To Kill An Angel (9 page)

Short, dark blonde hair framed an oval face dominated by cornflower blue eyes and a mouth to die for.  She was petite, but perfectly formed.  Apparently, she had no qualms about showcasing her body either, as evidenced by her skin tight, low-cut jeans and thread-bare, cap-sleeved t-shirt that drew attention to her ample chest.  She smelled like lavender and her smile was wide.

The guy was just as perfect and reminded me a lot of Bo, only I had to look way up to meet his eyes.  The orbs were so dark a brown they appeared black, just like Bo’s.  His hair was equally inky and cut shorter than I usually liked.  One big difference was his skin tone.  Rather than having Bo’s pale complexion, this guy’s skin was the tanned bronze of someone who loved the outdoors.  And he smelled of sandalwood. 

He wasn’t smiling like the girl.  He was watching me, and not just casually either.  He was staring at me with an intensity that made the hair on my arms stand up.  It was neither a good feeling nor a bad one, just intense.  Very, very intense.

“Can I help you?” I murmured politely after I’d quickly taken in every detail of their appearance.

“We are looking for someone and we were told we might find him here.”

The girl’s voice was clear and musical with just a tiny trace of an accent, one that I couldn’t readily place.  It was faint, yet still detectable in the clipped cadence of her words.  Also, her annunciation was carefully perfect in that way that suggested English was not her first language.

I assumed they were looking for Sebastian, and tension immediately seized the muscles in my neck and shoulders.  I knew that if they were associates of his, they were no good.

“And who might that be?”

“Bjorn Dahmen, but he goes by Bo.”

My mind spun.  Could it be my Bo?  It had to be, didn’t it?  I mean, what are the chances of two people showing up at Sebastian’s looking for another guy named Bo?  Probably like a gazillion to one.  However, a small, skeptical part of me insisted that I consider another statistic.  What were the odds that someone might show up looking for Bo and not be somehow evil and in the employ of Sebastian?  Probably another gazillion to one.

I was immediately on high alert.

“I’m sorry.  There’s no one here by that name.”

The couple glanced at one another and then back at me, the girl’s smile widening.

“I am sure it seems rather odd that two strangers show up on your doorstep looking for Bo, but I can assure you that Bo and I have a long history.  I have been looking for him for many years.  You see, we grew up together.”

“Well, that’s all fine and good, but I still don’t know who you’re talking about.  There’s no Bo here.”

The girl chuckled and resituated the bag that was slung over her shoulder.

“One thing you will soon learn about me is that I am an excellent lie detector and I know you are lying.  Just tell Bo I am here.  He will remember me.”

“I told you, there’s—”

“Please.  Just tell him Annika is here.  He will tell you all about me.”

That gave me pause.  And made me a little nauseous.

“Annika?”

“Yes,” she replied, smiling more widely.  “Has he mentioned me?”

It was at that precise moment, when my heart was finally making its way back up from the toes of my shoes, that Bo returned.  If there was any question about her identity, he immediately put it to rest. 

“Annika?” he said as he rounded the corner of the garage to the front steps.

I’d been so distracted with Annika that I had neither seen nor heard Bo’s arrival.  I watched him approach the front steps, a look of confused amazement on his face.

“Bo!” she squealed, charging down the steps and launching herself at him.  Bo reluctantly raised his arms, patting her back awkwardly as she hung from around his neck.  “Oh thank God!  I have looked everywhere for you.”

When she finally released him and stepped back, Bo began to smile a little, which only made me feel worse about the whole thing.  He was glad to see her.  Surprised, but glad.

“Annika, what are you doing here?”

“I have been trying to catch up to you for…a while,” she explained hesitantly.  Annika slid a quick glance over her shoulder at me before she leaned in toward Bo and whispered, “Is she one of us?”

Bo’s eyes darted from Annika to me and back again.  A frown flitted across his brow before he nodded.

“Yes.”

“Good,” she said hurriedly.  “I have been looking for you since you disappeared from Lindersberg in 1916.”

“What?” Bo and I exclaimed simultaneously. 

Annika laughed. 

“Why don’t we go inside and talk?  It has been a long journey.”

As she and Bo made their way up the steps toward the door, I was jarred from my shock, remembering the tall, dark stranger that had accompanied the beautiful Annika.  He’d stood quietly by as the reunion transpired, but now I wondered about him.

As if reading my mind, Annika introduced him as she reached the top of the steps.

“This is Cade by the way.  Cade this is Bo and…”

She trailed off, looking meaningfully over her shoulder at Bo.  He moved past her and came to stand by my side, sliding an arm possessively around my waist.

“This is Ridley,” he supplied.

Annika’s startlingly blue eyes darted from Bo to me and back again before she smiled tightly and offered her hand.

“Ridley, it is nice to meet you.”

Politely, I took her proffered hand and pumped it once, cordially, and then released it.  Whether it was rooted in jealousy or something else, I didn’t like the fair Annika and I suspected that the feeling was mutual.

