by Mara Leigh
His words are so candid and honest and raw that I’m taken aback, floored by how directly, and quickly, he put all his cards on the table.
It’s almost like Colton just bared his throat and exposed his vein for me. He metaphorically gave me an opening to slash him down, to bleed him dry with a few cutting words.
“I’m very flattered.” I draw a long breath. “But I’m not sure whether or not I believe in it—love at first sight.”
Although it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Rock—or in lust with Gray—and while love isn’t a word I’d use at this moment about Colton, I can’t deny the chemistry and attraction.
And there is something beyond the physical between us, too. The connection is unmistakable. I feel safe next to Colton, which is crazy, because I know that if I let my guard down—if I revealed myself with the same vulnerable honesty he just showed me—Colton would kill me.
Drawing a long breath, I regain my sanity. This is a human man. Not only is he human, he’s a cop. And not only a cop, one who specializes in hunting down and killing vampires. This is way too dangerous. I need to shut it down. But carefully. The last thing I need is a vampire hunter for an enemy.
“You’re too funny.” Grinning, I mock slap his chest. “You almost had me going there for a second. Does that line work on most women?”
“It wasn’t a line.” He looks ill.
“Come on.” I pull my hand from his and take a sip of my whiskey. “We’re meant to be together? We’ve known each other for what, thirty minutes? Forty?”
He opens his mouth to respond, but I keep going. “Message received. You want to get me into bed. But even you’ve got to admit that your pickup lines were a bit over the top.”
Chapter 13
Colton
Selina’s words hit like a slam to my solar plexus. I can barely breathe.
What did I expect? I came on way too strong. My inexperience with women is showing, big time, but I meant every word.
Honesty is always the best policy, and even if she doesn’t believe that my feelings are genuine—it’s hard for me to believe the power of what I’m feeling so fast—at least she didn’t reject me. Not yet. And even better, it doesn’t sound like she’s committed to either of those two men.
Until she tells me to leave her alone, I’ve still got a shot.
“Want another drink?” I ask, my voice hoarse, like I just woke from a long sleep.
“No thanks.” Lifting her glass, she looks surprised to find it empty. “But you go ahead and order another.”
Selina handles her liquor well, especially for such a petite person. I palm my glass, enjoying the cold on my overheated body. “I’ve still got most of the last beer.”
Her smile brightens my heart. In high school I never went for the artsy types, the ones who dyed their hair unnatural colors, got tattoos or pierced anything beyond their earlobes, but Selina is different.
Her light purple hair suits her so well it’s like she was born with that shade, and her skin is so delicate it must be so, so soft. It’s all I can do to keep from touching her cheek, kissing her lips to find out.
But I already moved too fast with my words. I’m not going to do that with my actions. I can be patient. Selina is worth it.
“Did you grow up around here?” I ask, hoping she’ll open up more.
She shakes her head. “I moved to the city in my teens. How about you?”
“Toronto born and bred. Although, to be honest, I grew up in the burbs. Ajax. I didn’t move downtown until I started with the police service.”
“Are your parents in the city, too?” she asks. “Brothers and sisters?”
I shudder as her question draws grief from the deep place where I store it, and I can’t form an answer.
“What’s wrong?” She takes my hand. “What did I say?”
I force a smile through my sadness. “I had a sister. She died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She shifts on the bench beside me, her arm moves like she might give me a hug, and my entire body tingles with the anticipation of comfort and contact, but the hug doesn’t come.
“My sister was murdered,” I tell her.
“That’s terrible.”
“Viciously attacked by a vampire. The same one who’s on a killing spree now.” Rage shoves my sadness down, and I realize I raised my voice. Selina looks terrified.
“Sorry.” I give her an apologetic smile. “It just makes me so angry. These monsters—”
“How do you know it’s the same vampire?” Her voice shakes.
I turn on the bench to fully face her. The answer’s confidential, no matter how badly I want to tell her I shouldn’t. But I want Selina to know everything about me, my life, my work. “You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“No, why?”
“The information isn’t public.”
“I’m good with secrets.” Her shaking hand, her wide eyes, betray her attempt at courage. She might be interested, but she’s terrified.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “We’re going to catch him.”
“You know it’s a him?” Her shoulders relax a little, and I’m glad that I’ve been able to calm her fears—at least a little.
“Logic and probabilities tell us the killer is male,” I tell her.
“Probabilities?” She tips her head to the side and her shiny purple hair brushes her shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Female vampires are rare.”
Her head straightens quickly. “They are?”
I nod.
“How do you know that?” Pushing through her fear, she seems eager to know more.
“We believe it’s harder for women to survive the transition process.” I shrug. That’s what they taught us, and it makes sense to me. “But even if the numbers were even, females are less likely to kill, even human women.”
She nods, her eyes showing genuine interest, and my feelings for Selina expand. I rarely date, and the few times I’ve brought up my work with women they’ve shut me down or run the other direction.
