What Goes Bump In The Night

by C. R. Jane

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  Jake

  "Jake," Ellis called, her voice full of urgency.

  I was already arcing around, driving my blade through the vamp's bony neck with all my momentum. The ugly head flew across the room and into the wall. With its lips shrunken back from its teeth, the skull grinned at us.

  I ran for her.

  Then, when she jumped up against the wall, I skidded to a stop. Her hot pink sneakers boomed against the drywall. She hung, paused in midair, then pushed off. As she almost flew over the vamp, her sword sliced down in mid-air. Her vamp dropped to the ground.

  She landed hard on one knee, catching herself with her sword out to one side. Her sleek, dark ponytail wobbled under the moonlight seeping into the house.

  My heart was still pounding in my chest, harder than it ever would from any fight with a common vamp. I'd been scared for her. She might be the most dangerous girl in the world, but she was still my girl.

  "Just wanted you to see that." Her lips curved up in a smug little smile, and she bit down on her lower lip as if she were trying to hold it back. Her white teeth made indents in that pink lip I loved to kiss.

  "Don't be a brat," I said. "You're taking unnecessary risks."

  "I'm getting comfortable with my powers." She stood, wincing as she favored one knee. She kept hurting that damn knee again. If she kept showing off, she was never going to heal.

  She reached yank my handkerchief from my front jeans pocket, the one I kept to wipe down my blade so I'd never put it away wet. She hummed to herself as she ran it over the steel.

  "You're getting arrogant." I closed the distance between u and tilted her chin up with a finger. "It's not a good look, love. I like you alive."

  "That's funny." Those deep blue eyes shone in the light. "I like you even though you're an arrogant brat."

  I ran my thumb over her soft lower lip, and a spark of lust caught in her eyes. "I could put you over my knee."

  She gave in to the smile, her lips parting. "You could try."

  I jumped after her and caught her around the waist, but she didn't try to run. She twined muscular arms around my neck and ran her hand through my curls. My scalp tingled from her warm, tender touch. As she leaned away from me to look up at my face, mischief lit her deep blue eyes. "Really, Jake? In a haunted house? Does your kink know no bounds?"

  "It really doesn't," I admitted.

  "I've been waiting for an appropriate moment to break in," said a strange voice from the doorway, "but I see that's never going to happen, and I fear things will just continue to escalate, so-"

  Ellis and I both whirled to face the threat, our blades out, and the silhouette in the doorway clapped.

  "You two are adorable," he said.

  I recognized the low voice, the short-and-broad build, and the spiky hair. Thomas. One of the best friends I'd had during my disastrous childhood.

  "No need to decapitate him," I said, gently pushing Ellis' blade down. I took the cloth out of her hand and wiped the blood off my blade, then sheathed the sword in the harness that hung over my shoulders. "This is an old friend. Thomas."

  "An old friend from the U.K.?" she asked skeptically.

  "Yes," I said. "But he's not a complete wanker."

  "Are you two done?" Thomas asked. "With whatever this was? A vampire hunt, foreplay…?"

  "Both." I clapped him on the shoulder as I walked past him towards the door. "Why are you here?"

  "I need a favor," he said.

  "What is it?" I stepped out onto the cracked concrete porch of the house, drawing in a breath of cold, fresh air, heavy with rain.

  When Ellis brushed my shoulder as she stepped out onto the porch, I breathed in her scent, all cinnamon and burnt sugar. Her eyes flashed up to my face, as if she were trying to gauge my reaction.

  I gave her the slightest nod. She knew what I'd been through in England, and I could tell she didn't want to leave, but she squeezed my shoulder and went on. As she walked across the grass towards where the car was parked under the trees, she slid her sword back into the sheath that hung from her shoulder harness. Her shoulders were broad for a girl's, muscled and defined by our training and our work, but there was a distinct feminine sway in her hips. The curve of her ass in those jeans made me believe that God did have mercy on Nephilim like me.

