by Tes Hilaire
He resisted the urge to say I told you so. After Roland’s penthouse had been trashed over the summer, Logan tried to encourage Roland and Karissa to move out of the city. Fewer people to tempt Karissa’s new vampire instincts and fewer enemies to upend the happy couple’s world. But his concerns were overruled. He knew why, of course. The Paladin may have turned their back on Roland long ago, but Roland would not turn his back on them. He’d stay and fight to the end. And Karissa? Well, she wanted to remain close to the only family she had left—her newly discovered half-brother, Logan.
And you’re not secretly glad to have them both here?
Logan sighed, letting his hand drop to the mattress. “Why didn’t you just do what everyone else does?”
“What’s that?”
“Open the window, crack a can of tuna fish, and set it on the sill.”
“Tuna fish, huh?”
Logan mentally chastised himself. They were vampires. Their cupboards weren’t exactly stocked with tuna. And his ill-spoken words had rubbed her nose in the fact that she would never be normal again. “I’m sorry, Karissa. I’m an idiot at times. Forgive me?”
“Of course,” she replied easily, though he wasn’t fool enough to ignore the tension in her voice. Come to think of it, there was a lot of background noise. More than what could be explained by the TV or an open window. “Karissa, where are you now?”
There was a shuffle, then Karissa’s voice came across the line, kind of muffled and echoic all at the same time, as if she were cupping the mouthpiece. “Well, see, Roland didn’t know the woman called the police. And when they showed up one of them was, well, different.”
Different? He hoped to hell she meant another human with diluted Paladin blood and not a merker. Those half-demon bastards of Ganelon’s would have no qualms about sticking a shank in a Paladin’s heart if the chance arose—even a disgraced one like Roland.
“Roland knew he wouldn’t respond to a thrall and he didn’t want to hurt someone who was only doing his job so he uh…” she trailed off, the background commotion of phone, wailing and bellowed orders telling the rest of her story.
“You’re at the police station, aren’t you?”
The phone crackled, like she had shifted, and her voice lowered further. “Don’t suppose you know a good lawyer.”
Logan was already up, stuffing his legs into a pair of clean jeans. “Hang tight. I’ll see what I can do.”
***
Thirty minutes later Logan pushed through the front doors of the 41st precinct with Alex, the warrior’s shoulder-length hair tamed in a queue, five o’clock shadow gone, and bulging muscles trimmed down by the professionally cut lines of his suit. As soon as they were inside, Alexander took over, his grim expression revealing only professionalism and showing no sign of the fact that he’d been in a fight which had cracked a rib just hours before. A quick flash of a business card and a low-toned conversation with the front desk clerk, and Logan was waved through the metal detectors and into the waiting room, while Alex was ushered through another set of doors.
As much as Logan would’ve liked to go with Alex to see how Roland was holding up, he didn’t press the issue. Better to let Alex do his thing, and besides, one look at Karissa, hugging her body tight as she sat in the corner, told him he had more than just his friend to worry about.
Logan worked his way across the room, avoiding two bored kids who were making a game of scooting in between the various table and chairs and the numerous sets of legs that stretched out into the narrow pathways. Karissa didn’t say anything as Logan slipped into the chair beside her, but when he wrapped his arm around her narrow shoulders and he drew her close, she sighed and dropped her head against his shoulder.
“Was that Alex I saw with you?” she asked.
Logan nodded, his chin brushing the top of her head.
“He’s a lawyer?”
Logan felt his mouth drawing into a curve before he was able to straighten it. “A damn good one, too. But no one expects there to be a brain behind the big muscles and Irish smile. Yet you get him in the courtroom, and he’s as much of a warrior as he is on the streets.”
She nodded, but he could tell she wasn’t really listening. She’d closed her eyes and was concentrating on breathing evenly through her slightly parted lips.
“What’s wrong, Karissa?”
“Their pain and misery. I can feel it.”
He looked sharply around the room, taking in the drawn faces, the others blank with hopeless despair. “Even though you aren’t touching anyone?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter anymore. Just being near is enough.”
He shifted, drawing her closer as if he could somehow shield her from the turbulent emotions of the room. Maybe if he were to shield her…but he didn’t dare. Not if Karissa was right and one of the cops here was sensitive.
Of all the luck. Why did it seem like there were so many of them around recently? Pairing with humans for anything but a night or two of company had gone out of practice with the decline in the Paladin’s gifted lines. Logan figured the resulting years would have diluted the resultant offspring’s blood to the point that their Paladin heritage would be negligible. But lately the Paladin seemed to be running into sensitive humans everywhere.
Maybe dear dad wasn’t the only one spreading his genes around.
He rubbed his face, pushing thoughts of his father and the friction between them aside.
“Tell me about the cop Roland thought was different.” He’d pretty much concluded the man wasn’t a merker—Roland wouldn’t have allowed them to take him otherwise, not when it meant leaving his bond mate alone and unprotected—but he wanted to hear Karissa’s take on the human. Besides, it kept Karissa occupied and not thinking about the other emotions in the room.
