And with Leon’s help, they now had a couple of leads to follow that would, God willing, help them track down Riddick’s sister. She’d been named Grace at the time of her birth.
And married life?
Somehow, post-wedded sex was even better than premarital sex. Who knew?
But it wasn’t just the sex. Their relationship and partnership were stronger than ever. Riddick was still protective to a somewhat extreme level, but the fear of something happening to her no longer kept him up at night. He now knew she was capable of taking care of herself, even if he didn’t let her do it often.
The only blight on their lives these days was Hunter’s absence. Even though Mischa didn’t press charges, he’d been tried in Vegas and sentenced to one year in the vampire prison about a twenty-minute drive from Whispering Hope. With good behavior, he stood to be released in another five months. Mischa still hadn’t gone to see him. She needed time, she insisted.
And since Hunter hadn’t tried to contact Mischa either, Harper could only assume he needed some time of his own.
Good thing time was something a couple of vampires had plenty of, Harper thought. She could only hope the knuckleheads would pull their heads out of their asses and make up soon. They’d both end up alone if they didn’t. Really, who else would have either of them, broody bastards that they were.
Mischa tapped her watch with her index finger. “Two minutes is up.”
Harper spun on her heel and darted back into the bathroom, eyeing the little white plastic stick on the sink as if it held the answers to every question in the universe.
In the middle of the pregnancy test, bold as life (no pun intended), was a garish pink positive sign.
Mischa came in and leaned over her shoulder. Her fangs flashed as she smiled wide and hugged Harper from behind. “I told you that you smelled funny.”
Harper laughed, still staring at the test through a veil of happy tears. She swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “I just thought your fancy new vampire sense of smell was on the fritz. Or maybe I needed a new deodorant.”
“Nope,” Mischa said, awe plain in her tone. “You’re gonna be a mommy. And I’m going to be Auntie Mischa.”
“Riddick’s gonna be a daddy,” Harper whispered.
Then, as if they’d conjured him by talking about him, Riddick appeared in the doorway behind them. He glanced between them. “What’d I miss?”
Semi-Twisted
Book 3: Harper Hall Investigations Series
Dedication
To all who ever doubted and maligned me (and you know who you are). Be patient. You will be destroyed when my Death Star is fully operational.
Acknowledgments
As always, thanks to my son who offered tons of great creative plot ideas for this book. (I’ll try to write the dog poop cannon into the next book, okay, baby?)
Thanks to my husband for surrendering his home office so I could have a proper Fortress of Solitude. And, oh yeah, the whole “go ahead and follow your dreams, I’ll support you” stuff? That was really great, too.
Special thanks to my primary BETA, L.E. Wilson, for talking me off the ledge and not letting me scrap the book all together. Your belief in the characters (and me) allowed me to pull my head out of the oven and carry on. (Which is a good thing, especially because I have an electric oven.)
Thanks to The Design Dude at Knockin’ Books for the fan-freakin’-tastic cover art. Sorry for the all the weird photo searches you must’ve suffered through before you found “the perfect handcuffed dude.” He’s no Sex Man, but he’ll definitely do in a pinch.
Thanks to Renee Wright, editor extraordinaire, for patiently listening to all my self-doubting whininess, all while correcting my egregious spelling and grammar errors. That couldn’t have been easy!
Thanks to my parents for having unwavering, unconditional faith in me. I wouldn’t be doing what I love today if you hadn’t raised me to believe I could do anything.
And last but certainly not least, thanks to all the fabulous readers out there who have followed Harper, Riddick, Mischa, and Hunter on their journey to this point. Because of you, I’m living my dream. “Thank you” seems totally inadequate, but there it is anyway. You guys mean the world to me.
Chapter One
“I’m sick and broken and twisted, Vi. You have to fix me.”
Dr. Violet Marchand raised just one perfectly plucked brow and smirked. “I’m a psychologist, Misch. Not Miracle Max.”
Mischa Bartone frowned at her friend (and she used the term loosely). “I’m freaking out here, for God’s sake. Can’t you just pretend to be professional?”
Violet snorted. “Professional is boring. I’m more of a let’s-cut-through-the-shit kind of gal.”
Cutting through the shit must be working for her, Mischa thought, if all the fancy framed degrees and awards on the walls were any indication.
Throwing herself down onto a buttery leather chaise—this must’ve cost a fortune—in front of Violet’s mahogany desk, she demanded, “Vi, are you going to help me, or not?”
Violet sighed, taking a seat at her desk. “Of course I am. What exactly is the problem?”
It would probably be easier to explain what wasn’t wrong with her at this point. But what the hell, she thought, here it goes. “I can’t sleep, can’t relax, feel edgy all the time.” Mischa paused to gnaw on her thumbnail for a moment. “It’s like I’ve misplaced or forgotten something, you know? It’s driving me freakin’ nuts!”
Violet nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. This morning I was sure-—I mean sure-—that I’d left my flat iron on. But I checked like eight times and it was off. And yet still, I kind of feel like I might’ve left it on.” She lifted her palms in the universal what-the-hell gesture. “Weird, right?”
