Enthrall Me (Underbelly Chronicles Book 4)

by Tamara Hogan

  “We’ve transcribed the written artifacts back to about 1400 AD,” he answered, watching Valerian carefully. They were processing the written archive materials in reverse chronological order, working with the newer, less fragile documents first. The next batch of documents would bring them closer to those dark days Val had mentioned.

  “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help.” Bailey glanced at Lukas. “I’ll be working on the tech unit with Sebastiani Labs’ quantum computing folks.”

  Wyland blinked. “You were successful accessing it?”

  Bailey shot him a satisfied grin. “I figured out how to turn it on and off, and how to separate it into components, but I don’t know what the hell to make of the chip.”

  “So your idea worked.” Several days after its discovery at the archaeological site where their ancestors’ spaceship had crashed, the otherworldly device had somehow managed to access Sebastiani Labs’ secure computer network despite having been buried in a box for a couple thousand years. At that point, Bailey had insisted that any additional work take place far beyond the reach of ambient technology. She and Rafe had driven to the wilds of Alaska, where they’d worked and played while enjoying several months of precious newbond privacy. “Congratulations. Where’s the RV right now?” He shot Val a look. “The Airstream deserves a place in the Archives.”

  “It’s parked in Sebastiani Labs’ lower level loading dock,” Bailey answered.

  He nodded, satisfied. The vehicle was stored in as safe a place as he could think of at the moment.

  “Can I help?” Tia suddenly asked. “With the archiving work?”

  He shot her a surprised look.

  “Despite the danger you seem to think I court on a regular basis, I’m a research specialist. If Bailey has other priorities—which I hope you appreciate I’m dying to ask about but am not—I can give you a few hours here and there.”

  The two of them, working together? His fangs throbbed at the thought. “Thank you for offering, but—”

  “Excellent.” Valerian smiled in benediction. “Wyland could use the help.”

  He could, but—

  “Great idea,” Bailey seconded. Amusement danced in her eyes. “I’m sure Lukas can clear Tia for Archive access fairly quickly.”

  “Allow a journalist access to our Archives? Are you bloody delusional?”

  Bailey raised clasped hands to her heart as if swooning. “Ah, there it is.”

  “What?”

  “Your gutter English. I missed it while I was gone.”

  And no one drove him to it faster, damn it—unless it was Lukas’s sister, Antonia.

  Tia unabashedly listened, studying him with narrowed feline eyes. As if she suddenly found him…interesting.

  Ignoring his body’s blunt response, he looked at Lukas. Though Bailey’s opinion was obvious, she wasn’t a Council member. Valerian had weighed in, but Lukas, the Security/Technology First, would surely put a stop to this madness.

  “Bailey needs time to work with that tech unit,” Lukas mused, studying Tia. “Maybe we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Damn it, her mouth was part of the problem.

  Lukas detailed the background check process, outlining what Tia’s well-intentioned offer would cost in terms of privacy. As she listened, Tia looked like she’d swallowed one of the crickets chirping in the tall grass outside—or maybe she was starting to realize that she’d be spending time, lots of time, alone with him.

  “Do you want to proceed?” Lukas asked Tia.

  Tia took a deep breath he could see, hear, and feel. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

  Bollocks.

  As Lukas started gathering preliminary information, he tongued a stinging incisor. Maybe drinking some blood would help.

  Rising from the settee, he went to the bar, withdrew a bag of blood from the refrigerator, and poured it over ice cubes. As he drank, he could almost feel Bram’s gaze mock him from across the room, where the old photograph sat on the bookshelf. Could almost feel the weight of Bram’s arm slung over his shoulder, and the curve of Deirdre’s soft hip, as the three of them smiled for the camera.

  He turned his back. This time, he’d keep his hands, and his fangs, to himself.

  Even if it killed him.

  As Tia’s husky laughter stroked him from across the room, he thought it very well might.

  Chapter Two

  Turning his back on the noisy group behind him, Dominic Reese hunkered down at the bar, nodding his thanks to the woman who’d delivered his beer.

