“Shut up.” Nix’s voice was just as quiet as his had been.
“Both of you shut up,” Caine whispered.
Finn couldn’t hold back a grin. “Hang on,” he said. “I’ll have something else for you in a few seconds here.”
He pulled the pliers from his jacket pocket and expediently removed the fangs from the dead vamp, ignoring the crunch and pop they made as they left the corpse’s gums. He looked at Nix and held out his hand. “Take these, too.” He pulled the other stake from his pocket. “Clean the fangs and this stake with bleach. Let them soak a few minutes. You can dispose of that one,” he said, pointing at the used piece of wood.
“They’ll be able to smell the bleach, right?” Her voice was as quiet as his.
“Sure they will.” He glanced over at Caine and then looked at Nix again. “But they’ll also be able to smell your husband’s blood. I can explain away the bleach,” he added with a shrug.
As Nix left to take care of the fangs and wooden stakes, Finn settled himself on the floor by the corpse and looked at Caine, who hadn’t moved a hair. “Did she tell you about where the meetings are being held?” Finn asked.
Caine gave an imperceptible nod. “She did.” His voice was so low Finn had to strain to hear. Caine went on, “When this is all over, Byron Maldonado, Nix, and I will have a nice, long chat, don’t worry.”
“Do you think he’s involved?” Finn leaned back on one elbow.
“I don’t know.” Caine sounded troubled by that. “I think if there was a big enough payout for him, he might.”
“And that bothers you.”
“It does.” Caine took a step forward. Light from outside filtered around the curtains and streamed across his face. “If he’s part of this rogue group, it means he’s sold out every bit of integrity I ever thought he had.”
Finn knew personal integrity meant a lot to Caine. “And what about Liuz?”
Caine’s face went still and hard like marble. Except a marble statue’s jaw didn’t flex like Caine’s was. His reddened eyes met Finn’s. “I want to be there, at the end. I want him to die at my hands for what he did to Nix.”
Just then Nix walked back into the room. Finn got to his feet and took the stake and teeth from her. “I need some of your blood,” he told Caine.
The vampire lifted his wrist to his mouth and raked his fangs across the veins. Blood, rich and wet in the semidarkness, streamed down his arm. Without a word Finn handed him the stake, watching while Caine rolled it around, coating it in blood.
He took the stake and stared at it, watching a drop of blood fall off the sharp tip. “Ah.” He looked at Nix. “Could I trouble you for a towel?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She walked off, soundless even in her irritation, and returned less than a minute later with a hand towel and a washcloth. She handed him the towel. “For the stake,” she said.
He slipped the terry cloth–wrapped wood into the inner pocket of his leather jacket while Caine repeated the process with the fangs. Nix gave him the washcloth, which he dropped the fangs into before folding it up and stuffing it into the back pocket of his jeans. With a slight smile, he said to Caine, “You want to flick some of that my way?”
“Good idea.”
“Wait!” Nix said in a harsh whisper as Caine lifted his arm and flung it toward Finn a couple of times, flinging splatters of blood onto his clothing.
“Just so you know,” she muttered, “I’m not cleaning this mess up.”
Finn felt a hot splash across his cheek. “Okay, okay. I think we’re good.” He reached up and swiped at the blood on his face.
“You could’ve smeared him with blood,” Nix said to her husband. “You didn’t have to fling it all over the place.” She huffed a sigh. “Men.”
Finn reached inside his jacket and swiped his fingers against the towel that held the stake. He looked down at the corpse. “Uh, you guys’ll take care of this one?”
Caine nodded. “We’ll put him in my clothes and disfigure his face so no one can tell it’s not me by looking at him. My friend at the morgue will make sure this vamp gets tagged as me.”
“I’ll wait a few minutes until after you’ve gone, then I’ll call council dispatch to report my husband’s murder.” Nix stared at Finn. “If you know what’s good for you, this is as close to actual death my husband will ever get.” Even though Finn could tell she tried to add some lightness to the words, there was a protective edge to her tone. Anyone who wanted to get to Tobias would have to get by her first.
“Rest easy, little cousin,” Finn murmured.
“Don’t. Call. Me. That.”
Caine sighed. “Get out of here, Finn. Keep us posted as much as you can.”
“See ya.” Finn made his way back to his bike and drove away, confident that Nix and Caine would take care of the corpse.
As he headed out of their neighborhood, he saw headlights in his side mirror, and knew for certain this time that he’d been followed. He realized he was enjoying himself, and looked forward to turning this stuff over to Stefan. It felt good to be underhanded. He could see why Keira had enjoyed being a grifter so much.
He pulled over to the curb and shut off his engine, giving a slight grin when the car behind him did the same. He punched in Liuz’s number on his cell, and when the vampire answered, Finn said, “It’s done. I have your trophies.”
“Bring them to me.” Liuz rattled off an address.
“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes,” Finn told him. He disconnected the call and started up his bike again. When he pulled away from the curb, his shadow did, too, and another grin tugged at his mouth. Now the fun was about to start.
