Blood Kiss

by J. R. Ward

  The first thing they saw down the long, beige hallway was Peyton at the far end, sitting on the carpet, cradling his phone in his palms.

  The scent of blood in the air was thick to Craeg's nose, but probably wouldn't have been noticed by a human.

  Paradise rushed over and knelt beside the guy. "Peyton?"

  He didn't look at her until she touched him on the shoulder--and oh, God, his face was pale as chalk and his eyes were too wide. "It's bad."

  "Is she . . . in there?"

  "No. But the bedroom . . . God, the bedroom."

  Craeg left her with her friend and pushed the door open. Instantly, the death scent grew stronger--and became ever more intense as he walked into an open room with wall-to-wall white carpeting, a white couch, and a wall of windows that, given a lack of heavy drapes, should have precluded a vampire from residing in the space.

  Cold, it was very cold. And there was a stiff breeze shooting through the place.

  Glancing to the right, there was nothing of note in the open galley kitchen, no mess, everything put away, a bowl of fresh-looking fruit--no, the apples were plastic, scratch that.

  A hallway led off straight ahead, and there was a single light glowing down at the end. Zeroing in on it, he proceeded across the fine-napped runner.

  Turning the corner, he stopped in the doorway. Across the way, a queen-size bed was stained with so much red, it was as if paint had been splashed across its white duvet and sheets and pillows and headboard.

  There was some more on the floor, marking a path that went over to . . .

  The sliding glass door that led out to some kind of terrace had been left open--and as the filmy white drapes wafted in the gusts, bloody handprints on the glass and the jamb were exposed and then covered, exposed and then covered.

  Pivoting back to the bed, he noted the drugs on the side tables: syringes, spoons, little nubs of tinfoil. There were no condoms. No weapons. Also nothing personal--no photographs, mementos, clutter. This was a place to fuck and do drugs and get gone before the morning. But it was expensive.

  "Oh, my God . . ."

  At the sound of Paradise's voice, he looked over his shoulder. "You're not going to want to come in here."

  She entered anyway, and he couldn't say he was surprised.

  "Where's Peyton?" he asked.

  "Right here," came a dull voice from the doorway.

  As the three of them stood together, he was pretty damn sure they were thinking the same thing: nobody survived something like this. Nobody.

  "I need to call my father," Paradise said roughly. "This is far beyond what we should be dealing with."

  Craeg shook his head as she got out her phone. "No, we need to call the Brothers."

  Peyton interjected, "That's why she's phoning her dad."

  As Paradise put the cell up to her ear and paced around, Craeg frowned. "What?"

  Peyton shrugged. "Her father is First Adviser to the King. It's the right thing to do."

  At first, the words failed to translate, the string of nouns and verbs and other shit going in one ear and out the other. But then he replayed them a couple of times . . . and felt the oddest chill go over his entire body, from eyebrow to ankle. His heart kicked in his chest. Stopped. Resumed at a bad pace.

  Craeg shifted his eyes back to Paradise and listened from a great distance as she started talking urgently. He'd never particularly focused on her accent before, because he'd always been so distracted by his attraction to her. But now, the cadence, the tone, the inflection . . . it was just like Peyton's. And not because she'd assumed the lilt like some sort of poser.

  In a dull voice, he said, "She isn't just the receptionist at that house, is she."

  *

  When Butch's phone started going off against his side, he was prepared to let the shit go into voice mail--he was in a sex club trying to get some clues to a murder for godsake. But when the damn thing kept going off, he took it out and answered.

  And was not able to hear Vishous at all over the techno music. "What? Hello?"

  After the connection was cut, a text from the Brother solved the confusion. The message was short and to the point, nothing but an address in the good part of downtown, the number 18, and a time duration: 5 mins.

  It was the code they used for when they were fighting and in trouble.

  "We've got to go," he said aloud. Turning to Marissa, he took her arm and spoke more loudly. "We've got to leave. Now."

  "What?" She came in tight against him. "But there's more up ahead?"

  When he just shook his head and met her eyes, she stopped arguing. "Yo, Axe," he called out. "We need to bounce. You good?"

