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“We need to strip him naked,” I told Sawyer and Jacek later that morning as I buttoned my jeans in a hurry. I’d collapsed in Sawyer’s bed after my talk with Ronick, so totally done with everything, but I’d only managed a couple hours of sleep. I had an early-morning split shift at The Dream Bean, though, and college classes I was already falling behind on. Pretty sure I had a paper due in my World Lit class today, possibly on one of the Bronte sisters. Or was it Toni Morrison? Hell, I wasn’t even sure what century I was supposed to be in for that class, which was very unlike me.
“That sounds like a not-me job,” Jacek said, manspreading on the couch. “I can’t promise I won’t shove Ronick’s own cock down his throat hard enough to pop out his eyeballs.” He lifted a hand at Sawyer’s narrowed eyes. “Sorry, I can’t promise I won’t shove Ronick’s own penis down his throat hard enough to pop out his eyeballs.”
Sawyer handed me my jacket by the front door. His warrior’s body was clad in jeans and a tight black T-shirt, the sun and moon tattoos on his bronze skin back to their normal positions. “Since the Necron Brotherhood is breaking all of their own rules, Ronick may not even have any tattoos to see. My tattoos only let me see who’s near, not who’s nearest, as in the woodshed in the backyard. But I’ll go talk to him, see if I can find out anything.”
Jacek leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and his eyes flashed. “I’ll help.”
I aimed a worried glance at Jacek. “Strip him naked if you need to, but try not to hurt him? God, I hate having you guys do all my dirty work, but I have got to go. Can one of you tell Eddie I may need help on a research paper later today?”
Eddie’s footsteps thudded down the stairs, and then he appeared quick as a blur. “Or you can tell me yourself, Sunshine. What’s the paper?”
“The Bronte sisters or Toni Morrison. It depends on how far behind I am.”
“Sure. I have some original manuscripts of the Bronte sisters upstairs, and I guess you could say Toni and I are pen pals.” He shrugged and pushed his glasses up. “We go back a ways.”
“You...” I blinked at him. “Wow. I don’t deserve you three.”
All of them smiled.
Jacek rose from the couch and winked. “Pretty sure you have that backward.”
Pretty sure I didn’t, but I let it slide. More words tipped my tongue, but they pinched my heart too much to say right then and I didn’t have time for an emotional breakdown. The truth was every time I left them, I ached for them, like a sharp and constant pain centered around my heart. More my heart than my pussy, if you can believe it, though it reminded me regularly of its needs too. I waited until they were safely in the kitchen before I reluctantly opened the front door to the dreary fall day.
My shift at The Bean Dream started off with a bang as sleepy customers kept staggering in, looking for the first caffeinated fix that would help get them through their days. While they stared at me with bleary eyes, none of them seemed to remember that they’d tried to kill me just days ago outside the police department. Must be nice to forget something like that since I never would.
I took several hits of my own legal bean drug between customers, and even then I was only functioning on half my usual amount of cylinders. When the breakfast crowd finally slowed, I refreshed my cup and made a gingerbread latte with extra whipped cream for Sylvia, who had ducked into her office earlier.
“Oh, you lifesaver you,” she said, making grabby hands for her drink.
I handed it to her with a smile. “Do you ever wonder what would happen if we went through a prohibition with coffee?”
“No.” She took a long draw from her cup and then sighed rapturously.
“Me neither. I was just checking to make sure you weren’t worried.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Speaking of not worrying, I’m going out again this weekend, if you want to come. Plenty of guys.” She lifted an eyebrow. “And girls.”
“I don’t really do...people.” I smirked at my own goofy double meaning but hid it behind my cup of coffee, black as my soul, as I took another drink. “Or social situations for that matter.”
So what do you do in your free time, Belle?
Sharpen wood into stakes and scour the graveyard for things to kill. You?
In high school, I did go out a few times, but all small talk was awkward as fuck because I had nothing in common with anyone. My slayer status hung over my head, marking me as different, even though I couldn’t really tell anyone about it. It likely made me come across as shifty and full of myself, when really I would have traded anything for a normal life. And now? With the constant threat of Paul and the Necron Brotherhood and the mental and physical strain to keep putting one foot in front of the other? My heart flashed me an image of my three vamps. Honestly? I wouldn’t trade any of it.
Bonkers, I know. I should probably commit myself right after work. But they’d wrapped me up into their lives like a family, something I’d been missing since Mom died. They’d helped fill that hole with laughter, caring, fucking, pie, and a sense of home. How could I ever repay them for that?
“Are you sure?” she asked. “You could help me dispose of the delivery man’s body...”
