by Tamara Hogan
“That’s why we invited you here tonight.” Lukas pushed a file folder toward the Commander. “Bailey’s not having much luck tracking the comments.”
Lupinsky lifted a brow, and Tia understood why. If Bailey couldn’t figure out where the comments had come from, no one could.
Lupinsky quickly sifted through the papers. “These are in timeline order?”
“Yes.”
“So, you and Scarlett receive a letter threatening your unborn child. Then two comments are made, a day apart, at In Like Quinn. And then, there’s a break-in at Ms. Quinn’s house—” Lupinsky flipped a page “—two nights ago.”
It felt like she’d been sleeping next door to Wyland a lot longer than that.
“Ms. Quinn, you woke up just after midnight and discovered that someone had put dozens of snakes in your bedroom?”
She nodded.
“One hundred and sixty five snakes,” Chico chimed in. “I counted the suckers.”
Lupinsky skimmed another page, then eyed her. “And you think someone’s been following you? Since before you moved to Stillwater?”
She hesitated. “I have no proof, no evidence. I’ve never seen anyone.”
“Well, those snakes didn’t get into your bedroom all by themselves.”
He believes me.
“The good news is that the person left garter snakes, not a toxic variety like rattlers, and that you weren’t injured while you slept,” he mused. “Fear seems to be the motive here. Why would someone want to scare you?”
“I have no idea,” she responded, baffled.
“Are you currently in a romantic relationship? Did you recently end one? A pissed-off lover, perhaps?”
“No to all three.” She hadn’t had a lover in months, and it had been several years since her last serious relationship. Wyland’s searing kiss had definitely been…an anomaly.
“Work?”
She shrugged. “ILQ aggregates and publishes content from dozens of sources, and hundreds of writers, besides me. I just published the last story in a series about inadequate handicapped access in public buildings. I’ve just started researching a series on human trafficking—which is the reason I’ve been trying to contact you—but very few people know it’s a story I’m even working on.”
Lupinsky picked up a pen. “Who knows?”
“What?”
“Who knows about your human trafficking story?”
“You,” she answered. “Everyone sitting at this table. Bailey, Valerian, Thane. Wyland.” Lupinsky scribbled quickly. Though her inner contrarian enjoyed the prospect of so many Council members finding themselves under the Commander’s microscope, even temporarily, she just couldn’t see a connection. “Do you really think—”
“What I think isn’t as important as what I can prove.” Lupinsky looked at Nick. “Anything unusual happening at Vamp Central?”
Nick shook his head. “No. We’ve been on heightened alert since Tia’s arrival.”
“Seriously?” she said. Damn it, how many people were going to be inconvenienced by her problems? “When do you think I can return home?”
Lukas gave a noncommittal shrug. “There are many lines of investigation we need to pursue.”
“I agree,” Lupinsky said. “You’re safer with Valerian and Wyland for the time being. Who’s my coordination point here at SebSec?”
“Me,” Jack answered. Lukas opened his mouth, probably to disagree, but Jack headed him off at the pass. “Lukas, Scarlett could go into labor any minute now.”
Every lick of color drained from Lukas’s face. Sweat popped on his forehead.
She touched his tense forearm. Lukas was a total bad-ass, but he turned into marshmallow fluff when it came to his family. “She’ll be fine.”
Lukas swallowed, hard. “I know.”
Chico nudged a wastebasket closer to Lukas using his big, steel-toed boot.
Apparently the rumors about Lukas’s sympathetic morning sickness were true.
“Ms. Quinn,” Lupinsky said, “Wyland told me about a conversation the two of you had, about something called—” he flipped to another page in his small wire-bound notebook “—shibari, a form of erotic Japanese rope art.”
Annoyance shimmered. “Wyland’s been busy.” He’d apparently found time to talk about her case, and her work, with everyone except her.
