by L. D. Rose
Valerie followed him, her sneakers sinking into the plush carpet that probably cost more than everything in her apartment put together. “Shaul?”
“One of my brothers,” he said as they swung around the balustrade and kept right. “He’s been keeping an eye on Deron.”
Blaze led her through an elaborate corridor as huge windows whirred by, all of them covered in richly colored drapes. Gorgeous tapestries hung from the distant ceiling, depicting ancient battles, landscapes, and abstracts.
Valerie had barely registered Deron’s name, but when realization struck, her attention snapped to Blaze. “What did you say?”
“Deron.” He spared her a glance over his shoulder, his beautiful eyes hidden behind those damned sunglasses. The corridor split and they went right again. “My brother’s been keeping an eye on him, like I’d promised. Shaul had a run-in near Deron’s place last night and I want to make sure he’s all right.”
“Is Deron okay?” A dose of panic shot through her veins. Christ, she’d practically forgotten about her partner. In fact, she’d practically forgotten about her life in general before Blaze walked into it, handcuffed.
Unease trickled into her stomach as reality settled in. She still had another life, one she couldn’t just abandon.
“Yeah, he’s fine.” Blaze stopped in front of a set of doors and knocked. Smaller versions of the main entrance, they still stood at a good ten feet.
“Come in,” a familiar voice called from inside. Kasen. Blaze tugged the ring and entered, Valerie in tow.
Compared to the rest of the mansion, the suite was barren. Only a minimum of black leather furniture spread across the large space, the walls naked. Heavy black drapes hung over every window, casting the room in twilight darkness. An ebony baby grand piano sat in the distance in front of a large oriel. The room smelled box-fresh and new, like Valerie’s apartment.
Except this place was definitely not an IKEA catalogue.
“Shaul?” Blaze called as he dragged Valerie toward the far side of the suite.
“Bedroom,” Kasen replied, his voice growing louder as they approached an archway. They walked into yet another large room, also minimally furnished, with covered windows. On top of a mahogany four-poster bed sat a bare-chested man in black cargo pants, his thick dark hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Rogue strands fell over his pale, angular face, his skin pink enough to be human but walking the fine line of vampire—which applied to his entire appearance in general.
A smear of blood marred his cheekbone, but there was no wound. He looked at them with gunmetal gray eyes, the only sign that assured Valerie he was, in fact, not a vampire. He appeared as tall as Blaze, but leaner, longer, yet he still had enough bulk to be intimidating. His muscles rippled as he unwrapped strips of bloodied white cloth from his torso, dropping them on the floor. If it weren’t for all the blood, Valerie would’ve never guessed he’d been hurt.
Christ, if she didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn he was a leech.
He is, silly girl. Half leech.
Kasen stood over by the dresser, placing used medical equipment back into a briefcase. Stainless steel trays sat on the mahogany surface, holding bloodied shrapnel. Apparently, he’d just finished repairing Shaul. He looked back at them over his shoulder, wearing a navy button-down, a pair of charcoal slacks, and a matching fedora that suited him quite well.
His lips curved into a secret smile. “Valerie.” He wiped his hands on a towel. “Nice to see you here.”
“Nice to be here,” she said, a bit nervously. Pretty Boy stared her down as if he could see through her soul. There was something ominous about him she couldn’t quite place, something dark and creepy. Some vibe, aura, but whatever it was, it made her skin prick in alarm, like it did when something nasty came at her.
Blaze squeezed her hand in reassurance, as if he sensed her unease. “Shaul, Valerie. Valerie, my brother Shaul. Valerie is Deron’s partner, a detective for the NYPD.”
Shaul nodded, his sinister gaze lingering on her a moment longer before sliding to Blaze. Kasen parked on an empty nightstand beside the bed, sticking around for the show.
Blaze leaned against one of the thick bedposts, releasing Valerie’s hand and folding his arms over his chest. Valerie did the same in order to keep from squirming. “What happened?”
“I was ambushed outside of Williams’ apartment complex,” Shaul replied. Good lord, he even sounded like a leech, his voice soft, deep, and melodic. “Five vampires. Their leader looked a lot like you.”
Shaul reached into his pocket and pulled out a small glass vial with a black stopper. It was empty, but the stains within showed it once held blood, now dried and oxidized. “He dropped this.” He tossed the vial and Blaze caught it. “I took down three of them before the explosion. The dumpster beside me went off like a bomb, blew me against the wall. Williams came out to investigate and ended up taking down the fourth vampire. I got out of there before he could spot me.”
“And the leader?” Blaze asked.
“He got away. But I think he’s the one who set it off.”
“The bomb?”
“No.” Shaul kept his gaze unnervingly steady. “The dumpster.”
Blaze popped the stopper on the bottle, frowning at Shaul in confusion. He took a whiff and flinched, pulling the vial away from his face and gaping at it.
“I wanted to tell you before I told Rome,” Shaul continued. “It smells like your blood. Old, but definitely yours.”
Fury suddenly blasted off Blaze’s body, sizzling lashes that could peel away skin. He closed the vial in his gloved fist and Valerie expected to hear the crunching sound of glass.
