But the disease running rampant in his system was doing more than ticking down a clock. It was counting down his days of seeking a true happiness, one that maybe he wasn’t meant to ever possess. He actually had never contemplated happiness until he’d been diagnosed. Knowing that death was knocking at the door made him sit up, take notice and then take stock of his life. So far, Kellen hadn’t been too impressed with his stock.
He rubbed a hand over his head, trying to shove away the maudlin thoughts. Not one for introspection, Kellen’s philosophy was usually to live life without regret. He hated that little needling doubts were starting to interfere with his outlook. If he was going to die soon from the disease making a home in his mind, then he’d go out with a bang.
The receptionist kept her eye on him as she dialed the inspector’s number. He nodded to her and she smiled. A commotion drew Kellen’s attention, as two uniforms struggled with a man in custody. The man was trying to wiggle his way out of the handcuffs and the hands gripping his arms. And doing a fine job of it, Kellen thought. The officers had to shove him to the ground to reassert their control over him.
Everyone in the lobby was watching the spectacle. It was a perfect distraction for Kellen.
Looking around to make sure no one was watching him, he moved toward the double glass doors separating the main lobby from the crime lab. He straightened his shoulders and pushed through. He walked with his head up as if he belonged there. The first two people he went by didn’t even make eye contact with him.
Every room he passed with an open door, Kellen peered in. Most were offices with important-looking people at large wooden desks. Some glanced up as he looked in, but most were too busy with whatever tasks they had been assigned to notice.
After turning several corners and walking three different hallways, he came across what looked like to be the official crime scene tech labs. He inhaled the familiar smell of disinfectant, bleach and other chemicals, and smiled. To him, it was as homey as apple pie.
A familiar, accented voice floated down the hall and it quickened his pace. As he neared a large-windowed room, he noticed both crime scene techs from the medical center bent over, inspecting what looked like a lot of burnt debris spread out over an eight-square-foot plastic and metal table. He stopped and leaned against the wall, enjoying the view for a moment.
The vampiress had a striking figure, showcased amply in black slacks and a teal-colored blouse. Her sable hair flowed around her chiseled features, making her cheekbones stand out even more, as well as her intense green eyes. She possessed that regal beauty that queens and princesses displayed after years of being worshipped. It wouldn’t surprise him that she had a long line of adoring men at her beck and call.
Despite all that, it was the lycan who stole his gaze and occupied his mind.
The lycan’s hair was still up in a high ponytail, and it swung back and forth as she moved her head. He could just imagine what all that glorious, shiny red hair would look like cascading around her shoulders and down her back—her naked back.
Her face was scrubbed clean of any makeup. A smattering of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose. Her blue eyes were luminous and deep-set, and she had a wide, full mouth, unpainted and perfect. He’d been thinking about those lips for hours now.
It must have been because she seemed so prickly that he’d been thinking about her. Kellen loved a challenge in any form.
It didn’t take long before the lycan sensed his probing stare.
Stiffening, she glanced over her shoulder and met his gaze. The punch in his gut was instantaneous. The woman was intense. He didn’t usually like reserved, aloof women, preferring those that were up for some fun. No one too complicated. The redhead had “complications” written all over her.
The vampiress also looked in his direction, but her gaze was anything but hostile. She smiled, which Kellen believed just spurred the lycan’s hostility even more. He didn’t need to know how to speak French—although he did—to understand the slew of curses she grunted. Those types of expletives were universal.
The vampiress leaned out of the open doorway. “Are you lost?”
He smiled. “Do I look lost?”
“Maybe a little.” She returned his smile, her fangs peeking out between ruby-red lips.
Pushing off the wall, he held out his hand. “Kellen Falcon.”
“Olena Petrovich.” She took his hand and shook it, pulling him over the threshold. Tingles of power radiated up his arm like electricity. Those prickles were pleasant on his skin. He’d gone too long without bonding with another vampire. “I know who you are. Gabriel told us to watch out for you.”
