When I offered her my hand, Bettina gathered up both of mine instead, holding them between us as she stepped close, way inside my personal space, her hands and mine bumping our bodies. Unlike most vamps, who wore minimal perfume, Bettina was drenched in it. Beast retreated from the stench and I tried not to breathe. There was no avoiding her gaze, however, when she looked up.
Liquid dark eyes pulled at me. Vamp pheromones, hunting pheromones, crap, seduction pheromones spiked on the air. I could smell them even buried beneath the bottled fragrance. She leaned in closer, up and against me, our hands trapped and brushing our chests, her mouth at my dress's low neckline. Ick. Bettina leaned in, pulling me down for a little cheek dusting the way she had given Bruiser. Or a blood kiss.
I am not prey! Beast warned. I tensed. No way was Beast letting me back away. She bared her teeth and claws. Flooded my system with adrenaline. Prepared to attack.
But Bettina didn't try to bite me, nor did she do the cheek-to-cheek thing; she sniffed me. As if I were food. I held my two selves still and fought down anger and insult. Bettina blew out a breath that went down my dress front, cold, dead air, and stepped back. She said, "The Rogue Hunter is welcome tonight, as a guest of Pellissier's blood-servant, and as one claimed by the Blood Master of the City. My home is honored."
Claimed? I blushed hotly. Leo's blood scent claimed me for him, and I had a feeling it would be stupid and dangerous to deny that status. Could others try to claim me if I declared myself free? Was there something I was missing here? Maybe I should be less ticked off with Bruiser. Or maybe I should hurt him in retaliation.
Bettina stepped back and I figured we were done, but she smiled and squeezed my fingers. She had dimples. How creepy was that? "I asked that the Rogue Hunter call upon me when the unpleasantness of the old rogue hunting my kind had been settled." She held my gaze, and when she spoke again, it was haltingly, choosing her words with care. "Yet, though you defeated him, I have not received such a call. I am disappointed. You will call upon me?"
I had a feeling she was trying to convey something more than her words themselves, but I had no idea what. As if she sensed that, her grip loosened and her tone returned to coy persuasion.
"I still wish to know you better, who you are, what you are. Should you tire of Leo and desire . . . employment . . . when your current contract is concluded, you will call upon me. An accommodation can be agreed upon, I am certain."
Accommodation in her bed and as her dinner. As a fangy toy. Not gonna happen. Before I could say it, she stepped back again, into her place in the one-vamp receiving line, and released my hands. Bruiser retook my arm and we moved on. "Well, well," he murmured. "Leo did say you smell like dessert."
Beast is not food! "That was seriously freaky," I murmured back.
"So what are you?" he asked. "Why do you smell so tasty to them?"
"A blood meal with killer legs?" I said, hoping to deflect his curiosity.
"Yes, but you smell like sex, blood, violence, and challenge, according to Leo. Which, for a vampire, would be dessert with killer legs."
"Mmmm." I wasn't going to respond to that one. I smoothed my hair back again and stopped, my hand at my face. Beneath the reek of Bettina's perfume, I caught a whiff of the rogue maker from her palm. I looked back at Bettina. She had shaken his hand. He? Yes. I was pretty sure. And that meant he was here. I whirled back to Bettina. She was staring at me. And she inclined her head as if to agree with something, but what? I sniffed. The odors were rich and intermingled, the smell of gaslight and smoke riding over it all. No scent of the rogue maker lingered on the air.
I scanned the central area of the warehouse and breathed in the mingled scents. The front half of the building was one huge open area with three-feet-thick, old-brick walls, a slate floor, and thirty-inch-diameter brick pillars holding up the second floor, which was fifteen feet overhead. Gas flames lit the area, flickering in the air-conditioned, artificial breeze. Whatever its use in the past, the entry floor was now set up for entertaining, with a serving area to the right big enough to seat a hundred at the long table, which was currently pushed against the wall. Scores of chairs lined the room's walls. I could see no one who might match the faint scent on my hand.