by Jenna Black
“Explain, please,” Camille said, her voice silky-soft, but deadly just the same.
Ian tried to push himself to his feet, but Gabriel wouldn’t let him rise.
“You can stay on your knees,” Gabriel said. “It’s where you belong.”
Ian shuddered even as his hate boiled higher. Neither Camille nor her son had ever forgiven Ian for fleeing to Philadelphia almost a century ago. But he’d never intended to stay in Baltimore after she’d transformed him. He’d played the good little toady for the two years she’d made him wait for the gift of her bite. He’d seen what a tyrant she was, gleefully grinding her fledglings under her heel. And they worshipped her for it, kissed her ass and begged for more. But not Ian. He planned to let her transform him, and then get the hell away from her and her pervert of a son.
He’d thought to start his own “family” in Philadelphia, starting with golden boy Jules Gerard, his one-time “best friend.” The man who always seemed to have it all when Ian had shit. Two years of kowtowing and groveling had seemed a small price to pay for the power she would give him. He’d imagined himself as the king of Philadelphia, with Jules as his whipping boy and a harem of tempting young morsels bound to him by the blood tie between master and fledgling.
But Ian had been woefully ignorant about vampire society at the time, and he’d barely escaped Philadelphia with his life. Realizing he’d never survive as a lone fledgling in a world crawling with stronger vampires, he’d been forced to slink back to Baltimore. And Camille.
She and Gabriel had been making him pay for his desertion ever since. He’d endured every torment they’d thrown his way, paying for his life with his last scrap of dignity. But Ian was not an idiot. He was now the oldest of Camille’s fledglings. And he wasn’t that old, not for a vampire. No, Camille would never allow her fledglings to get old enough to challenge her power. And no one but Ian seemed to be disturbed by the fact that although she made a new fledgling every few years, she never seemed to have more than eight to ten of them serving her at any one time.
Some of them were killed for misbehaving. But what about the rest, the ones who just … disappeared? If pressed, she’d hint that she’d sent her oldest fledglings out into the world to start their own “families.” But that was pure bullshit.
How long did he have before she decided to kill him?
It could be a matter of minutes, depending on how well he explained away his recent activities.
Staying obediently on his knees, Ian fixed his eyes on Camille’s exquisite Jimmy Choo shoes. Only the best for the Master of Baltimore, he thought with distaste. He hated even more that he could actually recognize them as Jimmy Choos; he frequently served as a bearer on her shopping trips, and he could name the label on just about every item of clothing she owned.
“I have some unfinished business with my fledgling,” he said, his heart fluttering in his chest. Would she believe him? Would she think him bold enough to try to depose her? Surely not! He was a beaten cur—she couldn’t possibly expect him to bite back. “It’s been festering for nearly eight decades. I thought it was time to end it. I knew you wouldn’t let me go to him, so I arranged to appear in the paper and hoped he’d come to me.” He raised his head and met Camille’s cool stare.
Camille regarded him with glacier-blue eyes. “You mean to tell me it never occurred to you that you should ask permission before bringing your fledgling into my city?” Camille would tolerate no fledglings but her own in Baltimore—a fact she’d pounded into her fledglings’ sensibilities with no attempt at subtlety. Create an unauthorized fledgling and die. It was as simple as that. The only reason she’d let Ian live was that he hadn’t made his fledgling in Baltimore.
“It occurred to me,” Ian admitted boldly. “I knew you wouldn’t allow it. I’d hoped he’d be dead before you knew he’d come.”
Camille leaned forward in her chair, her lovely face marred by fury. “You mean to tell me you have willfully defied me?”
Better to admit to this than to admit the full truth. He might live through whatever punishment she meted out for his defiance.
“I gave him the greatest gift a mortal man can receive, and in return he tried to get me killed. I can’t bear the thought that he still lives,” he said, bowing his head once more. “I’ve managed to swallow that reality for a long, long time, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. All I can do now is throw myself on your mercy.”
