by Kiersten Fay
“He’s dead,” Mason said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t get anything out of him. What do you mean this wasn’t an isolated incident?”
“That’s all he said. Said he’d brief us when we bring in the wife.”
The room went silent. She could practically feel their gazes slip to her. Her heart stopped dead before jack-rabbiting out of control. Oh, goddess! They were going to take her in. Humans who crossed the VEA didn’t just go to jail—they disappeared. Panic iced her veins.
“Okay,” Mason said. “You go inventory the crime scene. I’ll take her down to the car.”
At some point, Cora had managed to mold herself into a tight corner of the small space, but that didn’t keep Mason’s strong hands from lifting her up off the floor. With both palms on her shoulders, he steadied her and didn’t let go till he seemed sure she wouldn’t fall back over.
“Turn around,” he ordered. When she did, he added, “Don’t move.” Then he uncuffed one of her hands.
The urge to wring her fingers around her free wrist was strong, but she kept as still as possible.
The familiar fabric of her coat came over her shoulders. Mason guided her arms through the sleeves and then turned her back around to face him. He snatched the belt string and tied the trench closed. “If it so happens you’re here by coincidence, you picked a hell of a day.”
If her voice box had been working she’d have told him that was the understatement of the year.
Once more, he cuffed her wrists behind her back and then guided her by the elbow out into the hall. Red splotches decorated the previously spotless walls. A body slumped lifelessly on the floor. A frightened noise escaped her lungs, and she stumbled. Mason held her steady and rushed her forward.
In the elevator, after the doors slid closed, he studied her for a long while. She tipped her head down and became like a statue, except her breaths heaved erratically. The weight of his gaze was nearly physical. She was acutely aware of who in this small space was the predator and who the prey.
Vampires functioned on a different level than humans. They were twice as strong and thrice as primitive.
After another moment, his hand stretched toward the panel, and he pressed the button marked G for garage. This time, the ride down was not fast enough, but finally, the doors parted, revealing a badly lit space stuffed with vehicles. As he tugged her forward by the arm, her heels clicked loudly against the concrete. The sound bounced off the solid concrete walls.
He led her to an unmarked black car and then situated her in the back. She was surprised by his gentle treatment of her thus far, but then, there could be witnesses anywhere, cameras. Vampires liked to keep vampire business behind closed doors.
He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, but kept the car in park. In the rearview mirror, their gazes locked before she turned her eyes down. The silence stretched on, and she took the time to assess the unfortunate turn of events. More likely than not, her old life was forfeit, her future precarious. Winston, for whatever reason, had caught the eye of the VEA. Never a good thing. And now he was dead.
She felt as though she should be experiencing more sorrow over that fact. In truth, she only felt numb. Maybe she was in shock. Maybe her survival instinct was overruling her emotions. Unwanted thoughts from the past bubbled up from the back of her mind.
After the disaster that had made her an orphan, she’d been rendered a street-beggar at the age of ten. While scrounging for scraps in a back-alley dumpster, she’d caught the attention of a low-level vampire soldier.
She had tried to run, had managed a laughable attempt, but he’d caught her throat in a death grip. Not a breath later, his fangs had pierced her shoulder. When he was done nearly draining her, he’d introduced himself as one would a new acquaintance. “I’m Edgar. What’s your name?”
Through her sobs, she’d whimpered out a shaky, “Coraline.”
Then he’d tried to hypnotize her into following him, only to find her immune to vampire compulsion. A surprise to them both. His crazed blood-drunk eyes had grown excited. To this day, she couldn’t say why that had enamored him so. Or why it made him want to torture her. Her only explanation was that vampires were sadistic by nature.
She mentally skipped over the worst of her captivity. That was where she’d learned how to go unnoticed by vampire kind, how to be still and quiet and the importance of averting one’s gaze. That was where she’d learned they were more like animals than humans.
She thanked the goddess that he hadn’t abused her in a sexual manner, though he did make threats of the kind. At the time, he seemed more interested in making her his personal snack pack.
Edgar had been a kind of foot soldier for a militia clan meant to squash the human uprising. When his leader discovered her chained in Edgar’s quarters, he ordered a tribunal. Apparently no one in that particular clan could claim a human without express permission from the higher-ups. Edgar had made his case with her cowering by his side in front of his entire clan. He’d revealed her affinity to resist compulsion and claimed to want to keep her for further study.
Whether it had been extreme luck, or merely that Edgar was genuinely disliked by his superiors, the commander refused his request and ordered her immediate release. He’d called her a liability before bringing up that she was a minor. Cora was surprised to learn they did have some laws against such things. However, she might never understand why they hadn’t just killed her then and there.
Edgar had protested and openly challenged the leader’s decision. The result was Edgar’s blood coating the walls. Her child’s mind must have blocked out his execution, but the horror often slipped back to her in dreams.
After disemboweling Edgar, the leader had turned to her, and simply said, “Go.”
Her thoughts were disrupted by the passenger side door opening. Trent folded himself into the seat. “Forensics has arrived. Clean up team’s not far behind. Let’s go.”