He pulled up outside a modest house in the central part of town. As he started up the front walk, he waggled his fingers in a wave to the guy in the car rolling to a stop behind his motorcycle. Pressing the doorbell, Finn waited with his back resting against the side of the house. When the door swung open, he turned to see Stefan Liuz standing there.
“Come in,” Liuz said. “You have what I sent you after?”
“I do.” Finn followed him into the house and reached into his jeans’ pocket for the teeth. As he handed over the crumpled washcloth, he looked around the living room where he now stood. If this was Liuz’s house, and Finn didn’t know for certain that it was, he clearly hadn’t put a lot of effort in his living quarters. All of his furniture, from the worn green sofa to the battered end tables, appeared to be secondhand. Maybe even third.
He turned back to Liuz in time to see the smaller man lift the fangs out the washcloth. He let the cloth drop to the floor and brought the teeth to his face. Closing his eyes, he sniffed the teeth a few times. “Ah, Tobias. To finally have defanged you.” His eyes flew open and he stared at Finn. “There’s bleach on these.”
“Is there?” Finn brought his hands to his face and smelled his fingers. “It must have transferred from my hands.” He reached into his jacket and lifted out the towel-wrapped stake. He pulled the cloth away and showed Liuz the bloody wood. “I reuse this, and I don’t like the smell of blood stinking up my house. So I soak it in bleach after each use. The smell lingers.”
“Let me see that.” Liuz held out his hand.
When Finn gave it to him, he brought it up to his nose and did the sniff test again. “This is Tobias’s blood, too.”
“Well, yeah. That’s how I killed him.” He hardened his gaze. “It’s the best way to put down those damned bloodsuckers.”
Liuz’s mouth tightened. He was one of those damned bloodsuckers, too, and probably didn’t like being called that. “And Nix?”
Finn lifted one shoulder. “She wasn’t home.”
“Well, that’s all right. Like I said, I don’t have anything against her.” His eyes began to sparkle and his mouth curved into a wide smile. “My old nemesis is destroyed. Thank you.” He looked down at the fangs. “I only wish you’d brought me his head.” He closed his hand into a fist. As he walked Finn to the front door,
he said, “Oh, and Finn?”
Finn paused at the open door and looked down at Liuz.
Crimson-rimmed eyes stared up at him. “Don’t ever go against my wishes again. The next time I tell you to bring me someone’s head, I expect it on a silver platter.”
Chapter Ten
Three days later, Keira agonized over how she felt. She was falling in love with Finn and couldn’t stop her developing feelings, especially since they had been spending more time together. The biggest reason she’d tried to slow things down after they’d had sex that one time was because everything had moved too fast. The sex had been mind blowing. So much so that she’d been afraid she wouldn’t ask the hard questions about him, wouldn’t look too closely at the type of man he really was.
And slowing things down had been the right thing to do. The desire was there, churning below the surface, but they’d actually shared things about themselves. She’d thought she understood what made him tick. She’d been so sure he’d turned a corner in his life. But it seemed like for every two steps she and Finn moved forward together, they got shoved three steps back. Now she found herself changing her mind about him again. Yes, she was attracted to him and believed he could be much more than what he was if he would let himself. But now, knowing he hadn’t been bothered at all by being assigned a hit, that he seemed ready to kill in order to prove himself worthy of being part of Stefan’s insanity, she wasn’t as certain of Finn’s capability for goodness. For decency. To conduct himself with honor.
She also had serious doubts about her own judgment. How could she have been so taken by a man who could kill someone he knew as part of an assignment? Regardless that he’d killed before, this was Tobias Caine they were talking about. And from the word that had spread throughout the preternatural community over the last few days, Tobias was dead. Someone had staked him through the heart and removed his fangs. For trophies, some said.
She knew it was for proof. And she knew who’d done it.
She needed to talk to Finn about it. To get him to help her wrap her head around how he could do such a thing.
She set her cup of tea on the table in her small breakfast nook and grabbed her cell phone from where it rested on the counter. Without giving herself time to pause and reflect, she dialed him up. Finn answered on the first ring, his voice rough as if she’d woken him up. She’d been awake and showered since before dawn. The sun had risen hours ago. She hadn’t even thought he might still be sleeping. But then he did a lot of his work later at night. She didn’t want to think about what he’d been doing last night. “It’s Keira,” she said. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay. What’s wrong?”
She heard a slight rasping sound and pictured him rubbing his hand against his whiskered jaw. She pushed back the longing that action brought forward. She had to get things straight between them before anything intimate happened again.
“Nothing’s wrong. I need to talk to you. About the group. Can you come over?” She held her breath.
“Sure.” There was a slight pause, and a rustle of sheets. She closed her eyes against the image of his long, lean body stretched out on a bed, muscles taut with sexual tension, face hard and dark with passion. Had he been alone? Her eyes flew open and she pressed her lips together. It was none of her business. They’d never claimed exclusivity. For all their flirting and petting, they’d only had sex the one time.
“I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”
“Okay. See you then.” Keira hung up and cupped her hands around her mug, letting the warmth of the liquid inside seep into her palms. She was still sitting there, sifting through her thoughts, through the argument she wanted to present him, when the doorbell rang. She stood and smoothed her hands down the sides of her jeans, and padded barefoot to the door.
