Blood Stone

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Not to me, it wasn’t.”

  He blew out his breath and looked at her. “I give up,” he said, ruefully.

  “Do that.” She slid the hand she still had resting on his chest up to stroke his cheek. “For a sex toy, you argue far too much.”

  “I thought you were sick of that joke?”

  “I think you stopped being a sex toy three days ago, Adrian.”

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Garrett kissed me.”

  She smothered his quick inhale with her fingertips, and hastened to add, “He kissed me and I realized how much I’d have to give up, if he did more than that. And I knew I wasn’t willing to give up you.”

  He drew in a deep, slow breath. His expression didn’t change, but she felt him change. It was there in his eyes. An intense sort of focus. Behind it lay all sorts of emotion. And it was for her.

  She shivered. “Kiss me, Adrian. I’m sick of you not kissing me. It’s time.”

  “You’re going to be very bad for me, Kathrine Lindenstream,” he whispered, just before his lips touched hers.

  It was everything she had hoped Adrian’s kiss might be. His lips were surprisingly soft, but there was a driving force behind them – call it passion, lust, or just the iron will of his personality. His arms tightened around her and his body became her prop as she melted against him like butter in July. His tongue swept into her mouth, thrusting. Kate throbbed with renewed need at the implied promise.

  The kiss may have lasted for seconds or minutes. Kate wasn’t sure. But when Adrian finally released her lips and lifted his head from hers to look at her, she had genuinely lost track of time. She found herself smiling broadly. “I can’t believe I waited so long for that.”

  His mouth curled up in a smile, too. “That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever told me.”

  She reached for the fastening on his jeans, her throbbing body too primed and ready for her to ignore.

  Adrian caught her hand. “I need to take care of Gunther,” he said. “Terry is watching him, but dealing with him permanently is a two-man job.”

  “Permanently?” she repeated, all sorts of horrible possibilities occurring to her.

  “Nothing illegal,” Adrian assured her, his thumb stroking her cheek. “But you shouldn’t know the details.”

  “Plausible deniability? You’re joking.”

  He grimaced. “I wish I wasn’t.”

  “Now you’re really worrying me. Who is Gunther if he has nothing to do with my movie?”

  “You really don’t want to know, Kate. Trust me on this. If you keep asking, you’ll end up with information you really wish you didn’t know about. It won’t let you sleep nice at night.”

  She licked her lips. “I already don’t sleep.”

  “You do, if I’m there,” he replied. “So let me go fix this so I can be there.” He kissed her again, a quick, but not light, press of his lips to hers. Then he turned her and pushed her toward the tent entrance. “Go on. Go do what you do. Be normal.”

  She snorted. “Define ‘normal’.” But she kept walking, anyway. A few steps on, though, she nearly stumbled and turned back to ask a thousand more questions. Only one thing kept her moving toward the tent entrance: the fact that Adrian had shielded her. There was no way to ascribe any motive to that single action other than a desire to protect her. Ergo, he meant no harm to her. She had to trust him.

  But she longed to turn back to demand to know why there was blood on the temporary flooring at just about the same place where he would have been when the shot had been fired.

  And she hadn’t seen his back since that moment. He had kept it turned away from her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Winter looked out the window over the desk she was sitting at when the quiet tap sounded. She swivelled to look back at Garrett. “It’s Roman.”

  He didn’t bother hiding his surprise. Or his dismay.

  “It could be about anything at all,” she said, standing up. “As Bastian pointed out, you and Nial are the only vampires around.” She opened the trailer door, keeping a firm hold on the handle so the wind didn’t whip it back and slam it against the side of the trailer.

  Roman climbed up, brushing sand from his hair and shaking himself. He nodded at Winter before facing Garrett. “I need your help,” he said flatly, reaching for the hem of his tee-shirt.

