They could sound so human. It still surprised Logan, even though he’d interviewed this one over a dozen times by now.
Keeping the surprise off his face, he pursed his lips, making his voice more puzzled.
“Why would you ask me that? I just told you, we’re taking you out of here today. How have I broken our agreement?”
The vampire wasn’t looking at him now, though.
It stared past him instead.
Its eyes filled rapidly with crimson as Logan watched.
He couldn’t help but stare. It was like watching dark red ink being squirted into a pool of crystal clear water.
It definitely wasn’t desire he saw in the creature’s eyes that time, however––or even hunger in the strictest sense. It was pure, unadulterated hatred.
The bloodlust that rose with that hatred was almost palpable.
Logan heard footsteps then and turned, following the vampire’s hardening gaze.
When he saw who it was, he smiled.
Holding out a hand, he walked towards the other man, a genuine warmth reaching his voice, and his smile.
“Charles!” he said. “So glad you could make it.”
“Silver,” the other man acknowledged, clasping him back warmly.
The tall Russian’s grass-green eyes fixed on the vampire as he released Logan’s hand. He walked past Logan himself, further into the room, closer to the iron bars of the cage. Recognition stood out clearly on his handsome features as he looked at the vampire’s face.
His mouth pursed in a faint frown as he looked over the cage itself, his lip curling in the faintest whisper of disapproval.
“Is that thing… secure? I thought you were using the experimental material I gave you.” Those pale green eyes swiveled back to Logan. “You know.” His mouth remained in that small frown. “The composites. My scientists gave your people detailed formulas on how to make several different varieties. I know you’ve been using them in other applications.”
Logan blinked at the tall Russian, then looked over his shoulder at the vampire.
Staring at the creature, watching it glare at Charles with that murderous hatred in its eyes, he let out a short laugh.
“Secure?” Logan grinned back at the Russian. Walking closer, he clapped him on the back in a friendly way. “Charles. I’m surprised at you! You’re not afraid of a little vampire, are you?”
Charles frowned delicately. “I prefer not to underestimate these creatures. Not when we still know so little about them.”
“It’s perfectly safe, I assure you––” Logan began.
But a different voice cut him off.
“Do you know what he is?” the vampire hissed. “Do you?”
Charles turned to stare at the vampire, quirking an eyebrow.
The vampire glared back at him, gripping the bars of its cage in too-white hands, gripping and clenching and twisting on those dark metal bars like it wanted to rip them out of the cement.
Logan watched the looks exchanged between the two of them, and laughed.
“Don’t tell me!” Logan said, still laughing. “He’s one of your mythical ‘seers.’ Here to rip vampire babies out of their mother’s arms, to turn humans into living puppets to do their will?” Imitating the vampire’s Louisiana accent, he added, “…The absolute scourge of our quaint and beautiful planet Earth, from what you tell me, kind sir.”
“He’s their leader,” the vampire spat. “He’s their snake of a leader. This one makes Quentin Black look like a winged saint.”
He nodded towards the blond man, his long jaw hard.
“This is the vilest, most evil-blooded creature I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. A liar and manipulator of the highest caliber. A pretense in all but his arrogance. Worse, he’s an alien-supremacist… if such a thing could be said to exist. A label, I confess, I could never pin on Mr. Black or his wife, for all their faults. He would wipe out both our races if he could, and rule this Earth as his own.”
The vampire’s crimson-colored eyes never left the tall, blond Russian.
“…I should have known this silver-tongued abomination was pulling your strings,” he said in a low hiss. “You don’t strike me as bright enough, frankly, to come up with such a plot on your own. Nor able to keep your mouth shut well enough to execute these machinations without others learning what you were clumsily putting in place.”
Logan stared at the pale creature as its words sank in.
When he spoke next, his voice had grown decidedly cooler, even as he kept a glimmer of the fake Louisiana accent.
“All right there, friend,” he said, waving a hand at the vampire. “Calm down. You’re getting yourself worked up now. Mustn’t say things we don’t really mean.”
The vampire’s eyes never left Charles.
“I should have killed you,” he told the Russian. His fangs extended further as Logan watched, glistening with saliva. “By my honor, I should have killed you before I ever went near your niece… or her rabid dog of a mate.”
The Russian glanced at Logan.
There was a short silence, where the taller man just looked at him, a faint smirk teasing around his full lips, his eyebrow mildly quirked.
Then both men broke out into a mutual laugh.
6
PICKING UP THE PIECES
SOMEONE LEANED OVER my leather airplane seat, blocking my light enough that I looked up, frowning.
“Hey,” I said, blinking up at the shadow and the light behind her head. “Watch the light.”
She immediately straightened, moving out of the way of the brighter light that shone from the middle aisle of the cabin of Black’s private plane. Once she had, I realized it was Mika, the smallish, Japanese-looking seer in the group of newcomers.
Returning my focus to Black’s bare arm, I frowned, gripping the needle and thread in my fingers. I didn’t look up when I spoke to her next.
“Did you need something?”
“Sorry.”
She hesitated, watching me work.
