by Lisa Olsen
“I don’t play every night, only on nights we’re not working.”
“That’s another thing, I won’t be able to help you as much since I’ll be taking up my Elder duties again.”
“I thought you were done with that.”
“I’m looking at finding a balance between changing what I can through politics and supplementing it with more direct action with you when diplomacy doesn’t work.”
“Okay,” he shrugged. “How is that a rule exactly?”
“It’s not. It means I’d like it if you took on a more active role in my administration.”
His eyebrows hit the sky. “You want me to take a job working for the man?”
“Working for me. Well, with me. What do you say? How does Chief of Intelligence sound?”
“I’d rather be chief of your secret police.”
“You can call yourself that if it makes you feel better, but it’ll be a department of one.”
“Even better,” he grinned, rubbing his hands together. “I take it I’ll be basically doing the same thing I’ve always done? Digging up the dope on the more violent elements in the community and finding their vulnerability?”
“Nobody does it better,” I nodded. “Are you in?”
Carter paced up one side of my front porch and back. “I don’t know, going legit isn’t exactly my style. I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years.”
“Then what better way to re-enter society than under my protection?”
“Who says I want to re-enter society?”
“Do you really want to go back to the way things were before, all alone?” His belongings stacked in my backyard told me no.
“Alright, I’m in,” he caved in, drumming up a sarcastic smirk. “But don’t expect me to be nice to those asshats you call a council.”
“I expect you to be civil. You don’t have to kiss up to them, but you can follow the old credo – if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” The last thing I needed was him pissing off the people I wanted to stay firmly in my corner.
“I can do that. I’ve gone an entire year without talking before.”
“Ha, I find that hard to believe.” Carter did have his quiet moods, but also had periods where he talked my ear off.
“Okay, okay, I agree to your rules,” he grinned. “Now are you going to invite me in or not?”
“Come on in.” I stood back from the door with a sweeping gesture. Carter stepped in gingerly, not quite sure what to expect, but nothing prevented him from entering the house.
“Is that it?”
“That’s it,” I smiled. “Welcome to the family.”
* * *
Carter turned out to be pretty handy around the house, converting the entire attic space into his bachelor pad. I offered him one of the furnished rooms, but he liked being up high at the top of the house to get a better lay of the land, he said. I suspected he liked having the privacy to retreat to as well, not used to living with others.
I got him the sixty inch Sony TV with all the bells and whistles, Blu-ray player and surround sound loud enough to rattle my basement windows when he had it turned up high enough. He found a gamer buddy in Tucker, and the two of them disappeared for hours when Maggie and I spent time at the office. It only took one time of being startled out of my work by the sound of machine guns at full blast before I instituted the rule of twenty. No playing videogames louder than a volume level of twenty unless he was home alone.
The rest of the house welcomed Carter into the fold, and Tucker seemed to be making the adjustment back to stateside life well. Lee continued to take him under his wing when Maggie and I were busy at the office, and I was glad to see the young shifter gradually gain more confidence.
Jakob sent me some old fashioned postcards from Morocco and Indonesia, and the occasional text with a pic of him and Nelleke having a blast on the first leg of their world tour.
November and most of December flew by before I’d even noticed. Still caught up in my whirlwind life, I let myself get lost in work to keep from processing the feels whenever I thought about Rob or Bishop. Time was a healer all on its own though, and each day I felt less frazzled emotionally.
I didn’t hear a peep from Rob. There was a brief mention of him in an email I got from Aubrey, saying that he’d run into him in France, working for Jean Pierre Severine, the Elder of Toulac. I was glad to hear he was finding his foothold in vampire society again, and I knew with the security concerns Severine had, he’d be needed there. I had a notion that Rob felt the keen desire to be needed at the moment.
I got a letter in the mail from Bishop every Wednesday without fail, but they were nothing more than brief notes to tell me he hoped I was doing well. It was easy to tell he was trying his hardest to give me space, and I appreciated it more than I could say. I wrote him back via email, but I kept it light, not wanting to get too deeply into anything for the time being.
Aubrey also dropped a couple of hints that Carys and Bishop had parted ways, but I didn’t want to ask about it. I couldn’t. Not yet, anyway. The last thing I wanted to do was get my hopes up only to have Carys step in and crush them again.
I missed him something fierce. I missed both of them. But I was learning how to live my life without being dependent on a man again, and it felt good.
Christmas was coming, and I decided to throw a big party on New Year’s Eve. Not so much for the high muckety mucks of society, but for all the local vamps to go to as well. Maggie had enthusiastically caught onto the idea and was planning up a storm. Even my sister Hanna had been excited by the idea, intending to attend her first vampire event. I had mixed feelings about that. The farther I could keep my sister away from that world, the better, but I wasn’t her keeper. All I could do was try and make sure she stayed as safe as possible (which included enlisting a half dozen of my friends to keep an extra eye on her at the party).
