by Jax Garren
She’d said he had fifty-fifty odds. He’d had worse his whole life. He grabbed her wrist and latched on, forcing himself to swallow the blood and not think about it. There would be consequences to this, and he’d navigate them as they came. He always did.
Her fingers caressed his forehead lightly. “Javi, honey, I’m so sorry for what’s about to happen. Just stay with me through it. Stay with my voice. With my hands. Stay here. They’re stuck outside, and we’re safe for now.”
His stomach cramped sharply, the pain resonating from his core to his toes in waves. Still, he held on, taking what she offered until the pain was too intense. He cried out, clenching into a ball.
Her wrist stayed at his mouth. “More. I need you to take more. You got a gut wound to heal.”
He held on, trying to obey.
“Pain is a good thing,” she insisted, her voice rough as more spasms wracked him.
It was too much. He couldn’t hold on under the onslaught that screamed at him to let go.
“Pain means your body’s trying to make the transition. Stay with us and take the pain. It’ll stop and you’ll be okay.”
There were other voices, noise coming from the group outside the door. But they didn’t matter. Emma had him pulled into her lap, her focus entirely on him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and kicked out, struggling to move against the pain that fired his muscles and shocked through his nerves, telling him to give up. “Keep talking to me,” he requested. “Call me names. Tell me I can’t do this.” Obstinate rage made the best fuel.
“Fine,” she said. Her voice rose to eclipse every sound from outside with her angry demands, giving him a focus. “You fucking coward. Drink. You ain’t got nothing left, eh? I thought you was better than that. I picked you out today ’cause you looked like a real fucking man. An ass-kicking warrior not some give-it-up pissant who can’t take a little tickle. Drink.”
She got it. She knew what it was like to fight against the odds and society, to take strength from rejection, and he loved her more for it. Her words blended with every dismissal he’d ever heard for the scrawny, half-brown foster boy with the junkie mom. He’d never amount to anything. He was destined for prison and drugs.
He’d proved everyone wrong.
She didn’t mean her words, but he’d prove her wrong too. He clutched her arm with renewed vigor and held on to life.
Her forehead touched his as her voice softened. “Don’t die on me, Javi. You fucking make it. You got a fifty-fifty, and you damn well better be on the living half or I ain’t never going to forgive you.”
Another shot of agony sent him bucking. He rode it out, letting it wash over and through him. Fifty-fifty shot, huh? Easiest odds he’d ever seen.
The pain shifted from sharp to delirium as his vision blurred. He held on to Emma’s arm as his lifeline. His hold on sanity.
Another voice startled him at his ear. “I’ll be damned. Two for the price of one.”
Somebody yanked him up.
“Let him go!” Emma screamed.
The vampires had gotten in? But they’d been stopped at the threshold. What happened? He reached blindly for Emma. Where was she? She was yelling obscenities at someone, and he couldn’t reach her.
“Good fight,” the voice whispered in his ear. “You may be sorry you made it.”
He understood. They were in because he’d died, and the magic, or whatever it was, holding them at the threshold had ended. Despite being dead, he was still here. He was a vampire? It still hurt like a freaking iron maiden, knives jabbing his system from toe to face, with a big damn one twisting deep in his gut.
Emma’s voice rang arrogant and strong over the chaos. “He’s mine. He ain’t one of you. There ain’t nothing you can do.”
A hand squeezed Javier’s shoulder. It would have been painful if he hadn’t already been in a world of pain. “We’ll see about that.”
Chapter One
Five months later…
Emma Granger scrutinized Rosalie’s file in Austin Empower’s too-thin notebook of clients. The girl glared out from a photo, sixteen-year-old eyes full of mistrust. She’d been referred by the cops after her second arrest for prostitution and clearly hadn’t wanted to be in the cramped office, telling a likely made-up version of her history to a nice white lady who’d never gone hungry a day in her existence. The volunteers at Empower, a charity for helping teenage prostitutes leave the life, meant well, but they didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t automatically trust them when they were “just trying to help.” Streetwise tweens and teens regularly snowed them, hence Emma struggling to read the file.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t read—she could, when absolutely necessary, as long as it was typed and the words were simple and she had time to concentrate with no one watching and making her nervous. Writing was more of a challenge and spelling near impossible—the rules made no damn sense.
