“I know what it looks like, but I’m telling you, she wouldn’t do something like this. Can you delete it?”
Cordell’s fingers flew across the keys then paused. “Hmm. That’s strange.”
“What?”
“It’s already been deleted. As in…six minutes ago.”
Jackson pointed to one of the screens. The red-and-gray Paranormalish logo was right there along with the title of the article: Vampire Wars? You Be the Judge, Part 2. “I don’t get it. What are we looking at if it’s been deleted?”
“The webpage is saved in my computer’s cache. But it’s been deleted off the server. Well, technically. Nothing deleted online rarely ever disappears completely. Did I tell you about the time when I was in charge of computer forensics for—”
“I’m sure it’s fascinating, but can you tell me when the blog article was first posted? Is that even possible?”
“Ha. Is it possible?” Cordell said. “We’ve known each other for how long and you still doubt me?”
“I don’t doubt you, I just—”
“Give me a minute. There isn’t much I can’t find out.” Despite the man’s large hands, his fingers were nimble and flying so fast that they were a blur over his keyboards. “That post went live just over an hour ago…”
Cordell kept talking, but Jackson wasn’t listening. “It couldn’t have been her then. She was with me.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but she could’ve had it scheduled to post at any time. It would’ve been automatic.”
And just like that, his hopes were in the toilet again. He thought about the last time they were together. She’d told him that she loved him and he remembered feeling that if he could only get these urges under control, he’d be the happiest man on earth. He had believed with her help, her encouragement, he may have had a chance to overcome what had been plaguing him for so long.
Either she was an amazing actress and he was a poor judge of character, or she didn’t post that article.
He went through the scenarios in his head. Arianna might be a temptress, capable of getting him to do all sorts of things he’d never considered before. Until her, he’d felt he was a confirmed bachelor and had been happy with that. The effort it took to coddle relationships had seemed like a waste of energy, until she came into his life.
No, she wasn’t an actress. Hell, she was a horrible liar. She’d gotten under his skin like no one else ever had been able to do before. He recalled the times he’d seen her interacting with Krystal and talking to Lily. She really cared about people. Even those from her blog. Arianna had shown such strength of character. She made him want to do the right thing, make the right decisions, which wasn’t something he’d always had the urge to do… Until he met her. He’d struggled with his dark nature, but maybe he could get it under control if they had a lot of sex.
But one thing was for sure. He’d always trusted his gut when it came to people. Which meant she didn’t make that post.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE DOOR TO CARTER’S APARTMENT was ajar. She gave a quick little knock and pushed it open.
“Hello,” she called out.
“We’re in here.” It was a woman’s voice, instead.
Carter hadn’t told her he had guests. His mom? No. She remembered him saying once that his mother had passed away a few years ago from the same ailment he was suffering now. He’d taken care of her at the end and had seen how she’d suffered. Girlfriend? Neighbor?
She stepped through the doorway, walked down a short hallway and peered into the living room.
A woman with white-blond hair sat on a leather sofa. She smiled the kind of smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Lips only, like she’d forgotten to tell the rest of her face. In her forties or early fifties, she looked a little too old to be Carter’s girlfriend, though. One arm was stretched out comfortably on the seat back, her legs crossed. She wore a black pantsuit, four-inch black heels, and a dark blue blouse with ruffles around the neckline. Her throat, wrist and ears sparkled with blue crystals. Sapphires, maybe? The one in her necklace was a statement piece. Alone on a black cord, the gem was at least three inches in diameter. Two burly guys who looked surprisingly like bodyguards stood behind her with their arms crossed. Where in the hell was Carter?
“Uh, hi, I’m Arianna. I came to see—”
“Yes, I know who you are,” the woman said impatiently with a wave of her hand.
This was awkward. She didn’t look at all familiar. “You do?”
She paused to give the woman a chance to introduce herself, but she didn’t. She just continued to stare with a strangely detached expression on her face. Interested and yet…not. Arianna felt as if the woman was examining her like an object that she was contemplating buying. An ominous feeling settled over her and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Tamping down nervous laughter, she took an involuntary half step backward. “Is…ah…Carter here?”
Something passed between the two men and suddenly they were behind her. She’d have angled herself toward the door, but burly guy number one was right there. They’d moved so fast, they had to be vampires. But not the good ones. What had happened to Carter?
“Are you alone?” the woman said flatly.
She heard herself answering nervously. “I’m here to see Carter. I called a few minutes ago and he said to come over. We’re friends. We work together. He’s going to help me with my computer. But if now isn’t a good time, I’ll touch base with him another time.”
“Isn’t that lovely of him? Carter is such a helpful person, willing to do just about anything. No matter what the cost is to him. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Um, ah, yes. For sure.” The woman was definitely alluding to something. Problem was, Arianna had no idea what. She hated people who skirted around what they really wanted to say. This passive-aggressive stuff was for the birds. But then, she had a feeling she wouldn’t like the straight truth, either.
