Fang & Metal: A Science Fiction Vampire Detective Novel (Vampire Detective Midnight Book 4)

by JC Andrijeski

  “No, really… Governor… Gavin. It’s completely fine. I’m actually calling about something else. Something important. It couldn’t wait…”

  She paused again.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s correct.” Her eyes flickered directly to Nick’s. “Yes. He’s right here with me, in fact.” She paused again. “The Northeastern Protected Area. Yes. We’re at the school––”

  Another pause.

  “––Well, he didn’t ask, actually,” Wynter cut in. “I offered. But yes, I’m calling for him. He’s concerned for your safety…”

  There was another silence.

  “…Yes,” she affirmed, nodding once, her eyes flickering to Nick’s. “Yes, that’s right. It’s about the banquet tonight. After what he told me, I thought you should be informed right away. Nick’s boss was going to speak to his Lieutenant, too…”

  There was another silence.

  Again, Wynter glanced at Nick.

  “Okay,” she said, still watching Nick’s face. “I thought it would be easier to have him explain it, but––” He must have cut her off again. “Okay, sure. Yes. I can give you the basics. If you have any follow-up questions, I can put him on…”

  Nick stood there, his teeth grinding.

  He listened to Wynter try to summarize for Gavin-fucking-Kingsworth everything he’d just told her. He had to admit, she did a better, more succinct, and more convincing job than he would have done. She managed to talk around the prescient issue in a way that didn’t even sound that weird, mentioning someone who “worked for St. Maarten” who had reliable-seeming information about “a possible terrorist attack” on the banquet that night, using “some kind of illegal tech.”

  Nick heard the Governor interrupt her a few times.

  Then there was a pause, where Wynter was either listening or waiting.

  Nick got the feeling she was waiting.

  Then something in her face incrementally relaxed.

  “That would be great. Yes. That was it… that was all I wanted to tell you. Detective Midnight Tanaka just wanted someone in a position of authority to know…”

  Wynter paused again, her lips growing slightly taut.

  “…Okay, yes,” she said. “I’ll let him know. If you need to talk to either of us again, just give me a call. Yes. This same headset ID. It’s my personal one.”

  Nick felt his jaw clench.

  “Okay, thanks,” she said, her eyes rising back to Nick’s. “Really appreciate it, Governor… Gavin. We both really appreciate it.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help it.

  Seeing her notice––well, really feeling her notice––he wiped the anger, even the more annoyed reactions off his face.

  He didn’t know why he bothered.

  Seeing the humor in her eyes as she glanced over his expression, he felt that pain in his chest worsen. She didn’t take her eyes off his as she reached up, pulling the headset off her ear, laying the organic coil on top of her desk.

  She still had that humor in her eyes.

  “Well?” she said, after a long-feeling beat, quirking an eyebrow at him. “What should we do now, Nick?”

  Chapter 21

  Bad Man

  She didn’t lower her eyes after she spoke.

  When she didn’t say anything more, didn’t tell him shit about what that fucker said to her, Nick stepped deeper into the space between her legs, catching hold of her hips. He yanked her flush with him, frowning down into her face, which was now only an inch from his.

  He focused on her eyes, on the humor there.

  He focused on the line of her jaw, the curve of her neck.

  He wanted to pull at the dress again.

  He wanted to yank it off her shoulders.

  “Well?” he growled softly. “Are you going to tell me anything? Or are you just going to smirk at me… making me want to handcuff you to this goddamned desk?”

  Her smile slid wider.

  “He said he’ll handle it,” she said, her lips twitching humorously.

  “He’ll handle it?” Nick said, frowning. “What the fuck does that mean? Is he going to cancel the banquet? Or not?”

  She continued to study his eyes. “He didn’t tell me that, Nick.”

  Nick scowled. “So? Are you going to pretend you didn’t read him?”

  She blinked, then laughed, pushing at his chest.

