by Lauren Dane
“Yes, yes, hello yourself, you damnable, infuriating woman. Why didn’t you come back to town where we could have dealt with him together?” He wanted to shake her, but instead held her tight.
“Bringing him into town would have endangered humans. It’s my job to protect them, remember? Also that far out I could slice him in half and no one would see.”
“Are you actually proud of that?” He couldn’t help a smile. She couldn’t see it anyway.
“With a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder? Hell yeah I’m proud of it. Piece of shit. I wish I could kill him again.”
“I wish I could kill him too. Damn it.” He drew her away enough to look into her face. She was soft this way, in her bed with her pajamas on. Pajamas with little white sheep all over them and one black one over her heart. Whimsical.
“The First knew something was wrong. Summoned me and we contacted David. We got the texts shortly after that. Good thinking. I guess I can see why they keep you around at Hunter Corp.” After the texts had come, they’d worked on finding her phone with the GPS but when they went out of service, it wasn’t working well enough to give them more than a sixty-mile radius and it was still daylight.
He had never in his entire lifetime felt as helpless as he had after her call had come and they’d had to wait until it was dark enough to move.
The First’s lieutenants had put them all in a van with darkened windows and they headed out to where she’d given her last location as.
Every minute had felt like an eternity as they waited in the dark, until dark settled in outside and they could break free and take flight. It was as if his breath had been held until he’d landed and seen her, limping, covered in blood, on the verge of passing out with a pile of smoldering Vampire in her wake.
“You came for me.” She grinned and it was lopsided, like she was, and he didn’t quite know where to put all the ways she made him feel about her.
“Yes, well. I may have hit my head or something.”
She laughed and he made her rest against the pillows. David came in with some juice and crackers along with some pain pills. “Take them. No arguments or I’ll have Thena come back over.”
Rowan’s eyes widened and she held a palm out and took the pills as ordered.
“I’m supposed to be healed with super Vampire blood goodness. Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck?”
“Phineas’s venom was particularly nasty. He was dying, his bodily fluids were toxic. You got a big dose of it. He also broke a few ribs. The First healed most of it, but the rest your body will have to heal from incrementally.”
He told her the remainder of the story. About the lab they’d found at Phineas’s house. About the data that’d been collected about the ways the drug worked on Vampires. Phineas had to have known he was dying and yet there was no doubt he was as addicted as the women he’d been using to feed on.
“We know a great deal more now. At least that much was helpful. It’s going to be a problem.” He shrugged. “But we all die with this drug. He probably only had maybe a week left. Most of us aren’t six hundred.”
“Is this a glass-half-full moment? Because I need to tell you I’m going to be billing the Nation triple time if I have to eradicate another Vampire that old and strong who is strung out on super drugs. Got me? Despite my easygoing ways I truly hate having my ass handed to me. It hurts.”
He cringed. “It’s these moments, dear Hunter, where a man asks himself just what he’s doing with a woman who courts danger the way you do.”
Her glib look faded. “Yeah? I think it’s my sparkling wit and my pelvic floor muscles.”
He laughed and hugged her to him gently. “The latter more than the former.”
“That’s good. I really have to practice the last one. The wit part comes naturally.”
“Don’t panic, but I think we just had a regular, utterly nonhostile conversation.”
“Duh, we’re talking about how awesome I am. Who can argue with that?”
Because he didn’t want to resist, not after all the panic and worry, he kissed the corner of her mouth, right where it curved up into her smile.
David tapped on the door, but to Clive’s surprise, she didn’t recoil from his embrace as the other man entered her room.
“You have a visitor. Your foster father.”
She started to get out of bed but David put his hands out to stay her. “No. He said quite clearly that you were to stay resting. He’ll come in once you’re ready.”
“He walked in on me once when I was thirteen. Changing my clothes. I don’t think he actually even saw anything, not that I had anything to see then, but I think I scarred him forever.”
“I heard that, petal,” Theo called out before he entered the room and she laughed.
