Vampires Dead Ahead (4 page)

THREE

SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES: NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING, BUT THEY STILL BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN YOU PUSH THEM DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS.

“What are Slinkies?” my brother, Tristan, asked as he looked from Olivia’s T-shirt to me. The early-evening wind tossed his cobalt-blue hair around his face. With his equally blue skin he would be difficult for New Yorkers to see at night, as long as he stayed to the shadows.

I laughed. “I’ll get you a Slinky of your own.”

“And then I can demonstrate,” Olivia, my PI partner of almost two years, said with a decidedly evil look in her dark eyes.

“Only with the Slinky.” I elbowed her. “Not by pushing Tristan down the stairs.”

“What’s the fun in that?” Olivia looked at him then at me again, devious expression still intact. “If not Tristan, how about we push Colin—”

“Not.”
I lightly punched her shoulder.

Olivia was six inches shorter than my five-eight, but a dynamo of a petite package. A martial arts expert and former NYPD officer on the SWAT team—not to mention that she’d grown up with five sisters—Olivia DeSantos was a force to be reckoned with.

She gave a nod in Tristan’s direction. He had tilted his head back and was scenting something on the night breeze. Probably a lot of somethings, since this was New York City.

“He won’t stop looking at my boobs.” She put her hands on her hips. “I feel objectified,” she added with total innocence in her voice.

I laughed and gestured to her melon-size breasts. “They don’t grow them that big in Otherworld.”

With her flawless dark silk skin and her exotic looks, that probably wasn’t the only thing Tristan had been looking at. Olivia was half Kenyan and half Puerto Rican, a stunning combination. I’d noticed Tristan watching her when he didn’t think she was paying attention.

Olivia’s penchant for wearing T-shirts with amusing sayings, as well as jeans and Keds sneakers, didn’t take anything away from her sensual looks. Once she started talking, though, everyone saw Olivia in a far different way—a tough streetwise cop turned private investigator who jumped into everything as if she were bulletproof.

“So …” Olivia gave me a sly look. “How’s the fire-breathing hunk?”

My cheeks burned as if the fire-breathinng g hunk had scorched them with his flames. I turned away before forcing myself to look at her again.

“I’m not sure I want a relationship right now.” I cleared my throat. “I have a lot to think about.”

Olivia surprisingly didn’t give any kind of smart-ass remark. “Fair enough.”

“Adam found someone,” I said. “He stopped by tonight to tell me.”

“She’s a ballerina.” Olivia studied me. “I helped Boyd out with some information on his last case. She was his case.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I wasn’t sure whether I should feel hurt or appreciative.

Olivia’s gaze remained firm. “I thought about it and I really wanted to. But it just didn’t seem right. It was so hard not to say anything. Still, I figured it was his job to tell you, not mine.”

Slowly I nodded. “You’re right. It was better coming from him. Thank you.”

She tilted her head. “Are you okay with it?”

“Yes.” I smiled. “I want the best for Adam. And if it’s this ballerina, then that’s great.”

From the corner of my eye I saw my brother stepping off the curb—right in front of a taxi.

“Tristan!” I lunged toward him, grabbed his arm, and jerked him back onto the sidewalk.

The cab’s horn blared and the whoosh of air as it passed blew my hair out of my face. I released Tristan’s arm and held my hand to my pounding heart. “You can’t step in front of moving vehicles. You’ll get flattened.” I added, “Not to mention a big blue guy might have freaked out the cabdriver.”

Olivia gave an unladylike snort. “You’re talking about New York City cabdrivers. Nothing freaks them out.”

He gave me a sheepish look. “This place is most unlike Otherworld.”

“No kidding.” I grimaced. It was Tristan’s first excursion in preparation for becoming a Night Tracker. He was leaving in the morning for his training in Chicago.

“You need to get used to Manhattan before we turn you loose on the city,” I continued. “That means
be careful
. Besides, Father would kill me if anything happens to you after we finally got you back.”

It’ll be a while before he’ll be an effective Tracker,
I thought.
Almost gets hit by a car …

My brother looped his arm around my shoulders, his blue flesh looking darker against my pale amethyst skin. Drow have skin tones ranging from blue to purple to dark gray—all shades that blend in with the night and shadows.

Tristan gave my shoulders a light squeeze. “I still cannot believe how much you have grown, little sister,” he said in the language of the Dark Elves. His English was perfect thanks to my human mother teaching him when he was young, and he could read and write the language just as easily.

“I’m not so little anymore.” I smiled. “Especially now that we’re the same age.”

“It doesn’t matter that time did not pass for me when I was captured in the stone,” he said. “You will always be my little sister.”