Mischa ground her back teeth together and prayed for serenity that would probably never come. “I’m having a crisis here! Can you focus for a minute?”
Vi cleared her throat and had the decency to look at least a little ashamed. “Sorry. Let’s start at the beginning. Why did you come to see me?”
This was a little embarrassing to admit aloud. “My Vampire Council-appointed therapist?” She rubbed the back of her neck. “He kind of fired me.”
Vi blinked. “No, really. Why are you here? Why come see me?”
Mischa threw her hands up. “It’s the truth! Check the file he sent you.”
Violet pulled up the file from her previous doctor on her iPad. She skimmed its contents before her face split into a huge grin.
“I’ve never actually seen anyone get fired by their therapist,” Vi eventually said. “Well, except for in What About Bob. Why don’t you tell me why you think he fired you.”
Mischa narrowed her eyes on her. “How would I know? The guy didn’t really confide in me. Just said, ‘I’m re-assigning your case to Dr. Violet Marchand, effective immediately.’”
She scowled at the memory of the squirrely little turd the Vampire Council had originally set her up with, and the look of barely contained glee on his pinched face when he fired (oh, excuse me: re-assigned) her. “The ‘never darken my doorstep again’ was implied, not stated,” she added. “Isn’t it all in my file?”
Violet pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up with her index finger before flipping through screens on the iPad again. “Well, apparently you ever so rudely asked him to provide copies of his credentials and references…”
Well, that hardly seemed like a fair criticism. Asking a psychologist where he earned his degree and to confirm how many others he’d help transition into the vampire way of life (or, undeath, she supposed) didn’t seem like a fire-able offense.
“…and then there was a refusal to participate in the group trust exercises…”
She snorted. She’d be damned if she’d intentionally fall backward, blind-folded, and trust that some quarter-witted stranger in a new-vampire group therapy bitch-fest would catch her. Just because she was already dead didn’t mean she wanted a brok
en neck. And again, that didn’t seem like a good reason to kick someone out of therapy.
“…There are also some notes in here about you questioning his IQ…”
Mischa sighed. Yeah, that probably had been rude. She’d own that one.
“…and finally, in a total of eight sessions, you refused to talk to him about the night you died and were turned into a vampire, or anything remotely personal.”
In her own defense, she thought, the guy hadn’t exactly inspired confidence. And he’d seemed more interested in working through the Vampire Council checklist than he was in actually helping her. He didn’t really care about her, so why spill her guts to him just so he’d sign-off on her mental stability and let the Vampire Council know she wasn’t likely to go on some kind of bloodlust-induced murder spree?
Her mood soured further as she thought about the Council.
The Vampire Council was the undead equivalent of a court-mandated AA program. New vampires, especially ones who’d been turned without their written consent like she had been, were sent through a gauntlet of psychological evaluations designed to determine their mental readiness for the realities of being undead.
If they made it through that without staking themselves, new vamps were treated to a series of community college courses that helped them learn the intricacies of being a vampire. The psychological evaluations had been annoying. But the courses? Those really chapped Mischa’s ass. She had a 145 IQ, for God’s sake, and she’d been forced to sit through 18 credit hours of common-sense advice like stay out of the sun, or risk bursting into flames.
She could’ve learned that by watching Van Helsing. And at least that would’ve given her the opportunity to admire Hugh Jackman’s abs while collecting vampire factoids.
The next step in the program was one-on-one counseling with a Council-appointed therapist. And since that pathetic little fuck had tossed her out on her ass, she had to wonder where she now stood. Was she hopeless? Would she always feel like this? More importantly, would she have to start the program over from scratch?
Vi glanced up from the file. “I know what you’re thinking, and no, this doesn’t mean you have to start over with the mandatory counseling. I’m giving you credit for the hours you’ve already completed.”
If she still needed to breathe, Mischa would’ve breathed a nice, deep breath at that point out of sheer relief. “Thanks, Vi.”
Vi snorted. “Don’t thank me yet. I’m a lot tougher than Dr. Frank. And I know you. I won’t let you get away with your usual avoidance bullshit.”
Mischa crossed her arms over her chest. “I resent that.”
“No, you resemble that.”
Mischa made a mental note to introduce Vi to her best friend and boss, Harper Hall. The two shared the same twelve-year-old sense of humor and love of anything that annoyed Mischa. They’d probably immediately become besties.
“You’re a runner,” Vi went on.
Mischa rolled her eyes. “I’ve never so much as jogged a day in my life.”
Vi scowled. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. When things in your life get tough, you run. You avoid. You…shut down.”
Mischa matched Vi scowl for scowl. “I do not.”
Vi leaned forward, steepling her fingers beneath her chin. “Okay, pop quiz, hotshot.”
“Did you really just quote Speed?”
“Answer a few questions for me,” Vi continued, almost completely losing her carefully crafted lack of accent in favor of her New York roots. “If I can’t convince you the majority of your problems are self-inflicted, caused by your need to run, I’ll sign off on your stability to get the Council off your back and I’ll help you figure out what’s wrong with you. For free.”
