Page 36 of Taming His Vampire Mate

Wordlessly, Thierry nodded and led the way to the rental office. We stepped through the door, and I saw immediately that the motel wasn’t operational. It was as empty as the rest of the town. An untouched cup of coffee sat on the desk beside a computer monitor.

I touched the side of the mug. Cold.

Thierry slipped behind the counter to the computer—presumably used to check guests in—and tapped the space bar. The monitor flickered to life just as I stepped around to watch. No password. Whoever had been working last had been watching a movie on a streaming service.

The film was frozen on-screen, a dialog box reading:Are you still there?

Thierry’s expression went colder, more remote. He stared at the screen for a long moment. Then, darkening, he shut the monitor off without a word.

In that instant, I knew he felt the gravity of what had happened here. He felt it every bit as much as I did.

Impossible.

But true.

I swallowed hard, staring at him. He didn’t seem to notice my entire worldview was rearranging—resetting itself to include the fact that vampires, even assholes like Thierry, could feel emotions after all. And maybe Thierry wasn’t nearly as cold and unaffected as he pretended to be.

The smell of fried food lingered from deeper in, past the open doorway to what must have been the manager’s apartment.

Mingled with it came another, fainter scent: blood. Already fading. Too late to save anyone.

When Thierry started toward it, I stopped him.

“There’s no heartbeat,” I said, stepping forward. I almost put a hand on his shoulder before I caught myself. “No movement, no breathing. If someone human was hiding in there, we’d know it.”

“There’s blood in the air,” Thierry replied coolly. “We need to see what happened. That’s the whole point of our mission. If you refuse to see that, you ought to leave and stop getting in my way.”

“It doesn’t make sense to waste time here.”

He shot me a suspicious look. “What do you think you’re doing, wolf?”

Truth was, if there were no survivors, I didn’t want him going in there. Knowing whatever he saw might affect him had… changed things.

I wanted to—

…What?

I wanted to protect him from seeing whatever waited on the other side of that door. That’s what.

Before I could phrase it in a way that wouldn’t piss him off, he shook his head, lost patience, and vanished through the doorway.

“Shit,” I muttered, and followed.

The living room was surprisingly well-decorated for a tiny middle-of-nowhere town. Probably not many shopping options here. An expensive rug covered most of the floor, with a matching couch and armchairs, an espresso-colored coffee table, a display case of DVDs, and a sleek, wall-mounted TV. Framed artwork and photographs lined the walls. I avoided looking too closely—they were landscapes, done by hand. It was too easy to imagine someone like Ian, lost in their work with a paintbrush in hand, not having any concept of the danger about to befall them.

“Whoever lived here must’ve saved a ton on rent,” I guessed, wrenching my gaze away from the paintings. My voice came out thicker than I wanted, grief stabbing through me—but I was used to that by now.

“There are no signs of struggle,” Thierry said quietly. “Not in here, and not in the office.”

Before I could ask why that mattered, he led us into the kitchen, following the scent of blood as easily as I could.

The lights were all on.

The kitchen was immaculate and surprisingly large, with sage-green cabinets, spotless white tile counters, and pristine appliances. Potted herbs lined the windowsill, soaking up the late-morning sun. In the center of the room stood a sturdy square table, the chairs neatly pushed in.

And there was a large pool of dried blood, soaked into the hardwood floor. An overturned chair lay beside it.

Thierry’s gaze lingered on the stain before sweeping the rest of the room.