When He Was Bad

by Shelly Laurenston, Cynthia Eden

  She lifted up the photo. “Want to see the real Paul Roberts?” Her fingers shook just a bit.

  He took the photo. Scanned it. Glanced back at her. Waited.

  “Interesting, huh?” she whispered.

  “Very.” He dropped the photo onto the desk.

  Sam cleared his throat. “I actually think that Miranda got very, very lucky last night.”

  Her focus jumped to him. “What do you mean?” Yeah, she felt damn lucky the bastard hadn’t drained her dry but—

  “Three women in Florida have been murdered over the last three months. All with their throats slit.” A pause and his expression tensed. “And all the women told their friends they’d recently met a ‘Paul’ online.”

  Chill bumps rose on Miranda’s arms. “Are you telling me the guy I was out with last night is some kind of-of—”

  He held up his hands. Glanced from her to a silent Cain. “All I’m saying is the situation fits the MO. I’m gonna be calling the FBI later today, briefing them on what happened. But, to me, well, like I said, I feel like you got damn lucky.”

  The phone on the desk rang with a shrill cry. Sam frowned and picked it up. “Michaels. What? Hell. Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.” He slammed down the receiver. “Jack Thompson pulled another all-night drinking binge and just tried to break into his ex-wife’s house. He’s pissed and disorderly as hell. I got to help the boys process ’im.”

  Miranda nodded, feeling more than a little numb.

  “I’ll be right back.” He stalked from the room.

  She rose to her feet, lifted her chin, and walked closer to Cain. “About last night—”

  “Forget it,” he snapped, and a muscle flexed along his jaw. “We’ve got more important matters to deal with now. So you think I’m some kind of freak—”

  She caught his hand. “I—I don’t.”

  His nostrils flared and she saw his pupils dilate. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. When you touch me, it makes the thing inside me hungry.”

  He was trying to scare her. But from the sound of things, she’d almost been prey to a vampire serial killer, and Cain was probably the only reason she’d escaped.

  Her fingers tightened around him. “I shouldn’t have left you last night.”

  “If you hadn’t, I’d have taken you.” Stark. Predatory.

  Her heart did a hard thud against her chest.

  “I want you, Miranda Shaw, and I’m not one of your human men. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I am. I don’t play by their rules, and when I want something, I reach out”—his left hand lifted, caught her chin—“and I take it.”

  He wasn’t dealing with the same woman he’d faced last night. She’d been at the end of her rope then. So his words now didn’t scare her.

  But they did turn her on.

  “I didn’t know how you felt.” He’d given no indication of his attraction before. She hadn’t even realized he’d wanted her until his lips had been on hers and she’d felt the heavy length of his erection pressing against her.

  Hard to mistake those signs.

  “Now you do.”

  Yes. “Cain, I—”

  He exhaled and stepped away from her, muttering, “Damn but you smell too sweet.”

  That was good, right? Or was it—

  She wanted to catch his hand again. To touch him. But time was running out, and though she wanted to make amends to him, now, well, now she needed his help.

  Before Sam returned.

  “The man last night,” she began.

  “The vampire,” he corrected, voice sardonic.

  “Fine. Whatever. That guy, he’s a killer.”

  His head moved in the faintest of agreements.

  “Sam isn’t going to believe me if I tell him the truth about what happened.”

  “Humans rarely understand just what the word ‘truth’ means.”

  Not the most helpful of answers. She sighed. Miranda knew she couldn’t just walk away from this case now. And she knew that he was the one with the creature-feature knowledge. “What do we do?”

  Three women. Three months. She would have been victim number four. And she didn’t believe for a moment that Paul Roberts was just going to walk off into the sunset and never kill again.

  Last night the devil had been in his eyes, and evil that strong didn’t just stop its blood quest.

  She couldn’t stand by and wait while another woman was killed. “We can’t let this guy get away,” she said, when he didn’t speak. “There has to be a way to stop him.”

