by Dannika Dark
I turned to the next page. Penny reached the age of technology and bought herself a computer, where she discovered a new friend through a Breed website for lonely immortals seeking companionship. By then, she’d become a recluse, but suddenly her world opened up through intimate conversations with strangers.
There’s one man I can’t stop thinking about. He’s different from the others because he’s not asking me superficial questions about what I do and who my Creator is. He’s searching for someone to fill the emptiness in his life—to brighten it with a smile and a kind word. Someone he can cherish, who can see the man that others don’t. He’s searching for someone with an open heart, and something tells me he’s a little broken. We can send pictures privately, but he’s guarded about his looks. I never wanted to believe that love might be possible after Lachlan, that I could have a life after losing everything, but I’m beginning to hope. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I agreed to meet Willard. He’s insecure about his name and asked me to call him Will, but I won’t. I want him to know I’m not like other women.
I’ll always love you, Lachlan. Always. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not wanting to live alone. Your quiet soul and my distant memories of you have kept me company over the years, but I miss having arms to hold me tight. Someday I’ll tell you all about it, because you are the soul I was branded to. I know we’ll meet again. I feel it in my bones that we are each other’s destiny and that the fates will reunite us.
When I noticed the remaining pages were blank, tears welled in my eyes and I closed the book. Why did I let myself become emotionally involved? Death was an unfortunate consequence of life, but reading someone’s hopes and dreams had reawakened some of my own from the ashes.
Someone knocked at my door and entered without permission. I thought it was Gem until a heavy body sank onto the bed and a hand rested on my shoulder.
I blinked, startled by a loud purring that vibrated against my back.
“Don’t cry, female,” Claude said, his words soothing. “I could scent your sorrow outside your door. I won’t harm you.”
I set the book on the table by the bed. “I think you’re a nice guy, Claude, but cuddling up in my—”
“Shhh.”
That was Claude’s way, even if I didn’t understand it. Chitahs sometimes had physical reactions to a woman in distress, and part of me was curious about that now that I was dating a Chitah. Maybe I needed to be more open to his customs. After all, there was something sublime about that purr. It calmed me almost immediately, as if it had a narcotic effect in the decibels that rose and fell with each breath he took.
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” I heard Christian say from the doorway. “I’m gone for one whole night, and it’s an orgy.”
“Silence, Christian,” Claude murmured. “This isn’t your business.”
His footsteps crossed the room, and he strode by the window, hands clasped behind his back. “Raven does like to be spooned.”
I slung my legs over the edge of the bed. “Okay. That’s enough, everyone.”
Claude’s purring abruptly ceased, and his nostrils flared. Not in an angry way, but something he did when scenting emotions. Sometimes his cheeks puffed out or he left his mouth open a little like a cat would. He sat up, bending one leg at the knee and draping his arm over it. Claude had a graceful and powerful body—almost catlike—which was even more noticeable when he wore his white tank top. “What did you do to that female?” he growled at Christian.
“Dinner, dancing, and ditching.” Christian strode to my small desk and took a seat in the wooden chair.
“Not drinking and dumping?” Claude suggested.
“I know it may come as a surprise, but she wasn’t my type. I left her on the dance floor in the middle of a Men at Work song.”
“Classy,” I said, rubbing my eye.
The room was darkening by the minute as day went into night.
Christian lifted the silver box on my desk and looked at it absently. “If anyone has a problem with my being in this house, they better not hold their tongue.”
“Did you do it?” Claude asked.
“Fecking not. I’m a great many things, but I’m not a serial killer.”
“Do you know who did it?”
Christian sighed. “Do you think we’d be having this conversation if I did?”
As Claude continued his interrogation, Christian raised his voice and sharpened his tone. I tuned out their quarrel and noticed a shiny object on the other side of the candle.
A phone!
I snatched it off the nightstand and swiped the screen, programming the few numbers I knew. Then I sent a quick text message to Glass to make sure it was working. He sent me back a smiley face and asked if he could come by.
“What’s all the ruckus?” Wyatt complained. “I can hear you guys arguing all the way down the hall.” He strode in and sat next to Claude. “We should have a PA system in here, because I’ve got breaking news.”
All eyes swung over to Wyatt.
“I’ve got prime suspect numero uno from the Breed website. He goes by RomeoSeeksJuliet.”
“Isn’t that precious?” Christian said wryly.
“Most of the men this Penny chick talked to online were located here in Cognito, so it didn’t help narrow my selection by much. It looks like she wanted to move out here and was searching for a male companion in the area. I sent out bait to all the men she was corresponding with and invited them to check out Blue’s profile. I got a lot of messages, and some of them are nasty men who need to be locked up in a cell somewhere in Guam. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to burn some of those photos from my memory. Anyhow, I didn’t want to open up the net too wide, so right now I’m just focusing on the same men who corresponded with the dead girl.”
“Don’t call her that,” I said.
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Romeo was the only one who gave a thoughtful response. So I did a little back and forth with him.”
