Enthrall Me (Underbelly Chronicles Book 4)

by Tamara Hogan

  Contents

  The Underworld Council

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Author's Note

  Books by Tamara Hogan

  About the Author

  Copyright Statement

  The Underworld Council

  Chapter One

  Tia Quinn peered over Bailey Brown’s shoulder, glaring at the computer screen. “Are you finding anything?”

  “It’s what I’m not finding that’s interesting.” Bailey’s fingers jabbed at the keyboard with machine-gun bursts. “Someone’s working pretty hard to cover their tracks.” The desk chair creaked as she shifted her meager weight. “Have you seen anything like this before?”

  “No.” The comment someone had posted to In Like Quinn, her humble contribution to independent investigative journalism, had alarmed her so much that she’d immediately called her friend, Underworld Council member Scarlett Fontaine, for advice. Two hours later, Bailey Brown, one of the world’s foremost cyber-security experts, had knocked on her front door. “I’m not imagining things, am I?” Despite moving from Minneapolis to bucolic, sleepy Stillwater a couple of months ago, she still felt a perpetual itch between her shoulder blades.

  “‘Sebastiani Labs’ so-called board of directors must be called to account for their illegal acts, and for abandoning the old ways,’” Bailey read aloud. “‘If you don’t expose them, I will.’” She tapped her finger against the screen. “The comment was posted in ILQ’s financial news section, which makes it look vaguely on-topic, but…”

  Their gazes locked. Sebastiani Labs was a privately held, wildly successful technology behemoth that had its fingers in many, many pies. The company didn’t trade stock, didn’t seek contracts, didn’t advertise its wares, and…its board of directors secretly doubled as the governing body of Earth’s non-human species.

  “Should we delete the comment?” she asked. Tia had strong feelings about freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but the fact that humanity had shared Earth with extra-planetary beings for thousands of years was a closely guarded secret—a secret humanity was nowhere near ready to learn.

  “Deleting it might start an online shit-storm and draw even more attention,” Bailey said. “This isn’t your garden-variety troll harassing a woman for having an opinion on the Internet. Let’s call Lukas.”

  Tia glanced at the clock. Scarlett was nearing the end of a perfectly normal pregnancy, but her bondmate, Lukas Sebastiani, was a wreck. Right now, they both needed all the sleep they could get. “This can wait until morning.”

  Bailey shook her head. “He’ll be pissed if we don’t call.” She plucked an unusual-looking phone from the side pocket of the heavy computer bag she’d brought with her—one of the whispered-about, super-secure Sebastiani Labs prototypes?—and pressed a button. Being Bailey worked for Lukas at Sebastiani Security, and did some consulting for both Sebastiani Labs and the Underworld Council, it was probably safe to take her word for it, but…

  “Hey, Lukas. I’m at Tia Quinn’s place.” There was a long pause while Bailey listened to Lukas’s reply.

  He was probably grilling Bailey about why she was at Tia’s house in the first place. Lukas had serious reservations about Scarlett’s friendship with an investigative journalist, someone whose very occupation required that she expose information the powerful would prefer stay hidden. But damn it, Lukas should know by now that she’d never publish anything that would put their culture’s most precious secrets at risk.

  “Someone posted a comment at In Like Quinn earlier today that feels a little off.” Bailey listened again, and then read the comment aloud. “Yeah, Tia saw it and called me.” Bailey neglected to mention that Scarlett had served as the middleman. “I haven’t been able to track the comment back yet—I don’t have the right tools with me—but once I get back to the office, I can… Oh, you’re at Valerian’s? You’re practically down the street.”

  Bailey planned on driving back to Sebastiani Security yet tonight? Talk about working vampire’s hours. Didn’t the little human ever sleep? And speaking of not sleeping, why was Lukas Sebastiani, the Underworld Council’s Security and Technology First, meeting with Valerian, the elderly Vampire First, after midnight on a weeknight?

  Very interesting.

