Branded by Sin

by Alyssa Breck

  Inside that house was where the first body had been found. Sean had smelled it from outside and Tasha had volunteered her skills to go in to confirm what he already knew. There was a corpse inside. Not decomposed, but Sean could smell death a whole lot sooner than a human. Having a strong sense of smell was both good and bad. Catching a nice-smelling woman from across a room was sweet—picking up the scent of a dead body, not so much.

  “Have you ever been inside a slaughterhouse? Death is not a pretty smell. Rotten or not.” This marked the third body in a week and it keenly reminded Sean of his own past deeds. The vampire they were looking for was stupid, just like he’d been once upon a time.

  “I’m sorry I missed the meat factory tour.” Tasha pulled her hair up into a ponytail and pushed her chest out. “Can we go?”

  “Yeah. There’s not much to see here, really.”

  The corpse was scooped up into a garbage bag and hauled off like a sack of trash by a newer member of the BBE. It was good exercise for the baby vamps in training. Grunt work. Sean remembered bagging and tagging bodies. He was glad he wasn’t charged with that duty anymore. He stored mental notes of the crime scene before leaving. Giacomo would want details.

  The poor dead dude would end up in the BBE crematorium and then as a cold case on the desk of a missing-persons detective because he would never be found. Much like a seasoned cop, Sean was desensitized to death after seeing the handiwork of his kind over the years. While he felt the occasional pangs of remorse for the dead, they passed quickly.

  On the ride back to the BBE, Tasha wouldn’t shut up. Sean felt a headache coming on and rubbed his forehead. Since becoming a vampire, his concept of time had changed. Or how he perceived it had, at least. A week felt like a day and a year seemed like a month. In effect, time passed by quickly for him. But the fucking red light he was waiting on felt like ten years because Tasha was still jabbering, asking questions about things she should already know. Either the BBE in St. Thomas didn’t train their rookies very well or Tasha wasn’t very bright. Or maybe she was just trying to make conversation.

  “Have you ever investigated a killing like this?” he asked.

  “Sure. Lots of tourists disappear on the island.”

  “Let me rephrase that question. Have you ever solved a case?”

  “Well, no. My job was more to observe and report. I found clues and passed them along.”

  Great. She’d been a security guard. That made sense. “We do things a little more thoroughly here, Tasha. You’ll be expected to follow through on what you report.”

  “You know, things were way different where I came from.”

  Sean was going to have to work with her for a while so he tried to be somewhat friendly, even though he didn’t really give a shit how things worked in St. Thomas. She needed to adapt to the here and now. But for the sake of not alienating her, he asked, “Different how?”

  “More relaxed. Less regimented. Less formal.”

  “We’re not usually this busy. We’ve had more killings than normal recently.”

  “I don’t mind being busy. That’s not what I was talking about.”

  “What then?”

  “There was no real king of the castle back in St. Thomas.”

  “There’s no king here.”

  Tasha laughed. “What would you call Giacomo, then?”

  Sean shook his head. “Giacomo isn’t a king. He’s a leader. He made it what it is.”

  “But how has he done that? He’s never there. He just barks orders through that computer screen.”

  “Tasha, things have changed over the years. He used to be there every day, sometimes for days straight. He’s worked hard. You don’t know him.”

  “From where I’m sitting, it seems like he takes the credit for everyone else’s hard work.”

  “What are you talking about?” The headache hit and he wanted to gag her. “You’ve been here all of a month. All due respect, but you don’t really know shit about him or this faction.” Sean definitely lacked the patience with newbies that Giacomo had had with him back in the day.

  “You think we don’t talk in other chapters, Sean? Giacomo’s reputation precedes him.” She glared at him. “And so does yours.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes. He’s known for being a tyrant and you’re known for being an asshole.”

  Sean laughed. “Jesus fuck. Vampire gossip. Fantastic.”

  “You want to know what else they say?”

  “Please. Enlighten me.” He didn’t want to encourage her but he was a little curious now.

