by Tami Lund
Glaring at him, I said, “Can you read my mind?”
“Nope.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“I’m beginning to suspect you won’t believe anything I tell you.”
“You’re probably right.”
He didn’t respond and instead signaled to the bartender. She practically leaped over the bar, so eager was she to do his bidding. It was sickening, and not because I disliked the way she drooled over him. Even if he saved me from who knows what out there, he was still a vampire, and they were bad news.
“Let’s have an order of steak tartar,” he said to her before shifting his focus to me. “This is an excellent vintage; however, if you are not much of a wine drinker, it would be better complimenting the appropriate food. And perhaps a tray of cheeses?” he asked, glancing back at the slack-jawed bartender.
She looked as if he’d put her under some sort of trance. Had he? Glamour, that’s what vampires called it. I dropped my gaze to the table and vowed not to look at his face again. I had no interest in that crap. He could probably convince me to ask him to make me a blood courtesan if he wanted to.
I saw him wave at my glass. “Try it. And no, I’m not going to glamour you to make you do my bidding.”
I glanced up sharply and narrowed my eyes. “So you lied about reading minds?”
He chuckled and sipped his wine. “No. You are easy to read. So far, I’ve determined you aren’t from the city and someone has filled your head with tales of my kind that make you dislike us, or at the very least, not want to associate with us. I admit, I’m curious as to the rest of your story.”
He leaned back in his chair and took another drink, as if he fully expected me to spill my guts. I glanced at the wine the bartender had poured for me. Did I dare drink it? I’d only ever tried too-sweet pink wine out of a box before. That was the night I’d ended up naked in the rafters of the barn with Sammy Montgomery. The next morning I woke with straw stuck into places it never, ever should be and a miserable hangover. When I called Sammy, he coldly informed me he’d gotten what he wanted and suggested I lose his number.
“Try it. It’s truly excellent, and I promise I haven’t done anything to it. If it eases your mind, the bartender is human, and I doubt she would doctor the wine in any way.”
“I figured she was human by the way she keeps gawking at you.”
“Gawking?” He arched one black brow, as if he could hear my racing heartbeat. For all I knew, he could.
“Yeah. I watched her wipe the drool away when she left a minute ago.”
He laughed. “If all it takes to swoon over me is to be human, why are you not doing the same?”
“Because I know better. You guys are bad news. You steal humans away from their friends and family and then you torture them, and when you’re done with your games, you kill them.”
The amusement fell from his face and he leaned forward with his forearms on the table. “Where did you hear such ridiculous tales?”
Fearing that glamour business, I focused on my wineglass instead of him, finally lifting it and giving it a try. It left a strange, almost dry sensation in my mouth, but it wasn’t bad at all.
“I’ve seen it. That’s what happened to my aunt.”
Chapter 2
She tried to hide it, but I saw the sadness on her face, heard it in the words. “What happened?” I asked gently, lest I spook her yet again.
She shrugged. I watched as she toyed with the stem of her wineglass, long, narrow fingers twisting the blown glass. I imagined those fingers touching me instead, and I pushed away the urge to glamour her. She was right; I could use the power of my will to bend her, to convince her to do whatever I wanted, regardless of her opinion in the matter. I could, but I didn’t want to. Where was the challenge in that?
“Tell me,” I urged. “Please.” Christos, when was the last time I’d said please to anyone? I hadn’t needed to, not in many, many decades. Closing in on a century.
As she sipped wine and apparently debated whether to open up to a perfect stranger who was, in fact, one of those vampires she feared, I watched the vein in her neck pulse, imagined sinking my fangs into it, could almost taste her blood mingled with the tannins of the wine. My cock swelled, and I shifted in my seat. This was not the right time nor place, and this was certainly not the right woman.
Admittedly, seeking dinner—and a companion for the night—should have been part of the reason I’d joined the throng of revelers this evening. But that hadn’t been my objective. I hadn’t lied when I told her I disliked crowds, and there were plenty of other places I could have gone to find a meal and hopefully more than mediocre sex.
I had heard whisperings, strange stories of unrest, of rogue vampires who threatened the sometimes uneasy peace my kind had with humans. While we considered ourselves stronger, better, and generally above humans in the food chain, the facts couldn’t be denied: We needed humans to survive. They carried our food in their veins; their blood sustained us. If we did not treat them with at least a modicum of respect, they could take away our direct link to our sustenance.
It wasn’t uncommon, unfortunately, for some sort of battle to flare up between us and the humans every few generations, but I had no wish for it to occur on my turf and under my watch. I owned Chicago—at least the vampire covens who resided in Chicago—and they were required to play by my rules. While many considered humans to be playthings, I insisted they at least be willing playthings.
So I had become obsessed with figuring out the source of these undercurrents, determined to squelch the problem before my calm, controlled city fell into chaos. As a result, I’d put off feeding, ignoring the hunger pangs, too focused on my latest project.
