She cleared her throat. “We should probably get you to a hospital. That stomach looks hot…er, I mean it looks like it hurts.”
Sweet Christ, could she humiliate herself in front of this guy a few more times?
“I don’t do hospitals,” he said.
Great. A macho man. Just what she needed more of in her life. “Okay, so, if you don’t do hospitals, do you bleed to death in alleys? ‘Cause if that’s what you’re going for, you’re well on your way, dude.” She gave him a thumbs-up. “Way to go.”
His gaze moved over her and he shook his head. He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it to her, grimacing.
“Put it on,” he said. “I can’t even hear myself think over the sound of your teeth chattering.”
“Gee, and they say chivalry is dead,” she intoned dryly, shoving her arms into the sleeves of the black trench.
The coat was too long by nearly a foot, and the sleeves hung down well below her hands, but the fabric still held the warmth of his skin, and she was far too cold to be concerned with fit or fashion. The What Not to Wear folks could just kiss her warm, toasty ass.
He watched her fidget for a while before asking, “Who are you?”
“I’m Harper.” She shook the sleeves of the coat back, finally finding her hand and extending it to him. “Harper Hall.”
He stared at her hand, then raised his gaze to hers. “That explains a lot.”
Harper let her hand sink back into the coat’s depths and narrowed her eyes on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You were Romeo Jones’ seer. That explains why you were willing to take off, alone, after a vamp three-times your size with a chair leg.” His gaze moved over her again, slowly. “In your underwear.”
She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head to one side. “Are you insulting me, or are you insulting Romeo? Because if you’re insulting me, you and I need to have a serious come-to-Jesus meeting.”
For a split second, he looked like he might smile, but just when she was deciding whether to go after him with her make-shift stake or chick-fight him with her fingernails, the smile died and pain flashed through his eyes.
“Let’s just say your reputation precedes you,” he said, hunching over almost imperceptibly.
Hmmpphh. Noah Riddick talking trash about her reputation. Wasn’t that just rich beyond belief?
“Well, hello there, Pot, they call me Kettle,” she said dryly. “I hear you’re black.”
He raised one eyebrow and took a step toward her, only to sway drunkenly before falling to his knees. “Fuck,” he muttered, one hand on the ground, one hand on his stomach.
Harper rushed to his side, but he stopped her with a fierce scowl. “I’m not Romeo,” he hissed. “I don’t need your help.”
She straightened and planted her hands on her hips again. “Look, I’ve taken about all the shit I intend to from you. So, as I see it, you’ve got two choices: you can lay there and bleed to death, or you can suck up your stupid male pride and let me help you.”
He looked at her like he’d rather rip his heart out with his bare hands than accept her help, but after what must have been an exhausting battle of pride and necessity, he allowed her to ease her shoulder under his arm and help him stand.
Leaning heavily on her, he whispered, “No hospitals,” right before he passed out.
Harper staggered under his weight, but somehow managed to keep them both vertical. After a moment of struggling and cussing, she was able to lean him against the dumpster and hold him upright with her bodyweight while she mulled her options.
He didn’t want to go to the hospital, and probably rightfully so.
If there were any pro-vamp zealots out there looking for a little slayer-bashing action, he’d be a sitting duck in the hospital.
She couldn’t take him back into the Kitty Kat Palace. Bleeding men tended to draw attention there as well.
That really only left one viable option.
Boy, if Riddick thought she was reckless now, wait until he woke up in her bed.
Chapter Two
“Yeah, well, fuck you too, Carlos. You can’t fire me, because I quit.”
And with that, Harper slammed the phone down.
What a shitty night, she thought.
Not only had she gotten herself fired from yet another degrading, meaningless job, but it had taken her two hours—and the help of a nice, but shifty-looking homeless guy—to half-carry, half-drag Riddick back to her apartment. Every muscle in her body—even a few she’d apparently never used before—ached.
