Accidentally Dead

by Dakota Cassidy

He’d apologized, and he was doing everything in his power to make his mistake right by offering her nourishment and guidance to the ways of his clan. Yet Nina wasn’t giving him an inch. Yes, he’d done something irreversible. Yes, he’d changed her life totally in a matter of seconds, but his intention was never to involve an innocent—that just wasn’t his thing. But with no way to fix this, other than to move on, they had to live in the here and now. And right now, she needed him. That he was taking a perverse pleasure in that was beside the point.

  Second, because he needed the distance from her. Simply being near her made him want things he’d never considered in almost five hundred years.

  And he didn’t like it, for Christ’s sake.

  She just wasn’t the kind of woman he typically took pleasure in bedding. The women he hooked up with knew where he stood in the mating game, and he never dwelled on them once they were gone. Not like this anyway.

  Yet here he was, unable to get this skinny, cranky wench out of his head. When she’d arched her neck at him so temptingly tonight, it was all he could do not to sink his fangs into her and drink her rare, sweet blood. And rare it was, having been, of all the damned things, AB negative. Stopping himself from drinking from her was that much harder because her blood was one of the rarest.

  “I don’t want to keep repeating myself, Gregori,” his mother’s voice interrupted his dark, wanton thoughts about Nina, “but she could be the answer to our…my prayers.”

  His smile of irony over this predicament with Nina hardened. “The hell she is.”

  “Don’t be angry with me, mister. You’re the one who’s spent all of these centuries playing around. Sometimes you have to pay the piper.”

  He didn’t need his mother to remind him of the severity of his pending situation. What he did need was to get Nina out of his system. Steepling his hands under his chin, Greg paused to get a clearer perspective.

  What he came up with was simple.

  This wasn’t good.

  And it wasn’t just the urgent issue with Lisanne.

  “HEY, you okay?” Marty’s lips moved against Nina’s ear so she could hear her over the caterwauling of karaoke night. Her voice sounded like a bass drum in her head, pinging around and leaving behind an echo.

  Nina pulled back and eyeballed her. “I’m a vampire,” she hissed back. “No, I’m not okay.” Thankfully, the loser who was trashing a perfectly good Tom Jones song finished and the karaoke MC took his ten-minute break.

  Wanda sat on the other side of Nina at the bar, twirling the big, looped pink straw in her virgin daiquiri. She looked better tonight than she had in a while in her hip-hugging jeans and tank top, with a short green sweater that fell just under her breasts. Yet, even in her misery, Nina still thought she looked thinner. Wanda poked her arm. “Did you feed?”

  Nina’s response was edgy and tense. “Yes, Wanda. I fed.”

  Wanda folded her napkin in a neat square with prim fingers. “Don’t get huffy. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t at least check? It seems all I do these days is check to be sure you’re doing what’s necessary to keep you on this plane. My apologies if I don’t want you to turn to dust.”

  Nina let her head fall into her hands, leaning her elbows on the sticky bar and allowing the curtain of her long hair shelter her from the packed space. While she’d fed, and plenty, she still felt distracted and jittery. Like she was going to jump out of her skin any second. Nothing felt comfortable or familiar anymore. She couldn’t eat a basket of Buffalo wings—which was typical for her on karaoke night—because she’d yark. She couldn’t chugalug a few brewskies—because she’d yark. She couldn’t feel the temperature outside, but she could feel the frenzy of heat Greg evoked in her.

  She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t.

  She couldn’t even karaoke.

  A sob welled in her throat. She wasn’t much of a cryer, but this was heinous. She loved to karaoke. She loved to karaoke to Barry Manilow. But tonight, not even that had the power to soothe her. Not even her beloved Barry Manilow. Oh, God. What was the world coming to if not even Barry could make things right? This was like death by lack of “Can’t Smile Without You.”

  “I can’t believe you forgot the words to ‘Copacabana’,” Marty chided, popping open her purse to dig out her compact. Because Marty just couldn’t be anything less than perfect at all times.

