The vampire who’d attacked Caroline had hinted that there was a group of vampires whose goal was to outnumber the law-abiding vampires and stage a rebellion against the laws their kind had agreed to follow to maintain peace with human society. But so far, none of the other rogues he’d brought in had been willing to talk. This one had already said something about that, though, so Roric wanted to see what else he might say if they put a little pressure on him.
Roric pressed his fists into the table and loomed over the suspect with a scowl, his massive biceps flexing beside the vamp’s head. “Alright, let me give it to you straight, pal. You broke the law by not registering when you were turned, then you ran from me, which makes me suspicious, then you blatantly stated you don’t answer to anyone. All of that makes me want to lock you up and never let you see the moon again. But you answer my questions, and I might consider letting you out before the end of the century.”
The vampire gulped but immediately hardened his expression. Roric pulled away and grabbed the clipboard off the wall then sat down in a chair across from him, his thick arms and thighs spread wide, taking up as much space as possible so he’d look more intimidating. The suspect glanced at Raven, but Roric didn’t acknowledge her.
“What’s your name?”
“Derrick Ames.”
Roric scribbled the name on his clipboard. “Date of birth?”
Roric asked him several more basic questions, getting him warmed up, before diving in to the important ones.
“Who turned you, Derrick? Give me a name. Let me take the pressure off you and put it where it belongs.”
“You wouldn’t know him.” The vamp snarled.
“So he isn’t registered, either. Are you drinking from each other, then?”
The vamp scowled and opened his mouth to reject that, but then he quickly shut up, probably realizing if he said no he’d be implying that he was drinking from humans. He might be a rogue, but he wasn’t stupid.
Raven piped up, leaning forward with a sympathetic look. “Were you afraid to register since you’d been turned illegally? You know, the victims aren’t held responsible—”
“I’m not a victim, and I’m not afraid of anything. I refuse to be tagged and monitored!” The vamp roared, his metal shackles clanking loudly.
Roric flashed a warning look at Raven. He told her not to interfere! She leaned back and crossed her legs, straightening the crease in her dress slacks till it hung straight.
Roric continued. “So you wanted to be turned. Did a vampire approach you, or did you seek one out?”
The vampire didn’t respond, just kept his mouth clamped shut as he glared at Roric.
“Where are you getting your blood?” Roric asked.
More silence.
Raven smiled at him. “You know, it’s perfectly normal to crave human blood, and once you’re registered, you can drink from the volunteers at the clinic whenever you want. They’ll take care of your needs.”
He hissed and bared his fangs. “I don’t need some government-sanctioned clinic to provide me with my meals! I’m a vampire; I’m at the top of the food chain. The whole world is my buffet.”
Roric leapt up. “And there’s plenty of humans, right?”
The vampire didn’t take the bait, though. He jerked back at Roric’s words and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have any evidence that I’ve broken any laws besides not registering. I demand to be released!”
Damn, that was probably all he was gonna get from this guy. He was ticked off at Raven for butting in with her attempts to play good cop when he told her not to, but at least her comments had gotten the perp to respond. But he still didn’t have any real evidence against him.
All he could do now was take him to the clinic and get him registered. He could hold him for 24 hours, though, and he might just do that. Any time he spent locked up was time he wasn’t out hunting humans.
Roric was about to haul the vampire back to his cell when his phone rang, and Taven’s name popped up on the screen. Taven didn’t call him to shoot the breeze, so it was probably important. He sighed and walked out into the hall to answer the call, wondering if he’d ever get out of there. Raven followed him.
“What now?” he squeezed the phone in his meaty palm, barely resisting the urge to crush it. Raven flinched and stared at him. He tromped down the hall to get away from her.
“You might want to go to the clinic before Caroline leaves.”
“What? Why?” Roric’s blood pressure kicked up a notch, and his whole body tensed.
“I told her I’d let her tell you, but if I were you, I’d get over there.”
