by Jade Astor
Or was it?
“Glad to hear it,” Chuck said in an oddly flat tone. “We want you to be happy here, Brandon. I want you to be happy.” He paused and looked at Zachariah. “David, our publisher, really likes Brandon. We both think he could go far with the Rainbow Rag. He just needs a good story to jumpstart his career—just like I need one to get mine back on track. Luckily, I think I’ve found one that will satisfy both our needs. And I’m looking at it right now.”
From the rear of the parking lot, Brandon heard a car door open. To his surprise, someone else stepped out of Chuck’s passenger side. At first, he thought it might be David or even Leverett. Then he realized who was walking toward them.
Chapter 6
“What the—?” he asked as Gregory strode across the gravel toward them. “What’s he doing here?”
“Don’t worry,” Chuck said. “I invited him because I want him to be present for this. It seems only right—I’m the one who helped to set him up with Zachariah at the Underground Lounge in the first place. I had no idea you would insert yourself into the little drama I had orchestrated, much less that he would prefer you. Years of research into vampire hunting and fate can still throw you a curve ball, it seems. He is your lover now, isn’t he?”
“I—I don’t know how to answer that,” Brandon stammered. “Not in the way you mean, probably.”
For the first time since Chuck had approached, Zachariah spoke up. His voice came out low, almost a growl. “You don’t owe him any answers, Brandon. He’s the one who should be explaining things to both of us. I suspect he won’t, though.”
“What’s there to explain?” Chuck asked, spreading his hands and smiling. “Isn’t it all obvious by now? Yes, I wrote the notes to both of you to get you out here tonight, and yes, Gregory and I destroyed Brandon’s bicycle. I had to be able to control his movements this week until we were ready for our meeting. I’m sorry, Brandon—I really did feel bad when I saw your face on the porch that night. But I still plan to take it up to you. The article is going to be fabulous.” He glanced back at Gregory. “Think of it! Behind the scenes with twenty-first-century vampire hunters. A new angle that’s never been done before. And it will be ours!”
“There isn’t going to be any article,” Zachariah said. “Are you mad? The hunters don’t reveal their secrets to anyone unless they target that person to join them ... or die.”
“I’m sure you’d like everyone to believe they’re as evil as you are,” Chuck said. Behind him, Gregory bared his teeth in a grin. Brandon shuddered to think he looked far more diabolical than Zachariah ever had. “But Gregory and I have come to a gentleman’s agreement, something you’re not capable of understanding. All I have to do is help him destroy you, and then I’ll have the story ... and Brandon ... to myself.”
The next few moments passed in a blur. All Brandon registered was Gregory lunging forward, both hands holding something in front of him. Zachariah staggered back, letting out a howl that anyone listening would have mistaken for the shriek of a displaced wild animal. Brandon fell to the rough ground, skinning the palms of his hands and getting the wind knocked out of him as Zachariah collapsed on top of him. He might even have blacked out for a moment.
When he came to his senses, his gaze lit on a horrific tableau. Zachariah lay in a muddy puddle with an ugly wooden stake sticking out of his chest. A few feet away, Chuck sprawled facedown and motionless. A pool of dark red blood was spreading underneath him.
Slowly, to his relief, Zachariah stirred and reached out to grasp Brandon’s wrist. Brandon quickly pulled him into a sitting position and tore the stake out of his body in a single desperate motion.
“We have to call 911,” Brandon said, looking from Chuck to Zachariah and back again. He fumbled in his pockets for his phone. Had he left it inside the building? In his panic, he couldn’t remember.
Zachariah seized him with convulsing hands and prevented him from continuing the search. His words came out clipped and raspy.
“Leave it. You can’t help your friend now. Tried to warn him. No hospital for me.”
“But we have to do something! You’re badly hurt!”
Those pale lips trembled in a smile. “Blood.”
