Deep Kiss of Winter Read Free Page A

foreign, unusual. Like women from faraway lands in olden times. I can’t wait to get a better look from the front.
    That thought threw him. Since the night he’d been turned into a vampire three hundred years ago, he’d had no interest in women, no need for them, just as he never reacted to the scent or sight of food.
    Why would I give a damn about what her front looks like? He would wrest information from her. He could do little else.
    His body was deadened. And he preferred it that way.
    Just then, she glanced over her shoulder as she ran, and he caught sight of her elven face once again.
    Those pointed ears . . . several factions in the Lore had them, at least that he knew of. Valkyrie were among them. He was becoming more and more convinced he’d found his quarry.
    But she seemed to have lost sight of him altogether, focusing in another direction.
    With each minute that passed, they traveled deeper into a decaying labyrinth of abandoned warehouses and stacks of railcars.
    Finally she was slowing. She stumbled in a puddle, then tripped on the corner of a shipping pallet.
    He stopped tracing and began running toward her. He was close enough to hear her heart drumming, her gasping breaths.
    The Valkyrie his brother had encountered had known no fear of vampires. Maybe in the last five years they’d learned they had reason to flee from one. The thought made him pursue her with even more excitement. His vampire instincts rushed to the fore. The thrill of the chase overwhelmed him, and Murdoch played with her, letting her lope until she tired.
    Just as he decided to end this, he turned a corner after her, running into a four-way crossing.
    There was no sign of her.
    Only silence.
    Danii crouched on the second floor of a storm-ravaged warehouse, struggling to catch her breath and shuddering from heat.
    She still couldn’t believe the Icere were here. She’d thought she was safe living in such a warm climate, believing they ’d never look for her this close to the equator.
    Like the Icere, Danii didn’t sweat. Unlike them, she could go into thermal shock if she grew overheated. But she was more accustomed to the temperature here than they were. And she knew every twist and turn of these downtown streets. As long as she didn’t catch a fire arrow, she could handle the Icere.
    The vampire was another matter entirely. When she’d seen him tracing after her, she’d gaped in disbelief that yet another pursuer had joined the chase.
    A clear-eyed vampire, a true Forbearer.
    Though hidden, she could still see him from this vantage. With a narrowed gaze, he turned in circles below, determining her direction.
    Any superficial and misguided attraction she’d felt for him was drowned out by annoyance. If this male would just move on, the Icere likely wouldn’t find her here.
    Otherwise, he was going to get her killed.
    The assassins would separate to trap her, driving her with the threat of those poisoned arrows. They wouldn’t lob their notorious ice grenades at her—they’d lose valuable cold and she’d simply take the impact with a smile on her face as she soaked the chill into herself.
    But those arrows . . .
    Tipped with a poison that ravaged through an ice being’s veins like liquid fire.
    I would know . This wasn’t the first time a faraway Icere king had dispatched killers after Danii, the rightful Icere queen. . . .
    Instead of leaving, the vampire called out in a deep voice, “I know you’re here.” His words were thickly accented. Russian?
    Perhaps Estonian. “You’re a Valkyrie, are you not?” He stilled, listening for her. “If so, you’ll want to know that my brother just captured Myst the Coveted.”
    Myst. Danii loved all her half sisters equally, but she owed Myst.
    Wait . . . a Forbearer’s brother had taken her? There was one Forbearer—an Estonian—who wanted Myst above all others: Nikolai Wroth, the Overlord. He’d done Myst wrong, but then she had definitely retaliated.
    And the Overlord