The King (Games We Play Book 2)

by Liz Meldon

  After another brief closed-lip kiss, Claude’s arms wrapped securely around her to ward off the cold, he offered to let her change into something dry before they left.

  “You could even sleep here if you wanted,” he insisted as she eased off the car’s hood. “I’d be happy to drop you off wherever you need to patrol.”

  “I feel like that maybe sends the wrong message,” she said with a smirk. Her jeans had hiked up and were downright impossible to fix with how wet they were, but her sex tingled with want as she tried.

  “What? Don’t most hunters bring their vampire boyfriend out on patrol?” He scrunched up his shirt to twist out some of the excess water. “I think you should all have a vampire partner. It would probably make things much smoother.”

  This time her laugh was more genuine. “Yeah, I’ll float that at the next meeting. See how popular it makes me.”

  “It’s worth a shot, given your current popularity ranking.”

  “Hey!”

  He dodged her hand when she took a good-natured swipe at him, then caught it and laced his fingers around hers. Delia followed behind him with heavy feet, dragging her motions out until he darted back to kiss her again and promise he was only teasing.

  “I know,” she assured him as they made their way to his soccer mom van. “Just like I’m about to tease you for the vehicle you’re about to put me in. Brace yourself.”

  “I can take whatever you throw at me, huntress,” he said once he had the door open for her. “I’m more than prepared for everything you’ve got in your arsenal.”

  Delia swallowed thickly and forced a smile, then clambered in and tried to keep the worrisome thoughts at bay.

  All the while trying to figure out the best way to sit without leaving a huge wet butt-print on the seat.

  *

  “Are we still on for tomorrow?” Claude asked as Delia settled back in her seat, trying to catch her breath from their most recent kiss in front of her building. This one had been the hardest to break, hot and heavy and beyond intoxicating—she would feel Claude on her lips well into her patrol the following morning.

  “Yeah,” she said brightly, picking at her hair in an effort to revive it from its current flat, scraggly mess. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  Tomorrow was a League-assigned date. There was no backing out of that one—not that she’d want to or anything.

  “Sure you’re not sick of me yet?”

  She matched his grin with an impish one of her own. “I’m on the verge, Claude Grimm. Don’t give me the final push.”

  “No, we can’t have that, can we?” he mused, leaning across the space between their seats to kiss her again. Delia shifted to make the angles better, but at the last moment spotted something that made her pause. Someone, more like. Her usual grey-haired tail from the League had just settled on the bench across from her apartment, his umbrella on his lap. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been caught in the storm, which had of course stopped the moment Delia and Claude started driving.

  “What is it?” Claude asked. She looked back to him and shook her head, but her smile must not have been convincing. Moments later he was looking out the window for himself.

  “It’s nothing—”

  “That man follows us on our dates,” Claude remarked, voice tinged with anger. When he faced her, she noticed the way his jaw clenched briefly before he spoke again. “I’ve seen him on numerous occasions. Is he bothering you?”

  Delia shook her head. “It’s fine.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Scowling, Claude went for his door, but stopped when she placed a hand on his arm. He exhaled deeply, the window catching his irritated reflection perfectly. “Delia, let me speak to him—”

  “No,” she said forcefully, “don’t. It’s League business. He shouldn’t be here, but I can handle him.”

  It took some more convincing, more than she’d expected, but she eventually managed to soothe his temper with one last kiss.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she insisted once she was out of the car. The temperature had plummeted since the storm, and she entertained the idea of climbing back in and blasting the heat. But on top of getting a half-decent sleep, Delia had another issue to deal with—because she hadn’t noticed the grey-haired watcher following them on their dates before, and it made her insides squirmy.

  Claude lingered at the curb, minivan humming, and took one last look between her and the elderly man on the bench, a man Delia suspected wasn’t a hunter at all. Probably an informant—rats tended to actually reach old age, recent murders aside. Forcing another bright smile, Delia waved Claude off and watched until he was beyond the nearest intersection.

  Drawing a deep breath, Delia jogged across the street. The rainy hike had already ruined her runners, her socks thoroughly soaked, but she still winced when one foot landed in a puddle at the curb. Cursing softly, she shook it off before stalking up to her shadow, eyes narrowed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask the same question of him,” the man said, his voice crackly and gruff. “Date’s tomorrow, not today. You aren’t scheduled today.”

  “I got my days mixed up,” Delia said flippantly. “I didn’t realize until after we met up.”

  “Made the same mistake on Sunday and Monday, did you?” He gave a throaty laugh and stood, and Delia hoped he wouldn’t see the pink in her cheeks. “Or Wednesday last week? Or Tuesday and Friday the week before? Lots of mistakes you’re making lately. Got some sort of calendar dyslexia?”

  She pressed her lips together tightly, refusing to respond. The man’s eyes swept over her, his skin crinkled around the edges, and he shook his head.

  “Well, at least you’ve had a bit of fun, eh?” Popping open his umbrella, he raised it over his head as a light misting started to coat the city. Delia blinked the rainwater out of her eyes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, but he was already gone, sauntering off into the stream of people around them. She could have chased him down, but Delia just stood there, gawking until his umbrella disappeared around the corner of the building at the intersection.