His voice stayed low, controlled, but hatred stained it black. “What do you mean, he set off the dumpster?”
Shaul cut to the chase, his response knocking the air out of all of their lungs. “I mean that leech drank your blood and had the power to blow shit up. Like you.”
Oh, my God. The pieces began to fall into place as Valerie’s mind rapidly put them together, developing a picture in an empty frame.
“Wait a minute,” Kasen cut in, aghast. “Are you saying this vampire drank his blood,” he pointed to Blaze, “and took on his trait?”
Shaul nodded, still watching Blaze. “That’s what it looked like.”
It all made sense. The modus operandi of Elena’s death—severe burn wounds, a branded hand around her throat, Blaze’s clothes at the crime scene. Homes, Bianca, Bella Vista. There was only one piece missing that would connect them all and Valerie blurted it out before she considered its implications.
“Do you think the vampire would be able to daywalk because of this?”
They looked at her, stunned. For a full five seconds, no one made a sound. Valerie’s heart hammered as she absorbed her own words. The idea that a vampire could daywalk made her blood run cold, but if this leech had taken on Blaze’s trait, why not others as well?
“Fuck,” Blaze cursed, breaking the silence as he began to pace like a man in solitary. The temperature in the room rose, thickening the air with his anger. Then, in a fit of rage, he threw the glass vial against the marble wall, shattering it to pieces. Valerie tried not to flinch as Shaul and Kasen exchanged solemn glances.
“Do you know what this means?” Blaze bellowed, fury rolling off him in hot waves. “Do you know what this fucking means?”
Valerie wanted to go to him, to comfort him, to calm him down somehow but she wasn’t sure if she could. She had to admit she was a little overwhelmed and frightened by all of this. She looked to his brothers for guidance and found Shaul watching Blaze warily, as if he were bracing himself. For what, she didn’t know, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to find out.
Kasen removed his fedora and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes before shoving a hand
through his tousled blond hair. “Shit. We need to tell Rome.”
“Need to tell Rome what?”
Valerie whirled around at the new presence behind her, giving the hybrids her back as she instinctively reached for her gun. The male stood in the archway, wearing a gray Marines T-shirt, jeans, and a black New York Yankees baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.
She instantly recognized the voice—gruff, cocky, and headstrong. She’d heard it many times over the phone in the past, when she needed classified information from the FBI. He’d always given her a hard time but came through in the end, helping her crack some of the biggest cases she’d ever encountered. She’d met him only three times but she remembered him clearly. Not only was he her FBI go-to guy, he was Veronica’s brother, the doctor who’d taken care of her father for the last two years of his life.
Special Agent Jonathan James Kerr.
Yet the male before her could not be that man. This male was bigger, taller, stronger, his already athletic build somehow more powerful than before. He’d lost the deep olive color of his skin, now only a faded hue of what it used to be. He had demonic eyes of obsidian where they’d once been a warm chocolate brown.
This man couldn’t be Jon Kerr because he wasn’t human.
He was a living, breathing, bloodsucking vampire.
“Jon?” Valerie murmured as the room dissolved around her, leaving nothing but her and a dead man. It was as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air, making her lungs burn, her heart pound, and her blood roar.
His face fell at the sight of her, his jaw loose, his mouth fuller now that it sheathed a pair of fangs. “Val?”
His obituary flashed through her mind, the image of a fallen soldier and federal agent, followed by the heartrending words engraved on his tombstone in Cypress Hills National Cemetery. She remembered Veronica’s hysterical voice over the phone, the sobbing, the tears . . . a sister mourning the loss of her brother.
Dead. He was supposed to be dead.
Scarcely aware of her actions as a primal instinct seized all higher brain functioning, Valerie drew her PPK from its holster at the small of her back, thumbed off the safety, lifted it in a two-handed grip, and cocked the hammer back as she aimed the gun at Jon’s perfect, vampire face.
Then she fired.
Son of a bitch!
Milliseconds before Valerie pulled the trigger, Blaze reacted with a surge of pure adrenaline, wrapping an arm around her waist and hauling her off her feet. She fired and the slug hit the peak of the archway, rebounding off the marble.
JJ dropped to the floor as Blaze spun around, covering Valerie and sending them both into a wall. He crushed her against the stone, cuffing her wrist with his free hand.
She wouldn’t drop the PPK, gripping it tighter as she struggled against him.
The bullet ricocheted around the room and buried itself in the mattress between Shaul’s legs, perilously close to his groin. He hadn’t moved an inch, rigidly holding his position. Kasen had leapt between JJ and Valerie in an attempt to take the bullet, since he would likely recover from the injury.
Once upon a time, it had been the other way around, leading JJ to what he was now.
“Let me go!” Valerie shouted, her fury echoing through Blaze’s body.
Blaze turned her around to face him, keeping her pinned as he slapped her wrist against the wall. If it weren’t for the mark, he wouldn’t have known her intentions, and JJ could’ve very well been dead. A lethal mixture of anger, ardor, and arousal coursed through Blaze’s veins, tightening his gums with the threat of lengthening fangs.
“Drop it,” he growled, infusing the words with menace.
