Allowing her to leave wasn’t an option.
When he stepped back to face her once more, the ugly ripple of fear had been brought under rigid control, but her breathing was jerky, her gaze skating away from his when he tried to capture it. “What’s your name?”
“Honor.”
Honor. He tasted the name, decided it fit. “Hunter-born?”
A shake of her head.
Not surprising. Elena had likely warned the Guild Director about his ability to use tendrils of exquisite scent to seduce and lure those hunters who were born with the bloodhound capability to scent-track vampires. Sara would hardly send him fresh prey. But this woman, this Honor . . . he wanted to use luscious strokes of scent on her until she was flushed and limp, her arousal an unmistakable musk against his senses.
It was instinct to ensure she wasn’t lying to him—he swirled out a drugging whisper of champagne and desire molten as gold, orchids under moonlight, chocolate-dipped berries kissing a woman’s skin. Honor shook her head a little, a barely imperceptible movement that echoed the frown lines on her forehead.
So, not strong enough to identify herself, or be identified by the Guild as hunter-born, but enough that she had a slight susceptibility to the scent lure. He was unsurprised by the discovery, having met more than one like her in the centuries since he’d developed the talent—they seemed drawn to the Guild, regardless of the fact that they carried only the merest hint of the hunting bloodline. That, of course, meant he couldn’t seduce Honor as easily as he could a true hunter-born . . . but scent wasn’t the sole weapon in his arsenal when it came to sex.
Scanning his eyes over her again, he noted the jagged pulse in her neck, but it was the skin covering the spot that held his attention. “Whoever you allowed to feed from you,” he said in a smooth murmur he was well aware held a caressing stroke of menace, “wasn’t very tidy.” Her scars denoted a vampire who’d torn and ravaged.
Her hand clenched on the handle of the laptop bag she’d shrugged off her shoulder. “That’s none of your business.”
Surprised she’d found the guts to say that to him in spite of the terror that rippled through her, raw and bleeding, he raised an eyebrow. “Yes, it is.” He’d bedded many a beautiful woman, left some sobbing with pleasure, others from a sensual viciousness that had taught them to never again attempt to play him. Honor wasn’t beautiful. There was too much fear in her. Dmitri might like a little pain in bed, but in most cases, he preferred his partners enjoy it, too.
This broken hunter, with her terror that turned the air caustic, would quiver and shatter like fractured glass with the first touch of his mouth. And still he wanted to run his fingers over that skin meant to be gilded by the sun, to trace the lush curves of her lips, the long line of her neck, the compulsion strong enough that it was a warning. The last time he’d allowed his cock to overrule his head, he’d almost ended up an archangel’s pet assassin.
Turning, he walked around to behind the sleek sprawl of his desk and picked up the garbage bag sitting on the floor. “I assume you have some experience with tattoos?”
Lines on her forehead, confusion momentarily wiping out the far more distasteful dominant emotion he’d perceived thus far. “No. My specialty is in ancient languages and history.”
Clever of the Guild Director. “In that case, tell me everything you can about this ink.” Using gloves this time, he pulled out the head and set it on the bag, the stump sticking to the plastic with a sucking sound.
The hunter stumbled backward, her eyes locked on the gruesome evidence of violence. When she jerked her gaze back to him, he saw a grim fury on that face that had already shown itself to be so expressive, he wondered if she’d ever won a poker game in her life. “You think that’s funny?”
“No.” The truth. “Seemed no point in putting him in the freezer when you were on your way.”
It was such an inhuman thing to say that Honor had to take a minute, reset her mental parameters. Because the fact was, regardless of his dark masculine beauty and modern speech, she wasn’t facing a human. Not even close. “How old are you?” The media speculations ran from four to six hundred, but at that instant, she knew they were wrong. Very wrong.
A faint smile that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “Old enough to scare you.”