Finn sauntered in as soon as the door opened. “I hear you were successful with your assignment the other night,” he said with a smile playing about his lips. “I guess congratulations are in order. You’re in. Part of the group. A bona fide rogue.”
She crossed her arms and stared at him. So many emotions coursed through her, she had a hard time identifying how she was feeling. Mad, certainly. Frightened. Not of Finn, but of the situation she was in. Betrayed, definitely by Finn. Ignoring his snark, she drew in a deep breath and said, “I heard you completed your task as well. Though I can’t offer up any congratulations.”
His lips turned down in an exaggerated frown. “Why not?”
“You. Killed. Tobias.” She stared at him, her eyes burning. This flippant attitude of his was going to get him in trouble someday, and that day might be today. Right now, as a matter of fact. “How could you revert to your old ways like that?”
“Revert to my old…” He folded his arms across his chest and met her glare with one of his own. “I never pretended to be anything but what I am, your feyness. I kill for a living; that’s what I do as Lucifer’s enforcer.”
“But that’s not what you want to do,” she said, also ignoring his sarcasm. “You told me yourself that you want out. Yet what you did only dug you in deeper.” She put one hand on her hip. “What did Lucifer have to say about all this?”
He gave that one shouldered shrug that usually seemed sexy but now just made her want to smack him into tomorrow. “You know how demons feel about vampires,” he said. “The only good vamp is a dead vamp.”
“You’re telling me he was okay with it? And you don’t think vampires will retaliate against demons?” What was wrong with him? He didn’t seem worried at all that he might have started a blood feud. “Tobias wasn’t any vamp. He was a well-liked and well-respected councilor.”
“We don’t concern ourselves overmuch about the council, either.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Anyway, since when do you care about what happens between demons and vampires?”
“I care because of you, you great ignorant stump of a man.” Her voice came out more shrilly than she would have liked. In exasperation she walked forward and poked her finger against his chest. His firm, muscular chest covered by the softest shirt she’d ever felt. She curled her fingers into her palm and dropped her hand to her side. “I just don’t understand how you could do this. Tobias isn’t the only victim here, you know. There’s also Nix, and by extension her mother. And your father.”
“Don’t talk to me about victims,” he said, his voice deep and hoarse. His eyes were as hard as she’d ever seen them. “You have victims, too. You may not have killed them physically, but many of them, maybe most of them, were broken financially and emotionally. Their families didn’t feel any less victimized because their loved one was left alive.” As his ire rose, yellow sparks floated in his irises. “I at least put people out of their misery.”
“Oh, so you’re saying Tobias was miserable, then? Is that what you’re telling me?” Keira crossed her arms again and shot him a glare. “That’s some crystal ball you must have, to be able to know when someone’s so miserable they’re pining for death.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she forestalled him with a sharp slash of one hand through the air. “I’m not finished,” she spat. “How dare you compare what I did to what you did? People recover financially; there’s no coming back from the dead, boyo.”
He took a step closer, looming over her. “There’s not, I agree. But the ruin you’ve left in your wake, how can you defend that? Despite what you say, I’m sure there are plenty of people who were never the same after you finished with them. How many people committed suicide after you wiped them out financially?” He didn’t wait for her shocked response before he said, “At the very least, they didn’t trust people quite like they used to.”
“And that’s a good thing,” she snarled. “Because people hurt you if you let them. They let you down, they use you—” She broke off as tears threatened.
She’d thought she had left that old life behind her, but she’d taken to it again like a kid to candy. Maybe she hadn’t been as
adept at change as she’d thought.
She took a few breaths to regain some control, and said more quietly, “The first chance someone got, they used my past against me. The past I’d left behind, the one I’d wanted to forget. To escape. Yet here I am. Again.” She raised her gaze to his. “And you. You wanted a different future than what your father has mapped out for you. Yet here you are, trapped in the present, doing what you’ve always done.” Pain tore her insides to shreds. She gave an abrupt laugh, the sound as brittle as broken glass. “Aren’t we the pair?”
“We’re a pair of something, that’s for sure.”
They stood in silence a few minutes. Finally she sighed and raked a hand through her hair. “Look, I got you out of bed, the least I can do is feed you.” She glanced at the digital display on the cable box. “It’s almost lunchtime. Let me fix you a sandwich or something.”
Finn stared at her a moment, then reached out and cupped her face. “I did what needed to be done, Keira. Someday I think you’ll understand. And I’m not particularly hungry…for food that is.” The yellow in his eyes intensified, obliterating the blue completely. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers in a kiss that wasn’t nearly as gentle as his hands. “Open your mouth for me,” he muttered, his voice harsh. Urgent. “I need to taste you.” He angled his hips against hers.
She felt his need, and her lips parted on a gasp. He took her mouth with his again, hard, his tongue stroking inside to tease her. Tempt her.
Keira was tired of fighting her feelings for him. At this moment in time, right here, right now, it was just the two of them and their passion. That was all that existed. She’d deal with reality and regrets later.
Heart of the Demon Page 13