When the knock came at the door, I didn’t think twice about getting it myself. Maggie was down at the office with Gunnar and Tucker. Lee was out recruiting employees for his business, eager to get it off the ground, and Carter was off doing something secretive as usual. For once nobody fought me about keeping extra security around, since nobody had tried to kill me in months.
You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I found Bishop standing on my front porch with a bunch of white carnations. “I made it my second stop,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Had to pick up some flowers first.”
“Bishop? What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d come and pay my respects to the Elder of the West, and update you on some changes you might need to know about.”
“Ah, I see. So you’re in town on Order business then?”
“Yes, and no. I’m in town permanently, and while I will still be working for the Order, it’ll be in my old position, not in charge of the entire organization anymore.”
He was moving back to San Francisco? Permanently? I might’ve gaped at him like a fish for a few seconds, but Bishop was very polite about it, waiting for me to get over my shock. “What about Frost? Won’t he be upset about losing out on his spot?”
Bishop shook his head. “Frost is lucky he’s not facing a tribunal with the way he’s been handling things. He’s being rotated to another post in Florida.”
He was moving back to San Francisco for good. I wasn’t sure whether I should whoop for joy or sit down before I passed out. Then again, besides bringing me the flowers, he hadn’t said a thing about picking things up where we left off.
“Mason will be glad to see you’re back,” I ventured, and Bishop leaned against the doorjamb, getting as close to me as he could with the protective barrier between us.
“I hope he’s not the only one.”
“No, he’s not,” I agreed, stepping closer until there was barely an inch of space between us. “I’m sure Laveda will be glad too.”
“Oh, funny. You’re gonna get it for that,” he threatened, but his f
ingers, poised for tickling, couldn’t get past the barrier. We both laughed, and it felt good, until I remembered the main reason why we’d stayed apart for so long.
“Is that such a good idea, you relocating out here? Won’t Carys expect you to come when she calls?”
“No, that’s all in the past now.” He sounded so sincere, but how could I trust her to stay away?
“I don’t know if I can believe that.”
“She released me, I’m free.”
It sounded too good to be true. And even if it was, I couldn’t help but ask, “But for how long?”
“I didn’t torture her with hot pokers and demand that she release me. She did it of her own free will.”
She had? It didn’t sound like anything she’d do unless she had an ulterior motive. “Why?”
Bishop paused, choosing his words carefully before he replied. “Because in her own way, I think Carys does love me and she wanted me to be happy.”
I cocked a disbelieving brow. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same Carys?”
“I’m serious, Anja. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think we stood a chance. It’s no trick. Carys released her claim on me. The last I heard she was terrorizing some young noble from Faust’s party, barely old enough to shave.”
I hadn’t heard anything about it from Aubrey, but it didn’t surprise me. It did sound upsetting through. “Terrorizing? And you thought it was okay to leave him there to her…”
“I didn’t mean literally, Anja,” he interrupted me with a shake of the head. Bishop looked at me like a man who’d returned to a childhood home he’d never though to visit again, his gaze rediscovering, lingering, loving. “I know I said I’d give you some time, and I’m not asking you to pick things up right where we left off.”
“What are you asking for then?”
He drew a deep breath. “A date.”
“A date?” I blinked, the concept sounding wildly inadequate after how close we’d been.
“Yep. That’s what regular people do, don’t they? They date, get to know each other, see if they get along.”
“You want to date me now, after everything we’ve been through?”
“Well, we did sort of skip over that part. I thought this might be a good way to find our way back to each other. No demands, no expectations, see how well we fit into each other’s lives now.”
“A date,” I repeated, weighing it out in my mind. He might have the right idea there. My life had been so crazy since the first night he’d asked me for my license and registration. It might be nice to try and do something ordinary for once.
Sensing my hesitation, he was quick to add, “You don’t have to give me your answer right now. Just think it over. I know I said I’d let you sort things out, and if you want to tell me to back off, I will. I just thought it might be a good time to start at the beginning again.”
“You seem like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Yep,” he said, nudging the trim framing the door with the toe of his shoe.
“So, we’d… go out for drinks, and pretend like we don’t know each other?” It sounded like a weird amount of role-playing to me. Not that it might not be interesting, but was that really the right move for us?
“No, it wouldn’t be pretend at all,” he frowned, spending a few seconds searching for the right words to make me understand. “I want to do normal things with you, Anja. I want to take you out to the movies, not watch them separately and argue about them online later. I want to go for walks on the beach and kiss you under the Boardwalk. I want to try all thirty-one flavors with you. I want to… whatever it is regular people do when they date. I’ll even take you out to dinner and we can stare at each other over snails and fancy pastries we won’t eat if that’s what you want.”
My lips parted in surprise at the fervor in his voice. He had given this a lot of thought.
“So, what do you think?” he prompted, self consciously rubbing the back of his neck as he waited for my answer.
God, he was adorable.
* * *
Bishop’s skin was visibly paler when he climbed back into the passenger’s seat of Mason’s car. His hands had started to sweat, and he wiped them on his jeans, back and forth, without saying a word.
