"I haven't."
She raised an elegant eyebrow. "What, not even as a friendly gesture of hello?"
I could've pointed out that I wasn't the social, friendly type, but I wasn't about to give her that much information. "Let's just get this over with."
"As you wish."
She stepped closer. My nostrils flared, sucking in her scent, tasting flowers and springtime and something else, something I couldn't quite define. Something that felt dangerous and exciting all at the same time.
She stopped so close that her wispy gown swirled around my legs, encasing them in a sea of red. I clenched my fingers, fighting the desire to step back, to escape the heat and feel of her, and watched her face. Watching the anticipation in her brown eyes grow as she drew closer.
Then her lips brushed mine. Tentatively, gently. They were surprisingly cool and soft, and not unpleasant, however much I wanted them to be. I didn't react, holding myself still, not wanting to prolong the contact.
She opened her eyes, stared deep into mine. "A kiss takes two people, guardian. React, or the payment will not be accepted."
Her lips touched mine again, and after a moment of hesitation, I moved into them, kissing her gently but thoroughly. It was a strange kiss, a passionless kiss, and yet it was a kiss that had my nerves tingling and pulse racing. It wasn't desire. It was fear of the unknown.
I had a bad, bad feeling that more than just lip-tasting was going on.
I pulled away, felt the coolness of the room caress my skin, washing away the heat of her. She smiled, and flicked her skirts away from my legs. "You do not taste like a wolf, guardian."
"You got your kiss, vampire. I want my name."
She considered me for a moment, then said, "Aron Young."
"Got that," Sal said into my ear. "Instigating search."
"Thank you," I said, more to Sal than Vinny. I stepped back again, relishing the distance each step was giving me. "If he happens to return, Vincenta, please call the Directorate straightaway."
"I will. I'd hate to have the force of the mighty Directorate brought down on me." Her voice gently mocked. "I will see you again, guardian."
No, you fucking won't, I thought, and got the hell out of there.
Rhoan still hadn't arrived back home when I woke the following morning. I picked up the storm of clothes that were still scattered everywhere, dumping them all back into their various baskets, then made myself a coffee and some breakfast and turned on the TV to see if I could catch a glimpse of him and Liander on the entertainment channels.
I didn't, but they walked in the door about ten minutes later, arms around each other, both of them half undressed and looking more than a little worse for the wear.
"You two," I said, around a mouthful of cereal, "look like shit."
Liander waved a hand and gave me a silly grin. "But we're feeling fine."
He tripped over the end of the rug as he said it, and would have fallen flat on his face if Rhoan hadn't hauled him upright. Though that effort caused the two of them to stagger sideways, missing the coat stand by the merest of inches. I snorted. Drunk as skunks, the pair of them.
I dumped my cereal on the coffee table, then got up and walked to the kitchen to flick on the kettle. "I gather last night went well?"
"Very. The effects are a hit."
Leather groaned as the two of them fell more than sat on the sofa.
"What about the movie itself?"
"You know what the movie business is like. Some will rave, some will tear it apart, some will equivocate." Liander waved a hand about airily, then leaned into Rhoan's arm. "The effects looked gorgeous, and that's all I was worried about."
Rhoan gave him a hug, then looked at me. "So how did you fill in the evening while we were out partying?"
Of the two of them, he looked slightly less pickled. Though at least both of them could talk without slurring their sentences. I leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and smiled. "I went out and kissed a girl."
They both blinked owlishly at me for a moment, then Rhoan said, "What?"
I didn't answer straightaway, making them coffee first, then sitting back down and reclaiming my breakfast. "The girl was a vamp who wasn't a bloodsucker, and I kissed her to get the name of a rogue who was beating up an accountant."
"So what was it like?" Liander asked. "Kissing a girl, I mean?"
"Not in the least bit arousing." Which was the truth, and yet not the whole truth. I picked up my coffee and took a sip. The fact was, the caress of her lips had haunted a good part of my dreams, but the cause was trepidation rather than desire. Even my dreams had been filled with the certainty that something more than lip-locking had happened.
Rhoan untangled himself from Liander and leaned forward. "Why would you kiss a vamp to get information? Why didn't you just read her mind or beat it out of her?"
I waved my spoon at him. "It's not polite to run around beating up women."
"It is when they're vamps who could beat the shit out of most normal people."
"We're not normal people." We weren't even normal in the nonhuman sense of the word. According to Jack - who apparently kept an eye on such things - we were the rarest of the rare. Who'd have thought, after all those years of getting beaten up because we were half-breeds?
He waved the comment away. "They don't know that. So why kiss her when you didn't want to?" He hesitated a moment, then added with a cheeky grin, "Or did you?"
"I'm still hetero all the way, bro. Trust me on that." I took a sip of coffee, then added, "I tried reading her mind, but it felt like falling into a black hole."
"So why not use threats or force? If she's withholding evidence, you're entitled to."
I shrugged. "Beating her up would have been an exercise in stupidity. She had forty of her get living with her and those sort of odds are a little overwhelming."
"Forty?" He frowned. "How does any one vampire control that many fledglings? And how would they even manage to all live together?"
I finished off my cereal, then dumped the bowl back on the table and said, "She wasn't a blood vamp, but rather some sort of emotional vampire. Apparently living together is a requirement for suckers who feed off emotion."
"There're vamps who feed off emotion?" Liander said. "That's a somewhat horrific thought."
I raised an eyebrow. "No worse than blood vamps, really."
He snorted. "It's hard to miss a blood vamp feeding off you. Bet the same couldn't be said of an emotional vampire."