As if Camille had ever shown a hint of mercy in her life!
He waited an interminable amount of time while Camille pondered her judgment. Beside him, Gabriel cracked his knuckles loudly. A sense of calm settled over Ian, a brief reprieve from the terror. It was out of his hands now. He would either live or die at Camille’s whim. There were times when he thought death might be the lesser of the two evils, if living meant remaining under Camille and Gabriel’s heels. But then he reminded himself what he had to live for—the day when they died and Baltimore became his.
“What do you think, my son?” she asked. “Shall I. spare his miserable life?”
“I must say, I would miss his special … talents were he to die.”
Again, a shudder rippled through Ian’s whole body. If he lived through this, and if he took the city, he swore he would cut Gabriel’s dick off before he killed him.
Camille feigned a wistful sigh. “As would I.” Mother and son shared a malicious chuckle at Ian’s expense.
Camille rose and drifted toward the door leading out of the living room. She preferred not to watch Gabriel at work, though she had no qualms about giving the orders. “Beat him until he sees the error of his ways,” she commanded from the doorway. “Bring him to me when he’s thoroughly chastened. You can have him back when I’m finished with him.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ian saw Gabriel put his hand to his heart and bow from the waist. “As you command, so shall it be.”
Then Camille was gone, and Ian’s private hell began.
HANNAH YAWNED AS SHE sat on the bed cradling her third cup of coffee. As Carolyn had once warned her, hanging out with a vampire was tough on the sleep schedule.
After Hannah had browbeaten Jules into letting her help, she’d invited herself to stay in Jules’s hotel room. He’d made the expected protests, but she’d gone into persuasion overdrive because she flat out couldn’t afford this hotel. Technically, she could charge Carolyn for her expenses, but this felt more like a favor than a job. Besides, if they shared a room, Hannah could look out for Jules during the day, make sure he didn’t get deep fried by a stray ray of sunshine.
As she’d expected, she’d worn him down—eventually it became more of a pain to argue with her than to just give in to the inevitable. Besides, there were two beds, so she wouldn’t cramp his style too badly. Then Jules had had to ruin her little glow of satisfaction by heading out for the night. Just to explore, he’d said, but she thought exploring might be a bad idea. She didn’t much understand how it worked, but she knew vampires had some way of “sensing” each other. Some kind of psychic shit that she only sometimes allowed herself to believe in. Vamp-dar, she decided to call it.
Jules had won that little argument by playing dirty. A touch of glamour had left her gazing at her navel until he’d gotten far enough away that she couldn’t follow him. She’d stayed up half the night waiting for him, wondering if that weird feeling in her stomach was actually worry. She didn’t like to think so, but she supposed it was understandable. Certainly she’d feel like an incompetent if the guy managed to get himself killed on the first night of her watch.
She’d fallen asleep in her clothes, then awakened just before dawn when Jules returned to the room. Through slitted eyes, she’d noticed that the man slept in black silk pajamas, and it was all she could do not to start laughing.
Not until he’d buried himself under the covers and hadn’t moved for about fifteen minutes did she get up.
The first priority was coffee, and though she was usually a coffee snob, this mornin
g she settled for the crap they served in the room. Then her baser instincts got the better of her, and she started snooping. She wasn’t exactly doing it behind Jules’s back. Not technically, when he was in the room.
Her first objective was his shaving kit. She whistled in amazement when she opened it. The guy actually shaved with a straight razor! Of course, she supposed if he cut himself shaving, it would heal before it had a chance to bleed much.
There were three kinds of aftershave stowed in that little kit. Hannah sniffed all three and had to applaud his taste. Each spicy scent was supremely masculine—despite her teasing about his “perfume” last night. Another toiletries kit contained a tube of hair gel and a can of men’s aerosol hair spray. She figured with hair as long and fine-textured as his the gel was a must, but she confiscated his hair spray. He’d look even sexier if his hair moved a little in the breeze, and she planned to teach him the error of his ways.
