Cora's Secret: A Vampire Ménage Urban Fantasy Romance (2 page)

“Breathe,” Lindal murmured. “That’s all I’m doing.”

Zack’s lips touched his cheek, then pressed against his mouth. Hard. Then he was gone. Vampire speed. He moved around Beth and out of the kitchen.

Beth pressed her hands together. “Do you need help packing?”

Lindal shook his head. “I’m not taking much at all.” It didn’t feel right to haul luggage with him. If he had to follow this compulsion—and it did feel like he had no choice—then he would follow it exactly.

Beth gave him a small smile. “I’m going to find Zack,” she said softly.

“Hold him for me,” Lindal said and watched her leave. Then he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, clearing his vision of tears.

“Oh, this blue here…this is such a pretty color!” Mandy said, tapping her long, manicured fingernail against the little square of paint sample that laid almost directly beneath Cora’s elbow. “Is that…?” She picked up the sample card to read the tiny print beneath. “Robin’s Nest Blue,” she said and wrinkled her nose. “Where do they come up with the names for them?”

Cora smiled. “It makes them sound more exotic, I suppose. You could call it medium blue, but I don’t think you’d sell many cans of it. If it was called, say, Gerard Butler’s Eyes, you’d sell a bushel of them.” A pair of blue eyes, more familiar than Gerard Butler’s, flipped into her memory. Blue eyes, square jaw… She reached for the sample cards spread across the lunchroom table, straightening them up and stacking them, annoyed at herself.

Mandy giggled. “I’d buy it, if that was what it was called. Your spare room is going to look great when you’re done. I’d love to see it.”

“I was aiming to have you over for coffee and cake, once I finished,” Cora said. She glanced at the clock on the wall and stood up, stuffing the samples into her purse. “I’m due back on the floor.” She pulled her croupier vest straight. “Now, you watch those drunks tonight, if you’re on the cheap tables. They’re powerful mean on Saturdays, after drinking all day.”

“I know it,” Mandy said with a sigh. “I’ll see you later.”

Cora went through to the locker room and put her bag and her empty lunch bag in her locker and pocketed the key. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, checking to see her lipstick was good and her hair respectable, then walked through the service corridors and stepped out onto the gaming floor of the casino. It was just after five in the afternoon. She only had another five hours to go and was privately thankful. The late shift on a Saturday nearly always presented a challenge of some sort. An insistent drunk, an unhappy gambler, cheaters who thought they’d never get caught, card counters, card sharps, tourists, the underage…everyone hit the tables on a Saturday night, when the high numbers meant security was stretched and croupiers had to develop eyes in the back of their heads so they could help security stay on top of things.

The cheap tables, those with a minimum bet of a dollar, were crowded and noisy and Cora slipped between them, heading for the heavy tables on the other side of the room, where her assigned table was.

As she passed the last table, something rippled across her consciousness and she came to an abrupt halt. The man behind her almost cannoned into her and apologized profusely.
Canadian
, she automatically catalogued as he stepped around her. There were a lot of Canadians who cruised across the lake, usually from Port Rowan, to take in a little gambling. Or they drove down the coastline from the Fort Erie Bridge and Buffalo.

She was trying to pretend she hadn’t felt that touch of coldness, distracting herself by thinking about Canadians and the casino’s clientele instead. Ducking it….

So she turned slowly on her heel, letting her gaze sweep over the cheap tables and the packed-in gamblers, looking for what had triggered the mental alert.

There. There he was.

He looked like a normal man. A really good-looking normal man in his mid-thirties, with short, black hair and the scruffy two days’ worth of growth most men seemed to favor these days. His features were Mediterranean—olive skin and white teeth and extreme sexiness.

He was watching her. His eyes were the same pitch black as his hair.

She walked over to where he was standing. He wasn’t even trying to pretend to be interested in the table he was standing next to. He was watching her with unblinking steadiness, already marking himself as different, as not right. He was careless.

Cora grabbed his arm just above the elbow, gripping through the leather sleeve of his jacket. “Come with me,” she said quietly.

The fact that he turned and let her lead him away from the tables proved that she was right about him. A normal human would have protested, demanding to know what was wrong, why she wanted them to leave.

She gripped harder, letting her fingers dig in, as her anger built.

“If you take me through the service corridors, people will notice,” he said.

“If I do what I’m going to do to you out in the public areas, people will
really
notice.” She shoved the swing door open with the flat of her hand. “Get in there.” She pushed him through and he staggered, but stayed on his feet. She kept herding him forward, her hands on his shoulders, through the short corridor to the fire escape doors at the other end.

She opened the door with her security pass while hanging on to his sleeve, even though he was making no attempt to fight back. She wasn’t going to give him any chance to cut out on her until they had spoken.

The staff parking lot was only half-full. Bright sunlight made her throw her arm up until her eyes adjusted. She hauled him out and shoved until he staggered once more. He ended up against the shift manager’s Dodge. He looked at her without emotion. “I was minding my own business,” he pointed out.

“In
my
casino. You’re hunting for your next victim! How dare you!” She pointed toward the long causeway that connected the island the casino sat on with the mainland. “Start walking, asshole.”

“I wasn’t hunting,” he said, his dark-eyed gaze steady.

“Bullshit. Creatures like you are
always
hunting. It’s what defines you.” She stepped closer to it. “What are you, anyway?”

“Can’t you tell?” he asked quietly. “You spotted me instantly. You
felt
me. That should tell you everything.”

