Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 102
“That,” said Markus, alighting from the window with an audible leap, “was a gift from His Majesty, Ming Chengzu.” His fingers brushed atop her head, tucking the dark locks back from her face as she retched once more into the Ming bowl. “Were he and his golden carp not dead these four hundred years past, he would have been gratified, I’m sure, to know you have discovered a use for it heretofore unfathomed.” Though his fingers were gentle, his voice withered her flesh.
She pushed his hand away and stood to face him, squaring her shoulders against the wrathful twist of his smile. “It was either the bowl or your coat, my lord.”
“Obliged, madam.” He shammed a bow and flashed his teeth. “Now, if you are quite well enough to speak, do oblige me by explaining how I came to find you roaming the moors like some sightless itinerant.”
“I was trying to get back here.”
“From where exactly?”
“An errand.” She folded her arms. “Where were you?”
“An errand,” he rejoined. “I give fair warning, I do not need to sip from your veins to know when you speak false.” He tapped his fingers on his chest, mimicking the anxious tempo of her lying heart.
“My heart races so because you frightened it half to death with your abduction.”
“Abduction was it?” He stalked past her, divesting his coat with a terse shrug. By now he’d already tucked his wings beneath his flesh. He then lowered his considerable frame into his favorite chair, leveling her with keen dispassion. “On the contrary, I delivered you from the cold and from certain death. Or have you forgotten my warning you not to stray outside after dark.” He tapped his steepled fingers together with a dilatoriness that belied the menace in his tone.
She set her teeth. “My death would have been certain indeed had I perished from fright when you seized me from the road.”
“Ah, yes, the road—a road peopled with cutpurses and footpads.” He leaned forward. “But they are nothing to the beasties lurking about Winterthurse—you were warned against wandering alone at night. Now where were you tonight?”
“The Whitby inn.” There now, that wasn’t a lie. She folded her arms.
“A woman alone in a tavern by the wharf? How curious. A man is like to question the nature of her business there. A man might even wonder if he has not erred by placing his trust in such a woman.”
“You are no man and you have done naught to win my trust.”
“Have I not?” He narrowed his gaze. “I have exposed who and what I am to only one mortal in all the centuries I have dwelt amongst your kind. You and you alone. What is that if not a measure of trust?”
She swallowed, feeling cornered by the raw intensity of his gaze. “That, I grant you, is no small boon, but what of your lies?”
“When have I lied?” he growled.
“Omission is—”
“Omission is necessary! Knowledge can be used for ill and I have more than myself to think about. Never forget, my trust is earned by gradations.”
“Yes, you have your lover, Victoria, to think about—”
“Ahh, I see you have entertained little witches to whisper in your ear tonight.”
“Watchers, yes.” Emma swallowed the hurt that surged up when he failed to deny her charge. “They were quite explicit about who your sister really is to you. Or should I say daughter?”
The soft laughter that followed was much like a growl. “How ironic that you should hear it from them…”
“Why did you not explain what I am to you?”
“And what is it you believe you are to me?”
She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “A vessel in which to incubate your vile brood.”
He leaned back in his chair, thoughtful. “My vile brood, yes, so eloquent of the nature of our association. I wasn’t aware you were my incubation vessel; it was you that came to my room not I to yours.” He gestured for her to go on. “What else did the witches have to say?”
“They had much to say.” Most of which Emma was still trying to process. She had more questions now than ever before.
“And you doubtless glutted yourself on their oblique truths.” After what seemed an eternity, Markus rose from his armchair and prowled towards her. “I had hoped your suspicious nature would do you better credit than that.”
“What need have they for lies? Ana has only ever wanted my safety.”
“Assured you of that, did she? Good of her. And what intelligence did she volunteer of herself and her dear…brother?”
“There was no time—”
“No, of course not. By all means, uphold the word of a witch over a vampyre’s, after all the latter is nothing more than a bloodthirsty killer and the former…well, I daresay there was little enough time to denigrate my race without delving into the nature and deeds of their own kind.” He was silent a moment. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you find yourself the lucky recipient of their beneficence?”
“What do you mean?”
“How was it they found you in the first place? A witch requires skin to skin contact to know a Nephilim.”
She recalled the day she’d ‘collided’ into Tanith. She’d taken her glove off moments before, hadn’t she?
“But a vampyre cannot know a Nephilim unless he samples her blood.”
Emma recoiled at the thought.
Ostensibly impatient with her silence, Markus shot out of his chair and prowled towards her.
She drew back. “What are you doing?”
“You reek of fear,” he said, lip curling in distaste. “You have never feared me before.”
“Of course I have.”
“No.” His eyes became suddenly engulfed in black. “The scent of fear is cloying and ripe. Your blood is saturated with it.” He parted his lips and his fangs dropped with hunger. “It calls to me.”
She lifted her hands to arrest his advance, but he merely caught her wrists and drew her closer. “Careful,” she said,