“Do you miss being a vampire, Nina?” January asked softly.
Now she lifted her chin, clearly refusing to give in to an emotion she considered weak. “Define ‘miss’.”
“I’d prefer you did,” she replied, her tone firm but her smile sympathetic.
As January gave Nina time to consider her request, she put herself in Nina’s work boots.
To lose something that was an integral piece of you—be it a limb, an organ, a friend or parent—was the equivalent of losing a power. Being a vampire had defined Nina, had given her purpose, a reason to get up each day. She was a savior, and she liked the role of hero.
She didn’t like it because she was egotistical—not in the least. She didn’t want praise. In fact, adulation made her squirm in extreme discomfort. What this ex-vampire did like was knowing she’d likely come out the victor. It made her feel helpful when for so long, she’d felt helpless.
She’d grown up in a tough neighborhood, raised by her grandmother, with a mother who was a drug addict. She couldn’t control her mother or her eventual death, but Nina could certainly try to control the loss of someone else’s life. Each time she saved someone, she was saving her mother. That much was clear from all the information January had been given.
Those almost omnipotent powers were now long gone, and she was floundering to find her place amongst a group of saviors who worried themselves sick over her, and had gone to great lengths to keep her out of the messy stuff.
But Nina didn’t look at Wanda and Marty as two people who only wanted to keep her safe when they were on a case. To her, this was insulting, a slap in the face, a notion her two best friends thought she was weak—and if Nina hated anything, she hated weakness.
But this last time, the event that had given Artem the green light to request the council probe deeper, was the time Nina had almost been killed by a stray bullet.
When Nina didn’t answer, January pressed her with a gentle nudge. “Nina? Can you define why you miss being a vampire?”
But the ex-vampire shut right back down. “Like I said, I miss being able to keep up.”
“Do you feel differently now that your friends have powers and you don’t? Does that make you feel less like you’re part of this intimate group you’ve created with them?”
Nina bristled. The signs were in her body language and her tone. “You mean like inferior or some shit?”
“No. I mean less included. Marty can still take on a hundred linebackers without blinking an eye, Wanda can do the same. Do you feel like you’re no longer doing your part with OOPS, or you no longer belong because they’re technically different than you now?”
Her lips thinned as she looked down at her feet. “I’ll tell you what I feel. I feel like one of those two dingbats is gonna get hurt because they have all these whiny feelings you chicks are so big on, and they take those into consideration instead of taking fucking action when we’re in the middle of a crisis. I’m not afraid to make the hard choices and act on them. I’m the muscle…was the muscle,” she murmured, looking back down at her hands, now folded in her lap.
“You definitely made a hard choice when you threw yourself in front of that Queen Sangria—”
“Angria. Her name was Angria. Can’t you read? Marty wrote all that shit out for you when she filled out the forms. Of which there were nine hundred frillion. I can’t believe you didn’t ask for a lung and my damn kidney.”
“Okay then, Angria. You put yourself in harm’s way to save someone—”
“Toni. Her name is Toni. And she’s a good kid. A really good kid who’d had some shitty times.”
January nodded, tucking a stray hair from her face behind her ear as she noted how important it appeared to Nina that she hear Toni’s name. Sometimes that meant the patient was keeping a tally in her head. A checklist of sorts. In this case, the kind of checklist made when a life was saved.
“Right, Toni,” January repeated. “You saved Toni. You didn’t think about the consequences, you didn’t consider you’d end up hurt. You acted. You made the hard choice.”
“And? You givin’ out shiny medals today? I don’t want a standing O. I did what I did. End of.”
January sat with that for a moment, allowing Nina’s facial expressions and body language to do the talking before she asked, “Do you regret making that choice, Nina?”
“Nope,” she said almost before the entire question was out of January’s mouth. “I’d do it again. The kid needed help. I helped. I’ll say it again. She’s a good kid who had an effed-up row to hoe. She didn’t deserve to get snuffed out before her life had even really begun.”
How could anyone not see that this woman was nothing but an asset to her clan? She was bloody fearless, and above all, selfless. But it didn’t matter because she wasn’t supposed to be shining a light on Nina’s assets. She was supposed to be shining a spotlight on her faults, as per that fuckhead Artem.
Stirring in her chair, January decided to delve into the heart of the problem Nina was having. Accepting her mortality now that her life was solely built around being a vampire.
“But that also means it’s taken your longevity away. You’re no longer immortal, Nina. Your husband, Charlie, Carl, all your friends—they are.”
There was a tense pause, where January was sure she was going to have to break out her magic wand to keep Nina from jamming her up against a wall and crushing her skull, but then she appeared to find her own wall. The one she’d constructed in her mind to keep her anguish in check. One she wasn’t going to let January climb over and most certainly wasn’t going to allow to be disturbed.
“I know what the fuck it means, Head Shrinker. I kinda don’t feel like you’re telling me anything new here. How is you telling me what I already know helpful?”
January smiled. “I’m not supposed to tell you anything new. You’re supposed to find something new on your own. You’re supposed to hear it out loud instead of keeping it locked up in your head. Sometimes, actions aren’t always louder than words. I’m just here to guide you to making peace with what your life will become now that you’re human again.”