He had a point. Especially if all emotional vamps had an aura as strong as Vinny's.
"You reported their presence to Jack?" Rhoan asked.
"Yep."
"Good." He paused to sip his coffee. "So why were you even there rescuing this accountant? Did it have something to do with that phone call you got last night?"
I nodded and explained why Ben had rung, then added, "Which is why I kissed the vamp. To get the name before he attacks someone else."
"So it's not someone connected to this Ben fellow?" Liander asked.
"Ben doesn't seem to think he's the connection, but I haven't talked to him since getting the name. Could turn out that he does know this Aron Young."
Which wouldn't be a good thing, because Young's actions had earned him an execution order. Vamps involved in the torture of others didn't live all that much longer than those actually killing - simply because one crime usually developed into the other anyway. And if Ben was a good friend, he'd come under Directorate scrutiny as well.
Liander frowned. "That name rings a bell."
I raised an eyebrow. "You know someone called Aron Young?"
"I didn't say that. I just said it rings a bell."
"I'm sure there's more than one Aron Young out there," Rhoan said dryly.
Liander sniffed. "Well, of course there is. I'm just saying the name seems familiar."
"Well," I said, grabbing my cup and bowl as I rose. "Let me know if you remember. Meanwhile, I'm heading into the Directorate. You want me to let Jack know you're going to be late?"
"No need." Rhoan's voice was decidedly smug. "I've got the day off. Some of us do occasionally think ahead and prepare."
"And this would have to be a first for you."
He threw a cushion after me. It thudded into a wall, missing by miles. For some reason, it sent the two of them off into fits of laughter. I shook my head and left them to it.
Thankfully, the car had survived the night without additional decoration from the local goons. I threw my gear in, clipped my cell phone onto its hands-free holder, then pulled into the traffic and headed to work.
The phone rang well before I got there and my heart sunk. The number said it was either Jack or Sal, and a call at this hour from either one could never be a good thing.
I pressed the receive button and said, "You know I can't stomach bad news before I've had my second cup of coffee."
"Well, ain't that just too bad," Jack said, sounding tired and just a little frustrated, "because I've got another one for you."
I slowed the car as the lights ahead turned to red. "I take it you mean another dead naked politician flashing his butt to the world?"
"Not quite. This one is a naked shoe-store owner flashing his butt to all and sundry."
That raised my eyebrows. "Human or nonhuman?"
"Non. Werefox, to be exact."
The killer wasn't restricting himself to any one race, then. "Where was he found?"
"In his store, by his employee. Apparently the dead man and a friend were getting hot and happy in the store window, and that's where he died."
So we had a killer who liked to do the deed in exposed spots, and who obviously had no qualms about being seen. Either that, or it added to the thrill. "Let me guess - his friend is nowhere to be found again?"
"Spot on."
"So why are you so sure it's connected? Beside the fact that our killer is something of an exhibitionist?"
"A feeling, nothing more."
And I'd put money on Jack's feelings over most people's certainties any day.
"Kade's heading there now," he continued. "I want you there ASAP to see if you can sense anything."
"I didn't sense anything useful at James's office." And if my job at the Directorate started to be nothing more than visiting murder scenes to try and sense departing souls, then I'd rather quit.
Which was quite a statement, considering I never actually wanted to be a guardian in the first place.
"Still worth trying. I'll send you the address." He paused, and in the background I heard paper rustling. "We checked out that nest you found last night, too."
I raised my eyebrows. "That was fast."
"Emo vamps can be quite dangerous. We had to assess the situation."
"So they really do feed on emotions rather than blood?"
"Yes. And they have the ability - and the tendency - to amp up emotions. In certain situations, that can get extremely dangerous."
"This one seems to feed off sexual energy."
"Sexual emotions tend to be the rawest, and therefore more satisfying to emo vamps, but they'll make do with lesser emotions like fear, anger, and pain when they have to."
Which is why there'd been such a strong sense of hunger in the building when I'd walked in - they'd been feeding off what was happening in Ivan's apartment.
And I wouldn't have been surprised if that had been part of the reasoning behind Vinny allowing the vampire to visit Ivan.
"What's your impression of Vincenta Castillo?" Jack asked.
I hesitated. "She's one to watch. I think she has great plans for herself and her fledglings, but I don't think she's done anything to cross the line just yet."
"Interesting."
His voice was dry, and my eyebrows rose again. "Why?"
"Because our inspector gave a glowing report."
I grinned. "Was he young and blond?"
Jack paused. "Young, yes. Blond, no."
"She razzle-dazzled him, boss. He wouldn't have known what side of his pen was up when he was taking notes."
"Young Clark has strong shields. Even an emo vamp shouldn't have been able to affect him."
"I've got strong shields, and I felt her pull."
"Then we'll keep an eye on her, for sure. Have you written up a report about last night?"
"Nope. I was intending to do it when I got in this morning. Did Sal get anything on Aron Young?"
"We found three. We're still trying to get a current address on two of them."
"At least there's not hundreds to investigate."
"True." He paused for a moment. In the background, someone was murmuring. Paper moved, then he added, "Sal mentioned you were investigating some BDSM case?"
Meaning Sal had listened in on my phone call - there was no other way she could have known, because I hadn't yet written the report. "It's related to last night's case - same vampire."
I wasn't a hundred percent positive of that, of course, but I wasn't about to let Jack know that.
"I'll hunt up the police report on it for you, and hurry the search on Young. If this is the start of a murder run, we'll need to get onto it straightaway."