by Juliet Lyons
“Anastasia is a bullying bitch,” he says, an uncharacteristic note of bile in his voice. “I’ll never regret my decision to free you. You were too good for all her madness, and not only because of your unique gift.”
I stare into his ice-blue eyes, trying to read him, but there’s not a flicker of emotion. I decide to lay my cards on the table. “I’m not a killer, Ronin. I wasn’t for her and I won’t be for you. If any part of repaying my debt involves murder, then you might as well end my life right now.”
His face is blank for a moment, like a marble statue, and then he throws back his head and laughs, shaking his head. “Logan, no one’s going to be killing anyone. These humans, the informants the police are using—I want you to put a glamour on each of them, so when they report back to the police, there’s nothing to tell. Better still, you may be able to get to some before the agency approaches them.”
“A glamour? That’s all?” It almost sounds too good to be true.
Ronin holds out his hands, palms up. “That’s all.”
“Why me? You have plenty of people working here who would do it in a heartbeat.”
He toys with an expensive gold cuff link on his shirt. “I thought you would ask that. The truth is, Logan, unlike most of us, myself included, you’ve somehow managed to retain your humanity all these years. If I send someone else”—he waves a hand in the air—“Luca, for example, he’ll glamour the girl, sure, but he’ll also drink from her. My point is I trust you. Also, there’s no danger of you falling for any of these girls. You’ve never been one to make a fool of yourself over human women, have you?”
An image of the girl from tonight pops back into my head. The magnificent gray eyes framed by haughty, slanted brows, the soft, feminine curves—and the real clincher—sass oozing from every pore. Her name, too, resonates in my mind—Silver. It suits her. Pure and lustrous but with the potential to be sharp, like a knife’s blade.
“No.” My voice comes out flat and self-assured, though I’m far from certain. “I don’t do long-term relationships. Never have.” I look into Ronin’s eyes, seeing only the girl’s creamy face as I left her. I’d wanted to see her again, ask for her phone number, but she’d lied about her address, and I figure it means vampires are strictly off-limits.
“You’re a wise man, Logan,” Ronin says. The softness of his voice catches me by surprise, brings me crashing into the present. “I’ve learned the hard way over the years that human love never works out.” He breaks my gaze, a twitch in his chiseled jaw, and stares into the fire. For a split second, his steely arrogance melts away, the mask dropping to reveal profound sadness. He looks older than he ever has. Then, all at once, the grief crystallizes, hardening to indifference. “My contact at the police will have names soon. I’ll be in touch.”
I’m half out of the seat when his head snaps back around. “I almost forgot. A warning.”
With an internal groan, I sink down again. In my haste to leave, I forgot all about that part of the meeting.
“Anastasia is back in town,” he says, a note of sympathy in his voice. “She hasn’t been here, of course, she wouldn’t dare, but she has been seen.”
My throat tightens and the room wavers, as if Ronin has just punched me to the floor. “Are you sure?” I ask, my voice as faint as a ghost’s.
He nods. “It’s been years since you were blood-bound to her, but I felt you needed to know.”
My eyes are wide, like a startled deer waiting to be skinned alive. I force myself to nod. “Thanks for letting me know, Ronin.”
With a wave of his hand, he dismisses me. “Send Mystery back in on your way out,” he says as I get to my feet.
“Mystery?”
“The girl who was in here just now.”
I rub my jaw. “Is she really called Mystery?”
Ronin shrugs, cracking a devious smile. “I have no idea. Nor do I particularly care.”
I smile back, wondering for the first time if his playboy image is an act to disguise some deep, festering wound. We men are good at blocking emotions.
I duck back out into the corridor where Mystery is waiting. On my way past, I check her heavily made-up eyes for signs of a glamour. For her sake, I’m relieved to see none. However, she clearly thinks I’m checking her out. Her red lips curve into a smile, her gaze following me to the door at the other end.
