Leon bit down on his lip so hard he drew blood (Mischa could smell it), and Mischa had to swallow three times to tamp down the laugh that threatened to bubble up out of her throat.
Barbie eyed each one of them with a disdainful glare before turning back to Harper and smiling warmly. “I have every confidence in you, Ms. Hall.”
Her tone clearly said she had a little less than zero confidence in the rest of them. Which Mischa could understand, since they were all snickering like a bunch of ten-year-olds who’d just heard a fart joke.
When Harper came back in after escorting Barbie to the elevator, she swatted Benny on the back of the head with an open palm. “Christ, Benny, could you have been any less mature?”
“Aw, come on, Harper,” he whined, rubbing the back of his head. “You know you were thinking the same thing.”
She rolled her eyes and motioned for him to move. He jumped off the couch like it was on fire and Harper dropped into the spot he’d vacated with a huge, world-weary sigh.
“Yeah, all right, I get it,” she grumbled. “I practically bit a fucking hole in the side of my mouth to keep from saying the same thing when she introduced herself. How can someone look like that and keep a straight face when she tells people her name is Barbie?”
Mischa handed her the bag of food, which she immediately tore into like a starving raccoon rooting through a garbage can. “I’m sure all the Botox helps her keep a straight face.”
“No Botox,” Harper said around an obscenely huge mouthful of chicken. “She’s a vampire.”
Wow, Mischa’s vampire senses really must suck. She’d had no idea. “What’s the job?”
“Ever hear of that vampire beauty pageant the Vampire Council sponsors every year?”
Mischa hadn’t, but Leon piped up with, “The Miss Eternity Pageant? Isn’t that coming up next week?”
Harper nodded. “It’s supposed to. Barbie is the coordinator, and she’s had two contestants drop out of the competition this week. Miss New York and Miss New Jersey backed out without giving Barbie a reason. Now they can’t be reached. No one, not even family and friends, seem to know where they are.”
Mischa frowned. “Maybe they just decided they didn’t want to prance around in their underwear in front of men judging them on their poise and bra size.”
Leon snorted. “You tell ‘em, Norma Rae.”
“Norma Rae fought for a labor union, not women’s rights, dumbass,” Mischa said.
“Whatevs,” he muttered. “Hashtag bitter lesbian.”
Mischa stood up, a vague idea of tossing Leon out the window taking shape in her mind, but Harper tugged her back down and pointed at Leon with a chicken wing. “No lesbian jokes. If I ever hire a lesbian, I can’t have you getting me sued for creating a hostile work environment. And no verbal hashtagging.”
“Why not?” he asked. “How could anyone sue you for that?”
“They can’t. It just makes you sound like a douchebag and I don’t like it.”
He mulled that over for a moment before nodding and saying, “Fair enough.”
“So if Barbie’s concerned, did she call the cops about her missing contestants?” Mischa asked.
Harper finished off her lunch and propped her feet up on the coffee table in front of the loveseat. “They didn’t want to get involved. Said the women had every right to back out of the competition and that they didn’t really owe anyone an explanation.”
Mischa tended to agree, but obviously Barbie didn’t. “And what is Barbie paying you to do?”
“She’s convinced someone pressured the girls to drop out, but the other contestants aren’t talking. She wants me to put someone in the competition undercover as either Miss New York or Miss New Jersey.”
“Because maybe the girls will talk to one of their own,” Benny added.
Harper nodded. “I’m taking this very seriously. Barbie is convinced someone is out to hurt her girls and sabotage the pageant, which is supposedly a huge money-maker for the state of New York. In fact, I don’t just want to send one girl in. I’m thinking I can add a stage hand of some kind, and at least one other attendant or helper.”
Mischa’s eyes widened. “Wow, Barbie must have an impressive budget.”
Harper tented her fingers like Mr. Burns and smiled a Grinch-y smile. “You have no idea. The Council decided to fund her. They’re not happy about the police blowing the whole thing off. If it turns out that something happened to those women, The Council lawyers will most likely slice and dice the Whispering Hope Police Department, specifically the Vampire Crimes Unit, in court.”
