Ming was staring at me, waiting for an answer. “Yes. I finished in Germany.”
“What was that like?”
“I enjoyed it.” Best to answer only what was asked, but not to lie since she obviously had insider info. She caught me in a lie, red flags may go off for her as well.
She proceeded to tell me about her stint in France.
Whatever.
Looking over her head, I saw Aaron walk in the doorway. I immediately felt relieved. His blues looked more silver than usual because he was wearing a blue long-sleeved dress shirt with silver stripes and black slacks. His hair was slicked back, of course, and he glanced down at the floor once he spotted me.
Too bad he wasn’t great with eye contact because I really wanted to send him a message. Fine. I knew how.
I stretched my psychic waves out to him so forcefully, he misstepped. The gentleman he made waste beer was not pleased. Easing up, I retracted some of my power so Aaron could focus on me. Fully alert. Fully shocked.
Please don’t come over just yet. I’m going to excuse myself then—
My psychic message to him was cut short when Ming rubbed me on the shoulder and excused herself to the bathroom. If she was trying to flirt, she was doing a terrible job because her touch had made my skin crawl. Matter of fact, it had given me the sudden urge to flee.
I smiled at Aaron, who stood frozen near the door, to ease his anxiety. It would have been better for him to have had an idea of our bond before I pulled that hocus-pocus, but sometimes you have to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.
He sat in a corner lounge chair and ordered a coke from a waitress.
After several minutes had passed without Ming returning, I decided to go let her know I was leaving with another ride. Sending the message to Aaron as I walked away, I went to the glass stalls in search of her…to ditch her properly.
“Yeah, Monroe. She’s at the bar. You want me to kill her now or wait for backup?”
I stood in the doorway a safe distance from her back as she listened then hung up. She put the phone back in her purse and lithely pulled the chopsticks from her hair. The ends of the sticks were so sharp, I was surprised she hadn’t bled her scalp. Guess, she was prepared to stake me with them. And I’d bet two million dollars there was also a lighter in her purse to burn me right afterwards.
She hadn’t turned around yet, but I knew she knew I was there.
“So, did Monroe tell you to wait so he could see my beautiful face again?” I said.
She unhooked the shoulder straps of her purse, slid it to the floor, then turned to face me. Holding the straps, she began peeling the covering from them, revealing solid, thick silver chains. After hooking her cross necklace to the silver chains, she tugged both ends apart to demonstrate how sturdy her weapon was. I was no weapon expert, but after watching a few samurai movies, I figured the thing looked like a manriki.
And only professionals used those.
Her usually flirty tone was replaced with assassin-like coldness. “Nope. After the money they’re paying me to work undercover this long, he told me to drop your ass right here then meet him to collect my bonus.” She moved into an offensive posture. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Chapter 43
“You’re a smug twit and he’s a presumptuous dickhead,” I said.
She laughed. Loud and haunting. “I know you were ready to make lesbo love to me, but I have different orders.”
No time to set her straight on that one.
Too busy ducking and dodging her assault as she rushed me fast, with skill and determination. Chains were swinging from all directions as I bobbed and weaved. Speed was my greatest asset since my lack of skill was a liability. I was too quick for the silver to make contact…until she popped the cap off her cross and tossed garlic extract in my face.
The smell was so strong. Too poignant for my delicate senses. It landed on my skin, seeping into it, causing me to bleed from my eyes, my ears, my nose. It cost me speed. Cost me some standing.
Then she stabbed me with the cross, pushing forward as hard as she could until my back was against the wall. I yelped as the silver began to burn. Grabbing at the end of the cross to pull it from my chest didn’t help much because my hands burned as I touched it. But I was tenacious. I kept pulling.
When I saw the sharp points of her heels coming towards me, I managed to protect my face this time. Thankfully, her kicks with the pointy stilettos, punctured holes in my forearms rather than my forehead. But her purpose was not frustrated. She rolled to the floor and bounced to her feet before I could say karate and came at me again, chopsticks in hand, swinging with all her might. Grunting as she did so.
