by Arthur, Keri
“Why do you need help? Did you flash your bits at the wrong man’s wife?”
Annoyance flickered through his dark eyes. “I’m being serious. Someone is trying to kill me.”
He might be serious, but it was hard to take him that way when he was standing there so calmly. Wouldn’t the obvious action have been to report problems to the police, or even the Directorate? “There’s always someone trying to kill vamps, and generally, you guys deserve it.”
“Not all of us kill to survive.”
Well, no, but the ones who did certainly gave the rest a bad rep. “Look, tell me what you want or go away and flash at someone else.”
“You’re a guardian for the Directorate of Other Races, are you not?”
“Nope. That’s my flatmate.”
“Is your flatmate here?”
I sighed. Why did all the pretty ones want to see Rhoan? “I don’t expect him back until sometime tomorrow.” Or later, if the feeling of wrongness in the pit of my stomach was anything to go by.
“Then I shall wait.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? Where?”
“Here.” He indicated the floor with an elegant gesture.
“You can’t stay here.” Mrs. Russel, the owner of this ramshackle ex-factory they now had the cheek to call an apartment block, would have a fit. The only reason she’d rented us a room in the first place was because it was against the law to discriminate against nonhumans—and because having werewolves in the building had the fortunate side effect of keeping vermin away. Rats, it seemed, didn’t like us.
But finding a vampire sitting in her hall would tip the old cow over the edge and us out of the apartment. Mrs. Russel had a long-standing hatred of vamps—even though she celebrated every day the fact that her husband had become the meal of one.
“Especially when you’re naked,” I added. “It’s against the law to loiter naked in public.”
A fact I knew after having been arrested for doing the same thing a couple of months ago—though I’d been in a park rather than a hallway. I’d escaped with only a small fine, but then, I had the full moon as an excuse. The silk dress I’d been wearing had fared no better against the change than my lacy shirt. Not that either event would stop me from wearing inappropriate clothing. The law might have problems with people running around naked, but werewolves didn’t.
“The light is broken,” he said, his voice so soft, so warm, that I again felt that shiver up my spine. “There are no windows, and the hall lies in shadows. No one will see me.”
I’d seen him, but then, though he must have heard me coming up the stairs, he hadn’t bothered shadowing. And that fact stirred uneasiness. As did the fact he was naked. It was no secret that I was a werewolf, and no secret that the full moon was only seven days away. And it was a very well-known fact that a werewolf’s sexual urges rose dramatically in the seven days before the moon reached fullness. He might be bait.
Though why would someone want to bait me? Other than having a guardian brother, I was a nothing, a nobody. Maybe my apprehension for Rhoan was making me paranoid.
“If you’re in trouble, why not go to the Directorate? There are plenty of guardians there to help.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
Confusion flicked through the midnight depths of his eyes. “I can’t remember.”
Yeah, I was really believing that. “Would you mind stepping away from my door?”
He did so. I grabbed the keys from my bag and approached the door cautiously. He raised his hands, his expression a little amused as I unlocked the door and thrust it open. Once I’d stepped through, I relaxed. While many of the legends concerning vampires weren’t true, the one about thresholds certainly was.
I tossed my handbag onto the nearby green sofa, then met his night-dark gaze. “Don’t bite any of my neighbors, or I’ll drag you down to the Directorate myself.”
He gave me a smile that had my hormones doing excited little cartwheels. “I have perused the contents of this building. You are the only one here worth biting.”
I couldn’t help a grin. He might have been naked, he might have been covered in mud and up to no good, but he looked gorgeous and he smelled positively sweet compared to most of the vamps I worked with. Another time, another place, I might have been tempted to take his mud-covered bait, and to hell with the consequences. “Compliments won’t get you through my door.”
He shrugged, a small, somehow graceful gesture. “I speak only the truth.”
“Ah huh.” I half closed the door, then hesitated. “You really can’t remember why you’re naked?”
“At this moment, no.”
Didn’t remember, or was too embarrassed to say? I suspected the latter, though I didn’t really know why, especially considering embarrassment was not an emotion any of the vamps I worked with ever felt.
“Fine. I’ll see you later, then.”
I closed the door, then headed into the bathroom for a shower. After that, I crawled into my rumpled bed and tried to catch some sleep. But the certainty that my brother was in some sort of trouble, combined with the fact that I had a hunky naked vampire sitting outside my door, up to God knew what, pretty much ensured that sleep was the one thing I couldn’t find.
After an hour of tossing and turning, I gave up and got up. I pulled on my favorite Marvin the Martian T-shirt to ward off the slight chill in the night, then headed into the kitchen and grabbed a large glass of milk and the jar filled with chocolate chip cookies. Then, from the well-padded comfort of my favorite armchair, I ate, drank, and watched the night give way to a brilliant red dawn. When the sky show was over, I typed up my report on Rhoan’s laptop, then e-mailed it to Jack. The phone rang a second later.
I leaned back in the chair and grabbed the receiver off the wall. “Hi, Kel.”
