Swear (My Blood Approves #5)

by Amanda Hocking

  A vampire reached out, grabbing his long fingers onto Bobby’s jacket, and the hunger was almost palpable in his dark eyes. He was handsome, in the way all vampires were, but also a little creepy and overly slender, like a model from the ill-conceived “heroin chic” trend of the 90s.

  Bobby smiled at him, because all his experience with our kind didn’t make him immune to being momentarily enamored by our supernatural attractiveness.

  “My name’s Cyrus,” he purred as he leered towards Bobby. “What’s your name?”

  I moved quickly, putting myself between Bobby and the model vampire before things got more complicated. I bared my teeth – which weren’t very long but were a sharper than humans – and let out a low growl.

  It wasn’t something I thought about doing. It was just a natural instinct when I saw someone touching something that belonged to me – to growl, to hiss, to attack if need be.

  Cyrus backed down, looking pissy about it, but I didn’t care if he was angry just as long as he backed off. I took Bobby’s hand again and started leading him through the crowd, following Olivia.

  “It’s always so badass when you growl like that,” Bobby said, nearly shouting to be heard over the music. “You should really do it more.”

  “I try to save it only for special occasions. Like when somebody tries to eat you.”

  Olivia suddenly grabbed my other hand, pulling me towards her. I let go of Bobby, but he stayed close to me.

  “Dance with me, Alice!” Olivia commanded, putting her hands on my hips to pull me closer to her.

  “I didn’t really come here to dance,” I protested as she swayed along to the music, pulling me along with her.

  “Don’t be so dull,” she pouted. “You may have a long life, but you still only live once. You’ve got to make the most of it while you can.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I let her dance with me, though I was using the word “with” very loosely. It was much more of her dancing on me or near me, moving gracefully and seductive, like a cross between a backup dancer and a stripper.

  But the blood from earlier left me feeling warm and loose. Even though the buzz had dispelled, the music still seemed to be flowing through me, and it was all too easy to close my eyes and let Olivia lead me around the dancefloor.

  “Hey!” Bobby interrupted. He’d been busting out a few of his milder break dance moves, but he stopped and tapped me on the shoulder as Olivia was grinding up against me. “Alice, hey!”

  “What?” I gently pushed Olivia off me, who proceeded to scowl as she swayed to the music.

  “That girl over that keeps glaring over at us.” He nodded toward a girl on the other side of the bar.

  She sat at a booth on a raised platform that ran alongside the exposed brick wall, and it gave her the effect of looking down at us. Underneath a glowing blue light, her long black hair shimmered, and her low-cut dress could barely contain her ample chest.

  “Oh, damn,” Olivia said, noticing who Bobby was motioning toward. “That’s her. That’s Cate Brennan.”

  Just then, the girl raised her glass at me and smiled widely, enough to show the sharp tips of her incisors.

  BOBBY LEANED IN CLOSE TO me, so close his lips nearly touched my ear, but he needed to speak softly if he didn’t want the vampires around us to overhear.

  “I have your tools if you need them,” he whispered, subtly patting the side of his jacket.

  Inside his much beloved Member’s Only jacket, he had a secret pocket in the lining, where he always carried a few essentials of the trade – a titanium stake or two, zip ties made of a virtually unbreakable alloy blend, and a little black “badge” that certified that we were in fact working under the direction of the Agency.

  “Are you going to go talk to her or just make eyes at her all night?” Olivia asked, standing at my other side.

  There was no point in playing around, so I marched across the dancefloor and up the five steps to where Cate sat alone in a booth, sipping her blood cocktail. Bobby and Olivia followed, but both of them lingered behind me as I prepared to introduce myself to her.

  “Buy me a drink,” she demanded in a lyrical Irish accent, before I could get a word out.

  I smirked. “That’s presumptuous.”

  “Well, you want to talk, don’t you?” she shot back.

  “I do.”

