Bled & Breakfast

by Michelle Rowen

  Thierry laughed low in his throat. “You are a very talented witch, Heather.”

  She grinned. “I know, right? Who knew?”

  I wasn’t lying. It was a great present, one I appreciated maybe a little too much for someone who didn’t consider herself nearly as shallow as she’d (arguably) once been. But really, you don’t know how important a reflection is until you’ve lost it. It wasn’t life or death, it wasn’t the end of the world not to have one, but to have it back—well, I couldn’t lie. It rocked.

  I studied my hazel eyes for a moment before shifting my gaze to Thierry’s stormy gray ones. They were the same eyes I’d looked into when I’d met the younger Thierry—the one who didn’t have quite the same maturity, who hadn’t learned the right lessons, who hadn’t come nearly as far as the one I’d chosen to spend the rest of my life with.

  Same eyes, but a much different man existed behind them.

  That other Thierry would learn, he’d grow, and one day in his distant future when he least expected it, he’d meet a young brunette with a tendency for sarcasm and a knack for getting herself into deep trouble at the drop of a hat. I wished that other Thierry luck—he was going to need all he could get.

  I was perfectly happy with this one, thank you very much.

  Read on for a sneak peek of Michelle Rowen’s next Immortality Bites Mystery,

  From Fear to Eternity

  Coming from Obsidian in summer 2014

  If I wrote the vampire handbook, I’d include the following three tips that every fledgling should remember: First, try not to smile too broadly in public. Fangs have a tendency to freak people out. Second, locate the nearest blood-selling establishment as soon as you arrive in a new city so there are no—ahem—accidents. And third, don’t get cocky. Just because you’re “immortal” now doesn’t mean there isn’t a long list of people who’d like to challenge that theory.

  And some vampires have longer lists than others.

  With uneasiness, I eyed the massive mansion at the end of the long, winding driveway as our taxi drove off into darkness.

  “I really don’t feel good about this.” My comment earned me the edge of a smile from my husband, Thierry. “What? Why is that funny?”

  “Only because you’re suddenly the cautious one.”

  “I’m always cautious.”

  This earned a full-on look from him. “Always?”

  “Look ‘cautious’ up in a dictionary and you’ll see my picture. Also look up ‘tentative’ and ‘wary.’ It’s a full photo spread. More of a collage, really.”

  “I think I must have left my real wife back in Hawaii. Who are you and what have you done with the delightfully reckless Sarah Dearly?”

  When Thierry got sarcastic, I knew I was in trouble. That was my specialty, not his.

  “I guess I’m cautious on the rare occasions that you’re not. I mean, what is this place? Who invited us? And, most important, when can we leave?”

  “After I get some answers.” The humor faded from his face, which was actually a relief. He wasn’t sloughing this off as nothing.

  This was so not nothing. This was very much in the realm of something.

  I’d just experienced the most divine three weeks of my entire life—in Maui on our honeymoon, which included beautiful beaches viewed from the shade of umbrellas (vampires don’t burn up in the sun, but we will get a hell of a sunburn if under its glare for too long), all the fruity cocktails I could stomach (about three times as many as you might guess), a luxurious private house rather than a hotel suite, a plethora of shops to explore, and, especially, spending one-on-one time with my gorgeous if enigmatic husband. I didn’t ever want it to end.

  But, as the saying goes about all good things . . .

  At least I had the pictures to remember it had actually happened.

  The most surprising thing about our honeymoon? No drama. No ghosts, no evil witches, no vampires with agendas, no shape-shifters with attitude. Just bliss with a capital B.

  But then Thierry got the e-mail. It came in late Thursday night from an unknown sender. It was a personal invitation for Thierry to attend an auction tonight in Beverly Hills.

  He got a lot of e-mails and a lot of invites to charity functions and other important events, so I wasn’t sure why this one had seemed to trouble him so greatly. I looked over his shoulder at it to see that the PDF file looked professional and alluring. And California—well, I’d never been to California before. Swimming pools and movie stars . . . Sign me up.