  “I was distracted,” Nina said from the basket she’d made of her fingers, letting her forehead fall into it. Not that she could believe it either. It was, after all, Barry. There wasn’t much she loved more than him. Yet trying to get her sing on with a good round of karaoke just wasn’t working tonight. The only thing she could think of was trying to find this Lisanne and get her life back.

  Oh, and it’d be peachy if she could stop thinking about Greg and his yummy neck. That’d be an added bonus.

  Wanda stuck her head under Nina’s hands. Her worry touched Nina and aggravated the shit out of her all at the same time. “But it’s Barry, Nina. You never forget the words to anything Barry,” she said in a hushed, reverent tone usually reserved for places of worship.

  “Wanda?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Get the frig out of my face. I’m not exactly on my game, and if it’s okay with you, I’d really like it if you dropped it.”

  “Nina?” Wanda asked, pinning her with her soft blue eyes.

  “What?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Yep. You heard me. I’m sick of you wallowing. Boo-hoo, I’m a vampire. Wah-wah, I have to get blood from the hottest guy on planet Earth. Cut it out already, Nina, and get on with the business of living…” she paused, “or not living. But for the love of all things shiny, stop acting like the end of the world has happened. You can have a life, even if it involves many, many lives. That makes you lucky, if you ask me.”

  Her face clouded over for a moment, and it made Nina pause with momentary concern. What was going on with Wanda? If someone as insensitive as Nina could pick up these odd, but subtle signals Wanda was giving off these days, she knew she had to be missing something of great importance. She’d been so wrapped up in herself, in typical Nina fashion, she hadn’t had time to question Wanda about it.

  And Wanda obviously wasn’t going to give her the op. “Look at Marty. She adjusted, and so can you. In fact, I would have thought you were scrappier than she is, but I guess I was wrong.”

  Nina didn’t even have the get-up-and-go to care that Wanda was presenting a challenge in the will department between her and Marty. She just wanted her old life back, and in her yearning, she forgot all about any troubles Wanda could be having. “Well, Wanda, I’ll tell ya what. If this ever happens to you and you’re left broke, with no job and nothing on the horizon for future employment except maybe a position as the Wal-Mart greeter, I’ll offer comfort, because you have a light at the end of the tunnel. A hot guy with some blood.”

  Wanda grimaced. “Okay. I’m out. When you find your big girl panties, you just let me know.” Sliding her head out from beneath Nina’s chin, she grabbed her drink and sauntered off to the dance floor, inviting Marty to go with her.

  But Marty had one last parting piece of wisdom, shooing Wanda away with a smile. “I just have to say this, Nina, and then I’m not saying anything else, because you really don’t have your listening ears on—even with your new, supersonic hearing. I know this is hard—this adjustment. Nobody knows better than me, and at least that much you can’t deny. I know you have no job, but there are alternatives. Wanda and I have only told you a million times we’d find something other than cosmetics sales at Bobbie-Sue for you, but you just won’t budge. We would never let you just be thrown out on the street.

  “You have friends, Nina. You have us. Friends who take a boatload of crap from you and still keep coming back to try and help. I know all the blood drinking and living forever stuff has you freaked out, whether you’ll admit it or not, but my life is good and every
time you knock being a paranormal with your jokes, you kinda knock my way of life. A way of life I’ve come to love. A lot. What happened to you—it was an accident. If you’d lost a limb, it’d be almost the same thing. You’d have to learn to live without it. I’m not saying it was an easy fate for me to accept, but once I was at Keegan’s, I knew I had no choice, and then I tried like hell to fit in—even with all the human haters in his pack.”

  Marty sucked her cheeks in while Nina remained silent, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Maybe what you and Wanda read in that Vampires for Dummies is true, but maybe not. What if Greg really is telling the truth and you can’t be turned back? So until you know more, you’re a vampire. Get over yourself. End rant.” Marty rose and pushed away from the bar, her cute butt prepared to sashay away. She stopped momentarily and turned back around. “Oh, and, Nina?”

  Jay-seuss. “There’s more?”

