by Jessica Sims
I’d have resented it if I hadn’t been so utterly thankful that he’d set this up. “You’re the best, Josh,” I told him again.
“I know,” he replied, not looking at me. His gaze was rooted to the door. “You can thank me later.”
I lightly smacked his arm, just imagining what that thanking would involve. “So they know about . . . me?”
He shot me a look at that, and I nearly melted at the heat in his gaze. God, Josh was sexy when he was riled up, and he was definitely riled up at the moment. “They know what I told them.”
“Which is . . . ”
“That you’re dating a vampire, so you want to know what vampire society is like from reliable, unbiased sources.”
That sounded about right. What surprised me was Josh’s reluctance about the meeting.
I nudged him with my elbow. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he said in a flat voice.
“You don’t sound fine. You sound grumpy.”
He glanced over at me, his mouth pulled into an unhappy line, arms crossed over his chest. “You know I’m not a big fan of all this vampire business.”
“I know you’re not. I appreciate the effort, though.”
His gaze softened and he leaned in closer to me, as if he was about to kiss me. I tilted my face up toward his.
Josh’s nostrils flared and he sniffed the air, then slid back into his seat again, moving away from me. “They’re here.”
My heart leapt in my chest. I immediately craned my neck, trying to see around Josh to the restaurant floor. “I don’t see anyone.”
“You’ll recognize them when you see them,” Josh said, placing a hand on my shoulder as I leaned over his lap. “Sit down.”
I did, forcing myself to be patient. I could have contacted a vampire or two myself through the agency, but they tended to be suspicious and, because I was human, reluctant to open up. The fact that two were willing to come and sit down with me and talk was flat-out amazing . . . and I owed it all to Josh.
I squeezed his arm happily at the sight of the couple approaching the table. I recognized the tall, lanky man with the wild tuft of hair and the short, curvy woman at his side. “Valjean! Ruby! Hi there!”
Valjean had been my client for about a half a minute before he’d shacked up with Ruby, and he’d been on my dating list for vampires. Ruby had only used the agency a few times herself, but I was familiar with her, since her sister, Jayde, was one of our more notorious clients.
I glanced over at Josh. “You didn’t tell me it was going to be them.”
“They’re both fairly new to the vampire world,” he said with an easy shrug of his shoulders, leaning forward. “Thought it might be good for you to get their perspective.”
“Pleasure to see the two of you again,” Valjean said in a courteous voice, smoothing a hand down the front of his coat. He gestured for Ruby to slide into the booth and she did, her glittering gaze focused on me in a look that wasn’t exactly friendly.
Oh, dear. Was she feeling territorial? I knew from dealing with her sister that were-jaguars tended to be a bit . . . demanding. And given the fact that Ruby was the other vampire, I wondered how it affected her nature. My suspicions were confirmed when Valjean slid into the booth next to her and she immediately latched onto his arm, her lips tightly pursed, as if she wanted to bare her teeth at me.
As if sensing the mood at the table, Josh casually threw an arm over my shoulders and tugged me close, as if I’d been his date. Ruby immediately relaxed, her smile growing a bit more genuine. I realized in that moment that it wasn’t territory that was freaking Ruby out—it was Valjean. She was worried I’d try to snag him from her or something, and she was staking her claim early.
I would have been amused by it, except that a picture flashed in my mind of Josh going out with another woman, and I felt a distinct flash of rage. My fingers curled into my jeans and I bit the inside of my cheek to blot the thought from my mind.
“Thank you both for coming,” Josh said. “I appreciate you taking a bit of time out of your schedules to answer Marie’s questions.”
“We’re visiting Ruby’s family,” Valjean said easily. “Then it’s back off to Rome for us. I promised Ruby a sightseeing tour for her birthday.”
A flash of a smile crossed Ruby’s face, and I peered at her teeth. No sign of fangs. Of course not. Why did I think these new vampires would be different from any other vampire I’d seen or dated? The fangs were retractable. For feeding, they extended several inches, like snake fangs. Any other time, they remained hidden and looked like nothing more than sharp incisors.