Selina must hate vampires as much as I do, and I’m so glad I’ve discovered a shared interest. If she likes football, that clinches it. Selina’s my soul mate.
“What are you thinking?” I ask her. “You look like you’ve got more questions. I’ll answer all the ones that I can.” I feel like my entire body is smiling and I want to tell her everything. I want to know her thoughts and for her to know all of mine.
“You said women are less likely to kill, but most men don’t kill either, so why do you assume most vampires do?”
I hold back my laugh, trying to figure out if she’s joking. “It’s not an assumption,” I say when I realize she’s not. “They all kill. That’s what vampires do. It’s how they live.”
She looks skeptical now. Like I’m telling a fairy tale. “Can you prove that any of the vampires you’ve staked killed humans?”
Instead of blurting out the pat answer my boss would want me to, I pause. Selina isn’t just some random member of the public, she’s the woman I’m falling in love with. I’ve got to be honest.
“If I’m keeping it totally one hundred,” I answer carefully. “We rarely have irrefutable proof to tie an individual vampire to a specific murder. But killing is in vampires’ nature. They prey on humans and suck them dry.”
“How often to vampires commit murder?” Her knuckles turn white as she presses her hand against the table.
“The city is getting safer. Our methods work.”
“What methods are those?” Her voice is flatter now, colder.
“Our methods are dangerous, but simple and effective. Strike first. Kill every vampire we find. It works.”
She looks horrified. “How do you know it works?”
“Because after we’ve done a sweep, there are no vampire killings in that area.”
“But…” Her eyes narrow and her hand trembles. “You just admitted you don’t have evidence of vampire killings before y
our sweeps, either.”
I shake my head. “I misspoke before. Vampire murders exist. We find victims drained of blood.” Sometimes their throats ripped out. But I want to spare her the gory details.
She remains quiet, so I continue. “Just the other night we found a victim in Forest Hill. We’re sweeping that neighborhood this week and all the surrounding ones. Searching every place bloodsuckers might be hiding. Staking every vamp we find.”
“How can you tell when you’ve found a vampire?” she asks, her voice trembling.
I hate that I’ve scared her, but if I stop answering her questions now, I’ll just make things worse. “We have ways of identifying the monsters.”
“How?”
“It’s confidential.”
She tips her head to the side. “Okay, let’s say you’ve identified someone as a vampire, how do you know that vampire has killed the victim you found?”
“They’re all killers.”
“So you just stake them all, hoping you got the right one?”
I nod.
She leans back from me. “What if you took that same approach with human suspects?”
“Selina.” I take her hand. “You’ve got a soft heart, and I love that. But you know it’s not the same. Vampires, they’re murderers. Monsters.”
She looks down. “Even wild animals get treated better than that.”
“I suppose you’re right, but wild animals are innocent. They don’t know any better. Vampires are vicious murderers. Monsters who can masquerade as human.” She’s got to understand.
She pulls her hand out of mine and lifts her glass to her lips. Realizing it’s empty she sets it down. “Maybe I will have another whiskey.”
I get the attention of Chelle and signal to her that Selina wants another round. Chelle brings the drink quickly.
“Thank you,” Selina says.
Chelle grunts and walks away quickly. I take a long draft of the beer I’ve barely touched, quenching a strong thirst. Talking about this with Selina rattled my nerves, because I care so much what she thinks and I need her to understand.
Selina sips her whiskey, quiet for what feels like a very long time, and I wonder if I’ve blown it. A sick feeling invades my happiness. Maybe I was wrong about her. I feel so connected to her already, but if she’s a member of one of those crazy, vampire rights groups… If she is, I need to make her sees she’s wrong, because I’m not going to quit the VTF until every vampire in the city has a stake through its heart.
“The vampire killer we’re hunting now,” I tell her softly, so no one can overhear, “has a calling card. We know the murders are connected.”
“A calling card?” She looks up at me expectantly. “What is it?”
I pause. “Are you squeamish—about blood?”
“Not really.” She looks up and to the side, making me wonder if she’s telling the truth, but in spite of her fear and her soft-heartedness, she still seems more interested than repulsed, so I continue.
“Before sucking them dry, the monster carves a symbol into his victims.”
“A symbol?” Her voice comes out low and breathy, then she looks up into my eyes.
“Yes. And the monster carves it into the victims while they’re still alive.”
“How do you know that?” Her voice is shaky.
“Because the wounds bleed.”
She cringes. “The symbol. What does it look like?”
It’s confidential, but if I want her to trust me, I need to trust her, too.
Using the condensation from the side of my beer glass, I sketch a diagram on the wooden table. “It’s two lines, like this. Then a circle up here through the lines, and then this pointy thing on top of that.”
“A crown.”
I turn to her, smiling. “Yes. Exactly. It looks like a crown.”
She shrinks back, almost collapsing into herself.
I went too far. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “TMI. I sometimes forget that not everyone I talk to is a cop or medical examiner. I’m sorry if I upset you.” I reach for her hand and to my relief she lets me take it again. But her fingers are trembling.
