Heir to the Coven

Natasha Carmichael: Book One

Melissa Leister

Text copyright © 2009 by Melissa Leister

Cover photo copyright © 2009 by Melissa Leister

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The characters and events portrayed in this publication are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN 1448648645

EAN-13 9781448648641

Acknowledgements

To my grandmother who loved to read and instilled that love in my mother, who instilled it in me. Thank you.

Mom, thank you.

A big thank you goes out to my friend Tiffany aka FrenchMocha. You were my cheerleader and my sounding board for this novel.

I also wish to thank all my friends at the soaps board who encouraged me to write. Without your enthusiasm for my words I doubt I would have had the nerve to try this.

I also need to thank the Labines, who have no idea who I am, but without whom I would not know how to write a love story or a love triangle.

Prologue

“Will Natasha come back?”

That was the question dozens of lips whispered. Some of those lips asked the question with dread, others with hope. At night, while I dreamed in a fevered sleep from denying my body what it craved, those voices pulsed through my veins and invaded my thoughts so that I could hear the distant worryings of my former family as clearly as if they stood in the next room talking about me.

Would I go back? Did I want to go back? Did I really have a choice?

I knew Rainor my former mentor was dying, his preternatural strength finally giving way to human failings, something no one thought would ever happen to me and I wanted to be there for him as he had been there for me when I was weaker. I knew what my duty was, but that city was full of things I did not want to fall back into. Some ties should not be renewed and if I went back…well, let’s just say some areas would not go smoothly.

And yet for all my nighttime doubts, there came a morning when I awoke with my blood quiet and I began packing my bags to return home.

Chapter 1

I won’t bore you with the details of my trip home, I’ll only say that when I saw that house looming before me yet again, I was reminded of the first time I laid eyes on it and the differences in my status.

“Out you go girlie. Stop your sniveling and grab your bag.”

“I’m not sniveling you over stuffed halfwit.”

“It’s a lippy little thing you are girlie and that won’t be tolerated here.”

“I spent eleven years living with the vampires and three with the Elders. There is nothing in that house to scare me.”

“Neither one of those lot wanted to keep you did they? No need to be so uppity about it then.”

“Ms. Carmichael,” the driver said politely. “Ms. Carmichael?”

“What?” There was a snarl to my voice that I did not mean it to have.

The driver took a step back and bowed his head. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn madam.”

“I’m sorry Max. I was lost in my thoughts. The last thing I want is people walking on eggshells around me.” He continued to stare at the ground. I sighed and said, “Please take my bags inside.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Damn! Home for less than five minutes and I was already screwing it up. I really was better off as a foot soldier or the lone hunter taking down my prey instead of as a leader who was equal parts general and politician these days. Just point me at what I had to kill and I was a happy woman, don’t make me have to deal with other people. With another sigh I stepped away from the car and went towards the house with Max trailing behind me.

At the door stood two black leather clad guards. There were others just out of sight, but not out of sensing range, stationed all around the grounds. I did not recognize any of them, but when the front door opened and I stepped inside, a familiar voice called out to me.

“Well, well, the Little One returns.”

“Kain!”

Kain had been Rainor’s enforcer since I gave up the post and he had called me Little One practically forever because at five foot four inches I looked like a doll next to his nearly seven foot frame. He was the only one that could get away with calling me that even though we both knew that I could take him out if I had too. We clasped hands and grinned at each other.

“How’s Mercy?” I asked. Mercy had been Kain’s girlfriend for ages and if I was going to call anyone my friend, it would be her.

“Fine. She’ll be happy you’re home.”

“Scared you’ll wind up in charge?”

“Scared I’ll end up dead.”

All the muscles in my body tensed. So it was going to be a battle for the crown. Did I want to fight? Why not just let whoever wanted the coven have it and move on with my life of independent wandering? Because, I reminded myself, this is what I owed to Rainor. Later I could leave, but for now I had to do what was required of me.

Kain put his hand on my shoulder slowly so I knew what he was about and didn’t tear his arm off. “Easy. No one will challenge you Natasha; they’re too scared. There has been a lot of talk about what you have been doing with yourself and for the time being it will keep them in line.”

“That remains to be seen, but there are still outside forces to consider. Other people who will think they have a say in who steps into Rainor’s shoes. How are things with the vampires?”

Kain sighed. “The truce holds a little firmer here than elsewhere, but with Rainor slipping away….”

“You think they’ll try something.” It was not a question. Of course they would try something, vampires were always looking for an angle to exploit. In the name of the truce they would offer to help us in our time of mourning and soon any business they oversaw would never quite make its way back to us and any streets they looked after to keep “invaders” out would shortly thereafter be considered theirs.

“It’s only a matter of time. Do you want me to set up a meeting?”

“I’m not in charge yet, Kain. As long as Rainor is breathing this is his house and I am his servant.”

“Of course Natasha.”

“Will he see me now?”

Kain nodded. “That’s why I’m here. He told me to bring you to him as soon as you were ready.”

Would I ever be ready to see Rainor dying? They said it was cancer and that was not a pretty death. I had known him for almost 100 years and soon he would be gone. When I first arrived at this house, fourteen and miserable in a house full of what I considered to be noisy rude people compared to the what I had known, Rainor had looked like a well-kept man of forty, but time passed for him while I remained twenty-something in appearance. That was the curse of being half-caste; you could never tell what vampire traits were going to be inherited. Some got the fangs, others the claws. Some had preternatural speed or strength. Some aged slowly, like Rainor, others never aged past their first few years of true adulthood. Most of us had combinations of all kinds that made us a mixed bag of tricks. I had everything a vampire did except the fangs.

A half-caste was an unusual creature in nature’s grand plan. The first vampires were a separate race that bred as humans do, but they were hunted during the daylight and soon there were not many left for all their power and cunning. To increase their numbers, they experimented with new ways to procreate. It was discovered the way to make more vampires was to drain a human to the point of death and then to force them to drink the blood of the vampire that drained them. It was also discovered that if you fed a pregnant human woman vampire blood her child would be born normal, but come to have vampire powers and the ability to withstand the sun’s rays at puberty. Since no half-caste was ever quite as strong as a vampire or in possession of a full set of powers, they were deemed lesser and sentenced to be the daytime guards of their creators. Even our name, half-caste, was a slight. Vampires called their bloodline based groups castes and looked upon those not of the same blood with suspicion. They might let a wandering vampire from another caste join their “family” if they were deemed worthy because they were at least still a vampire, but we were always on the outside. The very name of our race branded us as not all we should be. But we were better and stronger than humans, so half-castes were key in helping the vampire population swell. Then one day we were key in cutting that population down to a manageable number.

One particularly strong half-caste, named Soong, lead an elite group known as the Order. These were the half-castes you called when things were really dark. Most people feared calling for their aid more than facing whatever was challenging them. Soong discovered a secret, if a strong half-caste drank vampiric blood, their powers increased. Of course once the half-caste stopped drinking the blood they gradually went back to the way they were, but the vampires didn’t like this at all. It did not matter that anyone not strong enough to join the Order was usually destroyed by drinking the blood so it was not like all half-castes could be turned into killing machines, but the Order alone was enough of a threat without the blood that they needed to be stopped before they rose up and made the vampires slaves.

The vampires tried to kill Soong and Soong wiped out their Council. His people were their personal bodyguards so it was a cakewalk. I wish I had been there to see it; vampires were an uppity group that needed to be taken down a few thousand pegs. Their faces must have been priceless when their guards grabbed them by their hair, yanked back their heads and drained them dry. A war broke out and it raged for centuries before my birth. My birth did not help matters in the slightest. By the time I was created, vampires were forbidden to caste any more half-castes, but the home team needed new players so they would capture a vampire and feed its blood to pregnant women and a new half-caste was born in due time. The vampire who made me, Lucius, had been born a vampire and he decided he wanted to make the ultimate weapon for his caste of vampires, the Hadi, to protect his pure blooded neck if anyone managed to get by his other guards.

My mother, Melisande, was his dessert or human companion used for a quick sip of blood or a quick lay, and he made sure she got pregnant and he made sure he fed her his blood every day until I was born. Being a dessert has its perks, all the blood your Master feeds you keeps you young forever, or until they got bored with you and tossed you aside for the aging to begin, and you got to be dressed up like a chihuahua in Hollywood, but sometimes you got unpleasant tasks like this. Giving birth to me killed her and I was not what was expected. Lucius thought I would be like a born vampire of old, an infant for a few hours and then rapidly growing to adulthood, but I was just a baby. Like any half-caste, my powers did not appear until puberty. Boy did they appear, but he was disappointed and he had lost his favorite dessert so I was tossed aside like an old doll.

“Tash!” Mercy’s voice broke into my thoughts.

“Mercy, I was wondering where you were. Kain was all by himself to greet me.”

Mercy smiled. “I know you aren’t big on family scenes so I waited.”

“And you weren’t sure what mood I’d be in.”

“Natasha I’ve never thought for a second that you would hurt any of us.”

I wanted to tell her that was true, that I was happy she believed I was not a danger, but I knew what I was and so did she and her trust could get her killed. “That is not a safe assumption to make. Any half-caste entering this house is a threat until proved otherwise. I was a friend once, it doesn’t mean I am still to be trusted.”

Mercy’s already pale skin turned a shade of white that almost made me look tan. “Then you mean us harm?”

“Would I tell you if I did?” If this was what had become of Rainor’s coven then he must have been slipping for a long time. Once upon a time Mercy would have had her back lashed for slips such as these. But it was not my place to chastise her, yet. The vampires must be taking full advantage if things had gotten so lax.

My head was starting to ache at the mess I was going to inherit. I looked at Mercy’s brown eyes, wide with fear, and remembered my younger days running around town with her and Kain, laughing it up amid a war. If I had a best friend at any point in my life, it was her so why was I trying to frighten her? Because, my calculating brain reminded me, in the not too distant future I was going to be Mistress here and the head of a house did not have friends; they had subordinates who did as they were told out of fear and respect. I was establishing both. Her brown eyes peered into mine, looking to see if mine had turned the blood red a vampire’s would if they were about to strike, one of my powers, but mine were their usual green and hers slid away. I could all but hear her thinking that if I were this tense when I wasn’t about to strike what was I like when I was? “Mercy, we’re friends, but things have changed since I left and things will change after…I need to get my feet back under me. I’ve been on my own for a while. The walls feel like they are caving in on me from the pressure of all the eyes.”

“So the rumors are true?”

I chuckled. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

Mercy was asking if I had joined Soong’s Order when I left this house decades ago. Membership was a secret. The story was if you knew someone belonged to the Order it was the last thing you knew because you were dead in the next second. The vampires’ elite guard was now the half-caste Elders’ group of assassins and their identities were kept a secret. The Soong, as members were called, drank vampire blood as their sole nourishment and had the ability to pass for full-blood vampires when the need arose. Since the war ended, there was a tentative agreement that the new vampire Council could call on the Order, but the Soong were no longer required to respond.

“Nastasha, where have you been all this time?”

“No place good Mercy.”

While we talked, we had walked towards Rainor’s door. The guard bowed his head to me as I passed by, Mercy waited in the hall. I had faced some tough situations in my life, but I don’t think anything ever made me as nervous as walking up to that bed did. What was he going to look like? Would he smile to see me after all this time? Was he mad about what I took with me when I left? I walked to his bedside and knelt with my head bowed. It was the appropriate greeting to give the coven Master and it gave me a few more moments to steel myself for what I was going to see.

“Rise, Natasha,” Rainor’s voice said. It was the same voice I had heard for years only slightly weaker.

I got to my feet and looked down at him. The skin had withered and the hair had grayed, but I could still see Rainor in that dying body. “Why didn’t you send for me sooner?”

“I tried, but you are not easy to find and what could you have done? You cannot hold back death my dear.”

“No, but I could have eased your burden.”

“You would have me believe you began the return process the instant you heard I was dying?”

I smirked. “No. My blood heard their whispers, wondering if I would return, so I asked around and found out the truth. I had a decision to make.”

“Good girl.”

“Bad girl.”

“Being both is not a bad thing Natasha.”

“But the bad girl is more fun.”

“Is it really? I think it’s just easier.”

“Is anything easy?”

Rainor laughed and it turned into a cough. I handed him the glass of water on his nightstand and waited. He said, “You’re not going to deflect me, my dear. I have a question that you will be required to answer before I turn the coven over to you.”

“Some questions really are best left unanswered.”

“Not this one.”

Time to change the subject. “May ask about the situation in the city, sir?”

“I’m dying, the vampires want to control the entire city and my coven is in a tizzy wondering if you’ll stick around to rule things or simply play clean up and leave once again.”

“I plan to start by playing clean up. Do you want me to meet with the vampires, let them know your heir is in place?”

“Yes. Take Kain with you, I know you don’t need him, but it will show them you are supported and protected.”

“As you wish.”

“Please Natasha, do try to behave yourself at the meeting.”

I grinned. “I promise not to kill any of them unless they come at me first.”

“That’s not exactly what I was talking about.”

I was not getting a good feeling about this. “Is Vincent opposed to my taking over?”

Vincent was the vampire Master in the city. He would have good reason not to want me in charge, I had killed a lot of his people and I had made a rather startling deal with his second shortly before I left that got me what I wanted, but made him look weak.

“Vincent is no longer their Master. About a week after you left, he was killed.”

“One of us killed him? Who?”

“Not one of us, his successor.”

Vampire rules of succession were a lot like half-caste ones. The next ruler had to kill the previous one unless the former Master died in battle. Oh, no. “Who took his throne?”

“Anton.”

Shit.

Chapter 2

Since the meeting with the vampires was set for the next night I spent the next day sleeping and unpacking. Kain met with me for an hour before the meeting to make sure I knew where things stood. Simple version: we ran everything to the river and they ran everything past that; no one’s people crossed that line without permission or a death wish. Things were going well, but could be going better since Rainor’s illness had kept his attention away from business.

“Ok, have the accountants and managers ready to meet tomorrow. I want to know what’s earning us money and what’s a drain on our resources.”

“Planning to sell?”

“I’ll run it by Rainor first, of course, but it’s bait cutting time. It sounds like we’re over extended and I’d rather have five outstanding businesses than ten mediocre ones.”

“Since when do you know business Tash?”

I smiled, but didn’t reply. Max came to say the car was ready. I picked up my fitted black leather jacket, slipped my arms into the sleeves and lifted my dark hair free from beneath the collar.

Kain said, “Think you’ve got enough leather on?”

So my pants were black leather too. And the corset over my red silk tank top. “You’re one to talk Kain, we match except for the red silk.”

“He’s going to comment.”

“Who?”

“You know who. He’s going to comment and you’re going to pop off.”

“I’ve learned not to pop off. I’m 109 years old!”

“Being in your eighties didn’t stop you, what’s another twenty years or so? There’s a pool going to see how long it takes until you hit him.”

“He’s our ally. Even when he wasn’t our ally I never hit him.”

“We’ll see.”

We were arguing about Anton. I had re-met Anton as an adult when I returned to the coven after an absence in the 1980s, but we had known each other when I was just a little girl. Lucius had turned Anton into a vampire 500 years ago and the jerk still liked to needle like a thirteen year old boy. I had had purple hair the last time our paths crossed. He called me a street urchin and I spit in his face. But I didn’t hit him. I pointed that out to Kain as we slid into the car. He only laughed.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the meeting location. I’ll admit we didn’t exactly tell the vampires Rainor was sending a replacement. I was hoping to throw them a little. Through the tinted window I could see Anton sliding out his limo behind his three guards and glancing back at mine. I should have known he would sense me; he was always able to sense when I was near. He had not changed much in the two decades since I last saw him except his black hair was now short and worn in a spiky style. His black eyes still crackled with vitality and his face was still sharply gorgeous. He was dressed in a suit that screamed expensive.

Kain slid out first and held the door open for me. I could see him smirking as he saw Anton’s suit and glanced back at my leathers. I raised a brow at him and slid out. I heard the vampires hiss. They felt slighted Rainor had not come and those who recognized me were not pleased. I winked at them.

“Greetings cousins. Rainor could not be here tonight so he sent me as his second.”

A tall blonde vampire snarled. “We are not cousins!”

I raked him with my eyes. Being near any vampire gave me a prickling sensation, but a vampire who was Hadi I could feel a mile away and this one was not a Hadi. “No, we’re not related at all. Where did you find him Anton? The SPCA?”

The vampire growled.

Anton laughed. “Easy Tristan. Natasha likes to nettle and if she knows she can get to you she won’t stop.”

“A fine way to speak about your sister.” He hated when I called him my brother because he did not think of me in a familial way and no vampire liked to be reminded half-castes shared their illustrious blood.

“Do you see what I mean Tristan?”

Tristan said, “Yes Master.”

“Then you know you must restrain yourself or I will give you to her.”

Well that was unexpected. Anton was using me as a threat to keep his man in line and he was warning them there were consequences to slighting me. Very unexpected indeed. Damn. My manners were going to have to improve and I wanted to get a few more cuts in on him.

I inclined my head towards Anton, as the half-caste second should to the vampire Master now that we were all friends. “I take it my arrival was unexpected.”

“As you planned.”

“You need better spies then.”

“How is Rainor?”

The question was spoken with enough care and conviction I found myself wanting to answer honestly. But then Anton had once been my safe haven as a child and telling him my secrets had been a habit. This was going to be a very touchy working relationship. Oh, bad choice of words, I said to myself. “Our leader is being well taken care of and it is our hope that his path is an easy one.”

Anton raised a brow at me. I saw Kain’s mouth twitch when he realized where I must have gotten that habit from. Anton said, “Well spoken. It is not my wish to make any transitions harder. I came here tonight to offer Rainor my assistance with any matters he might not feel up to handling on his own, but I see he has a capable second at his side.”

The shock this statement gave the vampires with Anton was palpable. I think Kain’s jaw dropped for a second, but my own surprise was so great I really wasn’t paying that much attention. He was backing off?

Anton continued, “I know leadership is a new role for you Natasha, so I offer my services as a mentor should you need any guidance.”

Not backing off, regrouping. Same package new wrapping. I had my own plans. “Actually there is something I wanted to discuss with you. Tomorrow I plan to devote my time to going over our businesses. I want to know what we have and what we shouldn’t. Once I have a better grasp of our standing, I was thinking of trying something new. How would you feel about a joint venture?”

I had his attention. Anton took a step closer and Kain bristled. I held out my hand to keep the enforcer in his place. Anton said, “A joint venture?”

“Yes. This city has half-caste clubs and vampire clubs and the humans who aren’t vampire groupies pretty much gawk at both but stay away unless one of us pays one of their establishments a visit for kicks. We are missing out on a valuable cash crop. I want to capitalize on their curiosity about us. Why not open a club run by both of our people that allows anyone to enter? You don’t eat the clientele and we won’t kill you.”

Tristan laughed. “Master, this is absurd! There is no way we can share space with them and humans in the mix is simply a temptation for one of our brothers or sisters to slip so they can justify wiping us out.”

Anton’s white hand lashed out and Tristan was on the ground. If he had been human I doubt his neck would still be in one piece. “Who gave you leave to speak?” Anton’s eyes had gone red.

Tristan wiped blood from his mouth. “No one, Master.”

“Then hold your tongue or I will hold it for you.”

Tristan’s head bowed.

Anton turned his attention back to me. “An interesting suggestion Natasha. May I ask why you of all people want this meshing of societies?”

I had to be careful how I said this. “Because someone else maybe taking advantage of an opportunity we missed.”

“What have you heard?”

“There are rumors that someone is violating certain trade agreements. Quiet rumors, but ones that travel far.”

“Only if you have good ears.”

“Mine are excellent.”

Anton smirked. “From what I’ve heard, excellent could be an understatement.”

“Do you really want to know for sure?”

“No.”

Now it was my turn to smirk. “If we establish a better trust we can see if someone isn’t willing to play nice or if someone is trying to start a fight.”

“We can also keep an eye on those who like to get too close to things they shouldn’t. They are the ones that lead to trouble.”

“Exactly.”

“I will give this matter serious thought Natasha. I will let you know my decision.” Anton extended his hand.

It was a dodgy thing to shake a vampire’s hand. They all have claws and it gave them a really good chance to rake open your wrists. But my reflexes were as good as theirs and I had my own claws. I took his hand and shook it. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

Summoning Kain, I headed back towards the car. I didn’t look behind me, but I had the feeling Anton was looking at my ass as I walked away. Once we were inside, Kain asked, “What the hell was that about Tash?”

“I didn’t just come back to take over Kain. We have a big problem brewing and if you haven’t heard about it, it could be bigger than I thought.”

“How big?”

“The treaty has been violated and it happened in our city.”

Kain had no comeback for that one.

When the war began, we needed to be able to replace those we lost, so half-caste covens began abducting vampires, draining their blood and feeding it to our pregnant women or to willing pregnant human women. Needless to say the vampires did not like this and they made it part of the peace treaty that this “act of rape” as they called it be stopped. We had agreed only if, after 50 years of peace, they lifted their internal ban on making half-castes so vampires could willingly make them again. Three months before my return, a half-caste baby had been born in this city. The mother said she was kept in a room and fed blood by someone who had warm skin, but who was very strong, she had seen him rip a door off its hinges in a fit of rage.

It sounded like one of us was making half-castes again, especially when there were rumors of vampires in the city going missing and we weren’t supposed to be killing them for fun anymore. There were a lot of half-castes that were not happy with the peace so violating the treaty and increasing our numbers would benefit them, but the fact remained that vampires could swell their numbers in a few hours while it took us nine months and close to two decades to have a mature half-caste at full strength. It was incredibly stupid to spark a new war this way. But a vampire who hated the treaty could make a new half-caste and make the mother lie about her pre-birth experiences. And a vampire trying to spark a war was not a good thing either. Our Elders wanted the peace kept and their Council said they wanted the same. That meant we had to find out whose side was creating this problem and why before enough vampires disappeared that Anton had to act and everyone’s attention was drawn and it could not be ignored.

Kain shook his head. “Rainor never said a word to me. My sources in town haven’t mentioned a thing. Was he testing my skills?”

“I doubt it. He and Anton knew. I assumed Rainor thought if you found out on your own, fine, if not, it was best kept quiet. I don’t think Anton told his people either. After all, the person responsible could be one of our own.”

“So I’m a suspect?” Kain’s body had gone tense.

I put my hand on his arm. “I’m coming into this fresh. I know a lot of the players, but I haven’t been part of this game in awhile, loyalties can change. I know you Kain, I know you are loyal to the core, but you lost as many people to this war as I have and that could be an issue. At this point everyone is a suspect, but you’re low on the list for me.”

“Well that’s comforting,” he dryly. After a few moments of silence he said, “You knew before you came.” It was not a question.

“I’ve always been close to the Elders since they looked after me for several years. They are concerned.”

“Did they send you here for this?”

“Did the Elders send me? No, the Elders didn’t. Rainor’s condition just worked to my advantage.”

“So the club…”

“Is actually a good business move, but it will let us see which humans are vampire groupie enough to possibly agree to be breeding stock if the vampires are making half-castes and which humans think half-castes are a good way to get a taste without getting bit back. Because this could still be a human girlfriend lying for her half-caste lover.”

“So you’ll be paying her a visit?” he asked.

“Thinking about it. I don’t want to tip my hand too soon and have everyone know that I had two reasons for coming back. For now I want the city to think I’m only here to take over the coven.”

We rode in silence back to the house. I was trying to decide my next best course of action about everything and I suspected Kain was still stung by the fact that he wasn’t given absolution from wrong doing at the start. As I started to get out of the car, Kain’s voice halted me.

He said, “I was thinking the whole way home how lucky we are the Order didn’t just descend upon us all and wipe out every vampire and half-caste in this city to protect the peace. I mean they never lost the right to kill one of ours without explanation to the coven leader, but since the war ended, the Order’s right to kill any vampire in any city without a by your leave from their Master or their Council was reinstated. Not that they didn’t do that during the war, but now their kills don’t violate the treaty. Those who belong to Soong can kill anyone anywhere.”

“They are vicious enough to take out an entire city without sending an emissary to investigate first. It would send a strong message. One more thing to worry about.”

As I walked towards the house, I could feel Kain’s eyes boring into my back. No one ever said I was the comforting type.

Chapter 3

The basement of the coven house was outfitted as a training area. New members learned how to fight and the rest of us honed our skills there. At this particular moment I was hitting things to help me think. Most people would question if training was still necessary, but aside from preparation should the peace fail, there were always vampires who did not belong to Anton to be killed if they hunted in the city and Anton’s vampires to be chased back where they belonged if they strayed into our area. The rules for who could hunt where and why were complicated. Anton’s people could hunt his territory and kill their victims if they wanted, so long as they kept it quiet, but they could not even take a sip from a human in our territory without our permission. No vampire could drink from a human in our city without Anton’s permission and if any vampire killed their dinner and it made the news, they were up for grabs from either side. We couldn’t kill Anton’s people and his people couldn’t kill ours unless one of us killed of the other without a legitimate reason. Fun no longer counted as a legitimate reason. The same rules tended to apply across the board now that the war was over. As Kain said, only one group could hunt a city at will for a half-caste or vampire without permission and without rebuke, and they were the Order.

Soong’s Order.

I hit the punching bag too hard and put my hand through it. The last thing this situation needed was the Order stepping in full force and taking everyone with a drop of vampire blood in them out. I needed to find out who made the new half-caste and where the missing vampires went, if not into casting that baby, sooner rather than later. My plan to open an all inclusive club would be a good start, but that meant I would have to turn one of our existing businesses into what I needed. Starting from scratch would take too long. Good, that meant I could put off that part until my meetings tomorrow. Next worry: Anton.

He had been a little too accommodating to me tonight. That usually meant he was up to something. I went to the cabinet and took out the stars to practice tossing beheading throws. It also didn’t hurt to practice pinning someone to a wall with them either. Plus it was fun. But I was getting off topic. Anton. He was most likely at home calling me his pet half-caste and cheering my pending ascension as being the same thing as him running our territory because I had the same blood as ninety-five percent of those who served him. This was the one time he would not mind reminding his vampires that I was Hadi and I had climbed out of the car and declared it for him. Damn it! I had compounded it by playing right into his hand, before he even knew he had a hand, by offering to share a business with him.

The stars thunked into the wooden target with a vengeance.

It was still a good idea, I told myself. We would be equal partners and if he gave me crap I could always star his ass to the wall. Just picturing that made me laugh.

“Does that mean you’re done killing the equipment?”

“Dawn!”

“In the flesh baby. I can’t believe I was on patrol when you got in yesterday.”

“What did you do to get sentenced to a week of border patrol?”

“Kain told you.”

“Kain. Mercy. Gabriel. Harris. The guy who delivered the paper to the house this morning.”

Dawn snorted. “Like you were up when the paper was delivered.”

If there was one member of the coven who did not look like a half-caste, it was Dawn. She was all golden hair and tanned skin. Put her on a beach and she could be Miss July. Actually you could put her on that beach for the next fifty years and she could still be Miss July. “Spill.”

“I pissed off Kain.”

“By?”

“He and Mercy had a fight so I sent her a stripper to cheer her up.”

“Very nice.”

“I thought so.”

Mercy and I had been friends for decades before Dawn joined us. In fact Mercy and Dawn had buddied up while I had been away the first time. I came back and the three of us hit it off. “No one ever said Kain lacked a sense of humor.”

“Well I figured since you were back to protect me maybe the three of us could have a girls night out tonight. It’s only eleven, we could hit the clubs.”

Did Rainor’s heir have the right to go party? It would not be dignified. What the hell? What fun was living forever if you spent all your time being serious? Besides the city needed to get a look at me. “I’ll go change.”

*****

“Why is it when I dress like a human I look all the more like a vampire?” I asked when no one else at the bar would come near me except Dawn and Mercy.

Mercy laughed. “You look beautiful Tash, you just give off a vibe. It can be intimidating.”

“It’s the skin and the way you move,” Dawn said. “It screams vampire. You could pass if you had fangs.”

I laughed. “The red eyes when I’m pissed are more than enough. I don’t need fangs on top of that.”

Dawn said, “If I had everything you did I wouldn’t bother hiding it, I’d flaunt it.”

“And then the Elders would come kill her for showing the world there were things very like vampires who could walk in the daylight,” Mercy said.

“The public knows about us already.”

“They know about your average half-caste, Dawn, they don’t know about half-castes like Natasha. Maybe it was a mistake to go to a human bar.”

“Ladies,” I said. “Tonight is supposed to be fun not a debate about the fundamentals of our society. We came here to have fun and to let the vampires know I will be keeping an eye on our humans. Let’s have fun.”

Dawn saluted me. “One round of fun coming up, Tash.”

She ordered a round of shots, but I changed mine to a non-alcoholic concoction that was mostly chocolate. I saw them eying me, but all I said was, “Sweet tooth. Besides me drunk would be a dangerous thing.”

“Speaking of sweet teeth,” Dawn said, “I heard Anton couldn’t take his eyes off you. I always thought he wanted you and the guy is hot.”

“And a vampire. I am no one’s dessert.”

“I am no one’s dessert!” I had snarled that at Anton twenty-six years ago when he made me a counter offer on my deal. I had offered to ally my coven with his caste to chase out the invading force trying to pit us against each other in exchange for sharing the city and he had said he would only go against Vincent, who had refused me, if I slept with him on a night of his choosing.

“One night does not make you a dessert. Blood and years of service do that.” His eyes had run over me from head to foot and blazed red.

“Well, I don’t ‘service’ anyone and I have enough vampire blood in me, thanks. Besides, we both know that the second I fall into your bed you’ll tell everyone that I am your creature to command.”

He reached out to stroke my hair, but I grabbed his hand. Anton smiled. “Such a rare thing you are Natasha. So close to being a vampire and yet still so human in your responses. I can be discreet, in fact my life often depends on that and in this case if things go badly and it’s learned I went against Vincent and lost our city for a piece of half-caste ass, my life will be over.”

“Are you saying you want me, but I’m not worth dying over? You do know how to flatter a girl brother dear.”

Anton snarled, as he always did when I called him brother. “No one is worth dying for Natasha; even you.”

“Is that why you left me? Better to give me over to the Elders than to possibly die trying to protect me from Lucius?”

“That is what you hold against me?”

“That is why I guard against you Anton. Your motto is ‘survival at all costs’, mine is ‘never count on anyone’.”

He sneered then. “Is that what you say to your boy? Oh, I’ve surprised you. Yes, I know about you two. Why not admit he is the reason you refuse me?”

“Leave him out of this!”

“Only if you will. What do you care about more, Natasha? Your city or your lover?”

“Why do you want to get me into bed Anton? To prove you can or because you know this is the only way you could ever have me?”

His hands lashed out to grasp my upper arms. Ten claws dug into my flesh as he yanked me towards him.

“Tash? Earth to Tash!” Mercy called.

I jumped a little on my stool. “Sorry, Mercy, I was thinking about times gone by. Being back here after all that time is stirring things up.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Who?” Even distracted I knew better than to answer that question without having it clarified first.

Mercy’s eyes widened. “You thought I meant Anton! Oh, my god Tash, he’s right when he goads you, isn’t he? Part of you is attracted to him.”

“I am not attracted to that arrogant, snide, over dressed prick.”

Dawn laughed. “Deny, deny, that’s all you ever do. Come on Natasha, just for once admit the guy makes your blood scream.”

“I am not having this conversation. Anton was a large part of my dubious childhood and, yes, I liked him very much until he dumped me on the Elders to save his own neck. Giving anyone blind trust is a mistake; one that could prove fatal to us all if I made it. My big brother has his uses, but warming my bed won’t be one of them.”

“You need to lighten up,” Dawn said without an indication that she was joining in with Mercy’s teasing. She was firmly criticizing me and I didn’t like it.

Now I had two choices. I could react like a friend, roll my eyes and ignore her impertinence or I could react like Rainor’s heir who had just had herself questioned by a subordinate and, well, do what I was about to do. I did say I am not a big people person. My hand shot out and I backhanded Dawn across the face, knocking her off her stool and onto the floor. For an instant she sat on the ground, stunned, but she got up and bared her teeth. If she had had the ability to snarl she would have been. Every pair of eyes in the place was glued to us except for Mercy’s; she bowed her head and stared demurely at her feet. Dawn took a step toward me.

Calmly, but firmly I said, “You forget your place. Now step back or I will permanently mark that pretty face of yours.” To add some punch to my threat, I held my right hand up with its fingers spread wide so that the lights above the bar could twinkle off my diamond bright claws that had been carefully filed to look like normal nails. Dawn did not regenerate quickly enough to heal cleanly, if I slashed her face she would carry my mark for the rest of her life. But I also had to be careful how far I took this in public. Chastising anyone in front of humans was considered bad form, but sometimes it had to be done. Before Dawn could push to see how far my adherence to the rules was, I put a snarl in my voice and said, “I only give one warning.”

