On a lark, Foley had headed to Beijing, then known as Peking, tired of the pickings in Dublin and intrigued by the talk of all the exotic delights he might find in China. He had arrived at the outbreak of the rebellion and realized that the time would be good for feeding and satisfying the demands of his body.
Sun Tze Lee had been there with a horde of fellow Chinese vampires—kiang-shi, as they were called—to drive away the foreigners exerting too much influence on their homeland and to sate their bloodlust in the course of the battle.
The fighting in Beijing hadn’t lasted too long—fifty-five days, to be exact. But in that time, Lee and the other kiang-shi had decimated not only the foreign civilians and soldiers in the area, but also thousands of Chinese Christians in the city and in provinces like Shandong.
Lee had come upon him as he was draining a beautiful Chinese girl just beyond the steps of the Catholic church to which she had been trying to flee. He supposed now, as he took the final step that brought him close to Lee, that he had been lucky in a way. Instead of ripping his throat out for being a foreigner, Lee had decided to feed from him and make him his slave.
For over a hundred years, Foley had done whatever Lee ordered, and so when he’d entered the office and Lee had said, “On your knees,” Foley had immediately complied.
The Chinese vampire now smiled and cupped Foley’s face in his hands. With an almost tender touch he stroked his jaw with long, graceful fingers, urging Foley to bare his neck.
Foley did as he was bid, closing his eyes as a wave of desire skittered across his body, awakening unwanted passion. With a chuckle, Lee softly said, “Do not fear. We will get to that later.”
Which was just what Foley was afraid of. He whimpered and finally did wet himself as he recalled the last time Lee had taken him. The Asian vampire had been brutal and uncaring of how much damage he had done.
Dreading a repeat of that performance, Foley said, “Master—”
“Sssh, Daniel,” Lee began, using his given name the way one might a lover’s, only Lee knew nothing of love. Only conquest and pain, Foley thought.
“You will enjoy it, Daniel. You always do,” Lee said, beginning to transform. The black of his eyes literally bled out and became glowing embers of red. The black of his hair receded, replaced by the palest strands of glistening white, making him look almost albino.
But it was his fangs that snared and held Foley’s attention.
From the small buds he had noticed earlier burst shiny white and lethally long fangs that extended well beyond the lower jaw. Needle-sharp, they could easily pierce the toughest of hides, but what Lee clearly wanted tonight was him.
Before he could protest, Lee forced aside Foley’s head and perforated the skin at his neck to sink his teeth deep into an artery.
The pain of the kiang-shi’s bite seared along Foley’s nerves and exploded in the center of his brain like a supernova. The explosion continued outward, tearing into every sensitive synapse in its path, creating fiery agony in each cell of his body.
Foley screamed, his harsh guttural cry resounding in the confines of his small office.
Against his neck, Lee’s throaty laughter erupted. In his brain came Lee’s insistent command.
Scream some more. I love it when you scream.
Blake noticed the way Diego’s nose wrinkled in apparent disgust and how Ryder Latimer, the other coowner of Otro Mundo, eyeballed him the way a father might a virgin daughter’s first date.
“What is that smell?” Diego said.
The debonair vampire, chic in a charcoal gray suit that probably cost more than Blake had ever made in both his lifetimes combined, walked from around his large desk and stood beside him. Diego bent from his greater height, took another sniff and said, “Mothballs?”
“Is that getup for real?” Ryder asked. He motioned with his finger to the rather dated, dark blue polyester suit Blake had lifted from the Goodwill store earlier in the day.
Blake tugged at the lapels of the jacket and inched his head up defiantly. “Didn’t think the chains and leather would make a good impression during an interview.”
“An interview?” Diego said with a sneer. He sat on the edge of his desk and across the way from Ryder, who lounged lazily in the chair beside where Blake stood.
Blake fought the urge to fidget beneath the probing glances of both vampires. With his head tilted upward at a defiant angle, he said, “Heard you were still hiring. Thought it was about time I had some gainful employment.”
“What you really mean is that you want to stalk Meghan up close and personal.” Diego crossed his arms, straining the fabric of the suit across his powerful shoulders.
“It’s not a good idea, Blake,” Ryder added, his tone a trifle more friendly, but tinged with concern.
“Look, I know the little chit probably wants nothing to do with me—”
“‘Probably’ being a major understatement,” Ryder said with a chuckle. Then he grew more serious and continued. “If I recall correctly, she spent the first year of her undead life trying to rip your throat out.”
“Or put a stake through your heart,” Diego added.
It was hard to argue with them when they were right, Blake thought. “Things have changed since then.”
“That’s right, amigo. Things changed when you betrayed me to the man who killed Esperanza.” Diego rose from the desk and came to stand nose to nose with him, his posture more challenging than it had been before. “You do remember that you nearly cost us all our lives during that little escapade.”
Meeting Diego’s gaze, he noted the telltale blossoming of neon green in his eyes that said the other vampire was battling to rein in his anger. Blake had no desire for Diego to lose that control. He was no match physically for Diego—or even Ryder, for that matter. But that didn’t mean he would give up so easily or tuck his tail in like a whipped dog.
