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"Forbearer Scunorance is bliss, leech"

"Go sun yourself"

Being met with insults was the only way Murdoch and his men could deters in their search of the Quarter

Hours ago, Murdoch had mapped out the rest of the city for the other Forbearers, and then they&039;d split up, each elder with two men under him Murdoch had taken his old friend Rurik, an Estonian who&039;d served under him in the war, and they&039;d been stuck with Lukyan, the hotheaded Russian Kristoff could insist that the former political alliances of his soldiers had been nullified by those of the Lore, but the wily king always put a Russian with Estonians, and vice versa

Over the course of the night, Murdoch had grown better able to recognize the Lore beings - they seemed more adroit, more suspicious, and often more drunken than the humans - but he still didn&039;t knohat they were

And not one of theiven hiht on sight

The closest he&039;d gotten ith a scantily clad fens She&039;d at least given him a few moments to state his introduction and questions, not that she&039;d listened She&039;d , "Uh-huh, baby boy, you keep talking, Trixie&039;s lis&039;ning"

She&039;d kept this up until another fe between theue the first one "He&039;s a vampire You really are a ho-hum whoreslut of a nymph, aren&039;t you?"

"No, you are!"

Then they&039;d lunged at each other, deep-kissing as they went turound

All in all, the Forbearers had learned nothing about Ivo&039;s whereabouts

Now, as ht neared, Rurik, Lukyan, and Murdoch stood on a balcony overlooking the crowd The other tere arguing over various topics, while Murdoch was silent in thought, mired in unease over Daniela

Of course, he knehy she&039;d played the prank on hiain So why did he feel this urgency to find her? He craved the sight of her, needed to have her scent fresh in his mind

This eve, he&039;d seen pretty woh he knew so little about Daniela, the blooding made him think of her constantly

It forced him to recall her vulnerability when she&039;d said she wanted to see hi tenderness the way she&039;d lifted her arly

As a o-lucky personality Women had trusted him with their pleasure but little else Yet Daniela had believed in him to remove the arrows in tio to Blachmount and ask Myst how to contact her sister But then, Myst e that information If all else failed, he supposed he could try to find the Valkyrie coven, despite Daniela&039;s warning that they&039;d kill hiht

Another source of his unease? He couldn&039;t stop one down in Lore history for their deeds, or misdeeds After the continuous battles and hardships they&039;d all suffered, Nikolai had been reeneral, and Murdoch had been classed as the manwhore?

He also suspected that this bothered him solely because that was how Daniela saw him -

"What say you, Murdoch?" Rurik asked

"What? I didn&039;t hear you"

"We were speaking of Brides and Valkyries"

Murdoch alhed "Were you, then?"

Rurik&039;s scarred face creased into a frown He can tell so on with me - has knownwar compatriots who&039;d accepted that fateful deal Nikolai had brokered with Kristoff

But cunning Kristoff knew that these men were loyal to Nikolai and Murdoch, and alould be Deain, Kristoff had dispatched the other four - Kalev, Demyan, Markov, and Aleksander - in separate directions on the continent to search for the Daci, a rumored hidden enclave of natural-born vampires

Rurik alone remained, and only because of his weakness: an uncontrollable temper when in conflict Not the best trait for a potential ambassador