by Amie Gibbons
“Not if I do first.”
I dragged my butt outta bed and checked my phone. Before six a.m., I could’ve slept for another two hours before the alarm went off, but nooooo, my flying carpet wanted to scold.
“What?”
Pyro responded by rushing past me to the bed.
“Hey!” Quil yelped as my carpet tried to wrap around him.
He was quick, but Pyro can do ninety mph on a good night, and is pretty agile. He managed to roll up around one thick arm and lifted Quil from the bed.
“Call off your carpet or I’m going to hurt him.”
Quil sounded more cranky than anything as Pyro flew-dragged him into the hall.
“Pyro, put him down, now!” I yelled.
I’d only ever yelled at my baby once.
Pyro froze, dropped Quil next to the stairs, and flew by me, diving under my bed.
“Oh dear.” I sighed. “You want to sulk, you can, but you don’t grab people and threaten to drop them down the stairs.” I looked at Quil as he got up. “You okay?”
He laughed. “This wouldn’t have been the first time I was kicked out of bed naked, sweets.”
“Oh really? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m awake and I don’t see me going back to sleep.”
“I’ll stay up with you, but the second you go to work, I’m going back to bed.” He leaned down to kiss me and I flinched away.
He scowled and I chuckled.
“We had sex, your fluids are everywhere, we showered together, I think we are officially intimate enough for you to use my toothbrush.”
“Are you saying my breath stinks?” He placed a hand dramatically on his bare chest.
“Yeah, and so does mine.” Now that he didn’t deny.
I brushed my teeth and handed the toothbrush to Quil after a quick rinse.
I watched him in the mirror and laughed.
“What?” he asked once he spat out into the sink.
I shook my head. “I just realized this is the first time a guy has ever used my toothbrush.”
“Oh, so I should be honored.” He grinned as he pulled me close.
“Yes,” I said, pressin’ into him.
Then jerked back as he hardened.
“I’m exhausted.”
“But you’re naked, and you smell good, and I have the strongest urge to screw you into the wall.”
He grabbed my breasts and his thumbs (miracle of nature that opposable thumb) flicked over my nipples, making them harden despite my logic.
Tired or not, my body remembered last night.
“If we have sex, I’ll fall asleep again and then I’ll be late, and I’ll really be dead,” I said.
He lifted me up and my legs went around him like they belonged there.
“Take my blood,” he said.
“What?”
“That would solve both problems. You’ll be stronger, you’ll need it for today, and I’ll be… satisfied.”
I wrapped my arm around his neck and lowered my mouth on the other side. He held me on him with one arm and pressed my head in with the other as we started to sink up and down.
For a cold blooded creature, he sure did warm up fast.
I latched my lips on and sucked in as much of his sweet skin as I could without rippin’ any of it off, nipping until he let out a deep throated moan. I locked my arms around his neck tighter and bit with all my strength.
Let me tell ya, human teeth aren’t meant for tearin’ into solid flesh like that. It took some serious work to break the skin.
When I did, the sweet, thick, cold blood inched into my mouth, and I fixed my lips around the wound to suck as hard as I could. It flowed down my throat like solidified magic, waking me up like a triple espresso.
Quil cried out under me, hands scramblin’ over my back. He screamed, low and deep as he jerked inside me and his hands pressed down. I didn’t even want to know how much control it took for him not to clamp down and risk breaking bones.
“‘Bout time I made you scream,” I murmured as I pulled back.
I still wasn’t done, need throbbed within me, but he was spent again, and weaker from the blood loss. He peeled me off him and set me on the counter next to the sink.
“You can make me scream anytime you want, sweets.”
He went down on me, slidin’ a finger in.
I came so fast I probably would’ve gone without his help.
We lay on the bathroom floor, curled up I don’t know how long.
“I have to go to work and I lost the ability to walk,” I groused the best I could while still shinin’ in the afterglow.
“No,” he mumbled into my chest, snuggling in.
“But I have to work. I have to find a demon summoning vamp who’s gunning for your nest, remember?”
He groaned and slipped off me.
“Oh crap on a cracker!” I said. “How am I gonna cover up the bite?”
“Cover up what?” he asked, runnin’ a finger over my neck.
My hand flew up and I felt my perfectly smooth skin. “What happened? I know you just scratched me, but there should be a scab.”
“Healing properties.” He stuck out his tongue and tapped it. “There’s different types; my saliva can heal minor flesh wounds quite well.”
“So the saliva can heal us, the blood makes us stronger, and the bite induces pleasure instead of pain, is there a reason for all that?” I asked.
“Hell if I know, sweets.”
He snuggled into my chest again and I massaged his head, the wet hair not as soft, but it still felt as good as it looked.
“My best guess,” he said, “is all those are to make it so we can feed without weakening humans too much, or having to fight for it, or worrying about others seeing the marks and knowing what caused it.”
His voice softened and I looked down, his eyes were closed.
“Quil, I do have to go to work.”
“Five more minutes.”
I gave him thirty.
Chapter fourTEEN
I slipped out from under Quil and left him snoozing on the floor while I got ready.
“Hey,” I said, kneelin’ next to him when I was ready. “You hanging around today?”