Rising on tiptoe until he nearly bumped noses with Diego, he said, “I saved your life and the little chit’s.”
Turning to Ryder, he pointed to him and said, “And I’ve helped you and yours out of more than one scrape.”
Ryder surged from his seat, all earlier traces of friendliness gone, and came to stand beside Diego. “Which makes you an Eagle Scout all of a sudden?”
“All I want is a job.”
“And a chance to see Meghan every day,” Diego pressed.
True, not that he would admit it. “I won’t bother her.”
“Why do I find that so hard to believe?” Ryder said, before plopping back down in his chair.
“Maybe because in the same circumstances, you wouldn’t leave her alone, either,” Blake said, earning a chuckle from Ryder, who also acknowledged the statement with a nod. He pressed on, “Look, mates. I’ve had your backs and it seems to me you could use a few more friends to watch out for you, considering what happened the other night.”
With a surge of speed and power, Diego had him by the throat, his feet dangling off the ground. “What do you know about that?”
“Just what I saw from the alley afterward, but there’s all kinds of rumors floating around about what happened to those two vamps,” he replied in a choked voice, all he could muster thanks to the force of Diego’s grip on his throat.
Diego tossed him away and leaned on the edge of the desk.
Ryder faced him and in a calm voice asked, “What kinds of rumors?”
“Suicide pact. Murder. Humans wanting revenge. You name it.” With a nonchalant shrug, Blake continued. “So what really happened?”
Diego and Ryder exchanged a look, as if considering whether or not to answer, but then Ryder admitted, “We don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Isn’t your little FBI friend—”
“Diana’s out of this, Blake,” Ryder said, the tone of his voice growing harsh.
“Lover’s spat?” he tossed out without a thought, but was sorry he did so at Ryder’s reaction.
Ryder bowed his head and took a deep breath
. His body grew frighteningly still the way the air turned dead before a storm. Diego reached out, laid a hand on Ryder’s shoulder and asked, “Amigo, are you okay?”
Ryder nodded and then faced Blake once again, his eyes glittering with the harsh bright color of the vampire. A low rumble filled Ryder’s voice and a hint of fang became visible as he spoke. “You want us to think you’re honorable? That you understand friendship and respect—”
“I’m sorry, Ryder. I didn’t mean anything about Diana.”
“We’ll give you a job, Blake.” Ryder rose slowly from the chair, his hands clenched at his sides. He stood before Blake, his troubled gaze boring into him and his face fully transformed to that of the vampire. Considering that Ryder kept the vampire in check more often than any of them, Blake knew it was not a good sign. Ryder made his demands. When he was finished he added, “And we’ll expect you to respect us and do as you’re told. Understood?”
Blake hated the feeling of unworthiness that both men brought out in him, but he was determined to get this job and prove them wrong. He wanted to show all of them he was reliable and trustworthy. He wanted to prove to Meghan that he wasn’t the no-account she thought him to be.
“Understood, mate.”
Chapter 5
The knife slipped, nipping the pad of her index finger.
Meghan cursed as a small droplet of blood welled before immortal healing took over and the wound quickly closed.
“You’ve been decidedly clumsy the past two weeks,” Diego said from behind her, causing Meghan to jump. “And antsy.”
“It’s just the pace of things. There’s been a lot of work lately.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she walked over to one of the sinks and carefully washed the knife and her hands. Not that such a little bit of blood would cause problems to any humans. She just didn’t want the health department on her case if they paid a surprise visit.
Diego stepped in her path, blocking the way back to her workstation. “Has he been bothering you?” he asked in tones low enough that only she could hear.
To emphasize the question, he cocked his head in the direction of the back of the kitchen, where Blake was hard at work removing trash-filled bags from the garbage cans. As he hefted the bag, his muscles flexed. The hairs on his arm were golden in the light cast by the backdoor bulb.
She remembered the feel of all that muscle and the soft hair quite well, but drove those distracting thoughts from her mind. She had been having too many of those kinds of thoughts lately.
“No, he hasn’t. Just hello and goodbye,” she replied, almost slightly irked by Blake’s decided lack of attention.
A chuckle escaped Diego as she brushed past him and back to her workstation, her mentor following close behind her.
“I have to confess. I didn’t expect him to last a day, much less two weeks.”
As she resumed chopping the vegetables for a mirepoix, she nodded. “I didn’t, either. Especially since you’ve given him every crap job in the book.”
“Man’s on a mission,” Diego proclaimed, before he sauntered away, hands tucked into the pockets of a designer suit that screamed old money. Way old money, Meghan thought; there was still much of the wealthy Spanish lord in Diego’s attitude and attire.
Much like there was still much of the punk in Blake.
She glanced in Blake’s direction, but he had already headed out to the alley. She resumed her work, but her mind was half on Blake, and when he returned, she watched him work out of the corner of her eye.
He did every menial task he had been assigned. Even when the other vampire chef intentionally spilled a pan of sauce across Blake’s apron and the floor, he minded himself and did just what he should, although inside of her, she perceived the heat of his anger thanks to the special sire bond that they shared.