  Arms wrapped around herself, she dashed back to her building, weaving around cars stopped at the light while her teeth chattered. Once she was inside, chills continued to plague her—and Delia knew, as she peeled off her drenched clothes and hopped in the shower, that the cold outside air wasn’t completely to blame.

  CHAPTER 14: Unmet Expectations

  “Did Grimm do something to you, you know, psychologically, or are you actually this stupid?” Wentworth practically simmered with rage as he stared Delia down from behind his desk. For once, it was just him and her in the room. No Kain. No other members of the High Council with their midnight-black robes and sullen faces. Just good ol’ Don Wentworth in horrific khaki from head to toe, and Delia wishing she were anywhere but here.

  After she had fixed herself up from her hike in the rain last night, Delia found an email from the League waiting in her inbox—but it didn’t contain the specifics of her next date. Instead she found a formal request from the office of the High Council; Delia was expected to report in after her patrol the following morning.

  Funny how only a few lines of text can strike so much fear into a person. The order read quite succinctly, mechanical even, and was not the first Delia had received in her hunter career. She knew right then and there that she was going to be disciplined.

  Her nerves had made sleep infrequent and breakfast impossible, so she went on patrol with two cups of coffee and a handful of oatmeal–chocolate chip cookies coursing through her system. It was no surprise that she’d felt like absolute shit by the time she arrived in the reception area outside Wentworth’s office, but that was nothing compared to the way she felt now: hungover but without the night of fun drinking beforehand.

  If only she could stop her hands from shaking. Even with them clasped together, Wentworth could probably see it.

  She drew in a shallo
w breath as his eyes burned holes right through her. “Sir—”

  “No,” he barked, a hand raised to silence her. “No, you listen for a moment. What did you think this special assignment actually entailed?”

  Delia swallowed hard. Even though he paused, it was a rhetorical question. If she spoke now, he’d chew her out even harder.

  “In no way, shape, or form was this assignment permission for you to actually date Claude Grimm!” He slammed his hand down on the table, making his mason jar of pens rattle. “I was willing to let the terribly crafted reports slide. I hoped that you would grow into the role. I wanted to give you a chance, after all these years, to prove that your continued employment hasn’t been a mistake, that you were more than just a grunt. But time and time again, you prove me wrong.”

  Sure, the reports weren’t her best work. Hell, they weren’t even real reports, just a mishmash of archive intel and whatever was on Delia’s TV docket for the day. She planned to take whatever verbal lashing she got for the quality of her reports without a word because, well, she knew she’d fluffed every last one of them, preferring to shirk her shady assignment and just enjoy her date with Claude instead.

  But the notion that she had proved him wrong time and time again, that she made him look like some fool for believing in her, felt far-fetched. Anger pooled in her gut. Delia hadn’t proved him wrong—Delia hadn’t been given any chances to prove him wrong. She did her boring work as instructed. There were a few hiccups along the way, but every hunter had more than a few notes on their personnel file. She wasn’t the League’s worst employee—not by a long shot—and she was sick of being made to feel that way by a handful of men.

  Her arms crossed over her chest at the thought, and she started taking deep, even breaths in and out of her nostrils.

  “This was supposed to be easy, Miss Roberts,” Wentworth remarked, scowling. “It was clear that Claude Grimm had an interest in you. There was a relationship established without our knowledge, the kind of relationship highly frowned upon. Those disgusting bite marks on your neck are more than reasonable grounds for termination and then some.” She stiffened at the thought. “Yet I saw a use for you. Claude Grimm and his people have been the most isolated clan in Harriswood for decades. No informants have ever successfully penetrated it. This was the perfect opportunity for us, yet you squandered it for what? A handsome face?”

  She kept her silence as he stared at her, his brow raised.

  “So that’s why I have to ask if he’s done something, because I was under the impression you were lazy, not stupid.”

  This time the pause dragged on a little too long, like he was waiting for her to defend herself. And for once, she did.

  “With all due respect, sir,” Delia said, voice wavering with frustration this time, not fear, “I’m neither.”

  Lazy hunters didn’t have hours of archive reading time behind them. Lazy hunters didn’t research hand-to-hand combat in their free time, or seek out an unlikely mentor to train them. Delia might be lazy in a lot of ways, but when it came to the League, she liked to think Claude was right: she’d just become apathetic over the years, passive to her experience when her efforts never panned out.

  “Really?” Wentworth leaned forward, hands clasped on his desk as he eyed her. “I’ve yet to see you do anything to prove otherwise. Did you think you were clever, scheduling all those extra dates in secret? You reported nothing on them—”

  “It would be weird for two people starting a relationship not to see each other whenever they wanted to,” she argued, face blanching when she realized she had cut him off, “sir.”

  “Weird?” he said, as though the word personally offended him. “What’s weird, Miss Roberts, is that you invited Claude Grimm out on several unsanctioned visits.”

  “Kain said it isn’t out of the ordinary to have a vampire contact—”

  “For hunters like Kain, yes, it isn’t.” Wentworth sniffed and shook his head. “Hunters like Kain have more experience with how this world works. Hunters like you do not play willy-nilly with clan leaders because there’s a spark.”