I left the cross alone. Let it burn. I had to worry about her other tactics.
Every instinct told me to move fast, get out her way. Dip. Weave. Block. Roll. Repeat. But I was slower. And in pain. Nevertheless, I couldn’t let her catch me again. Just as I was about to make an offensive move to end the battle, she faked like she was aiming for my gut, twirled around instead and landed a power kick to the side of my head.
Fucking bitch.
While I staggered and struggled for balance, she jumped and kicked the other side of my head.
I vaguely saw a woman come in the bathroom and quickly rush back out. She’d either gone to get help or she was getting the hell out while she still could. She knew like I did, this fight was going to demolish the bathroom.
Looking at the doorway a split second too long had cost me. It gave Ming the opportunity to stab me twice in the chest with her lethal sticks. One second I was on my feet about to land a blow to her nose, the next minute I was flat on my back. That had been three stabs too many.
Why did the one Asian woman I know happen to be an undercover VET agent AND be skilled in martial arts? If there was a time to avoid the stereotype, this would have been it. But noooo. Not with my luck.
My ass was getting kicked now, but if I survived this, I’d enroll in somebody’s tae kwon do class ASAP.
“Get up, Willow. Don’t make it so easy on me. Even Ivan put up a bigger fight than this.”
I froze. “What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about that golden-tongue mustang who used to fuck you, babe. Shame, what happened to him.”
I leaped to my feet, moving in a blur. Punching her face, her chest, her stomach so hard, I hoped to drive a hole through ’til I touched the wall. She grunted this time from the force of my strikes. Intending to pound her into wishing she had never met me, I brought my fist back far and wide—something I was certain was probably a bad move, but realized too late. She dropped to the floor at the last second and I punched through the wall. It gave way as pain racked through my hand, up my elbow, to my chin. Was I rattled to the core? Yes. But I was angry more than anything. Ming had killed Ivan, dammit!
And she’d fucking called me babe!
She laughed again. “That’s much better. So you vamps do have hearts.” She wiped blood from her nose and mouth then spit out a few teeth. “You should have seen your face when I mentioned Ivan. It’s not the first time I’ve seen fangs, but yours got looong. And your eyes…ooooo, man!”
Holding on to my arm, I asked, “Why? Why did you do it?”
She lightly touched the side of her jaw to test how bad it was. She’d need ibuprofen before bed tonight. “I planted a GPS tracker in your bag.”
“The night you asked for a tampon?”
“Yes. I couldn’t believe I got away with it.” She shook her head, pleased with herself. “Anyway, the night I was planning to pay you a visit, Monroe and I had met in Hades’s parking lot. Ivan eavesdropped on our conversation. When I went to your hotel room, he followed. And since I can’t do that nifty memory-erasing trick you can, I had to kill—”
My arm and stab wounds and burning flesh be damned! Lurching towards her with super speed, I upward kicked her groin like she had balls, then grabbed her head and angled it. I sank my fangs in her
neck and sucked. Intending to drain her dry. Making sure she would never speak another word about Ivan.
I didn’t need her blood. Didn’t want it either. But I didn’t want her to have it anymore.
Several gulps in, I realized she tasted funny. Was she anemic? Was she pregnant? Was she on steroids? Max had mentioned you could tell certain things from the taste of blood, but I wouldn’t know what to look for.
Suddenly, my stomach literally grumbled. It roared. Loud enough to hear.
I threw her from me and dropped to my knees, holding my gut like it was going to detach itself and run away. After recently experiencing food poisoning, I knew that was not what this was. It was something worse. Something supernatural. Something about her blood was drawing my energy from the outside in. Making my body suck itself dry. There was no heat, no burning. Just coolness. It overtook me like the coolness I’d experienced at my human death. Then it progressed to ice coldness. Frigidity. Constricting and shriveling me up as if from frostbite. From subzero freezer burn.
