The Heist (21 page)

Still, Xavier did not
answer.

Xavier hadn’t
known what to expect from the blood tests on Alicia, but he sure as
hell wasn’t prepared for this. He agreed that Alicia needed to
know, but thought it a coward ass move on Shuggie’s part to use
Xavier’s own rank against him. The female already hated his guts,
and this would only compound matters. As for a bodyguard? Well, on
many levels it made sense, but getting her to agree to it would be
a whole different ballgame.

“
Yes,” Xavier
finally said, in a tone that sounded like he had just issued his
own death warrant. “Yes, I’ll be the one to tell her, but who do
you have in mind for this personal bodyguard? You?”

“
Me
Commander? Naw, I mean tae say, that would be a good idea if it
were no fur the fact I’ve been assigned duties tae infiltrate the
Belcastro’s computer systems and organise the soldiers so that they
are placed and ready for action when you give the orders. Ah hud
been thinkin’ that maybe you shud be the one tae dae it. After all,
ye huv the most experience an’ she couldnae be in any better hands.
Sir.” Shuggie added the last word, almost sarcastically, and
although he wasn’t looking directly at Xavier, he could feel his
stare on him, burning like a blowtorch.

“
Dirty fucking
sonofabitch, Shuggie MacAndrew.  If I didn’t know you better,
I’d have said you had this all fucking planned out, yeah?” Xavier
was decidedly pissed off. What compounded it was that he knew that
Shuggie was right.  And Xavier absolutely hated it when that
happened.

Shortly after being
dispensed from Xavier’s quarters, Shuggie made a quick stop to see
Alicia in her London home.

He had been
spying on her on and off for days, since they all last met, but
instead of barging in and causing a scene, he opted to leave a
handwritten note slipped under her door that read
‘
Youngling, please contact the Prick at
your earliest convenience. Kind regards, Hugh
’.
Flashing back to the compound, he
barricaded himself into the comms room so that he wouldn’t be hit
with any of the shrapnel that was about to explode the minute
Xavier and Alicia were left alone in a room together.

Kicking the
front door open with her foot, Alicia entered her apartment and
headed straight for the kitchen, flicked the switch on the kettle
and threw the bag filled with her cherry heavens on the worktop
when something caught her eye. There was a piece of paper lying on
the wooden flooring by the front door. Thinking it was just
some door drop pamphlet she walked over and picked it up when she
noticed it was a handwritten note.

Her laughter
filled the air when she saw that Shuggie had started to call
Commander Raige a Prick also!

So they knew
where she was…part of her was relieved that she didn’t need to wait
a hundred years to see her only friend again.  After heading
back into the kitchen, Alicia prepared herself a cup of tea. She
wasn’t sure when Shuggie had come to visit and it was getting late
in the evening. Grabbing the mug, she padded through to her lounge
and got comfy on the oversized sofa. Reaching over to grab the cell
that was sitting on the side unit, she took a deep calming breath
and dialled Commander Raige’s number.

Cursing under
his breath Xavier put the controller down and paused the game he’d
been playing. He picked up his cell, noting the number was
withheld.

“
Speak!” he
barked down the phone. Only six people had his number, and
they only called him when he told them to. Getting unsolicited
calls made him on edge.

“
I see your
manners have been left behind again Com-an-derr?” Alicia smirked to
herself as she took a sip of her hot tea.

“
You!” Xavier
growled.

It was her.

“
How the fuck
did you get my number? No, don’t even answer that.” It must have
been Shuggie, he thought to himself.  That was it. That
Highland bastard would be waking up to his kilt being on fire and
his sporran tied round his fucking throat. “Thanks for calling,
yeah?” Xavier’s attitude seemed to change in an instant, but he
knew he had to tread carefully with Alicia, especially when he knew
what he had to tell her.

“
Oh that
growl is such a turn on soldier boy, do it again?” Alicia paused
for a moment then burst into a hysterical laughing episode and
landed with a thud on the floor. “Ah duck!”