A stack of purple sticky notes sat next to the computer, and she added one to the file. In pink pen, she attempted to notate places the girl was likely lying. Maybe she should add suggestions for what to say should the girl ever come back, ways to talk to her that might elicit more honest responses. But, ugh, that was a lot of writing. She’d need a dictionary to have a prayer of being understood.
And no one believed anything you had to say after you spelled something wrong.
Footsteps approached the door. What was anyone doing here at eleven at night? Using vampire speed, Emma put the file back and went to the bathroom, where she slowed down to squirt electric-blue cleaner into the toilet. She couldn’t file paperwork or write grant applications, but she could do this, and she could do it at night on her own hours.
The door opened and she stood up, smile ready. If it was a girl, the poor thing could use a friendly face. If it was a robber, Emma could smile while kicking his ass.
“Em?” A blond man in pants that cost more than her whole wardrobe shut the door behind him.
She relaxed but her smile stayed in place, just more real. “Evening to you, Cash. What you doing here?”
He set a thermos on the desk, and the smell of warm blood made her stomach growl. “Trying to tempt you away from, eh…”
She rolled her eyes as she came out, still brandishing the toilet brush. “A crap job in a crap-hole of an office?” Yup, still smiling, even if she was embarrassed. The tiny place with its overflowing bookshelves and posters of outdated bands must look like shitsville to the vampire prince who lived in a mansion on the lake that ran through town. She knew exactly what his place looked like because she was crashing there for the foreseeable future. For a spoiled little snot, he was a good guy.
His gaze went to the toilet brush. “A job working with crap, anyway.” He dropped a bag on the floor. “Vince and Charlie are in the car. Somehow the human has convinced his fiancé to go dancing—I don’t want to know how. But I do expect it’ll be hilarious. You’re coming. I brought you a dress.”
Vince and Charlie, a darling mismatch of a couple who loved each other very much, also lived in Cash’s mansion. Cash had been born a Viking, back when the community shared a home, and he’d never learned to live alone. Good for her, because free rent fit her bank account nicely.
She looked at the bag. He’d probably had his people buy her something small and pricey. She needed to go out too. It had been a few weeks since she’d tapped a vein instead of a bottle, and that was a little longer than she liked. Ever since that summer’s debacle, though, the chore of seducing someone into donating had seemed more onerous than usual. She told anyone who asked it was because she’d been kidnapped and all the other terribleness that had occurred after what should’ve been a simple dinner date, but it wasn’t trauma talking, not this time.
Cash sat on the desk. “You need to eat, sugar.”
It was guilt. She finished the toilet with a quick swipe, washed her hands, and came out to meet him. “Why’d you bring me dinner and a dress? Think I’m eating twice?”
“Didn’t know which you’d prefer. Nothing wrong with just dancing.” He shrugged, a hint of concern on his sunny face. “I’m worried about you, to be honest.”
She sat next to him and took a sip of the offered sustenance. She preferred it mixed into food—a nice spaghetti sauce maybe or baked into brownies or at least swirled with ice cream into a milkshake—but while Cash might warm up a pint in a teakettle for her, there was no way he’d turn on an oven or flip a switch on a blender. She didn’t think he even knew how.
But he was real good with words—at least when he wanted to be. “Hey, can you check something for me?” She couldn’t look at him as she pulled the file from its place and opened it to Rosalie. Cash knew she’d been completely illiterate for the first hundred and fifty years of her life, but it was embarrassing now. When she’d grown up, reading wasn’t a big deal—at least not for farmers. Or whores. But now everybody did it. Nowadays, the education that had once been a privilege was an expectation. In theory, she liked the idea that everyone could be accomplished. In practicality, some people didn’t have the time for luxuries like learning, what with raising kids and getting food on the table. Spelling was just another way of separating the haves from the have-nots.
