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latching. I loved that trick.
    Then heard the bolt slid free and the handle turn. The door squawked as it opened. “I asked to come in.”
    “ Pechar .”
    The cycle repeated itself. This was getting old. Time to drop the passive-aggressive magic and yell at him to his face.
    “Please come in.” I made the welcome as frosty as I could, but the vampire didn’t seem to care. He strolled in as if he owned the place and I jumped off the couch, stomping around it to confront him. He blinked in astonishment as he saw me, his eyes dropping then traveling up my body. I’ll admit, I didn’t look my best. My hair was a massive snarl of dark-brown that I’d tied on top of my head. I’m sure it looked like some sort of personal atomic bomb blast. My clothes were wrinkled, sweat and coffee stained from work. I had on no makeup, and I probably had bags under my eyes from lack of sleep as well as indentations on my face from the couch cushions.
    Dario, on the other hand, was standing there like some dapper GQ model. Screw him. I might look like a homeless waif, but he’d left me by the side of the road over an hour’s walk from my house. I could have been robbed. I could have been raped or beaten up. I could have been poltergeisted by those cemetery spirits. He was in a whole lot of shit right now, and that sweet suit wasn’t going to help him one bit.
    “You’re not going in that , are you?” he asked.
    Huh? “Going where?”
    “Sesarios. It’s nine o’clock.”
    My brain did a one-eighty and I stared at him with my mouth open. I’m sure it added to my stunning good looks at the moment. “You don’t seriously think I’m going out to dinner with you after that stunt you pulled last night? And how the hell did you know where I live?”
    He smiled. It was one of those slow, panty-melting smiles, like the ones I’d seen him give his victims in pubs and clubs. I’m ashamed to admit it kinda worked on me, too. Everything south of my waistband tingled and my brain stuttered.
    Hey, it had been a long time since a guy had given me that kind of look. And I did need to eat. Someone else paying for dinner was a huge incentive. I might have a bunch of money in a tampon box, but after I paid the rent, there wouldn’t be much left for fancy Italian dinners.
    “You must be starving.” His voice was deep and smooth. It was the kind of voice that opens bedroom doors. “It looks like you’ve been working all day. I’ll bet you’ve barely had anything to eat.”
    I hadn’t. And I was going to give in and let him buy me an expensive dinner, complete with wine, appetizers, and dessert. But I wasn’t going to give in easily even when he looked and sounded like sex on a stick right now.
    “You dumped me miles from both my apartment and my car with drug deals going on less than twenty feet away, and a hooker getting beaten up in an alley a few blocks down. You’ve got some nerve showing up here tonight and thinking I’m going to go anywhere with you, let alone dinner.”
    “There was an urgent situation requiring my immediate presence.” He gave me a charming smile. “Surely you understand the nature of duty and responsibility?”
    I wasn’t an idiot. I got the dig that I was a Templar who was past the time when I should have taken my vow. And that smile? Dario was the king of the expressionless face. If he was smiling, it was because he wanted something. I doubted it was just that red stuff flowing through my veins.
    My stomach growled. I did want to pump him for more on why the vampires needed information on this symbol—a symbol connected with calling dead spirits—so much that they were willing to pay a prodigal Templar, a non-Knight, five grand to research it. And I was really, really hungry.
    “Lobster, and expensive wine, and cannoli,” I told him. “Actually, I want an extra box of cannoli to go.” I really liked those things. Normally I’d practice some temperance to keep my lithe figure, but a month of Ramen