Danaus could have easily waited outside, watching for my departure—maybe this strange creature was telling the truth when he said that his goal wasn’t to fight me. But I had my doubts. Unfortunately, I was still waiting for word from my contacts in Europe regarding the hunter. If someone else had information on Danaus, I could remove his head and put the whole messy business behind me. But if he represented something no one knew about, I couldn’t get rid of the hunter until I had gotten a little info out of him. I would have to string him along until I heard from the Old World.

Smiling at Danaus, I leaned back into the young man who danced behind me. I lifted my left arm and lay it behind his neck, my long fingers threading through his brown hair. He put one arm around my waist, his hand grabbing my side. His warmth seeped into my body and I absorbed it like a sponge. In fact, if I spent the night on the dance floor with a man wrapped about me, I would finish the evening with a nice flush to my cheeks without ever having to feed. I could suck in their warmth, their vitality. It would give me the look of the living, but I still needed blood to sustain my existence.

When the next song started, Danaus’s frown deepened. He finally caught on that I wasn’t going to leave the floor just because he was lurking on the fringe. I turned my back to him as he approached, wrapping my arms around the neck of my dance partner, grinding my hips into his. Leaning into him, I ran the tip of my tongue up his neck. I had just reached his earlobe when Danaus’s hand clamped on my right shoulder.

“Enough,” he growled in my ear. “Come with me.”

I turned my head enough to look at him over my shoulder, my eyes barely open. My wide smile had faded to one of languid pleasure. “I’m a little busy.” I looked back at my dance partner and the lovely expanse of his neck when a sharp object was suddenly pressed into my back, biting through the leather halter.

“Now! I have a knife in your back and I have no problem putting it in you while on the dance floor.”

“Is that the slang for it now?” I laughed. Reaching back with my right hand, I grabbed his hip. I started to slide my hand toward the front of his pants, but Danaus released his hold on my shoulder and grabbed my wandering hand. Then he thrust my hand away and turned, stalking through the crowd, which seemed eager to jump out of his way. His black leather coat flared as he walked, making me wish he wasn’t wearing it. It would have made watching him storm off more enjoyable.

Curiosity demanded that I follow. I had to know what would make this man follow me not only to this lonely ring of the Inferno, but out onto the dance floor. What would make a vampire hunter seek me out for anything other than to kill me? I leaned back into my dance partner, running my tongue over the pulse throbbing against the surface of his skin, promising myself I would find this tasty little bit later.

I strolled off the dance floor, my arms swaying at my sides. My gaze casually traveled over the pockets of people gathered along the black walls and in remote corners. Some looked up, their eyes following me as I passed, but most seemed oblivious to my presence, lost to whatever escape they had sought for the evening. I paused for a moment when I entered the bar area at the front of the club, wondering where my little stalker had disappeared to, when I felt him just behind my shoulder. Turning, I found him sitting on a bench against the wall. He leaned back, one hand resting on the table while the other lay on his upper thigh, inches from where I guessed a knife was sheathed near his waist.

Biting my lower lip to keep from smiling, I walked over, placed a knee on either side of his hips and sat in his lap. If he could have jumped up, I believe he would have been hanging from the ceiling in his attempt to be free of me. But all he could manage was sitting up a little straighter, his back pressed into the wall as if he wished to merge with the wood and gypsum.

“Did I interrupt dinner?” His low voice rumbled up from his chest. His teeth were clenched and the muscles in his jaw strained against his skin. Narrowed blue eyes glittered at me, catching the pulsing white light that tripped from the dance floor.

“No, just an appetizer, as it were. Have you come to offer me a warm meal?” I asked, wrapping my arms loosely around his shoulders. He remained silent, staring at a point somewhere behind me. I leaned forward and lay my head on his shoulder, touching the tip of my nose to his throat. “I’m so glad to see that you managed to escape without being singed too badly.”

“Get off.”

It was a struggle to keep from saying the first crude thing that came to mind, but I finally succeeded. “I can’t. The music is too loud in here. We’d never hear each other speaking if I moved away.” I sat up so I could look into his face.

His eyes narrowed at me, his muscles stiffening. “You could hear me from across the room if you wanted.”

“But could you hear me?”

His lips pressed into a tight, thin line of anger and frustration. What could he do? I honestly wondered. I sat here in his lap, with his aura wrapped around me like a fleece blanket. What could he do with all this strength and power? Of course, he wasn’t going to volunteer the information.

The soft throb of power washing over me felt all wrong for the typical rabble of witch or warlock. And a warlock wouldn’t rely on a sword when hunting nightwalkers when he could use magic. Lycanthrope? Maybe. He didn’t have the same rich earthy scent as most weres, or their amazing strength, but he definitely had their speed and agility. I mentally shrugged. The quandary would be nice to figure out, but it wouldn’t stop me from killing him.

“What do you know about the naturi?” he asked.

My thoughts were a sudden train wreck, ideas and images lying broken and derailed. I stared motionless at him for a long time, my mind unable to fathom why he would bring up such a topic. While few knew of the existence of nightwalkers, even fewer knew that the naturi actually lived and breathed. The other races had spent countless years wiping away all accounts of their existence. Of course, some tales had become embedded in the human psyche, which we could not destroy. From the naturi grew the stories of elves, fairies, and many other magical creatures that could not be explained away with the cold, hard logic of science.

But the naturi weren’t the only ones we attempted to erase from history. After humans were created, the old stories stated that the gods created two guardian races to maintain the balance. The naturi were guardians of the earth, while the bori were guardians of all souls. The naturi existed in five clans—water, earth, animal, wind, and light.

On the other hand, the bori existed as a single clan with their own dark side, as they worked to become the one dominant power on the earth. From the bori, the legends of demons and angels were born.

Unfortunately, the powers and strength of the two races were dependent upon what they protected. As humanity flourished, the earth weakened. So the wars started.

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” No one talked about the naturi. They were gone, for the most part, banished centuries ago to another reality, similar and forever linked to this world, but always locked away, hopefully.

“The naturi; guardians of the earth. Sometimes referred to as the Third Race, the Seelie Court—the Sidhe,” he corrected.

“They’re nothing more than fairy tales.” I leaned back down so I could rest my head on his shoulder while I ran my fingers through his dark hair. It was softer than I had initially expected, almost silky in texture. “Where do you come from?” I whispered in his ear.

He was silent for a minute, and I listened to the sound of his breath slowly enter and leave his chest. “Rome.”