The kid was a ticking time bomb.
All it would take is one of them making a mistake.
All it would take is Tai losing control.
Tai could kill Wynter easily, which would be awful for the kid, but a fuck of a lot more awful for Wynter… and for Nick.
Tai tugged on his hand, pulling Nick’s eyes down to hers.
“We’re not experimenting like that,” she told him, speaking aloud. “I’m not… doing that. Not around her. We’ve been looking at the structures. The pieces of me that actually do that thing, and what they connect to, how the whole thing works. We’ve been looking at why I need to do it. The biology, maybe? I guess it’s kind of like biology…”
She frowned, clearly thinking about how her seer’s light fit into the idea of biology as it was being taught to her in school.
“Anyhow,” she said, her brow clearing slightly. “I don’t do that around her. I told her it wouldn’t be safe. She agreed.”
Nick nodded, relaxing slightly.
That faint frown never left his lips.
But they’d reached the small alcove where Wynter’s office door lived.
Nick glanced to his left, looking for her secretary at the small desk by the Victorian-style window that overlooked the lawns. The desk was empty, though; Wynter’s secretary wasn’t even there. She must have gone home for the day.
Why was Wynter still here? Why didn’t she go home, too?
“We’ll leave you alone,” Tai told him, releasing his hand. “She’s inside. I need to talk to my brother, anyway.”
Nick turned, watching Tai back away in bewilderment.
“Wait. What? No… we all need to talk about this. I have to go back to the city. If your brother only brought me up here to keep me away from that banquet––”
“We won’t go far,” Malek interrupted.
Nick turned to stare at the tall seer, who reached out, taking his sister’s hand now that Nick no longer held it.
“Call Tai,” Malek said, tapping his temple, and not reacting to whatever he saw on Nick’s face. “We’ll come back. We can all talk then.”
Nick opened his mouth, about to protest again––
But they were already walking away.
He stood there, watching both seers head back for the staircase, treading near-silently back down the stone-tile corridor.
Exhaling a breath he didn’t need, he faced the door marked PRINCIPAL in brass letters, reaching for the handle without letting himself think.
Chapter 20
The Phone Call
He didn’t get a chance to open it.
The door jerked inward as he reached for it, causing him to tense, without removing his hand or arm from where they were outstretched, his fingers just about to kiss the metal.
He just stood there, finding himself face-to-face with Wynter, who pulled up, staring at him in shock.
He had those few seconds to look at her.
Her blue-green eyes shone at him, the color always reminding him of jeweled peacock feathers, wider than usual as she took in the reality of him standing there. Her delicate jaw was firm, like she’d been in the middle of some serious thought, or perhaps fighting through some complex, difficult-to-solve problem in her head.
He could smell her.
That smell immediately ignited the predator instinct in him, even as it brought up a flood of hotter, more complicated emotions and wants.
His eyes flickered to her hair, and he saw she’d changed it again slightly. It was still thick and black, and longer than it had been when he first met her, but sky blue accented that black now, along with a sharper shade of orange-gold.
The combination was a new one for her… and it worked so well with her eyes he stared at her all over again, his gaze flickering from her irises to the hair color to her skin.
He saw the exact instant his presence sank in for her.
He saw the tiny change in her eyes, the faint crinkle that brought a smile there, that seemed to wash out a whole layer of whatever tension she’d been carrying.
Gaos. She was happy to see him.
He felt paralyzed still.
Happy seemed such an inadequate word, for what he felt seeing her.
It was closer to relief. It was closer to an exhaled breath.
That mixed with an odd restlessness and anxiety that he realized was the nagging knowledge that he wasn’t staying, that he would have to leave tonight, likely that afternoon. The realization that he was only here for a short while twisted something in that relief, making him worried about leaving her even though he’d only just set eyes on her.
He was still staring at her.
His eyes slid down the dark blue dress she wore, one he didn’t recognize, that cut in at her waist in interesting geometrical shapes that drew his eyes, fascinating some part of his mind. It accentuated her small waist, even as slid down her hips and belly, cut conservatively at her calves, yet still somehow flaring his possessiveness when he realized how visible her figure was through it.
Similarly, the top part of the dress wasn’t low-cut, far from it, but it hugged every curve there, too, making him want to pull at the fabric, tug it down over her shoulder to see how stretchy it was, how much of her skin he could expose to his teeth.
He wondered if she still had bite marks from––
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
Nick’s eyes flickered to hers.
She was smiling at him, a faint amusement tugging at her lips.
When he continued to look at her, she leaned against the door, turning the length of her body into a long S-curve that somehow elongated everything, making the dress tighten around her in ways his vampire eyes followed in minute detail.
“Gaos,” he muttered, barely noticing he’d spoken aloud.
He couldn’t help thinking, not for the first time, if he’d had a teacher like her as a kid, he would have failed all his classes. He also would’ve gotten in trouble every chance he could, in the hopes they’d send him to her office.
