The thought was enough to give her the heebie-jeebies.
With a shiver she crossed her arms over her stomach and tried to look brave. Dammit. She was the one who was demanding to be a partner in this nasty business.
I am woman hear me roar, she chided herself, not oh-my-God I’m going to toss my cookies.
“Who is Levet?” she forced herself to demand.
Despite her best efforts there must have been something in her voice that warned Cezar she was strolling near the edge.
His concerned gaze skimmed over her faintly green face before he tugged her to his side and slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“He’s a gargoyle,” he grudgingly confessed.
“Ah.” She couldn’t halt the short, wild laugh. “Of course.”
Cezar’s thumb rubbed the taut line of her throat, his touch magically easing back the panic that had threatened to boil to the surface.
“Don’t worry,” he soothed. “He’s the runt of the litter and the only frightening thing about him is his warped sense of humor.”
Styx regarded Cezar’s movements with a narrowed gaze. Almost as if he was startled by the vampire’s protective intimacy. Which was laughable. Anna knew firsthand that Conde Cezar made a habit of exchanging his women on a nightly basis. She had been one of the exchangees.
With an odd smile the giant vampire gave a dip of his head. “I will leave you to prepare.”
“Good idea,” Cezar murmured, shutting the door in the face of his king and crowding her against the wall before she knew what was happening. “Should we hit the shower first?”
A shower? Naked skin. Warm water. Silky soap. Hot, steamy…
The image of the two of them entwined as water poured over them was so vivid, Anna was forced to close her eyes and suck in a deep breath.
“Absolutely not,” she muttered, already feeling hot and steamy as he deliberately leaned into her body, his head lowering so he could bury his face in her hair.
“Why?” He nipped at her earlobe. “You can wash my back and I’ll wash yours. We’re partners, remember?”
Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as his hands stroked up her sides and then boldly cupped the heavy fullness of her breasts.
Right. Now, they were partners. When he wanted to get up close and personal.
Well, she was going to…she was going to nip this in the…his thumbs teased the tips of her nipples and Anna moaned.
What the hell was she going to do?
Something besides melt into a puddle at his feet, surely?
The thumbs did another gut-wrenching brushing motion and Anna knew she was about to drown in his potent passion.
Holy crap.
“The only shower you’re getting is going to be a cold one in your own room,” she managed to rasp.
He laughed, his fangs deliberately scraping against her neck. “Harsh.”
“Cezar, stop that.”
“Why?” His tongue replaced his fangs in his campaign to send her up in flames. “I can smell your desire.”
“You’re going to be smelling my fist if you don’t stop.”
He laughed. “So violent, querida. First handcuffs and now threats. You used to prefer your lovemaking far more gentle.”
Lovemaking?
No.
This was sex. Raw, animal sex.
Something she had sworn off two hundred years ago.
With a desperate wrench she was pushing him away and trying to collect her senses. A minute passed, and then five more, her rasping breaths the only sound in the room until she was at last able to meet Cezar’s glittering gaze.
“Go away, Cezar.”
The dark eyes flashed as he stepped toward her, his fingers cupping her cheek. “Someday, querida.” His head bent to steal a kiss that was edged with desperation. “Someday very, very soon.”
Anna felt better after a long, icy shower that helped to ease the sexual tension and washed away Cezar’s sandalwood scent.
She felt even better when she returned to the Olympicsized bedroom to find her suitcase on the bed. She didn’t know how the miracle had occurred, and she didn’t care. It was just a relief to pull on her own faded jeans and a pale yellow short-sleeved knit shirt.
Slipping on a pair of flip-flops, she paused long enough to pull her damp hair into a scrunchie and headed out the door.
As she moved down the wood-paneled hallway and hit the curved marble staircase, she briefly considered that her casual clothes didn’t fit the sprawling mansion. Although she had lived simply over the past two centuries, she had spent enough time among the London aristocracy when she was young to recognize that the marble statues came straight from a Grecian temple and that the oil paintings that hung on the oak paneling were genuine masterpieces.