  “Wynter.” His voice went back to gruff when she coiled her legs around him, pulling him closer. “Do I have to go back to New York, or not?”

  Her eyes hardened, losing their humor abruptly.

  “You’re not going back to New York, Nick,” she said. “I already said that.”

  When he averted his gaze, she gripped his arms in her hands, yanking him closer.

  “Did you think I was kidding?” she said, sharper. “Mal brought you up here because he painted something that suggested you were going to die if you were at that banquet. Did you seriously think I was going to let you leave, given that?”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Wynter. I’m a cop––”

  “––A cop who would never let me go to something like that in a million years,” she cut in. “Nick. Are you serious, right now? You’re not going. Even Jordie said you should stay up here. He more or less ordered you to stay.”

  “Because of a damned painting?”

  “When have Mal’s paintings ever been wrong?”

  Remembering his conversation with the prescient seer, when he more or less asked Nick the same question, Nick scowled.

  “You’re bossy,” he informed her, his voice back to gruff.

  “So’re you,” she retorted. “And I thought we talked about this, Nick. You brought it up, as I recall. You made this particular rule. We both get a vote. Right? Didn’t you say that? You said you wanted a vote before I did something crazy, something that definitely put my life in danger. You also said the veto-vote-thing was mutual.”

  Nick felt his fangs extend, even as he hardened his jaw.

  “We were talking, Wynter,” he said. “Post-fucking talking, as I recall. I was feeling over-protective. I didn’t mean I would actually impede your free will.” He met her gaze, focusing on those blue-green, jewel-colored eyes. “…or your ability to do your job.”

  “I’m a school principal. It’s not exactly the same.”

  “Exactly,” he growled. “You can’t protect me from my job, Wynter. It’s part of dating a cop. It’s a package deal.”

  “It’s also the main reason cops get divorced, Nick.”

  Nick felt his chest clench.

  He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

  He made himself shrug.

  “True,” he said, making his voice neutral. “You trying to tell me something?”

  Her lips pursed. He could almost see her desire to tell him to fuck off. He could definitely see her mentally blowing off his words about going back to New York. He saw all of that, along with a few things he couldn’t read, right before her expression changed. It flickered behind her eyes in a packed whisper… then she averted her gaze.

  Picking up the cuffs, she let them swing again.

  “Are you going to let me use these on you?” she said. “Or not?”

  He felt his fangs extend more, even as that pain in his chest worsened.

  He watched her eyes, the denser scrutiny there, even as he glanced at the clock inside his headset. Five hours. That damned banquet was in five hours.

  But she seemed to pick up on that, too.

  “There’s nothing more you can do, Nick.” she said flatly. “You’ve done everything you can do. Right? What else can you do, exactly?”

  Nick thought about that.

  She wasn’t exactly wrong.

  He glanced at the handcuffs.

  “Okay,” he said. “But not with those.” He motioned with his jaw towards the cuffs. “I really might have to go back to New York. If you use those on me, I’ll end up breaking your desk chair, getting them off.�
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  When she frowned, he added,

  “And I have to keep my headset on.”

  “No,” she said, eyes flat.

  “Yes,” he said. “Kit could call. Or Jordie. I can’t go dark. Not right now.”

  Her frown deepened.

  Seeing the anger building behind her eyes, he growled, “I’m a cop, Wynter. I can’t just blow this shit off entirely. Kit might find something on one of Archangel’s employees… or St. Maarten might. Jordan was supposed to call me back after he talked to Morley.”

  Wynter rolled her eyes, letting her hand fall, letting the cuffs drop back to the wooden desk with a clunk.

  “Fine,” she said. “But you’re going to feed on me.”

  Pain rippled through him before his mind caught up with her words.

  Nick’s tongue thickened.

  She must have noticed something in his face, because she smiled.

  “You have to keep up your strength, after all,” she said innocently.

  He just stood there for a second, looking at her.

  Then she unwound her legs from around him.

