Biting the Bride by Clare Willis Read Free Book Online Page B

vampire. “And you must be new. What is your name?”
    The yeoman had been young when he was turned, no more than twenty. He had longish blond hair and delicate facial features, but his biceps were the size of Christmas hams. He turned to Enzo for direction.
    “Don’t look at him,” Richard snapped, “you’re a vampire, for heaven’s sake. Show a little spine. What is your name?”
    “Patrick.”
    “Lovely. Would you like to come to work with me instead of the Council, Patrick? The pay is better and I’ll let you kill all the humans you like. What do you say?”
    Patrick looked at his partner again. Enzo twisted his handsome mouth in frustration. “Scipio would like to talk to you,” he said in a thick Italian accent, gesturing toward the car.
    Richard laughed, one quick bark. “Scipio, here to see me? What an honor! I assume you followed me from Europe?”
    “Will you get in?” Enzo asked, barely polite.
    “Or what?” Richard took one step closer to Enzo.
    To his credit, Patrick didn’t back away. But then again, he probably didn’t know Richard’s reputation. Enzo, on the other hand, faded toward the car door.
    “Oh, for the gods’ sake, would you stop this pissing match and get in the car?” A pale patrician face surrounded by loose gray curls poked out of the car.
    “Scipio!” Richard said. “If I’d known it was you I’d have come in immediately!”
    Richard offered a gloved hand to Scipio. After a slight pause, Scipio grasped Richard’s forearm in the Roman way.
    “Always the stickler for tradition, aren’t you? It’s quite charming, really.”
    He settled himself comfortably on the leather seat next to his nemesis. The two goons shared the opposite seat, their loglike legs spread wide. Why did Scipio persist in hiring these numbskulled musclemen for the protection unit? Had he forgotten that once one becomes a vampire, muscle size is as unimportant as whether one is right-or left-handed?
    Richard glanced at the old Roman, and then quickly looked away. He hated looking at the film on the fellow’s eyes. It made him feel ill. What aberration had occurred during the conversion process that Scipio had been left with such a human malformation? Richard would question whether he was even a vampire if Scipio hadn’t been alive when Richard was vampire-born, and aged not a day in the two hundred plus years since.
    “What are you doing here, Richard?”
    Richard crossed his legs. “I have business in the city. Why are you here?”
    “The Council warned you not to travel.”
    He blew an exasperated puff of air through his nostrils. “I do not recognize the Council’s jurisdiction over me.”
    “That does not mean we don’t have it.”
    Scipio’s tone had hardened. Enzo and Patrick leaned closer, their hands on their knees. The driver, who had been given no directions, was circling Union Square aimlessly.
    “Do you mean to arrest me, Scipio?”
    “Not unless you do something to warrant it.”
    “Then I think our interview is over. ”
    They passed the Mandarin Oriental for the second time. “You can let me out here,” Richard said. He rapped on the glass divider and the driver pulled to the curb.
    “It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen. I hope you enjoy your sojourn in San Francisco as much as I shall enjoy mine.”
    He got out and gently closed the car door behind him.
    The sun was rising, a pale yellow wafer sharing the western sky with a waxing gibbous moon that had forgotten to go to bed. Jacob stretched and yawned, although he hadn’t been asleep. At first he had considered it a blessing when he learned that only young vampires were affected by the sun and required a daily hibernation, that eventually he would be able to function twenty-four hours a day, like a water mill or a cotton gin. It had turned out to be something else; not a curse, exactly, but a burden. He rarely slept, night or day, now that he was over two hundred and fifty years old, and when he did it was due to