“What did Selene do? Did she try to hurt you?” Lucas asked, lifting her hands, searching the knuckles for marks before his piercing gaze examined her face and neck.
“What? No, Selene was really sweet, actually.” Red shrugged, squeezing his hands before letting go. She still hadn’t confessed about all the wacky Juniper flashbacks in her coma to anyone. Then factor in the past life… It would be hard to explain that she was meeting Selene for a second time. “Meeting your ex was a breeze. We got on like peas and carrots. It was the other guy.”
“The mechanic.” Lucas leaned against the rail. He ruffled his hair up, sighing. Under knotty brows, his eyes were a million miles and over a century away. “Yeah, I have mixed feelings about him myself. Considering.”
Red told him once that maybe they could get it right this time. While a good seventy-six percent of that line had been fueled by the lusty hope of some Netflix and chill, she had meant it. She had been focusing on Juniper’s mistakes this whole time. What if Lucas had been something she had gotten right? Back in petticoat times, she had been an evil witch, he had been an evil vampire. Times had changed. They had changed.
“You’re looking at me all dewy-eyed.” Lucas cupped her cheek, stepping forward, caressing his fingers down her arm to rub his thumb on her wrist pulse.
“Because I have a weird-ass supernatural life and you’re one of my favorite things in it.” Red snuggled into his hand.
“You’re one of mine, too.” Lucas put his arm around her. “You’re shivering.” He led her inside to the living room. Hands stroking her back, he examined her face. “Red, what happened tonight?”
“I met a cactus named Phil.” Red laughed, resting her head on his shoulder. “You can guess the rest.”
Red looked up at his face. She put her fingers on his cheeks, wondering how many times, how many lifetimes she had done that. That electricity between them sparkled. She kissed him, the feather light brush of her lips deepening.
Hands in her hair, he pulled her closer into his leather-clad and sandalwood-scented embrace.
Red had been taking it slow with Lucas, resisting sinking into that siren call of inscrutable connection, and not rushing in with a vampire. Now, she knew the universe had thrown them together. Again. Entwining their fingers with one hand, Red pulled away to breathe. “I know tonight was weird, but all the driving made some things clear to me.”
Lucas played with her hair, his locked gaze seemingly enchanted watching the spill of her red locks over his fingers. “Tell me your highway insights.”
“This isn’t a life with a guarantee.” Taking his hand, she planted kisses on each finger between words. “I want you, Lucas, and maybe I’m supposed to. Either way, I’m not fighting it. I’m sick of resisting.”
A soft joy suffused his features, and he sucked in an unnecessary breath. His lips moved in silence, speechless before he brought their faces together. Giving up on finding the words, Lucas brushed his lips over hers.
Red knew that she should tell him about the reincarnation stuff. Come clean. It was selfish, but she wanted to just be herself in his eyes for their first time. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, clinging to him, and whispered the words. “Stay the night.”
Picking her up, Lucas carried her into her bedroom and set her down on her feet.
Red pulled off her shirt before putting her arms around his neck.
Murmuring, Lucas kissed down her neck. “My beautiful girl.”
She gasped as his cold hands caressed her, the difference in temperature making her shake. She tugged at his clothes as she tried to inch them backward.
Pulling off his shirt, Lucas dropped to his knees in front of Red, rubbing her hip. He caught her eyes, his gaze full of earnest warning. “I’m not a man, even if you make me feel like one.”
“You’re you. That’s why I’m here.” Red cradled his head in her hands.
“Are you sure you want a thing like me?” Lucas stumbled over the word thing. He looked down, shoulders dropping.
Red sat on the bed, bringing their faces closer. “I want you.” Tracing hot fingers over his high cheekbones, she deepened the kiss.
“I don’t know what I did.” Lucas laughed when she pulled back for air. His joy was infectious, a smile crinkling the corner of his eyes.
Resting her arms on his shoulders, she giggled. “You kissed me like you missed me.”
“To have you in my life. Even just to be with you right now. What did a demon like me deserve to get this?”