Roric pulled the phone away from his head and growled. Raven jumped and put a hand to her mouth, staring at him with huge eyes, then rushed towards him. “What’s wrong?”
Roric hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket. “A new victim of a rogue attack showed up at the clinic. I’m taking our guy there to get registered. I’ll check it out.”
He stomped back towards the interrogation room. Raven followed behind him. “I’ll go with you.”
Roric grabbed the door handle but didn’t open it. “Not necessary.”
“Will you interrogate this one?”
“I don’t have anything to bring him in on, but I might see if he’ll answer a few questions.” Roric yanked open the door and headed for the suspect.
Raven stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips while Roric released the suspect from the table and cuffed his hands behind him. “I want to talk to the victim. If he came to the clinic, he might be more open to counseling.”
Shit, the last thing he wanted was for her to talk to that dude. What if he let it slip that Caroline had turned him?
“The clinic isn’t the place for that.” He pushed the suspect towards the door, and Raven backed up into the hallway.
“But if I don’t talk to him now, he might not be willing to meet with me later.”
He was more concerned that the guy would want to talk to her later, and he’d spill when Roric wasn’t around to intimidate him. Maybe it would be better to let her interview him now, with Roric in attendance.
He led the suspect out to the lobby and collected the rogue’s belongings from the clerk but didn’t give them back, just shoved the lumpy, manila envelope under his arm.
“Fine, but you don’t talk to him without me there.” That sounded a little insulting, so he tacked on, “It might not safe for you to be alone with him.”
She nodded and followed him out to his cruiser. Roric spent the whole ride in silence, imagining the worst possible scenarios. He was worried as hell, but he didn’t want to yell at Caroline. That would only make things worse between them. But his temper was a bomb, and his mind was snipping wires, trying to defuse it before it went off. All it would take was one wrong move and it would blow up in his face whether he wanted it to or not.
He parked and yanked the vampire out of the backseat then led him into the clinic, his body vibrating like anybody’s would be if they had a bomb strapped to their chest. When he got inside, his eyes immediately scanned the room for Caroline.
She wasn’t there. And neither was the guy she’d turned. Had they left already? He stomped up to the reception desk, dragging the rogue with him. They must’ve looked pretty fierce, because the girl behind the desk cowered. He forced his face to relax then gritted his teeth in the closest thing to a smile he could conjure.
“Hi, I’m Agent Asheron. I have a new vampire who needs to be registered. Can you help me with that?”
“Sure.” She relaxed a little and let out a tense breath then started tapping at her computer.
Roric tore open the envelope with the guy’s stuff and dumped it out on the counter then opened the wallet and pulled out the ID, handing it to the receptionist since he doubted the vamp was going to be cooperative.
While the girl worked, Roric craned his neck to look up and down the hall for any sign of Caroline. He was just about to ask the receptio
nist for information when he saw Piper coming out of the back with Caroline’s guy trailing behind her.
“Piper.” She stiffened, but he waved her forward. The guy had the same reaction as soon as he saw Roric.
“Where’s Caroline? Is she okay?”
Piper gave him a confused look. “Yeah, she’s fine. She needed to get back to work. I offered to take Houston home.”
It looked like she’d offered to do more than that, based on the fang marks in her neck, but Roric didn’t care about that, as long as Caroline wasn’t feeding him. One worry off the table. But what had Caroline told Taven that had him worried? Maybe the guy she’d turned could fill him in.
“We need to talk to your friend, here.” He nodded at the surfer dude.
“Okay. I’ll just wait here for you.” She gestured towards the waiting room.
“No need. I’ll take him home.” He wanted to find out as much about this guy as he could, including where he lived, and put a little fear into him, too.
Piper glanced awkwardly between them like she didn’t like that idea, but she wasn’t brave enough to contradict him. She waved and started to back away. “Uh, okay, well, I’ll catch up with you later, then.”
