Demon Moon

blinked, and he lifted her right hand. “I didn’t want her to see me do this,” he said. The scent of her perfume eddied around them: vanilla, jasmine. His mouth watered, and he swallowed before adding, “I can’t heal it in the same way as Michael, but I can accelerate it and ease some of the pain.”
    His thumb smoothed over the raw tip of her forefinger, the gash on her knuckle. She winced and tugged her hand from his grip.
    She shifted her coat to her opposite forearm and opened her left fist. “This?”
    His breath hissed through his teeth. Deep, straight cuts across the first bend of her fingers; shallow slices over the center of her palm. They’d been cleaned, but they must be stiff and sore. “From the garrote?”
    “Yes. I didn’t have piano wire in my gold watch, unfortunately.”
    He chuckled softly. “The nosferatu is no 007. What are these?” Faint mahogany lines formed an intricate design on her palm. He gently turned her hand over, saw the same on the backs of her fingers. “Henna?”
    “My friend’s wedding.”
    A sudden image of those decorated hands sliding over his skin made him ache. He glanced up; she was staring at his mouth.
    Would her lips taste as she smelled? Sweet Savitri. He’d only had her blood and her body—her tongue had been busy speaking of beauty that wasn’t his. “Do you trust me?”
    “No,” she said. “But I’ll let you, as it is your blood that will be spilled this time.”
    He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw clenching. Why hadn’t he healed her in Caelum, and immediately put her to sleep? Whatever vague, lingering memory produced this continued resistance could have been prevented with little effort—but he’d not made it.
    It didn’t matter. This obsession would fade.
    He viciously scraped his tongue beneath his fangs, and brought her hand to his mouth. She gasped as he painted the blood in short strokes over the wounds, then spun her around and pulled down the neckline of her shirt to do the same to four punctures on her shoulder. They were surrounded by livid bruises; the nosferatu’s dark scent clung, despite her shower.
    He lifted his head, fought to control his breathing, his arousal, his bloodlust. Her pulse raced in the hollow beneath her jaw.
    “Colin—”
    He closed his eyes at the tinge of fear in her voice. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? “Clean it off, Savitri. I’ll wait in the car.”

    A cop pulled them over on Sunset. Savi wordlessly gave Colin her driver’s license, and he handed it over along with his license and registration.
    “I apologize for speeding, Officer,” he said pleasantly. “I was distracted by my companion’s sparkling repartee.”
    Savi squinted as the cop shined his flashlight over her face, and tried not to laugh. Silence had reigned between them from the moment she’d slid into the passenger seat, but in the midst of this absurdity, it was impossible to hold on to her anger or her fear.
    “You were going ninety in a forty.”
    “Sparkling Savitri Murray,” Colin said. “Like champagne. Sweet Savitri, my sparkling wine.”
    Two sobriety tests and a warning to install rearview and side mirrors later, Colin pulled back into traffic and sent her a sidelong glance. “Do you have credit cards?”
    “Yes, but it’s not necessary. I can fake the charges.”
    He shook his head. “We need more than a paper trail.”
    He took her to a convenience store, where she debated longer than necessary over the candy bars, making certain her face showed to the camera aimed down the aisle. A fast-food restaurant, where she argued with the manager about the temperature of her French fries.
    “I feel like a bitch,” she told him as she returned to the car with a free apple turnover. “Here I am, in a Bentley with Ramsdell Pharmaceutical’s primary shareholder, and I’m complaining about a dollar’s worth of food to a guy who probably makes less a week than I spent on my coat.”
    His smile didn’t touch his eyes; his gaze was fixed on the red box in her hand. He inhaled deeply, then turned to look out the windshield. “We’ve done enough for now. We can go to a sit-down, if you’re hungry.”
    She wasn’t. “Are you?” Once, she’d seen him eat food at her grandmother’s restaurant.
    A smile hovered around his mouth. “I ate.”
    “Polidori’s reopened when I was away; I’d like to see it.” After a brief hesitation, he gave a stiff nod. She watched him steadily, trying to discern the