  He laughed, the sound too hard. “Ah, baby, let me clue you in to a few facts.”

  She bit back the sharp retort that sprang to her lips.

  Cain jerked his head toward the closed door. “I’d say, in less than five minutes, a team of suits will be arriving at the station. Your Sam won’t have to contact the FBI, they’ll have monitored the call systems for this station—they do that for all the offices—and they’ll know what happened.”

  Her palms were sweating. “They’ll go after Paul?”

  “They go after killers like him every day.” A shrug. “Sometimes they catch them—well, they catch the human psychos—and sometimes, when the killer is…different, like your friend Paul, well, then they are pretty much just shit out of luck.”

  “So you’re telling me this jerk is going to get away?” And get to keep killing?

  He shook his head. “I’m telling you, the boys and girls in the suits are going to lock you up for the next few weeks—”

  “What?” She was the victim, not—

  “Sam isn’t as clueless as he appears. I think he was right about the killings, and the FBI will, too. Hell, there have probably been more murders, scattered around the country. No way has our vamp been playing nice the last few years. The agents, they’ll want to keep you safe until they’re sure Paul isn’t coming after you again.”

  Now that gave her pause. “Will he?”

  He didn’t answer, but Miranda supposed his silence actually was an answer. Oh, damn.

  “Go with them. They’ll keep you safe, and Paul—”

  “Will what? Move on to another victim?” She’d be all safe and protected by the Bureau while some other poor woman had her throat ripped open by razor-sharp fangs. No, that didn’t sound fair. Not at all.

  Her chin lifted. “Why can’t they catch him?”

  “Because vampires are damn strong, far stronger than humans. And bullets, well, they can wound vamps—not kill ’em—and usually they only serve to piss off his kind.”

  Cain sure seemed to know what he was talking about. Both with the vampire and with the FBI.

  “I can’t let him hurt anyone else,” she whispered.

  His eyes narrowed. “You might not have a choice on that, baby.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Don’t be too—Shit.” He stiffened. “They’re here.”

  How did he know? What was—

  His lips hitched into a half-smile. “Stop applying human rules to me, Miranda. I heard ’em when they entered the building.”

  Superhearing, check. She’d have to remember that little perk.

  And she’d have to find out just what, exactly, Cain was. Not a vampire, there was too much hate in his voice when he talked about the undead.

  Cain didn’t particularly seem the self-hating type.

  “They’ll take care of you,” he said, “just—”

  “I’m not going with them.” No way was she going to disappear with a bunch of strangers. Her summer vacation had just started last week, and she wasn’t about to lose her carefully ordered life because of one nightmarish evening.

  “Choices, remember?” she said softly. She was about to make hers, but she needed him. “Help me, Cain. I know you can. You know about vampires. How they’re strong, how they’re weak.” They had to have some kind of weakness, right? “We can do something, I don’t know, go after him. Stop that bastard from hurting anyone else.”

&
nbsp; His eyes narrowed. “You’d risk yourself?”

  “I—”

  The door was pushed open.

  “Look, dammit, I said you can’t go in there! I don’t care who you are—” Sam’s voice blared angrily.

  Two men in immaculate black suits stepped over the threshold. One was darkly tanned, short, and stocky, with a long scar bisecting his left eyebrow and sliding down his cheek. The other guy was about average height, pale, with a thin, slightly haggard face.

  When he caught sight of Cain, the scarred fellow seemed to stiffen. But his partner directed all of his attention to Miranda, saying, “Ms. Shaw, I’m Donovan Delaney from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It’s come to our attention that you’ve been the victim of—”

  “Cut it, Donovan Delaney,” Cain said, rolling his shoulders. “She’s not in the mood to hide.”

  The scarred guy cursed softly. “One of yours, is she, Lawson?”

  This guy knew Cain?

  That same twisted smile was on his lips as he glanced her way and said, “Miranda, baby, did I happen to mention that I just recently, ah, retired from the good old FBI?”