“Now, why would he say that?”
“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why,” she purred.
The lycan rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the moon’s sake, Olena, quit flirting with him.”
Olena waved her hand in the lycan’s direction. “Oh, and this is Sophie St. Clair.”
Kellen glanced past Olena to the fiery lycan. Her gaze was penetrating.
“You shouldn’t be in the lab. You don’t have any authorization.” She dug a cell phone from her pants pocket and flipped it open. “I’m calling security.”
Olena released her hold on his hand and shook her head. “Oh, Sophie, don’t be rude.”
“He’s interfering with an investigation.” She lifted her phone when Olena tried to make a grab for it. “He’s a suspect, Olena.”
“Not anymore he’s not,” declared the inspector as he came around the corner and into view. On an angry sigh, Sophie snapped her phone closed and slid it back into her pocket. Kellen had the pleasure of seeing her eyes flash angrily in his direction. Gabriel continued. “I talked to Caine and he vouches that you are not a crazy person who we should be worried about.”
“Oh, good,” Kellen mocked, his hand over his heart. “I was starting to have doubts myself.”
“He still shouldn’t be here, Gabe. This is an investigation and no place for a civilian, especially a victim of the explosion.”
Smiling at her, Kellen made certain she knew he was doing a slow perusal of her body. She was a tight little package: pert breasts, small waist, curvy hips. Lean, lithe, and he imagined, given her species, extremely agile. When his gaze landed finally on her face, her eyes seemed to almost ice over, and he swore he could see puffs of condensed steam coming from her nose.
“Well, since I’m already here, and not a civilian, I could help out.” As he danced around the lycan, he swore he could feel her jaws snapping at the back of his neck. He made his way to the table and pointed to a tiny piece of copper wire. “Because, as I see it, your unexplained explosion just turned into a bomb.”
Chapter 5
Sophie stomped to the table and stared down at where Kellen pointed. “A piece of wire could mean anything. You’re jumping to conclusions.”
He pointed to something else on the table. “That’s definitely a piece of aluminum casing from a cell phone.” He moved his finger over another part of the table. “And those are steel ball bearings. Put all those things together and you get an improvised explosive device, or IED for short.”
She hated that the vampire appeared to be correct. She knew she would have seen it eventually, given the opportunity to look and investigate. Explosives weren’t part of her expertise, but it irked her that he had seen those things in a matter of seconds of scanning the surface of the table. She’d been looking at this stuff for an hour already.
“Olena, get our new special investigative consultant a pair of latex gloves,” Gabriel said. “I’ll get you a crime scene visitor’s pass from the front desk, so you can just walk in next time and not have to sneak by.”
Kellen nodded, but glanced pointedly at Sophie. “That would be great, Inspector.”
Swiveling around, she glared at the inspector. “Gabe, a word outside, please?”
He stepped out and she followed him, shutting the door firmly behind her. She was talking even before he h
ad a chance to turn around and face her. “This is a big mistake, and you know it.”
“Kellen has extensive knowledge of explosives. He worked in the crime lab in Necropolis. He will be an asset.”
“He was a suspect just half an hour ago.”
“But he isn’t now. Besides, we’ve been short-staffed and lacking an expert in explosives. If he can help us out in that regard, I’m taking advantage of it.”
Sophie crossed her arms, trying to think of another argument. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of another logical one, except that Kellen Falcon made her nervous. But she didn’t want to confess that to Gabriel.
“It’s not because he’s a vampire, is it?”
“No, of course not. I’m offended you would ask me something like that.”
Gabriel eyed her, probably remembering all the problems she had with Jean-Paul—all the drama she had inadvertently brought to work because of him—then smiled, patting her on the shoulder. “Good. Now, I expect you to afford all the courtesy you can muster to Kellen. You don’t have to like him—I’m not quite sure that I do—but you have to work with him.” Looking past her shoulder, he shook his head. “At least Olena won’t have a problem.”