Back in the bar, I salute a farewell to Paulo, cutting across the dance floor to the exit. I keep my eyes straight ahead, unwilling to notice if the woman is still stretched out across the table, a fly in a spider’s web.
Jordan releases me, like a caged bird, out into the cold night air, and I sag against the wall outside. My head isn’t filled, as it should be, by the arrival of Anastasia or even Ronin McDermott’s grand glamour plan.
“Silver,” I mutter, enjoying the taste of her name on my tongue.
I chuckle, shaking my head. What was happening to me? Logan Byrne losing his head over a girl. Peeling myself from the wall, I wonder if her blood is having some strange, hallucinogenic effect—it’s been a while since I last drank.
Yes, that must be it—the blood. By tomorrow, I’ll feel better. By tomorrow, I’ll have forgotten all about her.
Chapter 3
Silver
New Year’s Day, I wake to the sound of my phone buzzing on the pillow. I know who it is without even looking at the screen.
“Just grabbing my keys,” I mumble, lifting a corner of my sleep mask. “Give me five minutes.”
“Get a move on, woman,” Ollie screeches. “The parents won’t visit themselves.”
I’m so used to waking up the morning after with a hangover that it takes a few seconds to realize I don’t feel like something stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Maybe I’ve been imbued with some unique vampy power.
Remembering the steamy clinch, I dive out of bed, lurching toward the gilt-framed mirror hanging above my dressing table. No mark. I turn the other way, pulling my hair back to examine my neck. No mark there either. What a gent.
From outside, a car horn blasts, and I roll my eyes, snatching a duffel bag and parka from the back of the bedroom door. I’ll have to shower and dress at Dad’s today.
Home is a basement flat. After closing the front door, I scramble up the steps to street level. Ollie is leaning against his green, beat-up Mini, one lanky, denim-clad leg crossed in front of the other. His freckled face breaks into a massive smile as I emerge onto the empty street and dash over to hug him.
“Miss me much?” he asks, laughing as I give him the official death squeeze. “Are you really wearing pajamas under that coat?”
I nod, pulling away to get a better look at him. “Your hair got longer. You look more like Ed Sheeran every day.”
He smooths floppy, red bangs over his forehead, grinning. “Well, they don’t have too many barber shops in the Seychelles.”
“Lucky bastard. I can’t believe you got to spend Christmas day lying on the beach while I was stuck in Kent with the wicked stepmother.”
“How is Sheila? Did she leave you off the Secret Santa list again this year?”
Ollie is referring to the fiasco of last Christmas when Dad and my stepmother, Sheila, decided we should do a secret Santa. A marvelous idea, you might think—but somehow Sheila forgot to add my name to the little bag, so no one got me. I was giftless. I’m pretty sure she planned it.
I laugh. “Ha! They gave me a big check and a box of chocolates to atone for their sins.”
He opens the passenger door, and like a contortionist, I squeeze into the tiny front seat, flinging my bag into the back.
“Hope you’re ready for round two,” he says, folding his tall frame into the car and doing his best evil laugh. “Mwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaa.”
I point ahead through the windshield. “Just drive, moron, or I’ll force you to stay for dinner and charades.”
Desperate for some life, I fiddle with the ancient stereo on the dashboard. “You need a new car,” I say as the little plastic knob breaks off in my hand.
Even though Ollie works for some top-notch pharmaceutical company and should, by rights, drive a soulless black BMW with a starched, Mr. Grey will see you now suit hung in the back, he insists on keeping the battered, snot-green Mini from his student days. It makes me question if these high-flying careers are really worth the effort. They only ever seem to make people nostalgic for the past, when they were penniless but got to do exactly what they liked all day. In Ollie’s case, playing bass guitar in a truly terrible indie band named the Cat’s Pajamas.
“So, how was the party last night?” he asks as we turn onto Embankment.
Giving up on the radio, I twist in the seat to face him. “Awful. But guess who I met after I was thrown out?”