She raised her eyebrows when she discovered a handful of condoms in the bottom of the kit.
Why the hell did a vampire need condoms? She had it on good authority that they couldn’t father children. Surely they weren’t vulnerable to STDs! Then she noticed the expiration date on them was nine months past. Did this mean Jules hadn’t been getting any lately?
Hannah met her own eyes in the mirror. “His sex life is none of your business, young lady,” she said, shaking her finger at her reflection. But since Hannah hadn’t gotten laid since the Pleistocene era, she supposed she had a bad case of sex-on-the-brain. And the fact that Jules was sex on two legs didn’t help.
Annoyed with herself, she quit her snooping and got down to work. She called the Inquirer and got transferred around until she reached a harried-sounding cub reporter. She told the reporter that she was trying to get in touch with Ian Squires because there’d been a death in his family and asked if there was any contact information on record. The reporter was terribly sympathetic, and while she didn’t have an address for him, she was able to find a phone number from when he’d done a telephone interview. Hannah took down the number, smirking at Jules’s unconscious form. Thought she was helpless and useless, did he?
Next, she called the number. She figured her chances of success were minimal—it wasn’t like vamps were up and about at this hour—but nothing ventured nothing gained, right?
She nearly dropped the phone when someone actually picked up, but she recovered her cool quickly. “Hi, this is Sheila from UPS. I have a damaged package for a Mr. Ian Squires, and I have this as a contact number.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Really?”
It was a man’s voice, with a slight trace of a British accent. Could this be Squires himself? She glanced at the bedside clock. Not at nine in the morning it couldn’t be.
“Yes, sir,” she said, sounding chipper. “There’s been some water damage, and the address is pretty much unreadable.”
“Who is it from?”
This was the fun part. Hannah cleared her throat and mumbled a bit, sounding embarrassed. “Um, it appears to be from a company called Sextasy.” On the assumption that she wasn’t speaking to Squires himself, she figured that would be enough to quell whatever curiosity the gentleman on the phone might have. “I can return it to the sender, if you’d rather. But I don’t think the water soaked through the box, so the contents are probably all right.”
After a brief hesitation, the guy gave her an address, which she looked up online. The address was in the ritzy Federal Hill neighborhood, near the Inner Harbor. And, coincidentally, relatively near the hotel. She wasn’t entirely sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. How strong was the vamp-dar anyway? She knew the Killers had better range than the Guardians. So did Ian already know Jules was in town and where he was staying? She sure hoped not.
Common sense told her she should take a nap, seeing as she was going to be on a nocturnal schedule for the foreseeable future. However, caffeine and nerves had other ideas, so she gave up trying to sleep after only half an hour.
It was going to be a long day as she hung around here waiting for Jules to wake up. But tonight might turn out to be very interesting indeed. She just hoped it wasn’t too interesting.
Just to have something to do, she opened up the closet and looked over Jules’s luggage. And discovered he’d packed enough clothes for an army. Just how long a field trip was he planning, anyway? Apparently, things were already more interesting than she’d realized.
JULES SLIPPED OUT OF bed at five-fifteen. Hannah lay across the other double bed, fully clothed and fast asleep. Her riot of curly black hair had come loose from the barrette she’d used to control it. Her glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose. If she turned over, she’d either knock them off or break them.
Smiling with what he might have termed affection if she weren’t such a pain in the ass, he reached out and gently plucked the glasses off, folding them onto the night stand. She hadn’t worn glasses last year, when he’d first met her. Was her eyesight worsening, or had she worn contacts before? He was old enough to remember a time when women who wore glasses—spectacles, as they were more commonly known then—were automatically considered homely. He rather liked them on Hannah, though. They added a hint of vulnerability to her tough-as-nails exterior.
He was still smiling—the hell with the mess he was making of his life—when he stepped into the bathroom. The smile disappeared immediately.
