No Man's Land (31 page)

Liar. Kelly was beginning to hate this guy with a passion. Stupid, arrogant, entitled snob.

“I don’t have anything more for you.” Two could play the lying game.

Kyle looked at the papers for another moment before folding them and putting them into an inside jacket pocket.

“That’s a terrible shame. If you were to find more, there might be some blood in it for you. If not, well, I hope your death is quick and painless.”

Yeah, I hope your death is quick and painless, too
, Kelly thought. Jaq’s idea was starting to sound rather appealing.

“Walk with me to the road,” the Prince said, abruptly heading out the door, leaving Kelly trailing behind.

They walked down the lane, to his huge black sedan. Either he hadn’t been in the battle, or if he had, he’d driven there. Others fought and died, and their Prince drove through it all in his Mercedes.

Reaching into the back seat, he handed her a bag of blood. It was still warm. Kelly stared at the bag for a moment in shock. She’d not expected to be paid for tonight’s information and guessed that he hadn’t originally intended to give her this. He must really want further info if he was resorting to the carrot method.

“There’s more where that came from. Let me know if you have any further information, and I’ll have a bag at your doorstep,” he said as he climbed into his car without backward a glance.

Kelly watched him pull away and promptly heard a rustle behind her. She felt Jaq’s warmth, smelled her ice and forest smell.

“You’re smiling. Must have been good news?” the werewolf asked.

“Nah, just having a pleasant fantasy about ripping his head off.”

“What a coincidence. I was having the same fantasy.”

Kelly turned to walk with Jaq to Melody’s. “I have no idea why he wants this state so badly. I would have thought he’d beat a strategic retreat for a few decades, but I’m getting the feeling he’s going to press on — both in West Virginia and for the Kincaid lands.”

Jaq shrugged. “I really don’t care about anything south of here, but he’s not getting our land.”

“Thankfully he didn’t seem to know Rube was dead, or that I played any part in what went down tonight. I’m not sure whether the best plan would be to string him along and see what information I can gather from him, or cut him completely off and try to keep him out of the state.”

“Do you really think he’ll leave us alone? He seems pretty desperate.”

“Well, he’s about to get more desperate.” Kelly turned toward Melody’s trailer.

32

M
elody’s leopard–print tights and lilac ruffled shirt were a startling contrast to her shotgun. She answered the door with it in hand, and ushered both Kelly and Jaq into the cozy trailer. Joe and Dale were slumped on the couch, as far apart from each other as possible. Both looked ready to nod off at any moment.

“All clear,” Jaq told them. “Vampires are out of the state — well, except for Kelly and her recent visitor who is probably almost to the border by now.”

“Good.” Dale struggled to his feet and rubbed his eyes. “We had a quiet night. Joe got home from work a few hours ago, but I didn’t want to leave until relieved of my duty.”

He glared at Jaq as he said the last words then turned his scowl on Kelly. “Glad to see you got some blood on you, although from the look of you, it’s probably mostly your blood.”

“She held her own,” Jaq bristled.

“Goodness!” Melody exclaimed, shoving Dale aside to examine the vampire. “You are a mess. Do you need some more blood? I’m afraid Margaret and Kristen left once their husbands got home, but Barbara and Shanna are asleep on my bed. I can have them get you a pint, if you need, from Barbara.”

“Thanks, I brought some.” Kelly showed her the bag. “I could use a mug to put it in though, and I really need to use your computer for a moment. It won’t take long — I know you and Joe want to get to bed.”

It was to Melody’s credit that she didn’t ask any questions about how Kelly was in possession of a bag of blood.

“Of course, dear.”

Melody bustled about getting a mug and setting out snacks for her and Jaq, while the others took their leave, Barbara and Shanna stumbling to their own trailers half asleep. Kelly grabbed her mug and bag of blood and headed back to the spare bedroom that housed Melody’s computer, leaving Jaq to discuss the battle with Joe.

With shaking hands, Kelly typed in the url then hesitated. Taking any excuse to procrastinate this momentous decision, she sipped her blood and perused Melody’s knitting projects until she could delay no more. Login. Password. The spinning cursor seemed to take forever, but just as panic threatened to overtake her, the screen loaded showing her the account balance. There was no turning back now. With a few clicks, the money had transferred, but it wasn’t enough.

