by Мишель Роуэн
But I did.
And here I am.
With bodyguards in tow.
I’d spotted one large hulking beast about ten paces behind us. I would have thought it was a coincidence, but he had followed us into the lingerie department of Sears just a half hour ago.
He was either my brand-new bodyguard, following us on a crowded downtown sidewalk near the Eaton
Centre, or a huge man who enjoyed the feel of silk against his skin.
Or maybe both. I’m not here to judge.
Plus, I’d seen him tackle a guy who’d asked me for the time as I passed a bus stop a block back.
“Why didn’t he wake you up?” Amy inquired.
“Thierry?” I glanced over my shoulder nervously, then back at Amy. “I’m thinking he knew I was exhausted. He was trying to be a gentleman. I did wake up with his credit card on the pillow next to me.
It was veryPretty Woman .” I froze as a large man who was eating a mustard-drenched hot dog bumped into me. “Maybe we should get off the streets for a while. It’s kind of crowded around here.”
“Speaking of Richard Gere, I have to admit that Thierry is definitely gorgeous.”
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “And your point?”
She shrugged. Just one shoulder clad in fake white fur. “No point. Just . . . ”
“Oh,God . What is it? You’re doing that half-shrug thing. And that’s never good.”
She shrugged the other shoulder this time. “It’s just . . . other than the fact he’s nice to look at, what exactly do you see in him?”
I stopped walking. With a quick glance, I noticed the hulk also stopped walking. I faced my shrugging best friend. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t get defensive. And don’t get me wrong. Thierry’s great. He’s generous and . . . um . . .tall . . . and, uh . . . wait, I’m sure there’s something else . . . ”
“Not you, too.” I shook my head, feeling a wave of anxiety fill me.
“Not me, too, what?”
“You,of all people , are not going to tell me that me and Thierry aren’t going to work out.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“Yes, you obviously are. Besides, I believe you’re the one who’s about to turn thirty. The day after tomorrow. You should be more concerned with yourself. And you know,getting old . That’s almost worse than losing all your worldly belongings.”
When in doubt, change the subject. Always a good rule of thumb.
“Sure, rub it in.” She pouted. “But I’m a vampire. I’ll never look any older than I do right now.”
“But you’re still turning thirty. Ha.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you know who you were great with?”
Oh, God. Please make it stop. Doesn’t she know I’m mentally fragile today?
“Quinn,” she continued, despite my giving her the evil eye. “He was so hot and he really liked you, didn’t he? Where’d he go, anyhow?”
My head.Throbbing . “He’s actually back. Just returned last night.”
She actually clapped her hands together and smiled brightly at me. “Oh, good!”
I shook my head. Vigorously. “What part of ‘I’m with Thierry’ don’t you understand?”
She looked thoughtful. “You know, I bet he could have protected you last night. He wouldn’t have just left you all alone with that dumb dog.”
“Amy, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And Barkley’s a werewolf.”
She sighed. “I just want you to be as happy as I am. With Barry.” She gazed down at her tiny diamond ring.
“So everything’s cool between you two? I know you said last week you were a little . . . how did you put it?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Insanely jealous and paranoid. Yeah, I was a little concerned for a while. I thought he was going to be another man who treated me like crap, but so far so good. I just need to be more confident.” She grinned. “Being married to a wonderful man like Barry is everything I ever thought it would be.”
“So you thought being married would be the first sign of the short man apocalypse?” I paused. “Wait, I can think of a better one. Just give me a minute. My brain is seriously fried.”
“Sarah! Barry likes you now, you know. I thought you two were friends now?”
I glanced around the busy street. The bodyguard was keeping his distance. Trying to look all incognito even though it must have been obvious I’d already spotted him. “He doesn’t like me. Your husband rubs me the wrong way. There’s just something about him. He’s just so—”
“Wonderful, charismatic, and wonderful?” She beamed.
“You said wonderful twice. And no, I was thinking more along the lines of troll-like and annoying.”
She frowned.
I raised my hands. “But you’re the one who has to share a bed with him, not me.”
Her frown turned upside down. “And let me tell you. Barry is seriously a sex god.”
“I am going to throw up.”
“I know you don’t like talking about this sort of thing, but seriously.” She appeared to quiver.
“Sometimes he bites my neck when we’re in the middle of,you know . . . and it isso amazing. That man can curl my toes like nobody’s business. I don’t know why I would ever doubt that he loves me.”
“Where is my barf bag?” I made a face. “Hold on one moment, I think I need to deal with something.”
I turned around and walked quickly over to the hulk, who had raised a copy of theToronto Star ’s entertainment section up to cover his face. He lowered it just in time to see me approach, and his eyes widened slightly with surprise. He had a brown crew cut and wore a black leather jacket and blue jeans he probably had to buy at the Big & Brawny store.
“Hi there,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. You have a name, don’t you?”
“I . . . ” He looked confused. “My name . . . uh . . . ”
“Listen, buddy. I’m having a difficult week, to say the least. I get that you’ve been hired to keep an eye on me so I don’t get murdered or blown up again. And I appreciate that. Really. But I want you to know that I know that you’re here and I want to know your name.”
