9781936653027BorntobeWildArsuaga
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His brow wrinkled anxiously.
“Hold out your hands, baby. I don’t want you to try anything funny. I’m not fucking around here. Don’t think I wouldn’t use it on you, Stefan. Now, move. I’m growing tired of this. I want to get back to Miami Beach before dawn.”
He presented his hands and Ecaterina placed the manacles on his wrists. He grimaced as the silver singed his skin. “She was right,” he mumbled, as he shuffled forward constrained by the silver chains. Alexandra, I need you. I love you.
“Who was right?”
“No one.” He growled low in his throat.
“You’re talking about the fat bitch you were with at the club.” Narrowing her eyes, she tried to pierce his mind. He closed her off. “Who is she?” Ecaterina demanded.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s gone.” Stefan answered with sadness and longing in his voice.
“Hmm. I don’t believe you, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll be in Miami in a few hours.”
Within the hour, they were on a private jet flying to Miami Beach—Stefan, Ecaterina, and Gerry, the human boy toy. When the plane leveled at thirty thousand feet, Gerry removed the silver chains and the burns on Stefan’s neck and wrists started to heal.
Ecaterina walked from the back area and sat down in the seat directly across from Stefan. Having cleaned up and changed clothes, she showed no evidence of the blood bath.
“Feeling better, baby? We could have done this a lot easier if you had accepted my request for help when I asked, except you declined. So I took matters into my own hands.”
He glared intently at her. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to help in killing a Fed.”
“You’ll help me…or you’ll die. Your choice.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? Why a virus to kill vampires? And killing a Fed? For what purpose?”
“Oh so many questions, Stefan. You give me a headache.” Leaning forward, she rubbed firm palms over his thighs. “Suffice it to say, it’s part of Emil’s plan.”
“Emil…Emil Dragomir?” He watched the lascivious expression gather in her eyes as lust-driven hands worked their way up his thighs.
“Yes, Emil Dragomir. My lover. The genius behind the entire plan to dominate the vampire blood market. His company has synthesized the blood enzyme responsible for the miraculous healing we vampires possess. That’s all I can tell you for now.”
“What the hell are you doing getting involved with that bastard? I’ve heard he is one of the most evil and dangerous family Masters. Why did you get mixed up with him?”
“Mmm, baby, I don’t want to discuss Emil. Let’s talk you and me. I’ve missed you.” Her hand skimmed over his taut abdomen and broad chest.
He grabbed her wrists, holding them tightly. “I haven’t missed you Cat. I’ve moved on.”
“Your eyes and scent tell a different story baby.” She leaned in, rising and squirming to straddle his lap, and licked his chin.
“That’s enough. I said I’m not interested in you or your sick games.” He growled and his fangs elongated, giving her a dead-eyed stare.
In response, her fangs dropped and she hissed through her teeth. “You are a stone-cold, heartless bastard like everyone says. I bet you haven’t had a real fuck since I left you. Nothing can soften your black heart, can it?”
Stefan rolled his smoldering dark brown eyes, red rimmed from the fury within. He wouldn’t let her insults rile his anger any longer. It wasn’t the place, or time.
“I haven’t changed, Stefan. You have. No wonder you are an enforcer for Van Zant. You’re not good for anything else. Or anyone for that matter.”
He pushed her back into the seat.
Psycho bitch. Ecaterina was right. He did have a stone for a heart. Several days ago he wanted to end his existence because he couldn’t take the loneliness and the so-called life he led, until Alexandra. By the gods, Alexandra. I need you. He turned his attention out the airplane window.
The sky was partly cloudy, the stars twinkled, the half-moon a sardonic and winking eye floating between the few night clouds. Fingers of moonlight bounced off the jet wings and danced through the windows onto interior sleek high polished faux wood surfaces.
The jet flight lurched up then down with a sudden shaking motion.
The pilot came over the cabin speaker, “Miss Tomescu and gentlemen please take your seats and buckle up. We are encountering some turbulence. For your safety, we ask you remain seated until we pass through this disturbance. Should be out of it shortly. Thank you.”
