Whiskey, Vamps, and Thieves (Southern Vampire Detective #1)

by Selene Charles

  Two-face. Also known as Sharp Elbows. Origin stories can be traced back to the Sioux, Planes, and possibly the Omaha tribes. Humanoid who delights in torture and killing its victims. Assuredly a cannibal, though we cannot say unequivocally so. Extremely rare Veilers, they’ve become more legend than fact, though sightings through the ages have confirmed they are not simply myth. Descriptions of them are difficult to pinpoint, as they are forced to change skins every twenty to twenty-five years. As the time to shed draws nigh, their scent changes. Fertility for female lasts twenty-one years. To produce a successful hatchling, she requires an intensely high iron rate. Alone, they are dangerous, but as a pair—one male, one female—they are unmatched...

  My jaw dropped at that bombshell, and my eyes widened as I looked toward Teresa and blinked rapidly.

  She nodded, worrying her bottom lip with her strong, horse-like teeth. “Where goes one, so goes the other. Do you see the problem now, Scarlett?”

  I’d burned through James’s blood days ago, but I could have sworn my heart had just given a violent lurch. My nostrils flaring, I stared with sightless eyes down at the book as my brain worked through the earth-shattering revelation I’d just read.

  I didn’t have only one bogeyman on the loose, I had two.

  This was bad. Very, very bad. Cold chills swept down my spine. And then Boo’s reaction made sense. He’d been scared for me.

  “I have to speak with the Alpha,” I muttered. Suddenly, I knew why the hearts were missing too.

  My stomach heaved.

  “It’s eating hearts, Teresa.”

  From the corner of my eye, I caught her trembling fingers cover her mouth, and her bark-colored skin turned a pale shade of gray.

  “You need to go, Scarlett. Go now.” She gripped the workbench, her knuckles blanching from her death grip on it.

  ~*~

  I stared at the Alpha’s house for several long, tense minutes.

  Clarence McCarrick, aka my adopted father and meanest son of a cur ’round those parts, didn’t take kindly to being interrupted during his nightly training routine.

  Fact was, Clarence was aging, and he knew it. He was still powerful, still steely, and a force to be reckoned with, but being half a step slower in his world meant certain death on a bad day.

  Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I stared at the Craftsman-style house with its front porch lights on and lit up like a golden Christmas tree at the top of the hill. Warm. Welcoming. Inviting.

  Or at least that was the impression it gave.

  But Clarence hadn’t kept his grip on the clan for so long by being any of those things.

  He’d taken me in when he hadn’t needed to. But in a world of kill or be killed, there was only one guarantee: acts of kindness always came with a cost.

  Blowing out a steadying breath, I opened my door and hopped out. No sooner had my boots touched the ground than my skin shivered with the awareness of someone watching me.

  Gently closing my door, I pretended not to be aware of that fact. I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked as though at ease up the long set of stairs that led to the Alpha’s home.

  The air was charged with the scent of a stalking predator, and the grass rustled with the slight sway of a wolf on its belly creeping slowly forward. Not a twig snapped as the predator drew closer. I knew it was near by its scent on the breeze.

  A scent I was very familiar with.

  Hiding my smile, I pretended to pause and study Lucille’s newly planted Lincoln rose bush. If he’d come at me from downwind, he might have actually fooled me.

  The wolf pounced, and I twirled lightning fast, hissing and exposing my fangs as I wrapped my small hand around the shaggy throat of the gray pup, slamming him to the ground and moving so quickly that from one second to the next, I was kneeling with my mouth inches from his throbbing vein.

  I growled, allowing the red of blood to leak through my eyes.

  “Submit,” I snarled, my voice half woman and half monster.

  The pup’s eyes shone a bright and angry green, and its little paws kicked out at me, but my grip was sure and the boy still too much a youth to know what to do against me.

  Slowly the snarl in my throat turned to a throaty, scratchy chuckle.

  And finally the pup, knowing it was beaten, submitted, fully exposing his throat to me and whimpering loudly.