Mischa sat up straighter. She sensed a trap. Violet was—and always had been—one of the smartest people Mischa had ever known. She was hardly ever wrong. And right now? Violet looked about as smug as one would expect a woman who was hardly ever wrong to look.
“All right,” Mischa said reluctantly.
“First question,” Violet said. “have you contacted your family since your death and rebirth as a vampire?”
Well, that was a stupid question and Violet knew it.
Mischa and Violet had grown up in the same barrio housing project, so they knew each other’s tragic backstories.
Violet already knew Mischa’s brothers had disowned her when she went to work for Sentry, the covert agency that policed paranormal threats against humans. Mischa was the oldest child, and they never forgave her for leaving home when their mom was struggling so hard just to make ends meet.
And even now, years after vampires came out of the coffin and Sentry folded like a cheap card table, they barely acknowledged her existence. And that was while she was still human. Now that she was a vampire?
She shuddered at the thought. “No,” she answered, tone sharper than she’d intended.
Violet glanced up at her over the tops of her glasses. “And did you ever tell your mother and brothers you only went to work for Sentry to make sure they’d be financially stable after your father’s death?”
Vi already knew the answer to that question, too, if the smug look on her face was any indication.
Sentry had made it clear when Mischa signed on that no one was to know of their arrangement. She gave them a lifetime of service, and they paid the ginormous gambling debt her father amassed before he stupidly offered himself up as some vampire’s dinner in exchange for immortality—a plan that ended in his death. The permanent kind.
So, thanks to Sentry, her family thought their father died in a tragic car accident, her mother was set for life, and her brothers all went to their first-choice colleges on free-ride scholarships. Sure, they thought she was a selfish brat who abandoned her mother in a time of great need, but hey, no need to dredge any of that up now. All’s well that ends well.
She met Vi’s stare with a defiant one of her own. “No, I didn’t.”
Vi made a note in the file on her iPad.
Strike one.
“When was the last time you fed?”
Tricky question. She imagined Vi was referring to feeding from an actual donor, and not that she’d admit it aloud, but she just wasn’t ready to bite a human yet.
Sure, there were plenty of humans these days who were willing to be walking Slurpees for vampires (the crazy bastards found it sexy for some insane reason. Mischa blamed Twilight), but it just didn’t feel…right.
So, she’d joined the ranks of the vampire vegetarians, a small group of environmentally-conscious folks (OK, hippies) who’d pioneered the movement toward bottled, organic blood substitutes. Sadly, such substitutes—while chock-full of nutrients and readily available in every supermarket these days—tasted like a disconcerting mixture of smoked Gouda and, well, what Mischa imagined feet tasted like.
Long-story-short: Mischa only fed when abso-fuckin’-lutely necessary.
Which explained why she could only meet Violet’s question with a vacant stare while her brain groped uselessly for the right answer.
“That’s what I thought,” Violet said dryly, typing another note in her file.
Strike two, Mischa thought.
“How about your powers?” Vi pressed. “Have you made any effort to explore or control them?”
Mischa almost laughed out loud. Powers. Picking up the occasional stray thought from a passerby and accidentally shutting down the city’s power grid because someone cut her off in traffic and she lost control of her temper hardly qualified her to be one of the X-Men.
No, she didn’t intend to explore her powers. Ignoring them and hoping they went away seemed like a solid Plan A.
Vi pressed her lips together in a flat line and shut down the iPad.
Strike three.
Well, shit.
“Look, Mischa, those were my easy questions. I haven’t even gotten to the hard one yet, and already, I’ve proven my point. Not letting your family know what’s going on with you, n
ot eating properly, and not making any effort to learn to live with your powers are signs that you haven’t fully accepted what you are.”
She was running from herself, in other words.
Mischa blinked at Vi, momentarily stunned.
Jesus, was this what an epiphany felt like? Like reality had just bitch-slapped you cross-eyed?
And while she was down, confused and shaken, that’s when Vi went in for the kill.
“Have you talked to Hunter?” she asked gently.
Mischa closed her eyes against a painful rush of emotion.
Hunter.
Her reaction to any mention of her sire had been consistent since her turning. The waves of emotions always hit in the same order.
Wave one: hunger.
Really, hunger was too gentle a word for the whole body, bone-crushing, gut-shredding pain that tore through her at hearing his name. And she’d come to understand that no amount of synthetic blood would even take the edge off that hunger, because it wasn’t his blood she wanted.
It was just…him.
She hungered for him with every fiber of her unnatural being. Felt cut in half without him.
The Council said that was normal. That there was nothing stronger in a vampire’s world than the sire/childe bond, and if that relationship was severed, both parties would suffer.
And Mischa was suffering, all right.
That’s when wave two (memories) usually hit.
Mischa remembered the feel of strong arms holding her, protecting her. She remembered warm, laughing eyes. She remembered feeling safe and loved and desired for the first time in her life.
She remembered the look of complete devastation on his face when she lashed out at him after he turned her.
That’s when wave three hit. And wave three was the worst wave of all.
Regret.
If she could go back to that day, the day she’d died and he brought her back as a vampire, she’d do everything different. She’d been so messed up and confused that she’d pushed him away. Let him think she hated him, when really, nothing could be further from the truth.
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