Ripper

by Lexi Blake

  Quinn was quickly on his feet. “Oh, goddess, he’ll think the C-4 is Play-doh.” He scooped up his son. “We are never telling your mother about this.”

  “That’s what Daddy always says,” Lee replied.

  Quinn started to carry his son to the door. “I apologize, Ms. Atwood. If you don’t mind waiting, I can send your escort up in a moment. He can show you around Ether and you can ask your questions. I’ll arrange for you to meet with the management at the vampire club tomorrow night.”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying not to look too amused. I was far less intimidated by the harried father than I had been by the ruthless club owner.

  “As for you,” Quinn was saying as he hurried out, “you may never be left alone with your grandfather again.” He turned to me. “If you hear a loud boom…well, it’ll be too late then. Never mind.”

  The door slammed on his way out and I was surprised at how quiet the room was. Right outside the door a huge party was going on but up here it was peaceful. Too peaceful. I wondered where Gray was. Had he already stormed off? Was he home yet? Was he still cursing my name? I had been an idiot to think it could work.

  A man like Grayson Sloane needed a sweet, pretty wife. He needed one of those women who would support him and help his career. I would drag him down. I would go to a social function and be a complete moron. I wouldn’t know which spoon to use or when to stop drinking. I shook my head to banish the self-pitying thoughts. It had been a pipedream, nothing more. It should teach me a lesson. I should have slept with him before he knew me well enough to dump me.

  I reached over and poured myself another shot of vodka. Quinn had left it behind and he’d kind of been the one to cost me the possibilities Gray had represented, so I figured he owed me. I slammed the vodka and poured another. I sipped this one as I checked out what a fertility god viewed as a good workspace. It wasn’t what I would have guessed. There was a corner with a comfy chair and a bookshelf.

  A big portrait adorned the wall opposite the desk. It was what Dev Quinn wanted to see when he glanced up from whatever he was doing. I moved to it, studying it carefully. It was a family portrait, though one unlike any I’d seen before. A bright smiling redhead sat in a field of green grass. She sat between two men, smiling at the camera. I recognized the vampire, Daniel, and the man I’d just met. They were all dressed in white, making a stunning contrast to the deep green of the grass. Each man had a boy in his lap. They were twins and I recognized Lee, though Rhys seemed to have his father’s green eyes. Lee’s eyes were unique. A small, toothless baby girl was in the woman’s arm, her baby hands outstretched toward Daniel. She had a cap of red hair and was her mother’s mini me. Happiness. It was the only word to describe that picture. I felt my eyes prick with tears at the thought that I would never have anything as good as that picture.

  I turned quickly as the door opened and took a deep breath. My vampire escort was here.

  Chapter Nine

  “They make a beautiful family,” a soft, accented voice said from the doorway. He was backlit from the blue light coming from the club and I only saw his silhouette.

  I turned quickly, hoping he wouldn’t catch me crying. “Yes, they are lovely.”

  One minute he was behind me and the next, he was right in front of me, his hand cupping my jaw. His thumb gently rubbed across my cheek, sweeping away the tear caught there. I should have backed away, but I was too surprised to move. Vampires are fast.

  “Did Devinshea make you cry?” the vampire asked with a melodic accent. Italian, I realized as I recognized the man from last night. “He can be rude, though not usually with a woman. Should I talk to him?”

  “Marcus Vorenus.” His name came out as a breathy revelation.

  In the dim light of the office, I saw a smile break over the vampire’s face. It tugged his lips up and caused his dark eyes to crinkle appealingly. It took him from a gorgeous work of art to something far more dangerous. He was simply a handsome, approachable man when he smiled.

  “You’re the girl from the club.” He looked me over with appreciative eyes.

  “I am. Sorry about the other night.”

  He stepped back and dropped his hand, wariness taking over. “You came to look for me?”

  “No.” I wished I could lie to him. “I’m a private investigator. I’m here on a murder case. Mr. Quinn kind of became my new client. He said I needed an escort, so I suppose he picked you. I wasn’t stalking you or anything. I was staking the place out and you happened to be there.”