  “Then buy me a drink, and we’ll go someplace more quiet.”

  “Fair enough,” I decided, reaching for my wallet in my jacket pocket. “How much does a drink cost?”

  Cate wagged her eyebrows. “How much you got?”

  I opened my wallet and realized dismally that I didn’t have much cash on hand at all, and what little I did have was Euros, which didn’t really fly in the Czech Republic.

  “Here.” Olivia reached from behind me, slapping a pair of vibrant purple koruna banknotes on the table, and when I glanced back at her, she shrugged. “I wanted to put an end to that stupid game.”

  Cate stood up, and as she did, she picked up the money and tucked it into her cleavage. She slid out of the booth, carrying her drink in her hand.

  “Follow me.” She took a step forward, then stopped and called over her shoulder, “Oh, and leave your entourage here. It’s easier if it’s just the two of us.”

  Then she started walking away again, without waiting for my response.

  I turned back to Bobby and Olivia, quickly telling them, “Stay together. I’ll find you when I’m done.”

  “Are you sure that’s safe?” Bobby asked.

  “I’m never sure anything is safe,” I admitted as I went after Cate.

  On the far end of the club was a metal spiral staircase, leading up to a balcony level, and Cate was heading right for it. As I followed her up, I looked back down at the crowd below, dancing along to the music the DJ was spinning out under a kaleidoscope of lights.

  Or at least most of them were, except for Cyrus who stood motionless in the center of the room, staring up at me with strange dark eyes. That’s when it occurred to me that he bore a stronger resemblance to Max Schreck’s Nosferatu than he did a model, from any era.

  The bouncer at the top of the steps waved Cate on, and he was about to stop me until she told him that I was with her. The second floor was quieter and emptier, with curtains of semi-sheer dark fabric separating different lounge areas.

  As we walked by the other areas, I saw vampires feeding on humans, but I’d already smelled the blood on the stairs. Cate chose a spot in the farthest corner, away from all the noise and prying eyes of feeding vampires.

  She slipped behind the curtains first, entering the cornered-off section that held four club chairs and a glass cocktail table in the center. Naturally, Cate took the chair with her back was to the wall, giving her the vantage of the entire upstairs. Her long legs stretched out below the hem of her dress, and she crossed one over the other.

  “Do you come here a lot?” I asked.

  Her lips twisted into an impish smile. “Are you trying to pick me up?”

  I laughed, lightly, anxiously. “No. You just seem familiar with things.”

  In truth, she seemed unnervingly cool and confident. When Olivia had described her as panicking at the mere mention of Peter’s name, I was expecting someone less collected. But then Cate had been waiting for me, and I couldn’t help but worry that I might have fallen right into her honey trap.

  “I’ve lived in Prague for a few years, and you could say I’m a regular here,” she replied. “But let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Alice, is it?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Cate.” She motioned to herself, causing her jeweled bangles on her wrists to jangle. “They used to call me Catherine, though, way back when.” Then she tilted her head. “You’re not a Townsend, are you?”

  “No. I live with them. I just never… took their name.”

  “Bonham, right?” she asked, and there was something in her eyes – something dark and menacing that flashed across them lik
e lightning when she said my name. “And if I recall correctly, you have an interesting line of work.”

  “I didn’t really come here to talk about work,” I replied evasively, and shifted in my chair.

  One thing I’d come to learn very quickly is that most vampires didn’t take kindly to hunters. Even though I only worked to keep the peace, to protect both vampires and human alike, being a hunter felt a lot like being a narc in a drug den.

  “I will admit I’m relieved to hear that,” Cate said, and she did genuinely appear pleased. “When I heard you were tracking me down, I expected the worst.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t tracking you. Where did you get the idea?”

  “Your little friend down there asking questions?” She pointed vaguely toward the dance floor. “You didn’t send her to check up on me?”

  “No, that was pure coincidence. Until she called me the other day, I had never even heard of you.”

