Demon's Kiss. Maggie Shayne

had packed several bags and dressed to kill. She wore a short skintight black dress, with a chain-link belt draped around her hips, black thigh-high stockings with seams up the back and lace on the top, and opentoed spike heels with straps that criss-crossed once, encircled her leg just above the ankle and buckled there. They had twenty-four-karat gold heart charms dangling from their straps. Her hair was sleek and smooth, and her makeup perfect.

      She looked so good that Jack would probably weep when he saw her.

      Bastard.

      She was stacking her bags near the mansion’s front door when she felt the presence of another vampire—no, two of them—nearby.

      And one of the Chosen, as well.

      Instinctively, she ducked to one side of the door, to get out of plain sight, and peered out the window. Yes, three people, two men and a woman, were standing near the end of her curving white gravel drive, just waiting there.

      She squinted, and spoke with her mind. Come any closer and you’ll regret it.

      The reply came immediately, from a man she didn’t know. We only want to talk to you. It won’t take long, and we’re no threat.

      And I’m supposed to take your word for that? Any vampire who trusted unmet, undead strangers was asking for trouble, Topaz thought. And she was not stupid. I wasn’t transformed yesterday, you know.

       We need to ask a few questions, that’s all. It’s about a man who calls himself Jack of Hearts.

      Her reaction was so instinctive that she couldn’t hide it. A surge of emotions—passion, pain, desire, anger—all twisted up into one ball of feeling, just welled up and burst from her, and she wasn’t quick enough or disciplined enough to hide it in time. She knew they’d felt it. Damn. She tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, tried to move quickly past it, but she knew she wasn’t fooling them.

       Why do you want to know about him?

       Because I’m looking for the leader of the rogue gang he’s rumored to be running with. They’re dangerous, Topaz. Deadly, to humans and vampires alike. They’re even hostile toward the Chosen, or at least that’s what the rumors claim. I need to know all I can about them before I get too close.

      She swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat and looked at her bags. She’d been just about to go storming into the midst of a rogue gang? A murderous rogue gang who killed their own kind? Jack was running with a rogue gang?

      That was so not Jack. And damn, from what she knew about rogue vampires, she was pretty sure she could have gotten herself killed tonight.

      Sighing, she opened the front doors and stood between them, staring down the driveway at the three who waited there. “Come in, then,” she called. “Since you may have just saved my life, I suppose I owe you a favor.”

      Seth saw the woman standing in between the open doors. She was backlit, and the total effect was as if some kind of goddess had just flung open the doors to heaven and invited them in. Her shape was willowy, slender, graceful. Long arms and legs, long neck, long hair. Gorgeous. And yet his first reaction to seeing her there was one of almost crippling disappointment.

      She wasn’t the woman he’d been searching for.

      He could have wept, but instead, he lifted his chin, determined to press on. The sense that he was closer to her than ever, and still on the right path, was the most comfort he was going to get right now. So he clung to that and got on with the business at hand.

      They trooped up the driveway, and he was finally able to see more than just her silhouette. She was of medium height, with the youthful face of a prom queen. Her hair was long, perfectly straight, satiny smooth and the color of melted milk chocolate—the same color as her eyes. She had Cupid’s bow lips, high cheekbones and a dimple in her chin.

      She was beautiful, in the most classic definition of the word.

      “My name is Reaper,” the boss said, but when she reached out to shake his hand, he just stuck his into his pocket, ignoring her offer.

      Seth thought he was a moron. Not liking physical contact was one thing—he’d already picked up on that quirk of Reaper’s in the short time he’d spent with him. But to avoid the touch of a woman who looked like this one…well, hell, that wasn’t quirky, that was just plain crazy.

      “I’m Topaz,” she said. “We can sit, if you like.” She waved a hand toward a small sitting room, just off the foyer. They went in, each taking a comfortable spot.

      Seth picked a love seat, in hopes she would sit beside him. She didn’t. Reaper took a rocking chair near the gas fireplace, which Topaz turned on with the touch of a button. Roxy plunked down right on the stone hearth, probably cold. She should have said something when they were standing outside, Seth thought vaguely.

      Topaz remained standing while Reaper spoke. “I don’t want to keep you, so I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve been hired by some of the elders of our kind to deal with a man called Gregor, who is leading the most notorious rogue gang we’ve ever come across. Jack of Hearts is reputed to be Gregor’s right-hand man.”

      She lifted her perfectly arched brows and studied his face. “And you’re telling me this why?”

      “You know him, this Jack of Hearts, correct?”

      She shrugged. “I might.”

      “It’s rumored you were recently robbed of a great deal of money by your former lover. Since that seems to be this Jack’s modus operandi, I thought it a pretty safe bet he was the one.” He shrugged. “How many vampire con men are there, after all?”

      “They’re all con men, in one way or another,” she muttered.

      Reaper frowned.

      “Okay. You’re right. I admit it was Jack. And, yes, he was my lover. But how do you know I’ll help you? What makes you think I won’t rush off to warn him?”

      Reaper smiled slowly. It wasn’t a happy smile; it was a scary one. “I felt your reaction to hearing Jack’s name. You don’t want me to kill him in the process of taking out his boss. I figure I can bargain with you for his safety.”

      She lifted her brows. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want you to kill him, but only because I want to do it myself.”

      Seth had felt the rush of energy blasting from her at the mention of Jack’s name, too. And while he wasn’t as adept at reading other vamps as Reaper was, he’d always had a knack for reading people. He thought she was lying. It hadn’t felt like a rush of murderous rage to him. It had felt like a rush of pain of the heartache variety, and an all-out effort to hold back a flood of tears.

      She changed the subject. “So who are these two?” she asked.

      “These are my…” Reaper hesitated, as if he couldn’t quite think of the right word.

      “Friends,” Seth filled in, sending Reaper a disgusted look and getting to his feet to offer his hand. “I’m Seth. I’m new to all this undead stuff.”

      Topaz shook his hand and said, “You’re kidding,” in the most sarcastic tone he could imagine. Hell, was it that obvious he was a newborn?

      Then she turned to Roxy. “And you are…one of the Chosen, but…there’s something different about you.”

      “Roxy.” She didn’t offer a hand, and didn’t get up from her spot near the fire. “And everything about me is different.”

      “What an odd little band,” Topaz said. Then she shrugged, as if that was all the consideration she was going to give to that subject.

      “You were about to go somewhere,” Reaper said, with a glance at the luggage stacked near the front door.

      “Yes. I was going to hunt Jack