His shifted his weight to his other very large shoe. “Uh . . . it’s Lenny, ma’am.”
“Lenny.” I repeated. My bodyguard’s name wasLenny . “All right, Lenny. Thank you. You’re doing a good job so far. Still alive. Hooray. Keep it up. Me and my friend are heading into Starbucks for a coffee. Can I get you something?”
He tucked the newspaper under his arm. “Um. No thank you, ma’am. I’ll wait out here.”
I turned back to Amy, who’d raised her penciled-in eyebrows at me. “Wow. You’re getting all demanding. Very impressive.”
“Thank you. Now I demand that you stop talking about Thierry, your sex life, and anything else that makes me want to throw myself into oncoming traffic. I need caffeine in the worst way.”
“Mmm. I’m having a major craving for a brownie.” She practically skipped across the street toward the coffee house.
Some vampires could still eat solid food. Like Amy. She was blessed with the ability to chow down on whatever she wanted. Me? Lately eating a kernel of corn made me hurl. Coffee seemed to be where the line had been drawn.
I guess it’s because Amy hadn’t been lucky enough to partake in a master vampire’s blood like I had.
Much like wine, a vamp’s blood was more precious, rare, and potent the older he was. And Thierry was damn old.
If I let my mind wander a little, I could still feel him against my mouth. Drawing a wet line against his warm skin with my tongue. My teeth grazing the surface.
Drinking deep, so deep.
Filling my mouth with the dark, delicious taste of him.
I blinked and shook my head to try to clear it.
“Coffee!” I shouted, my voice suddenly a little pitchy.
“Right now! Make it an espresso!”
Chapter 5
Would you look at that line?” Amy said as we entered the crowded coffee house.
“What did you expect? It’s a Saturday afternoon.” I glanced around, feeling immediately claustrophobic and more than my share of paranoid. We were surrounded by a lot of people I didn’t know. Buzzing on caffeine and biscotti. Why did I come out today again?
Death wish, table for two.
“Oo, I see a table.” She beelined to one near the window that had been abandoned all of two seconds ago. I sat down. The chair was still warm. And oddly sticky.
“Look,” I moved to the seat next to me and shifted to get comfortable, “I don’t want to spend a lot of time here. I have things to do. Assassination attempts to avoid. Besides, I have a date with Thierry tonight so I need to have time to prepare.”
“How do you prepare for a date with Thierry?”
Since I’d never really had an “official” date with him, I wasn’t entirely sure. “Um. A little red lipstick and a calming meditation CD?”
She eyed the lineup. “It won’t be long.”
“Famous last words.” I cleared my throat and thought of the smoking remnants of my life. “Wait, let me take that back. That’s a phrase I never want to say again just in case it happens to be true.”
The wide hips of a passing woman bumped into my shoulder and I glanced up to make sure she wasn’t carrying any concealed weapons along with her caramel macchiato.
Suddenly a sound rang out above snippets of conversations I could catch with my surprisingly sharp vampire hearing (to match my increased sense of smell) —though some conversations, like the one about body piercings between an older woman at the table in the far corner and her much, much younger boyfriend, were not ones I really wanted the chance to overhear.
The sound was coming from Amy. From her purse, specifically. She reached into it and pulled out a thin pink cell phone, which was the cause of the odd sound, a sound I now pinpointed as a tinny rendition of
“I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred.
“This is Amy,” she chimed into the tiny contraption. “Uh huh?”
There was a long silence and I watched her face lose its happy Amy glow.
“I see. Well, alrighty then. Thanks for letting me know. No, I appreciate you telling me. I really do.” She shut the phone up and stared at it. “That heinousbitch .”
“Who’s a heinous bitch?” I inquired. Amy rarely, if ever, got mad enough to call somebody else a bad name—a trait I didn’t happen to share with her. I didn’t even think she knew the word “heinous.” But obviously I was wrong.
“My neighbor.” She looked down at the small, expensive piece of technology as if it was the cause of every problem she’d had since birth. “Mynosy old bag of a neighbor.”
“And? What did she say?” I glanced outside at Lenny, who’d just started to chase two kids with deadly looking skateboards down the street.
Skateboards in January? There should be a law.
She slumped down into the seat across from me. “She just saw Barry.”
“Oh, I feel badly for her.”
Amy glanced at me sharply. “I wasn’t finished. She says she saw him with another woman.”
“YourBarry.”
She nodded stiffly.
I frowned, trying to focus my wandering thoughts enough to understand. “I’m sorry. She saw Barry doingwhat with another woman?”
“Talking. Closely. And touching each other.”
I shuddered at the thought. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Yeah, of course. It’s nothing.” She nodded. Then a frown creased her pretty face. “Why would you assume that it’s nothing?”
“Well, this is Barry we’re talking about.”
“I know you don’t like him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an incredibly desirable man, you know. He’s had many girlfriends over the years.” She sighed. “Women are irresistibly drawn to him. It’s not his fault.
He’s blamelessly charismatic.”
I blinked at her. “If you say so. But really, you guys are newlyweds. So if you’re thinking that something fishy is going on—”
She nodded, looking suddenly sad. “I was right to be worried. He’s cheating on me.”