  Her expression shifted between surprised and disgust. “Peter’s never mentioned me?”

  “He doesn’t like talking about his past.”

  “But you’re his girlfriend now.”

  “What? No.” I shook my head again, probably too emphatically. “No, I’m not. I’m not with him. I’m with his brother.”

  Her dark eyebrows arched upward. “Really? I thought you were meant for him.”

  If I’d still been human, my heart would’ve skipped a beat. As it was, my heart’s usual faint thump slowed even further.

  “Wasn’t that Elise?” I asked in confusion.

  Cate sighed, as if the very thought if it exasperated her, and she lowered her gaze. “That’s what he used to claim, but I’m not sure I ever believed that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have you ever turned another vampire, Alice?” she asked pointedly.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve seen vampires turned, but I’ve never done it myself.”

  “There’s a bond between a vampire and their progeny. One that can’t every be truly put into words.” She breathed in deeply. “It is an entirely visceral thing.”

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with Elise and Peter.”

  “Because I turned her,” Cate said, speaking as if I were an idiot. “And if he was truly meant for her, I would’ve felt it. You must know of the transference of bonds.”

  I smiled grimly. “I know about that all too well.”

  Since Ezra had made Peter, and Mae was blood bonded with Ezra, Peter had always felt a particular affinity for her. He didn’t love her, not the way Ezra did, but he cared for a her a great deal. We’d all long suspected that was one of the reasons my relationships with Jack and Peter had been such a mess in the beginning, because of the tangled transference of the bond.

  “Then you know. I never cared for Peter, and that could never be the case. Not if he was bonded with her blood.”

  “You and Peter didn’t get along?” I asked.

  “We get along well enough, but I never actually liked him,” she clarified. “I did that for Elise’s sake, when I realized how fond she was of him. I always thought he was rather dull.”

  “That was kind of you to make peace for her,” I said, since Cate seemed like the kind of person that would chase compliments, and I wanted to keep her talking.

  “I would’ve done anything for her,” she said softly, almost to herself, and stared off into the distance. Then she blinked and looked back at me, her gaze sharper than before. “Why are you here? If you’re not hunting me down?”

  “Because Olivia told me that when she mentioned my name, you acted strangely,” I told her honestly. “I thought you might know something about Peter that could help him, or I feared that you might want to hurt him.”

  She laughed darkly. “I only acted ‘strange’ because I assumed that your friend – and now you – had come at Peter’s behest, as some kind of belated vengeance. A pair of vampire hunters trailing you is enough to make anyone wary.”

  “Why would Peter send me after you?”

  “Because I was with Elise when she died, and he wasn’t.” She paused, swallowing hard. “Because I couldn’t save her.”

  “I think he blames himself more for her death than anyone else,” I told her honestly.

  “There’s some truth to that,” Cate allowed. “I’ve often wondered if he stayed, if she would still be alive.”

  “What did happen to her?”

  Cate shook her head in disbelief. “He really never told you anything?”

  “All I know is that even mentioning her name upsets him.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. Peter had never told me anything about her, not anything tangible, but Ezra had filled me in on what he could.

  “He’s always had a flair for the melodramatic,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “On their second date, he was asking her to run off with him and get married. And Elise, as young and naïve as she was then, she would’ve gone, if I hadn’t talked some sense into her.”

  “But they did eventually marry?”

  She nodded. “Yes. They were married for… ten years, I believe.”

  “Until her death,” I supplied.

  “Peter was in America, setting up some stupid business with Ezra.” Cate lowered her eyes as she spoke, staring down at the floor. “Elise didn’t want to depart with him. He all but commanded her to go, and because she loved him, and because she took her vows seriously, she had agreed. But she stayed behind until he sent for her.

