Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 page)

I peeked out the curtain on the way. "Nothing moving out there. The whole damn state must be hungover." Which was when I realized a new year had crashed on me. Should I make a resolution? Be nicer to old women and cats? Swear less? Learn a new language?

"Got it!" I told my reflection as I went into the bathroom to undress. "My resolution is to learn how to swear in a new language."

If Evie were here she'd be rolling her eyes. "That's not swearing less, Jaz," she'd say.

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong little round grasshopper," I'd tell her in my Chinese grocer accent. She loves that one because, of course, I do it terribly. "I will be swearing less in English.
And
I will be learning a new language."

I lingered over my second shower, afterward took the time to shave and pluck and cosmeticize myself into some semblance of order. Now wearing black jeans and a long-sleeved purple shirt with prehistoric cave-paintings printed all over it, I was ready—to wait some more. These were the times I missed Evie the most. She's one of those people who's easy to be with, laid back, undemanding, never in your face—like me. I do sometimes think it's good we were military brats. All those moves forced us to become friends with each other because we knew our other friendships couldn't last.

Okay, much more of this mushy crap and I'll have to trade my PPK for a parasol.

I dropped to the bed, turned on the't.v. and picked up my cards. While Oprah helped some poor schmuck finally let go of her dead poodle, I shuffled. It sounds lame, I know. But I like the sound the cards make slapping against each other. It's much sweeter than the clatter of my thoughts, looping around my brain like the cars on a kid's racetrack, never winning, never ending, just rushing in circles until I want to lay down on a busy stretch of railroad and hope Dudley Do-Right is busy elsewhere.

Bergman called just as I turned the channel and, what do you know!, Dudley Do-Right galloped across the screen, riding Horse backwards because that's how all courageous Mounties ride their steeds in the backwoods of Canada. "Jasmine? Are you secure?"

Hmm, really too many ways to answer that question, and not all of them comforting
. "It's safe to talk," I said. "What're you up to?"

"Nothing."

Which meant he had several high-level, top-secret projects on the burner, none of which he wanted to discuss. "Cool. That means you've got some free time, right?"

"Could have. What do you need?"

"Backup. Big-time backup with all the bells and whistles. How soon can you be in Miami with a vehicle?"

Long silence as Bergman did some mental calculating. "How soon do you need me?"

"Dusk would be good." I chuckled, but he got the message.

"I'll leave tonight and call you when I hit town."

"Excellent," I said, and we hung up. Nice thing about Bergman, he likes to leave the details for face-to-face conversations. "Don't worry, Vayl," I said, looking at my wall as if I could see through it, straight into his room, "help is on the way."

Nobody could rent me the kind of power I needed in a vehicle, though I only meant to use it until Bergman showed, so I ended up leasing one. That chore accomplished, I spent the rest of the time until dusk rearranging furniture. I reset the pit, using a completely different configuration than the hotel preferred and thinking I'd showed up their designers big-time. Evie always forces me watch the Home & Garden Network when I visit, and I felt sure most of their decorators would approve of the cozy new conversation area I'd created. Now I just had to figure out why I thought I needed one.

I was just getting the urge to shuffle cards in response to this new brain teaser when darkness fell. A strange sound from Vayl's room made me jump to my feet. It was half gulp, half gasp, what you might expect to hear from a swimmer who's finally surfaced after staying under far too long.

I was through his door before the sound stopped, Grief cocked in my hand.

Vayl stood in front of his tent-covered bed, staring at me as if I'd sprouted antennae. He was naked.

"Whoa!" I covered my eyes and spun around. Redundant, I know, but that two-second view of his magnificent pale bod had activated my conservative Midwestern values, chief among those the belief that you don't ogle naked men who don't already belong to you. "I'm so sorry! I just heard this noise and it sounded like you were in danger, so I came to save you."
Dumbass
. I should've known it was the sound of power, of magic, bringing Vayl back to a life he couldn't bear to leave. I'd been close when he'd come awake before, but never close enough to hear such a sound.

"I'm outta here," I said, moving toward the door.

