Page 86 of A Touch of Crimson
“I can hear the wheels in your head turning,” Lindsay said drily, tossing her empty bottle in the recycle bin.
He needed to be hunting down whoever had set him up, but he couldn’t leave Lindsay, and there was no one he could trust with her.
She went to the closet and pulled out her messenger bag, perfectly comfortable with walking around with an arsenal slung over her hip. “I need to go out.”
He pushed back from the desk. “For what?”
“Seriously tacky touristy Disney and California stuff. Hats, sweatshirts, shot glasses, et cetera.”
His lack of excitement must have shown on his face, because she laughed.
“I have to get my dad stuff he’ll roll his eyes over,” she explained. “But, lucky for you, we won’t be gone too long. I’ve got an interviewee coming in at three.”
Elijah looked at the clock and noted it was one. He had to hand it to her—she’d taken a beating all morning and kept on ticking. “Do you have plans tonight?”
“I need to get my car from the Point, but otherwise you’re free to do whatever.”
He nodded. “Good. Thanks.”
Once she was settled in the hotel for the night, he could talk to Rachel by phone. He had to get some idea of how pervasive Micah’s rebellion plans were. Elijah knew he had to rip that weed out by the root as soon as possible—a damn near impossible task when he was away from the rest of the pack most of the time.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” Lindsay asked him as they exited the elevator on the bottom floor. They usually took the stairs—all seventeen floors—but she was too wiped out to need the exercise today.
“Too complicated, too time-consuming, too much work.”
Lindsay stopped abruptly just outside the revolving doors leading to the awning-covered bell desk and valet area. Bellmen were going through training in front of them, while gardeners put the finishing touches on the flower bed framing the crescent-shaped driveway. Life as mortals knew it was carrying on as usual, but the sudden stiffening of Lindsay’s posture and her intense focus were like a dog on point, signaling the proximity of prey nearby.
Abruptly, his senses went on alert. Elijah scanned the immediate area again, just as he’d automatically done before they’d exited the lobby. The uncanny wind that always seemed to follow Lindsay blew past him, carrying the blood-rich scent of a vampire. The beast inside him coiled in readiness, growling softly in anticipation of his order to attack.
The vamp responsible for their instinctive reactions appeared a moment later, strolling into the parking lot from the public sidewalk, blissfully unaware of the predators she’d roused.
Her looks hit Elijah like a sledgehammer. She was tall and stacked, with curvy hips and full, firm tits. Her hair hung to her waist, straight as a board and blood red. She was dressed like a goddamned dominatrix, with spiky-heeled boots, tight black pants, and a leather vest dipping in a low V that displayed the deep valley of her cleavage.
Elijah was blindsided by the insane urge to bend her over the hood of the Mercedes she was walking past, wrap her hair around his forearm, and drill her lush body until he came with a roar.
He hated vampires, especially the females, who were more vicious than the males. Yet his cock was swelling with feral lust the longer he watched her.
She jerked violently, jolting him back to reality. She spun wildly, as if felled by a blow, then rounded back with fangs bared.
It wasn’t until he saw the glint of sunlight on something metallic embedded in her shoulder that he realized what had happened.
“Shit,” he muttered, barely catching Lindsay by the shoulder as she darted forward.
“Let me go, El,” she snapped, yanking to be free of his unyielding grip.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he barked. “It’s goddamned daylight. That’s one of the Fallen.”
Lindsay sliced across his forearm with her blade, eliciting a roar of pain and garnering her release.
She was halfway to the vampire when she answered him. “That bitch killed my mother.”
20
Vash stared down at the burning pain in her shoulder and realized she’d been hit with a silver-plated throwing knife. Ripping the blade free, she looked up in time to catch sight of another volley a split second before it caught her in the bicep.
“Fuck!” she hissed, unprepared for a full-on attack in the middle of the damn day.
A blonde was racing toward her, another blade flying from her grip. Vash barely lurched out of the way in time, the smell of her own blood stirring the hunger in her.
