Fangs for Nothing (22 page)

To Josie Lynn’s surprise, Zelda just smiled.

“Honey, this is New Orleans. I never expected to have a normal wedding.”

“Right,” Josie Lynn agreed, because she wasn’t quite sure what else to say.

“Just like I didn’t expect to find myself married to a real vampire,” Zelda said, smiling at Saxon. “Isn’t that right, baby?”

Saxon put his arm around his wife, looking almost tiny beside her. “She didn’t even believe me until today.”

Josie Lynn frowned, casting a baffled look between the two of them. Vampires? Okay, maybe her employees weren’t the only ones who were nutso.

Zelda gave Josie Lynn a conspiratorial look. “Well who actually expects to marry a vampire? But then again, it appears you are also involved with a vampire, so you understand.”

Josie Lynn stopped gaping at Zelda to stare at Drake. He stood beside the bar, talking to Johnny. A vampire.

Then all the things she’d seen and heard came back to her in full clarity. The way Katie and Stella talked about Drake’s past. Those moments when he seemed from another time. The talk of
their kind.
The mentions of bats. The blood—it had been blood in the fridge. Even his furniture.

Could it be true?

She looked at him again. She’d fallen for a vampire. And even if it wasn’t true, she’d fallen for a man who very likely thought he was a vampire. She looked back to Zelda and Saxon. They all thought they were vampires.

Oh my God.
She had to get out of here. She’d promised herself not to ever have feelings for a bad boy again.

Well, she should have told herself not to fall for madmen either.

* * *

“YOU HANDLED THAT
well, my friend,” Drake said, clapping Johnny on the back. “I felt like I was watching Perry Mason at work. Questions answered. Mystery solved. Even if it was the worst plan for a crime that I’ve ever heard. Framing a tranny gang of Chers. Only in New Orleans.”

“Yeah, only in New Orleans,” Johnny agreed, only half hearing his friend, his thoughts back on Lizette. How could she just leave without letting him explain? Apologize? Beg?

“So I see you got free from the uptight little Frenchie,” Drake said.

“Don’t call her that,” Johnny snapped.

Drake raised his hands. “No offense meant.” He looked around. “Where is she anyway? I’d have thought she’d want answers, too.”

“She’s gone.”

Drake didn’t speak for a moment. “You fell for her, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Johnny wasn’t even going to deny it. Or play it down. He had fallen for her. Hard.

“And she just took off?” Drake said, his expression of sympathy making Johnny feel even worse.

“Fucking took off, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Just gone. Goddamn Raven. She wouldn’t even let me explain.”

“Raven? Figures that asshole is involved. Sorry, man.”

* * *

DRAKE COULDN’T RECALL
ever seeing his friend look so upset. Johnny was all about a good time, all the time. He was also about keeping things light. No heavy emotions. No getting too invested. No falling in love.

Drake understood that philosophy. He’d always been the same way. He’d been burned way too many times. But just like Johnny, he’d let that rule fly out the window tonight. He was thoroughly smitten with Josie Lynn and he was well on his way to truly being head over heels.

“Damn,” was all he could say to Johnny, because he understood how the guy must feel. He’d be devastated if Josie Lynn just walked out on him.

He looked toward where she’d just been talking to Zelda and Saxon, but she wasn’t there. And the newlyweds were headed toward the bar. He frowned, looking around to see where she went, but he didn’t see her amidst the opulent furniture and patrons.

“Hey, where’s Josie Lynn?” he asked Saxon when his friend reached his side.

“She left.”

“What?”

Saxon shrugged. “She just suddenly got all weirded out and said she had to go.”

“Go? Where? Why did she get weirded out?”

Saxon looked confused by the barrage of questions. “I don’t know where she went. We were just talking about the wedding and she suddenly said she had to go.”

Why would talking about the wedding make her suddenly leave? Had she headed back to the reception venue to gather her stuff? But why wouldn’t she tell him? Why wouldn’t she think he’d want to go with her?

“What did you say about the wedding?” he asked. This just wasn’t adding up.

“Just that she didn’t need to apologize for her employees. No one expects a New Orleans wedding to go normally.”

Drake frowned. Why would that upset her? That should have eased her mind.

“I mean, Zelda just married a vampire. Who’s in a vampire band.”

Drake gaped at his flaky friend. “Did you actually say that?”