It had taken another hour to get him into her bed and out of his bloody shirt. She’d drawn the line at taking off his pants. Something about a woman who hadn’t had sex in a year stripping an unconscious man out of his pants just smacked of desperation.
Harper wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand and plopped down in the chair next to her bed, letting her eyes fall on the fruits of her labor.
Right now, the fruits of her labor was passed out on her zebra-striped flannel sheets wearing nothing but a big white bandage, a pair of sexy-as-all-hell black leather pants, and the truly hideous pink, orange, and purple quilt her grandmother had stitched by touch after going blind at ninety-five.
Riddick shifted restlessly and kicked the quilt off. He’d been doing that a lot. Either he was feverish, or the quilt was so ugly his perfect body was rejecting it.
Harper sighed and leaned forward to prop her elbows on the bed while she watched him sleep. It was a horrible thing for a woman to be with a man who was prettier than her. Not exactly a shot in the arm for the old self-esteem.
She tipped her head to one side and studied him more closely. Pretty wasn’t really the right word for him, she supposed. He wasn’t really perfect, either. His nose had obviously been broken a time or two, and as she found out while she was dressing his wound, he was covered in scars.
Most of them were nothing out of the ordinary for a slayer. Puncture wound here, jagged knife scar there. But the one that fascinated and appalled her in equal parts was the one on his throat.
No, she mentally corrected. It wasn’t on his throat, but around it.
Someone had apparently slit his throat from ear to ear.
She glided her fingertips lightly over the raised scar tissue, not even able to imagine the pain he must have suffered.
He moaned in his sleep and she guiltily folded her hands together and tucked them between her knees.
She didn’t remember any Sentry gossip about a slayer getting his throat slit. But then again, seers were always the last to hear anything. They were always protected and sheltered from everything. Seers were irreplaceable, she’d always heard. Watchers and slayers weren’t.
Mischa would know what had happened to him, she thought, making a mental note to visit her ex-watcher friend the next day.
Harper frowned, trying to remember all she’d ever heard over the years about Noah Riddick. Good kill ratio. Unnaturally good. In fact, if she remembered correctly, the other slayers not only hated him, but feared him. Called him Iceman—which always gave her hot flashbacks of a sweaty Val Kilmer playing volleyball with a pre-freak-out Tom Cruise—because he killed so well without any pesky pangs of guilt or remorse.
But other than that, what she mostly remembered about Riddick was hushed tones. People walking Sentry halls tended to lower their voices when they spoke of Noah Riddick. Almost as if they were afraid that saying his name aloud would conjure him.
She wondered what those who feared him would think if they saw him now, vulnerable and wounded in her bed. But no matter what they would think about Riddick, she was positive no one would be surprised to find him in her bed. Harper, unlike Riddick, had been the constant butt of Sentry gossip.
She never really could understand their fascination with her. So she was a prodigy. It wasn’t like it was such a great thing. She’d had her first horrible, painful premonition at age six instead of sixteen like most seers
. Was recruited at ten. Woo hoo. Big hairy deal.
And she’d also taken a lot of crap from Sentry for watching Romeo’s back when he went after vamps. Even Riddick had alluded to it back in the alley.
You have the premonition, he slays the vampire. That’s what everyone had always told her. Riddick must have agreed.
But Romeo had needed more than just backup most of the time. Hell, most of the time he needed a babysitter. Flighty, drunk, manic-depressive…Romeo had it all. The fucker.
Not that any of that mattered now, she reminded herself. Sentry was obsolete. Nothing but a memory. Lucern Millet had made sure of that.
Vampires had been out of the coffin for five years. Millet was their spokesperson, and the dude was a publicist’s wet dream: ridiculously good looking, smart, charming, and one hell of a motivational speaker. The minute he stepped in front of a camera, he had the world eating out of the palm of his hand. And Millet was a born politician, a real do-gooder, complete with baby-kissing and helping old ladies cross the street.