I looked down at my flesh tightening, wrinkling, shrinking. At this rate, I’d be a prune within minutes. I had five, ten minutes tops to do something about this. To reverse the effects of her toxic blood.
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything as my gut continued to protest, my body continued withering.
I stared at her with wild red eyes as whatever voodoo she’d put on me did me in. She took out a lighter and waited. Grinning.
“What are you?” I asked, surprised my lips could still move.
“Human. That is all.”
“What’s wrong with your blood then?” I said in a small voice. Pretty soon, I wouldn’t have a voice box.
“I’ve been hunting bloodsuckers for five years. That’s longer than you’ve been a vampire. I’m not new to the game. You learn tricks of the trade. Keeps you alive longer.” She stood slowly and walked closer to me. “I’ve been drinking holy water every day since my first vampire bite a couple years ago.”
Awesome.
Not.
Where in the hell was everyone getting all this holy water? I’d been in church all my life, and I couldn’t come up with a handful of people who could bless their dinner, let alone bless all this H2O.
Just as she flipped open the igniter that would finally end my existence, Aaron burst through the door. He had tackled Ming and tightened his belt around her neck before I could scream help. Then I noticed the cold, calculating, barbaric way he was pulling the ends of the belt. The calm satisfaction in his eyes as he stared at me. One of his legs pinned both of hers down as she struggled to get away. Struggled to breathe.
She had stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped living before I realized the beautiful Israeli who had saved the night was not Aaron.
Was not Remi.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“I’m the one who has to do all the fucking clean up,” he said in a Russian accent.
“You do all the killing you mean.”
“You complaining?” he said as he got up and brushed his slacks off.
After going to the doorway and telling someone who was trying to enter that he had to help a drunk friend, he went to the sink. He stood in front of the mirror and began looping his belt, pulling his shirt cuffs down, straightening his collar, washing his hands. Then he grabbed some paper towels, ran water and soap over them and started cleaning Ming’s blood off himself.
“I thought Remi had killed Aaron’s kidnapper,” I whispered. Barely.
“You thought wrong. I do the killing. He does the fucking.”
He had kept Ming from turning me into kindling, but the holy water-blood tonic was still in full effect. Spending eternity as a dried fruit did not appeal to me.
“Thanks for your help, Vlad, but I need another favor. I need blood.”
He turned to me and surveyed my condition, paying close attention to my bloody fangs. After pursing his lips like he had resolved an issue, he got down next to me and rolled up his sleeve. He offered his wrist even though I would have preferred the neck or femoral artery.
He held still as I fed. As I stared into the beautiful eyes of a heartless, soulless killer.
Let’s just say, I wouldn’t be captivating Vlad to put him on a schedule any time soon. Once a year or every six months wasn’t good enough for him. We needed him to shift whenever he was good and ready. He was an essential alternate whether Remi and Aaron knew it yet or not. Especially if he was willing to kill to save us.
Chapter 44
His blood filled me out like air inflates a balloon. When I was full of his life force, I told him we needed to take Ming to Hades. There was a warm room in the basement that had her name on it.
He lay on the floor with his eyes closed, unmoving. For a moment I thought he had fallen asleep. Until I shook him and he opened his eyes to take in his surroundings.
The way his eyes lit up when he saw the splayed Ming on the floor told me Remi was occupying the body.
And he was getting turned on.
“I did it again?” he said.
I shrugged. If he thought he had killed Ming, maybe it was best for him to continue believing that just like he did about Aaron’s kidnapper.
When he crawled over to Ming and began opening his fly, I thought I was going to barf all the blood I’d just had. Didn’t think I had the gall to watch him fuck her corpse on the bathroom floor of a public place.
He leaned over and rubbed her blood all over her face like a kid in art class painting the sky.
I turned my head.
