as I saw who stepped out. It wasn’t Jude. I already knew that. It was early yet for him. Even though I’d long since figured out he could handle sunlight, he didn’t bother unless he chose to and only God above knew what motivated him.
I knew the woman climbing out of the car, though, her movements all liquid grace and sex personified.
It was Evangeline, his personal assistant, a woman who hated me with every fiber of her being. If it wasn’t for the hold Jude had on her, I had no doubt she’d do her damnedest to kill me. She’d had a hard time of it. Evangeline was a vampire’s servant and their blood bond gave her an extra kick, not to mention seeming immortality.
But she was more human than not.
I thought I could probably take her.
My palm itched and I clenched it. If I wasn’t careful, the sword Damon held was going to leap to my palm and that sweet little secret was going to be out of the bag. Evangeline pissed me off and I’d like to fight her, but she wasn’t a threat until Jude decided he was done toying with me. And I think he was having too much fun for that to change any time soon.
“Hello, Angie,” I drawled.
The faint line between her brows was the only sign of her displeasure, but it was enough. I wasn’t choosy. I took what I could get. Dismissing her, I went back to stripping off my weapons. The only things left were a couple of knives tucked inside my boots. I placed one knee on the bumper as Evangeline came closer, her movements sinuous and boneless, like an eel’s. She’d been one of Jude’s since before the mortal Civil War, nearly two centuries earlier. Her humanity died a little more every year. She was almost as graceful, almost as scary as some of the vampires. Almost.
“Jude would like to know why you haven’t answered his summons,” she said, a pretty polite little smile on her Cupid’s bow mouth. And her eyes were pools of seething, ugly hate.
“Oh, that’s easy,” I said cheerfully, drawing out one knife, laying it in the trunk. I did the same with its mate and then shifted to my other boot. I laid one of the blades in the trunk, but the last one, I held onto as I turned to face Evangeline. “You see, he keeps summoning me like I’m his little dog, or one of his little servants. Like you.”
I started to toss the knife. Sunlight danced off the silver surface, casting slivers of light all around. “I’m not.”
“He has a job for you,” Evangeline said.
“Then he can make an appointment.” I shrugged and continued to make the knife dance. “Or he can call me. E-mail—does he know what e-mail is? Hell, he can send you with the information or send it via courier pigeon for all I care. I don’t give a rat’s ass. But I don’t answer to his summons.”
“Rat’s ass…” Evangeline came closer. “It’s ironic that you say that. Considering that he saved you. Your ass, might I point out. From the rats.”
“True. But if the whole lot of you had been doing your fucking job?”
She snaked out a hand to grab the knife. I saw it coming and caught the blade, pointed it at her throat, just a whisper from piercing her skin. “I wouldn’t have had to do that damned job…meaning I wouldn’t have to deal with any of you,” I finished. “I could have continued my happy little existence, none of you would know about me and my life would be so much easier. I’m still pissed off over that.”
“Please do it.” Evangeline leaned against the blade, staring at me and for once, the smile on her face was echoed in her eyes. “I beg you. Draw my blood. Then I can convince my master what an utterly worthless use of space you are…I’ll kill you for attacking me and he won’t be terribly aggrieved.”
I pressed harder with my knife, cocked my head as the tip came ever closer to breaking the skin. “Sugar…killing me won’t be as easy on you as you think. Jude could tear me apart…but you can’t.”
A hard, brutal hand closed around my wrist.
Damon jerked my hand down and shoved me back.
“Leech-lover, go tell your master she’s working for the Queen of the Cats,” he said, sending me his infamous dark look. “She’s not available for anybody else at this time.”