“Rome sounds nice,” I said conversationally, not sure if I should jump right in with the vampire questions or if that would be rude. “Have either of you been before?”
“I visited when I was first turned,” Valjean said, steering the conversation to the subject I wanted to hear about the most. “I—”
“What was it like?” I blurted, wanting to keep the subject on vampires and turning. I felt desperate to get some answers. “Did it hurt?”
Not that it mattered. I was pretty sure it hurt less than dying. But now that it felt within my grasp, I was . . . curious.
“I don’t remember.” Valjean grimaced apologetically. “I was drunk and passed out when I was turned.”
“And I was dying from being shot in the back, so I’m no better with that answer,” Ruby offered. “All I remembered was that Michael put his mouth on my neck and the world was getting foggy.”
“Michael?” I asked curiously.
To my surprise, Valjean blushed bright red. Ruby gave him an amused, affectionate glance. “His vampire name is Valjean. Real name is Michael. Now that we’re together, we’re trying to switch to new names, but we keep forgetting to use them from time to time.”
“New names?” I asked politely. “Is that a thing with vampires?”
“It is. It’s best, since you’re essentially making a break from your old life. Most vampires change names every twenty years or so, in order to not arouse suspicion from the locals.” Valjean’s mouth gave a wry twist. “Vampire society has a lot of rules.”
“So you were dying, Ruby? Did you not want to be turned?”
“I hadn’t asked her,” Valjean said. “I thought maybe, after a few years together, I’d broach the question before she started to get all middle-aged and saggy—”
Ruby gave a mock gasp and curled her fingers into menacing claws. At least, they would have been menacing if her eyes hadn’t been gleaming with amusement. “Don’t make me come over there,” she purred.
My face flushed. This sounded less like teasing and more like foreplay. “So you didn’t have a chance to ask her?” I repeated, steering the conversation back on track. Josh’s hand rubbed between my shoulders, a comforting, subtle presence.
“There was no time,” Valjean said. “I took a risk and hoped that she wouldn’t be too mad at me.”
“Furious,” Ruby said in that soft, rumbling purr that was anything but angry.
Valjean flushed red again and Ruby looked pleased.
“There are lots of rules with vampires, you say?” I encouraged. These two were cute and all, but they weren’t giving me much that I didn’t already know.
They exchanged a look, then Ruby shook her head. “Can’t talk about it to non-vampires. We’ll get in trouble.”
“Trouble with who?”
After a moment, Valjean said, “Other vampires.”
“Let me guess. Another vampire rule?”
“Bingo.” Ruby grinned again, and I noticed that her canines were a bit elongated. “It’s kind of like the first rule of Fight Club and all that.”
“Gotcha. But what about family?” I asked, thinking of my father. I couldn’t exactly leave him behind. I was all the family he had left in the world.
“If your family is Alliance, it’s not a big deal,” Ruby said. “Since the secret is more or less out. Non-Alliance, however, are expected to remain out of the loop.”
I swallowed hard. So either way, my father was going to lose his daughter. “I see.”
Josh pulled me closer to him, as if sensing my distress. “What else should Marie know about dating a vampire?”
“Or turning,” I added quickly, ignoring Josh’s frown.
“Lots of things change when you turn,” Ruby began, pausing when the waiter arrived with glasses of water for her and Valjean. When he left, she delicately pushed the glass to one side, rejecting it. “I don’t know about Valjean, but my appetites have changed slightly. Shifters like a heavy meat diet, but I find that I can’t stomach any of that now. As a vampire, you don’t need food or drink, just blood. And you have to drink often.”
“Exactly how often?”
“Two to three times a day, just like human meals,” Valjean said easily. He picked up his glass and took a sip of the water, as if determined to prove a point. “And eventually your stomach resettles and you can tolerate most drinks. Ruby is new, so it still turns her stomach.”