  “There isn’t—”

  “I’ve seen the pictures, Miss Roberts.” His voice cracked like a whip, and Delia pressed her lips together, cowed.

  Wentworth stood, his chair scraping the floor, fingertips resting on the edge of his desk. “Consider your special assignment terminated and yourself suspended. Your breach in conduct, along with your poor work, cannot go unpunished.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “You will not see or speak to Claude Grimm until the High Council has decided what we are going to do with you.” He looked her over from top to bottom, then back up again. “Until we have determined your worth.”

  Her tongue felt too big for her mouth. No matter how hard she swallowed, everything was dry and scratchy.

  “Yes, sir,” Delia managed, her voice barely above a controlled whisper as a storm of sudden feeling, a hurricane of anger and fear and desperation, tore through her.

  “It will be in your best interest to follow directions,” Wentworth remarked. “All of your upcoming patrols will be covered. Consider yourself on thin ice until we have completed our review.”

  “What will happen if I’m…asked to leave?” When she’d considered that possibility on the night of the masquerade, Delia had dry-heaved into a bag, tears streaming down her cheeks and her whole world spinning. Today, somehow, the thought only sent a rush of prickling anxiety through her. The thought of forcefully keeping herself away from Claude, on the other hand…

  Maybe that was a sign.

  “That will be determined when the time comes,” Wentworth said with a soft tsk. “Know that your whole history will be evaluated. Given your lack of clearance, you can breathe easy that I see no reason to have you permanently silenced.”

  Her lips trembled as the thought sunk in, but she was determined to at least look in the general direction of his face. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Hardly worth a thanks, Miss Roberts,” he said curtly. “We’re done here.”

  Knowing there was nothing she could say to persuade him otherwise, Delia dipped her head and turned. As she was about to reach the door, Wentworth sighed heavily.

  “A disappointment,” he said when she glanced back, “that you couldn’t even do this effectively.”

  Shoulders slumped, Delia muttered an apology before slipping out the door.

  *

  “Come on…” Delia groaned and tapped the Refresh Page button. The internet was absolutely killing her—today, the day she just wanted to get lost in a twenty-episode binge of a space opera TV classic. A favourite from her teen years, it had been ages since she watched it. Today felt like a good day to try.

  As the page slowly reloaded, her phone vibrated on the other side of the bed. Delia glanced toward it, then brought her attention back to the screen. Still loading. Another round of vibrations. Huffing, she rolled over and grabbed the black rectangle, meaning to turn it to silent. She paused, however, at the sight of a missed call from Claude, followed by a text message asking if everything was okay. There was one from Kain too. Obviously Wentworth had filled his protégé in on the verbal beating he’d given her early that morning.

  Of all the people in her life at the moment, Claude was the only one Delia actually wanted to talk to. But she couldn’t tell him why she’d been disciplined without admitting that the League had ordered her to spy on him. If she could help it, Delia planned to keep that little tidbit to herself until the dust had settled. The trust they’d cultivated over the last month and a half would be shattered in an instant if she told him. He wouldn’t care that Delia bullshitted her reports, or that she stopped slipping the High Council’s questions in after the second date, or that she considered her biweekly outings with him as real dates and not assignments. It wouldn’t matter. All that would matter would be her deceit. His anger would be perfectly justified.

  She’d made a mistake, in her love life and alo
ng her career path, and now it was coming back to bite her. Things were falling apart, and Delia had no one to blame but herself. She had agreed to lie to Claude, all the while developing a frustratingly fierce attachment to him. Sure, the High Council had used her situation for the League’s gain, but she had let them.

  Yes, she’d been in a precarious situation when Kain tattled on her. If she’d refused the High Council’s assignment, what would have happened? Would they have sent her away, called her a traitor—or worse? There was no telling, but the fear of all those things had pushed her into accepting the card she was dealt. Maybe if Delia had been braver then, things would be different now.

  But things weren’t different. She couldn’t change the past. Delia just had to sort out her future, and when she realized that, she grabbed an unopened tub of cookie dough ice cream and barricaded herself in her room, hoping that TV would distract her.

  As usual, instead of finding a logical, mature solution, she opted for petty distraction.

  Her phone buzzed again as the show started to load.

  The electronic characters you’ve texted seem troubled.

  She bit her lip, eyes fixed on Claude’s name and profile picture at the top of the text conversation screen. It was unfair to him, this whole thing. But so was radio silence. Drawing in a deep breath, she sat up cross-legged and fired off a quick message to let him know she was fine, but couldn’t make it tonight for their date.

  Do you want to talk? was his response.

  She ran a hand through her hair and wrote, No. Not now, anyway.

  Once she hit send, a heavy knot settled in the pit of her stomach. Delia typed out I’m sorry, but then deleted it and put her phone on silent. Maybe it was better this way. Until she got her life in order, a break from the man who consumed her and the job that used her might be necessary to get some perspective.

  Miserable, Delia flopped back on her bed and pressed play. For a second, even though it looked like the stupid thing had loaded, the sound started but the video didn’t.