Warrior's Touch (Immortal Warriors #2)

Chapter Thirteen: The Midnight Maze

"Tell me everything about Nightfall, Lord Adam," Kat urged excitedly.

The king of the vampires laughed rich and promising. Kat felt her heart fall somewhere near her ankles at the sound of it. The vampire lord was sinfully gorgeous, better than anything she'd ever imagined in her darkest fantasies; elegant and commanding, everything about him emanated raw power. His eyes were infinite black holes that beckoned her to come closer, look deeper. She could feel his will from the other end of the table.

It was almost hypnotic.

So far Kat's night was a bit hazy, maybe it was all the wine. One minute she was sitting down and the next she was drinking sweet wine and making conversation with a vampire king! It was more than a little surreal.

"Everything is quite a tall order, Lady Katrina," he said. His voice was lilted slightly which gave it a rhythmic cadence. It made her feel like she was the only person on the planet as he spoke, "It is a land rich in history and still follows much of the ancient ways – deep forests and tall waterfalls glisten like gems under the moonlight during the summer. Nightfall castle was built into the largest of these waterfalls by my ancestors. In the winter the water freezes and 'tis like living inside a mountain carved of ice. I am afraid words cannot do it justice. Perhaps you will visit before winter makes the roads impassable. With your cousin and brother's permission of course," he added almost as an afterthought.

Lori smiled politely while Des' face was stoic, giving no hint whether he supported the idea of such a thing or not.

"I'm quite sure I can make such a decision for myself, Lord Adam," Kat said.

"Undoubtedly," he replied smiling as he lifted his glass for another sip of the decadent wine.

Kat almost bristled at the very notion of needing anybody's permission. Still, she made an effort to smile in return so as not to let her full ire show. She was a guest and it would not do well to raise suspicions, especially since she was feeling so off her game tonight.

Thankfully Aiden had left a little while earlier (was that before or after she'd had wine?), so she didn't have to contend with Desmond's matchmaking while trying to pass herself off as someone from this world. The captain had excused himself almost as soon as they'd arrived, speaking a quick a few words in Eric's ear, too low for her to hear. Eric only nodded and Aiden hadn't given her so much as a second glance before turning and purposefully striding out of the great hall. That hadn't stopped her from following his every movement until he was out of sight. It was impossible not to – his every movement was so focused and measured. They just didn't make males like that in her world. And if Kat felt a tiny bit disappointed over his abrupt departure, she mentally squashed it and focused all of her attention on the vampires seated across the table.

Lord Adam Nightborn of Nightfall was everything she expected a vampire king to be – tall, lean but well-built, with aristocratic features and piercing eyes that missed nothing. In her stories she always wrote her vampire characters with long hair they held back with a queue of some sort, but Lord Adam's hair wasn't nearly so long. It was long in the front in a fashionable sense, as was the case for all of the vampires, but the truly long hair belonged to the immortal warriors in the room. Still, the shorter look fit both Adam and his kind well. Why did she even think vampires should have long hair in the first place?

"I'm sorry to say I'm a little greedy with my cousin, Lord Adam," Lori said now, interrupting Kat's thoughts. "It's not every day my favorite cousin comes to visit. I'm rather excited to have her here at Wolfgard for the whole month, especially considering how dangerous travel has become of late."