Truthfully, Lachlan preferred to stay clear headed. But he was willing to do what he had to do in service of a goal.
The whiskey, though… The whiskey hadn’t been about maintaining his cover. That had been the blood bond working at his brain. Like the sex, like being drunk on Penny’s body, the scent of her, the taste of her…
He drained his drink.
So, why was he drinking now?
Was it the blood bond again? Since using the whiteflame, he hadn’t held back, tasting her often, like he’d been brought in from the starving darkness to a banquet. In the morning, he’d wake up and crawl into her bed, where she lay in a nest of pillows, fecund and warm and glowing and beautiful. Barely awake, she’d offer him her neck, sighing contentedly once he’d latched on. And in the evening, when they were watching TV. At night, before bed.
All the damned time.
Was it wrong? Was it bringing it all back?
Penny had done that compulsion, but it had only been a normal dragon compulsion, nothing to be worried about, nothing insidious.
But here he was drinking.
So I don’t look like an idiot, he insisted to himself. One doesn’t sit at a bar and do nothing. With a drink in my hand, I belong.
Sure, sure. But he could have been sipping one all night, not draining one after the other.
After coming back from the trip to the Bryant clan, Lachlan hadn’t touched a drop of whiskey since. Penny couldn’t drink. He wouldn’t drink. It seemed like a good way to conduct himself. It had worked out fine. He hadn’t missed drinking.
So why I am I drinking now?
He ordered another drink, glaring at the guitarist. It was his fault. If he would take a god damned break, then Lachlan could talk to him, get his information, and then get home to his pregnant girlfriend.
What time was it, anyway? He checked. Late. Too late.
He promised himself he would only sip this drink. He wouldn’t drink it too fast. He would have some left when the damned guitarist finally stopped playing.
To his surprise, on stage, the guitarist stopped playing and leaned in to the microphone. “I’m going to take a little break.”
Finally, thought Lachlan, who was already on his feet, ready to intercept the guitarist.
The man was headed for the bar.
Lachlan hurried over to meet him. “Hello,” he said. “You’re really talented. I’d like to buy you a drink.”
“Very kind of you, but I drink on the house,” said the guitarist, smiling at him. “Part of my payment.”
“Maybe we could talk, then,” said Lachlan.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Always like to chat with a fan.” But the way he said the word fan let Lachlan know that the guitarist understood this wasn’t about his music.
The guitarist leaned over the bar.
The bartender handed over a glass of red wine, which had apparently been waiting for him.
The guitarist accepted it and took a sip.
Lachlan shut his eyes, trying to calm himself. He was usually good at questioning people, but this was different, and he was drunk, and it was late, and he was desperate, and— “Bartholomew Collins.”
The guitarist turned to him sharply. “I’ve paid him what I owed him. With interest. There’s no reason for him to keep sending his flunkies around.”
“I’m not his flunky.”
“I didn’t mean any offense by it. But there’s nothing more that I owe that man.”
“No,” said Lachlan. “I mean that I don’t work for him. I’m not here on his behalf. I’m looking for him.”
“Why would you look for a man like that?”
“That’s my business,” said Lachlan. “Do you know where he is?”
The guitarist contemplated his drink. “What do you want with him?”
“As I said, it’s my own business.”
“Well, if you plan to harm him, and it comes back that I sent you to him, he won’t like it, you see? I don’t want anything more to do with him. I’d rather not get entangled in something.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” said Lachlan. “I want information. I want his help.”
The guitarist snorted. “Help? He wouldn’t help a person any more than he might ask them to tea. He’s not exactly kind hearted, you know.”
“Yes, well, I’ll do my best to keep that in mind.”
“You can’t go to him with your hat in your hand. He’ll chew you up and spit you out.”
“Thank you for the advice,” said Lachlan, feeling irritated. “Will you tell me where he is or not?”
The guitarist gave him a look that said he was convinced Lachlan was deeply stupid. “I don’t know much. I know where I met him to pay off debts. I don’t know what that place was to him.”
“Where was it?”
“A beach house in the north, right on the shore. Dragon country, but he didn’t seem a bit worried about that. I suppose nothing frightens him. He’s ancient.”
“You know the address?”
“I…” The guitarist furrowed his brow. “I could tell you how to get there. I remember landmarks, not street signs.”
“Fine,” said Lachlan, taking out his phone, poised to take notes. “Start talking.”
“There were lots of vampires there,” said the guitarist. “Some drakes too. But it wasn’t like the way it usually is with those kinds. It was fancy. Champagne in crystal glasses, men in tuxedos. A big tent out on the beach with huge heaters so they could lounge outside in the cold, not that it matters much to someone like Collins. He’s so old, he’s evolved beyond temperature.”
Lachlan flinched inwardly. That could happen? He could live so long that he couldn’t feel the cold?
“Just because it looked nice on the outside didn’t mean it wasn’t as corrupt and as common as any old vampire gang. The same old schemes—sell your blood for money. Pay your debts, free yourself. Except it wasn’t freedom.” The guitarist was now running his fingers over his wrist.
