According to her intel, Lord Van der Garde had been serving for far longer than that.
The trio of vampires talked to each other, bending their heads together, and a darkness marred the tallest one’s face. He wasn’t happy about something. Did the other two vampires want to try their luck with her too?
In the end, one of them left, leaving the tall brunet with only the blond for competition. She didn’t recognise any of them as guards who had been stationed outside the walls of the bastion.
She flicked a furtive glance at the brunet and forced a smile she hoped was sultry as she found him looking at her. He was handsome, his body lean beneath his black shirt and trousers, and the sculpted planes of his face drew the gazes of passing women. He could have his pick of them, but he had chosen her as his mark.
Because she wasn’t openly ogling him?
Vampires liked to hunt their prey.
She intended to lead him on a hunt like no other, cranking his temperature right up until he was putty in her hands.
She turned and breezed past him, held her smile back when she felt his gaze tracking her. She led him deeper into the town, pausing at a few windows here and there, making out that she hadn’t noticed he was following her.
When she came across a group of vampires lingering outside a tavern, in the shelter of the upper floors that jutted out from the building to make it resemble something from the Tudor era in the mortal realm, she slowed her step and openly eyed each of them up. Several of them eyed her in return.
Unlike the vampire that pursued her, they wore the uniform of the legion, their black knee-length jackets and tight trousers revealing their physiques, and their polished riding boots reflecting the light of the oil lamps that lined the busy street and hung from the overhanging floors of the tavern.
She tossed a flirty smile at the most handsome among them and then moved on, her smile becoming a grin when several of them hollered lewd things at her.
They fell silent and she glanced back at them. Her step slowed. The brunet vampire had stopped to stare at them and all of them were now fascinated by their mugs of blood rather than her.
His piercing aquamarine eyes slid to her.
He gracefully pivoted away from the males and strode towards her. His chest heaved as he drew down a breath, as he advanced on her and held her immobile with his eyes. She wasn’t sure she could have moved even if she had wanted to, felt as if he had some strange power over her as he closed the distance between them.
And she let him.
Beckoned him.
The people heading towards him gave him a wide berth, veering left when they spotted him.
Mackenzie waited until he was close to her and then blinked, shattering the spell, and turned away. She sauntered along the cobbled street, putting a little kick in her hips with each step to keep his eyes on her, to draw him deeper under her spell.
Her pulse gave a kick of its own as she spotted the towering golden walls of the stronghold of the First Legion ahead of her. It loomed on the left of the square, taking up the entire side of it, and her step slowed as she stared at the grim display of power. She swallowed and somehow held her nerve, told herself she wouldn’t end up like the bodies that had been impaled on the tall, rusted pikes.
Her gaze caught on a drop of crimson as it fell from the boot of one of the victims, followed it down to the pool that had formed beneath the body, an indentation that had been worn into the stone by centuries of blood dripping into it.
“Riveting, isn’t it?” A deep masculine voice purred into her ear.
She gasped and spun, her heart lodging in her throat as she cursed herself for allowing the grisly sight to distract her and the vampire to sneak up on her. His blue gaze fell to her throat, growing hooded as he watched her pulse hammering there. She brought her hand up, covering it, her fingers trembling.
Betraying nerves that were real.
His smile was that of a predator who had cornered its prey, satisfaction ringing in it as he flashed sharp fangs.
She tried to get her plan back on track, fluttered her fingers over her pounding pulse, keeping his gaze on it as crimson began to invade his irises, like fire vanquishing ice. She had him under her spell, but she needed him deeper still, needed to make sure he would do what she wanted.
Without surrendering her blood.
Her gaze dropped. She meant to look him over, to pretend to drink her fill of him and like what she saw, which wasn’t a chore since he was handsome and suited her tastes to a T. Only her eyes snagged on a thin, silvery line that cut across his throat at a horizontal, a scar that ran from one side to the other, starting and ending below his earlobes.
Someone had either tried to garrotte him with wire.
Or they had come close to lopping his head off.
He bared fangs, a low growl rumbling from his chest, and seized her throat, shoving his hand up to her jaw and her head up with it. She took the hint. The scar was a sore subject, one she would take his advice about and not look at again.
Crimson eyes glared down at her, filled with malice rather than hunger now.
She swallowed hard and wished she had told Syn to hang around, just in case her plan didn’t go the way she intended.
A way she had a terrible feeling it was about to go.
The vampire pressed his thumb to the left side of her jaw, angling her head to her right, and raked his scarlet eyes down the column of her throat.
Or maybe not.
Hunger flooded his gaze again, in danger of turning his pupils elliptical as it caused his eyelids to lower as he stared at her neck.
“Not here,” she whispered. “Somewhere private. I’d like to be alone with you.”
She pointedly looked towards the tavern and the vampires who were watching them.
Her vampire took the bait.
“Private, like my quarters?” His pupils transformed now, turning elliptical, as he slowly dragged his gaze over her throat and adjusted his grip, his fingers stroking her flesh and sending a shiver traipsing down her spine.
She nodded.
The corners of his lips curled slightly and he glanced towards the bastion, and then his eyes locked with hers. “I don’t have quarters here.”
He didn’t? Damn it. She had picked the wrong vampire, probably the only one in the entire town who wasn’t a member of the First Legion of the Preux Chevaliers.
“Oh,” she said, shooting for breezy and a little confused. The latter was real. “I thought you were one of the legion. If I had known you weren’t… I mean… I came to the town on a dare because my friends thought I couldn’t hook up with a guy from the legion.”
On a dare? Hook up?
She inwardly grimaced and sent up another thousand prayers hoping he bought her ditzy, vampire-ho act. She had been in this town enough times to know that plenty of the females who passed through this wretched corner of the free realm were looking to get with one of the vampires, had some stupid notion it would gain them power or something like it. Sleeping with and donating blood to the rank and file vampires wasn’t going to elevate anyone within any form of society as far as she could tell, and she doubted the officers of the legion were just wandering around town looking for a hook up.
The King of Death was strict, probably kept his commanding officers off the streets, not wanting them to be distracted by the groupies that visited the town.
“Too bad.” She shot the vampire a smile and went to move past him, towards the tavern. Maybe one of those vampires could get her into the compound.