by Hughes, Mary
She looked up and her face brightened. “Rocky, what a wonderful surprise!” She flung her arms wide and swooped in to hug me. Or more waddled in, but the spirit was there.
I hugged her back carefully. Despite only being seven months along, her body was swollen and she’d mentioned her breasts were tender.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’ve got information.” I stepped back. Luke’s reaction to Zajicek had been toxic; Logan’s could only be worse. “First there’s a problem. I came here with someone. I don’t want to cause trouble, but—”
“You never want to cause trouble. That’s what I like about you. So different from Nixie and Elena.”
I shook my head. “Be fair. Elena’s police—trouble finds her. And Nixie is Nixie.”
“True.”
“But that’s part of the problem. My friend met up with Julian and Luke and…well, they didn’t fight, but it was uncomfortable. Sharply uncomfortable.” I smiled with my eyeteeth.
She considered me for a second then nodded briskly. “Your news must be pretty important for you to risk coming, if that’s the case.”
“Yes.” That was what I liked about Liese. She was smart and sympathetic. “Actually it was his idea. See, there’s been some difficulty with the CSUCS orchestra—”
“Ah, Ms. Schmetterling. How good to see you again.”
The three of us turned. Zajicek filled the front doorway, his black hair tousled by the wind as if he’d just had a romp in bed, his eyes sparkling wickedly.
Zinnia and Liese gasped. I drooled. Zajicek glided in, all grace and power. A surge of me want rolled through my belly. I clenched my abdominals against it. Mistake—the added pressure sheared desire straight through me.
“It’s Steel now.” Liese sounded breathless, and it wasn’t her pregnancy. “Not Schmetterling.”
“My apologies.” He glided in and lifted her hand for a kiss. “I knew that.”
“Zajicek.” A deep, lazy voice came from the other end of the room.
Uh-oh. Slowly I turned.
Leaning negligently against the doorjamb was a tall, lean, movie-star gorgeous guy with a shoulder-length mane of hair the color of sunshine.
Logan Steel.
He pushed off from the jamb and sauntered toward us. His gold-flecked hazel eyes gleamed with some emotion I couldn’t name—but I sure hoped it wasn’t murder. He has a deceptively lazy gait that covers the ability to leap instantly into action; in battle he’s decisive and deadly.
At least I thought he was. I shook my head. It was kinda fuzzy, courtesy of Mr. Eraserhead Elias.
And then to my utter surprise, Logan extended a hand to Zajicek.
Zajicek shook the offered hand. “Steel. Good to see you again.”
“And you. How’s the spying business?”
Zajicek effected a pained sigh. “Please. I prefer information broker.”
“Alias it up however you want, it still points to the same URL. Hear anything from the enemy camp?”
“Steel, really. If I gave up every secret, who would trust me?”
I was baffled by the almost playful banter. “Are you guys friends? ’Cause when Luke and Julian met Zajicek yesterday, I thought they were going to chop his head off.”
“Use my name, drahý.” Zajicek smiled at me, soft and easy. “Dragan. You remember what I’ll do if you don’t, yes?”
Oh yeah, kissing and licking my cheeks—cheeks he’d called luscious.
“Ho-lee cow,” Zinnia said. “I didn’t know a human could turn that bright a red.”
I covered my burning cheeks with both hands. “Look, I just want to know why Logan didn’t try to kill you.”
Zajicek…Dragan shrugged. “That’s not my secret to share. You’ll have to ask Steel.”
Logan appraised him with a hazel stare. “That’s what I don’t get about you. You keep everyone’s secrets, except the big one which could kill us all.”
“I must live my life as I see fit.”
“To the point of flouting Elias? You’re either insanely brave or an idiot.”
“A little of both, perhaps.”
“He can’t stop conducting, Logan,” Liese said. “He’s got a gift. Remember when we saw him lead the Chicago Symphony? He has to follow his life’s calling.” Her cheeks pinked. “Or not life, exactly, since that implies alive, but—”
“Your inner engineer is showing, princess.” Logan pulled her into his arms for a quick kiss. “Not every word has to be exact for your meaning to be clear.”
