One More Bite

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One More Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

Chapter One

Jasmine, do not pull that gun.”

Vayl spoke in a voice so low even I could barely hear him, which meant the people in the blue and white seats next to the bathroom door where I stood still had no idea what I meant to do.

“I’m gonna kill him,” I growled. My fingers tightened on the grip of Grief, the Walther PPK I kept stashed in the shoulder holster under my black leather jacket. I couldn’t see my intended victim at the moment. Vayl had set his hands on the edges of the doorframe, spreading his black calflength duster like a curtain, blocking my view. But I could hear the son of a bitch, sitting near the front, chatting up the flight attendant like she was the daughter of one of his war buddies.

“You do understand what a bad idea this is, do you not?” Vayl insisted. “Even poking fun at murder on an airplane could bring the passengers down on you like a mob of after-Christmas sale shoppers.”

“Who says I’m joking?”

He fixed me with warm hazel eyes. “I would hate to see you beaten to death with that woman’s boot.”

He jerked his head sideways, directing my attention to an exhausted traveler who must’ve made her armrests squeak when she’d squeezed into her seat. I glanced her way, and as people will when they feel eyes on them, she looked back at me. For a second her saggy pink cheeks and black-framed glasses swam out of focus. A lean, dark-eyed face sneered at me from beneath her shoulder-length perm. It said, “Are you certain you know my name?” I squeezed my eyes shut.

You’re dead, Edward Samos. I saw your smoke fade into the night. I ground the bits of ash and bone you left behind into the dirt of the Grecian countryside. So stop haunting me!

I turned my head so that when I opened my eyes they fell on Vayl’s short black curls, which always tempted me to run my fingers through them. And his face, carved with the bold hand of an artist whose work I’d never toss aside.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Yeah, sure. For some bizarre reason I’m seeing the last vamp I assassinated on innocent people’s mugs. I can’t stop thinking about my boss in a totally unprofessional and yet toe-curling way. And, at age twenty-five, I still haven’t escaped the man who made my childhood pretty much a misery. I’m cruising, thanks for asking!

I picked the part that bothered me most and ripped. “You’re the one who let my father tag along. I told you it wouldn’t work. I warned you blood could be shed. But did you listen?”

“It is partially my fault,” he allowed. “If I had taken time to fly home between my trip to Romania and this mission, I do not believe this would have happened. But meeting you in London seemed more efficient. And without our Seer along to warn me otherwise, how was I to know your father would rendezvous with you there as well?”

I said, “I miss Cassandra.” Especially on days like today. Not just because her psychic abilities

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could’ve detoured this steamroller. But because she always seemed to know what to say to keep me from ruining my so-called life.

Vayl’s eyes traveled to my hand, still stuck inside my pocket. Or was he checking out my boobs?

And if not, should I be even more pissed? His half smile showed he knew exactly what I was thinking. He said, “Perhaps we should consider bringing Cassandra with us more regularly. As for the bloodshed, I supposed you would wait until we had reached Inverness.”

“Who brings baby pictures with them on a trip?” I griped. “If I’d wanted my bare ass paraded in front of all the premium ticket holders I’d have mooned everyone before we took off!”

Vayl knew better than to tell me the photos were adorable. Then I’d have had to kill him too. If that had been the real issue. Problem was, when my dad had cracked that old album, he’d done it upside down first. So the picture that had caught my attention was a copy of the one I’d locked in my safe nearly eighteen months ago. A shot of Matt and me just after he’d slipped his ring on my finger. I wondered if two people had ever been so sure they were headed for eternal happiness. Or had their mistake shoved so violently in their faces two weeks later.

“Look into my eyes,” Vayl said.

“What, so you can hypnotize me? No thanks.”

He shook his head. “We both know my powers have a minimal effect on you. Come now, my pretera. Humor me.”

“What’s a pretera?”

“It is a Vampere word, meaning wildcat.”

“Oh. In that case . . .” I locked stares with the guy who’d started out as my supervisor, upgraded to sverhamin, and ended up . . . well, sometimes the possibilities practically made my skin steam. Other times I still felt like Matt’s traitor. Can you betray a dead man? Since I didn’t know the answer to that one, I forced my mind to pettier subjects. “I can’t believe my father’s here. This is like my first date times ten.”

“How do you say? Money talks.”

So true. In this case, the bucks had come from Albert himself. “What are we, the Russian Space Agency?” I demanded. “Selling seats on our trips haon our to the highest bidder?”

Vayl said, “I realize the shock is only now wearing off. Once again, I want to assure you that I would have warned you. But Pete did not inform me Albert would be joining us until he called just before I met you in London. Apparently your father felt you would strenuously object to his presence—”

“Ya think?”

“Thus the secrecy surrounding his joining us at Gatwick.”

“He must’ve known I’d have thrown him off the plane in Cleveland,” I muttered. I realized I’d taken my hand out of my jacket and Vayl had used the chance to curl his fingers around mine. No romance in that touch. He was probably just trying to keep me from reaching again.

