"Tanya Huff - Victoria Nelson - 04 - Blood Pact" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

with the best of them. Anyone who faked his own death in order to ditch a wife and five kids deserved
exactly what he got. "My partner's going to talk to him tonight. I thinkyour husband will decide to stay
right where he is."
The bar was noisy and smoky, with tables too small to be useful and chairs too stylized to be
comfortable.
The beer was overpriced, the liquor over-iced, and the menu a tarted-up mix of at least three kinds of
quasi-ethnic cooking plus the usual grease and carbohydrates. The staff were all young, attractive, and
interchangeable. The clientele were a little older, not quite so attractive although they tried desperately
hard to camouflage it, and just as faceless. It was, for the moment, the premier poser bar in the city and
all the wannabes in Toronto shoehorned themselves through its doors on Friday night.Henry Fitzroy
paused just past the threshold and scanned the crowd through narrowed eyes. The smell of so many
bodies crammed together, the sound of so many heartbeats pounding in time to the music blasting out of
half a dozen suspended speakers, the feel of so many lives in so little space pulled the Hunger up and
threatened to turn it loose. Fastidiousness more than willpower held it in check. In over
four and a half centuries, Henry had never seen so many people working so hard and so futilely at
having a goou time.
It was the kind of place he wouldn't be caught dead in under normal circumstances, but tonight he was
hunting and this was where his quarry had gone to ground. The crowd parted as he moved away from
the door, and eddies of whispered speculation followed in his wake.
"Who does he think he is . . ."
". . . I'm telling you, he's somebody ..."
Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, one time Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Lord President of
the Council of the North, noted, with an inward sigh, that some things never changed. He sat down at the
bar-the young man who had been on the stool having vacated it as Henry approached-and waved the
bartender away.To his right, an attractive young woman raised one ebony brow in obvious invitation.
Although his gaze dropped to the pulse that beat in the ivory column of her throat and almost
involuntarily traced the vein until it disappeared beneath the soft drape of magenta silk clinging to
shoulders and breasts, he regretfully, silently, declined. She acknowledged both his glance and his
refusal, then turned to more receptive game. Henry hid a smile. He wasn't the only hunter abroad
tonight. To his left, a wide back in a charcoal gray suit made up most of the view. The hair above the
suit had been artfully styled to hide the thinning patches just as the suit itself had been cut to cover the
areas that a fortieth birthday had thickened. Henry reached out and tapped lightly on one wool-clad
shoulder. The wearer of the suit turned, saw no one he knew, and began to scowl. Then he fell into the
depths of a pair of hazel eyes, much darker than hazel eyes should have been, much deeper than mortal
eyes could be. "We need to have a talk, Mr. O'Conner."
It would have taken a much stronger man to look away.
"In fact, I think you'd better come with me." A thin sheen of sweat greased the other man's forehead.'
'This is just a little too public for what I plan to . . Slightly elongated canines became visible for an
instant between parted lips. "... discuss."
"And?"
Henry stood at the window, one hand flat against the cool glass. Although he seemed to be looking
down at the lights of the city, he was actually watching the reflection of the woman seated on the couch
behind him. "And what?"

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"Henry, stop being an undead pain in the ass. Did you convince Mr. O'ConnerISimmons to stay put until
the police arrive?''
He loved to watch her; loved to watch emotions play across her face, loved to watch her move, loved to