"Yes. When Iconia was speaking at first, she was broadcasting her telepathic conversation, not caring if anyone heard her. She had no idea a huntress could hear her."
"Broadcasting. I can't do any of that."
"You'll learn to. But you need to be with us, to learn about us. You'll do it. We'll help you," Atreides said.
"So do you want to date me?" Yeah, yeah, so she said she didn’t want to date a vampire, but… She sighed. He was a hot dancer and there was a lot more to him that she really liked—his protectiveness when no one else wanted to protect her. His taking care of her when she was injured. His willingness to have her help the vampires to take down the rogue hunters. Even having his friends search for her car.
Atreides laughed.
She smiled. "I know, crazy notion, right? Especially when you already have a girlfriend who wants to kill me."
"We'll see."
"Nah, I'm just joking. I might date the owner of your club. He wanted to dance with me in the worst way."
"You're not dancing with Basil," Atreides said.
She laughed this time. "Who's stopping me?
"Me. No one who dances like you do can dance with anyone other than me." His voice was firm about that.
She smiled. "You were hot."
"I am hot. You are too. I know there was more than one vampire who would have switched with me in a heartbeat to dance with you," Atreides said, smiling at her.
"The vampiresses were ready to terminate me."
"Right. And some probably still feel that way about you."
She sighed. She knew that. "Yeah, I'm totally popular, aren't I? Well, thanks for all the help with bringing my things here. But I'll have to return to my own place at some point in time." She really had no intention of staying at Atreides's place forever. What would his brother, Daemon, think when he returned home from his vacation? He probably wouldn't like it one bit.
Chapter 12
Not if Atreides could help it was he allowing Selena to return to her apartment. He could see why Daemon was so intrigued with Tezra that he didn't want to give her up. Atreides already felt the same way about Selena when he shouldn't be feeling that way at all.
"I'm going to bed, and I don't expect to find you in it again," Selena said.
He smiled. "Not unless you invite me in it."
"I won't. Night." She left him then and his friends were smiling, shaking their heads at him.
"You know your brother is going to be upset if he returns to find that you mated a huntress turned vampire in his absence," Colt said.
"Well, he really has nothing to say about it. Not that it's going to come to that anyway."
"You still have Iconia to deal with," Renault said.
"Yeah, I do. And she's going to be unbearable to live with."
"Maybe Basil can date her," Colt said.
“I’m not in the least bit interested in Iconia,” Basil said. “Selena, yes.”
Atreides went to have a drink with his friends.
"You're really going to date her?" Renault asked. "It's one thing to take care of her, to protect her after she did the same for our kind, but to date her? Leave her to us to date."
"No, she only danced with me." Atreides took a sip of his brandy.
"He's not giving her up. Don't you remember the way he chased after us when we were trying to talk to the huntress in the parking lot at the club, and he was in vampire rage mode? I've never seen him act that way over any woman he has ever dated. And he wasn't even dating her," Colt said.
"I worried you were hassling her."
"You were worried she would take one of us up on an offer of a dance," Colt said.
"She would not have danced with you, just like she wouldn't with Basil." Atreides was sure of it. Something about him had drawn the huntress to him, just as he had been drawn to her. No way did she want to be with any of the other vampires. Even when she'd been injured, she'd come to the club asking for him, seeking him out, wanting his help.
"Will you join the huntress in bed tonight?" Renault asked.
Atreides smiled. He couldn't help himself. But he would not join her unless she invited him into her bed, just as he had told her. Though the notion was tempting. More than tempting. He wanted to hold her tight, kiss her until tomorrow, and make love to the vixen. Yet, he would hold back the inclination to show her how much he wanted her—this early on—when she was so newly turned.
He heard the shower shut off down the hall, imagined her wearing just a towel, her hair dripping wet, and water droplets trailing down her cheeks and throat, begging him to kiss her there. He wanted to join her in the worst way when Colt cleared his throat and Atreides glanced at his friends.
All of them were smiling at him.
Colt said, "Like I said, I can just imagine where your mind has wandered to."
"He'll end up in bed with her," Renault said.
"I agree. If only I could be there instead, but I will dream of it," Basil said.
"Iconia will be rabid," Colt said.
"Sweet dreams," Atreides said to Selena, channeling the telepathic words just to her.
Colt shook his head. "He's speaking to her."
"You think? I would be too if she would listen to me," Renault said.
Atreides glanced at Renault. "Don't even try."
Colt laughed. "I bet Iconia had a word or two to say to her once she heard you thought Selena had been turned."
"Yeah, no dating the huntress turned," Renault said.
Atreides poured everyone another sniffer of brandy. "You know I will do as I please."
"Oh, for sure. What will Daemon and Tezra say?" Colt asked.
"Under the circumstances, I believe they will be accepting. What else can we do about it? And the League has to respect that we are taking care of their huntress when their own kind would most likely reject her." Atreides finally sat on one of the chairs. He couldn't get his mind off her, but he needed to. "I believe the one who bit her had a mate or someone he cared about, and the hunters killed her. We need to learn more about the vampiresses who died. We need to make sure all of them are accounted for."
"Some live at the fringes of our society. They don't really follow Daemon's rules, or partake in our social functions," Basil said.
"I agree. I suspect it might be someone like that. And the vampire who hurt Selena was one also. A nonconformist." They weren't rogues, per se, in that they didn't kill people for the fun of it. They followed some rules, but they wouldn't bow down to Daemon's rules, and when Atreides was in charge, his rules. Daemon’s vampires allowed the fringe vampires to exist, but they didn't support them either. If the vampires played by the prince's rules—he was a good leader and well-thought of by most—he would back them in any way he could. If vampires wanted to live by their own rules, they could move out of the territory, and that's what some did. It was a dangerous thing to do because they didn't have backup should hunters wrongly target them.
Atreides had reached out to them on a regular basis, one of his jobs under Daemon, as a sub-leader, but none of them had shown any interest in becoming part of the "establishment" as they called the prince's reign.