Husky laughter drifted down the line. Kelly had one of those voices that would have made her an instant hit on the phone-sex lines. “And how did you know it was me?”
“Because I left a message on your phone, and because everyone else knows better than to ring me at this unholy hour of the morning.”
“And yet you are up, which means you have a problem.” She hesitated. “Is it just a desperate need for sane feminine conversation? Or is it something more serious, like needing that all-dick, no-brain of a mate taken off your hands?”
I grinned. Kelly didn’t like Talon any more than Rhoan did, but at least she could see the benefits of keeping him around. Men as well hung as Talon weren’t all that common. “Actually, I just had a question.”
“Well, damn. I wouldn’t have minded a bit of well-endowed werewolf action right now. But ask away.”
“Did you talk to Rhoan before he left? Have you any idea where he was headed?”
“No, and no. Why?”
“I’ve just got a feeling he’s in some sort of trouble.”
“Not the sort that has taken ten of our number already, I hope?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.”
“Good.” She paused. In the background was the soft ticking of a clock, meaning she was in her quarters at the Directorate. The only clock in her own home was the mother of all grandfather clocks. It was so large—and so loud—that I was forced to leave the room when it chimed. “I’m due to go out again tomorrow night. I’ll see what I can find if he’s not back by then.”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Get me into a club during the moon fever, and we’ll call it quits.”
I grinned. “Done deal. See you later.”
“Arrivederci, bella.”
I replaced the receiver, then rose and headed back to the kitchen.
I wasn’t the world’s greatest cook, and most days I tended to burn whatever it was I was cooking. But I could usually manage muffins, eggs, and bacon without too much damage. Luckily for my stomach, it was one of those days. As I dished it all up, I glanced toward the door and wondered if my naked vamp wanted anything to eat. Not that I i
ntended offering myself. Rhoan always kept a good supply of synth blood in the fridge, simply because he needed it. We might be twins but I was more werewolf, my brother more vampire. He didn’t have the extendable teeth, ate and drank normally, and could walk in sunlight as well as I, but when the full moon began to rise, so too did his need to consume blood.
I grabbed a synth pack from the fridge, then picked up my plate and walked across to the door.
My grubby but sexy vampire was sitting where I’d left him, in the shadows to the right of my door.
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
Surprise flickered through his eyes. “Are you offering?”
I grinned and tossed the plastic pack to him. “Hardly. But my flatmate always keeps a stock of synth blood. You’re welcome to that.”
He caught the pack deftly in one hand. “Thank you. It’s most considerate.”
“In other words,” I said dryly, “the offer sucks, but you’ll make do.”
Humor touched his luscious lips. “You are very adept at reading people, aren’t you?”
Only nonhuman races, and only because of what I was. I shrugged, and sat, cross-legged, on the safe side of the doorway. Even though he was a stranger, and probably up to no good, he was at least someone to talk to. While the lone wolf image wasn’t one that fitted most wolves, it did apply to both Rhoan and me. We’d grown up in an environment that was hostile to our presence—to our very existence—and had become used to keeping to ourselves. Which meant, of course, that the art of making friends easily wasn’t a skill either of us had. God, it had taken me forever to drop my guard and let Kelly in a little. We’d known each other for three years, and despite the fact that I called her a friend—a good friend—she still had no idea that Rhoan and I were related, let alone twins.
And while I had two mates I saw regularly, they weren’t exactly friends. Melbourne could be a cold city when you were basically alone.
His gaze slid down my barely covered bits—a touch that wasn’t a touch, but left me burning. No surprise there. The moon heat, which was what we wolves called the weeklong phase in which the need to mate became almost all-consuming, had started. And while it didn’t affect me anywhere near as strongly as full-blooded wolves, the burning need for sex was still hard to deny.
And if the moon-spun hunger was that strong already, I was in for a rough but exciting week.
“So,” I said, trying to shake off images of mating with this vamp right there in the hall—and trying not to think of the delicious possibility of shocking Mrs. Russel’s puritan sensibilities. “You obviously didn’t come to your senses during the night.”
“Well, that depends on how you define ‘coming to your senses.’” Warmth sparkled in his dark eyes. “If you’re referring to the fact that I’m still here, then obviously not. If you mean did I regain some memories, then yes.”
“So you remember why you’re here?”
“I told you that last night.”
That he had. I was just curious as to whether he’d changed his story. “And as I said, if it’s something urgent, just go to the Directorate. Any of the guardians will be able to help you.”
“It’s your flatmate I must see.”
I speared some bacon, and dipped it into the yolk. “You another of his boyfriends?”
He jerked back so quickly anyone would have thought I’d hit him. “No, I am not.”
I grinned. “No offense meant. It’s just that many vampires who are older than a century or two tend to swing between the sexes.”
He studied me, face expressionless, eyes deep, dark pools the unwary could easily get lost in. “You are a werewolf, are you not?”
“Yeah.” I tore off a chunk of muffin, covered it in egg, and ate it. Ladylike, that was me.