Chapter 2
Mace watched the little human in the rearview mirror with too much interest. He always watched her with too much interest, which was why he often considered transferring to another case. Yet in all the months he’d been tailing Coraline and her rat-bastard husband, something had stopped him from doing just that, even when his unexpected infatuation had nearly blown his cover a few weeks back.
What the hell was she doing here?
Dressed like every guy’s wet dream, for shit sake!
He slammed the car into reverse and then peeled out toward the exit. Trent didn’t comment on his aggravated maneuver. His partner was too busy contacting Rolo, the newbie assigned to watch the Gordon house while Mace, Trent, and Marissa set up this little sting.
Marissa, though only human, had been a tough cookie, willing to snuggle up to that slime in hopes of garnering information on his dealings. Her chief was going to be pissed about losing one of his best over a vampire blood smuggling case.
The humans rarely cooperated with the VEA as it was. Now they’d be less likely to do so than ever, especially after this particular clusterfuck.
Trent’s tone was clipped when Rolo answered, clearly not wanting to give too much away with Cora in the back. “You seemed to have lost something, Rolo,” Trent hissed into the phone. “What the hell?”
With his superior hearing, Mace caught Rolo’s answer through the tiny speaker. “What are you talking about?”
Trent sighed. “Where are you?”
“I’m where you told me to be, but I’m a little busy right now.”
A faint round of gunshots vibrated the phone’s speakers from the other end of the call.
“What’s going on?” Trent asked.
“Just a little Mexican standoff. A group disguised as a painting crew broke into the Gordon house. They’re packing some serious heat.” A few more gunshots rang out. “I don’t know where wifey-poo is. She never showed up after I took my shift.”
“We, uh, have the package with us,” Trent said obscurely.
“No shit? She’s with you now?”
“Yes. We’re heading to the police station.”
Cora perked up at Trent’s words. For another frustrating second, she met Mace’s gaze in the mirror before lowering her head. He knew she was from the ghetto, but something in her behavior told him she had a little more experience with vampires than the average human. The suspicion only made her more intriguing.
“Do your best to capture at least one of them for questioning, then meet us at the precinct.” Trent hung up. “Fuck all,” he muttered. “Something serious has just gone down under our noses.”
They remained silent for the rest of the ride. Mace pulled into the police garage and parked as close to the entrance as possible. Before he killed the engine, Trent was already out of the car, opening Cora’s door and helping her out.
Cora had almost cried from joy when she saw the police station. The only reason for them to bring her here would be to hand her over to the human authorities instead of condemning her to vampire justice. She might yet survive this calamity.
Inside, Trent guided her to a room with dreary stone grey walls and a single table with several chairs. Then he undid her cuffs and exited, leaving her alone.
She examined her appearance in the wide, one-way mirror—standard issue, she thought. Her blonde hair was ruffled from the wig that remained back on the hotel room floor. Her light-brown eyes were stark, shell-shocked. And her coat was a little disheveled.
She was insurmountably grateful that the vampire called Mace had been kind enough to allow her to cover the outfit that now seemed like an ode to stupidity.
Why had she ever thought it was a good idea to follow Winston in an attempt to surprise him? She should have just stayed home and fretted over his return, per usual. But then, he wouldn’t have returned, would he? Perhaps even now she would have been called to the door by Frederick, the butler, and greeted the police officer assigned to give her the terrible news. She would have cried and mourned and despaired.
Instead, she had to discover just how little Winston valued their marriage. The stinging realization was only muted by the horror of having witnessed his murder. It seemed silly now that she had thought seducing him would be the most terrifying thing she’d endure today.
The reflection in the mirror smacked of so much desperation, hopelessness, and misery, she had to look away. Almost without her willing it, she slipped into one of the plastic chairs, folded her arms on the table, and lowered her head into the dark crevice created by her body.
It could have been minutes or hours later when the sound of the door opening jerked her awake. She hadn’t even realized how exhausted she was until slumber was stolen from her.
“Hello, Ms. Gordon.” A balding man took the seat across the table.
Mason and Trent entered as well. Trent crossed to lean against the wall. Mason stood beside the officer, arms folded behind his back. Why were they still here? A sense of foreboding chased away the last of her drowsiness.
The balding man handed her a cup of water. With shaky fingers, she took it from him and downed a large gulp.
“Has someone come in to take your statement yet?” the man asked.
“No,” she replied.
He glanced at the mirror and then back at her. “Well, I have a few questions for you, but I’d like to get your statement on record first. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
She blinked twice, suddenly nervous. She was going to have to explain why she’d been there. “I wanted to…surprise Winston.” She wrapped her arms around her torso before continuing. “He’s been working a lot lately, and we hadn’t had much time for…romance—”
“Working on what?” the officer interrupted.
She hesitated. “Well, his import-export company. Anyway, I went to his room at the hotel and…” She assumed he knew exactly what happened at that point, but she went through it anyway, all the while avoiding glancing at Mason or Trent. “The next thing I knew, gunshots were going off, and I saw…I saw my husband’s head…um…” Her voice quivered, making it impossible to speak for a moment.