Cash spoke a dozen or more languages and wrote in at least two alphabets. He wasn’t academic; he just liked to give orders in as many countries as possible. He swiped another sticky note from the stack and wrote a list of words in quick, utilitarian letters. She winced, glad he’d stopped by. That many mistakes would’ve been humiliating, even if the caseworker had no idea who she was.
“You know,” he drawled, handing her the note, “as the owner of this place, you could just tell them what to do. They have to listen to you.”
She rewrote the note, careful this time to make her letters precise. “Oh, I don’t do ten a.m. meetings. Vampire.”
He toed the bag over to her and didn’t press. She’d known he wouldn’t. He was a good friend that way. “Now about that club—” The phone shrilled, cutting him off. They both stared at it. “You going to get it?”
Anyone calling at this time of night was in trouble. Cash had the more cultured speech, while she sounded like a hick. He sounded like a man, though, and that made her the better person to answer. She picked up the phone and put on the most professional voice she could. “Empower Austin, how can I help you?”
Cash hopped up and prowled, too antsy to stay put for long. Eventually he’d get bored and leave; maybe that should be her plan for getting out of tonight. Saying no to social events with Cash rarely worked.
“This is East Side Children’s Hospital. I regret to inform you a young woman passed away in our emergency room tonight. She didn’t have identification, but she had this number.”
Emma’s shoulders slumped. One less client in their pathetic book of hope. One more life wasted on the streets. She knew every face in the book, every name, every half-true biography. “I can provide an ID if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“We’re looking for next of kin…”
Emma blew out a breath. “She may not have that—’less you’re looking for her pimp.”
The woman on the other end of the line made a noise of shock, like a chicken poked in the business end. “No, no. That will be…What is your name?”
Emma hesitated. The initial funds to start the place might have cleaned out her savings account, but she wasn’t usually the name or the face of Empower. That went to articulate, well-dressed young women from good families who set the right tone with donors. Maybe she should wait until morning, when one of them could go over.
Bored-Cash poked the bellies of stuffed animals on a shelf full of donations. Last year going out with him had been fun. Maybe not the sex-with-strangers part, but she was used to that. The dancing, the drinking, the laughing. That had been fun. Tonight she’d just be a wet blanket on their good time. Going to the hospital had a chance of being an excuse Cash would listen to.
“I’m Emmaline Granger, and I can be there in twenty minutes.” After the woman’s confirmation, she hung up and gave Cash an apologetic shrug. With vampire hearing, he would’ve caught both sides of the conversation. “I’ve gotta take this. Sorry.”
He didn’t turn back to face her. “Isn’t that where Reyes works?”
Emma’s insides contracted in horror. “Oh.” Shit—yes. Javier Reyes, the stranger she’d turned into a vampire that summer, did indeed work there.
“You checked in on him since you moved back?”
She gritted her teeth at his casual, know-nothing tone. He knew very well she hadn’t. She was a shit sire who’d skipped town after turning him. Okay, so skipped was harsh. She’d gone back home to San Francisco to pack her things to move here, where she could be near him and help him integrate into CoVIn society—the Confederation of Vampires International—like a good sire should. But it had sort of taken her, oh, four months to pack. And now she’d been here almost a month and still hadn’t called him.
She grabbed the notebook of girls—the faces she knew, but not the emergency contacts, at least for those few who had them—and shoved it into her backpack next to a Tupperware of snickerdoodle cookies. Javier’s favorite. She baked a new batch every few days and carried them with her, just in case. Cookies made everything better. But if she’d known it would be today, she’d have put them in a cute box tied with curly ribbon and maybe some of those glow-in-the-dark costume fangs as a joke.
