The King (Games We Play Book 2)

by Liz Meldon

  Whatever. Neither had she.

  Rolling her eyes, Delia eased the package of paper towels in front of her aside, then paused and listened again. Nothing. No footsteps along the aisle. No heavy breathing around the corner. She was as shocked as anyone that her hiding place had actually worked, but she knew she couldn’t hide forever. They’d tear the store apart to find her.

  Jaw clenched, she eased off the shelf and dropped into a crouched position. More waiting. More listening. When it sounded like the coast was clear, she peered around the end of the aisle, scanning the yogurt, egg, and dairy coolers along half the back wall of the store. The other side was for the bakery and deli—stocked full of knives and other sharp things to arm herself with.

  Without a vamp in sight, Delia crept around and stood, pausing at the endcap full of discount bottled vinegar. Probably not a bad idea to make it a slippery path behind her, as long as she didn’t forget the floor was greased. Stake tucked under her arm, she grabbed a bottle and popped it open, spilling the clear liquid across the floor as she took a few steps back.

  “Hello, hunter.”

  She looked up in a panic. Some ten feet away was a vamp she hadn’t seen before, maybe the one who’d been loitering by the milk earlier. They stared at one another for a tense moment, then Delia fled as he lunged for her.

  Seconds later she heard a hard body hit the ground like a ton of bricks, and she looked back to find her little trick had worked. The idiot had slipped on the puddle of vinegar.

  Seizing the opportunity to stake a vamp when he was down, Delia surged forward, slipping a little herself when her boots hit the wetness, and splashed the remaining vinegar in the bottle across his face. Then she dropped on top of him and wedged the stake into his chest just as he swung his crowbar at her. The steel missed her face by a breath.

  She didn’t get a chance to see blood weep from his nostrils and mouth. Mere seconds later, a hand dug into her hair and yanked her off the body, dragging her back across the vinegar. Delia’s feet flailed out, managing to catch the hooked end of the fallen vamp’s crowbar and pull it with her. Her scalp burned at the manhandling—and her stake sat squarely in the other vamp’s chest.

  Thick fingers slipped under her chin and wrenched her head back hard, and as Delia gawked up at a vamp, she saw the flash of pointed teeth. Pulling the crowbar toward her with her foot, she grabbed it and swung back blindly, hoping to hit him right behind the knees. Delia heard a grunt on impact, and she hit again and again, her scalp on fire as the vamp’s grip tightened. His knees finally buckled after repeated blows with the crowbar, and Delia stabbed the end of it back and up into him as he toppled down onto her. It didn’t pierce through to the other side like her stake would, but it gave her a few seconds to scramble away, bloody crowbar in hand. She swung it again when he dove after her, a crowbar-width chest wound oozing blood, and after a brief scuffle, Delia somehow managed to flip him on his back.

  Use your opponents’ strength against them. Claude had told her that. She vaguely remembered League trainers mentioning opponents’ weight, but Claude had explained it in a way that she understood. She actually retained what he told her—probably because he wasn’t a patronizing ass when he taught.

  Delia managed to get a few good hits to her opponent’s face with the crowbar. When his arms fell to the floor and his jaw went slack, she crawled off and stood, leaning on the crowbar for support as she surveyed the situation. This…could have been worse. The vamp wasn’t dead like his friend, but he was out cold for now.

  Fuck the weapons in the bakery and deli. Dealing with these two alone had exhausted her, and Delia switched gears to finding an escape route. The Employees Only door was nearby, but when she turned, she saw that she was being watched. Two little eyes had seen the whole thing, the whites wide like saucers. Delia wiped under her nose as something dribbled out. Blood. There were probably more injuries that her adrenaline kept her from feeling.

  She brought her finger to her lips, nodding at the little boy—Kyle. His mom was probably distraught with him missing, but the kid had had the sense to hide under the bakery display case. Small enough for a little person to fit—probably not a place the vamps would look right away.

  He just stared, traumatized, and Delia vowed to grab him on the way out. Crowbar in hand, she jogged across to the Employees Only door.

  Which was locked.