Lachlan realized that there was a mass of scar tissue there. He’d been bitten viciously.
For some reason, Lachlan flashed on a mental image of Penny’s skin scarred in that way. He recoiled from it.
“I’m sorry,” Lachlan said softly.
“I finally got free of him,” said the guitarist. “Free of them all. No more making biweekly trips to be fed on by seven of them at once.”
“God,” Lachlan muttered.
“You shouldn’t go there,” said the guitarist. “Whatever he promises you, he’ll want something in return.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Lachlan. “I’m not human. I’m a vampire too.”
The guitarist scrambled backwards, fear in his eyes. “You said you weren’t working with him.”
“I’m not.” Lachlan held out both hands. Suddenly, he was tempted to reach for his magic, which wasn’t nothing, not when Penny’s blood was flowing through him. He could compel this man, force him to tell him where Collins was.
“Stay away from me.” The guitarist was shaking all over. His wine was spilling.
Lachlan reached out, and the magic poured out of him. To calm him, he told himself.
The guitarist stopped shaking. His eyes glazed over.
“Where can I find him?” Lachlan whispered.
And the directions began spilling from the guitarist’s lips. Tumbling over each other as the man gazed blankly into space.
And now it was Lachlan who was shaking as he took notes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Where were you?” I said. I was still dressed, but I’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting for Lachlan to come home. Now, I was sitting up, trying to shake off the dregs of sleepiness.
He was standing in the middle of the living room, looking disheveled. He ran his hand through his hair. He didn’t answer.
I got up off the couch and walked over to him. Within about three feet, I could smell the liquor pouring off of him. He’d been drinking. We hadn’t talk
ed much about his drinking, because I didn’t have a problem with it, but before we got together, he used to get wasted drunk. Incredibly drunk. And he hadn’t done that again until the blood bond. Now…
I folded my arms over my chest.
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something. Then stopped. Shook his head. Crossed to the refrigerator and took out some blood, which he began to gulp down.
I watched.
When he had finished the entire container, he looked up and his gaze met mine for a moment.
“Where we you?” I said again.
He looked away.
“You should have called,” I said.
He made a fist with one hand, studied his knuckles as if he’d never seen them before. “I lost track of time.”
“And you turned off your phone? Because I tried to call you, and it went to voicemail.”
He looked confused, and then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried to turn it on. He threw it down on the kitchen counter. “I must have forgot to charge it, and it ran out of battery.”
“Seriously?” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I stayed out so late.”
“Where were you?”
“A bar,” he said. “The Carlisle.”
“You went out drinking?” I said. “On a whim?”
He looked at the floor. “Yeah. Uh, with some guys from Vice. They asked me to come along. I figured why not.”
What? That couldn’t be true. Lachlan didn’t much get along with anyone at the department. The other police didn’t like him, and Lachlan didn’t take the time to like them either. No way had he gone out drinking with some co-workers. He was lying to me.
“I should have called,” he said again.
My lower lip started to tremble. My mind was leaping to all sorts of awful conclusions. The face of Iona Bryant swam in my mind’s eye, the twenty-something that Lachlan had put the moves on to get into the Bryant clan. I hadn’t meant to be jealous of her, but I couldn’t seem to help it. Back then, though, I still looked kind of like a woman, instead of a blimp.
“Hey, Penny, it’s okay.” He put both hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
“You’re lying to me.” My voice was a rasp.
He took his hands off my shoulders. “Why would you say that?”
“Is it another woman? Is it because I’m disgusting and huge and swollen and—”
“No!” Anger flashed in his eyes. “I’m not lying.”
“Sure,” I muttered. “Sure.”
He gazed up at the ceiling. He seemed to be looking everywhere except at me.
“Where were you?” I said again.
“I told you where I was,” he said.
“Why were you there?”
He didn’t say anything.
“God damn it, Lachlan.”
“I was just… there,” he said finally. “Drinking. Alone. That’s all. I lied about the guys, because it sounded better that way, but I should have known you’d see through it.”
I took a step back. “Really?”
He met my gaze. Held it. “Really.”
“Why lie about that? Are you ashamed of yourself?”
“I’m worried,” he said. “About the blood bond. I’m worried that I’m… drinking more because we started sharing blood again. You remember how much I was drinking right before we went off to join the Bryant clan?”
I went back into the living room and sat down on the couch.
He followed me. “Do you?”
“You always drank, Lachlan.” I glared at him. “Sometimes too much.”
He looked irritated.
“Before we were even together, you did.”
“That was because of Hallie,” he said in a quiet voice. “After you and I got together, I didn’t get plastered like that anymore. You noticed that.”
I had, I guessed, but I shrugged.
“You had to notice.”
“I don’t want you to stop drinking my blood.” There. I’d said it. “If it was only not drinking my blood, it would be one thing. But if it’s no closeness, no touching, no sex? I… I can’t go back to that. I just got you back.”
He sat down next to me on the couch, all of the air going out of him in a huff. “I don’t want to stop drinking your blood either.”