She paused at the bottom step and then gave a shrug as she went in search of her hostess. She was done trying to fit into places she didn’t belong. Done trying to please others.
Besides, Darcy had been just as casual. The sort of casual that came from the soul, not from her clothes. Maybe werewolves were a little more go-with-the-flow than vampires, she wryly told herself.
Hearing sounds from the back of the house, Anna managed to negotiate the labyrinth of hallways to at last enter a beautiful kitchen that was filled with stainless steel appliances and pots of fresh herbs set on the window sills.
It was also filled with a peculiar creature that stood barely three feet tall with gray skin and strange bumps all over his knobby body. Even more odd, he possessed a long tail and a pair of wings that were startlingly beautiful.
“Oh.” Coming to a halt on the black and white ceramic tiles, Anna sucked in a shocked breath. Maybe roaming around a house filled with demons wasn’t such a good idea. Her gaze shifted to Darcy, who was seated at a cherrywood table. “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”
“God, no,” the woman breathed, rising from her chair to cross the room. This morning she was wearing another pair of jeans with a well-worn sweatshirt that nearly swamped her tiny body. Her blond hair was carelessly spiked and her face free of makeup and yet she glowed with beauty.
It was no wonder the big, scary Styx melted whenever he glanced in her direction.
Anna was about to relax when the…thing scuttled across the floor in Darcy’s wake, one clawed hand holding up a piece of cardboard that had a large E drawn on it.
“What are you doing?” the creature demanded, his voice thick with an astonishing French accent as he waved the cardboard in the air. “We have not finished the game. You must tell me how many of the vowels you wish to purchase.”
Darcy reached out to pat the thing on its head. Right between its stunted horns.
“We’ll finish later.”
“Later?” There was a spat of French curses. “My audition could be any day. There is no later.”
“Of course there is,” Darcy soothed with remarkable patience. Just as if she were humoring a petulant child. “I’ve told you, Levet, it’s Bob Barker who retired, and I might add, has already been replaced, not Vanna White.”
Anna blinked. This was Levet? This was the gargoyle that was supposed to sense magic?
Cezar had said he was the runt, but…jeez. She really did have to stop watching horror flicks. Vampires, werewolves, fairies, gargoyles. So far they hadn’t got anything right.
“Ah, this Vanna White is a human, is she not? She could drop dead at any moment,” Levet protested, then without warning he was moving to stand directly in front of Anna. He pointed a claw up toward her face. “You there. You’re a human. Aren’t you afraid that you might just drop dead one day?”
“Well, I…” Anna cleared her throat.
She had no idea what to say, especially after the gargoyle leaned forward and blatantly began sniffing her leg.
“No, not human,” he murmured, his gray eyes lifting to regard her with what Anna hoped was curiosity and not hunger.
“Good grief,” Darcy muttered, sending Anna a rueful smile. “Anna, this is Levet. Levet, Anna Randal.”
Anna remained speechless as the creature circled around her, sniffing at her jeans and occasionally poking her with a stubby claw.
“What are you?” he demanded as he came to a halt in front of her, his hands planted on his hips, his long tail twitching in frustration.
“Umm, Darcy?” Anna whispered, caught between disbelief and a startling urge to laugh.
“Levet, please stop sniffing my guest,” Darcy commanded. “It’s not polite.”
The gargoyle made a rude noise. “You said that scratching my privates in public wasn’t polite. Now I cannot even sniff the guests? You are such a buzz-kiss.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Buzz-kill, Levet. The word is buzz-kill.”
“Whatever.” Levet returned his attention to Anna. “You smell like a fairy, but…”
“A fairy?” Anna took a startled step backward. She would know if she was a fairy. Wouldn’t she? “I don’t think so.”
“Who were your parents?” Levet demanded.
“I don’t know. I was raised in an orphanage until my aunt took me in.”