This past summer when CoVIn had opened their headquarters here in Austin, she’d come for the inaugural ceremonies, gone out for a dinner date with a hot doctor, and history had been accidentally made. She’d turned him to save his life—long story that involved the aforementioned kidnapping—but still. She’d ruined the life of a successful young doctor with a bright future as a brilliant, social-climbing, icon of perfection. Cookies, box or no box, were not going to fix anything.
Cash turned back, smiling like she’d responded appropriately instead of mutely shoving a notebook into a sack. “This is good. Rhi says he’s turning into a freezer. Somebody needs to turn the vampire on.”
Emma frowned at the double entendre. Rhiannon was Javier’s little sister and Cash’s favorite donor. Cold skin meant Javier wasn’t eating a balanced diet, only bottled and no blood fresh from the source like a healthy vampire should. It took about sixty days to start a drop in temperature and months before it was readily apparent. “I thought you were taking him out.” With the Cash Geirson acting as his sponsor, the vampire responsible for introducing a baby bat to CoVIn life, Javier should’ve had it made.
Cash chuckled, his expression a condescending smirk. “I offered, but I’m fucking his sister. You think he wants to hang out with me?”
“Everyone wants to…” Every vampire anyway. Cash was the queen’s favorite fledgling and the leader of the military. If there was a vampire prom king, he’d get it, fangs down.
But Dr. Javier Reyes didn’t want to be a vampire.
“Shit.” She should’ve been here for him.
“You’re off the hook for dancing—not to help the dead hooker but because you need to check in on your fledgling. From what I’ve heard, he’s a vampire in fang only, and that’s pathetic.”
She zipped up her bag. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“It’s part of my charm.” He kicked his own fancy leather bag toward her. “Want the dress?”
“Something tells me that ain’t funeral attire.”
He grinned. “Nope. But it’d be good for getting the attention of an errant fledgling.”
She kicked the bag back. “Have fun, Cash.” She didn’t have to see Javier tonight; a hospital was a big place. Another time, when her clothing wasn’t a choice between worn jeans and a tank top versus whatever Cash’s pick was—likely something with a combination of skimpy and pricey that meant per square inch it could be traded like gold. She’d probably like it, whatever it was, but not for meeting up with her giant mistake. For that
reunion, she’d call Javier first to warn him, double the number of cookies, and make the bow extra curly.
Next week. She would face him next week.
Chapter Two
Javier Reyes uncrossed his arms and tried not to come across like a sullen teenager as he looked over the body he’d been dragged out of his office to work on. He shouldn’t be here. Then again, neither should she. The corpse looked about fifteen, maybe younger if you removed the caked-on makeup. Bruising around the neck made the likely cause of death apparent. A tube top and skirt made out of the same dingy spandex made a tawdry outfit that covered little of her dark skin. That told Javier all he needed to know about why Dr. Hansen didn’t give a shit.
For not the first time, the idea flitted across his imagination of picking Hansen up with one fist in his shirtfront and scaring the piss out of him with bared fangs.
That might get him fired, though.
CoVIn wouldn’t approve, either, and as little as he cared about the politics of vampire society, he needed the bottles of red they supplied him. Oh, and vampires being out in the open might not be good for society as a whole.
So, no violence. He was better than that anyway. Next option? How would the man react if he said, So, I see you’re giving the sex worker to the son of an undocumented immigrant, eh? No. It was déclassé to call out prejudice. Fine.
He gave a more professional complaint: “She’s not prepped.” Before an autopsy, there was a protocol; people lower down the pay scale undressed and cleaned the body. They usually did the whole thing, actually, and then samples were brought upstairs for analysis by specialists in various fields—specialists like him. As a fellow in the neuropathology department, doing a start-to-finish autopsy on a teenage prostitute was not Javier’s job. He knew how—autopsy was in the purveyance of a pathologist. But a person didn’t go to college, then med school, then have three years of residence, then get accepted into a specialized fellowship to do something a twenty-year-old with a GED and a tech certification could handle. He should be upstairs in an office diagnosing brain samples.