Page 19 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood (A Paranormal Halloween #5)

“Okay then, I’ll try the ones you like here, and then we’ll head across the river to try some on there.

If I like these better, I’ll have Tariq purchase them for me tomorrow during the day.

I’ll take a picture of the correct ones, as well as the box with the name and size, so he’ll be sure to get the correct boots. ”

“I don’t think I’ve explained properly. These are fine, but if you want to impress my friends, the Lucchese will do that.

Also, if you think you might want to wear them in the future, the Lucchese are definitely more your style.

These are actual work boots, made for riding and shoveling hay and whatever else ranch hands do. The others are dress boots.”

Ah. That cleared up the confusion. She wanted him to impress her friends, so that’s what he’d do. “Okay then. Let’s check out here and head across the river. No need in trying these on.”

* * * *

Aury stumbled a little on the steps into the boot store, and Axel did the thing where she wasn’t having to support all her weight again.

“No. Don’t do that. I’m okay. A lifetime of stopping and being super-careful on steps, and I just went too fast. I have to think about walking up to them and coordinating the step up with having to slow down. I’m way better at it than I was, but it still doesn’t always work exactly right.”

He slowly pulled his help away instead of doing it all at once, and she said, “Thank you.”

At the door, he opened it for her, and a wave of heat spilled from the store.

“You know how your knee is holding up and what you need,” he said. “I trust you not to tell me you’re fine when you’re not.”

“Trust is important to me,” she told him.

“Me too. We’re figuring it out, right?”

She arrowed straight to the brown boots, since that’s what Rip mostly wears, but Axel gravitated to a black crocodile pair, and she had to admit those fit his personality better.

He tried them on, declared them comfortable, paid, and asked her what bar they were going to when he opened the door for them to leave.

“I was going to say the Frazier Five and Dime, since it’s just down the street from Ruby’s place, but since we’re out here, maybe Malone’s?” She considered their options and said, “Do you play pool? We aren’t far from TBC.”

“It’s pitting us against each other, but if neither of us is an expert, I think billiards could be fun while we talk. We might need to telepath, depending upon how close other patrons are.”

“I mean, I can hold my own, but it isn’t like I compete at it.”

“Same, so yes, billiards sounds nice.” He put her into the passenger side, made sure her seatbelt was secure, and told her, “I need to handle a quick text before we leave.”

He stood at the back of the car long enough to send a quick text, and then he was sliding into the driver’s seat, sexy as fuck .

“Problems at home? Was it okay for you to just pick up and leave the country without planning it ahead of time?”

“It was fine. The text was to the local Master Vampire, and I’m sorry I’m not at liberty to tell you more.”

“I want to say I’m sorry for being snarky about that before, but I’m really not.”

He chuckled. “I like that you have claws. Do you know the way to the billiard club, or should I put the address into the car?”

“I know the way. Go back out to the main road and turn right. It’s just a couple of turns from here, but it’s on the other side of the interstate.”

“I know you ate, but they have appetizers if you want to snack.”

“I might order some of their fried pickles, but my biggest decision is whether I want margaritas tonight, or mojitos.”

“You’re leaning towards the latter.”

“Yes. What will you drink?”

“I doubt they have Stagg, but they’re likely to have either Woodford Reserve, Buffalo Trace, Knob Creek or, if all else fails, Maker’s Mark.”

That surprised her. “Whiskey. I expected tequila or something similar, since you were born in either Central or South America.”

“I was born in Italy.”

She shook her head. “But you were bitten by a spider native to Brazil.”

“Ah, I see the confusion. The spider I was bitten by is extinct, but my research tells me it’s closely related to the Brazilian Wandering Spider. Looks nearly identical, venom seems to work the same. It’s easiest to just name the one people know of now, rather than explaining it’s extinct.”

“How does a spider go extinct? It isn’t like people can overhunt them.”

“Northern Italy, and the rest of that portion of Europe, experienced what is known as the Little Ice Age starting around 1450. It lasted four hundred years, but was especially bad the first fifty. If this spider was truly closely related to the Brazilian Wandering Spider, an artifact of Pangea or whatever, it’d likely adapted to live in a colder climate, but an actual ice age pushed it too far too fast, and it couldn’t adapt. ”

She’d need to change that in her notes when she returned home, and she skimmed that thought and came up with something else to ask.

“What else can you do? You’re super strong, can see better than us, hear better than us.

You can fly or levitate or whatever, and you can help me be lighter.

Ruby says sex with you is better, so I guess you have some kind of special non-human abilities there, too? ”

“Besides being able to last much longer than a human male, yes, we have a few other tricks. You already know I can go into your mind, and that I can put suggestions in people’s minds to make them do what I wish.”

“Did you want to be turned into a vampire?”

“I did.”

Well, that was refreshing.

The angsty, emo vampires in fiction grated against her last nerve, constantly whining about their lost humanity like they’d been saints to begin with.

She immediately regretted the mental monologue because he’d likely heard the whole damned mess. Heat crawled over her face, and then she realized he probably saw her discomfort, too, and she grabbed at the first thing she could think of to change the subject.

“What else should I ask?”

“The vampire who made me did so because I was so ruthless as a human. He wanted a coterie of ruthless vampires, and that’s what he created. I was not a good person when human, and this didn’t improve during the first centuries of life as a vampire.”

“What changed?”

He stayed focused on the road, the traffic. “One of the vampires I made went off the rails. I had to help contain him, and I heard what was said about him, as well as about me, his maker.”

He seemed to consider his wording a second. “I’ve never cared about what people thought of me, other than wanting them to fear me enough they didn’t dare come after me, but honor has always been important. I realized the reputation I’d cultivated to keep me alive wasn’t necessarily one of honor.”