Valjean offered Ruby his glass of water. She wrinkled her nose at him and pressed fingers to her lips, as if holding back bile.
“What about sunlight?”
“Killer,” Ruby said flatly. “You sleep through it most of the time, but if you get stuck out in it, you’re hosed.”
This was sounding more and more depressing. I felt a flare of anxiety but forced it aside. This was my best option, and I was going to run with it. “So what are the perks of being a vampire, then? You’ve mentioned some of the unpleasant things, but there has to be a plus side, right?”
Josh gave me another suspicious frown.
Valjean and Ruby exchanged a look. He grasped her hand and pulled it to his lips, kissing the back of it in an achingly tender motion. “You get to spend eternity with the one you love. That’s worth everything, don’t you think?”
Except I wasn’t in this for love, just survival. I couldn’t picture any of the vampires I’d met so far affectionately kissing my hand like Valjean had Ruby’s, or tenderly pulling me to his side and teasing me like Josh did.
Did I want eternity with a cold man I didn’t love? I looked over at Josh, whose normally laughing eyes were somber, his mouth drawn into that thin line again. Or did I want what little time I had left with a man I was beginning to like a lot but couldn’t have?
A few weeks ago, my answer would have been instantaneous: I wanted eternity.
But now I wasn’t so sure. All I could think about was some stranger kissing my hand, like Valjean had kissed Ruby’s . . . and how much it would hurt Josh.
My stomach flipped a little. “Eternity sounds great to me,” I said in a fake enthusiastic voice.
“It beats dying,” Ruby said dryly.
That it did. Time to change the subject. “So, vampire dating pointers . . . ?”
Chapter Eight
No more callouts,” Bath told me the next day as I came in to work. “We’re putting a temporary hiatus on the inactive-client roundup.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, glancing at the stack of folders on my desk. I’d barely made it through a third of them. “Is something wrong?”
“Everyone’s all riled up over the situation with the tiger clan,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts and leaning on the side of my desk. “Beau has another meeting with the heads of the clans tonight to try and smooth things over. They’re trying to shut our agency down.”
“Shut us . . . down? Why would they do that?”
She chewed on her lip for a moment before answering. “I don’t know if shutting us down is the right word, as much as . . . installing new management.”
“Because we’re human?” I guessed.
“Bingo,” she said with a sigh. “Many feel that it’s better if a supernatural service actually has supernatural staff.”
“What about Sara?” I pointed out.
“They consider her to be ‘not enough’ supernatural presence. Sure, she’s a shifter, but she was human, and she’s a werewolf, and that’s two strikes against her.” Bath sounded tired. “Beau’s refusing to shut us down, but right now it’s best if we lay low.”
“I see,” I said, trying not to panic. If we were shut down, I wouldn’t have access to the Alliance database to find my vampire. “So we’d be unemployed just because we’re human? That’s totally unfair.”
“And it doesn’t help that people are starting crazy rumors, too.”
Uh-oh. “Crazy rumors?”
“That we’re setting them up with humans and trying to pass them off as shifters. Two months ago, everyone wanted a human. Now everyone just wants to keep things separate. Long story short, no more callouts for now. If they want our services, we’ll let them come to us.”
“Gotcha,” I said, feeling sick. I had a sneaking suspicion that someone had leaked that they’d either seen me on a date, or one of my dates had let it slip that I was human. Damn it. I needed to talk to Josh. This was going to put a massive kink in my plans.
I texted him. Where are you tonight?
Busy for the next few nights, beautiful, he sent back immediately. You won’t forget me, will you?
So I won’t see you for a few days? I have a date tonight. I thought you were going to be my wingman. And by wingman, I mean hover unseen like an over-protective older brother.
The next text came back right away. Jesus, Marie. Way to kill a guy’s boner. Don’t ever call me your brother again.
And then, So who’s the date with?
Some vampire named Andre. He was on your “maybe” list, remember?