She hated that bond, a constant reminder of what he had done. Of the life to which she had been condemned by a man who still managed to intrigue her on some level. A man who had, as Diego noted, gone on a mission to prove that he could be good.
So far, all he had managed to prove was that he was determined, she thought.
After cleaning up the spill, Blake returned to the back of the kitchen where he ripped off the apron, stuffed it into the laundry bin and escaped into the alley.
She wondered if he would return or if that had been the final straw, but after a quarter of an hour, he stormed back in and snagged a clean apron from a stack of fresh laundry in the pantry. Then he resumed work.
Meghan did the same, turning her attention to the osso bucco she was preparing and then the next. The pace was grueling; the restaurant had developed a regular human clientele as well as a vampire following that kept on coming back, even with the deadly incident two weeks earlier.
The disturbing event in the private dining room had created a buzz in their community for days, but beyond that nothing else had happened. No one had a clue as to why the two vampires had decided to feed to their deaths. No one even seemed bothered by it. Why should they when their worlds were regularly filled with blood and violence?
But it bothered her.
She could still recall the sight of their naked, bloody bodies. The awful slurping sound as they had fed to the death rang in her ears time and time again.
Forcing those troubling recollections away, she finished up the last of the orders and then started on a few dishes for the kitchen staff that would take care of cleaning and closing up for the night. It had become a ritual for them to share a meal and some conversation before completing their chores.
She was laying out the food on the table with the help of one of the busboys when she noticed Blake at the door to the alley. Another of the helpers—one of the dishwashers that Blake regularly assisted—had stopped Blake by the door.
“Vamos, mano. Stay. She makes a great spread and we could use your help to clean up,” the man said in cajoling tones and placed a few friendly claps on Blake’s back.
Blake hesitated, looking from her to the man and then back to her again, well aware that Diego had put her in charge of the kitchen and that if she wanted him to go, he would be dismissed.
“We could use the help tonight. There’s a lot to clean,” she heard herself saying. She wondered what had possessed her to issue the invite. By now she knew that anything involving Blake didn’t end well, but in the past two weeks, she had sensed a difference in him. A determined difference that she now felt compelled to acknowledge.
He smiled at her invite, but it wasn’t his cocky self-satisfied grin. Warmth filled his features and reached up to his ice-blue eyes, which glittered with relief. Inside of her, the connection between them flared to life once again and she experienced his emotion. She almost physically felt the loneliness slip from him as he walked to her workstation, grabbed some of the food she had waiting there and walked the plates over to the table.
She wiped her hands on her apron and returned to her station, and then Blake was immediately behind her, helping her pick up the rest of the food she had made and serve it to the crew waiting to finish up for the night. With the long day behind them and the late night still ahead, the food disappeared quickly amid snatches of conversation, sating the human’s hunger.
As for herself, Blake and one other vampire, an older immortal who was their sommelier, they would have to quench their thirst for blood somewhere else. But the experience of sitting with the others, like she might have with her family back home, made her forget about the needs that the food wouldn’t satisfy.
She wondered whether Blake felt the same and watched as he ate some of the roast chicken she had rubbed with thyme. He must have noticed her interest since he picked up his head from the plate and said, “Tasty, love. Better than me mum used to make.”
His mum. She wondered what his mother had been like. What she might have thought about a son…
Who drained an innocent young woman until she was dead.
Who had only just gotten his first paying job in a couple hundred y
ears.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, earning the curious glances of those seated around the table who had picked up on the vibes between the two of them.
“Is something up, Meghan?” the vampire sommelier asked, more attuned to their connection than the humans at the table.
“No, Bruce. Everything’s just fine,” she lied, but the meal had been ruined for her.
She remained quiet, as did Blake, while the others finished up their dinners, but she sensed he still had more to say to her. To his credit, he chose to keep silent as they cleared off the table and proceeded to finish up for the night.
Since Diego had entrusted her with the kitchen and because of all that he had done and continued to do for her, she always made a point of making sure everything was perfectly in order.
Satisfied, she told everyone to call it a night, and the few remaining people straggled out the door, Blake included, leaving her alone in the kitchen.
She took a few minutes to glance lovingly at the space—her space—pleased by the current state of her life, vampness notwithstanding. If there was one blemish on what might be her idea of Happy Ending it was her immortal status. She hadn’t quite had that on her list of what to do before she died.
Of course, thanks to Blake she hadn’t even hit item number one on her list of what to do before she died. Normally anger would rise at him and at her situation, but tonight a mix of sadness and satisfaction came instead.
She had to acknowledge that if not for the whole undead thing, she would be back in the Midwest doing something other than what she wanted to be doing. If it hadn’t been for Blake she wouldn’t have trained to be a chef and she wouldn’t have started to receive some notice of her skills from the local papers.
The door to the alley opened and Blake walked back in.
He stopped short as he saw her standing there. “Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to intrude. I just needed to clean up before I left.”
“Go right ahead.”
As Blake walked to the sinks by the pantry, she did as well, pulling off her dirty apron and chef’s jacket and tossing them into the laundry bin.
Fury Calls Page 4