“Yes. Yes, take some.” Brandon held out his wrist. Zachariah pulled him close and ran his lips up to the cuff of his sleeve. His movements were shaky. Brandon figured he was close to passing out.
“Not here,” Zachariah managed to whisper. “Inside.”
Hooking Zachariah’s arm around his neck, Brandon staggered to his feet and pulled Zachariah along with him. He spared a last glance at Chuck, who hadn’t stirred, and knew that Zachariah was right about him being past either hope or help. So far, he heard no sirens or anyone approaching them. The Rainbow Rag’s parking lot was positioned at an angle that protected it from outside views, and apparently they hadn’t made enough noise to attract attention. He supposed that was why Chuck, spurred on by Gregory, had chosen that spot for their ambush. Now Chuck had paid a high price for his hubris.
Not knowing where else to take Zachariah, Brandon dragged him into the mailroom and stretched him out on the floor. The wound gaped in the center of his shirt, but oddly, there didn’t seem to be a lot of blood. Or any, actually.
Noting his perplexed expression, Zachariah laughed weakly. “How could I bleed? I told you over and over that I am already dead. Fortunately, in all the excitement, Gregory missed my sweet spot—my heart. I’ll recover ... once I feed. I haven’t done so in a while. If I had, we would be looking at a much messier situation.”
“I—I don’t understand,” Brandon stammered. Once again, he feared he was about to faint. Reaching up, Zachariah pulled him close. Brandon felt his icy breath brush the skin on his throat.
“You know you do, my love. Now we must act quickly, so I can leave and you can report the mugging outside to the police.”
Zachariah was right, he knew. At last, he did understand. And he didn’t hesitate.
“Whatever you want,” Brandon said.
Zachariah tilted his head and bit in and drank. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt wonderful. Far beyond anything Brandon had ever experienced before. Better than sex, even—though he still looked forward to experiencing that with Zachariah, however vampires managed it. As warm life flowed back into Zachariah’s body, he knew that Zachariah felt the same way.
The Rainbow Rag shut down for a few days after that, both out of respect for their murdered colleague and to enable the police to investigate the apparently random homicide that had occurred in the parking lot. Since Chuck’s wallet and car had not been taken, the words “hate crime” began to circulate around the city. Only Brandon knew exactly what kind of irrational hate had spurred the attack, though he revealed nothing.
Luckily, the police accepted his assertion that he had been waiting for Chuck to pick him up and had found him brutalized on the ground, especially when they uncovered Gregory’s DNA at the scene and his fingerprints in Chuck’s car. They would never catch him, Zachariah insisted. The hunters moved from city to city without leaving a trail or even their real names behind. Though Brandon longed for Gregory to face the law, in some ways he knew it was best that Chuck’s murder remain unsolved. He just hoped that somehow, somewhere, justice would find Gregory in its own way.
The day the paper reopened, David called Brandon into his office. Leverett was there, too, making Brandon uneasy. Was he about to be fired? Did David want a witness to the proceedings? Maybe somehow they had found out about his relationship with Zachariah, which was growing more serious every evening. Tragedy—and saving someone’s life, if one could call a vampire existence a life—tended to bring people together, after all.
“Leverett and I have been talking,” David began, making Brandon’s stomach twist with dread. “I’m sure you know Chuck was our only full-time reporter, which leaves the paper in something of a quandary.”
“However we felt about him, we can’t simply dry up and go out of bu
siness,” Leverett added.
Brandon nodded, still unsure where the conversation was heading.
“It’s also no secret you’re in need of some money to buy a car.” David threaded his fingers and rested them on his desk. Brandon thought he caught the brief flash of a smile crossing his lips. “It seems we’re in a position to solve both of these problems at one time. Of course, we’ll have to look for yet another mailroom clerk—but somehow I doubt you’ll mind helping us interview new prospects.”
“I ... I don’t get it,” Brandon said, hoping he didn’t sound as befuddled and stupid as he felt. Were they really saying what he thought they were?