Again, there was that flicker of grief, a mere second of anguish before she tightened her suit of armor. “Don’t you have a pamphlet that explains how or some shit? Like a twelve-step program? Mental exercises or something? We have one for OOPS. I could just give it a look-see and we could skip this sometimes-words-are-louder-than-actions gibberish.”
January flapped her hands and glanced at the clock. “I’m not much for telling people how to do what they need to do. I’m into helping people discover the best way to do what they need to do. So I have a little homework for you.”
Nina’s sigh was ragged and full of impatience. “Jesus. I said I’d come. I didn’t say anything about doing homework. My life is busy with my kid and my man.”
“Busier than your mental health?” January countered.
“Oh, eff off. Now you sound like Wanda.” But she smiled when she said it, and that was something. Nina respected Wanda. Looked to her for support she didn’t even know she sought.
January winked and chuckled. “Then I like Wanda. She’s levelheaded and obviously genius-smart. So here’s the homework. Take this packet. I have to give you this stuff because it’s part of every paranormal psychologist’s spiel. It’s all sorts of repetitive tips on how to deal with your anger. Counting, breathing, whatever. But I don’t care if you read it.”
“This is some kind of reverse bullshit, right? Like you tell me don’t do it and I’m supposed to want to do it just because you said I shouldn’t?”
“No. That would only be if I told you that you couldn’t read it. Then you’d be defying my direct wishes, which wouldn’t really be what my direct wishes are. That’s reverse psychology. What I said was, I don’t care if you don’t read it—because I genuinely don’t. I just want one thing from you before you come back again.”
“Hold the fucking phone, I have to come back? Nobody
said anything about long-term therapy.”
“Do you want your friends to quit hassling you?”
“Like I want a GD bacon cheeseburger.”
“Do you think they will if you don’t come back?” She posed the question with her eyebrow raised and a smile on her lips.
Nina rasped a long-winded sigh. “Fine. Tell me what you want me to do.”
January rose, pushing her cushiony chair back and holding out the packet. “In one word, tell me what you miss about being a vampire.”
Nina rose, too, her long limbs untangling as she eyed January. “That’s it? You’re full of shit.”
January waved the packet at her and shrugged her shoulders in nonchalance. “Nope. That’s really it.”
Nina’s skepticism was palpable and the entire time, while she considered January’s words, she prayed Nina would just take the packet.
Goddess, please take the packet.
And then she did, tucking it under her arm and turning to leave.
Fighting the urge to sink down into her chair in relief, January called after her, “Don’t forget to make an appointment for tomorrow with Elsa on your way out, Nina!”
There was grumbling and then the sounds of Marty’s and Wanda’s squeals of delight that no one had lost an eye during their hour together.
Only then did January head to her office bathroom, with its cool white subway tiles and stark white walls, close the door and collapse against it, fighting tears of frustration and fear.
There was hope. She had to hang on to that.
Nina was her absolute end-of-the-line last hope.
Chapter 3
“Have I told you, you smell amazing?” a voice purred in January’s ear—a deep, silky voice she hadn’t been able to resist since day one.
But January pinched the back of the wide hand around her waist, resisting the temptation to press it to her lips. “Have I told you you’re not supposed to be able to tell me I smell amazing because you’re not supposed to be here, Galen Markus? You’re supposed to be waiting for that call anywhere but here with me. I could kill you!”
Galen chuckled, the husky sound warm and inviting against her ear. “Already dead, honey. But if push comes to shove, will you wear that cute nightgown and use your magic wand when you attempt my murder? I love when you use your wand. It’s pretty hot.”
“No, but I am going to bring cauldrons back from the fifteenth century and boil you in one. We can’t afford to get caught. Not when we’re this close, Galen,” January whispered into the dark as he slipped both arms around her waist and pulled her to his broad chest.
Turning her in his embrace, he looked into her eyes and asked, “Do you think this Nina read the note in the packet?”
“I guess we’ll know in just a little bit, if she calls you on that burner cell. I gave her the number in the packet. If she was even a little interested in figuring out her humanity with my help, she’ll see it when she opens the stuff I gave her. I pray she opens the stuff I gave her.”
His handsome face, the face she loved almost above all others, with its sharp angles and smooth planes, grimaced. “You don’t really think these women can help us, do you, January? They don’t help people who are already paranormal. They help people who are accidentally turned into paranormals. I looked at that crazy website they have. Did you see it? It was all red and shiny with all kinds of stuff about how they’re nothing like sparkly vampires. How can you take that seriously?”
January scoffed up at him. “You have any better ideas? I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here. And FYI, have I told you some of the things these women have been smack in the middle of? Those women have fought—successfully, I might add—more certifiably crazy nemeses than most of us will see in ten lifetimes. And just in eight years. Do you think Artem could have gotten the clan this riled up about them if they weren’t a cause for worry?”
“But they’re women. And a zombie, right? Cal or something?”
“Carl, and he’s a half-zombie. And excuse me, Knuckle Dragger, but these women are just as badass, if not more so, than twenty of Artem’s men.”