  He leaned back against the desk. “An investigator? Very interesting. You must be a good investigator since you already know my name. Why don’t you tell me yours?”

  “Kelsey Atwood.” I wondered if the universe was having fun kicking the shit out of me. I’d just gotten dumped by one guy out of my league. Now I stood alone in a room with another too-beautiful-for-me man and I was determined not make an idiot of myself over this one.

  “Kelsey. An interesting name for an interesting girl,” the vampire said. “It used to be a surname. Old English, I believe.”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “My mom liked the sound of it. Are you really two thousand years old?”

  I would guess he wasn’t older than thirty-five. His head moved ever so slightly, an aristocratic gesture in the negative. “Not quite. If you include the twenty-two years I walked the plane as a human, I have one thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine years.”

  The enormity of that number really hit me.

  “Tell me, Kelsey.” His mouth turned down as he stared back at me. “Give me the first thought you had when I told you how old I am.”

  “I thought that was a lot of time for regrets.”

  He was in my space again, though he didn’t actually touch me. “Almost all humans have a different reaction. They say how much I must have seen and how amazing it must be to never have to die.”

  “I guess it says something about me.” I wished I’d given him a less than honest answer. “I think about what you must have lost along the way. How many people you would have cared for only to have them die on you. I wondered if you shut down after a while and you don’t care anymore or if it was important enough to keep some edge of humanity so you let yourself ache. I don’t think I’d want to be immortal.”

  “I do a bit of both. I choose who I ache for carefully, but I never want to be so distant that I can’t feel passion and love. It’s the only reason to walk the earth.” He didn’t touch me, but I could feel his presence. “Do you belong to the demon, little Kelsey?”

  “No,” I said quietly. “He doesn’t want me now.”

  “But you want him.”

  All I had to do was say no and the vampire would offer himself to me. We had a strange connection, Marcus Vorenus and I, and if I hadn’t met Gray when I did I would have been all over him. But I had met Gray and, even though he’d walked out on me, it seemed too soon to consider anyone else. “Yes.”

  “He is a fool.” The vampire backed up again. His face was once more pleasant, but without the emotion that lit him previously. This was Marcus Vorenus as he wanted the world to see him—cool and regal, distant. “But then aren’t we all? I thought, for a moment, that Devinshea was doing me a favor. I thought, perhaps, I was reading too much into our situation. I see he is still playing a game with me.”

  The vampire sounded bitter and I hated the fact that I’d made him feel that way. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying…”

  “It isn’t your fault, dear girl. You must be careful around the fertility god. He always knows what he’s doing when he puts two people in an intimate situation. He knew I would be attracted to you. He knew you’re precisely the type of female to pique my interest. He also knew that you are involved with another man. This is his way of telling me it’s time to go home, that there is nothing here for me.”

  A second wave of loss hit me and I’d only just met this male. I’d been looking forward to his company, but I didn’t want to hurt him furthe
r. He seemed sad enough as it was, as though the world had turned on him. I didn’t want to add to his trouble. “I’ll ask Mr. Quinn for another escort. I’m sorry to have taken up your time. I’ll wait here for him. I’m sure he’ll be back.”

  I sat down again in the chair where I’d talked to Quinn and tried to hold myself with as much dignity as I could muster. I prayed the next vampire he sent me was obnoxious and unattractive.

  Marcus kneeled at my side. “I’m sorry, Kelsey. I should not have tried to drag you into my troubles with Devinshea and Daniel. My only excuse is that I’ve been thinking of you ever since I saw you last night. I’m a bit tired of wanting women I cannot have.”

  Now I was the bitter one. “Then you should stick by my side, Vorenus. I can assure you after you spend a little time with me, you’ll change your mind. They all do after I pull a gun on them or yell too much. And this ain’t me.” I gestured to the dress and shoes. “This is someone else’s magic. I’m a jeans and T-shirts kind of girl and I don’t do relationships well, obviously. I drink too much, cuss too much, and can be unpleasant to be around. I think you’ll discover your heart is perfectly safe around me if you give me the chance to annoy you.”