“Your mate is correct, however,” Dragan said. “I must conduct. It is my life.”
Logan raised one blond brow. “Despite how risky it is?”
“Some things are worth the risk.”
“Back to my question,” I said to Logan. “Why aren’t you trying to kill him?”
Liese was still wrapped in his arms. He indicated Dragan with his chin. “He did me a favor. A big one. Besides, I’ve heard his music. I’m not sure it’s worth the risk, but I do understand why he thinks it is.”
“What risk?” I said. “Getting stabbed with a bow by an enraged viola player?”
“Coming to the attention of the wrong people,” Dragan said. “That’s why I’m here, Steel. I’ve taken the podium of Raquel’s orchestra—”
“Raquel?” Logan and Liese both looked at me.
I gave them a short eye roll.
Dragan continued, “I took over last night. Tonight, a member of the orchestra was attacked. I doubt it’s a coincidence. He is now lying vulnerable in the local hospital. Since you’re more disposed to listen to my pleas than Emerson or Strongwell, I’m asking you to put a guard on him. A knowledgeable guard. If you can also protect Mr. Banger, I’d be grateful.”
Logan listened in silence, his face as serious as I’d ever seen it. “Hell. I thought we’d spanked her scrawny ass enough.”
“Her?” I asked.
“It may not be her,” Dragan said. “Attacking civilians is a mistake. Her employer has a three-strikes-and-out policy.”
“And she’s already made two.” Some of Logan’s seriousness lifted. “Now I’m hoping it is her.”
“Guys?” Liese cast a significant glance at me. “Getting into erasing territory here.” She turned her face up to her husband.
Logan’s smile broke out. “I don’t think it’ll be a permanent problem.” He stitched a line with his eyes between me and Dragan, then waggled his brows at his wife.
Her forehead knit for a moment. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Oh, you don’t mean…you can’t think…” She trailed off as her blue gaze considered me, then Dragan, then me again.
And then her cheeks turned bright pink. “Rocky, maybe we ought to get some tea in the kitchen.” She wriggled out of her husband’s arms, grabbed my hand and waddled me toward the back door.
“There’s more,” Dragan was saying as we left the room. “A rumor.”
Liese pulled me through a storage area into the kitchenette, where she shut the door.
I frowned at her. “What was all that about?”
“Zajicek hears things. Sometimes he gives us a heads up.”
“And that erasing-isn’t-a-problem thing, with significant glances at me?”
“Oh, that? It’s nothing. Nothing much. Nothing I can talk about.” She took a kettle and stuck it under the tap, then set it on a small stove and turned on the burner.
“If it means fewer fuzzy memories, I’d like to know.”
“Yeah, um, sorry about that. It’s just, I’m not sure you’d understand.” She took two mugs from a cabinet and handed me one. Then she searched my eyes. “Have you figured out that you’re drop-dead sexy?”
The mug fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers. Luckily it was plastic and bounced on the floor. “I’m what?”
She sighed. “Didn’t think so. You’re going to have to pick that up. I can’t bend very well. Logan has to tie my shoes.”
“I’m sorry, I was just surprised.” I bent to pick
up the cup. I was shocked, actually. Why would she say that?
Although come to think of it, Dragan had said sort of the same thing.
Only one possible explanation. Both of them were nuts.
She held out a box with a selection of tea packets. “Since any conclusion you make based on false assumptions will be false, telling you is counterproductive.”
“In English?” I said politely as I picked one.
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “There’s no point in telling you what my husband made me realize about you and Zajicek. You wouldn’t believe it.” She picked out a packet of green tea and set the box aside.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me anyway?”
“Well…” The kettle whistled and she spent a moment dealing with hot water and honey. “How do you feel about him?”
“Zajicek?” Before I’d met him, even his name made my insides hot and tingly. Now, being wrapped in his strong arms, his lips on mine, well, the heat had exploded into a lust volcano.