Galen held up his hands like white flags and smiled at her as the summer breeze lifted his dark hair. “Okay, okay. Easy there, Megadeth. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant I find it rare that women fight with their fists—you know, in the physical sense. But I get it. Yet, I still don’t know how they can help when they have their own trouble to deal with. The clan wants Nina gone, thanks to that prick. Surely her friends will be more focused on that than what we’re going through.”
“Both issues go hand in hand, Galen. I’m hoping we can help each other, but Artem is videotaping every session I have with her. It isn’t like we can go to someone on the council of elders and tell them what Artem threatened me with if I don’t do what he asks. He’ll do what he threatened to do anyway and no one can question it because he’s your personal clan leader. We have to get this and all his other crazy plans out in the open in front of reasonable people.”
Galen’s hard jaw tightened, the tic in it pulsing. “That son of a bitch and his lunatic ideas about clan purity. They’re archaic. He’s a freak of a zealot and he has everyone in a panic about their immortality every second of every day,” he spat. “He runs our damn clan like a death camp, for Christ’s sake. No one will go toe to toe with him for fear he’ll burn them at dawn.”
That was what worried her. No one would be free to make any choices if Artem had his way—unless the head council of paranormal elders intervened. “But those bullshit ideas are what he wants to reinstate, Galen. All the old laws that have since been modernized, that Artem calls lax. If he accomplishes that with his pack of goons leading the way, we’re sunk. We have to find a way to prove that he’s nuttier than squirrel shit and he doesn’t just want to rule Clan Casteel, but all clans. That he doesn’t just want purification for vampires. He wants to eventually expunge all other species of paranormal. I’m tired of him holding this over my head, Galen. If he succeeds in his mission, it’ll be the first step in his bid to rule every single vampire. Do you have any idea what will happen, not just to us, or you, but to Nina if that happens?”
Her concern for Nina’s welfare, not to mention her daughter Charlie’s, grew by leaps and bounds. Artem had killed in the name of the clan before. Would he really only have Nina shunned? Or would he kill her and her child to prove a point? If he got what he wanted, if he talked everyone into going back to the ways of old, he’d eventually have the right to end her life.
Galen tightened his hold on her, the hard press of his thighs firm against hers. “I’d like to wrap my hands around that asshole’s neck and squeeze until he spits up his colon.”
January shuddered a breath. Standing on tiptoe, she grazed a kiss over his jaw, trying to extract herself from his arms. “You have to go, Galen. We can’t afford to even be in the same hallway at work together, let alone caught like this. I can’t help but feel like Artem’s always watching.”
Galen had found her at their secret meeting place, a rooftop high above New York City, the skyline at their feet. The same rooftop they’d been meeting atop for months now. The one upon which they’d dreamed about a future together curled up on an old frayed blanket, the one where they’d stolen short moments with one another, going over and over ways to fix this damn mess.
Gathering her even closer, Galen pressed a slow kiss to her lips. “I miss you, January. I damn well hate this. You belong with me.”
Tears stung her eyes, her heart so raw; it felt as though the organ had been through a shredder. “I miss you, too,” she whispered raggedly, succumbing to his kiss, allowing herself a long moment to relish his mouth on hers before he’d have to leave her once again.
Galen’s hands roamed over her back, smoothing around and slipping inside her light sweater to cup her breast; the tingle he evoked, the wave of heat he stirred between her legs as needy as it had ever been.
January’s arms went arou
nd his neck, her body automatically melting into his, the hard ridges of his tight frame making her moan and cling to him for support.
Just one touch from Galen and she was a puddle of emotion and heat.
The phone in his back pocket rang, the sound slicing into the dark night, but it was just as well. They were taking too great a risk someone would catch him missing, and all of this planning she’d done would be for naught.
Keeping her close to him, he answered, putting the phone on speaker. “Hello?”
“You Galen Markus?”
The deep rumble of his voice against her cheek soothed her frazzled nerves. “Speaking. You are?”
“Your fucking knight in shining armor, buddy.”
January smiled. She smiled wide, and for the first time in months, she sucked in a gulp of balmy air in relief. Nina had called. She’d come through just the way January thought she would.
Maybe there was hope.
While Galen set up a meeting with the ex-vampire and her friends, January eyed the large picture window of the building across from their secret rooftop. In a room in the middle of the high-rise, a small white crib sat in the center of that window. A mobile made of butterflies and unicorns in pastel colors spun above it, creating shadows on the ceiling.
And small, pudgy fists lifted upward, as though trying to catch the moving ornaments.
If January closed her eyes, she could almost hear the soft coos and wondrous giggles of the baby belonging to those fists. Smell her sweet, powdery baby scent, feel her soft baby skin.
Her baby.
Hers and Galen’s.
* * * *
Nina stared at them from across the dark alleyway, pushing off the brick façade with her right foot. “This,” she spun her finger around in a circle to encompass the couple, “is batshit crazy, lady. The Doctor January Malone I met today was a petite little chicken nugget of a lady with all that dewy skin Marty’s always trying to achieve with some blush called Parfait Peach—”
How Nina Got Her Fang Back: Accidental Quickie (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 13) Page 3