I snorted. Sylvia’s sarcasm, so much like my own, was one of my favorite things about working here. That, and the coffee.
“Did he fall into your trunk?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what happened.” She grinned, her dark eyes alight with humor. “Come with me?”
I frowned. “Sorry, I can’t.”
“Well, if you change your mind...” she said, her face falling.
I nodded and got out of her office quick before I said I’d go just to keep from feeling like an asshole. Every time she’d asked if I wanted to come out with her, I’d said no. I hated disappointing people. Always had. Which was why I’d never had any close friends, because as the slayer, that pretty much ruled out slumber parties and sharing everything, including our darkest secrets. The only person who I’d ever let come close to being my best friend was Mom. God, I missed her something awful.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Detective Appelt. Finally.
Detective Blake Friday, it read.
Tattoo Guy.
Who also happened to be named after a day of the week, something which Ronick sure seemed to care about. Coincidence?
I sent the name to Sawyer and then settled in to fling more coffee while thoughts of Friday—both the man and the day—thumped louder and louder inside my skull.
* * *
AS SOON AS MY SECOND shift ended, I rushed home, the one that actually felt like home, and went in search of Sawyer to see if he’d found anything about Detective Blake Friday. I found him in the bathroom. Steam rose from the shower, scented with lavender and something else I didn’t know the name of, and I breathed it in until it settled into my pores. Through the steam and clear shower curtain, Sawyer’s massive shoulders, tattooed back, and perfectly sculpted ass were visible. He faced away from me, one hand splayed on the tile wall. Water rained down on him, curling the silky strands of his dark hair closer to this jaw, trailing down his bronzed skin in lickable paths.
With my hand still on the doorknob, I debated if I wanted to keep it unlocked or have him all to myself. I knew he still carried his guilt around him like a heavy chain even though he’d saved all the slayers who had existed after the Necron Brotherhood disbanded. Even though he’d saved me. He deserved someone to lighten his load.
Literally. Figuratively. Take it however you want.
I locked the door and undressed as quietly as I could, then folded back a corner of the shower curtain and stepped inside the clawed-footed bathtub. I’d angled my entrance so I came in right behind his back so he wouldn’t see me. Maybe he didn’t even smell me over the strong lavender scent. Or maybe he was too busy to notice.
The hand not splayed against the wall was out of sight in front of him, but I could sure guess where it was. His perfect ass flexed as his hips thrust forward, over and over again. His upper arm moved furiously. I crept up closer behind him to watch, the warm water from the shower spraying up my thighs. My entire body heated at the sight in front of me. He pumped his fist up and down his steel-hard cock, his eyes squeezed shut, his sinful mouth parted so his tongue could flick out and stroke his bottom lip. Watching him like this, losing himself while pleasuring himself, stormed my blood south, making me throb with want all over.
I pressed up against his back, and he tensed, his grip on himself stopping, and looked over his shoulder. Then he relaxed into a groan as I wrapped my arms around him and helped him stroke his rigid cock.
“Belle...”
I answered him with a trail of kisses up his back, my fingers guiding his into the same rhythm before he’d stopped. My hips rolled forward into the backs of his, pushing him along into climax. With the hand that had been spread on the tile wall, he reached behind him and palmed my ass, shoving me forward into him so that my pussy rubbed up against the back of his thigh. Already swollen with need, I rubbed it even harder against him, my body completely snapping from my control.
Then, with a wild growl, Sawyer turned and spun me about until my back was pressed up against the shower wall. He consumed my mouth with his, his tongue seeking and licking at the same tempo as his hips thrusting against mine. His hard length pressed against my opening, but he seemed too out of control at the moment to care that he wasn’t yet inside me. He palmed my breast and squeezed my nipple almost to the point of pain.
He pulled his mouth away from mine and then growled into my neck. “I want to fuck you so hard I’m afraid I’ll break you.”
I grinned against his jaw. “You won’t.”
“I want you, Belle. All the damn time.”
“Then take me.”
With his eyes aimed directly on mine, he sank deep inside me with one thrust, our bodies slick from the shower. I threw my head back against the tile wall with a gasp. He was so big, so... And then I lost all train of thought. He drilled into me at the same speed he’d been jacking himself off, his muscled arms pinning my hips to the wall. He drank my body in with his gaze, watching my breasts bounce up to touch him, watching my nipples tighten to aching points.
Usually with him, sex was slow and sensual and never disappointing, but this was hot, dirty, as if I’d peeled back a sexual layer of Sawyer he usually kept hidden. Maybe there were other layers too.
I moaned at the coming storm within me, gathering along all my nerves and coiling them inside my pussy. With a groan, his eyes changed from golden to red, and his fangs extended, making him look exactly like a terrifying vampire warrior. Good thing he was mine.
