It was a busy day at the Center. The new director of the center, Peter, had invited Anne to an early dinner, but she’d wanted to decline. Eating meals with mortals was tricky, at best, since she had to feign being sick to explain for her lack of partaking, or eat and then get rid of her stomach contents right away, which she detested. She saved those occasions for events she absolutely could not get out of, like a society gala dinner or private sit down party. She reluctantly said yes, then drank mineral water with lemon, citing she was on a special diet.
“They’ve done an investigation on some missing persons,” Peter said. “These are people associated with some of our clients at the center. I thought I should share these details with you.”
Anne’s blood pressure went up. She scanned the face of her friend.
“What details?” Her interest was avid, but tried not to show it.
“They all are related to women you’ve counseled, Anne.” He leafed through the spinach salad with his fork.
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Anne, they are looking for people who would want to see these guys dead.”
“I would imagine that could be a pretty long list. Can’t see why they are spending the time.”
“Well, they wouldn’t. Except it has come to their attention we’ve lost eight relatives of women at the Center during the past four months or so. That was as of yesterday. Today, they found another two.”
She was filled with dread. Her perfect life was beginning to unpeel like the veneer on a dresser left out in the rain.
How could this be? She would need to ask Praetor. The timing of Maya’s appearance and the deaths of relatives at the center were too much of a coincidence.
“Two more? Who?” Anne asked.
Peter handed her a list of names, the last two circled. All of them were boyfriends or husbands of her clients, just as he’d told her.
“All these men have died?”
“Yes. And these all have occurred since you came back from your trip to Italy.” He looked back at Anne with sad eyes. “All of them stabbed.”
Anne shuddered. “How awful.”
“I’m afraid the police want to talk to you. I just thought I would give you a head’s up.”
Anne went instantly into high alert. She wondered if Praetor was lending a helpful hand—too helpful. He’d been good at his word, supplying her with his own blood, and told her he didn’t hunt any longer. Did he have a sudden lapse in judgment? An urge he couldn’t control?
She could see Peter noticed her concern. “Anne, I am one hundred percent positive you had nothing to do with any of these. I mean, how could you?”
She didn’t want to look him in the eyes. She didn’t want him to see that she had a theory, and that theory involved Maya.
This could be something Maya could do. And it would be something impossible for Anne to explain, even if they believed her about vampires being real. She needed to speak to Praetor. Surely he would be able to help figure something out.
But how could he control the local authorities if they came after her?
Praetor was grim when Anne told him of the finding. He said he would investigate who the victims were and what evidence they had. He was most disturbed by Maya’s recent appearance.
“So, she says Marcus traces here occasionally?” he asked.
“Yes. Why can’t I detect him?”
“Maybe it’s a bluff. She could be paranoid, you know. Or, maybe he does and just doesn’t want you to know. Maybe my presence here has alarmed him.” Praetor was thoughtful. He tapped his fingers on the table as he mulled something over in his mind.
“He couldn’t be responsible for the killings, could he?”
“No, impossible, Anne. He would never do that.” Praetor tried to smile, but failed. Anne hadn’t seen him worry like this before.
“Then who? Maya?”
“This is someone who is making it look like you are the culprit. That would never be Marcus. My bet is on Maya.” He leaned forward and took Anne’s hands in his. “I need to speak to Marcus in person, make sure we have not started a war between us.”
“Perhaps Maya is right. What if he doesn’t know you have been here?”
“And what likelihood do you think Maya will keep this information to herself?”
“Yes, I see your point.”
“With Maya on the scene, I will need to send someone else to watch over you. I think . . .”
“No. I will be fine. She is bridled from hurting me.”
“But not from hurting your situation or those you care about.”
“Make your peace with Marcus, if you must. I will be fine here. She’s mistaken if she thinks Marcus has shown himself around here.” She chose not to tell him about her erotic dreams. “Once she learns I am truly not with Marcus, I have to think she will leave me alone. How could they accuse me of these murders? Surely there’s no proof.”
Then she thought about the bloody traces in her wastebasket at the office.
“I think you are too optimistic, Anne.”
“She has a child to raise. Surely she has a life to live.”
“You don’t understand. Marcus was her life. You took that away from her. It sounds like that has not returned to her. Regardless if he finds another, you are still the one who stopped their fating ceremony from taking place.”
Anne worried as Praetor’s words echoed over and over. Her perfect new life was now unraveling. Even though she’d told him she would be safe, being without the protection of this kind friend was making her nervous.
Someone wanted her to be blamed for these murders, and she had a pretty good idea who that was. And now she would be completely alone.
Chapter 23
Robert and Gary left the Double Eights about eleven o’clock. Gary had too much to drink, so Robert drove his own pickup in order to drop Gary off at his apartment. He helped his friend get out of the truck and pushed him in the direction of the walkway. Robert thought he saw a shadow under the stairwell leading up to Gary’s unit. His friend was babbling something about how unfriendly the girls had been tonight at the bar, and didn’t notice the shadow.
