Cake (36 page)

I caught at his shoulder. “I am not as skilled as the others you saw with me yesterday,” I told him. “I…My bite will hurt you. I don’t know how to do it properly yet.”

“
You are in need?” His blue eyes looked at me with earnestness and an eagerness that truthfully set me ill at ease. But my hunger over ruled it.

“
Desperately,” I nodded.

“
As I said before, I am honored.”

There was a bus bench not too far away. I led him to it and leaned in, pressing my chest to his shoulder. My face nuzzled the side of his neck and I could smell his essence; I’ve always liked hot chocolate, and I breathed his scent deep into my nostrils. My fangs tingled as they descended, preparing for the bite.

“
I’m sorry but try not to scream,” I said softly as I moved in, licking his soft skin, actually tasting a milk chocolate essence from his pores. Then, pressing a kiss to his pulsing vein, I bit him. He hissed but kept still like I’d asked him to do, and I drank just enough from him to silence the craving that had been gnawing at me, forcing myself to withdraw before I went too far. I licked at the puncture points until they were healed over, and then I thanked him.

“
It was an honor to be of service to an angel.” His voice was steady, but I could see the tightness around his mouth and eyes. He rose and touched my hair, pulling the strands through his fingers until it fell back against my green tank. “You need to find your Heart,” he said.

I watched as he turned to walk away on unsteady feet. Oh crap, I realized I needed something more from him. “Uh…do you have a quarter?” He turned back around and pulled out his wallet, offering me a twenty. I shook my head and raised my hands, waving the money away. “No. I only need a quarter for a phone call.”

“
I don’t have a quarter. I don’t even have my cell phone on me for you to use.” He pulled out another twenty. “Here, take it. You look like you are in need. Use it to reunite with your Heart; you seem so lost without him.” Then he turned and walked away without a backwards glance.

Find my Heart? Here I am, running all over the city, and what am I trying to do…get back to Marcus. Master Marcus, who owns this territory, whatever that entails. I don’t know where he lives. And I don’t have a single contact number for him. But that is where I belong…with him. I blinked at that thought. I belonged to Marcus. No, I belonged with
Marcus. No, the first way was right. I belonged
to
him. Heart and Fang.

A cop car siren blasted once right beside me, and I jumped as an officer got out of the passenger side, welding his night stick in his hand. I turned towards him, wondering what the problem was, but the other officer called out, “Do not move. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“
Officer?” I held my arms out in front of myself. I still had the twenty dollar bills clasped in my fingers.

“
You know the routine, lover boy.” The one with the nightstick gestured me toward the front of the cruiser.

“
No, I don’t. What is going on?” I protested, frowning at him. I hastily licked at my lips, making sure that there wasn’t any blood clinging to them. I might only be four days old, but I knew better than to show a non-vampire evidence of what I was. I did have a survival instinct after all.

“
You are being arrested for solicitation,” I was informed.

“
What?” I didn’t have to act shocked. “I’m not a prostitute!”

Nightstick’s partner opened the door and climbed out of the car. “Explain the money you’re holding, and the fact that you were sucking a hickey on that guy’s neck,” he said smugly.

“
Uh…hmm.” Before I could answer, I felt that dreaded chalkboard brush against my mind. Oh God, the wild unkempt bunch had tracked me down! White bubble. White bubble. Come on, white bubble. Panic doesn’t help with trying to find a calm space, my happy place.

“
Okay, I did it. I admit it. Arrest me,” I cried, turning and offering the police officer the money. He backed up like the money was tainted.

“
What are you trying to do, bribe me?”

“
No! I’ve never been arrested before. I don’t know what to do,” I explained. Geez, I can’t even get myself arrested properly.

“
Put it in your pocket boy, you earned it,” I was told. I frowned. Boy? I was older than he was. Granted, I was dressed in plastic clingy wrap, but still…Boy?

“
Hands on the roof and spread your legs. Do you have any drugs? Any needles? Any foreign objects?” I was questioned.

I shook my head to all of them. “I just needed some money.”

“
Hands behind your back.”

I was handcuffed and escorted towards the back of the cruiser, and just in the nick of time. A car was slowly rolling by, and as I looked I saw that inside were the same vampires that had chased me on foot.

You’re still lucky for now. See you soon
.

“
I get to make one phone call, right?” I asked nervously, staring after the disappearing taillights of the vampires’ car.

“
Once you’re booked,” the officer confirmed, holding the top of my head and guiding me into the back seat before shutting the door.

I leaned back against the upholstery and began breathing calmly again. I was safe. I had my hunger under control. And I had some protection between me and the vampire gang.

Now all I had to do was track Marcus down before the sun came up the next day. And when I did, he was going to find out that there was going to be a ban on fucking until I got the skills I needed to survive out here.

E
ighteen

Reunion

If I had thought that begging was a humiliating experience, it paled in comparison to the booking process I went through at the police station and the subsequent holding cell I found myself in for a short while.

