Kent stopped. “Mario. Wish I could say it was a pleasure.” So much for vampires not travelling across country. Or respecting each other’s territory, unless Mario had permission from the head vampire in Washington to be there.
“No, Kent. It’s not a pleasure.” But Mario was smiling.
Kent’s pistol was in the desk in his office. A gun only slowed a vampire down, but that would be enough if he could get inside the warehouse, perhaps. There was something to the idea that a vampire needed to be invited in to a space to enter it, although the head vampire of L.A. didn’t seem to be governed by those rules the way his henchman did. Kent’s sword, which could inflict more permanent damage, was hanging over the door to his office. Not useful.
Mario moved toward him with agonizing slowness, especially given that the vampire could probably move a twice the speed of a normal human if he’d wanted to. Perhaps Mario was trying to use his glamour on him, but so far no vampire had succeeded. It had been the one thing he had going for him when he’d been hunting the vampires down. They always expected to be able to charm him into submission. Two had been taken by surprise when he faked it and then chopped their heads off. But without a sword, there wasn’t much point in pretending. And Mario wasn’t issuing any commands anyway, so he probably wasn’t trying to be charming. He was drawing it out for the sake of drawing it out.
The first punch went to his gut and almost doubled him over in pain. Like most of his kind, Mario was incredibly strong. Kent did the only thing he could and swung back. He caught Mario’s jaw solidly. It would have laid most ordinary men flat. Instead it hurt Kent’s fist about as much as it seemed to hurt Mario, whose head jerked back for a moment before he laughed.
Another punch to the stomach, and Kent couldn’t keep himself upright any more. The next hit landed on top of his head, and he stumbled down the stairs. For a moment he had time to appreciate the irony that after those weeks of danger in L.A. It was here in Washington, where he thought himself safe, that he was going to meet his end. Images blurred through his mind—Charles and Brennan and Genna. Angela. He knew from his time with her that evening that she was a natural submissive. Maybe Brennan would look her up after he was gone.
He growled. Or maybe he wouldn’t have to. He swept the charging Mario off balance with his leg, sending Mario crashing into the wall. He had to move beyond the nausea and the growing dark in his brain to make it to the door. He ran, but he was only getting there in slow motion. The door blurred ahead, and then it opened. Charles. It was no good. “Run,” he tried to say. Better that Charles never even know about vampires. Brennan, Genna, Charles, Angela. People worth protecting with all his strength. His life, if necessary.
He didn’t have time to turn around. He felt the impact from behind, in the middle of his back, and then felt his head hit the concrete landing as he stumbled.
He woke up to see Charles standing over him, the concrete cold under his body. He pushed off the leather jacket that someone, probably Charles, had draped over him.
“Easy there, Kent.” Charles held him down with a hand on his chest. Was he that weak? It seemed so. “Guy got away,” Charles told him, anticipating his question. Got away. That was good, actually. It meant Charles didn’t know what Mario was. Which meant Charles was safe. Obviously, trouble had followed him. He’d have to keep it from the others.
“Guy was a hell of a fighter,” Kent said. “He ran before he got my wallet, I take it?”
Charles nodded. “Yeah, he didn’t even make a grab for it. Although I did think he was gonna kick you one more time, for a moment there. Not sure you could have taken another blow.”
Me neither. “Good thing Angela had driven off.”
“Yeah, might have damaged her view of you, seeing you get beat by a little guy. I thought you would have been able to take him, easy.”
Sure, if he wasn’t a vampire. With black belts in tae kwon do and karate, plus years of kendo experience, Kent wasn’t exactly a pushover. “He surprised me with the first hit. Got me woozy.” He brushed off Charles’s hand and managed to sit up.
Charles nodded. “Your instincts didn’t take over?”
All those hours in the dojo should have made some moves automatic. If Mario’s first blow really had gone to his head, they probably would have. But fully conscious, knowing Mario was twice as strong, and twice as fast, he’d tried to get away. He knew it was the smart play. He was sure he hadn’t seen the last of Mario, and this time, it was best to live to fight another day. But there was no good way to explain it to Charles.