When she spoke next, that odd accent of hers threw me slightly, but I found myself understanding her better the longer she spoke.
“I was just going to ask,” she said. “Would you want for one of us to look at it, sister? Jem and I both have a decent amount of experience with field dressings. We’re also pretty familiar with seer anatomy. The type from our home world, that is.”
When I glanced up, looking over my shoulder at her a second time, she gave me a grim smile.
“We’re also pretty familiar with gunshot wounds,” she added. “Especially lately.”
I frowned, looking down at where I’d been stitching up Black’s arm from his so-called “graze.” While it wasn’t life-threatening or anything, it was definitely more serious than he’d let on when he first dismissed it in the back of the limo.
Let her look at it, doc, Black sent, prodding my mind gently. A touch of humor reached his light. Might as well let the immigrants pull their weight. She’s probably more than three hundred years old. Maybe she’ll know something neither of us do.
I frowned at him.
His gold eyes were glassy, and not only from alcohol.
He looked exhausted.
He also looked like he’d lost too much blood.
I hesitated anyway. I couldn’t help myself.
In the end, I looked over my shoulder at her a third time.
“The bullet passed through,” I informed her. “I just cleaned it up and I was stitching up the wound. Is there anything I need to know, seer anatomy-wise? Anything related to infections for seers, or issues around muscle or tissue damage?”
She jerked her chin at me, in a way that felt more like a directive than a nod, or maybe a question. When she began moving into my space, I realized she wanted to get a closer look at Black before she answered my question.
Once I realized what she wanted, I scowled.
Even so, I didn’t argue, maybe because Black more or less asked me not to. R
ising to my feet, I moved back and out of the leather seat to make room for her.
Stepping into the area between the four facing seats, I watched her take the seat I’d just vacated. She leaned down to peer at his arm. She laid a hand on his bare chest as she did it, presumably to check his light.
I couldn’t help but stiffen, watching her put her light into his.
I also couldn’t help gritting my teeth.
Backing up another step, I caught hold of the chair directly across from my old seat, where she now sat. Watching her eyes slide out of focus as she looked at something with her light, I continued scowling faintly, although I couldn’t have said why exactly. I ignored the fact that I could feel Black watching me look at the two of them.
I didn’t check to see what expression his face wore.
Realizing I was hovering––and staring, at her at least––I forced my eyes off both of them, gazing up and down the aisle of the plane.
I occupied my mind by cataloguing what everyone else was doing.
Manny was asleep in one of the leather chairs, leaned all the way back with a pillow tucked between his neck and face.
In the largest segment of the plane, the area with the most chairs, Lawless sat talking to Ace, one of Black’s employees, and Lex. Cowboy and Angel sat in seats across from the three of them. It looked like Ace and Lawless were doing most of the talking, but Angel chimed in while I watched, as did Lex, so clearly they were all more or less conversing.
Only Cowboy seemed to be listening more than talking, his fingers wound around Angel’s as he propped his ankle on his knee, frowning.
The two male seers named Holo and Jax sat in a pair of seats across from Manny, facing the front bulkhead. They didn’t appear to be talking at all, but wore headsets, a monitor showing something on the bulkhead in front of them.
Holo looked like he was on the verge of nodding off.
Jax, the younger, East Indian-looking seer with the violet eyes, looked tense. His jaw clenched as he stared out the dark window to his right. He didn’t appear to even be looking at whatever was playing on his monitor, not even in fleeting glances.
I was still studying Jax’s face when Dalejem walked out from between the curtains separating the passenger cabin from the cockpit.
He made his way directly to the middle section of seats, where Angel, Cowboy, Ace and Lawless sat. I watched him sink gracefully into the leather chair next to Ace, joining the conversation with the only part of our group that looked more or less conscious.
I was tempted to go over there, find out what they were talking about.
I didn’t want to leave Black, though.
Go, doc, he sent, his mental voice sleepy. I’m pretty sure I’m going to crash soon. Whatever she’s doing to my light is making me tired as fuck.
Feeling me stiffen, he sent me a reassuring pulse.
Go, he repeated. I want to know what they’re talking about, too. You can fill me in when I wake up. Or when you do.
Glancing at him, I frowned, meeting his gaze directly.
He sent me another pulse of warmth, and Mika glanced at me, clearly feeling it.
Seeing me standing there, hovering and frowning, she smiled at me cheerfully. I got a distinctly reassuring flavor off her light, like she’d felt my paranoia and was trying to tell me in a subtle way that I had nothing to worry about.
I knew she was right.
I knew both of them were right.
It was still damned hard to walk away for some reason.
Mika laughed, as if she heard me.
“It’s called being a seer, Miri,” she said, smiling at me. “Don’t worry. I don’t want to get shot. I won’t touch your guy.” Snorting a little, she looked at Black, her eyebrow cocked. “He’s not my type, anyway… no offense. He’s way too young.”
Directing her words at Black next, she pursed her lips.
“You’re not even a hundred years old, are you? How the hell are you running things here, when your balls haven’t even dropped?”
I let out a surprised, semi-humorous sound, more shock than real humor.