“So who are you sending in, doll?” Benny asked.
Not missing a beat, Harper said, “Well, Mischa, obviously.”
Dead silence greeted her pronouncement, followed by riotous laughter. Leon actually slumped over in his chair, gripping his side while snort-laughing, and Benny almost toppled off the corner of Leon’s desk where he’d chosen to perch when Harper evicted him from the loveseat.
Mischa failed to see the humor at all.
The laughing eventually died down to scattering of guffaws, and Harper grinned at her. “Just kidding, hon. I knew you wouldn’t go for that. Benny, do you think Angela would do it?”
Angela was a young vampire who, for reasons completely foreign to Mischa, seemed to really like Benny. They’d been dating for about three months.
Benny rubbed the back of his neck. “I dunno, Harper. Angela’s kinda pissed at me right now.”
Harper scowled at him. “What did you do, Benny? I like Angela.”
He had the grace to look a little embarrassed as he said, “Let’s just say some girls don’t like it when you ask them to do certain stuff in bed.”
Mischa closed her eyes. Please don’t elaborate. Please don’t elaborate.
“You know,” Benny elaborated, “butt stuff.”
Oh, God.
“Some girls have a strict exit-only policy, Benny,” Harper said, completely straight-faced.
“Yeah. I realize that now.”
Harper rocked to the edge of the loveseat and held out her hands in a queenly gesture everyone had come to recognize as her get-me-the-hell-out-of-this-couch gesture. Benny dutifully jumped up and grabbed one hand, Leon the other, and together they hoisted their pregnant boss off the sofa.
When she was on her feet, Harper blew out an exasperated breath that sent her gold-tipped brown curls flying. One hand automatically moved to cup her belly lovingly.
For the first time that day, Mischa took in Harper’s appearance. She was wearing her standard maternity uniform: a black knee-length skirt that appeared to be made out of yoga-pant material and a black T-shirt (probably one of her husband’s) that stretched across her belly in a way that defied physics. (Fabric just wasn’t meant to stretch at the seams like that without busting.)
Harper glanced down, attempting to peer around her belly. “I’m wearing shoes, aren’t I? I can’t tell anymore.”
If leopard-print flip-flops with wafer-thin soles could be considered shoes, then, yes, Harper was wearing shoes.
Mischa knew better than to tell Harper how cute she looked. The last time she’d said something to that effect, Harper punched her in the arm. Hard. Then, she burst into tears in a fit of pregnancy hormones, which meant that Mischa wasn’t able to hit her back.
“You’re looking good, boss,” she said.
Harper scowled. “I’m looking like I swallowed a fucking beach ball.”
This, too, was a hormonal trap, Mischa realized. If she agreed that Harper was indeed huge, she’d get punched. Then Harper would cry. If Mischa told her she was gorgeous and glowing, she’d be accused of lying, then she’d get punched. And Harper would cry.
Mischa kept her mouth shut as Leon and Benny did the only smart thing and ran for their lives, mumbling excuses about places they had to be.
She was fortunately spared from making any comments as Riddick walked in and dropped a ticket from the police station on Leon’s desk.
&nb
sp; “You got the guy?” Mischa asked.
Riddick grunted. “It wasn’t exactly challenging. He was passed out in his car outside the Rag Tag.”
He made it sound like dragging a three-hundred-pound werewolf to the police station for violating his parole was no big deal.
But then again, for Riddick, a dhampyre (half-human, half-vampire with all the strengths of both races and none of the weaknesses), it probably wasn’t.
Riddick stalked over to Harper and proceeded to kiss her silly. When he stepped back, she licked her lips and gave him a breathless “Hi.”
He grinned down at her, and even though the smile wasn't aimed at Mischa, it still weakened her knees. Made her miss what she’d had with Hunter. What she’d carelessly tossed…
Nope. Don’t go there.