Millet claimed that he chose to “bring vampires into the light” because Sentry had tried to eliminate him, as they had eliminated thousands of his brethren. His calling, he said, was to end their “reign of terror” and bring Sentry to justice.
Vampires who were more than a century or two old tended to be a little dramatic with their word choices.
Harper wasn’t sure there was really any justice done when Millet exposed Sentry, but the backlash against the once covert agency was swift and brutal. Vampire rights groups organized worldwide, and led by Millet, the vampires legally earned their human rights.
Police department’s quickly organized Vampire Crimes Units to investigate paranormal crimes, while governments around the world disavowed all knowledge of Sentry, saying its actions were not in any way sanctioned. Harper couldn’t really blame them. With the public backlash, if governments admitted to authorizing the slaughter of thousands, the result would most likely have been a bloody uprising the likes of which the world had never seen.
Sentry’s director, along with ten of his top advisors, disappeared before he could be questioned about the organization’s activities. He’d never been seen or heard from again.
After the director’s disappearance, Sentry fell apart. Three thousand employees worldwide were left jobless, with only an incredibly sketchy resume to show for their efforts.
Most watchers found other work without too much difficulty. After all, the only requirement for becoming a Sentry watcher was a genius-level IQ. There was always a place in the world for geniuses.
Slayers had it a lot tougher. The VCU wouldn’t hire them on a fulltime basis for fear of stirring up a PR shit storm. And if an ex-slayer killed a vampire in the line of duty, would anyone truly believe he’d had no other choice? Legally, that question alone could result in a mistrial, and Harper didn’t know of any police department that was willing to take that kind of risk.
The police were, however, perfectly willing to contract with ex-slayers for difficult tactical operations. In such situations the slayer was lovingly referred to as cannon fodder.
Ex-seers weren’t viewed as very valuable by the authorities, either. They were generally only called in to help when the police were desperate for assistance on missing persons cases, and their involvement wasn’t ever publicized.
She wasn’t sure what she would’ve done for employment if Romeo—that asshat—hadn’t approached her about partnering in a PI business.
Harper loved being a PI. She was good at it, and oddly enough, when people were desperate enough to need a PI firm, they seemed willing to overlook the blot Sentry had left on their resumes.
They were, sadly, less likely to overlook the fact that she was now a woman on her own, which she’d quickly found out after Romeo bailed on her, sticking her with the business’ debt and forcing her into multiple shitty, part-time jobs to make ends meet.
She leaned forward and rested her head on her palm, studying Riddick’s handsome face, wondering what he’d been doing since Sentry disbanded.
One look at Riddick’s hands and she knew he wasn’t a desk jockey. No cube dweller had hands like that. Whatever he was doing, it was honest hard work.
Thoughts of what his hands might have been doing these past years made her wonder if there was a wife or a girlfriend out there worrying about him. She pictured those large, calloused hands trailing lightly over the perfect skin of the Barbie doll a man like him would undoubtedly be with and frowned.
Men were shallow scum. Even in her imagination they all sucked.
Then she shook her head, disgusted with herself. Was she actually jealous of a woman who may or may not even exist?
Damn. Good thing she hadn’t taken his pants off. She was already pathetic enough as it was.
She yawned and laid her head down on the corner of the bed. Too much to think about for one night.
Tomorrow. She’d find out everything she could about Noah Riddick tomorrow.
Riddick woke up feeling like a bomb had gone off inside his skull. Now he remembered why he only drank once a year.
With a groan, he pried his eyes open and tried to sit up, but his stomach protested. And it wasn’t the normal day-after-a-drunken-bender stomach protest, either. This was more like someone had tried to scoop out his insides with a rusty spoon.
He glanced down, momentarily nonplussed. First of all, why was his stomach bandaged? But most importantly, why was he lying under what was arguably the ugliest quilt in existence? The rusty-spoon theory might explain the bandage, but it didn’t come close to explaining the quilt.
