Page 2 of The Vampire Kingpin (The Vampire Syndicate #7)

Lark

ONE WEEK LATER

I skidded to a stop, the stolen dagger a cold weight against my inner thigh.

At nine P.M., the Village Halloween Parade was just hitting its stride. The streets were packed with dancing, singing Jack Skellingtons, Maleficents, Beetlejuices and other monsters, not all of them human.

Halloween in New York is off the hinge.

But then, so was my cousin Grimclaw’s latest scheme. Off the hinge, as in: irrational, demented, no-way-we’d-get-away-with-it.

The real question was, why had I gone along with it?

You didn’t have a choice, Lark.

Grimclaw had made it clear that if I didn’t steal the dagger, I could find another lair. And who would take in Grimclaw’s cousin/stepsister? They’d think I was spying for him. The man wasn’t exactly popular in the Underworld.

Dodging a sweaty human in a werewolf pelt, I threaded my way through the crowd until I reached Sixth Avenue. Steam rose from a subway grate, adding to the Halloween-y vibe. A New Orleans jazz band high-stepped their way past, a gargantuan witch operated by four puppeteers in slo-mo pursuit.

I chanced a look behind me. No sign of Spider, but the skin between my shoulder blades crawled. He was out there somewhere.

He’d seen me running away from his lair.

On the other hand, he hadn’t seen me with his dagger. That had been safely stowed in a special pocket tied to my inner thigh. Maybe he’d think I hadn’t gotten anything and let me go?

Nah. This was Spider .

I hadn’t just broken into his lair, I’d been in his freaking bedroom. He couldn’t let me get away with that.

I swallowed, still tasting the chocolate caramels I’d shoved into my mouth before heading into his bedroom.

Big mistake. The time I’d taken to poke around in his lair’s pantry had cost me precious seconds, but I hadn’t been able to resist dipping into that turquoise MariBelle’s box.

Living with Grimclaw, I was so cash-poor I rarely had the means to treat myself to really good… anything, really.

And those chocolates had been really, really good.

Twisty the Clown sidled up to me. “Well, hello, Wednesday.”

He dropped an arm around my shoulders and toasted me with a can of vodka soda. I stiffened, itching to carve a new smile into his face with my blade. But Twisty was camouflage.

“Hey,” I replied in my best deadpan Wednesday Addams.

My costume—black dress with a white collar, hair parted in the middle and braided into two long pigtails—had been chosen to blend in. I’d even powdered my face white to dampen my telltale glow.

Unfortunately, there weren’t that many Wednesdays running around, especially bleeding ones. The gash Spider’s little trap had left in my palm still hadn’t closed—silver wounds take time to heal.

I’d been rinsing my hand in his bathroom sink when I’d heard him outside his lair, talking to a guard. I’d grabbed a handful of tissues, pressed them to my bleeding palm, and faded into the shadows.

I’d escaped, but the shadow world drains you dry, and I’d lingered too long. When I’d dropped back into the physical world, my hand was still bleeding, and trust me, you didn’t want to be leaving the scent of blood with a vampire tracking you.

And this wasn’t any vampire—this was Spider, New York’s Underworld kingpin. The guy was stupid powerful. Even out West, we’d heard of him. I’d wager my (pathetically small) stash of precious stones that he could track me even in a throng like this.

Damn Grimclaw, anyway. Spider wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near his lair. Grim had sworn, hand to his black, shriveled heart, that Spider would be out tonight, with only minimal security on duty.

“It’s Halloween,” Grim had reminded me. “Everyone will be out hunting.”

I ground my back teeth. Thank you very much, Grim.

It wasn’t the first time my cousin had promised something he couldn’t deliver.

I was the ass for believing him. But in my defense, it was Hallow’s Eve.

We’re all—vampires and dhampirs—out roaming on the wildest night of the year.

Humans are amped up on adrenaline and alcohol; they practically offer themselves to you on a platter.

Getting into Spider’s lair had been easy. I’d only had to evade two booby traps. Then I’d waited in the shadows until one of the men guarding the door had entered the lair and slipped through the door after him. Inside, the lair had been nearly empty.

Piece of cake, right?

But as I opened the wall safe in Spider’s bedroom, I’d tripped a third trap, a silver razor that nearly sliced my hand in two. Now I was battling silver poisoning on top of the aftereffects of too much time in the shadows. Both were messing with my ability to heal my palm.

“Great parade, huh?” Twisty yelled in my ear.

I moved a shoulder. “It’s…adequate.”

“Adequate?” He laughed. “Good one, Wednesday.”

My nape tingled, raising hairs all over my body. Spider was near. I felt it.

“Later, Clown Boy.” Shaking off his arm, I darted under the barricades, ignoring the shout of an irate cop, and shot across Sixth Avenue ahead of a group of glowing skeletons. I ducked under another barricade and pushed my way into the crowd on the far side of the street.

The humans muttered and shot me irritated looks. “Rude,” said a woman under her breath.

I flashed my fangs at her. She blinked, then eyed me, interested now. Too bad I didn’t have time to play.

Where was Spider?

Scanning the area for a tall, brown-skinned man in a gold-and-brown paisley shirt, I eased backward through the mass of people. Hoping against hope I’d lost him.

The gash on my palm had finally healed over. I balled up the bloody tissues and shoved them into a trash can, hoping to throw him off the scent.

