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beckham

The call came while Beckham was still at the office.

A sigh escaped his lips at the name that appeared in his contacts. Something sufficiently generic, but only he would know who was really calling. Fuck.

He closed his eyes and answered, “Anderson speaking.”

“We found it,” the voice said, smooth and silky.

“You’re sure.”

“He just called from the hospital. It popped up into their system only seconds ago. The flag came through. He’s already changing her information. Should I give him the go-ahead?”

Beckham hesitated. He knew what this meant. It would upend his life. Change everything. But it was what he was working for, why he was risking his job, lifestyle, and literal life in the upper echelon of Visage.

Plus, it would subdue some other complaints he’d had from Harrington recently. Complaints he could manage, but dissension was another thing. Not when the rebellion hung in the balance.

“Do it,” he said with resignation. “Make the match for me.”

“Done. Her name is Reyna. Go pick her up.”

“Understood.”

Beckham hung up and let the silence linger. He’d thought that he would feel more concerned that he was about to betray the only life he ever knew. The vampire world he had reigned over for decades, the friends and colleagues he’d risen up through the ranks with.

He felt mostly annoyed.

He dusted off his button-up, rolled down the sleeves, and slid his arms into his bespoke suit jacket. His assistant appeared frantic as he swept past her with a dismissive, “I’m going out.”

Most of his assistants acted that way. They feared him. They had every right to fear him.

“Anderson,” Roland called as he passed him on his way to Harrington’s office. The obnoxious, meddling vampire leaned against his assistant’s desk—a new blond, since he kept going through them like feeder stock. “Give my regard to Penelope.”

Beckham waved his hand at the man as he continued down the hallway. He knocked once on Harrington’s closed door, ignoring Harrington’s own assistant before stepping inside. The vampire seated behind the desk was frail. As frail as a vampire could get. But no one should underestimate him.

He was easily the most fearsome, brilliant man Beckham had ever known. It was why he had followed him out of his blood craze into this new horizon. To the blood cure. Where he was no longer just a savage beast and could retain some of his faculties. It was only when he was in far too deep that he realized his error.

“Beckham,” Harrington said with a genial smile. “Come in, my boy.”

“I just wanted to stop in to let you know they found a match.”

Harrington’s eyes lit up. As if he thought that he meant a match for Harrington—the one thing he had been searching for all these long years. And they had…but Beckham was taking her for himself. Protecting her.

“For me,” he added as if it were an afterthought.

“I see,” Harrington said with a soft sigh. “And?”

“I’m going to collect her. I’ll be out of the office the rest of the afternoon.”

“Is this a change of heart?”

Beckham smirked. He knew he couldn’t lay it on thick. He’d been too opposed to the idea of having Permanent subjects in their homes for Harrington to be fooled by a flip-flop in position. Not only was it going to wreck Beckham’s life to have a Permanent subject, but it was certainly going to end up with a lot more people killed by the entitled vampire elite. But he had to give in just a little.

“I can see the appeal,” Beckham said. “You know how I am about privacy.”

“It will be for the better. Just wait and see.”

Beckham nodded. “I believe you, sir.”

“We’ll have a meeting after you return. Talk it over!”

“As you wish.”

Beckham backed out of the office. That was as obsequious as he could manage. He wasn’t much for pandering even before he’d been turned. He certainly didn’t fucking care for it now.

He exited the Visage building downtown and hopped into an awaiting town car. His driver pulled away without incident, and they were meandering through the heavy midtown traffic. It would take an hour to get to the hospital. A fucking hour.

“The goddamn warehouses,” he grumbled.

He spent the hour on his phone, alternating between acquiescence to what he was about to walk into and abject fury. He was caught between a rock and a hard place. And every thought about it made him more and more angry. Yet there wasn’t a thing that he could do about it.

He was proverbially fucked.

