Wanton With a Vampire (17 page)

Helena’s cheeks were bright red. Isaiah’s
lips were twitching. Caitlin had a look of pride in her eyes.
Justin was the only one who still seemed pissed off by the whole
situation, but that wasn’t uncommon for him.

“Come on, Alek,” Trish said, grabbing his
hand to pull him off the loveseat. “Let’s go get settled into our
room. Then you can do naughty things to my body in Nathaniel’s
house.”

Caitlin’s laughter followed them down the
hall.

Phoebe wasn’t thrilled with her
accommodations. A dingy warehouse in the industrial part of Hayward
was hardly her idea of a good place to live, but she did enjoy the
amenities at the warehouse. Clearly, humans who were less than
willing guests had been kept there before, and that served her
purposes well, especially now that her servant girl was becoming a
problem. It was a pity she’d have to find someone else, but
probably for the best since this girl knew too much.

The problem Phoebe faced now was getting her
son to cooperate. The incident at the shopping center was
unacceptable. How could Drew choose that little tramp over his own
mother? She was looking forward to slicing that slut up into little
pieces while her son watched. That would teach him not to disobey
her. Feeling a pang of disappointment, she realized Drew might care
for the woman, and romantic entanglements were a weakness they
couldn’t afford. She’d learned her lesson the hard way with Andrei,
Drew’s father, and she’d hate to see her son suffer the same
disappointment.

Phoebe loved Andrei far more than he could
ever love her. Yes, she would kill him, had actually tried on a
number of occasions. Even knowing Andrei had to die, she loved him
far too much to let another steal his last breath. Andrei, on the
other hand, was willing to let Alek kill her. After she got Drew
back under control, she would end Andrei’s life, proving her love
for the last time.

“Please let me go,” came the hoarse plea from
the woman sitting on the floor.

Looking down, Phoebe felt nothing but
annoyance. “I will release you soon enough,” she said with a
dismissive wave of her hand. Was it too much to ask that an
employee behave with some level of professionalism?

Looking over at the other occupant of the
soundproof room, Phoebe smiled. He wasn’t crying or begging. No, he
merely sat calmly. “It will all be over soon,” she assured him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered without looking at
her. His manners were impressive, considering she’d had so little
to do with his upbringing. Sadly, that had been unavoidable.

So many parents feared disciplining their
children these days. Most people believed that she’d spoiled Drew,
and in many ways, she had because it was hard saying no to her
beloved son. What people said about a parent’s love for a child
being unconditional was true. No matter what her son did, she would
always love him. At age four, he’d wanted a puppy so badly she’d
had no choice but to give in and buy it for him. The memory of his
adorable little face lighting up with delight still made her
smile.

It was that same love for her son that
resulted in her decapitating the puppy and leaving its head in
Drew’s bed as punishment for misbehaving. Some might say she’d been
unnecessarily harsh with Drew, but it had been the last time he’d
told a member of the family about any of her killings, so the
punishment had been effective.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” Phoebe said as
she walked out of the room, locking the door behind her. The
soundproof walls did the trick, and she could no longer hear the
begging of that ridiculous woman.

Pulling out her phone, she started to dial
her son’s number but changed her mind at the last minute. It might
be best to have Drew’s girlfriend in her possession before she
called Drew. Decision made, she called the man responsible for
bringing the woman to her.

“Hello,” he said, sounding annoyed.

“When can I expect delivery?” she asked. No
reason for pleasantries when her patience was wearing thin.

“We’ve run into a problem,” he told her
hesitantly. The fear in his voice proved he wasn’t as stupid as
most men she dealt with.

“I fail to see how you could have a problem,”
she bit out. “I provided you with more than enough information to
track this woman down. Even if the address was no longer current,
you could have easily found her new address.”

“We had no problem finding out where she
lives,” he said angrily, obviously not used to being spoken to this
way.

“Then what is your problem?” she asked, her
anger reaching a near boiling point. She was going to have to kill
someone soon to relieve this tension.

