by Cat Devon
“I never said it was brilliant—” Konrad denied.
“You also never asked for or received my approval for such an idiotic plan.” Lynch waved his left hand in the air. “But forget that for the moment. Tell me why you burned the apartment.”
“Doing so forced the target to leave her home.”
“That is true. Now instead of grabbing her from her home we are faced with having to deal with getting her out of Vamptown, where Sanchez has no doubt taken her into protective custody. And this is an improvement because…?” His mocking question held both aggravation and anger.
“I may not have thought the plan through sufficiently,” Konrad said.
“You think?”
Konrad didn’t answer.
“Clearly you didn’t think,” Lynch said. “There was no need to burn her apartment.”
“It was a sign of intimidation,” Konrad said.
“It was a sign of ignorance. Your ignorance.”
“I didn’t actually burn the apartment myself,” Konrad hurriedly said.
“Of course you didn’t. Vampires and fire are not a healthy combination. Neither is having fledgling mercenary vampires trying to set a fire. And where are these heroes now?”
“The fledglings did not set the fire. I personally compelled a gang member to do that after our mercenaries were killed by one of Vamptown’s residents. Bruce is his name, I believe.”
“Bruce did me a favor then.”
Konrad looked confused. “He did?”
“Yes. He saved me from having to eradicate the fledglings for screwing up their job of grabbing Keira. Which just leaves you.” Lynch reached for the tungsten knife on his desk. “You know how fire and beheading are normally the only means of eradicating vampires?”
Konrad nodded nervously.
“You might be interested to learn that I’ve recently developed another means. It requires perfect aim and precision. Luckily that isn’t a problem for me. But it is for you.” Without another word, he sent the knife flying through the air and into Konrad’s throat.
* * *
Keira still couldn’t believe how fast Alex left after kissing her. Which was silly since she knew he could move at what seemed like the speed of light. He’d growled something about Sierra staying with her while he was out.
Keira didn’t have the luxury of taking off the way he did. Not only did she not move fast, she also no longer had a home. At least she had some of her belongings. She sat on the couch along with Sierra.
“I’m sorry to keep interrupting your work. I’m sure you’d rather be writing,” Keira said.
“That’s true. No offense.”
“None taken. I’d rather be writing as well. But I can’t do that when Alex has my laptop. How can I write under those conditions?”
What are you working on now?”
“I have to do a piece about the Taste of Chicago. I have a fast-approaching deadline on that, as in it’s due tomorrow. I’ve had to write my first draft out by hand. But it’s not just work stuff I should be dealing with. There’s the matter of contacting my insurance agent about the fire. My cell phone is useless and I don’t see any landline here. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to explain how my living room furnishings managed to escape the inferno.”
Sierra remained silent as if unsure what to say.
“Can you talk to Alex about allowing me a phone call?” Keira asked. “Even a prisoner is allowed one call.”
“You’re not in prison,” Sierra said.
“It sure feels like it.”
“Think of it more as protective custody.”
“Yeah, somehow that isn’t helping.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sierra looked so remorseful that Keira felt a pang of guilt. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel bad. This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I’m the one who opened this Pandora’s box by going to see Alex in the first place.”
“I think I told you before that that took guts. At least when I moved here I had no idea vampires existed. But you went looking for Alex knowing he was a vampire.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t seem so bright to me in hindsight. I didn’t plan on telling him I knew what he was. But his attitude got me and before I knew it the words were flying out of my mouth. Not that he compelled me. He can’t. There was just something about him. There still is.” Keira had only met Alex a few hours ago. She shouldn’t be this emotionally invested in him, not to mention physically attracted.
“He gets to you.”
“He does,” Keira admitted. “Why is that?”
Sierra smiled. “I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with his sexy dark looks?”
“Even his voice is dark and deep and smooth.” Keira couldn’t talk about his kiss, which was all three of those things and more. So much more.
But it was damn hard not to when her lips still throbbed from his touch. What had she been thinking, kissing him that way? Kissing him any way was definitely not a good idea. Almost as bad an idea as going to confront a vampire in the first place.
But damn it had felt good. Okay, it had felt incredibly crazily awesome.
“I wish I could figure out what’s going on,” she muttered.
“I think you know what’s going on,” Sierra said.
“I do?”
Sierra nodded. “You’re attracted to Alex.”
“I just met him.”
“Yeah, well, as I told you before time has a different meaning when applied to a sexy vampire.”
“So Alex has done something to make me fall for him?”
“He’s just been his normal self.”
“I didn’t feel the same way when I met Damon.”
“Good thing,” Sierra said. “Because Damon is definitely taken.”
“By another vampire?”
“No.”
“So humans have relationships with vampires here?” Keira asked.
“Most humans don’t know vampires are here,” Sierra pointed out.
“What about Alex? Is he taken, too?”
“He appears to be quite taken with you,” Sierra said. “He also appears to be quite determined to protect you.”