“Carter, you were right,” the woman called, looking past Arianna. “She came. Very well done. You can come out now.”
Come out now? Like he’s hiding or something?
Arianna’s heart rate cranked up so high it had to be unhealthy. She could hear the blood pounding behind her eardrums. The room had a very strange, very uncomfortable vibe that made her skin crawl. She’d have backed away toward the door, but the bodyguards were two immovable pillars behind her.
A tiny noise. A shuffling sound from the kitchen. Slippers on a hardwood floor, maybe. Thank God. Carter.
She turned and what she saw shocked her. Even though she’d seen Carter less than twenty-four hours ago, his condition had clearly deteriorated a lot. His eyes were sullen and hollow, his skin was crepey and hung from his bones like loose fabric. Had they hurt him?
She started to ask what had happened but Carter interrupted her.
“Where’s your cousin, Arianna?” he said, his voice higher pitched than normal. “The one you were supposed to bring with you to Xtark?”
Why would he care about Krystal? He hadn’t even— Then it dawned on her. Everything suddenly became so clear that she almost gasped with the realization. She reached for her cell phone to call Jackson, but one of the men snatched it away.
Lily had told her about changelings, humans who’d been turned into vampires. Their physical ailments healed—Mackenzie being able to have children when she wasn’t able to have them as a human, Cordell being able to walk again after spending years in a wheelchair.
Carter didn’t want Krystal for himself, the woman did. He wanted the promise of a better life. And what better way to ensure that than to give the woman what she wanted?
Arianna darted a glance over at the woman on Carter’s couch, looking for confirmation. The blonde smiled and
that’s when Arianna saw the tip of her fangs. Self-defense training would’ve come in real handy right about now. Hell, she’d even take a gun or a knife. Screw her aversion to weapons. She’d shoot these two goons and the woman in a heartbeat. As for Carter…
“How can you do this, Carter? Do you know who they are? Do you understand what they do to people?”
He put his hands up to his ears, not wanting to hear more. “Yes, I know. I know. But I’ve been waiting a long time to be changed. To trade this useless body in for a new version of myself. Others I met at Xtark told me they would, but Ventra is the first one whose promise seemed genuine, not just ‘Oh, we’ll do it someday.’ I deliver Krystal and she makes me a changeling. Done deal.”
She suddenly couldn’t breathe, as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
Ventra stood and walked toward Arianna. “You won’t give up your cousin even if it means you’ll suffer or die if you don’t?”
“I know what you are,” Arianna said pointedly. “What you all are. And I know why you want Krystal, which is why I’m never telling you where she is.”
Ventra darted a glance at Carter before turning her attention back to Arianna. “I thought humans had a higher self-preservation instinct than this. That when it came down to it, you’d care more about your own life than someone else’s.”
“That may be true for some, but not all of us.”
Ventra narrowed her eyes. “Interesting.”
Arianna got the sense that she really was fascinated by the concept. “When I was a child, I saw shadows come to life and take my mother. No one believed me. It was only recently that I learned those shadows had to have been Darkblood vampires who prey on humans. People like you took my mother, drained her blood and sold it on the vampire black market. There was nothing I could’ve done to stop them from taking her then, but there sure as hell is something I can do now. I will never, not in a million years, tell you how to get Krystal.”
Ventra snapped her head up. “You saw vampires moving as shadows?”
“Yes,” she said cautiously. She’d have thought Ventra would have continued to press her about Krystal.
The woman walked in a tight circle around her and she again felt as if she was an object being examined for possible purchase. Stopping in front of her, she grabbed Arianna’s chin and looked directly into her eyes. Ventra’s irises were completely black, her whites a dark gray. Although terrified, her instincts telling her to do whatever she could to get away, Arianna didn’t drop her gaze. All she had now was her strength and her determination, and damn this woman if she thought she could strip those from her with just a look.
“A Dark Seer,” Ventra said softly. “Is it even possible?”
“A what?”
“A human who can see vampires in shadow form.” She turned Arianna’s face from side to side. “I didn’t know that it was more than just a story.”
Arianna tried to jerk herself free, but the woman held her tight. There would definitely be bruises later if she lived long enough for there to be a later.
Jackson had never called it being a Dark Seer. What kind of story was she talking about? “What if I can see vampires in shadow form? Are you worried that you’re not as undetectable to humans as you’d thought?”
Ventra laughed and the sapphires at her ears sparkled. “Hardly. I’m not worried at all. It’s been said that one of our ancestors kept a Dark Seer as a blood slave. Believed it gave him special powers.”
Her use of the word it in reference to a person was not lost on Arianna. “But I’m not a sweetblood.”
Ventra gave her a pointed look. “Oh, believe me, I know you’re not. If you were a sweetblood, I’d have very different plans for you.” Then, almost to herself, she continued, “He kept her, without making her a changeling for he feared that the transformation process would modify the way her blood reacted with his. When she died, he was distraught. He searched all of Europe, decimated whole villages and towns, looking for another just like her, but he never found one.”
