The Community Series, Books 1-3

by Tappan, Tracy

  That left Kimberly options like, well…

  …drugging Sedge, although she only had access to OTC meds that might kill him in overdose.

  …or doing some kind of outlandish miner-sixty-niner sexual position to render him stupefied, although that would be suspicious, considering that she hadn’t slept with the jerk since Toni had been kidnapped.

  …or outright begging, which would be completely transparent, not her style, and probably not worth it, anyway.

  None of these options was, in truth. Fact was, she’d never actually seen a key card on her husband’s person.

  She wouldn’t have put it past him to have decided to keep his own card locked up in a safe somewhere, far away from her. Large didn’t equal stupid when it came to Sedge. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him outsmarting her in this area. Either filled with a boatload of respect or a pathological need to kick his ass. Anyway ….

  Back to business, working other options. She flipped a page in one of the law books and read intently. She had to hand it to good ol’ Pollyanna, Hannah Banana had stocked the library extremely well with volumes that only Kimberly would use.

  “I have to talk to you,” a voice told Kimberly in an underbreath.

  Kimberly popped her head up to find Beth’s pretty face only inches from hers.

  The clothing designer’s blue eyes were alive with excitement. “I need to show you something.”

  “Oh, really?” Kimberly eased back in her chair, her eyebrows inching upward. “What would that be: your new fall line?”

  “No.” Beth said the one word succinctly, as if Kimberly were just learning English. “This has to do with what we discussed at the tea party.”

  A surprise, and then some. The five Dragons had been lying low for the seven days since their first meeting with Toni, all doing the “act casual” thing until someone could produce a key card. Beth was the last person, besides Hannah, that Kimberly would’ve expected to approach her.

  Kimberly looked Beth up and down, not bothering to hide her suspiciousness. “I didn’t think you’d found your Zen place about our plans.”

  “Well, I have.” Beth’s lips curled inward, her chin tightening slightly: a different look for her. “Thanks to my husband’s utter lack of help with the matter.”

  Kimberly jerked forward, her heart stumbling out of rhythm. “Crap, Beth. You told Arc about what we’re up to.”

  “I didn’t give him specifics,” Beth returned tartly. “But I figured … well, I thought that if we could get our men to approach Roth about our demands, then we could avoid a lot of hullabaloo.”

  Kimberly snorted. “They’re not going to do that.”

  “No,” Beth agreed quietly, her eyelashes floating downward. “Arc and the other men pretty much held the company line about them not having any power, just like you said they would.” She pressed a slender hand to her brow. “I’m trying not to feel too disappointed with Arc over that. I understand that the Vârcolac history has been very tragic, and that the people of this community have learned to band together around their leadership because of that, but ….” Dropping her hand, she trailed into a sigh.

  “Changes are a’comin’,” Kimberly murmured.

  Beth met Kimberly’s gaze, a fierceness in her blue eyes that Kimberly never would’ve guessed the too-sweet-to-be-true woman could manage. “They just expect us to do all the work,” Beth accused, her cheeks blooming. “We’re expected to adapt to their ways, to learn their culture. We’re forced to give up everything, and they don’t give up a danged thing.”

  Wow, whatever level of asshole’ness Beth’s normally devoted husband had sunk to, thank you, stars above. Kimberly now had a definite ally. She smiled at Beth. “Welcome to the light side of the Force, my padawan.”

  Beth drew a quick breath, a look of satisfaction flashing across her gaze. Planting her hands on the tabletop, she leaned forward, putting her face right into Kimberly’s again. “So, do you want to do this thing, or what? Because if you do, then you need to get your butt over to my house right now so I can show you the email I received from Alex Parthen, a man claiming to be Toni’s brother.”

  Kimberly shot to her feet so fast she nearly stumbled out of her shoes.

  They made it to the Costache residence in under five minutes, Beth locking the front door behind them. “Arc’s working and the kids are at preschool. Over here…” She led Kimberly to a desk situated in a cubby off the living room. “Apparently, this Alex Parthen is some sort of computer genius. He hacked into our system to get to me, if you can believe it.”

