Free The Dark's Mistress (The Saint-Pierres) by Michele Hauf Page B

would be into that.”
    “Do you even know what they are?” Viviane peeked around a spill of delicate white moonflowers.
    He leaned closer to the flowers, nudging one aside with his nose, and gave his grandmother his patented charmer smile.  “’My lady carries love within her eyes’
    “’All that she looks on is made pleasanter’
    “’Upon her path men turn to gaze at her’”
    He tipped up Viviane’s chin to meet her bright blue eyes, and she fluttered her lashes.
    “’He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise’
    “’And droops is troubled visage, full of sighs’
    “’And of his evil heart is then aware’
    “’Hates loves, and pride becomes his worshipper’”
    That was about half the Dante Alighieri sonnet.  He knew it all, but it proved as effective as he’d hoped when his grandmother sighed.
    “Oh, Johnny, you’ve become a real heartbreaker, haven’t you?”
    “I would never break your heart, G-ma.”  He kissed her on the forehead.  “I love the classics.  Mom introduced me to them when she homeschooled me.  But Kam’s probably more a Rimbaud kind of girl.”
    “Something more dark and disturbing?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Your mother raised you well enough.”  Viviane made the face she always did when she spoke of Lyric.  So she didn’t get along with her daughter-in-law.  Who could ever be good enough for her son?  “I’ve a chapbook signed by Rimbaud in my room.  Another gift from Rhys.  You stay here and I’ll run fetch it.”  She floated away like the ethereal ghost of the past that yet haunted her.
    Johnny flicked a white flower near his shoulder, pinching if off at the stem, but finding it didn’t have a scent.  “Signed by Rimbaud?  My grandparents are so cool.”
    * * *
    He stood up in the balcony again tonight.  Watching her with that crazysexy switchblade smile.  While Kam sang to the frenetic crowd of sweating bodies drowned in leather, lace, studs, and blood she could only wonder what Johnny’s blood tasted like.  It would be like nothing she had ever tasted and like everything that could drown her. 
    Or it could rescue her.
    As the guitarist peeled into a thundering riff on his glittery black Stratocaster, Kam wandered to the edge of the stage, allowing the red spotlight to infuse her pores as she looked up at the man who swam through her veins.  He made her smile, and that wasn’t cool.  Not during this stage show.
    The song she sang was a popular one, though her rendition hardened it, burned the edges to a crisp.  Johnny knew it; she’d seen him singing it a few times.  Winking at him, and waggling the microphone in invitation, she received from him a ‘what me?’ point of his finger to his chest.
    She nodded, and announced over the guitar solo.  “We have a treat tonight, my dark pretties.  You want a duet between the Dark’s Mistress and Johnny Angel?”  The name for him just came to her.  It was corny but it fit with him standing high above promising her salvation with a spread of his arms and a wink from his blue eyes.
    The crowd chanted and bounced, pumping their fists.
    Kambriel threw the microphone toward the balcony.
    Johnny leaned out to snatch the mic, and picked up the next line without missing a beat.  He stepped up to the railing, balancing on the narrow iron bar.  From his scuffed boots, up the snug-fitted black leather pants to the tee shirt and vest studded with spikes, he was heavy metal to the bone.  Add in the guyliner, and a raspy croon and the vampiric angel won them over.  He crouched on the railing and growled the dark and sexy lyrics to the masses, which they sucked up like blood raining from above.
    And there it was.  That gorgeous smile.  Singing and smiling, and commanding those below him with his dark charm.
    Kam grabbed the backup mic from a stagehand and met his vocals with a harmonization that meshed as if they’d been born to make music together.
    Johnny climbed onto the outside of the balcony