It seemed to sink in that her friend was not going to give her a free pass this time. Dawn bowed her head and went to one knee. “Forgive me Mistress.”

“Return to the house and tell Kain you are at his bidding for the evening. I’ll decide if there’s anything further you need to do to earn my forgiveness in the morning.”

Dawn snapped to her feet and walked out. I sat back down and sipped my drink.

Here is an interesting commentary on human males. None of them would take a step near me when I was the icy brunette at the bar that they secretly feared might kill them, but seeing me bitch slap another woman had them all panting at my feet. I was literally surrounded five seconds after Dawn left. I looked over at Mercy and rolled my eyes. Her smile was hesitant and I knew she was reevaluating our friendship and me. She thought I overreacted to Dawn’s comment. Well, that was her problem to get over; I was no longer a child to feel stung when someone disapproved of me and seeking approval was not a quality that lent itself to a long life in a coven.

“Hey,” said the twenty-something looking man who took Dawn’s former stool. He had auburn hair and green eyes and just enough vampire blood in him to attract my attention, but not enough to be useful to anyone.

Just as not all vampires were required to live or associate with their castes, many roamed about alone, not all half-castes joined a coven. Usually the ones too weak to fight or who popped up accidentally because mom liked to get frisky with the undead and wanted no part of the war steered clear of coven life. Unlike vampires, our covens were a hodgepodge of bloodlines brought together by geography, or order of the Elders if one coven had too many strong fighters while another had too many weak members.

I raised a brow at him and turned to talk to Mercy.

“Christopher,” he said.

“James.”

“Huh?”

“I was tossing out a male name. Isn’t that the game we’re playing?”

“She has a sense of humor, I like it.”

“And he’s not intimidated by what he saw and he has a fraction of the power the woman I sent sprawling does. It means you’re either very self-assured or very stupid. Neither is very amusing.”

“Ok.”

Once again I tried to speak to Mercy when he tapped my shoulder. To Mercy I said, “It’s persistent isn’t it?”

“It told you its name,” Christopher said, “and it would like to know yours.”

I laughed. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a smart ass. I held out my hand. “Natasha.”

Christopher smiled. “Wow, an actual response. It must be my lucky night. I met a beautiful woman and managed not to get killed before I got her name. I was on shaky ground there I could tell.”

“Most people do not consider themselves lucky to have met me. Usually they run in the other direction.”

“Not me. Can I buy you a drink Natasha?”

I tapped the glass of chocolately goodness in front of me. “I’m covered.”

Christopher glanced over at Mercy. “What’s a guy have to do to impress your friend?”

Mercy smiled. “I’m staying out of this one.”

“Don’t want to end up on the floor?”

“No, for this she’d be more creative. Bleach in my shampoo or maybe ipecac in my morning cereal.”

“Now wait a second,” I interrupted. “You know I wouldn’t put ipecac in your breakfast Mercy. You get up at four to start guard duty and I’m still in bed.”

Mercy’s eyes bugged. “See, creative and so subtle with her threats.”

“What’s a girl have to do to dissuade you?” I asked.

“Secretly be a man,” he joked. “Come on, one dance. What could it hurt?”

I did come out to have fun and he was one of us, which meant he lacked most of the complications a human would come with. And it was just a dance. “Sure.”

I took his hand and let him lead me to the dance floor.

Chapter 4

Rainor was sitting up in bed with some color to his face when I arrived at his room after my meeting with our business managers and accountants. I tended to think it was knowing that I was here to ease his burden now and take over once he was gone that perked him up. I handed him the papers I had been given, along with my notes, and waited while he read them.

Rainor shuffled the papers back together and put them on his nightstand. “You want to turn the Kensington into your ‘hybrid’ club.”

“It’s near the vampire border and it’s not doing outstandingly as it is. Makes sense to either close it or convert it.”

“Beautiful, brainy and deadly. My kind of woman,” Rainor teased.

“Careful, you might give me bad ideas. I do like the bad boys.” I glanced over at the picture on the wall. The blonde woman smiled back at me above the scowling face of the little boy she embraced from behind. “You miss Claire a lot, don’t you?”

“She made me laugh and she gave me peace. I knew what loving a human meant, but I wouldn’t trade all our years together to escape the heartache of losing her.”

“So it was worth it then?” Not a question I would normally have asked, but his time was limited and he was one of the few people who I would ask such a thing of.

Rainor eyed me for a moment and instead of answering me he asked, “Have you ever been in love Natasha?”

“Now that’s a loaded question,” I said with an uncomfortable riff of laughter.

“That’s not an answer.”

Had I? I really didn’t know. I thought I was once, but the darkness in me and in him twisted it and in the end…well the end made me wonder if it had ever been love or even close to being love. The other time, I was too young to really know or to do anything about it if I was and then he left me so it did not matter what I felt.

“Natasha?”

Rainor obviously wasn’t going to let me off the hook. “Sorry, I was thinking.”

“If you have to think about it, the answer is no.”

“You sound disappointed,” I said. Rainor sighed, but did not comment. “I haven’t led the sort of life that lends itself to love. It’s an emotion that has been discouraged in me in every imaginable way and I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing.”

“No weakening of the inner walls?”

“The lone hunter.”

“Ah. But is the hunter lonely?”

“Can we talk about something else, please, sir?”

“Still out of contact with those feelings and still eating nothing but sugar. The cook tells me you eat cupcakes for breakfast, ice cream for lunch and chocolate bars for dinner.”

I laughed. “Are we going to delve the murky depths of my eating habits now?”

“No. But out of curiosity, how long will this last?”

I shrugged. “As long as I crave it.”

“Right.” Rainor rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“I’ll leave you to rest sir.”

“One more matter before you go my dear.”

“Yes?”

“Dawn.”

What could I say about Dawn? Did I tell Rainor that she was as she ever was, but that my patience for her had thinned? Or did I tell him that she lacked respect and needed to be disciplined? I didn’t want to be a tattletale, nor did I want to cover for someone who did not deserve it.

“Be honest Natasha. You chastised her in public, something must have happened last night.”

“I’m not sure if it’s my new lack of tolerance for her or if she will try to challenge me. Either way she’s likely to end up dead for it.”

“No lingering loyalty to old friends?”

“To Mercy and Kain, as much as I can safely allow, but to Dawn…we were never that close. Dawn was always fun, but our only real bond was Mercy.”

“Thank you, Natasha. That will be all.”

I bowed and left him to sleep. Out in the hall I sighed and leaned against the door. That had been an unexpected probe into my psyche. I had not realized how hard it would be to fit back into being one of many after being on my own for so long. Being around other people made them think they had rights to comment on your life. That had never sat well with me. What made them think they could pass judgment on what I did or felt or didn’t feel? I didn’t go around….this train of thought was going to have me hitting the next person who said hello to me.

I needed to get out of this house.

One of the perks about coven life were the cars. We had a garage full of them and from the day I had taken my now vacated position as Rainor’s enforcer I had not needed permission to use whichever one I wanted. Since it was a bright sunny day I took the convertible and went for a drive. Here was where I was really lucky; I might have the complexion of a vampire, but I didn’t burn. I healed sun damage as quickly and flawlessly as I regenerated from a knife wound. The only downside to me in the sun was how unearthly white it made me look. Usually I wound up with a dozen people asking me if I had sunscreen on.

The drive began to clear my head of account balances and renewing old ties. I found myself thinking about two things. First was the half-caste baby and who brought it over to our side. Second was Christopher. Who was I kidding? First I was thinking about him and then I was sparing a thought for the innocent child who could get everyone I knew in the city killed. That’s a girl, I thought, always thinking of our hormones.

Ok. Chris was cute in a two-month-old puppy sort of a way. He was playful and sweet and a good dancer. Definitely the sort of guy most girls would love to bring home to their parents. Trouble was, I did not have parents and I was fairly certain he would run screaming from the coven that would want him to prove he was worthy of dating their soon-to-be leader. They liked to test people. Test his reflexes by accidentally dropping a glass of wine on his pants. Test his stomach by talking about gory war stories over dinner. Test his faithfulness by having every woman in the place proposition him. Well, maybe not the last one since going after the leader’s guy was taboo. When Rainor was in full command, yes, but likely not now when they were still feeling me out. And certainly not after what I did to Dawn.

I sort of felt bad about that. It would have been less severe if I had grabbed her by the throat, pinned her to the wall and threatened her with physical punishment. But, my blood said, what we did was so much more effective and fun. It was right. Maybe I should find my own place instead of trying to live in the coven house right away. I could still be at hand when Rainor needed me, but without constant contact with other living creatures it might give my neglected social graces time to recover themselves.

Or I could practice being with other half-castes by calling Chris up and asking him out. Wouldn’t Anton love hearing about that? Wait a second. How did Anton wind up in that thought? The entire time I was away I barely gave him a thought and now he seemed to be popping into my head. I suppose another thing I had to readjust to was being in the same city as him and shutting off the strange connection we had. Best way to do that was to occupy my mind with other things. Focus on the treaty violation and on getting a normal life, or as normal a life as I would ever have. Besides the life would help my cover since it would look like I was building a life for myself because I was here to be Mistress and wanted to establish myself.

My stomach growled and I realized I had been driving for hours. I was not exactly in the best section of town, but what was any human going to do to me? I pulled into the parking lot of a diner I found around the corner and went inside. It seemed to be one of those places that had regulars and where strangers were few and far between because all the waitresses were calling the customers by their first names and everyone turned to stare at me when I took a seat at the counter. Or maybe it was my sex kitten meets biker chick outfit of a short black skirt, silver top, leather jacket and knee high boots with heels.

One of the waitresses appeared in front of me. “What can I get you Mam?”

Most women bristle at being called Mam, but I had long passed forty and still looked as good as ever so what did I care? “I’ll have a piece of that chocolate cake and a peanut butter milkshake.”

I swear she shivered as she wrote down my order. “Anything else?”

“Not right now, but I may want to order dessert.”

She dropped her pen and stared at me. “Sure thing. Be right back with your order.”

While I waited, I pulled out my phone and called Christopher. I was a little disappointed to get his voicemail, but some people did have to work real jobs. “Hey Chris, this is Natasha. I think I’d like to take you up on that date. Give me call. Bye.” Short, sweet and to the point. Speaking of sweet.

“Here you go,” said the waitress as she brought me my order.

“Thanks.”

The cake was as good as it looked. In fact I wanted another piece. I looked around for my waitress, but didn’t see her. A crash from the kitchen assaulted my ears and then I knew where she vanished off to when I heard her angrily speaking to a red faced man I could see through the ordering window.

“You can’t be serious Fred. I’ve been here since seven this morning. I want to go home!”

The red faced man, Fred I assumed, said, “Calm down Lily. I know you and the other ladies have been covering for Megan a lot recently, but she needs our understanding right now. She doesn’t have an easy life.”

“Who does?” the waitress asked. “It’s not like I’m living the dream either, but I get my butt into work on time, do my job and expect to go home at some point. I don’t promise this time I’ll come in and then stay home so someone else gets stuck with my shift. And I don’t care what Natalie and Hannah do; I am not giving that slacker bitch the tips I make while I work her shift. If she wants money she can get in here an earn it.”

“Calm down Lily, ok? I’ll see if I can get someone else to come in early so you only have to do part of it. Now get yourself together and get back out there.”

Fred walked off and Lily looked like she wanted to hurl knives at his back. After a few minutes she returned to the counter, but her smile had been replaced by a scowl. I heard her muttering about Megan and her mewling brat. When she came over to check on me, I asked, “Who said you have to stay if what’s her face doesn’t show? I’d walk out and leave him to wait his own tables.”

“You heard that?”

“Kind of hard to miss.”

“Fred will fire me if I just walk out and I need this job.”

“Why would he fire you and not that other woman?”

“Megan? Because he feels bad for her. She’s a single mom who can’t get a sitter most of the time because her kid is a freak so she winds up staying home to take care of it herself. Even her own family wants nothing to do with it.”

“Does it have horns or something?” I asked with a laugh.

“No, but it probably has fangs.”

“Excuse me?”

Lily leaned in to whisper, “Megan is the woman who had that half vampire baby they wrote about in The Sun not too long ago. She was kidnapped by other half vampires and forced to drink blood and it made her baby some freaky little thing no one wants to be around.”

Now I was torn. Part of me wanted to defend the freaky little thing since it was not to blame for what it was and since I had once been one of the freakiest little things ever born, but the other part of me was deeply interested in what else I could get out of Lily while she raged. Like maybe an address or the name of a boyfriend who might be classified as a freak too. What was the politically correct way to ask someone if their co-worker liked men who looked like they didn’t have a pulse? Asking straight out if Megan was a vampire groupie didn’t really work either. That’s when it came to me.

I put on my best girly attitude and asked, “So what’s the father like? Was he hot? Was he a vampire or something? I can’t imagine doing it with a guy who is, like, basically dead. Although if he’s been around that long I bet he’d know a thing or two about what a woman wants.”

Wouldn’t Anton turn purple hearing me say this?

Lily shook her head. “I’ve never seen Megan with the same guy twice. Whoever this kid’s father is didn’t stick around after his fly was zipped.”

“Gotcha. This is going to sound weird, but-”

Fred popped his head out of the kitchen, “Lily you’ve got three tables waiting to order. Stop chatting and take care of them.”

I rolled my eyes. “Real charmer that one.”

“Sometimes I imagine him meeting with some horrible accident.”

Hmmm, I guess I could have just offered to off her boss in exchange for the information. I might have gotten more out of her, but I don’t do humans as a rule. Still…no, no humans. “I don’t want to get you into trouble with your boss. You’ve been a big help Lily. Thanks.”

I slid a bill across the counter, told her I didn’t need change and got up to leave. I was in the parking lot when I heard her shriek. I had tipped her a hundred bucks. She had helped me a bit and she had a jerk for a boss. It was the least I could do.

Chapter 5

According to Lily, the half-caste baby had made the rags. That was interesting since there was no way to tell a baby was a half-caste at birth unless there was a vampire or half-caste present to sense it. No human was going to look at a newborn and say, “That there is a half-caste baby.” At the most people just said, “That is one pale kid.” It meant someone had to have leaked the information to the magazine to try to create tensions or that no legitimate publication would take the story; either because they knew it wasn’t news that another “abomination”, as some humans called us, existed or because they knew what it could mean. There had been human casualties during the war and they would not promote a story that could lead to more violence. My bet was the mother was looking for some quick cash since she was not going in to work and sold herself out to the highest of the low bidders. And since The Sun was a rag, no one in the coven would have paid attention to it because if it were true, the Elders or the Order would have stepped in by now so they shrugged their shoulders at it and moved on.

At least that’s what I told myself so I didn’t consider the possibility that the whole coven except Rainor and myself were in on this and weren’t bringing it up so as not to attract my attention. Great Tash, I thought to myself, now we’ll be paranoid in addition to bad tempered. I needed to pay Megan a visit. I pulled out my phone, but when I flipped it open I found I had inadvertently answered a call.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Who is this?”

“You called me, so you’re going to talk first.”

“Actually, you called me and asked for date.”

It was Christopher. “Hi Christopher.”

“That was sort of intense. Are you always so suspicious?”

So my newfound paranoia was noticeable and growing faster than expected. “Sorry, but I opened my phone to call someone and there you were.”

“I was surprised to get your call. You’re a hard read. I wasn’t sure if you were humoring me or playing it cool.”

“I don’t humor anyone. Thing is I just got back in town and I’m not sure how long I’m going to be here. I didn’t want to start something I might not be able to finish.”

“Then I’m ‘startable’?”

I laughed. “Let’s just say you were worth putting the key in the ignition, but don’t expect me to turn over easily.”

“Are we still talking about seeing each other to see where this might go? Because I’m getting a subtext.”

“Stick to the text.”

“Fine, I’ll be good, for now. How about dinner?”

“Uh…dinner? I was thinking about drinks or dancing.”
“Either one works for me,” Chris said. “Why don’t we have drinks Friday night? I can pick you up.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Embarrassed for the folks at home to see me?”

“You haven’t seen what I live with.”

“I watched you knock one of them flat on her ass in the middle of club.”

“Yes you did, but it’s better this way; trust me.”

“I’ll call you later with when and where?”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

I had a date. A normal date where I was going to have to make conversation and do my best not to freak Chris out or hit anyone. What the hell was I thinking to get myself into this? I was tempted to call him back and cancel, but opted to make my original call instead. The coven had one go to guy on information and technology. His name was Fitch, short for Arnold Fitchson, and if you wanted to know where the mosquito that just bit your arm was born he was likely to be able to tell you.

“Talk to me,” he said when he picked up.

“I need a last name and a last known address on a waitress from The Hodgepodge Diner and I need you to be the only person in that house that knows that I need them.”

“You got it. What’s her first name?”

“Megan.”

“Just give me a sec to run their tax records….there we go. Megan McCoy is her name. Last address for her is 117 Sycamore Pike. It’s an apartment complex. Give me a second…oh, she lives on the ninth floor. Third window from the left.”

“Why are you telling me which window is hers?”

“Because you’re not the door using kind. Never were. Anything else Tash?”

“That should do me for now. Thanks Fitch.”

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel while I tried to decide what to do. I risked tipping off the people behind this mess if they found out I paid Megan a visit. No one needed to know I was in on the secret until it was time for me to slit their throats; that was why I had been reluctant to see her so soon. I could keep from being seen on my way in and out, but unless I was going to lock her up after we talked she could tell them about my visit. Although if they came after me I would know who they were, assuming they only came after nosy little me and did not decide to try to take out the coven to keep the truth a secret. I wanted a civil war between covens even less than I wanted the war with the vampires to flare up again. But fate had handed me a key to the mystery and I could not ignore it.

*****

I timed my arrival at Megan McCoy’s apartment building with the setting of the sun. For a woman who was supposed to be chained to her house taking care of a baby no one else wanted to get near, there was not a glimmer of light coming from the window to indicate she was inside. Since the building only had street parking there was no way to tell if her car was there. Time for a peek inside.

With a leap I landed on the second floor fire escape. The shade was up giving me a view of a woman in a thong bathing suit checking herself out in a mirror. My advice: return it fast. It was a simple thing to jump from the railing of the second floor, grab the third floor railing and swing myself up and so on. It was on the fifth floor that I learned why I shouldn’t indiscriminately peer into peoples’ windows. Let’s just say it gave new meaning to doing the nasty and no matter how long I lived there was no way that image was going to be erased from my brain. I continued on until I reached the ninth floor at long last.

At Megan’s window I focused my hearing for any sound of a baby so much as turning over in its crib and got nothing. The shade was down so I was going to have to let myself in. Bracing my fingers against the bottom of the windowpane I used my strength to force it up and break the latches. I slid it up and gently put the shade up. The apartment was empty. All the furniture was gone. I climbed inside and did a sweep of the place. Every last personal item had been removed; even the trashcans had been emptied. I sniffed the air. Not a hint of dead body, blood or of bleach used to clean up blood. Megan had left here alive. But where oh where had my missing waitress gone?

I called Fitch again and told him to keep tabs on where else she might turn up. Then I asked him to look into her bank records. So far there had not been any unusual activity to indicate she had been paid off or had withdrawn money to move. I was about to let myself out the way I came in when I heard footsteps come up the hall and stop outside the apartment door. As a key was inserted into the lock I zipped into the bathroom so I could see who else had come to visit without being spotted.

A female voice I didn’t recognize said, “The last tenant left rather abruptly and stiffed me for the month so I’m looking to get someone else in here as quickly as possible.”

An all too familiar male voice said, “It sounds great, but first I have to see it and then I have to talk to my girlfriend. She’d kill me if I took a place without talking to her first.”

It was Kain, and Mercy was not the person he should be worried about right now.

I held myself as still as a corpse and did not take a breath. Kain could not sense me, but if I made a sound he would hear it. The landlord showed him the bedroom and the kitchen before they came to the bathroom door. As they started to swing it open I spotted a window next to the bathtub that had been blacked out. Moving as fast as I could, I had it opened and jumped out. There was no ledge and if I landed on the fire escape the thunk my shoes would make on the metal would tip Kain off. It was a nine-story free fall to the ground where I landed on my feet like a cat and blended into the shadows. Kain would likely know someone had made an escape, but he would not know it had been me.

Well my old friend, what were you about?

Chapter 6

Friday morning I had the unpleasant duty of informing Anton’s assistant that I would be entering his territory for a few hours. Christopher had picked a human bar in the vampire quarter. Because he didn’t belong to a coven he was free to move about the city at will thanks to ignorance, but I had rules to follow. Protocol dictated that I had to inform Anton at least four hours before I visited his territory unless I was tracking a “hostile presence”, so as soon as Chris, who obviously was not a “do it early” sort of person let me know where to meet him, I made the call. From the tone of the assistant’s voice, you would have thought I was calling up to say I would be spreading manure on Anton’s door sometime this evening and hoped he wouldn’t mind the odor.

When I hung up I noticed Dawn hovering outside my door. We had not spoken since the night I disciplined her. Kain had made sure to keep her out of my path and I had not sought her out. Truth to be told, I was not sure if I wanted her in my path or not. I had never felt fully comfortable around Dawn; I often had the feeling she was only nice to me because she thought it would get her somewhere. Like if I weren’t heir to the coven she would have no use for my presence in her life. Mercy said it was my usual isolationist tendencies coming out to give me an excuse to wall myself up alone, but I thought not. I readily admitted when I couldn’t stand to have company, so what would make me lie about my impressions of Dawn? Last time I was home, I knew my stay would not be a long one so I put my reservations aside and just had fun with the girls, but now that I was going to be running things, it gave me a new perspective. But Dawn was still part of the coven and it was my duty not to exclude her even if I didn’t trust her or necessarily want to share my spare time with her.

“Was there something you wanted Dawn?” I asked. If she wasn’t going to hide her eavesdropping, I wasn’t going to pretend she was invisible.

“I wanted to know if you would need guards for your date tonight.”

“How do you know about that? I didn’t say anything about a date during the call you listened to.”

“Please Natasha. Everyone is talking about our soon-to-be leader’s big date with the outsider it’s not like it’s a big secret.”

“Why is my date anyone’s business but mine?”

“What you do impacts us now. If you like this guy he could become your consort and that would make him our unofficial second. They say he’s not that strong, that could cause problems.”

It was slights painted up as concern that reminded me why I hated having to deal with other women on a regular basis. Dawn didn’t want to promote the good of the coven; she wanted to knock the guy I was dating. “Well, Dawn, you can tell everyone that who I take to my bed is no one’s business but my own. And that no matter who I wind up sleeping next to, once the coven is mine it is mine. The man who shares my bed will find that is all he shares because I lead alone.”

Dawn laughed. “I told them not to worry.”

“Did you?” I wondered how many conversations I was the topic of. It never occurred to me that my private life would be the hot news at the house this soon.

“I did. What are friends for?” I think she wanted me to validate her claim to my regard, but when I kept silent Dawn continued, “Will you want guards?”

“No. I can take care of myself.”

“Suit yourself, but if you think better of it, let me know.”

She turned to leave, but I stopped her. “Dawn?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did Kain send you to ask?”

“Kain didn’t send me. I’m not sure where he went off to, but I figured someone should make sure you were looked after if you needed it.”

“What are friends for?”

“Exactly.”

Against my better judgment I asked, “Do you want to help me decide what to wear tonight?”

“Only if you promise we can shop for new stuff if nothing you own works.”

“Have I ever been opposed to shopping? My wardrobe probably needs a refresher anyway. It’s mostly stuff I can wear to fight in.”

Having barely waited for me to finish, Dawn was through the door and vanishing into my closet. A series of “nos” and “maybes” mumbled their way out of the closet. After several minutes had gone by, there came a triumphant, “Ha!” Dawn emerged holding a red silk tank dress. “We have a winner.”

“An excellent choice,” I said. “But we’re going to have to go shoe shopping. The last time I wore that I ruined the shoes I liked to wear with it and none of my other ones really go.”

“What happened to them?”

“I wound up stabbing this guy with the heel of the right shoe and it snapped off.”

“Must have been some date.”

“It was the waiter. I ordered my steak medium well and he brought me a rare one.”

Dawn stared at me for a long moment and then she laughed. “You had me going for a second Tash.”

“So shoe expedition?”

“Sounds good.”

The shoe shopping trip wound up taking all morning after it morphed into a buy anything we laid eyes on trip. We returned to the house with more bags than we could carry. Super strength was useless if you didn’t have enough hands to carry all your purchases. Max helped us get them out of the car and had a few of the maids take them up to our rooms.

Mercy roamed into the kitchen as we were raiding the fridge. “Why wasn’t I included on the shopping extravaganza? And, better question, am I going to be included on that sundae Tash is making?”

I wiped the nozzle of the squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup with my finger and then licked the chocolate off. “It’s a free fridge have at it.”

Dawn wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how you can eat all that sugar all the time.”

“Sounds like I won’t have a fight over the last spoonful of caramel then,” Mercy said. “Pass the whipped cream in a can.”

I slid it over to her. “Sorry we left you behind it was a spur of the moment thing.”

“Yeah,” Dawn said. “Tash killed a guy with the shoes that go with this hot red dress I found in her closet so we had to go look for new ones.”

“Was it worth it?” Mercy asked

“The shopping trip or killing the guy?”

“I meant the shopping trip.”

“Oh, well, the answer to both is yes. Hey! Where did you find brownies?”

Mercy pointed at the counter. “They were over there, but this is the last one. Good thing Kain didn’t know they ever existed or I’d have to listen to him whimper about missing out on them all night.”

Dawn snickered. “I bet you could find ways to make it up to him.”

“Speaking of Kain,” I said, “where is he? Usually he would have sniffed those out in a heartbeat.”

Mercy shrugged. “Who knows with him these days? I’m considering putting a tracking device on him.”

Harris came to lounge in the doorway. “That had better not be true Mercy because those were for dinner and you know what happens when the cook gets mad.”

“Other greedy fingers were here before mine,” Mercy said, “because there was only one on the plate when I got to it.”

“Which is girl-speak for Natasha and Dawn ate all but that one and you’re covering for the orgy of junk food your gal pals had.”

“Yes that’s it exactly what I meant Harris.” Mercy rolled her eyes and shoved the last bite of brownie in her mouth. “Mmmmm. That was good. Too bad you didn’t get any.”

“That’s it. You’re going down brownie girl,” Harris joked.

“Let’s see what you’ve got whiney boy.”

They sprang at each other at the same time and landed in a tussling pile on the floor. As I watched them do mock battle over the missing brownies I found myself smiling. Fifty years ago they had fought the battle of the missing strawberry shortcake and Harris had wound up with strawberry wedged in his ear. Things never really changed.

*****

Later that night I put on my old red dress with my new gold heels and helped myself to sporty red car while pretending not to notice my appearance was being evaluated by everyone in the house. Let them stare. It was my life and I was not about to live it to please anyone but me.

I arrived at the bar ten minutes ahead of time because traffic had not been as heavy as I thought it would be. As I got out of the car, I scanned the area to see if any vampires were watching me. More of that new found paranoia. I reminded myself that I had only informed Anton that I would be attending a “social engagement” in his territory, I had not said specifically where so there was no way he could know which establishment I was at or when I would be there. But not that far up the road was a vampire nightclub and if anyone inside spotted me my location could be reported and spies sent. I decided I didn’t care. If Anton wanted a report of how many chocolate-tinis I drank he could be my guest.

One good thing about going to a human bar in the vampire quarter was that no one stared when I walked in. They assumed I was a visiting native and went about their business. Worked for me. To my surprise, Chris was at the bar already. When he saw me he smiled and came over to kiss me on the cheek.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you. I didn’t think you’d beat me here.”

“I wanted to make a good impression. What would all your friends say if a nobody like me kept their Natasha waiting?”

“None of them paid you a visit did they?”

“No. I was joking. Would they do that?”

“Not sure. They are interested in you so be warned that they may start circling to get a closer look.”

Chris indicated a small table near the back of the room. “Shall we sit?”

I agreed and followed him to the table where he pulled out my chair for me. “Thanks.”

“What were you saying about your coven maybe paying me a visit?”

“What you said made me nervous they had made a sneak attack to warn you off. It seems who I date impacts their future.”

“Do they nose into every member’s private life?”

I watched his face carefully as I said, “Most of the time, but in my case it’s different. Rainor, our leader, is dying and I will take his place.”

Chris was silent for a moment then he said, “The Queen’s bedroom is a public one.”

“Not this Queen’s. They can speculate all they want, but at the end of the day, I don’t care what they think about the men in my life.”

“Men?”

“Didn’t you just call my bedroom public?” I winked at him.

“Sorry. This is our first date; my competition isn’t up for discussion. How about I get us some drinks?”

“Good idea.” I told him what I wanted and waited for him to return with it.

Chris sat back down. “Were you born in this city?”

“No. I was born in Russia.”

“But you don’t have an accent.”

“I learned English early enough not to have one.”

“Were your parents Russian?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What you didn’t know your parents?”

This line of questioning needed to end fast. “Are you a lawyer?”

“A reporter.”

“That can also explain the interrogation.”

He blushed. “I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”

“I don’t bite Chris.”

“I hope that’s not entirely true,” he said with a devilish grin.

“Naughty boy.” I took a sip of my drink and winced. It was more alcohol than anything. “Who do you write for?”

“The Sun.”

I was so distracted by what Chris had just said that I failed to pay attention to the clacking approach of a woman wearing too much perfume and her too silent companion whose presence set my blood to tingling.

“Good evening Natasha,” said Anton. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”

Chapter 7

Cursing myself for not considering that he would track me down for spiteful instead of “spy-ful” reasons I plastered the fakest smile I could muster on my face and looked up at Anton and the barely legal blonde woman I could only assume was his dessert based on the overly showy outfit she was wearing. “Hello brother dear. What a surprise to see you here.”

“He’s your brother?” Chris asked.

Anton said, “No. A sister of mine would have better manners.”

I glared at him before performing the introductions. “Chris, this is Anton; he rules the vampire section of the city and we share the same bloodline. Anton, this is my new friend Christopher Werner.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Chris stood up and started to put out his hand, but I was instantly on my feet to smack it away from the vampire. “Ouch!”

“Never offer your hand to a vampire. He could tear your wrist out before you can blink.”

Anton’s head cocked in a reptilian way as he studied Chris. “He was not coven raised; interesting and disappointing. At least you could try to hide that you were slumming it by training him better Natasha. It reflects poorly on your position that he does not know so simple a safety precaution.”

I let my eyes rake the dessert. “Let’s discuss what reflects badly on whom. Shall we talk about her cloying perfume that would announce your presence to any mere human nose to say nothing of a true enemy that might be tracking you? Your little pet is a walking target on your back. And don’t even get me started on that dress. Her bad taste calls yours into question for taking her out when she looks so gauche.”

The dessert sneered at me. “Aren’t you old enough to have out grown looking like a slut to try to attract men?”

“Oooh. What a clever come back,” I purred as I advanced closer to her.

Anton put a restraining hand on her arm. “Watch yourself Ashley.”

“I’ll say what I want,” Ashley declared. “She insulted us both.”

“She’ll do more than insult you if you make her angry,” Anton said. “Don’t think she’ll hesitate to mark that pretty face of yours.”

“You would let her do that?” Ashley asked.

I laughed, “Now look who hasn’t trained their pet properly. Your little dessert thinks I don’t have the right to knock her into next month for talking out of place and she thinks you would risk insulting my coven by defending her. Sad really, she has faith in you. Piece of advice, pet, look after yourself because he’ll sell you out in a nanosecond to save his own neck.”

Chris, appearing to be horrified at the leashed violence in the air asked, “You wouldn’t really hurt her, would you Natasha?”

“Stay out of it,” I said to him.

“Let him talk,” Anton said. “I would love to hear his thoughts.”

Chris was not my consort or husband. He was not a member of my coven. Anton could do anything he wanted to this unprotected half-caste smack in the middle of his territory and there was nothing I could do about it. As heir to the coven I was within my rights to hang Ashley by her heels in retaliation for any perceived slight against me or someone in my coven, but I could not kill her in retaliation for anything done to Chris on Anton’s turf even if he beheaded my date in front of me. I needed to keep my cool and defuse this situation before things got out of hand.

“You’re acting like a jealous ex, Anton, when we both know you have no right to,” I said. “You have your amusements and I have mine. I’ll retract my claws if you retract yours.”

Chris’ eyes shot to my fingers. “You have claws?”

“Not now, Chris.” I turned my attention back to the glowering vampire. “What’s it going to be Anton? Are we going to act like the adults our ages say we should be or is this going to turn into a really bad night for everyone in this bar?”

“He’s not worthy of you.”

