Read Tempt the Stars for Free Online

mean?”
    I’d have thought that was obvious since I was dragging in at two a.m., covered in soot, plaster, and sweat, with a bruised ring around my neck and an all-but-destroyed T-shirt. But apparently not. I edged around him, balancing a cup and a bag of heart-destroying pastries from the coffee shop downstairs, because it wasn’t like I was going to live long enough to have to worry about cholesterol.
    “It means I’ve had enough for one night. I’m tired; I’m going to bed. If there’s a problem, it can wait until—”
    I stopped, because I’d just noticed the living room. It would have been called sunken if it hadn’t been on the twenty-second floor of the hotel. It was a tasteful medley of white and blue and yellow, since I’d had a say in redecorating after the last disaster hit. It was also usually deserted, the guards preferring to hang out in the lounge with the pool table and the beer fridge.
    But that wasn’t true tonight. Tonight, every guard on duty was either sitting in the little conversation area, smoking out on the tiny balcony, or gathered by the bar. It was like a party.
    Or maybe a wake; the guys were looking pretty damned grim.
    “Why’s everybody out here?” I asked Marco, who had followed me down a short flight of stairs.
    “’Cause of them in there,” he said, hiking a thumb at the lounge. Which I’d just noticed was closed off, with the pocket doors shut tight. I’d never seen them that way; the guys preferred an open floor plan to better keep an eye on me.
    But it looked like they felt they could do without an eye on whoever was inside.
    “Who’s ‘them’? I don’t have any appointments tonight.” At least, I really hoped I didn’t. The kind of guest I got at two a.m. tended to be of the fanged variety, and not the fun kind. “Tell me it’s not more senators,” I said, because I really, really wasn’t up to that.
    “I wish.”
    I sighed and crossed my filthy arms. “Okay. Out with it.”
    But he didn’t come out with it. “Where’s Jonas? You’re supposed to be with him.”
    I shrugged. “Home?” I’d dropped him off in the lobby before going for coffee. And it had been a while, since despite the fact that I looked like a war refugee, I’d still had to wait in line.
    Vegas.
    “Damn it!” Marco looked genuinely put out. No, that wasn’t right. Marco looked almost—
    The sliding doors opened and a small vamp sidled out, before slamming them dramatically shut behind him. “Refreshments!” he said shrilly.
    “What?” Marco glowered at him.
    “You heard me,” the vamp said, wild-eyed. “They say if they have to wait any longer, that they deserve—”
    “I’ll tell you what they deserve,” Marco said menacingly.
    “—something to eat, but you know we don’t have any food in the place and I don’t know what—” The vamp stopped abruptly, staring at me.
    Or, to be more precise, at my small white bakery bag.
    “No,” I said, trying to hide it behind me. But a second later, it was in his hand anyway.
    The guy who had just crossed a room in an eyeblink was named Fred. He looked like an accountant when he stood still long enough—with wispy brown hair and a somewhat portly figure—which was fair, since that’s what he had been before getting tapped for guard duty. I still hadn’t found out who he’d had to piss off to get stuck with that.
    I knew who he was managing to annoy tonight, though.
    He saw my expression. “No, no, no!” he said, backing up, his big gray eyes going huge. And then the little weasel ran for it.
    “Come back here!” I demanded, but Fred wasn’t. Fred was a blur, clutching the bag I’d just stood in line twenty freaking minutes for, and heading for the kitchen.
    Only to find me waiting on him when he arrived.
    “What—how—shit!” He stared at me, hand over the heart that wasn’t going to attack him, since it hadn’t beaten in a few hundred years now. “You know I hate it when you do that!”
    “Then give me