“We think it’s what Chuck would have wanted.” David’s tone grew more serious. “He really did care about you, you know.”
“He knows,” Leverett said. Brandon knew both of them could see the tears spilling down his warm cheeks. “Welcome aboard, Brandon.”
MORE BY JADE ASTOR:
AVAILABLE NOW
Kiss of the Dark Prince
by Jade Astor
Available now on Kindle!
Please enjoy this sneak peek at Chapter 1!
At a British university, American exchange student Luke Martin meets Boris von Schatten, who claims to be a member of the royal family of Shattenberg, a small principality wedged between Austria and Hungary. Though Luke is skeptical, Boris ignites his curiosity with tales of the family castle and his half-brother, Prince Georg, now ruler of Schattenberg after the recent death of their father. Intrigued, Luke jumps at the chance when Boris offers to fly him to Schattenberg for the approaching summer break.
Once Luke arrives, though, the enigmatic but undeniably handsome Georg tells him that Boris has disappeared. Soon mysterious events begin to occur, including two deaths and increasing evidence suggesting that Georg murdered Boris along with a few others who got in his way. Luke finds it hard to believe that Georg is as demonic as people say—he even hears rumors that he drinks human blood—at least until some of Boris’s possessions are found covered with blood in a nearby ravine.
When he confronts Georg about his suspicions, Georg confesses that he is the victim of a curse and is powerless to stop it, though he denies murdering anyone. Luke longs to believe him—until attempts on Luke’s own life begin.
Kiss of the Dark Prince
by
Jade Astor
Chapter 1
A tolling bell over the city shattered what little concentration he’d mustered. Two solid hours of sitting in the empty chapel with his notebook balanced on his knees, and all he had to show for it was a jumble of scribbles and a few disconnected jottings. Cursing, Luke slammed his pencil against the mostly blank page. Only afterward did he remember where he was. Did swearing in a church count if no one else was around to hear it?
Then he realized someone had.
“Best be careful.” The deep voice, salted with a European accent he couldn’t quite place, came from the shadows. “As I crossed the street, I saw a few clouds gathering overhead. We wouldn’t want to provoke a strike of lightning.”
Luke watched as the man who had spoken stepped into view. Tall and well-dressed in a black silk shirt, knee-length leather jacket, and tailored black slacks, he carried what appeared to be an oversized sketchbook under one arm.
A moment passed before Luke found his voice. “Sorry about that. I let my frustration get the better of me.” He squinted into the filtered light provided by the stained glass windows. The man seemed too old to be a student but too young to be a professor or—luckily for him—the vicar. A graduate student, perhaps, though his carefully tousled dark hair and perfect cheekbones suggested something more along the lines of an actor or a male model. Luke doubted he would be that lucky, however. “You don’t think lightning would strike indoors because of what I said, do you? I mean—that’s impossible.”
The man inclined his head to the left, a smile tilting the corner of his soft-lipped mouth. “Why is it impossible? I have seen much stranger things—things many others might hesitate to believe.”
“Okay,” Luke conceded. How could he argue with that? Given the choice between their own perceptions and cold logic, most people went with what they believed, irrational or not. Besides, even he had given in to a touch of superstition a moment earlier. Maybe being in a church reputed to be more than a thousand years old had an effect on people’s imaginations. “I guess it never hurts to be careful.”
“That is true in most cases. Not all.” His grin widening, the man came closer. His eyes dropped to the notebook and pencil in Luke’s lap. “Are you a writer?”
Up close and in better light, he seemed to grow even more handsome—definitely the reverse of what Luke had experienced in the bars and clubs he’d visited both at home and here in England. Generally the ones he spotted from far away didn’t hold up to a closer inspection.
“Hardly.” Luke laughed. “My tutor’s making me write an essay about this place. As you can see, I don’t have a clue where to begin.” He tilted the notebook to show his pathetic collection of scribbling.
“You’re a student, then. And you’re American.”