  It wasn’t the invitation itself that bothered him. It was the unsigned message that went along with it.

  I have something you’ve wanted for centuries, something you’ve only recently thought of again. You believe it was destroyed, but it’s not. Bid enough on it and it can finally be yours.

  It was enough for Thierry to immediately get on the phone and book a flight away from paradise and back to reality.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” he’d said as I started throwing my clothes into my suitcase without even folding them. “You can stay here and I’ll return when it’s over. I told the elders we wouldn’t be taking any new assignments for a month and there’s still a week left.”

  The elders were Thierry’s brand-new bosses—the leaders of the vampire council known as the Ring. Thierry had recently taken a job with them as a consultant, a traveling investigator who looked into vampiric problems of all shapes and sizes as they arose—problems the Ring deemed dangerous or unsavory when it came to protecting the secret from the rest of the world that vampires existed and that we very rarely sparkled.

  I launched some wadded-up ankle socks into my suitcase like a pair of Angry Birds. “Just what is this something you’ve wanted for centuries that you thought was destroyed . . . ?” I trailed off, my eyes widening. “No way. It couldn’t be.”

  His lips thinned, which translated nicely into: “Why, yes, it most certainly could be.”

  “The amulet?” I gaped at him. “But . . . that’s impossible. We already know it was destroyed. And now it . . . it’s miraculously up for auction? That’s way too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “It seems to be, but I don’t know for sure. There’s only one way to find out.”

  I began pacing the bedroom and ringing my hands. The floor-to-ceiling window looked out at the beach and the ocean, a view like something from a beautiful postcard. “Somebody wants to kill you. This is the carrot they’re dangling in front of you to . . . to lure you into a deadly trap!”

  “Paranoia doesn’t suit you, Sarah.”

  “And becoming a big dead puddle of goo doesn’t suit you, either.”

  He stopped me from my frenetic pacing by gently taking me by my shoulders. “It’s only an auction. And if by chance it is what I think it is, then I need to acquire it so it can’t fall into anyone else’s hands. It’s that simple.”

  “Simple, huh? Great.” I let out a long, shaky breath. “Three weeks with no problems. I guess that’s way more than I’m used to.”

  “This isn’t a problem. It’s an opportunity.”

  “Now you sound like a fortune cookie. And by the way, I’m definitely coming. Unless you tell me in no uncertain terms that you don’t want me to, I’m on that flight.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “You hate flying.”

  I grimaced. “Flying is great. I love flying. Every moment I’m a mile above the ground trapped inside a metal coffin of death is fun times.”

  Positive thoughts only.

  So the plan for tonight was pretty simple. We’d go to the auction, we’d check things out, and we’d scram the moment we got enough information.

  At least, that was my plan.

  I knew practically nothing about this amulet, but what I did know scared the bejesus out of me. There was a time, centuries ago, when my tall, dark, and gorgeous, secretive, well-dressed, charming, delicious, usually nonsarcastic—did I mention secretive?—husband got a bit bored with his immortal life. This wa
s well before he met me, of course. I’m only twenty-eight, sired less than a year ago, and he’s pushing seven centuries.

  But I digress.

  Olden-days Thierry liked collecting expensive, magical, and sometimes deadly objects. I enjoyed collecting Beanie Babies at the height of their popularity. We all have our hobbies.

  This particular bauble he sought, however, was a bit more dangerous than any other. It was an amulet that allegedly contained a djinn—that’s a genie to anyone not familiar with the clinical term. And a djinn is a kind of demon that will do the bidding of its master. And its master would be anyone who possessed the amulet.

  This amulet was rumored to have been destroyed around three hundred years ago, give or take a decade or two.

  Destroying demon-filled objects seemed like a good plan to me. But if it might actually still exist?

  Bad plan.