  Winter glanced at Garrett, her brow lifting. He understood her silent question. She was asking him if he wanted her to leave. He shook his head. He didn’t know what the problem was, but Roman was here for the help he was asking for, pure and simple. There was a ‘strictly business’ demeanour about him. Winter had nailed it – he needed another vampire’s assistance and that was all.

  Garrett wanted her nearby because if that was the only reason Roman was here, Winter’s presence would ensure the meeting stayed that way.

  Roman pulled the shirt off and turned around. “I need to get the bullet out.”

  Garrett stood up. There was no sign of a gunshot wound on his back, but there was a lump under the skin, a few inches higher than his right kidney.

  Cold alarm touched him at the sight of the lump.

  “What is it?” Winter asked, her voice hushed.

  “A bullet. Roman let himself heal and didn’t eject the bullet first. Now it’s lodged behind healed skin and can’t come out without help.”

  Winter stepped closer, lifting her hand up toward Roman’s back. “May I touch it? It’s possible I can help.”

  Garrett saw the look Roman sent him. It was an expression from out of the past. A small lift of his brow. Can I trust this human?

  “She’s not human,” Garrett told him. “And what makes her not human may help you now. Let her. It could be better than having me dig around with my dirk.” He made himself relax back onto the sofa, although the tension was winding up inside him with every passing second.

  Winter rested her hand over the small mound, her eyes drifting almost closed as she eased her senses inside Roman’s body.

  “If you couldn’t discard the bullet before you healed, you must have been hiding the wound from humans,” Garrett said. “That raises some alarming questions.”

  “That’s the other reason I’m here,” Roman replied. He twisted around to look at what Winter was doing. “I can’t feel anything,” he told her. “Should Garrett be getting his dirk out after all?”

  “Shh,” she told him. “I’m figuring out your cell structure. It’s dark in here. Give me a minute.”

  Roman looked at Garrett again. Garrett read the uneasiness in his expression, although he knew few others would see it.

  “Was Kate there?” Garrett asked him.

  Roman’s face closed over. It was like watching a pair of steel doors swing shut.

  “Got it,” Winter declared and held up her hand, palm up. A bullet, still almost perfectly formed except for barrel riflings and a dent on the tip, sat on her hand. There were a few drops of blood marring the bronze shape and her fingertips, but Roman’s back was already closed up. A fine pink line showed where the bullet had been.

  “How did you do that?” Roman demanded.

  Winter hefted the little bullet in her hand. “It’s hard to explain. I…caused your skin cells to separate and make way for the bullet.”

  “That’s why I didn’t feel anything?”

  “I didn’t disturb any nerves,” Winter told him. “Everything just got moved aside temporarily, unlike when the bullet went in. So no, you shouldn’t have felt anything.”

  “Have you always been able to cut people open like that?” Garrett asked, fascinated.

  “I suppose…yes,” Winter said. “I didn’t know until just now that I could do it at all.” She smiled apologetically at Roman. “I’m still figuring all this stuff out. For the longest time I kept it secret, you see.”

  Roman turned back around to face them and worked his arms back into his tee-shirt. “What are you?”

 
“I don’t know,” Winter replied.

  Garrett tried not to watch Roman’s bare upper body and the muscles working under the flesh, as he slid the tee-shirt back on. It was a reminder of too many occasions in the past.

  Forbidden memories.

  He studied his knee and the grain of the denim stretched over it, running his thumbnail along the groove of the seam.

  “How can you not know?” Roman demanded.

  “If you wake alone and there is no one to tell you what you are, then you simply are, with no title, no classification and no identity. Your kind, at least, have the benefit of being made and a maker to guide you when you wake.”

  The silence that greeted her response made Garrett look up. Roman was studying Winter with slightly narrowed eyes. “I hadn’t thought of it that way before,” he said. “Most vampires find vampirism a curse and hate their maker, even if they seek the change at first.” He turned to Garrett. “That’s how you got Sauvage, isn’t it? He wants to be turned. It’s a private contract between you and him. Good behaviour plus five million for this movie and you’ll turn him.”

