A Vampire for Christmas - By Michele Hauf Page 0,33

even noticed.

“That’s so I can remove them without you taking off the corset or garter.”

Remove just her panties while leaving on everything else? The ligaments in her knees threatened to give way as she visualized what he planned to do to her.

“I want you to keep those shoes on. And the corset. Did you have any difficulty getting it laced up on your own? I’d have offered to help, but I’m afraid it would’ve made us much too late.”

“I managed it fine.” Actually, it had been a royal pain in the ass, but she wasn’t about to complain.

He tilted her chin up and for a split second, she thought he was going to kiss her. His lips parted and he dipped his head to hers. Then, far below them, the doorbell sounded, and he hesitated.

Probably a good thing, she realized and she took that opportunity to duck under his arm. He needed to be downstairs greeting his guests, not up here with her. No matter how much fun this was.

“If I thought I was having a hard time keeping my hands off you before,” he growled, “tonight is going to be an utter nightmare.”

She liked the swooshing sound the gown made as she walked. “Then don’t even try.”

TRACE STOOD NEAR the large Christmas tree in the main living room, listening to the hushed whispers of a few Council members about what was going on with Darkbloods in a small village near Prague. Evidently, there’d been a few vampire sightings—otherwise known as vampires behaving badly—and the locals were scared. Events like this happened periodically before Guardians were sent in to take care of things.

“Shall we continue this conversation in the library where things are more private?” Trace asked.

As he navigated the small group through the crowd and past one of the buffet tables, he looked for Char but didn’t see her anywhere. Focusing on her heartbeat, he could feel her presence nearby, a side effect of having taken so much of her blood recently, and he couldn’t help smiling to himself. He loved that she gave it to him freely, but he really should learn to pace himself. For both their sakes. But when he thought about the corset she wore right now, he rather doubted his pledge for self-restraint would start tonight.

“And that’s not all,” Rodderick Tjorval said once they were in the library, the door safely shut behind him. “One of the old European families is suspected of having ties with the Darkblood Alliance.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” someone said.

“No kidding?” asked someone else.

“Yes,” Tjorval continued. “There’s an ongoing investigation into their activities over the past several decades and things aren’t looking good.”

Trace opened the humidor and offered his guests cigars.

“What will happen if those suspicions turn out to be true?” Nicklaus Mercada asked.

“They’ll lose their seat on the Council.” Tjorval chose one of the Cohiba cigars and held it to his nose. “And if the charges are serious, they’ll go before the court to plead their case and await judgment.”

Trace had never heard of such a thing happening before. “What constitutes serious?” He handed the man a cutter. He snipped off the end and held the cigar out for Trace to light.

“Any number of things. One of the foremost would be if they participated in or funded activities which led to the killing of humans for blood sport.”

Trace suddenly got uncomfortable. These people did not need to be reminded of this a few weeks before they voted on his fate. Then again, it might not matter at all when they found out about Charlotte. However, he’d prefer to have his future decided by actions he took himself, rather than by the actions of a family member that had nothing to do with him.

“That’s not necessarily true.” He hadn’t heard Sebastian come in. Without waiting to be offered a cigar, his cousin grabbed a Montecristo from the humidor and snipped off the end. “Another branch of the family can petition the Council for the seat, make the case why they should have it instead, right, cuz?”

Trace stiffened. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.

“Didn’t that happen to your family, Trace?” Henry DeGraff asked.

The lingering taste of the cigar suddenly turned bitter on the back of his tongue. “Yes, that’s my understanding. Something happened all those years ago and the seat changed hands.”

Sebastian laughed, smoke streaming out of his mouth like a dragon. “My great-grandfather fell in love with a human woman—that’s what happened. It didn’t seem to matter