Discovering Anya manhandled by those two pitiful excuses for human beings made me react before thinking. I’d saved the girl instead of accosting the bad guys. I should have been more concerned with capturing the assholes so I could drill them for information. Their presence, the comments about forcing her to become a blood courtesan, meant they were somehow connected to vampires. And more importantly, it meant someone was invading my turf.
I sure as hell wasn’t about to let that happen.
“I was only six, but I remember it. Was sort of burned into my brain. One of those memories you can’t forget even if you try.”
I studied the woman seated across the table. She’d hardly taken three sips from her wine, yet her cheeks were rosy. This topic wasn’t remotely sexy; still, I smelled arousal, and as the bartender was across the room tending to her other customers, I presumed it was Anya’s. Interesting that she vocalized her dislike of vampires, yet by all appearances, she was attracted to me.
The knowledge made me want to test the boundaries she’d set up, see how far I could push her. I wouldn’t mind trying to convince her that dining with a vampire had its perks.
“What did you see?” I asked, prompting her to continue.
“She was taken. My aunt.”
Anya looked to be in her early twenties. Doing the math, I tried to place the when and what of this situation that occurred when she was a young child. “From where?”
“The barn.”
“No, I mean where, as in geographically. What country, state, city?”
“Oh. Oklahoma. When she got married, my uncle moved her there. We were visiting at the time.”
Outside my jurisdiction. It wasn’t me who’d let her aunt down.
“I don’t recall hearing of any sort of unrest fifteen or twenty years ago in that area. Rogue vampires exist everywhere, though, unfortunately. Our society is not so very different from yours. There are good guys and bad guys, so to speak.”
She frowned and took another drink of wine, this one bigger than the previous few. As if she were growing more bold or needed the false courage alcohol often created.
Julie, the bartender, appeared bearing the appetizers I ordered. She placed them on the table, deliberately leaning low to present me with a
view of what she only half-hid under her shirt. While her breasts were certainly appealing, I was far too intrigued by the story I was milking from Anya to pay her any mind. I didn’t like Anya’s assumption that all vampires were as terrible as the ones who presumably had done something horrible to her aunt, but more than that, I needed to know if this situation was somehow tied to the unrest in my own city.
Unfortunately, much as I needed to feed, if Julie wanted a vampire lover tonight, it wouldn’t be me.
I watched Anya glare daggers at the woman’s back as she left, and I lifted my glass and drank to cover the chuckle I couldn’t suppress. Her unbidden jealousy was charming, yet I knew without a single doubt that despite her arousal, she would have no part in anything involving the two of us coming together in any exchange of bodily fluids.
Such a shame.
“They took her. Against her will,” Anya insisted, once Julie was again out of earshot. “They raped her and tortured her, and when they were done with her, they dropped her back at her farm and left her to bleed to death.”
I frowned. That didn’t sound very vampire-like, at least not the leaving her to bleed out part. Even the raping and torture rarely happened anymore. Most leaders disapproved of such handling of humans, so were quick to squelch offenders.
“Are you certain that is how it happened?”
“I was there,” she snapped, as if insulted I’d question her version of an event that occurred when she was barely old enough to comprehend what was going on. “I woke up early and went to the barn to pet the horses. I heard the truck pull up and wondered who was stopping by so early in the morning. It was just barely light outside. I saw them shove her body off the tailgate. I screamed. My uncle and my dad came rushing out of the house, but the truck was already gone. They called an ambulance and rushed her to the hospital, but she had lost too much blood and died.”
What a terrible tale. No child should witness something so abhorrent. How she had turned out remotely sane was beyond me.
When she took a hefty slug of wine, I nodded at the cheese platter. “Eat,” I commanded, because I had no idea if she had recently, and I did not want her to inadvertently get drunk in an effort to suppress the sadness I was certain she felt.
She popped a chunk of cheese into her mouth and followed it with another drink of wine. Oh, how I would love to sink my fangs into her, to savor the taste of wine and cheese mingled in her blood. The urge was surprisingly strong, even more so than the natural inclination that came with not having fed in a bit too long.
“I hope you will believe me when I tell you that is not normal for my kind. Even if she had not come to us willingly, it is highly unlikely a vampire would have left a woman with precious food pouring from her veins. The one who drank from her would have sealed the wound when he was done.”
Giving in to the urge to touch her, I lightly tapped the hand resting on the table. She snatched it away and scowled.
“You carry our only source of sustenance. The longer you live, the more food we have. It makes no sense to waste her blood, even if the one who took her was done with her. He would have sent her home with no more than small puncture scars wherever he drank from her, or he would have drained her completely, either killing her or turning her. This fourth option you present doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it was a vampire who killed your aunt.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
Of course she wouldn’t. As much as I could understand it, it was irritating nonetheless. I’d saved the woman from possibly a similar fate, yet she judged me by the actions of the non-vampires who had killed her aunt and had accosted her earlier.
“No,” I said, my voice going cold. “I won’t forgive you.”
Chapter 3
He wasn’t going to forgive me?
I’m not the one who kidnapped my aunt, tortured her, and then left her to die in her own front yard. According to my dad, the autopsy proved she’d been beaten, raped, sodomized … basically, the last few hours of her life had been straight up hell.