  “I can’t,” Kimberly said as she sat in the desk chair. Cleeve kept the community on a constantly changing network of cables that was – supposedly – impossible to breach. “Maybe someone inside the community sent this email to test how serious we are about raising Cain, you know, to see how we’ll respond to it.”

  Beth surprised Kimberly with a harshly exhaled Ha! “Look me in the eye, Kimberly, and tell me that for one minute your husband has taken your ability to cause trouble seriously. I know Arc hasn’t.”

  Kimberly twisted her lips. “You make a good point.”

  Beth reached over Kimberly’s shoulder and grasped the computer mouse. “Alex told me a person sending him emails in Toni’s name was using the same small, private IP address as mine.”

  Huh. So Cleeve had failed to keep up his ruse as Toni, had he? Funny, he’d kept Kimberly’s family bamboozled for three years by claiming that she’d gone back into the Peace Corps, working in Comoros, Africa, a country that wasn’t even as big as Rhode Island. So, gee, I can’t email too often, guys, being in the middle of nowhere and all, but I’m doing such amazing work for these poor unfortunates ….

  Beth brought up the email from Toni’s brother. “He wants to know if I have any information about his missing sister. He sounds really worried about her.”

  “I can imagine.” Kimberly read the email, but Beth had already summarized the main points.

  “So what do you think?” Beth asked breathlessly.

  Kimberly swiveled in the chair to look up at Beth. Something about the polite, but urgent tone of the email smacked as very real. “Genius may be understating matters for this Alex guy.”

  Beth giggled, her expression bright and eager again.

  Kimberly bounced the desk chair back on its sturdy springs. “And I’m thinking if Toni’s brother can hack Cleeve’s computer system, then I bet he can help us circumvent the key code boxes.” She waggled her eyebrows. “We need to tell him about –”

  “Wait a minute,” Beth stopped her. “We can’t divulge the community’s security system.”

  Kimberly stopped bouncing. “What did you plan on doing with this email? Just tell this Alex fella, ‘Hey, pal, don’t worry, Toni’s okay, she’s just locked away in an underground bunker for vampires, but she’ll be home for a visit as soon as she squeezes out a puppy, so chill your nuts.”

  Beth’s forehead pleated.

  Kimberly exhaled a laugh. “I’m kidding – about the vampire part, at least.” Who would believe her anyway?

  “You know the Vârcolac history of discovery. Being found out would be hugely problematic for the people around here, including my own children.”

  “No one’s going to find out where we are,” Kimberly assured Beth. “Even if it turns out Alex can tell us how to crack the code box, he couldn’t use the information to breach an entrance himself to get to us. He doesn’t know where our entrances are, any more than we do.”

  Beth mulled that over for a moment. “I suppose you’re right,” she said, chewing her bottom lip. “One of us needs to stay down here, though.”

  Kimberly straightened the chair, planting her feet on the floor. “Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much backlash there’s going to be?”

  Beth spread her hands. “We promised the other Dragons that none of the husbands would get hurt,” she reasoned. “You won’t get them to escape topside unless a go-between stays behin
d to email a message if one of the husbands’ blood-need gets too severe.”

  “Shit.” Kimberly clasped her brow between the stretch of her thumb and forefinger. Beth was probably right; if they assured the husbands’ wellbeing from the get-go that would help shut down possible complaints. “Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll stay.” So much for the happy reunion she’d planned to have with her parents.

  “No. You’re the fantastic bluffer, remember? You’ll be needed topside to negotiate with Roth.” Beth drew in a breath that swelled her breasts. “I’ll be the one to do it.”

  Kimberly dipped her chin, eyeing Beth askance. “Are you sure?” Beth seemed more like the type of woman to get out of the kitchen when things got too hot.

  Beth’s throat worked around a swallow, but her nod was firm. “Yes. This is something I need to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Toni barely made it out of Aunt Ælsi’s with her hand still attached to her wrist. Everyone in the morning coffee crowd had been determined to grab it, pat it sympathetically, and ask how she was doing, all the while tut-tutting over the fading three-day-old bruise on her jaw. She didn’t think she’d ever been engulfed in so much genuine niceness and affection before. It’d made her feel glad she’d left her room. She still felt like warmed over hell, but hadn’t wanted to put off visiting Dev in the hospital another day.

