Page 3 of Hot for Slayer (Scared Sexy Collection #1)

T he abbess once told me that the real problems are rarely the ones we spend our time worrying about.

It was, I believe, in the context of me fretting over the pain of getting a tooth pulled—as opposed to, say, the fires of eternal damnation.

At the time, I cradled my swollen cheek and rolled my eyes, but this might be the day I seriously reevaluate my centuries-deep poor opinion of her, because she was obviously right.

Lazlo doesn’t remember who I am, and I’m ready to panic about it. But that’s barely an issue, especially when confronted with an even more pressing discovery.

Lazlo doesn’t remember who he is.

“What do you mean, you don’t ... know?” I ask. When he opened his eyes, I scurried back like the roach that I so clearly am, which means that we’re sitting against opposite walls in the hallway. I hide his dagger behind my back, wondering if—no, when —I’ll have to use it on him.

“Seems self-explanatory,” Enyedi mutters in the deadpan inflection I’ve long learned to associate with him. He sits up straighter in a flurry of muscles, rubbing the back of his skull. When the heel of his palm comes back bloody, he stares at it for a moment, then shrugs. “Where are we?”

“Ah ... SoHo, I think.” I keep my eyes fixed on him, waiting for a pounce.

“And where’s that?”

“On, um, planet Earth?” His glare tells me I zoomed out a tad too much. “US. New York City.”

“I see. And who are we?”

“Do you really not—”

“Yes,” he interrupts with a low, irritated grunt.

“I really do not. I don’t remember my name, yours, the reason I’m here, or the events that precipitated this moment.

Moreover, I couldn’t list a single person I know.

In fact, I don’t even remember when I learned the meaning of the words I’m using.

What I do know, however, is the definition of amnesia , which is a not uncommon symptom following a blow to the head—”

“Lazlo,” I say, mostly to shut him up. Dickhead. “Your name is Lazlo Enyedi.”

He mouths the words. “What’s the origin of that?”

“I think ...” I glance at the ink that seems to cover every inch of his body.

Tattoos have been embraced by slayers since long before they became mainstream, but Lazlo’s art has always set him apart from his brethren—and always fascinated me.

It’s made of ancient, angular runes that remind me of the Old Turkic script.

Distinctively Carpathian designs. Colors and motifs calling back to Eastern European folklore. “Hungary, I believe.”

“Am I Hungarian?”

Is he? We haven’t exactly exchanged introductions over lattes.

The only reason I even know his name is that he was turned into a slayer specifically to eliminate my bloodline.

Many centuries ago, when I visited Athens and ran across another vampire originated by my own maker, she shared some intel with me before going on her merry way.

That was back when Greece was still part of the Ottoman Empire.

“I’m not sure where you are from. Do you understand what I’m saying?

” I ask in Hungarian. My grammar has to be dated, because I haven’t spent significant time in the area since the Habsburg jaw was all the rage, but Lazlo replies fluently and without a hint of an accent.

“I guess you are,” I say. “But I think you’ve been living abroad for a while. ”

“You think ?” His eyes, nearly brown in the dim hallway, narrow. “Do we not know each other?”

Why am I subjecting myself to this? Ah, right. He saved my life. I’m trapped. That kind of shit. “We are business associates,” I say, pleased by how much better it sounds than the more truthful mortal enemies, but only professionally .

“Business associates,” he repeats, skeptical.

“Yes. Because of our work.”

He stares, unimpressed. “And our work is ...”

“You know. This and that.” I shrug, hoping he’ll assume we DoorDash for a living and leave it at that.

But I should have known better than to expect some guy who’s been after me for the last thousand years to let go of anything .

He pushes off the wall and scoots closer, close enough that his heat washes over me in waves.

Maybe slayers have even more powers than I originally thought, because when his gaze latches on to mine, I cannot look away.

“Why do I get the impression that you’re lying to me? ”

Dammit. “Because you hit your noggin, and your impressions are out of whack?”

“Nah.” His voice is dark. “That’s not it.”

“No offense, but someone who won’t know whether he’s circumcised until he takes a peek inside his underwear may have less-than-excellent instincts when it comes to—”

“What’s your name?” He inches even closer.

I could tell him anything. Joan of Arc. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Fiona from Shrek . Sadly, immortality must have made me boring, because I say, “I go by Ethel.” When shitheads don’t insist on using my full antediluvian name.

“Ethel. Pretty.” His nod is pleased, but his tone suggests that he’s not above gutting pretty things. He reaches forward to take a lock of my hair between his fingertips, turning it back and forth. “What color is this?”

I swallow. “Um ... strawberry blond?”

“Strawberry blond,” he repeats, and even though he doesn’t say pretty again, I can almost hear it. And then he continues. “Ethel, since the very second I regained consciousness, I have been very alert to my surroundings. Perhaps too alert, if you take my meaning.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“No? Well, I know how many exits and vents are in the hallway, and I could easily draw a blueprint for this building. I’ve been counting the cars driving outside, I can guess your weight and age to the decimal point, and I can feel that I have at least seven weapons strategically placed on my body—while you have been doing a poor job of hiding a single dagger behind your back.