His shaving kit was open, as was his toiletries bag. He knew he’d closed them after using them last night. He made no bones about being scrupulously tidy. His temper stirring, he left the bathroom and opened the closet. Sure enough, his suitcases both lay on their sides. When he popped one open, he discovered his neatly folded wardrobe had most definitely been disturbed.
“Marde,” he grumbled, his hands clenching into fists. He’d meant to unpack immediately when he’d arrived, but when he realized practically everything would need ironing, he’d changed his mind and only unpacked the bare necessities. When Hannah had shown up last night, he’d been glad he hadn’t unpacked—if she saw how much he’d brought with him, no doubt she’d start asking questions he didn’t want to answer. He should have known she was the snooping kind.
Behind him, Hannah yawned. Trying to control yet another burst of temper, he turned slowly, gritting his teeth.
She was sitting up now, running a hand through her messy curls as if that would tame them. He started toward her, and she picked up her glasses and put them on.
Smothering another yawn, she looked up at him with a tentative grin. “You wouldn’t hit a girl with glasses, would you?”
He let out an exasperated hiss. “No, but I might strangle her. What gave you the idea it was okay to rummage through my things?”
“I’m a PI, Jules. And I was a reporter before that. I’m congenitally nosy. So tell me, do you change clothes every hour, or are you planning to be here a while?”
“Keep your nose out of my business!” he snapped. He should have held his ground last night and made her get her own room, but he’d fallen victim to his own uncertainty. The bedroom in his house had such heavy curtains there was no risk of daylight seeping into the room, but the curtains here weren’t so heavy. He’d had visions of tossing in his sleep, dislodging the covers and letting the sunlight sear him.
Hannah had to crane her neck to look at him as he towered over her. Not surprisingly, she wasn’t cowed by his temper. “You’ve really got to work on your technique. See, if you want to be all manly and intimidating, you’d be much more effective in something other than silk jammies.” She leaned back on her hands, grinning up at him. “Not that you don’t look good in them, but they’re kind of prissy.”
He actually flinched at the description. “Prissy?” he asked with a curl of his lip. He wanted to tear the damn pajamas from his body right that moment, more stung than he’d like to admit. He’d thought of them as elegant and sophisticated. Certainly not prissy!
Han
nah frowned and cocked her head at him. “Relax, Jules. You look like I just told you you have terminal cancer.”
He tried to school his features, regain his usual nonchalance. “I’m very particular about my wardrobe, and—”
“No shit?” she said with a laugh. “I’ve never known a straight man who dresses near as well as you.”
So much for nonchalance. He actually felt the blood draining from his face, and he took a step back from her.
Her eyes widened. “What? What did I say?”
He wanted to conjure a glib answer, but his heart was pounding and his throat was tight and he couldn’t force a word out.
Hannah stood up, her head tilted to the side once more. “I didn’t say I thought you weren’t straight,” she said carefully, watching his face with intense concentration.
He swallowed hard. “No, of course not.”
Her lips tilted up in a half-smile, but her eyes still shone with curiosity. And perhaps a hint of worry. “Homophobic a bit?”
Calm was returning slowly, and he was able to answer in a more normal tone of voice. “Not at all. But I might need to reevaluate my wardrobe if it gives women the impression I’m gay.”
Hannah’s half-smile turned into a full grin. “I don’t think there’s much danger of that, Jules babe. You pretty much ooze testosterone.”
He sniffed. “Nonetheless, I’m going to have to burn these pajamas.”
“Just the top.”
“Huh?”
“Burn the top, keep the bottoms. There’s nothing sexier than a hot guy in black silk pajama bottoms.”
To his surprise, she actually blushed, which fully restored his good humor. “Oh really?” He began unbuttoning the top. “Let’s test that theory, shall we?”
She held up both hands and averted her eyes. “I thought you were a gentleman! And gentlemen don’t undress in front of women they hardly know.”