We were both twenty-seven now, a fact that was strange to us since I had been five when he was taken from my family by Zombies. Fortunately all that was history now, and I had Tristan back.

“I know you want to look around,” I said. “But stay close and don’t get off the sidewalk.”

Tristan grinned, squeezed me to him one more time, then released me and walked to the storefront window of a camera shop. It was close to midnight and the traffic wasn’t too bad where we were on Amsterdam Avenue.

“So Rodán wants to give you more responsibilities than you already have,” Olivia said when Tristan turned his attention toward a traffic signal that had just turned red.

As I nodded, Olivia shook her head. “I think you’re the best they’ve got,” she said. “But what do you think you are, Superwoman? Like you don’t have enough to do with running a PI office and being a Tracker.”

“I haven’t decided anything yet.” As we stood at a crosswalk, I frowned and met her gaze. “I just don’t know if I want to take on that kind of leadership role. There would be a lot that goes along with it, maybe more than I realize.”

“No kidding,” Olivia said. “But if you want to do it, go for it. You’d be damn good.”

I heard the faint vibration of Olivia’s cell phone and she drew it out of the phone holster at her hip. Her features subtly changed when she checked the caller ID screen.

I cocked my head. The expression on her face had been one of genuine pleasure, in a way that I’d never seen from Olivia before.

She held the phone to her ear. “Hey, Scott.”

My eyebrows rose. Olivia’s tone had a sensual edge to it that surprised me.

With my Elvin hearing I could have eavesdropped and listened to “Scott,” but I never intentionally violated a friend’s privacy.

“Perfect,” she said after a moment. “Everything will be waiting.” She lowered her voice, but I still couldn’t help hearing her add, “Especially me.”

Olivia tucked her cell phone back in its holster as she turned around to face me. “What?” The tone of her voice and her expression were now more like the Olivia I knew and loved.

“Am I being left out of everything now? Since when did you start seeing someone named Scott?” I put my hands on my hips. “And since when did you start to look and sound sappy over a guy?”

“I did not look or sound sappy.” Olivia narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s just a guy I met a couple of weeks ago at the dojo.” She was a black belt in karate and worked out regularly in Midtown.

“You’ve been dof ’ve bating a guy for two weeks and haven’t mentioned him?” I gave an incredulous look. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“It’s nothing.” She shrugged. “We’ve mostly been working out together.”

“I caught that word,” I folded my arms across my chest. “Mostly. So what else do you do?”

“We’ve been out a couple of times,” Olivia said.

“What’s he like?” I asked, letting my arms fall to my sides again. “Come on. Tell me.”

“Fun. Outgoing.” She smirked. “Kinky.”

I laughed. “Only two weeks and that’s a word you’d use to describe this guy you’ve been hiding away. Kinky?”

Olivia shrugged again. “You asked and you said I’ve been holding out on you.”

I opened my mouth to attempt to get her to elaborate. A tingling sensation ran down my spine.

“Time to track,” I said. “I sense some Metamorphs doing what they do best—getting into trouble.”

FOUR

The following afternoon I signed for two small packages and set one of them beside the mail bin as the agency door closed behind the delivery person.

Afternoon light reflected through the glass door, illuminating the sign advertising our office to other paranorms.

NYX CIAR
Olivia DeSantos
PARANORMAL CRIMES
PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
By appointment only

It was Friday and I’d spent the morning catching up on office work. Mostly paperwork—things that had to be done but were my least favorite things to do.

I turned my attention back to the boxes and mail that had just been delivered. I set aside the mail and used a box cutter on the first package. It contained some kind of electrical gadget that I figured Olivia must have purchased for the remodeling of our office. She’d spent the past two months taking us from my version of high tech to her version.

That meant we didn’t just have a large-screen computer monitor each any longer. Now we had an entire wall that could be a single screen or several, depending on what we were researching or briefing each other on. We had headsets and any number of other gadgets.

I had no idea what the gadget was in the package I’d just opened. I shrugged and set it aside before moving on to the next box.

When it was open I dug out the paper—and pulled out a spiked leather dog collar and a leash. I frowned. The package must have come to the agency by mistake. I looked at the return address—simply a stamp with the initials PP and then an address. I glanced to see who the package should have gone to and saw that it was addressed to Olivia.

Weird. Unless she’d gotten herself a dog—a rather big one—then this had to be a gift for a friend. We had several Doppler friends whose animal forms were large dogs, but I didn’t think she was close enough to any of them to buy them a collar and a leash. Not to mention the fact that even thinking about putting a collar on a Doppler was reason enough to get bitten.

I didn’t like to call Olivia on her days off if it wasn’t really important I put the items back in the box and set them on her desk.

Fae bells tinkled and I looked over my shoulder, away from the stack of mail, and at the office door.