  Bailey covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. “Lukas wants us to meet him at Valerian’s place.”

  She nodded her agreement, trying to hide her excitement. Valerian lived less than fifteen miles away, in an old mansion perched high upon the rocky ledges of the St. Croix River. He’d been fighting illness for nearly a year, and very little information had been released about the true state of his health. She’d tried to squeeze some information out of his Second, Wyland, at Rafe Sebastiani’s gallery show last winter, but the chilly, tight-assed vamp had shut her down cold.

  “Let me close things down here,” Bailey said to Lukas, already capturing screen shots. “We’ll see you soon.” The exquisite fire opal ring Rafe had given Bailey flashed in the light as she ended the call. Bailey and Rafe had just returned from an extended honeymoon. No way would Tia have thought that driving a tricked-out RV from Minneapolis to Alaska, then camping out for a couple of months, would have interested either of them. But then again, being newbonds, they probably hadn’t left the RV very often.

  “Ready?” Stuffing away the last of her equipment, Bailey zipped up her computer bag.

  “Yeah. I’ll follow in my car.” They walked to the front door. As Tia grabbed her purse and keys, the house’s ancient air conditioner gave a mighty wheeze. The thing was on its last legs—one more thing to replace in this money pit she’d bought in haste, but had come to love.

  They stepped outside. “Damn, it’s hot.” Bailey swiped at her temple with the inside of her wrist.

  Tia surreptitiously scanned her surroundings. She didn’t see anyone, but…

  “You okay?”

  She pasted a smile on her face. “You and Rafe came home to one of the hottest Augusts on record.” The sun had set hours ago, but it was still a muggy and miserable eighty degrees outside.

  Bailey pointed a key fob at Rafe’s Jeep. Headlights flashed and the doors unlocked with a ka-thunk. “We didn’t want to miss Coco’s birth, and there’s always so much work to do.”

  Bailey’s tiny smile made every journalistic instinct stand at attention. “Coco?” she asked. Lukas and Scarlett had named their daughter in utero? What a scoop. Too bad she couldn’t publish it.

  “Scarlett’s had massive hot chocolate cravings throughout her pregnancy, and she and Lukas started calling the baby “Cocoa Bean” as a joke.” Bailey opened the Jeep’s driver’s door. “Once they found out the baby was a girl, the name kinda stuck.”

  Tia yanked the detached garage door open. “Cute.” And it was something she should already have known. Too much time had passed since she’d talked to Scarlett.

  “Do you know how to get to Valeria
n’s?”

  “Yeah.” She’d never been inside Vamp Central, which was only fifteen miles away, but her mother’s lavish descriptions made the place sound more like a museum than a private home. With her luck, she’d probably spill something on a centuries-old rug or carpet. “Go ahead.” She waved Bailey on. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  As Bailey pulled out of the driveway, Tia got into her own car. As she backed out, she absently reached to the sun visor for an automatic garage door opener that wasn’t there. “Crap.” Braking to a stop, she slammed the car into Park, turned it off, pulled the keys from the ignition, got out of the car, and managed to close and lock the garage door before the Civic’s automatic headlights dimmed. The automatic garage door opener and motion lights she’d bought at Home Depot last week were still in her trunk. Though perfectly capable of installing them herself, she’d probably end up hiring the job out.

  Her new neighbors already thought she was odd for mowing her lawn after the sun went down.

  She had human neighbors. A lawn to mow. Appliances to replace, a house to maintain…activities she’d never envisioned mere months ago, before… “Shit,” she whispered, scoping out the surroundings yet again. Sparing a final, wistful thought to the anonymous, maintenance-free condo she’d been forced to leave, she backed out of the driveway and followed Bailey’s tail lights.

  “Wyland, please. I’m fine.” With a final, skeleton-rattling cough, Valerian waved him away. “Sit down. Enjoy your wine.”

  Wyland glanced at Lukas, who’d risen from the oversized chair by the fireplace when Valerian’s violent coughing jag started. Lukas looked as concerned as he felt.