I would also easily be able to reconstruct the series of blows and relative positions that led to this”—the back of his hand brushes against my cheekbone, a barely there touch that has me pulling back and shivering at the same time—“specific pattern of bruises on your skin. This is a degree of situational awareness that doesn’t strike me as typical for a paralegal, so . .. what are our jobs, Ethel ?”

I swallow. I should swat his hand away, but I am paralyzed, unable to recall the last time someone touched me voluntarily without trying to hurt me.

“Ethel?” he prompts, finally dropping his arm. He stares, waiting for an honest response.

That I simply cannot give him.

Your job—your one, single job, the reason you were bestowed immortality, the reason you were trained in all those things you just mentioned—is to kill creatures like me.

My job is to run from you.

As you can probably imagine, this puts us at odds, even more so because you’re not the type to half-ass anything. In fact, you want to kill me so bad, you just stopped someone else so that you’d be the one to do the honors.

Frankly, I admire your commitment.

Yeah. That’s not gonna work.

“Am I a criminal?” he asks, sounding intrigued by the prospect. “Is that why you’re withholding information from me?”

“What? No. No, not a criminal. You are just ...” I rack my brain. “An asshole.”

He snorts. “Don’t spare the feelings of the infirm.”

“Well, you’re an infirm asshole , so ...”

“I am not .”

“Excuse me? I would know.”

“Why am I an asshole?” He’s scowling now.

“Several reasons.”

“Such as?”

“You ...” Are a literal vampire killer. “Because.”

“You didn’t list any reason.”

I huff. “You wear sunglasses inside, for one.”

His face falls, mortified. Mafia boss? No problem. Douchebag? A line must be drawn. “Do I really?”

“No,” I say, feeling a little guilty. “I’m not even sure you own sunglasses. But you and I, we don’t get along very well.”

He lets out a single dismissive laugh. “Right.”

“I’m serious. We are nemeses.”

“No, we are not.”

I frown. “Why don’t you believe me? We deeply dislike each other.”

“Maybe you don’t like me, because I clearly ...” He stops. Shakes his head. Declares, as though the truth exists only to be molded by his words: “We aren’t nemeses. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Says the slayer,” I mutter bitterly, and when his eyes widen, I want to punch myself.

“Slayer,” he repeats, his voice hushed. I tighten my grip around the dagger, waiting for ... I don’t know. For him to remember. For an attack. Definitely not for him to ask, “You mean, an exterminator? For bugs?”

My shoulders slump in relief. I hear myself saying, “Yeah. Exactly.”

“And we’re nemeses ”—his tone is derisive—“because, what? You had a bedbug situation I couldn’t fix?”

I am the bedbug, Lazlo. “It’s just in our nature. Because I’m a ... an entomologist.”

“A what?”

This is coming together surprisingly well.

“You are a sl—an exterminator, and I am the kind of scientist who studies insects and their behaviors. As you can probably imagine, my existence—my professional existence, that is—is incompatible with yours. You kill bugs. I keep them alive.” Do entomologists really hate pest control?

Probably not. Doesn’t matter. “Conflict of interest.”

The head injury must be working in my favor, because Lazlo asks, “Is that why we’re here? Because of pest control?”

I nod enthusiastically. “You were on a job. I tried to stop you. We both stumbled, that’s why you fell and I have”—I point at my cheek—“this.”

The hesitation on his face spells out: You know all of this sounds like bullshit, right?

But instead of calling me out on it, Lazlo says, “Sure. Fine. Let’s just go.

” With enviable agility, he rises to his feet.

“A doctor will know how to help me remember this stuff.” That you clearly made up remains unsaid.

“Agreed. You should check out Mount Sinai, but Lenox is—”

“You’re coming with me,” he says, scowling again. So deeply, I decide to casually remind him that I still have a dagger with a flick of my wrist.

“Sadly, I can’t.”

“Why?”

The trick about lies is, one has to put their whole heart into them. So I don’t let myself hesitate. “I’m allergic to the sun.”

A slow blink. “You are allergic to the sun.”

“Yes. It’s a pretty common condition, actually.”

“What happens if you go outside?”

“Boils. Pus.” Instant death. “You know. I’d rather wait for sundown to get out. Anyway, it was great to hang out with you. Good luck at the hospital, and ...”

My voice drifts into silence as Lazlo lowers himself back into a sitting position. The tip of his boot brushes against the side of my sneaker.

“The hospital’s the other way,” I joke weakly.

“I’m not leaving you here alone.” He sounds, and looks, equal parts put-upon and determined.

A thought occurs to me : What if he’s faking it? What if he knows that I’m trapped here with him? That he can torture me and keep me at his mercy for the next ten hours? What if he’s just a great actor, toying with a lying mouse?

To test that theory, I ask, “Hey?”

His eyebrow arches: What, now? He must have little faith in my ability to carry out an interesting conversation.

I clear my throat. “Have you heard of vampires?”

“Of course I have.”

My stomach sinks, and I grip the dagger once again.

Until he adds, in a knowing tone: “Like Dracula. Carmilla.”

“Yeah. Or Nosferatu. You know, vampires.”

“I’m familiar.”

“Right. I was wondering: Do you think they really exist?”

He stares. Stares. Stares. And right when I’m sure he’s going to end me, he says, “Ethel?”

“Yeah?”

“I know that I hit my head. But what happened to yours ?”