Saxon thought for a moment. “Yeah, something like that.”

Drake grabbed his friend’s upper arms and shook him. “You told her we’re vampires?!”

“Dude,” Saxon said, looking down at where Drake held him. “You need to work on your Zen, man.”

Work on his Zen. How the hell was he ever going to be Zen again? The first woman he honestly believed he could love with for all eternity had just run off, either thinking he was insane, or thinking he was really a vampire. Or both.

Behind him, he heard Johnny give a bark of bitter laughter. “And just like that. Gone. Dude, we’re going to be a couple of old single creepy vampires living in some duplex together, aren’t we?”

Drake shuddered. He liked Johnny, but yeah, there was no comparison between eternity with him and Josie Lynn.

Chapter Seventeen

CRUEL SUMMER

J
OHNNY
removed his sunglasses, as instructed by the French version of TSA, and tucked them into his sweatshirt pocket. That had been the longest flight of his life. Literally. When he’d come over from Europe to the States he had taken a boat. He had to admit flying was more convenient, but it had still felt like half his life. The whole time he had been wondering if he was going to get to Paris and Lizette was going to slam a door in his face. Or worse, if he was walking right into a VA trap.

But he’d had to come here. He had to make it right. He’d been sitting around surly for a week and he’d decided the only way to fix the situation was to get his sorry ass on a plane and make things right with the VA. And hopefully right with Lizette. She hadn’t returned his calls, and at the very least he wanted to let her know what Saxon had told him about the infamous night of the wedding.

“Is your suitcase locked?” the customs official asked him. She was a petite woman in her forties, yet she looked like she wouldn’t hesitate to billy-club him.

“No.” Johnny tried not to look illegal or vampiric. This whole process made him nervous. Everyone scrutinizing his passport and giving him beady-eyed stares. He had a little better understanding of Lizette’s fears after having just made his way through three airports. The world at large was much more suspicious than the average person in the French Quarter.

“I’m going to open it and look inside.”

Great. “Okay.” Johnny shifted on his feet, already knowing what the woman was going to find.

Yep. There it was.

As her gloved hands peeled back a pair of jeans, the vibrator Lizette had ordered was revealed. He had taken it out of the box to save space.

Her eyebrows shot up and she gave him a look.

He remained stoically silent. Let her think what she wanted. Everybody had their thing, and he wasn’t going to be embarrassed. Much.

Then she found the six pairs of sheer panties and the crotchless one-piece teddy. The corner of her mouth twitched. Damn it. When more digging revealed the heels Lizette had ordered, she was clearly biting back a grin. She also was studying all of it with way more attention than any of it deserved. He started to lose patience.

“Those are gifts for my girlfriend,” he told her, because
girlfriend
was a better explanation than his one-time lover who had ordered all of this under the influence, then had ditched him to go home to France. This customs chick was already being judgmental. He didn’t want to add fuel to her fire.

“Uh-huh. You have good taste.”

“
She
has good taste since she’s the one who ordered them. But I guess I have good taste for loving her.” Now that he thought about it, he realized that was true. Maybe he wasn’t so unworthy of her after all. “And even if these were for me, what of it? I happen to have transgender friends and your attitude is offensive.” So there. Having his done his part to promote equality, he took his passport back while she closed up his suitcase.

She made a face at him. “Welcome to Paris, Mr. Malone.”

“Thank you.
Merci
.” He took his suitcase and got the hell out of there before someone changed her mind. He had an appointment he did not want to be late for.

* * *

LIZETTE WAITED FOR
the elevator, looking forward to heading back to her apartment and stripping off her work clothes. The office had been quiet tonight, just her and two other employees, plus the janitor, who was used to their nocturnal work habits. The front for the VA was technical support, so it wouldn’t seem unusual to their landlord that there were employees there during the night shift. The day shift was manned by mortals who had no idea who they really worked for, primarily doing accounting and payroll for the vampire VA employees.

She still felt jet-lagged, even though she had been home for a week. A solid eight hours of sleep sounded delicious, even if it was only 4:00 a.m.

The elevator door opened and she started to step on. Then immediately stopped. Johnny was on the elevator. He was just standing there in jeans and a T-shirt, like she had conjured him up out of some jet-lagged hallucination. The door started to close, hitting her on the shoulder.