  "Never thought I'd see the day you were tied down," Thomas said, staring after her as she reached the car. "Or are you?"

  "Yeah." I shrugged, turning to face him, and crossed my arms. "I am. What's the favor?"

  "I need a home base for a week. Nigel sent me on a mission."

  "Really? You know, America has its own hunters. You could've called."

  "It doesn't have particularly good ones." Thomas leaned against the chipped porch railing. "Except you. Maybe."

  "Is it an interesting case?"

  "If I say no, will you get let it go?"

  My curiosity flared. "So it's a good one."

  "Nigel wants to keep it quiet. We think there's a dangerous ghost riding a stolen artifact. He hoped to sell it once we get our hands on it. Once it's free of any vengeful spirits, of course."

  "Considerate of him," I said. "Almost exactly the same as giving it back to its rightful owner."

  "Have you forgotten how Nigel operates?" Thomas said it like a joke, patting his jacket pocket for his cigarettes.

  I hadn't forgotten that Nigel was a thief who raised me to be a thief, as well as a Hunter who protected clueless humanity from the vamps and geists. But when he said that, what flashed through my mind was a far different memory of how Nigel operates. I remembered curling up into a ball, my knees tucked in to protect my organs, my arms shielding my face, while Nigel towered over me, cold-eyed and vicious.

  Nephilim heal fast, but Nigel found a way to leave marks.

  I eyed Thomas as he lit up.

  "I know, I know," he said, shaking out the match. "You're a health freak and you're American now, you disapprove all over."

  "It's bad for you, but then, so is being a Hunter." I could see 'his' motorcycle, no doubt stolen, parked behind Ellis' Corvette. "You can follow me home. Let's not make a habit of this."

  "Can you wait a minute? It's a waste." He took another drag of his cigarette, slipping the pack back into his pocket. Richmonds. He still smoked Richmonds.

  My brothers didn't smoke, and the scent pulled me right back to long nights on stakeouts in England, to rainy graveyards and running from the cops.

  "Things going well here, yeah?"

  "All right." I didn't want to rehash the last few years: I'd found my brothers. We'd become brothers a second time over, since they'd forgotten me after my mother hid me in England. I'd tried to understand my mother's desperate bid to keep me safe from the demons. I had tried to forgive her for ruffling my hair and turning her back on me in Nigel's living room, as l choked back tears and he grinned from the couch.

  And then there was Ellis. Ellis, who had found my life in shreds, and fucked it all up worse, and then helped me lay the pieces back together right. I liked Thomas, but we weren't talking about all that. I barely wanted him to know my address.

  He took a slow drag. "You're forthcoming as ever."

  I leaned against the opposite beam. "What about you?"

  "There's nothing changed in my life. Still lifting cars and slaying spirits."

  "And breaking ladies' hearts?"


  "Well, it's best if they aren't ladies."

  I glanced towards the car. Ellis sat cross-legged on the hood, leaning forward with one elbow propped against her knee and a paperback held open in front of her to catch the moonlight.

  "We've been curious about you," Thomas said. "Been keeping up a bit, what we can."

  I wondered who he meant. The guys we grew up with? Nigel? I didn't much care for the idea of being their supper table conversation.

  "So you're going to marry her?" Thomas asked. "Since you think you're fated?"

  "I'm going to marry her, but not because of that," I said.

  I was still trying to find the right ring. Four future husbands should offer her four different rings. I'm not saying I'm a competitive bastard or anything, but my ring was going to be her favorite. The other day I'd paused at a jewelry store window, on our date, and she'd stopped next to me. A teasing smile had crossed her lips, and she'd insisted on ranking every damn watch in the case in order of preference. She refused to say a word about the rings.

  "Why, then?"

  "Between you and me and the headless vamps?" I didn't mind answering Thomas' curiosity. I didn't want Nigel to know a damn thing about me, not even that I was happy now.