“Sure. I’m good. He was better, at least at that point.”
Charles frowned. “We should get you an ambulance. A guy like that, he can’t be just a street thug after wallets, can he?”
He didn’t have an explanation. And he didn’t want to have to make one to a doctor, and certainly not to a cop. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’d rather not have sirens around this place right now. It’s bad for business.” He got to his feet. It took him a moment to feel steady, but Genna and Charles were both right there, ready to catch him.
“I’ll be okay,” he repeated. “I’m just going to my office.”
“You need to see a doctor,” said Charles.
“I’ll drive to the hospital when the night’s through.” And tell them I fell on the steps.
“No,” said Charles. “You won’t. I’ll drive you, and we’re going now.” Charles grabbed his upper arm forcefully.
Kent didn’t have the strength to resist. Charles was far from weak, even if he didn’t have all of Kent’s training.
Charles was a good man. They were all good people. This time, though, he couldn’t let them have his back. In Los Angeles, he knew where the bad guys were before they had any idea where he lived. Here, the situation was reversed. He’d protect what he needed to protect, even if the best way to protect his friends was to die.
* * * * *
The doctor diagnosed him as having a mild concussion, but no skull fracture. He discharged Kent with orders to take it easy for the next few days and have someone stay with him for the next twenty-four hours, which he ignored.
Kent had an apartment a mile from the club, which he’d barely used since moving. He’d slept in the warehouse as often as not, either because he wanted to get to work first thing in the morning or had kept working on the place until late at night. But for the next couple of days, he stayed in his apartment, so he wasn’t drawing Mario to the others.
The sensible thing to do was call Angela and tell her it was off. To keep her away from both club and Mario. Would she fall into the hands of the other vampire, Morgan, if he did? He doubted it. Angela didn’t seem to care for Morgan, and unless the vampire got a chance to use glamour on her—and he didn’t seem to care for her, either—Angela was probably safe and sound. Maybe.
For himself, he definitely wanted to see her again. There were too many unknown factors to make a good decision. Mario jumped him not long after Angela had driven away. Had Mario seen him with Angela already? Probably, but not definitely. He might be able to track her down by her license plate. The vampires had police connections in L.A., and Mario might or might not have access to those here, depending in part on whether he was an intruder or an honored guest of the vampires already in the city. If Morgan and Mario compared notes, that would definitely be bad.
The more she was connected to him, the more likely she was to get drawn into a mess. Yet the further away from her he stayed, the more she was all alone in a mess she might already be in the middle of. She wouldn’t believe a story about vampires, of course, any more than the police would.
Chapter Six
“So tell us more about this guy!” Stacy leaned forward, her eyes full of eagerness. “I still can’t believe you stood up Morgan.”
Every month the four college friends got together for dinner, usually at some fern bar. Beneath the tacky mementos of no childhood in particular, they chatted about life and love, or lack thereof. Usuall
y Stacy was the center of attention, either singing the praises of a new boyfriend or cursing the shortcoming of the old one. This time, however, it was all about Angela, and she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the attention. She didn’t have to mention that she got together with Kent again, but somehow that seemed like cheating given the tell-all tradition of the monthly meetings.
Stacy and Monica were both wearing light scarves around their neck, although it wasn’t cold out and the restaurant wasn’t over air conditioned either. That was probably the new fashion. They always paid the most attention to that sort of thing. Dee was still Dee, sipping her margarita slowly to make it last the entire evening, primly dressed in slacks and a blue blouse with a Peter Pan collar. No rescue was likely from that quarter.
“Well,” said Angela, drawling the word in an attempt to stall. “He’s good looking. Rich, or at least well off. He moved her from California, and he still has the tan to show it.”
“All over?” asked Monica.
They’d had the most intimate time, and yet she hadn’t seen him naked, or even with his shirt off. That probably required too much explaining. On the other hand, the reason she’d brought Kent up in the first place was to forestall another attempt at matchmaking, so if she gave the impression there’d been no sex involved, that might defeat the purpose.