They came to a red light, but he kept looking ahead. She had the idea he’d never spoken this aloud before, and eye contact might’ve been too much while he bared this part of his history. While he bared part of his soul to her.

“I reevaluated some of my choices,” he continued, “and oathed to a vampire with a reputation for being good. Not a pushover, but he didn’t enjoy being evil, he only did terrible things out of necessity.”

The light changed, and the tension in the car ratcheted down a little, as if the task of driving helped him past his discomfort.

“I joined the coterie with the understanding I’d be the Master’s Exsequor, his evildoer, but still, life under him was different.

I had to take on his morals as my own, and that was difficult.

They never made sense, but I followed them because I respected him. ”

She wanted to thank him for opening up to him, but had the sense doing so would make him uncomfortable, so she merely asked, “And now?”

“I walked the city last night, getting the lay of the land, so to speak, and I found myself wondering what you would do under certain circumstances.”

“Like what?”

“My default used to be immediate death to anyone who threatened me, but now…” He glanced at her and back to the road. “If it isn’t a serious threat, I go into their heads. Last night, when members of a gang saw a white man in their territory and moved to surround me, I made them…”

She lifted her brows, but didn’t push him to go on.

“I made the three underlings attack the one over them and gang-rape him. He’d recently taken part in the same violent act, and some will say it’s wrong for me to play judge and jury, but it got their attention off me and will probably fuck up the inner workings of that particular criminal enterprise. ”

She sat back and looked at him, knowing he was watching her thoughts, so he saw her initial revulsion and then karmic satisfaction. She couldn’t bring herself to approve of his actions, and yet, she didn’t entirely disapprove.

It was brutal. Wrong . But it pleased a secret, dark part of her psyche.

And that bothered her enough, she might need to bring it up with Dr. Woods later, but for now, she told him, “With great power comes great responsibility. I can totally understand the desire to do that, and I wasn’t in his head, didn’t see the event. Maybe I’d have wanted to do the same, if I had.”

“But?”

“Your actions didn’t help the girl who was gang-raped, but it might, possibly, have kept it from happening to others in the future?” She shrugged. “I don’t know what I’d have done with that much power, that much information. If I could’ve found the girl, I’d have tried to help her.”

“Two of the girls are dead, the third allowed to keep her life if she left town. It was a punishment thing, meant to send a message to other girlfriends who don’t exactly toe the line.”

She sat back. “Yeah. Making them gang-rape him is sounding better and better.”

He found a parking spot close to the door, and a waitress met them just inside to tell them she’d take them to their table. Was that the text at the back of the car? Because he hadn’t known they were coming here until then, so how had he made arrangements in a strange city within minutes?

When she asked him, he only told her he had his ways, and she assumed he’d somehow used his vampire powers. The waitress at least had to ask for their drink orders.

Axel won the first game, Aury won the second, and they were in their third game when a tall, handsome man in a suit walked up to the table, and Axel stood to greet him. “Marco. It’s good to see you again.”

The two shook hands, and Marco looked to Aury. “I see that you recognize the name.”

Right. Master Vampire. Super powerful. He looked like a confident man in a bespoke business suit, but she didn’t feel power oozing off of him, as she’d expected when in his presence.

He looked to Axel and seemed displeased. She guessed the two of them were telepathing. After several long moments, Marco gave him a tiny nod and looked back to her.

“I wanted a chance for a quick hello, which I’ve done. I’ll have an order of fried pickles and fried mushrooms brought to your table on the house, as an apology for interrupting your date.”

He glanced at Axel and back to her. “I see the attraction between the two of you.” He paused, and suddenly seemed more like a meddling aunt than some uber-powerful vampire. “It seems I’m a sucker for wanting relationships to succeed, these days.”

He looked to Axel. “If you don’t fuck up, I’ll likely allow your presence in my territory while you and your Aurélie figure things out.”

Axel looked at him a beat. “It truly wasn’t intentional.”

“I can see that, which is why you aren’t in cuffs being marched downstairs.”

Aury heard him say it, wanted to ask what it was about, and then couldn’t remember what she’d wanted to ask. It suddenly seemed important she be polite to this vampire, and she asked, “Is there a way I should address you?”

“I appreciate the question, but I’m just Marco, to you.”

A tall, giant of a man stepped up and put two baskets on the table — one with pickles, the other with mushrooms. “I could see you prefer blue cheese to the ranch we usually provide for dipping, so I had them use it, instead.” He looked to Marco.

“The waitresses are covered up, so I brought them out.”

“This is Julian, my assistant.” He looked at Axel. “You have his contact information, and unless you have something critical that can’t wait for an answer, it’s best to go through him, when you need to contact me.”

When they were gone, Aury dug into her food, and Axel took his next shot before sitting with her.

“Is that normal? The local boss checking in on the visitor’s girlfriend?”

He tilted his head. “Considering he’s already had three of his inner circle talk to me, it was unexpected, but based on what I know of him, it’s probably not terribly outside his normal.”

“How about his assistant poking around in my head to find out I prefer blue cheese to ranch? Because that was a little disturbing.”

“Try to think of it as being an important enough guest, they bothered to look.”

Aury wasn’t sure that was better, but she figured it wasn’t worth it to argue the point. Vampires didn’t understand boundaries when it came to looking in people’s heads. Clearly.

They spent the rest of the evening playing, drinking, and talking. He was much better at billiards, and she only won a few games, but it didn’t matter. She was having fun.

And at the end of the night, another long kiss goodnight in Ruby’s living room. Warm, unhurried, and a little sweeter than the last.

Then he was gone.