Oh my god. Jealousy that I was with another man was not Anton’s only issue. His pride really was bruised that I, who shared his blood, had lowered myself to dating someone like Chris. I could use him for sex, as Anton used Ashley for sex and blood, but I was not supposed to treat him as an equal because he was not equal to me in Anton’s eyes. Vampire snob! “That’s for me to decide. I am no longer the property of a caste to have my worth determined by a xenophobic control freak.”

For a moment Anton said nothing as he stared down into my eyes. “No you are not. I gave up my rights when I left you. But do not let the desire to spite me blind you to the danger Natasha. He is weak and he will make you appear weak to onlookers. I do not want to see the hyenas set upon you.”

It was the genuine emotion in Anton’s that voice that made the back of my throat burn. I could not remember the last time I had cried and if I did not get out of here now I would cry in front of a room full of strangers and the last person in the world I ever wanted to see that happen. After taking a deep breath I said to Chris, “Let’s go.”

“Good idea.”

I brushed passed Anton without looking at him. As we reached the exit, I could hear Ashley hotly whispering, “I know you want her Anton. Just admit it!”

I made sure we were outside before we heard his response. Out of the corner of my eye I studied Chris; he seemed tense. Who could blame him? “How are you doing there?”

“Slightly insulted.”

“Forget about Anton, he’s a jerk.”

“I wasn’t talking about him.”

Well that left the dessert and me as possible contenders for his shit list and something told me Ashley was not the issue. “Do you want to tell me what horrible crime I managed to commit?”

“You forgot I was there.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did and when I dared to speak you dismissed me. I don’t know what a dessert is, but I know I am not one. I’m a person, Natasha, not an amusement or a pet. If you want to do Anton, do him, but don’t use me as an excuse to put a match to the powder keg of sexual tension between you.”

Chris stalked off and left me standing there with my jaw hanging open. Unbelievable. He walked out on me. More unbelievable was that it had taken me 109 years to realize men just plain sucked. That was when I saw Kain round a corner across the street. The coven’s enforcer was walking the streets of the vampire quarter; he had not informed me and he was obviously not chasing anything unless it was a snail given his slow pace.

Men sucked even when you weren’t dating them.

*****

I slammed through the door of the coven house in a foul mood and froze in my tracks. Rainor was sitting in the living room. I started to bow, but he stopped me by dryly saying, “That dress was not made to be bowed in.”

“Is that your polite way of expressing disapproval of it?”

“It is when I smell vampire on you. I thought your date was with a half-caste?”

“You waited up for me? You should be in bed regaining your strength.”

“I’ve been lying in that damned bed, eaten from the inside out, waiting for death to take me for weeks. I felt like getting out of bed and had the strength to do so. I happened to be here when you came in. Stop evading and tell me about the vampire.”

“Anton crashed my date. And then my date got his panties in a twist and went home early.” I flopped down on the sofa next to him.

“Sounds like a fun evening.”

“It had one more surprise in store for me.” I leaned closer and added, “An old friend was boldly walking on the other side.”

“Which one?”

“The one who seems to taking a lot of mystery trips recently.”

Rainor pursed his lips as he thought. “You’ll keep an eye on it.”

It was an order not a question. “On that note, I’ll say good night.”

“One moment before you go my dear. Anton’s assistant called a little while ago. He wants a meeting to discuss the proposal we sent over on the night club.”

Of course he did. What better way to remind me that he was in my life and that in some minute way I needed him? I should have known he was not going to let tonight’s pissing contest go that easily. “I’ll call her back tomorrow to set something up, unless you object. I’ve had enough of socializing for one evening.”

“No objections at all. Tell me, Natasha, how did Anton react to seeing you with another man?”

“Worse than the last time he found out I was involved with someone.” I rolled my eyes. “And they accuse me of failing to mature in almost thirty years. I half expected him to pee on my leg to mark his turf.”

Rainor laughed. “That’s why I missed you, you’re the only one who entertains me without trying to. No other person living in this house would answer me with such blunt honesty. Even my son was only that truthful when he wanted to shock me.”

“I should get to bed and so should you.”

“I’ll go up in good time, but for now I am enjoying the change of scenery. Sleep well my dear.”

Chapter 8

“Let me get this straight,” Mercy said as she bounced down on my bed. “The night ended with Chris basically saying you only used defending him as a reason to flirt-fight with Anton and walked off.”

“That about sums it up.”

“And you didn’t go after him?”

“Why would I crawl after him? Anton was right, he put himself at risk and then he got mad at me for defending him. He doesn’t understand because he wasn’t raised in a coven.”

“I think that’s partially true Tash, but that can be corrected if you tell him what he needs to know, I mean if you want to keep him around.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

Mercy held up her hands. “I’m not trying to piss you off. But you should ask yourself what you’re really mad about. Is it that Anton was right to question what having Chris in your life means for you as coven leader or that Chris was right about you forgetting he was there because of Anton?”

“Anton has been a complication in my life since the day I was born and since the only way I have ever come up with to end all the complications he brings is to kill him, Chris is going to have to deal with it if he’s going to be part of my life. I freely admit that Anton meets all my requirements of what makes my knees go weak, except the vampire part, but that is far outweighed by how big a pain in the ass he is and the simple fact that I do not want to end up as another notch on his bedpost.”

“Then I wouldn’t wear what is hanging on your closet to the meeting with him tonight. It screams do me here and now.”

“Really? It’s not leather this time.” I gave the outfit hanging on my closet door a critical look.

“Tash it’s a lace covered satin corset with a suit jacket and skirt!”

“It’s funny how often I wear corsets now when I cursed them back in the day when I had to wear them. Be glad you weren’t around for the tightly laced days. Thank god for the 1920s.”

Mercy tossed a pillow at my head. “You’re deflecting. That outfit is pure sex kitten and you know it. Now either you were just blowing ‘I don’t want to do the vampire’ sunshine up my skirt to shut me up about your attraction to him or you want to torment him with what he is missing out on.”

“It would be the last one you said. I didn’t like him crashing my date and I want him to pay.”

“Real mature.” Mercy got up and started flipping through my closet, exploring my new purchases which the sapphire blue corset covered in black lace that she disparaged was part of. “I have never seen such a schizophrenic wardrobe in my life. One side looks like a dominatrix lives here and the other looks like a naughty secretary. There really are two of you in there, aren’t there?”

“Yes and they are slowly learning to get along again, or at least get along as well as they ever did. I was forced to come back before all the pieces were in place, but I’m muddling along.”

“Hence the mood swings?”

“To some degree. I’m also trying to figure out how to go from coven member to coven leader and it’s not real easy.” I pondered the outfit again and decided to go with it. I liked it and I liked provoking people so why not have some fun? “I’m sticking with my pick. He insisted the meeting be at his house, so I insisted it be during the day. Then he said I should come without an entourage, which I don’t need but it makes him think he has an advantage, so now I’m going to wear something to drive him crazy.”

“With all this plotting and counter plotting with Anton, have you given any thought to calling Chris?”

I had actually, but not entirely for the reason Mercy wanted me to. True I liked Chris, but I was not the type to chase after a guy who stalked off to sulk like a baby. Ok, so compared to me he probably was a baby, but looks could be deceiving. He appeared to be in his twenties, but with half-castes he could also be forty-five. I doubted he was immortal, but he could be a slow-ager like Rainor. No matter how old the guy was it was my personal belief he should be the one calling me. But, Chris worked for The Sun and I needed to find out who told them about Megan McCoy’s baby without leaving a trail for anyone to follow. If I paid my new friend a visit at work, it would not look the least bit suspicious; unlike Kain walking through the vampire quarter. I wondered if Mercy knew where he had been last night? There was no way to damn or exonerate Kain without learning the truth.

All right, I had talked myself into using the baby as a reason to make nice with Chris. It was self-serving and not that nice, but no one ever said I was nice. “I was thinking of going to see him before my meeting. I have plenty of time.”

“And then you can go to your meeting with Anton looking hot and with Chris’ scent on you. Nice move.”

That had not occurred to me. Mercy was more cunning than I gave her credit for. A dangerous thing, my blood whispered, if her mate is tainted she could be too. “Have you always been this sly or it is something new?”

“Always. You were just too busy stalking the night to notice,” Mercy said with a smile.

“I’ll have to do better now that I’m back.”

*****

The Sun’s office was not the seedy looking wreck I expected to find; it was a two-story brick building with a lot of glass and a pleasant looking lobby that housed a potted palm. I saw the receptionist’s eyes widen as soon as she noticed me. I could hear several men on the second floor talking about the “icy looking babe in the bustier” as I caught sight of a camera being focused on me from the corner of my eye. Someone was ambitious.

“Take my picture and it will be the last time you see that camera Skippy.”

The photographer laughed. “Think that’s the first time I heard that? It’s insured.”

I swooped over and had him by the shirt before he could blink. “Let me clarify. If you take my picture, that camera will be the last thing you see.” I let my eyes go red at him. I may have entered the proverbial snake pit by coming here, but people should be able to visit without being set upon.

“Natasha?” Chris said as he came around the corner. “What’s going on?”

“Your friend here decided to be an opportunist. He learned a valuable lesson. Didn’t you Skippy?”

“Mike. His name is Mike,” Chris said. “And he knows better than to try to exploit a possible client.”

“Do you know what she is?” Mike asked.

Better question, did Mike know what Chris was? I doubted it. “And what am I?”

“You’re a half-caste, a very strong one from the looks of you. They don’t talk about the ones like you; too scary for the humans to know about. Look at her! She’s practically a day-walking vampire.”

“I’m not the scariest thing in this town and I’m hardly the scariest thing in this world. Believe me. But that still doesn’t mean you want me as an enemy. I came here to see a friend, not to help sell your little rag with an impromptu photo op.”

It seemed to dawn on Mike that his co-worker had called me by name because he was staring at Chris. “She’s your friend?”

“She is and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t harass her.”

“What’s in it for me?”

I hauled him off the ground so he dangled in my hands. “Well for starters, you get to keep your eyes. And if you’re lucky you’ll get to keep your life.”

Chris futilely grabbed my arm. “He’ll leave you alone Natasha. No need for threats. He’s only trying to save face. Aren’t you Mike?”

Mike finally seemed to catch on that he was in some real danger here. It’s not every day a five foot four inch woman lifted you off your feet and held you in the air like a doll. He might have recognized what I was, but he didn’t understand what I was until he saw Chris’ reaction. Yes, Michael, your life was in some danger here. Mike said, “Yes. I am sorry. It won’t happen again, mam.”

I put him on his feet. “Good. Now run along little boy.” And he did run. I think he ran right to the bathroom. Chris was scowling at me and I realized my coming here was a bad idea. I knew better than to mix with humans or half-castes who pretended they were human. “Look, I shouldn’t have come here. Our worlds obviously aren’t going to mesh.”

I began to leave, but he said, “Natasha wait. Don’t go. I’m surprised you showed up here, but I’m glad you came to see me. Mike was out of line and out of his depth.”

“Are you sure? It’s not going to make you popular to be seen chatting it up with the crazy woman who sent poor little Mikey running to the potty.”

Chris laughed. “You do have a way with words. Let’s take this to my office.”

“You have an office? I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. I think it used to be a closet before they gave it to me and called it an office.”

Chris put his hand at the small of my back and guided me towards his office. He was right; it probably had been a closet. He shut the door behind me and then pulled out a chair for me to have seat. Someone’s mama taught him well. “It’s a nice office.”

“But your closet is bigger.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you were thinking it.”

I hoped I wasn’t going to be that transparent during the rest of this exchange. “Was Mike the guy that ran that story about the half-vampire baby?”

“No. The guy who ran that knows better than to approach anyone as pale as you are. Mike is an overzealous rookie looking to make a name for himself. Although I don’t think Craps In His Pants is the name he was looking to make.”

I laughed. “Would they really call him that?”

“I will.”

“You would fit in very well with my coven with comments like that.”

“I wasn’t looking to be recruited.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Here we were back in the muck. I sighed. “I didn’t come here for round two.”

“What did you come here for?”

“To try to explain what you saw last night. I’m 109 years old and with a few notable gaps in time when we were on diverging paths, I’ve known Anton for most of them. For the first few years of my life he was my only…friend I guess you would call him. He looked out for me when I was unable to look out for myself. We parted ways the first time and it changed things between us. He looks at me and sees something that should be his to command since I used to belong to his caste. He doesn’t like sharing his toys so he wanted to play with you a bit and I was afraid he might physically hurt you to prove a point. I don’t think the person that abandoned me has any say in what I do and I like needling people so I used the opening fate presented me with, which unfortunately made you feel bad. But he did have a point about you needing to learn what the ‘rules’ are; Mike’s not the only one who is out of his depth these days.”

Chris tapped the edge of his desk and stared at the wall. “I understand what you’re saying Natasha, but there was more going on than a case of male territorial display gone wrong and immature goading. You are attracted to him.”

“Ok. Yes, I am, but I’m not going to act on it because I know I can’t trust him and I’m old enough not to be ruled by my hormones which also happen to find you very appealing by the way.” I smiled at him gamely. “You also have to consider that Anton and I are both predators sharing the same territory, so we are going to butt heads over whose is bigger if you get my drift and since he can’t quite believe that I won’t fall on my back for him those head butting sessions tend to wind up laced with sexual energy because he’s hoping if he makes me mad enough one night I’ll rip his clothes off. One of these days we are going to wind up killing each other.”

“Or doing each other where you stand.”

“And they say I’m not one to sugar coat things.”

“Sorry, but if this is going anywhere we need to be honest.”

This is where I should tell him that hormones or not at some point I was going to have to fall on my back for Anton because of a deal I made nearly three decades back, but you see this is where I was a shit. “That’s about everything.”

For a little while Chris stood in silence; I think he was digesting everything I had said and that he had seen since knowing me. Then he grinned wickedly at me and said, “Do you know what my hormones are saying?”

“Do I dare ask?”

“That sex with any woman with a temper like yours is bound to be smokin’ so I might as well see where this goes because if I let you walk to try to prevent the broken heart I see written all over this for me, then I have no chance at that sex. Unless you want to go at on my desk so we get it out of our systems and then go our separate ways? Because I would be down with that.”

“I bet you would,” I said sarcastically, but with humor to my voice. “But before we do the desk thing how about we go on a date that we finish first?”

“I guess…”

I gave him a swat on the arm and caught sight of my watch. “How about I call you about the date? I have a meeting I need to get to.”

“Fine with me, but I owe you a romantic outing since the one I originally planned didn’t work out so well.”
“Because of Anton. Which reminds me, it’s probably better if you plan stuff for us outside the vampire quarter because I have to tell him when I’m entering his territory and that will just lead to a repeat of last night.”

“I don’t know what is or isn’t in the vampire quarter.”

“I’ll give you a map.”

“Not very romantic. I think I can plan a vampire free date without it.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.” I grabbed the doorknob, but paused to ask, “Oh, before I go, can I talk to the guy that ran the baby story? He needs to make sure he watches his back.”

“He’s on vacation right now, but I could let you know when he gets back.”

“Please do. Thanks.”

“One more thing,” Chris said. He walked over to me and smoothed the collar of my jacket. “This outfit is…ah…”

“What?”

“I’m afraid I’ll get my ass kicked if I say it.”

“Did it get kicked for that desk comment?”

“No and thanks for that by the way.”

“You’re welcome, but what about my outfit? I’ll be good I promise.”

“Being good is not what that outfit is saying.”

“And what is it saying?”

He grabbed the lapels of my jacket and pulled me towards him for a kiss. It was a soft kiss, the kind you end a first date that has gone successfully with. Chris’ lips were warm and gentle against mine. No one had ever kissed me this way, like I was a fragile creature that might break or run away if he applied too much physical or sexual pressure. It was sweet and completely at odds with his blatant words earlier. I didn’t know if I could do sweet. Gentleness was not something that I had ever been led to believe was useful or particularly fun, but part of me wanted to try. I kissed him back just as softly and let my hands slide up his arms, across his shoulders and down his back to rest at his waist.

One of Chris’ hands was at my waist, the other slid up my back to twine in the hair at the base of my skull. Then both hands came up to cup my face in his hands. He pulled back to smile at me. “I think this is going to work.”

It was a nice kiss, but I was not sure about anything in my life right now. I told him I would see him later and left.

Chapter 9

Freud would have had a field day with the house Anton built for himself. The estate I had spent my childhood in would have fit in half of this monstrosity and still left room for the mansion Vincent had lived in plus the coven house. I had inexplicably thought Anton would have taken over Vincent’s old abode along with the city. Maybe it was because I knew I would inherit Rainor’s house along with his portion of the city. Maybe I had too much damn time to think because Anton hadn’t bothered to show up on time for the meeting he asked for. How hard was it to get to a meeting held in your own house? Especially since it was daytime and that pretty much made him a prisoner in said house.

So here I sat pondering the square footage of the house that an inferiority complex built while gazing at the over furnished room I had been left to wait in. When I got bored with staring at the furniture, I studied my nails. Yep, they needed to be filed back down to look like nails instead of claws. But they made such a nice clicky sound when I tapped them on the wooden arm of my chair when they were pointy. And it annoyed the vampires standing vigil by the door awaiting their Master’s arrival.

Shortly after I had been shown to what I termed my holding pen, but what was most likely the living room, two male vampires had glided in and shut the door behind them. The one I nicknamed Leather, because he was in a motorcycle jacket, had told me “the Master” would be with me shortly and I was to wait here. The other guard, who had wheat colored hair and who was not a Hadi, I named the Ancient because he was giving off a vibe of great age. Despite the vague explanation I had been given, I was fairly certain Anton had ordered them to report on how long it took me to explode so he could laugh at how long I was willing to wait or chide me for my impatience when I was not getting any older. But I had a plan of my own; I was going to annoy them until they made him appear just to put an end to their torment. Next I was going to start chewing gum loudly if the nail tapping didn’t produce the desired effect.

“Must you do that?” asked Leather. We had a taker ladies and gentlemen! His eyes were red; they matched his crayon red hair. I think I was supposed to be afraid.

I ignored his question to ask one of my own. “How often do you have to dye your hair to keep it that color? I had mine purple once and I had to touch it up every two days because my body kept healing it back to my natural color. Finally I gave up.”

The Ancient’s blue eyes twinkled. He had a sense of humor, a rare thing in a vampire. He might actually be the only vampire walking the world to have one. Leather obviously didn’t have one since he was glaring at me. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I really wanted to know. That purple hair had been a pain in the ass to maintain.

“Tell her,” the Ancient said.

“No.”

“What does it hurt?”

“His vampire pride at talking to me,” I quipped. “Never mind. You can both go back to guarding the hall from my unexpected entry. Is Anton standing on the other side of that door waiting to see how long it takes before I kill you both and leave? This being his house I can’t sense him because his presence is everywhere.”

The Ancient was staring at me. “You think he is playing hide and seek with you?”

“He’s playing some game with me, one that’s not very amusing.”

“You are exactly what he said you were.”

“Anton has been talking about me?” That was surprising. “How did that conversation go? ‘She’s moody and rude and has abysmal taste.’ Oh, and if he said that purple hair was just to annoy him he was partially right. I did it for me, but I put up with the retouches because I knew he hated it.”

The Ancient laughed. I should have nicknamed him Cheerful instead, and then Leather could have been Grumpy. “He said you were beautiful, impatient, volatile and irritated people to amuse yourself.” His eyes were twinkling again.

I was going to like this one. I never expected to like a vampire. I got to my feet and walked over to him. His muscles tensed, but I held up my hands and said, “We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Natasha Carmichael.”

“Marcus. It’s a pleasure.”

He held out his hand and I hesitated. The closer I got the easier it was to see this one was older than I thought and that meant his reflexes would be better. I put my hand out, ready to snatch it back at the slightest hint of treachery, but he took my fingers in his and brought my hand to his lips to kiss it. “It’s been a long time since anyone kissed my hand.”

“A custom that has sadly gone by the wayside.”

I turned to Leather. “What should I call you?”

No response.

Marcus frowned at him. “His name is Raz and he needs a lesson in manners towards a guest in his Master’s home.”

“His Master also needs a lesson in manners towards a guest. I know Anton knows better, Lucius never would have put up with this.”

“Ah. I believe he was unexpectedly detained.”

Unexpectedly detained. Either he was feeding or… “Well then why doesn’t one of you go pull Ashley out from under him, clean him up and get him down here before I go do it myself?”

Marcus laughed.

Raz looked pissed.

Marcus said, “Easy Raz.”

“Where is my pal Tristan? Anton didn’t trust him to baby-sit me?” As Anton’s second Tristan should be the one entertaining me. I should be insulted that I was being kept company by underlings, but at least one of them was an amusing underling so I was over being insulted. “He refused didn’t he?”

“He was unavailable.”

“He refused.”

“He refused.”

“Thank you for your honesty Marcus.”

“1000,” Marcus said.

Even Raz was looking at him like he was insane and was not above sharing a look with me over the randomness of that comment. “Excuse me?”

“You are trying to figure out how old I am. I can feel you trying to sense it. I am 1000 years old.”

“You can feel it?”

“One of my powers is the ability to sense when another is trying to use vampire powers in my presence. You are very strong indeed if I can detect you.”

He could sense when others called on their powers and he was 1000 years old. Why wasn’t he in charge? I didn’t realize I had spoken that question aloud until he answered, “I am not in charge because I’ve lived long enough not to want the headache.”

“A lesson I’m slowly beginning to learn since I’ve returned.” I looked at the grandfather clock on the opposite wall. “I have other things to do today. Tell Anton to call me when he’s better able to keep his pants zipped.”

Caught off guard by my sudden movement, the vampires did not react in time to stop me from opening the door. As soon as I had it open a crack I knew why they had been positioned to try to keep me inside my holding pen. Ashley and Anton weren’t having sex; they were having a fight, which was unusual for a dessert and its keeper to have. Desserts were like pets and a pet did as it was told or it got put in a cage or sent to a shelter. And desserts were human which meant they often didn’t survive arguments with their vampires either. What were they fighting about? Enquiring minds wanted to know.

Ashley was storming down the stairs and shrieking, “She’s here isn’t she? I told you I didn’t want her in this house and you went ahead and invited her anyway. Can’t have Snow White miss out on previewing her future castle!”

“This is a business meeting,” Anton said.

“Bullshit Anton! You want her to see how well you’ve done so she’ll want to take my place.”

Oooooooooook.

You know that old cliché about being careful what you wish for? It was very, very true. I didn’t want to know any more about their fight. In fact I was all for shutting the door and jumping out the window so I didn’t have to hear a snippet more. I caught a glimpse of Anton speeding down the stairs after her to grab Ashley by her arm. Now I was in a really bad spot. It was against the rules for me to intervene, but no way in hell was I going to stand around and let him hurt her.

Do you really think he would harm her? my blood asked. Vampires were made to cause harm, just like me and I knew that in a true fit of rage I was capable of a lot. But was he that angry?

“He will not harm her, he never has,” Marcus said as if he read my thoughts. “But she wants to make sure you know she’s not pleased. That’s why she’s parading this through the house. I would wager she knows you will hear and wants to make you uncomfortable enough not to return.”

Anton could have gotten ahead of her and trapped her upstairs if he didn’t want me to know he was willing to fight with her about me. But with the top volume tirade coming my way, there was no way I could tune my super hearing out and ignore what was going on. I was supposed to be flattered. I wasn’t.

Anton shouted, “I am Master here not you! I am through with this argument Ashley. You can go upstairs and wait for me or you can go upstairs and pack your bags!”

Now if I were Ashley, this is where things would have turned violent, but she opted to stomp back up the stairs, down the hall and slam a door shut. I listened for the sound of suitcases opening, but heard nothing. What little respect I had been gathering towards her for calling him on his crap vanished. She had a mansion to live in and access to the fountain of youth; no way she was leaving.

However, I was really regretting my outfit choice now. Provoking an already provoked vampire really was not a good move. Nor was being caught listening at the door even if you were sort of supposed to get an earful. Moving preternaturally fast, I returned to my previous seat and was yanking my skirt back down when Anton walked into the room. Marcus caught my furtive skirt action and grinned.

“Hello Natasha. Tell me about this club,” he paused when he caught a glimpse of Marcus’ mirth. “What is so amusing Marcus?”

Marcus cleared his throat. I wasn’t sure if vampires really needed to do that or if it was a nervous tick leftover from his human days. He said, “The lady had said something humorous right before you came in and I was reacting.”

Anton eyed me and damn him, I knew what he was going to ask, “What amusing thing did you say this time Natasha?”

“You had to be there.”

“I will be here when you tell it again.”

What the hell was I going to say? Oh. Oh, it was bad to say this, but it was all I had. I repeated the remark about pulling Ashley out from under him because I was tired of being kept waiting and watched the blood rise to his face. I was not sure if it was anger or embarrassment. The guy could proposition me in every possible way, every chance he got, but I was not supposed to know he actually had sex. Yes, he was Anton the 500 year old virgin. Or maybe he was embarrassed I knew sex existed? The ship had sailed on that one a long time ago. “Did I offend your delicate sensibilities?”

Raz and Marcus could only stare at me. I don’t believe they had ever heard anyone speak to a Master vampire that way. They probably also could not believe I had not been knocked across the room by now. Silly vampires, allies didn’t beat each other up.

Anton stonily said, “Leave us.”

They vanished.

When people talked about being called to the principal’s office this had to be the feeling they meant. There were legends of vampires that could start fires with their minds. I was really glad Anton was not one of those vampires given the way he was glaring at me.

He said, “Did you really say that Natasha? Before you lie to me, I remind you that a liar’s heartbeat speeds up and I will hear it.”

I knew that. I could do that too. “Yes, at one point this evening I said that.”

“But that was not what Marcus was laughing about when I walked in.”

“No. What are you so paranoid about? Am I not allowed to talk to the help?”

“I thought…”

“What?”

“I thought you were mocking my argument. I know you heard it, your ears are too keen not to.”

“No matter what you say about my manners to my friends I know better than to mock a fight while I am a guest in your home. After all I was not raised in a barn and your personal life is none of my concern unless you attack mine first.”

Anton ran his fingers through his hair as he took the chair next to mine. “A very mature outlook and subtle jibe at my behavior last evening.”

“Why did you horn in on my date?”

Silence. He was doing that thing where he looked like a statue.

“Anton. Answer me please.”

“I wanted to see your young man.”

Vampires did not have heartbeats to give away their lies, but they could have tells like folding their arms across their chest, which Anton was doing right now. “You wanted him to see you.”

There was that statue again. “You are not wrong.”

“If you said I was right would it make you burst into flames?”

“Natasha,” he said in weary irritation.

“Fine. I will behave myself.”

“I would prefer it if you told me what you did to make Marcus laugh. I could use a laugh this evening.”

He had been honest with me eventually. I guess I really should return the favor. “I was trying to leave, I heard your fight and I didn’t want you to think I was eavesdropping so when you came this way I dashed for a chair and my skirt sort of lagged behind. Marcus caught me yanking it back in place.”

“How high did it go up?”

I was about to give a smart ass response when I noticed his jaw was set. Anton was not happy that Marcus had gotten a little peep show. “Anton.”

“How high?”

“I thought we were passed the days when a woman showing ankle was a crime.”

“You will tell me or I will drag him in here and make him tell me.”

I heaved a sigh. My men sucked attitude was returning. “I came here to discuss our pending business venture. I think the Kensington could be converted easily in the time frame we need with a minimum of expense for either of-”

“HOW MUCH OF YOUR THIGH DID HE SEE?”

We were not moving past that one any time soon and I was about out of patience for today. “You want to know how much he saw? This is what he saw.”

Impulsively I went to him, put my foot on the arm of his chair and hauled my skirt up until it was within an inch of showing things that were none of his business whatsoever. His eyes, gone red with desire, slid the whole way up my leg from the tip of my pointy-toed shoe to the parts still hidden under fabric. If he had run his hand up that entire length of skin I don’t think I could have been more turned on. It was incredibly seductive to be admired that way when the man knew how to caress with his eyes instead of leering.

That was when Ashley burst through the door.

Chapter 10

“You bitch!” Ashley screamed. “I knew you were after him!”

Grabbing a book off a shelf, she threw it at my head with as much force as her human arm could muster. Because she had been ingesting vampire blood for a while it packed more of a wallop then a normal human’s her size throw would have, but I caught it in mid-air and resisted the urge to hurl it back at her. “You need to calm down little girl before you get yourself hurt.”

Anton would have gotten to his feet, I could tell by the way his muscles twitched, but my leg was in his way. I removed it from the arm of the chair and smoothed my skirt back in place. Free to move, Anton stalked over to his dessert and grabbed her by the arm.

“Apologize to her.”

“No.”

“Ashley.” His voice was a whiplash of anger. Ashley began to cry and would only shake her head at him. It would be funny if I weren’t watching a grown woman behave and be treated like a child. Did my mother ever resist her position as a third class citizen and face being told she was wrong for demanding fidelity and respect so that all she had left at her disposal were childish antics? Or did she take a sad pride in her position and quietly submit? I’m not even sure which one I found more humiliating. I wanted her to have been a fighter and yet I did not like to think she carried on so the world knew how low she was held in her keeper’s opinion.

“It’s not worth it Anton,” I said. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve been accused of and having a book tossed at me is hardly the worst thing I’ve ever faced. Clearly today is not the right time to have a meeting.”

Without taking his eyes off Ashley, Anton said through gritted teeth, “We are going to have our meeting as soon my dessert understands her place. I will not have you driven from my home because she mistakenly thinks she has any say in who I let in the front door.”

I did not like the sound of that. True I mocked desserts because I found the position degrading and thought anyone who would agree to be someone’s extra on the side was an idiot with no concept of self-worth, and yes I did have mommy issues added into all that, but it was not in me to see someone humiliated for a harmless act brought on by jealousy and Anton’s indifference to her feelings. But it was also not in me to completely forget the class system that had been beaten into my own psyche since the day I was born. I could not disrespect Anton by telling him what to do with his dessert in his home any more than he could come into my home and tell me not to discipline one of my people or barge in on my date and tell me the guy I was with wasn’t good enough. So I summoned up a lesson I had once been taught by him and said, “All people are judged on their present actions by future generations, make sure your actions represent what you wish to be known as.”

In other words, I was going to judge how he would treat me should I ever drop my drawers for him willingly by how he treated Ashley now. If I did not like what I saw, aside from my obligation to him, those drawers were going to stay firmly in place. I could all but see the steam coming out of his ears as he realized I had him by the balls with that one. Sidling towards them, I said, “Ashley does not understand the hierarchy properly, perhaps I should explain it to her privately. She might understand it better coming from a person with an ounce of humanity left in them.”

“Tell her what you wish I am staying and she will apologize for her poor behavior that affronts the dignity of my house,” Anton said at the same time Ashley the ingrate said, “I don’t care what you have to say.”

That was it. I needed to get out of here before I put them both out the window. “Anton, the specs on turning the Kensington into the hybrid club are on your desk. I worked up some figures and some concepts for the direction I think it should take, but nothing is set in stone; I’m open to your suggestions. Look them over and give me a call. Don’t wait too long because this matter needs to be handled sooner rather than later for all our sakes. Ashley, really, I’m not threat to your position in this house or in his life. If he ever realized that I would be his equal and not a subordinate if we were going to last beyond one night, he wouldn’t be eager to have me either. Do yourself a favor and don’t worry so much about who he’s doing. It will give you wrinkles and he’ll toss you aside.” Anton started to walk after me, but I hit the button that controlled the sun-proof window coverings and they began to slide up. With a hiss he shot across the room to shield himself amongst the shadows.

As I breezed down the hall to the foyer, I saw Marcus leaning against the wall. He winked at me and I realized he had let Ashley burst in on us. I don’t think he liked her very much from the way his lip curled as her aggrieved voice reached our ears. I was tempted to ask if they always fought this much, but Anton might hear and think I was hoping they were always on the outs when I really just wanted to know if I was part of a plot to get an unpopular dessert out of the house. I asked, “How did she get by you Marcus?”

“Luck.”

“Hmm. Don’t use me to hurt someone else.”

“You didn’t seem like they type to mind.”

“Being a pawn? That I mind.”

“I meant hurting someone.”

I shrugged, “If it’s my choice I’m not opposed to it, but not to further your purposes.”

“My mistake, but I didn’t know she’d walk in to find your leg shoved in his face. That was all you.”

“Touché.” Thanks a bunch Marcus, you made my day complete. It was time to get away from the vampires. I made my way outside and took a few deep breaths of fresh air, but that was not going to be enough to clear the day’s issues away. Feeling the need to do something productive as I climbed in my car to head back home, I decided to call the diner Megan McCoy worked at.

“Hodgepodge Diner this is Lily what can I do you for?”

