A Venetian Vampire

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 Dante was able to keep his focus on a tendril of wolfish odor.

Pleased Kyler hadn’t further protested their working together, he took selfish pride in the fact that he’d fucked her well last night. She may hate him, but she still wanted him. And she freely held his hand now, trailing behind him as they neared a diminutive metal bridge arching across the narrow canal.

The scent of wolf assaulted his nostrils like a rotten egg. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. This was not a stale trail they followed.

Dante pressed Kyler to a stop. “They are close,” he whispered. “Can you scent them?”

She nodded and closed her eyes.

And he was able to pick up voices...most likely belonging to the wolves.

“When do we leave Venice?”

“Tonight. We gotta get out of here before news of the theft will make leaving the city difficult. And there’s the full moon. You smell that?”

“Uh...oh, yeah. Like musk and...blood. Vamps!”

“Shit.” Dante pushed Kyler toward the narrow stone steps that descended into the clear green canal under the bridge. “They’ve picked up our scent. Get in!”

“But—” She didn’t continue the objection. Instead she stepped quickly down and sank under the surface, and he followed.

Kyler didn’t utter a word as the cool waters tugged them downward and he directed her to swim under the bridge. Their movements were sinuous as they glided underwater. Vampires could breathe for extended periods underwater; werewolves had about as much skill with that as humans.

They resurfaced beneath the bridge. Treading water, Dante pressed his finger over her mouth. Her bright blue eyes held such trust, not a bit of worry. Why trust him? According to her previous reasoning, he was the guy who had tricked her and stolen the egg. Perhaps she was so far out of her element even she didn’t know what or whom to trust. Poor little girl. He really would like to be that kind of man—the one a woman could trust—but it wasn’t coded into his DNA. He’d never trusted women, so why shouldn’t they return that favor?

They averted their eyes upward as footsteps gained the bridge, and the familiar scent of werewolf kept their cautious movements to tight hand swishes and steady kicks to keep their ears above water.

On the bridge a male said, “I thought I smelled vampires. I know I did.”

“Yeah, but they’re not this way. Maybe it was around that other corner? Doesn’t matter. We should head back to the vampire’s palazzo in San Marco. Have stakes. Will kill vamps.”

“We were told not to kill anyone.”

“You complain too much.”

“And you think you smell vampires everywhere.”

“Yeah, well, they are nasty bloodsucking longtooths. And who’s going to know if we stake ’em?”

“I do feel an itch to dust a longtooth. Let’s go.”

The footsteps tromped off the bridge.

Dante’s eyes traced Kyler’s face from her crimped brows to her sucked-in lower lip. Now she sought reassurance in his gaze. He could offer false security, tug her into his arms and supply some hopeful words, but it always ended in seduction. And right now he wanted to get out of this smelly water and onto dry land.

After a few more minutes of treading water and listening, when he felt sure the wolf scent had faded, they swam to the opposite shore and he boosted her up out of the water and onto the narrow sidewalk.

Legs dangling over the edge and into the water, Kyler tilted her head against a metal plate riveted onto the side of a building and closed her eyes. “That was close. And did you hear? They want to stake us.”

“Yes, and they are returning to my palazzo. Guess I’ll be staying elsewhere for a few days until I can assure myself it’s safe to return. Damn.” He tugged off a leather shoe and emptied the water into the canal, then followed with the other. The trousers clung to his ankles. “This shirt is silk.”

“Really? You’re worried about a shirt when it could have been your heart at the point of a stake?”

“But it’s Zegna.”

He could sense Kyler rolled her eyes, so he laughed softly. “There are very few material goods I value in life beyond a well-tailored suit. I will survive, though. As you’ve said, it beats taking a stake. How do you fare?”

“Just cheap leggings and an ugly shirt I picked up for the job. I never wear black. Ugh. I need color.”

“Don’t you wear black on your other heists?”

“Uh...none of your business. So now what?”

Was that none of his business because she committed so many other heists she couldn’t keep them straight, or because this particular thievery venture was new to her? Instinct told him to go with the latter. Interesting.

“Shall we make our way to your hotel for some dry clothes?” he asked.

“I don’t think you’ll find a change of clothing at my place.”

“So you’d prefer I return home and walk in on two werewolves with stakes? You bruise me, Kyler. I thought the sex we shared was, at the least, spectacular.”

“It was awesome. But it didn’t make us besties.”

“Fair enough. Though we are in this adventure together.”