by Lauren Dawes
Damnit, there was so much I didn’t know. I filed that nugget of information away, then said, “Alright, where are we meeting him?”
“His house. Don’t forget Reaver.” I glared at the weapon lying inert on my desk. “You’ll want it,” he added.
“Alright, thanks for that ominous warning.”
With a sardonic smile, he tipped an imaginary hat at me, and my middle finger twitched. I swiped the sword from my desk and willed it away.
Six
Sawyer insisted on driving my truck this time, and I let him, only because I didn’t know where I was going. Also, my hands were shaking so hard at the prospect of meeting a vampire that I probably would’ve crashed into a fiery ball of flames.
Mondays sucked.
“Why aren’t there any squad cars for this department?”
“Supernaturals see red and blue flashing lights, and they’re more likely to disappear. If we drive unmarked cars, we improve the odds of not scaring them away.”
Well, that made sense. I guessed.
I counted to ten, then asked, “Tell me more about Alistair?”
He gave me a sidewise glance. “He’s old and enjoys drinking from annoying human females with teal hair who run their mouths. Need to know anything more?”
I swallowed hard. “Nope. I’ll just be over here repainting that target on my back.”
He chuckled, and the sound was a shot of lust to my lady parts. Holy wow.
“Alistair has been my informant for a few years now.”
“A few years? But supes have only been out for six months.”
“True, but I was a PI for a decade before we all came out of the closet. I investigated cold cases that smelled of supernaturals.”
“A decade? How are you any older than me?” He looked like he’d barely hit twenty-five.
“My species reaches maturity at around the age of twenty-three to twenty-five. After that, we stop aging, even though we gain years.”
“Do I even want to know how old you are?”
“Probably not. It’ll make you feel bad about yourself.”
“Anyway, you’re old, and we’re going to see a contact of yours.”
“Yes. He’s a little different to most vampires. For one, he doesn’t live with his kiss, although he is still a member of it.”
“How does that work?”
“He’s old enough to live alone. He can control himself, won’t kill humans when he feeds—”
“Gross,” I interjected.
“In return for his independence, Alistair pays a stipend to his mistress, Roxanne Monroe.”
“Cool name. Does he know we’re coming? Does he know I’m human?”
“Yes and yes. Don’t worry. He has fantastic impulse control.”
“I am all a flutter with confidence,” I retorted bitterly.
After that, I shut up. I just watched as Sawyer smoothly drove my truck through to the most elite area of Buxton. Here, all the houses were set back from the curb. Elaborate gardens and fountains introduced the house before you got there, and as we made our way up the driveway, I balked at the gardeners working furiously in said gardens.
“Do they know who their boss is?” I jerked my chin in the direction of the slave labor force.
“I’m sure they have an inkling, although I’ve never asked them outright.”
“They’re not…possessed like little Jack Sullivan was?”
He flashed me a grin. “Nope. These people are just from a gardening service. As you can imagine, it’s not like Alistair can come out and prune the roses himself.”
“Lazy as fuck?”
I got a chuckle out of him this time. “Photosensitivity.”
And another one of my life-long theories was put to bed.
He parked in the turning circle, and I got out of the truck, inhaling deeply. I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe decay and death and bodies, but all I smelled was the crisp autumn air and freshly mowed grass. I looked at Reaver propped up in the foot well. It had slowly come back into view on the trip over here. I reached for it, then shook my head. I didn’t need to make it some security blanket for myself. Mostly because it wasn’t the soft and fuzzy cuddling variety. I shut the door and turned toward the house.
It was a gray marble monolith, a true tip-of-the-hat to British manor houses. A blocky ‘C’ shaped structure, there were long rectangular windows on both the upper and lower levels, each of them dressed in white gauzy material. Large topiaries filled the inside of the right-angled curve, all clipped and trimmed to within an inch of their lives. On the other side of the turning circle was a large fountain with Pan—the Greek God of the Wild—spewing water out of his pan flute.
The sun was warm on my face, and I took a moment to soak it in. While I was getting my shot of vitamin D, Sawyer knocked on the door. Having had my fill, I stood beside Sawyer under the large black wrought iron awning over the entrance way.
When the front door eventually opened, I yelped, but resisted the urge to dive behind Sawyer’s legs and hide…
Because that would be unprofessional.
The impeccably dressed butler ran his eyes over me in disinterest. “Master Sawyer. How nice to see you.”
“Hey, Charlie. Is his lordship around?”
What, like he was out back sunbathing?
“He’s playing billiards in the games room. He’s expecting you.”
Sawyer stepped inside, and after taking one final deep breath, I followed him in. I tried not to gawk at the gold-veined marble under my boots or the expensive art hanging on the walls. There were also sculptures in their own niches along the walls, each with a little pot light above it. I was expecting a vampire to live in a crypt or something, not this light-filled palace and homage to art and culture.
The front door echoed as Charlie closed it behind us, and I peeked over my shoulder. He was watching me closely.
“He’s a low-ranking fae,” Sawyer murmured as we walked.
