Vampires Gone Wild

by Kerrelyn Sparks

  “I’m afraid we made a mistake not hiring you before,” Emma said with an apologetic smile. “We didn’t realize how determined you are.”

  Pamela blinked. She wasn’t in trouble?

  Angus leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “We’d like to hire you now if ye’re still interested.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “Of course, we doona think ye’re properly trained for battle,” Angus continued.

  “But we will train you,” Emma added. “Vigorously. Are you up to that?”

  Pamela snapped her mouth shut and nodded. Her pulse quickened. She was going to work for MacKay S and I!

  Emma took a sip from her cup of Chocolood. “You worked as a bartender at Vanda’s club in New York, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do ye feel about spying?” Angus asked.

  Pamela’s heart skipped a beat, but she sat up straighter. “How soon can I start?”

  Angus chuckled. “Let me explain the plan first. The Malcontents are in disarray, with Casimir and Corky gone. No clear leader has surfaced, and information is scarce. We know of a nightclub in Moscow they like to frequent, so there’s a good chance we could gain valuable information there.”

  Pamela nodded. Good heavens! Did they expect her to work in Moscow?

  “It’s a tragic place.” Emma grimaced. “The mortals who go there are enthralled to the point that they enjoy being fed on. Eventually, they run out of blood and are cast aside like empty milk jugs. And regrettably, there are more mortals ready to take their place. You would have to witness that but do nothing to help them, or your cover would be blown. Then you would be in serious trouble.”

  Pamela swallowed hard. “I understand.”

  “Ye would work at the bar, serving the puir mortals, and listening in on the Malcontents,” Angus said.

  Pamela slumped. This wasn’t going to work. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. I don’t know any Russian.”

  “That’s why you’re perfect for the job.” Emma gave her an encouraging smile. “The Malcontents will feel free to discuss their affairs in front of you.”

  “They will most likely test you to make sure ye doona understand them,” Angus warned her. “They might say some verra nasty things to you to see if ye react.”

  “Just ignore them and go about your job, serving the mortals,” Emma said. “You’ll be wired, so their conversations will be heard by our Russian operative.”

  Pamela’s heart lurched. “You mean . . . Mikhail?”

  “Aye,” Angus replied. “He’ll be yer partner.”

  She shook her head. “He’ll never agree to it. He doesn’t want me doing anything dangerous.”

  “Dear.” Emma reached over and touched her arm. “This was Mikhail’s idea. He’s the one who convinced us to hire you.”

  Pamela sat back, stunned. Mikhail was behind this?

  “He’ll be listening in while you’re at work,” Emma added. “If there’s an emergency situation, he can teleport to you instantly.”

  Angus stood. “What do ye say, lass? Do ye want the job?”

  “I . . .” Her heart thundered in her ears. A job with Mikhail? Night after night?

  “Perhaps you would like to discuss the matter with him first?” Emma asked.

  “Mikhail!” Angus shouted.

  Pamela gasped. He was here? She glanced at the entrance to the parlor just as his large frame filled the open doorway.

  Her heart clenched with longing. How many tears had she shed the past week, believing she’d lost him forever? Even now, her eyes filled with tears, and she squeezed them shut. This was not the time to fall apart. She needed to show Angus and Emma how strong she could be.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and eased to her feet. Mikhail strode into the room, his eyes focused on her with an intensity that made her skin prickle with gooseflesh.

  Emma grabbed her husband’s arm and pulled him toward the entrance. “We should give them some privacy.”

  “They’re staring at each other something fierce,” Angus whispered.

  “Shh.” Emma herded him through the door and shut it.

  Pamela drew in a shaky breath. Over the past week, she’d envisioned meeting Mikhail many times. Sometimes, she imagined herself fussing at him and taking a tough stance. Other times, she would confess her love and throw herself into his arms. But far too often, she had burst into tears for fear he would never want to see her again.

  Now the time had come. He was here, and she didn’t know what to say.

  He stopped about ten feet away. “You look thin. And pale.”

  She blinked away the tears in her eyes. Dear Mikhail. No false flattery from him, just the blunt truth. It was one of many things she loved about him. He was thinner, too. His cheekbones and the line of his jaw were sharper, and his eyes had a haunted look about them. “I didn’t realize you were in London.”

  “I arrived an hour ago to present the plan to Angus. He told you about it?”

  She nodded. “He said we would be . . . business partners.”

  His mouth thinned. “That would be a start.”

  A start for what? “I suppose I might need to live closer to the bar where I’ll be working.”

  “I have a townhouse in Moscow. You’re welcome to live there.” A pained look crossed his eyes. “There’s a spare bedroom.”

  She winced inwardly. “Then this is a . . . business proposition?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head, confused. “I don’t know why you’re doing this. You made it clear you didn’t want me doing anything dangerous, but now you’ve—”

  “You don’t know why?” He stepped toward her. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying desperately to get you back into my life. I’m so desperate I’m willing to put you in a dangerous situation that will scare the hell out of me every night. And I’m willing to endure that torture just so you’ll be near me.”