  She was now strolling along Main Street, surrounded by Vinz, Gábor, and the two warriors whose names she’d forgotten before: Jeddin and Breen. Jacken was conspicuously absent, as he had been ever since he’d ordered her to finish her juice, then all but bolted from her bedroom.

  She should be glad for it. Thrilled, even. Between him manhandling her during the letter-opener incident, his stinginess with The African Queen, and his overall rude behavior at Garwald’s, she should welcome a break from his oh-so-stellar personality.

  But the truth was, she kind of missed him.

  She nearly groaned. Dear God, if she was developing feelings for that man, she might as well hike to the highest point in the cave and leap off. It didn’t make any sense for her to fall for a man like Jacken. Dark and smoldering Dev? Yes. Thomal? Christ, who wouldn’t with that amazing ass? Detective John Waterson with his sexy smile and even sexier kisses? He was absolutely a sensible candidate. Not an ill-tempered, black-eyed, tank of a man, who, oh, incidentally, claimed to be a half-demon, half-vampire.

  If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d suffered permanent brain damage from her concussion.

  Or maybe it made too much sense to fall for a man like Jacken, and that scared the crap out of her. There was no denying she wanted to jump his bones and plunder his virginity all to hell like the worst sort of pirate wench. There was also no getting around the connection she kept forging with him whenever they had their run-ins. Each time, she found a new similarity, whether it was knowing what it felt like to be trapped and alone, or always feeling like a freak, or the big one, being raised by rejects for the Father of the Year award, or not raised, as in her case.

  If only he hadn’t smiled at her at Garwald’s; that’s what had set off this whole lovesick thing. It hadn’t even been a friendly smile, but he’d just looked so … different, the hard angles of his face softening, small lines appearing at the corners of his eyes, years peeling away to reveal the young man he must’ve been once. Or maybe the man he would’ve been, had he not been raised in such horrific circumstances.

  Or maybe … the man he could be … with the right woman.

  Yes, excellent. That was exactly what she needed to be thinking right now.

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. A girl didn’t get together with a man in order to save him. A woman fell for a guy who truly understood her on a soul-deep level…a guy who called her things like “whack job” and “nagging shrew” because he knew she wasn’t perfect and was totally fine with it. A girl flipped over a man she trusted to do something really sweet like show up in her room with a thermos of juice, even if he’d blown it the first time around, a guy who made her feel safe, even when he looked a little lost himself.

  A girl fell in love with a man whose mere presence did a whole lot of saving her.

  Fall in love … Oh, God. She pressed a hand to her forehead and moaned. She was in real trouble here.

  “Hey, Toni,” Vinz set a gentle palm on her shoulder. “You all right?”

  She stopped walking. “Yes, I, um, was just thinking ….” About what it’d felt like to have Jacken stroke her hair. His touch had been inexpert and unsure, clumsy. In a word, perfect.

  “Are you having flashbacks about what happened with Lorke?” Vinz’s brow furrowed. “I don’t want you to worry about that, okay. The men and I aren’t going to let anything happen to you. Just stick with us.”

  Yes, well, that’d been the main stipulation for her to be allowed outside of the mansion again: no more escaping her Protection Team, definitely no more going back into Stânga Town. “Thank you, Vinz.” She smiled faintly. “I know.”

  They continued on to the hospital.

  Once inside, Gábor, Jeddin, and Breen took up posts around the building while Vinz led her to Dev’s room. Toni stopped in the doorway, shock bringing her up short.

  The patient looked remarkably good.

  Dev was sitting up in bed and chatting with his sister, Luvera, that sweet-natured waitress from Garwald’s, his dark flannel pajama top doing wonders to emphasize his robust frame and healthy complexion. There wasn’t a cannula in his nose to give him extra oxygen or even an IV line.

  Toni frowned. How bizarre. She’d had a close-up view of the severity of Dev’s wound, and he shouldn’t be looking this good only three days after his injury. The punch she’d taken to her jaw, as bad as it’d been, had been way less debilitating than Dev’s injury, yet he looked a hundred times better than she did.

