Out of the Night (Harlequin Nocturne) (7 page)

“Neither is being chained up in a feeding den.”

There went that chill down her back again, accompanied by some stomach churning thrown in for good measure. She hugged herself against the image his words brought to mind. If he and his team hadn’t arrived when they had, she might be living it right now, chained up as if she were an animal and slowly going insane. She hated the idea that no place, no time of day, was safe from the vampire threat anymore.

“Do you know who these people are? What they look like?”

“Not yet. We’ll get to the bottom of this, though. When I find out who is behind this, you won’t have to worry about them anymore.”

She envisioned him taking the culprit and ripping him apart, and it oddly didn’t bother her. Though she wouldn’t be inviting him in for a nightcap, her gut instinct told her he was a good guy, good vampire, whatever.

“Take every precaution you can,” he said. “And if someone or something looks suspicious and it’s daylight, call the NYPD. If it’s night, call me.”

Despite the gravity of the situation he was describing, she smiled a little at his tone. It was easy to see why he was in charge of his team, but it wasn’t the commanding edge that got to her. It was how he sounded every inch the protector.

Vampire, vampire, vampire.
She shouldn’t even be talking to him. But should she be denying the protection he offered as long as he was no threat to her?
Yes,
her instinct screamed.
He’s a vampire!

This man, this vampire, had her feeling a bit like a teenage girl who’d just been noticed by the hottest boy in school. But teenage girls were ruled more by emotion and hormones than common sense, weren’t they? She was a grown woman now, one who lived in a dangerous world where common sense was often the dividing line between life and death.

“Campbell?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You’re at a greater risk because of your blood type.”

“Me and everyone else in the city with AB-negative. Are you calling all of them, too?”

He hesitated before speaking. “There’s a list of targets, and your name is on it along with a few others in your neighborhood. Those vampires who were trying to take you, that was no random attack. And if vampires can’t get you at night, whoever is behind this is going to try again with human lackeys during the day.”

Cold dread settled in Olivia’s stomach. “I’d thank you for warning me, but I’m kind of wishing for an ignorance-is-bliss moment right now,” she said, trying to make light of a situation that held not one iota of light.

“I’m sorry.”

“I think maybe you’ve apologized to me enough already.”

He didn’t respond for several seconds, ones in which she realized she was close to burning the omelets. “Crap!” She scooped them onto plates and refused to make eye contact with Mindy when she zipped by to pick them up.

“I’ve caught you at a bad time, haven’t I?” he asked.

“Just the busy morning rush. And I’m not paying attention.”

“I distract you that much?” His voice held some teasing she knew was meant to lessen her tension, but it also had the effect of making her skin warm all over. Did the man have any idea how sexy his voice was? A vision of him naked, rolling around with her in tangled sheets, caused her body to tingle in interesting places. Thank goodness vampires didn’t have the ability to read minds. At least she hoped they didn’t.

“You could say that.” Damn, she’d said that out loud while wishing he was still human. She wished she could recall the words because they were definitely the least wise ones she’d uttered in a long time. This was not the time to be playing with fire, even if it had been a long time since she’d felt these kinds of sexual sparks. She let herself fantasize about what it’d be like to take Campbell to bed if he didn’t pose such a threat to her.

“Be careful,” he said, his voice deepening more. He sounded...aroused. And that sent a thrill through her. A very unwise thrill but a thrill nonetheless.

“Why?” Hell, why couldn’t she shut up?

“Because as much as I’d love to go there with you, it’s not safe. For either of us.”

He’d love to go there with her? Lord, their conversation had taken an unexpected and way-too-honest-for-comfort turn. She let her breath out slowly, wondering what had possessed her. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. It’s my fault.” He sighed, and something about it sounded so forlorn. “Listen, I’ll let you get back to work. Just be careful. You might not want to be delivering meals, at least until we can round up these lowlifes.”

“Right now I don’t have the means anyway.”

After they both hung up, Olivia couldn’t stop thinking about him. She’d never been the kind of person who wanted to live dangerously, so her attraction to Campbell didn’t make the first bit of sense. But how could she see him and not be attracted? The man was sex on two very long legs.

“Okay, I’m dying to know,” Mindy said from where she now stood at the entrance to the kitchen. “Who is he?”

“Who?”

Mindy crossed her arms and lifted her eyebrow. “Don’t play that game with me. I know what a woman looks like when she’s thinking about doing naughty things with a man.”

“I’m not thinking about doing naughty things with a man.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.”