  What a colossal waste of time. In the absence of an agenda, or any concrete marching orders, GPL members under age twenty-five no longer even pretended their monthly meeting was anything but a party, or a way to hook up. Tonight, they’d met at The Ivy, a swanky hotel in downtown Minneapolis. There were hundreds of rooms, hundreds of beds, right upstairs—not that he’d waste his money renting one just to have sex. Nope. If he rented a hotel room, he’d want the place all to himself. He’d order some food someone else had cooked, get some uninterrupted sleep, and then take a long, hot shower without his sister knocking on the bathroom door, yelling at him to hurry up.

  But with his father flat on his back in a hospital bed, unable to move, Dom’s personal wants and needs were way down on the priority list.

  A loud bray of laughter assaulted his eardrums. He’d only come to tonight’s event because his father, a Genetic Purity League elder, had insisted. “It’s important our family is represented,” he’d said, glaring at the nurses who’d come in to adjust his orthopedic bed, flipping his body face-up and face-down on a strict schedule to reduce bedsores.

  Dom bit back a frustrated sigh. Three more years would have to pass before he’d be allowed to attend the adult GPL meeting, where the real work occurred. But earlier that day, his dad had surprised him, revealing his life’s work: maintaining a secret genealogy database that spanned their culture, and went back generations. His father had described it as being Debrett’s Peerage for paranormals—whatever the hell that was—and then had given him the access codes.

  “Dad, GPL meetings are such a waste of time,” he’d said. He was itching to log on, to explore the database.

  “Dom, get away from the hospital for a night. Have a beer, kiss a pretty girl.” A pause. “And wait for further instructions.”

  “Instructions for what?”

  His father hadn’t responded. The hopeless expression he’d tried to hide as Dom left his hospital room was a kick to the gut.

  He lifted the glass of dark ale and took two large swallows. Nearby, someone laughed too loudly. The clink of beer bottles and wine glasses, the posturing, the flirty hair flipping, the cloying scent of too many people in too small a space wearing too much cologne… He didn’t belong here anymore. Tomorrow night he’d be able to tell his father that he’d attended the meeting. That he’d had a beer. But that he’d enjoyed himself? Not so much.

  He rubbed his tired eyes. Maybe an age exception could be made. Maybe he could take his father’s place at the Elder’s meeting, just until he recovered.

  If he recovered.

  Dom shoved the insidious thought aside. He felt like he’d aged a decade in the last month, and if he felt that way, his mother surely felt worse. Since his father’s accident, she’d pretty much spent every waking hour at the hospital. Dom had finally returned to work—his mother had insisted—but Mom needed his support, and Hannah, no matter how big a pain in his ass, needed to be fed, needed help with homework, needed rides to school and to soccer practice. The house had to be cleaned, the lawn mowed, and they needed groceries and clean clothes. A rogue yawn escaped.

  Damn Tia Quinn for moving so damn far away.

  “Dominic?”

  “Hi, Mila.” Mila Stanton, only child of purebred vampires Lyudmila and Stanton, was an odd duck—pretty enough, but odd. Her father was a GPL Elder, but Dom had no clue whether Mila shared the organization’s political goals. She came to meetings, but didn’t
flirt, drink alcohol, or troll for sex. Instead, she worked the room like a very efficient butterfly, chatting and laughing as she flitted from group to group. She usually attended meetings on her way to her job at the hospital, and if her clothes were anything to go by, the same was true tonight. The gray dress pants, flat black shoes, white blouse, and long-sleeved black sweater were hardly hook-up bait. The purple scarf wrapped around her neck provided the only flash of color.

  A sweater, in this heat? Yeah, she was odd.

  They kissed each other’s cheeks in the traditional greeting, then she sat on the bar stool next to his without asking whether he wanted company. “How are you?” she asked.

  “Fine.” One thing he’d learned since his dad’s accident was that very few who asked that question actually wanted a truthful answer. “Are you on your way to work?” Given how rich her family was, he was impressed that she did—work, that is. Mila Stanton’s family could buy this hotel hundreds of times over.

  “Yes, I’m going to work from here.” A pause. “How is your father doing?”

