The woman, who introduced herself as Joan Coates, Lawrence’s sister, led us to a bright sitting room decorated in furniture far too garish for my taste. French or some other older European style, I guessed. Wood covered all the walls, and the red and blue rug clashed with the green and yellow floral furniture. I guessed there was a little green in the rug, but still. Looking at all the busy patterns made me dizzy.
She called for her brother. After offering us tea, which we refused, she excused herself—to go to the market, or so she said. I suspected she just wanted to get away from us. And perhaps especially Claude. He was a touch pale, but he moved like a human when he wanted to appear to be one. His fear aura couldn’t be triggering her response since his was so subtle.
But perhaps selkies could sense what he was. I knew less about the notoriously shy ocean-goers than I should have. They simply didn’t come up in OWEA investigations as often as vampires and other more aggressive otherworlders.
“What do you want?” Lawrence asked as soon as the sound of the front door shutting behind his sister ricocheted through the air.
Claude was silent for a split second longer than I was comfortable with, so I answered the question. “We’re here to talk to you about your disappearance, Mr. Coates.”
Sweat broke out on the man’s forehead, and his voice was raspy when he responded. “Why? That was a long time ago. And I’ve already spoken to other police—”
“Whom you told nothing,” Claude cut in.
Coates sneered. “Well, that’s all I have to say about it.”
I narrowed my eyes. He was hiding something, something big. And it was as apparent in his bravado as his obvious discomfort with our presence.
“Were you assaulted with a branding iron while you were missing, Mr. Coates?”
I gaped at Claude, as did Coates, who spluttered out something indecipherable. Way to jump to the punch line. Not only had he shown our hand, but he’d backed Coates into a corner. And most people didn’t respond to that feeling by giving out information—not without wearing them down first, anyway.
“Get out of my house,” Coates managed finally and turned away, and I cringed at his loud, screeching tone.
Claude moved faster than I’d ever seen him—ever seen anyone. And, in fact, moved so quickly I missed it. One second he was a few feet from Coates, with a couch and coffee table between them, and the next he was on the selkie.
I stared, my mind several seconds behind Claude. Claude grabbed at the selkie and Coates yelled an obscenity. The next thing I knew, Coates’s shirt was on the floor, made of more pieces than it had been while on the selkie, and Claude had the man’s arms behind his back, pretzel-like.
“Claude stop—let him go!” I took a step toward the men, but halted in my tracks. My hand automatically strayed to where I kept my sidearm, even though I was no longer carrying. But even if I had been, I wasn’t entirely certain I had it in me to shoot Claude.
What could I do? Grab him? I wouldn’t even register as a blip on the radar of an out-of-control vampire.
Claude growled and pushed the selkie away. Coates fell to his knees, and I cringed in sympathy. He struggled up and turned to face us, wobbly on his hurt legs.
My feet moved again, almost of their own volition, and I reached to help the man up. But I stopped—as I had before—only this time for a very different reason.
Burned into the center of Coates’s chest was a symbol I recognized.
The brand.
I looked at Coates’s eyes—and the fear behind them bled through, almost palpable. He was muttering something softly, words I couldn’t quite catch. With each syllable, his voice grew louder.
“…I don’t remember!” Coates struggled back and fell against the arm of the couch. He sat on it, his face in his hands.
Dammit. His breath came quickly. Hyperventilating.
“Calm down, Mr. Coates. No one is going to hurt you.” I shot Claude a warning glance, one that he pointedly ignored. Triumph lit his face.
Neither of us approached Coates at first. The selkie gathered his breath and tried to calm himself. I tried to do the same, but anger hit me at Claude’s actions. We weren’t criminals who would strip a man against his will, even of just his shirt. Even a liar like Coates.
I understood he wanted to make progress on the case—hell, I did, too. But there were lines, and he’d just crossed one of them. Screw crossed, he’d dove over and done cartwheels on the other side.
But I had to keep focused. Claude was a problem for later. With that in mind, I walked closer to Coates.
“Mr. Coates?” His breathing had slowed, but perspiration covered his nearly bald head, and I could see skin connecting his fingers up to the first joint as he held his face. A sure sign of a selkie in distress. It was the first step before their joints joined and they transformed into seals. That he was still in human form given his emotional state was a testament to his control. A prince of some sort, indeed.
As I drew closer, he looked up from his hands. Obvious distress still colored his features, but he seemed calmer.
“I don’t remember,” he said, voice soft. “I don’t remember that whole week. All I know is…” He took a deep breath. “When I think of talking about it, or if I even try thinking about it, a feeling of panic hits and I—”
“Can you walk us through it? Anything? The last thing you remember?”
“No—I told you. I don’t remember.” His voice grew fiercer, more panicked. “Just leave me alone!”
Claude moved between us—suddenly standing in front of the selkie—and I decided I really hated vampire speed.
“Tell us what you do know. We aren’t leaving until you do.”
The selkie started yelling again, his words turning indecipherable, and he faded into another panic attack. I grabbed Claude’s shoulder and tugged him away from the selkie.
“He has to tell us something,” he said before I could speak. Emotion that I’d never heard from the vampire rode his voice. Claude was rattled. “We need a next step.”
