“Blood, ice, and Jägermeister. Found some in your cupboard.” He took another long sip and moved to her living room, where he sat on her couch, the windows still swathed in blackout blinds. For all Imogene knew, the sun was only just setting.
She followed him. “Give me some of that.”
He held his pitcher away from her. “It’s mine.”
“It’s my Jäger and my ice, even if you pay for the blood. Gimme.”
He handed her the pitcher, crossed his leg over his knee, and reached for the newspaper. She vaguely wondered when the hell she’d started getting Admiral Key news but was distracted by what turned out to be a really yummy blood shake.
“Huh,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Thought it would be good, what with this damn heat.” He sighed and started reading.
She plopped down on the couch right next to him, and he didn’t move away like she expected. He just took his pitcher back and kept drinking.
“Toto?” she asked.
“Yes, I love that song.” He flipped a page in the paper.
She reached out and messed up his hair, more than it was already. He ignored her, so she sat there and picked her fingernails. It was time for a new shade anyway. After five seconds of her picking, Nicholas reached out and squeezed her fingers together.
“I’m trying to read.”
She leaned her head on the back of the couch and yawned. “About what?”
“Mrs. Cleaver has lost her dog.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. If there was ever a man who looked snuggly, it was Lord Nicholas Christopher Cuthbert III, sitting there on her couch in pajamas that smelled distinctly him. Incapable of self-control, Imogene slid down lower on the couch and rested the side of her head against his shoulder. He still, surprisingly, didn’t budge.
“What else?” she asked.
“Mm, well, it seems someone is trying to buy out the old tennis courts down by St. Arthur’s, despite what locals consider a ‘rat problem.’ Could be lucrative or a horrible, life crushing mistake.”
She smirked. “Life crushing?”
He took another large gulp from the pitcher that was now dripping with condensation before handing it to Imogene.
She took a sip and set the pitcher down before curling her knees up and resting them against the side of Nicholas’s thigh. She then curled into a little ball, her head resting on him as she closed her eyes.
“More,” she muttered.
“The Drift Inn has been struck by lightning due to the depravity of its clientele.”
Imogene snorted and sat up. She smacked him on the shoulder. Then, like she was some character in one of those chick flicks Celia liked, Imogene leaned forward and kissed Nicholas on the cheek. He didn’t flinch but simply smiled as he continued to read the latest, thrilling news from Admiral Key.
Slowly, she pushed the paper away so that she could straddle his lap, wearing nothing but a big t-shirt. She ran her hand over the top of his head, through his hair, and then let her fingers linger on the edge of his jaw. She scrunched down so they were the same height on the couch and touched her nose to his. Imogene just waited to be pushed to the ground.
He didn’t push her. Instead, his hands landed on her hips.
She nudged their noses together again, her mouth slightly open. They breathed each other’s breath. Through it all, their eyes remained open, staring. Imogene didn’t want to close her eyes. She liked seeing him so close, where she noticed his skin was annoyingly without blemish and his eyebrows were actually redder than his hair. She moved a little closer so their bottom lips brushed and was so hot, she wanted to fuck him—right there—on her living room sofa.
Now. Need you now, now, now.
She would have done it, too, if her side door hadn’t sprung open, followed by Nicholas tossing her on the floor and into the coffee table. He stood immediately and reached for her hand. “Bloody hell, I’m sorry.”
She batted his hand away.
Dr. Savage stood there, staring. “I…” Her hair was in hunter mode, pulled back in a high ponytail. She wore head to toe black, and Dean came in behind her, similarly attired.
“What is it, Rain?”
Dean curled his hands into fists.
“Rayna,” Nicholas growled. “What is it?”
Imogene climbed to her feet and picked up Nicholas’s pitcher. She drank to hide the fact that her fangs had sometime, in the course of the past two minutes, gone “boing.”
“A human’s been killed in Lazaret,” Dr. Savage said. “By one of us.”
“Damn.” Nicholas closed his robe, and Imogene had a good idea why. “You’re sure?”
“Very,” Dean said. “Neck torn out.” In full hunter mode, he dressed like an extra from Rambo.