She laughed for real that time.
Pushing at his chest, she slid backwards, twisting behind the heavy wood door and peering past it to grin at him.
“Are you coming in?” she said. “Or not?”
He followed her in.
He was already moving more like a vampire.
Standing just inside the door as she slid around him to close and lock it, he didn’t move, but followed her with his eyes as she walked back around him, skirting where he stood like he was a particularly large and oddly-placed piece of furniture.
He continued to follow her with his eyes as she headed back to her desk.
He thought she would sit in the leather swivel chair there, but she didn’t.
She perched on the edge of the desk instead, right next to the fish tank filled with live plants and bright goldfish that swam through the thick green water to peer out the glass. An ornate knife he’d still never asked her about sat on the desk next to a round crystal, both of them displayed on a black, wrought-iron stand. He glanced up the walls of her personal witch’s tower, again marveling at all the paper books lining the shelves.
He hadn’t thought to ask her if she owned all of those, either.
He didn’t ask her enough questions.
He still didn’t know nearly enough about her.
Somehow, that brought a twinge of pain to his chest, too.
“Well?” she said, still smiling at him bemusedly as she swung a foot and leg. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
When he didn’t move, she laughed again.
“Are you going to speak at all, Nick?” she said, still swinging that foot and leg.
He found himself noticing her shoes, which were the same blue as her dress, and at least three inches high, with flickers of AR in the beaded sides that made them look vaguely underwater, drawing his eyes back to the fish tank.
He tried to decide how to explain how he ended up here.
In the end he walked up to her instead.
He reached her and her leg and foot stopped swinging.
He stepped deliberately between her legs where they hung down from the edge of the desk, and used his body to push them wider. His hands and fingers reached out cautiously, stroking the dress the way he’d wanted to since he first saw her in it.
The fabric was stretchy.
It was also smooth and cool as silk, and clung to her like a second skin. He felt his body reacting already and forced his eyes up to hers.
“Did you miss me?” she said, still smiling.
“Yes,” he said, gruff.
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“But you don’t return my calls?”
He grimaced, brought briefly back to earth by the memory of what he’d been doing for the last twenty-four hours.
“Ouch,” she said, observing his face. “Hey. That was a joke.”
He looked back at her, realizing only then that he’d looked away. She took his hand when he let it drop from where he’d been stroking her side. Curling her fingers into his, she brought it back to her hip, tugging on him with her light in a way he could tangibly feel.
His tongue thickened, even as he remembered Ana Nuñez, the look on her face as she hung from that ceiling.
That brought him back to Morley, to the look on his face when he’d said he couldn’t let this thing go.
He winced again, almost without realizing he’d done it.
Wynter wrapped her legs around him, pulling him up against her.
Immediately, his fangs extended, even as he let her pull him close.
Still gripping him in her legs, she twisted around behind her, opening a drawer in her antique wooden desk and pulling something out, something that clanged lightly, telling his ears it was metal before she twisted sensually back around and held it up in front of him.
“I’m pretty sure this is a good day for these,” she said, her thumb hooked around one of the round circlets of the organic handcuffs. “You look like you need it, Nick. Badly.”
He grimaced a second time, pulling away.
“We should talk, Wynter,” he said, reluctant. His eyes flickered to the cuffs, then back to her face. “Trust me. I’d rather not talk. I’d rather just––”
“Then don’t,” she said, still holding up the cuffs with one thumb. “Or talk to me after.”
“We don’t have time. I have to go back. To the city. Pretty much now.”
She didn’t answer right away.
He watched out of the corner of his eye as she lowered the cuffs, still hooked around her thumb, letting them land with a dull clunk on the wooden desk. His eyes flickered back towards hers warily when she still hadn’t answered, and he saw her frowning faintly, as if thinking.
She didn’t look mad, at least.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, either.
He kind of wanted her to be as disappointed as he was by that idea.
He considered asking her to come back with him. Then he remembered why Malek brought him up here in the first place. He’d brought him up here to save his life.
New York was the last place he should bring Wynter right now.
“Wow,” she said, letting out a low snort. “You’re really tongue-tied. What the hell is going on, Nick? Are you going to tell me?”
He exhaled at that, knowing he didn’t need to do it with her, but doing it out of habit anyway. Forcing his eyes back to hers, he fought with what to say.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he said finally. “It’s this fucking case… and I don’t even know enough to make a coherent narrative around it. Everyone’s lying, or only telling me bits and pieces––”
“Tell me the basics,” she said.
Releasing him with her legs, she leaned back on the desk, planting her palms between a deck of old-looking, hand-painted cards that Nick figured must be a Tarot deck, and a bowl full of different-colored stones and crystals on one side, and on the other side, between a stack of papers and a small perpetual motion machine he remembered noticing the first time he met her inside this room.
She really was the Principal who was really a witch.