“Careful.” He reached out and pulled her forward by the hand. “You okay?”

She nodded, struck dumb.

He smiled. “Hey.”

“Hello.”

“Lobby?”

“What?” Lizette shook her head slightly, clutching her attaché case. “What are you doing here, Johnny?”

“Are you going to the lobby?” He gestured to the buttons on the wall. “And I’m here for two reasons. To clear my name through the proper channels of the VA. And to see you.”

“Oh. I see.” Heat flooded her cheeks, but at least her brain no longer felt completely frozen. “Yes, the lobby, thank you so much.” When caught off guard, she always fell back on proper manners. “Are you leaving as well?”

“Yep. I just finished with my appointment. I think we’ll have the red tape wrapped up in a few days, and I’ll be off that damn list, hopefully forever, if not at least for a few centuries.”

“That’s excellent news. I wasn’t aware you had a hearing now that I am no longer on the case.” She was actually quite irritated with her co-workers. Someone could have at least warned her. Then she would have touched up her lipstick at the very least. She probably looked as exhausted as she felt, and she would much prefer impressing Johnny with her beauty, not making him relieved that she had left New Orleans.

The elevator door opened on the first floor and Johnny gestured for her to move out into the lobby first. He said, “I didn’t have to come here for the hearing. But I wanted to make sure it got cleared up as soon as possible. I do respect what the VA is doing. I know that I’ve made mistakes.”

Lizette stopped in the lobby and turned to look at him, her heart suddenly crawling up her throat. She had missed him. He was so handsome, so rugged, so different from other men in her life, both past and present. “Oh,” she said eloquently. God, she wanted him to touch her. She found herself even leaning toward him slightly, just to catch a whiff of his scent of soap and something else she had never quite been able to define.

“Are you busy?” he asked. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

Then, he did touch her. He reached out and brushed the back of his hand down her cheek. “I’ve missed you, Lizette.”

Whatever walls she had erected around her heart came crumbling down without warning. “I have missed you as well. Would you like to come to my apartment? Most cafés are closed for the night.”

“That would be awesome.”

Lizette headed to the door and pushed it open. June in Paris was different from New Orleans. It was greener, not as hot. “How was your flight?” she asked politely, then hated herself for doing that. Manners were as much an armor as metal, and she wanted to learn how to be more open, more honest about her emotions. “I am sorry for leaving the way I did. That was not fair to you.”

They strolled down the sidewalk together. “That’s okay,” he said. “I know I was being an ass, and I’m sorry for that. I was thinking, you know, that maybe we could sort of put that behind us. Start fresh.” But then he seemed to doubt her response because before she could answer, he starting speaking again. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this is a cool neighborhood. I like it. It suits you.”

“It has been home for a long time.” She lived in the fashionable 18th district, where the river and the Eiffel Tower dominated the landscape, along with cafes and shops. It was primarily residential, though offices such as her own were tucked here and there. “I do love it here.”

“I brought the stuff you ordered with me. You know, your shoes and the other . . . things.”

Oh dear. She remembered precisely what that other stuff meant. She had tried to cancel her orders when she’d gotten home, but it had been too late. She had written the purchases off as lost, and she realized she had underestimated Johnny yet again. He wasn’t going to let a thousand dollars of her drunken purchases languish on his doorstep. That wasn’t him. “Thank you, I appreciate that very much. I do love those shoes.”

“What about the sexy panties? You love those?” he asked with a grin as she stopped in front of her building. “Because I have to say, I kind of was digging them when I opened the box to pack them in my suitcase.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them yet.”

“By the way,” he added, as she used her key on the front door. “I talked to Saxon about the wedding night. He actually remembers everything. It turns out he didn’t drink the punch. He said that we were never alone. After the reception we were hanging in the group with everyone just having fun, and that the only reason we were in the dungeon was because you insisted such a thing couldn’t exist.”

That did sound like her, expressing skepticism over a sexual fetish. “So what does that mean?” Good God, she hoped they hadn’t had sex in front of other people.

“No funny business. Saxon said it was all good clean fun. We were in handcuffs because he wanted to show us a magic trick with them, only he couldn’t remember it and he couldn’t find the key.”