“It tells me you’re not human. That’s all I need to know.” She pointed toward the causeway road once more. “You don’t just leave the island, you leave town. You don’t come back. You don’t feed while you’re in Erie. You don’t stop until you reach the next state. I don’t want you anywhere inside Pennsylvania come tomorrow.”

“What, no one but you gets to live in Erie, Pennsylvania?”

“That’s right.”

He stared at her, like he was reassessing her. “Supernaturals are taking over this town. They have been for weeks. Are you blind?”

“I can see you just fine. Just like anyone else I find here, I’m giving you your marching orders.”

He seemed puzzled. “You don’t feel it, do you?”

Her heart jumped. “Feel what?” Why on earth was she even letting him string her along like this? She should toss him in the water and get back to work. She had to do it quickly. They would come looking for her soon. She was already late reporting back to her table and her pit boss for the night, Kruger, would have security scouting for her if she was more than a couple of minutes late.

“I felt it even before I saw you,” he said. “For two days I’ve been heading here, even though I was settled in Cleveland. I didn’t understand it, but I came anyway. Now I understand.”

“You’re not making a lick of sense. Are you trying to delay leaving?”

“Yes.” His gaze was the same steady, patient one. “I’m waiting for you to feel it.”

“Feel
what
?” Irritation flared. This was ridiculous.

But in her heart, she knew it wasn’t. It hadn’t been the sense of cold that had halted her in the middle of the gaming room floor. She had only felt that afterward. It was something else. It was a sense of inevitability….

“You
can
feel it,” he said slowly. “You’re just in full denial. Is that why no other supernatural can live in your town? Are you denying that, too? Pretending you’re hu—”

She didn’t let him get the rest out. It wasn’t planned. She didn’t make a decision. She just launched herself at him, a growl locked in her throat and fury driving her.

She had enough strength to knock him almost off his feet. She grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and let her momentum spin her around behind him as he staggered once more. She kept pulling, throwing him out into the middle of the parking lot. He was a lot stronger and faster than he should be. He stayed on his feet, his hands out for balance and leaning forward.

But when she hit him from behind, his already precarious balance fled. He slid forward, his hands skidding along the tarmac and she heard him hiss in pain. Then his breath whooshed out of him as his full length landed heavily. She stood over him and turned him so he was on his back, then dropped to her knees, pinning his arms down with them.

Her first punch slammed his jaw to one side.

He shook his head to clear it, just like a human would. That incensed her even more. Trying to be human? This thing? She hit him again. And again.

Then she was hitting him repeatedly, her anger venting itself with every blow.

He shifted his weight under her and wrenched his arms out from under her knees. She heard leather tear.

His hands were around her waist. He was
lifting
her.

“No!” she cried and tried to swing her fist past his arm. Instead, her knuckles hit his shoulder. She felt the soft give of muscles beneath. As he sat up, bringing her up with him, she redoubled her efforts. She wanted him to hurt. She wanted him wounded. But most of all, she wanted him to shut up and go away. If beating him to a pulp would do it, then
good
.

But his reach was longer than hers. He plopped her onto his knees like she was a toddler and pulled his head back out of the way as she took another swipe at him. “Don’t,” he said mildly.

“Stop me.”

“I just did.”

She swung at him again.

This time he didn’t duck. Instead, he pulled her up against him and her elbow thumped up against the meaty part of his upper arm.

His lips pressed against hers.

The action was so shocking that for a second or two, Cora’s mind blanked out. Pleasure swamped her. It had been too long since she had felt this heated response to a man’s kiss. But this rich depth of pleasure was different. New.

Cora tore herself away from him, stumbling across the tarmac, her breath ragged and her heart trying to burst through her chest. She came to a halt up against the same Dodge, her hand splayed against the side window for balance.

He moved up behind her. “Hey…”

“No!” She pushed herself upright and turned to look at him. “Don’t say anything. Just leave. Get out of town. I have no intention of listening to anything you might think you have to say.”

Then she spun and raced for the door, fumbling for her pass card. Without looking, she knew he was watching her every step.

It took long minutes for her to shrug off what had happened and fully concentrate on dealing. Kruger watched her relentlessly. She was good at her job. Her hands did most of the work without her having to think about it. Which was a problem, for when her mind settled into the dangerous idle mode, she starting thinking all over again about what had happened with him…it….

Finally, she deliberately called up the details of the current renovation project in her townhouse. Colors, accessories, trimmings. The drapes she intended to make. Denim? Or sheers? Or Roman blinds?

It kept Kruger off her back and the customers happy for the next couple of hours…until Sheriff Wisherd turned up.

Rhys Wisherd watched through the diner windows as the tall blond man got out of the black Audi with the New York plates and stretched hard. If he’d driven all the way up from Manhattan, then he had reason to stretch. That also explained why he had pulled up in front of the diner. It was highly visible from the I90 and yanked in a lot of transient customers.

Rhys ate here because the food was good and the prices even better. It also let him keep tabs on new arrivals, passers-through and other potential sources of trouble. As the county sheriff, he liked to stay on top of who was floating around his town. Erie wasn’t a big place, but lately, it had acquired some big city problems.

He couldn’t figure out if this guy was potential trouble or not. He was travelling alone, which wasn’t unusual, but did put him into an interesting category.

Rhys finished his second cup of coffee as the guy locked the car and headed for the front doors of the diner. The guy stepped off the sidewalk to let a couple of women get through without brushing up against the bumpers of the cars pulled up in front of the diner.

A polite fellow then.

He also seemed to be a healthy one. It was a hot day, especially for September, and he was wearing a short-sleeved and collared tee shirt, open at the front. His arms seemed to…well, glow. So did his face and his blond hair. He was in such peak condition it was radiating from him.