  “We were selling the old farmhouse, the one she’d lived her whole life on, and we went north to find buyers,” she went on. “Back then, in the old country, vampires could be very territorial, and we’d accidentally crossed into another vampire’s area. We tried to apologize and escape, and I fought for Elise the best I could, but…”

  “They killed her?” I asked gently, since Cate had lapsed into silence.

  A solitary tear slid down her cheek, and she wiped it away. “With a pitchfork to the chest. Straight through her heart.”

  “Did you ever catch the vampires that hurt her?” I asked.

  “No.” She looked up at me finally. “I didn’t really have any allies then, not other vampires, so I couldn’t take them on my own. By the time Peter and Ezra finally made it back to Ireland, the other vampires had moved on, and we were never able to get a lead on them.”

  “I just can’t imagine Peter giving up the search so easily,” I said.

  Cate laughed, a hollow sound that seemed to echo through the room. “He didn’t. He looked high and low, until Ezra finally convinced him it was futile. And I think his devastation helped him let go. Finding her killers wouldn’t bring her back.” She lowered her eyes again. “Nothing would. So, there wasn’t a really point.”

  “He did love her,” I said, and I’m not sure if it was to remind myself or to convince Cate.

  “I know.” She nodded. “I’ve always known. Just not enough.”

  “Not enough, or not as much as you?” I countered.

  She lifted her gaze, so her dark eyes met mine. “Maybe it’s one and the same.”

  “I COULD USE SOME AIR,” Olivia announced as soon as I reached the bottom of the spiral staircase.

  She seemingly materialized out of the crowd, latching onto my arm, and Bobby followed a step behind. I didn’t have a chance to process anything that Cate had told me, but Olivia had apparently decided there wasn’t time for that.

  “What’s the big hurry?” I asked as she led me toward the door.

  “Do you ever have the feeling you’re being watched?” Olivia asked.

  I craned my neck. “Who’s watching us?”

  “Don’t look,” she snapped.

  “Yeah, Alice,” Bobby chimed in. “That’s like ‘How Not to Behave When You’re Being Followed 101.’ I mean, that’s not a real class, because that’s a ridiculous name for a class. But you get what I mean.”

  Once we were out on the street, I expected Olivia to steer me towards the Rolls Royce we�
��d came in, but instead, she practically yanked my arm out of socket so we would cross the street, going on the walking path that ran along the Vltava river.

  “If someone’s after us, why aren’t we getting in the car?” I asked.

  “Because I don’t know for sure who is after us, and because that’s Rebekah’s car, and she’d murder me if something happened to it while in my care.”

  It was well after midnight on a Tuesday, so the streets near the club were virtually empty. A low wall separated us from the river, flowing steadily by, and beyond that, the rest of the city, twinkling with yellow lights. On the other side of us, the taverns and buildings had given way to parks, where a chilly breeze rustled through the vibrant green trees.

  “Where are we going then?” I asked when I felt like we were far enough from the vampire club that it should be safe for us to talk.

  Olivia scanned back over her shoulder, then vaguely replied, “Away, away, away.”

  “Who is after us?” I asked, looking to Bobby for help, but he just shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” Olivia admitted. “Maybe no one. I didn’t get a look – it was just a feeling that I had.”

  “How long are we going to walk for?” I asked, since we seemed to be alone, walking farther and farther away from our car and our ride home.

  “For as long as we need to,” she replied shortly, but she slowed her steps some, to more of a natural pace, as opposed to bolting down the street, rushing for our lives.

  “Did things go okay with Cate?” Bobby asked me. “Did you find anything out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked at me skeptically. “You don’t know? Either she told you something or not.”

  “She told me lots of things. I’m just not sure how meaningful any of it is,” I clarified.

  He probably wanted to ask more, but two figures appeared a few meters away. They turned off a nearby street and joined the path we were on, walking straight toward us.

  They were close enough that I could discern they were a duo of vampires, with the Nosferatu thin Cyrus leading the way. Flanking him to the left was another vampire, who was both shorter and broader, making him look rather squat in comparison.