Karissa seemed to cling to the distraction, her breathing easing as she spoke. “Detective Ward. About Roland’s height, brown hair, brown eyes, goatee. Pretty average looking, but in good shape. I couldn’t tell much about him other than I wasn’t getting a lot of feedback on the emotional scale but I could tell Roland’s gift was telling him something.”
“Roland didn’t tell you what?”
She shook her head slightly. “You know he’s not great with projective thought, and I don’t think he dared communicate through our bond for fear of alerting the detective.”
Logan mulled that over. If Roland wouldn’t even use their bond mate link around the detective, then the man must be more than just a bit sensitive. Logan would love to get a good look at the guy, though he supposed the person best suited for measuring the man’s abilities was already in there.
There really wasn’t a good term for what Alex’s gift did, but basically he was a power sink. When near, he could measure, utilize, and if he so wished, drain another’s energy—handy if your enemy didn’t have stellar shields, though evil energy did have the tendency to make the Paladin extremely sick. Regardless, if the cop had a measure of power, Alex would sense it, and furthermore, would be able to tell whether it was a lot or a little.
Logan was so busy thinking that he hardly noticed Karissa shift away from him, her little foot slamming down on the peeling linoleum tiles as she swiveled in her seat. He shifted around to see what she sensed just as the doors opened and Alexander stalked out, striding toward them.
Karissa leapt up, wringing her hands as she searched the warrior’s stoic face. “You aren’t happy.”
Alexander grabbed her elbow, urging her back into her seat in the corner. “And you need to keep your abilities in check.”
“So he does have power,” Logan said.
Alexander looked around, then took two giant steps over the kids who’d taken to wrestling on the floor and grabbed another chair from between two sweatpant-clad men who looked and smelled like they hadn’t showered in da
ys. He came back over, the chair’s metal legs grinding on the dirty tile as he set it down and then plopped into it.
“Damn cop. I couldn’t get within ten feet of him without him eyeing me suspiciously.”
“Could you tell what his gift was?” Karissa perched on the edge of her seat, her voice low enough to not carry past their small circle.
“No idea. I’m not sure he knows either. He was puzzled by me, but he never once said or did anything to indicate he even subconsciously acknowledged his own power.”
“Are you going to be able to help Roland or should I start looking for another lawyer?”
“I think things should be okay. Right now we’re in a holding pattern. The witness who placed him at the bar with Thomas Rhodes and provided them with the sketch isn’t going to be here for another half hour, so they’re going to keep him until she arrives in order to do a lineup.”
“Can they make him?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Lineups, fingerprints, blood samples…none of these are considered a violation of rights as it is physical evidence and he has not been asked to provide testimonial or communicate self-incrimination.”
“That’s…that’s…”
“How the system works.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry. It’s been months since she was in that bar and she’d had enough to drink that any identification is going to be questionable.”
“Still…”
Alex patted her shoulder. “We should have him out of here soon. Detective Ward isn’t actually the lead detective on this case, but once both witness and lead are here and the lineup is done, we should be able to process Roland through and get him out with the standard don’t-leave-town bullshit.”
Logan leaned forward to ask another question when he caught sight of a head of flyaway brown curls through the dividing glass separating those who’d been screened for weapons from those coming in off the streets. He didn’t even have to look at her face to place her. He knew. Jessica Waters. She didn’t hesitate, striding toward the front desk clerk like she was more than familiar with the place like, shit, maybe she worked here.
“Logan?”
Karissa’s voice, questioning, brought Logan’s attention back around. He cleared his throat, carefully keeping his head turned away from the front foyer. “We may have a problem.”
“Oh?” Alex twisted in his seat, then immediately snapped back around, leaning forward on his knees. “Crap. That can’t be her, can it?”
Logan nodded.
“Just how good was that memory wipe you did on her?”
Karissa sat straighter, her brown eyes widening. “Memory wipe?”
Logan patted her knee. “Nothing big. Just one of those wrong place/wrong time things.” He turned toward Alexander. “And it’s not a wipe. Just a shield.”
“I don’t care what you and your dad call it. I want to know if it worked. And if it will continue to work if she sees us.”
“It did. It should.” As long as he or Alexander didn’t do anything to set off any internal bells. Like, say, have prolonged periods of interaction with her.
Shit. He should’ve looked closer at her ID, found out what precinct she worked at and what she did there.
Not homicide. She couldn’t be homicide. That would be too …yeah. It would be how his luck was running.
Alexander grunted. “Stay here, keep your head down. I’m going to see how much longer this is going to take.”
With a grimace Alexander lumbered out of the room and pushed through the double doors leading into the inner sanctum of the station.
Jessica had made it past the front desk and was breezing by the metal detector—no strip search or shakedowns for a fellow blue, and he was in prime real estate to catch her eye. Logan frantically scanned the small waiting area. No seats to give her the anonymous nape view of his neck other than the one next to the old homeless man picking his nose. Logan could move, but the man smelled bad enough from here. Then he spotted the sign. A man and a woman over an arrow that pointed down a short hall, and then in smaller letters under it, almost an afterthought, a lacquered sign that read Vending Machines. Eureka.
