White Night (The Dresden Files #9) - Jim Butcher Page 0,121

finger across the line of his shoulders as she moved behind him. "Strong. Young. A hero of the White Council, I've heard." She paused to touch a fingertip to the back of his hand, and then shuddered. "And power, too." Her eyes went a few shades brighter as she completed the tour. "My goodness. I've recently fed, and still … Perhaps you'd care to ride with me back to the estate, and let Dresden walk. I promise to entertain you until he arrives."

I knew the look on Ramirez's face. It was the look of a young man who wants nothing so badly as to discard the complex things in life, like civilization, social mores, clothing, and speech, and see what happened next.

Lara knew it, too. Her eyes glittered brightly, and her smile was serpentine, and she pressed closer.

But Ramirez apparently knew about glittery gold, too. I didn't know he'd hidden a knife up his sleeve, but it appeared in his hand an instant before its tip pressed into the bottom of Lara's throat.

"I," he said very quietly, "am not food." And he met her eyes.

I hadn't seen a soulgaze from the outside before. It surprised me, how simple and brief it looked, when one wasn't being shaken to the core by it. Both of them stared, eyes widening, and then shuddered. Lara took a small step back from Ramirez, her breathing slightly quickened. I noticed, because I'm a professional investigator. She could have been concealing a weapon in that decolletage.

"If you meant to dissuade me," Lara said a moment later, "you haven't."

"Not you," Ramirez replied, lowering the knife. His voice was rough. "It wasn't to dissuade you."

"Wise," she murmured, "for one so young. I advise you, young wizard, not to hesitate so long to act, should another approach you as I did. A virgin is… extremely attractive to our kind. One such as you is rare, these days. Give a less restrained member of the court an opportunity as you did me, and they'll throw themselves on you in dozens—which would reflect poorly on me."

She turned back to me and said, "Wizards, you have my pledge of safe conduct."

I inclined my head to her and said, "Thank you."

"Then I will await your company in the car."

I nodded my head to her, and Lara walked back to her bodyguard, who looked like he was fighting off a fit of apoplexy.

I turned and eyed Ramirez.

He turned bright red.

"Virgin?" I asked him.

He turned more red.

"Carlos?" I asked.

"She's lying," he snapped. "She's evil. She's really evil. And lying."

I rubbed at my mouth to keep anyone from seeing me grin.

Hey. On nights like this, you take your laughs where you can get them.

"Okay," I said. "Not important."

"The hell it isn't!" he spat. "She's lying! I mean, I'm not… I'm…"

I nudged him with an elbow. "Focus, Galahad. We've got a job to do."

He exhaled with a growl. "Right."

"You saw what was inside her?" I asked.

He shuddered. "That pale thing. Her eyes… she was getting more turned on, and they kept looking more like its eyes."

"Yep," I said. "It's a tip-off to how close they are to starting to take a bite of you. You handled it right."

"You think so?"

I couldn't resist jibing him, just a little. "Just think. If you'd messed it up," I said, as Lara slid into the car one long, perfect leg at a time, "you'd be in the limo with Lara ripping your clothes off right now."

Ramirez looked at the car and swallowed. "Um. Yeah. Close one."

"I've met several of the White Court," I said. "Lara's probably the smartest. She's the most civilized, progressive, adaptable. She's definitely the most dangerous."

"She didn't look that tough," Ramirez said, but he was frowning in thought as he said it.

"She's dangerous in a different way than most," I said. "But I think her word is good."

"It is," Ramirez said firmly. "I saw that much."

"It's one of the things that makes her dangerous," I said, and headed for the limo. "Stay cool."

We walked over and I leaned down to see Lara in the back of the limo, seated on one of the dogcart-style seats, all poise and beauty and gorgeous grey eyes. She smiled at me as I looked in, and crooked a finger.

"Step into my limo," said the spider to the fly.

And we did.

* * *

CHAPTER

Thirty-Six

T he limo rolled right past the enormous stone house that was the chateau proper. It was bigger than a parking garage, and covered with cornices and turrets and gargoyles, like