His hips slowed slightly, enough to hit everything just right. I came hard around him with a loud cry, the orgasm trembling down my limbs and back up again. It squeezed his cock inside me even farther, and then he came, too, with a great roar. He sank his fangs into my neck, which extended my orgasm even more, and then before he’d licked the wound totally clean, he pulled me down into the tub, and down on top of his face, for round two.
Note to self: interrupt Sawyer’s showers more often.
Afterward, when we were both finally spent, I asked him about Detective Blake Friday.
“He’s clean,” he said while sitting down next to me at the kitchen table. “Not a fleck of dirt on him according to Google.”
“The books agree, I’m afraid,” Eddie said from in front of the refrigerator. “Nothing to indicate his involvement in the Necron Brotherhood, though of course most of them were written hundreds of years ago.”
Sawyer rested his hand on my thigh and squeezed. “I’ll go ask Ronick about any tattoos as soon as it’s a little darker outside.”
I nodded. “See if he knows what day it is, too.”
* * *
THE REST OF THE WEEK went...normally? Or as normal as life could get for me. I patrolled with no more interference from Paul, the mausoleum seemed to crouch in on itself as if it were sucking itself into a black hole, I was no closer to figuring out who the other Necron Brotherhood member was, and I hissed “don’t touch” if anyone got close enough to pluck stray hairs off my clothes for another make-the-slayer-useless spell.
So yeah, normal.
Until Friday came.
That night, after my patrol, I went to go see Ronick again, as I had every other night, with a mug of blood and Night’s Fall. Other than a couple scratches on his stomach, Sawyer hadn’t seen any markings or tattoos on him. But every time I’d visited, he looked a thousand times worse than the night before.
Tonight, he looked near death. Bloody tears dripped down his paper-white cheeks. His veins poked from underneath his skin as if something had shrink-wrapped his head much too tight.
I swallowed hard. “Ronick—”
“We don’t have much time,” he rasped.
I stared at him for a long moment, searching for any hidden meaning behind his use of the word ‘we.’ Instead of any meaning, I found a whole lot of strobing alarms. “What’s wrong with you? What’s so special about today?”
He groaned, pained and guttural, and his bloody tears fell harder. His hands twisted together in front of him and held to his gut behind his long leather coat. “It started out as just day.”
“You’re not making any sense. What’s wrong with you?” I demanded.
“Day. The rest came a few hours ago,” he rasped, then tore open his coat and shoved up his black shirt.
The sight underneath ripped me back toward the door so fast I spilled half the mug of blood down my shirt. Carved into his skin was the word Friday, with bloody, gory emphasis on ‘day.’ But it didn’t look like it had been carved from the front. No, it came from inside him.
Panic rang inside my head even though I still didn’t know what was happening.
“Ronick,” I said sharply. “Talk to me.”
“That night...that night in the graveyard, someone must’ve overheard me talk about Night’s Fall to you.” He looked at me with desperate, blood-soaked eyes. “The one thing that would draw you far away from the graveyard if you had its power.”
My next breath hung in my chest. He was right. If I had Night’s Fall’s power, my very next blink would be from inside the Slayer Senate, where I could research the other slayers and Paul. Not anywhere near the cemetery, where I might just be in the way of Paul and the trapdoor he was so desperate to open. Night’s Fall was a more certain bet than the witch’s ladder, which hadn’t kept me away at all. Not since Sawyer had gone to the mausoleum and untied it. Also because I was a stubborn bitch when it came to my patrol.
Ronick clutched at his gut and groaned.
“Tell me what happens now,” I said. “If you give me Night’s Fall, it still won’t keep me away from the cemetery. Paul likes the night, so I’ll go to the Slayer Senate during the day—”
“No. You can’t.”
“The fuck I can’t—”
“I’m dying. The sword’s magic is tied to me, so you’ll only have about an hour until the sword’s symbols fade and the magic goes dangerously haywire. Trust me, I know exactly how it happens because it happened when my brother gave me the sword.”
“Night’s Fall was Roseff’s sword?”
“He transferred it to me by letter, its contents only triggered by his death. I had an hour to do the necessary steps to make the sword mine.” He shook his head and grimaced. “You don’t have time for any of that. You have an hour to get what you need from the Slayer Senate before the symbols fade and the sword becomes too dangerous to use.”
“What do I need? Where do I go?” A cold sweat gathered at the nape of my neck.
“You need the book written about my brother. As a vampire, I wasn’t invited into the Senate building, but Night’s Fall showed me his book through the window to show me the name of my brother’s murderer. There are whole passages written about Roseff and Paul. He was close to finding out how to beat him.”