  Garrett was pleased to see that Winter didn’t give away by so much as a facial twitch that Roman had nailed Nial’s final terms with Pat exactly, except for the one point that he had missed – that he couldn’t possibly guess.

  “Sauvage’s contract has a confidentiality clause,” he answered, glad of the shield that clause now gave him.

  Roman snorted derisively. “Of course it does.” He looked at Winter. “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

  Winter turned to Garrett. “Calum?”

  Garrett appreciated her strategic thinking. She knew of his personal history with Roman and that Roman was asking her to leave now possibly to talk of something personal and private. By calling him ‘Calum’ instead of the ‘Garrett’ she used in front of cast and crew as his executive assistant, she was implying her own personal relationship, if he wanted to use that as a shield and keep her in the room.

  “Stay, please,” he told her. He looked up at Roman. “You can speak freely in front of Winter.”

  Roman glanced at her. “So it’s not ‘Annette’ then. Winter is your real name?”

  She nodded.

  “Thank you.” He crossed his arms. “Either ask me to sit, or stand up, Garrett. This is business.”

  Winter pulled the chair she had been using over from the desk and placed it beside Roman. She sat next to Garrett. Not close, but not very far away, either. The distance between them could have meant anything. It left it up to him to continue using her as a shield, or not.

  “You said business,” Garrett prompted Roman as he sat. “Something to do with the reason you took a bullet in the back and hid it from Kate?”

  Roman scowled. “Your man. Terry…is that his name?”

  “For now.”

  Roman’s scowl deepened and Garrett grinned, enjoying the petty revenge. Roman had made him work to find out what his current name was now. It could go both ways.

  “Terry has a man who was posing as a journalist pinned down in his trailer. He wrecked the servers before Terry caught him. He knows we’re here. He was looking for us.”

  “Us?” Winter asked blankly.

  “Vampires,” Garrett told her.

  Roman gave her a smooth smile. “Maybe he knows about you, too. I haven’t had a chance to pull details from him yet.”

  Garrett stood. “I can take it from here.”

  Roman flexed to his feet. Garrett had seen him do it a hundred times in the past. It was a move that took sheer muscle and he did it without thought now. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? It’s nothing to do with Kate’s movie. You were never that in love with Hollywood…I knew there was an ulterior motive.”

  Garrett glanced at Winter. She reached for the cellphone on the desk. “Dialling,” she assured him and thumbed the speed dial for Nial, turning away to speak as she moved.

  Roman took it in, his eyes narrowing. “I hit a nerve.”

  Garrett didn’t like how close to right his observation was. “While the frank questions are flying, exactly why did you zero in on Kate?”

  Roman gave him a wise expression. “Fuck off, Calum.”

  “The jerk that Terry is sitting on right now makes it my business. Why did he come after Kate? The same reason you did?”

  Roman sobered. “Not possible.”

  “Why?” Garrett pressed. “Because no one could possibly know? The jerk with the gun seems to be extraordinarily informed, wouldn’t you say?”

  It was a shot in the dark. Garrett threw it at Roman to see how he reacted, because he wanted to know – no, he needed to know that Roman had hooked up with Kate for the purest of reasons.

  Roman rubbed his jaw, his expression thoughtful. “I came by the information independently. I’m working alone. No one else could have the same information because I haven’t shared it with anyone.”

  Disappointment made Garrett feel cold. He studied Roman. “Look at you. After all the crap she has thrown at me about working her over… You don’t even feel shame. At least Kate knows I have an agenda.”

  “Don’t give me that wounded look,” Roman shot back. “Kate grew up in the system. Her default position is that everyone has a motive, even me. I don’t plan on disappointing her.” He grinned. “In any way.”

  The trailer door whipped open, aided by the wind. Patrick and Nial hurried up the steps. Nial slammed and locked the door behind him, while Patrick unwound the shawl from around his head and shook the sand from the folds.