Gradually, the crowd thinned. I sidled up next to a cross-dressing Morticia in towering heels. Maybe Spider would think we were a duo.

Morticia dipped their chin to me, unsmiling. “Daughter.”

“Mother,” I replied with an equally straight face, pretending interest in the parade at the other end of the block.

A float rolled past, its DJ hyping up the crowd, the heavy beat of techno bouncing off the brownstones.

Footsteps sounded to our left. I chanced a look around Morticia’s flowing black dress and caught a glimpse of gold stretched across broad shoulders.

He was looking the other way, his brown skin glowing faintly in the darkness like it was moon-touched.

A vampire’s tell. One that, as a dhampir, I shared.

Hell.

Heart hammering, I attempted to melt into the shadows, even though I was running on fumes.

After a few shaky seconds teetering between the physical and twilight worlds, I gave up and ducked into an alley, hugging the wall until I reached a beat-up dumpster.

It reeked like something had died in there, but the stench would cover my scent.

Darting around the dumpster, I pressed my back to the gritty brick wall on the other side, taking shallow breaths through my mouth. I palmed my switchblade, wincing as the handle brushed my wound, and wedged myself into the corner made by the dumpster and the wall.

The footsteps halted.

I stilled and held my breath.

The air stirred. Icy prickles skittered up my spine.

The dumpster lid creaked. Spider—because it had to be him—had climbed on top of it. My head jerked up. A man’s shadow loomed on the bricks above me.

I bolted for the alley’s end.

I didn’t make it three steps before he crashed onto my back, taking me to the pavement. The impact drove the air from my body. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Strong thighs straddled my hips. I bucked wildly, trying to throw him off.

Cold silver touched my throat. “You know what I do to thieves?” he said against my ear.

I froze. “I—I—” I dragged in some much-needed oxygen and wriggled my hips, using the distraction to shove the switchblade back into my pocket.

His blade held steady against my skin, the silver burning like a bee sting. “Talk. Where’s my dagger?”

I rested my cheek against the asphalt and rasped, “Don’t know.”

“Like Hades you don’t.” He screwed the point deeper, making me suck in a pained breath. “Lie to me again and I’ll cut your goddamn tongue out.”

I gulped. Jesus, the man was cold. I’d been right to stay out of his way.

He lifted the blade from my neck. “Let’s try that again. Where’s my dagger?”

“I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong person.”

Technically, it wasn’t a lie. I hadn’t said what I was the wrong person for.

A harsh sound low in his throat was my only warning before the alley spun around me and I was flat on my back. Spider shoved a blade into a leather holster and straddled my chest. His hands landed onmy shoulders, pushing me into the pavement.

He examined me from beneath long, thick lashes. “Where is it?”

I licked my lips, excruciatingly aware of both his knife against my inner thigh and the switchblade concealed in the pocket of the pleated skirt bunched up around my hips.

His gaze went to my mouth, and my mind just…blanked. I’d never seen Spider up close before.

All vampires are gorgeous with an innate magnetism that can scramble your brains. But I was a dhampir, dammit, with some of that beauty and magnetism myself. I should’ve been immune.

Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.

In my defense, the dude was hot , with this whole alpha-vampire, I’ll-give-you-the-best-fuck-of-your-life thing going on. Liquid brown eyes, shoulder-length hair styled in long twists, a dark scruff covering his chiseled jawline.

But it was more than that. Tall and broad-shouldered, he oozed charisma like a rockstar on stage, commanding attention like it was his right.

He even smelled good. Coconut oil, and something rich and very male. I drew a breath, pulling his scent into my lungs, and his gaze dropped to my flared nostrils.

His sculpted lips tugged up like he was fighting not to laugh.

My cheeks heated. I was amusing him.

Working my hands between us, I shoved at his rock-hard abs. “Get off me!”

His eyes tracked from my flushed cheeks to my throat and back to my face again. “Say please.”

Something tightened in my core. The way he’d said that…

I was instantly wet. Clearly, it had been too long since I’d had sex.

“What?” I repeated in a too-husky voice.

“You heard me. Beg me, and maybe I’ll get off you.”

I met his eyes. “Fuck. You.”

His face hardened, and he leaned closer, his ropes of hair falling forward to brush my neck and face. The diamond studs in his earlobes glittered like stars against his moon-touched skin.

“D’you know who I am?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Then if I were you, I’d start begging.”

Alright, now he was pissing me off. Plus, he’d underestimated me because he’d left my hands free. I brought them back to my sides, casually resting my right hand on my rucked-up skirt.

“Make me,” I told him, soft and seductive.

His pupils darkened. “Make you?”

Huh. This was almost too easy.

“Mm-hm.” I slipped a hand into the pocket and closed my fingers around my switchblade.

His eyes narrowed. “What’re you up to?”

“Me?” I released the catch and pulled it out of my pocket, slashing at his face.

His hand shot out, cobra-fast, and plucked the knife from my fingers. He tossed it to the asphalt and slammed back onto me, locking his arm over my throat like an iron bar. “That was a mistake, Lark Nightstar.”

When I stiffened at my full name—which no one in the Underworld knew except Grimclaw—a feral smile curved his lips.

“Yeah, I know who you are. You think you can live down here for six months without me knowing anything about you? And since you wanna play games, I’m Spider. The man who owns you now.”