by Beth Alvarez
“Several times, through the years. The agent we need to speak with has held the same office for as long as we’ve done business with this financial institution. Or, as long as this particular building has existed.”
Not that long ago, Josh would have balked at the idea of vampire society being integrated with his modern world, clinging to the fragile notions of dark castles and wooden coffins he’d seen in movies. Now he merely nodded, following at his mentor’s heels.
Whether or not he was a full-fledged Keeper, Josh suspected he’d think of Thaddeus as his mentor for some time. There was a pecking order among the Keepers, whether or not they admitted it, and it wasn’t hard to tell the old man was near the top.
Thaddeus paused to knock on the frame of an open office door at the edge of the room, then stepped inside.
Josh followed and froze in the doorway, inwardly groaning. You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Mr. Rook, this is Miss Wright, apprentice to one of our agents.” Thaddeus motioned toward her with an upturned palm. “Our usual agent, Mrs. Moor, is retiring from her position soon, so Miss Wright has been filling in.”
“Interesting occupation,” Josh remarked dryly, closing the door and struggling to stifle his surging emotions.
“It’s not what I saw myself doing, but it’s a stable job and offers a lot of special opportunities.” Charlotte smiled up at him, polite, but all business. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Rook.”
Thaddeus raised a brow, pulling back a chair and making himself comfortable. “Have you met?”
“We went to high school together,” Josh replied, taking the other chair. A thousand questions bubbled on the tip of his tongue, his skin crawling with the need to feel her against him.
“Ah. I should have suspected. The two of you do seem to be near in age. Fancy that.” Thaddeus opened his briefcase on his lap, thumbing through a variety of paperwork.
Josh watched him out of the corner of his eye, suspecting with every ounce of his being that the old man had done this on purpose, unable to find so much as a hint he had.
“Miss Wright is familiar with the... shall we say... unique condition of our clients. You may speak to her of our business as if she were one of us.” Thaddeus pulled neatly labeled documents from his paperwork, adjusting the paperclips on their tops before passing them across the desk. “Before we discuss the contracts, our accountants found the following discrepancies for the year’s reports. We will need you to cross-reference the errors against your records for these accounts.”
“Of course. Mrs. Moor and I have gone over the new account requests for this week already, too, if you’d like me to pull those files?” The way Charlotte’s eyes darted toward a pile of folders on the desk indicated she already had.
“Please. I have a handful of new account applications I’ll need you to see to, as well.” The old vampire peered into his briefcase, making a small sound of displeasure. “It seems I left it in the car. Will you excuse me for a moment? I’m sure Mr. Rook can answer any questions you might have in the meantime.”
Josh’s jaw dropped and he spun in his seat as the old man hopped up and turned for the door. “You son of a-”
“Mind your language,” Thaddeus interrupted, raising one finger. “We are in the presence of a lady.” He closed the door behind him, leaving Josh fuming.
Charlotte chuckled. “So that’s Thaddeus, huh?”
Swallowing hard, Josh gripped the back of his chair and tried to make himself turn to face her. He couldn’t. “Yeah. That’s him.” And though the old man could play innocent well enough to convince most, it was crystal clear that Thaddeus had brought him here with the sole intent of putting his dedication to his oath to the test. Nothing like trial by fire on the first day.
“Well, it is good to see you, Josh.” Charlotte put her head down, sorting documents into piles and then tucking them into manila folders, labeling each one. “I heard you’re a full Keeper now.”
He nodded, forcing himself to return to his chair. “First day. Surprised they’d talk to you about that.”
“So long as you’re polite, they’re not opposed to answering a few questions.” She shrugged.
He watched her open the stack of files on her desk, her nimble fingers rearranging a few sheets of paper before stapling it all together. He pictured her fingers playing with his hair or the collar of his shirt instead. The thought was unbearable. He closed his eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
She seemed surprised, regarding him thoughtfully for a moment before she replied. “I said we’d figure it out, Josh. I meant that. Haven’t you been trying?”
A surge of guilt filled him and he tamped it down. He had; he’d investigated every avenue he could think of, then thought up more. The biggest hindrance was contact. Even if any of his half-dozen plans did work, there was still the clause against communication with humans outside of work.
“I didn’t know how to get word to you,” he said at last. “Julian is in the hunter training program. As soon as he graduates, he’ll be able to move around among people like normal. I figured once he graduated, maybe he could find you.”
“Well, it seems like this job takes care of that, doesn’t it?” She tried to smile, thought it faltered. “Ani—Mrs. Moor, I mean—told me about the communication rules Keepers have to follow. She told me what the punishment for breaking them was. I was so scared you’d get impatient, try to reach me anyway-”
“I’m not that stupid,” Josh put in. “I don’t like the time apart, but a couple weeks for Jul to graduate wasn’t going to kill me.” Whereas violating the Keeper’s Oath—or just the contract he’d signed when he began training—would.