“Hi Lily. My name is Natasha, I was in there a couple days ago. I don’t know if you remember me; short, dark hair, pale?”

“You forgot the world’s best tipper part,” she giggled. “I remember you, you ate chocolate cake with a peanut butter milkshake. Even without the $100 tip I would remember that. What’s up?”

“I can’t find my favorite sunglasses and I remembered driving with the top on my car down that day and thought maybe I wore them into the diner and forgot them. Has anyone turned in a pair of black Chanel sunglasses?”

“Not that I’ve seen and those would stand out.”

“Ok. Thanks. Oh! Hey, what happened with that waitress who had the vampire baby? Did she get fired?”

Lily snorted. “I wish. Fred kept her on. She’s supposed to work tonight.”

“Still not showing up when she’s scheduled?”

“No, she’s finally pulling her own weight again.”

“That’s good to hear. I’ll let you get back to work. Thanks again.”

*****

The diner closed at one o’clock in the morning so I waited in my car for Megan to leave. I knew it was her because she left her name tag on. It wasn’t hard to track her with her bright red hair. To my surprise she didn’t get into one of the junk heaps parked along the street, she went into a private garage a few feet up the road and after a few minutes came out driving a BMW that no waitress without a sugar daddy or a rich daddy she wasn’t admitting to was going to be able to afford. Whoever bought her car had paid for it out of their own pocket because her accounts had not shown the kind of activity that car, or the rather large house I trailed her to, would require. In fact, when I got home later I had Fitch run another check and Megan’s balance was at $200. The only activity shown had been a withdrawal on her debit card to buy diapers yesterday.

There were two ways I could approach my entry into her house. I could wait for her to go inside and knock to ask to use a phone because my cell was as dead as my car and then scare the crap out of her once I was inside or I could let myself in and then scare the crap out of her. Was I feeling deceptive or sadistic tonight? Decisions, decisions. While it occurred to me that Megan did have a baby and I didn’t want her to drop it because she turned around and found me standing behind her, that baby was also a half-caste and that meant she had seen beings like me. Rather than take the chance of her knowing what I was on sight and bolting, which would force me to chase her down in this nice suburban neighborhood, I decided to go with the stealthy route. The plan was to jump onto her garage roof and use it to access an upstairs window.

Halfway up her driveway I sensed them. I knew three things instantly: there were two of them, they were not Hadi and I needed to try to keep at least one of them alive to find out who they belonged to. On second thought, just because I could tell they weren’t from the same bloodline as Anton and I didn’t mean I shouldn’t check for the medallion vampires loyal to him wore. It was so much easier when blood was the only deciding factor in if you belonged to a particular Master vampire or not. These vampires could belong to Anton and they could be here for the same purpose I was. Of course if they were loyal to him they would know better than to stalk me. No, they were not on the home team, a confirmed fact when they rushed at me from either side.

I don’t think they expected me to be as capable as I was, because they ran right into each other after I got myself out of their paths. They hit each other with such force the driveway cracked where they landed. Having leapt up onto a tree branch for an aerial view of situation, I called down, “That had to hurt,” and grinned when they got to their feet snarling. This was going to be fun.

I had both feet back on the ground by the time one of the vampires jumped up onto the branch I had vacated. He looked so surprised not to find me still there. Where did Number Two go? With my reflexes and senses slightly ahead of my brain, I whirled around instinctually to block a punch and then duck a kick from Number Two. I took a swipe at him and only succeeded in raking his arm open with my claws. Number One gave up the hunt for me in the tree and returned the swipe. I sucked my breath in between my teeth as I felt the flesh of my back part. Son of a bitch that hurt!

Number One licked his fingers. “Vintage half-caste wine. My favorite.”

“That’s the only taste of me you’ll be getting,” I said with a growl. His smirk only made it half way across his mouth when my foot connected with his chest and sent him flying back into the tree I had vacated. A branch staked him through the heart and he was ash. I turned back to take care of Number Two, but he was gone and I could not sense him anywhere. My visit with Ms. McCoy was going to have to wait. I was not about to take on Two and group of his pals in the middle of a human neighborhood. I would wait and let whoever sent them think I had been scared off and then come back during the daylight.

When I arrived back home all I wanted to do was take a long hot bath and go to bed. I loved how muscles I did not even know were tense would relax in really hot water. And I was starving. Which to do first eat or soak? I opted to swing by the kitchen and grab a pint of ice cream and a spoon before heading upstairs. I was going to eat it while I soaked. Not for the first time I was grateful for the private bathroom off my bedroom. No one was going to be banging on the door demanding I hurry up. Even better, my preternatural skin wasn’t going to prune either. Ah eternal youth, your perks were many.

“Rough night or fun night?” Dawn asked as she came up behind me in the hall.

“Both. Depending on your preferences.”

“Do tell. Are the claw marks in your shirt from the fun part or the rough part? Or were they rough and fun? I heard you met with Anton today. Were they a gift from him?” She leaned against the wall with a smirk. “Cause baby I know your little reporter didn’t do that.”

“I took on some out of towners, but trust me, I got the better deal. One ruined shirt to one dead vampire.”

“Who cares about the hunting? I want to know about the men.”

“Dawn as a member of this coven all you should care about is that there were two vampires in our city that owe no loyalty to Anton and attacked one of us. What else I did today is none of your business.”

Dawn heaved a petulant sigh. “Fine. Keep your little secrets. You and Kain act like what you do when you leave this house is a state secret.”

“What about Kain?”

“He’s always vanishing off somewhere with no explanation where he is or what he’s doing. If I were Mercy I’d follow him because I swear I spotted him with some skinny redheaded human chick the other night. I don’t know what is more humiliating for Mercy, that the other woman is a waitress or a human.”

I felt myself go very still and momentarily wondered if I looked like Anton did when he went into statue mode. Kain and a redheaded waitress. “How do you know she was a waitress?”

“She had a name tag on and reeked of French fries. Anyway, I would die if the guy I was seeing was cheating on me with a mangy human.” Dawn dug her foot into the floor like a little girl. “Are you really going to leave me hanging about what happened with you and Anton today?”

“Why do you care what Anton and I do?”

“I like details.”

“You like to gossip.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Me.”

“Kain is up to something Natasha and as Mercy’s friends we should warn her.”

“Do not say a word to Mercy about any of this Dawn. I’ll look into it. If I find out he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, I’ll take care of it. And if he’s not, there is no reason to upset Mercy with speculation.” I could have been talking to myself instead of Dawn with that bit of advice.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going to cover for him. He’s making a fool out of-”

“That will be all Dawn. Thank you.”

“Tash.”

“That will be all,” I said, dismissing her again. This time she left. I told myself that the reason I was not going to have Kain followed based on Dawn’s statement was because I hated gossip, not because he was my friend and I was letting emotion cloud my judgment. I did not want to be paranoid, but I didn’t want to be blind either. There was no way to order one of my people to follow Kain without raising suspicion since I would have to give them a reason. And if I didn’t give them a reason beyond “because I said so” rumors would start and I didn’t want to risk anyone else finding out about the treaty violation. If word spread that’s when the Order would be inclined to step in to shut it down. If I followed Kain myself then I would be too busy to explore the other avenues of this situation and I might miss the real culprit. No, I would see what I could find out from other sources and then go after Kain.

Chapter 11

It was eleven o’clock when I woke up the next day and I was not looking forward to the conversation I needed to have with Rainor about what I had found so far on our mystery. My main suspect was our enforcer, although despite what I had said to Kain about friendship not earning him a free pass I still didn’t want to think it was him, and I had very little else to go on. Happily I had the opportunity to stall when I saw I had three messages on my voicemail.

The first message came in last night while I was working my way through the ice cream and soaking in the bathtub. It was from Chris who wanted to have our first uninterrupted date on Saturday. He said he had an idea of what we could do that was safe from vampires or any issues related to them. He wanted to keep the details a surprise, but I was supposed to call him back if the day worked for me. I was on board.

The second message was from Anton, which surprised me since he usually made his assistant call. Seems he was putting on a show of how he knew how to reach me personally. Lucky girl that Ashley, I thought as I rolled my eyes. Anton wanted to meet this evening to discuss the hybrid club. This time there would be no power plays, he promised, he thought we should meet with as many people as we each felt necessary (and I could tell he hoped I felt none were necessary on my part) at the Kensington. He liked some of my ideas, he didn’t like others, but he needed to see the space.

The third message, which had only come in an hour ago, was Chris again. He needed to change the day of our date that he hadn’t heard back from me on because he was being sent out of town on assignment. He wouldn’t get back until Sunday morning, but he had Tuesday off if that worked for me. Lucky for us, my job had no set hours. Tuesday worked for me and calling him to tell him so was another excuse to put off going to see my leader.

Chris answered on the second ring. “Hey there.”

“Hi. Is this a bad time?”

“No it’s fine. I was getting nervous when you took so long calling me back.”

“Your last message came in an hour ago while I was in bed.”

“It’s eleven o’clock.”

“Your point being?”

“I found myself a late riser. I can deal with that.”

“Never really had a chance to see if I was anything else. I’ve always been sort of forced to keep vampire hours. Now that I’m back in town I try to time it so I do see some daylight since I have business meetings to keep.”

Chris laughed. “Excuses, excuses. You just don’t do early. I’ll have to wake you up at five some morning to go jogging with me.”

Poor man, I wouldn’t be the one in for a rude awakening that morning. If he managed to get by the guards whose sole duty it was to keep out people that would upset the house, guards who knew what upsetting me could cost them, he would be greeted by a houseful of cranky non-morning people who would all be ready to tear him to bits. And that was before he reached my bedroom door. Assuming I didn’t kill the annoying creature that dared to disturb my slumber before I was awake enough to realize that I was not under attack and the need for deadly force was not justified, once he got me jogging his male ego was in for a bruising. I ran like a vampire, which meant blink and you missed me and I wouldn’t even have broken a sweat. “I live in a house that has guards patrolling it twenty-four hours a day. Unexpected drop-ins aren’t really recommended.”

“Why do you need guards during the day? The vampires should all be safely in bed by then.”

“Other covens and sometimes other creepy crawlies come to visit.”

“Other creepy crawlies? There’s more out there than vampires?”

“Where do you think half the stories in your magazine come from? If vampires and half-castes are real, so are trolls, witches, elves, and demons. All of which are for sale to the highest bidders, which means the vampires can send a Theda demon to come try to take us out in broad daylight.”

“What’s a Theda demon?”

I shivered just thinking about the one I had seen. “Disgusting creatures covered in slime that smell like decaying flesh. Ew!”

Chris laughed. “You sounded so girly with that ‘ew’. You don’t strike me as the girly type.”

“I can be girly. Don’t forget I was part of the lace pinafore and corset crew. You’re dating a geriatric.”

“But a well preserved one.”

I could hear voices coming through Chris’ phone. He needed to get back to work. “Listen, I’ll let you get back to work. Call me when you get back to confirm the time for Tuesday.”

“Now most women would tell me to call them while I was away so they knew I was thinking about them.”

He had called me twice, without hearing back from me in between, he would be thinking about me whether he called me or not. But I wasn’t going to say that. “I’m not most women.”

“No you’re not. That’s what I like about you Natasha. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Bye.”

Since it was daytime and I knew he would be asleep, I called Anton’s assistant to confirm the meeting. Then I called the guards at the Kensington and told them to expect Anton later this evening and to have the manager straighten things up a bit. We would get there before it opened to its few customers for the evening and I was afraid bad business had made them lax about the overall appearance. With nothing left to use as a stall tactic, I went to see Rainor who I found sitting on the balcony attached to his bedroom.

“Morning, sir,” I said. “I’m glad to see you’re out of bed again.”

“I spent most of my life chasing things in the dark, now that I’m dying I want to enjoy the light. That’s why I’m happy I have you here to take care of the messy stuff.”

Now I wasn’t so sure I should tell him what was on my mind. If having me eased his burden should I use him as a sounding board, or was keeping it a secret cutting him out of his seat of power?

“Just tell me my dear. I can all but hear the wheels grinding in that head of yours as you ponder if you should pat me on my head and continue to run a puppet regime in my name or treat me as the leader I am with a brain in a failing body.”

Ouch! I hardly thought I had created a puppet regime. I checked in with him, I deferred to his opinion and I refused to make any major decision about the coven without talking to him. That’s why I was here now, to fill him in. And his tactic had worked. Anger over being accused of taking over before it was my time had insured I wouldn’t forget who ruled here as long as he drew breath and it made me forget any ideas about coddling him. “I’ve been looking into our project. Mama has been elusive. I put off seeing her to avoid tipping anyone off, but she changed addresses and when I went to her new location I had company.”

“What kind?”

“The pulseless kind that didn’t recognize me.”

“Guards?”

“Had to be, I know I wasn’t followed.”

Rainor stroked his chin as he thought. “Tell me the rest. None of that would have you pussyfooting around.”

“When I got home last night, a little bird told me that old friend who has been wandering was spotted with a female who matched Mama’s description. Mama has some nice new things, but there’s no bank activity for her and Fitch hasn’t reported anything out of the ordinary on anyone’s in this house spending habits.”

“Except yours.”

I blinked. “What did he say about me? Why would he report me?”

“Because you spent $5000 in one day and he was told to look for unusual expenditures. Who else was he going to report you to, but me, my dear?”

Unless Fitch wanted me out of the way, I guess that nixed my theory that maybe we weren’t finding the smoking bank account gun because Fitch was the naughty half-caste. “That was the day I went shopping with Dawn. I have the money why not enjoy it?”

“That’s what I told him,” Rainor said. “What are you going to do about this?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say I was going to have to walk around naked if Fitch objected to me clothes shopping, but I shouldn’t forget whom I was speaking to. “I’ve been thinking about it. There is no one I can ask to follow him without giving him or her a reason. Even if I could find someone who would do that, everyone would know about it and talk would start. It would tip him off if he was up to something. I’m going to keep investigating this and hope he doesn’t turn out to be hanging himself.”

“If he is guilty?”

“He’s dead.”

“That’s my girl.” Rainor picked up a cup of tea that smelled wonderfully sugary and took sip. “How did the meeting go with Anton?”

“So well we have to try it again tonight.” I explained things were tense without going into leggy detail. Rainor was still more perceptive than I gave him credit for.

“What you’re telling me is Anton used his attraction to you to try to tame an unruly dessert while he seemed to be auditioning you to take her place?”

“Basically yes.” I felt myself blushing. I had never had a father, but I had the feeling this was what talking about boys with one would have been like and it was damn uncomfortable. I had the urge to squirm.

“So you did what about this?” He looked me firmly in the eyes.

Yep that squirmy feeling was not going to go away anytime soon. “I keep telling him I will not be a dessert.”

“And?”

“I taunt him as mercilessly as he taunts me. It appears to be a retaliation game I can’t stop playing.”

Rainor stood up and I remembered why I once feared him. “You are playing mating games instead of taking care of your responsibilities. I know you have spent a great deal of time doing as you pleased with no checks on your actions so long as you accomplished your mission, but you are not the lone hunter anymore. You are next in line to lead this coven and you need to think about what that means.”

“Yes, sir.” Ever the good soldier, I bowed my head and waited.

“What time is the meeting with Anton?”

“Seven.”

“I will be joining you.”

“Are you sure you are up to that, sir? I wouldn’t want disappointment in my conduct to lead you to overtax yourself.”

“I will rest before hand. That will be all Natasha.”

I bowed to him and left feeling like a five year old.

*****

Promptly at seven o’clock that evening, I was sliding out of the front seat of limo to hold the back door open for Rainor and Kain to slide out. It was clear to everyone present that I was not in my leader’s good graces right now. I saw Anton, who was just getting out of his own limo; raise his brow to see me walking behind Rainor, next to Kain, instead of beside Rainor where the heir should be. Tristan smirked and I imagined spraying the walls with his blood. Now it was my turn to smirk.

Anton greeted Rainor first. “It is good to see you about again my ally. It must be a relief to Natasha to know the weight of the crown is not fully on her head yet.”

I inclined my head, but said nothing. Kain’s eyes flicked over at me before he rolled them at me to show he wasn’t going to touch this with a ten-foot pole. It was my plan to be the perfect bodyguard since that was the role I had been assigned. Trail my leader, protect my leader, speak only when spoken to by my leader or addressed by Anton. Which is not to say that I couldn’t have some fun; I did enjoy giving Tristan a stony stare that made him fiddle with his collar. Yes, fang boy, I was considering killing you.

“Natasha,” Rainor said.

I went to his side. Someone said my name and that’s what I was supposed to do if I was under his command. “Yes?”

“Anton would like you to explain how the bar would be set up.”

“It would be fully integrated serving alcohol and blood.”

Anton asked, “You would serve human blood?”

“Yes.” That surprised him and Rainor both, I could tell. “Blood banks have to get rid of donations after they reach the expiration date, but it is still drinkable. My idea was that we buy it from them so they are more willing to work with us than if we ask for it to be handed over. I know they would be disposing of it anyway, but this idea is going to gross them out. I would also offer up some animal varieties of blood. Some vampires do like it.”

“Which will have animal rights activists after us,” Kain said. “We could hook a live human up to syringes, hang them above the bar and drain them dry to feed the vampire patrons and the lawyers would debate it in courts for years trying to decide if it was a violation of human rights and dignity or if stopping it discriminated against the vampires, but serve up a glass of Doggy Delight and we’ll have protesters picketing the parking lot.”

Anton laughed. “You are absolutely right.”

Tristan said, “We could go with that human above the bar idea in one of our clubs though. It’s intriguing.”

Rainor said, “This club could do the same with a vampire.”

Tristan laughed. “No one drinks vampire blood.”

“Humans would enjoy its restorative properties,” Rainor said.

Kain added, “We could cash in on the Order’s dollar. They might start coming around if we did that.”

Everyone fell silent.

“Or not,” Kain said.

I gave him a withering look and said, “We should serve donated human blood and some varieties of animal in addition to alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. The bartenders and servers would have to be half-castes and vampires since most humans would find serving blood to the vampire clients repugnant and they would be the ones putting it in the glasses. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of the human employees catching anything if the blood should be contaminated. Blood would only be sold to vampire clients, not humans who think they are vampires.”

“Agreed,” said Anton. “You know the blood drinking world better than I thought you would. Would all the employees be non-humans?”

“Humans would be involved in cooking and serving food. They could be hosts too. Bouncers and doormen would have to be supernatural. Décor would be classy goth. We want to poke a little fun at ourselves to draw the curious humans in.”

Anton paced around the area taking it all in. It was hard to visualize the crisp looking Kensington as anything else. “How would you avoid the…accidents that could occur with this particular mix?”

“First we only hire vampires and half-castes who we are sure will play nicely with everyone. They have to want to do this; we can’t commandeer anyone into it. Then we make sure the humans are here to be workers and not desserts or recruits. We have the hosts and hostesses cheerfully explain the rules to everyone as they seat them or show them to the bar. The bouncers will take care of anyone who gets out of line.”

“It will never work,” Tristan said.

“I think it might,” Anton said. “Natasha has obviously given this a lot of thought and she knows what she is talking about. But Kain made an excellent point before.”

“I did?” Kain asked. “What was that exactly?”

“The Order will take an interest in this if they haven’t already. If anything goes wrong with it they could shut us down. What do you think Natasha?”

I licked my lips. “I don’t think they’ll have any issues with the reasoning behind this idea. As long as we are successful and this doesn’t create more problems in the long run, they’ll stay out of it. Besides they are paid assassins they aren’t going to object to someone else earning a buck.”

Rainor said, “She’s right. Did the figures we sent over sound good to you?”

“They did,” Anton said.

We spent another hour going over every detail of the contracts and possibilities for disaster. In the end the club was a go although its name was to be determined. I did not put one foot out of line the entire time and to my surprise Anton didn’t try to goad me either. When we got home Rainor went right up to bed, but I grabbed Kain’s arm and stopped him from going upstairs.

“Why don’t you come work out with me?” I asked. “I was so good today I’m about ready to burst.”

Kain shook his head. “Sorry, I’m going to go spend the night with my lady.”

“Mercy?”

“Who else?” He gave me a weird look. “Are you ok Tash?”

“I’m fine. You know if anything was up you could tell me?”

“Yes. But everything is fine.”

Well there was a failed attempt to get him alone to talk. Not that I expected him to own up to cheating on his girlfriend or trying to start a war, but maybe he would have let something slip to give me a clue what was going on with him. Looks like I was working out alone. Down to the basement I went to work up a sweat.

Chapter 12

My date from hell began with a knock on the door. I had wanted to meet Christopher at his house, but he was coming from work after some sort of layout emergency required revisions to his story and my place was on his way. I suggested meeting at wherever we were going, but it was supposed to be a surprise, so we were back to him coming to the coven house to get me. I would have prepared him for the house, to say nothing of those living inside the house, if I had known this was going to happen. Had I known Dawn was going to open the door instead of Max, I would have jumped out the window to greet him before he knocked, but since I thought I was safe on that front and since the guards had already gotten a look at him to report back on his appearance, car and general presence to anyone who wanted to know once I was out of earshot, I let fate take its course. An acknowledged mistake the instant I hit the last landing on the staircase to find Dawn had him cornered. I paused to see what my quasi gal pal was up to since she had developed a fascination with the men in my life and what I did with them.

“Chris, why haven’t we seen you around here before?” she asked. “The girls and I are always looking for some fresh blood and you are exactly what we need. Natasha needs to learn to share her toys and stop hiding you away like she’s ashamed of you.”

“I’m not a toy,” Chris said.

“Aren’t you?” Dawn leaned in so close to him I felt like I would need to check him for indents from her breasts. “We all know you’re not her type. You’re too nice for our Natasha, she likes the bad boys, like Anton. You’re just a nice little distraction until she grows the stones to admit she wants him. But we could have some fun. I’m not frigid and moody.”

I was about to step in when Harris stepped out of the shadows. “You’re really asking it for it kiddo.”

Dawn continued to remain glued to Chris as she put on a fake pout. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Harris, or why you care what I do.”

“Sure you do. You want to get Natasha back for giving you a few loose teeth and shutting you out of the girls club she and Mercy have going so you’re hitting on Clark Kent by making him think he shouldn’t try to climb her icy heights while you’re down here with the little people and readily available. If he takes you up on it, you’ll score a pathetic victory and claim you only did it to prove to Tash that he was unworthy. If he shoots you down, you’ll say it was a joke.”

Chris raked Dawn with his green eyes and a look of disgust crossed his face. “That was a come on? What kind of guys do you date that find being insulted while you simultaneously run down the woman they are interested in and talk yourself up attractive? Cause what I heard was, ‘I’m easy and if I undermine your self-esteem you’ll stoop to being with me’ and I’m not that stupid or that desperate.”

Harris started to choke. Then he snorted. Then he gave up trying to not laugh and gave in to it. There were tears running down his face when I joined them. I really didn’t think it was that funny, but maybe he was imagining what could possibly happen to Dawn for this exchange and that tickled his funny bone. Harris did have a twisted side once you got to know him.

I decided to play dumb and asked, “What did I miss?”

“Nothing except your pet is rude,” Dawn snapped as she stalked away.

“Someone needs to define rude for her,” Chris said loudly enough that humans in Alaska could have heard him. The house was going to be buzzing about this. Then he compounded it by asking, “Do you think it would help if I bought her a dictionary?”

Harris laughed even harder.

I rolled my eyes and greeted Chris with a light kiss on the lips. “We should get out of here before it gets any worse.”

“But I think he may wet himself soon.”

I gave him a withering look. “You’re as bad as the rest of them. Let’s go.”

We were at the door when Harris got enough control of himself to ask in a breathless voice if I had seen Kain who had failed to show up for a meeting with the lieutenants. “It’s not like him to not show and not call Tash.”

“No it’s not.” I looked over at Chris. “Do you mind waiting for another few minutes?”

“That depends. Is the wonder bra coming back? I’m not going through that again, she’s one messed up chick.”
Now it was my turn to laugh until I cried. Crap, I was wearing a pale green dress and now I had to worry about getting bloodstains on it from my tears. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I was going to go with wonder slut, but she gave me a feel of the bra on my arm so I knew it was true, I only have a suspicion about the slut part.”

Harris was down for the count on that one. Literally, on the floor howling. If he kept it up everyone was going to be down here for the comedy show and I’d never get Chris out of the house. This was not time to be demure. “MERCY!”

In a blur she arrived from the direction of the library. “You bellowed?”

“Yeah. Do you know where Kain is? According to chuckles down there Kain missed a meeting this morning.”

Mercy furrowed her brow. “He said something about an appointment, but I didn’t think it was anything that would keep him long. I knew he was supposed to meet with Ben and the others today. That’s weird. Let me give him a call.”

I glanced down at Harris who was now sitting up and wiping his eyes on his shirt. No blood tears to contend with there. “Are you ok down there Harris? I don’t need to call 911 or anything?”

“I’ll be fine as long as your friend can control himself and Dawn doesn’t come back. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at her again for at least a week.”

“Any luck Mercy?” I asked.

“I got his voicemail.”

“Maybe I should stick around.”

Mercy shook her head. “Please don’t. I’m sure he’s fine, probably just out of his service area. It’s daylight so we know it wasn’t the vampires.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“Ok.” I looked over at Chris. “Ready?”

“After you.” He held the door open for me and we made our escape.

As I was about to climb in the car, I saw Kain pulling into the driveway. “Give me another minute please. Sorry.”

I walked over to the enforcer’s car as he put the window down.

“Problem, officer?” he jokingly asked.

“You tell me. You’re the one that missed the lieutenant meeting today.”

“No I didn’t. That’s on the tenth and today is the-”

“Tenth.” I showed him my watch where the date was displayed.

“Shit.”

“Where did you go instead?”

Kain’s gaze shifted. “I had an errand to run. It was a personal thing.”

“Right.” I decided not to press. Yet. But in light of his appearance in the vampire quarter that I had also let slide and Dawn’s drop about the waitress, Kain and I were due for a serious conversation soon. I returned to Chris and managed to get in the car this time.

I had no idea where we were going. Christopher had said he wanted to go somewhere private where vampires or coven issues could not come into play when we set up the date, a daytime date took care of the vampires, aka Anton, who would turn into piles of ash if they decided to butt in on today’s activities, but as he was seeing, the coven’s problems could follow me anywhere day or night. “So, where are we-”

My phone rang.

“Sorry,” I said as I flipped it open. “There’s a lot going on right now.”

Apparently there was more going on with Harris’ funny bone then with the coven, because he was crank calling me with the sage advice that I should be careful not to bruise Chris if I decided to sleep with him on the second date. I really hoped Chris’ hearing was not good enough to hear Harris’ helpful hint because it would be mortifying, but from the way he started to smile I think he had that wonderfully perfect preternatural hearing most half-castes did. I snapped the phone shut. “You know, I don’t care if the house is burning down, I’m not answering that thing again.”

“Afraid of what the next call will be about?”

“You’d think living in a house full of people all over the age of fifty there wouldn’t be juvenile crap like this, but they are worse than actual teenagers. Now you can see why I didn’t want you to pick me up at home. I knew they would want to play with you a bit. I’m sorry about Dawn by the way.”

“Anyone that walks in the door is fair game, huh?”

“Bad choice of words.”

“What? Oh, ‘game’. I thought Dawn was joking about that blood comment. There aren’t actually people in that house that would be out to drink my blood are there?”

“No, but sometimes cats like to play with small creatures. Corner them, bat at them, and torment them. Think of the people inside that house like a group of cats; charming when they want to be, sneaky, cunning, only occasionally declawed and all to willing to sink metaphorical fangs in whenever they feel like it.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“But I’m just like them when I want to be so it works.” He eyed me as he drove and I wondered if I had just worried him a little. “Anyway, where are we going? And what is that smell?”

Chris sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything.”

“I have a hypersensitive sense of smell. You know, I can actually smell blood. You probably don’t want to know that. No one ever really wants to know that, but it’s true.”

“Then I’ll have to always make sure I shower before our dates.”

Even though the air conditioning was running, I put the window down. I could still smell it and it was making me nauseous. “Did you forget a bag of groceries in the trunk? It really smells like meat.”

“You can really smell that? You aren’t a vegetarian are you?”

“Um…no.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

Chris grinned sheepishly. “I planned a picnic on the beach and packed a trunk full of sandwiches and salads. I didn’t know what you liked so there’s some of everything back there. I hope you brought sunscreen, you must really have to be careful about the sun with that skin of yours.”

I groaned at the dreaded sunscreen comment, but explained I currently had no worries about the sun. After that I faced an interrogation about half-caste life: Why did we live in coven houses? Didn’t that leave us open to a siege? What started the war? Did any other group drink blood beside the Order? Were the half-castes in the Order as scary as the rumors said?

Finally I asked, “Are you writing a story on this?”

“Sorry,” Chris said as we pulled into a parking spot at the beach. “I’ve never been in a position to ask anyone these things. I sound like a two year old don’t I?”

“A two year old wouldn’t have come up with wonder slut.”

“That was a good one.”

“Do you practice them?”

“Spur of the moment only. I never rehearse my material.” He smiled and got out to lug the picnic basket out of the trunk. It was on the tip of my tongue to offer to help since it looked like the basket might pull him over, but decided to let him do the manly thing. So much for my personal motto of living in the current era, the Victorian era still seemed to have a hold on me if I was going to let a man feel like a man for his demure little woman. The vampires that drilled those age-old misogynistic concepts into my head would be so proud. Oh, well it seemed like a nice thing to do for his ego and I was usually very hard on the ego or so I had been told.

We found a spot where a cluster of boulders blocked the wind. Chris was worried about sand in our food and I was worried about sand down my dress. It took me about four minutes to decide the beach was not my scene. The ocean was pretty, but the sand that stuck to everything, the beating sun that bothered my eyes and the endless stream of screaming brats on parade reminded me why I had gone to the beach once when swimsuits were still made out of wool and had not returned. Prowling dark allies was much more my style.

“Quite the spread. Did you make it or buy it?” I asked.

“I bought the sandwiches, but I made the potato salad. Mom’s own recipe.”

“That’s nice.”

“Did your mom cook?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“No.”

“Were you close?”

“No. Can we talk about something else?”

“Not a problem our mouths are about to be too busy to talk.”

I had a sinking feeling he wasn’t talking about kissing which was quickly confirmed when Chris glopped a spoonful of the potato salad on a plate and handed it to me. Then he gave me a verbal map of what sandwich was where. I was pretty sure I was supposed to pick one and dig in. I grabbed an egg salad sandwich and stared at it as it sat on my plate. What was I going to do with all this? “So what did you bring for dessert?”

“No dessert until you finish what’s on your plate missy.”

He’s joking. He’s joking, don’t overreact I told myself. But then he prompted me to try the potato salad and I snarled. I didn’t mean to.

“Whoa. I guess no one ever hovered over you at meals before. What was that mother of yours doing while you were growing up?”

“She was rotting in the ground because she died giving birth to me. The only people around to hover over me were my vampire nanny and assorted members of Lucius’ court. For the most part they called me ‘the child’ and I was treated like a lapdog the way my mother, the dessert, was treated. Which means we were over dressed, passed around and considered property. She was screwed by Lucius before he screwed me over.”

Chris went pale. “I am so sorry Natasha. I had no idea. I never would have said that if I had known. I thought you were just being shy.”

I pushed my hair out of my face and took a deep breath. “I’m the one who should be sorry. There was no way for you to know and I wasn’t explaining. General rule of thumb with me; if I’m giving one word answer it’s probably time to change the subject.”

“Desserts have to be willing don’t they? Who would want to do that?” Then his eyes went wide and he began to babble. “Sorry, again. I was thinking to myself and it came out of my mouth. Forget I said it. Forget the entire conversation. I will not bring up the mother topic again starting now I promise.”

Maybe it was because I felt bad for snapping at him or maybe it was because I was looking for something to do to ease the tension, but I stuck a forkful of that damn potato salad in my mouth and froze.

He saw the look on my face and asked, “Is the mayo bad?”

I shook my head and started to chew. I needed a plan. When Chris bent his head to take a bite of his sandwich, I used my preternatural speed to spit the mouthful out and cover it in sand. I looked up and found a blonde haired little girl staring at me.

She smiled at me and waved at Chris, “Hi.”

“Hi,” we both said.

Then that little bitch looked at Chris and said, “She spit her lunch in the sand.”

It was mean and immature, but I deliberately reddened my eyes and glared at the little girl. She squealed and ran away. I turned back to Chris who was staring at me in bewilderment. There was no way to explain so I decided to change the subject. “Do you like being a reporter?”

“Uh…yeah, I like it.” He looked over at where the little girl was crying to her mother and pointing back at me. “You’re really not going to explain it are you?”

“If I told you I would have to kill you.”