  Snorting, I shot to my feet and extended my hand.

  The boy transformed, shifting from beast to child. Seven years old, with a thick head of shaggy auburn hair, Steven—Clarence and Lucille’s youngest—took my hand and stood.

  “I almost had you,” he said with a world-weary sigh that sounded far graver than any seven-year-old voice usually did.

  I pinched my fingers together. “This close, whelp. Didn’t your father teach you to go downwind? I picked up dog stench the moment I hopped out of my truck.”

  Lifting his right arm, he took a whiff before wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. Then a soft growl that was full of affection spilled from his tongue before he wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a tight squeeze.

  Though he was only a boy, Steven’s strength was that of the wolf. It made me wince but only because Teresa had gotten there first. Fighting not to show it, I swished my fingers through his hair, mussing the longish strands.

  Steven was a wild child, more comfortable in wolf form than in human. He didn’t have a stitch of clothing on, but then he couldn’t exactly shift and keep his clothes rip-free.

  Of all my brothers, Mercer and I understood one another deeply, but there was no one in the pack I felt more affection for than the little guy. Steven didn’t see me as a vampire or different than him. To him, I was simply his big sister, and had been from the moment he’d first opened his eyes and gave his first yowl.

  “Yeah, but I thought I was careful,” he practically whined.

  I lifted a brow, continuing to climb the steps while my shadow danced around my feet like the little ankle biter he normally was.

  Thinning my lips, I gave him a mock worried frown. “Don’t let Clarence hear you say that. He’d tan your hide for sure. Keep practicing, pup. If it’d been anyone but me, you’d have been liable to get yourself killed.”

  “Ah, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” He grimaced, his thin, angular face twisting up into a deep scowl. “Been practicing for weeks now.”

  “Yeah, well, practice some more.”

  Grunting, and hunching his shoulders, he jerked his chin toward the front door. “You know Pop’s training.”

  Even the little runt knew what I was doing was a stupid idea at best. I snorted. “Yeah, well, this can’t wait. In fact, would you mind going in there and announcing me to Lucille?”

  Unlike my adopted father, Lucille didn’t care for me at all. She was just like Emerson when it came to the thought of living close to a hated rival. It was a wonder she’d not poisoned Steven against me, but an Alpha’s law was inviolable, and whether she liked it or not, he’d voted me in.

  Period.

  Steven shook his head, causing his hair to poke out even worse. “Can’t. Mama’s not here. It’s just me and Daddy. Saw truck lights drive up. It’s why I was out here.”

  “Huh.” Not ideal, but I’d wing it.

  I began shrugging out of my blue jean jacket. Steven frowned.

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  Giving my brother serious eyes, I said, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Tell Clarence I’m here, pup.”

  No one except for immediate family ever approached the Alpha without first being announced. I might be adopted in, but I knew where the line was drawn.

  Crouching onto all fours but still maintaining human form, Steven tossed his head back and let loose with the type of howl that caused my flesh to prickle and tingle.

  I wasn’t the only one affected. No sooner had he done it than even the singing cicadas stopped their calling, and the night grew tense with expectation.

  A moment l
ater, a longer, deeper howl answered back.

  Steven looked up at me. “He said come on in.”

  Blowing out a heavy breath, because I knew what I was going to be forced to do, I stepped through the Alpha’s door.

  Chapter 10

  Scarlett

  All the lights were off.

  To the human ear, no sounds filtered through the home. But I heard registers beyond what humans could. I heard the strong, slow beat of a heart. Heard the sound of knuckles flexing and deep breaths at precisely ten-count intervals.

  Glancing down at the end table beside me, I saw boxing tape. I could go bare knuckle—the tape wasn’t going to prevent me from getting injured, or even Clarence from feeling his own skin split open—but way back in the day, the Alpha had been Clarence the Bull, a regionally renowned pugilist with a wicked right hook that’d permanently crippled nearly all his opponents.

  Clarence was old school. If I wanted an audience with him, then I needed to follow his rules.