“Werewolves are no more intuitive when it comes to vampires than humans,” he said softly. “So how is it you knew I was a vampire, let alone one who was more than two centuries old?”
I shrugged. “My flatmate is a guardian, and I work with guardians. You pick up on those things.”
One look at his expression suggested he wasn’t buying the lie.
“Can I ask another question?”
“You can ask. Won’t guarantee I’ll answer it.”
His smile crinkled his eyes. Not only was he polite, but he had a sense of humor. Amazing.
“You are not the . . . shall we say, typical? . . . shape of a werewolf.”
“Meaning I’ve actually got curves and boobs?” Boobs that had been my saving grace when it came to job-getting in the past. Despite the fact it was illegal to discriminate, few people wanted werewolves in their employ simply because the moon cycle meant wolves were away one week in four. But, thanks to said boobs, few people ever guessed what I was.
His gaze drifted upward. “Your hair is red, yet I thought there were only four packs—silver, black, golden, and brown.”
I nodded. “Most people think that, simply because the number of red packs is extremely small and they’re all somewhat isolated. They originated in Ireland, then migrated to the center of Australia. They mostly still live there today.”
“Ireland and Central Australia are two vastly different locations.”
Having visited Ireland eight years ago, I could certainly attest to that. I’d never seen so much rain in my life—at least until I’d gotten to Melbourne.
“They were chased out during the race riots of 1795. England was using Australia as a penal colony at the time, but there was plenty of land to be had so that’s where they went.” I shrugged. “I guess after the chill of Ireland, the heat of Central Australia was a dream.”
“At that time, they could have had their pick of locations. Why go to a desert?”
“Who knows?” Not me, that was for sure. Pack history had never been my strong point. But then, they hadn’t exactly gone overboard to teach us—after all, why would they bother when they had every intention of kicking us out once we hit adulthood?
Some wolf packs were tolerant of half-breeds. Ours wasn’t. The main reason we’d been allowed to survive at all was the fact that our mother was the daughter of the pack’s alpha—and had threatened to walk away from the pack if we were sentenced to death.
And yet when we had finally left, it had been as much of a relief for her as it had been for us. She loved us, we both knew that, but she’d made it very clear that she never wanted to see us again.
That decision had hurt—still hurt—and yet I could understand her need to regain a normal pack life. It couldn’t have been easy raising pups who were unwanted by everyone but her.
“And the red pack are not lean, as other wolves are?” my grubby vampire asked.
“Mostly, no.”
He nodded, his gaze rolling languidly down my body, somehow making me feel like I was drowning in sunshine. Which was a weird sensation to be getting from a creature of the night.
Though, to be honest, vamps generally weren’t the ice blocks humans thought them to be. They only got cold if they weren’t feeding enough.
I cleared my throat. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Amusement danced in his dark eyes. “Why not?”
“You know why not.”
The amusement touched his lips, and my breath caught somewhere in my throat. Damn, when had dead men become so delicious?
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Well, actually, neither would I, but I had principles. At least until the moon fever truly hit. “You’re here to see my flatmate, not me.” I hesitated, and frowned. “You said last night someone was trying to kill you. If that’s the case, why are you calmly sitting here in my hall?”
“Because they left me for dead. I doubt whether they’d bother going back to see if they succeeded.”
“And you are naked and covered in mud because . . . ?”
“I was staked naked to the ground between a mound of mulch and a mound of topsoil.”
I stared at him, not sure if he was being serious or not. “You we
re staked out in a garden center?”
“Apparently so. Luckily for me, they decided not to put a stake through my heart, but were simply content to watch the rising sun burn me.”
“Which it obviously didn’t.”
He smiled again, but this time there was something ferocious about it. “The good thing about being over a few hundred years old is a certain amount of immunity to the sun. Something my attackers obviously didn’t know. When dawn rose, I began screaming. They panicked and ran.”
Suggesting, perhaps, that the men who’d attacked him were new to the vampire-hunting game. I leaned against the door frame and placed my half-empty plate on the dusty wooden floor. “Why didn’t you just take over their minds and run them off that way?”
“I tried. They were blocked.” He eyed me for a minute. “Much the same as you are.”
I frowned. Rhoan had told me there was a gang of humans cruising the city in search of vamps to hunt down, but I was under the impression they were only teenagers. It was doubtful they’d be strong enough to overwhelm this vampire, let alone have developed tough enough mind-shields to keep him out. And while electronic shield technology did exist and did work, it was so expensive very few could afford it.
“Were they young?”
“No. Men, all of them, at least thirty.”
That didn’t sound good. “Perhaps you’d better go over to the Directorate. If there’s a second gang active in the city, they’ll need to know.”
“I cannot.”
“Why? My flatmate might not be back for days, and this really should be reported.”
“Rhoan asked me to see him, and only him.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t know my flatmate? And if you did, why didn’t you ask for him by name last night?”
“Because last night I couldn’t actually remember his name, just his address. And I never did say whether I knew him or not.”