“You can’t blame me for wanting to be sure.” A weak sparkle lit her brown eyes. “Anyway, we can talk here. And I have a lot to tell you. Mrs. Moor isn’t retiring because she’s old, she’s transferring to the VR department. Turning.”
His breath caught, admiration filling his expression at the same time it warmed his chest. “You found a way in.”
Charlotte nodded. “It turns out name-dropping Keepers gets you places quick. I only knew Thaddeus, but that was enough to get me where I needed to go. I asked to be turned right away, but there are a few catches. A Keeper helped connect me to this job in the meantime.”
“Keepers are pretty fond of their paperwork. I’m not surprised they’d give you a headache.” Just thinking of the papers waiting on his desk made him shudder.
“It’s not the paperwork, it’s the-” The door opened and she stopped short.
Thaddeus glanced between them. “Have I interrupted something?”
Josh raised a finger, asking him to wait, leaning forward in his chair. The flutter of hope in his chest felt eerily similar to a heartbeat.
He didn’t need her to say the words he’d dreamed of, the same way he didn’t need to ask to be sure they were thinking the same thing.
Charlotte blushed and nodded, and that single, simple confirmation unleashed a torrent of something Josh had thought he’d never feel again.
He leaped from his chair with a whoop of joy.
* * *
He still got out of breath when he ran.
Josh hadn’t needed to breathe for three-quarters of a year. He still caught himself doing it, especially when he ran. It didn’t hurt anything, but it was a distraction, a weakness he hadn’t yet been able to shake.
He breathed anyway; deep, gasping breaths that didn’t make him feel any less fatigued. Or panicked.
Julian caught him in the hallway. “Where have you been?” he snarled in a whisper, grabbing Josh by the arm.
Josh shook him off, gesturing for him to lead. “I came as fast as I could, but I still had to get permission for this. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Hey, I called you as soon as I knew!” Julian stopped at one of a hundred identical doors in the hallway, where voices clamored inside.
Josh burst through the door, tie and suit tails flying. “Charlo
tte!”
His fiancée’s mother spun toward him. All the blood drained from her face, a wild scream of shock spilling from her lips.
Josh couldn’t blame her. Nine months after his funeral, she was face to face with a dead man.
Ignoring the glares from the nurses and the doctor’s angry shouts for things to settle, Josh shoved his way to the hospital bed and nestled close to Charlotte’s ear, taking her hand. “I’m here,” he whispered, wiping strands of auburn hair from her sweating brow. “I’m here.”
Her hand closed on his like a vise and he gritted his teeth, braving a bare-fanged smile. “You’ve got this, Charlie.”
The baby’s first cry split the air and she collapsed against him, relief mingling with joy and exhaustion on her face.
“Oh, that’s a strong one,” the doctor laughed. “Congratulations. It’s a boy.”
Josh stood, still holding Charlotte’s hand as she sank into the bed and the nurses measured and weighed the baby in their arms.
“Seven pounds, fourteen ounces,” the doctor said. “Does he have a name?”
“Liam,” Charlotte gasped.
Josh’s eyes snapped back to her. “Liam?”
She smiled, nodding and opening her arms to accept the blanket-wrapped bundle.
“What do you think, Dad?” one of the nurses asked. “Is that a keeper?”
“Yeah,” Josh managed, still panting, smiling at the joke they didn’t know they’d made. “That sounds good.”
* * *
Author’s Notes
I’ve always loved vampires, but I was never a fan of horror. In my own world, vampires weren’t just monsters—they were people with a complicated society of their own. You can see this in the Keeper’s Kin series, which this book is a part of. We’re just getting started, but they’re a mix of novellas like this, full-length standalone novels, and a couple trilogies set in the Keeper’s Kin universe, to boot.
I hope you enjoyed Keeper’s Finder. It’s a short ride, but there’s a lot more story to tell. Josh and Charlotte got their happy ending, but Julian... well, his tale is yet to come. In the meantime, you can get started with the first full-length novel.
Ready to meet Thaddeus’s hunter? Kade’s story begins in Her Midnight Cowboy.
Click here to learn more, and don’t forget to sign up for my e-mail newsletter so you won’t miss any future installments in the series!
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Other Titles by Beth Alvarez
PARANORMAL
Death of the Sun
Born of the Moon
Her Midnight Cowboy
The First Hunt (Newsletter Exclusive)
FANTASY
Gale’s Gift
Of Blood and Rain
About the Author
Beth Alvarez has enjoyed writing since childhood and is a ravenous reader.
Having studied fine arts in college, Alvarez has worked as a freelance web designer, graphic designer and illustrator. When not writing, she enjoys drawing, playing video games, driving, and sewing for her unusual collection of Asian ball-jointed dolls.
Raised in southern Illinois, she now resides in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee with her husband and daughter, their Siberian husky, and a very mean cat.
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