Carson's Night (The Stonebrood Saga) Read Free Page B

vampire smiled. “Persistent, aren’t you?” The smile faded. “I told her you wanted her and that she should consider letting a liaison happen.”
    Carson could feel his jaw descending and caught it up. “What, you’re her pimp now?”
    “Damian and I have been almost surrogate parents for her since she was born. Her mother died when Talley was very young, and her father spent most of his time on the road—you know the lifestyle of hunting as well as anyone. Love advice is often part of a parent’s role.”
    “When I need help seducing a woman—“
    Sherwood stood up and abruptly was right there next to him. So much for keeping the couch between them. Carson could feel his heart creek with the suddenness of it. He realized that if Sherwood wanted to kill him, he could do it whenever he chose to. There was no way Carson could stop him. Not in this apartment, anyway. Not without preparations, not without sneaking up on Sherwood with every defense in place. Not without using every underhanded, back-stabbing method known to man. No wonder vampires had thrived despite centuries of hunting and persecution.
    Sherwood tilted his head a little. “Now you understand,” he said softly, as if he had been following Carson’s thoughts. “Never forget whose side we are on.”
    “Hers,” Carson replied.
    “Exactly.” Sherwood smiled. “Your role in Peter Grey’s death has yet to be established. I don’t believe you are guilty of wrong-doing, but I don’t believe your hands are without blood, either. If we learn the blood is of the wrong color, Connors, I will not be the first to cut them off. You know who will be, don’t you?”
    His heart was thundering. “Tally.”
    “I’m tempted to warn you not to let her beauty blind you, but if you are playing for the wrong side I’d rather see the look of stunned surprise on your face when she hacks out your heart with a rusty knife inside thirty seconds and barely raises her own pulse while she does it.”
    There was a feral expression of genuine enjoyment on Sherwood’s face. Carson was fervently glad that he was on the right team. Then he considered the gaping hole in his memory and shivered.
    “Is there a shower I can use?” he asked and wasn’t surprised to find his voice was hoarse.
    * * * * *
    After her shower, Tally made her way into the kitchen, hoping against hope that Nicholas might have some real food she could eat while Bloomingdale’s delivered the new clothes she had ordered and billed to Nick’s account. She looked inside the mostly empty fridge and sighed, then looked inside the freezer with more optimism. There were some frozen waffles that were probably there from the last time she had stayed over, and she headed for the pantry to see if there was some syrup, pushing up the over-long sleeves of Nick’s dressing gown. The copper and gold satin and brocade garment was so English and so proper that even in her own mind she couldn’t call it a bathrobe, and she felt vaguely guilty that it dragged on the ground because she wasn’t as tall as Nick.
    She found real maple syrup and grimaced to herself. It was close enough. She was too hungry to give Nick grief over not keeping his kitchen stocked to human standards when he never used it himself.
    “Think you could make enough for two?”
    She stifled her gasp, whirling.
    Carson Connors stood at the other end of the kitchen. He wore jeans and nothing else, and had clearly come in search of food after stepping out of the shower. His hair and skin were damp, and his shoulders gleamed dimly in the soft overhead light.
    “You move silently enough, I’ll give you that,” Tally said, putting the syrup on the counter next to the waffles.
    “Bare feet,” he said simply, moving toward her. His eyes looked black in this light. He hadn’t shaved—Nick and Damian did not need to, so there would be no shaving equipment in any of the bathrooms here. She liked the stubble on Carson, though. It made him look