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“I’ve been there once,” I said.

“Carried unconscious and dying. It hardly counts.” He glided down the hall. He put a little extra sway to his walk, somewhat like Jason had done on the stairs, but where it had been funny with the werewolf, Jean-Claude made it utterly seductive.

“You just wanted to walk in front so I’d have to stare at your butt.”

He spoke without turning around. “No one makes you stare at me, ma petite, not even me.”

And that was the truth. The horrible truth. If in some dark part of my heart I hadn’t been attracted to him from the beginning, I’d have killed him long ago. Or tried to. I had more legal vampire kills than any other vampire hunter in the country. They didn’t call me the Executioner for nothing. So how did I end up being safer in the depths of the Circus of the Damned with the monsters than above ground with the humans? Because somewhere along the line, I didn’t kill the monster I should have.

That particular monster was gliding up the hallway ahead of me. And he still had the cutest butt I’d ever seen on a dead man.

22

* * *

JEAN-CLAUDE leaned one shoulder against the wall. He’d already opened the door. He motioned me inside with a graceful sweep of his hand.

My high heels sank into the deep, white carpet. White wallpaper with tiny silver designs graced the walls. There was a white door in the left-hand wall near the bed. The bed had white satin sheets. A dozen black and white pillows were grouped at the head of the bed. A fan of black and white drapes fell from the ceiling, forming a partial canopy over the bed. The black lacquer vanity and chest of drawers still sat in opposite corners. The wallpaper and the door were new. Guess which bothered me more.

“Where does the door go?”

“The bathroom.” He closed the outer door and walked past me to sit on the edge of the bed. There were no chairs.

“A bathroom. That wasn’t here last time,” I said.

“Not in its present form, but it was here just the same.”

He leaned back on his elbows. The movement strained the cloth of his shirt, exposing as much skin as the shirt would allow. The line of dark hair that started low on his belly peeked just above the cloth.

The room was getting warmer. I undid the velcro fastenings on the bulletproof vest and slid it over my head. “Where do you want me to put this?”

“Anywhere you like,” he said. His voice was soft and more intimate than the words themselves.

I walked around to the far side of the bed, away from him, and laid the vest across the satin sheets.

He laid back against the sheets, his black hair framing his pale face to perfection. Warmer, it was definitely getting warmer in here.

“Mind if I freshen up?”

“Whatever I have is yours, ma petite. You should know that by now.”

I backed into the door and opened it with a feeling of relief. I closed the door without really looking at the bathroom. When I looked up, I let out a silent wow.

The room was long and narrow. It had a double sink and mirrors with round white lightbulbs edging it. The sinks were black marble with white veins running through. Every faucet, every metal edge, gleamed silver. The floor was black carpeting. A half wall of silver and mirrored panels hid the black stool against a black wall. Another half wall graced the other side. Then there was the bathtub. Three marble steps led up to a black bathtub, big enough for four people. The faucet was a silver swan with outspread wings. There was no way to take a shower, which was my preferred method, and the swan was a bit much, but other than that, it was lovely.

I sat down on the cool marble edging. It was nearly five in the morning. My eyes burned from lack of sleep. The adrenaline rush of nearly getting killed had long since faded. What I wanted was to be comforted, held, yes, sex was in there somewhere, but that wasn’t my highest priority tonight. I think both Richard and Jean-Claude would say it was never my highest priority, but that was their problem.