“Very funny.” Chris ate some more and then asked, “I wanted to be a writer, but I’m not very creative so now I write about other peoples’ stories since the ideas are already out there waiting to be found and I don’t have to manufacture them.”

“Did you want to write novels? What kind?”

“Fiction. Maybe historical fiction. I bet you could help me there.”

“I don’t know about that one.”

“It is so weird to think of everything you’ve seen in your life Tash. Stuff I’ve only read about you experienced first hand. I should do an article on you.”

I laughed. “There would be some people who would be very unhappy about that.”

“Like your father? He probably wouldn’t come off very well, how could any man let his child be caste? Even if he couldn’t stop it, why wouldn’t he do whatever it took to get it away from the vampires or the coven that did it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t you wonder how your father could let this happen to you?”

That’s where things got ugly. I shot to my feet and stared down at him. “If you had any comprehension about vampires or true half-castes you would know that no one really has a choice in the matter, but since you’re an outsider I would stop passing judgment on people and situations you know nothing about. Of course you wouldn’t understand the need to create more of your kind, you’re barely even one of us. If you registered in the slightest with anyone you would be in a coven and not asking me stupid questions. I’m out of here.”

Before he could say another word I was out of sight. I had gone two blocks before I realized it was a two hour drive here and while it wouldn’t drain me too much to walk all the way back home, I really didn’t feel like walking so I called Max to come get me.

Chapter 13

When I got back to the house that night I had the sneaking suspicion that after Max had hung up the phone with me, he had warned everyone to vanish the second we returned because no one, and I mean no one, was around. Usually there were people sprawled out on the couches watching TV, or reading in the library, or going in and out of the house for duty or an evening out. Couldn’t a girl call her driver to demand he pick her up at a discount chain store because she walked out on her date with a few rants about potato salad and men and their questions tossed in without public notice being given? Was there some sort of color-coded alert system in place that I was unaware of?

Trouble was I really wanted to talk to someone about this, but I didn’t want to seem like I wanted to talk. I knew I could always talk to Rainor about life, but not my dating life especially after the dressing down he gave me the other night. Even if he didn’t decide to lecture me about appropriate behavior for a coven leader or cringe away from the idea of what he would think of as girl talk, he would find it way too funny. While the man could keep a secret about a great many things, I knew this would not be one of them. By the next morning I would have potatoes and potato salad showing up everywhere. Maybe I would even wind up with a sandbox in my bedroom. Respect was important in a coven, but this particular coven knew no bounds on its sense of humor and if Rainor made my date public knowledge then it was open season. Which brought me to Mercy who was at least bound by the girl code and the knowledge that I knew things about her that Kain didn’t and turn about was definitely fair play when it came to romantic secrets.

That didn’t mean I was without reservations about talking to her about my personal life anymore than I already had. The whole way to Mercy’s room I argued with myself that I shouldn’t open the door to girl talk. Not because it was unleader-like, but because once that door was opened it usually meant it couldn’t be closed again. Mercy and I had once talked about everything, but even if I were the same person I was back then I couldn’t escape the hard truth that there was most likely a traitor in this house and I was uncomfortable at putting my trust in anyone about anything at this point. I reminded myself that she had never betrayed my secrets in decades gone by and that I was supposed to be trying to ingratiate myself back into coven life. I knocked on her door.

“Come in.”

I opened the door and peered in. “Is Kain here?”

Mercy was sitting on the bed reading a book. She closed it and stood up. “He’s out right now. Is there something I can help you with or is this about this morning?”

“Actually I wanted to talk to you. It’s sort of personal.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

I pushed the door shut and followed her inside. “Well, it’s about Chris.”

Mercy’s face brightened up. I definitely had her attention if I was going to talk about men. She wasn’t guy crazy like Dawn, but she liked all the gory details and unlike Dawn she had tact and discretion. “Ok.”

“We went to the beach.”

“Has he looked at your skin?”

“I don’t burn. And I don’t eat potato salad.”

“I’m going to leave that second one alone because of the randomness and focus on the not burning one. Does he know that? I know he’s a half-caste, but he isn’t part of a coven he doesn’t really know how everything works.”

“Not the real issue.”

“Sorry, but you and the sun look like you shouldn’t be on the best of terms. You’d think he would check before taking you somewhere you could be burned to a crisp and the sun does bother your eyes sometimes.”

“Anyway…we went to the beach which was as un-fun as I remembered it being, but I was willing to try to have a good time because he must like it to want to take me there until he started asking me about my mother.”

Mercy winced. “Again not the best of choices on his part.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What did you say to him about her?”

I laid out the entire conversation for her including how I eventually stormed off and left him standing there staring after me like I had grown a second head. You would think after 109 years of life I could respond in a more mature manner. So much for my speech to Kain about no longer being capable of spitting in Anton’s face, after the way I acted today I’d probably resort to kicking him in the shins. “I told him that she was a dessert and having me killed her.”

“What did Chris say?”

“He wanted to know why anyone would be a dessert.”

“I bet that hit a nerve.”

“Several. He apologized for the second time in five minutes and promised not to bring up the subject of mothers again. Then I ate his stupid potato salad and spit it out so that snot nosed brat could tell him, which made him get all weird. We were ok for a little while, but then he asked how my father could let his child be caste or at least not get me away from the vampires if he couldn’t stop it and I lost it and took off.”

“Define ‘lost it’.”

“I didn’t kill him, hit him or spit in his face if that’s what you’re asking. But I did say some really nasty stuff to him about not comprehending vampires or true half-castes because he was an outsider to coven life and barely registered as one of us anyway.”

“Ouch.”

I flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “This is why I spent years only having casual hook-ups. The emotional crap didn’t factor in.”

“You feel bad about it? I mean, you’re not here because you’re mad he pried. You want to know how to fix this.”

“Can this be fixed?” Do I want to fix it? That was the better question. Emotional attachments were messy as my friendships with Mercy, Dawn and Kain proved. It was so much easier to be cut and dry, all business, but was that really a life? I was starting to miss the simple days before I came back.

Mercy lounged back next to me and studied my face like she could see what I was feeling if she looked at my features long enough. “Here’s my non-expert advice. Call him.”

“That’s it?”

“What more did you want?”

“I don’t know. More than ‘call him’.”

“I’m a half-caste foot soldier shacked up with an enforcer, not a relationship counselor Tash. When Kain and I fight I throw things at his head, he shouts, eventually I manage to hit him with one of my missiles because he’s too busy ranting to get out of the way and we wind up having wild hot monkey sex. I don’t think Chris’ reflexes are that good so I can’t recommend throwing stuff at him, you might kill him.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that monkey image.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Mmmm. Warn me the next time you two fight. Ok? I really don’t want to turn a corner and walk in on that.”

Mercy reached over to grab her cell phone off the nightstand and handed it to me. “Call the guy. Then come find me and tell me all about it.”

“I’ll go, this is your room.”

“Exactly. This is my room so no one will barge in to interrupt you, which is what you are hoping for so you can get out of this. Look, Natasha, he seems like a decent guy. Either try to make it work or cut him loose before he invests in it.”

I smiled at her. “See you know more than throwing things and monkey sex.”

“Who’s having monkey sex?” Kain asked as he barged in.

Mercy gritted her teeth. “Once again your timing is impeccable my love. You vanish this morning when you’re needed and show up now when men are unwelcome. I’d say she put you up to it, but I know you were patrolling the city since sun fall.”

“What did I do?”

I laughed. “Nothing. How did it go?”

Kain shot Mercy a look as she muttered about people stalling, but he focused on my question instead of his glaring girlfriend. Looks like I should beware what corner I turned tonight. Kain said, “It was an interesting evening. I killed a vampire.”

“What?”

“I was on Sixth Street and I found a vampire feeding on a human. I told him to back off, but he didn’t so I got him off her. We fought. He lost.”

“One of Anton’s vampires was going for a kill in our territory?” I could feel my blood rising. If one of his people were that brazen I wouldn’t put it past them to have created that half-caste baby after all. They could use Kain’s kill as an excuse to attack us if they accused him of lying. “Did you secure the woman as proof?”

“I took her to the hospital for a transfusion, but the vampire I killed wasn’t one of Anton’s.”

“Are you sure?”

Kain nodded. “I know most of his people and they all wear his crest. This guy didn’t have it and I never saw him before.”

“Were there any identifying marks so we know who to thank?”

“Didn’t really get to check before he burst into flame, but jewelry usually survives the implosion and there were only ashes left.”

Mercy cursed softly. “It could be a set up. All he had to do was take the crest medallion off.”

“True, but if one of us saw him before he started feeding and he didn’t have it we would have given him a very difficult night,” Kain said. He glanced over at me. “You’re very quiet. What’s cooking in that brain of yours Little One?”

“That someone wants us to jump to the conclusion that Anton or one of his caste is behind this to sow discord and distrust between us at the very least. And at the most to provoke a battle.” Most likely the same someone that sent outside vampires to guard Megan McCoy and cross my path the other night. Or else Kain was trying to throw me off his trail by saying he was attacked, but I had not told anyone about my adventures with the two vampires, unless his rumored new friend Megan told him.

Kain said, “You think this is connected?”

“Very much so.”

Mercy spoke up. “Sorry, but what are you talking about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kain said.

Ignoring the new tension in the room, I said, “I want a double guard on the house and extra men in the streets. Tell Rainor what happened and that I’ll talk to him about it when I get back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see Anton.”

Chapter 14

When Anton returned from his evening out, I was waiting for him in his living room after I helped myself to a pint of cookie dough ice cream I found in his kitchen. I could tell he was irritated by the way his body tensed and his jaw clenched. I wasn’t sure if his irritation was my presence, my petty larceny, that I had roamed his house to find the kitchen or the way I was sitting sideways in his armchair with my feet dangling over the side; he hated sloppy posture.

“Hello, brother dear,” I greeted him while waving the spoon at him. We had the relationship we had whether Rainor liked it or not. I had to obey Rainor to a point, but at the end of the day I was free to leave any time I wanted and if I was going to run things the coven was going to have to get used to the way I was, not the other way around. I would try to keep the sexual goading out of it so long as Anton did, but I liked to bait people and that wasn’t going to change.

“How the hell did you get in here?” Anton asked.

I glanced down at the floor where two of his guards lay unconscious. The first one had tried to take the ice cream. The second one had tried to restrain me after I knocked the first one out. “If you want to keep me out you’re going to have to do better.”

“So I see,” he said in a grumpy tone. “At least you didn’t kill them.”

“I’ve matured.”

“That remains to be seen considering you are eating ice cream out of the container while slouching in my favorite chair like a child, Natasha.”

I smirked at him. “Well at least I’ve stopped sucking my thumb.”

He laughed heartily. Anton rarely gave such a full-throated laugh, but when he did it made my stomach lurch. Eh, maybe it was the ice cream? I checked the expiration date. It was fine. I guess it was his laughter after all. Anton took the carton from me and placed it on top of a stack of magazines. I think he didn’t trust me not to put it on his cherry wood table and make a condensation mark.

“Hey! I wasn’t done with that,” I said. “Although while were on the subject could you ask the dessert to start stocking the kind with the brownie pieces in it? That’s really good.”

“Her name is Ashley as you well know.”

“You’re right, I do know, but it’s so much fun to irritate you by calling her the dessert. Besides, what is she to me? I’m a soon to be coven Mistress and she’s your private whore.”

Anton moved very quickly. So quickly I barely had time to swing my feet down to the floor before he was face to face with me. “Are you jealous? Is that why you disparage her? Because Ashley can be gone in a heartbeat if you’d like to take her place Natasha.”

Now it was my turn to show off. Before he had a chance to move I was on my feet so that I towered over him. “As your dessert? I think not. I prefer it when you keep your distance.”

He shrugged and stood up. “I could force the issue.”

“Fine. Right here, right now. Top or bottom Anton? Or would you prefer it against the wall?” I started to reach for the hem of my shirt to pull it off like it was so ho hum to me if we went at it on his floor, or wall, right that second.

“Enough.”

“What?” I asked with feigned innocence. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Why must you try my patience?”

He looked weary and I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “I’m not the one that just threatened rape.”

Now that provoked a snarl before he said, “I did not threaten to rape you!”

“I believe the word force came out of your mouth, vampire, not mine. We could go at it another way if it’s not sex you’re after. How about it, brother? You and me hand to hand combat?” I knew my eyes had changed to blood red. Just the thought of what that fight would be like gave me chills. How screwed up did you have to be to get hotter over battle than sex?

Instead of backing away from me, Anton reached out and tipped up my chin so he could stare down into my eyes. I could have pulled away, but I stood my ground, daring him to push the game farther. He said, “Her eyes were rubies set in snow, her tongue sharper than her taloned hands. She prefers the heat of combat to the warmth of the bed, and men who risk the taste of her lips are bound to wind up dead.”

I stared up into his dark gaze like one in a trance. It was no longer bravado that kept me glued in place, it was the desire to be this close to him. My mouth fell slightly open so that my breath came out from between my lips. “That was beautiful. You’re a poet Anton. I never would have guessed.”

“Why does that surprise you?”

“Poetry is about the depths of the soul and you are about the cold calculations of the mind.”

“You inspire me.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you start spouting To His Coy Mistress I am going to laugh in your face.”

“I hardly see the parallels.”

“Well the point of that poem was to get in someone’s pantalets and that is your goal here isn’t it? Unless you literally want us to try to make the sun run away from its blue berth in the heavens, but I don’t think that would end well for one us.”

“Who read you that poem the first time you heard it Natasha?”

Honestly I did not remember, but since Anton was asking I assumed the answer was him. “Being able to recite does not mean you can compose.”

“There is much you do not know about me. As there is much I do not know about you.”

“Such as?” I was still standing there with my chin held up by his hand. I knew I should move away, but this was a new side to him. Who knew accusing a man of threatening rape would lead here?

“Such as where you vanished off to after we got the enemy off our door step? Where your little blond playmate went since you used to be joined at the hip and you are here and he is not? And most tantalizingly, why you have eaten enough sweet garbage that I can smell the sugar exuding from your pores?”

Suddenly we were on dangerous ground and I had stupidly let him lead me here. Two of the questions I really could not answer for him unless I outright lied and one I could sort of answer with a simple, “my playmate and I parted ways,” but that still left a door open that needed to remain closed. Instead I said, “That’s easy. I vanished off to join the circus. I made a real attraction in the freak show. My playmate, as you called him, is hidden away in a nice little condo two towns over so that you think you’ve got a shot with me while we meet up to screw each others’ brains out every other night.”

I knew I took it too far when his hand moved from my chin to my throat and his eyes turned crimson to match mine. “Lies! If you had a lover I would smell him on you.”

“I scrub up real nice before I come to visit you. In fact that’s why I’m such a chocoholic these days, he knocked me up.” I regretted it the instant I said it because I could feel the hand at my throat begin to quiver.

“You are not with child. Tell me you are not!”

Anton had a reason to be freaked; well he would if he cared about more than getting in my pants. It was a very rare thing for a half-caste woman to get pregnant, especially if she were strong. Only one kind of immortality the saying went; eternal youth or children. If she got pregnant past the normal child bearing age of a human woman it usually led to a miscarriage or death for the mother before the child was born. At my age a pregnancy was a death sentence. It was a strange way to find out I registered as more than the chase. “I’m sorry, Anton. That was unkind.”

He pulled away from me. I could see he was visibly shaking now and I felt horrible. He cared. He truly cared. I moved slowly so he did not think I was going to attack him from behind and placed my hand on his shoulder. I felt awkward and uncomfortable trying to comfort him over the hurt I had caused, I was used to killing vampires not wiping their noses. He turned to face me and all I could do was whisper over and over that I was sorry. I don’t know how it happened because I am not the hugging type, but I found my arms were wrapped around him and I was rubbing his back. His hold on me was tentative at first and then his arms clamped down around me like vices as if he would pull me inside his chest. After a few moments I pulled my head back to ask if he was ok now and our gazes locked. Anton leaned down towards me and -

The door banged open.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Tristan roared. He pelted across the room towards us.

As I prepared to defend myself, I realized I had the perfect view of Anton’s back as he stepped in front of me. Calmly, yet forcefully he said, “Control yourself Tristan.”

The other vampire froze in his tracks. “Master?”

“You will turn around and walk back out that door. You will shut it behind you and tell no one of what you saw.”

“She attacked five of our men; three at the gate and those two imbeciles on the floor. This is all part of her game to cloud your judgment while she makes you, and by extension us, her playthings. Do not let her do it!”

“I repeat, you will turn around and walk out that door. You will not speak of this to anyone or I will make sure you never speak of anything again. Am I understood Tristan?”

“Please, Master.”

“NOW!” Anton’s voice echoed off the walls. I was tempted to hold my hands over my ears to block the sound.

“Yes, Master.” Tristan bowed and did as he was told.

I resisted the urge to say what I would have done instead of the second warning and used the opportunity to put some distance between Anton and myself. He could cross the distance in the time it took me to inhale, but my head was clearer away from him. I could see the annoyance on his face when he turned back to me and saw I was halfway across the room.

“A telling move,” he said. “What was your reason for coming here tonight Natasha?”

“You mean beside being a pain in the ass and raiding your fridge?”

Anton sighed. “If I asked you to stop the verbal sparring for the evening would it do me any good?”

“Most of the time no, but considering where it got me tonight and how much trouble it got me in with Rainor after my last visit here, I’ll try to behave.”

“Thank you.”

I got down to business and told him what had happened to Kain earlier in the evening and then I told him about the two out of town vampires that came after me a few nights ago.

He latched onto the set of claw marks I had earned. “You were injured by these encroaching maggots?”

“It healed almost instantly. The only damage done was to a shirt I really liked, but no big deal. I was more worried about what the maggots’ presence outside that house meant, but thank you for your concern.”

We discussed it for a short while in code so that no one listening would hear that we could be onto their nefarious plan. I did not tell him about Kain’s possible involvement. Vampires were all the kill first and never ask questions later type and I didn’t want Anton going after anyone in my coven for any reason. If Kain were guilty, I would take care of him. But I did have a plan that would have my people keeping an eye on his and vice versa.

“I have one idea on how we can help each other here,” I said. “But I’m not sure how it will go over with either of our people. What if we make patrolling the city a team effort? That way there are no misunderstandings of who belongs to you and who is an intruder and it gives all of us extra fire power if something breaks out from an invading force.”

Anton chuckled. “I’m sorry, Natasha, but the way you twisted your hair around your finger when you said that reminded me of-”

“Of what?”

“Of when you were a little girl. You were trying to convince me to let you attend a vampire ball, which no half-caste would ever have been invited to before the war let alone during it. When I said no you threw half my wardrobe in the fire. I never knew a six year old could be so vindictive.”

“I don’t remember you finding it that amusing at the time. As I recall you growled at me and sent me to bed without dinner. I hate when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Bring up my childhood. It’s even more annoying that you’re doing it right after I said I’d try to stop the verbal sparring for the evening. I can’t retaliate.”

“Perhaps I like to remember when you didn’t look at me with wary suspicion, instead of trying to irritate you as you seem to suspect I always am.”

“I’ll stop looking at you that way when you stop giving me reason to.” There was an unexpected bite to my voice. I might be physically capable of going for hours after most humans would have dropped, but emotional stuff was draining on everyone and the tone in my voice reminded me of how drained I was. Too much emotional crap had happened this evening and I needed to go home and crawl in bed. “I’m going to go before we wind up fighting again. Talk to your people and let me know. I’ll brooch this with mine in the morning.”

“How do you think they will respond?”

“About the same way yours will only with vampire used in the insults instead of half-caste. I’ll take it to Rainor first, but only if he is dead set against it will I leave it drop.”

“Good night Natasha,” Anton said. “Pleasant dreams.”

“And to you.”

Chapter 15

Given all the changes in my life recently, I should not have been surprised that the past was haunting my thoughts much the way speculations about my return had haunted my dreams before my blood stilled again and I banished the voices to an ignorable whisper. But there was a difference. What spoke to me now were the shadowy ghosts of things gone by and they could not be ignored because they were facts. Everywhere I went in this city there was a memory of something or someone that I had had buried in my mind for decades while I lived a rootless, heedless life. Now that I was back, it was all coming out to enjoy its new found freedom. Since the last person I had spoken to tonight had been Anton, it should not have surprised me that I dreamed of our past. At least that is what I told myself. Even though I feared this particular memory had more to do with what almost happened between us tonight than simply being an unwinding of my tired mind after a long day.

I don’t remember closing my eyes, my last memory was of trying to find the right words to tell the coven they were about to take a step closer to the vampires, but shortly after I laid down in my bed, I was twenty-six years back, with eggplant purple hair cut into a bob that stopped at my left cheekbone on one side and at my chin on the right side. I was I standing in the office of the club Anton used to run with two of his guards turning to ash behind me.

“I told you I would be back for your answer, vampire. Here I am.”

“You killed my guards?”

I quirked a brow at him. “Nothing is getting by you is it? Yes, I killed your guards as you can clearly see.”

“How am I supposed to explain that?”

“Tell Vincent that they weren’t very good at their job and now he has the opportunity to find better underlings to take their places. No thanks are necessary by the way.”

He gave me an impatient look. “Somehow I doubt he will see it as a favor. I could pitch their deaths as your idea of entertainment, which I suspect is the real answer for why you killed them instead of just incapacitating them, but what reason am I going to give him for why you are here after he refused your offer?”

“How did you live this long not knowing how to lie?” I deposited myself in one of the chairs facing his desk and propped my feet up on the desk. My boots left little piles of dirt on the shiny wood. I could tell he wanted to wipe it away, but thought it would seem too prissy. He was right. “You tell dear Vincent that some nameless half-caste tried to kill you and your guards died in the line of duty.”

“What about the body he will want to see since I am alive and that would mean I killed my would be assassin?”

“Fine. Tell him it was me and I wanted to prove that you could be gotten to at any time and place to get you to make him agree to my deal before Gregory sent a real assassin.”

“He might buy that.”

“He should, it’s true. But if he doesn’t, kill him and as your new ally I will help you take the vampire throne for yourself.” I could tell he was intrigued by that idea from the way his dark eyes glowed at me. “Imagine us running the city together.”

Anton stared down at me as if trying to read from my face if I was serious or merely setting him up for a fall. For an instant I thought he might agree, but he stepped away and went to sit behind the desk. “It is an interesting offer Natasha, but I would not betray my Master anymore than you would betray Rainor. Because unless you are willing to kill him to take control of the coven, you are making promises you do not have the power to keep.”

I put my feet down and leaned across the desk. “What makes you think I am not speaking on his behalf or that he is the only Master I serve? Maybe I am making a promise in another’s name. Someone Rainor cannot refuse or rebuke.”

He went very, very still and he was very, very attentive. “What exactly are you saying to me?”

“I am saying, that if you have the backbone to do what needs to be done to save this city from Gregory’s caste, there is much in it for you. I have very powerful friends.”

Anton smiled. “So the rumors say. I have never been ambitious-”

“Ha! You’re only here because you wanted more power than being Lucius’ flunky would allow you. Now you are a second instead of one of the masses. Don’t tell me you aren’t salivating for more power.”

“Very well, I have always been ambitious, as you know, but I am also cautious where my life is concerned. It has been my experience that you cannot advance in life if you are dead.”

I blinked and said, “You may want to rephrase that since you are basically dead anyway.”

“There are varying degrees of dead Natasha. If I were as dead as you imply, would I be able to do this?” His long fingers reached out to where my hand rested on his desktop and slowly began making circles on the top of my hand. It made me feel drowsy. I pulled my hand away. “If I am to do this there is one thing I require to risk Vincent’s ire and agree to this alliance behind his back. An act of good faith that you are not setting me up, or a final act of mercy if this goes awry shall we say.”

“And that is?”

“I want you in my bed Natasha. One night with your flesh against mine and nothing between us but the space you need to breathe.”

In a flash I was on my feet and at the door faster than anyone who was not a vampire would have been able to see, but Anton was not only able to see it, he matched me and got there first, blocking my escape. “It is never a safe thing to put yourself between me and an exit bloodsucker. Move.”

“Answer me.”

“I am no one’s dessert!”

“One night does not make you a dessert. Blood and years of service do that. And one night is all I am asking of you.” His eyes had run over me from head to foot and blazed red.

“Well, I don’t ‘service’ anyone and I have enough vampire blood in me, thanks. Besides, we both know that the second I fall into your bed you’ll tell everyone that I am your creature to command.”

“I hate this garish hue you have chosen for your hair. Purple,” he said as if we had not been discussing my prostituting myself for him a moment before. He reached out to stroke my hair, but I smacked his hand away. Anton smiled. “Such a rare thing you are Natasha. So close to being a vampire and yet still so human in your responses. I can be discreet, in fact my life often depends on that and in this case if things go badly and it’s learned I went against Vincent and lost our city for a piece of half-caste ass, my life will be over.”

“Are you saying you want me, but I’m not worth dying over? You do know how to flatter a girl brother dear. I think I liked your first version of a come on better, you at least tried to pretty it up.”

Anton snarled, as he always did when I called him brother. “No one is worth dying for Natasha; even you.”

“Is that why you left me? Better to give me over to the Elders than to possibly die trying to protect me from Lucius?”

“That is what you hold against me?”

“That is why I guard against you Anton. Your motto is ‘survival at all costs’, mine is ‘never count on anyone’.”

He sneered then. “Is that what you say to your boy? Oh, I’ve surprised you. Yes, I know about you two. I saw him take you against the wall of that abandoned building after you wiped out all twelve of the vampires who were inside. I knew before that, but the visual was quite spectacular.”

“You perverted son of a bitch!”

“Why not admit he is the reason you refuse me?”

“Leave him out of this!”

“Only if you will. What do you care about more, Natasha? Your city or your lover?”

I turned it around on him. “Why do you want to get me into bed Anton? To prove you can or because you know this is the only way you could ever have me?”

His hands lashed out to grasp my upper arms. Ten claws dug into my flesh as he yanked me towards him. I could feel little trickles of blood sliding down my skin. The cuts would not heal up until his claws were removed so the blood kept flowing. It made me shiver. As did the knowledge that he was going to kiss me.

And he did kiss me.

Anton’s lips were cool, not icy, and they did not give my lips a choice about parting to receive them. I freed my arms from the barbs of his nails to wrap them around his neck. His hands slid down my back to my waist as his tongue slipped into my mouth. I had no idea how long we stood there wrapped in each other’s arms before I needed to pull back from him to catch my breath. My fingers were still tangled in his long hair and it was my strength that forced his lips back to mine. Not that he objected. My spine cracked as he pulled me against him tighter. If I were human I would have been paralyzed after that.

I felt my back slam against the edge of the desk that had been across the room from where we stood. Now it was my turn to dig claws into his flesh. With a growl coming from deep in his throat, he pulled back to smile in approval at me before lunging at my neck. That brought me back to reality because I had no idea if he meant to caress my throat with his lips or tear it out with his fangs; I didn’t trust him. I shoved him away from me hard enough he went sprawling to the floor.

With a snarl he got to his feet. “What in the hell is the matter with you?”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Taste test was over. I got a look at what I would be getting into bed with if I agree to your terms and you got to see if I was worth risking your neck for. But that’s as far as it goes unless you turn up when I need you.”

“This was a game to you?”

“You started it when you kissed me. I only went along for the ride until it was time to get off.”

“I was not playing a game and neither were you.”

I shrugged. “You wanted to see if I would give into you without the deal. In fact, you were hoping I would to prove what I said was wrong. Sorry, Anton, but the only thing that will get my pants off for you is if I agree to your deal.”

Anton sighed. “Why must it always be this way between us?”

“It didn’t have to be.”

“I am to believe one day you would have coming willing to my bed without my extorting it out of you?” He raised his brow at me.

I came closer to him so that my breath kissed his face. “No. You are to remember that I loved you very much at one time. That girlish devotion was only a few years away from changing into something deeper and adult that would have given you exactly what you want from me now. You could have been my first, my only, if you had had the courage to fight the world for me, but you made another choice and that put an end to a great many things. I never would have left you Anton, but you left me without a backwards glance and now all I can do is watch my back when I’m with you.”

“He was going to kill you Natasha! I had two choices: to watch you die or give you up. One I could live with, but the other…What do you think would happen to me if there was a world you were not in?” Anton shook his head. “Still you hate me for it.”

“Why didn’t you come with me? We could have run off together.”

Anton brushed a lock of my eggplant colored hair behind my ear. “You forget that you were not then what you are now. I made the safer choice for you, for us both.”

When I moved away from him I was gentle this time. “And you make the safer choice now because you think I will refuse your insulting terms and you will not have to do anything to risk what you have earned in this city. Well I can make the safer choice too. My coven could beat Gregory’s caste, but it would cost us. I need your people to make sure we succeed. We know he will attack in two nights and I want your involvement with this plan to be a surprise. Let Gregory think he faces my coven alone and when he thinks we are on the ropes, I want you to sweep in and flank them. If we survive, I will have sex with you on a night of your choosing, but not before.”

I don’t think he expected me to agree to his terms. Nor do I think he was sure if I said yes for love of my coven or feelings for him and I was not about to give either of us a decision on that one.

Anton asked, “How do you know I will show up to the battle?”

“I don’t. The same way you don’t know that I will follow through if you do show.”

“Just as you won’t know if I am there to help you or to side with my own kind.”

“Was everything you just said to me a lie?”

“No.”

“Then that’s how I know you will show up and stand with me.” I opened the door to leave, but paused and said with a grin, “Besides if you betray me I will come back to haunt you for all eternity and if you think I’m a pain in the ass alive you can’t imagine what I will do to you when I’m dead.”

“I would welcome the haunting if you were gone.”

I awoke to the sickly green lights of my alarm clock telling me it was three o’clock in the morning. At that moment I understood why vampire kepts desserts. It was for when you awoke from a dream that left you aching to be touched and all you had to do was snap your fingers and a willing body came to wait upon your pleasure with no complications or machinations. If half-castes kept desserts, I would be summoning mine right now. As heir to the coven I could ask one of the men to accommodate me, but that was not my style. Too bad things with Chris had gone south quickly; I could have paid him a visit he would never forget right now. But then if he were anything like most men, he would not object to a roll in the sheets no matter how badly things stood between us. I imagined his face if I walked into his closet of an office, locked the door and started removing my clothing or tracked him to his house and slid between his sheets naked. Tempting. Down, girl, I said to myself.

You could always call up Anton, my blood said. He would not refuse us.

Now that would be a bona fide mistake. What I needed to do was to roll over, think of something else and go back to sleep. I turned onto my other side and thought about what came after my deal was made. The fight that started at sunset and that was close to a stalemate when Anton and his crew swarmed in from every possible angle. Homegrown vampires sailed down from rooftops, barreled around corners and emerged from the shadows as if they formed out of the walls of the vacant buildings that surrounded us. Gregory’s caste was caught between our two forces and fell. The only two members left who were not dead or running for their lives after a half hour were Gregory and his second. I faced off with Gregory while Anton appeared at my side to take on the second.

“I thought you could use the help,” Anton said as he blocked a kick from the second.

“With taking out an entire caste? Yes, as I readily admitted when I came up with this plan,” I replied. “But with taking on Heckle and Jeckel here? I can handle it.”

Gregory let out a snarl as my claws raked at his neck. For an instant blood poured out, but it healed. “Nice try girl, but I’m not that easy to kill.”

His hand wrapped around my throat. I grabbed his wrist and applied enough pressure to shatter the bones. They would heal in a matter of seconds, but it was enough time to pry his fingers off my neck. “Neither am I.”

“I hope your traitorous-to-his-own-kind boyfriend survives long enough to see what I do with your corpse. Fun times.”

“Is he talking about me?” Anton asked as he continued to fight the second.

“I think so, but he’s ignoring the big flaw in his plan.”

“What is that?” Gregory asked.

“You’re not going to be alive to try it.” With a powerful kick, I sent him flying backwards while I pulled a wooden stake from inside my leather trench coat. I hurled the stake and caught him directly in the heart. When his second paused to gape in shock, Anton ripped out his heart.

Anton called to his people. “There are still survivors who fled the battlefield lurking in our city, track them down and kill all that you find. Leave none of them alive to seek revenge on us.”

With a jerk of my head I indicated to my people that they were to do the same. When we were alone Anton sidled up to me and said, “We make a good team.”

“Yes we did.”

“You mean we ‘do’. We do make a good team and we have one team effort left Natasha.” He trailed his fingers lightly up and down my arm.

“Yes we do. You kept your deal, I will keep mine.”

“No argument at all? I’m disappointed.”

“You’re disappointed that I’m not trying to renege on my word?”

“I enjoy our sparing matches.”

“You do?”

“Very much.”

“You know you don’t have to talk me up to get in my pants Anton, all you have to do is name the night.”

“That’s more like it.”