“
Falling for
me already, Sweetcheeks?  As flattered as I am, that’s not
what I need to talk to you about. Are you alone?” Reaching over his
thumb flicked the flint of his lighter, but just in time he caught
himself as he set the stick of gum on fire. “Shit fuck damn,” he
said as he quickly stamped out the gum on the floor and blew on his
now blistering thumb, forgetting for a moment that he was on a
call.

A mischievous
grin spread over Alicia lips as she spotted her tiger cub coming
bounding towards her, balancing her cell between her shoulder and
chin she proceeded to speak to her pet.

“
Hey gorgeous,
I missed you today! Why don’t you get into bed, I’ll finish this
call and we can cuddle?” Keeping her laughter to herself she then
turned her attention back to the call.  “What’s it to you if
I’m alone?”

Xavier’s eyes
narrowed as he listened to Alicia talking to the person who was in
the room with her.  Another name to his ‘
Dead just don’t know it yet’
list.
 He cleared his throat and put on his business voice. The hell
was he going to let on that she got to him on any level. “Means
fuck all. I have shit to tell you, so if you would shut up for
five minutes, I’ll take questions when I’ve finished. Uunderstand?”
He was riled by the fact she was going to be in bed with
‘
gorgeous’
no
doubt some fucking meathead with shit for brains. His wolf was
jealous.

Yeah, it was
his wolf. Abso-fucking-lutely
not
him.

Alicia was in the mood
for a fight and oh how Xavier Raige was just the mortal to fight
with.

“
What could be so important that you have to deliver news to
me Com-an-derr? I’m not one of your men, so you can’t boss me
about, are
we
clear?”

He wanted to
deliver the news that her boy toy was going to be garrotted and
hung over a tank of flesh eating sharks while he sat drinking a
bottle of Scotch and laughing his ass off.  That’s the message
he
really
wanted
to deliver. Instead he said, “Damn fucking straight you’re not one
of my men. They are disciplined and know when to shut the fuck up,
yeah? I have information pertaining to you personally, and so it
would be in your interests to listen.” While he was talking, Xavier
was straining to hear the male that was sharing her room with her.
 All he needed was to hear the bastard, and he could start
tracking his ass down.

“
Are you
still in Mexico?” Alicia wasn’t about to admit that she was
slightly rattled by his words, no one knew anything personal about
her and it could be a trap. You never knew with this mortal as his
tone was always the same. One thing Alicia was sure of…she needed
to see his eyes…she could read his shades of green.

Deciding that
he’d entered into enough small talk, Xavier kicked the controller
across the room with his foot and leaned back in his
chair.

“
No easy way
to put this Sweetcheeks, and I think you’re the type of female to
appreciate the facts, yeah.  Last time you met with Shug and
me, we managed to extract a small amount of your blood. We had it
tested in our labs and I am now in possession of the results. Now,
I’m sure you want to know why we took these measures…”

Just as Xavier was about
to explain himself, Alicia cut him short.

“
You have
twenty minutes to get your fucking ass to the park across from the
restaurant where you went on your date.”

Anger
consuming her, Alicia ended the call and launched her cell at the
wall, watching it splinter and smash into pieces.
S
he hadn’t disarmed her
weapons from earlier so she was ready to go. Letting out a whistle,
Frazzle came bounding through and leapt into her arms.

Taking a deep
breath to calm herself, otherwise she would end up god knows where,
Alicia flashed herself with her cub still in her hold to the
location in Mexico where she waited for the Prick’s
arrival.

Shuggie heard
the front door of their base slam shut, and watched as Xavier
jumped on his bike, heading off at speed.

“
Take it the
conversation with the little vampire didn’t go down too well then?
Sucks to be the Commander,” Shuggie laughed as he got back to
work.

Taking fucking
orders from a civilian? When the fuck did that start?
Speeding down the road, the thought suddenly
struck Xavier just as he was approaching the gates of the
downtrodden park Alicia had arranged to meet.  

How the
buggering hell did she know I’d been on a — no,
not
a fucking date — it was more
like ‘Care in the Community’, or ‘Help the Aged’, but definitely
not a date. Had she been spying on him? Parking the bike, Xavier
took off his helmet and marched into the park, his eyes scanning
for Alicia. She was standing with her back to him, talking to
something. It was only when she turned around he seen that she was
holding a tiger cub.

