Tempting Gray - Untouchables 02 (2 page)

“Are you feeling well?” Concern pulled the girl’s
eyebrows into a furrow that still made her look impossibly sweet.

His eyes locked on her mouth. All he could
manage in answer was a brisk shake of his head—no.

“Is there anything I can do?” Again, he shook
his head. How was it he knew he needed to open his mouth and speak to her, yet
he couldn’t think of a single thing to say?

He was nearly hugging her. They’d long stopped
dancing. They merely stood there touching each other. Suddenly words he hadn’t
known he wanted to say burst from him. “Please tell me if you are her!” He
shook her with the question. “I must know.”

The smile on her face faded. Melancholy
transformed her face into something beautifully sad. The look made his own
heart break into pieces. “Are you truly Grayson Blackmoore or are you funning
me, my lord?”

Just then the sound of rocks being removed
began. They’d been found. People on the other side of the rubble started
clearing it out. The crashing of stone made it difficult to answer her without
yelling. Grayson grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her further back into the
room as dust and small rocks trickled down from the pile.

When he had her attention he told her, “I am.”

She blinked as if she’d forgotten what he was
talking about. Then she remembered. Grayson must admit he wasn’t prepared for
the impact her stricken face had on him. He nearly took back his words—however
stupid that’d be. He nearly denied truly being Grayson; he’d do
anything
,
to remove that expression from her face. Anything.

The rocks were being pulled away faster. They
didn’t have much time. Grayson felt like he held a delicate kite in his hands
on a thin string and the wind was whipping by trying to tear the kite from him.

Leaning close he asked, “Are you her?”

Her lips parted before she fixed her expression
into an unreadable mask. He hated the look; she was hiding something. That
secret look made his stomach plummet. But her next move caught him completely
by surprise. The beautiful blonde Were, not the dark-haired vampire who he’d be
mating with tonight, stepped up on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to
his.

It was Grayson Blackmoore’s first kiss.

Grayson jerked in surprise, but didn’t sever
their tentative connection. Their breaths stirred, mingled. Eyes stayed locked
in a warm embrace. Gently, he pressed his lips more firmly against hers. Their
lips touched completely now. He yearned to close his eyes and kiss her
properly, but he could hear voices now. The wall was nearly torn down.

Grayson stepped back from temptation, feeling
as dazed as the girl looked. The stones were divested of moments later and a
flood of faces swept into the small room. His father was before him, angry. Not
that anyone but close family could see that the president of the Were and
vampire community was anything more than mildly annoyed. No, Grayson had been
around his father long enough to recognize the stiff upper lip and quickened
steps.

He was dragged to a room the size of an area.
It was packed full of unfamiliar faces, both Were and vampire. The room smelled
of expensive cologne, blood that filled glasses, and sweetness from poppy
flowers used in decoration.

“We do not have time to idle, son. The Redenver
father has it in his head this is a poor sign of tidings to come. Hurry, we
must begin the ceremony before he reneges on the deal.” Argonzo Blackmoore was
a tall, slender figure with the nose of a hawk, and the complexion of a Roman.

“Now?”

His father cast him a spared glance, watchful. “Yes,
now. Are you ready or not?”

It was time. He would meet and mate with his
one and only now. How strange that a cool stillness crept over him, bracing
him, in that moment. Those unfamiliar faces turned to watch him and his father
as they made their way to the center of the room to the dais on which stood the
awaiting Blackmoore and Redenver family.

It wasn’t her.

Tongue dry as parchment, Grayson licked his
lips. It couldn’t be her. The possibility of it was next to nothing. Yet, as
his father released him and Grayson marched up the dais to meet his bruid
—
he
yearned for that a familiar face to stare up at him from beneath the veil. One
that could dazzle him with a smile.

His father announced the families to the quieting
crowd. Grayson stood tall next to a girl wearing a loose white gown with a veil
obscuring her face from view. Grayson would soon pull that veil up to reveal
her. And so it began.

He and the quiet girl who had yet to speak a
word were positioned to face one another.