  Even worse was that glint of distinct interest I saw in Thierry’s gray eyes on the taxi ride over here from our hotel when he’d mentioned the amulet again. It was only for a moment, but it was enough to make my stomach do a very unpleasant and uncoordinated hula dance.

  Thierry wasn’t always quite as awesome as he is now—there was a time when he was power hungry and didn’t particularly care who he hurt. And he’d never told me just what he planned to do with that amulet had it ever got into his possession. And, yeah, maybe that did worry me just a smidgeon.

  A microscopic smidgeon.

  I hooked my arm through his as we entered through the ornate front doors into a house that looked like a cross between Spartacus and the Playboy Mansion. Expansive black marble floors. Thick Roman columns. A massive crystal chandelier hanging above our heads. A winding staircase with gold railings that looked like something out of a movie—an expensive one that had no possible chance to recoup its budget.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “Welcome to Lifestyles of the Rich and Snotty.”

  “Yes, welcome,” a tuxedoed butler said, nodding slightly to acknowledge us. He made me jump, since he seemingly appeared out of nowhere. “Your host will be joining you soon, at which time the auction will begin. Please join the others in the parlor and enjoy some hors d’ouevres and champagne until then.”

  “And who might our host be?” Thierry’s cool, appraising gaze swept the foyer before landing on the butler.

  “Your questions will be answered in due time, sir. The parlor is just ahead through those doors. Please, enjoy yourselves and let me or the other servants know if you require anything further.”

  He moved away without another word.

  “Mysterious host,” I said. “Ominous mansion. Creepy invitation with dubious intentions. But, hey, at least there’s free champagne.”

  “I knew you’d find the bright side to all of this.”

  I blew out a shaky breath. “We’re leaving the moment we can. Promise me you are not going to do anything crazy.”

  Thierry gave me a pointed look. “I don’t do crazy, Sarah.”

  That was debatable. But . . . okay.

  If the foyer looked like Hugh Hefner visits Rome, the parlor was way more Downton Abbey. I swear, it felt as if I’d stepped back in time. Which, since I’d done that fairly recently for real, was a bit disconcerting.

  There were at least twenty guests here, milling about and chatting with one another.

  As a maid walked by, I snatched a flute of champagne off her tray and took a long sip.

  “Sir?” the maid asked. “Would you like one as well?”

  “I’d prefer a cranberry juice.”

  “Of course. I’ll be back in a moment.” She moved off toward a door at the back of the room.

  “No champagne?” I asked.

  “Not in the mood.”

  Due to a rare addiction to blood that brought out his dark side, Thierry avoided the red stuff whenever he could. At his age, he didn’t need to drink blood to survive. But he still had a preference for crimson-colored beverages.

  “So, here we are,” I said, glancing around the group.

  “Yes, here we are.” His gaze cut across the crowd. “And there are more surprises. I know several people in attendance.”

  “You do?” Everyone was a stranger to me. But when you were as old as Thierry, your Facebook friend list got a bit long. “Like who?”

  “Andrew Myles.” He said this only loud enough for me to hear it. His attention was fixed on a dark-haired man on the other side of the room, one with a thick body like a football linebacker and round glasses that magnified his eyeballs to twice their size. “One of the Ring’s elders.”

  A breath caught in my throat. “One of the elders is here?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t sound thrilled about this, but I wasn’t all that surprised. There was no love lost between Thierry and his new employers. He hadn’t exactly accepted the job because he relished the chance to sign fifty years of his life away—a standard Ring contract—literally in blood. “But, really, I can’t be that surprised. Andrew would be the one most interested in acquiring the amulet for himself.”

  My mouth had gone dry so I took another swig of my champagne. “Will he cause a problem?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Great. More reason for us to skedaddle as soon as inhumanly possible.” Another person who stood next to Andrew caught my eye. “Is that . . . No, it couldn’t be. Wait—yes it is. Is that Sasha Evans?”