For the first time since their arrival, Cade spoke.

“Bo,” he said, nodding once in Bo’s direction before his obsidian eyes made their way to me.  “Ridley, it’s a pleasure.”

His voice was a deep delight with a thick Texan drawl.  His lips curved into a smile and, despite Bo’s presence at my side, Cade made no effort to conceal the blatant appreciation in his eyes.

“And how do you two know each other, Annika?” Bo said, referring to Cade.

“We met a few states ago and discovered that we had much in common.  We have been traveling together since.  We have a common goal.”

Bo nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving Cade.  Cade just stared back.

Annika slapped the back of her hand against Cade’s chest.

“Stop that!  Brothers are not supposed to compete.”

After a moment’s delay, Bo and I both gaped first at each other and then we turned our rounded, incredulous eyes on Annika.  When we finally found our tongues, we both had one question.  It came in the form of a word, a single word.

“Brothers?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I don’t have a brother,” Bo declared, turning a scowl on Annika.

“Yes you do.”

Truthfully, Bo didn’t have enough memory of his life to argue with her, which is probably why he chose to demand answers instead.

“Then tell me how it is that
you
came across this information, yet I did not.”

“Can we please take this inside?” she asked again, making every effort to keep her voice low and calm.

Bo glared at Annika and Cade for several long, tense seconds before he acquiesced.  With a frustrated growl, he stepped aside, allowing Annika and Cade to enter.  As Cade passed, Bo eyed him suspiciously, the tension between them nearly palpable.

Once they were inside, Bo closed the door, grabbed my hand and led the way into the den.  After Annika and Cade had deposited their bags on the floor and taken a seat on one of the couches, Bo urged me to sit on the one facing them.  He remained at my side, though standing, his arms folded over his chest in an intimidating posture that was rife with antagonism.

“Alright, we’re inside.  I think you need to explain yourself.”

Annika snorted. 

“I see that the fun-loving Bo that I remember has grown up quite a bit,” she began, her voice teasing.  When Bo said nothing, Annika cleared her throat uncomfortably.

“Let me start with how I found you. I—”

“We can get to that later,” Bo interrupted sharply.  “Right now I want to know why you think I have a brother.”

I glanced at Cade.  He was watching Bo closely, as if puzzling over his reaction. 

“You are just going to have to be patient, because it all starts with the night you disappeared from Lindersberg,” she said.  “You and I were supposed to go hunting together.  You were still showing me the ropes, showing me techniques and how to avoid infecting people once my fangs matured.  Showing me the best places to find willing humans, all that.  Anyway—”

“I was hunting humans?” Bo interrupted, dismayed and a little disbelieving.

“Yes.  Why would you not hunt humans?”

“I don’t drink from humans.  The person you’re describing doesn’t even sound like me.”

“Well, maybe not the current you, but it certainly describes the you from back then,” she declared.  When Bo said nothing, she continued.  “Anyway, you didn’t show, so I went to a place that we had been to before, thinking you might be there.  And you were.  You weren’t there alone, though.  You were with a man, one I didn’t recognize.  I waited for you to finish and then, when the two of you left, I gave you a few minutes and followed.  By the time I got outside, however, you were already gone.  Vanished.  Without a trace.  I looked everywhere for you, but it was as if you just disappeared. 

“When you didn’t show up for three days, I knew something was wrong.  I asked all around about the man you were with, but no one seemed to know who he was.  It took me almost a week to finally find someone, a new vampire, who remembered someone named Sebastian, someone who fit the description of the man I’d seen you with. 

“After that, the trail went completely cold.  I wasn’t able to pick up on any scent or find anyone who’d seen you for months, so I eventually gave up.  It wasn’t until I moved to the states about five years ago that I stumbled across Sebastian again. 

“I was in a small town in Texas visiting a bar I’d heard was a good place to feed.  That’s where I saw him.  He didn’t know that I had seen him that night in Lindersberg.  I struck up a conversation about the local hunting grounds and he was more than happy to chat when I flashed him a smile and showed him a little cleavage.”

Annika paused to show us exactly the smile she’d used, one I could see being persuasive to nearly any male creature and probably even some females.  Bo wasn’t impressed, however, only wanting more details about his father at that point.

“What did he say?” Bo asked stiffly.

“Er, not much really.  He was very careful, which just made me that much more suspicious.  That is why I followed him.  Tracked him to a house.  It was an old house, sort of off the beaten path.  It didn’t take me long to figure out why it was so secluded.  He was keeping a woman there.  A woman and her son.”

Annika’s eyes darted to Cade before she continued.

“The woman was beautiful.  She had dark hair and eyes, and she looked like an angel.  I watched her house until he left and then I went and knocked on the door.  It only took me about ten seconds of talking with her to figure out she was under the influence of his blood.  I knew I would never get any information from her, so I thought to follow Sebastian.  I kept up with him until he stopped in a town in Colorado called Buford.