Blood Pact (New Breed Book 4) Read online

  So yes, she was tempted to allow him to walk her home. It wasn’t a far walk. Just a few blocks. “If you want to hang around, I won’t complain.”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely,” he said as he approached her.

  Immediately she second-guessed herself. But what did she have to be afraid of? Even if he had less than noble intentions, she could probably handle him. She was stronger than him, and considering he thought she was just some poor defenseless human, she had the element of surprise on her side.

  “So do you go to a lot of vampire clubs?” he asked as they started walking.

  Oh great. Now that he was escorting her, they’d have to talk. Her time with Mrs. Anders had helped her conversational ability, and her English was getting better by the day thanks to the numerous podcasts she’d been listening to, but she hadn’t gotten to the point where she actually enjoyed talking. “I go when I’m bored.” Conversations would be a lot more enjoyable if she didn’t have to lie constantly. With Mrs. Anders, it was easy enough. The woman already knew there was so much in her past she didn’t want to talk about, so they kept most of their talks light and shallow.

  This Aidan didn’t seem very respectful of boundaries. “Bored? Do you get bored a lot?”

  It wasn’t that she got bored. She got hungry a lot. The vampire club had been kitschy, but so many of the patrons were desperate and were willing to overlook certain weirder aspects of her lifestyle. And for the most part, if she bit them on the neck and drank a pint or two, they wouldn’t freak out. In fact, most of them had ended up begging for her number so they could reconnect.

  But the last thing she wanted was a connection of any sort. All she wanted was a dinner. From what she understood, the vampires here—the real ones, not wannabes—were able to lift specific memories right out of people’s minds after they fed. Must be nice. She just had to find the right people or sneak attack.

  She tried to be nice about it. Keep the pain minimal. Only take enough to satiate her and leave the humans conscious enough to get home safely. She knew she was a predator taking advantage of a weaker species, but she wasn’t about to starve just so she could have the moral high ground.

  Besides, she listened to a lot of crime podcasts; she wasn’t nearly as bad as most of these people she heard about. She wasn’t a serial killer. She didn’t take joy out of causing others pain. Besides, she’d heard so many horror stories about the factory farming industry. She was much nicer to her victims than they were to the cows and chickens they consumed without a second thought.

  But she wasn’t about to tell Aidan all of this. So lies would have to do. “Do you go to vampire clubs often?”

  “Shockingly, no.”

  “Are you one of the people who doesn’t believe in the undead?” She had to admit of all of the false myths about vampires, the dead thing bothered her the most. She wasn’t dead. She was very much alive. In fact, she’d argue that she was more alive than a lot of the mortals she’d met.

  Let them think she slept in a coffin or turned into a bat. But she had a heartbeat, and she was very much alive.

  “I believe a lot of things.”

  Well, that was a non-answer. “Why were you there tonight? Just so you can save damsels in distress who might need a savior?” She didn’t like to think of herself as a damsel, but she wasn’t ignorant to the situation he’d stumbled upon. She’d been about as distressed as she could get.

  “I can’t really tell you that.”

  Well hell. Now she was interested. “You can’t or won’t?”

  “I was helping a friend with a problem. That’s all I can say.”

  She knew she was keeping so many secrets from him, but the fact that he had to keep secrets from her piqued her curiosity much more than she was proud of. But she couldn’t ask too many more questions because they were now in front of Mrs. Anders’s apartment. Which meant this was the end of her time with her odd savior.

  She glanced around, looking for any sign of the Vopura who got away. If they followed her here, they could come back at any time. Though she hadn’t heard or sensed any menacing presence. For now, she felt like she’d gotten lucky. She’d known it was only a matter of time before she ran into one of her own on the street, and she’d lived to tell the tale.

  But she knew next time she might not be so lucky. “Tell me how you did it,” she said as she turned to face Aidan.

  “How I did what?”

  “You killed that...” She knew she couldn’t refer to him by name. “Thing. How?”

  “It wasn’t hard. He was too confident, and I used his own momentum against him.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “I’ve had training. It’s not exactly my first fight.”

  “Where do I get trained?”

  He let out a laugh. “You want to learn to fight?”

  “I want to learn to protect myself. I don’t want to be cornered in an alley again and just hope that you show up. How do I learn to protect myself like you do?”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of self-defense classes you can take.”

  Self-defense classes? Like how humans can protect themselves from other humans? She needed more than that. She needed something advanced. Real. She wasn’t afraid of someone snatching her purse. She was afraid of monsters snatching her back to their world. “Forget I asked. Thank you for walking me home, Aidan. Thank you for everything.” It was stupid of her to ask him that. It wasn’t as if he would be able to give her the name of some training studio she could go to.

  She was just about to reach her door when Aidan called, “Hey!”

  She turned as he was jogging over. “If you want, I can give you a few pointers sometime.” He must’ve seen her apprehension because he quickly added, “I can give you a crash course in self-defense. Not flirting. I promise. You’re the one who brought this up.”