“Vixen,” Imogene said. “Have you seen her today?”
Dr. Savage looked like she was trying to avoid full eye contact with Imogene’s state of undress. “Yes, she’s at home. Why?”
“No reason. You tell Celia?”
“Why would I worry her?” Dr. Savage said.
“Because last time humans started getting deaded in Lazaret, it turned into a hunt for Ian. You know the way the guy smells.”
“Right. Dean, you go keep an eye on Celia and Ian. Nicholas and I will go hunting.”
“What?” Dean’s handsome face crinkled into a pissed off sneer. “No. Fuck no. I’m not letting pretty boy have your back. He probably doesn’t even know how to throw a punch.”
Nicholas’s voice dropped three octaves. “Oh, I can throw a punch,” he said to Dean.
“Okay, stop, both of you!” Dr. Savage folded her fingers beneath her chin. “Nicholas, Imogene, will you please go to Celia and Ian’s home right away? Dean and I will investigate in Lazaret.”
“Let me get dressed.” Nicholas swept past Imogene and up the steps.
Imogene turned around to see Dr. Savage staring at her. “What?”
Her nose twitched. “You reek of sex.” Then her dark eyes looked toward the stairs.
“Jealous?” Imogene winked.
She took a vampire-speed shower before throwing on camouflage shorts and a tank top that spelled out “Trouble” in big white letters. She spun her purple curls into a clip and rushed down the steps to find Dr. Savage and Dean already gone and Nicholas waiting in a deep green three-piece suit. She drove them in silence to Celia and Ian’s place, and they walked in just in time for Wheel of Fortune, which meant Jeopardy!—Ian’s favorite show—was on deck.
“Hey!” Ian stood when they entered. “Didn’t expect you two.”
“Human got deaded in Lazaret.” She gestured to the door like the dead body was on the patio.
Ian put his hands in his khaki shorts pockets. “Vampire?”
“Looks that way. Where’s the wife?”
“Bathroom. She’s staring at her belly.” He smiled, and Imogene ruffled his black hair.
“I gotta make a quick phone call.” She pointed at Nicholas and then at her eyes. “Keep an eye on them and try not to be annoying.”
“I’m never annoying,” he said.
“Tell that to Toto.” The air stuck to her skin outside like it was trying to forcibly enter her pores. She dialed Vixen’s number and waited.
“It wasn’t me!” Vixen shouted, which made Imogene drop her phone in the sand.
“Fuck me,” she muttered as she tried to brush it clean. “You promise?”
“Promise! I didn’t even have sex last night! Well, I had sex in a car, but that doesn’t really count, does it?”
Imogene pinched the bridge of her nose. “Were there any other vampires you noticed at Necto?”
“No. I was busy with… I don’t remember his name, but anyway, I was busy. There could have been a vampire there. You showed up and I didn’t notice.”
“It might not have happened at Necto. Who knows where this guy was hunting? Dean and Dr. Savage just went downtown to investigate.”
&nb
sp; “I know. They left here looking like characters from the Matrix. It was super hot.”
“Jesus, sit down, cross your legs, and don’t go anywhere. Read Jane Austen or something.”
“Jane who?”
“I’m hanging up.”
Back inside, she found Ian and Nicholas on the couch. Nicholas had his sketchbook out and was sketching Vanna White. The sketch practically looked like a photograph, which made her want to steal it and look at all the sketches he’d surreptitiously done of her. Instead of snatch and grab, she walked to the closed bathroom door.
“Merk?”
“Oh, hey,” Celia said through the door.
“What are you doing in there?”
“Staring at my belly.”
“Oh-kay.” Imogene leaned her head against the door and almost tumbled forward when it swung open.
Celia stood there in stretchy, gray maternity pants and a huge, white t-shirt, pulled up over her bulging stomach.
Imogene groaned.
“Look at it! Look how my skin is stretched! It’s like a drum.”
“Uhhh, do you have any beer?”