“I didn’t see him all over. I wouldn’t know,” retorted Angela. “But we had amazing sex.” Or at least I did. Or something. It definitely counted as sex in her book, but did he feel the same way?
“A lights-off kinda thing, huh?” asked Stacy. “Well… I guess those can be okay. Did he have any special moves?”
“You could say that. But that’s it. No more from me.”
“Oh, come on, spill details,” said Monica. “We always do. Fair is fair.”
“You share details because you enjoy sharing,” Dee interjected, setting her margarita down. “Not because we drag them out of you.”
Angela suspected she’d done some dragging in her time, actually, but she wasn’t about to undercut Dee’s attempt to get the pressure off. The last two years, she’d been living her sex life vicariously through Stacy and Monica.
“You think this could turn out to be a regular thing, or was it just a one nighter?” asked Stacy.
She hadn’t gone there with any intentions except a single night of exploration. Now she was looking forward to the next evening together. Kent was going to pick her up shortly before the club opened Friday night. She could imagine doing all sorts of things with Kent, but settling down and having babies wasn’t exactly one of them. Her biological clock was ticking away, and she wasn’t getting any closer to a solution for that.
Stacy waved a hand in front of her face. “Earth to Angela.”
“We’ve got another date Friday night. Look, here comes the waiter.”
The waiter took their orders. They ordered the cheese sticks to share. Stacy, usually a salad-only person, ordered a steak, to Angela’s surprise. Monica ordered palak paneer off the international menu. Since everyone was turning over a new leaf, Angela decided she’d go with the curried chicken. The menu said Thai curry, and that meant “hot” to Angela, but the fern-bar version was probably going to be disappointingly bland. Only Dee got the same old thing, fish and chips. Dee had never been as weight conscious as the rest of them, so she’d never been part of the salad-and-diet-soda club. For all her apparent shyness around men, Angela suspected Dee was the most well adjusted of them all.
The waiter left, and for an awkward minute, there was silence. Apparently the quizzing on her love life was done. For a change, Monica and Stacy didn’t seem to want to brag about their latest, either, or even report in excruciating detail about a sex date with Morgan.
Monica and Stacy. She didn’t usually pair off her friends that way. Any two of them shared some things in common, of course. Monica, dark haired, curvy, always smiling on the outside. Stacy, thin and blonde, dead serious about her work as an architect, intense about life. She’d always been closer to either of them than to Dee, but now it seemed as if the two of them were a team, somehow. She supposed it had started when Monica introduced Stacy to Morgan, several months ago. They’d invited her to join the team, she supposed, but she’d turned them down.
“So,” said Monica, not smiling, “is Kent the guy you were with when you pretended you weren’t waiting for Morgan?”
Angela frowned. She’d not mentioned turning Morgan down, just said she hadn’t connected with him. Obviously, Monica had another source of information. Would Monica know if she lied now? “Yes. I’m very sorry, Monica, but Morgan is not my type.”
Monica frowned. “Not your type how?”
Her first thought was to describe the T-shirt and say that any man that concerned about his prick wasn’t for her. But she remembered she was supposed to be able to pick him out of a crowd, and that T-shirt had described the one part of him that Monica and Stacy had told her the most about. Too fat? Morgan hadn’t been fat, just pudgy and not really built. She wasn’t exactly thin herself. “A bit too pale.”
The old Monica smile appeared back on her friend’s face. “Ah. He is on the pale side, that’s for sure.”
Stacy nodded. “Yeah, he really is, isn’t he? Somehow, I’d not really noticed that as such, but you’re right.”
“You know,” said Dee, “picking up a thread from a few months ago when you were both talking about how old we are all getting…I somehow doubt that both of you dating the same guy, just because he’s an excellent fuck, is helping your quest for a mate.”
Monica grinned. “Oh, Morgan doesn’t mind if we date around.”