“Saved a bunch of people. Hero stuff.” Red nibbled along his jaw up to his ear. “Also, you’re pretty sexy so that enhances all the good karma.”
“Karmic sexiness?” Lucas chuckled. His chilly hands were warming up from her stolen body heat as he caressed her waist, and his lustful gaze took in her topless form as his fingers traced lazy patterns down her thighs. “Plenty of that in this room.”
Stiffening, Red moved her other hand to cover the scars on her thighs. Jolting like a deer in front of a car, an old memory surged up. It was before she had gotten laser scar treatment. Making out in the back of a Camaro in Colorado, she had been on a first date that had been going good enough that her skirt was up. Then the other hunter saw the fang marks. She shied away from Lucas.
“Hey.” Lucas kissed her cheek before studying her face.
“Its fine.” Red tried to smile.
“Fine is a dangerous word.” He rubbed his thumb on her jaw. “What is it, love?”
“It’s just… my thighs are ugly.” Red tried to cover the blurted truth with a bad joke. “The laser can only do so much.”
“You’re spectacular. Every bit.” Lucas kissed down her neck and between her breasts, finding every sensitive spot and discovering a few new ones. “Every inch of you should be adored.”
Lightheaded, Red moaned.
He pulled her hand off the faded bite, kissing each knuckle before each scar on her thighs.
When she pulled him to her, she didn’t know how she would let him go again. They fit together. Tumbling back into the bed, each movement felt timeless. Red felt it in his touch, that truth that Father Matthew had tried to tell her. She had done this before. She had lived this before. Her body hummed with an old rhythm.
His mouth and hands explored her body as if coming home.
Red managed coherent thought until he ripped her underwear down with his teeth.
Hours later, Red lay wrapped up in Lucas’s arms. Her limbs felt boneless, still sweaty and tingling, pressed up against him. Head resting on his chest, she listened as his heart didn’t beat. It was his most vulnerable spot. Vampire lore around the world diverged on how the first vampires were created, but all agreed that it had been a goddess who had weakened them thus out of love of humanity. She rapped her knuckles, with the air of a scientist experimenting, between his pecs. “You know that it’s completely quiet in there?”
“Oi, I’m not a melon at market.” He laughed, stroking her hair.
“I just think you’re neat. Physiologically speaking.” Red giggled, drawing invisible shapes on his chest. “You’ve even warmed up. Are vampires heat conductors?”
“You’re always so curious.” His gray eyes sparkled.
Looking down, Red stilled her wandering fingers. She felt the dark cloud gaining on her afterglow. It had taken weeks for her to tell him about the memory loss. Letting him into her truth, the secrets that she carried, it scared her each time. Curled together in the dark, she felt like they were in their own private world. Secrets felt at home here. She had to tell him even if she didn’t know the right words. “Was I always?”
Lucas quirked his eyebrow up, the impish grin fading.
“I became a believer in reincarnation tonight.” Red tensed as she tightened her grip on him. She tried to meet his eyes and failed. Head dropping, she murmured. “Guess I have more in common with Juniper than we thought.”’
Lucas tipped her jaw up to look at him, his fingers shaking. “Kitten?�
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“I resisted it for so long because I just wanted to be me.” She admitted, leaning her chin on his hand. “And I am me, but I guess somewhere on the karmic cycle, I was her.”
His eyes widened, rising emotions swirling in their depths. His bottom lip trembled.
She couldn’t look away. “I finally know why I dreamt of you before I met you. It hadn’t been the first time.”
Lucas rolled her under him before bringing their lips together. Hands roaming up her hips, he kissed up to her ear. “What did I do? What did I do? You’re a miracle.”
“This between us. I can’t ignore it. I felt it the moment you found me in LA.” Red clutched his back.
Lucas kissed her fiercely. He traced the outline of her kiss-puffed lips. He spoke the words like a vow. “I will always find you.”