“Yeah. My parents wanted the prestige of sending me to a British college. It kind of ticks me off, though, to think I could get the same degree by hanging out at the back of some huge auditorium and pretending to take notes. Instead, I have to sit here all day and try to come up with five hundred words about how the architecture of Saint Whoever’s cathedral symbolizes Anglican spirituality, or whatever the f… whatever my professor said.”
“Ah.” The man trailed a slow, appreciate gaze across the high, arched ceiling. “Then I know how you should begin your essay. You must explain that the cathedral itself was built in the shape of the cross with the altar positioned to face the rising sun. Everything else—the vaulted ceiling emulating heaven, the illumination from the stained glass windows, and so on—is secondary to that basic principle.”
Startled, Luke looked up and saw at once what he was talking about. Why had it never occurred to him before?
“Thanks,” he said sheepishly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He cast a curious glance at the sketchbook the man carried. “You must be an artist. That’s why you see things differently than other people—or me, anyway.”
“In a sense.” The man sat down in the pew opposite Luke and placed the sketchbook on his own knees. He opened it and began flipping the pages to reveal stunningly detailed drawings of every sort of Gothic-style building Luke had seen in the city, from the time-worn walls dating from the twelfth century to the sneering gargoyles that topped the pointed spires of the numerous colleges and churches. “The architecture of this place fascinates me. I traveled here to study it in detail. I will take these sketches home and use them to restore certain damaged sections of my own family home.”
Luke blinked. “Your family home is a… castle?”
“It is.” The man paged through his sketchbook until he came to a beautiful picture, rendered in pencil, of a medieval-style stone castle complete with a rounded tower at one corner. Luke gaped, unsure whether to believe him or write him off as either a con man or a lunatic. “This is Castle Schattenberg. When I am not traveling, I still make my home there.” Smiling, he pointed out a particular window about halfway up one of the vast stone walls. “That is my bedroom.”
“Does that mean you’re some kind of royalty?” The question sounded foolish to his ears even while he said it. Belatedly, it occurred to him his first hunch might have been correct after all. Maybe the guy really was some kind of movie star or famous model in a country Luke didn’t know much about. Some of them occasionally bought castles to live and party in, he’d heard.
“You might say so, though that word has a different meaning to Americans—and even Englishmen—than it does in my own country. I am second in line to the throne of Schattenberg, a small principality that has maintained its independence since the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There I am known as Prince Boris
von Schatten.”
“Never heard of it,” Luke said skeptically. He began to lean toward his con artist theory. Yet the sketch of the castle seemed remarkably detailed for something this Boris, or whoever he was, had invented.
“Of course you haven’t. The people of Schattenberg are intensely private, our country virtually inaccessible to those who have no reason to go there. We have no tourist industry and little contact with the rest of Europe. We prefer it that way and always have, going back to the era when my castle was built.”
“Yet your English is perfect. You can’t have grown up all that isolated.”
“My father’s first wife was British, and he maintained a great interest in the customs and language of the English. Though my own mother, his second wife, was an Eastern European, he engaged tutors from my infancy to teach me English, along with several other languages.”
Luke stared at the sketch and then at Boris. “Yeah? That’s impressive.” If any of it’s true, he added silently. Yet he could detect no hint of smugness or hesitation in Boris’s face or voice, either of which might indicate deception. Much as he hated to admit it, Luke had racked up plenty of experience dealing with men who lied. He didn’t sense that Boris was one of them.
“I always find it interesting that Americans are so taken with titles and castles and the like, when they made certain to carry none of those relics to their own country.”
“I didn’t say I was taken with that kind of stuff. I mean, sure, it’s different, but….” Luke blushed. He’d been about to blurt out what he’d actually been taken with: Boris himself.
Boris waved a hand as if to fan away the distasteful expression. “No matter. I am not offended in either case. I am what I was born to be. What others think of me, for good or ill, can never change that.”