Duel Nature Read Online Free Page B

congratulations, it
looks like you beat the odds. The office pool back in the Citadel
had you down as one of the casualties of our visit.”
    He finally found his voice, looking back her
way. “Office pool?”
    “Yeah, Headquarters has a running betting
pool on the number and identity of vampires that will die when our
team visits a Coven location. Some, like Cincinnati, have a big
zero down, as the Darkkin in that city tend to be more adaptable
and quicker to believe the grapevine. Chicago, on the other hand,
had as many as seven Darkkin down for ‘Death by Christian’, and
your name was listed at the top.”
    My Grim side watched him even as it tracked
all movement in the building. Blood ran down my right arm, dripping
on a priceless Persian rug.
    “You see, Master Langsford ..” she
said, twisting his tile and name a bit, “..the stories about
Christian don’t really do him justice. You see and smell him as
human, and a delectable one at that. The reality is that he’s a
predator of us . He
kills vampires and weres like you consume prostitutes, and he’s so
good at it that he makes the Elders nervous, and he’s two of our years old! ”
    Grim retreated, leaving me control of my
voice as I protested her words.
    “Tanya, I’m not two!” I said.
    “Only by our way of
measuring age, zayka ,” she said. “It just boggles the mind thinking what you will
be like at ten or twenty, let alone a hundred years of
age.”
    Calvin’s facial expression was priceless as
the impact of her words hit him, especially as I think he
understood the Russian word zayka as bunny, the equivalent term of
endearment as honey.
    I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be more of
a threat than I am now, but the vampires sure seem to think so.
    “Now Master Langsford, if the question of my
Chosen is settled – “ she glanced around at the frozen vampires,
then not seeing any new contenders, she continued, “ we can get to
the bottom of which of your flock here is responsible for
negligently creating Lenny the rogue.”
    Tanya had been strolling closer to the desk
and as she finished her sentence she picked up the jar with
Dominick’s canned heart in it. She studied it for a moment then
without warning tossed it to the blonde vampire behind Langsford,
further spattering her already blood speckled dress.
    The blonde automatically caught the crystal
container, eyes widening at the implication. She looked up at
Tanya, then me, finally turning to her Master in panic.
    “Master you can’t think…., I didn’t do it…..
why are you accusing me? You don’t have proof!” she said in a
flurry.
    “What’s your name?” I asked. She jumped when
I spoke to her, as if she was shocked that I could actually talk
and form words.
    “Chantel,” she answered, then turned back to
Langsford to continue her pleading.
    “Master, you aren’t going to let them accuse
me, are you? They have no proof.”
    He looked at her stricken face for a moment
then turned back to Tanya.
    “What proof do you have of Chantel’s guilt?”
he said, which struck me as a very odd way to phrase things.
    “Actually, none. But both she and the rogue
reacted to seeing each other when we came in,” Tanya admitted.
    “That’s hardly proof, Ms. Demidova,” he
said.
    “Oh, it’s not any kind of
proof at all. But it is suspicious and I find it unlikely that the
two would know each other if she wasn’t his Maker,” Tanya said.
“But vampires operate in tight knit groups, closer than a similar
mix of humans would be. I’m willing to bet someone in this room knows if it was
Chantel or not. My hope is to clear this up now, rather than have
to bring in a Reader, like say Nika, to get this solved.
“
    Readers are telepaths, and Nika, who was
almost as close to Tanya as Lydia, was one of the most powerful in
the Coven. Older vampires could block her, but bringing in a Reader
was akin to a lie detector test in the human world. All vampires
would be expected to lower