  “Just one more thing.” She smacked her lips, rubbing them lips together to make sure her lipstick had complete coverage. “You’re even crankier as a vampire than you ever were as a human.”

  Ba-dump-bump.

  Nina pressed her thumbs against her temple, rotating them over her eyes. God, she really was a bitch. Hadn’t it been her who’d called Marty a whiner because she’d been so distressed over her lycan state?

  Wasn’t she behaving far worse by not only whining, but acting out against everyone and everything?

  Uh, yeah.

  Though Nina hated like hell to admit it, Wanda was right. Her big girl panties needed some tailoring. Squaring her shoulders, she sat up and shook off the heavy cloud of bad mojo she’d been beaten down with since she woke up and made a conscious effort to start figuring out what to do next.

  To start, she needed to find this Lisanne. A job she was qualified for, unless it was at the local 7-Eleven serving up slushies on the midnight shift, was out of the question until she could go out in daylight hours again. The root of this began with her reverting back; the rest would have to wait until she was human. It just couldn’t wait long, because she needed cash. Like bad. Her rent was due, and so was her cable bill.

  So Greg claimed he didn’t know where Lisanne was, and he’d also claimed he was the leader of his clan. Who were the members of this clan, and where did she have to go digging to see what they knew? Would they keep a lid on any Lisanne info if Greg ordered it? Could he order it—more to the point—would he?

  “Are you Nina?”

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a pudgy, moonfaced man with a flat nose, dimpled chin, and thick lips. She’d seen him eyeballing her when she and the girls had first entered the bar, ignoring his apparent interest. For the love of dick. Clearly her “not if you had two schlongs” vibe hadn’t been conveyed properly.

  And how the frig did he know her name? “Do I know you?” Suspicion rang crystal clear in her question.

  He wedged in between the swarming bodies at the bar and smiled, revealing small, white teeth. His plaid flannel shirt did nothing to hide the paunch hanging over his tan Dickies. The thin wisp of his reddish-hair, brushed over his balding scalp, left him looking out of place with the trendy, thirty-something crowd.

  His silence blocked out the noise of the bar.

  “Do I know you?” she repeated, narrowing her eyes.

  His affable expression didn’t change. “No, but you might want to.”

  Nina grunted, pushing strands of her hair over her shoulder. So not what she needed tonight. Every guy that had ever come on to her with his slick one-liners thought she wanted to “know” them. “Look, if you thought you were gonna get lucky with me, you got another thing coming. Your luck just ran out. So scurry off back to your hole.” She circled her two fingers around the circumference of her face for emphasis. “This is my not interested face.” Then she promptly turned her attention back to the grimy surface of the bar, officially dismissing him.

  He leaned an elbow on the bar and cupped his chin. The round moon shape of his face pointing in her direction. His eyes were watery and blue, with more bushy hair for eyebrows than he had on his head. “No, you misunderstand.”

  Christ on a roller coaster. Couldn’t he see she was trying to think? “Oh, by all means, do enlighten me,” she said distractedly, plotting her next move with Greg.

  Placing his hand on her arm, he gripped it lightly. The spot where he rested it suddenly felt hot and uncomfortable. “If you’ll just listen to me, I’d be happy to explain.”

  “So explain,” she demanded, fighting the wave of nausea a tray of burgers passing under her nose brought.

  “I believe I have something you want.”

  Out of sight. “Like?”

  “Like something big.”

  Lord, men were predictable. He was talking package. She’d sigh if she still had the ability to. All men thought they had one to rival a blue whale, and in their zeal, they thought sharing that with women who were strangers was copasetic. Blech. Why was it that men thought the most important thing to a woman was dick? Well, to be fair, it didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t everything. “Dude, take your something,” she swiped her index fingers in the air, “big and go away.” She gave him that killa glare she was such a pro at for follow-up.

  His smile never left his face. He wasn’t fazed even a little.

  Huh. So had she lost her cower power when she’d become a vampire, too? Men usually backed right off when she gave them the “look,” but this guy was anything but unsettled.

