Immortals After Dark 03 - No Rest for the Wicked

entertain it—couldn’t. If she did, life as she knew it was over...
    “I will not stand here like this much longer, Katja,” he said quietly. “But I will turn my back if you’d like to dress.”
    The gentleman vampire. His words were steady and low, but she sensed he was barely in control, as if he were actually considering just knocking her sword from her and covering her in the bed. What would she do if he did?
    She wished she knew. Predictable Kaderin, steady Kaderin, was now volatile.
    The way he studied her with such blatant appreciation unnerved her. In the old country, during a storm, the sea grew violently colored, slashed through with shadows, streaming with black like coal.
    That was the color of his eyes glowing in the darkness. A storm over water.
    An inane thought arose. I always fancied storms.
    She inwardly shook herself. Every second with the vampire, who was possibly the most sexually attractive male she had ever encountered, she played with fire. And not just with his wants, but with her own new feelings—pleasure at the rumble of his voice, excitement at his looks of longing, satisfaction that she wasn’t alone in the room anymore.
    For an eternity, she’d watched everyone around her act as slaves to emotion, behaving unreasonably, irrationally. Now she was one among them, and she was unpracticed. Adrift.
    “I’ll dress.” She lowered her sword and stood, snagging her shirt and shimmying past him. He must have caught a glimpse of her breasts—he didn’t bother to stifle his groan. As she crossed to her bag, she could feel his gaze on her ass.
    As soon as she’d been old enough to leave Valhalla as a new immortal, she’d noted that men found her backside arousing. Now, she traipsed, exaggerating the sway of her hips. He’d gotten her hot. Turnabout’s a bitch.
    He rasped a curse in Estonian, and she immediately knew he wasn’t aware that she understood the language. For some reason, she believed he would never speak like that around her.
    “Katja,” he said from behind her, “what would it take to get you back in that bed with me?”
    Katja! Over her shoulder, she said, “That’s not my name, and nothing you have.” To arbitrarily change a name that had been honored and revered for twenty centuries—the nerve! To punish him, she bent over straight-legged when she laid her sword over her suitcase and dug out a cami bra to go under her shirt. When she rose and peeked over her shoulder, he was scrubbing his hand over his mouth, looking dazed.
    Which was rewarding. Though, again, he appeared for all the world as if he were about to toss her over his shoulder and trace her to his lair.
    What would it be like to be taken by a male like Sebastian? The idea of truly being at the mercy of a dominant male with only one thing on his mind was... titillating.
    Even as it would never happen. With her back to him, she dragged on her clothes. “You need to understand that I will never sleep with someone like you.” She turned in time to see his eyes darken at that.
    “Someone like me?” He was seething with tension.
    Had her words hit an unknown chink in his armor? “I kill vampires—I don’t screw them.”
    “Would you sleep with me if I weren’t a vampire?” This question, this subject—if she could want him—was very important to the vampire indeed.
    She tilted her head, exaggerating a measuring look over him. He seemed to stop breathing. How to answer? Admit aloud her shameful desire for a vampire, or possibly crush his ego? Why should she care about the latter?
    Because I wasn’t born a cruel person.
    “Do you find anything attractive about me?” He was very arrogant when he asked, but his voice was gruff, and she sensed his uncertainty. In a flash, she knew some woman had gotten hold of him and damage had been done.
    And he’d just revealed a weakness to her.
    He took a hesitant step forward. He’d also done that at the castle and the temple, restraining himself when he so obviously wanted to get closer.
    The vampire was a markedly physical being, even if he didn’t seem to recognize it. Those two other times, he’d seemed to unconsciously position himself in ways that were less threatening to her, forcing himself to appear standoffish. When he was calm, he held his body very still. No gestures with his long, muscular arms or pacing in great strides. Just stillness.
    When not calm—like when attacked by a werewolf—he moved with unfathomable speed and