  The guy came over. "I thought you wanted to go through everything."

  "Later. See you at the training center."

  The actual departure took a fuck of a lot longer than five minutes, as the process of weeding through the various sex stations and themed rooms was like trying to find your way out of 50 Shades of garden maze. As soon as they were out into the chilly, clear air, and away from the earshot of the bouncers and the line, Butch said, "I've got slayer business--"

  His phone rang again, and he answered it. "V, I'm on my way, just leaving Marissa--"

  The Brother was short, to the point, and very succinct, and as the call was ended, Butch lowered the phone slowly and stared at Marissa. "I think you'd better come, too."

  "What is it?"

  "We might have found out who the dead female is."

  Minutes later, he pulled his Lexus up to the front entry of a posh high-rise apartment building that was a mere block from the Commodore. One mental scrub job on a human and an elevator ride later, and they were marching down a hallway that smelled like death. V was waiting for them.

  And the brother recoiled as soon as he saw them. "What the hell? And P.S., you both look hot as fuck."

  Butch tore off his mask. "I can smell the blood from out here."

  Lifting her hands to remove her own mask, Marissa recoiled. "Oh, God . . . it's her. That's her scent."

  V led them through an anonymous apartment to an essentially empty bedroom that reminded him of his years with the CPD. And shit, Butch's first impulse was to put himself between his mate and all the signs of a violent murder. But no more. It killed him to have her exposed to any of this, but she was right. She had to be here.

  With her spine straight and her eyes clear, she went over to the bed--and fuck him, the image of her standing with her back to him as she stared at the blood-soaked duvet and pillows was going to give him a whole new category of nightmares.

  Cursing, he glanced at Paradise, who was standing next to Peyton, and then he sized up Craeg, who was farther off in the corner. Finally, he assessed the scene, taking note of everything that was and was not in the room.

  "Who got here first?" he asked.

  Peyton lifted his hand. "I did. My cousin Allishon used this place to . . . well, you know. She leases it under a human name. I called her cell phone a couple of times to get her to come out with us--her parents had told my parents that she'd been out of touch for, like, a couple of nights, maybe a week, but that wasn't all that unusual. When I didn't hear back, I figured I'd stop by here, because she was probably partying hard. I came in through the terrace, because that's how I usually do--and yeah."

  "Was that slider unlocked?" Butch asked as he lifted the billowing drapes and inspected a bloody handprint on the handle.

  "It was open. But if the sun got her, it would have left burns, right? So maybe she's . . ." He trailed off as he focused on the stained bed. "She's not okay, is she."

  Marissa drew her latex hood back from her head and let it hang around her neck. Going over to the male, she took his hands. "I'm Butch's shellan, Marissa. I'm the executive director of a domestic violence shelter. She came to us--"

  "So she's there? She's alive!"

  Marissa slowly shook her head. "I'm so sorry. I called my brother, Havers, and he treated her with everything he had. She did not
make it."

  Peyton's eyes returned to the bed and he fell silent. Then he whispered, "This is going to kill her parents. They lost my other cousin in the raids. No children now."

  "So that door was unlocked or just open?" Butch asked. "And I don't mean to be insensitive, but this is a crime scene and whoever did this to her . . . we've got to nail them to the fucking wall."

  Peyton shook his head. "Yeah, no--I mean, she was a wild girl. She was a partier. But she didn't deserve . . ." He cleared his throat. "The door was absolutely open."

  Butch traced the marks and stains on the carpet. "The only explanation is that she somehow used the last of her strength to get out and dematerialize to Safe Place."

  "How did she know to go there?" Paradise whispered. "I mean . . . thank God."

  "She must have heard about us somehow," Marissa replied. "I just wish we could have saved her."

  V came into the room. "I just got a text from Tohr and Rhage. They're fighting, it's a bad skirmish. I've gotta go be backup--Butch. You've got to come with me. This is an emergency."

  Butch gritted his teeth and dropped a couple of f-bombs. But then he looked at Marissa. "You okay?"