“Not like I don’t tip them. They’re conspiring. Holding out on us,” Gary said to the clear night air.
“Maybe they’re tired of us, Gary,” Robert said.
“Tired of this?” His friend brought his arms out to his sides and immediately was jolted by the blade of a knife that passed through his torso from behind. Gary tried to scream, his eyes bugging out with the shocked realization of his own death.
Robert saw Gary’s mouth open one last time to let out a gurgling sound as he threw up blood and sank to his knees. Fingers clutched under his jaw and ripped a hole several inches long, nearly from ear to ear.
The movements were so quick, Robert couldn’t make out who was the attacker. But he knew he had to get out of there as fast as he could. It was clearly too late for Gary.
He ran to the truck and nearly made it. The attacker had just smashed the driver’s side window and had reached around to tear at his neck like he’d just done to Gary, when Robert’s car horn went off. Momentarily stunned, the attacker hesitated, which gave him time to push the onCall button above the rear view mirror. He could hear the emergency phone ringing.
Then he couldn’t answer the pert operator who wanted to know what the nature of Robert’s emergency was because someone with black hair and boobs the size of cantaloupes was sucking at his neck.
With the squawk of the operator in the background, Robert felt a dark coldness descend on him. He was yanked from the cab of the truck and thrown. He landed on his knees, in excruciating pain. One leg had twisted and was under his torso at an odd angle. He’d also landed with his left arm tucked underneath him and he felt pain at his wrist and elbow.
He was aware blood from the neck wound was rapidly spreading over the asphalt.
And then mercifully, he passed out.
Anne was being questioned on a d
aily basis, and instead of it taking a few minutes, the interviews had lasted for over an hour. She lost her job at Starbucks. She was exhausted without Praetor’s blood. She had to travel farther away to find victims to feed on.
Occasionally she saw a police tail. Her tracing abilities were not yet perfected and she couldn’t trust doing it without winding up in some boiling cauldron or fire pit somewhere, ending her life. So she waited until she absolutely had to feed, and then ventured out.
Where is he?
She was weary of the box that was beginning to close in around her as the days turned into nearly a week of hell.
Six days later, she was greatly relieved to find Praetor back in her living room when she returned late from a feeding in San Francisco. She ran to him and gave him a hug, genuinely happy to see him.
“I am sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. Council business has been neglected while I have been here with you. And I needed time with Marcus.”
“So he knows?”
“Yes. I got to him just before Maya did. But he already knew. He was not happy.”
Anne understood this reaction. But she felt Marcus had brought it on himself. He had caused the whole problem by lying to her in the first place.
“I have some news you are not going to like to hear, Anne.” Praetor hugged her again. Anne felt tears well up in her eyes as she steeled herself. She had some faint idea it was going to cause more pain than anything she had felt previously. Worse than her leaving Italy without Marcus. Worse than Robert’s infidelity. She sighed.
“Go ahead. I’m ready,” she said to Praetor’s’ shirt.
“Marcus has announced he and Maya will be fated. The ceremony is being rushed. I will have to return tomorrow for the preparation. By the weekend they will be formally recognized, and the ceremony makes it final.”
Anne’s knees gave out. Praetor held her as she lay limp in his arms, unable to move. She felt as dead inside as that night in Italy. She had no will to live. She couldn’t even cry. Everything was gone.
He laid her gently on the living room couch. She still couldn’t move. But she could cry.
“Anne, there is something else, though.” Praetor kneeled in front of her. “He has done this so that Maya will stop preying on you. I know about your ex-husband and his friend. Word traveled to Tuscany and the council is concerned. I have spoken to Laurel. She thinks Marcus sacrifices himself. She begged me to handle Maya myself.”
She looked into his eyes, which firmly said the obvious.
“She doesn’t want him to spend eternity in a loveless union,” he said. He underscored the predicament they were in with his words. “As much as I would like to, if I did that, it would mean the end of me, and possibly you. I cannot interfere.”
Marcus could do this, she thought. He could fate to Maya. Bind himself forever to the Queen of Hell itself.
She had not dreamed about him for several nights, which probably meant he was staying away from her, and spending time with Maya. He could bring himself to do this for her, he would try to appease Maya first, and then if that didn’t work . . .
What an ironic twist of fate. She understood now just how deeply he had loved her, and what he would do to keep her safe. And now she knew how much she had loved him.
The reality of her barren life of forever without him loomed large. She inhaled and beheld her new reality, like she was walking up the steps to a hangman’s noose.
Except that would have been merciful compared to what she was going to have to endure.
Anne was arrested the day after Praetor left to negotiate and arrange the fating ceremony. Another man had been found with his throat slashed, draped over the fence of his house, where a group of children found him on their way to elementary school the next morning. They were fourth graders, and because of their age, there had been an outcry from the community, causing the Chief to make a quick arrest of the most likely suspect.
Anne. For the first time in her life, her picture was on the front page of the local paper.