“Can you tell me about your husband’s company?”
She cleared her throat. “Not much. It’s an old company. He inherited it from his parents. They transport goods in and out of the country.”
“What kind of goods?”
“Anything you can think of.”
“Anything illegal?”
She paused. “I…I wouldn’t know. It wasn’t something Winston ever talked to me about. Is that why he was being watched? Was he doing something wrong?”
Mason snorted. For a split second, she forgot herself and shot him a glare. One of his sleek eyebrows rose, and she fixed her gaze back on the human officer.
The officer continued. “If there’s anything you know regarding what your husband and his associates were into, now is the time to tell us, Coraline. Even if you were involved in any way, we could—”
“Involved in what?” she asked.
The officer shared a look with Mason, and Mason took over. “We believe your husband was involved in the abduction of vampires and harvesting their blood for sale on the black market.”
Cora’s mouth fell open. She didn’t even attempt to wipe away her dumfounded expression. Could Winston have been so stupid as to tempt the wrath of the vampire nation?
“Why would he do anything like that? Gordon Exports is a multimillion-dollar company. He had no need to—”
“Clearly, your husband got bored easily,” Mason said coldly.
Her mouth clamped shut. Was that a dig at Winston’s infidelity?
“It tends to happen when you want for nothing, when you’re handed everything from the time of birth and never have to work for it. There’s no doubt Winston was smuggling vampire blood, but we weren’t sure if he was the mastermind or just a middle-man. Marissa, the woman you saw with Winston, had been seeing him regularly.”
Cora flinched. The corners of her mouth tugged into a frown and a set of salty, burgeoning tears burned her eyes.
Mason’s tone softened. “Her objective was to find out where the blood was coming from and who else was involved.”
“How long had they been…?” She trailed off, staring at Mason’s upside-down reflection in the metallic gleam of the table.
“Since before you,” he replied simply.
Devastation crushed her chest.
“In fact, Marissa had been hinting about marriage just before he met you. You came as something of a surprise, actually…” Mason paused for a moment. “We weren’t sure if you were involved somehow, so we assigned someone to follow you as well.”
Cora’s head jerked up. She’d been followed? For how long? The thought sent a shiver down her spine. “And what did you find?”
“For the most part, it seemed you were ignorant of everything. But several months ago, something was discovered. If a human had been tailing you, it would have gone unnoticed, but…the scent of vampire blood was in your veins.”
Finally, she met Mason’s gaze head-on. Surely he was joking. His deadpan stare bore into hers.
“That’s impossible,” she said.
“It’s a fact. I smell it on you even now.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never even tasted vampire blood, not even when…”
Both males canted their heads, and she knew she would be forced to finish her sentence.
“Not even when I was offered it in my youth.”
After Edgar would brutalize her, he’d tear open his own wrist and present it to her, claiming his blood would heal her if she chose. She had always refused, hoping her wounds would kill her instead.
“You’ve ingested it within the last week,” Mason insisted. “But you don’t have to take my word on it. We’re preparing a warrant to have your blood tested. That will not only confirm what I say, but it could identify which missing vampire it came from.”
Cora’s heart slammed to a halt. What would happen to h
er if they found something in her system? When could she have possibly ingested vampire blood? And if she had, how could she not have realized it? Didn’t that stuff affect humans in noticeable ways?
She gasped as a memory knocked the wind from her lungs like a blow to the stomach. It was something she wouldn’t have thought twice about had she not been forced to reconsider everything she’d known over the last seven months. She glanced at her right forefinger, at a spot that probably should brandish at the very least a scab, but the skin was smooth and even, flawless.
“What is it?” The vampire asked.
“Last Monday Winston and I were making dinner. He was cutting some carrots, and I reached over to grab the pile next to him. The knife slipped, and my finger got cut. I thought it would need stitched, but Winston wrapped it in gauze and convinced me not to worry about it. Then he finished dinner and poured me a glass of red wine.” She paused at the memory of thinking how kind it had been of Winston to take such care of her. “The next morning, I checked the cut and it was already closing up. I figured it just hadn’t been as bad as I’d originally thought.”
Had Winston been feeding her vampire blood behind her back?
“Blood-laced wine is a popular method of consumption,” Mason replied. “It masks the color and taste.”
“Something happened before that,” she continued as another suspicious memory assailed her. “There was a dinner party at the Montgomery home three months ago. Not a huge event, just a few people I had never met before. Ms. Montgomery had taken me upstairs to show off a new painting of her posing by the pool with her miniature chow. On our way back down, she lost her footing and fell into me. I took a hard tumble and landed wrong on my arm. I remember thinking I must have broken it. It swelled up pretty bad. But same as last week, Winston convinced me to wait before we sought medical attention. We all sat down to dinner and had wine. Before the night was over, most of the pain had dulled and the swelling had gone down. The next morning it was only a little tender.”