Page 106 of Vampire so Virtuous

“No. A friend of ours met a guy. He wanted to take her there. We went along because… reasons.” Cally shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the nightclub was exactly the same as the one in my vision.”

He gave a small nod, his gaze steady. “You’ve had a traumatic night,ma chérie. Why don’t you—”

“Don’t patronize me, goddammit. I know what I saw. There was a corridor beneath that club, an ornate door, locked with chains. The sense of evil coming from behind it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And it was the same club.”

“A sense of evil?” he echoed, his face perfectly composed.

“It was a waste of time coming here.” She folded her arms and glared at him. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re sitting there laughing at me.”

“I’m not lau—”

“You were about to, you bastard.”

Antoine raised a hand placatingly. “I’m not laughing. Have you had visions before?”

Cally hesitated. “No,” she admitted with reluctance, then raised her chin in defiance. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“It’s not that I—”

The doorbell rang through the house, and Antoine stopped inpuzzlement. Both of them looked toward the door as Marcel’s voice floated in from the hall, speaking with someone on the gate intercom. Not long after, Marcel knocked and entered, carrying a small, flat package.

“My apologies for interrupting you, sir, but this appears to be of some importance.”

Antoine rose to accept the package and Marcel bowed and left, closing the door behind him. What he had given Antoine wasn’t an envelope; it looked like folded vellum, complete with a wax seal. At the sight of it, his lips thinned and his jaw firmed. Cally waited as he slit the wax with his thumb and swiftly scanned the letter.

“I regret that we will have to postpone our investigation of your vision,” he said as he read. “I will need to deal with this first. It will likely take me a night or two.”

She crossed her arms. “Really? Now’s when you get important mail?”

He tapped the letter on his other hand. “In point of fact,” he said, his tone thoughtful, “this makes your presence here serendipitous.”

“Oh?”

His expression changed, becoming somehow more predatory.It’s his eyes. They were not quite as pale nor as blue, with a hint of red that made them look almost lilac. They narrowed as he regarded her.

“This”—he waved the letter—“is a summons from the Curia. The vampire Council, if you will. They’ve recently arrived in Boston, and now I will be seeing them tomorrow night. There are preparations to make, things to do, and it would not be prudent to attend at anything less than full strength.”

“Uh-huh.”

He took a step toward her, and though there were still several feet between them, Cally took an instinctive step back, feeling a thrill of fear. And something else?

“I need to feed before I go.”

“There’s a whole city out there, full of ‘snacks.’” She made air-quotes for his benefit. “You’ve got plenty of options.”

He took another step. “You would rather I pick on some other poor soul, than drink from you?”

Cally glared at him. That was hitting below the belt. “I don’t think that bothers you at all, does it? You said that to manipulate me, didn’t you?”

He sobered, and the heat in his eyes faded. “You’re wrong. It bothers me greatly, every time I feed.” He turned away.

“But isn’t that why you marked me?” She crossed her arms, her gazechallenging. “So you could feed on me more often, and pretend it doesn’t affect you?”

He shook his head slightly, still with his back to her. “Perhaps it was,” he said thoughtfully. “I wanted to be able to find you again, because there was something about you that…” He took a breath then turned back, fixing her with that intense stare he did so well. “Why shouldn’t I feed from you more than others, now that you have my mark?”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

He laughed bitterly. “No one ever does.”