“Then what are you thinking about that has you smiling like a fool and nearly burning half a dozen omelets?”

Olivia looked her best friend in the eye and knew she should keep her crazy feelings to herself. After all, Mindy loathed vampires and with good reason. They’d killed her mother and sister, and she’d had to see the horrible result to identify their bodies. Olivia’s nerves fired at what Mindy might think of her if she told her the truth. Would she think she’d gone bonkers? Well, that was an obvious yes. What she couldn’t handle was if Mindy felt betrayed.

But she and Mindy had always had an open and honest friendship, hanging on to each other even more when the virus and the subsequent emergence of vampires had robbed them of those closest to them. What if Mindy had no idea good vampires were real? Could she possibly believe that after what the vamps had done to her family? Once you saw that kind of viciousness, could you ever look beyond it? How could Olivia expect her to?

“I’m afraid to tell you.”

“Afraid? Good grief, do you have a kinky side I don’t know about?”

Olivia stared at her friend, not knowing how to answer that question. For a moment she considered shooing Mindy back into the dining room and avoiding the admission altogether. But she wasn’t used to holding things in. And maybe Mindy could talk some sense into her.

With a deep breath, she met Mindy’s eyes. “I’m thinking about doing naughty things with a vampire.”

Chapter 6

M
indy’s eyes went wide and her mouth dropped partially open before she spoke again. The color drained from her face. “Are you crazy? Did they do something to you? Please don’t tell me they have mind-control abilities, because that will just take the world to a new level of hellish.”

Olivia dropped her gaze toward the floor for a moment. She’d known telling Mindy was a bad idea. Why hadn’t she listened to her common sense screaming at her?

She lifted her head but turned her attention back to the grill, where she flipped a few slices of bacon. “Never mind. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Mindy moved to stand next to Olivia, propping her hip against the edge of the metal countertop adjacent to the grill. “You can’t drop that bombshell, then not tell me what is going on. Seriously, did they do something to you?”

Olivia sighed and wished with all her might she’d kept her mouth shut. “No, I’m pretty sure they don’t have mind-control abilities. Even in the world we now live in, that’s a bit too unrealistic.”

“Is it?”

Olivia met Mindy’s gaze. “I think if they had that ability, they would have used it to calm me down when I was freaking the hell out.”

Mindy considered that tidbit for a moment before giving a curt nod. “So, then, what is going on? You know they’re monsters.”

Olivia eyed the front door when a young couple came in. They looked like tourists. Though the city might never recover to the point where it was a tourist mecca again, amazingly people were beginning to trickle back in. The economy, including her own personal one, sure could use their dollars.

“Customers,” she said to Mindy.

Mindy didn’t even glance through the order window. “They can wait.” This wasn’t the fun, joking Mindy Olivia normally spent her days with. In her place was the hard, cold Mindy from the days after her family was killed. The Mindy who’d wanted nothing more than to go on a merciless vampire-killing spree.

“It’s nothing really. Just crazy thoughts brought on by too much stress.”

“I’ve never heard of attraction being caused by stress. Insanity maybe.”

Olivia shook her head. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

Mindy gripped Olivia’s arm, forcing Olivia to look at her. “Out with it. I’m not letting this go until I know what made you say it in the first place.”

Olivia sighed, trying to figure a way out of this conversation. “You don’t have anything to worry about, okay? One of them was just good-looking, enough that if he still had a pulse, I might be interested. But he doesn’t, so that’s the end of that.”

“Is it?”

“Of course. Why would you ask that?”
Because you’re acting nuts, Olivia.

“Because I’ve been trying to get you to even look at another guy for months. Not once have you been receptive until now when it will get you killed.”

“I’m not going to act on the attraction. I’m not a fool.” She had to convince Mindy of that even if she wasn’t so sure herself.

Remembering the long phone conversation she’d had with Campbell the night before and feeling like a teen lying to her mom, Olivia couldn’t meet Mindy’s eyes anymore and returned her attention to removing the bacon from the grill.

“What are you not telling me?” When Olivia didn’t immediately answer, Mindy pressed. “Liv?”

“I...I talked to him on the phone.”

“You talked on the phone, with a vampire?” The volume of Mindy’s voice went up with each word.

Olivia motioned for her to be quiet. “Keep it down. I don’t need to lose what little business I have. And speaking of which, that couple has been waiting long enough.” She motioned toward the dining room, where the newcomers had taken seats at a window table behind Jane’s.

