Page 32 of Mortal Heart

“I mean, don’t get me wrong—I’m not ungrateful.” She gave Ronan another dose of her most annoying smirk just to see his scowl deepen. “But we’ve got quite a ways to go before anyone starts throwing around declarations of ownership.”

He muttered something under his breath that she didn’t quite catch, but might have been some variation onoh, fuck it. “I don’t suppose it would make the situation any worse if I told you I thought of you asmy Valkyrieback at your house,” he said.

That was true, she decided after studying his face.My Valkyriemight have been a slip of the tongue just now, but it wasn’t something he’d thought or said only in the wake of getting her off.

A shockingly honest man, she’d called him at Bella’s. A man to whom she had nothing to prove, who’d knelt in front of her in public, told her with zero hesitation that he’d wanted to make her come with his mouth, and given her a much more thandecentorgasm in a vampire club sex dungeon simply because she needed one.

He stilled, his whole body going taut. “Mistress.”

“Oh, shut up.” She put her index finger on his lips. “For tonight, for the next week, or for however long we can stand each other, I have no problem being your Valkyrie.”

He seemed to be struggling not to laugh. “Glad to hear it, but we have company.”

When he stepped aside, Arkady went cold.

A familiar dark-haired vampire in a tailored designer suit leaned casually against a rack of leather restraints. He’d loosened his tie and held a glass of what might have been bourbon in his pale, thin hand. How had he gotten into the room? They’d been a bit distracted, but Ronan had damn good hearing, and if he’d heard a door open, he wouldn’t have ignored the sound.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Ronan caught her gaze and then looked at the wall just to the right of the restraints. She followed his stare and spotted an almost imperceptible dark line on the wall. It must be a hidden door that operated so soundlessly that even Ronan hadn’t heard it.

She felt no fear—only calm and focus. Maybe that was because she’d told Ronan the story of what had happened and it no longer seemed like a shameful secret. Maybe facing her attacker was now part of a different, bigger mission, and her personal feelings seemed less important. Or maybe Ronan was right about the effects of a good orgasm. Could be all three.

Meanwhile, Ronan studied the intruder with an even colder gaze than her own. His expression reminded her of Alice’s flat stare when facing down an enemy. The observation got Arkady no closer to figuring out what Ronan was, but it cemented her certainty that she was glad to have him at her back.

“Hello, my sweetness,” Henry Farrell said to her, smiling to show his fangs. “I am so very pleased to see you again.”

9

RONAN

“It issuch a luxury to have my dinner come to me,” the vampire added. The way he leered at Arkady made Ronan’s skin crawl.

Every word out of Farrell’s mouth put Ronan on edge, practically dared him to reach out and crush the vampire’s pale throat—but there was something about that pet name, intimate and patronizing and tinged with a hundred past abuses, that made him want to send a message when he did it.

From the earliest eons of his existence, the creatures Ronan had the least use for in all the universe were those who preyed on those less powerful than themselves. Given her reaction to the demon minions they’d dispatched at the Pelican, he suspected Arkady shared that sentiment.

Over the intoxicating smell of her most personal scents that still lingered on his skin and in the air, Ronan caught a strange odor coming from Farrell. A human nose probably couldn’t have detected it, but the vampire’s natural wine-and-spice scent had a distinct sour note that made Ronan want to sneeze. The unsettling odor reminded him of rotting fruit and spoiled meat. He recalled Arkady’s claim of a drug epidemic among the vamps, but he saw no sign that Farrell was under the influence of anything.

An even more disturbing possibility came to mind: was the vamp diseased? He had no knowledge of any illness that could affect a vampire, but that spoiled-food odor couldn’t be ignored. Something was very, very wrong with Henry Farrell.

Beside him, apparently oblivious to Farrell’s odor and Ronan’s reaction to it, Arkady shifted her weight, ready to defend herself or attack. Ronan hadn’t seen her palm one of the small blades she’d hidden on her body, but he caught a glimpse of matte black metal in her hand. The steel blade wouldn’t kill the vamp, but a strike to his eye or heart would at least incapacitate Farrell for a few precious seconds.

“You must have enjoyed our last meeting, my sweetness, to come back to me so soon.” Farrell sipped his bourbon with what Ronan interpreted as the casualness of a man who believed himself untouchable.

“I’m not your sweetness,” Arkady stated. “And I’m not your dinner either.”

“I must disagree.” Farrell showed her his fangs again. “You were a truly marvelous meal. I can still taste your sweet, hot blood on my tongue.”

“It’s pathetic that you have to resort to preying on victims for lack ofwillingmeals,” she said as if Farrell hadn’t spoken. She shook her head in disgust. “You must be your maker’s greatest shame.”

Ronan palmed his own knife.

Among vampires, the accusation of lacking willing donors was an insult of nearly breathtaking proportions. One of the few slurs even more insulting was being accused of bringing shame to a master vampire’s line. Farrell’s maker was a member of the Vampire Court, making Arkady’s comment even more daring. She’d just leveled not one buttwoscorched-earth insults in a single breath.

Whether she’d done it to get Farrell to attack in a blind rage, or just to screw with him to see how he’d react, Ronan wasn’t sure. Sometimes her motivations seemed less clear to him than any human he’d ever known. In any case, Ronan fully expected the vamp to attack.

Instead, Farrell threw his head back and laughed.

Ronan’s skin prickled warningly. Meanwhile, judging by her expression, if Arkady had been a cat, she would have arched her back and hissed at the sound of Farrell’s laughter.

---