Damien. Jacquelyn Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ Syreena of his performance with unleashed fascination. The Queen had said she had never seen anyone move so fast or seem to enjoy the kill so very naturally. For that to come from the Queen of a species who lived half their existence as animals of varying predatory instincts, it was quite the outstanding compliment.

      Syreena’s impressions of him had been different.

      He had unnerved her, not to put too fine a point on it. Not quite as much as he was unnerving young Aria at the moment, but certainly enough to encourage her to keep her time in the same room with him down to a minimum.

      The urge to tuck tail irritated her. It was not in her nature to be frightened or stirred up so easily, especially without any true explanation for it. This would be a very poor beginning to her duty here if she let him intimidate her. The only thing she had going for her was the fact that he had no idea she felt that way. Or at least she would so long as she purged herself of the thoughts quickly enough to avoid telepathic detection, just in case the autocratic Prince decided to nose around her thoughts. She imagined a man like Damien would not hesitate to breach the privacy of others’ minds. He struck her as just the sort of empowered male who would see no wrong in such an invasion.

      The Princess turned back to see Aria had utterly disappeared. Smart girl. Vampires were unpredictable and occasionally churlish. Syreena enviously wished for a moment that she had the freedom to beat a hasty retreat, but since she didn’t, she turned instead to inspect the Vampire Prince and the svelte woman who stood by his side. She was quite obviously Vampire, tall and dark-haired, all fairly normal for the breed. There were very few blond Vampires in the world. Syreena could allow that the female was remarkably beautiful, save for the fact that there was something a little too old and a bit too disenchanted in her dark brown eyes. Her taut posture and resistant body language made it clear she was not exactly thrilled to be there.

      Since Syreena had not been expecting Vampire representatives, she moved over to them to discover their purpose. They were welcome, of course, under the same sketchy guidelines as everyone else, but last night at a joint meeting to finalize the opening of the Library to the scholars, Noah had said that Damien had declined his invitation.

      As she approached them, she saw a change come over the Vampire female. She was stepping into the Library entrance with an expression swiftly coursing across her face that no doubt they all had had the first time they had seen it. The hollowness in her eyes seemed to disappear and they filled with an avarice Syreena was actually quite familiar with.

      The greedy hunger to learn.

      A Vampire scholar? Now there was an amusing paradox. Not that they weren’t one of the more brilliant and cunning species of Nightwalkers, because they were. However, they usually directed that intellect and energy to more…carnal and instantly gratifying pursuits. They were voracious sensualists. Nothing kept their interest for very long unless it engaged all of their senses at once. Certainly a roomful of books wouldn’t often fit that bill.

      Unless, Syreena speculated, one’s lust and sensual pleasure was derived from reading and attaining knowledge. That would make this the site of a veritable orgy.

      Damien noticed her immediately. Harlequin coloring aside, she was incredibly hard to miss. She was not tall or an outstandingly sexual-looking creature like her lioness of a sister was, but she was an unshakable presence just the same. As she walked toward him, her steps were straight and assured, only the slightest sway in her hips. He liked that, he mused absently. She wasted no movement, expended no excess energy. Why that was a keen little delight to him he had no idea. It wasn’t as though he’d ever really been put off by a woman with a sensual wriggle in her spine, to be sure. There was simply something about the efficiency on this particular woman that made it appealing. Although, by the chill expression in her eyes, he probably should keep from smiling appreciatively about it.

      But he didn’t.

      “Syreena,” he said, his tone nowhere near as cold as her expression. He let warmth and speculation color his voice, purposely allowing her to hear it just to watch her spine tighten in irritation. “Jasmine, this is Princess Syreena. Syreena, this is Jasmine. She is…” He trailed off when he realized Jasmine had given Syreena a halfhearted wave before moving quickly toward the first stack of books she could reach. “She is apparently eager to get started,” he mused in excuse for his companion’s rudeness, chuckling under his breath while he watched her begin to rummage through the shelves. Jasmine had never been known for her winning ways with others, but her appetite for knowledge was rivaled only by her appetite for blood.

      It appeared to Syreena that the Vampire Prince was undoubtedly quite fond of the lissome brunette. “I had not expected anyone other than Kelsey or you to be coming.” Syreena broached him directly. “Why the sudden change?”

      “Jasmine is an excellent student and quite loyal to me,” he said by way of explanation, “a bill that Kelsey, while certainly loyal, does not reasonably fit. If you are worried, I give you my word she will not cause any trouble.”

      “Isn’t that an oxymoron? A Vampire not causing trouble?”

      Syreena had not really meant to say that. At least, not aloud. So she was startled when he laughed. He was rather handsome when he laughed, she found herself thinking unexpectedly. Oh, he was a handsome creature overall, his Nightwalker genetics seeing to that quite thoroughly. He had bright white teeth, no sign of fangs at all as they were retracted at the moment much in the way a cat hid its claws. He wore a closely barbered beard and mustache, the line of it trimmed along his jaw and accenting that masculine, squared contour. Another anomaly, she noted. Vampire males tended to be almost baby-faced, giving the illusion of an early adolescent hairlessness. Rarely did one cultivate facial hair like the Prince did. When taken in addition to the other slightly out-of-step traits he bore, it made her wonder if he purposely defied cultural norms, and if so, why?

      His extraordinarily dark blue eyes gleamed with a merriment that made his features come alive. A thick braid of hair snaked over his shoulder, the end tip brushing just below his well-defined pectoral muscle. In that moment, the sheer beauty of him almost made him look like he was the most harmless man on the planet.

      And that was probably what gave Syreena the chills.

      She did not trust him.

      She shouldn’t trust him, she assured herself. Even though there was a relative peace between Vampires and Lycanthropes, who in their right mind could possibly trust anyone from a species that took great delight in using trust to suck in a mark they were playing with simply for their amusement? Syreena had heard stories, stories often concerning Damien himself, of exploits and exploitations that had the potential to curl her hair.

      “There is no protection here,” Damien mused suddenly.

      Considering that the only people there were scholars and that there had been some very determined enemies excavating enthusiastically for this very place, he had a reasonable point. Yet she felt insulted despite agreeing with him.

      “I am here,” she noted coldly.

      “Yes,” he observed, his voice as slow and as speculative as his eyes while they roamed over her from head to toe in obvious measure. “So you are.” He paused long enough to turn half his mouth into an infuriating smile. “Not to impugn your abilities, my dear, but I do not see how you would be sufficient to hold back a tide of magic-users and human hunters led by a turncoat Demon, should they decide to come back.”

      “Well, my dear,” she countered caustically, “I suppose I will have to rely on the fact that they failed in their initial search and do not know of this place…”

      “Yet,” СКАЧАТЬ