“Oh, I hate flying,” Ecaterina said, gripping the armrests.
Stefan glanced over at her. Her face showed fear, an expression he remembered from the first time he met her, over three centuries ago. It wasn’t exactly true she hated to fly. It was the turbulence which reminded her of the night her life changed, the night he turned her.
He’ll never forget the night either.
Stefan stared out the window. His thoughts drifted back to their homeland, in the Carpathian Mountains, in a town which no longer exists. Not only did the town cease to exist after the eventful night, but Ecaterina’s mortal life came to an end. The earthquake hit late morning, mid-week, most of the villagers were out and about at the market or in Ecaterina’s case, attending her wedding.
Upon awakening for the night he saw the destruction. For hours he walked the remainder of the streets of carnage from the quake. There were moaning, crippled bodies everywhere. Those who survived were gathering what they could salvage and making their way from the area. Aftershocks still shook the ground, sending screams spangling into the darkness. For the first time since his transmutation, his heart ached for his people; he cared for them deeply and felt their pain.
Everything changed for him on that fateful night.
He found Ecaterina buried under rubble in the chapel, barely alive, delirious with fever after being covered by heavy rock for more than twelve hours, he cleared her from the debris. Gasping for air, she begged him to end her life. Stefan knew if he did nothing an agonizing death laid ahead, as life slipped from her grasp. He wrestled with the decision to turn her. Looking up at him, her eyes filled with tears, and a gentle calm settled over the fragile fading creature. He took her and changed her in the chapel ruins. A blasphemous act he would pay for with his soul for eternity. That night happened over three hundred years ago.
He glanced back at the woman who sat across from him tonight, still a fragile and frightened creature. The turbulence stripped away the formidable exterior she constructed around herself over three centuries exposing the vulnerable young woman she used to be. He could see it on her face. He could hear her heart racing and watched her body tense. For all her bravado with every other aspect of her existence, he remembered the frail and frightened Ecaterina he turned three centuries ago. He created her and now regretted doing so.
He closed himself off from feeling for so many years. Maybe he was a stone-cold heartless bastard, but he didn’t purposely kill his own kind for no reason. What kind of game was she up to? But more to the point, what ulterior motive did Dragomir have to use this deadly virus?
The private jet landed in Miami after midnight.
Chapter 14
Next Afternoon, Miami Beach, Florida
“About time you showed up, Johnson. Get your skinny ass over here,” Division Chief Todd Martin shouted across the room.
FBI Special Agent Scott Johnson hurried to his division chief, not wanting to give the older man any excuses to take him off the undercover case. He’d been in Miami Beach for twelve months and his boss still gave him a hard time since being assigned to the Special Vamp Unit. He’d swear the Chief tried his damnedest to get him fired or transferred out. The past six months he’d been undercover at the SanGeneMur (SGM) Pharmaceuticals Corporate offices working as a lab technician. The assignment dealt with uncovering the virus threat within the Vamp Community before it got out of control. The Bureau’s initial reports indicated the
outbreak started in Miami Beach with a rogue vampire, and spread to a human after a vampire reportedly died from the mysterious virus. With their self-healing powers, viruses shouldn’t affect vampires. The reports didn’t make sense, but they had dead bodies to prove it. Washington wanted answers and headquarters needed the information kept quiet until the virus could be confirmed.
Johnson’s background as a pre-med graduate before being recruited by the Bureau made him the perfect candidate for the case. Six weeks into his new post with Martin though, and he was ready to shoot himself or his boss or both. The man drove him up the frigging wall with his insistent badgering and nit-picking. “Yes, sir,” he replied back to the Chief every time with few deviations. It was the best he could get out without losing his temper.
“What took you so long?” Martin asked. “And what the hell are you wearing? Not enough time to do your nails or pretty boy hair or something?”
Johnson ignored the jibes directed at his masculinity. “Summertime traffic, sir. I dressed for work at the lab. I didn’t know how long I’d be here. Who’s the vic? Another vamp bite the dust?” He forced a laugh.
