Page 13 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood (A Paranormal Halloween #5)

Just looked at him and waited for the pieces to start falling into place. Ruby had recognized at least one name, his reputation had crossed an ocean, and Aury desperately hoped his legend had grown with each telling, and he wasn’t the monster her friend feared.

He met her gaze without flinching, calm on the surface, but darkness flickered underneath.

“As a human, I was bitten by a spider that should’ve killed me, closely related to the Brazilian Wandering Spider, but there was no effect.

A tiny bit of pain for a few minutes, but nothing more.

Now, understanding my original DNA, it makes sense, but at the time, it was seen as… ”

He sighed. “I started raising venomous spiders, and it was one of the reasons I was so scary. Anytime someone in my vicinity died by a spider bite, people wondered if it was me. Sometimes it was, sometimes not. I still keep spiders now, as well as venomous snakes.”

Aury cataloged where her friend’s fear came from. Someone who kills with spiders and snakes would become legend, possibly one she hadn’t believed truly existed.

“Did you bring any spiders with you?”

“No. The charter company I prefer excels at keeping vampires alive while carting us around the globe, but draws an unreasonable line against arachnids.”

He said it with a completely straight face, and the whole terror thing fell apart. They’d have to talk about the spiders, but later. She needed to move the conversation to safer ground, and the flight reminded her of his list of names, where he’d made it sound like he’s no longer living in France.

“You aren’t in Toulon anymore? Where do you live?” She’d pictured him, all these years, still in the south of France.

“I lived in Marseille at the time, travelled to take out…” He started over. “I’m in Egypt, now. We can only live in a city for a couple of decades before people note we aren’t aging.”

“Are you Muslim?” Despite feeling as if she’d always known him, as if they were carved into the same story, he’d lived centuries of a shadowy life she knew almost nothing about. He was a stranger who felt like destiny, and the contradiction twisted like a knife.

He shook his head. “Religion is a human construct. I believe the universe is…” He sighed. “I’m not an atheist; is that enough for now? We’ll need an entire evening to discuss such things.”

Aury nodded, and he looked back to Ruby.

“I’ve promised Aury I will never lie to her, and that I’ll only interfere with the memory of her friends when absolutely necessary to The Secret .

I’d interfered with yours before I gave her the promise, but it means however you feel about me now is true, without any suggestions to alter your opinion. ”

Ruby held his gaze a long moment, looked out the window a few seconds, and looked back to him. “You’re scary as fuck, but you once saved Aury’s life, and if you love her, she’ll be one of the safest humans on the planet.”

Ruby looked back to Aury, her mouth curved into a half-grin. “Sex with a vampire’s like flying on a private jet that reads your every need midair and offers things you don’t know you want until they’re luxuriously wrapped around you.

“With a human, it’s like getting stuck on a budget airline: middle seat, no legroom, the connecting flight’s cancelled after you’ve sprinted across the fucking airport, and your luggage gets lost. Sometimes, you’d have been better off driving and skipping the damned plane.”

She brushed a stray hair from her face. “Vampires are fucking psychic, and they know what you need before you do. Sex with one is precision, power, and motherfucking poetry.

“Humans? It’s like watching a stumbling toddler try to sword fight with a damned pool noodle.”

Wait . Would he bite her during sex? The idea made Aury go all warm between her legs, and that seemed wrong, but—

* * * *

Axel didn’t want Aury dwelling on the idea of being bitten — not yet. Better to steer the conversation back to her friend.

“Whom have you been feeding, young Ruby?” Axel asked.

There’d been nothing in her social media feeds or private messages to hint at her being a shifter, or having a dalliance with a vampire.

However, her early precociousness — the confidence, the appetite — and her unapologetic enjoyment of sex as an adult, tracked perfectly now.

In hindsight, it was textbook predatory shifter behavior.

She shook her head. “Someone who can help me politically, once I’m ready to run for office. It’s nothing romantic, and he’s aware of that. I’m a feed-and-fuck, and he knows what the payment for that will eventually be.”

Ruby looked back to Aury, her expression serious. “You won’t be able to feed him often. He’ll have to feed from others, and that often includes fucking them.”

How often she could feed him remained to be seen, but he needed to ease concerns about him being sexually active with others while he courted his Aurélie.