Grayson swore everyone could see the sweat
dripping down his temples. He was sure of it. Everyone knew he didn’t want to
be here right now. They had to see it in the strain on his face.

His hands managed not to tremble as he took his
bruid’s
slender hands in his own. For a second he found himself trying
to learn if this girl’s hands were the same as the girl he’d danced with. The
girl had been wearing gloves so he didn’t have any clue how her hands looked.
Were they slender fingered with long nails like this girl’s?

The moment came crashing over Grayson with
staggering finality. A priest spoke vows before them, his words sounding as if
they came from far away. On a final word, the woman before him slowly pulled
back the veil.

It felt like someone was skinning him alive,
such was the agony of waiting to see.

Was it her?

He didn’t think he’d ever wanted anything so
badly in his life as he wanted this.

The first strands of her hair came into view.
The very world rolled before him making the room spin in a whirlwind of motion.
Grayson rocked on the heel of his boots nearly losing his balance before he
caught himself. Did anyone see him losing control right now? Did anyone even
care that his world was completely upside down?

In front of him, a lovely girl with eyes the
color of coal and hair dark as night looked up at him with calm acceptance.
Across the room, his sweeping eyes locked on a girl with the wildest blonde
hair he’d ever seen. She stared at him with an expression Grayson knew he’d never
be able to forget. For her look showed exactly how he felt right now—ravaged.
Like he’d found something precious and perfect but now had to walk away from
it. She shook her head as if to clear it from what she saw. His body
nearly surged toward her, wanting, no,
needing
to comfort her.

Then Anita of Redenver spoke, and in a strong
voice vowed to stay beside Grayson for eternity.

It was his turn. His role had already been
cast. His mother, his family, were more important than his wants.

Grayson Blackmoore turned and delivered his
vows, accepting his fate.

Applause broke out as Argonzo presented Grayson
and Anita to the crowd. Over-bright smiles from the faces below looked up at
them. But across the room, the face he sought to look upon one final time was
gone. And he realized he’d never see her again.

Missouri
State Fair, Present day

9:42
p.m.

Grayson stayed several paces back from his
target so as not to arouse suspicions.

A man with a heavy belly hanging over the dirty
apron tied around his slender hips sliced a potato and dropped it into the
fryer in the booth next to him. The sizzling was so loud Grayson nearly moved
to get away from the foul odor. It smelled like grease. Kids ran around with
fixed smiles and dirty faces covered in candy, soda, and pizza. Couples walked
by hand in hand slowly investigating each booth as if there was a semblance of
anything interesting there.

It was these moments he hated the most.

Grayson’s target wrapped his meaty arm around
his wife while he pointed at the Ferris wheel. “The first Ferris wheel was
built by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. in…” began Winston. Grayson tuned
him out. He wasn’t being paid to listen to his target’s conversations. He was
being paid to keep him alive.

Finally, Winston moved on and Grayson removed
himself from the cloud of grease. Great, now he would smell like French fries
for the rest of the evening.

The thought didn’t linger long because what
happened next thrust Grayson into his job full throttle. Four faces became
distinctly noticeable in the crowd. They stood together, the one who Gray
spotted as the leader, watching Winston.

There was no time to prepare. A blast—a fiery
explosion—sent Grayson flying backward through the air. Humans screamed and ran
away. Others tried to pull the injured away from the origin of the blast.

There was no downtime, only a moment where
Grayson slammed into a booth. There was no cushioning his fall. His back seemed
to hit every possible object in the way. With a grunt, he pulled himself up and
raced for his target. He didn’t have long to take in the situation. A bomb had
been set under a booth and when Winston walked by it, it had exploded.

They’d ambushed us.

The four were already on his target.
Where
are the rest of my men?
Wife down, throat slit through. Winston was on the
run, but could never outrun the young, bald vampire after him. The vampire
looked high on drugs, probably the synthetic shit that vamps and Weres are
doing nowadays.

Gray palmed his SIG Sauer loaded with his own
silver made bullets. The first six rounds took down two of the four. Out of
rounds, he took the third out with a knife stab to the heart. It was enough to
incapacitate the vamp. He wouldn’t die unless Gray finished him off with a
decapitation, but it’d damn well keep him down for the count while Gray
retrieved his client.