Sitting at her side, Nick was hyper-alert, and rightly so. This conversation wasn’t about her human trafficking story—or if it was, the association was passing at best. The Commander wanted information. “You’re referring to the homicide in Eden Prairie? The residence where Stephen is suspected of killing his first victim?” She waited for him to nod before continuing. “A source informed me that the victim was found alone, tied in an intricate arrangement of ropes. I wondered whether anyone had investigated a shibari angle.” Time to ask a question of her own. “Is Stephen your only suspect?”
“The incubus Stephen is still at large,” Lupinsky said evenly, “and he remains a person of interest in this case.”
“‘At large?’ There’s the understatement of the century.” After killing Scarlett’s sister Annika, attacking Scarlett, and nearly killing Lukas, Stephen had been captured, then transferred to a secure psychiatric lockdown. He’d somehow escaped, and no one had seen or heard from him since. “Commander, your case is so cold it’s forming icicles.”
“Which is why I’m talking to you. It didn’t occur to any of our detectives that there might be something significant about the rope arrangement,” Lupinsky admitted. “Mr. Solberg, I understand you have some familiarity with this subject. Would you mind looking at a few crime scene photos?”
“Not at all.”
Picking up his phone from where it lay on the table—he also had one of the super-secure prototypes—Lupinsky retrieved the pictures, then passed the gadget to Nick.
Tia leaned over to look, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Whoever had described the victim as being found ‘trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey’ had a distinct gift for understatement. His nude body was curled up like a Butterball, with precisely placed red ropes lashing his arms and thighs tight against his chest. His penis had received…specific attention.
“Shibari, coupled with asphyxiation play,” Nick said, his jaw tight. “He was found like this? Alone, and suspended from the ceiling?”
“Yes,” Lupinsky said. “Do you recognize him?”
“No.” Lips flattened into a thin line, Nick pointed to the ligature around the victim’s neck. “Suspended in this position, his neck muscles would tire quickly. With no one to care for him, he’d black out, suffocate.”
“Mr. Solberg, just how familiar are you with this kind of ‘play’?”
Her stomach clenched in warning.
Jack held up a hand, indicating that Nick shouldn’t speak. “Gideon, this conversation is a request for subject matter expertise, not an interrogation.”
Lupinsky glared from beneath the brim of his baseball cap. “All I know is that I have a human body in the morgue, and a family who thinks he dropped off the face of the earth.” He threw his pen onto the table with a tired-sounding sigh. “Too many questions, and no answers.”
According to Tia’s source, their police force had taken the initial call, from a terrified Valkyrie couple who’d arrived to use the facilities, only to find the unfortunate human victim. After processing the scene, a bio-hazard clean-up team had disinfected the place from attic to basement, scrubbing away the last evidence of Robert Johnson’s existence. As far as his family was concerned, Robert Johnson had dropped off the face of the earth. Their media pleas had gone unanswered.
She felt a reluctant communion with Lupinsky. The line between human and Underworld law enforcement teams was like razor wire: very sharp, very thin, and very carefully trod. “Is it possible this was an accident?”
Lupinsky answer was a one-shouldered shrug. “We can place Stephen at the scene—his skin cells and semen were found on the rope used to bi
nd Mr. Johnson—but we have no insight into his motivation. We have no idea why Stephen went to the Eden Prairie residence, whether he knew Mr. Johnson beforehand, whether he planned to meet Johnson there, or whether they met by chance.” He gestured toward the picture. “We have no idea whether this ‘play’ was consensual or not, or whether the victim’s death was intentional or accidental.” He sighed. “So many questions, and so few answers.”
Nick slid the phone back across the table, his expression grim. “All I know is, no dominant worth the name would leave their submissive alone during this kind of scene. It’s simply too dangerous.”
Speech didn’t seem to be necessary; the swollen tongue protruding from the dead man’s mouth spoke volumes. Finally, Lukas glanced at the ceiling. “Anything else tonight? I promised Scarlett I’d get the crib assembled.”
He looked like he’d rather tangle with a tiger. “Would you like some help? Maybe I can keep Scarlett company.” She didn’t want to go back to Vamp Central yet.