Martin scowled. “I could only wish it were that easy. I wanted to have a nice lunch with my wife today. Surprise her. It’s her birthday. But, nooo. I get a dead, half-naked human woman instead of a live fully naked one for some afternoon delight.” He shook his head. “The dead bimbo’s a Romanian national, so it falls to us and not the local boys on this one. I want you working on this Johnson.” Martin waved his hand at the center of the stage where a sheet-covered body lay.
“Why me? What would this dead woman have to do with the job I’m working now? Is the death related to the vamp virus?” Johnson couldn’t help wondering why he was even at this club or whatever the place was called. The marquee on the outside said Euphoria. The name conjured up a lot of different images in his brain as to what went on in the establishment.
He worked undercover. To pull him in on a murder case had to be major. He had never seen a place quite like it, dark and almost, erotic. It was obvious Martin didn’t like him. He seemed to go out of his way to make Johnson’s life miserable. Maybe this was Martin’s way of getting under his skin, taunting him to transfer out and go back to the New York field office, his last assignment.
Martin scowled again. “She was human, and worked for the vamps at SGM. That’s where you come in Johnson. Besides, everyone else is on vacation or working other cases.” He moved over to the body on the stage area. Johnson followed, digging his notebook and pen out of his jacket pocket. Martin looked over his shoulder to see if Johnson followed.
“How do you know she worked at SGM, sir?”
“After the cleaning crew found her early this morning, scaring the shit out of them by the way, poor wretched lads,” he chuckled and shook his head, “they told me they checked the lockers. The only one with personal items had women’s clothing, which they assumed were hers. They found a lab jacket with the SGM Pharmaceuticals logo embroidered on it amongst the belongings. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out Johnson.”
“No I guess not, sir. I hope they didn’t touch anything. I want to take a look at those clothes.”
“Nope. It’s been secured. You’ve been at SGM for six months now, right?” He reached down and pulled the sheet off the woman with the flourish of a magician revealing his assistant’s reappearance after the incantation. “Have you seen her around the office Johnson?”
“Petrescu, her name is Alina Petrescu.”
“You know her. Good, because since she was half-naked and had no ID on her or with the belongings in the locker, and no one we’ve interviewed so far will give us any details. You’ve filled in one piece of the puzzle. This is good. I knew bringing you on the case would get it solved fast.” Martin covered the woman with the sheet with the same flourish as he uncovered her.
“Alina was my one solid contact at SGM. I’ve been working her to get information about the secret project in the lab where she was assigned,” Johnson said. Nausea roiled in his stomach. Alina was a pretty girl, slightly older than him, cute, but an ounce too skinny for his tastes. Her information had been helpful in the investigation. With his main contact elimination, he wondered what he was going to do. It had been going so well. He’d made headway getting closer to the top, meeting Emil Dragomir, the elusive owner of SGM Pharmaceuticals, and finding out about the special project he heard rumors about.
“So, Johnson, you’re it,” he said curtly. “Just wrap the damn case up as fast as you can. The higher up mucky-mucks don’t want any of this vampire virus crap leaking out. Don’t do any fancy-assed stuff, just the usual paperwork. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” Johnson nodded. “But, sir, why do you think this is virus related?”
“Do you see any blood?”
“No.”
“This is a vamp club. She’s human, and dead with no bite marks and no blood loss. It has to be the virus. This will make the fifth virus death this month, if so. Almost all employees at SGM are foreign nationals which is another strange anomaly to these cases. The labs will probably prove it out about the virus. The Medical Examiner said we should have the results in twenty-four hours. You can add his findings to your report. Do you want me to do the entire investigation for you? Do your job Johnson. It’s what Uncle Sam trained you for.”
“Yes, sir, I didn’t mean for you…” His voice trailed off.
“Johnson, stop being such a namby-pamby, pretty boy. Maybe you need to take some lessons from the people who run this club.”