Melting into his embrace, Red didn’t know how the first time they’d kissed she hadn’t recognized the supernatural spark for the connection it was. Tears sprung to her eyes as he kissed her as if she was the most precious thing in the world. “Did you guess before?”
“I will always know you.” Lucas ran his thumb under her eye to catch a tear before stroking her hair. “I should have known that I’d see you again. You’ve always been the most unlikely girl.”
Red smiled, curling her leg around his.
He stiffened.
“What is it?”
“I smell dawn.” Lucas leaned his forehead against hers as he bundled her into his arms and rolled them onto their sides. “It’s soon.”
Red boggled at his nonchalance. “You can smell that? How?”
“I don’t know. Trees perk up. East wind blows. It has a smell.” Lucas laughed, brushing sweaty tendrils of hair behind her shoulder “If I had known that inquisitive mind would be back, I would have studied up for your questions. That hasn’t changed.”
“I don’t like that the sun’s coming up.” Red nuzzled into his chest. “I want to cuddle more, but I also don’t want you to get all crispy dead.”
“Priorities.” Lucas kissed her head.
“I kinda always imagined our first time would be at your place so I never bothered to vampire proof mine.” Red frowned, already making up the list for her next shopping trip.
“Imagined it, eh? How’d I stack up?”
“Five out of five hearts in my hunters journal. Usually they are about slaying and not laying.” Red chuckled against his chest before she glanced up, biting back a giggle. “I won’t let Vic see that entry.”
Lucas caressed her cheek. “The universe gave you back to me. I’m going to do right by you, Red.”
“I’ll hold you too it.” Red kissed him. “Now, go! This would be a real bummer of a reincarnation romance if it ended with the hero burning to ash in the sun.”
Lucas rubbed his thumb over her lips. “I’d race the sun for you any day.”
She kissed the pad of his thumb. “I’ll lightproof for next time.”
Changing with vampire speed, Lucas leaned forward to steal a kiss.
Red laughed, pushing him away. “Shoo.”
Hearing the sliding glass door close, she leaned back in bed. Putting her hand on her head, she breathed in deep, still tingling from Lucas. Rolling over on her side, she felt boneless and incapable of existential thought. She yawned, smiling. She had driven guns to the Mojave, and that was the least of her night.
Quinn had set her up to get blindsided by the truth, but he had also gotten her laid. Should she slap him or send him some scotch? Red would decide later. Slipping into dreams, she smiled into her pillow, still smelling Lucas.
When she woke in the morning, she didn’t remember the nightmares. Maybe if she had, she might have been able to stop what was coming. The dream faded like morning dew. She simply stretched out sex-relaxed limbs and bounded into the shower.
Red didn’t know how soon everything would change. Only in hindsight did it seem inevitable.
Chapter Eight
January 24th, Evening, Moon Enterprises, Inglewood, Los Angeles, California
The call from Inglewood broke up the middle of her promised TV binge. It had lasted a day and a half. She knew when she saw Cora’s name on the phone that laying low was over. She texted Vic before she left, and he warned her to only do as ordered and nothing more. Then he sent a longer message about what shows to watch next.
Rolling her eyes, she set off to navigate the urban jungle in her rental car. The route had long since become routine. In the building, the receptionist waved her through. Red no longer needed a guide around Moon Enterprises to get to the penthouse office with its maroon-colored walls and computer server equipment. She didn’t know how she felt about that.
Uncapping her pen, Red refocused on the blank notebook. The meeting had been going on for a while. Cora had led them in a breathing exercise that had seemed to relax no one. She hadn’t taken any notes during that.
Lucas grinned at her, biting his bottom lip before he mouthed the word ‘hi.’
Flushing, she ignored Lucas beside her at the conference table. It took more physical effort than sparring did. Her foot inched closer before she corralled it back.
Cora walked in front of a large screen. The projected footage painted her white jumpsuit. She stared first at Quinn and Red before flicking her eyes away at the sight of Lucas. Her nose wrinkled before she refocused on her presentation. She pointed up at the snarling face in the corner with the projector remote. “Orval Trevor. Born 1801 in Maine, died a fur trader in 1841 outside Santa Fe. Four days ago, he passed for the last time. Rest in power.”