A wry smile touches the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know, Johnny Depp?”
I tut with my tongue. “Oh, come on, be realistic. A vampire!”
He almost crashes into a parked car. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope,” I say gleefully.
“There was a vampire at that posh twat’s party?”
“No, outside. Like I said, I got chucked out.”
“What about Joshua?”
My lip curls as an image of that rat Joshua attached to a pair of bee-stung lips pops into my mind. “Joshua,” I say with undisguised venom, “went off with another girl while I was getting a drink.”
Ollie shakes his head. “That guy’s an ass. How did you know this other bloke was a vampire?”
“He moved superfast and almost strangled two guys for disrespecting me.” I lower my voice slightly. “That, and I let him bite me.”
“Silver!”
“What?”
“You can’t just go around letting strange vampires bite you. What if he was a psycho?”
I shrug. “No one that hot can be a psycho.”
He sputters in disbelief. “Haven’t you seen America’s Most Wanted?”
I dismiss the question with a wave of my hand. “Psychos are nerdy types who torture cats in alleys. Stop being such a killjoy. You’re spending way too much time with Krista.”
A prickly silence drops over us like a cloak. My dislike for his current girlfriend is a sticky subject, to say the least. I mean, it’s not like I hate her or anything—she just bugs the hell out of me. Twenty-five going on eighty, with a soul-sucking job in banking, Krista is a girl who has become old before her time. She has a pension plan, for heaven’s sake. I know this because she made Ollie get one too.
“Did he leave bite marks?” he asks, breaking through the wall of quiet.
I quirk a smile, grateful to be past the awkwardness. “No, it’s the strangest thing. There’s nothing. And while it was happening, I sort of zoned out. I saw lights and colors. It was amazing, Olls.”
“Maybe you had too much to drink.”
“Actually, I was pretty close to being sober.”
“Pah! Silver, sober at a party on New Year’s Eve? I think not.”
I chuckle, snatching an ice scraper from the dash and throwing it at him. “Shut it. I’m a vision of sobriety these days.”
Krista forgotten, we’re us again.
* * *
The first thing Sheila asks when she opens the front door to find me standing on the doorstep is not Why are you in pajamas? but “Where’s this Joshua you said you were bringing?”
Here we go.
“He’s not coming,” I snip frostily. “Things didn’t work out.” I barge past her into the hallway and shrug off my coat.
Her thin brows shoot skyward, her gaze snagging on my piggy-print nightwear. “Again?”
I take a deep breath, wishing the ground would open and swallow her whole. “Yes, Shelia, again. I’m sorry to disappoint you. I realize at twenty-four, I should be married with dozens of kids by now.”
She ignores the sarcasm and tuts sadly, shaking her head. “What happened this time?”
“Turns out he prefers blonds,” I say, bending down to pull off my boots.
“Well, it would’ve been handy if you’d figured that out before I bought extra food.”
I’m poised to make a smart-ass comeback when Dad appears through the kitchen door. “There’s my girl!” he says warmly, holding out his arms and pulling me into a giant bear hug.
I smile into the comforting warmth of his scratchy wool sweater. “Happy New Year, Dad.”
Sheila retreats into the kitchen, clucking her tongue.
“Ignore her, love,” Dad whispers. “You know how stressed she gets cooking these big family meals.”
I nod into his shoulder. Oh boy, do I.
Dad knows better than to ask about the absence of Joshua. “I’ll get you a drink,” he says, pulling away. “Diet Coke?”
“Thanks, Dad.” I follow him through the immaculate beige kitchen, where Sheila is attacking a yucky-looking yellow mixture with a whisk, and into the large living area at the back of the house—also beige. My three stepsiblings are draped across the sofas, and I’m relieved to see Jess is here. She’s the only one I find remotely bearable. The other two, Chris and Debra, are of the same ilk as their mother—overbearing, judgmental, and dull.