She didn’t acknowledge him. Her wild eyes locked on JJ as he picked himself off the floor. “My God, he’s—”
“One of us. He’s one of us, Val.”
Valerie glared at Blaze, the depths of her green eyes filled with hysteria, horror, and most of all, fear. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Her gaze snapped back to JJ when he moved, her eyes growing larger.
“Valerie, look at me,” Blaze ordered, but she continued to stare at her newfound enemy as hatred overrode all other emotions, darkening her face. Renewed with rage, she fought him again, writhing and thrashing against his hold. She managed to knock off his sunglasses yet again and he cursed vehemently. He grabbed hold of her jaw and yanked it toward him, forcing her to look at his exposed eyes.
“Baby, stop,” he pleaded, willing her to cease moving. “Please. Stop.”
It worked. Slowly, she surrendered, going limp in his arms, gazing into his hideous eyes as if they’d put some kind of spell on her. Hurt and betrayal filled hers, making them glisten, and the sight struck him like a blade to the heart.
“He remembers everything,” Blaze urged, desperate to keep her eyes from spilling, needing to take that hurt and betrayal away. “He remembers who he was, what he was. He remembers Veronica, me, you. If he were what you think he is, he wouldn’t remember anything. He’d be a whole different monster. You know that.”
Her breath hitched as she tried to grasp what he’d said. God, this was too much for her. Sure as shit she’d overload. Her life had been flipped inside out and upside down and it was all because of him.
“Ricky Cohen at the Bronx Zoo.” JJ suddenly spoke and her eyes snapped back over Blaze’s shoulder. “We nabbed him together with Deron, Steve, and the rest of the team. Kids and animals were that fucker’s favorite, you remember him, right?”
Valerie’s chin quivered and she clapped her free hand over her mouth to hide it. She dropped the gun and Kasen caught it before it hit the floor. Blaze let up on her, relief washing through him as he rested his hot forehead against the cool marble next to her head.
Thank God.
“Steve messed up his jaw real bad, had to have it wired and shit, remember that? Deron ended up with a broken leg, you a broken arm. Left one, right? Because you could still shoot. But we got him, two in the morning on a Tuesday in the middle of winter. January, I think.”
Blaze pushed off the wall, hovering beside her as he watched their interaction with growing curiosity. He was jealous as all hell too, but he wasn’t about to admit it. Kasen had also stepped away, still wary as he unloaded the gun and set it on the nightstand. She’d broken her arm. Blaze’s eyes landed on the offending limb, the hand she’d pressed over her mouth, and watched it fall limply to her side. Her lips barely twitched, as if she wanted to smile but her conscience wouldn’t let her.
“January twenty-third,” she said hoarsely. “You were the only one without a scratch.”
JJ let out a laugh. “Oh, I had scratches, plenty of them. They left scars.” His face faltered a little as he idly rubbed the back of his neck, a signature tic of his. “Of course, they’re gone now.”
Valerie’s eyes flicked to Blaze. “How do you know each other?”
“I was assigned to monitor these guys.” JJ motioned around the room. “Make sure they were doing what they were supposed to be doing.” He chuckled, shook his head. “Fucking Cabot, man. Probably doesn’t even trust his own mother.”
Blaze smirked at that. The Director of the FBI had never trusted the hybrids, no matter how many Knights surrendered their lives for the good of humanity. Blaze wasn’t fond of him either, but he was one of their main sources of intel. The Orders and the U.S. government had the epitome of a love-hate relationship, with its default pros and cons.
“Does Cabot know?” Valerie asked, apparently familiar with Davey boy. “About you?”
JJ shook his head grimly. “No, he doesn’t. No one does except for these guys, Veronica, and now you.”
She fell silent for a moment, absorbing the implications of his words. “How did this happen to you?”
“Well.” JJ leaned against the archway, looking entirely
uncomfortable. “I got bit by a leech. Then I got myself shot.” He flicked a glance at Kasen, who met it and looked away as he crossed his arms over his chest.
There was a whole lot of history there, not to mention Kasen being engaged to JJ’s sister.
“Then I woke up like this.” JJ shrugged as if it were no big deal.
“But how do you remember the past?” Valerie’s eyes reflected confusion.
“Something happened during his transition,” Kasen said, relieving JJ of the discussion. Blaze avoided eye contact with Shaul, who’d been completely silent during this rendezvous. “Something went wrong.”
“Or right.”
They all looked up as Rome stepped into the room, moving past JJ on soundless feet. He wore a tank top and gym shorts, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed if it weren’t for the acute awareness in his unearthly eyes.
Eyes the color of dull gold, with rectangular, goat-like pupils.
And Blaze realized this would be Valerie’s first look at what lay behind his brother’s shades.
She gasped and moved closer to Blaze, fear rolling off her in sweet jasmine waves.
He reached for her arm—her once broken arm—and drew her close. She melded against him as she stared at Rome in alarm, her heart thumping against Blaze’s chest, her body trembling.
Guilt clenched his gut in an iron fist. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought her here. Maybe he’d moved too quickly.
“Everything all right in here?” Rome’s eerie eyes touched every one of them, reading, cataloguing, before they rested on Shaul. “You good?”