“Ooookay. No words needed. Look, if you ever want to talk, come to me, okay?”
“Yeah. Um, sure.” My ears were burning at how obvious I was, and I decided I didn’t want to know everything as badly as I thought. Time to change the subject. “So tell me, why is Luke in town? Doesn’t he live in Iowa?”
“He wanted to be here when the babies are born.” She motored herself and her tea to a small table and eased herself onto a chair.
“But you’ve still got another couple months, right?” I sat next to her.
“Twins often come early. And frankly, Luke is a bit antsy about pregnant mates since he thinks his wife was pregnant when she was murdered.”
I stirred my tea self-consciously. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, why would you?” She said it matter-of-factly, another of the things I liked about her. Sweet-natured, she didn’t clobber me when I screwed up, more often than I liked because, while I knew the finest points of symphony etiquette, when it came to social scripts I pulled major boners. She sipped tea. “Did you want to tell me why you came here?”
“Yes.” I pushed aside my doubts and got down to business. I told her about Triana’s vampire, although I didn’t use the v-word.
“She said that?” Liese frowned. “Bigger than big, badder than bad?”
“Codename Megavamp. Worse, she’s scared. Triana is pretty high up on Mr. Nosferatu’s company ladder. She doesn’t scare easily.”
“Definitely not good.” She sipped thoughtfully. “I’ll have to get Sissy or Rounin to look into it.”
“Rounin?” I knew Sissy. She was one of Logan’s “building managers”, along with Sarge. Both were gorgeous. But while Sarge showed off boulder muscles in sleeveless tees and wore tight jeans molded to his stallion’s ass, Sissy tried to hide her ethereal beauty, wearing big chunky glasses and shapeless suits, her hair scraped into a bun. I kept expecting her to drop her glasses and whip out the hair band and shake her mane loose in that secretary-becomes-femme fatale way before kicking butt. Or maybe I’d actually seen her do that one time but Elias had fuzzed it out.
“Sarge is on vacation. Rounin’s our temp,” she said. “He’s a samurai.”
“The guy with the black topknot thingy?”
“Yep. Strictly speaking, he’s a masterless samurai.” Liese shook her head. “First thing out of his mouth when he came was ‘I live to avenge my master.’”
“Yikes.”
“Right? I said he needed a psychologist but Logan says we have to respect his tradition. By the way…” She cleared her throat, her changed music and high color saying she was uncomfortable with whatever she was going to bring up. “About your CIC updates.”
“From Triana?”
“Yes. Be careful. As long as you don’t let on you know about anything, um, pointy, you’re not in danger. There’s an unspoken rule that civilized pointy people don’t kill non-pointy people.”
Which Dragan had also confirmed. “Because…?”
“The backlash. The vengeful mobs. Bad enough when it was pitchforks and torches, now there are all those M16s and bazookas to worry about.”
“I’ll make sure not to let on to Triana that I know.”
“Good.”
The conversation turned to more general things. Liese and I had been friends since grade school and I relaxed and enjoyed catching up with her. “Remember when Junior Stieg caught Nixie with a cherry bomb in the girls’ bathroom, and she tried to get rid of it by flushing it down the toilet?”
“And she blew the porcelain throne sky-high? Do I ever.”
We were laughing and I was describing the geyser in loving, highly exaggerated detail when Dragan glided into the kitchenette.
Chapter Six
Dragan gave Steel the bare facts of the Soul Stealer rumor, and outlined his concerns. To Steel’s credit, he immediately called his lieutenants and arranged for surveillance on the hospital. Steel ran one of the top security companies in the country; Dragan could be assured his people were in good hands.
While Steel went over the technical aspects, Dragan left to find Raquel. He followed her scent, a luscious combination of human female and innocence, to the kitchenette. He paused outside the closed door. His acute hearing meant he could hear the women talking as if he were in the room with them. Their tense, lowered voices meant it was not acceptable to enter at that point. But he listened closely.
Raquel was saying some very interesting things.