“Bye, Piper. Thanks for everything. It was nice to meet you.” The creep gave her a big smile, but at least it was Piper and not Caroline.
Roric turned towards the vamp he’d brought in and unlocked the handcuffs. Then he yanked him around to face him. “You’re free to go, but give me just one reason to bring you in again, and you’re ash.”
The rogue snarled, but Roric ignored him and turned towards Houston.
He wrapped a hand around his arm and looked at the receptionist. “You got a free room we can use for a few minutes?”
“Sure. Room 3 is empty.”
He nodded and guided Houston down the hallway, through the door separating the public areas from the private rooms, and into room 3. Raven followed along behind them, her annoying shoes clacking out an uneven rhythm as she struggled to keep up with Roric’s long steps.
With fancy wallpaper instead of painted concrete blocks, a big, fluffy bed instead of a beat-up, metal table, and soft lamp light instead of harsh fluorescents, the feeding room was nothing like the interrogation room back at the station. This technically wasn’t an interrogation, but Roric still wanted to make sure the dude felt intimidated so he wouldn’t tell on Caroline in front of Raven.
He motioned for Houston to sit down on the leather couch. Raven sat down next to him, her body turned towards him, and Roric stood nearby, his arms crossed over his chest.
He made his voice and face as harsh as he did for any interrogation. “Houston, is it? I’m Agent Roric Asheron, head of the VEA, and this is Agent Raven Lorenzo. We need to ask you a few questions.”
Raven frowned at Roric then put a hand on Houston’s knee for a second and smiled kindly at him. “It’s nice to meet you, Houston. Do you know much about vampires?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so.”
“Good! Well, I know you were attacked, and I’m so sorry to hear that. I know just how you feel, because it happened to me, too, a long time ago. Vampirism might not have been something you wanted, but your life isn’t over, by any means, and there are a lot of benefits to it.” Her tone was so gentle, she might as well have been trying to put a baby to sleep.
“Right, yeah, it’s super cool. Speed, strength, immortality. Who wouldn’t want that, right?” Houston smirked and leaned back, stretching a hand across the back of the couch.
Roric glared at him. Did that asswipe want to be turned? “Did you know the vampire who bit you?”
“She was just a girl I met at a bar. We were going to go back to her place, but then she jumped me.” Roric couldn’t tell for sure which parts of that story were about his attacker and which parts were about Caroline. Houston stared at Roric as he spoke, daring him to ask for more details.
Raven put her hand on his arm and gave him a pitiful look. “That must’ve been frightening. Do you want to talk about it?”
Roric scowled at him and shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“It was harsh, but this angel found me and helped me. I’ll be fine, thanks to her.”
Raven gave him a megawatt smile, and Houston returned it with one of his own. “I’m glad you have a good attitude about it. I’ll admit, the first few weeks of the transition are the hardest. You’re going to have a lot of urges, and you’ll need to feed regularly to keep them under control. But you’ve done the right thing by coming to the clinic. They’ll take good care of you here. Whenever you need to feed, you just come here to get blood bags, or you can drink from a volunteer. Did they set you up with a mentor?”
Houston’s lips curled in a devious smile, and he turned to look at Roric. “Yeah, the girl who found me is going to look after me. I think she’ll take good care of me. Maybe you know her? Her name’s Caroline.”
Chapter 12
The bar was busy with the typical, Friday night crowd when Caroline got back. She quickly parked, stopped at the break room to suck down a pint of blood, then hustled out to the front.
The warm, golden lighting of the high-end bar was soothing compared to the harsh fluorescents at the clinic. The noisy chaos of the half-drunk patrons relaxed her in a way the tense silence of the waiting room hadn’t, and even the sharp smell of alcohol was better than the cloying, artificial fragrance that permeated the clinic.
Gray gave a giant sigh when she slipped in behind him. “Oh, thank God, you’re back. This place is a mad house. Is everything okay?”
