"Sizemore, Susan - Laws of the Blood 3 - Companions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sizemore Susan)

"I could just as easily enjoy your pain." She remembered him saying that when they first met. "You'd love me while I tortured you, if that's what I wanted from you."

At least he'd never made a secret that he could be an utter and complete bastard.

Steve smirked, letting her know that he knew what she was thinking. Selena pulled herself away from watching him and put on some underwear. Standing around naked in the presence of her lord and master didn't interest her at the moment.

She couldn't help but wonder if Aunt Catie did have something to do with Steve's late-night visit. Aunt Catie was a very good witch indeed. Of course, good witches weren't supposed to provide their goddaughters with their own private incubus, Selena amended. Okay, Catie was a talented witch, if not exactly a candidate for sainthood. Her aunt should not know about the existence of the strigoi, either, but she did, and as far as Selena knew, no Enforcer had ever come after her.

"I pity anyone who'd try." Istvan couldn't help but tease her about the strong women in her family. Selena's aunt reminded him of his own mother, who'd also made her living telling fortunes. "A fine woman. It's a wonder no one's taken her for a companion yet. All the women in your family have the - "

"Don't say it! Don't you dare!"

"Not I. I have - "

"Leave them alone!"

Her fury blazed around her, so much that the fiery color of her hair gave the impression of a crown of flames. He loved her deep emotions, absorbed them like a drug, but he truly hadn't meant to anger her. He decided not to mention the wedding invitation, though he did wonder where Aunt Catie had gotten his post office box address.

He held up a hand. "Peace."

He'd been joking; Selena saw that now. Damn, but he could set her off. "Fine," she said, embarrassed at her temper. She hated when she let herself go. She'd worked for years to find a certain amount of emotional equilibrium, only to have every defense blown out of the water the moment this joker showed up and sank his teeth into her. She felt the aching spot just above her left nipple. "Why can't you just bite me on the neck like a normal vampire?"

He cocked an eyebrow in answer. No need for him to tell her that he wasn't normal. He pulled on a black shirt. "You say the oddest things."

She returned to an earlier question. "What are you doing in town?"

He considered telling her. That was her blood inside him, urging him to trust, confide, cherish, and share himself with what was his. They were alike, or they wouldn't be mated. She was tough. She knew the streets of her town. They'd partnered once before, reluctantly, after Maria set him up for the fall he'd spent five hundred years avoiding, and things had happened that shouldn't have. It was the second time in his lives he'd been trapped.

Selena's presence among the nest of vampires had been no accident. Maria Ventanova had searched long and hard to find him the perfect mate, had Selena waiting there, blood pumped full of adrenaline, a sacrificial diversion Maria hoped would save her own life. Maria knew he had never taken a companion, never wanted one, and that no strigoi, even Istvan the dhamphir, could go forever without eventually being struck by the overwhelming psychic bonding. It had worked, and it hadn't. Maria still died, and how he wished he'd been the one to take Maria Ventanova's heart.

He also noticed that Selena was carefully not glancing toward the desk across the room, carefully keeping her mind blank about anything to do with computers. He might be a bit long in the tooth, but he was almost as high tech as the West Coast vampires that prided themselves on being thoroughly modern monsters. He kept up, even had his own private hacker for research purposes. He owned a laptop that he'd been using at a truck stop earlier in the evening. But if Selena wanted to keep a medieval image of him, he wasn't going to enlighten her. The point of their relationship was that they didn't have a relationship. He wasn't going to ask about what she didn't want him to know. What he didn't know couldn't hurt her.

He decided that since the trouble he was currently investigating wasn't in Detective Crawford's town but much farther to the west, it was best not to involve her. He said, "Maybe I came to see you."

"I may be crazed, but I'm not crazy. Why? What's going on that the local Enforcer can't handle?"

Even those who had the right to ask him questions generally didn't. Her attitude toward him was quite refreshing. "Just passing through," he told her. "Your streets are safe from me."

"But not my bedroom."

"You wanted me here." He grinned. "Briefly."

Her indignant surprise pleased him, because her indignation was for him, for once. She kept to business when she spoke. "If there's someone who needs eliminating in my city, I'd rather have you on them than anyone else."

Her nontraditional attitude toward him was always so... tempting.

The more time he spent with her, the more time he wanted to spend with her. That was the curse of companionship. Because the more time they spent together, the sooner she'd become a vampire. And there was nothing he hated more than vampires.

Despite a temptation to stay, with the excuse that he could check out any local rumors, he really had been just passing through, heading west. The last thing he'd planned on was turning onto a tollway from the interstate after he left the last truck stop and driving from the tollway to the north side of Chicago. He'd left his vehicle a long way away from Selena's neighborhood. He had a long way to get back to it now before dawn. He had no intention of being seen or sensed by any of the city's strigoi inhabitants anywhere near her. He protected his companion in his own way, which was mostly by staying away from her.