Page 10 of First Blood
Laurie. That threw me into a deeper brood. It’d been most of a full day since I left him. Twenty-two hours and seven minutes, if you were going to get all fucking technical about it. The sun had been down for hours, not that I’d seen much of it through the rapidly gathering black clouds that promised a real snowstorm, not just the flurries we’d had for a couple of weeks.
He'd still be home, at least. For now. Until it got closer to the middle of the evening, and he headed out into the filthy weather to be fucked at best and murdered at worst by whatever assholes were desperate or vicious enough to want to pick up a hooker in a blizzard.
Maybe he’d stay in. Maybe I’d go home from Esther’s and stay in myself, completely ignoring what Laurie chose to do.
Maybe Doran would start wearing pastels.
“Nothing to say?” Esther asked, and I looked up, startled, to find her staring at me like I’d announced I was going to start wearing pastels myself.
It took me a second to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to be saying, and why. “So as far as we know, he was here on vacation or something? Liked the place when he was here, thought he’d come back and spend a little more time?”
Esther snorted a laugh. “Yeah, Lancaster’s a real tourist hot spot. Come for the cheap back-alley sex, stay — permanently — for the back-alley murders.”
“We have a winery.” I rolled my eyes, and Esther chuckled.
“The only people who come to the tasting room are those weird fairies who have their circle out in the woods by the vineyard, and they don’t pay.”
She wasn’t making a dig at anyone’s sexuality. They were genuine fairies, and they were extremely weird. And they didn’t pay. Something about the vines benefiting from the proximity of their essence and entitling them to freebies, which Fenwick chose to accept in the interest of good neighborly relations. The fairies took advantage of it by getting drunk as fuck every Saturday afternoon. I didn’t care that much, but until someone gave me some clarity on their ‘essence,’ I was staying the fuck away from the wine.
“I don’t think he was much of a wine drinker,” I said. “Seemed like more of a paint thinner kind of guy. Anyway, moot point. He’s not drinking anything anymore. And okay, I get what you’re saying, but either he was here for his own reasons or for his boss’s reasons. And if it was his own reasons, then who cares? He wasn’t anyone important. Just a garden-variety waste of oxygen.”
“Fenwick called his boss and told him you’d had to kill the man for assaulting a human who lived in our territory and was therefore under our protection. Fenwick was hoping Chesnakov’s reaction to our knowing the man had been here would tell him something, in the absence of any better information. Apparently Chesnakov denies knowing his employee’s whereabouts. Which of course he’d do even, or especially, if he’d sent the fellow to spy — but Fenwick thinks Chesnakov was telling the truth.” Esther shrugged and tossed her phone aside, reaching instead for the glass of wine she had on the coffee table in front of her. It was one of our winery’s offerings, the chardonnay. I wondered how much fairy essence it had in it, but bit my tongue. “At least Chesnakov’s not pissed about losing his bodyguard, or saying he isn’t. Not that it matters that much, since he’s…not small fry, but medium at best. He apologized profoundly for his bodyguard’s bad behavior in our territory.”
Rage rose up and clogged my throat. “Yeah, his apology’s worth shit to the guy who almost died,” I said thickly. “He should’ve offered to pay damages.”
“He would’ve if the victim belonged to Fenwick. But I don’t think Chesnakov considers normal humans to be worth much unless they’re owned by a supe. A human whore’s disposable to him.” At the look on my face, Esther’s softened. “I don’t disagree with you, Victor. But face the facts. Chesnakov was apologizing for you, and therefore Fenwick, having to deal with his man, not for what he did to deserve it.
“Fenwick shouldn’t be working with assholes like that.” I wouldn’t have. If I were in charge, I’d have simply killed him.
Probably why I wasn’t in charge.
“Not our call,” Esther said briskly, and picked up her phone again. “Anything else for me today?”
In other words, finish your coffee and get the fuck out so I can have five minutes’ peace.
“Nope. I think I’m done here.”
I thunked the mug onto the table and stalked to the front door. Esther sighed and shook her head, but she didn’t reprimand me. She knew I’d let it go.
She was right, but that didn’t make me any less fucking pissed right then.
When I got in my car and started to drive, I meant to go home and get plastered.
Instead, I headed straight for Laurie. Who the fuck was I fooling? Not myself, as much as I wanted to. Remembering the warmth and sweetness and richness of his blood made my own rush faster through my veins, and every time I closed my eyes I saw the front of his jeans wet with come and heard his cry of pleasure echoing in my ears.
I parked in front of his building, hoping he’d had the good sense to stay there. After I got home the night before I’d given a little thought to how much cash I’d left for him. It had to have been nearly a thousand dollars, if not more. He had enough to stay in out of the cold.
Fuck, if he let me take a sip every few days, he’d have enough to retire.
But I couldn’t think like that. A sip every few days…that meant seeing him every few days. Touching him. Having my mouth on him and his scent in my lungs and his flavor on my tongue. I couldn’t do that. I only needed to feed once in a while, once a month if I didn’t get badly injured. That way lay madness. I didn’t give a fuck if he’d orgasmed in my arms. It didn’t mean a damn thing, and I could get a pretty, willing fuck anywhere — including half a block down from Laurie’s spot on the street.
I went up the stairs anyway and pounded on his door. Annoyed but not surprised when he didn’t answer, I double-timed it out of the building and headed down the street to find him.
He was under his streetlight when I came out of the end of the alley. Same jeans, same too-thin jacket, and this time some kind of white top that blended with his skin and the snow and made him look otherworldly. Snowflakes glittered in his curls. I was supernatural, a fusion of former-human and ancient blood magic, and even so, I looked more or less like a normal human thug.
Laurie was pure human, nothing magical about him at all. But he could’ve outshone any one of those wino fairies, no matter how sparkly their wings were. He looked like heaven.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought so, because as I stood and gaped, an SUV pulled over right in front of him.