  Concern shone from her eyes, which were a deep, thundercloud gray. Maybe Mila was one of the exceptions.

  “I saw a picture of the car after the accident,” she added. “It’s amazing he survived. C4 spinal injury, right?”

  He nodded. So many lives forever changed because another driver thought he could thumb through his email and drive a car simultaneously. “He’s…” How could he explain? His father could have a lucid conversation, could breathe without assistance, but he couldn’t move his limbs, couldn’t control his bladder and bowels, and couldn’t digest food. Despite the family’s initial high hopes, he wasn’t getting better. Dom swallowed, hard. What could he say about his father’s condition that would preserve what little dignity he had left?

  Mila touched his bare forearm. “I’m glad he’s stable enough that you could be here,” she said softly. “Please give him and your mother my best.”

  “Thanks. Damn, your fingers are like icicles.” Without thinking, he covered her chilly hand with his. Her eyes widened in surprise—her gaze flew to his—but she didn’t move her hand away.

  What the hell…?

  Noise receded into the background as they considered each other. He couldn’t mistake the spark of attraction she felt—he could smell it, thanks to his werewolf nose—but she was clearly wondering what, if anything, to do about it.

  Despite the nondescript clothes, she really was beautiful—willowy, with shoulder-length black hair, imperious eyebrows, and plush pink lips against the whitest skin he’d ever seen in the middle of summer. She reminded him of the actress Rooney Mara, or a prima ballerina. The Queen of Snows, reigning over her subjects with intelligence, care, and concern. When she flexed her fingers, he felt the touch below his belt. He shifted against the barstool, levering his body toward hers.

  Why hadn’t he noticed her before?

  She quickly withdrew her hand, sat up straight, and turned to face the bar. “I really should get going.”

  “Already?” He gestured to the almost empty glass she’d brought with her. “Can I get you another drink?”

  She glanced at her watch, then back at him.

  What could he say to keep her there? “I’d really appreciate the company.”

  “Okay, a quick Diet Coke,” she finally said. “I’m due at work soon.”

  He gestured to the bartender, ordering them both fresh drinks. “You work at the hospital, right?”

  She nodded. “I’m a systems analyst.”

  “Huh?”

  Her self-deprecating laugh twinkled over him. “I work with patient data at Memorial Hospital. Utterly invisible and boring, until there’s a problem with either storing it, or accessing it. And you work at Woolf Den Fitness?” She gave his body an approving up-and-down glance. “You look like you work out.”

  “Yes to both.” She’d noticed his body. “I’m the assistant manager—one of them, anyway. Free use of the facilities is one of the job perks.” Not that he’d had time to work out lately.

  She looked around. Bit her lip. “Can I admit something horrible?”

  Curiosity thrummed through him. “Of course.” He brought his head a couple of inches closer to hers. Lowered his voice. “Your secrets are safe with me.” She smelled like a rainforest, humid and exotic. He wanted to breathe her in for hours. Open his mouth to the sky and drink her.

  Their eyes met again.

  “I hate to work out. Absolutely loathe it.”

  He laughed. “That’s your deep, dark secret?”

  She grinned back, exposing very white teeth. One incisor was slightly crooked, not quite perfect. Somehow, it made her more attractive rather than less. “What did you think I was going to say?”

  The bartender delivered their drinks. Dom nodded his thanks, and took a quick sip of Moose Drool. “You strike me as a…very complex woman,” he replied. “I was prepared for anything.”

  A shadow passed over her eyes, there then gone, and she reached for her Diet Coke. Before she could take a drink, a loud beep shrilled from the depths of her purse. “I’m on call,” she muttered. “I have to take this.”

  “Sure.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. As she swiped and read, The Count from Sesame Street flashed his fangs at him from her phone case.

  Brains, body, and a sense of humor. Why had he never talked to her before? Why weren’t other men swarming? As she tapped and read, he considered her businesslike behavior, how she methodically worked the room during these events. Maybe Mila was as frustrated about how little GPL business got done here as he was.

  Maybe he had an ally, at last.

  Dropping the phone into her purse, Mila rose from the stool. “I have to go.”

  Damn. “Can’t someone else fix whatever the problem is?”

