Be Mine Forever. Rosemary Laurey

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СКАЧАТЬ was asleep in moments.

      And completely oblivious to the dark shape that peered in her window a few hours later.

      Chapter 5

      Angela squinted at the sunbeams lighting up the room. She’d been so tired, she hadn’t drawn the curtains before falling asleep and had slept late. She was light-headed and weak, and the phone ringing inches from her ear made her brain hurt. Darn it! She’d intended to call Stella last night. It had to be her, frantic with worry.

      “Angela!” Heaven help her, it was Tom! She tried hard to concentrate on what he was saying, but the general impression that he was complaining was lost between the fuzziness in her brain and the aroma of glorious, raw meat. The last of the loot from the butcher’s practically sang to her to consume it. Fast.

      “Okay, Tom,” she said and hung up, with no idea what she could possibility have agreed to. She leaped out of bed and across the room, chewing through the wrapping in her need to devour. She ended up on her knees on the carpet, tearing at the chops with her teeth and swallowing as if famished. When she sat up, her brain had cleared, and she made a mental note never to let herself go that long without feeding. Heck, at Tom’s she’d grazed almost all day, nibbling and tasting the fresh meat he kept in the spare refrigerator, the one with the blood bags for emergencies.

      Darn it, she’d left drops of blood on the carpet. She shocked herself by sucking them up. She really had to make sure she never starved herself again, or be darn certain the door was locked before she started licking the carpet. The Royal Oak was a relaxed, easy-going, comfortable sort of hotel, but guests gnawing on the broadloom might be more than they could handle.

      Showered and with hair washed, she was ready to face the day. She’d first find this Mr. Lee, then go back to Meg Merchant’s shop. Her comments about holes and blackness in Angela’s aura seemed worrying on a satisfied stomach. Eating breakfast like a mortal guest might be a good move for a ghoul determined to blend in. Especially after the disappointed comments yesterday when she’d declined booking for dinner.

      Besides, even cooked meat satisfied her need for flesh.

      The smells of bacon and fresh coffee wafted from the dining room. Times like this, ghouls had the edge over vampires. How Stella and the rest of them didn’t get bored to bellyache with their liquid diet she’d never know.

      “You’re looking remarkably chipper this morning!”

      Tom! Angela stared across the lobby. He looked anything but chipper. Scowling, surly, downright pissed off would all describe the vampire leaning against the oak paneling. Sexy and bedworthy were pretty good, too, but now wasn’t the time to think in that direction. Not after their argument in London. “It’s a lovely morning, and I feel great!” Perhaps not the most tactful thing to say, but drat it!

      The creases between his eyebrows as good as matched the linenfold paneling. “Where are you going?”

      “To have breakfast.” She nodded toward the open dining-room doors.

      “Fair enough.” He stepped forward. “I’ll come with you, and then as soon as you finish, you’ll get packed. I’m taking you back to town.”

      Good luck, Tom! “What makes you think I want to go to London with you?”

      “Look here, Angela!”

      “Good morning, Miss Ryan!” It was Sarah, the clerk who’d spent ages yesterday trying to find Mariposa in shopping guides and tourist pamphlets. “This gentleman was asking for you.” Her tone suggested Tom might look and dress like a gentleman, but she wasn’t too sure.

      “Thanks, Sarah. Tom’s joining me for breakfast.” He could hardly cut up rough in a public place, and what she was about to tell him wouldn’t improve his attitude. She was tempted to ask for a sunny table by the leaded-light windows, but outright provocation was not the best way to open negotiations, and Tom was going to have to shift from his you’re-coming-back-to-London-right-now position.

      He was charming to the waitress, refusing breakfast but asking for black coffee. Seemed he saved the snipping and snapping for her. But if he was prepared to act civilized, they might possibly have a conversation without arguing. She reached for the cream. “Did you have a good trip down? Did you fly?”

      “Knowing you lack the ability to transmogrify, I drove down, so I could drive you back.”

      He was single-minded this morning. “Before you, or I, go anywhere, I need to tell you what I discovered yesterday.”

      “That you came here on a wild goose chase?”

      For that she was half-tempted not to tell him anything. But he was strong enough to carry her off physically, and if he tried his vampire mind-control stuff…. She smiled as sweetly as she knew how. “Not in the least. I got a lead on someone who might know where Mariposa is, and I made a couple of interesting discoveries.”

      “You did?”

      He didn’t need to sound so blandly disbelieving. “Yes, I did. I’ll tell you about them after breakfast.”

      And damn the man! He didn’t even ask! Just drank two cups of coffee while she wolfed down bacon and sausage.

      Angela was just about bursting by the time she did tell Tom, which was most likely his intention. Vampires could drive you crazy with their blasted self-control.

      They left the Royal Oak behind and were walking along the river. The water ran high from the winter rains, and the island opposite was half-inundated. The overcast sky only added to the mood. They were going the opposite direction from Mr. Lee’s shop on High Street, but Angela wasn’t sure she wanted to go there with Tom anyway. If he was so dismissive of her efforts, she’d manage on her own.

      “What did you find out?” Tom asked, looking across the river. The winter bare trees were obviously a lot more interesting than anything she’d discovered.

      “There’s an old man, a shoe repairer, who’s been in business for years and knows all the leather places around,” she paused. “Plus, I can read cards.” That got a flicker of an eyebrow. “And when I get angry, my face changes.”

      That got his full attention. “How?”

      She told him.

      He was more annoyed than impressed. “You were reckless to do that to a group of mortals.”

      “Not as reckless as standing there and letting them have a go at me!”

      “If you’d stayed with me, you’d never have run this risk.”

      “You’re trying to tell me that a big city like London is safer than a small town like this?” She had her hands on her hips, and they were getting dangerously close to nose to nose.

      “You’d be safer because I’d see you were!”

      “Right, by locking me up!”

      “I never locked you up.”

      Okay, he hadn’t but…“Tom, you wanted to keep me in your house twenty-four hours a day, unless you went out with me.”

      “Angela, СКАЧАТЬ