I sighed. “Okay, I won’t kill him yet. But you get those pictures out of his claws, and keep him away from me, and—”

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Vayl slid his fingers up my arm, sending trickles of awareness shooting through me. Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything but his touch. A deliberate move on his part—underhanded and mean. I kinda loved it. “I never thought I would say this,” he murmured, leaning in so his lips nearly brushed my ear. “But I would suggest you spend the rest of this flight concentrating on Cole.”

Who? Oh. Damn, Jaz, would you kick your brain into gear? Remember Cole? Your third for this piece-o’-crap job? The one Pete has decided to fund using your dad’s 401(k)?

Jerking my arm from Vayl’s hand so I could think, dammit, I began plotting a revenge so intricate and satisfying I barely heard him say, “I will deal with your father.”

“Fine.” Wait, maybe not. “Um, Vayl? Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Be discreet, will ya? He doesn’t know about . . . us . . . yet. And I think I should probably be the one to tell him I’m involved with a vampire.”

Chapter Two

When I retire I’m going to write a book. Not about the CIA. I know too many secrets that could get me killed. Or worse, elected. Nope, this one’s going to be called My Dad Is an Asshole: The True Story of a Shithead’s Daughter.

As I stared out the window, using Cole as a buffer between the butt-flap and me, I knew I should be trying to figure out his game. Mostly retired consultants to the Agency don’t just pop into the field whenever they feel the urge for some exercise. Especially ones who’ve just recovered from a major vehicular collision. But I was still too pissed to follow any logical train of thought for long.

I heard Vayl say, “Perhaps we should stow your album under the seat for now, Albert. I understand we are about to land. And we have had so little time to discuss football. I understand you are a Bears fan?” At which point I decided I owed my sverhamin an elaborate dinner that would not include any of the gross dishes I’d heard some native Scots preferred. Haggis? Who eats something that sounds like an eighty-year-old husband-beater who sees Jesus’s face in her porridge every morniwou„ng but devours it anyway?

“When do you think they’ll let me get my cell out?” Cole asked. “I promised Mom I’d text her as soon as we land. I’m going to stick my phone up some guy’s kilt, flash a picture, and then challenge her to guess what she’s seeing.”

“That is so disgusting.”

“What? I’ll get his permission first.”

“Sending dirty pictures to your mom?”

“She’ll laugh so hard her teeth will probably fly across the dinner table. She lost them in a car accident, you know.”

“Really?”

“She was drag racing. Oh, I’m supposed to tell you she won. She made me promise to always say that when I mention her dentures.”

I shook my head. Not just because Cole probably needed psychiatric help. But because he liked his mom. And she reciprocated. Weird concept, that. Mine had suffered a fatal heart attack.

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Currently the unburiable part of her resided alongside the other skeptics and unrepentants in a version of hell I never wanted to see (or smell) again. Oddly, that reminded me of Matt. One of our last conversations had been about my parents. I’d been bitching about my dad.

“He’s all right, you know,” Matt had said between bites of the burgers we’d just grilled on the little deck outside our cozy country-themed duplex. “Once you get past all the bark there’s a quality human in there. Your mom’s the one to watch out for.”

I’d violently disagreed with him about Albert. After all, he hadn’t grown up listening to the man’s lazy-ass lectures. “Get your lazy ass off the couch and do your damn chores!” But he’d had a valid point when it came to my mother. What a depressing duo.

“Your mom can bake too, right?” I asked Cole.

He nodded. “Like a pastry chef. She said Grandma Thea made her try a bunch of girly hobbies after the car crash, and baking was the only one that stuck. She and my dad run a little coffee shop in Miami that’s famous for its homemade desserts. In fact, she likes to say her cinnamon rolls put all four of her boys through college.”

“You got any sisters?”

“No. Why?” Cole turned curious blue eyes my way, his bronzed face and surfer’s ’fro making me long for a pristine beach and a bottle of SPF 80. Anything that would put thousands of miles between me and my dad while preventing skin cancer had to be a good thing.

I shrugged. “I thought your folks might like a daughter. As in me. I’m in the market for a new set.”

When his glance wandered below my neck I punched him in the arm. “Of parents, you nimrod.”

“Then we’d be siblings,” he said. “Which would make what I want to do with you illegal.”

I sighed. “Dude, you can’t still want to marry me. Now that you know I’m with—” I jerked my thumb toward Vayl.

“Why won’t you say his name out loud if you two are such a pair?”

igh" widthI yanked my tray out of its upright position and depocketed the poker chips that had become a balm to my troubled spirit ever since I’d had to give up my playing cards. As I divided and recombined them, the familiar clack of clay against plastic eased the kinks out of my knotinfested muscles. “My dad doesn’t know.”

When I felt Cole’s shoulder shaking against mine I glanced over. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t make a sound. As soon as he paused for a breath, the plane’s cabin would be filled with the echoes of his mirth. And I’d have to kill him too.

I whispered, “You make a sound and I’ll tell Pete you compromised this mission and should be reassigned to a desk. Forever.”

The giggles blasted out of him in a single shocked whoof. “You wouldn’t!”

“Okay, not forever. Two weeks, max. But, believe me, it feels like eternity.”

Cole’s eyes narrowed. “Remind me never to break my collarbone. Apparently all the forced rest causes you to peel the skin off your face and reveal your inner monster.”

“It was more of a crack than a break. And I’ve been perfectly reasonable—”