Mindy looked about to protest, but instead she stalked into the dining room, not happy in the least. And Olivia couldn’t blame her. Despite her assertion otherwise, Olivia knew she was ten kinds a fool.

As Mindy took the couple’s orders and did a round of the room to check on the other customers and top off coffee cups, Olivia took the moments to try to bring her racing thoughts under control. She eyed the back door, for a split second considering making a run for it despite her injured ankle. But then she remembered the news Campbell had shared with her and resisted the urge to shove a large appliance in front of the door.

Mindy blew back into the kitchen and slammed a dirty plate down on the prep table. “Okay, duty done. Who is this vampire and what on earth did you find to talk about?”

“Min, please let it go. It’s not important.”

“No, I’m interested.” She didn’t sound interested, more as if she was compiling information for when she called the guys with a straitjacket to haul Olivia away.

“You don’t really want to hear this.”

“No. But I need to know where your common sense went.”

An irrational anger rose up in Olivia at Mindy’s tone, but she took several breaths to calm down. The sooner she just spilled everything, the sooner they could move on and forget about it.

“His name is Campbell Raines.” She hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of a full confession. “I was as surprised as anyone that we actually found a lot to talk about.”

“Such as?” Mindy’s voice cracked like a whip.

Olivia looked at the order form Mindy had slid onto the counter and went about pouring pancakes onto the grill. “For instance, did you know there are different kinds of vampires? Souled and Soulless?”

At Mindy’s confused look, Olivia relayed all that Campbell had told her about the “good” and “bad” of the vampire world.

Mindy stood with her arms crossed and her expression full of doubt. “Sounds like a story concocted to make you think he’s a good guy.”

“He is.” Olivia was surprised by how much force she put behind her words then felt the need to backtrack. “I mean, he seems as if he might have been despite some rough edges.” She glanced at Mindy, wondering if she should go on or quit before she made things worse. But she had no one else to talk to about what Campbell had told her, no one with whom to ponder if any of it could possibly be true. “I know how crazy this sounds, but I got the feeling he missed being human, that if he could undo being a vampire that he would.”

“Listen, no one knows better than me that the vampire mystique can be alluring. At least it was when we didn’t know they were real, life-sucking monsters. But this vamp is playing you....” Mindy’s voice trailed off in such a way that Olivia made the mistake of making eye contact. “Just which one of the vampires is this?”

Olivia knew what Mindy was asking, and there was no use in trying to hide the answer. “He’s the head of the V Force team that saved me.”

Certainty slid into place on Mindy’s face. “The one who attacked you.”

Olivia lowered her gaze and flipped the pancakes. Her stomach grumbled at the smell, and she realized how long it’d been since she’d eaten anything.

“The AB-negative monster who nearly
killed
you?”

It sounded so awful when she said it like that. Who was Olivia kidding? It was awful. He
had
almost killed her, and given the chance, he might again. Might succeed the next time. Had said so himself.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s taking Stockholm syndrome a bit too far, don’t you think?”

Olivia flinched at how Mindy’s words echoed her own thoughts. She scooped the pancakes onto two plates and placed them on the counter next to Mindy. “It was one conversation. I was safely inside my apartment, and he was on the other side of the glass, unable to get to me.”

“He was here?”

Crap, how did she manage to step even deeper into this uncomfortable conversation?

“He found my cell phone, so he brought it by. And...he apologized for what happened.”

“For almost munching on you.”

Olivia’s nerves finally snapped. “Yes, Mindy. We’ve established he was a victim of bloodlust and just about did me in. I was there, remember?”

“A victim? Now, there’s a term I’ve never heard used to refer to vamps.”

Olivia stared at her friend, not wanting to hurt her but needing to make sense of the past thirty-six hours. “What would you call it when your life is ripped away and you’re condemned to roam the earth forever drinking human blood and never being able to see the sun again?”

Silence fell on the kitchen. Mindy looked as if Olivia had slapped her.

“Vampires don’t have feelings,” Mindy said. “They are predators, and you are the prey he’s very, very good at luring in. You know the AB-neg vamps are the most aggressive because that blood supply is the lowest.”

“I know. Really, I do. And I’m not going to do anything stupid like invite him in.” Beyond talking on the phone with a vampire who made her pulse quicken and wishing he was a flesh-and-blood man.

The sound of more people coming in the front door drew Olivia’s attention away from her thoughts.

Mindy threw up her hands and moved toward the dining room. “I can’t listen to this anymore.”

“Mindy.”

She stopped and looked back toward Olivia, though she seemed reluctant.