  Her heart swelled. “Mikhail—”

  “I know I rushed you. I’ve been in love with you for almost two hundred years, but it was new for you. I should have courted you, waited for you.” He slashed the air angrily with his hand. “I will wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”

  “Mikhail.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “The wait is over. I love you.”

  His eyes widened, then he grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. “Oh, God, Pam. I thought you hated me. I thought I’d messed everything up.”

  “No, I messed up.” She touched his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I love you so much. I should have never let you go.”

  “It’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I didn’t realize how much I loved you till I had lost you.”

  He kissed her brow. “We can’t let the Malcontents know you’re with me. It would blow your cover. So we’ll have to keep our marriage a secret.”

  She blinked. “Marriage?”

  He winced. “I keep going too fast. Don’t worry. We’ll take it slower this time.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “I’ll beat you up if you stick me in that spare bedroom. I can do it, you know. I’m VampWoman.”

  With a laugh, he hugged her tight. “You’re my woman.”

  A Forever Love

  Pamela Palmer

  Chapter One

  “CATCH IT, CATCH it, catch it, yes!”

  Elizabeth Bryant jumped from her seat as the Washington Redskins scored on a beautiful touchdown pass in the last ten seconds of the game to win. “Hail to the Redskins!” she sang at the top of her lungs, joining her friends. At the Skins’ win, high fives exploded around the small apartment living room, followed by several victory kisses between her girlfriends and their husbands and fiancés.

  Eliza
beth’s date, Tim, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close, laying one on her. She stiffened before she could catch herself, then forced herself to relax and kiss him back. It wasn’t the first time they’d kissed—she’d been dating him for about a month, but the tender he-man assault was just too much like something Lukas would have done. She didn’t appreciate the attempt or the reminder. She’d belonged in Lukas’s arms. She didn’t belong in Tim’s. And the thought made her chest ache.

  Pulling away, she made a quick excuse and headed for the kitchen. Damn you, Lukas Olsson. Why can’t I forget you? And she needed to forget him. Two years ago, he’d left her, suddenly, without so much as a good-bye. She should be completely over him by now. She ought to hate him.

  The trouble was, deep inside, the flicker of hope that he’d someday return refused to die. Because Lukas Olsson had been full of secrets. When she’d asked what he did for a living, he’d only ever given her vague answers—the kind of answers top secret types always offered in this town. CIA. NSA. Not only was Washington, D.C., overrun by politicians; it was crawling with spies.

  In the eight months she and Lukas had dated, she’d only ever seen him late at night. And while, logically, she knew that that probably meant he’d had another girlfriend, or even a wife, hidden away somewhere, and that he’d left her at the risk of getting caught, she couldn’t let go of the hope that he’d been sent on some last-minute top secret assignment that demanded communication silence, a mission that was taking longer than he’d expected. And that someday he’d waltz back into her life, sweep her into his arms, and kiss her senseless.

  But with each passing month, it became harder to hold on to that hope. The likelihood that their relationship had never meant as much to him as it had to her became greater and greater. In all probability, Lukas had taken the coward’s way out and disappeared rather than facing her with that truth.

  Logic said that he was gone and wasn’t coming back, and the sooner she accepted that and forgot about him, the happier she’d be. But the heart was a hopelessly illogical organ.

  As she entered the kitchen, Steph caught up with her, her eyes at once sympathetic and a little frustrated.

  “I thought you liked this one,” she whispered.

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Tim’s a great guy.”

  “But he’s not Lukas.” Steph’s warm fingers closed around her forearm. “Sweetheart, no one is ever going to be Lukas.”

  Elizabeth’s lips twisted ruefully. “Trust me, I know that.” There would only ever be one Lukas Olsson. With the blond hair and blue eyes of his Nordic ancestors and the build of a linebacker . . . or Viking marauder . . . Lukas had been gorgeous in a powerful, masculine, wholly uncivilized way. And that smile of his . . . oh, that smile could whip an entire roomful of women into a frenzy of delight or jealousy, depending on who was on the receiving end.

  Elizabeth sighed. “There’s no spark with Tim, and I can’t keep pretending there is.” And, Heaven help her, there’d been sparks with Lukas. Fireworks bright enough to light up the night sky.

  She’d thought he adored her. He’d acted as if he adored her, as if he’d been every bit as much in love with her as she’d been with him, even if they’d never actually said the words. They’d dated, made love, and spent every night together for almost eight months.

  Damn him. She knew he’d cared for her, at least a little bit. No man was that good an actor for that long. But he obviously hadn’t cared enough.

  Releasing a hard sigh, she grabbed a Corona and the bottle opener.

  Steph watched her open her beer, her expression soft. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but there’s more to life than sparks, sweetie. Tim’s nice, he’s good-looking, and he’s a lawyer. And let’s face it, a lawyer’s salary would go a long way toward balancing your teacher’s pay.”

  Elizabeth snorted. There was that.

  But as Tim walked her back to her apartment an hour later, Elizabeth knew she couldn’t see him again. They’d dated a month, and she’d put off having sex with him as long as she could. She’d already learned from experience that there was nothing lonelier in the world than sharing that ultimate intimacy with the wrong man when she knew there was a right one.