David’s back was pressed so hard to the wall, Rowan worried he’d leave an impression. “You can go. I know you’ve probably been up taking care of things for hours. Thank you, for all you do for me.”
He got over his fear enough to come to her bedside. The Vampires moved, though Clive stuck very close and Rowan told herself she was too weak to stop him.
“You do good in the world, Déesse. I’m honored to help you achieve that.”
“You’re going to make me sniffly in front of the guests.”
He smiled briefly as he squeezed her hand. “We wouldn’t want that. I’ll just be in my room. You’ll call if you need anything.”
“Did you just boss me around? Damn, David, what a bad influence I am.”
He barked a quick laugh and left the room, skirting the Vampires as much as he could while not being disrespectful.
“Sit, please.” Rowan indicated a nearby chair and Theo gracefully folded himself into it. He reached out, squeezed her ankle and sat back.
And then he lectured her for five minutes in German about going out there alone and then not coming back to town to get help and how he’d have sent his lieutenants anyway, treaty be damned and if she’d gotten killed he’d have been very, very angry.
She nodded and listened, knowing he needed to say it all and admitting, deep down inside anyway, that it was nice to hear.
They’d never have a traditional or close relationship. It wasn’t what he was capable of and she couldn’t totally let go of what he’d done, even if she did understand it. But he was hers and she was his in their own unique way and it was enough.
When he was done, he sat back and sighed.
“It’s a good thing you’re known for your patience,” he muttered to Clive, who looked surprised briefly and then nodded. She regretted that she’d fallen off her neck tic plan and committed herself to it anew.
“I’m in the room. Also, this is not 1567 or something and I’m not chattel. Moving along. I’m going to be speaking with the Motherhouse shortly and filling them in on the whole episode. It’ll be my recommendation that we create a task force to monitor the situation. Vampires supercharged on crystal meth is a threat and one we cannot ignore.”
“We will not accept any new restrictions without a full renegotiation of the treaty.” Clive spoke this time, as Scion.
She shrugged. “Yeah well, we all want things. You lose any moral authority when six-hundred-year-old Vampires eat humans and leave their bodies for all to see.”
Theo heaved a sigh. “So quickly back to a thorn, my little rose.”
“You wanted me in this position, if you recall.”
He sent her a single raised brow and she remembered her place quickly enough. But still she took one last chance and grinned, rewarded by an amused shake of his head.
Theo stood. “My time here in Las Vegas is up. I must go home again. You will come to me next time. In just three months, as it happens for the next meeting of the Joint Tribunal. You will take dinner with me.”
Oh yeah, she’d have to do all that now that she’d been made the Liaison. She nodded. “I’ll see you then. Thank you for your assistance.” She hesitated, reaching for…something. “Your help was in
valuable.”
He paused on his way out. “I am, as always, your father, Rowan. Even when we serve different masters and goals. You are mine, even though I have made mistakes.”
He left and she said nothing and Clive, Goddess bless him, didn’t press, only straightened her coverlet and let her get herself together again.
It was at that moment she realized she might just have some room in her life for a Vampire boyfriend and a lot of sneaky meetings and probably a fuckton of politics too.
About the Author
The story goes like this: while on pregnancy bed rest, Lauren Dane had plenty of downtime, so her husband took her comments about “giving that writing thing a serious go” to heart and brought home a secondhand laptop. She wrote her first book on it before it gave up the ghost. Even better, she sold that book and never looked back.
Lauren had no idea how fabulously wonderful it would feel to actually make a go of her writing and she’s thankful every day people actually want to read what she writes! She’s well aware of her good fortune and loves every moment of it, even when she has to edit and put Barbie’s dresses back on over and over again. She still hasn’t managed to figure out how to shut out the sound of iCarly so she can write a love scene, though.
Visit Lauren on the web at www.laurendane.com.
Email: [email protected]
Blog: www.laurendane.com/blog
You can write to her at P.O. Box 45175, Seattle, WA 98145.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9169-4
Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Dane
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