This part was even more dangerous and sealed her fate to a degree the other transaction hadn’t. With a few clicks, she’d hidden her IP address through a software program then used an offshore VPN service to further mask her trail. There. The program she’d paid dearly for in case of an emergency. There was no looking back now. Either move forward or die. She hovered a finger over the mouse button for a brief second then depressed it, watching the numbers spiral across the screen.

Five in the morning. She was exhausted and still flying from Jaq’s crazy blood, but she needed to do one more thing. One more login screen. One more transaction. One more hacker software program to run. That Lowry guy had cost a fortune, but his work was untouchable. Worth every penny. The numbers spiraled once again, and Kelly found herself looking at a banking account balance of eleven dollars and twelve cents. Done.

When she walked out, Melody was dozing on the sofa, and Joe was huddled over coffee with Jaq, whispering.

“Sorry that took a while. I’ll leave you all to get some sleep. Please tell Melody ‘thank you’ and that I’ll have that scarf to her in a few days.”

If she was lucky. She ended up tearing out more rows than she knitted most nights. Craft work was clearly not her calling.

“What were you doing?” Jaq asked, rising to walk with Kelly to the door.

“Transferring money.” She handed the werewolf the print out.

“Eleven dollars and twelve cents. Wow. You should be paying
my
bills. I’d have charged you for the deer bologna if I’d have known you were so rich.”

If only she knew
. But Kelly didn’t want to get into a huge discussion with Jaq about her moral justifications for embezzlement. She’d figure it out soon enough, but that was an argument for another day. Hopefully one where she’d had enough sleep and wasn’t high on Nephilim blood.

Kelly glanced over to Jaq’s trailer and saw the light on. “Mike’s home.”

Surprisingly, Jaq followed her in through her own door rather than continue on home. “He likes you, you know.”

Well, she certainly couldn’t mean her brother. The vampire ran through a mental checklist of the males she’d encountered recently and came up blank. “Who?”

“Mike, silly. He says you saved his life.”

Now that was a gross overstatement. “Uh, more like he saved mine.” An unpleasant thought crossed Kelly’s mind. “Wait, you don’t mean like–like, do you? I’m not the most perceptive woman in the world when it comes to romantic interest, but unless you werewolves are
really
different, I don’t think he’s suddenly taken with the urge to send me flowers and put on the Barry White.”

Jaq snorted. “Hardly. He’d sooner cut off his arm. I mean, he’s less inclined to kill you then he was yesterday.”

Well, that was an improvement.

“So I’m assuming you have a boyfriend back in New Jersey?” Jaq continued, her voice full of curiosity. “Does he know what happened to you?”

She’d put all that aside long ago. “Vampires aren’t known for their romantic relationships. I’ve had one boyfriend in my life — only one, back when I was human. His name was George. I stayed with the vampires. He didn’t.”

It all sounded so wooden when she said it, so unlike the giddy rush of passion and hope George had brought into her life. Jaq must have sensed there was more behind the stilted words. With a sympathetic noise, she put a hand on Kelly’s shoulder.

“It must have hurt when he left.”

“He didn’t leave; I did.” It all came out in a rush of emotion. “We’d run away together, but after a few weeks in the catacombs, he changed his mind. We left together, but as soon as the daylight hit my face, I got scared. Isn’t that ridiculous? I was more afraid of putting my future in the hands of love than a bunch of ruthless killers. We’d curled up to sleep in an empty horse stall at some inn, and I snuck out. Didn’t wait to say ‘goodbye’. Didn’t even leave a note — it’s not like I knew how to write at that point in my life anyway. I just left him the little silver ring he’d given me when we ran away together. A part of me died the night I left him, but I was too scared to stay.”

Jaq rubbed her shoulder, but Kelly couldn’t stop the flood of words. “I always figured he’d moved on, that he eventually married some nice girl and they had a great life — kids and everything. A few decades after I’d been turned, I found him. The catacombs are good at preserving bodies, but I wouldn’t have known it was him if it hadn’t been for the ring.”

She choked on a sob and forced it back down. “He came back for me. He came for me, and they killed him — just dumped him there in the catacombs. That’s when the rest of me died.”

“Is that the little silver ring that was on the table? The one you didn’t want me to touch?”