As she sat in the cell awaiting her appointed legal counsel, she got the impression none of the guards or even the arresting officer believed she was the real killer. But too many things had pointed in her direction. The man who had been killed and left for the children to view had been the ex-husband of one of her clients, a man who witnesses had seen Anne argue with on more than one occasion. The circumstances were too compelling to ignore. Anne had to give it to Maya. That woman knew how to be diabolical.
Anne was glad Marcus would be in the boy’s life now more than ever, so that the boy wouldn’t fall prey to her family.
Anne’s feelings were so raw and ragged she wasn’t sure she could respond to anything. She was resigned to just let herself be the cog in the system. Let them take her away. After all, they couldn’t kill her. She would be able to trace at night, so even if she was confined to a jail cell, she would be able to spend the night in a comfortable bed away from the dangers of prison life. She just needed a little more training. Surely Praetor would have the time to do this. The wheels of the human criminal justice system moved so slowly, she probably had years before she would have to think about it.
Her biggest concern, other than trying to repair the hole in her heart, was what the vampire coven would do to her as punishment. There wasn’t much a human judge and jury could do to her, but the council was another story. If the human world thought she was guilty, why wouldn’t the vampire world?
And perhaps this had been worked out with the council. Perhaps Marcus’s capitulation to Maya included the agreement that Anne would be left untouched and perhaps banished by the coven, or at best, left alive in her vampire body.
Her eyes filled with tears as she realized this was perhaps the last thing he could ever do for her. She knew his fating would mean Maya would be placed before any other female in his past, present, or future. She would forever be his queen, someone he would defend to his own death, if need be. He would go on to father other children. One happy family, as if the day she came to the chapel never existed.
She spent the night crying her eyes out for the last time. Praetor traced her to his own bed. He held her all night long, stroking her hair, and when she closed her eyes, she pretended it was Marcus bidding her farewell. That somehow made it better.
She had come to see Praetor as her only friend in the world. Perhaps, if he would have her, if the scandal could be overcome in the coven, he would be allowed, would be willing to take her as his partner. She knew they would never be true mates. But not having the hundreds of years of experience, as well as a family unit in place to help, she was left at such a disadvantage that for the first time in her life, she felt she could not face eternity alone.
She asked him about it as they sat in bed and watched the peachy stain on the morning sky grow, and then fade into the bustle of the day. He’d have to return her to her cell before the guards checked morning rounds.
“I am honored, Anne. But then what would happen if I find my female? You would be discarded again, for the third time.”
“Is there any precedent for people to grow into a fating? Marcus is truly going to try. He must believe something like that is possible.”
“My honest opinion? The answer is no, regardless of what Marcus tells himself.” He continued to stroke her hair and the side of her arm. “You should not make any decisions now. Wait until after the ceremony. Wait until you hit bottom completely.” He kissed the top of her head and whispered, “And then you start to build back up. If you are mending, perhaps we can talk about it. But not now.” He leaned her head back examining her lips, which she parted for him.
Anne could fall in love with him, maybe. Her eyes drew him to her and he softly complied. His tongue tasted her bottom lip but did not pry its way into hers. When she began to push into his mouth, he closed his teeth and drew his lips together, sealing her out.
“You don’t feel anything for me, Praetor?” Anne asked.
“I
love you like a sweet friend. As a most precious sister, or a long lost childhood crush. I think if you examine yourself, you will see it is the same.” He traced her lips with his forefinger and smiled. “You are a wonder, Anne. Those hours you shared with Marcus I’m sure made him feel like master of the universe, to have someone such as you love him.”
“And I think he did love me back. He did.”
“Yes, I think you are right. But now we have to accept another reality. Not healthy to dwell on the past. Time to return you to your cell.”
She was out on bail later that afternoon and came home to her apartment that had obviously been searched. She straightened up, cleaned some of the litter of multiple strangers who did not care about her or her things.
She went to the hospital to visit Robert.
He had a cast on each leg and on one of his arms. Bandages were wound around the top of his head. Someone had played a cruel joke on him and had tied the bandage around his neck with a big gauze bow right under his chin. Anne was most concerned about that wound, as she smelled fresh blood. She looked at him for signs Maya gave him vampire life, like Marcus had done for her. She decided he was healing as a human, not an immortal. Even a recent turn would have shown up.
She gave him a kiss on his lips, which were swollen and deep purple. “Are you in pain, Robert?”
“Uh huh. But I’m letting them blast me full of anything they’ll give me. I might fall asleep. They have me pretty much wacked out.”
“You go ahead and fall asleep if you need to. I’m just paying respects.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
That got her thinking. Had Maya intended on killing him or hurting him? Anne believed the attacks would stop, and, if she could survive the investigation, maybe she was finally at the turning point. The fating was scheduled for tomorrow morning. How nice it would be to just leave this all behind, have all the drama be finally over.
Honeymoon Bite (Golden Vampires of Tuscany) Page 21