  “They say Giacomo killed his girlfriend because you were fucking her and she told him you were better.”

  “That’s not true.” Sean’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I didn’t say I believed it. Just what I heard. But I’m inclined to believe you’re a better fuck than he is.”

  Sean had engaged in some weird conversations but this one took the cake. Only five more miles and he could dump Tasha out of his car. He didn’t dislike her. She was just fucking odd. He never really knew what would come out of her mouth. And that last bit was definitely unexpected. Sex amongst the ranks wasn’t all that uncommon but she was moving a little fast, even for him.

  She turned in her seat to face him. “So, are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Better than him?” She smiled.

  “I haven’t fucked him. I have no idea.” Sean laughed. He had to make light of her line of questioning so he didn’t strangle her.

  “Are you always a smartass?”

  “I can answer that with a definitive yes.” He angled his car down the ramp to the BBE’s underground parking lot.

  Tasha squeezed Sean’s thigh before inching her hand higher—and higher still. “I wouldn’t mind finding out just how good you are.”

  Sean stole a quick glance at her tits. If she wasn’t such a weirdo, he might consider showing her.

  ~ * ~

  Giacomo Francelli didn’t take kindly to vampires, or anyone else for that matter, threatening the Empire’s anonymity. He was fiercely protective of his clan and nothing came before it.

  It had taken Sean a long time to reconcile the day, over two decades ago, when Giacomo had beheaded his sire. He didn’t know then that she had also been Giacomo’s mate.

  Vampires, as a species, weren’t monogamous in the sexual sense but loyalty was a big deal and Christy had struggled with that. Giacomo never admitted it, but Sean suspected he’d wanted to control her, keep her under his thumb like a pet, and that might have been the real reason behind her death.

  Understanding the hierarchy and science behind vampirism hadn’t come easy to Sean, which had frustrated Giacomo. Sean was a doped-out twenty-three-year-old mess when Christy had inadvertently ejaculated venom into his jugular. Truth be told, he probably would have ended up dead from a drug overdose or a drunk-driving accident if she hadn’t. He’d been blowing most of his money on cocaine and booze back then and with his family so far away, an intervention hadn’t been likely.

  Giacomo had taken great pains to answer Sean’s questions in the beginning, which ranged from plain asinine to genuinely curious. Sean had been particularly troubled by Giacomo’s description of what a sire was.

  “In a way, she seduced you and then gave birth to you.” Giacomo’s attempt to simplify the process for Sean had backfired.

  “That’s kind of fucked-up, man.” Sean blinked. “You’re telling me that in some weird way I was screwing my mom?”

  Giacomo sighed and stroked his beard. “Teresa was your sire, not your mother, idiot.”

  “Wait. Who’s Teresa? You lost me.”

  “Don’t make me kill you.” Giacomo adjusted himself in the leather chair seated behind the huge oak desk. Patience wasn’t one of his strong points but Giacomo explained further. “Her given name was Teresa Cristiana Lescarbeau. French. She adopted the silly moniker of Christy be
cause it sounded more hip. She spent an inordinate amount of time trying to be relevant to a modern society that would have lynched her had they known what she was.” He shook his head. “But she was beautiful.”

  Sean agreed. Christy was probably the finest piece of ass he’d ever had up to that point. “Why did you kill her and not me?”

  Giacomo ashed his cigar and rolled it between his thin fingers. “She’d been careless multiple times before and you were the last straw. In a way though, she redeemed herself with you. You have potential to be something important here.”

  That was the first of many counseling sessions Sean had with Giacomo. Each contained some history of their clan, the biology of what they were and some exercises in self-discipline usually in the form of martial arts or Tai Chi. Training had been a very long form of boot camp and now seemed ages ago.

  The lights inside the building that housed the Empire were soft. Sometimes artificial light had a similar but less severe effect on vampires as sunlight. Sensitivity varied, so the lighting was kept low as a precaution. Initially, Sean had been so light sensitive he’d used kerosene lamps in lieu of light bulbs.