“Yeah,” he said, cracking his eyes.
“Okay, we need to come up with some kind of plan to talk to the potential suspects. I have to talk to the team about it.”
Really I meant I had to talk to Grant about it.
“But I’m thinkin’ we’re going to have to set up some kind of casual meeting with the leaders. Maybe at the club. They don’t need to know we’re feds, and we can try to question them and I’ll get some visions. Can you set that up?”
He nodded and held out his hand. “Here, give me your phone.”
I fished it out of my bag and handed it over. He pulled himself up onto his elbow and punched in a number.
“This way you have my direct number. Who are all these?” he asked, scrollin’ down my contacts.
“Ashdina’s my oldest sister.” I sat on the floor next to him and grabbed the phone.
He held on with a playful grin and we played tug-a-war for a minute until he finally relinquished his hold.
“Thank you!” I said, stickin’ my tongue out at him. “So anyway, she’s the oldest, thirty-four, she’s a doctor.”
“Oldest? How many siblings do you have?”
“Four.” I pointed to the phone. “The next is Ava Jolene, who’s thirty-two, she’s a journalist.”
“And the next.” I scrolled down to the Ms. “Is Mark. The guys got normal names. He’s twenty-nine and a lawyer. And then there’s Mikey. He’s only a year older than me. Mikey’s what Mama calls a perpetual starving artist. He wants to be an actor so he’s always auditioning, but...” I shrugged and shook my head.
“How does he support himself?”
“He lives with Ava, so that helps, and he works as a mechanic. He’s like me. We’re the babies. We were the ones who would spy on the other three. We
would make up stories about how the older ones did something bad whenever they shoved us out of their rooms and told us we were brats. It was always a ‘me and him against the world’ kind of thing.”
“What changed?”
“How do you know somethin’ did?”
“Your voice.”
My hand flew to my left arm.
The scars had faded over time so I didn’t have to keep my arm covered, but sometimes I swore I could still see them.
“What?” he asked. “What happened?”
“That isn’t who I am anymore,” I said. “I can’t… talkin’ about it now sounds so stupid.”
“You can trust me, sweets.” He pulled me onto his lap and wrapped his arms around me. “You trust me to know this about you, to not tell anyone, to not judge you for it, and to not ever bring it up again if you don’t want me to.”
I nodded.
“When was it?”
“About eight years ago.”
“I’m guessing by the wrist that you cut yourself?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I was depressed. Lookin’ back, I know I didn’t actually want to kill myself cuz I made the cuts side to side, and you cut straight up the arm if you want to die.”
“I can’t imagine you ever being depressed.”
“I ummmm, had or have still, maybe… bipolar disorder. It’s so mild now, I’m not sure if I just grew out of it, but I don’t even need meds, so I’m okay now. But as a teenager, it was bad.
I couldn’t even look at him.
“I ugh… my middle sister, Ava… when I was little, she was like a second mom, you know? She’s nine years older than me and she was the one who took care of me and Mikey growin’ up. She was the one who changed our diapers and made dinner when our parents had to work late.”
“Sounds like my sister,” Quil said. “Different century, but same idea.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t know when exactly, but some time around high school, my sister changed. She wouldn’t babysit us anymore, wouldn’t play with us, and when Mama asked her to cook or hang out with us after school, she’d throw a fit, say Mama was a bad mom and she should be with us instead of makin’ Ava do it.”
I took a deep breath. “A few years later, she was in college and I was takin’ politics classes and tryin’ to learn more about the world. I wanted to be a lawyer then, so I was pretty heavy into it. And my sister and I had some real different ideas about what was best goin’ forward. She was a journalism major and… you know how journalists lean, so we disagreed.”
I flicked my eyes up and Quil met them, obviously confused.
“She had her friends over for a dinner and her and Daddy got into it. I jumped in, and she… she got mean, fast. She started attackin’ me, sayin’ horrible things about how I was brainwashed by Daddy and his politics and couldn’t think for myself. When I countered, sayin’ she was brainwashed by her friends and she was just showin’ off for them, well then she just got worse.”
I shook my head. “At this point, I can’t even say what was said, but I was upset and our parents were, the party was ruined, and I ran outta the house. I went to my boyfriend’s place. He’d been tryin’ to go further for a while, and that night, I just felt so betrayed and vulnerable, and I… let him.”
Quil took a sharp breath.
“God, it hurt like hell, I soooo wasn’t ready. And afterwards, I was a wreck. I went home and Daddy had been tryin’ to call me. When I got in, he knew something happened. He was threatening to kill the guy. I started cryin’ right there in the living room and Daddy hugged me and I told him I was just so upset at what Ava said.
“He was so pissed, he called up Ava, screamed at her over the phone. Ava came over the next day when they were at work and just tore into me. God, I didn’t know how much she hated me until that day. I started cryin’ and she laughed. She just… she enjoyed that she’d hurt me. She said people like me deserved it because we were so horrible to other people. She said I was the reason women were paid less than men, minorities were abused, and gay people got beat up.”
“She what!” Quil yelled.
I jerked.
“Sorry, sweets. How could someone blame a kid for that?”