  Staring right at him, she said roughly, "As long as we can find out who did this, I'll be goddamn fine."

  He gave her a quick, hard hug and felt a wellspring of pride in his chest. And then he gave her a very sad series of tasks.

  "I want you to get a list of people she knew, human and vampire, from him." He nodded at Peyton. "Then photograph everything with your phone. The whole fucking place. Touch nothing, disturb nothing. Lock up all the doors you can. Leave from the terrace. Then go to the parents' house. They have a right to know tonight."

  "I'm on it," she said.

  Yes, he thought, she was.

  God, he loved her. Hated this situation . . . but love, love, loved her.

  One more kiss . . . and he was heading back down to his car, trying to shift his focus from one kind of emergency to another.

  Chapter Forty-two

  As Marissa talked to Peyton about who his cousin had been associating with, Paradise borrowed the female's phone and went through the whole place taking photographs. With every shot she captured, she thought of what she knew about the dead girl. Technically, Allishon was her cousin, too, and though it was a more distant connection than Peyton's, the loss was still acute.

  Especially because she'd seen that bed.

  Good . . . God. Such violence.

  In about fifteen minutes, she had covered the bedroom, the bathroom, the hall, and the living room--and she was turning around to do the kitchen when she saw something down on the floor.

  As the place was white all over, the flash of color by the edge of the sofa really caught her eye.

  Sinking onto her haunches, she pulled out . . . an old-fashioned Polaroid snapshot.

  With a frown, she realized it was . . . red and pink. Just like the one that she'd found on the bus.

  The one she'd put in her satchel after Peyton had said it wasn't his.

  "What is that?" Peyton asked. "Paradise? You gonna be sick?"

  She stood up and went across to him.

  "It's a picture . . ." As she showed the thing to him, she wondered if maybe she were jumping to conclusions. Maybe there was another explanation. "Ah, it's like the one I found, you know, on the bus."

  "Whatever. Are you finished with the pictures? We have to go talk to Allie's parents now. I need to get this over with before I lose my fucking mind."

  "Two secs." She put the photo in her jacket without thinking about it and started snapping images of the kitchen. "I'm almost done."

  "She has the ashes," Peyton murmured in a voice that cracked. "Marissa has them."

  Paradise lowered the phone. "Oh . . . God."

  "She just left to go change and pick them up before you and I head over there. I wish I had a joint with me. I didn't think. . . ." He began opening cupboards. "Oh, thank fuck."

  As he took out a bottle of vodka and slipped it into his coat, she wanted to remind him they weren't supposed to disturb anything, but come on. Like she was going to bust his balls for not following the rules on a night like tonight?

  "Peyton, what else can I do?"

  His eyes drifted back to hers. "It is what it is. Thank you for coming with me, though."

  With a grim nod, she took one last snapshot of the empty sink and bare counters. "Here. Um, where's Craeg?"

  "He's in the bedroom still."

  "Peyton . . . I'm so sorry."

  They met in the middle and held each other tightly. She wanted to tell him that it was going to be okay, but that was already not true.

  "I love you," he said.

  "I love you, too."

  Stepping away from him, she went to the apartment's front door, locked things up with her mind and then proceeded with him back down to the bedroom.

  Craeg was where he'd been standing for the longest time, and as she went to him, she put her hand on his arm. "You all right?"

  "Yeah." He turned to Peyton, breaking the contact. "Hey, man, you need anything . . . I'm here for you."

  Peyton went over to the male and they exchanged a hard embrace, and then all of them were out on the terrace in the stiff wind coming off the river.

  Peyton left first. And then Craeg pivoted to her.

  "Long night--I'd better go back. Peyton hit the training center up for me on his phone and I need to meet the bus ASAP."

  "Oh . . . okay." But come on, what did she expect? There had been a tragedy. Now was not the time for a long, romantic good-bye for godsakes. "So . . . anyway, I guess I'll see you tomorrow night? Will you call me this morning, though? I'm going to change, then help Peyton tell the family."

  "Good thing you got hold of your father."

  "Yes, he's always helpful."

  "I'll bet."

