Blood Cursed (Rogue Angel) Read Online Free

at if she was ever in his neck of the woods. A mysterious artifact owned by a five-hundred-plus-year-old man? Annja hadn’t let that enticing invitation slip her mind. Now that she was here in his jasmine-scented woods, best to grab opportunity by the throat.
    Annja jogged up the curving limestone steps in front of the house two at a time, finding the more she moved the less the jet lag pulled at her exhausted muscles. She knocked on the front door, foregoing the brass lion’s head knocker because...did anyone really use those things?
    After several long moments, a butler greeted her with a yawn. As his mouth closed, his eyes opened wider in recognition and he invited her in. Interesting. She guessed Garin must have mentioned her....
    “We were not aware you had arranged a visit,” he said in a clipped tone.
    She almost laughed out loud and had to bite her tongue to hold it in. A British butler? Garin Braden had a British butler and a mansion. Just like his former mentor’s setup in France. Except Garin couldn’t stand Roux’s lifestyle—the two were at each other’s throats more often than not. So when had Garin patterned himself after his sometime enemy?
    “In the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by,” she offered, barely suppressing her enjoyment of this insight into the man she thought she’d known pretty well.
    The butler glanced up at the full moon as he closed the door behind her. “Wait here,” he instructed. “I’ll see if Mr. Braden is available.”
    Why was it all the butlers Annja had happened to meet were stuffy and British? Did no one but the English aspire to butlerdom?
    Annja strained to see along the foyer’s dark paneled walls, hung with ancient paintings, each one worth more than a decade’s rent on her apartment in Brooklyn, she felt sure.
    “Tell him it’s Annja Creed,” she thought to call out, just in case.
    “I know,” the butler called back.
    She’d never been here before, or met the butler, but she assumed Garin had availed the help with the necessary details regarding all the people that may “stop by.” Though, apparently, stopping by simply wasn’t done this late at night.
    Annja leaned forward to inspect the signature on what looked like a Renoir, and found it was indeed by the nineteenth-century impressionist. She wasn’t familiar with this painting of a woman with a red bow in her blond hair, and that gave her a thrill. Could Garin possess art the modern world wasn’t aware existed? If indeed he’d been alive since before Joan of Arc’s death in 1431, he may very well have received it directly from the artist.
    A man who had lived five centuries offered enough hands-on history to interest Annja endlessly.
    “Some day,” she muttered, “I will pick the man’s brain.”
    She strolled to the next painting and tried to guess its artist before checking the signature. Small dots made up the entire canvas, pointillism, and she had to step back to take in the full picture. Georges Seurat was the only name she associated with the style. Art history wasn’t her strong point. She preferred medieval studies, and old bones and pottery to canvas and paint.
    Checking the signature, she read a German surname she wasn’t familiar with. Well, wasn’t like only one artist had cornered the market on the style.
    Long minutes had passed when suddenly she heard an angry growl and a door slam somewhere in the vicinity of the second floor and around a corner. Garin’s voice carried down to the foyer. “Tell her I am in no mood! I’ll see her in the morning.”
    “Is that so?” She could have taken the train straight to the Czech Republic, her destination. She was sacrificing valuable sleep time to make this visit. And it wasn’t as if she owed the man anything.
    When the butler reappeared, she put up a hand. “I heard. I know when I’m not welcome.”
    “He’s had a trying day,” the butler offered.
    “Right. Poor guy. Trying must test his every nerve. Give him my