Keira silently wondered who would protect her from the overwhelming attraction she felt for Alex. It wasn’t just his hot looks or lusting after his hot body. There was more to it than that. There was some sort of indescribable link between them. Despite what Sierra said about loving a vampire, Keira didn’t know if she’d be able to make such a statement with equal enthusiasm. The big difference being that Sierra didn’t have a legendary vampire hunter for a grandfather. Maybe it would be easier loving Alex if she didn’t have a path of dead vampires in her family’s background.
Whoa. Who was she kidding? There was no way loving Alex would be easy … or advisable. That was the bottom line here. Love was not an option. The thought was definitely a wild one and not anything she should consider. That would create an impossible situation for sure.
* * *
Alex walked into Zoe’s rental house fuming. “Did you use magic?” he demanded.
Zoe looked at him and shrugged. “You’re welcome,” she said.
“She’s going to wonder how her things got to the loft. Right now she thinks we brought her stuff like Bruce brought her clothes, but I’m not sure how long that will last.” He squelched the guilt he felt at accepting Keira’s thanks, not to mention that kiss they’d shared.
He’d had to leave the way he had because the truth had hit him like a grenade. Keira was The One. She was The One his sire Mitch had warned him would forever change Alex’s life—for better or for worse. How twisted was that? The one woman in the world who had the power to get beyond his defenses was a vampire hunter’s granddaughter. That was definitely freaking twisted. Still, another part of him felt this was meant to be. The kiss they’d just shared proved that. Her mouth had been so sweet and passionate.
He’d sworn his loyalty to his Vamptown clan. That should be h
is priority. But now Keira was his priority as well. It had taken her no time at all to get to him. She both fascinated and infuriated him.
“I’m not saying I approve of what Zoe did,” Damon said as he joined them.
“But you understand my reasons, right?” she said.
Damon nodded. “You’re a softie. You take care of your grandmother, your cat familiar, and … me,” he admitted gruffly. “You’re always thinking of others.”
“Aww.” Zoe’s face lit up. She kissed Damon before turning to face Alex.
Seeing Damon with the love of his afterlife made Alex wonder what it would be like to have someone gaze at him so adoringly without being compelled to do so. Not that he’d compelled women to go all googly-eyed on him. He hadn’t.
But he was surprised at the direction his thoughts had taken. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen a public display of affection between Damon and Zoe—but it was definitely the first time he’d felt a pang of regret that he didn’t have anyone who cared about him that way. Just because Keira had returned his kiss didn’t mean she adored him or even liked him.
Yet he sensed she did care for him even if she didn’t want to do so. He could understand her conflicted feelings. He was equally conflicted about being tough with her in order to protect his vampire clan and being protective of her in order to save her from harm. Not to mention how warm her lips felt. He shouldn’t have kissed her. But she’d responded in ways he hadn’t anticipated or expected but longed to experience again. When he’d left her, her lips were swollen from his kiss and her eyes hazy with passion. That image was imprinted in his mind and messing with his concentration. He was hot for her. There was no denying that.
But it was more than mere physical attraction. He didn’t just want her, he wanted to know more about her. And not just because he was investigating this case.
Zoe’s voice brought him back to the present. “Sierra told me that Keira lost her mom a few months ago. Her grief has got to be intense. I know when my mom passed, it was a very long time before the darkness of that loss lifted. The hole in your heart gets smaller over time but never disappears.”
“We agreed that Keira shouldn’t be told that there are witches in Vamptown,” Alex said.
“She doesn’t have to know that I’m the one who created her furniture.”
“How did you get it here?”
“I didn’t. I used the photos she posted on her Pinterest page of her living room to re-create the furnishings, including the framed photo of her mom on the end table.”
“She was happy to have that,” Alex said.
“I figured she would be. So again I say, you’re welcome.”
“My job isn’t to make her happy. It’s to keep her safe,” Alex said curtly.
“Why?” Damon said. “Because you’re a cop?”
“Because hostiles are after her.”
“Bruce said he had to kill two vamps at her apartment.”
“La-la-la,” Zoe said, putting her hands over her ears. “I’d rather not hear those kinds of details. I’m going up to my studio and working on my new autumn line of seasonal soaps.”
Damon waited until Zoe was upstairs before speaking again. “Tell me what’s going on here, Alex.”
“You know what’s going on.”
“Why did you use the term hostiles instead of vampires?”
“We can’t rule out the possibility that demons are behind this.”
“Behind what? The fire in the hunter’s apartment?”
“She’s not a hunter,” Alex said.
“Fine, she’s a reporter. And I’m a Demon Hunter. If demons were involved, I’d know.”
“Would you?”
“Yes. What about The Executioner’s journal? Was it destroyed in the fire?”
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted. “Whoever set the fire may have taken it.”