  “Hey!” Dev’s eyes brightened when he saw her in the doorway. “Come on in, Toni. Have you met my sister, Luvera?”

  Luvera turned to smile at her, her eyes the same dazzling silver as Dev’s and her hair a similar rich black. The woman was stunning, even dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and a long, shapeless skirt. Sheesh, spend enough time in Ţărână and a normally pretty girl would start feeling like the Thing that had crawled out from under a bridge.

  “Yes, we’ve met. Hi, Luvera.” Toni walked forward, stopping at the side of Dev’s bed. “She’s been campaigning for you.”

  “Has she?” Dev flashed his sister an affectionate look. “That’s cool. Did she mention I can – Whoa.” Dev’s brows soared. “You smell different.”

  “Ah, yes, I’m wearing some kind of gross mud now.” She hadn’t been thrilled about having to slap on that nasty stuff behind her ears. It was both sticky and tingly, but that had been Stipulation Two for going outside the mansion. “Here, I brought you this.” She held up the coffee she’d purchased with some credits at Aunt Ælsi’s. “A Mocha Frappuccino.”

  “Hey, thanks.” Dev’s expression turned wry as he accepted the to-go cup. “I … look like a Mocha Frappuccino guy, do I?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just wanted to do something to thank you for saving my can.”

  Dev chuckled. “Well, it’s such a nice can ….” He took a sip. His eyebrows shot up. “This is straight black coffee.”

  She smiled warmly. “Is it?”

  He chuckled again, the sound resonant and smoky. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you check out my wound, Doc, and give me a thumbs up for getting out of here.” He set his coffee cup on the tray attached to his bed. “Then you and I can go someplace private.”

  She laughed outright at that. Get out of here. The man was delusional. “Still vying for a medical examination from me, are you, Mr. Nichita? Well, you’ve already had one, buddy. Three days ago. In Stânga Town.”

  Dev frowned over that, then understanding lit his face. He threw back his head and whooped, his gold hoop earring catching the light. “You mean that nut-grab you pulled on me? Hell, I’
d hardly call that a … now, wait just a second here …. I might be okay with that.”

  The group of them laughed together just as Dr. Jess bustled into the room.

  “Well, sakes alive,” the doctor’s eyes danced, “how wonderful to see everyone in such high spirits. Ah! Dr. Parthen, how are you feeling?”

  “Better, thank you.”

  “Excellent.” Dr. Jess smiled cheerfully. “Please, stay and observe, then. I was just going to check Devid’s injury. This will give you the opportunity to observe a vampire’s healing abilities at their finest.”

  Toni blinked. A vampire’s …?

  “The Nichitas have some of the purest bloodlines in the community. Their powers of restoration are truly extraordinary.” Dr. Jess wheeled over a cart full of medical paraphernalia. “Come closer, Dr. Parthen.”

  “Yes, come closer,” Dev all but purred. His silver eyes latched onto her as he unbuttoned his flannel shirt and shrugged it off, baring the powerful muscles of his smooth chest.

  Toni walked around the bed, suddenly feeling like she was moving in a trance, and stopped next to Dr. Jess. Every nerve in her body prickled with a strange anticipation of something huge about to happen.

  Dr. Jess tugged on a pair of latex gloves.

  “ … gotta go,” Luvera was saying. “Mom says she’ll come by later to ….”

  The doctor carefully peeled the white square of bandage from Dev’s shoulder, then set the dirty gauze on the cart.

  Toni sucked in a painful breath.

  “You see!” Jess exclaimed triumphantly. “Most Vârcolac would need to wear their stitches for a week, but Devid’s can be taken out already.”

  Toni abruptly felt as if her feet were no longer in solid contact with the floor. Dr. Jess was right; the skin was completely closed beneath Dev’s stitches. The wound was still red, yes, and somewhat swollen, but for the most part it looked like a laceration that’d been healing for two weeks, not three days. Toni’s heart slipped somewhere down into the environs of her feet, and she swallowed so hard her throat made a noise. This had to be a trick, some kind of super-fancy, complicated FX. She’d seen Dev’s wound, damn it, and it was a biological impossibility for an injury of that magnitude to have mended so quickly.