“I’ll be back,” he told Karissa, bolting for the hall while Jessica paused to chat it up with her blue buddy monitoring the X-ray machine.
The hall wasn’t long, maybe ten feet with two doors on one side. Across the way sat two vending machines stuffed into an alcove. Not really interested in any of the above, he began to pace the small space. Step, step, turn. Step, step…
And about plowed right into her. His hands automatically reached out to steady her. The slight contact sent fire licking down his arm, begging him to move in closer.
WTF? he thought, jerking his hands back.
“Sorry. I was just…” she pointed behind him to the vending machines. Then smiled and stepped around him. That smile—wide and honest and remarkably unguarded—had almost the same effect on him as the unexpected contact had.
Arms folded across his chest to keep himself for giving into the urge to see if touching her again would result in the same lick of fire, he watched her peruse her choices. She’d made an attempt to tame her curls, catching a portion of them into a messy half twist at the back of her head. It kept the worst of her hair out of her eyes but did nothing to stave off the urge he felt to run his hands through the coffee-colored tresses and loosen the corkscrew curls that were just waiting for their chance to spring free. The no-nonsense attempts at containment extended to her face, with its porcelain-smooth skin untouched by anything but a dash of clear gloss on her Revlon-worthy lips, like she knew how beautiful she was, but thought not to draw attention to it.
Good luck with that, angel.
After a few seconds she nodded, then dug into her pocket and extracted two singles. One went into the machine. The lights flashed.
“Waiting can be nerve-racking, can’t it?” she said, punching in a letter and number, then bent to grab her prize of Doritos out of the bottom, showing off her delectable, heart-shaped ass as she did. Damn. How could something so curvy and sweet look so firm and spankable at the same time?
And he’d probably just lost his spot in Heaven for thinking like that.
Belatedly, he realized she’d turned her head back over her shoulder and asked him a question. Jerking his gaze from said ass, he focused on her face, noting the amusement dancing in her blue eyes. “Huh?”
“I asked if you saw something you liked?”
And that was his tongue that hit the floor. Only, that was not an invitation but a challenge. He’d scoped and she’d caught him—and didn’t appreciate it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“Of course you didn’t.” She retrieved her change and put it back into the machine, along with the other dollar. Punched in a few more buttons.
He bent down before she could, grabbed the Snickers bar and offered it to her, firmly keeping his gaze on her face as he did. “No. It’s not all right. And I am sorry. No woman should be made to feel like a piece of eye candy.”
She absently pulled at her bottom lip, her eyes narrowing slightly as she measured him. But then she nodded, taking the candy bar.
“Tell you what. You’re forgiven if you get off your knee. Someone comes around that corner, they’ll get the wrong idea.” She softened the implied rebuff with an upward quirk of her lip. Not even close to the full-on smile she’d offered before, but damn if it didn’t make him feel like he was flying on cloud nine.
Yeah so what, Calhoun? She smiled at you. That’s not a reason to pant like a puppy.
He stood quickly, brushing off the knee that had touched the dirty floor. When he raised his head it was to find her leaning back against the wall between the alcove and the waiting room, her gaze taking its own perusal of him as he fumbled like a schoolboy before her. There was no d
oubt she was checking him out.
He quirked a brow.
“Hey. Payback’s fair.”
“And do you see anything you want?” he teased, then silently cursed himself when he realized he was holding his breath in anticipation of her answer.
Damn, Logan, you’ve got it bad. Whatever it was.
“Yeah, but I got my chocolate. So I’m good to go.” She bit off a hunk of the candy, making a low moan around mouthful that had his blood flowing south with a rather human case of lust—God, how long had it been?
“I’ll never doubt the power of chocolate again,” he murmured, half to himself. She laughed, the sound surprisingly husky, almost scratchy even, like an old record dragged out of storage. He was rather disappointed when the laughter ended; he suspected she didn’t laugh often enough.
As if to prove his point, she checked her watch. A quick grunt told him she wasn’t pleased with the time, but she took another bite anyway, her eyes closing in true bliss as her head tipped back against the wall. He may have been a Paladin, but he was also man enough to steal the opportunity to appreciate her figure. Obviously the calories she took in with the candy bars tended to stick to all the right places. And the training she went through trimmed everything else down to pure muscle.
“Mmmm. This is so good.” She opened her eyes, a split second after he managed to jerk his gaze back up. At least he hoped it was after. Must have been, because her look was almost apologetic as she held up the mostly devoured candy bar. “It’s been a long day. And a long night before that.”
And that was his cue to leave. That long night was half his fault. Obviously the memory wipe was holding or she’d be pinning him against the wall and snapping on the cuffs that he suspected were hidden somewhere in that blocky jacket of hers. Each moment he lingered increased the chances of that exponentially. Yet he couldn’t seem to move. It wasn’t that his feet were rooted to the spot; they just didn’t seem to want to go anywhere but toward her.
Angry at himself and what was turning out to be a shitload of undiscovered weaknesses, Logan dug into his pocket and pulled out three quarters. Maybe she had a good idea with the chocolate.