His next text came almost ten minutes later, and I spent the entire time tapping my fingers impatiently. I don’t know.
Why? What’s wrong with him?
Sorry. Busy. Gimme a few. Busting a few heads right now.
He came back a few minutes later with Nothing’s exactly wrong with him, other than he’s a vampire. I’ve worked for him before. He’s quiet. Doesn’t say much. Very polite.
This didn’t sound like a problem to me. So what’s the issue?
The issue is that I’m working for the next several nights and I can’t be there to protect you.
You don’t have to be there.
In fact, it might be best if he wasn’t. His getting possessive wasn’t going to help me, yet I enjoyed it far too much.
And that was a problem.
His next text came a few minutes later. Just . . . go someplace really public and be careful. And text me when you’re done to let me know how it goes.
I promise, I sent back. Who knows, maybe this one won’t be a dud.
I hope he is. You’ll have no choice but to fall into my arms.
That made me smile.
• • •
I decided to follow Josh’s advice about the venue. Someplace public. Someplace noisy and crowded. And someplace close enough to the office that I could sprint back at a moment’s notice. In other words, Greek food at Konstantine’s.
I was more conservative in my clothing, too. I wore a bra with the tight pink boatneck sweater, and an equally black tight skirt that gave me an overtly feminine flair without saying, Please suck on my neck right now. I’d borrowed the clothes from Ryder, and I wore high heels. After all, I wanted to seem interested.
I fidgeted at the table, waiting for my date to arrive. Was I going to get stood up again? I checked my watch. He was ten minutes late—not a good sign. To my horror, I started to have another vision-blurring spell. They were hallucinations, I knew. Last time I’d gone to sleep, I’d spent half the time staring at walls that had seeped blood. Willing my brain to stop sending me the horrible visions, I’d known that it was just another stage in my slow decline, but that hadn’t made things any easier. The hallucinations would keep coming, and eventually I wouldn’t be able to tell reality from fiction.
Worst of all, there was no one I could talk to about it. My burdens were mine alone, and sometimes it felt crushing. But I’d made the choice to handle this on my own—a
choice I just regretted in weak moments.
Maybe I could tell Josh. Sure, he was reckless and flirty and needed his ego reined in, but . . . I liked him. I felt safe with him. Maybe because we’d been spending so much time together. I pulled out my phone and started a text to him, then stopped.
If I told him, he’d stop flirting with me. Sick wasn’t sexy. A dying girl wouldn’t pique his interest. If I told him the truth, our flirty friendship would disappear.
I put my phone away.
“Minnie?”
I looked up at the sound of the male voice and stared. The man in front of me was gorgeous. Tall and athletically slim, he had short, straight blond hair that was slicked back from a widow’s peak, pale skin, and bright blue eyes. He was smiling at me, and I noticed that his canines were only slightly longer than they should have been.
“I’m Andre.”
“Oh, wow,” I said, unable to hide my smile. I stood up and extended my hand. “Hi. I’m Minnie.”
“Wow?” he asked with a grin.
I was charmed by that toothy smile. Everything was out in the open with him—he didn’t hide his fangs under a close-lipped smirk like the last guy. It made me feel like I could trust him. “You just look . . . better than I expected,” I said honestly.
“The vampire thing?” he asked delicately, though the grin remained on his face.
Oh, I must have offended him. “No,” I said quickly. “The dating service thing. I seem to strike out a lot.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he said, moving behind my chair to push it in for me. “You look just fine to me.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, and sat down. He moved back to the other side of the table and sat down across from me. As one of the waiters zoomed past, Andre raised a hand to call him over. Cuff links glinted, and I studied his clothing. He was wearing a dark gray suit jacket over a lighter dress shirt. Nice togs.
For some reason I thought of Josh’s endless T-shirts and jeans, then I shook the thought away. Thinking about him on my date wasn’t going to help me with anything.
“A bottle of red wine, please.” Andre glanced over at me, the polite smile remaining in place. “If that’s all right.”