  He was right. But somehow the idea of seeing him again seemed like a bigger step. But she didn’t want to have a repeat of tonight. She didn’t want to be helpless. “How would that even work?”

  “Well....” Aidan reached into his back pocket and pulled out a little slip of paper. “This is my card, and it has my cell number on it. If you decide you want a crash course, you give me a call and we’ll work something out.”

  She tentatively reached out and took the paper from him. Aidan Masters. Antiquities dealer. What kind of antiquities dealer would be able to fight like he could? She hadn’t met a human this confusing since her liberation months ago. Once again, she was having second thoughts about this crazy proposition. “How much would I owe you?”

  “I’d do it for free.”

  “I’d rather pay you.”

  “My normal consulting fee is seven hundred an hour.”

  That amount shocked her out of her daze, and she looked up to his icy-blue eyes. “Are you kidding?”

  “In my field, I’m very good at what I do.”

  “Fighting?”

  “No. Art and antiques. It’s on the card.”

  Oh. His consulting for that. “I don’t have antiquities kind of money.”

  “That’s why I said you wouldn’t have to pay me. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I don’t need to be taking on a second job to make ends meet.”

  Must be nice. She was living rent-free and didn’t pay for food, and the small amount Mrs. Anders paid her barely covered her expenses. “I’ll figure something out. If I decide to call you,” she said quickly as she tucked the little card away.

  “I’d love to help you,” he said, his voice dropping subtly but obviously.

  “Now you’re flirting with me.”

  He smiled. Instead of denying it, he simply said, “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Promise.”

  It was the first time in the short time that she’d known him that she was certain he was lying to her.

  Aidan walked with a little extra pep in his step as he strolled back to Puncture. The night hadn’t gone the way he expected, but it
was hard to be upset. His mystery woman now had a name, and he might even be seeing her again.

  Granted, she’d let him know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t interested. And, hey, if she wasn’t interested, he’d respect that. But he was sure as hell going to enjoy trying to get her interested.

  There was just something... different about her. And it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t figure out what it was. Sure, the circumstances of how they’d gotten to know each other had been very odd. But she’d intrigued him well before that. When she’d first come up to the bar and ordered her water, he’d been utterly intrigued. Was it just because she was pretty?

  She was gorgeous. Her black doe eyes should be on the cover of a magazine. Her perfect skin should be on some commercial advertising a cream that retailed for hundreds of dollars. But a pretty pale girl was hardly unique at a club like Puncture.

  Besides, he’d been surrounded by pretty women his entire life. Women who had actually been on the covers of magazines and in ads for skincare. So it wasn’t just her looks that had caught him off guard. Something else was different about her. The way she walked? The slight accent? It was barely there, but every once in a while, it would pop out. He tried to put his finger on it. Russian, maybe? It was hard to tell.

  This girl definitely had secrets, and if she never called him, he might never figure out what they were. And that idea was frustrating as hell.

  He made it back to Puncture in time to see a collection of cars gathered around the alley. Apparently the Special Unit 4 cleanup crew was there.

  Ian noticed him before anyone else did. He held his arms out wide in annoyance. “What the hell?” he called, apparently not too worried about being subtle.

  So much for being a super-secret government task force. “Something came up. Did you like the present I left for you?”

  “The present is great, but why did you go running after? We could’ve used your help with crowd control.”

  “The one I got wasn’t the only one. There were two more and a scared civilian.”

  “Civilian? What’s his name? We need to question him. Make sure he didn’t see anything he shouldn’t have.”

  “She. And I didn’t get her full name. I walked her home to make sure she was safe. It seemed more important to help the human than to guard a dead body.”

  Ian let out an impatient sigh. “This is why I hate working with newbies. You have no respect for protocol.”

  “Remember—I’m doing you a favor.”

  “Your grandmother is loaning you to us as a favor. I know you wouldn’t be here if you had a choice.” Ian really was pissed off.

  Aidan wasn’t getting paid at all, so he sure as hell didn’t have to deal with this. “If you don’t want my help, I don’t have to be here. Where’s Carter? Aren’t you supposed to have a partner or something you can rag on instead of me?” He’d been in such a good mood just a few minutes ago. How had Ian managed to ruin it? Between him and Ian, Ian was usually the more pleasant of the two.

  But obviously he had a bug up his ass tonight. “I thought you’d be grateful for my help. I took a Vopura off your hands for you. You’re welcome.”

  Ian shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re right. You did good. But we still can’t have civvies walking off without any debriefing.”

  “She was freaked out,” pointed out Aidan. “There were three of those things cornering her when I found them. I didn’t want her to go off on her own, and staying here didn’t seem like the safest bet either.”

  Ian frowned. “Three of them? Cornering a woman? None of that fits the MO.”

  Aidan shrugged. “That’s what I saw.”

  “The guys who were attacked only reported one attacker. They weren’t held down or ambushed by a group. Do you think our Vopura made friends? And what’s with the switch of gender?”

  Aidan stayed quiet. He had a feeling Ian wasn’t actually directing any of these questions at him.