  “Both of you. Sit.” Valerian twitched his mohair wrap closer to his neck. “I survived The Black Death. A nagging respiratory ailment won’t finish me off.”

  Wyland wasn’t so sure. Was Val even aware of how long he’d been sick? When a man was over nine hundred years old, months probably passed like finger snaps, but he, who’d watched Val cough, wheeze, and struggle for breath, had felt each day pass with acute, painful precision. No treatment he’d tried, no medication he’d prescribed, had helped very much. Thankfully, the old standby—copious amounts of rich, healing blood—still provided Val with some relief.

  While Lukas talked to Valerian, Wyland went to the glossy bar transplanted from one of Valerian’s favorite English pubs, pulled a plastic bag of blood from the small refrigerator, and set it in the warmer. Studying the wine rack, he selected a robust merlot, removed its cork, and poured a measure into a glass the size of a small goldfish bowl.

  “Lukas, you look tired,” Valerian said. “When was the last time you slept?”

  Lukas sipped from his bottle of Summit Pale Ale. “I’m fine, Val.”

  Wyland assessed Lukas with a professional eye. Sympathetic morning sickness had plagued Lukas throughout Scarlett’s pregnancy. He had dark circles under his eyes, he’d probably lost the thirty pounds his bondmate had gained, and despite it being high summer, he looked pale and drawn. Worrying about Scarlett on top of his crushing workload was going to put Lukas in the hospital. Thankfully, she was due to deliver within a week or two.

  “Bailey should be here in a couple of minutes,” Lukas said around a jaw-cracking yawn. “Thanks for letting us meet here tonight.”

  It was too much to hope that Lukas might consent to a quick exam before Bailey arrived.

  “As for the reason you drove here in the first place,” Valerian said, “do you need to speak with me privately?”

  Wyland blinked. “I’ll give you a moment.” Between his physician’s duties, legal work, and serving as the Underworld Council’s Vampire Second, there was very little information he wasn’t privy to, but—

  “No, I need to speak with both of you—or rather, I need to show you something.” Lukas glanced at him. “Valerian, you’re the repository of our culture’s tribal knowledge, and Wyland’s familiar with the materials in our archives.”

  Intriguing.

  “And as long as she’s on her way, I’d like to get Bailey’s take, as well,” Lukas continued. “She…notices things. Connects some odd dots.”

  Yes, she did, and etiquette be damned. During the long hours he and Bailey had worked together on the massive effort to digitize their archives, Rafe’s little hacker bondmate had certainly connected his dots, coming up with some uncomfortably accurate conclusions. The little human probably knew more about him, and his past, than anyone save Valerian.

  When the warmer chimed, he plucked the bag of blood from the water bath. After drying it with a tea towel, he punctured the bag with a plastic spout, poured the warm blood into the wineglass, and swirled. He hadn’t seen Bailey since she and Rafe came back from Alaska. He should try to talk her into an exam as well. Was her perforated ulcer healing as expected?

  Stepping out from behind the bar, he delivered the wine to Valerian. He was a fine one to lecture Lukas and Bailey about job stress. Between hospital rounds, office hours, legal consulting, time spent working with the archives, Underworld Council business, and the vicious commute between Marine on St. Croix and downtown Minneapolis, he hardly had time to eat or sleep.

  The majestic doorbell rang. “I’ve got it, Thane,” he called toward the closed kitchen door. Though Thane considered hospitality his purview, there was no need to interrupt him when Wyland was standing right there. He crossed the foyer, disengaged the locks, and opened the thick wooden door. “Bailey, right on schedule—oh.” Tia Quinn? Why had Bailey brought an investigative journalist to their home?

  Why this investigative journalist?

  “Hi, Wyland.” Bailey kissed both his cheeks and cheerfully popped him on the arm with her tiny fist. “How’s it hangin’?”