  Uh, no, he’d forgotten that lovely little tidbit. “You retired? What are you, thirty-five?”

  Cain’s lips twisted in a brief glimmer of amusement. “Just about, and it wasn’t your typical retirement.” His stare returned to the men and the amusement vanished. “And yeah, for the record, she’s most definitely mine. She’s not your bait. Not your hostage. If we work this case, we work with my rules, and we make Miranda’s life the priority.”

  Okay. So he was talking like he was the boss and damn if the scarred agent wasn’t nodding his head in agreement while Sam stared at Cain with widening eyes.

  “We’re gonna have to get the okay from above,” the shorter guy stopped nodding long enough to say. “It’s gonna be shit with paperwork because you pulled out already—”

  “Make the calls, Santiago. This case is mine.”

  Delaney swallowed a few times, glanced back and forth between the guy identified as Santiago and Cain, then muttered, “Look, buddy, you might have worked the crimes before but—”

  “You’re not point on this one,” Santiago said softly. “And trust me, kid, you’re playing out of your league if Lawson’s already involved.”

  Delaney flushed.

  “You’ll be backup here,” Santiago told the guy. “Cain and I will be lead.”

  Ah, so he was the senior agent. Miranda was trying to follow things but she still felt like she’d stepped into the Twilight Zone.

  “You’re not going to get approval for—”

  “I’ll get approval.” Santiago’s lips thinned. “Wish I wouldn’t, but I will.”

  Cain grunted and shrugged his powerful shoulders. “All right, now that we all know it’s a new game, this is how it’s going to work.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The rules are simple, really. I hunt, my way. And I won’t stop until this bastard is brought down.”

  “You back with us 100 percent, Lawson?” Santiago asked.

  “No.” A pause. “I’m with her.”

  And he was going to fight a vampire for her, again.

  Talk about knowing how to sweep a girl off her feet.

  “Miranda knows this guy,” Cain continued. “She lured him out once, and I’d bet a week of your pay, Delaney, that she can lure him again.”

  Santiago rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, then it’s your game, gato grande.”

  Miranda blinked. Her Spanish was way rusty, but she was pretty sure the agent had just called Cain a big cat.

  Cain smiled. “Then let’s start the hunt.”

  Four

  She was lying in her bed. The front door had been fully repaired. An FBI agent was sitting in his car outside, and Cain was asleep on her couch.

  It was after midnight. Miranda should have been asleep hours ago. But her mind wouldn’t shut down.

  Cain was too close.

  Her body felt too tight, too hot. She kept thinking about the feel of his lips on hers. The touch of his hands.

  Cain was too close.

  And not nearly close enough.

  Miranda shoved off the covers. Threw her legs over the side of the bed. Enough of this crap. Time to settle things between the two of them.

  She turned on her bedside lamp and the glow of the light spilled into the room.

  Miranda thought she was being pretty quiet. The thick carpet muffled her steps as she crept down the hallway. She turned the corner and—

  “You know, these late-night visits are starting to become a habit for you,” he said from the darkness, his voice a deep growl of sound.

  Miranda hesitated. She couldn’t see him. Could barely see anything. She inched forward, found a small lamp, turned it on with a snap.

  Cain was on the couch. Hair disheveled, as if he’d run his fingers through the dark locks. Eyes gleaming. Muscled chest bare. There was no sheet over his body as there had been last night. Instead, he wore a pair of black boxers and nothing else.

  Miranda gulped. The man looked good. “We, ah, need to talk.” Her sex quivered a bit as she stared at him. Damn good.

  One black brow rose. “Is that really why you walked so softly all the way in here? To talk?”

  “You could hear me?” He’d said he had good hearing, but she’d tried to be so careful and quiet.

  A slow nod. “Yeah, but more than that…” His nostrils flared just a bit. “I could smell you.” He smiled at her, showing a lot of teeth. “And like I said before, baby, you sure you came here to talk?”