Sophie turned around to see Olena with her hand on Kellen’s muscular arm, a saucy smile on her lips, and a twinkle in her radiant green eyes. The vampiress was a born flirt. She possessed the power of seduction, but Sophie knew she hardly used it. She didn’t need to. Olena was drop-dead gorgeous, with an ego almost as big as her bust.
As she watched Kellen return Olena’s smile and respond to her flirtatious touch, the hair on the back of her neck stirred to attention. Feeling strange, she rubbed her hand under her ponytail, trying to chase away the sensation. Her body was responding as if she were jealous, which was absolutely ridiculous.
“I’m out of here,” Gabriel said, jostling Sophie from her reverie. “I have to return to the crime scene.”
“Okay. We’ll get started on this mess.”
“I’ll need a report in four hours for the superintendent.”
She nodded, knowing full well the superintendent would be breathing down Gabriel’s neck for an answer. He’d have to alert the media soon, as to what was going on. Reporters were already hovering in front of the headquarters, waiting for any kind of sound bite.
“Oh, by the way, Duncan is looking for you.” With that little gem of information, Gabriel tipped his hat with his finger and made his exit.
Groaning, Sophie wrapped her hand around the doorknob to open the door, but she wasn’t quick enough to escape. Duncan Quinn, six feet and two hundred pounds of Irish lycan, came striding around the corner.
“Sophie. Hey. How are you?”
She rolled her eyes at his attempt to appear surprised that he had run into her, when she knew he’d been looking for her, as he had almost every day for the past month at about this time. He’d been like a lost little puppy, drooling after her ever since she agreed to go out on one date with him. He’d been one of the five suitable suitors her father had handpicked for her. She’d agreed to a date, just to get her father off her back.
Duncan had taken her to dinner. It was pleasant enough. He talked to her, asked her the appropriate questions, held out her chair and poured her wine, but ultimately it had been one of the more boring evenings she’d spent with a man. It had been like going out with a friend, and not a very good friend at that. Duncan was a nice guy, but dull as drywall dust.
Her father’s words sounded in her head: “Twenty-eight is too old for a lycan female to not be married and raising children.” He claimed that Duncan would be a good match for her.
“Hi, Duncan.”
“How’s your day been?”
“Not bad, considering I’ve been forced to work with a civilian.”
Duncan followed her line of sight. His brow went up at the sight of Kellen and Olena laughing. “Who’s the guy?”
“He’s an American from Necropolis. I guess he worked for their crime lab there.”
“What’s he doing here in Nouveau Monde?”
“I’m not sure. He was at the medical center when the explosion occurred.”
Duncan sniffed. “Maybe he was the one that blew it up.”
“He’s not a suspect.” Crossing her arms, she glared at him. “And who gave you the authority to make wild accusations like that?”
He seemed to shrink a little at her harsh words. No small feat, considering Duncan’s size. He put his hand up in defense. “Hey, I’m just making a joke, Sophie. Relax.”
“Well, it’s not funny.” Sophie looked past Duncan and met Kellen’s gaze. He was staring at her through the glass, with a look of hard contemplation on his face. Had he heard their conversation? She knew some vampires had superior hearing. Not as superior as lycans, but certainly more than any average human.
The way he regarded her made her quiver. Her thighs clenched tight, and she shifted her stance, uncomfortable with the tingling sensations radiating over her skin. His sky-blue eyes were intense. Powerful. And strangely possessive.
Sophie put her hand on the door handle again, turning it open. “I’ve got to get back to work, Duncan.”
She really didn’t want to enter the room, not with the way Kellen was making her feel, unnerved and confused, but she wanted to escape Duncan’s persistent courting even more. The lesser of two evils, she supposed.
Duncan stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Can I take you to dinner Friday night?”
“I don’t know, Duncan. I imagine this case will be taking up most of my time in the next few days.”
