Vivi Anna - [Valorian Chronicles 04]

by The Vampire's Quest

  The inspector shook his head.

  “Do you think this group wants to kill a bunch of Otherworlders?”

  The superintendent responded, “All terrorists are the same, and they need to be stopped.” He shook Gabriel’s hand. “Thank you, Inspector, for your hard work. I’ll take all of this into account when I hold my press conference at nine. Make sure we are following all leads. I’ll inform the human authorities, so we can coordinate a task force to investigate this NORM group.”

  “I’ll keep you apprised of any developments in the investigation, Superintendent.”

  With the barest of nods to the rest of the team, the superintendent left the room, his two aides in three-piece suits following him out.

  Gabriel sat on the edge of the large table. “The pressure is on to solve this one. We have probably twelve hours before there’s a panic in the city, especially if the superintendent spins the terrorist angle.”

  “Which we know he will,” Olena added.

  “Sophie, you’re working with Kellen to put the bomb and casing together. I want an exact replica to work with.”

  Amused, Kellen watched as Sophie bristled in her chair, but she kept her mouth closed, which was curious. He fully expected her to protest working with him. Maybe it was the way the inspector looked at her while he talked that made her hold her tongue. The lycan could be intimidating when he wanted to, without any effort at all. Maybe because they were both lycans who belonged to the same pack—and this was some pack of politics at play. Whatever it was, he enjoyed seeing her squirm.

  “Olena and I will work on the victims and see what we can find there. François, I want you to go through the surveillance footage of that day and look for anyone coming to the ninth floor with a black briefcase.”

  The kid stopped chewing the end of his pencil and said, “It’s an office building. Do you know how many people have briefcases?”

  Gabriel smiled. “No, but you will after today. I want screen shots with time stamps of every single one.”

  François groaned, then went back to chewing on his pencil.

  Gabriel stood, signaling the end of the meeting. “To work. I’d like to get some headway before the end of the shift.”

  Everyone else filed out of the room. Kellen trailed behind Sophie, hyperaware of the anger coursing through her. It was almost like sitting near a campfire. Hot. Almost too hot, but Kellen had always liked the heat.

  She didn’t say a word as they returned to the examining room to reconstruct the bomb and briefcase. She snapped on a pair of gloves and got to work on the bin of plastics and leather, taking out one piece at a time and lining it up on her half of the worktable. The other half was reserved for him to put together the pipe bomb.

  “You don’t look too happy about something,” he commented, as he put on his gloves.

  Without looking up at him, she said, “I am in charge here, d’accord? You do what I tell you to do. You are my helper. You understand that?”

  “Yup. Perfectly.” Her anger amused him. Not that she didn’t have a right to her anger. She certainly did. He understood it. But he sensed that the anger was also mixed with another emotion—desire. He wondered if that was angering her the most.

  As Kellen quickly put together what was shaping up to be two pieces of metal water pipes, strapped together to form the IED, he watched Sophie work. He couldn’t help it. The way she moved, so fluid and lithe, sparked a fresh bout of desire in his gut. He particularly enjoyed the way she worried her full bottom lip while she figured something out.

  The incessant ticking of his inner clock seemed to slow somewhat as he watched her. Her presence calmed him in a way nothing else had managed to accomplish.

  With an angry sigh, she slammed her hand down on the table and jerked her head up to glare at him. “Would you quit watching me,” she bit out between gritted teeth.

  “I can’t help myself. I like the view.”

  She frowned. “You’re distracting me.”

  He grinned at that. “Am I now?”

  Shaking her head, she focused back on her work. “L’homme est fou.”

  “I’m not that crazy.” He smiled. “I understand French. I was born and raised in New Orleans. My mother…now, she was the crazy one.” He rolled his eyes.

  Sophie smiled, but she lowered her head to try to hide it.

  “I like your smile. You should do it more often.”

  Her smile broadened. “Merci.”

