by Mary Hughes
“Trick…?” He jerked, startled. “No! For goodness sake, woman, I’m trying to be nice to you!”
Nice? Nobody was nice to me, a woman filled with rage and revenge, except Rey. I closed the box. “Has hell just gotten climate control?”
He barked a laugh. “I’m trying to cooperate with you, and this is the thanks I get?”
Smiling, he was far too delectable. “You’re impossible,” I muttered.
“So I’ve been told. Do you want to see the camera footage or flirt some more?”
“Flirt…?”
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and waggled it at me. “I have passwords.”
Surprisingly, I was having a good time simply talking with him. I like flirting with him? Definitely too weird for me. “Okay. Let me take the calories inside first.” The bungalow camera wasn’t going anywhere. I might learn something from seeing the Roller-Blayd security footage again with Ryker.
Or maybe I just liked being with him.
We started south for the police station. His long legs at first made it hard to keep up, but if I took three steps for every two of his, we got on comfortably.
“Kat, I’ve been thinking about your family. You’ve good reason to hate vampires, but…” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t simply making conversation, as if this really mattered. “You must’ve come across some good vampires by now.”
“Pretending to be good, sure. My father.”
“Your father, and…?”
My mouth tightened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He threw me a sharp glance. “If you don’t want to talk, that means you probably should.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” I snapped. “Mucking about in my psyche, really. Who do you think you are? Rey?”
“Hmm. I’ll assume you met a good vampire, but it went against your worldview.” His mouth tipped in an almost challenging smile. “And, exceptional slayer that you are, you dusted him.”
“Dickwipe.”
His smile broadened, and a genuine twinkle lit his eye. He’d said it to get a rise out of me, or even to make me laugh.
A chortle rose up in my throat. I throttled it and it came out as a snort. “Anyone ever tell you your sense of humor is wicked twisted?”
“My friend the king. So, you have come across good suckers.”
My amusement died. “Pretending to be good.” The vampire who’d charmed my mentor. She’d blown her disguise, though—when she’d killed him.
Pain stabbed me at the memory, even after all these years.
Ryker’s black gaze searched my face, his own humor fading. “It appears personal.”
“It happened to a friend.”
“A good friend.” He paused. “Don’t tell me if you don’t want. It might help me understand, though.”
I stayed silent.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you a little story instead.”
…
Ryker’s heart dropped when Kat closed off to him. She’d trusted him yesterday with the story of her parents’ death, but today she would no longer confide in him.
It was because he’d abandoned her to Keydew at the police station.
He’d only meant it for the best of reasons, going into the station ahead of her. Necessity, really.
But he’d hurt her. Lost some of her trust.
Only one way to get it back. He had to tell her his own painful story, one he’d never told anyone.
Painful, but the decision brought him a measure of peace. He was doing the right thing, no matter how much it would hurt. He took a deep breath and began.
“Kat. You were adopted. So was I.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Really.”
“I see you think I’m making it up to trick you. I’m not. My parents lived far from civilization. When I was a tot, they died, and I wandered away from the cabin. Or perhaps they no longer wanted me and left me in the open. Either way, I toddled smack into a feral pack.”
Literally. Thousands of years ago, it was not unheard of to be adopted by the creatures of the wild. He was one of those children.
“Like a motorcycle gang?” Her gaze held puzzlement. “What about your relatives? Your parents’ friends?”
A question he’d asked himself, in his angry days. “Perhaps we lived too far away from others, and by the time they found out, it was too late. By the time I thought to search, there was no way of knowing.”
“How did you survive?” Sympathy softened her features.
“The pack that adopted me was kind, in a rough way. I was too young to be a danger to them. Too young to fear befriending them. By the time my voice changed, I was one of them.”
“It must’ve been a hard life.”
“On the contrary. It was wonderful. I ran free.” Even in memory, savage joy surged in his breast. No responsibilities, no guilt, no recriminations. He’d been truly free, or thought he was. “Then…”
Memory crashed into him. False freedom, false joy. Unaware, he’d been injuring others.
After all this time, the memory still had the power to stab into his heart.
“We were thieves.” Stealing from local flocks to feed the pack. Naturally the shepherds retaliated, setting traps for his wild friends. He’d delighted in springing the traps, setting his pack loose to steal again. “When I helped them, I thought I was a hero.” His shoulders sagged. “But I was hurting the people we stole from. They lost too much. Hungry, with no goods to trade… The children and elderly were hurt the worst.” Shame speared him.
“I’m sorry.” She briefly squeezed his arm.
It helped. “The people complained to their leader. Elias.” He’d been king, long ago and far away. “Elias…took action.”
She sucked in a breath. “He arrested you?” When he didn’t answer, her eyes widened. “Worse?”
“Actually, no.” His lips curled in a humorless smile. Any other king of the time would’ve simply had him killed on sight. Not Elias. “He sent a woman to civilize me.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” she said doubtfully.