“I try.” I surveyed the landscape, not too many of my people were down, which was good, but I needed to see to the wounded and the dead before I got busy with Anton. “Do you have a date in mind?”

Anton said, “I think we both would agree tonight is not ideal and I like anticipation, don’t you?”
“You’re going to spring this on me aren’t you?” The thought that one night he might come up behind me and whisper, “Now,” in my ear made me shiver.

That was where I jumped awake; unaware of when I had fallen back asleep, and realized I was in a foul mood. At least I wasn’t hot and bothered anymore.

Chapter 16

My “good” mood persisted when I stepped on a stupid little pink piece of paper some slob had dropped in the hallway and not bothered to bend down to pick up. True we had maids, but how hard was it to pick up after yourself so someone not paying attention to where they were walking didn’t step on your crap and look like a fool sliding down the hall?

“Hang ten Tash,” Harris called when he saw me paper surfing.

“Aren’t you going to be late for the meeting I called?”

“As long as I get there ahead of you I’m right on time.”

I snarled at him, his eyes widened and he shot off to make sure he got there way ahead of me. Sometimes it was good to be scary. I bent down to pick up the offending bit of paper. Looked like a receipt. I balled it up and tossed it in the trash on my way to the convening room. That’s where I found Rainor coming out of the kitchen. “It’s good to see you up sir.”

“You didn’t think I would miss this did you?”

“Are you saying that because you think they are going to try to flay me or because you want to show your support for my plan?”

Rainor gave a chuckle. “Both.”

“Thanks.”

He held the door open for me. “Ladies first my dear.”

In I went and the room fell silent. “I’ll get right to the point. Last night Kain found a vampire that did not belong to Anton feeding on a human in our territory. He killed the vampire and took the victim to get medical attention, but that brazen of an insult means we have trouble brewing. Those of you who were here when Gregory’s caste tried to invade will remember that it started with moves designed to provoke violence between our coven and Vincent’s caste. I think there is a good chance we are about to face the same situation all over again.”

Everyone had questions for Kain who did his best to answer them even though he had no idea I was going to bring up what he told me. Mercy already knew and this was the easiest reason I had to give for why what I was about to suggest was even a thought in my head. Besides, it gave me a chance to observe Kain’s natural reaction to everything that happened. He didn’t seem nervous that I was possibly outing his cover story for where he was last night.

Rainor stepped forward to speak. “What Natasha is about to propose is radical to our current way of thinking, but not unheard of in times gone by. I want you to hear her out before you object.” He sat down.

Way to set the stage Rainor, I thought. No one was going to get worked up before I opened my mouth with an introduction like that. Why didn’t he just shout “fire” in a department store on black Friday? “Thank you sir.”

He gave me a small smile that said he got his amusements where he could these days and what was I going to do to a dying man?

“As Rainor said, this is only an adjustment to our current way of thinking. After I met with Kain, I went to Anton and told him what had happened. He was understandably concerned that our friendly terms would be damaged by this turn of events. We talked and I suggested that to avoid any of his people being killed by mistake, or by set up, that we send mixed patrol teams out to sweep the city at night. If we work together we cannot be turned on each other.”

“I’m not walking around with a blood sucking son of a bitch!” Ben shouted.

“I’m with Ben,” Gabriel said. “We didn’t fight the vampires all those years to be back under their boots.”

“Did I say we would be their guards or their servants? No. I said we would work together. If you get attacked I don’t care if you throw the vampire with you in front of a freight train to get away with your life. My only concern is that we don’t mistakenly kill a member of the home team and wind up in another war. This will prevent that.”

I heard Dawn say to Serena, “I wonder how much of this is to warm us up to the idea of her spending more time with Anton?”

“Remember how he used to look at her behind Vincent’s back?” Serena asked.

Mercy’s head whipped towards them. “You two are unbelievable.”

I gave her a tiny smile of thanks. Good to see someone had a decent opinion of me. How many of them thought my only goal was to screw Anton? If I wanted to jump his bones all I had to do was ask and he’d do me right that second. Well, maybe not. He did like to twist the knife; if I said I wanted him he’d probably try to make me beg for it like he didn’t want it too. If I wanted to be with him whether it was for a night or for life I didn’t need their approval. My bed, my choice. “Are there any questions?”

Gabriel’s hand went up. “Was this your idea or the vampire’s?”

“I’ll answer that,” Rainor said. He must have heard Dawn and Serena too. “It was Natasha’s idea, as she already said, taken to our allies with my approval, as it is presented to you with my approval.”

Next up in the air was Kain’s hand. “No disrespect, but how can we be sure that the vampires won’t take advantage of this arrangement to kill us off? All they have to say is the ‘enemy’ regrettably killed their half-caste partner for the evening and they can pick us off one by one. Who would be the wiser?”

“Why is it you see treachery every where Kain?” I asked.

He paled at my veiled accusation; after all he did know the real score. Calmly he said, “It is my job to see every angle of a situation good or bad. This has its pluses, but there are real concerns that need to be addressed first.”

I could tell the majority of the coven thought Kain was on the right path. I could not believe he would mention that idea in front of every one. He should be showing a united front with Rainor and me and wait until we were alone to say he had concerns. “To answer your question, we all would be the wiser the first time it happened and three of us would patrol with one lone vampire at our mercy the next night.”

Serena was next. “But that would still leave one of us dead at the vampires’ hands. I don’t like this plan, it gives them too much power to move around our territory, and that’s not even taking into account us turning over half of one of our establishments to them.”

This was going nowhere fast. Time to put my money where my mouth was. “If it will prove to you all that this isn’t a plan on Anton’s part to arrange accidental deaths for each and everyone of us so he can slowly take over our territory, I will go first. Tonight I’ll patrol the city with a vampire at my side.”

“Anton will enjoy that,” Dawn said.

I glared at her. “Anton no more patrols the city than our leader does. I’ll be with one of his foot soldiers. When I come back safe and sound I expect you all to see Kain for your new assignments that include parts of the vampires’ territory. Assignments that Kain will happily create while I am fearlessly risking my neck for the greater good. Does anyone have any more questions?”

Half a dozen hands shot up.

“Questions that aren’t about me and Anton.”

All the hands went down except for Harris’. This I had to hear because he had been way too quiet during all this. “Yes, Harris.”

“If you and Dawn are going to have a smack down over this can I watch? Because I missed you knocking her on her ass and Mercy won’t give up too many details and I feel slighted.”

“No.”

“Please? I’ll make you a cake.”

“That wouldn’t entice me to let you do anything Harris, you can’t cook.”

“Then I’ll buy you one.”

“I think we’re done,” Rainor said. He stood up and addressed the room. “Thank you all for your time. Natasha, thank you for taking the lead with this and for putting up with the immaturity of some of those in our family. I leave you all with this to think about. If we do not learn to adapt to new ways, we become as stagnant and unbending as they are and we are doomed to become them. Part of what makes a half-caste different from a vampire is that we move with time instead of getting stuck in it.”

Once he left the room we were all free to go. Although a few sat mulling over what Rainor had said, most people were filing out amongst a cloud of disgusted and worried mutters. No one could understand why I was allying us closer to the vampires after one unauthorized feeding and I could not tell them that there was another more sinister reason behind it. Even if I did open the door to the real reason it would have led to more trouble as paranoia took hold and witch hunts broke out inside our walls. I would rather them be unhappy thinking this was about scratching my Anton itch then terrified of what might happen to us all as a result of the treaty violation. The Order produced panic and panic in a half-caste was a dangerous thing. It did hurt to hear Gabriel say to Serena that I was ok with this arrangement because I was practically a vampire myself.

Good to know I was as well liked after all these years as the day I set foot in this house for the first time. They had hated and feared me then. Who wouldn’t look at a half-caste raised by vampires for eleven years who then moved on to live with the Elders for another three with trepidation? It was like saying I had been reared by the boogie monster and Attila the Hun. Then they found out why my vampire family had ejected me. That’s when the real fun began because they wanted to test me to see if it was true. Well, it was fun for them for about a month and then it was fun for me. You kill one guy with a spoon and it earns you some breathing room. Ok, a lot of breathing room.

Like I said before, when I wasn’t a natural born vampire the way Lucius hoped he tossed me aside and forgot me, but my half-caste blood reared its head at puberty with a bang. You see, Lucius had a vampire consort in addition to whatever dessert he currently had and she didn’t like me. Her name was Vivian and she went out of her way to make me miserable whenever she noticed me, which tended to happen often unless Anton or my nanny squirreled me away somewhere.

Shortly after my eleventh birthday, which went unnoticed by everyone, I was in a particularly bad mood. Turns out I was suffering from my first bout of PMS, but Anton who had just returned from a trip thought my mood was because I had been forgotten so he made a sad little celebration out of giving me the necklace he had brought back. I had loved him for it because even when we were apart he still thought of me. He was the only one who ever thought of me back then. After watching me push my dinner around my plate and snap at Vivian’s dessert, he had taken me by the hand and ushered me to his room.

“If I asked you what was wrong would you tell me Natasha?” He had asked.

“I am in snit over nothing. I cannot seem to help it.”

“May I hazard a guess as to the cause?”

“By all means.”

“Your birthday was last week and no one remembered.”

It had been a good guess, but I really had no idea why I hated the world. “Perhaps.”

“I believe I can help.” He then handed me a box. Inside the small leather case, was diamond necklace set in white gold. The rope chain was plain gold, but the pendant was a bee made of delicate gold work studded with diamonds. The wings actually looked like they had veins in them. The bee’s body was joined to the head with a tiny loop of metal that made it look like it was flying when it was moved. I had never seen anything so beautiful

“Oh, Anton!”

“It pleases you?”

“Very much. Put it on me please.” He had complied and we stood together as I admired it in the mirror. “Thank you.”

“Do you know why I chose a bee?”

“No.”

“It was to honor your mother. Her name was Melisande, very close to Melissa which is Greek for honey bee.”

In the reflection of the mirror, I had looked up at him and known that I loved him. I had never loved anyone before. That was when Vivian burst through the door.

“Come here you mongrel!” she had demanded.

I had started to walk towards her, but Anton put his hands on my shoulders to keep me with him. “What is the matter Vivian?”

“That trash insulted Daniel.”

Anton shrugged. “Your dessert? She out ranks him.”

“Before the war she out ranked him. If she had any use at all she would out rank him, but she does not. She will apologize to him and have her back lashed.”

“She is a child and you will not touch her. I will see to it that she apologizes to the dessert.”

“Stay out of this Anton,” Vivian said.

“You will not take your lingering jealousy of Melisande out on her daughter. Lucius will hear of this.”

We all knew Lucius would side with Anton if for no other reason than that he had a penis, just like we all knew Vivian hated to be reminded of that. Her eyes fixed on my new necklace and she said, “Then I shall have to punish her another way.” She ripped my necklace off in a blindingly fast motion.

The rage started as a knot low in my abdomen. The more it hurt, the hotter I felt myself becoming as if my skin would burst into flame. My pulse was racing. I could feel myself getting uncontrollably angry and I could not stop it. With my teeth gritted I said, “Give it back.”

She slapped me.

Someone was growling and I realized it was coming from my throat. Vivian’s eyes were huge and in the mirror I saw that my green eyes had gone blood red. The knot in my abdomen began to feel like claw digging into my insides. I could smell the blood that had begun to leak from between my legs. So could the vampires.

Anton said, “Natasha, I need you to look at me.”

“Give it back.”

“You insolent child,” Vivian said. “How dare you threaten me?”

“I have not threatened you yet,” I heard myself say. I was breathing hard with the effort to control the anger that was going to explode out of me at any moment.

Anton took notice of my eyes in the mirror. “Vivian, do not move a hairsbreadth. She is going to snap at any moment.”

“I am not afraid of Melisande’s bastard get even if she is finally coming into her powers.”

Those were Vivian’s last words.

With a snarl that sounded like it came from a wolf’s maul instead a human’s throat, I lunged forward in my first burst of vampiric speed and tore her throat out with my teeth. I was too small to drain her dry and even if I had been able to finish her off that way Anton recovered his senses too soon and pulled me off of her. But the damage had been done. I had spilled enough of her blood into my mouth and onto the floor that she could not heal the wound unless she drank the blood of another vampire. Anton was not about to help her and we watched her turn to dust at our feet. She looked so surprised.

“Mine.” I took the necklace from the pile of ash and put it back on my own neck.

Two hours later, with Lucius howling down the walls that I pay with my life for killing his consort, Anton had me bundled up and out of the house. That is how I wound up with the Elders.

When that story reached Rainor’s coven on the announcement of my pending arrival, they were all waiting to get a look at me. I think they were disappointed that I was not six feet tall and muscle bound. They said it had to be a lie because no one as quiet and reclusive as I was would have the audacity to kill the consort of a caste leader. They decided to test me and because I did not strike back, they said I was weak. Rainor, who knew the truth, warned them off but it was not his job to fight my battles for me; I had to find my own place within the coven. What they did not know was that I played a game of my own.

One thing living with the Elders and the vampires taught me was how to go undetected. When I was unsure of myself as a child, as I was when I entered the coven house, I held back and waited to see what would happen. Being a smart ass came with age and certainty of myself. They also taught me by sheer brute force how to behave properly so I conducted myself like a lady while I learned the weaknesses of my tormentors and stored them away for future use. As it turned out, it was mostly unnecessary to gather that information this time, but it lulled them into a false sense of security where I was concerned. Even other covens that visited us made mention of Rainor’s young guard dog that turned out to be a lap dog instead.

At the end of my first month at the house, all of the young half-castes were taken on a routine visit to one of the other covens to see how negotiations worked. It would be held at a half-caste run restaurant since all negotiations took place over a meal. They had weapons, we had direct and easy access to a caste of vampires they wanted to take out, seemed like an easy deal to show the young pups how it was done. Five of us went along with Rainor and his enforcer at the time, Bernard, although the adults road in our new automobile leaving Kain, Rebecca, Nathan, Francis and myself to follow in the carriage. I had situated myself in the corner so I only had to be next to one of them. Kain, who in general left me alone, took the spot next to me, but Rebecca sat across from me and she loved to get under my skin.

“I do not understand why Rainor brought her along,” she said to Francis while staring at me. “She is utterly useless.”

Francis laughed. “There is no possibility she killed a vampire on her own.”

Kain interrupted them. “Rainor said she did so it must be true.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “If she drank vampire blood then she would have to be in the Order and that is no Soong even if she looks like a vampire.”

Nathan, who liked being right more than he disliked me said, “The Soong drink blood for sustenance on a daily basis, drinking it once does not make you part of the Order it means you are eligible to join if you survive the tasting of it.”

“Thank you professor,” Rebecca snipped. “Either way she is not Order material.”

“How would you know?” I asked. It surprised them because I normally ignored their barbs.

“My mother-”

“Was a red light worker who got pregnant by accident and sold her unborn baby to our coven to be caste to earn money while she was too fat to be used under a man,” I said.

Kain gave me a look and laughed. “She has you there, Rebecca. It would appear being quiet and listening pays off nicely. While we are on the subject of silence, be quiet all of you we are there.”

The rules for coven meetings stated that everyone had to come unarmed although the leaders could bring their enforcers who were the most deadly half-castes the coven had. Bernard went in first with Rainor behind him and the five of us brining up the rear. I heard a scuffle, a gunshot and the outraged cries of those my age. I rushed inside and saw that we had been set up. The other coven had not simply wanted access to their enemies; they had wanted an all access pass, which meant my coven needed to be gone. They had killed Bernard. Rainor, taken completely by surprise, was in custody. Rebecca was crying, Kain was shaking with fury, the other two were standing there like statues and I, well I calmly pulled the door shut behind me and waited to see what happened next. This sort of violence had been considered light dinner entertainment with Lucius.

Rainor struggled against his captors. “This is against all our laws. When we do not return my coven will retaliate. It will be civil war and divide us when we need to stand united against the vampires.”

“I do not want a battle,” said a man sitting at a nicely set dining table. “That is why we are going to discuss the terms of your surrender over our meal with the presence of my ambassador.” A taller man stepped forward and gave us all a once over.

“Are you Gideon?” Rainor asked the man at the table.

“I am.”

“You are making a mistake.”

“How can I be mistaken when I am not the one being held prisoner? Bringing us to a ticklish subject. Our laws say that one being restrained in any manner cannot handle a negotiation, but if I free you, Rainor, I suspect you will start a fight. Since your enforcer is no longer available, you will need to select one of your brats to speak for you.”

“That is absurd!” Rainor said.

“Yet it is legal. Choose.”

Kain was the oldest out of all of us at seventeen. Rebecca and Francis were fifteen, and Nathan was the same age as me at fourteen. Kain would have been my choice since he had a level head and was the biggest person in the room. But I heard Rainor say, “Natasha.”

“The lap dog?” Gideon asked. “Very well.”

I took a seat at the table with Gideon and waited for the food to be served. Glancing down at the table, I noticed the pieces of silverware I had not paid much attention to were all spoons. It was on the tip of my tongue to question it, when I remembered the rules Rainor had explained to us before we left the house. We could not bring any weapons with us, but anything we were given once we went inside was fair game. They had cleverly not given me anything sharp like a knife or a fork. Until the first course came out, Gideon and I had a staring contest with the ambassador as a silent spectator. I had passed whole meals in silence since to the Elders I was a child and children did not speak until spoken too. I was not going to be unnerved by silence now. Although I was uncertain how I was going to manage a salad with only a spoon.

The first course was caviar, a staple for the humans in Lucius’ house. Gideon seemed disappointed I did not gag at the taste. I smiled and finished my portion. We were three courses in before he began to lay out the terms for turning our city over to him. Instead of listening to what he was blathering about, my attention was on a curious thing. The servers were serving the ambassador first. They should have been serving Gideon first since he was their leader. In fact, they were being much more attentive to the ambassador on the whole. His glass was never half empty as mine was and when wine was accidentally sloshed onto his plate, the pourer bowed and scraped as if the ambassador might have him whipped to death, which an ambassador would never do at a meeting such as this.

Rainor had waited until Gideon was busy talking to enact his plan, which had required Kain to be free from the political front to fight. He gave Kain the signal to attack and Kain struck at one of the men holding Rainor so that our leader could break free. The other novices joined in the fray with Gideon’s people, but I was too focused on my situation to pay attention to what else was going on. Those at a negotiation table were not allowed to leave it until talks were over or the other side automatically won. Gideon had planned this well, but not flawlessly.

I looked at the ambassador and asked, “May I suggest a simpler solution to this situation?”

“I will hear it.”

“If I can kill the opposing leader can we end this now with our city as it is?”

The ambassador laughed. “Sweetheart if you can kill the leader of this coven you can have anything you want.”

“We have a deal?”

“Yes.”

I grinned at him and as fast as I had lunged at Vivian, I had my entrée spoon pinning one of the ambassador’s hands to the table and my dessert spoon embedded in his forehead. The room fell silent. Gideon was staring at me as if I had two heads.

“Natasha,” Rainor said, “what have you done? You killed the ambassador.”

“No. I killed their leader. Didn’t I?” I fixed my gaze on “Gideon”.

The unnamed half-caste swallowed hard. “Yes you did.”

“Then here are my terms, which your leader agreed to when he said if I killed him I could have whatever I wanted. I want my coven leader to have what he is about to request or I will see that you join the real Gideon on the floor.”

Rainor took my seat at the table to set out some excruciating terms while I went to see to my traveling companions. Francis was dead and Nathan had a broken arm from where he had been thrown against the wall. He was not a rapid healer so he was going to have to suffer with it for a week or two. Kain had a cut healing on his face and Rebecca was unharmed because she had wound up hiding under a table. They all wanted to know how I knew the ambassador was really Gideon.

“I pay attention to things. The servers were treating him better than the man who was supposed to be their leader. I merely sat back, played along and waited for the opportune time.”

“You are a devious little one,” Kain said. “Sitting there calm as you please, eating steak with a spoon, all the while setting a trap.”

Three things came out of that day for me. One was Kain’s nickname for me, Little One. The second was a saying that no one really used much anymore. Whenever there was a mission where we appeared to do nothing or to be going down the wrong path to set someone up, we called it “using a spoon,” but with transfers and deaths in the coven, the saying died away because those who had seen it first hand or heard about it when we returned home were gone expect for Rainor and Kain. The third thing I got out of that day was the fearful respect of everyone in that house and they all left me alone.

Here I was, alone again.

Chapter 17

I had been waiting on the corner of Main and Hyacinth for ten minutes when Marcus appeared at my side, leaning against the signpost. Apparently he was my hunting partner for the night. I think he was disappointed I did not jump.

“What’s with the leather?” Marcus asked. “You wore it to meet with Anton that first night too.”

I had not noticed him that night, but then I was focused on butting heads with Anton at the time. “What’s with the leaning? Last time I saw you at Anton’s house you were leaning in the hall after you used me to set up that brat.”

“Still haven’t forgiven me for that huh?” He grinned.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

“Forgive and forget.”

“At your age you should know that theory could get you killed quickly. I’m a baby compared to you and even I know that.”

“You’ve been around long enough to have a reputation. Our paths haven’t crossed but I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I know, I know. I irritate people to amuse myself.”

“I was not talking about Anton. I heard about you long before I stepped foot in this town.”

“Is that so?”

“All very intriguing.”

I think he wanted me to ask who specifically had been talking about me, but I wasn’t in the mood to play cat and mouse. I went back to his first question. “About the leather, old habits die hard.”

I was about to say I disappointed him again when he zinged me with, “You really only take the bait with Anton. A pity.”

“This was a test?”

“I wanted to see if I could make you get worked up too, I was hoping you would take it out on-”

“Good evening,” Tristan said.

I looked at Marcus with a scowl. “And they say I like to stir up trouble. I need to watch out for you. What is he doing here?”

Tristan looked down his sharp nose at me. “When the Master said he had agreed to this plan I informed him that I wanted to observe the situation closely. We could open ourselves up to a lot of trouble with this.”

“Don’t tell me. Your caste thinks it is my plan to pick you off one by one and say it was part of the night’s difficulties?”

“That’s a good guess,” Marcus said.

“It’s the same wall I spent the morning banging my head against.” I turned to Tristan, “Let me be clear. If I wanted to kill off members of your caste, I wouldn’t use some Machiavellian plan that would take forever to complete. I would let myself into your house, maybe alone or maybe with some friends, and let the fun begin.”

“All about the slaughter,” Marcus said with a laugh. “My kind of woman.”

“Our Master has declared her his,” Tristan said. “Watch yourself.”

“I am not Anton’s property! If I want to do Marcus in the middle of that street I will.” When I saw Marcus cover his mouth with his hand I knew I had fallen into his trap. He couldn’t rile me up to set me on Tristan, so he set Tristan up to rile me by bringing up the jerkier side of Anton. “Tell me Marcus, does Anton know what a conniver you are?”

“He doesn’t know the half of it.”

“Great. Let’s get moving.”

Tristan said, “I think we should head south.”

“Because you think the vampires are migrating south for the winter?”

“Because there are plenty of humans in those businesses that are ripe for the picking.”

“Then we are going north,” I said.

“Because you are being difficult?”

“No. Because these vampires aren’t going to hunt where Anton’s people can catch them. They are going to hunt the quiet streets where there is less a chance of the competition, or me, finding them.”

Tristan gave a quiet growl.

Marcus said, “Neither Natasha nor I need a baby sitter. This is our hunt.”

I expected Tristan as the second to put Marcus to the ground no matter how much older Marcus was, but Tristan fell in step behind us. Interesting, but not my most pressing issue right now. “Shall we head north then?”

“I’ll show you north,” Marcus said. Giving a shove off the ground, he hovered a foot in the air. “Can you keep up?”

“Try me.”

He grinned and levitated away at a blinding speed.

“Show off,” I muttered and bounded up onto an overhang, then onto the roof of a neighboring building and jumped from roof to roof following Marcus’ lead. Tristan trailed a roof behind me.

We kept the game up for a long while before coming to a halt. That had been fun and I was disappointed to have to stop. I hadn’t had a hunting partner since I came back and while going it alone was fun, I liked the competition and a 1000 year old vampire was enough to put me through my paces. I was about to ask why he stopped when Marcus, with a jerk of his head, indicated he spotted something suspicious. He zoomed downward while I sprang to the ground to land on my feet next to a brunette female vampire feeding off a human male.

I tapped her on her shoulder. “Excuse me miss? Can I see some I.D.?”

Marcus snickered.

Tristan scowled. “Must you make a joke of everything?”

“Lighten up or you’ll go gray Tristan.” The vampire was so intent on her feed that not only didn’t she stop when we arrived, but she kept at it even after I addressed her. Placing my hand on her shoulder, I pried her off her victim and kept a tight grip on her. “Hi, we need to talk.”

“She’s not ours,” Marcus said. “The human will be dead in a moment. I can smell it.”

Gee, I thought I had a good nose because I could smell a dead person after only a few minutes, but I could not smell death coming. It was the slowing of his heartbeat that told me death was at hand. No matter how fast I moved there was not enough time to get him to a hospital for a transfusion. His options were to be turned into a vampire or allowed to die. I could not oblige him on the vampire transition front and the ones who could did not seem inclined to. The man was probably better off. I would not want to be a vampire.

“That was my dinner,” the female vampire snarled.

“That was most likely your last supper if you don’t tell us what we want to know,” I said.

She tried to break free, but came face to face with Tristan and froze. I took the opportunity to throw the offending vampire against the wall. The three of us formed a semicircle around her, fencing her in with our bodies. She tried to break through our barricade, but we held strong. Marcus shoved her back hard enough the brick behind her cracked.

“You must be pretty hungry or pretty stupid to feed where we could find you so easily,” I said. “Which one is it?”

The female vampire bared her teeth. “I don’t speak to the likes of you half-caste. You should be on your knees when you address me.”

I glanced over at Marcus. “She did just speak to the likes of me, didn’t she?”

“That she did.”

“I guess that makes it the first one then,” I quipped.

Marcus came closer to the female and ran a nail down her cheek. “Perhaps you’ll talk to me young one? What caste are you?”

“The hungry kind.”

“Clever. What are they hungry for?”

She glanced over at me with red eyes and hissed. “The blood of our enemies.”

“You put us all at risk with your stupidity!” Tristan roared. He pulled a stake out and slammed it into the female vampire’s chest.

Dumbfounded I watched the vampire turn to ash. “What the hell was that about?”

“I eliminated a threat to the city.”

“You destroyed the one solid lead we had. We could have made her talk, but piles of ash aren’t known for their verbosity.”

Tristan said, “She was feeding in the open. That was enough to earn her a death sentence by your rules as well as ours. If she was an enemy to the city in addition to that, she is dead now which means she is no longer a threat. I fail to see the problem.”

I took a step towards him menacingly. “Then maybe you should have your eyes checked. I’d be happy to remove them and give them a thorough once over for you.”

Marcus glided between us. “Let’s play nice children. No need to start excising parts.”

“Who said anything about using knife?” I asked. “I was going to yank them out of their sockets.”

“Perhaps I need to define the word nice for you Natasha.”

“If you want to define words for people, Marcus, I suggest you define the word incompetent for Anton because that,” I pointed at Tristan, “as his second proves he doesn’t know what it means.”

I leapt onto a low roof and then onto a higher one, leaving the now bickering vampires to work out whose best interest that kill was really in. Up until Tristan reminded me how self-centered and bullheaded vampires were, I had actually been having a good time. It was nice to not have to hold back on how fast I moved or how high I jumped. Then they had to go and ruin it. I should have known better.

*****

My return home was announced with a slam of the door. Was it that they were vampires or that they were men that made them so damn frustrating? This had been a waste of hours I could have spent doing better things like scrubbing mildew off the shower wall.

“Natasha!” Fitch shouted my name as he forwent the stairs and jumped over the banister to reach me faster.

“They sent you to verify that I made it back? I don’t know if I should be insulted that they doubted my ability to survive a night with two vampires or insulted they hated my plan so much they sent you here to get proof that I didn’t come back unscathed so they don’t have to do it.”

Fitch got so close he stepped on my foot. Such a lack of grace meant he was truly nervous and upset. “Sorry. This isn’t about sharing the hunt with vampires. It’s about that project you gave me. Wait, there were two vampires?”

“Never mind that,” I said. “What were you saying about the project?”

“You know, how I’m supposed to check into the account…uh…accounting issues we could have with the new club?”

I felt even the muscles in my face go tense. “You found a problem?”

“I did. Money is missing. Like someone was paying for services rendered.”

“Which account was it with?” His eyes shifted to a distant point. I followed the line of his gaze and saw he was looking right at Kain who was tickling Mercy as she carried a tray of food from the kitchen to the living room where they were about to watch a movie. She shrieked and warned him not to make her drop their snack. “Are you sure Fitch?”

“There was nothing for awhile, but cash at hand is an old habit from the wars, most of them pay for every day stuff with it and don’t touch what’s in the bank. Today my alert system detected a large sum removed.”

“How much?”

Fitch made a G using his index finger and thumb to indicate the amount he was about to give me was in the thousands. He held up ten fingers, closed them into fists and then held up all five fingers on one hand. $15,000 had been taken out of Kain’s bank account. It wasn’t much as far as payoffs went, but if you were paying in installments and the first few had been in the form of gifts purchased with cash, like an expensive car that had been purchased without a check being written or a credit card transaction, handing someone $15,000 to relocate or shut up fit.

Chapter 18

After the evening I had had with Marcus and Tristan I planned to go upstairs and tell Rainor it was useless to think we could work together with the vampires and go to bed; it had been my plan since I took my first step away from them tonight. However, I found myself taking very different news to him. Rainor listened to me in stony silence as I laid it all out for him. His trusted enforcer, my trusted friend, was most likely behind the creation of Megan McCoy’s half-caste baby and a treaty violation that could get everyone in our home executed thanks to a guilty by association mentality. If it were true, we would have to execute Kain.

When Rainor failed to say anything after several minutes had gone by, I prompted him by saying, “I await your orders sir.”

Rainor rubbed his eyes, reminding that he was very sick and that I had woken him up. “Do not confront him. There could still be an explanation and we don’t want to tip off any possible accomplices before we have all the facts.”

“You think Mercy may be involved.”

“They have been together for a very long time.”

“Yes they have.” I was relieved he didn’t ask if my personal feelings would interfere with anything I might have to do. It proved he did have faith in me in spite of his taking me to task over Anton.

“Go to see the mother even if you have to abduct her to do it. I want to know if she was really forced into this and I want a description of the man she said held her prisoner and brought her the vampire blood.”

“I assume you want Kain watched? There’s no point in trying to keep this totally off the radar if we’re going to have to put him on trial.”

“Yes, put Fitch and Ben on it. Tell them nothing except that if they see him do anything out of the norm they should react accordingly.”

“Fitch already knows something big is up.”

“That’s why he’s part of the team, to keep those in the know to a minimum. If he were part of this disaster he would have covered for Kain, but I still wouldn’t fill in any of the blanks for him Natasha.”

I gave him a nod and moved out. I found Ben first and told him to tail Kain if he left the house. I added the part about suspicious behavior and he started to question it, but a snarled, “because I said so” took care of his concerns. Fitch had no reason to question a thing since he knew Kain was in hot water of some sort; he merely looked ill when I told him and added an additional request that he trace all of Kain’s incoming or outgoing calls until further notice. I think he had hoped Rainor would explain the evidence of the unnamed crime away. No such luck, Fitch my friend, I thought and went out to the garage to grab a car.

On the drive to Megan’s house, I went over every scrap of evidence I had against Kain. The most damning was the money withdrawn from his account with no record of where it went to, but without the rest of the circumstantial evidence: Dawn saying she saw him with a redheaded waitress, being at Megan’s old apartment, being in the vampire quarter undeclared and all those disappearing acts; it was not really incriminating on its own. There was no direct, proven link between Kain and the half-caste baby or any stray vampires. This puzzle was missing a very important piece, the one with the man twirling his moustache. That was why my orders were to gather more evidence for a trial and not to kill Kain outright. Incontrovertible proof of betrayal was an immediate death sentence where the rest of the coven found out after the fact. A hazy case would be laid out for all to hear so that they could speak against Rainor’s decision if they truly felt the wrong verdict had been reached.

I pulled up out front of Megan McCoy’s house and parked in her driveway. This visit was not going to be a secret and the closer I was to the house the less time any lurking vampire had to ambush me. Not that I minded a fight, but my mission was information and I didn’t want to give anyone time to ferret Megan out of the house. From the right upper window I could hear a baby whimper and then scream. Thank God I was never going to have one, I couldn’t take that howling. Even hearing it from the street was going to make my ears bleed. I saw the light in one room flip on and a few moments later the light in Screech’s room went on. That’s it; glaring light should quiet the kid right down. Everyone loved being blinded in the middle of the night. Maybe I should give mom a midnight surprise too?

