Page 4 of The Hawk and the Nightingale

“This is perfect. Thank you.”

The servers left with their empty trays, and Amalie faced Hawk. “I see your plan is to get me drunk.”

“My plan is to offer you the best of what we have,” he corrected. “I trust something here is to your liking?”

Amalie crossed her legs, the slit in her dress exposing one nearly to her waist. “And if I desire something else?”

Hawk moved closer to her. “Such as?”

Amalie ran a finger down the column of his throat, and said, “What I desire is pleasure.” Then, she bit him.

Hawk sat straight up in bed. He had no memory of returning home from the club, his muscles ached, and he was naked. That last bit wasn’t unusual, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something had happened. Something important.

He ran a hand through his hair, and felt wetness on his neck. He looked at his hand. His fingers were stained red.

Hawk stared at the blood on his hand, wondering if he’d gotten into a fight at the club. As he turned his hand back and forth to inspect the blood, his cock hardened; odd, since blood wasn’t one of his usual kinks. He drew the sheet aside to admire his member, and found two small puncture wounds on the inside of his thigh.

Bite marks.

“What the fuck,” he muttered. He could forgive himself a bit of memory loss over a fight or other accident, but whatever had bitten him had been a hair’s breadth from his balls. Wondering what he’d had to drink to make him forget this near-castration, Hawk retraced his steps from the night before. He remembered opening the club, reserving a private booth, then waiting for…

Amalie.

Chapter Three

Amalie - Prague, Present Day

Amalie opened up the large cabinet in the back of the main room of her shop, and began cleaning the most delicate items she carried. It was a ritual she performed weekly, whether the dust had accumulated or not, and one she always completed alone. She’d had some of the pieces for decades, and a few since before she was turned. Still others she’d made herself. Amalie still remembered the glassblower she’d worked for in Murano, and how he’d taught her a few tricks. Some of those tricks had even involved glassware.

She moved a filigree egg aside and saw her garnet. It lay in the very back of the case on a simple stand, a humble place for so great a gem. It was an oval shape and polished to a mirror sheen; most who saw it assumed it was a lump of colored glass, due to its large size and flawless construction. But it was the real thing, and Amalie remembered when the garnet used to rest at the hollow of her throat every day and night.

Especially every night.

She also remembered the throat she’d ripped it off of, thus earning her the title of clan mistress, along with a lifelong enemy. She hadn’t wanted to run afoul of Marek or his clan, but once he’d lost her trust, and then her heart, she’d had no choice. And that was why the garnet that proclaimed her leader of her clan and his was kept in her shop, behind bulletproof glass and watched by surveillance cameras, rather than in her home. Eventually, Marek would come for it, and Amalie wanted to be ready.

When Marek came—because it was certainly a when, not an if—Amalie only hoped she could save as many of her people as possible.

The door chime sounded behind her. Before Amalie could turn around or close the cabinet, a man yelled, “You’re sick!”

Amalie smiled, having recognized Hawk’s voice. “Am I?” she asked as she faced him. Unlike the refined, perfectly dressed man she’d spent the prior evening with at the Moravian Ballroom, today’s Hawk was disheveled and wild-eyed.

“You bit me,” he ground out.

“You liked it.” She approached Hawk, and looked pointedly at the marks on his neck. “As I recall, you liked it quite a bit.”

“How did I get home?” he demanded. “Who put me in my bed?”

Amalie cocked her head to the side; she hadn’t realized he’d never been bitten before. “Was last night your first time? I thought you were more worldly than that.” When his pale eyes flashed, she continued, “For many, the first time they’re bitten, the pleasure is so intense it causes a bit of amnesia. Your memories will return, in time.”

Hawk closed the distance between them, standing so close she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. “Did we fuck?”

She placed her hand on his chest. “We did not, but you came. Several times, in fact.”

He blinked. “Next time, I want to remember everything,” he said, then he kissed her. Amalie had expected him to crush his mouth against hers as he’d done last night at the club, but he was gentle. Tender, even, as his tongue stroked her lips. With a sigh, they parted for him. A moment later he found her fangs, and he lightly scraped his tongue against the delicate points.

“Seeing if it was real?” Amalie asked when they parted.

“Seeing if I’m crazy.” He stroked her hair, and then her neck. “You could have told me.”

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