The screen rewound the footage to show a bat flailing against a flood lamp in an alley before transforming into a human. A brawl started between three masked vampires, two males and a female, against the one in buckskin. Orval managed to rip the ski mask off a thin, dingy blond-haired male.
Cora clicked her remote to pause the screen. “This low vibe, cross-eyed motherfucker was too slow for the camera. And they were too cocky to edit it out.”
The screen rolled to the vampire pulling the mask back on.
“But I can rewind. I have the technology.” Teeth bared and afro trembling in agitation, Cora stomped to screen. “This is a burrower. I need him smoked out.”
Red looked to Lucas. “Burrower?”
“Vamps holing up by the Salton Sea, feeding on tweakers.” He flattened his palm and shook it. “So-so tough.”
Jotting down the note, Red nodded. Vampires could consume drugs like a human did, but the effects were dulled. To get the full high, they had to either do a lot or drink from an intoxicated human. She had fought vampires on meth in Utah. She had ended up in the hospital.
“They were tough enough to bring down the Terror.” Cora gritted out before she tightened her fingers on her crystal necklace as if beseeching the rock for strength.
“There weren’t working security cameras in that alley.” Red raised her pen. She had her theories about Cora’s cryptic case, but none involved a murderer dumb enough to record the act. “Where did you get this video?”
“Fresh from the dark web. Just like the last ones.”
Scribbling down a note about Matt’s words at Soul House, Red couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked him what he’d meant by hearing things on the dark web, but then again she had been too distracted by everything else he’d said. The human internet had its own underground of illegal sales, criminal organizing, and worse on the dark web. Vampires had their own forums there. She could believe they had snuff films buried online, but of their own kind?
“This is the first one with a face.” Cora narrowed her eyes at the screen. “I already had AI recognition run on the video and cross-referenced in my database. He’s not in it.”
“How many have died?” Quinn crossed his arms. “Joe and I haven’t finished checking on all the souled vampires.”
“Only one in LA, but I don’t know. They could have a backlog of them.” Cora tapped her fingers on the table. “Around the county? He’s
far from the first staked with the footage sent out to Bloodliners online. I got the full scoop from the supreme in Cincinnati.”
“Are these random hate crimes?” Red looked up from her notes, eyes instinctively checking on Lucas. Was this what Orval wanted to warn them about? What had he seen in the desert that made him run to his old friend Quinn? Her chest tightened. “Or assassinations?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” Cora raised her hands, pretty face screwing up in annoyance. “They pop up with the same hashtag and quote, post a snuff film, and abandon the username. Different IP, different country, different profile each time.”
“What’s the hashtag? Dague?” Red wrote the word on her notepad. “The dagger.”
“How did you know their name?” Cora squinted, brow inching up.
“It was written on the playing card beside Orval’s body. He might have come to the city to warn Quinn.” Red put her pencil down. “Why isn’t the Blood Alliance doing anything?”
“The Blood Alliance has been leaving these individual investigations in the hands of the supreme with jurisdiction,” Cora replied tightly.
Lucas barked out a harsh laugh. “Wankers don’t even know the half of it, I bet. You’re not the only supreme trying to scrub this shit off the dark web once it hits.”
“As a rule, we don’t like to advertise when our minions and vassals are being killed.” Nostrils flaring, Cora glanced away from Lucas. “If I called in backup for some backwater raiders….” She waved her hand in dismissal. “I have a contact in Slab City, living off the grid. We need more intel before I let the DVA near this.”
“You know what’s out in the desert,” Quinn said. “Or, well, under it.”
“I’m worried that I don’t.” Cora shook her head. “That’s why I need a small team to scout it out. You can read the dossier on the road.”
Leaning back in her chair, Red nodded. She definitely wasn’t going to get back to her TV marathon anytime soon.
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