Page 46 of Fanged Embrace

I crunched into my toast, eyes tracking the delicate choreography, before connecting the dots from her hand to her elbow to her shoulder, and up the column of her throat. My gaze kept climbing until it found the soft curve of her mouth, full lips hewn tight in concentration.

She didn’t look like the vampires I’d known before. She had something they didn’t.

Most of them were drop-dead gorgeous, but… empty. Time had stolen something from them, but what that something was I could not tell. Whatever it was, though—a spark of life, of humanity—River still had it. After all the years she’d lived, her eyes were still fiercely vibrant, brimming with light.

She’s so… beautiful, my brain noted—and I promptly inhaled a breadcrumb.

Cue immediate choking, hacking, dying on the spot. River was at my side in a heartbeat. “You okay? Do you need wat?—”

I swiped at the glass of water she offered, chugging it down with rabid urgency and deftly avoiding acknowledgment of the thought that had just crossed my mind.

“I’m okay—” I sloughed out a cough, pounding a fist to my chest and wheezing through the asphyxiation while a blushing heat crept up my neck.

“You sure?” River leaned an elbow on the counter and brought her face to my level. Nose-to-nose like that, my pulse ticked up tenfold while she squinted at me. “You’re turning blue—and… red. Purple, really.”

“I’m fine!” I jerked away, cheeks scorching, and was saved—blessedly—by my phone buzzing across the countertop. I hauled myself upright and reached for it, slipping off the stool with a throaty rasp. “I gotta take this—I’ll…be-right-back.”

I hightailed it out of the kitchen before she could respond and motored down the hallway, far away enough that shecouldn’t hear me even with her vampire senses and secluded enough that I could recover from whatever fluttering sensation she’d kickstarted in my stomach.

Grinding out another ragged exhale I checked the screen, winced, and answered the call. “Arlon?”

His voice came hollow and despondent through the line. “Laurie? Bad News.”

My throat ached like I’d been gargling kerosene, and I attempted another swallow before answering. “What’s up?”

“That location I got from the guy at the bar? Dead end.”

“What!?” I stiffened and rammed the cell tighter against my ear. “You checked it out? When?”

“I sent a team in at dawn—looked like a lab had been set up in there, but the whole place was cleared out. No paperwork, no tech, nothing to work with.”

I felt a twinge of guilt. The warehouse had been emptied, all evidence carefully erased by River’s coven overnight. If Arlon’s people had gone in twenty-four hours earlier, they’d have found way more than they bargained for. Instead, they got a ghost town—and it was partly my fault for not keeping him in the loop.

“We scanned the place top to bottom,” Arlon was muttering, frustration creeping through the static. “Nothing. No new clues.”

I swallowed again, this time grateful for the burn, a pain I probably deserved.

“I’m sorry,” Arlon said again, mistaking my silence for disappointment. “We’ll have to start from square one.”

“It’s all right.” I tried to keep my tone light, feigning the kind of optimism the guy was always trying to coax from me. “We’ll find another lead—just gotta keep looking.”

I hated lying to him, but I had no choice.

Besides—my gaze drifted back down the hallway, wherelight, cheery whistling emanated from the kitchen—I have a new partner now.

Someone well acquainted with the supernatural world. Someone who could get me to the heart of the organization, while Arlon stayed safe at his desk.

Someone who, admittedly, got my pulse racing for reasons I refused to consider.

23

River

By the time Laurie returned to the kitchen I had my orders from Jordan rattling down our psychic line. It was all hands on deck smoking out the other facilities, and I planned to get started immediately with the first lead we had.

Laurie paused at the island, the faintest flush still staining her cheeks after the crumb debacle. She watched me down my coffee in three sips. “You heading out?”

“Yep. They need me at HQ.” I drained the cup and slammed it down, then pointed a finger at her across the island. “So you can hang back here and rest for the day.”