That decided
it for him. She was absolutely out of her head, bonkers!

And by the way she was
cooing at it, he gave an educated guess that the cub was the
‘gorgeous’ from Alicia’s bedroom.  So, he could stand-down on
his addition to the hit-list for now.

“
Sweetcheeks?”

“
How fucking
dare you take my blood and run some freaky tests on me, who the
hell do you think you are?” Alicia was shaking in anger as she spun
around her cub being held tightly in her arms where she stood
still, glaring up at Xavier.

Xavier kept
his features unreadable as he answered her. “Look, Sweetcheeks.
Shuggie came to me and told me that there was something…” he
struggled to find the right word, “...unusual, about you, so we
took some blood to test it. Now, we didn’t want to tell you in case
it was nothing and we had worried you unnecessarily. However, turns
out you do have cause to worry, and that’s why I’m talking to you
now, yeah?”

“
Why would you
fucking care if I was normal or not? You know I’m a vampire so it’s
not exactly a news flash now is it?” A small twisted smirk pried on
her lips.

Xavier
smirked. “Now, Sweetcheeks, I don’t think anyone ever accused you
of being
normal, yeah?” He approached the
bench behind Alicia, and sat down, arms stretched out on the back
and leaning his head back to look up at the night sky. “But there’s
things you need to know, so you can either ask me nicely to tell
you, or I’ll take my fuck handsome self out of here. S’up to you,
Sweetcheeks.”

“
Handsome?
Who the fuck told you that one?” Alicia kept her face straight, her
pulse was doing that racing thing again and she hated it — never
had it went so fast in all her one hundred and fourteen years, but
she wasn't about to let ‘Mr. Cadburys’ know she found him
attractive. Instead she pulled out a lolly, held it to Frazzle’s
mouth and sat at the opposite side of the bench.

“
Spill the
beans, Com-an-derrr. Or should I say, blood stealer?”

Raising his
head to look over at Alicia, Xavier’s jaw ticked.

“
I didn’t
steal anything. It was Shuggie, actually, so get your fucking facts
right before accusing me.” Xavier didn’t know why he kept taking
things so damn personally with this female, but she kept hitting
raw nerves and playing them like a bloody xylophone.
 

“
Seems that Shuggie had noticed certain qualities that you
had, that he’d never witnessed before in a vampire. Especially in
one so young. He came to me with his concerns and I agreed to the
tests he wanted to take out on your blood.  Our Doc is the
best in the fucking business, and she reported back that you seem
to be a species of vampire never before seen. Your existence was
only thought to be in myths and fairy stories, yeah? You are
a
Sanguis-solis
, Alicia. A vampire that can live in the
daylight.”

Seeing the
confusion in her face, Xavier continued, “Sweetcheeks, every other
vampire in existence past and present, fry in the
sunlight. It’s their one major disadvantage. But you? You
swan about like you haven’t a care in the world — fucksakes you
even sunbathe!”

Xavier was sitting
upright now, and his palms were upturned and open as he tried to
emphasise the significance of this to her.

Shaking her
head at Xavier’s words, Alicia sat in what could only be described
as a state of shock, not at what he was telling her about
herself.

“
Do you know
what I despise in my life Xav?” her words were said hoarsely,
struggling to keep her emotions in check.

“
I'll take an educated guess that you despise liars and
cheats? Of which I am neither.  You gotta focus on the big
picture here Sweetcheeks. The Doc says you are vampire born.
The
Sanguis-solis
genes you have were not modified, they are
organic, yeah? You are like vampire gold. Which means that puts you
in a great big barrel of shit.  Word gets out about a
Sanguis-solis
actually
existing? Every supernatural hunter will be after your blood,
figuratively and literally.  There are twisted bastards out
there, Alicia, of which you can’t even imagine.” Xavier knew,
because he had to save his best friend from one such psychopath
many years ago, and he knew it still haunted them both to this
day.