by Lily Luchesi
Skin Deep
(Paranormal Detectives Book Six)
By Lily Luchesi
The right of Lily Luchesi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, items, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Rue Volley
Edited by Elizabeth A. Lance
Published by Vamptasy Publishing
Copyright © 2018 Lily Luchesi
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means without written permission of the author.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Also by Lily Luchesi
The Paranormal Detectives Series:
Stake-Out
Miranda’s Rights
Life Sentence
Right To Silence
Last Rites
Never Again (standalone spin-off)
Skin Deep
Day of Execution (January 1st, 2019)
Paroled From Heaven (summer 2019)
The Coven Series:
The Coven Princess
The Coven Heir (October 5th, 2018)
The Coven Queen (coming 2019)
The Coven History (coming soon)
The Devil’s Kin Trilogy:
Finding Faith (August 27th, 2019)
Standalones:
A Bloody Legacy (18+)
The Hunger Within (18+)
Bad Reputation
Bloodspell (18+, August 10th, 2018)
Soul Syndicate (coming November 14th, 2018; co-written with Faith Marlow)
Screams In The Dark (March 29th, 2019)
A Decade of Patience (December 6th, 2019)
Anthologies:
Damsels Of Distress
Naughty Bedtime Stories: In Three Words (18+)
Naughty Bedtime Stories: Four You (18+)
Death Love Lust (18+)
Lurking In The Shadows
Beautiful Nightmares
Lurking In The Mind
Weirdbook Magazine #35
Black Magic
Demons, Devils, Denizens of Hell
Praise for Lily Luchesi’s Paranormal Detectives Series
Lily Luchesi’s Paranormal Detective series has it all; action, mystery, mayhem, heart and a compelling cast. Each book is entertaining and emotional, filled with a delicious blend of darkness, sass and salvation. - The Adventures of SacaKat
Pure sexy action adventure. If you like your heroine's sassy, sexy, and tough and your stories packed with hard hitting, badass action, then The Paranormal Detective series is just what you’re looking for. An exciting ride that gets better with each new book. - Danetta Sutton
Absolute HORROR. Heart wrenching ROMANCE. Gritty ACTION. The Paranormal Detective series has it all. Fall into a world with deadly creatures, complex characters, and a kickass heroine who isn’t afraid to bare her fangs! You’ll flinch, you’ll cry, and your heart will swell with unimaginable emotion with every passing installment. Luchesi sure knows how to pack a punch and ignite an addiction for a tale that explores the thin line that exists between honoring one’s humanity and resisting the urge to give into a monstrous heritage. - Knightingale Reviews
The Paranormal Detectives Series is a gripping, real, and action-packed paranormal ride that will keep you coming back for more! - Charity Rowell at On My Kindle Book Reviews
Forget Underworld and Twilight, this is the modern day vampire series that you're craving!
Luchesi perfectly constructs a world where vampires and other beings exist among us, it's True Blood meets Supernatural and you won't be able to put this series down! - A. Giacomi, Authoress of The Zombie Girl Saga
The Paranormal Detective Series by Lily Luchesi blew me away. Every time I thought I had a scene figured out, she threw me a curve ball. Lily left no paranormal stone unturned. The amount of research and pure literary genius that went into these books is insane. I laughed, I held my breath and at times of frustration, I almost cried. But throughout the read, I found it hard to put the books down. I highly recommend this series to all lovers of paranormal literature. - TL Travis, author of The Sebastian Chronicles
Dedication
To my Vamplets, for keeping this series alive.
Playlist
As always, music helped my journey to getting this book to completion. Enjoy this music selection and I hope it enhances your reading experience as much as it enhanced my writing experience!
“Everybody’s Fool” by Evanescence
“Mama, I’m Coming Home” by Ozzy Osbourne
“What You Want” by Evanescence
“Indestructible” by Disturbed
“The Spy in the Cab” by Bauhaus
“Ghost of Days Gone By” by Alter Bridge
“Sacrifice” by Disturbed
“Lies Greed Misery” by Linkin Park
“If You Only Knew” by Shinedown
“Stay Til The Daylight” by Skillet
“Surfacing” by Slipknot
“The Game” by Disturbed
“Undefeated” by Skillet
“Lego House” by Ed Sheeran
Prologue
PID HQ
Chicago, IL
September 2010
“You really won’t take the director job back?” Frederic Dominic asked Angelica Cross as she sat across his desk from him.
She shook her head, long black hair brushing her chest with every movement. “I like fieldwork, and being in charge doesn’t leave much room for fun. Why? What is the case you’re going to assign me? It has to be bad, if you’re subtly asking me not to take it.”
Frederic pushed a file across the desk to her and she opened it up. “Vamp on vamp. Interesting. We don’t see much of that.”