  With a punch-in passcode required.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, jiggling the handle a few times. Was there anyone inside hiding? Were they just going to let everyone face the music out here? No sense in knocking. Every vamp would hear—

  Suddenly, Kyle was screaming. It wasn’t one of those screams you hear kids make in movies, either. It was a high-pitched, shrill, piercing scream that only got higher and shriller as it went on—a scream of pure terror. Delia whirled around and spied the vamp she’d thought she left unconscious crawling toward the kid. His face was a bloodied, mangled mess thanks to her crowbar. Not that it mattered—vamp healing abilities were unrivaled.

  She rushed forward and grabbed Kyle by his jacket’s hood, dragging him across the floor so that he was behind her, not caring if she hurt him along the way. The vamp rose on shaky legs, glowering at her as she held the crowbar between them.

  “It’s not a stake, but you better believe I will make do,” she warned. For once, her voice stayed even when she wanted it to, though her arm trembled under the weight of her weapon. Kyle clung to her leg, both arms wrapped tight, and she wanted to shake him off.

  The vamp inched forward, and just as her adrenaline spiked, glass shattered at the front of the store as if the dusty windows by the line of registers had been blown out all at once. Several people screamed. Sirens wailed outside, flashing red and blue lights washing across the store. Delia kept her gaze on the vamp in front of her, smirking. The cavalry had arrived. Even if they were only human cops, at least they had weapons and numbers.

  The vamp looked between her and the front of the store, then shook his head and raised his hands. “Fuck it. I’m out.”

  Seconds later he leapt over the deli counter like the hounds of hell were on his tail. Delia stood there, her arm shaking, until she heard the sound of gunfire. Then she tossed the crowbar aside and threw herself over Kyle. He sobbed beneath her, clutching at her jacket as Delia forced herself to take even breaths.

  When the shooting stopped, she stood and kept a hand on Kyle’s head, surveying her surroundings again. Only when she heard the radio chatter of police walkie-talkies and heavy booted feet entering the store did she hoist the boy onto her hip and make her way to the front. An officer raised his gun at her when she rounded the corner, making Kyle emit another high-pitched shriek right next to her ear. Delia winced and lifted him off as his mother came running over and the officer slowly lowered his firearm.

  “I’m with the League,” she told him. The uniformed man considered her with a quick up and down sweep of his gaze, then went back to the other shoppers. Kyle’s mother, meanwhile, practically ripped the boy away from Delia, not saying anything as she blitzed back over to the elderly woman holding her other kid. Delia watched her go with a frown.

  She was too tired to care that the woman hadn’t thanked her for keeping her bratty kid safe. In fact, as she took in the scene before her, exhaustion, fear, panic—they all hit her in waves. The adrenaline was slowly fading, leaving her drained and shaken, her head a little woozy. All around her, familiar sights drifted in and out of focus. Faces. Food bins. Cash registers and their little conveyor belts.

  Then, slowly, her knees gave way. Down she sunk, settling on the ground. It didn’t matter that it was dirty, soiled by wet feet and wheels; Delia stunk of vinegar and blood—that was infinitely worse than whatever might be on the floor.

  Paramedics arrived shortly after the police stormed the grocery. Half the uniforms had gone off in pursuit of the fleeing vamps while the medical personnel checked on each former hostage, treating their minor injuries
before ushering them out. One headed for Delia, calling out to her as he approached, but he was directed away by a police officer. Apparently being in the League meant she didn’t require medical care. Blinking heavy eyes, Delia slowly lowered her head between her knees.

  Her fellow shoppers would leave with cuts and bruises, battered noses and split lips, but it was the emotional trauma that would sit with them, probably for years to come. In a way, she almost envied them. At least they could just accept the horror they felt—Delia knew she’d need to swallow it, forget it, and move on. She shouldn’t feel this way. Fighting vamps was her job.

  For now, anyway. There was no telling her fate beyond tonight.

  “Did you say you were with the League?”

  A tired voice posed the question some time later, as the clamor of sirens and crying people lessened. Delia lifted her head sluggishly, her neck stiff and tight, and offered a weary nod to the officer crouched in front of her.