  Marcus’s eyes closed with a shake of his head. “He knows me so well.” When he opened them again, he was perfectly smooth and polite. He stood and moved to sit across from me. “Let’s forget this portion of the evening and begin again. I’m Marcus Vorenus, your escort. Consider me your knight and your guide. So, tell me, how may I aid you? I am entirely at your service.”

  A deep gratitude swept over me. Vorenus gave me exactly what I needed to get on solid ground again. I pulled out my phone and spent the next twenty minutes going over what I knew with the vampire. As he was an academic, he was quick and gave me several tips. He pointed out the small streak of sunlight in one of the photos that I had missed. Laura Nesson had been killed during the day. Or at least photographed.

  “There are only a few vampires I know who can daywalk,” Vorenus explained. “Myself and the king among them. This particular killing occurred when?”

  I enlarged the picture, pointing to the bottom of the photo where the date was visible. The photos were taken with a digital camera that recorded the date. “Last week. I believe that was a Thursday.”

  He nodded his regal head. “I thought so. The king and I were attending a meeting in London that day. I can show you the ticket from my flight and give you any number of witnesses to my whereabouts. The king, well, he prefers to fly on his own. I assure you he was with me that day.”

  I was already making progress. I thought it couldn’t be a vampire and this was proof. Vampires don’t hide during daylight hours. They sleep and they don’t have a choice about it. Unless they can daywalk, as Marcus and the king can, they were stuck. My first instinct was right. This was a human or another type of supe.

  Marcus stared at the photos, flipping through them. He studied them with a clinical detachment Quinn hadn’t been able to produce. “These girls all look vaguely alike. I would say they’re all within three years of each other in age.”

  “Serial killers tend to have a type. Do you recognize any of them?”

  “Oh yes, Kelsey.” He ran a long finger across the screen. “I’ve fed from all of them at one time or another. I’ve had sex with some of them as well.”

  I stared openly at him.

  “Don’t judge me, little one.” He cocked a dark eyebrow and let his cheek rest against his right hand. “I’m a vampire. I feed off blood and sexual energy. It’s my nature. Have you ever been bitten?”

  “No.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing. The intimate atmosphere of the room did nothing to take away from his attractiveness. The soft light seemed to cocoon us and his accent was so melodic I wondered if there wasn’t some magic behind it.

  I really wondered what it would feel like to feed Marcus Vorenus.

  “Well, it’s difficult to feed one appetite and not the other.” Vorenus explained even the most salacious acts with a simplicity that made it seem normal. He was practical and forgiving of even his own foibles. It made him easy to talk to. “In order to not harm our partners, it’s necessary to use a bit of magic to pull them in. This makes the bite intense and pleasurable. It’s only natural to follow the taking of blood with the taking of the body. The orgasm is much sharper after a feed. When the connection is right, I’ve found a bond can be formed. Only a vampire with a disciplined mind is capable of feeding without sexual intercourse. It’s an instinct.”

  “You said you fed from all of them, but you only had sex with a few,” I pointed out.

  “Let me correct myself then. Only a disciplined vampire or one who is terribly bored with it all can walk away,” Marcus said. “I have no mistress currently. I haven’t had one for a long time. When I have no feelings for the woman beneath me I prefer that she have no feelings for me, either. For me, especially, the bond can be intense. I do not wish to form such an intimate connection with a woman I might not like on a fundamental level. For me, there must be an intellectual liking as much as a physical draw. I use the prostitutes because there is nothing there but an exchange. At times, the instinct is too much and I must take a woman, but I make sure she gets something out of it as well.”

  “Cash.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “It’s what they need.”

  The door to the office opened and Quinn walked in preceded by two subdued boys. The boys stopped and stared at us, but Quinn was having none of it.

  “You two, march, both of you,” Quinn barked at his sons, pointing at the elevator at the back of the office. “You get in that elevator and be glad that I’m more terrified of what your mother would say than I am angry with you. You’re grounded. I’ll come up with some less dangerous reason why to explain the grounding to your mother.”