"No, stay."

Uh
… He laughed softly, a purely male sound that recognized how much I appreciated his form and loved that I was embarrassed he knew.

"Do not worry, I am dressed."

I peeked over my shoulder. "Well that hardly counts," I said, my heart fluttering like a marker flag as I watched him. He'd covered his bottom half with a white towel, but most of his muscular thigh showed as he went to the room fridge and opened the door. As he leaned over I winced to see scars criss-crossing his broad shoulders and back. When he stood I noticed a chain swung from his neck. On it he wore a gold ring.

He'd pulled a plastic bag full of blood from the fridge. As he tore it open and poured the contents into a glass, I thought I should maybe be grossed out. But I wasn't. Vayl did what he needed to survive, and he managed that without treading the path walked by the majority of vampires on earth. I had to respect that.

"Tell me what you did today," Vayl said as he went to the dresser.

"O-kay." I started at the end and worked my way backwards, watching him pull a pair of faded jeans and a dark red button-down shirt out of a dresser drawer. As I gave my report I learned that my boss also wore black silk boxers. The knowledge left me a little breathless and a lot perturbed. What I felt was wrong on so many levels you could package it into an entire training video called What NOT to Do While on the Job.

Vayl went into the bathroom and I finished my review as he showered. Just like any guy, he was getting ready for work. But Vayl was not any guy, far from it. And therein lay my dilemma. I could only deny reality for so long, and then only if Vayl cooperated. It didn't look like he intended to for much longer. Whatever had made us work so well as a team from the start had changed, had grown. I guess I'd known that, at some level, something had been stirring between us for awhile. But hey, I'm so good at denying reality I could give lessons. I just had no idea how you tell an immortal creature whose powers routinely cause abject cringing and/or death that you
want
him, but he's not what you
need
. My guess—very carefully.

I fell silent, and since he seemed to have nothing to say either, I left him to finish his shower. I'd curled up on one of the couches in the conversation area I'd created when he came out of his room. Apparently the new furniture arrangement was less conducive to talk than I'd anticipated, because speech suddenly failed me.

Unless he'd switched to camouflage mode, Vayl rarely entered a room without everyone feeling his presence. His personality could be like mist, drifting gently into your lungs until every breath sent him sliding through your veins. Or, like a violent change in air pressure, it could reach out and slam you against a wall. At the moment, looking at him through eyes that I hoped hadn't glazed over, I wouldn't have noticed if a ninja had dropped through the ceiling and started breaking chairs.

He moved with the total body awareness of a professional athlete, and now that I knew what that body looked like, I could not take my eyes off it. If a scientist gave a lecture on the Alpha male, she'd definitely throw in a few slides of Vayl. But until last night, until he'd looked at me like I'd sashayed right out of his deepest, darkest fantasy, I hadn't thought about where our relationship might lead us, or how exciting that trip could be. What a helluva time for my hormones to kick into overdrive.

"Vayl, I… we…" I caught his eyes and stopped speaking. They were the gray-blue of storm-swept waves, snapping dangerously over lips compressed so tightly I could see the outline of fangs beneath them. "What's wrong?" I asked, some instinct making me touch the gun now resting in my shoulder holster.

Vayl descended into the pit and dropped onto the couch I'd positioned on a diagonal with mine. For a minute he just sat there with his elbows on his knees, staring off into space.

"Vayl?"

"Something is wrong with my blood supply."

"What do you mean?"

Vayl jumped up and started pacing. "The blood I brought to sustain me. It is tainted." I felt the familiar bewilderment that used to fog my brain when my math teacher handed me a word problem. How was
I
supposed to know which train would reach Dallas first?

"How could you tell?" I asked.

Vayl grabbed one of the decorative pillows off the couch and began picking at one corner of it. I'd never seen him so shaken, and it was starting to scare me.

"Look, Vayl, just tell me what you know."

Vayl sat down again, avoiding my gaze, watching his fingers worry at the pillow instead. "When I went to get a drink I realized something was wrong. That is, once the blood had warmed, I could smell something in it that should not have been there. Something my nose tells me will make me ill."

