Page 141 of Demon's Bluff
And one urn of ash we can’t identify,I thought as I glanced at the surprisingly small blue and gold jar. It was Johnny, and Ivy had put it in a place of honor over the bar beside the Mixed Public License. Not that Piscary’s needed an MPL other than to serve alcohol. Offering tomatoeskept the humans out all on its own. John Doe Vamp or not, he had helped save Kisten’s undead life, and that needed to be acknowledged. A lock of his hair might point me to his relatives, but I wasn’t ready to dig up that grave quite yet.
“Hey, Rachel.” Ivy’s low, sexy voice was obvious over the piped-in music, and I shifted my path, eager to talk to her.
“Busy night?” I asked as I got closer to the bar, looking for a place to wedge myself in. Unlike the tables, the bar was full. A sidelong glance, a sultry smile with half-lidded eyes, and someone moved to give me space.
Ivy leaned in, her attention on the door as two sexy thangs behind her in lace and leather continued to take the last-drink orders between cleaning up. “About usual. Hey, was Trent supposed to help you tonight?”
I shook my head, a small smile quirking my lips. “No. Why?”
Her gaze went past me to the tables. “That bounty hunter, Laker, showed up a few hours ago. He’s got some chops, trusting the MPL will keep him safe.”
I turned, smirking as I locked eyes with the clearly uncomfortable man nursing a chipped cup of coffee. “Tell him to go home. Trent is safely in the ever-after.”
“That’s what I thought, but I let him stay. He’s more entertaining than the paid band.” Ivy’s faint smile vanished. “I closed the upstairs. Pike is up there with Brad. And the coven,” she added sourly.
The plastic bag with my spelling supplies rattled as I grabbed the shot of tomato juice she slid across the bar to me. “All of them?” I tossed the spicy drink back, downing it.Breakfast of champions or nightcap. You decide.
Her expressive eyebrows bunched. “Just one. The sixty-year-old kid.”
“Scott.” I said the word flat and tasteless. “Is Kisten around?” I hadn’t seen him apart from in passing since we’d been home. After the first few put-offs, I had decided he was avoiding me. Giving me and Trent space, I suppose. Probably a good idea until Trent felt secure, but he could at least talk to me.
“Downstairs.” Ivy’s gaze went behind me when someone laughed alittle too loud. “He took Constance out tonight to interview a new scion, one who might survive her, and he wanted to stick around in case he’s needed. He’s trying to teach her how to take a softer touch, maybe pretend to love them until she believes it herself.”
I snuck a glance at Ivy as I fiddled with my empty glass. Constance hadn’t initially been happy about sharing the spotlight with Piscary’s heir, but the less she had to do, the less I had to do. “Is it helping?”
Ivy swabbed the ring of tomato juice from the bar. “It might. He’s very close to the living yet. Sometimes I think him spending two years without any bloodlust cushioned him even if he wasn’t conscious. Allowed him to retain an understanding most don’t have.”
I nodded, not sure if she was seeing it correctly or if it was just one of the lies that the living told themselves when faced with the soulless, empty slate their lovers had become. Ivy and Nina were solid, and she and Kisten hadn’t shared blood those last few years. But Ivy loved him nevertheless. Her sight might be clouded.Why won’t you talk to me, Kisten?
But I couldn’t admit to Ivy that he wasn’t even returning my texts, and I pushed from the bar, plastic bag rattling. “Okay. I’ll be upstairs. I’ll shout if I need you.”
Her hand on mine stopped me cold. “You’ll be great,” she said, going up on one foot to lean over the bar and give me a kiss on the cheek, filling my world with the scent of happy vampire. She was happy. Kisten might be an undead, but she was happy. It had been worth every last burned synapse, every moment of pain.
I was smiling when she eased away, and I gave her hand a squeeze before it slipped from mine. “Great,” she’d said, but I had my doubts. The coven didn’t play fair. Neither did demons, but they, at least, didn’t play dirty.
“Be down in twenty,” I said as I turned to the stairs. It was getting close to dawn, and Brad’s curse worked best in the hour before and after the sun broke the horizon.
But as I put a foot on the wide stairs, something shivered through me, a ribbon of desire from a hint of recollection, a wafting of scent on the brimstone-and-vampire-scented air.
I hesitated, tasting the emotion-charged air as it soaked into me with the warmth of a puddle-warm memory.
“Rachel…”
The whisper pulled me around as a quiver rippled over my skin. Black eyes found mine, freezing me where I stood even as a heated warmth soaked into me. Kisten waited at the swinging doors to the kitchen, his hand gripping the old wood as he half hid behind it, not wanting to be seen. His gaze fixed to mine, the faintest rim of brown showing as he held himself at a quiet stillness—waiting for my reaction. I took a slow breath, and it seemed as if the world melted away, leaving only the two of us. A small part of me wondered if maybe this was why he had been putting me off. He knew I loved Trent, and he was…irresistible.
I turned, my foot slipping from the first step.
And then a wash of alarm coursed through me, scouring every last hint of desire from me. It was too close to sunrise for him to be aboveground.
I came forward, my libido gone and plastic bag rattling as I put a hand on his biceps and pushed him into the kitchen. The staff looked up from their cleaning, then went back to work, ignoring us with a practiced oblivion as I hustled him unprotestingly to the small alcove that held the stairs and elevator. My grip on him was featherlight, but little zings of sensation prickled through me. It had been two years, but my body remembered. Ached for it.I don’t want this.
But I couldn’t let him go.
“You need to be belowground,” I said as the door to the stairs shut behind us.
“I need to talk to you.”
His voice melted into me, and I took my hands off him to rub the tingles away. He had always been attractive—that was how Piscary had bred him. Death had made him sex incarnate, and I shifted to keep the door behind me. “Nowyou want to talk? This close to sunrise? I’ve been trying to see you all week.”