I snorted. “Did you get yourself a hot date?”
He rubbed his nose. “It’s not easy pretending to be a girl with all those feelings,” he said, using his fingers to make invisible quotation marks. “But I got invited to a ball.”
“You better pick out a fancy dress,” Christian said.
A smile touched my lips. “Is this the same masked ball we’re going to?”
“The very one.” Wyatt stood up and paced toward the window, then turned around. “If he’s got tickets, that means he’s a man with connections. Of course, a lot of people are going to be there, so it’s hard to say just how important he is in the grand scheme of things.”
“Can we bring outside dates?”
Christian gave me a cold stare. “If we’re baiting a killer, I think dates would be a distraction.”
“He’s right,” Claude said. “If Blue’s going in as bait, we’ll have to keep an eye on her at all times with no outside distractions. These parties are big. Someone needs to buy the costumes so we can blend in.”
Wyatt rocked on his heels. “What kind of costume? Because if someone puts me in furry go-go boots and a miniskirt, I’m protesting.”
I threaded my tangled hair away from my face. “I wouldn’t write off skirts. Do you know how many women find kilts sexy?”
“Stop fibbing.”
“If you have the legs to pull it off, wear a kilt and find out for yourself.”
All three men shared a private look.
Claude erupted in laughter. “The day I wear a dress is the day Christian eats steak and potatoes at the dinner table. We should come up with a strategy. No one can know we’re attending… except for the host. How are we going to spot each other at a masked ball?”
Wyatt shrugged. “Don’t Scots have clans or something? We can all wear the same tartan. Chances of anyone dressed like that will be slim to none, and if they are, we’ll have our own pattern. I shouldn’t have any trouble spotting a man in a plaid skirt.”
Wyatt rumpled his hair with a quick gesture. “That’s a therapy session I ain’t got time for. I’ll tell Romeo to leave Blue’s name at the door so they can meet there. It’s safer that way, and he doesn’t need to know that she already has an invite. I’m with Claude. Since we don’t know who we’re dealing with, we can’t tell anyone we’re going. This is Keystone business, and the last thing we want to do is tip off the killer.”
Christian abruptly got up and left the room.
Claude’s frown made him almost menacing. “Do I need to shave my legs for this?”
Wyatt’s laugh ended with a snort. “I think we should tell Shepherd it’s mandatory.”
“Careful, Spooky. He might drop you off at a human morgue for that one.”
Wyatt puffed out his chest. “Let him try.”
“When you’re dead to the world, a nuclear explosion couldn’t wake you up. How do you think he got your bed all the way to the cemetery that time? All he has to do is add a little sensory magic to make you deaf long enough to last the drive.”
Wyatt’s gaze steered toward the empty doorway. “What did I tell you about coming into the rooms? … It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a party.”
When my phone vibrated, I excitedly read the text message from Glass. “I have a date tonight, Wyatt.” I stood up and passed by him. “If you have any pervy ghosts, tell them I’ll be taking a long, hot shower.”
“Don’t say stuff like that. It’s not a joke, and some specters are perverts… No, I didn’t mean you,” he said to the empty doorway. “Holy Toledo, can’t a man have a minute to himself?”
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get used to Wyatt’s solo conversations, but it left me wondering if there was any truth to his claim about ghosts. I hadn’t seen anything convincing outside of a few candles flickering when there was no draft in the room and cold chills that came out of nowhere, but that wasn’t enough to make me a firm believer.
Claude turned to me. “Is it okay to leave you? I can stay if you need my company.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I don’t like to read romance novels.”
His eyes skated over to the diary on the bedside table. “Did you discover anything?”
“Just the tragic ending of Penny Burns. She mentioned meeting up with someone named Willard, but my guess is he gave her a fake name. Wyatt’s lead is better than what’s in that book. All that’s in there is heartbreak and death.”
He lowered his head. “We all have tragic endings, Raven. No one gets out of life unscathed.”
“How did you end up in a place like Keystone?” I asked, curious. Claude didn’t seem like a hardcore killer. Maybe Viktor just needed a tracker and the pay was good.
Claude patted my leg and stood up, towering over my low bed. “Have a good time on your date. And be safe. Never let a male disrespect you.”
And with that, the enigmatic Claude Valentine left the room.
Chapter 21
Glass turned up the heater in his black Mercedes. “Are you still cold?”
I returned my hands to my lap. “Not really,” I lied.
Glass looked different tonight, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. There was a twinkle in his eye, and beneath his coat wasn’t a suit and tie but jeans and a cotton shirt.
“I hope we’re not going anywhere fancy,” I said, gazing down at my jeans and off-the-shoulder black sweater. No bra, because I thought that made my casual look a little sexier. I’d borrowed Gem’s hair dryer and annoyed Wyatt while running it in his game room so I could control my frizz. With a round brush, I made big sexy curls—one lock swooping over my right eye. Claude suggested I skip perfumes and lotions since artificial smells usually repelled Chitahs, who preferred the natural scent of a woman.