  “You okay?” he asked. Another nod. “You look a little, uh…”

  “I’m fine,” she said, voice thick. “Really.”

  “Good.” He stood and stepped out of her line of sight. Delia’s eyes followed him, fixed on the way he stuck his thumbs through his belt loops. “Care to tell me what they put on the doors?”

  She frowned, confused, then looked to the front doors. Someone had closed them after directing the other shoppers out. Green spray paint marred the Plexiglas, hiding the usual fingerprint smears and splotches of bird shit she’d seen on the way in. Her eyes narrowed, studying the design, then slowly widened in recognition.

  “It’s…” She swallowed hard and pushed to her feet, wanting to be absolutely sure before she told him anything. The officer offered his arm when she wavered, but she politely declined.

  It couldn’t be.

  Nobody would be that bold.

  Or that stupid.

  Delia licked her lips as the officer stared, his impatience palpable. “It’s the Donovan clan emblem.”

  He too fell quiet for a long moment, both of them staring at the design. It was a crude rendition, sure, but it was unmistakable. Even with some of the paint dribbling, Delia could make out the tree, the stars around its full branches, and the serpent at its base.

  “Christ,” the officer muttered. Delia nodded. Christ indeed.

  Were the attackers Irish? Did they have an accent like their clan leader? Her head lowered as she frowned, trying to recall the voices she’d heard. No accents that she could remember, but her brain was probably already distorting the incident. Plus, not every member of the clan had the accent. As she recalled, Bella Donovan, daughter of clan leader Shane Donovan and a notorious troublemaker, a vamp whose iron grip had lingered on Delia’s wrist for weeks after the masquerade, sounded local.

  “This is bad.” The officer glanced at her, then pulled out a small pocket notepad and a pen. “Give me your information. I’ll need to report all this to the higher-ups. I’m sure they will want to discuss the situation with the Council.”

  She hesitated, then took the pen and pad at his insistent look and scribbled her name and hunter ID number. Once she handed it back, the officer hurried toward a small cluster of policemen, barking at them to get all the security footage and bring in the CSI guys.

  Delia wrapped her arms around herself and fended off the urge to faint.

  CHAPTER 16: Wearing My Big Girl Pants

  “And while I believe it is a poor decision,” Wentworth said as Delia stood across from him in her usual spot, her insides knotted and her palms sweaty, “it is the decision nonetheless. If it were up to me, you would be packing your bags right now, Miss Roberts.”

  The eyes of every man in the room—all the High Council members and Kain—fixed on her for a long moment, until she realized she was supposed to say something. Clearing her throat, which was painfully dry, she nodded and managed a “Yes, sir.”

  “Your little stunt at the grocery store was…” Wentworth leaned back in his chair, fingers steepling. “It was noble, but foolish. I cannot be sure why the Donovan agents fled when the police arrived, but I can only assume that had the boys in blue showed up a few minutes later, you would have been dead and I could have been spared this conversation.”

  Not exactly the glowing praise Delia had always hoped she’d get from the High Council after pulling off a near-impossible task against a handful of vamp enemies. She bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from arguing that despite her few slip-ups, she’d held her own that night.

  When she’d arrived home the night of the Donovan assault on Safe Choice Grocers, there was a message in her inbox from the League. Stay put. No contact with anyone. If she must leave the house, do so under a guise to distort her features. Delia couldn’t imagine why that was necessary until she logged on to her social media the following morning. Somehow footage of the attack had been leaked. Internet commentators far and wide criticized her fight stance, the way she climbed the shelves—everything.

  Once she realized what she had done, Delia had melted into a puddle of nerves. After all, she and the Donovan henchmen, together, had potentially spilled the secrets of their world into the general public. No one on the news had cried vampire yet, but the online conspiracy theorists who analyzed every second of footage were certainly howling it.

  Delia had had no idea where she was headed at that point, but she’d had a sinking feeling that simple banishment might be off the table.