Celia pulled her shirt down. “I’m married to Ian. Of course I have beer.” She turned off the bathroom light and took the two steps required to reach their tiny kitchen. She opened the fridge and handed Imogene a Natural Light before grabbing one more. “Oh, is Nicholas here?”
“Yeah, but he prefers vodka.”
Celia shrugged and grabbed another beer anyway.
In the living room, Jeopardy! had begun. It was no secret Imogene and Ian liked to battle over trivia, although he almost always won. She liked to say she let him win, but truth was, the guy was like a walking encyclopedia. She suspected he kept random trivia hidden in his wild, black curls.
Celia extended a cold beer to Nicholas.
He put his sketchbook away and took the can. “Thank you, Celia.”
She smiled and sat next to Ian, who kissed the side of her head and curled his arm around her body. Imogene sprawled on the floor and sipped her beer.
“It’s nice of you guys to come over and hang out.” Celia smiled.
“We’re not here to hang, Merk. We’re here to keep an eye on you. A human got deaded in Lazaret last night, vamp style.”
“What?” She fisted her hands into Ian’s shirt. He choked on a sip of beer.
“Be cool, Merk. I don’t think it has anything to do with your bacon-scented husband, okay?”
Celia didn’t let go of the front of Ian’s shirt.
“Celia, she’s right,” Nicholas said calmly. “If anyone was here hunting Ian, they would be killing on Admiral Key, not Lazaret. Sometimes these things just happen.”
Celia let go, a little, but climbed onto Ian’s lap. “Oh. Okay.”
Nicholas and Ian simultaneously said, “Narnia,” two seconds before the Jeopardy! contestant rung in. Imogene glanced back at them. Although Nicholas seemed disinterested, Ian got that look about him—like when he thought he might lose at Scrabble.
She turned her head back to the game.
Trebek was looking his usual dour self in a black suit. Imogene missed his moustache. He read some clue about an explorer from the 1500s, and a millisecond before Ian could respond, Nicholas said, “Catalina.”
“Uh-oh,” Celia whispered.
Imogene smirked.
Trebek read a clue.
Nicholas said, “Seventeen.”
Ian looked like a boiled lobster.
Trebek continued, relentless: “On September first, 1715, Louis XIV died in this city, site of a fabulous palace he built.”
Ian screamed, “Versailles!” just as Nicholas shook his head. “Got ya!” Ian pointed at him.
“He’s not dead. He lives in Surrey.”
“What? No. No way. He died of gangrene. I know he died of gangrene.” Ian shifted Celia on his lap.
“Well, you weren’t there, were you?”
Ian gaped. “You were there? At Versailles?”
“Purely by accident. I was shtupping one of his house maids.”
Imogene snorted.
“You turned the Sun King into a vampire?” Ian’s eyes glazed over. “Wow, that’s ironic.”
“I didn’t turn him. As I said, I was busy. It was a colleague of mine.” He cleared his throat and loosened his dark maroon tie.
Imogene was beginning to recognize when Nicholas was uncomfortable. He’d gone from entertained and amused to stiff as a board in two point five seconds.
Ian didn’t notice, so he pressed on. “But you knew him? You met King Louis?”
“Briefly.” Nicholas took a polite sip of cheap beer.
“What was he like?” Celia asked.
“A bastard. He would probably still be ruling France today if the Stadium Lamia hadn’t threatened death by sun.” He paused. “Now, that would have been irony.”
“Whoa.” Ian turned back to face the TV. “That’s deep.”
Someone knocked quietly on the front door. Imogene tensed, but Nicholas seemed to sense her discomfort. He held up his hand. “It’s Rain.” He left his beer on the table by the couch and answered the door.
Dean walked in and looked ready to punch someone. Imogene soon realized why when Dr. Savage whispered to Nicholas, “I need to talk to you,” and beckoned him outside. He stepped outside, and the door closed behind him.
Imogene high-tailed it to the kitchen and came back with a tall water glass.
“What are you doing?” Celia said.
“Shh.” She pressed the glass against the door and listened, like in some old Nancy Drew book. She heard one command from Dr. Savage (“Tell me she’s dead”) before the door opened, and Imogene hugged the glass to her chest.