  Even if, in all probability, the right one was gone from her life for good.

  When Tim tried to take her hand, she feigned ignorance, and a chill she didn’t feel, and crossed her arms instead. At the base of the stairs to her apartment building, she turned to him.

  Wry disappointment twisted his expression. “This isn’t working, is it?”

  “I’m sorry. I like you, Tim, but . . .”

  He nodded. And sighed. “I know.”

  Giving in to impulse, she kissed his cheek. “You’re going to be a great catch for the right woman. I’m sorry she can’t be me.”

  An hour later, ready for bed, Elizabeth eyed the drawer of her bedside table. Don’t touch it, she urged herself. Leave it alone and go to sleep. But the temptation was just too great, and she lifted out the framed picture that Steph had snapped the weekend before Lukas disappeared. With a beer in one hand, he’d pulled Elizabeth against him in that way that screamed mine. She’d looked up, laughing. And the expression on his face as he’d grinned down at her had been so full of adoration. Of love.

  How could he have left her without a single word?

  “Damn you, Lukas Olsson.” As she stared at his beloved face, her heart squeezed, tears burning her eyes. “Why do I still miss you so much?” She’d found that most wonderful and elusive of treasures—a forever love. Then lost it, lost him, in a haze of mystery, questions, and uncertainty.

  Despite that, if she had it to do over, she wouldn’t change a thing. Knowing Lukas, loving him, even for that short time, was worth all the doubts and misery and loneliness that had followed. A loneliness, she feared, that might well last a lifetime.

  Chapter Two

  STEPH WAS WAITING in front of Elizabeth’s apartment the next morning, two Starbucks lattes in her hands. The September morning was just cool enough to hint at autumn’s impending arrival, the sun bright, the sky a brilliant cobalt. Elizabeth’s cotton cardigan felt good, though by the time school was out, she wouldn’t need it.

  With a grin, she adjusted her purse on her shoulder and took one of the lattes. “You are the best friend, evah.”

  Steph laughed as the two started down Wisconsin Avenue NW toward Georgetown and Adams Middle School, where Steph taught music and Elizabeth math. The weather was lovely, the road narrow and tree-lined, the architecture quaint, filling her with pleasure despite the heavy traffic and morning crush.

  “I figured the morning after a breakup deserved something special.”

  “And how do you know Tim and I broke up?” Elizabeth asked primly. Steph always knew what Elizabeth was going to do before she did it.

  “The writing was on the wall. You did break up with him, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Elizabeth sighed. “I did.”

  They walked side by side, past the Naval Observatory, the sidewalk crowded with people heading to work, or looking for coffee, or just meandering with a dog on a leash.

  “What are you doing after school?” Steph asked. “I’m thinking about checking out the new health club. Come with me. We can ogle the hotties together.”

  Elizabeth snorted. “You’re married.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not dead, girlie. Garrett doesn’t mind in the least if I work myself into a lather. Not as long as I come to him for relief.”

  With a smile, Elizabeth took a bracing sip of hot latte goodness. Hazelnut, just the way she loved it. “I’m up for a workout as long as you don’t try to fix me up with anyone.” Before Steph could profess innocence of any such plan, Elizabeth continued, “I didn’t have time to check the news this morning. Anything interesting that I missed?”

  Steph sobered. “Another person�
�s gone missing, this one down by the Navy Yard. He was on his way to a Nats game, and his friends say he just disappeared. Which is impossible, of course.”

  “What does that make, now? Fifteen, sixteen?” People all over the city had disappeared over the past few months, some in broad daylight. Some purportedly into thin air.

  “Nineteen. The most popular theories are space-alien abductions, or the rapture, though if it’s the latter, it’s taking forever and leaving most of the superreligious behind. They’re pissed. Garrett’s worried, but I keep reminding him that nineteen out of well over a million means my odds of being snatched are small enough to be approaching zero.”

  “You sound like the math teacher.”

  “Am I right?”

  “You are. Still, I feel bad for the families left wondering where they went.” She had a sense of what that felt like, the void a missing loved one created in one’s life. The never knowing where they’d gone or why, or if they were ever coming back. It had crossed her mind that Lukas’s disappearance might be related though it seemed unlikely, given that the spate of disappearances had started only a couple of months ago.

  “So share the deets on the health club,” Elizabeth said, steering the conversation to a less depressing topic.

  “They’ve got a grand opening special . . .”

  As Steph talked, and they walked the mile to school past colorful Georgetown row-house shops, Elizabeth sipped her latte and drank in the sights and sounds of the hectic morning rush, consciously embracing all that she loved about her life. And there was much to love—her friends and family, her math kids, the teaching itself, and the constant, familiar bustle of the city she’d grown up in.

  For eight months, she’d been more than just happy. She’d felt . . . complete . . . as if her world and her life had finally snapped into full, brilliant focus. Though, if she were honest, that brilliant focus had always suffered more than a handful of shadows. Shadows in the form of Lukas’s secrets. She’d never called him on his unwillingness to share more about himself, hoping that eventually he’d trust her with the truth. Instead, he’d left without a word. And she’d never quite be the same again. Not with her heart now missing an elemental piece.