“Yeah, but you can’t work twenty-four hours a day every day. You have to take time out eventually, and you have to eat.”
She nodded, not meeting his gaze. “I know. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Sure.” He tucked his hand into his jeans pocket.
As she pushed open the door and walked into the room, Sophie was fully aware of Duncan’s gaze on her back, and Kellen’s on her front. Trying to maintain her composure, she shut the door firmly behind her and moved to the table.
“What did the mighty Irishman want?” Olena asked.
“The usual.” Sophie snapped on some new latex gloves and took up a spot alongside the table. “Dinner.”
“Your boyfriend didn’t look too happy,” Kellen said, as he took up a place on the opposite side of the table from Sophie.
“He’s not my boyfriend, if it’s any of your business. Which it’s not.”
“Definitely, not from a lack of trying,” Olena offered, as she picked her way through the debris on the table, sorting similar material into one of the five plastic bins sitting along the side.
Sophie ignored her response and dipped her head to examine a piece of metal that looked like a screw. She didn’t want to discuss it, especially not with Kellen present. For some reason, the last thing she wanted to discuss in front of him was her love life or lack there of.
“I am so happy I’m not a lycan,” Olena mused. “To be pressured into mating with someone you don’t even particularly like.” She smiled. “Being a vampire is so much more liberating, isn’t it, Kellen?”
Sophie lifted her gaze to Kellen. He was watching her out of the side of his eyes as he smiled at Olena. He had an electric smile, the white of his fangs peeking out from between full, sensuous lips. Even from here, she could sense its power.
“Yes. I’d rather mate with whomever I please.”
Olena nodded. “Me, too.”
Sophie tossed a piece of melted plastic into another of the bins. “Okay, let’s just shut up and get to work.”
Before she could lower her gaze, she caught Kellen looking at her. One side of his wide mouth was tilted up. He looked like a man who knew a secret.
Her secret.
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Chapter 6
After about three hours of picking through the debris the crime scene team had collected, Kellen, Sophie and Olena managed to fill
all five plastic bins with various materials. The metal bin was the fullest. As Kellen laid out various steel fragments, wire, ball bearings and a steel cap, his suspicions were confirmed about a bomb being the cause of the explosion.
“It appears to be a pipe bomb,” Kellen explained to Gabriel and Superintendent Jakob Weiss, as he and the crime scene team, consisting of Olena, Sophie and a young witch named François, who Kellen kept calling Frank, sat around a table in a private board room. His new special consultant badge was hanging around his neck, since he was wearing a T-shirt and had no pocket to clip it to.
“Do we know what kind of casing it was in?” Gabriel asked.
Kellen opened his mouth to respond, but Sophie beat him to it. “By the amount of black leather fragments and vinyl parts, it was probably inside a black leather briefcase.”
The superintendent, a tall, spindly vampire, who Kellen thought resembled Bela Lugosi himself, worried a weathered hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Are you saying this is another terrorist attack?”
Flinching, Kellen stared at Gabriel, eyebrow raised. “Another terrorist attack? Am I missing something here?”
“A few months ago there was an explosion in one of the blood bars downtown. A group calling themselves NORM, Non-Otherworlder Resistance Movement, claimed responsibility for it.”
“NORM. That’s original,” Kellen smirked. “Any causalities?”
He shook his head. “Thankfully, the bomb went off during the day.”
“Purposely or accidentally?” Kellen asked. Sometimes bombs misfired, going off when they weren’t supposed to. If this one was set to go off during a time when no one was inside, it would help explain the intent of the group—to intimidate, or to terminate.
“Why does it matter?” Jakob asked.
“It shows motivation. For revenge, to make a point, to terrorize, to kill. A bomber bombs for a reason.”
“We believe it was purposely set for daytime,” Gabriel answered.
“Did they use a pipe bomb?”
Vivi Anna - [Valorian Chronicles 04] Page 3