She didn’t even care about the handcuffs. She was just relieved that they hadn’t had exhibitionistic sex. Though she found herself oddly somewhat disappointed that they hadn’t had the private, intimate night of wild and unbridled passion she had been envisioning. Of course, they had the next night, but there had been something romantic about the idea. “So where did my panties go? And why did I feel so . . . aware down there?” That seemed a rather puzzling mystery to her.

But Johnny didn’t seem to think anything of it. He gave her a big grin. “You rode the mechanical bull at the Bourbon Cowboy. I saw the pictures. I’m guessing that might have had some impact on your girl parts. I’m sorry, I can’t account for your underwear.”

“What? Bull riding?” Lizette started up the marble stairs, her shoes echoing loudly as she walked rapidly. Of course, she couldn’t stomp her way past her actions. “I’ll have to see that to believe it. So did you find out who drugged the punch? It was the punch, yes?”

He nodded, keeping up with her on the steps. In a minute they were in front of her apartment. “It wasn’t the Chers, like Drake suspected. It was Ashley, Josie Lynn’s catering help.”

“Really? Well, I have to admit I’m glad to hear the cross-dressers weren’t involved. They seemed so helpful in the bar, and I rather liked their style. But why on earth would she drug a punch at a wedding reception?”

“It turns out she is the daughter of another cross-dresser who has lost business to the Chers in the last few years, so her plan was to roll the wedding and frame the Chers to give her father a leg up. Though one of the Chers did make off with Zelda’s wedding dress. So basically it was like an entire night lost because of a catfight over clothes and stage time. Totally insane.”

That was insane. “I am speechless.” Lizette led him into her apartment, which was a typical Parisian place, with a small living area and an even smaller bedroom. “Make yourself comfortable.” She still felt nervous, like what happened in the next few minutes could determine the course of her immediate future.

“This is a nice place,” he said, sitting down on her sofa. “Have you been here long?”

“Ten years. Probably in the foreseeable future I’ll have to move. My neighbor has been here the whole time and she is starting to ask me how I keep my youthful appearance.” Which was a shame. She loved this apartment. She sat down next to him because she wanted to be close enough to touch, to read his eyes.

“It looks like you. It feels elegant and cozy all at the same time.”

“I have to confess something to you,” she blurted. “There is a reason why I am so committed to the VA and to our secrecy as a species.”

“Why is that?” He sounded genuinely curious. “What happened to you? Beyond your family being killed, that is. It seems like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Lizette swallowed hard and studied her manicure. This was important. She needed to share the whole truth. “I want to tell you about Jean-Baptiste.”

* * *

HOLY FUCK, WAS
she serious? He’d flown halfway around the world and she wanted to tell him about her dead boyfriend? He literally wanted to talk about anything but that dude. They could even not talk at all and that would be preferable. But he forced himself to remain nonchalant and just say, “Yeah?”

Lizette kicked off her heels and tucked her slim legs under her skirt in a move that he found wildly distracting and really sexy. Okay, she could talk about the dead guy.

“You see, we had a solid relationship, but as I said, we were not without our issues. But I was committed to him and assumed we would have a future. But during the late nineteenth century, when medical schools were getting so heavily into dissections, you know there was a lot of grave robbing and whatnot going on, yes?”

“I can’t say I’m really familiar with the time period, since I was born at the end of the century, but I can see how that would happen.” Just a little before his time.

“Due to advances in science and anatomy, the human body was considered essential to the study of young medical students, and they were willing to look the other way as to how bodies were acquired. It was a booming business. Jean-Baptiste was stolen from his coffin in the catacombs on the assumption that he was a corpse.”

That was more than a little fucked-up.

“But of course what happened was that when they dissected him, he woke up. Since it was daytime, he was disoriented, I presume, and they were able to secure him to their operating table and watch as he healed. So they dissected again. Again he healed.” Lizette swallowed hard. “I witnessed a good deal of this as I followed the carriage in the hopes of rescuing him.”

Shit. That was why she was so afraid of being caught. She’d seen the consequences. Johnny felt like a complete jerk-off. He reached out and took her hand, which she had clenched into a fist on her knee.

“But they never left him, and I couldn’t see how to get him out of the restraints and help him move when it would take all my strength to protect myself from getting caught. So I watched his torture. It went on for hours and hours and he was awake for the entirety.” Lizette stared at him with glassy eyes. “I will hear his screams of agony forever.”