“She’s not home. She’s visiting Dad and Claudette.” He didn’t sound happy about Scarlett not being under his own watchful eye. “Apparently Claudette has some baby things.”
And Elliott Sebastiani and Scarlett’s mother, Siren First Claudette Fontaine, had beaucoup security of their own. “Please tell her hello for me, and that I’ll talk to her soon.”
Nick rose. “Are you ready to go home, or do you have things you’d like to do here in town? I’m at your disposal.”
She considered making a Target run, but then rejected the idea. Nick shouldn’t have to pay because she didn’t want to deal with Wyland. “Nope, let’s go.”
She’d use the hour-long commute to stew and plot. To figure out what she’d say to Wyland the next time she saw him. Something inside her revved into high gear. “Could we swing by Chipotle on the way home?”
Nick grinned. “Of course.”
After eating a monster burrito, she’d be plenty fuelled up for the argument to come.
Chapter Eight
“‘Colton grabbed her with sawdust-covered arms, boosting her onto the butcher block countertop he’d just finished sanding, and moved between her legs,’” Tia read aloud. “‘His heavy tool belt dragged at the waistband of his jeans, and a hammer and wrench bracketed the thick, hard cock that had taunted her all morning. Rough denim scraped her tender inner thighs.’”
She glanced at Valerian over the edge of the book. He lay under the bedcovers, propped up by a mound of pillows, his eyes closed and a slight smile curling his lips. He was breathing more comfortably now, thank the universe. When she’d arrived, carbo-loaded and ready to tear Wyland a new one, she’d found him arguing with Valerian about his oxygen. Listening to the men reminded her of two bucks clashing their antlers together, neither giving ground. She’d listened at the door for several minutes before entering the fray herself, offering Val a straight-up bribe: use the oxygen, just for a little while, and she’d read a chapter of the book they’d just started. Val accepted, and after placing the nasal cannula correctly, Wyland had left.
She hadn’t heard a peep from him since.
Leaning toward Val from the upholstered chair she’d pulled next to the bed, she watched the reassuring rise and fall of his pajama-clad chest. Was he awake? Asleep? Remembering his own erotic adventures?
How much sex could someone have over a 900-year lifespan? The mind boggled.
Out in the hall, Wyland’s bedroom door suddenly opened. The sound of his footfalls quickly faded away.
“He doesn’t know what to do about you,” Valerian murmured.
“Hmm?”
Valerian opened his eyes. “He wants you, but he’s denying himself, denying you, out of a misplaced sense of duty.”
“Duty is Wyland’s middle name.” Self-sacrifice seemed as essential to him as blood and bone. “You shouldn’t give him such a hard time about the oxygen, Val.”
“He thinks you’re too young for him. That he’d be abusing his power if he acted on his attraction for you.”
Tia’s stomach gave a silky twist. Had Wyland told him this first-hand, or was the elderly sage simply guessing? She shot down the thought as soon as it formed. The two men had shared blood for centuries; they knew each other more intimately than most bondmates. She thought back to the explosive kiss she and Wyland had shared down by the bar. She knew lust when she felt it, when she tasted it. She knew Wyland felt it, too. Speaking of which… “Wyland wasn’t happy that you shared your blood with me,” she told Valerian. “We fought.” After kissing the stuffing out of each other.
“So that’s why he’s in such a pissy mood.”
She felt a squirt of satisfaction. It was only fair that Wyland feel as annoyed and out of sorts as she did. “Apparently I’m now a risk to all vampiredom.” She explained Wyland’s concern that she, with her untrained mental boundaries, could now be used as a tool against them.
“You also have strengths and insights you didn’t have before,” Valerian said, adjusting the thin tube draped over his left ear. “Life’s a series of trade-offs, my dear. Risks and rewards, pros and cons. In the scheme of things, you drinking my blood is a net positive.”
“Wyland doesn’t think so.” And it stung.
“Your boundaries will firm up quickly, just wait and see. I’ll train you myself.” Valerian shifted against the pillows. “Speaking of training, has anyone shown you the gym and lap pool? Down in the lower level?”