“I’m sorry I brought it up.”

A momentary look of pain flitted across Mindy’s face before she turned without a word and walked away.

For several seconds, Olivia sat staring at the spot where her best friend had been standing. She couldn’t help but feel she’d made a colossal mistake in confiding to Mindy. The irony of Mindy’s situation was that she’d once been the biggest fan of the vampire genre you’d ever meet.
Buffy,
True Blood,
The Vampire Diaries,
every book series she could get her hands on. But that was before she’d come home to find her mother and younger sister drained and left on the front porch steps of their house.

The cruelest part? The fact that they had survived the global virus outbreak only to die one day before the official word went out that vampires were real and that people should stay indoors after sunset. Mindy’s mother and sister hadn’t even known they needed to protect themselves.

Throughout the rest of the morning rush, Mindy refused to meet Olivia’s gaze. Olivia hated that she’d brought back bad memories. And if Mindy was that worried over a phone conversation with a vampire who couldn’t even come inside, how was she going to take the news of the new human threat? Because Olivia had to tell her so she’d know to protect herself. As a type O, she might not be in as much danger, but any danger at all was too much.

But maybe that information would be what convinced Mindy that Campbell wasn’t like any vampire she’d imagined. He’d have no reason to warn her about daylight dangers if he weren’t truly trying to keep her safe, right?

Doubt warred with a need to believe in something good until a headache started forming between her eyes. She silently cursed whoever had stolen her car. If the thief had kept his grubby fingers to himself, she would have arrived home safely before dark as she always did. She wouldn’t have been attacked, kidnapped and terrified to within an inch of her life. She wouldn’t have met Campbell Raines and spent the dark predawn hours talking to him about the nature of vampires.

And she wouldn’t be having thoughts that could lead to her death.

* * *

Campbell threw the dart with enough force to impale it halfway through the dartboard.

“Dude, you know you don’t get extra points for doing that, right?” Billy said.

Campbell gave him a hard stare.

“Be careful, Puppy,” Colin said, using the nickname they’d given Billy because of his relative youth. “He’ll impale you with the power of his mind.”

“He’s just feeling cooped up,” Len said as he sat shaving new wooden stakes to a fine point. “I can relate. Sometimes I want to go out and dare the sun to burn me up.”

“Another of your spectacularly smart ideas,” Kaja said as she strolled by wearing a new black skirt and heels.

“Yeah, about as smart as buying clothes like that.”

“At least I care what I look like.”

“My clothes were fine when I was alive, so I don’t see any reason to change now.”

“Ditto.”

Campbell left the familiar bickering behind as he retreated to his room. Privacy didn’t alleviate his caged-up, edgy feeling, though. The smaller, windowless room just made it worse. He’d never liked windowless rooms when he’d been human, and having to exist with them all the time now was his own private torture.

He eyed the phone but resisted the urge to call Olivia. Sure, he was worried about her, but he didn’t want her to think he was a crazy stalker. He flopped onto the bed that was there mainly for rest, though he had no need for sleep anymore. That was another thing he missed, the oblivion of sleep. Those few hours when he didn’t have to think or plan or be in charge.

But he was in charge, and he was going to make the most of it. If it helped Olivia in the process, so much the better.

He picked up his cell phone and dialed the number he always dialed when he needed to know what was going on down in the dregs of vampire society.

“Yo,” came the Italian-accented male voice on the other end of the line.

“Rico.”

“Oh, man, you have the worst timing in the world. I’m in the middle of something.” Rico Bovari was always in the middle of something. That was what made him such a valuable confidential informant.

“Then wrap it up.”

Rico cursed and by the sound of things, what he’d been preoccupied with was decidedly female. After a few moments and one door slam, Rico came back on the line. “Man, you so owe me.”

“I repay you every day by not arresting you.”

“For what?”

“I’m sure I could find something.”

“Hey, hey. I’m one of the good guys, remember? I have a soul and everything.”

“Just because you have a soul doesn’t mean you’re perfect. Just means you’re not evil to the core.”

“Glad to hear you think so highly of me.”

“You’ll do in a pinch.” Truth was Campbell actually sort of liked the guy. Despite having been active with the Mob prior to growing a conscience, he didn’t really seem like a bad sort. At least not Mob-level bad. More of an opportunist who liked living on the edge a little. Of course, that living on the edge had been what had gotten him turned. The walk home after an illegal game of poker had been his last with a heartbeat. Why he hadn’t been drained instead, Campbell didn’t know and Rico wasn’t telling.