  "Yeah. Between us."

  "She's bloody awful," I said. "Headstrong. Cocky. She tries to be quippy but Christ, half the time it doesn't even make sense. Once she torched a vamp around dawn, and she said,toast has always been my favorite thing for breakfast. She doesn't even eat toast."

  "So…" he trailed off, as if he thought we must be going back to the fated thing.

  "She's a girl Hunter." I explained. We all tried to be glib; we all were arrogant enough to spend our lives killing things most people would run from. "She's just like us, except she smells good all the time."

  "Doesn't sound so bad. Nigel can't stand lady Hunters."

  "Nigel's an idiot."

  "Is it true one of your brothers is a demon?" he asked abruptly.

  "Half," I corrected automatically.

  There was a flash of something over his face before he schooled his expression.

  "You don't have to come stay," I said.

  "I want to." He finally flicked his cigarette to the concrete and stepped on it.

  "Don't piss off my girl," I warned him. I knew him. He liked to bait people. He was trying to draw me out, to get me to tell him all my secrets. I remembered him as harmless-as someone who kept a confidence despite Nigel's relentless hold on him-but Ellis might not take him that way.

  "Why not?" He glanced towards her again, and I knew what he was seeing: a pretty but ordinary looking girl, wearing a Hunter's leather jacket and blood-splattered Converse sneakers, absently twirling the end of her ponytail as she read.

  "She looks sweet," I said. "It made me think I should run her off at first. I thought that she was too good to be a Hunter, that this life would take the sweetness off her like skin off a peach."

  Thomas glanced over at me.

  I took the step down off the porch and turned to face him, shoving my hands into my pockets. "But she's tough enough that nothing, no one, can take that sweet away. She's not going to be inclined to care for you much, knowing what I went through in that house. So if I were you, I'd win her over."

  "You think I should be scared?" He ducked his head, as if to hide his grin. "Of that little girl?"

  "Oh yes," I said. "She's a fierce one."

  Fierce enough to love me, and I would love her to my dying day for it. She could make a thousand bad jokes in a row and I'd still think she was fucking adorable.

  I jerked my head towards the car and then, knowing Thomas would follow, headed for my girl.

  Chapter Two

  Ellis

  Jake's broad, scarred hands were quick and sure on the steering wheel, as ever, but his gold eyes flashed up to the rearview mirror to check on Thomas, who rode behind us on his motorcycle. A light rain began to fall, smattering the windshield with big, fat drops. As Jake flipped on the wipers, he swore for Thomas's sake.

  We were almost there, though. The car bounced as he turned off the pavement for the long dirt road that wound past the lake and through the woods to home. Normally, I drove the Corvette, but I'd tossed him the keys tonight, knowing how he needed to be in control when memories of his childhood rose up.

  "Your accent gets worse when you have a British friend around," I said.

  One dangerous eyebrow rose above his golden eyes. "Worse, or better?"

  "I think your voice is sexy either way." I leaned my head against his shoulder, even though it was awkward with the gear shift between us. He didn't move his hands from the steering wheel, but he turned his head to drop a quick kiss into my hair.

  We turned up the driveway. Levi's truck came into view, silhouetted by the bright lights of the house behind it, shining out into the night. Ryker, Levi and Nim were on the porch.

  Jake exhaled softly. He'd never say it, but maybe he was glad his brothers were home tonight. I hesitated, but his lips were firmly set above his stubborn jaw. Now wasn't the time. I needed to have Jacob alone, and I needed time to soften the defenses he'd learned in the demon's case and in Nigel's house. The two locations were opposites-the place where he was supposed to die and the place he was taken to survive-but in both, he'd been just a tortured child.

  The memories I had of him as a child rose sharp and bitter. I'd seen these things in our shared visions, and that was hard enough: I remembered him slipping in his own blood, always fighting. Even then, he'd been fierce and determined and good at his core, no matter what evil visited him.

