A Venetian Vampire. Michele Hauf

      He waved a hand, dismissing the comment. “Doesn’t matter now. What does is that I’ve come to Venice to claim the Fabergé egg, and I won’t leave without it.”

      “So you admit you used me—seduced me—to get what you wanted?”

      He lifted a finger. “The sex was not my original intention. I had not planned to use intimacy to obtain the egg. That was a fortuitous bonus.”

      “Liar. You took me home, knowing I had the egg on me. Then you fucked me and planned to steal it while I was sleeping or in the bathroom.”

      “I did intend to steal the egg from you. I won’t deny that. But the sex was completely separate from my larcenist goals. And I’ll thank you not to combine the two. What we shared last night was intimate and sacred.”

      “Sacred? Yeah right. You are a classic womanizer.”

      “I am not a womanizer,” he protested. “I love women. All of them.”

      She blew out a breath. Was there a difference? “I don’t believe you,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. Right now, I’ve got to find the smelly wolf who stole my egg. You really think it was a werewolf?”

      “The scent is obvious. And the fact we can both still smell it means the culprit must have been here in the last hour or two.”

      “Then I need to track it.”

      She sniffed the air but couldn’t quite pick up the salty-wet scent. It was quickly dissipating. How to track a wolf? She’d never even met a werewolf. She knew it was safer to talk with them in their un-shifted were form than when they were in their shifted half human, half wolf form. She’d figure it out.

      But first. “Stand up. I want to search you.”

      Dante stood and raised his arms out from his sides. His shirt opened, and his abs flexed magnificently. Kyler spread her fingers before her, deciding where to touch him first. No place on his person to hide an egg the size of a skull. Had she counted those ridges last night? That was definitely more than a six-pack, now that she considered it. And she could smell his leather-and-musk heat wafting through the atmosphere, tempting, teasing—

      “Forget it.” She gazed about the foyer to distract her waning fortitude, and as she did Dante pulled her into his embrace. She struggled against him, but he wrangled her into compliance with ease. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want this from you. You didn’t mean any of it last night.”

      “I meant it all, Kyler. I promise you that. I take intimacy with a woman very seriously. Look at me.”

      She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

      “Fine. And you’re right. There’s time later to argue the semantics of our ill-timed love-making session. We need to track the wolf before the trail goes stale.”

      “We? I don’t think so. The egg is mine. I am out of here.”

      “I’m right behind you!” Dante called.

      Kyler didn’t listen. With the backpack in hand, she slammed the front door behind her, then, thinking to look for a clue, she studied the door handle and sniffed. Yes, maybe a faint scent of wolf there. The sidewalk was still wet, so she couldn’t see tracks or decide which way the trail led. Tracking people was not her forte. Just as thievery was not.

      But falling for some scheming, too-pretty womanizer? Sign her right up. Apparently she was a professional when it came to being seduced.

      “I can’t believe last night happened.”

      But she’d do her damned best to forget about her lack of discretion now. To forget the scent of him on her skin and at her mouth and—

      “Aggh! Focus, Kyler. You are a vampire. You’ve got skills. You can do this. And no,” she muttered as she strode down the street, tugging down her shirt, “this is not a walk of shame. I am without shame. Really.”

      Mostly. At the very least she could be thankful her hair wasn’t in a tangle and she wasn’t wearing a spangled miniskirt and sky-high heels.

      She sniffed the air again. Tracking werewolves had not been a part of her paltry Welcome to Vampirism 101 education. Because she’d never received that complete course. Her creator had been too busy, unwilling to divulge more than a handful of details, and—

      “Uninterested,” she said with a sigh. So why was she here in Venice now trying to help that very vampire out?

      Because she did appreciate the gift of vampirism he had given her. And that was all there was to it. She owed him.

      She walked slowly, trying to pick up clues, scents, anything. As she struggled to fix on a doglike scent, it became horribly obvious she’d never find the wolf unless it walked right up to her.

      * * *

      Dante quickly dressed. He kept the palazzo stocked with suits. Rarely did he wear leisure clothing such as jeans, though he could manage a relaxed élan that would blend him in with the tourists. He preferred a suit. A well-dressed man could get through most difficulties life flung at him. But he hadn’t time for the whole attire. Clean, pressed trousers and a white dress shirt would have to serve. He left the red silk tie lying on the bed, grabbed his door key and rushed out of the palazzo. He locked the front door, but, as had been proven, it mattered little. He must look into having one of those newfangled digital locks installed. He struggled with new technologies.

      Then again, as he’d said to Kyler, he kept no items of value in this palazzo, so did tight security really matter? He wasn’t a man who collected things. What mattered most to him were experiences. Visceral, tangible moments that were fixed into his brain forever after. Such as having sex with Kyler. She had been a hot one, and he’d like to handle her again.

      He rarely spent more than a night or two, sometimes a week, with a woman. And he shouldn’t risk another night of passion with a woman whom he, by all rights, should deem an enemy. Well, she had been when she’d held the egg.

      Now that neither held the prize? He’d reserve judgment on labeling her as foe or ally.

      It was early morning, and tourists had yet to flood the streets. Gondoliers were polishing their conveyances and sidewalk café staff washed tables and metal chairs. The sun was hidden behind clouds, for which he was thankful. He hadn’t taken along a pair of sunglasses, and the sun was not his favorite star.

      He didn’t have to go far before he found Kyler walking slowly, her hands extended out at her sides as if to feel the air and her eyes closed as she strolled to a stop at a corner. Her silhouette reminded him of a 1940s pinup girl, rounded at the hips and breasts, and all that gorgeous hair swishing about in curls below her shoulders. The memory of her soft purrs against his skin last night made him smile.

      He would have her again.

      Quickening his pace, he grabbed her hand. Following the werewolf scent he was still able to track, he tugged her along to the left when he presumed she might have turned right.

      She protested with a tug. A gentle one. “I told you I didn’t want to see you again!”

      “Quieter, please.” He made show of looking about. “We are on a mission. You’re a thief. You must know how to practice stealth?”

      The look she gave him made him immediately question that suggestion. But really, she had to be experienced to have walked out of the Cannaregio Casa d’Aste with a priceless artifact in hand. But why so impudent? He should be the angry one—she’d stolen from him. For now he attributed her anger to their current estranged intimacy. He’d make amends. All night long.

      “Like it or not,” he said, “we are now a team. This way.”

      He veered toward the canal and then left alongside a brick building that boasted a narrow sidewalk between it and the still canal. The werewolf scent faded because the salty, stale water overwhelmed his senses, but with intense concentration