"Come back to bed," one of the young women pleaded from behind him. "Come on, don't be such a drag."
Yanking on his clothes and boots, Dante strolled back over to the bed. The females pawed at him as he came near, their movements drowsy and fumbling, their minds still sluggish from the thrall of his earlier bite. He had sealed their wounds right after he'd fed, but there remained one thing to do before he could make his escape. Dante reached out and put his palm against the brow of one girl, then the other, scrubbing all recollection of this night from their thoughts.
If only he could do the same for himself, he thought, his throat still dry with the taste of smoke and ash and death.
Chapter Nine
"Relax, Tess." Ben's hand came to rest at the small of her back, his head bent low near her ear. "In case you hadn't noticed, this is a cocktail reception, not a funeral."
Which was a good thing, Tess thought, glancing down at her garnet-colored dress. Although the simple, resale-shop halter was a favorite, she was the only one wearing color amid the general sea of black. She felt out of place, conspicuous. Not that she was used to fitting in among other people. She never had, not from the time she was a little girl. She was always... different. Always apart from the rest of the world in ways she didn't fully understand and had learned it better not to explore. Instead, she tried to fit in--pretended she did--like now, standing in a crowded room of strangers. The urge to bolt from the crush of it all was strong.
Actually, more and more, Tess was feeling like she was standing at the front of a rising storm. As if unseen forces were gathering all around her, shoving her out onto a bare ledge. She thought if she looked down at her feet, she might find nothing but chasm beneath her. A steep fall with no end in sight.
She rubbed her neck, feeling a dull sort of ache in the tendons below her ear.
"You okay?" Ben asked. "You've been quiet all night."
"Have I? I'm sorry. I don't mean to be."
"Are you having a good time?"
She nodded, forcing a smile. "This is an amazing exhibit, Ben. The program says it's a private patrons' event, so how did you manage to get tickets?"
"Ah, I've got a few connections around town." He shrugged, then downed the last of his champagne. " Someone owed me a favor. And it's not what you're thinking," he said, his tone chiding as he took her empty soda glass from her hand. "I know the bartender, and he knows one of the girls who works in events here at the museum. Knowing how much you enjoy sculpture, a few months ago I put a bug in his ear about scoring me a couple of extra tickets for this reception."
"And the favor?" Tess prompted, suspicious. She knew that Ben often mingled with some questionable people. "What did you have to do for this guy?"
"His car was in the shop and I loaned him my van one night for a wedding he had to work. That's it, all on the up and up. Nothing shady." Ben gave her one of his melting grins. "Hey, I made you a promise, didn't I?"
Tess nodded vaguely.
"Speaking of the bar, how about I refresh our drinks--another mineral water with lime for the lady?"
"Yes, thank you."
As Ben wended through the crowd, Tess resumed her perusal of the art collection on special display around the grand ballroom. There were hundreds of pieces of sculpture, representing thousands of years of history, all encased in tall Plexiglas kiosks.
Tess came up behind a group of blond, bronzed, bejeweled society women who were blocking a case of Italian terra-cotta figurines and chattering about so-and-so's botched brow lift and Mrs. Somebody-or-other's recent affair with a country-club tennis pro less than half her age. Tess hovered in back of them, sincerely trying not to listen as she attempted to get a closer look at the elegant sculpture of Cornacchini's Sleeping Endymion.
She felt like an impostor, both as Ben's date tonight and among these people at the museum patrons' event. This was more his crowd than hers. Born and reared in Boston, Ben had grown up around art museums and theater, while her cultural background had been limited to county fairs and the local cinema. What she knew about art was modest at best, but her love of sculpture had always been something of an escape for her, particularly in those troubled days back home in rural Illinois. Back then, she'd been a different person, and Teresa Dawn Culver knew a few things about impostors. Her stepfather had made sure of that. From all appearances, he'd seemed a model citizen: successful, kind, moral. He was none of those things. But he was dead almost a decade now, her estranged mother recently dead as well. As for Tess, she had left that painful past nine years and half a country behind her.
If only she could leave the memories there too.
The awful knowledge of what she'd done...
Tess refocused her attention on the handsome lines of Endymion. As she studied the eighteenth-century terra-cotta sculpture, the fine hairs at the back of her neck began to tickle. A flush of heat washed over her--just the briefest skate of warmth, but enough to make her look around for the source. She found nothing. The pack of gossiping women moved on, and then it was only Tess at the display.
She peered into the glass case once more, letting the beauty of the artist's work transport her away from her private anxieties to a place of peace and comfort.
"Exquisite."
A deep voice tinged with a faint, elegant accent drew her head up with a start. There, on the other side of the clear kiosk, stood a man. Tess found herself looking into whiskey-colored eyes fringed with thick, inky-black lashes. If she thought she stuck out like a sore thumb at this ritzy event, she had nothing on this guy.