  Before he could take her to task for her grammar-impaired reference to his genitalia, she’d brushed past him to greet Valerian. His smile lit up the room like a Saturnalia tree.

  “Hello, Sir,” Tia said, hesitating slightly before extending her hand. “I don’t know if you remember me. We had a short conversation at Rafe Sebastiani’s gallery show last winter.”

  He remembered. Her hair and lips had been the color of ripe eggplants, and her curvy body adorned entirely in black, as it was tonight. During their short conversation, as she’d subtly tried to pump him for information about Valerian’s health, he’d felt a distinct sexual stirring—something that hadn’t happened in well over a century. Tonight, her hair was auburn, the color of mulled wine, with unnatural green tips.

  Why had his dormant sex drive awakened for a wild child who changed her hair color on a whim? Maybe he was having a mid-life crisis.

  “Sir?” she repeated.

  Hearing the word ‘sir’ from her lips was…withering. With a little mental shake, he took her black-nailed hand. To not acknowledge another vampire, someone whose interests he represented on the Underworld Council, would be unspeakably rude. “Of course I remember you, Ms. Quinn.” In the tradition of younger vampires more thoroughly assimilated into human culture, Tia Quinn’s parents had given their daughter more than one name.

  Tia Quinn’s parents were younger than he was.

  She wrinkled her nose at his formality and smiled up at him with eyes the color of roasted coffee beans. He hadn’t imagined the rings of vivid leaf green surrounding both pupils. “Please, call me Tia,” she said.

  “And I’m Wyland.”

  She looked at him strangely. “Of course you are.”

  And now she thought him addled. He sighed. What was she, thirty to his three hundred plus? Apparently his dusty libido didn’t find her youth a serious impediment, because the fantasies he’d had about her after their last conversation were absolutely debauched. He withdrew his hand from hers. “Why are you here, Ms. Quinn?”

  “Wyland, don’t be rude to our guest.” Valerian was on his feet, supported by Bailey on one side and Lukas on the other. “Tia.” He extended both wrinkled hands. “How nice to see you, my dear.”

  Leaving him standing by
the door without a backwards glance, Tia crossed to Valerian, took his hands, and gently kissed both papery cheeks. Wyland watched her take mental notes, her sharp reporter’s gaze recording every detail of Valerian’s appearance: his ruddy skin tone, the luxurious mane of silver hair, his satin smoking jacket, the shawl, and the wool-lined leather slippers he wore even in the summer heat. Yes, Valerian was having a good night. Having guests—young guests—obviously agreed with him.

  As Wyland closed the heavy door and re-engaged the security system, he watched Tia treat Lukas to a thorough physical assessment before they, too, kissed each other’s cheeks—the traditional greeting he apparently hadn’t rated. Well, it was better all the way around if she kept her distance, because Tia Quinn had a bad habit of sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. Like Bailey, she saw too much. As an investigative journalist, it was her job to see too much—a fact that both Valerian and Lukas seemed to have forgotten.

  After offering them a libation—Diet Coke for Bailey, merlot for Tia—he rejoined the group. By some trick of fate, the only open seat was on the settee next to Tia. “Your wine,” he said, extending the glass.

  “Thank you.” As she accepted it, the heavy ring she wore on her left middle finger clicked against the crystal stem. Hammered gold, with strands encasing a green stone, the ring managed to look simultaneously ancient and modern. She glanced at his hips, and then at the open space on the firm cushion next to her. “There’s not a lot of room here, is there?”

  His teeth started to tingle. If she looked at his groin again, he’d embarrass them both. “We’ll make it work.”

  Her sudden off-kilter grin lit the room. “Do you watch Project Runway?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  As he sat, his pressed khakis brushed against disintegrating black denim. The high, curved back of the antique Adams settee embraced them, pressing them together from shoulder to knee.

  She smelled like VampScreen and lilacs.

  Tia looked around with amazement. “This room is…” Her voice trailed off as something on the nearby bookshelves caught her eye.