I jumped up onto the garage roof and then onto the piece of roof in front of Megan’s bedroom window. I forced the window open and let myself in. Taking a seat in the chair cattycorner to her bed, I waited for her to return. It was a long wait because the kid continued to shriek. I expected to hear Megan trying to comfort it, but she never said a word. I did hear the tape pulling off something that must have been from a diaper given the smell that reached my nose. There was another reason I was not mom material if all that screaming didn’t cause my sensitive hearing agony, the smells would overwhelm my nose. How did anyone stand it?

The crying continued and I heard Megan go downstairs and start rattling around in the kitchen. After awhile she came back up and I soon heard a small sucking sound. That shut junior up. One thing all this time spent waiting did was give me the opportunity to sense that the baby was not Hadi. That answered one question. I heard a door shut down the hall and then approaching footsteps. Megan trudged into the room and tossed her robe on the floor. She slid into her bed and turned to switch off the bedside lamp when she spotted me and squawked.

She sprang out of bed and stood shaking as she stared at me. “Are-are you here to collect the baby?”

“Why would I want to take your baby?”

“I was told a vampire would come to take it off my hands.”

Ah, a mother’s love for her child. I got to my feet and walked towards her. “You think I’m a vampire and you would hand a defenseless baby, your baby, over to me, a creature that was most likely going to have it for an appetizer?”

“They wanted it made bad enough to buy me all this, why would they kill it now?”

“Because it didn’t produce the desired effect. I know a little about being born for a purpose you don’t fulfill and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. However that doesn’t mean I think being a disappointment should cost anyone their life especially when they didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

Megan’s face turned red. Her tone of voice said it was due to anger, but I wondered if it wasn’t embarrassment that I was faulting her. “You want to talk to me about not having a choice? I was held hostage in tiny dingy room for months and wasn’t given anything to eat unless I drank blood first. Let me tell you honey, you may like that crap but it is nasty.”

“But you’ve been rewarded handsomely for your pain, haven’t you? New house, new car, diamond tennis bracelet that looks to be at least six carats out on your dresser; quite the set up for a woman held against her will. Waitress turned Ms. Got-Rocks. No gold digger could do better.”

Megan laughed. “Do you think I got pregnant on the off chance this would happen?”

“No. I think you got pregnant by accident. Since you like to hang out at groupie clubs you were in a position to receive an offer made because everything about you screams desperate and money hungry.”

“How do you know I go to those clubs?”

“You just told me.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Oh, yes you did. Now I want to know about the strong man that brought you the blood. The one you told the police ripped a door off its hinges in a fit of anger.”

“What do you want to know about the bastard that kept me locked up?”

She was not letting go of her cover story any time soon. Her heart was already speeding up thanks to the adrenaline my presence was causing to rush through her system, but I could hear it go a beat faster when she spoke about not having a choice and being held hostage. Liar liar. “I want to know what he looked like.”

“Brown hair, blue eyes and tall; almost a giant. I’ve never see anyone that tall in my life. He could have been a basketball player if he wasn’t a kidnapping mental patient,” she said.

“Really? That sounds to me like you had more interaction with him than a couple visits a day to give you blood and food.”

“Well, I don’t know what you vampires consider normal, but to me anyone who would keep a person locked up is a mental patient.”

“He was a vampire? How did he feed you during the day?”

Megan shook her head. “He wasn’t a vampire, but he was strong.”

Oh, that’s right, she thought I was a vampire, I forgot. “Have you seen him since then?”

“Once a few nights ago. He gave me more money. Took him long enough to get to it too, I have bills to pay and a baby to feed.”

I cocked my head to get a clear read on her heart rate. Very interesting. “Thank you for your time.”

“Wait, don’t go. What about the baby?”

“If you have the slightest bit of concern for it you will take it out of this house tonight and give it to an adoption agency. You obviously don’t want it and the vampires will kill it.” I left her standing there staring at the wall that had been behind me as I whirled away and jumped out the window. As my feet hit the ground I took a deep breath of fresh air. The night had given me one thing to be grateful for about my childhood; I was not saddled with a nincompoop like her deciding my fate. It had also given me one thing to not be grateful for; she had described Kain to perfection.

I thought back to the day I had taken out Gideon. Afterward as we were all leaving to go back home, Kain had clapped his hand on my shoulder and said, “I am proud and relieved to be on your side Little One.”

“Little One?”

“Spoon Killer?”

“I will take Little One,” I had said. “You are going to tell everyone about this aren’t you?”

“It will create a legend and no one will want to cross you.” He gave me the type of grin a big brother would have.

“Is that for my benefit or theirs?”

“Both.”

I had laughed. It was the first time I had laughed since I came to the coven house. After the way all the others had treated me it would take awhile before I could be myself around them, but Kain I came to realize, had not been keeping his distance he had been appraising me. Even then he had had the good of the coven at heart. He had been my first friend and now I was supposed to believe that he had betrayed us all. How could I ever do that?

I then remembered what Kain had said to me immediately after Gideon became dust, “You are a devious little one, sitting there calm as you please, eating steak with a spoon, all the while setting a trap.”

Seems I wasn’t the only devious one in town this time around. What was Mercy going to think about what came next? She was going to hate me. I pulled out my phone and called Ben. “Bring him in.”

Chapter 19

Whenever a member of a coven was accused of a crime, their case was heard before the full household, meaning anyone currently inside the house. They were accused before the group, people were given a chance to defend or condemn the accused and then the questions started to fly. There had only been two trials in my time with the coven. One found the accused guilty and the other had to be referred up to the Elders who decided better safe than sorry and killed the accused guilty or not. They were a charming bunch.

By the time I got home, Kain had been brought to the convening room and was seated at the table where all the coven members not on guard duty surrounded him. When he saw me he asked, “What the hell is going on Natasha? Frick and Frack here dragged me in from patrolling the lower side of town and stuck me here to wait for you to return.”

“That’s what I was going to ask you Kain. What the hell is going on? If you confess I will kill you quickly instead of letting them tear you apart for the risk you took with all of our lives.” I had everyone’s attention with that line.

“I have nothing to confess to,” he said. “Where is Rainor? Why isn’t he here to witness your psychotic break?”

I glanced over at Fitch who said, “He is on his way downstairs as we speak.”

“Good, I want him to be here for the accusation.”

Everyone was murmuring to each other trying to figure out what Kain could have done to be put on trial. Mercy looked about ready to pass out as she approached me.

“Tash you can’t think Kain would do anything to hurt the coven,” Mercy said. “What is this about?”

“You’ll hear it along with everyone else unless Kain wants to speak up.”

Mercy brushed past me and headed to the doorway where Rainor was entering. I noticed his complexion looked gray compared to what it had been earlier. This was really taking a toll on him. Mercy took his hand in hers and said, “This is madness sir. Tell them to let Kain go.”

“That I cannot do Mercy,” Rainor said. To me he asked, “Have you accused him yet?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Go ahead.”

I stepped into the center of the room. “The treaty has been violated in our city.”

That was as far as I got before the room erupted into a cacophony of voices. Questions came at me from every direction. What part of the treaty had been violated? Was I sure? What was Kain’s role in all of this? Was this the reason I came back? If the treaty had been violated where were the Soong? Surely the Order would send someone to clean up this mess? I held up my hand for silence to no avail. Finally I shouted, “HEY!”

Silence.

“Thank you. As I was saying, the treaty has been violated and I was charged with finding out who was behind it before the Elders stepped in and made us all pay. The story in The Sun about a half vampire baby was about a half-caste baby born to a woman living in our city. Kain stands accused of holding the baby’s mother hostage and plying her with vampire blood to create a half-caste and violate the terms of the peace treaty in the hopes of restarting the war.”

Rainor scanned the room. “Does anyone have anything to say that will damn or save him?”

No one said a word. The only sound was a hiccoughed sob from Mercy. Everyone else seemed too stunned to speak or move.

“Anyone?”

Again no response.

“Very well then,” Rainor said. “Natasha will begin the questioning.”

“I know first hand that you visited Megan McCoy’s old apartment because I saw you there. Why were you there Kain?” I asked.

“You were the person who jumped out of the bathroom window?” he asked.

“Then you admit you were there?” I asked.

“Tricky, tricky. Yes, I was there as were you Natasha. If that makes me guilty then you are just as much to blame.”

“I was there as part of my investigation, as Rainor knows. Now we need to know why you were there.”

Kain’s eyes flickered over all the faces in the room and found no sign of support showing on any of them. Mercy did give him a small stretching of the lips. He sighed. “I heard Fitch giving that address to someone over the phone. I didn’t know whom he was talking to, but given the situation it was strange enough I thought I would check it out to see if it led me to our traitor. Imagine my surprise when I wound up at an abandoned apartment where someone, who evidently was you Natasha, jumped out the window. It did make me ask some questions of the landlord and that’s when I found out who used to live there. I’ve been investigating it on my own ever since. I assumed whoever fled the scene had something to hide.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to?”

“Why didn’t you ask me? Trust is a two way street Tash. If you didn’t trust me enough to question my actions how was I going to trust that you would believe me or that the only thing you came back for was Rainor’s throne?”

This was unreal. Here he sat accused of a crime and he was trying to cast suspicion on me! “I’m the one that told you about this you jerk. Why would I tell you about the baby and put discovery at risk when no one knew about it save our leader until I told you?”

“To make sure the Elders found out about it. I mean, why would anyone look at the heir who clued me in to help her hunt? We all know how much you hate vampires for the way you were treated as a child. You have more of a personal reason to set up Anton’s caste because most of them are of your bloodline even if he was the only one present in your life back then.”

“So my motive was to have the entire Hadi line wiped out starting with a bunch of vampires who had nothing to do with my childhood and the one vampire most of you accuse me of wanting to screw? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.”

“That’s why I was investigating, to find out the truth for myself.”

“We are supposed to believe that every time you vanished you were secretly investigating this?” Rainor asked.

Kain banged the table with his fists. “What was I going to do? Tell everyone we were keeping this from that I was looking into a secret mystery that I couldn’t talk about? Gee that wouldn’t tip anyone off.”

“Is that why you were with Megan McCoy the other night?” I asked.

“What are you talking about? I have never laid eyes on her,” Kain said.

“You weren’t with a red-haired waitress?” I asked.

“No!”

Someone was lying to me. I knew why Kain would lie, but why would Dawn? I looked over at her and saw her roll her eyes as if to say, he’s not going to admit it now. “What did you find in the vampire quarter the night I was there on my date?”
“I’d rather not say in front of everyone.”

Rainor said, “Answer her.”

“It has nothing to do with this.”

“Answer her.”

“I was buying Mercy an engagement ring!”

Mercy yelped, “What?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know since it is next to impossible to keep a secret in this house so I went to a jeweler in the vampire quarter. Stupid in light of recent events, but not unbelievable I would think.”

I asked, “Where’s the ring?”

“Being sized. I picked it out and paid the deposit the night you saw me. I stole one of Mercy’s rings for him to measure and paid the rest of the money for it earlier today. He cut me a break on the price for paying cash. I’m supposed to pick it up next week.”

“Do you have any proof?” I asked.

“Well there’s the removal of $15,000 from my account.”

“You expect us to believe that?” Max asked at the same time Mercy asked, “Tell me you didn’t pay that much money for a rock attached to some shiny metal you idiot?”

She obviously believed him. Or she was in on it and trying to maintain their cover.

“I’m going to need something more substantial Kain.”

He thought for a moment. “I have a copy of the receipt to take with me when I go to pick it up. I didn’t see the point since a jeweler in vampire land doesn’t see many seven foot half-castes coming his way, but now I suppose it will serve a purpose after all.”

“Where is it?”

“I had on my brown bomber jacket this morning so it should still be in the pocket. I left it there to keep prying eyes from finding it.”

Rainor looked at Gabriel. “Bring it to me.”

Gabriel left and returned in a few minutes. “Nothing there.”

“It has to be there!” Kain said. “It’s a pink slip of paper with ‘paid’ stamped on it. The address and name of the jewelry store is printed on the top. I double checked that it was there on my way to my room because it was windy out and once I got home I got paranoid it might have gotten lost.”

“I turned all the pockets inside out on all of your jackets, there was nothing there man,” Gabriel said.

“I think we’ve heard all we need to.” I turned to Rainor, “Don’t you agree sir? There is no need to drag this torment out longer like eating steak with a spoon and no knife. This is a simple cut and dry matter where Kain is concerned.”

Rainor met my eyes for a moment. “Yes, I agree.”

“Does anyone wish to disagree with the guilty verdict?”

A lot of heads shaking were the only response I got.

Keeping my voice level and free of anything but the lash of anger such a situation deserved I looked over at the guards and said, “Take him.”

“No!” Mercy screamed.

“Natasha, don’t do it this way!” Kain shouted as five men surrounded him to put the shackles on.

“Sorry Kain, but you left yourself wide open for this. You are going to have to deal with it.”

No one questioned why Kain did not fight those who came to bind him. If he really had been willing to put us all at risk by restarting the war, he should have been willing to fight to the death to save his own neck because this was going to get him executed. Did they all believe the evidence or were they too afraid to go against me to point out this strange behavior on his part? Maybe they thought I was behind it and would set up anyone who objected to Kain taking the fall.

Wow. That paranoia of mine was still alive and well.

Mercy just stood there with tears streaming down her face unsure of what to do. Should she fight to free her man or spit in his face? I really did feel sorry for her, but Kain had done this to them both with his secrets and there was nothing I could do at the moment to fix it. This was going to have to play out the way it was.

Chapter 20

With Kain’s shouts reverberating against the walls I turned my back on the drama of his dragging off and headed towards the staircase to go to my room. Dawn appeared at my side. It was probably wrong of me, but I couldn’t help but think this was the start of her bid to gain a larger portion of my favor and a larger piece of the power in the coven now that Kain’s position was open. I didn’t see her as an enforcer, but not every enforcer was the leader’s advisor as Kain had been. I didn’t see her as an advisor on anything other than where to buy traditionally sluty attire or chase men. Beach blondes were hardly intimidating figures to strike fear in the hearts of enemies and wrong doers. So this really was a wasted effort on her part if she was looking to be anything other than my friend; a position I had just proved got you nowhere.

“I can’t believe it was Kain,” she said. “He was Rainor’s right hand while you were gone. If you hadn’t come back he would have been our leader and he was going to put all our lives at risk.”

“Thanks for the recap,” I snapped. I needed to process before I talked to anyone about this.

Dawn stood her ground and gave me a supportive smile. “I can’t imagine how hard this is on you. I know he and Mercy were your closest friends and just think if he didn’t start a war the Elders could have killed you as the person who ran the coven that violated the treaty. That has to sting. I mean he was your friend and now you’re going to have to kill him unless you pass it off on someone else to do. And Mercy, she will never forgive you for ordering the death of the man she loves no matter how deserved she knows it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wound up having to put her down too.”

“Dawn!” The last thing I needed to think about was having to kill Mercy because she was bent on revenge. “She is as much your friend as she is mine, neither one of us should be thinking about killing her. Right now you can do all three of us a favor and forget gossiping so you can comfort her. She needs a shoulder right now, not me. I know the score tonight; she has a harder path than even Kain does.”

“Of course. Sorry for trying to be your friend.” She turned on her heel and strode off in the direction I had last seen a sobbing Mercy trailing after Kain as they dragged him off in chains.

*****

After an hour spent pacing my room and deciding that I really needed to redecorate I realized that pacing and worrying about décor were not burning off the angry, nervous energy I needed to burn off. I needed to be free of these walls and the secrets they held before I lost my mind and my ever thinking about what the room I slept in looked like was a sure indicator that I was on the edge of insanity. Time for Plan B.

I was getting ready to go out on a sweep of the city when someone knocked at my bedroom door. Honestly I was not in the mood to deal with anyone after everything that went down with the vampires earlier this evening and with the Kain fiasco as the capper. About the only thing I wanted to do was go out and find something to hit until I managed to hit on the alternative to Kain having been the one to betray the coven. So far I was not coming up with a lot of options. While I may have played it cool during his take down, I was neither so certain nor so calm about it internally. Yes, hitting something or at least searching for something to hit was a much better option for me at this point than dealing with whoever was on the other side of that door. That person was either really brave or really desperate.

“Open the door Natasha,” Mercy said.

Damn. I really did not need her right now. “Mercy, I know you are upset, but it’s not going to do either of us any good to pursue this now.”

“You locked up the man I love! The least you can do is hear me out.”

At least she didn’t play the “you’re my friend” card. That would not have gotten her in the door the way the boyfriend card did. With sigh I unlocked the door and let her in. Her face was streaked with tears and her eyes were swollen. From the look of her hands I think she may have hit the wall a few dozen times before coming to see me. They would heal by morning for her, but for tonight they were going to be painful. I needed to make sure the thing I hit tonight was not her, she had been through enough. “What can I do for you Mercy?”

“You can tell me why.”

“You know why.”

“But you didn’t even look at anyone else. You dropped this bombshell on the coven at the same time you announced the supposed guilty party. How long could you have been investigating this?”

“Since the day I came back.”

She didn’t have a response to that.

“Look Mercy, I know you are upset, but you need to accept what happened.”

“How can I accept it? How can you? He was your friend!”

This was clearly going nowhere. I brushed by her and left the room. She followed me down the hall, down the stairs and into the foyer where I had hoped to leave her behind and escape into the night, but she grabbed my arm. “Let go.”

“No, not until you hear my theory.”

“What theory?” I asked as I yanked my arm free.

“That someone else is behind this and they set up Kain.”

“You obviously have someone specific in mind, Mercy. Tell me your theory.” I sounded cold and bored even to my own ears, but I could not let emotion sway me or appear to have let emotion sway me.

“There is someone, a half-caste, who has been asking a lot of questions; most of which are about our breeding habits from what you have told me. An uncovened half-caste has no loyalty to anyone if he has an axe to grind with those who created him.”

“Christopher.”

“You told me yourself that he asked about the type of women who bore half-castes willingly and what type of man would allow his child to be caste and not eventually try to rescue it. Let’s face it; he didn’t set foot near you until he saw you knock Dawn off her stool the night you met him. Don’t tell me you aren’t slightly suspicious of him.”

She had a very good point. Chris had no fear of what I could do to him and he did ask a lot of uncomfortable questions. I hadn’t thought of them in terms of the coven, I had thought of them in terms of my mother, whose decision to be a dessert had always horrified me because it made her a plaything at another’s whim, and what that said about her. His questions about a man who would father a child bred for such a purpose had touched the nerve of not knowing who my own father was. To the vampires that raised me, it did not matter; Lucius was my father to them because it was his blood in my veins, but I had always wondered about the man who had donated the seed that made me and secretly asked myself why he never checked in on me. He was nothing to the vampires except a tool or dinner so they never would have thought about telling me his name or his fate. Even Anton did not mention him and he occasionally brought up my mother.

I looked into Mercy’s desperate eyes. “You think he’s a half-caste turned vampire groupie who thinks I’m the next best thing because I don’t see him as a lesser race? Even if that was true, what does it prove?”

“I think he asks too many questions and he shows no fear of someone that should make him quake in his shoes. He wasn’t even intimidated by walking through our front door and we could have ripped him to shreds and buried the pieces in the backyard with no one the wiser. That says to me that he has spent time with something scarier than us.”

“Like a vampire.”

“Exactly. Whoever hired this woman had to search the groupie scene to find someone willing to do anything to be near a vampire and newbies stick out, this would have had to have been a regular, maybe someone who wanted to find a vampire to turn him so he’d be stronger or find a human who would look at him as something special. Christopher may not be anything special to covened half-castes, but to a human he’d be-”

“What I am to him,” I finished for her. “He could be working with a vampire of his blood to pull this off. Hell, he could be related to one of the non-Hadi vampires Anton let into his caste.”

“Are you sure he’s not of Anton’s line?”

“Yes. I would sense it if he were and Anton isn’t this stupid. But you still haven’t given me a reason why Chris would set up Kain of all people.”

“To leave you vulnerable.”

“Come on.”

“No, it makes sense Natasha,” Mercy said. “He casts suspicion on your enforcer costing you a measure of protection and in the process it costs you your two oldest friends. Who would you turn to? Why of course your new boy toy. One moment you’re crying on his shoulder, the next your leaning on him and then you’re depending on him. Now the new guy has the keys to the kingdom as your second or consort.”

“That’s a pretty big leap. There is no way I would make someone as weak as Christopher my second; if I fell he would never stand a chance. All we do is fight so he could not think I would lean on him for anything.”

“But you see where I’m coming from about his questions?”

“I do.”

“Let’s go then.”

“Go where?”

Mercy rolled her eyes. “Go question Chris.”

“No.”

For a moment she looked confused and then she said, “You don’t want me there in case it is Kain and I’m in on it with him.”

“No.”

“Natasha! You aren’t saying you’re going to ignore this are you? You can’t!”

I gave a low snarl. “You do not tell me what to do.”

“You are not Mistress here yet. Rainor-”

“Supports Natasha in this matter,” he said as he haltingly came down the stairs. “She has full autonomy when it comes to investigating this travesty and she will rule here when I am gone. Her lips speak my will Mercy, remember that.”

Mercy went pale and bowed because she could think of nothing else to do. She knew better than to cry in front of Rainor, we all knew that, but I noticed tears standing in her eyes as she bent. They were gone when she straightened up. “Forgive me, sir, but I cannot stand by and allow the man I love to take the blame for something someone else might have done. If Kain is guilty I will help you tear him limb from limb, but if he’s innocent how could I ever live with myself if I abandoned him without at least trying to fight for his honor?”

Rainor put his hand on Mercy’s shoulder and gave me a pointed look. “There are times when we must play the hand we are dealt and in this case Kain was dealt a bad hand, but we will not execute him tonight. If you bring me proof another is behind this and set up my enforcer I will see them dead in his place. You have my word on that.”

That was all the comfort Rainor had to give her and she knew it. Mercy thanked him and left. When I was sure she was gone I said softly, “She could be right.”

“When will you go?”

“In the morning. Let them think this is the end of it.”

“Or let guilt out itself. I know you want to flee the drama, but I would like you to stick close this evening in case you are needed.”

He feared a coup. I inclined my head. Looks like I was going to be hitting a punching bag in the basement instead of a vampire.

Chapter 21

I would never publicly admit it because I would never hear the end of it, but not that long ago I was fan of TV show about a young woman who fought vampires and other assorted baddies as part of her grand destiny. Most half-castes made fun of anything that hinted at our world because of all the errors and the biggest thing that made them laugh at this particular show was that most of the work, and a good deal of the action, had gone on in a library that contained about six cases of books. Everyone sniggered at the idea of researching the monster killing half the town instead of just offing it, so it was with no small amount of irony that I heard from the receptionist at The Sun that Christopher had gone to the library to do some research on a story. If I willingly admitted I watched that show to anyone I knew, I would be gloating when I got home, but since I didn’t want a closet full of wooden stakes or bottles of holy water in my purse I planned to keep my mouth shut. Still it gave me a smile at a time when I thought it impossible.

I spotted Chris walking between stacks of books that might actually be older than I was, in a basement that smelled like it hadn’t had a window opened in just as long. Poor thing had no idea that he was being stalked when I said, “You must have a real thing for antiques. Let’s talk about that.”

Chris jumped and bumped into a bookcase hard enough that it wobbled. My hand shot out and steadied it like it weighed five pounds instead of 500. He grimaced. “That wasn’t at all emasculating. Tell me I didn’t shriek a little too.”

“No shrieking.”

“That’s something I guess.” He smiled and took a step closer. “I was going to call you, for two reasons actually, but they gave me this story at work and I told myself that I was too busy to dial a phone…who am I kidding? I was hoping if I waited you would call me instead so I knew I was forgiven. I’m sorry I pushed at the beach that day. You were obviously uncomfortable and I plowed full steam ahead with my own agenda.”

“At my age I should be over it by now, I suppose, but I don’t like talking about my family I guess is what you would call them. I could have said that instead of running off like that.”

“We’re ok then?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“That was ominous. Why do I get the feeling that now is the part where I should be running for my life?” He looked nervous and that was not a good sign for him.

“I want to know why you have so many questions about mothers of half-castes. If you were human I could understand a certain fascination, but you are one of us so you have your own mother to ask,” I said.

“Does that come with a choice of doing this the hard way or the easy way?”

“Chris.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I guess I wasn’t very sly with the questions was I? I didn’t want you to think I was using you, but I thought I could kill two birds with one stone.”

I think he wanted me to ask what he was talking about, but I waited in silence. I wanted him to exonerate himself or slit his own throat all on his own.

“You aren’t going to ask me what this has to do with you are you Natasha?” he asked after a few moments. When I still didn’t respond he said, “Fine. I liked you and I wanted to spend time with you, but having vowed to have nothing to do with my ‘kind’ because they were vicious and violent, I told myself it was ok because I had a reason to. Then I felt bad about how you’d feel if you thought I was only with you to get information so I told myself that I wasn’t using you because I enjoyed spending time with you no matter what we talked about.”

“Information about what?”

“I want to know what coven ordered my casting and what blood flows in my veins. I want to know if my mother volunteered or was forced into it. I want to know who my father was. I thought you would have the resources to help me if you didn’t know already,” Chris said.

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. He had so many questions and I couldn’t blame him for wanting answers. At least I knew who caste me, and why, and I knew my mother’s role in it. “How old are you?”

“Now you think I’m a baby.”

I smiled. “No, I want to know if you’re the twenty-something you look or if you’re older, it will point me in the right direction.”

“I’m twenty-five.”

“Then you were most likely made by a coven looking to make foot soldiers unless your mother was someone’s dessert who drank her keeper’s blood before she knew she was pregnant. Or she could have been a groupie in the same boat as the dessert I mentioned. Vampires weren’t willingly making half-castes twenty-five years ago.”

“What’s a groupie? I know what a groupie is in the band context, but we’re not talking about the music scene.”

“Someone who chases after vampires for sex or in hopes of becoming a vampire.”

“Oh.” After a second Chris said, “A groupie is a relatively new term. What did they call them back in the day?”

“Imbeciles.”

“Right.” He gave himself a shake. “I don’t know what my mother was, she doesn’t talk about it and any time I tried to ask in my younger days she would get this weird look on her face and walk away from me.”

“Just a guess, but I’d say she was abducted and force fed the blood if not forced into pregnancy. My coven was never into that sort of thing, but others were. It would explain why you weren’t raised in a coven, she must have escaped or they had a seer look at your future and tell them you weren’t going to be that strong.”

Chris winced. “Don’t sugar coat it for my sake.”

“There’s no way to know who caste you unless we got a vampire to drink your blood and tell us, but even then they couldn’t tell you the specific vampire who did it, just the name of the caste. Most likely the vampire whose blood is in your veins wasn’t willing either and was used until it was drained to death.”

“What about the coven that did that to my mother?”

“That could be harder since territories changed as battles with vampires were lost and then new covens came along and won the cities away from the vampires. It might help to know where you were born, but your mom probably fled the city where you were caste before your birth.”

“I don’t know where I was born anyway.”

“You could ask your mother, tell her you needed to know for a story at work or something,” I suggested.

“What kind of story would I need to know that for?”

“A study on how people migrate across the country.”

“In The Sun?”

“Say they think alien brainwaves influence it.” Christopher laughed and it made me smile. “I would offer to ask for you, but if she was forced nothing about me is going to be welcome to her. I’m a half-caste which would be offensive to her and I look like a vampire which flips out people without the trauma she would have endured.”

“That’s why I’m afraid to ask her. I don’t like reminding her that I tie her to a past she doesn’t seem to want to remember.”

He had been raised to reject what he was. I may not have been the most welcome person with the vampires that raised me, and had been told I was second-class to them, but I had always been encouraged to embrace what I was. No matter how much I might find some of my own actions disturbing at times, I never hated myself and I could see Chris hated his own blood. “Finding the truth won’t change what you are Chris and it could only hold misery for you. The truth doesn’t really set you free; in most cases it only creates a new cage.”

“I know, but at least I’d know why I was sentenced to this.”

“Have you never had any fun with it? Never jumped off a rooftop knowing you’ll land on your feet and that the bones in your legs won’t shatter? Never tried to see how fast you can move without running?”

His eyes studied my face before he said, “You love it. I envy you that Natasha. You know yourself.”

“I’ve had a long time to figure it out, but I’ve never turned away from my true nature.” For a moment I was silent, trying to decide how I could best say this to him without sounding condescending. Finally I placed my hand on his shoulder and said, “I have a deal for you. I will help you get what answers the cosmos holds on your lineage, but in exchange you have to explore your half-caste blood. You will never understand why you were made if you don’t understand what you are.”

“I still don’t think I want to join the coven.”

“You don’t have to. We’ll go out and have some fun and then you can talk to my people. Pretend you’re writing a story on us and treat it like research done by an unobtrusive, casual observer.”

“That sounds like a plan. Can I let you know later?”

“Sure. While we’re on the subject of stories, what could possibly have you down here in the dust and mold?”

“As luck would have it, I’m doing a story on vampire society. Seems your visit has them thinking I am an expert on the underworld.”

“Don’t use Mike as your photographer, he’ll wind up dead in a night.”

“That’s a good piece of advice.”

“If you plan to do a companion piece on us, I am going to have lay down some ground rules about what you ask or see. I thought telling yourself your visit would be about work would make you feel more at ease when I offered it, not a true in-depth study.”

“I knew that, but I think rules in general would be a good thing. I don’t want to violate some cardinal rule and wind up dead.” He smiled. “But for right now, if I take your deal, I’m there for me only. Oh! All this deep conversation made me forget the other reason I was going to call Tash.”

“Ok.”

“Tom, the guy who wrote the article on the half-caste baby, got back from vacation. You mentioned you wanted to talk to him. He’s not in the office today because his kid is nursing a jellyfish sting, but I can set a meeting up for sometime this week if that works for you.”

“Get him on the phone now.”

“Or I can get him on the phone now,” Chris said dryly. He dialed. “I don’t know that he’s available right this second.”

“All I need to know is the name of the person that leaked the baby story to him.”

“We rarely get names and if we do they are usually fake. Maybe I can get a description. I – oh, hey Tom. How was Maui? Great. Sorry to bother you at home. How’s Luke? Good to hear. Listen, I need to ask you about that story you wrote on the baby. Yeah, that one. Did you get a name on the person that tipped you off? I didn’t think so. What did she look like? Thanks. Bye.” Chris put his phone away. “Ok. According to Tom the woman was average height, very tan and very blonde. He said she looked like she stepped right off the beach at Malibu. Does that ring a bell?”

An alarm bell to be exact. “Yes and it means I have some very big trouble brewing if this is accurate. Sorry, but I have to get going.”

I turned to go, but he stopped me. “Natasha?”

“Yeah?”

“You came here because you thought I had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Silence. Then he said, “Is the only way to find my caste really to have a vampire drink my blood or was that a scare tactic?”

“If there was a half-caste of your line that was strong enough they could sense you. A vampire of your line could sense you too, but most of the vampires in the city are…related to me and while I can sense any vampire’s presence, I can also tell if a specific vampire is a Hadi.”

“Hadi?”

“That’s the name of the vampire line I descend from. They’ve gotten away from using their formal names these days. One thing I can tell you is that you aren’t a Hadi.” I was about to comment on how he should be glad since most Hadi were sneaky bastards, but I needed to get going.

“One more thing before you go,” Chris said. “Will you forgive me for sort of using you?”

“I’ve been used for worse and I was sort of using you too, you know. Call it even?”

“Dinner will make it even.”

“I think I can handle that now.”

“Could I get a firm yes if I promised potato salad won’t in any way, shape or form be involved?”

I grinned. “I’ll call you once things settle down. I really need to go now.”

“See you later.”

As soon as I left the library I called Fitch. “I need you to do some checking on another bank account for me Fitch and tell me if any large sums were deposited recently.”

“Sure thing Tash. What’s the name?”

“Megan McCoy.”

“I checked her account already and there was nothing.”

“But an immediate transfer of funds would look suspicious. Now that some time has passed and in light of recent events, I’d bet her bank account got larger. Just check.”

“Will do Mistress. I’ll call you back as soon as I have the scoop.” He hung up.

I got in my car and was about to turn it on when my phone rang back. Fitch had what I needed. There had been a cash deposit of a million dollars to Megan’s account an hour after we locked Kain up. Now there was a thanks for a job well done. But which job? Having a baby she didn’t really want or pointing a finger at Kain?