  I couldn't resist anymore, and I reached for his hand, but he was already twisting toward the door. Maybe he didn't see me; maybe he did. Either way, I would be here when he needed me.

  I threw open my car door and dashed through the fat raindrops. Ryker sat forward in his chair, looking past the Corvette to the motorcycle. Levi and Nim remained kicked back in their porch chairs, both of them with a slice of pizza in one hand and a brown bottle of beer in the other.

  "Where's the chivalry?" I demanded as I jumped up the porch steps and into the shelter. I was pretty sure once upon a time, one of them would have raced into the rain to throw a jacket over my head or-more likely-to toss me over his shoulder like a barbarian and dash back with me so my shoes would never touch mud.

  "It's dead," Ryker said absently, pulling me into his lap. Although he wrapped a muscular arm around my waist, his gaze was focused on Jacob and Thomas. "We still adore you, of course, but you seem pretty well won-over at this point so we're coasting. Sorry. Who's that?"

  "One of Jake's friends from England." I rested my arm on Ryker's shoulders. "He's here on a mission and wants Jake's help."

  Levi's jaw tightened. Ryker and Levi exchanged a glance that was charged with protectiveness toward their older brother, not that they would want him to see it.

  "Jake doesn't seem to mind him," I said, trying to subtly warn them not to be jerks.

  Not that my men are jerks.

  They just tend to act like jerks when they're in protective mode. Ask me how I know.

  Levi nodded, but he tossed the last of his slice into the pizza box and dusted his hands off, as if he was too tense to eat anymore. And that man could eat in the middle of a firefight. "There's another pie in the house for you."

  "For me alone?" I asked in surprise.

  "As long as you want Hawaiian pizza, hell yeah, it's for you alone," he teased.

  "Maybe that's why I like Hawaiian pizza so much, it's the only way I don't have to throw elbows to get more than one slice."

  As Levi began to raise his bee
r to his lips, I reached out and snagged the bottle from him. He rolled his eyes and gently pushed my leg with his bare foot. "How was the house?"

  "It was a vamp nest," I said.

  Ryker nodded. "Good, I'm in the mood for a fight."

  I crinkled my nose at him. "Sorry."

  "You two didn't go in alone?" Ryker said, exasperated. "You were supposed to be watching. Just recon."

  "There were only two vamps."

  "There were only two vamps." Ryker muttered. He looked over at Levi. "Listen to your girl."

  The two of them never stopped. I rolled my eyes and kissed Ryker's cheek, which was covered in rough five o'clock shadow, then stepped over Levi's legs to throw myself onto Nim's lap. His arms closed around my automatically, and he nuzzled his face into my hair. I breathed in his cloves-and-citrus-and-spice scent. His arms were hard and muscular and fever-warm, and his heat was welcome against the cool of the night.

  Levi quirked an eyebrow, since I'd just passed him. "What am I?"

  "The boy who gets me in his bed tonight," I said, stacking my Chucks on top of his thigh. "And who gets my feet now."

  "Brat," Levi said, which seemed to be a running theme, and then began to unlace my Chucks, slipping them off.

  "You think everything's all right?" Nim's voice was a low rumble; his voice was surprising deep, even though he was the youngest and most boyish of the Alexander brothers.

  Unsaid: you think Jacob's all right?

  Thomas and Jake pulled a tarp over Thomas's motorcycle, and then they stood in the rain, having an animated conversation.

  "Yeah," Ryker said. Unsaid:Of course he's all right. He has us.

  I've gotten used to translating.

  Levi's strong fingers massaged the ball of my foot and stroked up the arch, and I sighed in pleasure. His foot rubs always sent waves of pleasure coursing through the tender muscles, up my perpetually-sore calves-being a Hunter is a workout-and between my thighs. The other guys might have teased him about the footrubs, but it was foreplay for me-and judging from the tiny smile playing over Levi's lips, he knew that damn well.