Insatiable

She looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Go on,” he said. “I know you’re dying to run ahead and give lover boy the heads-up.

I’m going to let you. Tell him I’ll let him go, on one condition.”

Her entire demeanor changed. Suddenly, she was all that was accommodating and

pleasant.

“What condition?” she asked eagerly.

“Tell him that if he tells me where I can find the prince, I’ll let you both go. Then you

can run off and have vampire babies together.”

Alaric couldn’t say the last part without laughing, though he did try, remembering that

he was supposed to be working on his people skills.

Sarah evidently didn’t notice. “Oh, thank you!” Sarah was smiling as she scrambled

from the car. “Thank you so much!”

“Not a problem,” Alaric said. He watched as she ran across the sidewalk and up to an

unobtrusive-looking door beside the display window of an antiques shop inside an industriallooking building. He gathered his things as she pressed an intercom. Then he calmly strode to

the alley, where, as he’d suspected, there was a fire escape. He leapt for the rusted metal ladder

as he heard Felix’s voice asking through the intercom, “Who is it?”

Then the buzzer went off, letting Sarah inside the building.

It only took Alaric a moment or two to climb to the roof of the building, and less than

that to secure a grappling hook to the side of the building, then fasten the end of the rope to his

belt.

A few seconds later, Alaric jumped from the roof, crashing through Felix’s plate-glass

living room windows…

…just as the vampire was putting on a black cloak to shield himself from the sun,

preparing to make a run for it. Sarah screamed as UV-protection glass went flying everywhere.

The vampire, desperate to get out of the sun’s rays, which could be fatal to him, threw

himself at the front door.

“Now, Felix,” Alaric said calmly. “You can’t go that way, either.”

A second later, Felix was shrieking. This was because Alaric had hurled a glass vial

filled with holy water at the door. It burst over the knob, singeing the vampire’s fingers as he

reached for it. He drew his hand away, hissing with pain and cradling his smoking fingers.

“I thought you said you’d let him go if he told!” Sarah shouted with outrage.

“And I will,” Alaric said, smiling at her. He turned toward Felix. “So,” he said. “Where

can I find your prince?”

Felix, who looked like a handsome boy of eighteen or twenty—and appeared from his

taste in wall posters to have a fondness for the band Belle and Sebastian—curled back his lips

to reveal a set of extremely strong white teeth. His incisors were unnaturally long and, true to

his species, not unpointy.

“I’ll never tell, demon hunter,” he growled.

Then he threw back his head and let out a hiss, his long tongue darting in and out of his

mouth like a lizard’s tail.

Sarah looked shocked. She’d apparently never heard her boyfriend use that tone of voice

before. Or seen his eyes glow red.

“Felix,” she cried. “Just tell him! He said he’d let you go if you told.”

When Felix swung his glowing red eyes and twisting tongue toward her, she staggered

back a step. “Why did you bring him here, you stupid whore?” Felix demanded.

Horrified, Sarah started crying all over again.

Alaric took her tears as his cue that it would be all right with her if he performed his

duty. So he stepped forward, swinging Señor Sticky free of its scabbard.

It was over in a matter of seconds. To his credit, the vampire put up a good fight.

But cornered by sunlight on one side and holy water on the other, he had nowhere to go.

There was no escape.

Alaric didn’t give him a chance for any last words. In his experience, vampires didn’t

really have anything that interesting or insightful to say. It was all Shakespeare and emo.

When he was done, he looked at the girl. She was curled up in a ball over by the broken

window, weeping softly to herself.

But—and Alaric knew he wasn’t imagining it—her hair had already begun to recover its

luster, and there was color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before.

She’d be fine in a few days, if her parents fed her enough protein.

He sheathed his sword.

“Get up now,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He was so bad at this part.

Martin was the one who always knew the right thing to say. “I will drive you home to your

mother.”

She uncurled a little and looked at him coldly. “You said you wouldn’t kill him if he

told,” she said. Her voice sounded stronger than before, and her eyes had a shine to them that

had nothing to do with tears. She was, he knew, her own person again and no longer a pawn to

a vampire sire. His killing Felix had released her.

“And he didn’t tell,” Alaric pointed out.

“You didn’t give him a chance!” she cried.

But she was getting up, carefully avoiding looking in the direction where the body was.

Except that there was no body. Only clothes lay where Felix had been. He had to have

been over a hundred years old. His bones were dust.

“He would never have told,” Alaric said. “If he had told, the prince, or his minions,

would have killed him, and far less gently than I did. He chose to die by my sword because he

knew it would be quicker.” He looked down at her. “They’d have killed you, too, you know, if

they’d have found you here with him. They’d have fed on you until there was nothing left.”

Sarah blinked. “You mean…he died to protect me? Oh…that’s so sweet!”

Alaric wanted to show her the photographs he always carried of what some of her now

former boyfriend’s friends had done to Martin. How they’d bitten and peeled strips of his flesh

off, just for fun. Vampires were incapable of sweetness.

But Holtzman, he knew, wouldn’t approve of this.

Besides, his job there was done. She was free now.

And that meant it was time for him to go back to the hotel and pack for New York, to go

after a vampire who might really prove a challenge to his sword arm, unlike her silly

boyfriend.

So he only said, “Let’s take you home now.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

Chapter Thirteen

10:00 P.M . EST, Tuesday, April 13

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11A

New York, New York

W hat is this?” Emil walked into the spacious master bedroom he shared with his

vivacious and slender wife, holding a printout of the e-mail he’d found on his desktop.

“Oh, hon,” Mary Lou said as she breezed by on her way to her dressing table. “That’s

just a little Evite I sent out to all my girlfriends for the dinner party I’m having in Prince

Lucien’s honor on Thursday.”

Emil felt a small but persistent sensation in the center of his belly that was not unlike

being poked over and over by someone with very long nails…a sensation with which, as it

happened, Emil was not unfamiliar.

“You sent out an e-mail about the prince?” he said. “You do realize that if this message

falls into the wrong hands, it could jeopardize everything?”

“Oh, don’t be such a ninny,” Mary Lou said. “I only sent it to my very best friends.

Whose hands is it going to fall into?”

Emil fought for inner patience.

“The Dracul, for one?” he said drily when he could speak again. “The Palatine Guard,

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