"Did you check all the bags?"

"Yes. They are all tainted."

"Did you keep some? We should get it tested."

"Yes."

This is bad, bad, bad
—"Vayl, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Of course. After last night how could I think otherwise? But polluted blood would not kill me, it would only make me sick."

"Sick, like out of commission? Sick as in vulnerable?"

"Very possibly."

"Then maybe this is just a prelude to another attack." I waited for Vayl to agree, but he just shrugged. The pillow in his hands began to come apart. I was beginning to identify with it, big-time.
Okay, Jaz, keep it together. You are a trained pro. Eventually you will find the ass that needs kicking and that's exactly what you'll do. As long as you keep it together
.

"So let's figure out who's doing this," I said, more to myself than Vayl. "I don't think it could've been Pete. He was too ready to agree with our suggestions."

"That still leaves several highly trusted suspects." He shook his head. "We have been betrayed." He sounded like he'd already had some bitter experience in that area. "Worse, we have already established that Assan and Aidyn prefer to be led, which means our betrayer is also, most likely, the architect of their entire project."

"We have a very nasty problem, Vayl."

"Two, actually."

"Yeah?"

Vayl sank back down onto the couch, looking bleak as a cancer patient. "Not only is someone trying to kill me, but now I have to find a supply of fresh blood."

I knew that as we sat there staring at each other we were sharing the same thoughts. Neither of us wanted to say them out loud, but it had to be done. I started.

"So, what are our options?"

"Limited." Vayl drew in a deep breath, clasped his hands together convulsively. I'd never seen him so agitated. "I cannot hunt. I… made a vow." He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. "I know that must sound stupid and old-fashioned to you—"

"Not at all. Of course hunting is out. We're the good guys."

Vayl's lips twitched.

"Okay," I amended, "we're walking that thin line between good and bad, but we're not kidnapping kids or blowing up federal buildings so I say, if we're erring, it's on the side of good."

"Which is why we cannot raid a blood bank or anything similar to that."

"I agree." Weren't we just two reasonable people? It's what we spooks do when the alternative is blind panic. "So what
can
you do?"

"Find a willing donor. Vampires tend to attract them. I know of two in the area I might approach."

Whoa, buddy. Where did you go when I wasn't looking
? "You've… made some contacts? Recently?"

If Vayl had any blood in him, he would've blushed. He avoided meeting my eyes, and he started to fidget like I'd just caught him slipping a frog into the teacher's desk. "I, well, yes." He straightened up and looked me in the eye, realizing, maybe, that he didn't have to answer to anyone, me the least. "I cannot discuss it right now." His look softened. Did I really seem that hurt? "I will tell you later, when we have time."

"You want to save it for the plane ride back?"

He nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Yes. I will tell you everything you want to know then."

Maybe
. I wanted to know an awful lot after all. But I wasn't completely ignorant, at least about vampires in general. Not so long ago I'd been considered something of an expert. Which was why I'd been so good at killing them, why I'd headed my own team. I did know that the act of taking blood from a human donor, willing or not, involved all of a vampire's senses. Like giraffes leaning down for a drink of river water, vampires were at their most vulnerable when taking blood. Both loyal and captive vamps had described it as 'heady,' 'intoxicating,' and yeah, 'better than sex.'

Whoever had sent the bad blood must know what I knew, that by creating a need for a human donor they'd also produced an ideal situation for assassination. Thing was, I couldn't see me standing guard outside some locked door while God knows what went down inside. For all we knew these willing donors of Vayl's were part of the master plan too. That was logical me speaking. Stupid, stubborn, bizarre me couldn't stand the thought of Vayl sharing that sort of intimacy with another person. I guess I was a flake after all. Didn't need him, no. But wanted him bad enough I was about to do the unthinkable. It should've been more of a consolation to know Pete would've approved.

I stood and began to pace. "Vayl, Pete outlined my job pretty clearly to me. My highest priority is to protect you when you're vulnerable."