“It wasn’t, while she was with me. She taught me many things. After she left, though…”
He’d returned to the pack with her scent on him. He could still remember the deer, running from him in fear. The wolves, turning on him, nipping and snarling, then actively chasing him away. Everyone he’d ever cared about, turning their backs on him.
The alpha, his father. You’re dead to us.
Go away.
“My pack told me I’d changed. They drove me out.” His chest tightened. He tried to breathe through it, but the air had turned oddly frigid. “I wandered, alone, for months. Food was scarce. And whenever I tried to sleep... The pack who’d once protected me now hunted me.”
“How terrible.” Her eyes glistened with empathy. “What about Elias? He’s the one who screwed up your life. Did he help?”
“He tried.” Ryker had attempted to enter the society of men and found himself unprepared for it. He’d made overtures, thinking he was connecting, only to find men laughing behind his back. “It didn’t work.”
Rejection. Isolation. Loneliness. As devastating to a young man as actual physical assault. From his wild family, ripping him to his soul. From the beings who called themselves his own kind, crushing what was left.
Go away.
Somehow his feet had stopped moving. Pain that should’ve been muted by the long march of centuries instead echoed down time’s corridors, reinforcing the agony.
He tried to laugh it off. “Plus side, it made me the resourceful, independent private investigator I am today.”
Without a word, she stopped beside him. He stood there in the silence, trying to figure out why the hell he’d told her all this. She’d certainly have something cutting to say. Grow up. It h
appened years ago. Get over it.
When she opened her mouth to reply, all he could do was wait, suspense a pounding headache between his eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
“Your pack are idiots.” I snarled it.
He gave a start, as if he’d expected me to react differently. Even I could see how carefully he’d controlled his face as he told his story, a sign he was suppressing some really strong emotions. That small startle spoke volumes about how badly his gang treated him.
“Your pack…your family should have taken care of you. Family, through thick and thin.”
His expression eased from its deliberate indifference, a sheen of moisture touching his eyes. “Thank you.”
“And your supposed friend. Elias.” I ached for Ryker, for the things done to him when he was a defenseless boy, things I couldn’t do anything about now but get mad. I paced in tight circles, trying to contain my growing anger. “What kind of asshole friend is he, choosing his job over you?”
“You’re a marvel.” His voice was husky. “No one else sees it that way. Elias is and has always been a leader first. It turned out he actually did me a favor.”
I screeched to a halt. “How can you say that?”
“He helped me see the world from others’ eyes. I’d never done that before. From my perspective, I was a hero helping my pack. My pack was only following their nature. I never considered the people we stole from. To them, we were villains.”
I gaped in disbelief. “You’re saying that forcing you from your gang was an act of compassion?”
“Kat, only by entering society did I understand there was a deeper hunger inside me—a yearning for an equal as a friend. Elias is that friend.”
“What kind of friend,” I spat the word, “starts a relationship with trickery?”
“A friend who also had a leader’s responsibility—but who cared enough about me to try another way first. A friend who dared to show me unpleasant truths about myself. A friend who waited for me to work my way through the darkness.”
“I think you’re being too kind to him.”
A laugh bubbled up from him. “That you, of all people, would defend me. Amazing!”
“I don’t think you’re any less a dickwipe, being pals with a vampire,” I grumbled. “But I honor you for being a true friend. That’s risky. Breathtakingly painful when it goes wrong.”
“Ah, Kat.” He took my hands and smiled at me. “You’ve truly lightened my heart. Now. What about your friend?”
I could only shake my head.
I ached for Ryker. For the lost child he’d been. For the pain of a friend who tricked him to save him. For the loss of an uncomplicated youth and simpler times.
His story had moved me, and I understood better—maybe better than he did himself, thanks to Rey’s psychology rubbing off on me—that all his sophistication started as shielding for his fragile wild child.
But I wasn’t ready to talk about Max.
I slid my hands from his. “Let’s just see if we can get any information from the video.”
He studied my face before giving a decisive nod. “Police station it is.” He started off again.
When we arrived, though, the stairs were swarming with people in uniform and civvies.
I stopped, dismayed. “How do you suggest I walk in there with a honking pair of swords on my back?” Last night I’d only had to finesse one wet-behind-the-ears kid, not the whole of first shift.
“How do you usually do it?”
“Most people go with the Renfair or movie prop excuse. Those police are seasoned professionals. Think they’ll meekly say yes ma’am and help me?” I tried my own version of the caustic brow.
“So young to be so sarcastic. How about you leave your swords and vest hidden somewhere?”
I nailed him in the eye. “After the morning I’ve had, I’m not going anywhere without my full arsenal.”
“Just checking. I have an idea.”
“This better be good.”
“Oh, it is.” One corner of his lips lifted in a smile a shade too edible to be smug. “The shift changes at three p.m. Allowing a couple hours for start-of-shift meetings and paperwork, most of the officers will be out on patrol by six. Let’s meet back here then. We can take advantage of the lull in the halls.”
“Pfft. No way. It’ll never be that easy.”
“Shall we see?” His eyebrow rose in challenge, much more caustic in its arch than my feeble attempt.
“I’m beginning to hate that eyebrow,” I muttered.
