Page 22 of The Vampire's Guide to Wooing a Curator
An image flashed in her mind of how easily he’d handled the fledgling. If she had someone like him at her side, she would not have to fear venturing into the more dangerous areas of the city. The man was crude and frustrating, but she could not deny he’d saved her life. Then there was the way he’d pulled her close, when her heart had still been beating so fast, and had pressed his lips to hers…
She was getting distracted again. That would not do. What she needed was to find someone aware of the existence of vampires to become her guard. Someone brave enough not to flee from a fight.
Perhaps Mr. Drake could be of use, after all.
Chapter Ten
Of all theplaces Jonathan wanted to be on a cool Friday evening, sitting in the stuffy drawing room of his rented townhouse listening to his siblings loudly argue was not high on the list. Unfortunately, that was exactly where he found himself, dryly recounting the events of the evening, starting from the moment he had joined Felicity on her patrol, ending right after she’d killed the fledgling but before he had made the monumental mistake of kissing her.
“There was no maker?” Lucina asked. She was sitting on an upholstered divan with her golden curls loose around her shoulders and her knees tucked beneath her voluminous sky-blue skirt. She furrowed her brow. “I see why you are concerned.”
Helena laid a hand on Lucina’s shoulder. “The Wild Hunt must be informed.”
Unlike Lucina’s shorter stature, Helena’s towering height cut an imposing figure, an impression reinforced by her preference for masculine attire, such as her current choice of dark-brown trousers and a white silk shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal impressive forearms.
“Well, this is quite the predicament.” Lucina tilted her head back and forth and continued in a singsong voice. “Our brother is smitten with a hunter.” Her soft smile was at odds with the intense blue of her irises. She was younger than he was but hadspent most of her existence untethered to a maker. That lack of discipline had made her dangerously unstable.
“Marcus told me to watch her,” Jonathan said. “I was only following orders.”
Orders that were now in jeopardy because of his intentional avoidance of the Sloan House. The cure to his illness was within his grasp, but retrieving it meant confronting Felicity and the way he desperately wanted to kiss her again.
Lucina bared her teeth in what might have looked like a smile to a human but was an unquestionable display of dominance between vampires. “Orders. Is that all you are good for, brother?”
He held back a retort by sheer force of will and instead bowed his head. “I thought Marcus would want to know the hunter was patrolling, despite our reports suggesting she was only a scribe.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, he was drawn to Felicity. He pressed his knees together to keep from tapping his heels on the floor. She was out there somewhere on patrol again. He was certain of it. She would return to the scene of the attack and attempt to track down the maker of the fledgling.
The damned woman was going to get herself killed.
Not that he cared. Her death would only accelerate his plans. He simply did not want her to die before he could make her suffer properly. Yes, that was all.
Lucina slid off the divan lap and approached him, as graceful as a ballerina but as deadly as a tiger. “You have taken an unacceptable risk, Jonathan.” With each word, the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
He’d once read about a species of sloth with a fuzzy coat, enormous eyes, and a lethally venomous bite. Lucina was much the same. Her diminutive stature and preference for voluminous, ruffled dresses that concealed her adultproportions combined to put her victims at ease long enough for her to strike.
“You’ve had your fun,” she said. “It is time to retrieve the codex and end your association with the hunter.”
He extended his fangs. “I am sick of being told what to do.”
She levitated a foot off the floor. “Is that a challenge?”
Behind her, Helena crossed her arms and scowled.
He withdrew his fangs. “No.” His lips were suddenly dry. He licked them. “I need more time. The hunter believes a maker is creating fledglings and letting them roam the city unfettered.”
“Interesting,” Lucina said. “What do you think, Helena?”
“It’s possible.” Their older sister ran a hand through her short hair. “But our brother isn’t telling us something.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have your symptoms worsened, Jonathan?”
He bit back a groan. Of course she would ask that. She was as bad as Marcus and Cordon, even though she was unmated.
Lucina scowled. “Jonathan has been too busy with his precious hunter to notice symptoms.”
“There’s nothing going on between Felicity and me,” he said.
Helena narrowed her eyes. “Do not avoid the question.”
He would be forever grateful to Helena for the patience and care she’d shown him when he’d been an unruly fledgling, but her concern felt like a cage descending around him. “I’m fine.”