  I could smell you. Understanding dawned. Cain knew she was aroused. Her cheeks burned, but she didn’t flinch. “I wanted to thank you.”

  If possible, the smile widened even more, revealing the curve of his dimple. “Ah, my thank-you kiss. And here I was thinking I wouldn’t be getting another one from you.” His voice flattened as he said, “What with my being a monster and you being such a good little human.”

  Okay, he was still pissed. “I shouldn’t have left last night.”

  A shrug. And for a second, a flash of—hurt? pain?—appeared in his eyes but vanished when he slowly blinked. “Hey, I’m the big, bad bogeyman. You were smart to run from me.”

  No, she hadn’t been. “Shifter.” She said the word softly, testing it.

  His smile vanished.

  “That’s what the vampire called you.” And just what the hell was a shifter?

  “Yeah, well, I guess your date had come up against my kind before.” He held up his hands, and claws, fiercely sharp and long, had replaced his fingernails. “These are usually a pretty good giveaway, as are the teeth.” His lips pulled back to show just a glimpse of fang.

  He was trying to scare her. Miranda kept her chin up and took a step forward.

  Cain dropped his hands. “Demons can sprout claws, too, but your vamp must have known that—”

  “Uh, demons?” Just how many supernatural creatures were there?

  “Yeah, demons.” He whistled softly. “Lots of ’em walking the streets. Using glamour to blend in with the humans. And those bastards can get pretty strong, especially the level tens.” A pause. “Not all of the demons are real threats, though. The weak ones, level ones or twos, hell, they can’t cause much damage at all.”

  Right. Good to know.

  Demons. He’d just told her that demons were real. She shook her head, tried to focus. “How many…” She licked her lips, swallowed, and asked, “How many of your kind are out there?” Another tentative step forward. His nostrils widened.

  “There are hundreds of thousands of shifters. Men and women who can change into animals. Small. Big. Deadly. Course, then there are the charmers, the djinn, the—”

  Her hand lifted. “Charmers?”

  “The ones who talk to animals.”

  She blinked. “The djinn? Would that be like—what? Genies?”

  “Something like that. But it sure takes a hell of a lot more
than some old dusty bottle to contain their power.”

  Okay, too much information. Her head was seriously starting to spin. “How can they all be real?” Hushed words. It was too wild, too—

  “I’m real.” A shrug. “They’re real, too. And the ones I’ve told you about, well, that’s just the tip of the supernatural iceberg.”

  And she was the Titanic, going down, fast. Miranda took a deep breath. She needed to focus. At that moment, she didn’t want to find out about every supernatural creature that was strolling around the earth.

  She wanted to know about Cain. “A shifter,” she repeated quietly, turning the topic back to him. She’d already seen his face change a bit. “What kind of animal do you become?” When he’d attacked the vampire, he’d looked positively predatory. His cheekbones had sharpened. Eyes glowed. “A wolf?” Jesus, like a werewolf?

  He threw back his head and laughed at that. “Ah, baby, relax. I’m not one of those psychotics.”

  So the wolves were psychotic. Nice mental note for her. She took another step toward him. Her body hovered over the couch now. Just a foot or two away from him. Cain was close enough to touch.

  And she did want to touch.

  Her gaze swept down his body. Over the sculpted muscles of his chest. Down the rock-hard abs. Over the material of his boxers, material that was stretched tight to accommodate his thick arousal.

  Her nipples tightened as a wave of yearning swept through her. She’d felt that arousal last night, but the barrier of the clothes had been between them, as it was now.

  Miranda didn’t want anything between them.

  “You looking to walk on the wild side tonight?” His voice snapped like a whip.

  Her stare jerked back to his. Found him glaring at her. “Cain…”

  “You come out here, wearing a shirt that’s so thin it shows your nipples, your sex smelling so good that it makes me ache, and then you look at me like you could eat me alive.”

  Because she could. Or she wanted to try.

  Hell, she was scared. Not of him, but of the world she was suddenly discovering around her.