“So, don’t,” I said. “We did the test. It didn’t increase our power.”
“Not noticeably, anyway,” he said. “But maybe it did a bit. Maybe the more we share blood, the more it builds up in us, the more we start sliding back into whatever it is we were.”
“Or maybe you’re scared, and you’re making this up to keep me at arms’ length.”
“What?” He turned to look at me. “I’m not making it up.”
I picked up a pillow off the couch and squeezed it. “We’re both doing it, Lachlan. I won’t name the baby. You won’t touch me. Because we’re both afraid that if we accept the good things that we have, they’ll be taken away. You can’t tell me that you don’t feel it deep down somewhere.”
He was quiet.
I let go of the pillow and began smoothing it. “Am I way off base?”
“No,” he murmured. “You’re not.”
I let out a noisy breath.
Suddenly, he pulled me close and kissed me.
I could taste the liquor on his breath, but I didn’t mind it. I grabbed onto him and held on.
“Okay,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I accept it. I accept you. You’re mine. The baby’s mine. I get to keep you both.”
“You do,” I said.
He released me. “It feels wrong. To say it out loud feels like shaking my fist at the heavens, taunting fate.”
“Say it again.”
He hesitated. “I get to keep you both,” he said, and his voice broke a little.
“Any better that time?” I said.
“Actually, it was a little less powerful that time.” He squared his shoulders. “I get to keep you both,” he said again, this time more to himself.
I kissed his cheek.
He put an arm around my shoulders.
I lay my head against his body.
“So, names?” he said.
“Wyatt,” I said.
“You don’t have to pick the name I liked,” he said. “We could use yours.”
“As a middle name,” I said. “Wyatt Carter. Wyatt Carter Flint.”
“He gets my last name?” Lachlan said with a small smile.
“As a ‘fuck you’ to my grandparents, hell yes,” I said.
Lachlan laughed. “Okay, then. You sure? I don’t mind if you want to give him your name. You’re the one doing the heavy lifting here.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “He’s yours. We’re yours.” I picked up his hand and planted a kiss in the middle of his palm. “You get to keep us.”
He chuckled. “Yes.” He tightened his arm around me. “And we decorate the nursery?”
“Hey, I started doing that,” I said.
“I did notice you moved around some boxes.”
“I need your help,” I said. “If you would come home, instead of going to the bar and getting trashed, then—”
“I’m sorry.”
I sighed. “No, I know you are. Let’s not talk about that anymore.”
“Bed?” he said.
I nodded. “Bed.” I started to get off the couch.
Lachlan stood up first and helped me up.
“Thanks,” I said. “Look, I need to talk to you about Eaglelinx.”
“What about them?” he said.
“They keep popping up all over the place. I feel like there’s a connection between them, the rogue dragons, and the serial killer case.”
Lachlan laughed. “What? No way.”
“You’re the one who told me that detectives don’t brush things off as coincidences.”
“That’s stretching it, though.” He kissed me on top of the head.
“I remembered something else,” I said. “I remembered why I don’t like those stupid eagleclaw candies.”
“Why’s that?” he said.
We started back the hall together.
“I remember that I put two of them in my parents’ bag before they left on their trip. I stuffed them in there for them, thinking they could eat them on vacation. But my parents never came back. After that, I never wanted to look at another one of those candies.”
“Well, maybe that’s why you’re putting all this together in your head,” he said. “You have a strong emotional response to Eaglelinx. If you didn’t even remember that, maybe it’s been largely subconscious. Maybe you are putting that negative emotion together with—”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, yawning. “But it’s too complicated to get into tonight. I’ll tell you later.”
“Later is good,” he said, opening the door to the bedroom.
Inside, our king-sized bed sprawled in front of us, looking huge and inviting. I couldn’t wait to crawl under the covers with Lachlan.
* * *
Dirk was annoyed. “The search warrant turned up a whole lot of nothing. No magical artifacts anywhere on the premises. Of course, it doesn’t mean anything because he knew we were coming to look for them. I shouldn’t have tipped our hand like that, but how was I supposed to know that the sister would get all mother hen about him? I thought I could push on that guilt he was feeling, get him to spill it all.” She was pacing in front of Lachlan’s desk.
“Sit down, Dirk,” said Lachlan. “You’re making me nervous, pacing like that.”
She kept pacing. “I’m sure you had some brilliant plan to make it all work out perfectly, didn’t you? I’m sure if you had talked to him, he’d be here in the station, singing like a canary.”
“Did I say that?” said Lachlan.
“Did they find anything at his house?” I said. “He wasn’t hiding anything?”
“A whole bunch of liquor bottles,” she said. “Had them stashed everywhere. And the funny thing was that they found his sobriety chips from AA. Five years sober, or so they said. That much liquor in the house, I’m not sure I believe it.”
“He’s a former alcoholic?” said Lachlan.
“Sounds like a backslidden alcoholic to me,” I said. “Like he quit, but then he started again.”
Fire Born (City of Dragons Book 5) Page 16