“He can’t. Look at him. Really look, Claude.”
Doubt flickered across Claude’s face, and he glanced at the selkie.
“There is nothing he’s able to tell us, other than what he already has. But that could be a good thing.”
“What?”
“Think about it. Something preventing him from speaking? Causing him to go into a panic attack when he tries to say too much? That stinks of magic. Maybe Natalie can make some sense of this. Use him to trace whoever created the spell.”
He looked torn, his gaze all but dragged to the selkie.
“And, Claude.” Bright blue eyes flickered back to me. “This isn’t like you. This kind of pressure. You’re hurting him.” I kept my voice calm, even though I had to fight the urge to shake him, or slap some sense into him.
“Anymore.”
“What?” I asked.
Something dark flickered across his features, but then it was gone, leaving only pained regret behind. “This isn’t like me anymore.”
Chapter Eight
If the drive to Wisconsin had been awkward, the drive back to Chicago was positively painful. Claude was obviously lost in thought, and far more distant and worried than I’d ever seen him. I swung back and forth between wanting to rage at him for treating the selkie like that, and telling him about my vision of Luc from when I was a child, just so he would let this go. How could I get him to give up his quest to prove the innocence of a man who was anything but?
And a third urge tugged at me. An urge that was far more dangerous than the others. I wanted to comfort him.
Because this case seemed to have shaken the confident vampire to his core. And something in me didn’t like that one bit. But I couldn’t comfort him, and I dared not show what I knew of Luc—that would risk him cutting me out of the case. Or worse, prompt a confrontation with the Magister before he was ready. Before he had backup in place. Before he had a plan.
Or w
orse, what if he stood by his friend regardless of what he’d done?
So I watched the darkening landscape fade from buildings, to naked trees and open spaces, and back to buildings even bigger than the ones we’d left behind, undecided and feeling like a wishy-washy loser.
We pulled into Claude’s underground parking lot, and I shook my head to clear it. I’d dozed, nearly falling asleep.
“You still sleep during long drives,” Claude murmured as he parked in the low-lit garage.
“You still talk about stuff that’s none of your business.” It wasn’t much of a comeback, and he laughed. I frowned and exited the car. I’d need a little more time away from my almost-nap before I could think of a witty retort.
Claude didn’t mention dinner, and neither did I. I could have rustled up something from his fridge, which appeared to be well-stocked. Or I could have demanded he order me something. Even after the day we’d had, he would have done so. But I wasn’t interested in food.
I pulled a bottle of vodka out of his freezer and mixed it with Coke from the fridge. Claude walked in after taking a shower, his hair still damp, and watched me drink half the first cup in one long swallow.
“You crossed a line back there,” I said.
“I know.”
I waited a beat, but he didn’t offer up anything else. No explanation. No promise that it would never happen again.
“That’s it? That’s all I get? You know? Well, fuck, Claude. Of course you know. You’re not a damn idiot.” I waved my glass at him. “At least I didn’t think you were.” Then I downed the other half.
Claude walked around the counter slowly. He took the glass from my hand and went about making me another drink.
“Have you ever been so obsessed with something that you couldn’t see straight?” he asked. “That you couldn’t see your future without it?”
“No,” I lied. Why else was I here, working with Claude, if I wasn’t a little bit obsessed myself. My brother’s disappearance had ruined my childhood. My parents had gone from normal to fixated on keeping me safe. I’d grown to actually resent him—and that had made me hate myself a little bit.
And at times, when I was alone in the dark, I could almost admit I had a bit of an obsession for Claude that hadn’t quite died.
But I’d never hurt anyone for my obsession, not an innocent.
“No?” He handed me the refilled glass and I grimaced.
“Okay, I kind of get it. But I would have never done what you did.”
“Maybe you’re just a better person than I am.”
Fat chance of that. And then I said it. The question that was really bothering me. The one that had haunted my mind all the way back from Milwaukee. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been there, Claude?”
He turned away from me and pressed his hands against the edge of the countertop. His head dropped, but I couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t decide what he might be feeling.
“I don’t know.” His voice was low and tired as if he carried a burden.
“I don’t understand how branding a selkie gets Nicolas any closer to taking over as Magister.”
“I haven’t got all the answers yet, Beatrice. I’m still putting together the puzzle.”
I hurt for him although we’d had such a short time together. Why did my body seem convinced that we’d forged a real connection? I set my drink down and walked to him. I slid a hand up his back, intending to offer him a small bit of comfort.
Claude had other ideas.
He turned, an emotion that looked somewhere between pain and determination on his face, and his mouth took mine. The kiss was laced with desperation and need, and passion flared at his touch. I wrapped my arms around his neck. He pulled me against him, then up. My legs went around his waist and he carried me the couple of steps to the countertop behind me.
The granite was hard and cold. My whole body ached, and his hands slid down my sides to cup my breasts through my shirt. I cried out against his mouth.
The gravity of what we were doing niggled at me, bringing doubt. It had taken me months to get him out of my system after our brief affair. Months to quit moping around when I wasn’t working. Months to convince myself that it hadn’t mattered. That he didn’t matter.