“And let me guess, Charlie is not his real name.”
“Not even close.”
“He works for Alistair?”
“I guess you could call it that. He’s been with Alistair for as long as I remember.”
“Companions then?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Let’s run with that.”
Sawyer navigated the house like he’d been there a million times before, and we soon arrived at a set of closed mahogany doors. He rapped his knuckles on one, then opened the door and stepped into the room.
“Sawyer.” Alistair, I assumed, put down the cue he’d been lining up a shot with. “How are you?”
The two men shook hands, then Alistair turned his attention to me. “And who is this?”
“My new partner,” Sawyer replied. I wondered how those words had tasted on his tongue.
“Ah. And to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from you?”
Sawyer walked deeper into the room, running his fingertips along the red felt of the billiards table as he passed. “We have a case that I’m not sure about.”
He wasn’t sure about it? Then what hope did we all have? I stayed where I was, unwilling to get any closer to the vampire who was keeping one eye on me as well as giving his full attention to Sawyer. Honestly, I was impressed with the way he split his attention. He’d be a great work from home mom…you know, if work from home moms had fangs, drank blood, and were terrifying.
“What’s it about?”
My partner blew out a breath and leaned against the side of the billiard table right beside Alistair, folding his arms over his chest. “Someone is turning children into vampires.”
I studied the old fanger’s face, but there was no shift in expression, not even a hint that he was shocked by Sawyer’s declaration.
“I see,” he replied dubiously. “Are you’re here because you think I made them?”
Sawyer shook his head. “No. I know you wouldn’t be making children, but I wanted to know if you’d heard anything among your kiss?”
Alistair laughed. “I see our reputation as gossips precedes us.” Wandering over to a bar in the corner, he opened up a small wine fridge and pulled out what I could’ve sworn was a blood bag from the hospital. He popped it into a microwave on the sideboard and hit a few buttons. The whir of the appliance was eerie, and I didn’t think I could look at a microwave, let alone use one, again.
Blood in a bag. Gack.
The vampire became so still as he watched the glass plate rotate his meal that I wasn’t sure he was breathing… Wait, did vamps even need to breathe anymore?
Both men seemed to wait, then, as if the ding from the microwave was the Pavlovian signal, Alistair came back to life and Sawyer let out a breath.
The vampire pulled open the microwave door, and my knees nearly buckled at the scent of warmed blood. “I have heard that there’s a foreign vampire in town.”
“And the mistress allowed this?”
With his baggy in hand, the vampire turned around and returned to the billiards table. Like it was a glass of expensive scotch. Not blood. In. A. Bag. I braced myself for the evisceration of that poor bag, but was stunned when Alistair pulled out a pair of small gold-plated cuticle scissors, snipped off one corner, and took a civilized sip.
“The mistress will allow most things if she can make a quick buck. She also allowed it to happen because this particular vampire was an acquaintance of hers from Italy back in the Dark Ages.”
“Does this vampire have a name?” Sawyer pressed.
“It was never given, and I never press for such information. If it were important, she would’ve told us.”
“Do you know where the guy is staying?”
Alistair shook his head, sending his still blond curls into rapture around his youthful face. “I’m not privy to that information, but I do know he wouldn’t be staying with my mistress. Acquaintances for vampires,” he said, staring at me, “are much like acquaintances for humans. The term means they aren’t quite friendly, but they’re known to each other.”
Sawyer straightened and held out his hand to the vampire. “Thank you. I appreciate you talking to us.”
“My pleasure,” he replied smoothly, upending the bag and taking another delicate sip.
I tried not to make a face.
Sawyer led me from the room with his hand on the small of my back. I didn’t want to admit how nice that actually felt, so I shrugged him off as soon as the billiards room door was shut behind us.
“That went well,” I said cheerfully. “You know, except for the blood.” I shivered. Sawyer’s mouth was tight, but he didn’t say anything more until we stepped from the house and got back into my truck.
“He knows something,” Sawyer said, mostly to himself. “He didn’t answer my question.”
“He also said he didn’t know,” I pointed out helpfully.
“People can’t lie to me.” He tapped his nose. “I can smell it.”
“First, ew. Second, seriously?”
He nodded. “Vampires, like the fae, are very good at telling half-truths or skirting around the truth, but Alistair was flat-out lying to us in there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s nothing I can do. He knows we have an interest now. He’ll tell his mistress, and I have no doubt we’ll be going to visit her soon.”
“I think I might be sick that day.”
He raised one perfectly groomed dark brow at me. “Scared, Pussy cat?”
“Don’t call me that.” My words were sharp, but not because of anger. Sawyer buckled himself in, then started the engine. It was close to five, which meant I only had an hour or so to get to my kickboxing class across town…if we were actually done for the day.
He drove us back to the station with an efficiency and economy I couldn’t help but admire. I looked at his profile as we drove, wondering why I found him attractive at all. Sure, he had that chiseled jaw and knife-straight nose, but his mouth was always in a firm line, pressed hard and unyielding. My gaze drifted down to this crotch, where I wondered what else I might find that was hard and unyielding.