Visage ran the world. Beckham was a senior executive for the company that employed more people than any other company in the world. They employed them as blood donors. Because of the cure, each vampire was matched with the blood type that they had when they were human. Drinking exclusively that blood reduced vampires’ bestiality. They were still animals. Beckham didn’t believe they could ever be anything else. But it also let him function in society, hide in plain sight.

And on the other hand, there was Elle. The rebellion that wanted the end of Visage. That believed that the humans who were employed were little more than chattel. They were food. Nothing more. Nothing less. And they all deserved more. A voice of reason in the depressing, deafening din that said that Visage would rule all and humans would fall under vampire rule.

He believed them.

Believed in them.

Which was why when they had asked him if they found a match for Harrington, if he would take the person in, he’d said yes. He could protect her, keep her out of reach.

There was no way to delete an entry in the system. If the match was found, then that person would inevitably find their way to Harrington. But they could change that match, and that was what had been done today.

So now, there were multiple problems.

First, he had to agree to terms he’d previously disagreed with Visage on. Giving just an inch more to the company that was determined to take a pound.

Next, he had to take this woman in without letting her know that he was leading a double life. He’d have to live with her in his space and no longer be able to come and go as he pleased. It would fuck up everything.

And finally, the worst of all, he couldn’t drink from her. She would be living in his house as the person he was supposed to drink from. She was the wrong blood type, and she couldn’t know that.

If he fucked up, if he drank from her, then he’d lose himself. Lose the man he had been building underneath the monster that he knew he was.

“Fuck,” he snarled again. “Back to anger I swing.”

He threw his phone across the car and put his head in his hands. This was an error. There was a calculated error in here somewhere. He had to figure it out. He had to shore up all possibilities.

Penny.

Maybe Penny would know.

He grasped his phone again and rang his main undercover contact, the woman he had been pretending to have a relationship with.

“Hey, Beckham. Miss me?” she teased. “You want dinner after work?”

Penelope Sky was the mayor’s daughter and conveniently Beckham’s blood type. That had been the easiest cover he’d ever had. Even if he and Penny didn’t exactly agree on the state of their relationship at any given time. Like the fact that it was off.

“I’m on my way to pick up a Permanent blood donor,” he said.

Penny breathed out softly. “Really? Unlike you.”

She knew what this meant. She’d been in the Elle meeting when it had been discussed.

“Decided to go through with it.”

“Well, you can always drink from me if you want.”

It sounded flirtatious, but it was a legitimate offer. He wouldn’t be able to drink from this person—Reyna. He’d need a backup. He’d need a way to survive. He couldn’t be around her starving, either.

“That sounds appealing,” he said in lieu of yes .

“Do you know who it is?”

“Her name is Reyna. That’s all the information I got from the hospital.”

“A girl, then,” Penny said, a little petulant.

“Woman,” he corrected. “Visage doesn’t employ children.”

“Yet,” she grumbled.

“Penny.”

He never could tell if this phone was tapped. He had a burner, but only calling Penny on it was suspicious as well. His entire life was this bullshit facade. He loathed it at every turn.

“Well, tell me what she’s like. I’ll have to meet her at some point.”

“I can’t just stash her in the penthouse and leave her there?”

Penny chuckled. “She’s a person, Beckham. You should treat her like one.”

“Excellent reminder.”

The silence stretched. He wanted to say so much more. Wanted her reassurance that he was making the right choices even as he felt all the roads closing to him.

“Call me later,” she said. “I want to hear all about it.”

“Maybe I’ll come to you.”

It sounded inviting, but it meant somewhere they couldn’t be overheard discussing Elle.

“Looking forward to it.”

Beckham hung up, more resigned than ever about what was coming. He would meet this Reyna. He’d stash her in the penthouse. He didn’t need a reason to not drink from her. She was his employee. He could do what he wanted.

With that, his driver pulled to the side entrance of the hospital. He stepped out of the car and through the back door. Hospital employees cowered when they saw him. He gave off that impression. A waft of fear that lingered as he past. It was what had made him a lord. It was what had made them worship him.