“But your brother was a psycho.”
“And yet, Paul didn’t kill him, did he?” Ronick’s bloody tears gushed faster, and he somehow went even paler. “S-so if you open the door, I’ll give you Night’s Fall’s power, but you have to hurry.”
No. He’d try to run me down, take back his sword, and go kill Jacek. This was a trick. An elaborate trick to escape. I bit down on my teeth and squeezed the hilt until my fingers ached. But what if this didn’t feel like a trick?
“If I leave here for the Slayer Senate, then Paul will open the trapdoor,” I said. “It will happen when I’m far away. That’s what the witch’s ladder was for—to keep me away.”
“The plan was cut into my stomach for a reason.” Ronick bowed his head and grimaced. “Whatever’s happening happens tonight. But if you don’t leave now, then you won’t find out how to stop him.”
This sword was my only chance to find the Slayer Senate and find my only chance at survival. I had no idea what was in that trapdoor or what would happen when it opened. Instant death for me and no idea how to stop it? No, I needed knowledge. Knowledge was power, right? But what if by going to get that knowledge, I was walking straight into a trap?
Gah, I had no idea what the right answer was, but one thing was for sure—Ronick wouldn’t escape if this was some elaborate hoax because I wouldn’t let him. I’d stake him before he did, Night’s Fall’s power or not. Either way, I didn’t really have a choice, and time was running out.
Literally. A glance at my phone showed four minutes to midnight on Friday night. It was almost Saturday. What if I was already too late?
“Try anything sketchy and see how that works out for you,” I said, slipping the stake free from my bun. With the sword in one hand and the stake in the other, I opened the door to his cell.
“Come closer,” he rasped.
I took one step forward.
“Closer, damn it,” he growled.
I took a deep breath. Tension chased across my shoulders as I stepped inside his cell with him, my senses alert for any kind of trouble.
He reached out and touched Night’s Fall, just a simple touch on the tip of the hilt and whispered words I didn’t understand. His eyes met mine, streaming with bloodied tears, and my heart clenched.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked softly. “Why give me Night’s Fall at all?”
A glow erupted around the sword’s black blade, and a light buzzing sawed up through my fingers on the hilt.
“Because...” His desperate gaze dipped to my lips. “I was lying when I told the one with glasses that you smelled like gut rot.”
I jerked back at his unexpected admission.
“An hour. Remember to watch Night’s Fall’s symbol—”
The cell exploded in a wash of red, spraying across my mouth, the walls, the ceiling. Drenching my entire body with sticky, wet blood.
Ronick’s blood.
He was gone. Dead.
I stood there, staring at the spot where he’d been, completely immobile. His blood clung to me, an uncomfortable second skin holding me hostage right where I’d planted my feet. I tried to blink the shock from my eyes, but it kept pulsing, contracting like a living thing. Like a living thing swirling with black silk that had burst through the back of the woodshed and the fence behind it.
This wasn’t shock or a hallucination. It was really there, right where Ronick had stood seconds ago.
I lunged backward, slipping in the blood puddle on the floor in my hurry to get out. I went down hard in the doorway of the woodshed and scooted backward, dragging Night’s Fall after me. Black silk waved from the thing attached to the woodshed wall like wings. Underneath was a humongous...thing shaped like a slug with a body writhing with sharpened silver needles punctured through the black wings. Needles used for writing the day of the week through a person’s skin.
It looked like a living, writhing witch’s ladder. Witchcraft. Good god, that was the only thing I could come up with. Scary as fuck witchcraft.
I tore my eyes away from it to Night’s Fall and scrambled to get my legs underneath me. Time to go. I only had an hour to find Roseff’s book at the Slayer Senate. Less than that now. I glanced over the fence at the cemetery next door. Everything looked normal from here, but that was likely to change.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent a quick text to Detective Appelt: 911 at cemetery. Since it was his job to protect the trapdoor, he needed to be there.
I was just about ready to text Sawyer to tell him much the same thing, when my phone chimed with a text from him.
Why are you on Detective Appelt’s desk?
I blinked. What? I had never been, nor would I ever be, on his desk. But then I saw the picture attached to the text, the one of Tattoo Guy, Detective Blake Friday, I took at the police station from behind Detective Appelt’s desk. I peered closer. Sawyer had zoomed in away from the hallway to a silver frame at the side of the photo, angled toward the wall on the desk, with a semi-blurry profile inside.
But not so blurry that I couldn’t see it. That wasn’t a picture of me in a frame on the corner of Detective Appelt’s desk.
It was my mom.