By the time she came to the next one, her whole body shook from head to toe. Voices drifted out to the hallway, along with what sounded an awful lot like moaning. She flicked her wrist again, and the door flew open with a loud bang. What she saw in front of her didn’t seem real.
Panic hit her square in the chest. Women lounged on couches and beds; some were spread across the floor with blood splattered on their clothing. Male vampires drank from the veins of the women who moaned in ecstasy.
The scents of blood and cologne swirled through the air and made her stomach clench. She gulped, taking in the scene. And there, in the middle of it all was Brooke with Kurt hovered over her. “Brooke?”
Heads turned in her direction. “Please come in and shut the door.” An enormous, dark-haired vampire called out. “There’s plenty of room for more.”
Gillian froze. “I…uh, was just here to get Brooke. We, um, came together. Why don’t we get out of your lair, I mean hair, and let you get back to what you were doing?” Her heart pounded in her throat, in her ears, and she swore every vampire in the room turned at the sound.
“Join us. It’s not a request,” Kurt demanded, moving closer.
Trying to think on her bare feet, Gillian reached for her phone, and held it up like a weapon. “Between Instagram and Twitter, I’m sure my million followers would love to know what you’ve been up to. A single tweet would ruin you.” She motioned around the room. “Funny, this whole operation doesn’t seem all that philanthropic.” Gillian took a step back and sucked in a harsh breath, bracing against his wrath.
The next moment, shouting filled the room. Cops and MBI agents barreled through the open doorway with their guns drawn.
Gillian nearly sunk to the floor with relief.
“Does trouble find you, Miss Howe, or do you chase after it for sport?”
The familiar male voice pricked along her skin like barbed wire. She tensed, turning slowly around, and came face to face with Mulroney. Anger blazed in his eyes.
Gillian didn’t think this night could get any worse, but apparently, it could. Trying to gather what remained of her dignity, considering half her thigh was exposed and she was barefoot, she pushed her shoulders back and stared him down. “Whatever you do, don’t you dare say I told you so.”
Chapter 3
Garrett moved to the area of the suite where Gillian stood. Of all the women he expected to see here tonight, she was the last one on his list.
Up until a few hours ago, it had been months since he’d seen her in the flesh, and somehow, in the blink of an eye, she still managed to get under his skin. He exhaled, and the scent of expensive perfume, sweat, and fresh blood flared in his nostrils.
“This is some mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” The spacious room was currently filled with vampires, EMTs, and a slew of young, attractive women getting interrogated by cops and Magickal Bureau of Investigations agents.
Gillian looked pale and shaken, not to mention shorter than she did in the lobby. “If you’re asking if I planned on getting mind roofied, then the answer is no. I honestly had no clue,” she said, her brown eyes shooting daggers at him.
Over the years, he’d been forced to question mobsters, drug smugglers, and cold-blooded killers. Somehow this brown-eyed firecracker, standing beside him, gave them all a run for their money.“You said you were ‘mind roofied.’ I’m assuming you mean a vampire tranced you?” If it were anyone else caught up in the middle of a vampire blood ring, he might’ve found her response amusing,but as his gaze darted around the room, taking in the blood-stained walls and comforters, not to mention the young woman being carried out on a stretcher, there was nothing even remotely funny about the situation. In the last week, there’d been an unsolved murder, a Jane Doe who’d been found with all the blood drained from her body. The RHPD had classified it as a vampire killing.
“It was like being under some kind of spell. This vampire approached me and said something about blood bonding with him.” Determination flashed in those big brown eyes. “I made damn sure that wasn’t going to happen.”
Garrett drew his brows together, impressed. “By using your powers? I’m surprised you didn’t send him flying over the balcony.” It would've served the bastard right.
“I use telekinesis to move inanimate objects with my mind all the time, but I can assure you nothing as big or as powerful as a vampire,” Gillian said with a sigh. “I’m more of a clairvoyant. I have visions and premonitions. I also read signs and symbols with my tarot cards to see both the past and the future. Every witch’s power is different. When Damon Greystone tranced me, I didn’t use my powers. I acted on instinct.”
“Thinking on your feet might’ve just saved your life.” In more ways than she could imagine. Not that it surprised him. This wasn’t the first time she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. According to her file, there’d been an incident last winter with a dark fae responsible for murdering a string of witches from her coven. Gillian had been targeted and later abducted, yet somehow managed to get away. Despite her looks and graceful mien, Gillian Howe was as scrappy as they came. “Someone with your history should know better.”
“Don’t patronize me, Detective. I had no idea what I was walking into, but now I think it’s pretty clear.” She bit down on her lip, and Garrett had a sudden urge to do the same.
“The proper term is blood trafficking.” Ever since Tristan Saint Claire, a demon kingpin, was killed and his former crime syndicate, the Shadow Cabal, dismantled, another fringe group made up of vampires emerged to mastermind a high-class blood ring. And from all appearances, Kurt Lawrence was now at the helm, but Garrett suspected he wasn’t working alone. “Things could’ve turned out a whole lot differently. Consider yourself lucky.”
His gaze zeroed in on Gillian’s bare feet and red painted toenails. Refusing to admit he found them sexy, he wondered what the hell had happened to her shoes. But there were more pressing matters to discuss than the state of her missing high heels. Although he did recall in vivid detail how they showed off her legs. “Do you have any idea how dangerous these people are?”
“Well, you didn’t think it was important enough to give me more of a heads-up earlier.” She curled that damnable mouth of hers into a smirk. “A real warning like, ‘these are bad, bad people’ would've been nice.”
His anger flared. “A warning? I tried, but you ignored me. I was undercover, Miss Howe, and not at liberty to reveal what was about to go down. Besides, I would think you’d know the dangers of going up to a hotel room with a group of strangers, vampires no less.” When he thought about what could’ve happened to her, his jaw clenched to the pointof pain. But it was more than that. There was something eerily familiar about this case that didn’t sit right. Could Kurt Lawrence be involved in the same operation that he’d been lured into over a hundred fifty years ago?
Turning her head, she searched the crowded room until her gaze finally landed on a young, attractive, blonde woman in a red dress, who was currently getting interrogated by some uniformed officers. “As much as I’d love to stand here and chat, I want to go check on my cousin to make sure she’s okay.”
“Davidson,please bring over the witness,” Garrett said into his mic. After a moment, the uniformed officer walked over her cousin. The two women embraced.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Brooke?” Gillian whispered as she looked at her cousin with concern in her eyes.