  “De rien.”

  He laid out the final pieces of copper wiring that was part of the ignition, but what he really wanted to do was touch Sophie’s skin. It looked like cream, and he imagined it would be as silky and soft as it appeared.

  Trying to clamp down on the rising desire he was feeling, he cleared his suddenly dry throat and fiddled with the steel cap on the metal pipe. He lifted his head and stole another glance at Sophie. She was impossible not to look at. How could any man ignore such a magnificent creature? He swallowed again, realizing how corny he was beginning to sound.

  Desire was desire to Kellen. It usually didn’t ignite songs or poems in his mind—about a woman’s beauty, or purple prose about lovemaking. If a woman was attractive, he craved her. If he had a chance to bed her, all the sweeter. It was as simple as that. Again, he didn’t think simple and Sophie went together all that well.

  “You must have the wolves lined up to date you.” He winced at hearing the corniness of his words. It had sounded better in his mind. His usual confidence was waning, being alone with her.

  Without looking up, she said, “Not really.”

  “Must be something wrong with them.”

  She looked at him then, her brow furrowed. “I am not so spectacular, not when a woman like Olena is in the room.”

  He heard a hitch in her words. Was she actually jealous of the vampiress? Sure, Olena was gorgeous and confident, but she was nothing, compared to Sophie. She had beauty that transcended physical traits.

  Kellen couldn’t put into words what he saw when he looked at her. The only thing he could compare it to was the awe he felt when seeing the first signs of dawn creeping through the Sistine Chapel and alighting on Michelangelo’s masterpiece.

  He couldn’t tell her that, though. It sounded European-poet-creepy, even in his mind.

  “Olena is nice to look at, sure.” He swallowed, suddenly feeling apprehensive. “But you—you are…” he shook his head, trying to come up with words, any word that could do her justice, “…just, I don’t know, more than that.”

  He cringed, thinking how stupid he must have sounded, but he must have said something right, because a flush started at her neck and rushed up her face to stain her alabaster cheeks. The color brought out the peppering of freckles on the bridge of her nose and on her cheekbones.

  She dipped her head to hide it. But he caught it. He also caught the flare of her nostrils. His scent, spurred by desire, must have been heavy in the air. He liked that she was inhaling it—maybe giving him some consideration.

  “Listen,” she began, “I appreciate your attraction to me. You are being incredibly flattering, but you know that it’s pointless.”

  “Is it?”

  She looked up and met his gaze. “Yes. For many reasons that I am sure you are aware of. First, because we are working together.”

  “And because of the big guy who was here earlier?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “I thought he wasn’t your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not.”

  Finally it hit him. He’d been blind to it for some reason—or didn’t want to consider it. “Ah, I get it. Lycan.” He pointed at her. “Vampire.” He pointed at himself.

  She nodded again. But he saw something flash in her eyes. Something akin to regret.

  “Okay. That’s cool. I was just worried it was because you didn’t find me irresistible, which I know now isn’t the reason.”

  She shook her head, but there was a small smile on her lips. “Is it because
you are American that you speak so brashly?”

  “Nah. It’s because I have no sense. I just say what’s on my mind.” He shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

  “From your crazy mother?” She smiled, then started to laugh.

  He joined in. “Yes, from her.”

  Chapter 7

  Sophie and Kellen worked in silence for the next two hours. And to Sophie’s surprise, it was a comfortable time—one that usually came after years of knowing a colleague and working together. Nerves still wracked her body, though now for completely different reasons.

  The man was an enigma. One she wasn’t certain she wanted to figure out or had any business figuring out. Like she had told him—she was lycan, he was vampire. Not a very stable mix.

  After hours of work they had managed to put together replicas of both the casing and the bomb.

  The casing was what she had suspected—an ordinary black leather briefcase with a structured box lining and leather-wrapped handle, an item that could be bought at any luggage or office store.