Nicholas lowered his brows. “Can I have just one moment of goddamn privacy, please?”
She huffed but backed away.
Nicholas slammed the door so hard, the house shook.
“God, he’s moody,” Imogene growled. She spun on Dean. “What happened in Lazaret?”
“Hell if I know!” He threw his hands in the air.
Ian carefully removed Celia from his lap, went to the kitchen, and came back with a bottle of whiskey, which he handed to Dean.
Imogene grabbed the bottle from him and took a gulp. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He grabbed the bottle back. “Definite vampire attack, but then Rayna got all funny and started talking about Cleopatra.”
“The Egyptian pharaoh?” Ian said. “Don’t tell me she’s still alive, too. My brain can’t take it.”
“No.” Dean shook his head. “Some smell, something about Cleopatra’s perfume.”
Imogene squished her eyelids shut. “Is this some hunter bullshit code?”
“She just said we needed to get back here because she had to talk to Nicholas.” He pointed a thick finger toward the door. “That womanizing prick!” Dean didn’t even try to keep his voice down.
The door swung open as if Nicholas had been beckoned. He walked up to Imogene. “I need to borrow your car.”
“What? No.”
“Please, Imogene. I’m not kidding around.” He gave her a look, somewhere between panty-melting and homicidal.
She sighed and reached for her keys. “If you get one scratch on her, I swear to the Sun King in Surrey, it’ll be your head.”
She handed him the keys, and he disappeared into the night, green suit coat flapping behind him like a superhero’s cape.
Leaving Dean to protect—and get drunk with—Ian and Celia, Imogene went home to do a couple blood deals. Her customer base was growing thanks to referrals and, of course, the rumors that she slept with a lot of her male clientele. (Nicholas was wrong, mixing business with pleasure totally upped her profits.) After selling a huge supply to two guys who seemed kind of shady and smelled like sweat socks, Imogene did something she rarely had reason to: she got her computer.
She’d bought the laptop with Ian’s help, computer nerd that he was, to keep track of h
er income versus supply. He’d set her up a nice Excel document so she knew how much blood to snatch every week, but she hardly ever looked at it. All the little boxes and numbers made her brain hurt.
Imogene went into Google and searched “Cleopatra’s perfume,” hoping there would be a wanted poster of a vampire with the same name, to no avail. For some reason, though, people—okay, archaeologists mostly—were fascinated by finding the scent Cleopatra wore to seduce all those ancient Roman guys. The closest they could find was something that smelled like a blue lotus. Imogene didn’t know what a blue lotus smelled like. Anyway, what the hell did a pretty floating flower have to do with a dead human in Florida?
She poured herself a glass of B-negative with a dollop of Jäger and sat on the couch. She turned off the lights and stared at the wall.
About an hour later, the growl of her Mustang came from the driveway. She didn’t get up, not even to refill her glass. She sat and waited until Nicholas walked in, shoulders slumped and forehead tilted toward the floor. He stopped in the doorway.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” he asked.
“How can you always tell where I am?”
“I can smell you.” He tossed her keys on the counter and rested his hands on the island. The moonlight from her kitchen window lit half his face, but it was enough to show the worried crinkle of his brow and the way he chewed the insides of his cheeks.
“Blue lotus. Is that what Dr. Savage smelled?”
One side of his mouth tilted up. “I’d ask how you know that, but I don’t really care.”
“What does it mean? That smell.”
He took off his suit coat. “It means nothing.”
“It must mean something. It freaked you out.” She stood and lingered across the island from him. “Is this about Amora?”
Quietly, he said, “What in God’s name do you know about her?”
“She made you, and she was bad. And Dr. Savage says she’s dead.”
He glared at her. “Rain told you about Amora?”
“I blackmailed her.” Imogene shrugged. “Wasn’t hard. So two questions, Nicky. One, is the bitch really dead? Two, if she isn’t, is she a threat?”
He shook his head. “Not to you.”
“Not to me. Okay. Then, who’s she a threat to?”
Bite Somebody Else Page 10