Love Me to Death (Underveil) by Marissa Clarke Page A

hadn’t said a word since the woman slumped in a heap on the concrete floor at his feet. He’d acted like he didn’t know her, but he certainly knew the woman she had mentioned: Aleksandra. That was the name of the doctor at the hospital—well, the woman pretending to be a doctor. The one who kissed him and called him Niki… His lover, obviously.
    She rubbed her burning chest. Images of the dark-haired, supermodel-gorgeous woman clouded her brain. Compared to Aleksandra, Elena knew that she was exactly what he had called her repeatedly: weak and pathetic.
    “Hey.” His wet, warm hand stilled hers. “What’s going on?”
    She stopped scratching and dropped her hands. “Nothing.” But something was going on. She was upset because he preferred some Slayer woman to her. That should thrill her. Make her the happiest human—well, mostly human—on the planet. They’d get out of this cord, and she’d be free of this bossy, lying, miserable man.
    But somehow that wasn’t as appealing as she’d like it to be. Something in her sought his approval. Longed to be with him. Wanted to help him… A freaking sick part, and it had to be tied to ingesting his blood. No. Just, no. She must rein in her hormones or libido or whatever this was until he removed the cord.
    “What’s wrong with you? You keep scratching and rubbing your chest.”
    Oh, that. Yeah. There had been strange splotches on her skin. She’d barely glimpsed them before they’d gone down to interrogate the woman. “It’s nothing.”
    He picked up a hand towel and dried his face. “We need to leave here as soon as possible. You should eat again first.”
    “And we should find out which one of you is carrying the transmitter,” Stefan said from the door of the bathroom.
    “Do you ever knock?” Nikolai asked.
    “It’s my house, my rules.”
    Nikolai picked up the shirt the tailor had left. “What transmitter?”
    “The one that brought your people down on me. My affairs and location are all but invisible to the Underveil since my energy trail is different. Only you and one other even know where I live because I chose foolishly to allow it.” He held up an electronic device. “And we found this on one of the dead Slayer males in the parking garage. It appears to operate like a tracking device.”
    Nikolai stilled partway through pulling the shirt up from where he had stepped into it. Like Elena’s, the shoulder over the arm with the cord buttoned, so it had to be pulled on from below, rather than over the head. “The vampires that attacked us had one, too.” He nodded to his discarded, blood-splattered pants still lying where he had abandoned them for his bath. He pulled the shirt up the rest of the way. “It’s in the back left pocket.”
    Stefan eyed the pants in a heap on the floor, face placid. “I’ll take your word for it. The transmitter is most likely inside one of your cell phones.”
    “Elena doesn’t have a phone with her. My phone is in the pants.”
    “I recommend you allow me to dispose of it. I have several prepaid cell phones I use as what my assistant, Bridgette, likes to call burner phones when I don’t want to be tapped, recognized, or tracked.”
    What on earth would he do that would be so underground as to need a phone like that? Elena resisted scratching, but pressed her palm to her chest to quell the burning.
    Nikolai grabbed her wrist. Then, he reached up with his other hand and pulled the neckline of the shirt down several inches before she could react or knock his hands away. His eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
    She almost screamed when she followed his gaze. Inky markings similar in style to his stretched across her chest. Tingles of dread tickled her spine, and she was slammed by an overwhelming urge to vomit. “You did this,” she said, jerking away from his grip.
    “I had nothing to do with it.” Nikolai held his hands up in surrender.
    “May I see?” Stefan’s touch was gentle and tentative, as opposed