  The bomb on the other hand, according to Kellen, wasn’t so run-of-the-mill.

  “This is old-school stuff.” He ran his gloved finger over the three metal pipes banded together by leather straps.

  She watched as his fingers seem to stroke the mechanism, and she wondered what his fingers would feel like on her skin. But she had no business thinking about Kellen like that, because he wasn’t lycan. Her attraction to him made her uneasy. Her pack alpha would chastise her for feeling this way. But she couldn’t seem to help it.

  Shaking the carnal thoughts from her mind, she turned her attention back onto the bomb. “What kind of trigger was used, do you think?”

  He pointed to a piece of plastic with two numbers on it sitting on the table. “I was wrong about the cell phone. Too sophisticated. They used some kind of timing mechanism.” He picked up the plastic piece and scraped at the black charring to reveal a white background. “An egg timer, I bet. They’re easy to find and easy to use. Untraceable.”

  “How do you know so much about bombs?”

  “I used to make them in the war.” He picked up the reassembled bomb and examined it intently.

  “Which war?”

  “World War Two and Vietnam.”

  She eyed him intently. “A regular war hero.”

  He shrugged. “Nah, not a hero. I just like to blow stuff up.”

  “I can picture you as a soldier.”

  He nodded and put the bomb down on the table. “I looked pretty good in a uniform, too.”

  Sophie smiled. She could picture him in a uniform. He had the type of sublime male physique that could fill one out perfectly. Wide shoulders, trim waist, long legs. He had the powerful form of someone who could run a mile without any effort, or lift a man off his feet with one hand. When he moved, she could see the way the muscles rippled and bunched.

  Pulling herself from her fantasy, she lowered her gaze before Kellen noticed that she was checking him out.

  But it was too late; he was grinning at her as if he knew every detail in her mind. She hoped he wasn’t one of those vampires that possessed that type of power. It would be way too uncomfortable if he could read every notion in her head. In the future, she’d have to control her thoughts and steer them away from wondering what he looked like naked.

  “I still have the uniform. I could put it on for you sometime.” He cocked an eyebrow seductively.

  Looking around her, Sophie noticed that she had moved closer to Kellen. There was now only a foot of space between them, and she could feel the heat of his body and hear the steady rhythm of his heart. Flaring her nostrils, she inhaled his scent. Everyone possessed a certain smell. Lycans and witches smelled earthy, vampires always smelled like spices. Kellen’s scent was strong and tasty, like cinnamon.

  A sudden urge to touch him surged over her. Unable to resist it, she lifted her hand and breached the distance between them. But before she could lay her finger on him, Olena burst through the door in a cloud of expensive designer perfume, chattering like a songbird.

  Sophie retreated a few steps as the vampiress swooped over them.

  “Who is hungry?” Olena wrapped her hand around Kellen’s arm as was her habit when she talked to people. Actually, when she talked to men. “I know a great place for breakfast.”

  “I could eat,” he answered, but he had yet to take his eyes off Sophie. Her skin was tingling as if a phantom energy was caressing her. Was he doing that to her?

  She could feel her face start to redden. Turning to hide her blush, she moved around the table and stood by her briefcase model. “I’ll pass, thank you, Olena. I think I’m going to do some more work and see if François has printed out any photos to compare this to.”

  Olena waved her hand at Sophie. “You work too much. I always tell you to relax, but you never listen.” She snuggled up to Kellen. “I guess it is just you and me, handsome.”

  “I guess so.” He turned his attention to Olena and forced a smile—but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  Sophie tried not to watch as Kellen and Olena walked out of the room, arm in arm, chatting like old friends. Jealousy knifed her in the stomach, cutting her to the bone.

  Logically, she knew she shouldn’t be jealous. She was a lycan, a loyal pack member with a long list of lycan suitors who would fight tooth and nail for a chance to court her. But at this moment she didn’t find any one of them very agreeable.