I’d been dead on with my original clothing description for what I was currently wearing, and Marcus’s fuck-me-now clothes had sent out the wrong message to my fellow inmates. Thankfully, as a vampire, I had the strength to defend my ass from the humans, and it also did my ego a world of good being able to say, “Get the fuck away from me,” and being able to back it up with a little show of force. So used to always hearing those words said to me and now being able to say them back gave me a thrill like no other.

The cops, seeing the amount of attention I was getting, had taken me out, and now I was sitting in a small windowless room with my left wrist securely handcuffed to a metal chair. I had placed my desperate call to Joker’s Wilde but had only gotten the store answering machine. I was just glad it had allowed me to leave a message and prayed that Frederick would pass it on to Marcus. Now I only needed to wait and not get hungry…and not go into Flame. And not hyperventilate. And not have my wings sprout. And not start crying, because I had a feeling that if I did start, I was done for.

They had taken my sunglasses from me and any other items that I might have used as a weapon. I would have gladly given up my clothes too for an orange coverall, but I wasn’t so lucky. Pulling my knees up and setting my heels on the seat of the chair, I plastered my face between my knees, shielding my eyes. It was so fucking bright in here, and this was as dark as I could make it.

I don’t know how long I waited, sat like this, but the door suddenly opened, and I lifted my head, blinking hard and waiting for my vision to clear. It seemed to be a little better to see than before, but I still needed my sunglasses to see properly.

A dark-haired man stepped into the room, carrying a file folder and a cup of coffee. He sat down, tapering his fingers together and staring at me watchfully. He had cop eyes. They had seen too much, and he had known too much of the darkness of humanity. That kind of knowledge just can’t be ignored.

“
So…Sex, is it? I’m Detective Nolan, and you appear to be held for one count of solicitation, on a park bench,” he said as his way of introduction.

“
It was a bus bench,” I corrected him, dropping my feet back to the floor.

“
What was that?”

“
I kissed the man on a bus bench, not a park bench.”

That seemed to get his attention. “You’re not denying this?” he asked incredulously, leaning in toward me.

I closed my eyes and rubbed at them with my uncuffed hand. “I needed to get off the street,” I explained.

The manila file folder opened. “Ah, yes. The arresting officers mentioned a suspicious car that seemed to be following you. Any ideas on who it might have been?” I shook my head. “How did you get those bruises on your chest and shoulder?”

“
Playing in the traffic. I almost got run over.”

“
Did the arresting officers take you to the emergency room? It looks like it might be something serious.”

“
No. I didn’t want to go. I bruise easily, but I’m a fast healer.”

While it still felt like my sternum was mangled, I wasn’t admitting to any weaknesses here. That’s the last thing I needed, to be outted as a vampire in a hospital.

“
So then, we’re just going to have to wait until your pimp comes and bails you out,” he said. I winced at that. Marcus would not appreciate being called a pimp, but I could hardly put the detective right on that score. Truth is stranger than fiction, but at least fiction wouldn’t have me ending up as a science experiment somewhere. Xavier in a test tube was
not
my idea of how I wanted to spend the rest of my afterlife.

Nolan took a sip of his coffee. “I was wondering if you might have some information on another case I’ve been working on.”

“
I sincerely doubt it,” I answered. “I haven’t been out much.” Not lying there.

He leaned forward again. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, his eyes fixing unblinkingly on mine. “See, a few days ago, someone exactly matching your description was seen down at the Golden Pheasant on ninth. It’s a gay bar. That person disappeared with a man, who was subsequently found dead in the back alley. Do
you
know anything about it?”

I decided on mixing lies with a sprinkling of truth. “Yeah, I was there, and I met someone in the bar. We went out back to finish our…transaction. But I couldn’t do it. He didn’t even know how to kiss; he just slobbered all over my face, and his hands. But he was alive when I left him. How, um…how did he, die?”

“
Heart attack,” Nolan answered, his pale blue eyes watching me with the intensity of a hungry snake.

I lowered my gaze to the table. “What an awful place to die.”

“
You strike me as somebody who has a brain, so what are you doing, Sex? And what’s your real name?”

I shifted in my seat and looked down at the yellowing floor tiles. “I’m surviving the best way I can,” I said, answering the first part of his question and trying my best to ignore the other.

He pulled something out of the folder, looked down at it, and then firmed his jaw. “I need you to look at this, and I want you to tell me if you’ve ever seen this person on your travels,” he said, passing over the photo he held.

I knew that he saw all the color leave my face. “Edward,” I gasped, before I could stop myself. It was me from a year ago, when I had weighed two hundred and eighty-nine pounds, had worn thick corrective lenses, and had copper penny red, short, almost buzz cut, hair. How the hell did Marcus see what I was to become through this physical mess?

“
Edward?”

“
No, I’ve never seen him,” I denied, my words just a whisper. I laid the photo on the table, mainly because my hands were trembling so badly the picture was shaking like a sheet in the wind.

“
We have your fingerprints on file, Edward. They matched up with a missing person report we have on you.”