“The young leopard I brought to feed from is only here as a blood source and a daytime guard,” he told Ruby, and then turned to Aurélie.

“While feeding and sex is often closely intertwined for my kind, it doesn’t have to be, for me.

I don’t gain power from sex, as some vampires do.

Tariq, the young man I brought with me, is not a fan of sex with men.

There were men and women I could’ve paid to come with me who’d have gladly offered sex while I fed from them, but I opted for Tariq. ”

Tariq was also freshly out of the military, making him an excellent guard. He’d be going to work for the police in a few months, but he was free to travel now, so it had worked out to hire him for the trip.

Aury’s mind was spinning from too much rapid-fire input — her best friend an eagle shifter, the prospects of being penetrated by vampire fangs during sex, and now the disturbing imagery of Axel fucking both men and women like some boring-ass, fake-moans porn with harsh lighting, sad élan, and zero panache that he wished he hadn’t seen in her brain.

She’d been given too much information in the space of a few hours, and even her brilliant mind needed time to process it.

“Aury is tired,” he told Ruby. “A soak in a tub, possibly with wine, followed by sleep, will do her a world of good. She’s eaten, and she took some aspirin with her meal.”

Ruby nodded. “I’ll see to it. I assume she won’t see you again until sundown tomorrow?”

“Only if she wishes to. I’ve waited for her to initiate another rendezvous, and she has yet to do so. It should be her choice, whether she wants to see me again. Or not.”

And if she chose not to, he’d promised not to lie to her, not to tamper with her mind, and he wouldn’t risk another suggestion.

But that didn’t mean he’d accept her decision.

He’d find another way to make her want him. His honor wouldn’t let him break his word, but a vampire without morals had endless options.

“I don’t know what to suggest, since you don’t eat,” his Aurélie told him. “I’d love to sit and talk, somewhere.”

A wave of relief swept through him. She’d absorbed a dozen reality-shattering truths tonight: rewritten memories and the validity of a nightmare, telepathing and an oath to make magic undeniably real, and more , topped off by a vampire who might bite during sex — a dark, tempting cherry capping off a provocative denouement.

He and Ruby had ripped holes in the fabric of Aurélie’s world. Most mortals would’ve broken under the weight of what she’d learned tonight, and she wanted to talk.

But reminding her of all that would be a bad call, so he merely told her, “A quiet bar would work, since I can drink socially. If you don’t have one in mind, tell me where and when to pick you up.

You can let me know where we’re going at that time.

” He wanted her to be comfortable, so she should pick the place.

Aurélie looked to Ruby. “Are you okay with him picking me up here? I’m not ready to introduce him to Maman and Papa yet.”

“Yes.” Ruby looked back to Axel. “That’s assuming you’re here with Marco’s permission.”

No way in hell was she going to knowingly defy the Master Vampire’s edicts. Smart girl.

“I am.”

She nodded, crossed her arms, and then let them drop to her sides. “I’ll open some wine and take the cover off the hot tub, so ya’ll can say your goodbyes.”

When she was gone, Aury noted, “You’re so scary, my best friend, who’s an eagle shifter, has heard of you from across the ocean?”

He didn’t want to put terrifying images in her head again, but it was the simplest explanation. “It’s the spider thing.”

“If you move here, will you still raise spiders and snakes?”

His skittering, slithering, venom-laced lovelies defined him. They added to his legend and made enemies flinch at the mere whisper of his name.

But he needed to reassure her. And it was the truth, anyway, because he didn’t want her within leagues of his arachnid and reptile menagerie.

“Not in our home. Not within miles of you, darling Aurélie.”

* * * *

Our home.

Ours .

He was expecting that they’d eventually live together. Share a life together.

Her life, though. Not his. Would he still look like this when she was sixty?

She focused on his face, and his gaze was striking, almost powerful. She forgot what she was about to say, and asked, “Can you make people do what you want just by looking in their eyes?”

“It isn’t necessary with most humans, but it can help with shapeshifters, who have stronger mental shields.”

“But you got into Ruby’s mind without it?” Logically, he had to go into her mind before she saw him, to keep her from recognizing him, but then remembered he could’ve suggested she forget.