He snorted. “That’s a question I should be asking you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m a vampire.”
Her lips thinned in annoyance, her chin tilted as she continued her ridiculous charade of innocence.
“Yes, I had managed to figure that out.”
“Then you know that I can’t create portals,” he snapped, deliberately allowing his gaze to skim downward. Unlike the aggravating female, he had no problem enjoying a naked body. Especially one so appetizing. “Only the fey can do that.”
She frowned, belatedly realizing she couldn’t try and pin the blame of their abrupt teleportation on him.
Odd, she hadn’t struck him as stupid.
Just the opposite, in fact.
“Fey aren’t the only creatures who can create portals.” She tried to hedge.
“Well, I obviously didn’t do it.”
“Neither did I.”
He made a sound of impatience. Why was she continuing with this game?
“You expect me to believe you?”
The flecks of emerald shimmered in her eyes. “My father has forbidden his people to leave our homeland.”
“Oh aye, and a daughter has never dared to disobey her father.”
She cast a condemning glance around the barren cave. “Trust me. If I did decide to defy my father, I wouldn’t choose to travel to this dump.”
His low growl filled the air. He was a true hedonist. A vampire who reveled in rare books, fine wine, and beautiful women.
And in turn, women adored him.
All women.
But this female . . .
She wasn’t the warm, willing, bundle of pleasure he was accustomed to. She was rude and prickly and downright dangerous.
“Watch your tongue, princess,” he snarled. “This dump happens to be a part of my private lair.”
“There.” She pointed an accusing finger toward him. “I knew it. You kidnapped me.”
Cyn rolled his eyes. Could this farce get any more ridiculous?
“The only one kidnapped was me.”
“Why would I kidnap an oversized, ego-bloated vampire?”
Yeah. Why would she? It took him a minute to shuffle through his still-fuzzy thoughts.
“To keep me from protecting my friend,” he at last concluded.
Hadn’t she pulled him out of the throne room, leaving Roke at the mercy of her father, Sariel? And then she’d plied him with some wicked fey brew that had knocked him unconscious.