Jess’s face lights up as I walk in. “Yay, you’re here!” Grabbing my hand, she drags me onto the sofa beside her. Chris and Debra look up, nonplussed, and mutter greetings before turning their attention back to the TV.
“What’s on?” I ask them.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Chris mumbles in his droll, monotone voice.
Mousy Debra leans forward, grabbing a tube of Pringles from the coffee table. “I saved you some,” she says, throwing it in my direction.
I catch it midair, realizing it’s nearly empty. “Thanks.”
This will be the extent of our interaction for the duration of the day.
“Tell me about the party,” Jess demands, blue eyes lit with excitement. She is almost twenty-one and already planning an escape from the family home. In the meantime, she lives vicariously through me.
I lower my voice so the others don’t hear. “It was awful, full of idiots bragging about how much money their families have. Then I’m coming back from getting a drink, and Joshua is full on face-sucking with some Eurotrash skank.”
Jess’s eyes widen, her mouth dropping open. She lives for this stuff. “Oh. My. God.”
I proceed to fill her in about getting thrown out and snatching the coat—she cackles with laughter at that bit. When I mention the vampire, she rockets out of the seat. Snatching my hand, she pulls me up, dragging me through the steam-filled kitchen. “Come outside. I need a cigarette for this.”
“Where are you two sneaking off to?” Sheila probes accusingly, her short, gray hair sticking up in clumps. “I’m about to need help with the gravy.”
Jess grins. “Sorry, Mum, girl chat.”
Outside, we trample through wet grass to Dad’s shed, a damp little summerhouse he uses to get away from Sheila. There are tools and wood everywhere, and it smells of sawdust and tobacco.
Jess reaches up and pulls down a rusty, old biscuit tin from a shelf, fishing out a packet of Marlboro Lights. “Smoke?” she offers.
I decline—I gave up years ago. She lights up and happily puffs away as I describe my encounter with the sexy, green-eyed vampire.
“Did you see all the colors when you were kissing or just the biting part?”
“Just the biting part. But don’t get me wrong—the kiss is still the best I’ve ever had.”
“I�
��ve heard some women only ever date vampires.”
I frown. “Really? How do they find them?”
“Duh. Online dating. There’s a special dating site for human-vampire relations.”
“You’re joking. You mean you just go on and start chatting?”
“Yup. Megan’s cousin uses it. V-Date, I think it’s called. The cost of membership is extortionate, but apparently the men are panty-dropping hot.”
I narrow my eyes in thought. I wonder if my vampire uses the site.
* * *
Later, after dinner is over and Ollie has driven us back to London, I walk into my flat and collapse on the sofa in a heap of emotional exhaustion. Spending time with family always sucks the marrow out of me, and not just because I have to go a whole day without saying what I think. Going home to Kent reminds me of how I felt at thirteen when Dad remarried—like Little Orphan Annie, the spare part of the puzzle who didn’t ever fit in.
I hold a hand to my throbbing temples, wishing I’d asked Ollie if he wanted to stay and hang out. Having been friends since we were nine years old, he’s the only person who understands my childhood.
From inside my coat, my phone vibrates, beeping loudly. It’s a message from Jess. Did you look up V-Date yet?
No, I reply. Should I?
The phone beeps again. Yes. Hot men, remember?
Getting off the sofa, I pause in front of the mirror. The skin on my neck is still perfectly unmarked. How is that possible?
Remembering the sexy vampire, a wave of frustration sweeps over me. Even if he wanted to, he can’t find me now that I’ve lied about my address. With a weary sigh, I grab my laptop from the coffee table, carrying it to the long counter that separates the lounge from the kitchen. Hauling myself onto a high stool, I lift the lid and type V-Date into the search engine. A few other dating sites pop up but nothing about vampires.
On a mission, I snatch up my mobile and fire off a text to Jess. I searched for it, but there’s nothing.