Riddick rested his hand on Harper’s belly and smiled down at her, amused, as she animatedly recounted the visit from Barbie.
And when Harper Hall alldid “animated,” she didn’t half-ass it.
A minute later, Mischa was practically doubled over laughing at Harper’s dead-on impression of Barbie’s voice and overblown, sashaying walk, which looked even more hilarious on a pregnant lady.
After the hilarity died down, Riddick asked, “So, seriously, who are you going to send in undercover?”
Mischa wasn’t sure whether to be glad that no one seemed to think she could do the job, or offended. It wasn’t like she was a troll or anything. There were downsides to being a vampire, but she’d actually never looked better.
Dying had done wonders for her complexion.
Harper shrugged. “I’ll figure something out.” She patted Mischa’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I was just kidding earlier. I wouldn’t make you do it. I know you hate all that beauty pageant shit.”
She did. Every instinct she had told her to keep her mouth shut. To let everything keep thinking she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do the job.
But in her mind’s eye, she saw Violet, smirking at her, looking all smart and professional and…smirk-y.
Mischa squared her shoulders, took a deep breath she didn’t need, and blurted, “I’ll do it. I’ll enter the pageant and find out what happened to the missing contestants.”
Riddick and Harper were silent, expressionless, for a full thirty seconds before finally, Harper asked, “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Mischa Bartone?”
Mischa snorted. “I’m not at all sure. But if I find her, I’ll let you know.”
Chapter Four
As Hunter had expected, a woman was waiting to pick him up when he walked out of the prison.
Just not the woman.
She waited for him just outside the guard station, as a guard signed out the meager possessions he’d entered the prison with. Sixty dollars, the green apple Chapstick Mischa had asked him to pocket for her before their lives fell to shit, a poker chip from the casino where he’d last touched her, seen her smile, listened to her laugh…
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Jesus. He really was a pathetic, depressed fuck.
The door swung open and fresh night air hit his face for the first time in months.
Time to start over.
A faint moan drew his attention to the gate. Napoleon stood, hunched over at the waist, hands clutching his groin, face an odd shade of purple.
Harper Hall leaned casually against the building, watching his approach, arms crossed over her hugely pregnant belly. He raised a brow at her and glanced back at Napoleon.
She shrugged. “He got a little hands-y when he frisked me, so I got a little knees-y with his balls.”
He grinned and shook his head, giving her a mock salute. “My hero.”
He gestured for her to go ahead of him, and they exited the prison together.
Napoleon gurgled something unintelligible and shut the gate behind them. Hunter didn’t really care what the fucker might be trying to say, but he imagined it was directed at Harper, and he couldn’t let that stand.
He stopped and glanced backward. “Oh, by the way. You never bothered to ask what powers I might have. The powers that were muted by the silver bars in my cell?”
Napoleon’s eyes were full of blood as they lifted to Hunter’s.
“I can override free will,” he said, putting every bit of power and malice and threat he had behind the words. “And I don’t need to be anywhere near you to do it.”
Some of the defiance bled out of Napoleon’s expression, but he wisely, for once, kept his mouth shut. Surely even a complete dumbass like Napoleon realized that if Hunter told him to cut out his own heart, he’d be powerless to resist the compulsion.
“Stay away from me and mine,” he added.
There was really no need to say anything else.
But Harper Hall never really let that stop her. “Suck it, fucknut,” she tossed over her shoulder.
On the way to her car, she jerked her chin toward what felt like a huge gash on his cheek. “Get in a fight over whose turn it was to pick up the soap?”
Leave it to Harper to make prison rape jokes with a newly released convict. Nice. He gestured toward her belly. “Been letting your looks go since you got married?”
Her lips curled up and she nodded appreciatively. “Nice.”
Before he could reply, she threw herself at him and squeezed him with every ounce of strength in her five-foot-six frame. If he’d been human, at least three of his ribs would’ve cracked.