  The one with the brown eyes looked sullen and like he wasn’t going to take being grounded well. There was rebellion in that one’s eyes. The green-eyed boy, who must be Rhys, seemed untouched by his father’s anger. His T-shirt was covered in black stuff and I wondered if he’d been rolling around in gun oil. He simply smiled and waved at me as his father punched the button for the elevator.

  “Hello,” he said. “You’re pretty. I’m Rhys.”

  “Hi,” I said, unable to not smile back.

  “Are you going to kiss my Uncle Marcus?” Rhys asked. I heard Marcus sigh beside me and knew this wasn’t the first time Rhys had embarrassed his “uncle” in front of a woman.

  “I…”

  Lee rolled his eyes. “No, dummy, Uncle Marcus wants to kiss mommy, but he’s too late.”

  Rhys nodded wisely, and he shoved his thick black hair out of his eyes. “Yes, it’s sad. Girls are only allowed two husbands and they should only kiss their husbands. Do you already have two husbands?”

  “I don’t have any.” I wondered what surreal world I’d fallen into.

  “Then you can kiss Uncle Marcus. I would say you should wait for me and Lee because you’re really pretty, but Lee’s gonna marry Mia and he says he doesn’t want for Mia to kiss anyone but him.” Rhys leaned over and whispered loudly. “He’s weird.”

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

  “Hey, you could kiss my Uncle Declan.” Rhys’s small face was completely open and he smiled like that was the best idea in the whole world. “He’s from Faery and he’s gonna be king, so he can have two wives. He says he wants his next wife to be the kind of girl who doesn’t shove a hot poker up his ass every time he opens his mouth.”

  “Rhys!” Quinn shouted.

  Rhys looked around, wondering what he’d said to offend his father. “Well, she doesn’t look like she has a hot poker.”

  “Rhys said a bad word,” Lee pointed out. “I get in trouble when I say bad words.”

  “No, I didn’t. Uncle Dec said a bad word. He said ass.” Rhys realized what had come out of his mouth and his small hands quickly covered his mouth like he could push the words back in.


  Quinn frowned down at Rhys, his head shaking. “What is wrong with you? Haven’t I taught you any manners? What am I saying? Hasn’t Daddy taught you any manners?” The elevator door opened and Quinn hustled his sons into it. “You go upstairs where Albert is waiting to put you to bed.”

  The doors were almost closed when Lee poked his little head out. “Rhys was right. You are pretty.” He ducked back in as the doors closed and they were gone.

  Quinn stood staring at the elevator doors. After a second, he looked back at me. “You’ll have to forgive them. They’re…precocious, to say the very least.”

  I smiled because the boys were really fun. “They seem sweet.”

  “They seem that way, yes. That’s usually when something falls on my head.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed cautiously as he took in the scene. “You’re happy with Marcus as an escort?”

  Marcus frowned, but I nodded. I was happy with him. Talking to Marcus was easy and I felt comfortable with him. He wasn’t at all what I had expected a vampire to be like. He was funny and polite. He put me at ease because I sensed he would accept me as I was.

  “Yes. Thank you. He’s been very helpful.”

  Quinn’s face turned faintly cruel as he looked from me to the vampire. “And you, Marcus? Are you willing to show Ms. Atwood around or do you prefer to sit about and sulk over things you can never have?”

  The way he said it pissed me off. Before thinking about the fact that I didn’t really know these people, I got up in Quinn’s face. I didn’t care how hot he was or how much cash he could offer me. He had a bad habit of insulting men I liked. I got up and faced the fertility god, making damn sure my shoes were planted firmly. I didn’t want to wobble.

  “Look, Mr. Quinn, if you’re using me in some way to hurt him, then you can take your cash and go to hell. I’ll find another way into the club. Maybe you think I’m some fluffy idiot you can point in whatever direction you choose, but I assure you I’ll figure out what your little plot is and I’ll turn it around on you. You gave me Marcus and I consider him my partner. Back off.”