  Thierry blinked. “It is.”

  “Sasha Evans here? I mean, I know this is California, but . . .” Color me starstruck. Sasha Evans was a beautiful, blond, and willowy A-list movie star known for her two Oscars as well as her long list of infamously stormy relationships with some of the hottest actors in Hollywood.

  I was a major fan of both her movies and her scandals.

  “Sasha’s collection rivaled my own at one time. I’ve seen her at many events like this over the centuries.”

  I tore my gaze away from the gorgeous blond actress to stare at my husband. “You’re telling me she’s a vampire?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. Some say she’s a witch, too, but that’s more from reputation than magical ability.”

  “A vampire. But . . . how is it possible that no one’s found out the truth?”

  “Well, this is Hollywood. I’d give her a couple more years before she likely stages her own death so no one wonders why cosmetic surgery has preserved her so very well for her rumored age.”

  Sasha Evans was a vampire. The tabloids would love that little piece of gossip.

  “I see the Darks are here as well.” His words were now coated in a layer of disapproval. “They don’t come out very often.”

  “The Darks?”

  “Yes, Anna and Frederic Dark, the couple to your left in the corner looking deeply morose.”

  I glanced over to where he gestured to see two people with impossibly pale skin and hair so white that I would’ve guessed they were albinos if it weren’t for their black eyes. They wore black from head to toe.

  “They’re rather . . . dramatic.” They were the physical representations of what most people expected when you said “vampire.” Very goth, very pale. And they were engaged in some deep conversation as they ignored the rest of the party. “You know, I’ve seen something like them before. That girl I met in Las Vegas, the one who stayed underground so long that the sun now burns her.”

  “Yes, the Darks are the same—by choice. Some vampires have taken it upon themselves to become, as they say, purified, which to them means avoiding the sunlight completely. But it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. They avoid the sun, so eventually the sun harms them after they lose pigment and their eyes turn permanently black. They take this as a sign that they’re evolved—it’s like a religion to them. Their faction would like all vampires to behave the same.” His expression darkened. “Sometimes this is used as punishment for a vampire, forcing them to remain in darkness until they can no longer walk in the sunlight. It’s a very long and painful process to return to
normal.”

  There was something in the way he said it, something that made a chill run down my spine. “You’ve experienced this personally, haven’t you?”

  A small, humorless smile touched his lips. “You need another glass of champagne.”

  I sure did.

  The maid returned with a tray of champagne and one highball glass with cranberry juice. Thierry took it from her with thanks and handed me a fresh flute of the bubbly.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I said.

  “You know I don’t like to talk about my past.”

  “Oh, I know. But sometimes when you say nothing, it tells me everything.” I swallowed past the lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat. “It hurts me to know you’ve been through so much pain in the past.”

  He smiled and leaned over to softly kiss me. “I’ve survived. I’m here with you now and all is well, Sarah. Never better, actually.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  His gaze moved to something over my shoulder and his expression hardened. “Oh no. She’s here.”

  “What? Who’s here?” Alarmed, I turned around to see what had coaxed such an unpleasant reaction. “Oh crap.”

  I promptly swallowed the rest of my champagne in one greedy gulp.

  “My dear Sarah! My darling Thierry!” The “she” in question made a beeline toward us and clasped my face between her hands to kiss me noisily on both cheeks. Then she did the same to Thierry. “What a wonderful surprise to see you both. It’s been much too long!”

  Not nearly long enough in my estimation.

  The woman rivaled Sasha for being the most beautiful in the room. Where Sasha was pale elegance, Veronique was raven haired, couture styled, Louboutin pumped, and had the face of an angel and the body of a lingerie model.

  And did I mention she was Thierry’s ex-wife?

  “Veronique.” A smile—which looked more like a grimace—drew Thierry’s upper lip back from his teeth. “You look lovely, as always.”

  “I do try.” She flashed me a killer smile. “As does your darling little girlfriend.”