“When we got to the house, the woman was
being rushed out the door with her bags all packed,” he
explained.

“Who was with her?” Phoebe asked.

“Some guy,” he said.

“Describe him,” Phoebe ground out.

“Six feet tall, maybe a little taller. His
hair was brown, but had blond in it. He was in good shape,” he
answered. “That’s all the description I got from my men. They
followed them to some place in the canyon that looked like a
fortress. Seriously, they have it all gated off, and the security
is high-tech. For now, we’re waiting for her to head out on her
own. I’m not sure why she took off with the guy, but he might have
figured out you were after her.”

Phoebe had been certain the woman would call
the stores at the mall to see if her wallet had been left there.
She’d dropped it off at Victoria’s Secret and made sure the
salesgirl believed Trish had left it on the counter, so there
shouldn’t have been any reason to suspect Phoebe had it.

“Keep trying to get your hands on her,”
Phoebe said before hanging up.

She didn’t know how Alek had gotten involved
in any of this. Drew wouldn’t allow Alek to take care of his lady
friend, even if she was just a toy. Her son also wouldn’t betray
her like that. Part of that was loyalty, and part was fear of the
consequences.

Then she realized that perhaps she’d been
mistaken about Drew’s relationship with this Trish woman. Maybe he
was just doing a favor for Alek, but Drew would never do a favor
for Alek.

That’s when it came to her. This must be a
trap Alek had come up with. She wasn’t quite sure how he’d tricked
her son into being involved, but he would pay.

“I have got to tell you, your friendship with
Caitlin makes absolutely no sense,” Alek said as he carried their
bags to his room.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” she admitted. “We
met when I was looking for a new roommate. There was this guy from
one of my classes who heard me talking about it, and he was trying
to convince me to let him move in. He was being really pushy.”

“Asshole,” Alek muttered.

“That’s a good word for him,” Trish agreed.
“Anyway, as you’ve seen, I’m not good with confrontations. I kept
telling him I only wanted a female roommate, but he kept acting
like he was moving in. In fact, he was pushing me about getting a
key when I met Caitlin.”

“He just wanted to get in your pants,” Alek
said.

Trish laughed. “Actually, that wasn’t the
case with him. He wanted to rent a room with his girlfriend, and I
had no interest in sharing my apartment with a couple. Caitlin just
walked into the conversation and stared him down like tissue stuck
to the bottom of her new shoes. Then she told him I’d already
agreed to rent the room to her. I’ll be honest, I thought she was
just saying that to get the guy to leave, but she was serious about
wanting to be my roommate. She told me I needed someone to teach me
how to be mean when the situation called for it.”

“So, you just rented it to her because she
said you were?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I figured she’d be a
terrible roommate for me. She lectured me on growing a backbone,
and I called her bitch, so we ended up having coffee. One thing led
to another, and Caitlin moved in a week later. It may sound crazy,
but she’s a good friend. We used to do everything together.”

“What changed?”

Trish shrugged. “She started dating a vampire
and hanging out with other psychics. We suddenly had even less in
common. That happens with friends. Maybe we don’t hang out as much,
but we still love each other, and I know Caitlin will be there for
me any time I need her.”

“Caitlin wasn’t serious about putting us in
separate rooms, was she?” he asked. “I get the impression she’s not
exactly upset about us sharing a bed.”

Trish giggled. “She’s not upset about it, but
Justin is.”

Alek laughed. “Yes, my nephew does not seem
the least bit amused by this situation.”

“I’ve noticed that Justin prefers to avoid
too much drama in his life. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear
Nathaniel complain about me sleeping with you. He’s probably also
afraid you’ll break my heart, and then he’ll be forced to listen to
Caitlin complain about it.”

Alek set the bags on the ground and stopped
her with one hand on her shoulder. Gently turning her toward him,
he gave in to the temptation to lean closer. “Are you afraid I’ll
break your heart?”

Trish’s sexy lips parted, and he guessed she
was thinking about how nice his mouth would feel on hers. All he
had to do was lean forward just slightly.

“No,” Trish said.