“Not until recently,” the director said. “Originally, we thought it was one of ours who was killing the rogue vamps and shifters, a few each month. But the vamp was spotted by another one of our employees, and I’ve shown the photo in there around the offices: none of our guys have ever seen her before.”
Angelica flipped the page to see a beautiful vampire staring up at her from a photo. It was taken from a crappy store security camera, so it was in black and white and grainy, but there was no denying she was gorgeous, and was covered in blood.
“Have you run facial recognition?” Angelica asked.
Frederic nodded. “I have. She’s a New York transplant, first showed up here four years ago. Never had any trouble with us prior. Her name is Scarlette St. James.”
Angelica went over the file. No definite age listed, didn’t seem to have an occupation yet lived in a high-rise not far from the PID. Frequent visitor to one of Angelica’s clubs: Poison Pleasures. Angelica owned many businesses around the world, usually bars and venues where paranormal creatures could have a bite (literally) or hang out without fear of discovery or persecution. This club catered to more of the risqué clients, hence the name. A bar, dance floor, and numerous pleasure rooms made up the small club righ
t there in downtown Chicago.
“Any word on who she’s killing? Is there a pattern?” Angelica asked. That was not listed in the file.
Frederic heaved a sigh. “That’s the thing: these are rogues on our wanted radar. She’s killing creatures you would have gotten to eventually.”
Angelica knitted her brows together. That made no sense. If she wanted to join the PID, this was one Hell of a way to submit her resume. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a typical hunt. Perhaps Angelica could get out of this with no bloodshed and a new employee to boot.
“How often does she frequent Poison, and what does she do there?” Angelica asked.
“You might need to call the club about that. That was one call I was not making,” Frederic said, smiling.
“Thanks, Freddie.” She stood up, tapping the file on the desk. “I’m going to get on this now, while she’s still sleeping. And don’t worry about me. Whatever I have to do, I will.”
Frederic sighed. “And that is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Angelica went into her office — director or not, she still required her privacy away from the general masses downstairs — and shut the door, once again looking at Scarlette. She’d learned long ago to trust her intuition, and right then it was screaming that this vamp was trouble. She took out her cell and called the club. It was closed now, but the manager would be there.
“Hey, Eve, it’s Angelica. Have you been entertaining a vamp by the name of Scarlette St. James?” she asked without beating about the bush. The client list was private, except to her.
“Hello to you, too, Miss Cross,” the manager said with a giggle. “Yeah, I know her. I don’t service her personally, though: I’m not into girls. She comes in once or twice a week, hangs around with that hunter who calls herself Dakota and the witch Jade. You know them.”
She certainly did. Jade was a loose cannon, but Angelica knew the Grand Coven had her under control. Dakota was a freelance hunter; if she caught wind of a case she killed the perp and Angelica paid her a decent amount per head. Angelica didn’t trust her any more than she trusted Charles Manson. If Scarlette was hanging around with them, chances were she wasn’t anyone to be trusted either, but it might be Dakota’s influence that made her want to hunt.
“So, what does she do there?” Angelica asked.
“Are you interested in her, Cross?” Eve asked. Angelica could hear the smile in her voice.
“Yeah, but not like that.”
“When she does come, she’s usually ravenous so she’ll drink my special blood and vodka mixture and —”
“Whoa, wait,” Angelica interrupted. “Vodka? You’re telling me she’s a vamplet like me?”
Eve chuckled nervously. “I figured you knew. Anyway, after two of those she dances for a while, and then takes one of the girls into the room with the stocks or the triangle cross with the chains from the ceiling.”
“When you say one of the girls you mean Dakota or Jade?” Angelica asked.
“Oh, no. They’re straight,” Eve replied. “Any girl she meets on the dancefloor, usually vampires, but sometimes there have been others. No shifters, though. No one is ever harmed as far as I can tell except for bites, of course.”
Angelica thanked Eve and hung up, toying with her cell phone as she thought about how to proceed. The great thing about being her was that, if you were a law-abiding creature and not a PID employee, most likely you never met her. To many, Angelica Cross was a myth and legend, which was exactly how she liked it. Most of the creatures outside the PID who met her didn’t live long enough to tell about it. She could easily go undercover in the club and get information straight from Scarlette, providing that Dakota and Jade didn’t see her first. This wouldn’t be her first time undercover in a club she owned and she was certain it wouldn’t be the last.
Tonight then, and every night until she caught the eye of the mysterious Scarlette.
* * *
Angelica loved dressing up. She’d had plenty of practice doing what she did in heels, leather pants, and corsets. Being a vamplet helped with her strength and balance in those heels all day. However, if someone were to ever catch her at home alone, they’d find her with her hair in a bun, no makeup, and clad in an oversized Cubs jersey or band tee. She believed in balance above all else in her life.