She knew about the Soul Stealer. Not only what she was saying told him that, how she was saying it shouted it to him. The emphasis she put on words like “sharp” and “scared” said clearer than the words themselves that she was talking about a vampire.
She was aware of the existence of vampires.
Then she said the name, Nosferatu.
She was spying on the head of the Chicago vampires. She was putting herself in deadly danger.
Anger rose in him, so swiftly it was a hot geyser spewing through his veins, quickly followed by an ice floe of fear. He threw a palm against the doorjamb to steady himself.
He tried to tell himself it was none of his business. If he rescued every human woman he got involved with, he’d never have time for anything else. This particular human woman had discovered the vampire secret through her own actions. It wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t his problem.
Then, as the kitchen conversation turned to schoolgirl memories, she laughed.
Her sweet delight tickled his ears and brought an unbidden smile to his face, and he knew he was lying to himself. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to her while they were involved.
He’d simply have to keep his eye on her. Beyond getting her in his bed, that was.
He found the thought of her at his side…delicious. Compelling. He pushed open the door to be with her.
And was completely floored.
I paused in my story and stared at him, filling the doorway in his loosened tie and skinny coat.
He blinked at me as if struck by something astonishing. “You’re smiling.”
“Is that a problem?” My smile died as I puzzled at him. I glanced at Liese to see if she knew what the issue was, found her own smile had subsided to a knowing smirk.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile before. It is quite the most beautiful thing I’ve ever beheld.”
My face heated. “That’s crazy talk. Is it time to go?”
He shook his head, slowly. “Why can’t you accept your beauty, Raquel?”
“Because I’m plain old Rocky. Let’s go.” I rose, intending to take my mug to the sink.
“Raquel—”
“Why does he call you that?” Liese asked.
I stopped. “Oh. Well, it’s my name. At least it’s the one my birth certificate.”
“It’s lovely. Why don’t you use it?”
I shrugged it off. “I’ve been Rocky all my life. Rocky is a good name. I feel like a Rocky.” Why was everyone questioning my
name now?
“No, that’s not right. You haven’t been Rocky all your life.” Liese’s eyes tracked as if she were searching a shelf of books in her memory. “Now I remember—in grade school we called you Raquel. It wasn’t until junior high—”
“Thanks for the tea.” I handed her the mug instead of taking it to the sink to halt her flow of words, her spate of memory. “We need to get going.” I turned to Dragan.
He was staring at me with a slight lift to one eyebrow, his black gaze penetrating. With no tea mug to cut off his speculation, I simply grabbed his arm and pulled.
Mistake. The forearm under his coat was steel cables. Heat seared my fingers and the knowledge that I was touching a being vastly different from me slammed into me. As a male, here was the very thing made for me. As a vampire, here was the predator, with me as prey.
I trembled.
Dragan covered my hand with his. “Time to go? Very well. We don’t need to dine at LeLuxe. Where would you like to go for dinner?”
“Well, I…” My voice emerged as a husky whisper and my lips felt suddenly hot and tight and dry. I licked them. His thumb caressed my hand. Everything inside me clenched. The man—vampire—was made of heat and sex. I looked up at him. His eyes were dark on me. A small, pleased and very masculine smile curved his lips, a smile that said he knew everything I was feeling and approved. Any objections to dinner had flown straight out of my head. “I don’t know. Where would you like to go?”
“Anywhere,” he murmured. “As long as you come too.” He emphasized “come”.
“Subtle,” Logan said from behind him. When had he arrived? “Didn’t know you could pun, Zajicek.”
Dragan smirked at the blond man, then turned back to me. “Shall I drive?”
I licked my lips again. They were so hot. “I’d be happy to ride with you—”
Liese clattered dishes in the sink so loud I jumped and spun out of Dragan’s grip. She was staring at me, half amused and half resigned. “Would you guys cool it? The innuendo in here is so heavy it’s pressing on the babies.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” All those whispered comes and rides. I slapped palms to exploding hot cheeks. “I wasn’t aware…I didn’t know…yikes.”