Chapter 22

There were two possible solutions to this situation, neither one was particularly pleasant to consider. One was that Dawn had set Kain up. The other was that Dawn and Kain were accomplices. I really didn’t think Dawn was smart enough to do this alone, which meant that someone with a brain had to be pulling her strings. But the big question was if that puppeteer lived between my walls or Anton’s. That meant I needed to pay another visit to the woman who identified Kain as her abductor and find out if she was paid to implicate him or if that was part of his master scheme with Dawn. A plot that included planting that pink piece of paper I slipped on yesterday so that I would believe his story about his trip to the vampire quarter whenever whoever eventually stumbled upon it recognized the address and commented on it. Even without the trial, anyone who read the receipt would mention that someone had been shopping in the vampires’ territory. Although I had simply thrown it away in annoyance, it did wind up working in Kain’s favor since it created doubt in my mind about his guilt.

I could see how the plan would have worked. Kain knew his trail was getting hot so he could have arranged to have Fitch report the transfer and left the receipt in the hall hoping someone would find it. He would have assumed that I would either believe him and let it drop if I heard about it or saw the receipt since we were friends, or decided if he landed on trial the receipt could exonerate him because surely a some decent person living in the house would speak up about seeing it when it was mysteriously missing from his jacket. Big flaw if that was the plan, I had kept quiet about it so no one but me could use it to corroborate his story. Even Rainor didn’t know about it, he went along with me based on the spoon code just like Kain had. Well if Kain was innocent I hoped he remembered the code and had a guess what I was up to with locking him up. But if he were guilty, the receipt had done its job since it did make me more inclined to believe his story, especially after Fitch reported a transfer to Megan’s bank account. Kain couldn’t have done it because he was in chains. More proof he did not do it or part of his partner’s scheme to get him freed? Dawn or Fitch could have made that deposit to take suspicion off of Kain.

It was time for my third trip to the suburbs this month. On your fourth visit I heard you got a minivan.

*****

Since this visit was in broad daylight, I made a show of pretending to knock before I forced the lock and let myself into Megan’s house. If I had to abduct her I didn’t want the neighbors catching wise and reporting me to the police, cops were nuisances when it came to this sort of thing. Her car wasn’t in the drive and the house was dark. Considering our conversation last night, and her recent wealth, there was a good chance she left town. I gave myself a self-guided tour of her house and found several suitcases by the staircase all ready to be loaded into a car for a quick get-a-way and her bedroom closet empty.

Out of curiosity I went into the baby’s room. I shouldn’t have, it was sad. The walls were plain white and bare of any decoration. There should have been a goofy clown mobile or a rabbit mural or whatever the current baby trend was. Even though my childhood room had been decorated inappropriately mature with gold sconces, silk curtains, Rembrandts on the walls and a dressing table I was years away from needing it had at least shown some effort. Someone had tried to make it look pretty for me. This kid’s room had all the charm of a prison cell. There wasn’t even a stuffed animal sitting on the dresser. I don’t know why I hoped to find a toy in the crib, but I did. Instead I found the crib’s bedding was gone. A deep sniff of the air picked up no trace of any sort of baby residue in the room as if it had been scrubbed clean to remove any reminders that a child had slept here. Megan’s room had not been cleaned to this degree and her sheets had still been on the bed. Looked like she gave the baby away to someone, but had she given it to an agency and cleaned to ease her guilt or to the vampires who cleaned to destroy evidence?

I heard the garage door opening and went downstairs to wait for Megan. I hoped she was in a chatty mood because if I had to pull teeth to get an answer I was going to pull teeth. Keys rattled as they were inserted into the lock and the door swung open. When the lights flipped on I said, “Hello Ms. McCoy. Looks like you’re taking a trip with all those suitcases by your stairs. Good thing I caught you before you left town you would have missed your last chance to tell me the truth before I made you scream it for me.”

“How-how can you be here during the day? The sun is supposed to kill you.”

“I never said I was a vampire. You see I’m the type of monster that can find you anytime, anywhere and even the bright light of day can’t keep you safe from me.” I let my eyes glow at her menacingly.

She spun on her heel to bolt, but I inserted myself in her path. She blinked in surprise and tried to dart around me. It didn’t work.

“Please don’t try to run; as you can see you won’t get far and it won’t improve my mood. I came to ask you some more questions.”

The woman was shaking. She should be scared. She had lied to me and quite possibly tarnished the name of one of my closest friends. “What do you want?”

“Well I want the truth. You told me a very tall man, a giant I believe you said, held you prisoner during your pregnancy. I have to give you credit for being a good liar; it would have worked if I were human and couldn’t hear your heart beat speed up every time you lied. So I played along to make you think your ruse worked, but you made a big mistake depositing all that money into your bank account. Tell me about that windfall of money you recently came into.”

Megan McCoy put her bags down and clasped her trembling hands behind her back. “That was a settlement for an accident I had a couple years ago.”

“Hmmm. Did I not just tell you I can hear when your lying heart speeds up? Let’s try again. You have a lot of money in your bank account and we both know it didn’t come from an insurance company. And remember I don’t have much patience and you don’t have very long to live if you lie to me again.” I dragged my nails down the glass pane next to her door and left five cuts in the glass.

Megan began to talk. A lot. I knew about every speeding ticket she had gotten since she was sixteen, the time she shoplifted a bracelet, how she lost her virginity in a closet and that she had given her baby to a childless cousin who had been trying to adopt for enough years the “freak” factor didn’t matter and then returned home to try to erase all clues the baby had ever been born. I did ask if that meant she had taken all the baby decorations down and got a blank look. I should have known better than to ask. I also knew in under ten minutes that she had no idea what vampire had supplied the blood used to caste her baby, but she did know who had paid her to let her baby be caste, say she had been abducted and implicate Kain who Megan said she had never seen before in her life. Her heart rate stayed nice and steady during her story. The truth at last.

It was Dawn.

Reckless, guy crazy, stupid, soon to be dead Dawn.

Having vomited up every deep dark secret she had, Megan sank down to the floor and stared off into space blankly. Elvis had left the building. I grabbed my cell phone and called the house. I had hoped Fitch would answer, but Mercy picked up. I told her the truth, that I had had my suspicions about Megan’s story but had gone along with it to try to smoke out the real traitor. I explained how I had thrown out the receipt Kain mentioned and it was his bringing it up that tipped me off that he was telling the truth or possibly acting with an accomplice. Then I told her about the spoon code that had had Kain, Rainor and I in on a plan to make everyone think I was certain Kain was to blame.

After she got done shouting at me, I said, “I know this is a lot to take in Mercy, but I need you to do something for me.”

“Why should I? You ripped my heart out letting me think he was to blame.”

“Because I could have killed him the instant I suspected he might be the one behind all this and I didn’t. I played this so he had a chance to survive and he will.”

Mercy was quiet for a time and then she asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to put Harris on the phone so I can tell him it’s ok to release Kain and then I need you to incapacitate Dawn.”

“Fine.”

Harris got on the line. “What’s up Tash?”

“Kain is innocent. It was all a ruse to get the real traitor to slip up and show their hand. Mission accomplished. Now I need you to let him out and let me talk to him. I would have had Mercy do it, but no one would believe her story that I ordered it and I wanted to let her get a little revenge.”

No answer.

“Harris?”

“Um, yeah?”

“What’s wrong? You stopped talking. You never stop talking. Don’t tell me you were stunned speechless by my revelation, I’ll lose all respect for you if that’s the case. What was that noise? I heard a thud. And now a crash. Harris, what in the hell is going on?”

“Dawn set Kain up didn’t she?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because Mercy dropped kicked her down the stairs, through the living room to the kitchen door which she kicked Dawn through to the dining room, where I assume Dawn landed on the dishes being laid out for lunch after that crash or else she put her through a window. Damn! That was hot. Why didn’t you tell me so I could record it to watch for my viewing pleasure later? You are so inconsiderate Tash. I think I need a cold shower.”

“You know cold showers only make it worse?”

“That was the point.”

“Ew! Too much information Harris.”

“Don’t play miss-ish with me Natasha. I know what you used to do when you were ‘patrolling’ the city and the wood that went plunging into flesh then was the figurative kind not the stake kind.”

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself. Let she who is without kink cast the first stone.”

I sighed. There really were no secrets in that house. “Just put Kain on the phone.”

“Aye, aye Captain.”

The phone landed on a hard surface with an ear-splitting clunk. I could hear people commenting on the ass kicking Mercy had just delivered. I should have worried about possible accomplices being tipped off, but if anyone tried to bolt Mercy would take care of them given her current mood, to say nothing of Kain once he was free. Since it would be an admission of guilt they could be killed on sight without a trial.

Kain’s voice came through the phone. “Thanks a bunch Little One. Mercy slapped me upside the head with a chair after they took off my shackles. That’s fun as foreplay, but I’ve been informed that’s not an option for at least a month and I didn’t even get a conjugal visit.”

“We have bigger issues than you following my cryptically given orders and it costing you sex. I need you to bring Dawn to me. You know where.”

Kain was silent for a moment. “What a stupid bitch she is.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m on it.”

“One more thing. Don’t tell Rainor; he was feeling better when he had a glimmer of hope that you being set up absolved this household of the crime and knowing it really was one of us will do more harm than good.”

Kain began to say, “Not a problem, Harris told me he-”, but I snapped my phone shut as Megan who had walked away not that long ago regained her former stupidity and came at me with a kitchen knife. I really should have tied her up; this was so annoying. It took me two seconds to take the knife from her and to snap her arm. “Megan, I am really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”

I knocked her out and locked her in a closet.

Chapter 23

I did not immediately go to take care of Dawn after I left Megan McCoy’s house. Unsure of whom I could really trust in my coven right now, I went to various humans who worked for us and intimidated them into rather quickly investigating all the accounts and business transactions of the coven. I needed to know if anyone else was giving or receiving payoffs. Not even Dawn’s account showed anything abnormal, which meant she was not the one who paid off Megan unless she had left a million dollars lying around the house or buried in the backyard. Which meant there was still an unknown entity in all of this. I suspected that entity was going to have fangs.

There was a certain warehouse where certain activities were carried out after dark. It allowed us to question people without fear of them escaping and wrecking havoc inside the coven house. And it very often allowed us to make people disappear without anyone being the wiser. In this particular case, it was going to keep Dawn from having any potential allies come to her aid because until this was all said and done, everyone was a suspect. I arrived at the warehouse shortly after dark feeling like my brain was going to leak out of my ears after pouring over all that paperwork with the lawyers and accountants, and after trying to piece this all together.

Kain met me out front. “What made you think I would remember that spoon comment?”

“Lucky guess and you were the one who kept putting spoons under my pillow every night for a month after it happened.” I smiled at him. “Is Mercy going to forgive me any time soon?”

“She understands and letting her kick Dawn around for awhile helped a lot. According to Harris I missed quite the show. Couldn’t you have told her to take care of Dawn after you had them unlock me?”

“That’s what you’re upset with me about? I made you miss a girl fight?”

Kain shrugged. “I’m a guy, what can I say?”

I shook my head. “Moving on then. Is she all ready to go?”

“Yep. She’s playing opossum too. Mercy gave her a good crack in the head, but she was awake and crying at the guys that I set her up and you fell for it while I was chaining her up. In the car ride over she got quiet and has been pretending to be unconscious since I brought her here.”

“Then I’ll have to wake her up.”

We went inside the warehouse. Dawn was the first thing I saw. As a good enforcer should, Kain had chained her hands together and hung her from a hook in the ceiling. Her sleeping beauty routine was in full force as she sagged with her eyes closed, but her breathing was too fast for her to be out cold. There were bruises from the ass kicking Mercy had given her on her face, arms and what I could see of her legs. Kain started to take off his jacket, but I stopped him. “I’ll do it.”

“Tash?”

“She’s mine, Kain.”

“This is what I do.”

“I know. I used to be you, remember? But I am exercising my rank to have the pleasure of making this traitorous bitch scream. You can wait outside.”

“But she set me up!”

“That’s why you can’t be part of it. This needs to be handled by someone with a clear head so we can get the information we need and you want revenge. You’ll wind up killing her before we get enough out of her.”

“Now I’m unprofessional?”

“Aren’t you throwing a tantrum right now? Go outside. I’ll call for you if I need you.”

“Natasha-”

“Outside.”

Kain bowed. “As the lady wishes.”

I waited for him to shut the door before I approached Dawn. Trailing my nails across her cheek, I said, “I made you a promise at that human club when you challenged me Dawn. Do you remember? I told you if you did not yield I would mark your face forever. That’s a promise I’m about to keep.” I dug my claws into the flesh over her cheekbone and yanked down in a swift motion, leaving five trails of blood. Snarling I said, “Open your eyes you faking coward!”

Dawn’s eyes popped open along with her mouth. She shrieked in pain and reflexively tried to bring her hand to her face to staunch the blood, but she was chained too tightly and she was not strong enough to break free even with all that adrenaline rushing through her system.

“SHUT UP!” I yelled. “I did not give you permission to make a sound.”

The screaming did not stop. This is what gags were invented for, but since the point of all this was to get information out of her, a gag would be counter productive. “Dawn, you have one second to stop making that noise or I will do the same thing to your other cheek.”

She shut up. Fast learner.

“Now, I am going to ask you questions my little idiot and if I don’t like what you have to say or if you lie to me, you will suffer a consequence. You know I can tell if you are lying. Do you understand?” I was circling her so she could not see what I might be about to do behind her. She was trying to crane her neck to keep me in sight, but it was impossible.

“Yes.”

“Very good. You set up Kain very cleverly to take the fall for what you did. Why him?”

“Because before you came back he was the only thing in my way. I was setting him up to knock him down from the start. Then he made it easy with all his vanishing acts to investigate. Once he started sniffing around I had more incentive to get him out of the way. Actually, even before Kain started sniffing around he kept taking off to look at rings for that cow-eyed moron. I know because he asked my opinion on what sort of a ring to buy her. No one ever asks me about the coven, but why not go to air headed Dawn to ask about a sparkly stone. Well this air head fooled you all,” Dawn said with a sneer. “All I had to do was make sure people noticed when he went missing and plant doubt in your mind with that story about him running around with a red-haired waitress at the appropriate time.”

“Why did you do this? Because you felt ignored? Did Rainor ignore your daddy issues so you acted out?” My voice was dripping with sarcasm.

No answer. This actually made my roiling blood very happy. I gave her a slap across the face hard enough it would have broken a human’s jaw. As it was, it made her spit out blood and a couple teeth. “I will ask you once more. Why did you betray us?”

Dawn laughed as best she could around the missing teeth I had just given her. “Revenge. The two of you took everything.”

“This is about my taking over the coven with Kain as my second? You really are a moron. Assuming you did get rid of Kain, there was no way you ever could have taken me on. If you had pulled all this off before I came back, the Order could have come and killed everyone here and there wouldn’t have been a coven left for you to try to rule. Even if they didn’t, you don’t have the strength to lead. The others would have risen up against you with your first shrill order.”

“He would have helped me with everything!”

“Who?” My mind immediately went to Anton, after all he had betrayed Vincent to gain the power our alliance offered, it would track that he would play Dawn into thinking he would help her rule and once Kain was out of the way thanks to the set up, then he would kill her and take over everything while the coven was still reeling from it all. Of course he’d have to get through me, but maybe he hadn’t thought I would return or thought I wouldn’t kill him and he’d take me out. No, said my blood, he would not do this to you. “Tell me who!”

I raked her other cheek.

Dawn screamed in pain, but otherwise stayed silent.

“All right,” I said, “let’s start at the other end.” I knelt down and took one of her bare feet in my hands. Grasping the smallest toe, I yanked up and snapped the bone. “This is one little piggy that will be yelling wee wee wee in pain the whole way home.”

I could smell the bile starting to rise up from her stomach so I quickly got out of the way. Vampire reflexes were wonderful.

Once she finished vomiting, Dawn sobbed. “Tristan! It was Tristan.”

“Anton’s second?” No wonder he had killed the female vampire the night we patrolled together. He wanted to shut her up before she gave anything away or pointed the finger at him. He was always hovering around, trying to keep me away from Anton, it appeared to prevent us from teaming up to discover his duplicity.

“We wanted to make the pair of you pay for your crimes! This was never about Kain.”

Then it hit me. The one “crime” Anton and I shared, if you belonged to Gregory’s caste that was, was their almost total destruction. Dawn and Tristan were of the same blood. This was why vampires didn’t usually take outsiders into their castes; you could only trust blood. If Anton had had any idea Tristan belonged to Gregory he never would have let him live let alone be his second. “Did you join our coven to betray us or did Tristan talk you into it after he found out who made you?”

I surprised her. I don’t think she expected me to connect the dots that easily. She should be grateful I had, she still had nine more toes that weren’t dislocated and fractured.

“I was sent here by the one who gave the blood to caste me. Tristan came later on his own mission. We met by accident.”

“Who made you?”

“That I will not tell.”

“I already know what bloodline you are, why hold back the name?”

“Because where I fail she will succeed and you will bleed bitch.”

“She? Now that is telling. Just give me a name and we can end this.”

Dawn remained silent.

“Why do you make me do this?” There went the next toe in line with a crack. And then the next. And then…..

“STOP! I’ll tell you, just stop!” Dawn gasped for breath. “Gregory’s consort, Helen, made me. They thought I would be useful, just like Lucius thought you would be, only they made me weaker so I wouldn’t be threatening.”

“The perfect spy,” I purred. “Pretty and fun and not bright enough to earn anyone’s suspicion. What was Tristan to them?”

“My feet!” Dawn whined.

“Next are your fingers. Tell me about Tristan.”

“Tristan had been their dessert before he was changed. He owed Gregory a debt for changing him so he came here to settle the score. He didn’t know I was here because he came of his own accord. We met up on the hunt one night and decided to work together. He’s the one that paid for that broodmare’s car and house. After you went to see her the first time and killed her guards, she started demanding more money for the ‘threat’ against her life you presented. We knew you would eventually go back so we told her if she described Kain and it worked we would give her more cash.”

“Was anyone else from the coven involved?”

“Max.”

“The driver?” That was a surprise. “What did he get out of all this? Was he of Gregory’s line too?”

“He got sex and in exchange, I got to know where everyone went and what they said. No one ever thinks that the driver with the preternatural hearing can hear through that glass.”

I had all I really needed. “Thank you for your cooperation, Dawn. For what it’s worth, when you weren’t being a snotty bitch I did enjoy spending time with you.”

I killed her in a very painful way reserved for traitors. I won’t go into details, but it was very bloody and messy. If she had been Hadi it would have been worse because she would have betrayed her own blood by turning on me and a coven under my protection.

As I walked out of warehouse, I was still wiping blood off my nails when Kain walked over. He eyed me as he fell into step beside me and said, “The cleaning crew is on its way over. I anticipated.”

“Thanks. We need to get moving.”

“I was going to ask if you cracked her or wound up killing her in the process, but of course you cracked her. Who was her accomplice?”

“Anton’s second, Tristan,” I hissed as we got into my car. “They both belonged to Gregory. This was all payback for what we did to their caste when they tried to invade us the last time I was home.”

Kain growled. “We have a problem.”

“Several. Gregory’s consort is behind all this and according to Dawn she is going to keep trying to kill us all and we had another traitor under our roof.”

“Who?”

“Max was her spy in return for some ass.”

“Max and Dawn? Really? He’s so….and she was so…”

“Kain? Can we focus? What problem were you talking about?”

“Tristan is at the club with Rainor going over details for the opening.”

“What?”

“Tristan called the house about some problem with the accounts while I was taking care of Dawn, something about insufficient funds to finish with the renovations. Rainor said it was something a ‘useless old man’ could handle while the rest of us did the dirty work so he had Max drive him over there.”

“And you let him go?”

Kain ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s not my place to tell our leader no. I had no way of knowing it was a trap. Upside is, I sent Gabriel with him so he’s not completely at the mercy of our enemies. Shit! I handed them a golden opportunity to ransom Rainor. There’s no telling how many of Tristan’s crew are waiting for us to show up. Shit!”

I glanced over at Kain and smirked. “That’s what makes it truly interesting.”

“I’ll call the house and have the offensive team meet us there.”

“No. Call Anton and tell him he’s going to need another second.” I slammed the gas pedal down.

Chapter 24

We found Gabriel’s body outside the club; they had stabbed him in the back and broken his neck. Four piles of ash that had been the vampires’ sentries joined his remains the instant Kain and I saw them. Max and the car were nowhere in sight, which meant Max was running for his life because he knew the second I found out Tristan had Rainor I would be coming. Run while you can Max, I will have you hunted down and killed. Maybe I would have his head nailed to the front gate as a warning.

There was no telling how many vampires were inside. My gut reaction was to kick in the door and just start killing them, but they had Rainor. It was one thing for him to die with his boots on, but to die as a hostage, most likely tied up, was not my definition of the term. My leader would not die as a victim even if he were already dying of cancer. We needed to take them by surprise. My eyes met Kain’s and I glanced towards the back door and then to the front. He nodded and headed towards the back. His mission was to get Rainor out; mine was to make sure he had a clear shot. That was my first mission; my second was to kill every vampire in the place.

I walked in like I had no idea this was anything other than a business meeting. “Sorry for being late, an old friend of mine was tied up and I had to attend to her.”

Ten pairs of now red eyes and ten pairs of bared fangs greeted me. Tristan’s eyes remained their normal color as he eyed me calmly.

I continued, “Oh, look at all the vampires and not one of them a Hadi, I bet I know who they used to belong to. I wish I had known this was a party, your doormen didn’t tell me. Don’t worry though, they won’t fail you again.”

Rainor was standing next to Tristan. They hadn’t even bothered to tie him up. I realized they thought that was more insulting, they didn’t even consider him enough of a threat to bind him up. Damn them! But there was a glint in Rainor’s eye as he asked, “Is the bitch burning in hell with her beloved Master?”

“Of course. Gregory would have been so proud. She not only cried, but she told me everything. Oh, and she begged for her life too.” I laughed and watched as Tristan’s eyes now went a murderous red. “What’s the matter Tristan? Mad I took your toy away or is it that I beat your people again?”

“You will pay for this!”

“Sort of along the lines of what she said, but we see where that got Dawn. You’ll be seeing her in hell soon enough so cheer up.” Aside from my delight in goading people, I was actually stalling for Kain to make his way in from the back. I was fast, but there was no way I could rescue Rainor and kill all the vampires. He no longer had the speed to flee on his own or the strength to help me fight. If I tried to take them all out he would most likely end up dying by the hand of one of the last ones still alive.

“No,” Tristan said, “I think you’ll be the one in hell Natasha. I’m going to make you watch your beloved Rainor die before I suck you dry and drag your corpse around the perimeter of Anton’s house behind my car.”

I sidled closer. “How very Achilles and Hector of you. But we know how that ended for Achilles. I think Anton would be more than willing to put an arrow in you for that even if you weren’t playing him all this time already.”

“But we’re in the modern era. Faster weapons.” Tristan pulled a gun from his coat and took aim. Kain was a blur of motion running towards the vampire to disarm him. I sped towards Rainor, knowing a vampire was likely to have the smallest bit more speed in his reflexes than Kain. I heard the gun go off and from the corner of my eye I saw Kain tackle Tristan and slam a stake into his heart. No sooner had I stepped between Rainor and the bullet than I felt myself being shunted aside. I had not anticipated Rainor being the obstacle to my saving him and was caught off guard. I stumbled to the side.

“No Natasha!” Rainor yelled. “You are our future.”

“Rainor it won’t kill me!”

But it was too late. The bullet whizzed by me and struck Rainor in the chest. Blood covered the front of his shirt. He had never been an instant regenerator, but this would not have necessarily been a mortal wound if he had not already been weak. He slid to the ground. I was about to take his hand when I heard the snarl of the vampires under Tristan’s command. Between their fury over their leader’s death at Kain’s hand, my sticking it to them about offing their old Master, Gregory, and the blood lust Rainor’s wound had caused they were ready to attack.

Too bad for them my own blood was screaming too. This was what I was created to be, the perfect guard for Lucius if his defenses were breeched and the perfect fighter against any sort of enemy my caste might ever have faced. I grinned at them. In a blurring motion I moved across the room where I killed the first one where she stood. The rest were staring at me in disbelief as I stood with her heart in my hand. It turned to dust an instant after her body finished burning itself out into ash. I smirked at them. “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed on yourselves tonight.”

The second one I beheaded with the toss of one of my throwing stars. Then the real fight began as their shock gave way to fury. I gave in to my blood and let battle heat take over. Between Kain and I, it was over in five heartbeats. The door bashed open and my offensive team poured in. Pity they missed the fun. I heard Rainor gasp my name and I remembered why I had been so angry.

“Fill them in Kain and keep them back,” I ordered and rushed to my leader’s side. I took his hand in mine and felt how cold it was. “We got them all sir.”

“It was a thing of beauty.” He coughed with the effort of speaking normally and his breath came in shallow rasps. Death was closing in on Rainor, I could hear it strangling the life from his heart, but he struggled to stay alive to ask me one question. A human would not have been able to hear what he was about to say, but there were too many keen ears around that did not need to hear this exchange. I leaned in closer to try to block others from hearing. “Na…tasha. The question I told you…I would…ask. I need…to…know about what you…took when you left.”

Here it came, the question that I had been dreading since I returned, but fate was being kind to me if not to him with the night’s events. I would be spared a hard decision.

“Where is my son? I know…you took him with you when…you left and I know…where you have…been.”

My blood stilled. “Then you know the answer.”

“I want the words.”

“You know what that means.”

“If you don’t do it, you will eventually face challenges for showing weakness and leaving me to fate instead of…ending it with your own hands. You will…wind up killing your way through my…coven. If we do it this way, you don’t have to…feel guilty, you will be…keeping to your code and…I will die quicker and with an easier heart…knowing for certain…where he is. Tell me!”

Let them challenge me if they wanted; I was going to stall until the choice was taken from me. Why could he not have insisted upon my answering this when I first arrived and some clarity still remained in me? My shred of humanity had returned; I would not do that which would kill it forever. “In good time.”

“Then…answer…me…did you…love each other before the ‘darkness’…twisted it?”

Patrick. The scowling boy in the photo with Rainor’s dead wife Claire had grown up to be the lover Anton sneered jealously over. Patrick had left with me twenty-six years ago and close to two years ago we had parted company on less than amicable terms, but that was not the exact bit of information he wanted from me. “As much as we were capable of.”

Rainor tried to laugh, but it came out as a rattle. “Glib…to the…last.”
Neither of us said another word. He knew I would tell him. In the silence I heard Rainor’s slowing heartbeat catch. That was when I leaned over and whispered the answer he so desperately wanted in his ear. He smiled and thanked me. And then he died.

The coven was mine.

Tears of blood began to pour down my face. I could not remember the last time I had cried for any reason other than laughter.

Kain came to my side and said, “Should I take you out of here before the vampires arrive? Anton said he would be coming personally when I called him from the car and you don’t need that right now.”

I shook my head. I could mourn, but I could not show weakness. Reaching over I closed Rainor’s eyelids and placed coins on them in the tradition of days gone by. “Good-bye.”

As I was getting to my feet, the vampires poured into the building with Anton and Marcus at the lead. I was a little surprised that in light of Tristan’s treachery Anton had brought someone not of his blood with him. He must really trust Marcus. The vampires were ready for battle, but saw there was no one left to fight. Anton’s eyes locked on mine and softened when he saw my tears before his gaze slid to the floor to confirm what he already knew; Rainor was dead.

Together, as if they had rehearsed it, all the members of my coven that were present went down on one knee to acknowledge my ascension. To my surprise, Marcus bowed to me and all the vampires with him, except for Anton, followed suit. Anton gave me an inclination of the head and a look that said I had his support in handling Rainor’s death and fully taking over the coven if I wanted it, but I would have to ask for it. We both knew I would not ask.

To my coven I said, “You may rise.”

To the vampires I said, “Thank you for your support my allies. I hope this means our good terms will continue under my reign as they did under Rainor’s. We are going to face enough challenges from the outside without tearing each other to pieces.”

To Kain I said, “See to Rainor’s body.”

Then I swept out of the building with tears still flowing from my eyes and went out into the night.

*****

As was customary, Rainor’s funeral pyre was built and ready to be set on fire by sunset the next night. I took my place at the head of the soon-to-be blazing pile with Kain to my left, as an enforcer should. If Patrick were present, as Rainor’s son, he would have stood at my right as my second. That was if he had not ascended in my place and placed me at his right. All the eyes staring at the pyre were wet, some, like mine, were wet with blood tears. A series of hisses and snarls rolled forward from the back of the crowd of mourners. I could sense who approached, but still I turned and what I saw made my muscles tense for battle. No one could ever accuse me of trying to find the best in people’s motives.

The vampires had arrived.

It was not their entire caste, only Anton, the dessert and Marcus, who I assumed was his new second, glided towards me. This was a courtesy call, not an attack if there were only two vampires and a defenseless human. I relaxed immediately and hoped my coven realized that before anyone did anything stupid. I stepped forward to greet them. “You do us an honor Anton. I thank you.”

He inclined his head towards me. “I have known Rainor for many years, he was a worthy leader that earned my respect. I give him what courtesy I may.”

“As I said last night, I hope the…friendship that grew between our families can continue.”

Anton’s black eyes raked me from head to toe. Ashley noticed and bristled. “Natasha, I can assure you that I want nothing more than to be your friend.”

I shouldn’t. It was a funeral. But Rainor’s inner bad boy would love it now that the fall out would not be his problem. What the hell? “Really? I thought you wanted to have sex with me. But if friendship is all you want, brother dear, that’s what you shall have.”

The dessert stamped her foot. “Anton!”

Marcus began coughing, which would have been a plausible cover for his laughter if vampires breathed.

“Shut up!” Anton growled at the dessert. He turned red eyes on me. “I am not your brother.”

I glanced up at him, letting my own eyes roll red. “No, you’re not. And you don’t want to be my friend.”

Anton was shaking. I was not sure if it was from rage or raging desire, but neither of us was going to do a thing about it here. If he made one move towards me, he and his would be set upon by my coven, if I hadn’t killed them first. He took a step back. “One night Natasha.”

“One night,” I promised.

“But not tonight. Come Ashley, Marcus.”

I watched them saunter away. Well, Anton sauntered, Marcus was dragging the dessert who seemed to be throwing a tantrum of some sort. I chose not to listen to whatever she was shrieking about; it was bound to be uninteresting. I turned my attention back towards the funeral rites.

Kain stepped closer. “Was that a threat or a promise of something I don’t want to know about?”

“Both, I think. Not now.”

“Of course.”

I bowed towards Rainor and then spoke, “Our family has suffered a great loss with Rainor’s passing. He was a touchstone of sanity during the hard times and was like a father to many of us. He was loved, respected and feared. What one of us could ever ask for more to be said of us at the end of our lives? To our glorious leader, may you find what brings you joy in the afterlife.”

I stepped back and the archers shot flaming arrows into the pyre. In silence we all stood and watched as Rainor’s body went up in flames. At the end all covened half-castes wound up like the vampires who made them: ashes.

Epilogue

When my phone rang at 2 a.m. the morning after we laid Rainor to rest, I knew who it would be. I slid out of bed and went out onto my balcony.

“Good evening,” I said to the caller.

“My condolences on your coven’s loss Natasha. It is your coven?”

“Yes. Patrick did not turn up, at least not yet.”

“Did you have to kill Rainor for it?”

“No. He was moments from death when he asked me where his son went. He died right after I told him.”

“But not at your hand?”

“I waited until it was unnecessary.”

“You regret his passing?”

“Of course I regret it! Don’t tell me that death of the man who was like a father to me shouldn’t bother me. And it’s not because I’m flooded with long suppressed feelings. And I’m not defensive.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

I sighed and redirected the conversation. “I never expected to be tired all the time or for the sugar cravings to be that bad, it’s a miracle I don’t weigh 300 pounds. I still don’t understand why transitioning from being a blood drinker to eating normal food means we spend weeks needing almost as much sleep as a human and only able to eat sweet things without retching. I almost gagged to death on a forkful of potato salad.”

“I said you should give yourself more time to let down before you returned.”

“Given the situation I could hardly wait, especially if I was going to use Rainor’s illness as my cover, he didn’t have much time left. The Elders were going to order you to send troops here to take everyone out. Things are still not good here by the way. What’s left of Gregory’s caste is being run by his former consort who wants my head on a silver platter; Anton’s too I would guess. They have been dealt with for now, but they won’t stop trying to get revenge and that could cause civil war amongst the vampires, which won’t be good for anyone.”

“This isn’t going to be a short visit is it?”

“No, it looks like I’m here for a while. If you think you can put a leash on Patrick he will have to take my place at your right hand for the time being Master Soong.”

“I suspect you will see him before I do.”

“I doubt that.”

“I don’t. Take care of this quickly Natasha. My plans for you do not include you wasting your talents as a bloodless coven Mistress or as that Hadi’s bedmate.”

“As you wish Master.”

I hung up and stared out at the darkness.

Welcome to Hades

Natasha Carmichael: Book Two

Coming Soon…

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 3