  “No, no. you’re misunderstanding me, Nina. I’m not trying to pick you up. You’re not my type. Not at all.” His smile faltered when he said that, wrinkling his nose briefly. Then his placid smile returned. “Tell me, would you like to know where Lisanne is?”

  Nina’s stomach dived. She might not have intestines that worked anymore, but you could have fooled her, because they were jumping around like grease on a hot griddle. Her cautious glance gave way to some internal questions. How could anyone, other than Greg and maybe Svetlanna, know she wanted to find Lisanne? “Who the hell are you?”

  The shrug of his sloped shoulders was casual. “Who I am doesn’t matter. What I am definitely does.”

  The hell? Nina’s mind raced to put this together. He had to be some kind of paranormal something, if he knew of Lisanne’s existence…what next? Fairies? Witches, warlocks? She let her nostrils absorb his scent, flaring them to detect a hint of paranormal or human. Fuck, who could think with all these smells? “Okay, so what are you?”

  He leaned into her, his flannel shirt grazing her fingers. “I’m a vampire. Just like you. I’ve been trying to call you for days.” His reply was cheerful, the serene smile still plastered on his face.

  Hackles rose along her spine, chasing each other up to her arms, even though she knew they were only a product of her imagination. Were these damn vampires like everywhere and humans had just never been the wiser? Yeah, this guy was pale, but he didn’t look nearly as imposing as Greg did. In fact, he looked pretty harmless.

  Nina flared her nostrils again. Though she was beginning to decipher scents, like Marty was an AKC wannabe and Wanda was definitely human, she still wasn’t fully capable of sniffing him out completely. He didn’t smell human, but that didn’t mean her olfactory senses weren’t snafued—situation normal all fucked up. So she decided to play dumb. The less said the better. And was he really the one who’d been trying to call her? “A vampire?” She gave him her best beguilingly innocent look. Which wasn’t easy, considering she mostly just frowned. She had no practice in the art of flirt. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Marty’d warned her about being careful who knew what she was, and for once, she was going to take heed. He could be some crazy poser who just thought he was a vampire. She’d seen that all over the Internet. But that didn’t explain how he knew Lisanne. Although, in his favor, “I’m a vampire” wasn’t your standard pick-up line.

  “I can prove it to you,” he assured her.

  Nina gave a
snort filled with sarcasm. “Oh, really? Like how? Wait, never you mind. You’re nuts. Go stalk someone else with your something big.”

  His smile wavered just a little and began to border creepy. “Oh, Nina. I’m not crazy at all. If you want to find Lisanne, I can help.”

  “So help.”

  “Not here.”

  “But I like here.”

  “Here’s crowded.”

  “I like crowds.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Tough shit.”

  He sat silently beside her, a stoic calm in not just his body language, but also on his face.

  This was a fast train to nowhere. Maybe if she just tested the waters without showing too much interest…“Okay, so I take it you’re not going to go away. Why would you want to help me find this Lisanne, if I was even looking for her, and I’m not saying I am. How do you know anything about her? And if you’ve been trying to call me, how did you get my cell phone number?” Smooth. That was pretty smooth and not too interested. If he wasn’t just some crazy, he’d have an answer.

  “I have my ways. Word gets around in our circles, if you know what I mean. Like clan circles. Like Statleon clan circles.”

  Well, there went the bells and whistles in her head. Okay, so he knew Greg, and he’d used the word clan. How many people in this day and age used that word to refer to a group of people?

  Nina sensed his impatience, his growing agitation with her. “Look, do you want to know what I know, or are you going to continue to kid yourself into believing you’ll only be roaming the planet for the next fifty years instead of eternity if you don’t find Lisanne?”

  Hmmmm. “All right. Tell me about this Lisanne.”

  He shook his head, the thin wisps of hair on his scalp bobbing gently. “Not here.”

  Her antenna went back up. “Why the fuck not here? Here’s just fine with me.” The hell she’d go off with this cracker. She was staying right here where it was well lit and her friends were off behaving like they were booty-licious on the dance floor. No go.

  “Because I can take you directly to Lisanne.”