  After carefully draping my jacket over the table, I took up the red tape and methodically began to wind it around my first hand.

  Blue shadows and moonlight danced across the pitch darkness of his home.

  Lucille, being born in the ’20s—young by Veiler standards—had brought much of her flapper aesthetics into the home. Everything was an odd mix of modern and old.

  Walking through the Alpha’s home was a lot like stepping through a time warp to an earlier and more innocent time.

  But appearances were often deceiving; there’d been nothing innocent about the ’20s. Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll had been alive and well even then.

  Unlike Steven, the Alpha had had lifetimes of practice at keeping hidden. I scented him only because he allowed me to. Shifters weren’t in and of themselves magick users.

  The only magick they performed was their ability to shift. Except for the Alpha, alphas drew off the collective, siphoning a little of their power for his own. And since Clarence was Laird, he had a lot of bodies to siphon from. It made him faster, stronger, more agile, and much, much craftier.

  Clarence was allowing me to detect him as a sign of courtesy between us. I would never be his true blood daughter, but he was showing me a level of respect far greater than any Alpha had ever shown a vampire.

  Breathing deeply, I took his scent into my lungs. He smelled of cherry tobacco, wolf musk—a rich scent of sex and the outdoors that all wolf smelled of to some degree—and several hours’ worth of salty sweat.

  I rolled my shoulders, relieved to note he’d already been at it a while. Clarence’s attack would come swiftly and brutally but wouldn’t last long.

  A cuckoo clock suddenly gave eleven deep gongs.

  I waited until the last echo died out before saying, “Clarence, we need to talk.”

  A board squeaked in the floor above me. I no longer scented the Alpha; he was gearing up for attack. Tucking the last bit of tape into my wrist, I flexed my left hand. It was wrapped nice and tight, just as he’d taught me to do almost twenty years ago.

  Picking up the next one, I began the same process all over again, taking my time. That would probably be the only time I could talk to him without fighting for my life.

  Stalking mode or not, Clarence was listening.

  “Carter came to me yesterday,” I said carefully, making sure to phrase my words precisely. I’d get only one chance to speak with him in such an informal setting.

  Being Alpha didn’t make Clarence king of all the wolves in the world. He wielded a mighty hand, though. And outside of his home, Clarence was always surrounded by his Wolf Pack. The only place he was left to his own devices was his home. This place was sacrosanct, but I also knew that if Clarence put up the alarm, I’d have Armageddon pounding down our doors and dragging me away.

  Didn’t used to be that way.

  Used to be that Clarence was a one-man army able to take down any Veiler without breaking a sweat, but our Alpha was growing old. No one would ever say it out loud, but we all thought it.

  Silver Creek shifters were divided straight down the line, those that wanted things to stay the same and remain as they’d been for the past five hundred years, and those who felt it was time for new blood to assume the throne.

  “Bodies are piling up. Hearts are going missing. Saw Teresa this evening. She confirmed what they’re suspecting. Our bogeyman is back.”

  I was just getting ready to tuck the tape in when I felt the displacement of air shiver against my cheek. I had just enough time to sidestep, but I hadn’t gotten out of Clarence’s range completely.

  The jab to my nose took my breath away and caused me to grunt. My eyes watered immediately.

  I didn’t have time to set up a power shot. Already I felt Clarence moving just beyond my range.

  Shooting out my leg, I caught his ankle with mine, tripping him to the ground.

  Moonlight spilled across the red skin of his back. Clarence’s mother had been from one of the original tribes of Kentucky, Shawnee, specifically. His father was a Scottish Laird, but in coloration and looks, he definitely looked more like his mother’s people than his father’s.

  Agile, he spun his body around almost like a seal in water, reversing his fall so that he didn’t land on his hands ahead of me, but he had somehow pushed those hands against my shoulders, knocking me flat to the ground.

  Knowing the precarious position I was in if I let him pin me, I jackknifed my knees, shoving him up and off me. But not before his black claws hooked into the meat of my bicep, slicing me open.

  “Dammit,” I hissed, grimacing from the immediate pain.