“Nick?” she prodded. “Just start talking. You clearly need to talk about this.”
He frowned, glancing away from her hands and back to her face.
Thinking about her words, he nodded, once.
She might be right.
She was usually right.
He started to talk.
He wasn’t even looking at her at first.
He wasn’t entirely sure he was talking to her at first, or talking at her, thinking out loud, trying to put the pieces together in his head. He seemed to talk in a circle, telling her first about Morley and Ana Nuñez, then about how they found Ana, then about Morley and the White Death. He told her about the security guard embedded in the ceiling, the human cop in the vault wall, how he’d looked when the A.I. finally expelled him onto the floor.
His bizarre conversation with St. Maarten.
The jungle. How he’d found St. Maarten.
Her tacky hooker-wear.
Malek talking him into coming up here, Malek’s painting, seeing Tai for the first time in weeks, the banquet for Midnights, Malek confessing he’d brought him up here to keep Nick away from that banquet, his conversation with Jordan.
Wynter didn’t interrupt him.
She didn’t look away from his face.
He glanced at her, here and there, and found her listening intently, a faint scrutiny visible at her lips and eyes, a tightness that told him she was taking in every word, even as she’d gone back to kicking at the side of the desk lightly with her heel.
When he finished, she exhaled, fingering the hair out of her face.
Planting her palms back on the desk, she just observed him for a few seconds more.
Then she wrapped her legs back around his waist, tugging him closer.
“You’re not going to that banquet,” she informed him, once he was flush with her again.
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Aren’t I?”
“No. You’re not.” She paused, tilting her head to study his face. “You want me to call Gavin?”
There was a pause where he didn’t quite hear her.
Then Nick scowled.
Feeling his jaw harden, more the longer he stood there, he avoided her eyes. When the pause stretched, he realized she wouldn’t speak, not until he did.
“You have that piece of shit’s number?” he growled, low.
“Yes,” she said, matter of fact. “I used to work for him, Nick. So, yes. It’s still on my queue. They don’t erase those. You know that.”
He clenched his jaw again, feeling his fangs extending.
He forced himself to think about her offer… to think about it objectively.
He really should let her call.
Not only would Gavin Kingsworth, Governor of New York, potentially listen to Wynter, at the very least, he would likely fill her in on whether the banquet was happening. It might be their only chance of stopping this thing. It might give Nick a better idea as to whether he should head back to New York, or let Archangel, Morley and Jordan handle this.
Then again, Gavin Kingsworth was a perv with a hybrid-fetish who already tried to blackmail Wynter into sleeping with him. He’d more or less forced her to quit her job on his staff, and relocate up here.
“Yes,” he said, his voice a harder growl.
She uncoiled her legs from around him, pushing herself backwards on the desk with her hands. Twisting around, she reached behind her, past another stack of papers, fumbling a dark green headset off the wooden table by the fish tank.
Nick had almost forgotten what it was like for regular people––people who didn’t have to wear their damned headsets all the time.
He watched her fit it over her ear, without moving away from her. He stayed where he was, standing between her legs, as her gaze shifted
inward, as a tiny line formed at the edge of her lips as she concentrated.
He didn’t fully realize she’d already activated the link until she spoke.
“Governor Kingsworth?” she said. “Governor, sir, this is Wynter James…” Her eyes flickered briefly to Nick, narrowed. “Yes. Yes, that Wynter James. I’m so sorry to bother you on your personal line. I wouldn’t have done so, if it wasn’t urgent…”
There was a silence.
Kingsworth must have interrupted her.
Nick’s scowl deepened as he watched Wynter listen.
Without consciously making the decision, he found himself trying to read her face.
She didn’t look upset by whatever she was hearing.
She didn’t look angry, or annoyed, or impatient, or friendly, or even fully indifferent. Her expression bordered on clinical, as if she listened not just to his words, but to what the spaces meant around each and every one of those words.
“It’s fine,” she said after another beat. “I promise you… this isn’t about that. It’s water under the bridge. Completely.”
Another silence.
She let out a light, easy laugh.
Nick had never heard that laugh before.
It wasn’t exactly insincere, but it was definitely formal in some way he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Governor,” she said, sounding like she was interrupting him. “Sir…” A pause. “…Okay, Gavin. Really. There’s no need to apologize. I’m quite happy in my new position. At some point I might have an interest in returning to the legal profession, but for now––”
She paused again.
“Well, I appreciate that, sir… Gavin. I really do.”
Nick felt himself bristle.
Was that fucker hitting on her? Again?
Apparently, Kingsworth still hadn’t quite gotten the memo on why Wynter left, or why she’d gone to his ex-wife instead of to him.
Or… let’s face it… he just didn’t give a shit.
Wynter’s eyes darted to his. Without moving her gaze, she held up a hand, as if holding off whatever she saw in Nick’s face.
Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4) Page 18