  So, she’d come to the High Council that afternoon fearing the worst. Instead, Wentworth had reinstated her and given her a promotion. Apparently powers higher in the League hierarchy than the High Council thought it would be reckless to get rid of her. Should they need a public liaison to help manage a crisis if the internet conspiracy theorists caught traction, a situation already being handled by various inter-organization PR teams, they had a somewhat familiar face to put in front of the cameras.

  Delia took the news with an uneasy smile.

  “Kain will bring you up to speed on your new assignment,” Wentworth told her with a dismissive wave toward the Irishman, who sat on the edge of the same couch he always did, a heavy look on his face. “This is your chance, Miss Roberts. Either you shine on the task force, or a Donovan vamp will take care of you at the compound.”

  Delia drew in a deep breath and tried not to scowl at how carelessly they threw around her demise. The look on Wentworth’s face told her she was unsuccessful.

  “You will also cease all contact with Claude Grimm from this day forward,” he told her. “We cannot have him tipping off Shane Donovan about the impending attack.”

  Delia’s gaze drifted just above Wentworth’s head as she nodded. “Understood, but—”

  “But what, Miss Roberts?”

  Claude had tried to reach her relentlessly since the footage of the attack went live, but Delia hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to talk to anyone over the last two days. His calls and texts, therefore, went unanswered.

  “He’s been trying to reach me,” she admitted after some hesitation. “I can’t keep blowing him off.”

  “You can and you will.”

  “If I may, Wentworth,” George Heston interjected, placing a hand on Wentworth’s shoulder before hastily retracting it. “I hate to agree with Miss Roberts, but I do. Claude Grimm is quite intelligent for a vampire.” Anger surged through her at his words, like he thought Claude was some kind of animal. “One who has always maintained a steady truce with the League. Should we take away his favourite toy, I don’t want to imagine the tantrum he might throw.”

  Delia bristled at the sentiment, but if it meant getting what she wanted, she could stay silent. Lips pursed, Wentworth’s stare seemed to pass right through her, his eyes distant and unfocused. After what felt like an eternity had passed, he placed his hands on his desk and sighed.

  “I can see the validity there,” he admitted, though it sounded like it pained him to do so. “Claude Grimm has been the most compliant clan leader in th
e history of Harriswood.” His gaze darted to Delia, then narrowed. “Should you see him, do it under the pretense of ending things. Tell him work has gotten too busy, that you don’t care for him, that you’re frightened he’ll bite you again. Whatever it takes to lose him. We cannot have anyone spoil this operation for us.”

  Delia nodded mutely. When she had received her promotion only minutes earlier, Delia had become privy to the fact that the League, paired with the Warwick clan and the Harriswood PD, was going to attempt a raid on the Donovan estate. All Donovan clansmen were to be arrested for questioning. Any aggressors were to be killed on sight. The grocery store stunt had pushed the League too far, and it had been unanimously agreed during another all-night meeting that the Donovan clan needed to be subdued—perhaps permanently.

  Several squads of hunters, roughly half of those employed locally, were selected to work on the assault. Delia was now one of them, assigned to Kain’s alpha squadron. Whoever was higher than Wentworth had seen the Safe Choice footage and deemed her worthy, apparently.

  “You are dismissed, Miss Roberts,” Wentworth said, hissing her name in a way that made her skin crawl. “You will receive a message shortly about your training schedule.”

  The raid was to take place in early December, almost two weeks away, and she was sure there was a boatload of information she needed to learn.

  “Thank you, sir.” She dipped her head down slightly before heading for the door. Behind her, Kain’s footfalls followed, but stopped when Wentworth told him to stay. She glanced back and found Kain’s expression unreadable, then left without another word.

  Out in the hallway, Delia moved listlessly toward the elevators. She should have been thrilled, elated—overjoyed. Not only had she skirted a severe reprimand for risking their secret world—even if she did it to save lives—but she’d been promoted to a position that she had wanted for years. She’d be suited up and given weapons, not dressed down and armed with a smile. She’d be on par with hunters like Kain and his boys. Apparently Devin and Ali had also been assigned to the raid, albeit on different squads. For once, she wasn’t left in the dust.