“Don’t be afraid, Selina. You’re safe with me.” If she lets me, I’ll protect her from vampire attacks, from everything, for the rest of her life. “You’ll always be safe with me.”
“Thanks.” She shakes out her body, as if trying to reset, then smiles softly. The sight of her upturned lips and sparkling eyes sends ripples of joy racing through me. Ripples of desire too. I shift on the bench, hoping to hide that particular reaction.
“Enough about me and my work. Let’s talk about something else,” I suggest lightly. “What do you do for a living?”
“Your job’s way more interesting.” She’s recovered and I’m drawn to her inner strength. “Have all the bodies you’ve found been marked with that symbol?”
“Most of them. A very significant percentage of the murders in the past decade, anyway. My sister had the mark—” My voice catches. “That’s how I put it all together.”
“You put it together?” She’s clearly impressed.
“Yup. I spent hours, on my own time, going over the files for every vampire murder since they’ve been recorded. Not all the files had enough detail to be certain, though.”
“How come some files aren’t complete?”
“For vamp killings, especially in the past, some cops didn’t bother with all the paperwork. No trial to prepare for.”
She nods, a little stiffly.
“But even with that limitation, I discovered that several of the victims had the mark. Plus, some clearly didn’t have the mark, and there are no reports of it in other locations around the world, so we know carving the symbol isn’t something all vampires do.”
“How will you find this vampire?” she asks. “Do you have leads?”
“Want anything for last call?” A deep male voice asks.
I turn to find the owner glaring down at me.
“We’re good here.” I turn my back to him, but it doesn’t take detective skills to figure out he hasn’t left. Selina continues to look past me toward him.
“Colton,” she says softly. “It’s been really nice meeting you, but I need to talk to Rock.”
“Oh.” My chest deflates. “Sure.” Then a little bit of hope reinflates it. Maybe she wants to break up with him. Maybe that’s why they need to talk. “When can I see you again?” I ask her.
“Soon.” She smiles. “I want to hear more about your work. It’s fascinating.”
My chest fully inflates, expanding by three inches if I had to guess, and I slide out of the booth. “Tomorrow night?” I ask hopefully, then grin. “I guess that’s tonight, at this point.” Although even as I say it, I remember that tonight is my only night off this week. With the intensified sweeps, everyone on the VTF will be required for duty from sunset to dawn.
She looks toward Rock before answering, and that breaks my heart just a little.
“I’m not sure about tonight,” she says. “But soon.”
“Great. I’ll hold you to that.” I walk away, my body buzzing from our time together, and I miss her before I get halfway across the room.
I wish I knew which one of those men was my main rival, the bar owner or that tall, elegant dude. It’s not surprising that she’s got multiple men in pursuit, but she doesn’t seem the type to lead men on.
I have to believe I’ll be the one that she chooses. If she doesn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do. Meeting her in person was even better than my fantasy of her, and my heart will be pulverized if she doesn’t feel the same way.
When I reach the door, I turn back. The owner’s arm is draped over her shoulders, but she rewards me with a quick smile.
Whatever’s going on between those two, she hasn’t shut the door on me, on us, and I plan to keep my foot firmly planted in that door until she opens it wide or locks it shut.
Chapter 14
Selina
“What was that al
l about?” Rock’s heavy arm draped over my shoulders, his fingers stroke my arm, sending tingles through me. Tingles that started while I was talking to Colton if I’m honest.
“It’s nothing. He was just flirting.”
“Selina.” Rock frowns. “That man is a cop. A cop who’s been asking around about vampires. Stay away from him.”
“I thought the line was—keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
He pulls me more tightly against him. “I just want to keep you safe.”
“So does Colton. He promised to protect me from vampires.”
“Ha.” Rock’s laugh rumbles through me.
I touch his hard chest. “Colton’s a good guy, Rock. I don’t trust people easily, especially not men, but for some reason I trust him.” And it’s true. I do. I know I can’t let my guard down around Colton. He’s incredibly prejudiced against vampires, and he’d stake me the second he found out what I am, but still, I want to see him again.
In fact, I need to see him again, because Colton can help me find my Maker.
I think he can help me find my Maker, because I know the symbol he showed me.
I’ve got that same symbol carved on me.
Gray walks into the bar. Several sets of female eyes turn toward him as he crosses to join us. How can I blame them? He slides into the booth, then partially rises to lean across the table and kiss me, his tongue flicking my lips like a vibrator. Rock’s arm stays around me the whole time.
“Feeling better, I take it?” Rock asks him gruffly.
Gray sits down, then, keeping eye contact with me, not Rock, Gray answers, “Much better. Thank you, mate.”
His teeth scrape his lower lip and his eyes are so full of lust I feel naked, almost violated, as if his gaze is stroking and probing my body in front of everyone in the bar, in front of Rock.
“You ready to go home?” he asks.
“You two go.” Rock kisses the top of my head and slides his arm out from around me. “I’ve got a lot to do here.”