And Cam made a statement—I don’t think it was a vampire who killed your aunt—and I was supposed to change everything I’ve believed for the last fifteen years? I was there. I saw them push her out of the truck.
I saw it.
“You know what, screw this. I don’t need your help. I came here to find my sister, not to hang out and drink wine with a vampire who wants to give me a load of crap and expects me to believe him with no proof.” I stood and then leaned over the table, glaring at him despite that glamour business. “I have proof. I know what happened. You weren’t there. Or were you?”
The thought hit me like a bucket of ice water. Vampires lived forever. Those guys who’d killed my aunt, from what I recalled, had looked about Cam’s age. Shit. Was he—?
“Stop it and sit. Now.”
I didn’t. He sighed.
“I did not kill your aunt. I know that’s what you’re thinking. Tell me the date it happened, and I can tell you exactly where I was, likely produce a few witnesses. And I’m sure you won’t believe me, but I’ve never actually been to Oklahoma. No offense to your family, but there is nothing in that state that intrigues me enough to travel there.”
I remained standing, but a little of the tension seeped from my stance. I wasn’t remotely ready to believe everything he said, but it did seem farfetched that he had been in Oklahoma fifteen years ago, killing my aunt, and now sat in a pub in Chicago, sharing a bottle of wine with me.
“Tell me about your sister.”
“How do you know my sister?” I shot back, instantly defensive again.
He, on the other hand, was exasperated, like he was trying to reason with a five-year-old.
“You said you were here to find your sister. What happened to her?”
“You don’t know?”
Carefully placing his glass on the table, he straightened and leaned toward me. He remained seated, yet the power emanating from him was as strong as if he were standing over me, attempting to intimidate me with his excessive height. Was this what it felt like to be glamoured?
“I am not known for my patience, Anya. I am known for making intelligent decisions, sometimes on the fly, occasionally with little information with which to use to my advantage. I also have little tolerance for judgmental people who refuse to open their minds to information other than the bullshit they’ve been fed for most of their lives. On top of all that, I happen to be quite hungry, and your attitude is on the verge of making me—what is that slang term, when one is both hungry and angry?”
“Hangry?”
“Yes, thank you. Your attitude is making me hangry. Trust me, you do not want to see that side of me.”
“Why?” I challenged. “What will you do to me?”
“Send you on your way without my protection, to fend for yourself against those two men who had trapped you in the alley. And any others who might be out and about tonight.”
“Oh.” I sank into my seat and grabbed my wineglass. I had expected him to threaten to torture me or kidnap me or force me to let him drink my blood or… something far different from simply letting me go about my merry way.
“Now, why don’t you tell me about your sister? Perhaps I can help.”
“Why would you help me?”
“I happen to be of the mindset that humans and vampires can coexist mostly peacefully, and I detest it when my kind are falsely accused of something. I also do happen to have a bit of empathy remaining in my cold, dead heart, and I dislike the fact that a six-year-old had to see what you saw and that your aunt had to suffer as she likely did. My guess, based purely on what you’ve told me thus far, is that you fear your sister may be headed to the same fate as your aunt.”
“You sure vampires can’t read minds?”
One corner of his lips lifted into what I suspected was a sardonic smile.
“My sister,” I said and then sighed. Might as well tell him the story. Maybe by watching his facial featu
res, his reactions, I could guess whether he was involved. And maybe, on the other end of the scale, he might actually be able to help.
“She decided she wanted to be a blood courtesan. She came to the city about eight months ago. I haven’t heard from her in months. She sent the periodic text in the beginning, but since Christmas there’s been nothing. And yes, I’m afraid she’s been kidnapped and is being tortured by vampires.”
“No. This is my city. We do not use and abuse and dispose of humans, especially those who become blood courtesans.”
“Then why haven’t I heard from her?”
He shrugged and sipped his wine, and despite my suspicions and fears, the action enthralled me. The man was elegance personified, with an edge of danger that made the blood sizzle in my veins. He was nothing I’d ever have imagined myself attracted to—being a vampire not withstanding—yet he made me think about sex. Did vampires have sex without biting their partner?
I wasn’t remotely keen on letting somebody suck my blood, but the handful of texts I’d received before Abby went AWOL had been filled with wonder and excitement over her lover and all the sexy things they’d done together. Not once had she mentioned anything about the feeding aspect of the relationship. Had that been because she knew how I felt about vampires or because it wasn’t really as significant as I believed?
Cam refilled my wineglass. I watched his face, noted the pale skin, saw the tip of a fang peeking out from between his lips. Sexy or not, the man was still a vampire, and I had nothing but his word to convince me they weren’t the enemy.
I’d seen my aunt. Before the ambulance arrived, I’d gotten close enough to her body to see the two puncture wounds on her neck. The blood covering her clothing, which had been all but shredded and torn from her body. The bruises, scratches, the way her arm had laid at an odd angle, which I eventually learned meant it had been broken.