Why did Valerian always change the subject just when things were getting interesting? “You have an indoor pool?”
Valerian nodded. “It’s where Wyland goes when he needs to escape his thoughts, to turn off his brain for a while. The door to the basement is down the hallway leading to Nick’s office, right across from the powder room.”
Rising from the chair, she handed Valerian the book. At some point during the last week, she’d apparently developed a serious masochistic streak, because, yeah, she was going downstairs. What she’d do once she actually found Wyland was anyone’s guess—she was still really pissed off at him—but her body was already making its wishes known. Her teeth tingled in her jaw, and each beat of her heart sent pulses of blood through her body, stroking it from the inside. “Does he know you’re such a schemer?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The twinkle in his eye contradicted his words.
“And you’re a good friend.”
“I hope you consider me one as well.”
Sudden tears stung her eyes. “You honor me.”
“Right back at ya.”
She laughed, then kissed both papery cheeks. “Sleep well, my friend.” As she left, he flicked the nasal cannula away as if its very existence offended him. He settled back into the pillows again, picked up the book, and started to read.
After exchanging a couple of words with Valerian’s care attendant out in the sitting room, she went downstairs, walking toward the hallway Valerian had mentioned like a puppet pulled by unseen strings. There was the powder room to the left, its heavy wooden door standing ajar. Directly across the hall was another heavy door—this one firmly closed.
She studied its ornate oval knob. Did she really want to push this…this…thing between them? Knowing he wanted her, but that he was denying himself?
Ah, hell. How could she not? Twisting the knob, she walked through the door and closed it firmly behind her.
The narrow stairwell was well lit, and solidly and recently constructed, but she trailed her hands along the wall anyway. Humid, chlorine-scented air wafted over her as she descended; she could almost feel her skin sipping it in. When she reached the bottom stair, she took a ninety-degree turn. The room was larger than she’d thought it would be, and beautifully tiled in all the colors of the sea. There was a wrought-iron café table with seating for two, several padded chaise lounges, a massage table over in an alcove. Across the room was a rack of free weights, several Nautilus machines, and a stair stepper with a towel draped over it—serious e
quipment, but the place felt more like a spa than a gym.
A refuge, a private getaway.
The door across the room probably led to a changing area, but Wyland hadn’t made use of it tonight. The tailored suit he’d been wearing earlier lay in an untidy mound on the bench set on the narrow edge of the lap pool, his hard-soled shoes and socks kicked haphazardly underneath.
She watched his body slice through the aquamarine water. Saw a flash of muscled white buttock.
Her fangs descended in a rush.
Blood humming, she sat on the bench next to his discarded clothes and watched. He was built like a channel swimmer, with long, lean muscles that cut swiftly and surely through the water. The taut globes of his ass shifted out of the water with each stroke of his arms, but his calves and feet barely broke the surface. He swam silently and efficiently, like a great white shark. She glanced down at the clothing mound. A shark who wore designer boxer briefs.
When she stopped ogling his underwear and looked back at the pool, he was standing upright in the waist-deep water, staring at her.
She stared right back. Men with his body type had always tripped her trigger, and damn it, Wyland’s particular build would fuel years of future sexual fantasies. His hair was lashed back in its usual ponytail, the wet tail clinging to his shoulder. Drops of water glistened on his lashes, but his chilly blue eyes blazed. His arms and pecs were well-developed—he clearly used the weights across the room—and his tiny, tan nipples were visible through a delicious dusting of chest hair. Water dripped down his taut abdomen, bumping over a diagonal slash of a scar before reaching the silky trail of hair peeking above the water line. His lower body was a blur; the glimmering water hid too much.
The nasty-looking scar was a surprise.
“Is Valerian okay?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s fine.”
Silence hummed. “Pass me that towel, please,” he finally said, gesturing to a neatly folded Caribbean-blue towel sitting on the other end of the bench.
Such high tea manners, even with his fangs descended. “Of course.” She picked up the towel and took several steps toward the pool. Stopping well short of the lip, she extended her arm.