  He just stood there until she pushed him where she wanted him, prodding him with her hands and thigh towards the antique chair behind her desk. He followed the direction of her prod, feeling a denser heat building in his blood. That heat worsened as he relaxed his mind enough to let himself go there.

  Like everything with her, it felt like it had been too long.

  It felt like it had been way, way too long.

  “What about the kid?” he said, gruff, his last feeble protest as he sank into her real-leather and wood chair.

  He looked up at her.

  “They’ll come back here. I only told them to scram for a few minutes.”

  “I locked the door,” she said.

  She walked casually around to him, surveying him with those jewel-like eyes. He watched her blow a few strands of hair out of her face, right before she leaned down, planting her palms on the chair’s arms. Ignoring Nick himself, and his bulk swallowing the leather chair, she pushed the whole thing backwards on its old-fashioned rollers until the chair’s back met the wall.

  “…They won’t come back until I call them,” she said, straightening. “I just told Mal to leave us alone.”

  “You’re a bad woman,” he muttered, looking up at her.

  She didn’t answer.

  Leaning down, she started yanking down his jacket, pulling it off his shoulders, forcing him to sit up, to help her. She got it off his arms, pulled it from around his back, and tossed it on the edge of the desk.

  His eyes followed where it landed.

  He watched her kneel in front of him, conscious again that she was annoyed with him for not letting her use the cuffs. He couldn’t read her mind, not the way she could with him, but it still disturbed him how real it felt… the things he picked up off her, just from being this close to her. Every time, he wanted to ask her.

  He wanted to know if he was just making this shit up in his head.

  He wanted to know how real it was.

  “Real enough,” she murmured, reaching for his belt.

  He shifted in the deep chair, fighting another stab of pain.

  He watched her face, those amazing fucking lips, the delicate line of her jaw, those strangely colored, light-filled eyes.

  Briefly, he saw a flash of pale green there––

  He shoved it back angrily.

  He watched her finish unbuckling his belt.

  “You could hear me for real, you know,” she murmured, looking up at him as she undid his pants, yanking them down past the seat of the chair.

  Again, he shifted his weight up, moving his body to help her.

  “…I know you want to bite me,” she added, yanking them down his ankles along with his underwear, leaving him naked from the waist down. “Why don’t you just do it? Why do you always beat yourself up for it, like some kind of 18th Century monk?”

  He shifted his weight again, first to rearrange his body now that she’d removed his pants, then with an unconscious wince as he took in her words, as her fingers started massaging his thighs, pushing them apart so she could insert herself between them.

  Fuck. He did want to bite her.

  He’d wanted to bite her since she opened that door.

  When her hand wrapped around his cock, he let out a low sound.

  He tensed, jerking as he gripped one of the chair’s arms. His other hand caught hold of her hair in the same movement. Then he gave in. He released her hair, grabbing her free hand and wrist and pulling her arm up to his mouth.

  He sank his fangs into her.

  Unlike how he usually did it, unlike what she’d said, about him beating himself up, about him waiting… he just fucking bit her. He skipped the foreplay, the usual pre-biting whatever, and just bit her, even as a flash of guilt hit him, making him realize he hadn’t even kissed her yet. A surge of even more intense craving hit him, one that felt more complex, one that worsened as the first drop of her blood hit his tongue.

  He drank, cautiously, even as the smell and taste of her blood instantly had him so hard, he could barely think straight.

  Then she put her mouth on him.

  “Gaos.”

  It came out as a groan.

  He unhooked his fangs, kissing the bloody mark there, even as he licked venom over it, so the cut would close. He groaned again before he’d finished, arching up against her mouth before he could stop himself.

  She gripped his thighs, forcing him back into the chair.

  He didn’t fight her.

  His head tilted back, even as her mind grew audible to him through the blood.

  …really wanted to use the damned cuffs on him… see him lose his shit for real, not be able to do a damned thing about it… stubborn, control-freak bastard…

  He let out a gasping kind of laugh.