  “And the plot thickens,” Roman muttered, looking at them.

  Nial pulled a cellphone from his pocket and pressed a speed dial button.

  “Bastian…Under control? Good. I’ll be over in a few minutes.” He put the phone away and faced Roman. “I suppose I should thank you for keeping this just between us.”

  Garret could almost feel Roman’s wariness leap up high. He crossed his arms, his feet spread in an easy ready stance. “The balloon goes up and they call for Sauvage’s babysitter. That makes you…who, exactly?”

  Nial grinned. “They don’t go around introducing the help as a rule. But you can call me David.”

  Roman tilted his head to one side. “I don’t think so.”

  Nial considered him for a fraction of a second. “Nathaniel.”

  Roman’s shoulders lifted and lowered as he took a deep breath. “I know you. I’ve heard of you. So. You’re the great Nathaniel. The revolutionary warrior and breaker of rules.”

  “Is that what they call me?”

  “The sober ones, who are being kind.”

  Nial grinned. “That sounds about right.” His smile faded. “I’ve heard of you, too. And not just from Garrett.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “We have a minor problem, Roman.”

  “Just a minor one?” Roman laughed. “Getting rid of a human isn’t a minor problem these days.”

  Nial waved off the issue with a wrinkle of his nose. “I’m talking about you.”

  Garrett saw the wariness descend around Roman once more, like a low-creeping fog. It didn’t help that by coincidence or design, all four of them had ended up standing in a loose circle around Roman – something that the old soldier would never have allowed if Garrett hadn’t been one of the four.

  But Roman didn’t know they weren’t on the same side anymore.

  Garrett didn’t know which side Roman was on at all. That’s why he had called for Nial.

  Nial had wanted to draw pieces out onto the chessboard so they could see who they were playing against. Perhaps they were looking at their very first pawn. That it was Roman made Garrett feel sick.

  Or perhaps the gun-toting journalist was the pawn and Roman was the knight to be sacrificed while the opposition watched to see what they did with him.

  Garrett was only glad that Nial got to make the final decision about this side of the affair. Garrett could do it with ruthless accuracy in a boardroom, when a decision didn’t in
volve bloodshed and lives. But Nial was playing with real people, not chess pieces and that was a different game altogether. It was a game that Garrett had abruptly lost the taste for one sunny May morning, centuries ago.

  Roman glanced around the circle surrounding him, his gaze settling on Garrett. “I figured you weren’t here to play movie mogul. Want to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “You know what’s really going on,” Nial replied.

  “Pretend I don’t.”

  “The League for Humanity,” Nial shot back. “Pro Libertatis.”

  “His jaw clenched,” Patrick declared, sounding triumphant.

  Roman turned his head and glared at him. Patrick simply smiled at him.

  “So, you’ve heard of them,” Nial continued. “It just remains to be seen whether you’re working for them, or not. The odds are not in your favour, Roman.”

  “I don’t work for anyone but myself.”

  “He doesn’t, generally,” Garrett agreed. “But the Libertatis are hard to argue with, Roman. Nial ran into them a year ago and barely escaped. They have ways of ensuring that if they want you to work for them, you will.”

  Roman’s scowl was back. “What do you want? A fucking confession? Even if I was working for them, I wouldn’t tell you. If they’re so fucking terrifying wouldn’t it be in my best interests to keep my lips zipped?”

  Garrett sighed and looked at Nial. “He’s right. I’m not one for torture and he knows it. Even if you did have the stomach for it, he knows I won’t condone it while I’m in the room. We’re just not the same level of threat as the Libertatis, so even if he’s working for them, he’s better off not admitting it.”

  “Great,” Roman said. “So call off your hounds here and let me get back to where I left off. I was being rewarded for heroism and I don’t want to miss out.”

  Nial considered Roman for a silent minute. Then he nodded. “We know where we stand, now,” he told Roman.