Gray took off on a sprint, his legs eating up
the distance. The bald vamp laughed manically as he cornered a bloodied Winston
against the back of a building. Baldy wielded a silver machete. The blood of
Winston’s wife dripped.

Most of the crowd had long since fled. Sirens
blared in the distance growing louder. He had to wrap this up before the humans’
Feds showed up. A few remaining humans loitered around to watch what was
happening.

Gray raised his gun and aimed it dead center of
the vamp’s bald head. He could just make out a tattoo of some kind on the vamp’s
neck. “Do it, vamp, and this all ends here.”

The vamp looked back at him. As Gray had
suspected, he was young, practically a kid, and he looked higher than a kite—eyes
bloodshot, fangs distended and discolored. His body looked gaunt, like skin
wrapped over bones.

“You don’t know who I am.” The kid turned back
to Winston who had tried to flatten himself against the brick wall. “Why don’t you
tell him who I am, Winston?”

Winston trembled. His wife was dead and he
might not make it through the night.

“It doesn’t matter. Put down the weapon before
I end this,” Grayson said.

The vamp scraped the bloody, sharp edge his
machete across his skull back and forth. His hands couldn’t stay steady and he
scoured open his flesh several times before finally letting the weapon rest
against his leg. “The real problem isn’t what you think. It’s whether or not
you can stop me from killing a man many would love to see skewered before I
die.”

Seconds, moments. It happened so quickly, even
his trained mind lost focus. The vamp disappeared. When he reappeared in only a
few beats, he was in front of Winston. He swung the machete. Gray fired the
rest of his clip into the kid’s back. The vamp’s thin body jerked violently
with each bullet that struck. Winston’s head flew off as the kid’s blade
finished cutting through skin, tendon, and bone. The life died from Winston in
a flash, his decapitated body crumpling to the ground.

“Fuck.” This was all wrong! How had this gone
so wrong? Winston, his wife, even one of Grayson’s guards back there—all dead.
All because of this bald, young punk.

“Who are you?” Each of his words were grated
between clenched teeth. Gray knelt by the vamp to check his pulse. He was dead.
He’d pumped the vamp with enough silver that it’d nearly severed his head off.

The silver also helped to work as a poison
which ate away at vampire and Were skin. Neither species could seem to help it—they
were allergic to silver.

Gray called in this mess to his boss—a woman he’d
never want to be on the wrong end of—TJ. Yeah, even this woman didn’t go by her
real first name. No one knew what it was, but there had been bets and rumors
for years trying to guess if it was Terry, Tabitha, Tina,
etc.
It must be far
too soft and pretty since the only name she answered to was TJ.

“Make sure you and anyone else still alive are
scarce. I’ll take care of the rest,” TJ said.

Ignoring the command he responded, “It might
interest you to know this vamp has a tattoo on his neck. Make that a stamp, not
a tattoo.” Gray turned the vamp’s chin the opposite direction to get a better
look at the marking. “It looks like a lion’s head to me.”

A pause on the other end of the line. “A lion’s
head?”

Gray verified the animal shape. “Affirmative.”
From the corner of his eye he could see Winston’s dead body. Now just a corpse.
Because he’d failed his job.

“Then I have bad news for you,” TJ said in an
unaffected tone.

“Can’t wait to hear. What is it?” He was
already on the move back to his vehicle, signaling his hurt men squirming on
the ground to move. TJ would have a team en route to collect the bodies.

“You just killed Vincent Donato’s youngest son.
The lion is the Donato family crest. They wear the marker on their neck. Vincent
will expect blood for this.”

Instead of feeling fear or panic, Gray sighed.
Someone always wanted him or his family dead. Such was his life, and besides,
when he walked around with the Blackmoore name wrapped around him like a giant
red bow on top of his head, people tended to make enemies easily.

“Won’t he be disappointed to learn he won’t be
getting any?” With that parting remark, Grayson hung up, lit up a smoke, and
started the drive home. Now he had to learn who this Donato family was before
he got someone else killed.