It didn’t get more natural than this.
“I thought you might enjoy something a little more intimate,” he said. An orange streetlight splashed across the windshield and then faded away. “How does a private dinner at my family home sound?”
I blinked. “I thought you didn’t have family?”
“They’ve passed. Since I was an only child, they left me the property. It’s not a large home; only six bedrooms.”
Only, I mused, thinking about the one-bedroom trailer where I grew up. My father slept on a pullout sofa.
“Do you cook?” I asked.
He slid me a sideways glance. “I’m a Chitah. Of course I cook.”
That seemed promising. Dating a man who could cook was the next best thing to dating a prince.
“I hope you don’t mind the short notice,” he said, pulling into a driveway. “I’m going to be working a lot of overtime this week, so I wanted to move up our second date.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t interested.”
I could live with that. Now I wouldn’t have to worry about him asking me out on the night of the masquerade ball. I really didn’t want to start off our relationship with lies.
Was this a relationship?
Glass didn’t give me butterflies, but maybe those feelings came later. Was love different from sexual chemistry? I’d felt that before, but not in a long time, and none of those relationships had worked out anyhow.
I discreetly looked at Glass. The roots of his hair in the back were darker than the front. He had such an interesting, square-shaped face with a straight nose that stopped at his brow instead of following the slope of his forehead. I counted four small moles on his neck, and no scars. His weathered appearance made him look like a cop, and I wondered if some people were just born to be lawmen.
He glanced over his shoulder. “What?”
“Nothing. Just looking.”
He switched off the engine. “Is that all you want to do?”
I smiled nervously. “Not really. Let’s eat.”
When I stepped out of the car, I turned in a circle to check out his property. Glass lived in a respectable neighborhood, albeit an aging one by the looks of the oversized trees and the cracks in the sidewalk. The houses were all two-story homes with wood siding. A tire swing hung from the tree next door, and the house across the street had a minivan parked in the driveway with one of those family decals of two kids and a dog. Glass’s house was grey with white trim around the windows, and instead of a boxy look, it had triangular points above the windows and near the top. A low hedge bordered the house from the driveway to the small porch. It was a historic home, and I’d guess one built in the early nineteen hundreds. Maybe older. The exterior had been recently modernized to keep up with the overall look of the neighborhood, but I was willing to bet that not all the houses along this street were as old as this one.
“Is this where Chitahs live? I thought you guys had bigger houses because all the siblings lived together.”
He led me toward the front door. “This is a human neighborhood. My family didn’t like to be around other Breeds.”
“Why?”
He scratched the back of his neck as we stepped onto the brightly lit porch. “They were just private people. My mother was old, sick, and set in her ways. I don’t mind. The humans keep to themselves and barely notice each other.”
The key made a grating sound as it slid in the lock. The first thing I noticed when we stepped inside was the strong smell of lemons.
Glass hung his coat on a hook. While I closed the door, he strolled forward and switched on a lamp. The yellow light illuminated a painting directly over it, but I couldn’t see what it was at my angle. Beyond the recessed wall to my right was a room with the door halfway open. To my left, a spacious sitting room with shadows lurking on a red area rug, chaise lounge, and one of those old wooden globes that conceals liquor. The garage must have been on the other side of that wall, and ahead to the left was a staircase. I realized that despite there being six bedrooms, they must have been of modest size.
> “The kitchen’s just ahead. Do you want something to drink while I cook dinner?”
“Drinks would be great. Maybe just a beer if you have one.”
He straightened his brown shirt. “Be right back.”
Glass noisily strode across the wood floor and switched on a light when he reached the back of the house. I could see the edge of a kitchen table just to the right, but he walked left and began rattling pans.
I drifted toward the lamp and admired the oil painting. It was an older woman sitting on a gold chaise, a forest-green dress covering her feet and a pearl necklace adorning her wrinkled neck. Despite her resplendent surroundings and attire, her face was bereft of color—stark and expressionless. She had white hair pulled back tight so that your eyes were drawn to the emerald earrings on her ears. The painter hadn’t made any embellishments; he’d painted her just as true as she must have looked in life: her earlobes slightly long from the weight of the gems, her translucent skin revealing the dark veins that were mostly raised on her hands, her withering lips tinted with a rose color meant for a girl in her prime.
I set down my purse and turned around, realizing she was sitting in the same chair as the one in the sitting room. “Is this your mother?” I yelled out.
Glass’s footsteps echoed in the hall as he joined my side and handed me a bottle of beer. “Yes, that’s her.”
“She’s a dignified woman.”
He gazed at the image. “She was well-bred, with exceedingly high expectations, so when my father squandered most of her inheritance, it changed her. I think she married for love, but they were together a good many centuries before I came along. It’ll be a few minutes before dinner’s ready, so make yourself comfortable. Just don’t go upstairs,” he said, heading back to the kitchen. “I’m in the middle of remodeling.”