“Huh? What kind of vamp club is this? I’ve never seen one like it.” He turned his head, surveying the dark walls with various unusual contraptions displayed, racks, benches, and…
A pat on his shoulder came from behind, and he jerked slightly. “A kinky, vamp sex dungeon Johnson. You’ve never been to one?” Jared Palmer, the twenty-nine year old, smart-ass party boy agent who always seemed to get the best assignments said with a snicker in his voice.
Johnson shook his head.
“Man, where have you been living, under a rock?” Palmer walked over to the dead woman and pulled up the sheet. After taking a look, shook his head, and dropped the sheet back down. “What a shame.” He knelt down and Johnson watched him read something.
“What are you doing?” Johnson asked.
“Seeing what kinky crap she liked?”
“Huh?”
“Seeing what turned her on. Reading her key. Man, this girl was into some nasty shit. Probably died from over-stimulation.” He laughed.
“That’s not funny. You have no idea of the cause of death. She was a sweet person.” Johnson said curtly.
“Hey what’s your problem dude? It’s no big deal.”
“He knew her Palmer,” Martin said.
“Oh, sorry man. I didn’t know.” He spread the sheet over her arm and stood facing the other two men.
“Why’s Palmer here boss? I thought this was my case.” Johnson asked.
“It is, and since you are still working undercover at the lab, you need backup on the outside to keep your cover intact. Palmer is it. You boys play nice.”
The disappointment curled in his stomach. Johnson knew he was an idiot thinking this way, but he would have liked the task as lead investigator in a murder without backup, except this was not a simple murder. Chief was right. He worked six months undercover making progress and would like to keep it that way. This case involved the vampire virus and it had already shown itself to be complicated. This murder made it more complex. He needed backup, but why did he have to have it in the form of the punk ass Jared Palmer, the office’s real pretty boy? The man got under his skin. He sighed, wondering if Martin actually wanted him to fail. The thought solidified Johnson’s determination. He resolved not to fail himself, the Bureau, or Alina. He owed it to her most of all.
“So did the ME give an estimate to the time of death?” Johnson asked, taking notes surveying the crime scene.
/> Martin yawned. “The ME estimates around five or six this morning.”
“So right around sunrise, about closing time for the club I assume?” Johnson asked, writing the fact down on his notepad. He turned his wrist to look at his watch. “The body was found at around nine-thirty and it’s now eleven-thirty.” He scribbled more notes.
“Yeah, that would make sense. No one saw her keel over because they were gone,” Palmer said.
Martin shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to the office. Maybe I can salvage something with my wife for her birthday after all. You boys take care of this. Start by interviewing the employees. They know something. It’s your job to get it out of them.” He turned on his heel, dismissing Johnson and Palmer with his back. “Johnson, I want the preliminary report on my desk tomorrow afternoon. No excuses.”
“Yes, sir,” the two men said practically in unison.
Johnson walked over to the lifeless form under the white sheet and stared down. The woman under the cover was someone he knew, his contact at the SGM Pharmaceuticals. Could he be the reason for her death? He brushed those thoughts aside. No way had anyone known he was a Fed. He had intensive training and had complete control of his thoughts. If a vamp came within ten feet, he could mask his mind—no doubt.
He crouched down and pulled the cover back. The young woman’s unseeing glazed icy blue eyes stared back at him. Her porcelain white skin was bare except for black leather straps wrapped meticulously around her chest and over her hips and through her crotch. She wore candy apple red stiletto high heels, which Johnson had to guess were at least five inches tall. How anyone could walk in shoes high enough to break an ankle defied his comprehension. From around her wrist hung the ‘key’ Palmer referred to earlier. Alina was young with delicate features and had been pretty in life, but the pale mask of death made her gruesome. Johnson sighed, numb to the sight, having seen death in many of its ghastly forms during his short career. He looked down the length of her body and could just about make out the sickening, bright red marks that lined the fair skin on her round ass cheeks where someone had whipped her. Johnson shifted his gaze to her wrists and ankles, the obvious marks of rope burns, evidence of Alina being tied up at one point. “Jesus, Palmer. What kind of vampire club did you say this was? Look at these marks on her body. What do you make of this?”