Alek blinked twice as he tried to process
what she’d just said. She was refusing to let him kiss her? What
had he said wrong?

Trish giggled and covered her mouth with her
hand. “You look confused, Alek. Did you forget your question?”

He stepped back, giving her a sheepish smile.
“I suppose I did. Whenever I’m around you, all I think about is
touching you, and I seem to forget myself.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” she
said. “You asked if I was afraid you’d break my heart, and I told
you I’m not. What we have is temporary.” When he started to argue,
she put a hand up to stop him. “I know what you said about it being
more than that, and in some ways, it is. We both care about each
other, but that doesn’t mean I’m expecting something long-term with
you.”

“You might end up pregnant,” he reminded
her.

There was a long pause. “I could always get
one of those Plan B pills.”

“Please don’t do that,” Alek said
quickly.

She let out a sigh. “Based on the timing,
it’s really unlikely I’ll end up pregnant anyway,” she mused.
“Unless I’m going to take the Plan B pill, there’s no reason to
even discuss the remote possibility of me being pregnant. There is
enough to worry about at the moment without throwing that in
there.”

Alek wanted to argue because there was this
big part of him that wanted to know what would happen if she was
pregnant. That part of him also wanted her pregnant for some insane
reason. There was no denying Trish made him more than a little
crazy. “Fine, we won’t talk about that now, and we’ll try to be
more careful in the future.”

“Would you stop worrying so much about
everything?” she asked with a shake of her head. “Let’s just focus
on the crazy woman who might have my address. If that’s not enough
to keep your mind occupied, we can think about how I’m going to
tell my mom what I learned about my dad’s death.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to tell her?”
he asked. “Won’t she feel the same disappointment you do that
there’s no way to bring the men involved to justice?”

“I never considered myself a vindictive
person, but it sucks that the people who killed my dad just got
away with it,” she admitted.

“Wanting justice isn’t vindictive,” he
reasoned.

“I suppose not,” she said, but didn’t sound
convinced. “Let’s drop off our stuff. I’ll have to talk to Caitlin
about everything that’s happened before she loses patience.”

As it turned out, Caitlin had a paper to
write, so she hadn’t had time to interrogate Trish the night
before. Caitlin had dropped her classes last semester, so she was
taking a summer class to catch up on some credits. This was her
last week, and she was busy. That was probably a good thing, since
Trish would have fallen asleep mid-interrogation anyway. By the
time she and Alek had gotten settled in and raided the kitchen, it
was well past ten.

That morning, Caitlin was still busy
finishing up her paper, and Alek had come up with a plan to track
Phoebe using Isaiah’s computer skills. That left Trish with some
time to herself. Tablet in hand, she’d decided to be a little more
daring in her reading, and ended up perusing the erotica shelves.
Fully immersed in a book that made her blush from arousal, she had
a hard time pulling herself back to reality when Justin called her
name.

“What is it?” she nearly snapped.

“Willow’s at the front gate asking to see
you,” he said. “Not sure how she knew where to find you.”

“I told Ivy I’d be staying here,” she
explained. “Ivy must have told Willow.”

“I buzzed her through the front gate,” Justin
said. “Should I let her in?”

“I’ll let her in,” Trish said before turning
her tablet off so no one would see what she’d been reading. Even
the new daring Trish didn’t want people knowing any of that stuff
excited her. Although, she’d be fine with Alek knowing about her
newly acquired naughty reading habits.

Trish was more than a little surprised that
Willow wanted to see her enough to come out to Nathaniel’s house.
Willow didn’t seem to like any of the Draksel men, and the men
weren’t mature enough to resist pointing out that they were
related. Even Justin was likely to be a problem.

“Hey!” Trish said as she opened the door.
Today, Willow wore a navy blue suit that looked like something an
elderly librarian would wear.

“Hi!” Willow said with a bright smile. “I
just wanted to see how you were doing with all the, you know, weird
stuff that’s been going on. I totally was going to call, but Ivy
said you’d moved to the vampire house, so I figured you’d like a
visit from a friend.”