“Legend has it that there are notes in that journal about vampire blood that could destroy us all. The Executioner’s journal supposedly included a Manifesto with information dating back hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. There is no proof, though, since no one has ever seen his journal aside from Keira.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Did she read the entire journal?”
“She hasn’t said.”
“Make her say. If she read it, then she can tell us about the blood notes.”
“The blood thefts happened before she discovered the journal,” Alex reminded him.
“I still think there has to be a connection between the two,” Damon replied.
“You know my partner Craig’s wife, Bunny, works at a medical research facility.”
“That’s where she gets her blood, right?”
Alex nodded. “She’s a strong advocate of the use of synthetic blood instead of the real thing for vamps. But maybe someone at the facility has other ideas.”
“It’s not a vamp facility.”
“Not entirely, no. I plan on talking to her. Meanwhile Neville is trying to unscramble the video feed that Bruce set up when he visited Keira’s apartment this afternoon.”
“Did you get an ID on the vamps Bruce got rid of?”
“Not yet. They may have been mercenaries from out of town. So far there were no hits on facial recognition software of the two Chicago clans.” Alex paused before adding, “Lynch knows more than he’s saying.”
“That’s always the case with him. But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“There’s something about this girl reporter that gets to you. Why? Does she have some kind of hold over you?”
“Hell, no,” Alex automatically denied, although if she was The One then the link between them would be powerful indeed. He was still having a hard time accepting that what Mitch had told him about The Longing and The One was really true. At least, his brain had a hard time processing it.
“Then what’s the deal?”
“There is no deal.”
“Yes, there is. You’re not telling me something and I want to know what it is.”
“It’s just lore.”
“You’re too young to have lore,” Damon retorted. “The vampires I know who have lore regarding them were turned hundreds of years ago. You were only turned what … sixty-some years ago?”
“On the battlefield in the Pacific in World War Two. Iwo Jima to be specific.”
“And?”
“I was a medic. I was there to help people. To save them.”
“And that’s why you feel you have to save the reporter?”
“No. You don’t get it. I didn’t have a choice.”
Damon frowned. “You were turned against your will? That’s against the rules. Unless…”
“Unless you’re in that part of the Pacific,” Alex said. “There are certain rules for Europe and North America, but they aren’t the same for the rest of the world.”
“Ronan was turned against his will in the trenches in World War One in northern France.”
Alex waved his words away. “He was indentured. That’s different.”
“So your sire Mitch turned you against your will? He died under mysterious circumstances. Maybe he was killed by The Executioner. I would think that would be reason enough to eradicate the vampire hunter’s only remaining kin. Unless you wanted your sire killed because of the way he tuned you?”
“Mitch did what he thought was right. He did his best to help me deal. I wasn’t a great student. In the beginning I was incredibly angry, I thought I was a monster, so I acted like one. There were things I did…”
Alex paused, his throat tight at the memories he thought he’d buried. The years after he turned were so dark and bloody, if he didn’t forget them it would drive him mad.
“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of,” Damon said quietly. His eyes darkened at his own terrible memories.
Alex knew Damon had been turned on day three of the battle at Gettysburg. He rarely talked about it. None of the vamps tur
ned on the battlefield did—not Nick, Damon, or Ronan. War changed them.
He shoved those memories away, locking them up as he normally did and focusing on the matter at hand. “I’m a cop, you know how I am about solving a crime. Someone or something is stealing blood. We need to figure out who or what is behind the thefts and stop them before this blows into a full-out vamp war.”
“Which could be what The Executioner wants.”
“You used the present tense.”
“Because I’m not convinced yet that he’s dead,” Damon said. “Horace Turner’s remains were cremated and spread over Lake Michigan. So there’s no way to verify his death or that he even really was The Executioner.”
“How would Keira know about The Executioner otherwise? And there haven’t been any killings attributed to The Executioner since Horace’s death.”
“True,” Damon readily acknowledged. “I’m just saying I’m not completely convinced he’s gone. Not yet. But enough about that. Tell me what ties you to Keira.”
Alex took a deep breath. Instead of answering directly, he said, “Mitch selected me for a reason. Have you ever wondered why there are so few Latino vampires?”
Damon frowned. “So you’re saying Mitch turned you in order to diversify the vampire community?”
“Something like that.”
Damon’s frown intensified. “You’re not telling me everything. Why did he turn you?”
“Mitch said that there was something in my ancestral past that linked me to the vampire world.”
“And that is?”
“I don’t know. Mitch was killed before he could go into more details.”
“You‘ve had decades since then to figure it out.”
“Those first twenty were spent trying to deal with becoming a vampire,” Alex retorted. “Like I said, my transition was not an easy one. After Mitch was killed, the next twenty were trying to find a way to blend my new world with my old one as a medic. The temptation of human blood was too strong. I didn’t have the self-control required. I still don’t, which is why I’m a better cop than a doc.”
“You’re still exposed to human blood,” Damon pointed out.
“Not that often. I can handle it because I can make a difference.”