When she turned, cocking an eyebrow at me, I realized she was serious.
“How old are you?” I said it without thinking, not really considering whether it might be a rude question until it had already left my lips. “Was Black right? Are you really around three hundred years old?”
She laughed, then turned back to Black, thumping him lightly on the chest.
“You damned Dehgoies’,” she said affectionately. “You are like the worst communicators on the planet, you know that?” Her voice turned scolding. “Have you really not told your girlfriend how seer ages work? What is wrong with you?”
“I told her. I said I was young for a seer,” he said, frowning at her in obvious annoyance. “And I’m going to let her shoot you, if you keep smacking me like that.”
He glanced at me, his gold eyes flashing in the overhead lights. I felt a flicker of embarrassment off him as he studied my face. Looking at him, it hit me he didn’t appreciate being called “young” by this female seer, especially not in front of me.
Even as I thought it, he looked away from my face, grumbling at Mika.
“Show some damned respect, anyway,” he said. “She’s my wife. She’s my fucking wife. Not my girlfriend. Wife.”
Mika laughed, shaking her head and clicking in amusement.
“Of course she is. Of course she’s your wife.”
Rolling her eyes in an exaggerated way, she glanced at me, a half-smile on her lips as she looked me over for real. Her eyes shifted down my body in an obvious appraisal, and one with more than a small flavor of sexuality behind it. At the end of it, she inclined her head sideways, and I saw her eyes click back into focus.
“Well. She’s hot, so kudos to you, brother. You and your cousin both have good taste, I’ll grant you that.”
“Fuck off,” Black said, angry for real that time. “Keep your fucking light off my wife. And your eyes. Or I’ll have one of my people dump your ass in the Pacific. This is my plane too, in case no one bothered to tell you––”
“Calm down.”
She spoke mildly, resting a hand on his shoulder when he started to sit up. When he tensed against her fingers, she pushed, forcing him to lean back against the leather seat.
“I know it’s your plane. And I get that you’re in charge. I’m not disrespecting you, brother. I’m giving you shit. There’s a difference.” Blowing on her bangs, she rolled her eyes at him. “Gaos. Have you really forgotten so much about your people that you don’t remember it’s a time-honored tradition to give newlywed couples endless amounts of crap?”
“Maybe I didn’t go out of my way to bring that b.s. with me here,” he muttered. “Maybe there’s a reason I never felt a single second of regret for leaving that crap world behind.”
“Close your eyes, you big baby.”
At that, I grunted, in spite of myself.
Realizing she really hadn’t been kidding, that she really did see Black almost like a teenager, or a young man at the very least, I felt something in my chest relax.
At the same time, I felt a little offended for him.
I also found myself understanding another layer of why he was wary of having newcomers from his world here. If they were going to treat him like some kind of child, due to their perception of his age, that was going to get real old, real quick.
Whatever else I knew about Black, I knew he valued what he’d built here.
He’d arrived here with nothing, and while he had definite advantages, being a seer, he’d had a lot of disadvantages for the same reason, and no one to help him navigate the rules of living in this world. Despite all that, he’d managed to accomplish a lot, given how hard he had to work to fly under the radar and still retain his ties to the government and the military.
He also controlled his world with more or less with an iron fist.
Truthfully, I’d always been surprised at how much
control he’d ceded to me, given that, but I suspected it had a lot to do with how he viewed our relationship––not so much how he viewed me, personally.
Not true, doc, he murmured in my mind. Not true at all.
I didn’t bother to answer his thought.
Anyway, it didn’t take away from my overall point.
Whatever the reason I was an exception to that rule, I was definitely an exception to that rule. Black wouldn’t take any crap from these newcomer seers, especially not if they started taking liberties with him or his company––or any of his properties, or any of his employees, or any of his businesses, or me, or his friends, or his business contacts––no matter how much they condescended to him about his age.
Damn straight, he murmured, softer still.
He sent me a very deliberate plume of heat.
You asked me why I haven’t gone out of my way to chummy up to these assholes? Black murmured. That’s pretty much why.
It’s not the only reason, I murmured in my mind.
I felt a curl of his anger.
“Meaning what?” he said aloud.
I met his gaze, exasperated.
Glancing at Mika, I used my mind to answer.
Meaning you’ve got family issues, Black. That’s not a dig. It’s also not exactly a secret at this point. It’s just the truth. Whatever your problem is, it has something to do with that cousin of yours. The one they all keep mentioning around you. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that the only time you get really mad at one of them is when his name comes up.
Black shrugged, his face unreadable. I don’t even know that cousin, doc. I don’t know any of my cousins well enough to give a shit about them.
Does it matter if you knew him personally or not? I frowned at him, exasperated. That’s the same family that would have taken you in, if your parents had run to Seertown instead of selling you. Right? So he would have been your brother, most likely. You would have been raised as brothers, at least.
I felt his wince, even as I saw it on his face.
Then he shook his head, clicking at me under his breath.
He was adopted too, Black sent, his thoughts annoyed. Another stray cousin they took in. Pretty much because they had to, from what I was told. His parents were dead.
In Black We Trust Page 9