I shrugged. “Daddy explained it later. Said Ava had hatred in her heart. She was upset over some law or case or another that’d just happened, and she saw me as a safe target. It was that day I knew my sister didn’t love me anymore.
“After she left, I called my boyfriend, annnnnd he didn’t answer. And later, he didn’t answer. I knew he loved me, he was so understandin’ the night before, so I didn’t get it. Took me a few more calls and texts over the day for him to finally text back that the night before did not go well and he didn’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Quil made a sharp noise and I shook my head, starin’ at my hands.
“I broke that night. Something in me shattered. Mama and Daddy were downstairs and askin’ me to come down for dinner. I hollered I’d be down in a minute and I went into the bathroom. I grabbed some scissors and cut my hair off. It was longer than it is now and I just slaughtered it. But it wasn’t enough. So I grabbed the razor and just started slicin’. I watched the blood come out on the floor and I must’ve passed out cuz the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.”
Quil hugged me tighter and I licked my lips.
“My parents were so mad at Ava, told her she needed to come in and apologize. Now, I don’t know what she said besides no, but she didn’t come in, and based on stuff Mama let slip over the years, Ava said something along the lines of I should’ve killed myself and done the world a favor. Either way, Daddy cut her off that day, said she could come back to apologize but until then, she wasn’t gettin’ a penny.”
I tapped my wrist. “Anyway, Mikey was sixteen and wanted to be an actor. Mama and Daddy were supportive, but wanted him to finish school, grow up a bit, and he wanted to go off on his own. After they cut Ava off, he figured a good way to get himself kicked out, aka free, was to go after me. So for weeks, he constantly attacked me, my boyfriend leavin’ me, me bein’ too stupid to know he was usin’ me, me being stupid and couldn’t think for myself… stuff like that. Daddy lost it and sent him to military school. He got kicked out and bounced around prep schools til he was eighteen. He dropped outta school the next day and went off with Ava to California.”
“And you don’t talk to either of them any more?”
“Mikey apologized like a year later. He explained he had nothin’ against me, just wanted to go off and do his own thing and not answer to Mama and Daddy. Ava and I haven’t spoken since. The stuff she writes though… she talks about her conservative family as though we’re a bunch of ignorant backwoods bumpkins she feels sorry for because we just don’t know enough to see the light.”
“I’m so sorry, sweets. Do they know?”
I knew he meant my coworkers.
“Nope. Mama made damn sure the records weren’t gonna get out. She was makin’ it pretty big as an author by then, but she still had her law license, made sure they knew she’d sue their butts off if any of this stuff got out. So as far as anyone looking into my past is concerned, it never happened. They know I have a history of bipolar disorder, but that’s it.”
“Is that how you think of it? Never happened?”
“Most of the time,” I said.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Just don’t go usin’ it against me. I have some trust issues.”
“Yeah, don’t blame you.”
I nodded and slipped off his lap. “Now you know two things about me no one else does, well except my family, who knows about this.” I waved my left arm.
“So I should feel privileged?”
“Very.” I glanced at the clock. “I need to be goin’. I promised I’d stop bein’ late.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be fine here.”
I gave him a quick peck and waved my finger at him when
he tried to deepen it.
“Don’t start that again cuz then I’ll never get out of here.” I paused. “Wait a second. We were all over each other, doing things I could barely even imagine, smellin’ each other all over. How did I not have a vision that entire time?”
“Oh, right!” He walked over to his pants in the bedroom, pulled out a small leather bag and held it up.
I reached out for it and he jerked it away.
“Don’t touch it! Don’t even smell it. It’s a gris-gris. Voodoo. If it’s close to a psychic, within about fifteen feet or so, it helps slow the juices, but if you touch it, you’ll have it on you all day and you won’t be able to get anything at work. I brought it because I knew if we were close, you would start having visions and that would be distracting. I was going to tell you about it, assure you that it would be safe to get intimate, but you never gave me the chance.”
“I almost feel like I should be mad at you. I don’t think I am, but it seems a little… presumptuous? Anyway, where did you get it?”
“Voodoo priestess. I took some of your hair to make it. Is that okay? Please don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not. I think it’s kind of sweet actually. Kinda like a guy buying non-latex condoms. I’m allergic to latex. So it’s kind of presumptuous, like you know you’re going to get some, which the guy I’m talking about didn’t, but… the point is, it was sweet. I’m okay with this.”
###
I actually made it on time even after a line at the coffee shop.
Grant looked up when I put the cup on his desk and I grinned.
“Morning General!”
“You’re too awake,” he growled.
It was just supposed to be a general comment, but my face, my stupid, God dammit expressive face, must’ve done something cuz Grant froze, eyes icin’ over.
He knew.
He stood and cocked a finger at me to follow and I put the coffees on Jet’s desk.
“What did you do?” Jet asked and I just shook my head as I ran after Grant.
Grant closed the bathroom door behind us and held up a finger when I opened my mouth.
“I don’t want to know. I don’t want your excuses. I don’t want to hear you tell me it’s not any of my business. We are in the middle of a case. He is the head of a kind of collaborating agency that could very well be in on all this.”