  “No. I’m the one who’s on call.”

  “When can I see you again?” he blurted. Hell, why would she want to see him again? Though his family connections and pristine genetic panel ensured his GPL membership, he was under no illusions about his looks. Though his family was comfortable enough financially, her parents were loaded.

  She was digging in her purse again. When her hand came out, she was holding a key ring. “How about coffee?” she suggested.

  Relief sluiced through his system. “Perfect. When?”

  “You work days, right?”

  “Some days, some nights.”

  “I work nights—vampire’s hours,” she said. “How about we sync up after checking our schedules?”

  “Great.” He was busy as hell, but he’d make time to see her. After they exchanged phone numbers, he reluctantly rose. “I look forward to it, Mila.” They kissed each other’s cheeks again. This time, he let his lips linger. Her surprised exhale brushed against his stubble, soft as a breeze.

  Clearing her throat, she finally stepped away. “See you soon.”

  “’Bye.” As she walked toward the door, he watched her high, tight butt shift under the businesslike gray fabric. Imagined how it would feel, shifting beneath his hands.

  He was suddenly hard as a barbell.

  Time to get out of here. The sooner he got to Stillwater and back, the sooner he could check out the genealogy database, then get to bed. Scaring the shit out of Tia Quinn had been so much easier before she’d moved to the freaking Wisconsin border.

  Dropping a tip on the bar, he nodded his thanks to the bartender and left with new energy. Beer, check. Pretty girl, check.

  Coming to the meeting hadn’t been an epic waste of time after all.

  When Wyland finally called, Tia almost told him to shove it up his autocratic ass. Three things held her back: she was curious about the Archives, he was her Second, and he sounded utterly exhausted. These reasons, plus a host of others she didn’t want to examine too closely, had her agreeing to meet him at a long-term storage facility just down the road from Vamp Central instead of dancing with friends at First Avenue as she�
��d planned.

  Her headlights sliced through the dark as she turned into the parking lot of the building she’d barely noticed the other night. Despite a newish sign that said “River City Storage,” the battered building had seen better days. Hers was the only car in the lot.

  She’d rushed through her own work to help Wyland with his, and now he wasn’t even here to meet her? “Figures,” she grumbled, pulling up to the door illuminated by a single, stingy bulb. The building and the gravel lot were surrounded by tall trees and overgrown grass, and she couldn’t see a hint of Valerian’s house just down the road.

  The place was seriously creepy. What possible business could Wyland have here? “Not that there’s any sign of him,” she muttered.

  As she plucked her phone from her purse to call him, a light flicked on inside the building. Snagging the purse from the passenger seat, she scanned the lot, got out of her car, and locked the doors. As she approached the entrance, gravel crunched under her feet. Crickets chirped, the trees swayed in the breeze, and she could smell the St. Croix River from here. “Antonia?” Yes, that was Antonia Sebastiani trotting toward the door from the inside. Antonia was reputed to be a diabolical genius—probably the reason her father selected her to serve as the Incubus Second after Lukas abdicated the seat, choosing to focus on the security and technology risks that might reveal their existence to humanity.

  Just how many Underworld Council members were working on this archiving project?

  Antonia opened the door. “Hey,” she said around a wad of pink gum. “Tia, right? Nice to meet you. We appreciate the help.”

  When something howled nearby, Tia scurried into the empty beige foyer. The dim light didn’t disguise the fact that the walls needed a fresh coat of paint. “I’m glad to be here.” Inside, rather than out there.

  Antonia started walking down the hallway, her flip-flops snapping and her long black braid swishing back and forth across her cut-off jean shorts. “Come on, I’ll bring you down to Wyland.”

  Down?

  Antonia chattered about the heat and the traffic, probably trying to put her at ease. It was a characteristic most of the Council members she’d met seemed to share. Even Wyland had tried the other night, serving her a civilized glass of wine though he clearly hadn’t wanted her there. When he sat down beside her on that too-small settee, she’d been hyper-aware of his body heat. His crisp, clean scent. Every shift of his weight. She hadn’t been able to shake the unsettling sensitivity since.