  He made his way down the sterile first-floor hallway to the elevator, the soles of his boots squeaking against the shiny tile. The Empire was part fraternal organization, part training facility and part paranormal police force. Most of the first floor of the building was security related, and other vampires milled about the corridor, mostly men. There was a definite imbalance in the BBE. The ratio was about three males for every one female. Sean had only trained a few female vamps in his years with the Empire.

  The last was Sierra, a hot little number with a blonde pixie cut, whose office was situated next to Sean’s on the fourth floor. Sierra was another unplanned vampire sired by a pissed-off bloodsucker with a death wish. He’d actually dragged her inside the BBE and bit her in front of a crowd of vamps. In the few seconds it took for the lot of them to react, he’d dropped venom and showed no signs of stopping the feed. He was going to kill her.

  Sean had pulled his Mark 23 out of his waistband, racked the slide and shot him in the head. The vamp dropped the girl and fell to the ground. Giacomo had rushed through the crowd and, using the same blade he’d killed Christy with, slit the dude’s throat. Game over. Nobody was horribly disappointed to lose the guy. He’d been on the fast track toward losing his mind for a while. Frankly, Sean and Giacomo had talked about what to do with him a day or two before he’d made the choice for them.

  Sierra had been taken to a room upstairs, where another female vampire kept watch. No one was sure if she’d survive because the crazy vampire dude had taken so much of her blood so quickly. But she’d made it, and a few days later was dropped in Sean’s lap to train.

  Turned out she was smart as hell and hornier than Satan himself.

  For the next few years they’d worked closely together and fucked on occasion. Lots of occasions actually.

  You will not fuck Tasha, Sean, he silently lectured. Admonishing himself was easier now that he’d escaped his car and Tasha’s hand wasn’t on his dick. Foreplay didn’t seem too important to her. No kissing, nothing. She’d just gone straight for his crotch.

  Sean rode the elevator to the fourth floor. He nodded at another vamp who passed in the hall. They weren’t a chatty bunch and Sean preferred it that way. It was better to be quiet if there was nothing important to say.

  In his office, he sat at his desk and had just opened Skype to call Giacomo when Sierra strolled in and plopped down in the single chair across from him.

  “What’s up, man?” She smiled.

  “Another body out there. Gotta call Giacomo.”

  “You’re in luck.”

  “It’s been awhile since I’ve been in luck with you.” Sean winked.

  Sierra laughed. “You know where to find me. You don’t have to Skype him. Giacomo’s here. In his office.”

  Sean leaned back in his chair. “Really? Why?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. I didn’t ask him but he’s in there.”

  Giacomo had become less and less present at the Empire building over the last few years, and recently hadn’t been in the office for months. Sean jokingly referred to him as Charlie, the speaker-box boss from Charlie’s Angels, only with better technology, what with Skype and FaceTime.

  In fact, the whole building had been mostly empty at present. A large group of vampires were in Russia at the request of a smaller clan that was having trouble controlling its population. With the death Sean had investigated this morning, it was starting to seem like a bad time to have some of the BBE’s top guys out of the country.

  Sean got up. “I better go catch him before he leaves.”

  “I think he’s been waiting on you, actually. He was asking around a bit ago.”

  “All right then. Thanks, babe.”

  “You can thank me later.” She made a little growl sound and hopped up out of the chair. “See ya.” They split ways outside his door, with Sierra going toward the front of the building and Sean heading for Giacomo’s office.

  He was further surprised to find his boss’s door partially open. On the rare occasions he was in the office, the door was closed and locked. Chopin filtered out softly. Giacomo was sort of refined.

  “Come in.” Giacomo drummed his fingers on the glass blotter covering the same desk from all those years ago. His olive skin seemed slightly pale next to his black hair and blacker eyes. The diamonds in his cufflinks glinted against the light from the Tiffany lamp standing just behind his left shoulder. He sucked on his illegal Cuban cigar and, judging by the smoke hanging in the air, it wasn’t the first of the day.