After several attempts, Riddick managed to rise up on his elbows. Glancing around, he gauged his surroundings and tried to determine whether or not he needed to be concerned.
Well, he wasn’t at home. The closet in his bedroom was double the size of this room, and he was fairly certain he hadn’t painted any of his walls cherry red recently. He’d gotten drunk before, but he’d never been sloshed enough to decorate. Black out, puke, pick fights…yes. Decorate…never.
A gentle snore brought his attention to the woman at his bedside, and all his questions could be answered in two words.
Harper Hall.
The lower half of her body was in an orange velvet wingchair and her upper half was on the bed. She had one of her arms swung over his legs and was using his ankle for a pillow. Riddick could just make out the delicate sweep of her jaw beneath her tangled mass of shoulder-length, golden-tipped brown curls.
He shook his head, half-disgusted, half-intrigued. It was all coming back to him now. He remembered her at the strip club, pure fire shooting from her eyes when he’d insulted her. Then she’d had a premonition—anyone who’d been around a seer for any length of time knew the symptoms of a powerful premonition—and ran out into the alley, half-cocked and half-dressed, to take on a vamp with only a chair leg to protect her.
She was either the bravest woman he’d ever met or the craziest. A little from column A and a little from column B, he suspected.
Still, part of him couldn’t help but admire a girl who had the balls to call an angry vampire a pussy to his face. It was probably the same illogical part of him that admired how she filled out a tight tank top and shorts, but still, he appreciated the hell out of her spirit and colorful vocabulary.
His gaze shifted back to his surroundings. Colorful seemed to be a theme in Harper’s life. Not one piece of furniture in her bedroom matched, and every flat surface was covered with brightly framed and matted pictures, dust collectors, and glossy paperbacks. Glancing towards her closet, he noticed that no two articles of clothing in it were the same color.
His gaze fell to her hands. He wasn’t sure if it was an actual memory or a hallucination, but if he concentrated, he was sure he could feel those delicate hands on him. Smooth, warm, exploring.
He shivered and sat up a little straighter, ignoring the pain. For God’s sake, don’t wonder what it feels like to have your hand
s on her, he warned himself, even as he realized it was a lost cause.
“Harper,” he said, then cleared his throat as her name came out sounding more like a croak.
She grimaced in her sleep and turned her head away.
“Harper,” he repeated, louder and clearer this time.
Harper mumbled something, snuffled, then lapsed into full-blown snoring again.
“Harper!”
“No, for God’s sake, not the marshmallows!”
Her head jerked up, and she sucked in a deep breath.
Riddick frowned at her. “Marshmallows?”
Harper shoved her hair out of her eyes and blinked sleepily at him. “Jeez, that was a weird dream. I was swimming in a giant cup of hot chocolate and…well, never mind. I guess you had to be there.”
Riddick closed his eyes for a moment. Jesus. Marshmallows. She really was a lunatic. Thank God she hadn’t been his seer.
She leaned back in her chair and stretched, her breasts straining against her worn-thin Pyromania t-shirt, and suddenly Riddick thought he could overlook insanity if this is what it looked like.
“Hey,” she said, her voice still warm and raspy from sleep. “You look a lot better. How do you feel?”
“Like someone tried to scoop out my insides with a rusty spoon.”
She grimaced. “That’s a visual I didn’t need before breakfast. Talk about TMI.”
Riddick rolled away from her and swung his legs off the edge of the bed. He winced as his bare feet hit her cool oak floors, only then noticing he was partially naked. “Where are my clothes?”
Harper stood up and stretched again. “Your boots are at the foot of the bed, but there’s nothing left of your shirt. I had to cut it off.”
He watched her pad barefoot to her closet, hair sticking out in all directions, loose red sweatpants barely clinging to her hips.
“I’ve probably got a shirt in here somewhere that’ll fit you.”
I doubt it, Riddick thought, his gaze moving over her petite frame. She was five-five, tops. Probably not even one-thirty.
Harper Hall Investigations Complete Series Page 2