That love of balance extended from work right into the bedroom. For the average person, human or vampire, Angelica wasn’t really into sex, but that was because she had lost her true love to an attack from an evil witch in the early twentieth century. Since then, she’d slept with two men and three women. Sex and feeding go hand in hand for vampires, and feeding from anyone other than Jonathan Price made her feel ill most of the time.
It was coming on the hundredth anniversary of the day she married Jonathan, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t upset her. Angelica didn’t mourn in general, because vampires resigned themselves to outliving most of their loved ones, but an anniversary like this was hard to ignore.
She thought that it was time to up the balance between her self-induced celibacy and the fun she knew she could have before she questioned Scarlette. Angelica had never known what sexuality to call herself until she’d been asked. When she described the fact that she never thought about a person’s gender when contemplating sex with them, the asker told her she was pansexual. So going into a pleasure room with Scarlette was going to be no big sacrifice, but if she could avoid it she would.
Another bit about her nearly obsessive need for balance was that she was a switch, which meant she could be a domme or a submissive in a BDSM scenario. Angelica and her partner usually decided together what they preferred, but she hadn’t been with anyone for eleven years now, and she was afraid she might be rusty.
Let’s hope this is like getting back on a horse, she thought, looking into her closet for the perfect dungeon wear. She had decided to open up a club that doubled as a dungeon because since vampires feed during sex and many paranormal creatures were drawn to the BDSM lifestyle, this ensured their safety and humans’ safety as well.
She finally decided on her domme wear. Frankly, if she was going to assert dominance over Scarlette for the streets of Chicago, she also needed to do that while she was whittling away the vamp’s mental defenses in the pleasure room. Black fishnet bodysuit, black pleated leather mini skirt, thigh-high black leather heels, and a black corset that fit around her ample curves in what she hoped was an enticing manner. It wasn’t often she had the chance to break out those boots.
It was on her walk to the club that she started to feel bad. She’d done quite a few things that churned her stomach, and many more that would send a normal person running for their lives, but screwing a girl for information was one thing she’d never done before. It wouldn’t be just physical fucking, it would be a mindfuck, too, and she wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.
To her, sex was not a weapon, but something to be thoroughly enjoyed. It only steeled her resolve to avoid sex at all costs.
She arrived at Poison Pleasures at nine-fifteen, a freestanding club done entirely in black on the outside, with the marquee done in vivid green. There was a small line outside, and inside was already packed. It wasn’t her most successful venture, but it had the steadiest clientele of them all due to the safety the club provided. She bypassed the line, nodding to the werewolf who worked the door, and entered the darkened club.
Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’ was pulsing from the speakers, and green and white strobes gave the whole place a futuristic air, mixing with the sexy darkness that gave the place a feeling of mystery.
A couple of people whistled at her as she walked by, but she paid them no mind. They were not what she was there for.
She made her way to the bar and waved at Eve, who walked over to her. Eve was a succubus and the perfect manager for this place.
“Cross. I haven’t seen you in here in forever,” she said. “My Vampy Vodka?”
Angelica nodded. The girl made the drink wit
h AB negative, the rarest and thus most expensive blood type, and handed it to her.
“Thanks. Have you seen her this evening?” Angelica asked.
“Not yet, she’ll usually get here in about half an hour if she comes,” Eve replied. “But if you want to avoid Dakota and Jade, I’d not recommend going by the booths.”
Angelica looked and saw the two in question, sitting together and laughing about something. Dakota was petite with the exception of boobs that rivaled Angelica’s in size, with constantly red lips and honey blonde curls. Jade was tall and lanky with hair so black it had a violet sheen to it. Dakota was a domme as well, and Jade usually just liked to drink.
She hoped Scarlette showed up soon, because mingling with people like she was wasn’t her usual forte. If anything, she went to Crowley’s, a non-sexual paranormal bar and grill she owned not too far from here, where she didn’t have to pretend not to be Angelica Cross.
Her wish was granted when the barstool two away from her became occupied. The bar was filled with dancers, not sitters, so she could see the woman clearly.
“Hey, Scarlette,” Eve said a little too loudly, even for a club, and Angelica breathed a silent sigh of relief.
The black and white grainy photo did not do this new vamplet justice. Thin but not overly skinny like Jade, with fiery, wild red hair, deep green eyes, freckles, and a pouty mouth, Scarlette looked like she should come with a warning label.
Okay, perhaps this won’t be so hard after all, Angelica thought.
“Hi, Eve. My usual with AB negative,” Scarlette said, tapping her foot to the music.
“Not going to sit with your friends today?” Eve asked as she passed the blood/vodka mix to the vamplet.
She shook her head. “Nah. Not in the mood for conversation, if you know what I mean.” She winked.