Until I heard the stream. That was odd. Not at all what I had expected to hear. So I turned back around and saw a scene I had not expected to see either.
Remi was standing over Ming pissing on her. “I hope you didn’t think I was going to fuck the bitch who just tried to kill you,” he said.
I smiled. Remi was my man. “If you like doing that so much, I think Franco may have a job for you in the Mozart room with other coprophilia and urolagnia freaks.
“You mean the shit and piss room.”
“Exactly.”
He shook his dick clean and zipped up his pants. “Naw. My girlfriend’s a corpse. That’s all I need.”
We shared a warm, intimate smile, then planned our exit.
Remi carried her out like she was passed out drunk. He drove to Hades then waited in the lot as I took her body in the back door. After explaining Ming’s connection with VET and Agent Monroe to Franco, I emptied the contents of my duffle bag until I found Ming’s device as proof. Franco gladly tossed her body in the incinerator. No amount of holy water in her system kept her from turning to ash. Just the way Ivan had.
Very fitting, if you asked me.
Remi and I went back to his man cave and discussed our future. The one Saybree had mentioned. The one involving a formal ritual that would make Remi my day companion. We’d be bound ’til death, he as my protector, me as his. If I died the final death, he would too. If he died, I had an opportunity to turn him within three days of his death, though Remi was adamant he did not want to exercise that benefit.
As my compagnon de jour, he would still be human, subject to diseases and illnesses. Except with regular consumption of my blood, he’d heal faster, enjoy superhuman abilities, have a psychic bond with me, and age much slower. Eventually, we’d have to move because people would notice we didn’t age at a normal rate.
These were all things he had to consider.
Which he did…and still wanted the position.
But the decision wasn’t just up to him.
So in another attempt to talk to Aaron, I shifted him in during sex with Remi. I slowly revealed my fangs, my eyes. Gradually explained our bond, our physical and mental connection. Quickly ran through events of the previous few days and nights…and I did all this while I rode him like a pro. Right as he was coming, I explained what Remi wanted to commit to and asked what Aaron thought. “Yes! Yes! Yessss!” was the only answer he gave.
As we lay in post-coital bliss, Aaron finally talked about his kidnapping. He had been vacationing in Mexico with his parents when all hell had broken loose. He, his ten-year-old sister, and mother had been left in the car with the windows rolled down while his dad had gotten out to ask for directions. His mother had been held at gunpoint and he and his sister were blindfolded and forced into the trunk of a car. They had been captured by pornographers who specialized in underage children.
It wasn’t long before they were told to do the unthinkable. The unimaginable. Together. On camera. If they didn’t they would be raped brutally by the kidnappers. Aaron just couldn’t do it. Not to save himself or his sister. She had begged him to kill her. She knew the bad guys had planned to kill them both anyway since they hadn’t worn masks. There was no way she and Aaron would get away with a description of the perpetrators.
At least, Aaron would be gentle, she reasoned. At least she would not be violated.
Aaron loved her so much, he couldn’t do that either.
So he witnessed things done to her that he could not even repeat to me all these years later.
I didn’t need details.
The last thing he remembered was holding her while she screamed for him to kill her, to take her out of her misery, to show kindness by delivering death. He had blanked out. When he came to, she was dead, in his arms, eyes frozen wide. He remembered the look of peace on her face, of gratefulness.
Their kidnappers, on the other hand, were outraged. He remembered a dull knife being held over his genitalia and them threatening to cut it off unless he had sex with his sister’s corpse. He passed out again. This time, when he awakened he lay next to her on the cot with evidence that he had performed, with no memory of it.
Unfortunately, it had all been recorded.
The kidnappers had only intended to sell the tape on the black market to other perverts, until they saw Aaron’s mother and father on the news pleading for their children’s lives and safe returns. Being the opportunists they were, the kidnappers sent a copy of the video to Aaron’s father demanding ransom in exchange for the footage not being released to the media.
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