Kelly nodded, pulling it from her pocket and showing Jaq. Silver scorched her fingertips, but she held it as long as she could before sliding it back.

“I carry it everywhere. It’s my reminder of a time when I wasn’t dead, when I wasn’t a monster.” This time she couldn’t hold back her tears.

Thin, strong arms encircled her, and she felt her head rest against Jaq’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kelly.” The words whispered into her hair. “Nothing I say is going to make you feel any better. You’re not dead, though. And you’re not a monster. You’re funny, smart, strong, capable. Not dead at all.”

She’d become resigned to her choice, but seeing George’s body, his twisted skeleton crumpled against the wall — it had made her rethink every choice she’d ever made. She’d cried then locked it all away, taking the silver ring from his finger when she left. At that point, she truly became Kelly Demir.

But who was Kelly Demir now? Not the calculating, hardened vampire putting self–advancement before everything else. Not the scared, street–wise teenage girl either. Whoever she’d become, she really liked the feel of Jaq’s arms around her, knowing that the werewolf would always be there to stand by her side.

Kelly pulled back, smiling in gratitude as she wiped away the stray tears. “Thanks. So, your turn. Tell me about the hot wolf–boy you really wear those undies for.”

Jaq turned as pink as her underwear. “There’s some things even lacy bra and panty sets can’t fix. I wear them for me now, proof that under the fur and fangs I’m more than just one of the boys.”

“Well, he’s an idiot. You’re beautiful and sexy, even when the underwear is hanging on the end of your tail.”

The werewolf laughed. “Beautiful? I’ve been called a lot of things, but never beautiful. I can alter my form in less than a second. You’d think I could at least manage to rid myself of these hideous freckles. There always there, no matter what shape I take.”

On impulse Kelly reached out a finger and traced the marks, like connect the dots, from the other woman’s brow, along her cheekbone and down to the edge of her lip.

“They’re like spots on an orchid, pied beauty.”

Silver eyes met hers, surprised and confused. The air seemed heavy and charged, but Kelly left her finger on the werewolf’s face. Was this …something, or was she still tripping on Jaq’s crazy blood?

“Are you still high?” Jaq echoed her thoughts. The words moved the corner of her lips against Kelly’s finger and she resisted the urge to lean in.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

The werewolf pulled back. “Then I should go.”

Kelly dropped her hand to her side, searching Jaq’s face for reassurance that all was okay, that she hadn’t somehow screwed up the only friendship she’d ever had.

“Don’t look so worried.” The werewolf leaned over and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “We’re good.”

Kelly watched her walk to the door. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Idiot. It was tomorrow. The sky had already lightened to a glorious pink outside her trailer windows. And what was with that weird fissure of fear in her voice?

Jaq turned toward her, the open door letting a gust of morning cold sweep through the room. “Yes. Tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. You’re not getting rid of me so easy.” She smiled, and her silver eyes danced. “I meant it. We’re good.”

Kelly sat back down on the lumpy sofa cushions as the door closed.
Good
. Suddenly that word meant a whole lot more than it ever had before.

33

K
yle glanced at Juan before returning his gaze back to the paperwork before him. The other vampire had a tense look to his face that foretold bad news. Of course, bad news was all that seemed to be coming his way the last few days. The disaster in West Virginia, the loss of many good vampires, including Rube — the only good thing was the information on Kincaid’s businesses in Virginia. Hopefully that was a sign of better things to come.

“My Master, Durand gave me this message for you from your father.”

Fear rolled over him with an icy touch. There was hesitancy in Juan’s voice as he pronounced Master, as if he had doubts about the truth in the title. But that was nothing compared to the dread of what might be in that message. Kyle had returned to Baltimore an hour before dawn and was surprised to see his father waiting for him. A vampire as old as the Master needed to be sheltered and asleep before sunup, and it was unlike his father to cut things so close.

The meeting between them had been agonizing — full of carefully worded questions and accusation hiding behind false affection. Kyle had held his ground in insisting he’d backed his father the entire battle, but the old man was unconvinced. Decades of small rebellions had made his father suspicious. This was the one time he desperately wanted the Master to believe in his loyalty, but Kyle was sure his father did not. In the end, the Master had no proof of treasonous intent or actions, only disobedience. It should have ended with a minor slap on the wrist, but Kyle wasn’t so sure his father would be lenient this time.