  It was supposed to be a boxing match, but Clarence rarely fought fair in the ring. It was why he’d secured the throne for as long as he had.

  His steely, glowing green eyes were the only things I saw from the shadows. He’d barely even shifted. In wolf form, he’d be twice as deadly.

  Sometimes legends were nothing more than pretty lies. But the one that said wolves and vampires were mortal enemies wasn’t one of them. If I’d been older, a little wiser, I’d have been on even ground with Clarence, but he had more years and far more knowledge about my kind and what to do to easily destroy us.

  I sucked in a deep breath, hating the fact that his breaths were still even and steady.

  The eyes melted into shadows, so that I no longer had sight to rely on. Again a floorboard squeaked off to the right. He was letting me know he had no plans to kill me tonight, only to maim and possibly torture me.

  Goody.

  “Teresa told you Sharp Elbows has returned?” His voice was deep and ancient sounding, lilting and oddly pleasing to the ear.

  In all his years, Clarence had never lost that trace of Shawnee from his accent, even when his peoples had been forced from their homelands in the 1800s. I tended to think it was a matter of pride to him.

  I turned toward the sound of his voice, to the right, trying to peer through the thick veil of darkness. It wasn’t just shadow Clarence moved in. He was using pack magick to create a blanket of utter nothingness. I felt the heavy prickle of power roll across my skin like an electrical tide.

  Darkness was nothing to a vampire, but this was more than just night. He was trying to distract me, to make me confused so that I no longer trusted my own senses.

  In many ways, Clarence had been a bastard to me when he’d taken me in, refusing to go easy on me at any point, ever. He’d been the source of many a black eye and busted lip.

  I’d hated him for years. Until one day it dawned on me what he was actually trying to teach me. I was no longer part of the softer, gentler world I’d been born into. I’d been reborn into a world full of monsters, death, and darkness, and no one and nothing would ever go easy on me again.

  The lesson had humbled and matured me. But that didn’t mean I’d ever grown to like it.

  I let the red of blood bleed through my eyes, heightening my senses and taking two steps toward the spot where he’d asked me the quest
ion.

  “Yes, it has returned. But not alone. There is another. A female.”

  Then I heard it. The rush of wind as he came at me from behind, snarling. I ducked, thinking he was aiming for my head. I was wrong.

  The impact of his fist to my gut was like being slammed into a wall of concrete at eighty miles per hour.

  All breath rushed out of me, and my insides exploded. If I’d been human, that would have been a mortal wound. Grunting, I shoved the pain aside.

  Two years ago, I’d gotten into another match with Clarence, and I’d not walked away from it. Mercer had found me broken on his father’s floor, my face covered in purple and swollen. He’d been enraged, furious, and ready to fight his own Alpha.

  I’d been the one to talk him off the ledge.

  He’d agreed on one condition, that I learn to fight like a wolf.

  A sound a lot like a screaming panther spilled off my tongue as I forced myself to shove the pain aside and tackle Clarence around his waist.

  The key, Mercer had said, was to not try to fight the Alpha head-on. I’d never win. With pack magick behind him, Clarence made a battle seem more like trying to fight a small army. Even as powerful as I was, a lone vampire was no match against a pack of shifters.

  No, the answer was all in leverage. Using my own momentum as well as Clarence’s, I took a coordinated fall, taking most of my weight and his on my hips so that I was able to swing into an arching motion that slammed him violently against the floor.

  I moved like lightning. I was nothing but a blur of shadow as I extended my claws and shoved them deep into his chest then ripped back, taking meat, gore, and blood with me.

  An Alpha’s howl could mean many things. A call to arms. A declaration of war. Or in this case, shocked pain.

  For half a second, my skin shivered with terror at the thought that he’d called for the pack. If they came, Emerson wouldn’t bat an eyelash as he ordered my execution as a traitor.

  It was that hesitation—that slight pause—that Clarence exploited. With a grin of triumph, he batted my hands away and, still lying in his prone position, throat-punched me, cutting off my airway immediately.