“What happened, buddy?” Mason prompted gently. “Did she say no?”
He gripped his knees, taking shallow breaths until the panic started to recede. “No, she said yes.”
Mason waited for him to clarify, his brows furrowing in confusion when nothing more came. “Then why do you look like someone just crushed your nuts and fed them to you on toast points?”
“She said yes,” Bishop repeated, shifting his legs when they wouldn’t stop bouncing nervously. “Now I have to take her on a date.”
“Ah… Wasn’t that the entire point of asking her out?”
“Yeah, but…” He didn’t understand at all. Bishop was over the moon that she’d said yes, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. “Do you realize how long it’s been since I took a girl out on a date? And this isn’t just any girl, it’s Anja. There’s a lot riding on this.”
“Is that all?” Mason chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to make Bishop wince. “Sit back and relax, Cochise. The love doctor is in.”
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Read on for a special preview of Lisa Olsen’s novel, The Company of Shadows, available now!
Books by Lisa Olsen:
The Touch
Moonsong
Nine Steps to Sara
Pretty Witches All in a Row
Kiss the Witch Goodbye
The Company Series:
The Company of Shadows
The Company of Darkness
The Company of Lies
The Company of Death (Spring 2015)
The Fallen Series:
Angel of Mercy
Mercy for the Wicked
Mercy for the Damned
Child of Mercy
Mercy for the Fallen
Forged Bloodlines Series:
Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down
Meet Me When the Sun Goes Down
Find Me When the Sun Goes Down
Miss Me When the Sun Goes Down
Follow Me When the Sun Goes Down
Hear Me When the Sun Goes Down
Release Me When the Sun Goes Down
Trust Me When the Sun Goes Down
Tempt Me When the Sun Goes Down
Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down (early summer 2015)
The Vampire Diaries:
Tabula Rasa
Dark Side of the Moon
For more information, visit the author’s website at http://www.lisaolsen.net
or her author page on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/lisaolsen
You can also visit her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lisaolsenrobotbrain
Preview – The Company of Shadows
Chapter One
Need.
Not wants or desires, but need drove Asherik to seek the company of shadows. The sunlight didn't pain him in a physical sense, but he preferred the darkness. All manner of interesting things grew bolder under the cover of night, all driven by need. Street toughs openly flashed makeshift weapons, demanding tribute of those stupid enough to look prosperous on the seamy streets of San Francisco. Junkies smashed car windows, searching for anything portable worth a few dollars, desperate to slide oblivion into their veins. Women sold their bodies, some to chase that same oblivion, some to feed a deeper need. Scuttling vermin and insects; night was the perfect time to feed, and Ash felt a hunger that couldn’t be satisfied by tender bits of veal sautéed in an excellent Marsala.
Though he enjoyed the comforts of excess (the elegant meal, black satin sheets, and panoramic views of the bay that st
retched from every window of the modern house he’d appropriated), Ash preferred the seedy squalor of the Tenderloin district when it came time to satisfy his true hunger. There, among the dregs of human society, he felt a kinship. His sins were no worse than the sins of man. There were plenty who fed from terror, pain and lust. Tonight he was after something far more elusive – innocence.
He could pluck a victim from the streets at any time for the taste of fear; it was corruption Ash sought. Corruption of innocence above all else, a feat made all that much more elusive for the hunting ground he chose. It would be nothing to lay in wait outside of a church or a library and find all manner of easy prey, but he wanted more. Nothing so simple as virginity, though that was a keen pleasure to be had, but an innocence of spirit was all the more satisfying to consume. Far tastier than the gobbets of quivering flesh he fed upon when the mood struck.
Though he enjoyed the occasional grapple with men, Ash preferred the softness of women. There were women to be had on the streets, but their dead eyes offered him no joy. He wanted to hunt. He wanted the thrill of discovery.
And so he’d dressed himself in an elegant suit of virgin wool, soft against the skin and pleasing to the eye. Black on black, open at the throat, with a shock of scarlet peeping out of the breast coat pocket. Perhaps a bit warm, given the muggy night, but Ash didn’t mind the heat. He enjoyed a good sweat.
He pushed the silver coupe he’d appropriated through the squalid streets with a squeal of tires, daring a policeman to stop him. There were none in sight, having abandoned that part of the city for the night unless called. Parking a short distance away from his chosen destination, he didn’t bother to lock the car, preferring to make it easier on thieves. It made no difference to him if the car was there on his return, and after a brief consideration, left the keys in the car; a lucky find for a comrade.
The neon and pumping music called him to his purpose. Inferno – the club brought him everything his delicate palate could desire. Here, women were used in the dirty bathrooms and no one looked twice. One could obtain all manner of mood altering drugs through sale or trade. Sometimes Ash chose to indulge. Turn on, tune in, drop out… the concept hadn’t changed much since the sixties, and there was a draw to that kind of nothingness.