He reached the door and knocked twice, straightening to his considerable height, which took up much of the doorframe.

The door opened, and Dr. Washington stood in the frame. He nodded his head at the doctor.

“Reyna, allow me to introduce you to your Sponsor. This is Beckham Anderson, senior vice president of Visage Incorporated.”

Washington moved out of the way, and the woman stepped off of the hospital bed. He stilled under her dark gaze. She was, on all counts, nothing special. Under a layer of grime, she wore plain jeans and a T-shirt, tennis shoes, and had a baseball cap in her pocket.

No one should have noticed her. And yet, he could do nothing else.

He just stared at her. The pale, angular face that carved out her cheekbones and cut her jawline to a razor’s edge. Her lips a full pink pout with a notch in the middle of her bottom lip. Her dark hair was long and lush, falling like a curtain down her back even in a high ponytail. He had no idea what it would look like around her shoulders after a long and thorough wash.

But it was her eyes that first captivated him. A brown so depthless that he felt instantly lost in them. As if they were not a mirror but a portal to another world. She trapped him in that gaze and let him burrow down deep, falling into an alternate timeline where they did not meet like this as Sponsor and subject but as man and woman. As two people on the streets who found each other.

That wasn’t reality. She wasn’t a portal. Nor a siren.

She was just a woman.

Albeit possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

When neither of them said anything, Dr. Washington cleared his throat and continued. “Mr. Anderson, your new subject, Miss Reyna Carpenter.”

He still didn’t respond. Their staring contest was prolonged, and he couldn’t look away. Felt it in his bones that all those other problems he’d been worried about on his way over here meant nothing.

Because it hardly mattered that both of his bosses wanted this or that he couldn’t drink from this woman. All that mattered was that he was beyond fucked.

Her scent, her poise, her lifted defiant chin.

As if she wasn’t scared of him. As if she could stand there and act as if he did not frighten her, when everyone else in the hospital had recoiled at the sight of him.

No, the worst part was that he wanted her.

He wanted her.

“Well,” Dr. Washington said uncomfortably, “what do you think?”

He was soooo fucked.

Beckham broke her gaze to turn to the doctor. He had to remain himself. No one could know. They’d put her with someone else. They’d find another way.

He could never have her.

He would never have her.

“Yes. Fine,” he forced out. “She’ll do. I have a car waiting and a meeting to attend. Get her ready to leave immediately.”

Her eyebrows hiked up at his cold demeanor.

Good. Look away. Don’t show interest. Don’t make me hunt you.

“I believe she is ready to leave,” the doctor said. “We need your approval signature, and then she can be discharged.”

The doctor handed over a piece of paper, and Beckham scrawled his name across the line with a flourish.

“Great. She’s mine,” Beckham said, relishing the way mine slipped off his tongue. “Can we go now?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Reyna, come along.”

Reyna took a step toward him, her insolence still fully on display. Then she leaned over to the doctor, never taking her eyes off Beckham, and asked, “He’s not going to hurt me, right?”

His nostrils flared. So she was afraid, and she masked it that well. Oh, fuck. He would not just claim her; he would break her.

No. He had to slow himself down.

It had been a long time since he’d broken someone.

Since he’d craved it.

He wasn’t that monster anymore. He had to remember who he was. Even if the sight of her made him want to lose all control.

“I am not here to hurt you. You are my employee. I will treat you like an employee,” he said, forcing impatience into his voice. “And as my employee, we are in a bit of a hurry, so anything else you might wish to discuss with the doctor will have to wait. If everything is in order, we will leave.”

Reyna looked up at him as if she were drowning and he were a life raft. Oh, how he would revel in that look. She might hate him. That was better. For her to hate him. Then he would never get close enough for her to learn about his life. For her to invade anything more than his penthouse.

She was the most dangerous creature he had ever known.

She could ruin everything .

And a part of him wondered if he’d enjoy it when she did.

The love doesn’t end here…