“Colin,” I said as the gorgeous blond male pushed the door open and stepped inside. A cool April breeze followed the Dragon into the office. The scent of spring was in the air.

He gave me a sexy smile that made me feel warm in a smooth sweep from my scalp to my toes.

“Hey,” Colin said as he moved toward me. Fae bells tinkled again as he let the door close behind him.

I set the package down and turned to face him completely. “What’s up, Hot Stuff?” I couldn’t help a smile of my own as I called him by the nickname Olivia had pinned onto the sometimes fire-breathing male.

“I’m kidnapping you.” Colin put his warm hands on my upper arms and bent to brush his lips over mine. It was just a whisper-soft kiss, but it was enough to singe me.

“Kidnapping me?” I said, thinking of all the possibilities that went with that idea.

Then beating those ideas back down again. I’d told Colin I wasn’t ready for a relationship, and he’d understood. Adam had broken things off with me just a couple of months ago.

Adam might have been able to move on right away, but I was hesitant. More than anything, I think it was fear that held me back. Fear that any new relationship might end just like mine and Adam’s had. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to try my heart out so soon.

“I’m taking you out for an early dinner and a movie.” Colin leaned back against Olivia’s desk. His biceps and the muscles in his forearms flexed beneath his golden skin as he braced his hands on either side of the desktop. He wore a blue T-shirt and blue jeans that molded to his hips and thighs extremely well.

Soft burnished-gold eyes, long glittering gold hair, and well-cut masculine features made Colin the Dragon one of the sexiest males I’d ever met. Rodán was the only male I knew who was even more gorgeous than Colin, and that wasn’t an easy accomplishment.

“How does Indian food sound?” Colin said as he watched me walk toward my desk.

“Delicious.” I went behind my desk and brought my Dolce & Gabbana handbag out of the cubby beneath my desktop. “I’m starving.”

“You do realize, of course,” Colin said with a sensual expression, “that I intend to keep you the rest of the day. You need a break.”

“Says who?” I moved back around my desk and reached him. He was six-four, and I had to tilt my head ay flt my h little.

“Says me.” Colin took me by my arm and guided me to the front door.

On the way I grabbed the packages that I’d left beside the mail basket. “This package came for Olivia. We have to go right by her apartment anyway, so I think I’ll drop it off for her. She won’t be back in until Monday.”

Colin shrugged. “Sure. Just gives me more time to be with you.”

I smiled at Colin again. It was easy and fun to be around him. I didn’t have to worry about what I did or said, and I could be out with him any time of the day or night.

Before we left I ran up to my apartment to change into jeans, a soft cream-colored cashmere sweater, and my black leather Elvin boots. I combed out my hair, the blue highlights shining in the inky black.

Colin’s co-op was in Queens so he’d taken his black Dodge Viper to pick me up. From my office we drove to Olivia’s apartment building on Gold Street in the Financial District. Colin parked and I grabbed Olivia’s packages.

The doorman was away from his post—something that would have ticked off Olivia. She felt if she was paying for a doorman, “he’d damn well better be there.”

Colin and I took the elevator up to the fifth floor then walked the few feet to her apartment door.

I started to knock when I heard a sound like a muffled scream. My heart started racing. Colin and I looked at each other.

“Did you hear that?” I said, keeping my voice low. “I think Olivia’s in trouble.”

Colin nodded, a grim expression on his face.

Another muffled scream. It was hard to tell if it was Olivia or not. A few more muffled sounds followed.

Colin tried the doorknob. Locked. I motioned for him to move away and used my air element to unlock the door. The mechanism clicked. The muffled sounds in the apartment stopped. I dropped the boxes I was carrying.

At the same time Colin flung open the door, I threw up a shield using my air element again, to protect us in case any weapons were fired our way.

No one was in the living room.

Another muffled scream. Coming from the bedroom.

I hurried across Olivia’s small living room to her bedroom.

Heart pounding, I peeked around the door frame.

My eyes widened and I realized my mouth was hanging open. I snapped it shut as I took in the scene in a quick glance.

Olivia was strapped to her bed, spread-eagle. Her ankles and wrists were secured with leather cuffs to chains, the chains attached to standard-issue handcuffs around each metal bar of her bedpost.

A collar was tethered by a chain running to the sides of the bed frame holding her head taut. The way she was restrained, she wasn’t going anywhere.

height="0">

Blindfolded, she screamed, the sound garbled because in her mouth was a red ball secured by two black straps around her head. She wore only a pair of black panties.

In a quick sweep of my gaze around the room I saw all that I needed to see. More leather cuffs, chains, locks, rope, various leather straps, a small leather paddle, a black leather hood, an eye mask, a riding crop, and other items I couldn’t quite identify were all on the foot of the bed.

