A firm knock sounded at the door. She startled violently. She switched to telepathy and spoke fast. I would like to offer you a bargain. If you protect me and the kids from the Vampyres, I’ll owe you a favor.
The smoky Khalil-face cocked to one side as he considered the human female’s words. She really was a foolish creature, he thought. He had said he offered her a gift beyond price that she did not value. Now he realized she truly did not understand what he had meant. He had already promised he would look after the babies, and he had not put a time limit on that offer. And part of looking after the babies meant ensuring the safety of their caregiver, whom they loved and depended upon so much.
Now she meant to bargain for something he had already given freely? He almost laughed. He took note of her rapid heartbeat and dilated eyes, and he realized she was truly in a panic.
A compassionate creature might have cared about that and not taken advantage of it, but the Djinn weren’t known for their compassionate natures.
And he certainly was not responsible for her poor bargaining skills.
Another, louder knock sounded. “Ms. Andreas, please answer the door,” del Torro said. His voice was as pleasant and nondescript as his appearance. “We know you are in there.”
You and the babies have my protection from the Vampyres, Khalil said, his mental voice as smooth as a rope of silk slipping over her neck. At a time of my choosing, you will do anything I ask you to do, for the sum of one favor. Agreed?
She gave him a jerky nod. Agreed.
Khalil gave Grace a sulfurous smile. Intending to take on a full physical form with which to greet the Vampyres, he let the smoke-face dissipate and…
Grace straightened her spine, assumed a calm if tight expression and turned to open the door.
Khalil had to admit, that surprised him a little. After the human had evidenced such panic, he hadn’t thought she had it in her. She still smelled of fear, but her energy crackled with anger too. She clearly didn’t like how the Vampyres had frightened her. Since it was also clear she had the ability to sense his presence, he decided to hold off on materializing to see how she dealt with what waited on her doorstep.
Grace felt Khalil looming behind her as she looked through the fine mesh of the screen door at the two Vampyres on her porch. Earlier that morning in the clearing, there had been so much concentrated Power from so many entities, she’d had trouble sensing which Power belonged to whom. She’d felt surrounded by a formless heat, as if she had been engulfed by a solar flare.
Now she had no difficulty sensing the intense Power that the Vampyre males carried. She faced two disasters dead ahead with a calamity at her back, and that was more than enough to dry out her mouth and keep her heart racing.
“What do you want?” she said to the Nightkind King.
Wow, listen to me, she thought. I sound kinda rude, don’t I? Get me a Djinn like a gun in my holster, and I lose all my manners.
Julian Regillus’s dark gaze met hers. She felt the draw from his eyes through the screen door. “I want to talk with the Oracle, of course.”
The Nightkind King’s voice was deep and rough, like a shot of raw whiskey. He had opened the front of his cloak to the warm summer night, and he wore a plain black shirt and black trousers underneath. He was broad across the chest and shoulders, flat through the abdomen and heavily muscled. This close, she could see that when he had been mortal, he had not aged particularly well. He looked like he was in his late forties when he had been turned, so he had probably been in his midthirties. His rough features were weather-beaten, lined at the eyes and at the corners of a stern mouth. Though he kept his hair military short, somehow he gave the impression of a shaggy wolf that watched her every move.
In contrast to his King, the killer that stood beside him appeared almost slender, del Torro’s long, lean body disguising what must be a terrible whipcord strength. Xavier del Torro looked like he had been turned in his early to midtwenties. He could still embody the illusion of youthfulness, with eyes that were somewhere between gray and green, a clear complected skin and refined features that somehow missed being either handsome or delicate.
Del Torro’s turning had been a famous event in history. A younger son of Spanish nobility, he had been a priest until the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition tortured and destroyed a community of peaceful Vampyres near his home in Valencia. The Vampyre community had included del Torro’s older sister and her husband. After the massacre, del Torro walked away from the Catholic Church and approached Julian, who turned him into a Vampyre and set him to cut a swath through the officers of the Inquisition. The ten years that followed were some of the bloodiest in Spanish history.
While in theory Grace didn’t have a problem with someone who had decided to go after the Inquisition, um, yikes.