Stacy added, “It’s…well, speaking only for myself, my standards in a bedmate have gotten a bit higher. But it’s not like I’ve stopped looking entirely.” Her eyes narrowed. “So what have you been doing about your own biological clock, smartie?”
Angela wasn’t sure what surprised her most, hearing Dee so casually drop the f-word into a conversation or the venom in Stacy’s voice as she went on the counterattack.
Dee refolded her napkin. Angela watched her. For years Dee had spoken less of herself than the others, and they had acted as if it was because she had nothing to say. But no one lived without having anything worth sharing. Having carefully left the whole topic of BDSM and Dark Xanadu out of her revelations about Kent, she recognized a bit of herself in Dee. Dee, too, had things she was keeping to herself.
But if she was hoping for a hint, she didn’t get it. “I’m sorry I offended you, Stacy,” said Dee evenly when she looked back up. “I was just trying to remind you of something you once thought was very important.”
* * * * *
When she opened the door at seven-fifty Friday night, Angela couldn’t hide a look of disappointment. She’d bought a new black sequined dress, square cut in front, but low enough that her bra could push the top half of her breasts over the neckline. It was short enough that she felt extremely daring wearing no panties underneath, but with Kent to protect her, she wasn’t horribly worried. The only problem was, it wasn’t Kent who stood in her doorway. It was Brennan.
“Hey,” said Brennan.
“Oh, hi.” Angela blushed crimson, feeling half naked in front of Kent’s friend.
Brennan shrugged, his eyes flickering over her body for only a moment before meeting her eyes. “Kent sent me to pick you up.”
“I’ll go get a coat. Just a second.” She had a trench coat that went lower than the hem of the dress. That would at least make her feel like less of a floozy. Somehow in a minute the dress had gone from making her feel adventurous and daring to cheap and slutty. And if there was one thing that dress hadn’t been, it was cheap. She’d been so convinced that it was perfect that she hadn’t minded splurging when she’d bought it that afternoon.
“Sure, no problem. You look lovely, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Mind if I come in for a moment?”
Angela frowned to herself. She
didn’t really want to be alone with a man she barely knew in her apartment, even if Brennan had been nothing but nice to her. But it’d be rude to say no. “Sure,” she replied. As he stepped in, she couldn’t help but blurt out the question that had been aggravating her. “Why didn’t Kent come himself?”
“Good question,” said Brennan, his frown mirroring her mood. “He said he was busy setting up, but there’s not much he can do there that I can’t do as well. He’s probably hatching some plan, though, and I suspect his plans involve you.” Brennan chuckled. “He’s really smitten. He’s lucky I’m an honorable man, though, since he’s having me play John Alden to his Miles Standish.”
Angela shrugged her coat on. She wasn’t a horribly neat person. Books were strewn across the coffee table in her little apartment, but the kitchen was clean. She wondered if Brennan would report back. “All right. Ready to go.”
“Mind if I ask you a question?”
Angela shook her head. “Go ahead.”
“Has Kent called you?”
“A couple times,” Angela said. And they’d probably caused a few lines to short, their conversations had been so hot.
“Any clue as to what’s going through his head these days? Besides, obviously, thoughts of you?”
Somewhat guiltily, Angela realized their conversations had been all about her. But then, Kent had taken control of their direction, right from the start. How he could make her feel hot—and submissive—over the telephone was beyond her. “Not really. Why?”
“He’s acting odd. Distant. Did he tell you about the mugging?”
“Who got mugged?” asked Angela.
“Hmm. Maybe it’s the boss’s story to tell.”
Angela could figure that one out. “Kent got mugged?”
“Yeah. Right outside the club, last Friday night. Kent’s like the last person I’d expect to get beaten up, too. He’s got a couple black belts, and he doesn’t look like a target, either. The guy ran off before anyone could get a look at them. Since then…I don’t know, it’s like he’s pushing us all away. He—” Brennan came to a stop and took a breath. “I’ve said enough. But Angela? If you could find out what’s on his mind, we’d all—Charles, Genna and I—we’d like to help.”
Dark Xanadu Book One Page 7