a partnership that had been strategically beneficial and made our family stronger.

It had taken me a long time to reach the kind of position I had in the world now. I had not always been a king, had not always been able to command men.

Now, I had everything to lose.

It was a terrible feeling.

The phone rang.

It was Izzy.

“You were right,” she said, her voice rather flat. “My father was dying. I had no idea but it has been confirmed.”

She did not tell me how she found out.

“You will take my assignment then?” I asked, reminding myself to be gentle with her, not to be too direct. With them, you had to be more subtle, I had learnt.

“I am thinking about it,” she said.

“But you will?” I pushed.

“I don’t know, I have a bad feeling about it,” she added.

“I remember those,” I said rather drily and she laughed. It was a charming sound and I found myself wanting to hear more of it.

“I am only considering it because you said you had information about my father’s death,” she reminded me.

“And I do,” I agreed. “I think that we have someone of interest in common.”

“Who?”

“Michael MoZa. On the Council. ”

She said, slowly, “I know his name, of course.”

“He has been in his position for many decades and despite his age, is very powerful. When your father came to see me five years ago, it was to ask me about him.”

“About MoZa?”

“Indeed. He had a feeling that he was involved in the case he was working on. The bounty he was hunting, something felt off to him. As if the man was being framed.”

“Why did he come to you?”

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