  His hand fisted in her hair as his eyes closed, as he angled up sensually against her.

  …got them made special… custom-made… he heard her mind mutter.

  Did you? he thought at her. Tell me.

  They’re supposed to hold vampires, she sent. They were made to hold vampires. That means you can’t break them, Nick. That means you have to fucking ask. That means you have to ask for what you want… maybe even talk me into it…

  That pain in his chest sharpened.

  He let out another low groan, but managed to keep his thoughts even.

  Not much good if I rip your chair apart, he observed.

  Not for the chair, she sent. I got organics put into the bed. At home, she clarified. I can actually cuff you there. For real. I can cuff you and you can’t get away. Vampire-proof. All of it… and believe me, we’re going to use it, Nick…

  Pain rippled through him, so sharp, so unexpected, he let out another choked sound, his hand clenching harder in her hair.

  You need help, she finished in a retort. You’ve got control issues, and trust issues… and a million other issues I think we need to work through, one by one, by fucking excessively…

  He let out a gasping laugh, gripping her hair tighter.

  Pain stabbed into his chest.

  He didn’t know if it was his.

  He didn’t know if it was hers.

  He wasn’t supposed to get pain. That was a seer thing… not a vampire thing.

  He didn’t understand the pain thing at all.

  He didn’t understand.

  He’d never felt anything like it before––

  Briefly, that pain worsened.

  Bullshit, his mind murmured. You do understand. And you have… you have felt this. You know this…

  Wynter stopped.

  Something in her mind stopped even before she stopped what she was doing to him physically.

  Taking her mouth off him slowly, sensually, she looked up at him, her green-blue eyes clouded, pain etched into her features, into the set of her mouth. Just looking at her, seeing that expression on his face, made
the pain about a hundred times worse, half-blinding him. When his vision cleared, she was still looking at him, and he felt that pain keen upwards again…

  He still didn’t know.

  He still had no idea if it was hers or his.

  I knew it, Wynter sent him through her blood. I fucking knew it. Such a goddamned liar… such a goddamned liar. It’s that seer, the one you told me about, the one you were with before. The one you fell in love with––

  “Wynter,” he growled. “No.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Wynter––”

  “Go ahead,” she said, gripping his cock tighter in her hand. “Deny it. Deny what I just heard, Nick. Tell me I didn’t really hear it.”

  A flicker of that pain and hurt reached her voice.

  It wasn’t all sex pain that time.

  His reaction to that wasn’t exactly rational either.

  Instead of wanting to comfort her like a normal fucking person, he wanted to bite her again. He wanted to grip her hair, push her over that desk, fuck her until he felt her open to him, until he could feel every increment of that pain, the grief that wound into it.

  He wanted her to share it with him.

  He wanted her to show him all of it.

  The whole thing felt like some frustrated, unchanneled… need. He fucking needed with her. He felt the vampire in him urge it on, even as the more human part of Nick recoiled at how it manifested. He felt the seer part of her egging him on, too.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, gasping as she put her mouth on him again. “I’m sorry…”

  Fuck you, she thought at him angrily. God, Nick… shut up. Why would I want to hear “sorry”? Why the hell would I want to hear “sorry” when you finally let slip the slightest bit of truth about something important about you––?

  No, he sent, gasping. No. It’s not true.

  Liar. Fucking liar, Nick. You’re such a liar…

  He tugged her arm back up to his mouth.

  He bit her again, higher up on her forearm. Guilt flashed at him as he realized he should be biting her somewhere easier to hide, but he forgot that, too, when she let out a moan over his cock, pulling on him harder with that damned seer’s light of hers.

  Something about the combination of that and having his fangs in her had his eyes rolling back into his head. He fought to think through it as she moaned, still kissing his cock. He was back to drinking from her then, harder that time… hard enough he knew he had to stop soon.