  “No. It has to be a different guy. These Vopura were just wanderers. Maybe friends of the attacker. But it’s not our guy.”

  Which meant he’d have to come back to Puncture. Fuck.

  But before he could get too annoyed about it, his phone buzzed. He had a new text message. Not caring whether he was being rude, he checked the message right in front of Ian. It was an unknown number.

  This is Lina. From tonight. When do we start training?

  A victorious smile covered his face. All right. At least this night wasn’t a total failure.

  Lina stared at her phone as if it were an alien from another dimension. Had she really done that? Messaged a stranger? A strange man?

  She wasn’t asking him out on a date or anything, but she was going to be putting herself in a compromising position. And he hadn’t been that subtle about his intentions with her. On one hand, she appreciated that honesty. And on the other, she couldn’t forget all the men who had tried to use her in the past.

  This stranger wouldn’t be all that different. Human, Vopura, vampire—all men were the same on some level. She had to remember that.

  “You’re looking at that phone like it’s a snake that’s about to bite you,” said Mrs. Anders from where she sat in her armchair.

  Lina jumped and turned around, trying to keep the guilty look off her face. “What? No I’m not.”

  Mrs. Anders smiled. “Dear Lina. Don’t tell me you’re talking with a boy.”

  “I most certainly am not!” She’d never classify Aidan as a boy, anyway. “I messaged someone about training me to fight.”

  Mrs. Anders tsked. “In my day, women didn’t learn how to fight. We found ourselves a good strong man to take care of us.”

  “And how did that work out for you?” asked Lina as she started to clean up Mrs. Anders’s dishes. She should have been in bed hours ago, but Mrs. Anders had always been a night owl. It was one of the reasons their odd relationship worked so well.

  When Lina had escaped from Jackson, she’d been in a bit of trouble. She’d spoken barely any English, had no money and had been next to starving. But with the limited amount of English she could read, she found someone looking for a nighttime caregiver. The job didn’t pay much, but it paid cash and included a room to sleep in. Exactly what she’d needed.

  It helped that Lina and Mrs. Anders had formed an odd sort of friendship.

  “I left the bastard as soon as I had enough money. That’s how you trick the system, honey. It’s all about the green.”

  Lina smiled even though she was sure it hadn’t been all that easy for Mrs. Anders. Grace Anders lived an odd life. She’d been married three times and had three kids, each successful in their careers and spread around the country. But although each sent their mother more than enough to live off of and hire all the help she needed, none had offered to move closer or try to move Mrs. Anders closer to them.

  To be fair, Mrs. Anders wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with. She was boisterous, opinionated, and not all of her opinions were exactly accurate. But she always managed to entertain Lina, and she was eccentric enough that if she started to suspect Lina was anything other than human, no one would really believe her.

  “I’ve told you plenty of times that I’m not looking for a man to hide behind. I don’t need someone to control me.”

  “That’s why you need to find one you can control.”

  Lina thought about controlling Aidan and had to bite back a smile. Yeah, that wasn’t about to happen. “It’s almost two a.m. You need to start getting ready for bed.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “You’re always tired.” Lina cleared off the tray with the cups of water and ice that Mrs. Anders always surrounded herself with. “Besides, we need to get you showered first. You’ll be ready for bed by the time you’re dry.”

  “Aren’t you sick of bathing a gross old woman like me yet?”

  Lina snorted. “Trust me. This is the easiest part of my night.” She arranged Mrs. Anders
’s scooter close to her armchair so she would only have to maneuver a few steps before the scooter would take the rest of the weight. Mrs. Anders’s mind worked much faster than her body these days.

  But because of Lina’s extra strength, it wasn’t a problem to pick Mrs. Anders up and maneuver her around when needed. Her strength had confused Mrs. Anders at first, but she seemed to become used to the idea quick enough.

  “I shudder to think of what the rest of your night has been like then,” said Mrs. Anders as she shakily made her way to the scooter.

  “I did meet a boy,” she said once Mrs. Anders sat down. She didn’t want to give Mrs. Anders false hope, but she knew it would make her charge happy.

  “Oh really? Was he handsome?”

  “Very,” said Lina as she followed Mrs. Anders to the oversized bathroom. This apartment was for seniors specifically, so the shower was especially large and included a bench to sit down on and a handle to hold on to if needed. “He was blond. I didn’t think I liked blonds, but he was.... He was striking.” Lina went to help Mrs. Anders into the shower, but she was waved off.

  “I can do this tonight. Just tell me about your beau.”

  Some nights were better than others, and apparently this was a good night. With the scooter, Mrs. Anders was still pretty mobile. She could get around her apartment well enough and could be relatively independent. But the need for a live-in caregiver had become more apparent when her weight dropped suddenly last year. Her family had thought she was getting sick and frail, but it turned out the solution was a bit more basic. Because standing and moving was so difficult, she just cooked less. And therefore was practically anorexic.

  Lina was by no means a chef, but she managed to cook some basic healthy meals, and, more than anything, Mrs. Anders seemed to enjoy the company.