Lips quirking, he reversed eyebrows. “Better?”
“Strangely, yeah.”
I waited until he’d sauntered away to make certain this wasn’t a repeat of last night. Then I walked to Roller-Blayd Hall. No premonition of watchers tightened my shoulders.
Still, as I veered toward the bungalow’s front door, I checked my six. Nobody. I knocked.
No one answered. I knocked again and waited. I had a lock pick set. If no one came, maybe I’d try letting myself in. After five minutes of knocking and waiting, I checked around me.
A curtain on the opposite side of the street twitched.
Darn. Not doing this in broad daylight. Well, the king had waited this long. A few more hours wouldn’t hurt. I went home and killed those hours on the internet—while I treated Joyce, Shredder, Angel, and Spyke with the last of Alexis’s serum.
I headed out again a bit after five thirty, arriving at the police station promptly at six.
The stairs were empty now except for long shadows from the low sun, half an hour from setting.
Ryker texted me that he was inside. He let me into the station, and we headed straight back to the lab through mostly empty halls.
Ryker didn’t say any words; his smirk said it all.
“Don’t get cocky,” I growled.
“Too late. Here it is.”
I pretended not to recognize the machine I’d used yesterday. No reason to give away that I’d already viewed the footage.
There was a tech, busy with hooded equipment. Ryker went to talk with him. The tech nodded and left, not even seeming to see me, much less my weapons.
“What was his name?” Ryker logged in.
I sat on a stool beside him. “Who?”
“Your friend.” He found the date and time and started the playback.
“Cocky and now bullheaded.”
“I prefer persistent.”
“I prefer shh.” But inside, I was smiling. Bantering with him was fun. Maybe I was even flirting a little.
The video events unfurled to the point the king turned his face to the camera. “Stop.”
He paused the playback.
I pointed. “Him. He doesn’t look like the king I met.” This had bothered me when I’d first seen the footage. “Are you sure that’s the king? Your ‘friend’?”
He sighed. “Just once I’d like to hear that word without dripping sarcasm.”
About to retort sarcasm was the only way for me to handle a human who was pals with a vampire, I remembered his awful experiences with other supposed friends. At least Elias stuck with him. “Sorry.” I meant it.
He gave me a quick, real smile. “Yes, that’s Elias.” He nodded, expression turning pensive. “Sadly reduced, compared to the last time we were together.” Tilting his head, he considered me, brow arched in a way that told me trouble was coming. Sure enough, he said, “Is your friend an Elias? A George? No, wait. I bet he’s a Baaahb.”
I barely managed to stifle my laugh. “Max, but I’m only telling you because you’re bullheaded, not because you charmed it out of me.” My grin faded as I regarded the image on the screen. “What could do that to Elias? The cop…” I’d nearly blurted the cop last night and abruptly changed course. “The cops said drugs, right?” I grinned my most honest gri
n.
His raised brow said he’d seen right through me. Damn. Cocky, bullheaded, and perceptive. If it hadn’t been aimed at me, I’d have been impressed.
Ah, hell. I was impressed.
“Drugs might have contributed. But Elias is normally huge. Bigger than me. That level of reduction?” He shook his head, darkly serious. “He lost a lot of his most valuable blood.”
He lost blood? That hit me wrong. “Boo-hoo. Makes up for all the blood he took over the years.”
Gently, Ryker said, “He’s one of the good guys, Kat.”
I twisted on my stool to nail him smack in the eye. “There are no good-guy vampires, Ryker. All suckers are evil. All of them, even the ones pretending to be good guys. Especially the ones pretending to be good guys.”
I expected his cocky brow or a bullheaded defense of his “friend.” I got Mr. Perceptive.
He met my gaze, steadily. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For whatever happened to Max.”
Fuck. That relentless empathy did me in. “You asked for it. I used to hunt vampires with Max.”
“Your friend?”
“My mentor.” Maybe the story would even change Ryker’s mind about suckers. My blood surged with hopes that he would, surprising me. “I fought vampires by Max’s side for years. He was gruff but kind in his own way. I learned everything from him. He was…” I tried to put my emotions into words in a way I’d never done before. “He was like the father I’d lost.”
“Ah.” Sympathy gleamed in Ryker’s eyes. I looked away.
“One night in Denver, he spit a vampire on his pike. Juliette.” I shook my head. “She was… Gorgeous doesn’t cover it. Any other rogue would’ve played on that, used her looks to bedazzle him or her eyes and voice to mesmerize him into freeing her. Juliette was cleverer than the average sucker.” My arms chilled. I rubbed them. “She didn’t try to compel him or sex him or do any of the stupid crap ‘bad’ vampires do. No, she pleaded with him to let her put her affairs in order, instead. To—get this—make sure her humans would be cared for.”
“Some vampires create households.”
“Yeah, Juliette claimed she ‘protected’ these humans. Imprisoned people in her nest, more like. Max demanded she tell him where. She gave us the address of a fourplex. After he cut off her head and stowed it in a bag, we went to the address to free the humans.”