Colin made a choked sound from behind me and I clapped my hand over my mouth, trying to keep from laughing.

Where was the guy who’d restrained her like this? Maybe he was in the bathroom.

Given her futile flailing against the restraints and the garbled cries, it was obvious that Olivia was too pissed to be happy about her situation. I went to her, trying to keep my composure, when all I wanted to was burst out in laughter.

I moved forward to take off her blindfold and noticed the red writing on her black panties. I almost did start laughing but managed to control myself.

Flip Over to Spank

I tugged off her blindfold, and she stopped struggling. She looked shocked to see me and then her eyes quickly narrowed. She tried to say something but the ball gag was too big for her to talk around. I saw a clasp on one strap, near the ball, and I unfastened it. As pissed as she was, I was almost afraid to take it out of her mouth.

The moment I did, she shouted. “I’m going to kill him! He left me here. I can’t believe he left me here.”

Her face was flushed, perspiration on her skin, her dark hair sweaty at the roots.

“Who?” I said, trying to keep a straight face.

“Scott. That’s who.” Olivia glanced over my shoulder and saw Colin, who was grinning. “What are you laughing at, smoke for brains?”

Seeing Olivia like that and her total indignation was too much. It was also too Olivia. I started laughing so hard I didn’t think I could stop.

“Let me out of here.” Olivia narrowed her eyes at me. “Before I add you to my hurt-maim-or-kill list.”

“If I can stop laughing,” I said between gasps for air. “I think I know now what the collar and leash are for that just came in the mail.”

After this I had a feeling Olivia would be strapping down and collaring Scott rather than the other way around. If he lived through today.

I heard the sound of the front door closing. Apparently Olivia did, too, because she screamed, “I’m going to kill you, Scott!”

Colin peered around the doorway from the bedroom. He stepped back, out of the way of the male who appeared in the doorway.

He was a fairly tall, good-looking human in a gray T-shirt, blue jeans, and athletic sheft athletoes. He had dark hair that curled a little at the ends, and his eyes were a brilliant blue.

His rugged looks belonged to an outdoorsy, athletic kind of guy. The T-shirt stretched taut over his chest and biceps showed just how fit he was. I had to say, Olivia had great taste—at least in the looks department. I didn’t know about brains.

Right now the guy wore a sheepish expression. He was carrying a plastic bag with a drugstore logo and a paper bag of something that smelled like Chinese takeout. Knowing Olivia like I did, kung pao chicken, broccoli beef, and steamed dumplings was my guess.

“You must be friends of Olivia.” He looked from me to Colin. “This must look a little strange.”

“Kinda,” I said with a grin.

“Kinda strange?” Olivia shouted. “A lot strange is you leaving me alone.
Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.
” Olivia snarled each word. “And then I’m going to kill you, Scott.”

“You said you liked the idea of being left alone and not knowing where I was … and you wanted to experience a little fear.” Scott set the Chinese take-out bag on the nightstand closest to him while maintaining distance from Olivia. “Weren’t you a little scared?”

“That doesn’t include leaving me alone in my apartment cuffed to the damn bed so I can’t move, blindfolded and gagged.” She jerked against the cuffs, rattling the chains. “I can’t believe you took off. And you actually stopped to get Chinese food? Are you serious?”

He raised the drugstore bag. “You’re the one who forgot something at the drugstore and I had to run to get them—remember? And Chinese was right next door.”

Olivia growled and the flush in her cheeks grew darker. “Isn’t there a brain in your head? You don’t leave someone alone restrained and gagged like this.”

It was just too much. I held my arm to my stomach as I gasped for more breath, trying to stop laughing, but failing miserably. “I’ll do it. I’ll let her out.”

It took only a little of my air magic to make the cuffs drop away from her wrists and ankles.

“Why didn’t you do that to begin with?” Olivia scowled and sat up in the bed as she shook the cuffs the rest of the way off. “You could have let me out ages ago.”

“What’s the fun in that?” I repeated what she’d said last night and grinned. “Besides, I needed time to take this all in.”

I thought Olivia was going to throw one of the cuffs at me. Instead she tossed it on the bed, stood, and glared at Scott. “I’m not finished with you,” she said.

“I certainly hope not,” he murmured, and in the smoldering, sensual look he gave her, I could see exactly what Olivia saw in him. The guy was totally hot.

Olivia just got off the bed, glared, then turned and marched toward her bathroom.

When I saw the back of her panties I started laughing all over again at what was written across her ass.

Spank Here

“You’ll pay,” she grumbled before she slammed the bathroom door behind her. “All three of you.”

It was so Olivia. She didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed.

I grinned at Colin and Scott. “This should be good.”