“Amy! How can you say that?” I shook my head. “Weren’t you just doing the ‘Barry’s so hot’ cheer outside?”
She slumped down in her chair. “I’m trying to fool everyone into thinking I’m fine. That my marriage is wonderful. But I can’t take it anymore. It’s all a sham, Sarah.” She let out a long breath. “I was afraid of this. But I’m not surprised.”
I reached across the table to grab her hand and squeeze it. I’d never seen Amy so down, so ready to accept defeat without even putting up a fight for the man she married. “Maybe you’re just overreacting.
Maybe this is nothing at all.”
A tear slid down her cheek. “I’m not enough woman for him. I told you before that he is a very sensual man. He has needs that I’m just not able to fill.”
I tried to cover up my shudder by squeezing her hand harder. “Don’t say that.”
“I thought he wasthe one ,” she continued. “That after all these years I’d found my knight in shining armor. But . . . ” She sniffed and her voice grew shaky. “I’ve just set myself up for a-a-another h-h-heartbreak.”
Now I leaned over the table to give her a hug, before I got up in search of a napkin that I returned with and handed to her. “Listen to me, Amy. Barry may be a lot of things. Gross things. At least to me. But I seriously don’t believe he’s cheating on you. I want you to be happy. Listen, if you’re that upset about this, I’ll check things out. I’ll be really subtle, too.”
She blinked and a tear splashed down to her cheek. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course. I’d be happy to spy on your husband for you. What’s a friend for?”
“I really appreciate it.”
“Anything to help distract me from the fiery pit of despair of my own life is a good thing. And then I’ll be able to tell you that there’s no way he’d want to be with another woman. Even though I still feel like staking him for turning you into a vamp on your first date.”
She pouted. “I just don’t know.”
I shook my head. “You guys might have your problems, but I think Barry’s in this for the long run.”
She dried her face with the napkin, and nodded. “I hope you’re right.”
Frankly, so did I.
Amy left me to look after the table and scare off anybody looking to steal it. She joined the end of the long lineup. I sat there by myself and glanced out of the window at Lenny, who was back from his skateboarder takedown and pacing in front of Starbucks, trying to look inconspicuous and failing miserably.
It was good to know he was there. He seemed like a bit of a musclehead, but he was a musclehead who was going to look out for me.
After five minutes I glanced up at the line. Amy was still waiting and was on her cell phone again, talking to who knows who. Maybe Mr. Charismatic Barry himself.
It was going to be a bit of a wait. I put my head down on my folded arms with the intention of resting my tired eyes and trying to put my problems briefly out of my mind, but found myself quickly spiraling off into dreamland.
I was all alone at Midnight Eclipse. The chairs were placed upside down on top of the tables so the floor could be easily cleaned during the off hours. The long, black lacquered bar hugged the wall. The stage was to the right—small but adequate enough to put on a good show.
I felt a hand on my shoulder that trailed warmly down my back, stopping at my waist to turn me around.
“Sarah,” Quinn said, staring down the length of me before meeting my eyes. He smiled and I could see his fangs glint in the soft light of the club. His dark blond hair was brushed off his face. His blue eyes flashed. He wore a dark suit with a pale blue shirt.
“You should know that thi
s isn’t real,” I told him. “I’m dreaming right now.”
“Yeah, I know.” He grinned wider and raised an eyebrow. “Interesting, though, that you’re dreaming about me, isn’t it?”
Then he crushed his lips against mine, his strong hands sliding down my body to pull me against him. I didn’t fight it. My fingers worked their way up to tangle in his hair and I opened my mouth to the deepening kiss.
After a moment, I pulled away from him, feeling confused, turning as if in slow motion to look at the stage. The lights were on, flooding the performing area with bright light, almost too bright for me to register what was up there.
But then I saw.
It was Peter, eye patch and all. The vampire hunter who’d wanted me dead. The one that I’d shot in self-defense. But instead of me onstage with him, as it had been that terrible night, it was Thierry.
His face was rigid and emotionless. But his eyes weren’t. Those bottomless silver eyes watching me and
Quinn were filled with pain.
Peter approached the microphone. “Hey, bitch. Remember me? I haven’t forgotten about you. Not by a long shot.”
Icy fingers played along my spine and I shivered. “You’re dead.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I am. Some things do change. But some things never do. You think you could get away with what you did to me with no consequences? You’ve got a world of pain headed directly your way, darlin’. Auniverse of pain. And it’s only just begun.”
“You deserved it,” I told him, feeling both guilt and anger fighting inside me. “You tried to kill me. That’s all you did—kill vampires. For fun. Don’t even try to tell me that you believed we were all monsters.”
“Nobody’s perfect.” He shrugged. “We’re all monsters down deep, darlin’. Every one of us. You gotta embrace that monster. I did. If you believe any differently, then you’re fooling yourself.”
“Let Thierry go.”
Peter started to laugh. “You think you’re in control of anything? You’re all fools. And you,” he regarded
Thierry. “You should have killed yourself when you had the chance.”
“Peter,” I took a few steps closer to the stage. “You want me. Why don’t you leave him alone and come and get me?”