Page 64 of Taken

I eyed the shadows. We appeared to be alone, but that didn’t mean a vampire wasn’t watching us from the parallel twilight world.

“The blood-suckers?” She shook her head. “They don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. If they see you, they’ll think you’re my lover.”

Her lover? I looked her up and down. I hadn’t fucked anyone in a while, but it was more than that. It was her. Reaper. I wanted to grab her jaw and take her mouth. I wanted to make her beg for me. Yeah, she wanted to wipe out me and my family. My dick didn’t care.

I adjusted my jeans. “D’you have one? A lover?” The sun had dropped behind the trees now. My question came out husky.

Reaper’s swallow was audible. When she spoke, her voice was rough at the edges. “I don’t have time for that crap.”

She took out two plastic bags, and we spread them on the wet grass and sat on them. I leaned back against a tree and stretched out my legs.

“It’s been a while for me, too,” I said.

“You’re saying you were celibate in Syria?”

“Actually, I was. Not that it’s any of your damn business.”

“Oh-kay.” It was just one word, but she managed to insert a lot of doubt.

A muscle ticked in my jaw. “You think you know all about me, don’t you?”

A shrug.

I ground my back teeth together. “I was in a fucking war zone, remember? If you think I had time to do more than eat and sleep, then you’ve never been in a war zone. I barely had time to take a shit.”

“All right. I’ll give you that.” In the twilight, her eyes shone like silver coins. “But as soon as you hit New York, you would’ve been out at one of your father’s bars. Picking up thralls.”

“So? What’s wrong with hanging with my brothers, catching up with what they’ve been doing while I was out of the country? And yeah, I would’ve picked up a thrall. I was damn thirsty, because I refuse to feed from some poor shell-shocked human who’s been through hell, and that includes the medics. So if I grab a thrall—who by the way is well paid by my father’s syndicate—then where’s the harm in that?”

Her mouth turned down as soon as I brought up being thirsty and drinking from a thrall.

The hell with this.

I let my head drop back against the tree trunk. “But that’s right. You don’t drink from thralls. You don’t use your wealth and power to prey on humans. You protect them from monsters like me. Except you had no problem tricking me back at the airport. You didn’t even take me in a fair fight. It was three against one, and on top of that, you shot a goddamn tranq into me.”

She made a low, provoked sound. “Drop it, all right?”

I dragged a hand down my face. Why did I give a fuck what Reaper thought of me?

The answer was I didn’t. Or at least, I shouldn’t.

I glowered at her. She was the one with the problem, not me. “We’re dhampirs, cher. Get used to it.”

Suddenly, her switchblade was out, the click of the catch loud in the silence. I tensed, readying myself for an attack. But she merely twirled it between the fingers of her right hand in a display of dexterity she seemed unaware of.

It was a full minute before she spoke, and when she did, she spoke to the flashing blade, not me. “I’m not like you. I don’t drink fresh blood.”

“Where d’you think the blood in your wine comes from?”

Her lips folded in. “I only drink what I have to. A cup a day. That and red meat is good enough.”

I exhaled. “Somebody really messed with your brain, didn’t they? We all have a part in this thing called the universe—dhampirs, vampires, humans.” I swept my arm out to encompass the tombs, the trees, the starlit Paris sky. “Just like sharks and wolves and rattlesnakes have a place.”

She closed her fingers on the switchblade handle, pressed the button. Snick, snick.

“I made a promise,” she blurted.

“To who?”

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