It was all bullshit. But it was bullshit I had needed to believe.
At the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to pull away as his lips slid down my neck, his fangs so close to my skin. I shuddered. And he growled against the tender skin of my collarbone.
“Need you,” he said, his voice rough and full of an emotion I wasn’t keen to examine.
I tilted his face to mine and took his mouth, trying to show him without words that I was just as desperate for him as he was for me. He drew me closer, one hand wrapped around my back and the other under my butt. His hardness pressed against me through our clothes, right where I needed him. I moaned, and then we were moving.
Pieces of clothing flew as we walked, with the vampire somehow coordinating the removal of my clothes without a single misstep. He set me down at the foot of his bed and I yanked his shirt over his head. His skin shone in the low light. Not as pale as vampires were reputed to be, but a touch different from a normal man. Muscles stretched beneath, corded and strong. Long and lean.
Just the way I liked him.
The rest of our clothes disappeared under feverish kisses. And then he was pushing me onto the bed, his mouth on my breast. I moaned as he pulled at my nipple, and his hand slipped between us to stroke me.
Sparks flashed almost immediately as the orgasm took me. I was almost embarrassed at how fast he could still do that to me, but his satisfied expression only made me need him again.
He brought my body back to the edge with his long fingers and clever tongue. I gripped his hardness and pulled him to me. I’d be damned if I came again without him.
Lips against my neck, he nuzzled me softly, body braced to enter mine.
“I need you, mon chou. All of you.”
I knew what he was asking for—not just sex, but something perhaps even more intimate. I could have said no, and he would have respected it. But I’d never been able to tell him no. And desire for him to have me—in every way that he wanted—coiled inside me, tight and eager.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He thrust his hips forward, filling me, forcing me to take all of him. A split second later, a sharp sensation stung my neck. Then he sucked.
Pain mixed with pleasure as he drove into me and pulled at my vein. Faster and harder. Thoughts evaded me, and I couldn’t feel anything but him. Time stopped. The orgasm hit and rolled through me so powerfully I thought for a moment I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t take it. Then Claude stiffened above me and buried himself inside my body. Taking his own pleasure, he cried out against my neck.
Minutes passed before I could think again. His weight still on me as he held me in the cradle of his arms. I sighed against his chest, and his hold tightened.
What the hell had I done?
The night passed like a dream. Like every bittersweet dream I’d had since Claude had ended things. But it wasn’t a dream, and in the morning I woke to a belly full of regret, and the smell of something delicious.
Everyone knows that vampire bites are pleasurable. Everyone knows that bites can be addictive for the recipient and the vampire—even if it wasn’t in the way that drugs are addictive, not to humans, at least.
Everyone knows that you never let a vampire bite.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time I’d made that particular mistake with Claude.
I touched my neck in the mirror. Two small holes. They would disappear more quickly than most wounds, but it would be another day or two yet. They wouldn’t scar. Thank goodness for scarf weather.
I knew better than to think they wouldn’t scar me in other ways.
Claude waited for me in the kitchen, cooking waffles. Actual, made-with-a-waffle-maker waffles. The vampire seemed at ease, going through the mot
ions of cooking with an extra skip in his step. Exactly the opposite of how I felt. Not that I didn’t feel a bit de-stressed from our passionate night, but new stresses now replaced the old. He kissed my cheek when he handed me a plateful, and I offered him a small smile.
“The giant called while you were in the shower.”
“Oh?” Focus on the case. For God’s sake, focus on the case. But I couldn’t seem to drag my gaze from his full lips. The memory of them on my body made me flush.
Amusement danced in Claude’s eyes, but he kept to the topic at hand. “He has some information for us, thought we could head over this morning.”
Some of my panic faded. Yes. This was good. We could pursue the case. I could pretend the night before never happened. It was a blip—I certainly wasn’t falling for him again. I dug into my waffle. “Sounds good.”
“Beatrice.”
I looked up from my food and met his shining eyes, crinkled with pleasure. Hell, he had noticed my eyes on him. “That doesn’t mean we’re not talking about last night at some point.”
Dammit. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
He grinned. The man’s confidence knew no bounds. “Oh, there’s plenty to talk about.”
I attacked my waffle and ignored the weight of his stare, which I could feel following my every movement. We didn’t have anything to talk about. Risking that feeling again—the emptiness and melodramatic sadness I’d felt before—wasn’t going to happen. I was older now. Wiser.
And I’d been down that road.
So I ignored him through breakfast, and then we headed out. The drive to the metalworker’s was quick, but my mood darkened as we drove, even as Claude’s seemed to brighten. By the time we parked and Claude pushed quarters into the meter, I half expected the jerk to be humming.
But he didn’t hum, although a smile lingered on his lips. As Chicago’s bitter wind swept through my layers, I pulled my coat tighter around myself.
The metalworker answered the door quickly, as if he’d waited for us by the door, a sour expression on his face. His gaze met Claude’s, and his frown deepened. The vampire hesitated at the door, then shot me a questioning glance before following the large man inside.
Vampire Games (Entangled Ever After) Page 7