  If she went down the list, she could find something wrong with each and every one of them. In Duncan’s case, he was too boring, and not all that intelligent. His idea of great literature was the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, which bothered her twofold, because Sophie never considered herself to be swimsuit model material. She wasn’t voluptuous. More athletic than bodacious. She never understood what Duncan possibly saw in her. Judging from his past conquests, she definitely wasn’t his type—voluptuous, with more boobs than brains. Maybe the alpha was forcing him into it, just as he was pushing her, which wouldn’t surprise her. A pairing between her and Duncan would be a political coup. Her father and Duncan’s father went way back.

  Sometimes she hated pack rules and politics. It would be nice to have the freedom to pick whatever mate she wanted. Born and bred under pack law, Sophie knew what was expected from her. From a young age, she’d been told that one day she would claim a partner and a mate from the eligible lycan males in the pack. She would wed and make little lycans to populate the pack. Procreation was really important in the pack mandate, as was breeding with one’s own kind to produce strong healthy pups.

  Already, most of her childhood friends were married and had two or three children. She shuddered at the idea of being a stay-at-home mom raising pups. She had too much adventure in her to give it up right now. Maybe if she met the right man she’d feel differently. A man with confidence, intelligence and a wicked sense of humor.

  Someone a lot like Kellen.

  Not that she was thinking about mating with Kellen. He was attractive and all, but definitely not the type of man a woman settled down with. No, he was more the type for a fling, a rebellious and decadent affair.

  Shaking her head, she shoved the thoughts of Kellen out of her mind and got back to thinking about the case. She left the workroom and headed down the hall to the video room, where François worked. She’d get a head start on trying to identify the briefcase in the surveillance photos.

  When she reached the room, she peered in and saw François at his array of computer screens, flipping through multiple images at once.

  She cleared her throat. “François, I was—”

  Without looking up, he put up his hand, palm out toward her. “Attend. Attend. Une minute.”

  She had the urge to bite his head off, but because of his brilliance with computers and other things, she bit down on her tongue instead. He had lots of idiosyncrasies, his blunt way of dealing with people was just one of the many characteristics that made François who he was, how
ever annoying he might be on most occasions.

  He swiveled in his chair and frowned at her. “What do you want?”

  “Photo printouts of any and all people entering the medical center with a briefcase in their hand.”

  He swiveled back to his desk, grabbed a huge stack of paper and swiveled around again. “Here you go. Three hundred and twenty-two of them.” He shuffled his rolling chair toward her and plunked the heavy stack into her outstretched hands. “Enjoy.”

  She hefted the stack. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope.” With that, he pushed backward with his feet and went rolling back to his desk and started typing on his keyboard without another word.

  Sighing, she glanced down at the stack and shook her head. She was in for a long day. She should have left for a break when she had a chance.

  “Want some help?” Kellen spoke to her from behind.

  She was startled, almost dropping the photos. He reached for her and covered his hands over hers, steadying the stack. Instantly, heat flashed up her arms and over her shoulders.

  “I thought you went for breakfast.”

  “I wasn’t hungry for…pancakes.” He eyed her intensely.

  A tingling sensation warmed her belly and she couldn’t stop the grin that blossomed on her face. It actually felt good to see him again, even if he’d only been gone a half hour at the most.

  Stepping back, she pulled her hands out from his. She had to get a hold of herself. She was acting like a love-struck youngster, still in her teenage awkwardness. He was just a man, after all, nothing special, even with his sparkling blue eyes, killer grin that could melt ice from a hundred yards, and incredible body.

  It didn’t matter that when he gave her that devilish look her stomach flipped over in a loop de loop. He was a coworker, if only until they solved this case, and a vampire. He was hands-off. She would just have to remind herself again and again, especially when his scent ignited a flash fire between her thighs.

  “Do you want to help me go through these?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No, not really.”

  Frowning, she cocked her hip. “Then what are you doing here?”