He stood motionless in her embrace for a moment, arms hanging loosely at his sides. He hadn’t been touched in almost a year, and he’d kind of gotten used to it. Having someone so close after so long was a little…surreal.
After a moment of internal debate during which he had to actually remind himself how to behave normally, he wrapped his arms around her round body and returned her hug.
She pulled back and punched him in the stomach, putting her full weight—which was more considerable than it had ever been—behind it.
He grunted and rubbed his stomach. “What the hell was that for?”
“For not returning one of my damn letters, you stupid fucker.”
It was true. Harper had written him a letter a week while he was inside. He had read them. Every word. She’d been very careful to include little hints about what he really wanted to know about—or who, to be perfectly honest—without giving away too much. Each letter had been designed to entice him to ask her for more information.
He never did.
What was the point of asking about Mischa? She obviously didn’t want to know how he was doing. After he’d turned her, she’d pushed him away about as far and as fast as possible. For once, he’d let her. Now they were so far apart, he knew it’d be nearly impossible for them to find their way back to one another. Time to accept that and move on.
“I’m sorry about not returning your letters, Harper.”
She snorted, unlocking the passenger door for him before making her way around the car and settling into the driver’s seat. “Whatever.”
He watched, half bemused and half amused as she waged war with her seatbelt, which didn’t seem to want to stretch over the full girth of her stomach. After a full minute of cursing, grunting, and wiggling in her seat, she managed to beat the offending seatbelt into submission and started the car.
She blew a curl off her forehead and shot him a dark look out of the corner of her eye. “Laugh and I’ll stake you.”
He swallowed a smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She stayed quiet for a full five minutes as they drove— which he imagined was a personal best for Harper—before she blurted out, “Aren’t you even curious how she’s doing?”
He sighed. Curious didn’t even begin to cover it. Letting her go had cost him a piece of whatever soul he had left after all the centuries he’d been stalking the earth. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t force her to love him the way he loved her.
“I’m sure you’re taking good care of her,” he said mildly.
Ha
rper grumbled under her breath about stubborn dumbasses and relationship-phobes before saying, “Of course I am. We all are. But that’s hardly the point. Do you even know what the point is?”
She paused long enough for him to mutter, “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Harper didn’t miss a beat. “The point is that she struggles every damn day with what she is and how to function as a vampire. You know she blacked out the whole city during The Walking Dead, right? Someone cut her off in traffic, she got frustrated, lost control of her power, and I missed the season finale.”
How Harper had managed to make this about her, he had no idea, but his stomach churned at the thought of Mischa struggling to accept what she’d become. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d transfer any of his powers to her, either. Damn it. No wonder she hated him.
“She’s letting the neighbor keep her dog—and she loves that fucking dog—because she’s afraid she’ll hurt the damn thing in some of bloodlust stupor, and I even caught her researching vampire power suppressants online one time.”
He stiffened. That shit wasn’t anything to joke about. The government only used vampire power suppressants with the most dangerous vampires when no other options were available. The side effects of such drugs were too unpredictable. Too deadly.
Besides, a vampire’s powers were…elemental. Part of the fabric that held them together. If she couldn’t accept what she was and learn to integrate her powers into her life, she’d eventually go mad.
“And even though she has me and Riddick and Leon and Benny and Dr. Vi,” she went on, “She doesn’t have anyone who really gets her, you know?”
She sniffled and swiped a hand under her nose impatiently. “It’s just sad that you two can’t forget the past and start fresh.”
He glanced over at Harper as a horrible realization dawned. “You’re not…crying, are you?”
Harper shook her head, but her trembling lower lip and shiny eyes gave her away. “Shit,” he grumbled.
“It’s fine,” she let out on a shaky wail. “The stupid pregnancy hormones make me e-e-emotional sometimes.”
Sweet Christ, Harper’s moods were a little mercurial on a good day. But with the added hormones? He could only imagine how Riddick must be suffering.
Semi-Twisted: Page 3