  Being in front of him was like being dropped into a Mario Puzo novel. Sean halfway expected Giacomo to stick out his hand and demand he kiss some gaudy ring with a big red stone. The image was further fed by the fact that Giacomo had been a gangster back in the twenties and ran booze during Prohibition. But the Empire was his family now and he had taken Sean under his wing. For that reason alone, Sean remained loyal.

  Even so, there was still an unspoken tension between them, an elephant in the room. Sean had never thought Christy deserved to die. She could have been punished and retrained or something. Then again, he had only known her as a fuck buddy for a few months.

  Giacomo had handpicked Christy from a French vampire aristocracy on a tour of Europe, when the Immorata vampires had attempted to entice the Bad Blood Empire to join forces. The bone of contention between the two clans was that the Immorata promoted creating more vampires while the BBE actively discouraged the practice. The two groups were simply too different to work together. The respective leaders had concluded that coexistence was the best they would achieve and agreed to leave each other be.

  Sean generally checked in with Giacomo once a week unless something out of the ordinary happened, and vampires killing humans qualified. Most vamps were careful with their meals, if for no other reason than they didn’t want the Empire up their ass. He sat down in a brown leather chair with gold braided seams. It squeaked when his jeans slid over it. “What’s up?”

  Giacomo exhaled. “I have a problem.”

  Sean leaned back in the chair. “Yeah? Like?”

  The older vamp turned the computer screen perched on his desk to show Sean what he’d been staring at. “This is Søren Lehmann. Word is the Immorata has a bounty on my head and he’s out to collect it.”

  “A bounty? Are you fucking kidding me? For what?” Vampire assassinations weren’t all that common nowadays. Executions were still prevalent in most clans who policed themselves, but assassinations were more personal. Sean sat up in his chair, straightening.

  “My intel is sketchy at this point so I’m not entirely clear on why. I want you to be extra vigilant. This guy is not a joke.”

  “He looks like a girl.” The face on the screen was pale with a touch of pink in the cheeks; small nose, thin lips and sky-blue eyes. Almost white-blond hair hung to his shoulders in soft
waves. If ever there was a feminine-looking male vampire, this guy was it. His stats revealed him to be five foot eleven and one hundred sixty pounds. Roughly Giacomo’s size and stature. Sean stood six-three and weighed over two hundred pounds. Size really didn’t matter in their world though and looks were deceiving.

  They were interrupted by another knock on the door. Tasha poked her head in and looked at them both. Her light-brown hair was now pulled back in a braid, accentuating high cheekbones. “Why so serious?” She smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. She had an odd sense of humor and almost always missed the mark with her punch lines.

  Giacomo beckoned her inside with the flick of his wrist. “Since you work so closely with Sean, you should be aware of this as well.” He repeated to her the information about the girly-looking dude.

  Tasha knitted her brows. “Why would he want to kill you? Who is he?”

  “He’s a hit man. Apparently ordered by the Immorata.” Giacomo turned his monitor back around and tapped his fingers on the desk again. “The only thing I can think of is perhaps some kind of revenge for Christy’s death. She was sired by an Immorata. And given that her execution was for carelessly siring vamps, and the Immorata’s proclivity to procreate, it would make sense, I suppose. I’ve also heard her sire has been making waves, shaking things up. Maybe he’s trying to make a show of power by eliminating me.”

  “Or maybe the Immorata are just a bunch of fucking whack-jobs,” Sean said. “It’s been like twenty-some years. That’s a hell of a grudge to hold right there.”

  Tasha sat on the arm of Sean’s chair. “So, what’s the game plan then?”

  Sean’s nostrils flared. Having a keen sense of smell was distracting at times, especially when sitting so close to someone. Tasha had a unique scent. Not human or vamp, but not unpleasant, and difficult to pinpoint.

  “We go from offense to defense as of now and keep our eyes open for Buffy, the vampire slayer,” Sean offered.