It sounded like one of those macabre nursery rhymes that romanticized death, killing, disease and torture.
Ventra continued, “It’s said that all of us have a perfect blood match out there. A human whose blood will transform us into something even greater. But rarely, if ever, do we find it.”
A perfect blood match. Could this be what she was to Jackson? Was it her blood fueling this ability of his to be Unseen and not because he was reverting? If what she was saying was true, there’d be no way Arianna’s blood would do the same thing to Ventra as it did to Jackson. “What? Like a fated mate?”
Ventra laughed. “I’m not talking mating here.” She brought Arianna’s wrist up to her nose and sniffed. “Far from it. But you may have just bought yourself a little more time. I’m very much interested in finding out what a Dark Seer’s blood will do to me.” She straightened up but didn’t release her hold. Instead, she squeezed it tighter and Arianna wondered how much more pressure she’d be able to withstand until the bone snapped. “Now, first things first. I have a collection of sweetbloods that needs to be completed. Text your Guardian boyfriend and tell him to bring Krystal to your house.”
“Never.” Remembering the helicopter thumbs self-defense technique Lily had taught her, she twisted her wrist and succeeded in yanking out of Ventra’s grasp. Before she could turn to make a run for the door, strong arms gripped her from behind. Bastards.
“Why did I think you’d say that?” The woman nodded her head. In a flash, one of the burly guys who’d grabbed Arianna’s phone handed it over to Ventra.
Jesus. If she got out of this in one piece, she was sooo going to chain that phone to a belt loop or something.
Ventra sat down again, crossed her legs. “Oh, look here. Three missed calls. Want to bet that they’re all from him?”
Okay. Think. If Ventra had Arianna talk to Jackson, what could she tell him about where she was? Could she say something in code? Could she mention Carter’s name quickly enough before they took the phone from her? She didn’t know where they planned to take her, that was the problem. Code or no code, she wouldn’t be able to relay that information. She seriously doubted they were staying here much longer.
“Damn nails,” Ventra said. “Sure makes texting a bitch.”
Well, then that answered that. She wouldn’t be talking to Jackson after all. “What are you telling him?” She hoped to God he wouldn’t agree to a switch. If only she could warn him that Ventra had no plans to let Arianna go—with or without Krystal.
The woman kept hunting and pecking. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Arianna glanced at Carter, who was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen counter. He appeared to be ready to topple over. In another time or place, she would’ve felt badly for him, asked if there was something she could get to make him more comfortable, but now, she felt nothing for him, except contempt.
Ventra looked up from the phone. “There. Done.” Turning to burly guy number one she said, “Elan, take a few of your people and go to Miss Wells’s house. If this Guardian boyfriend of hers shows up but doesn’t leave the girl, then you know what to do.”
Elan took a gun from beneath his jacket, checked the chamber, then reholstered it. “Yes, ma’am.”
Arianna closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. No doubt the bullets were silver.
THE ANGER IN JACKSON’S VEINS had reached the boiling point. If one person here at the field office even looked at him cross-eyed, he was likely to rip their head off. And to make matters worse, Santiago had showed up, unannounced. It was a good three-hour drive across the border from British Columbia. He couldn’t have called at some point to let them know he was on his way down?
“What the fuck is going on around here?” The guy wasn’t known for being subtle or diplomati
c. “I’m hearing rumors you’re seeing a human female who is immune to thought suggestions and now she’s gone and done what?”
He closed his eyes and counted to ten, trying to keep his dark nature in check when all he wanted to do was sink his teeth into Santiago’s neck and rip.
“Arianna isn’t immune and she wouldn’t betray us like this,” he said, looking at Paranormalish pulled up on Cordell’s screen. “She’s long suspected that another organization has been hacking into her blog. She texted me that someone posted an article from her account. She’d forgotten it was saved in her archives until someone hacked in and published it.”
“And you bought her phony story? Of course she’s going to say that.”
Fuck that Santiago was the region commander. Jackson took a menacing step forward before Dom cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to derail him. His field team leader gave him an imperceptible shake of the head.
“I’m inclined to side with Jackson on this,” Dom said. “We’ve all gotten to know Arianna and I have a hard time believing she’d do this. There’d be no point to it. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose.”
It meant a lot to Jackson to have his team leader stick up for Arianna like this.
“Hello? She’s got a blog,” Santiago said sarcastically as if they were all idiots in the Seattle field office. “And what do blogs need to survive? Readers. Need I remind you that some people thrive on shit like this?”
Dom looked pissed. “If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t know how Darkbloods were planning to use Hollow Grave. As it turns out, they’re embedding hidden messages in the game with instructions and directions to upcoming blood-rave parties. We’re fairly certain that they don’t know we have this information because just this morning, they uploaded more downloadable content to their website that matches what we stole from them with Arianna’s help. This intel is invaluable and it’s all because of her.”
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