He gave her a strange look, and she wondered if she had blood on her face, or something. She put her hand to her face and caught a glimpse of the wrist she’d fed Houston from.
Her wrist had healed already, leaving just a few smudges of blood as evidence of what had happened. She quickly dropped her hand, wet her other hand and saliva, and rubbed it away. She wished she could rub the whole incident away, but this was going to haunt her for the rest of her life. She didn’t exactly regret what she’d done, she just wished none of it had ever happened in the first place. Did Roric have the same regrets about turning her?
She really wished she could talk to him about this, but she wasn’t sure he would be capable of having a civil conversation yet, and it was only going to get worse when he found out she was mentoring Houston.
Gray had always been there for her to talk to when she was down, but she couldn’t talk to him about this. He acted like he was cool with the fact that she was a vampire now, but admitting to him that she’d attacked another vampire and turned a human into one tonight was too much, even for Gray. He understood what it was like to feel different, but she couldn’t expect him to understand what this life was like.
“Yeah, I’m fine. No big deal.” She waved it off, hoping he’d drop it. He frowned at her and stared at her for a long moment, like he was trying to decide if he should press her for more info, but they were too busy for them to talk, even if he wanted to.
She took orders and poured drinks as quickly as she could. She didn’t have the energy to smile and flirt for better tips like she usually did, but she managed to be polite, at least. The bartending routine kept her busy enough that she didn’t have time to think, and she had almost put the night’s events out of her mind completely when a deep voice brought it all crashing back to the forefront.
“Caroline, we need to talk.” Roric stalked up to the bar, thick arms wrapped in black leather swinging wide, a barely-contained scowl making his handsome face seem scary. He looked like he’d had that expression on his face for so long tonight it might be stuck that way.
He pushed his way through the crowd, up to the bar. The nearby patrons scurried away at the sight of him, and Gray backed off to give them a modicum of privacy in the very public space.
Roric dropped his fists on the bar with a heavy thud. “What do you think you’re doing, offering to mentor that guy?”
“Taven told you?” He’
d promised he’d let her tell Roric! She stopped pouring when the wineglass she was filling spilled over and grabbed a bar towel to wipe it up.
“No, all he told me was that I should get down to the clinic. He shouldn’t have had to tell me that much. You should’ve called me.” He thrust a finger at her, and she wanted to grab it and twist it away. Like he had any right to complain about her not calling him!
“Why? To ask permission? I know you wouldn’t like the idea.”
Roric hissed. “Exactly! So why did you agree to do it?”
“Because I felt responsible for him! I’m sure you know what that feels like.” She threw her hands up in the air, the bar towel waving like a white flag, but she wasn’t surrendering. Houston’s words came back to her. Roric was awfully controlling.
“So find somebody else to mentor him. I’ll mentor him. But you aren’t going anywhere near him ever again. I don’t trust him.” Roric put his hands on his holster, too close to his weapons for comfort. He wouldn’t try to hurt Houston, would he? Houston hadn’t done anything wrong. Roric was just being overprotective.
“You obviously don’t trust me, either. But you’re going to have to, because I’m doing this, whether you like it or not.” Caroline curled her fingers into the rag and wiped the bar hard enough to strip off the varnish.
“Absolutely not. I forbid it, Caroline.” Roric punctuated his statement with a jab of his finger to the bar.
“You forbid it? What are you, my master?” She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. He put a hand over hers and squeezed a little too tight.
She yanked her hand out from under his and went to toss the rag in the hamper. “You don’t own me, Roric. I know you like to be in control, but you don’t get to control every aspect of my life.”
Roric roared and slammed his fists into the bar, rattling the glasses all the way up and down it. The entire bar got quiet for a moment as everyone turned to stare at him. She’d never seen him so upset before. She knew he was trying to protect her, but she didn’t like the way he thought controlling her every move was the way to do it.
Obsessed with the Vampire: A Paranormal Romance (Vampire Enforcement Agency Book 2) Page 8