  "It's just so . . . awful." As she blinked, she saw that bed inside. "So very, very ugly. I wonder who did it?"

  "Butch will find them."

  "I hope so. I truly do."

  "I got to go."

  "Oh . . . okay." Wait, she'd already said that. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. You'd better go, too."

  For some reason, she had the strangest urge to tell him that she missed him--but that was absurd. He was standing two feet away from her. They were going to talk in a couple of hours. She was going to see him tomorrow night.

  "Good day," she said.

  When he nodded, she closed her eyes . . . calmed herself . . . and spirited away.

  For so many reasons, the awkward parting had not been how she'd seen the evening ending. Not even close.

  *

  Craeg didn't wait long. As soon as Paradise got ahead of him, he dematerialized himself behind her, traveling on the wind, using his blood in her veins as a tracker.

  When she stopped moving through the night air, he re-formed a good hundred yards away from her on the edge of a lawn that was . . .

  The house before him at the top of the rise was the size of a college dorm, the kind of massive, grand structure that would be featured on television as being on some fancy university's campus or God, maybe . . . maybe it was more like a royal residence with its peaked roofs and its diamond-pane windows and all the clipped and manicured everything on its lawn.

  It was easily twice the size of the mansion where his and Axe's fathers had been slaughtered, for example.

  And as Paradise approached the front door, it was without apology--not as a staffer or a servant would. And a moment later, she was inside without ringing a doorbell or anything. In fact, as he moved to the left, he saw through leaded glass windows a uniformed butler taking her coat and bowing in deference to her.

  Her father is First Adviser to the King.

  Closing the distance with long strides, he watched from the cold outside as she went up the grand staircase and disappeared into what was undoubtedly an equally sumptuous second floor. Or maybe third
. Or twelfth.

  Even after he could no longer see her, he stayed where he was, staring through old-fashioned panes at the oil paintings, the fancy rugs, the silk on the walls--it must be silk, right?

  What the fuck did he know.

  Turning away, he looked out over the rolling lawn, and the bushes, and the beds of what were no doubt specimen flowers in the warm months. He wondered what the backyard was like. Probably had a pool. An enclosure for exotic fucking animals. A goddamn bird sanctuary.

  She had lied.

  And not in a small way.

  This . . . this was a big fucking deal: He'd just taken the virginity of what certainly appeared to be one of a Founding Family's daughters.

  According to the Old Laws, as a commoner?

  He could be put to death for that.

  As anger swelled, it was less about Paradise and what she'd kept from him, and more because he had consistently overridden himself. All those internal stops he'd put up? All those resolutions he'd had? Before he'd fucked her in the bathroom at a human fucking club, for fuck's sake? He'd blown right through each and every one of them. And to top that off, he'd lost his focus with the training. Gotten sidetracked from his purpose. Wasted days when he should have been sleeping, classes when he should have been thinking, workouts when he should have been training his body with total focus.

  And all for a female who cared so little for him, who was so selfish and conceited, that she had been unwilling to share some very pertinent, relevant information about herself.

  Information that she had to know would have been a game changer for him.

  It was a perfect storm of manipulation, that had spun him a hundred and eighty degrees away from what he'd actually wanted: Between her being a liar and his libido being out of control, he hadn't stood a chance.

  Such a fool--he was such a goddamn fool.

  And fools got what they deserved.

  Didn't they.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Sitting on the edge of her mated bed, Marissa ran a brush through her hair. She had changed out of the clothes she had gotten into after she'd stripped off her latex suit, and she was now wearing one of Butch's black cashmere robes. From time to time, she brought the lapel up to her nose and smelled his scent on the fibers.

  She needed the reminder of his presence. She truly did.

  Dearest Virgin Scribe, there were too many things that kept going through her mind, images, sounds, smells. And as a result of the barrage, she kept wondering . . . how had Butch done that for so long? How had he investigated those crime scenes, gone to the houses of the victims' families, broken that news over and over again? How had he looked into the tragic eyes of a father and a mahmen and commiserated with them--all the while knowing he had to get information out of them?