He looked over at me and frowned. “Are you having a seizure?”
I felt the heat rise to my face. “Over what? You? Being in your presence?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
I snorted and brushed away some lint from my pants. “You have a really high opinion of yourself.”
“I have high standards, and those high standards guide me and my decisions.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Please don’t tell me you’re into the power of mindset.”
“And what if I was? Some of the most successful people are fanatical about mindset. Ever wonder why?”
“No,” I shot back, suddenly curious to know more. He was impassioned about this. “But why don’t you tell me, guru?”
He ignored both the comment and me until we were bumping back into the stations’ lot and parking between two other cars.
“What do we do now?” I asked, getting out.
Sawyer glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly six. We’ll start again fresh tomorrow, I think.”
I held out my hands for the keys to my truck, wiggling my fingers. He threw them over the top of the cab, and I caught them after a small fumble. He smirked.
Douche canoe.
Back inside the station, I stashed the sword back into the arms room, then grabbed my bag from under my desk. As I walked to the door, Faline stopped me.
“Got a hot date?” she asked with a sweet smile.
“Kind of? I’ve got a kickboxing class.”
Her lusty, lusty eyes lit up. “Ooo, I love kickboxing. Well, have fun!”
I gave her a wave, then walked back outside and got into my truck. I took a quick detour home to get changed, then made it to the gym just in time.
Seven
“Cutting it fine!” Mike called from his position in the center of the mats where he ran the warmup drill.
“Sorry!” I dumped my sports bag on the side, toed off my shoes and joined the circle of people running. Sasha sidled up beside me, barely breaking a sweat.
“Working late?”
“Had to see a man about a vampire,” I shot back.
Sasha’s brows rose, but she said nothing more.
I got lost in the warm-up, feeling my stressed body ease as the endorphin rush hit it like a freight train. As soon as we broke off to do some kicking drills on the weight bags, I found Sasha once more and pulled her to the one farthest away. Sliding behind the bag to hold it, I motioned for her to start on the kicks. Mike was being a dick today, making us do one hundred fast kicks on one leg before swapping with our partner. I enjoyed the moment of peace while Sasha slammed her shin into the bag and sent it rocking ever so slightly. Damn, the girl was strong.
“Did you really go see a vampire today?”
“Yup.” I repositioned my hands, so she didn’t accidently kick me.
“I thought only PIG handled cases like that.”
Oh, shit. I hadn’t told Sash what had happened. Feeling like a terrible friend, I gave her the CliffsNotes and smugly enjoyed the way her eyes bulged.
“You’re working with PIG? But you’re not a supe.”
“Noted,” I conceded with a nod. “But my boss thought it would be funny for me to work with them.”
She finished her last kick and came back into a neutral stance, lowering her arms. Sasha didn’t sweat, she glowed…and she was glowing her ass all over the place tonight. “Swap,” she breathed.
Being careful not to walk in the way of someone else’s stray kicks, I found my position and, at Sasha’s nod, I began, calling out my number as I went.
“So, the case you’re working…?” Sash asked.
I shook my head, cursing when I landed a bad kick that got more of the top of my foot than it did shin. “Can’t talk about it.”
“Less talking and more technique,” Mike shouted, right over my shoulder, then walked away.
I glanced at Sasha, who only smiled. I got my hundred kicks out on my right leg, at which point we swapped again and made our other leg feel like Jell-O. Switching off my brain at kickboxing was one of the things I loved. I just got lost in the technique and instruction. Being on the mat didn’t require me to be defensive, or to even think about my past. I just got to live in the moment, in the sweat and the comradery of being surrounded by other people who liked it too.
When the class finished, I hugged Sasha and told her I’d call her about dinner on Friday night. We usually got something to eat and then hit the bars afterwards. She needed to blow off steam regularly, given she was a high school teacher and had to put up with emotional teenagers’ shit all day.
I waved goodbye to her, then retrieved my bag from the sidelines. I collapsed beside it and pulled off my wraps and shoved them inside. Next, I took off my ankle guards and gave them the same treatment. A few people milled around after class, casting appreciative looks over near reception. I looked too, because I’m nosy, and stiffened at the sight of Faline standing there.
She was wearing a pair of leggings that did absolutely nothing to hide her banging body, and a tight tank top which highlighted her fantastic breasts. Seriously, why couldn’t I pull that off?
I glanced back at the guys from my class who were still casting furtive looks her way. Those poor bastards. They wouldn’t know what hit them.
“You should go and talk to her,” I said as I passed. “She’s single.” I had no idea whether that was true or not. If it was, I just did her a favor.
“Cat!” Faline called, motioning me over.
I shifted the strap of my bag on my shoulder and made my way to her. “Hey.”
“I didn’t know this was where you took your class.”
“This gym is the best,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “How come I’ve never seen you in here before?”
“I usually do the nine o’clock class, but since I got out early tonight, I decided on the earlier one.”
“Who teaches this one?” Because Mike sure as shit didn’t.
