The Darkest Kiss

“Yeah,” he said, grinding out a cigarette and almost instantly lighting up again. The foul smoke drifted upward, tickling my nose and making my eyes water.

“That’s illegal,” I pointed out, taking a step backward.

“It’s my fucking restaurant, and I’ll do what I please.” He sucked on the cigarette for a second, then blew the smoke upward and away from me. At least he wasn’t totally inconsiderate. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to know if you had a brother called Jake who went to Beechworth Secondary College.”

“Interesting,” he said. “You’re the second person who’s asked me that tonight.”

Alarm ran through me. “This other person—was he a man, in his late thirties or early forties, about yea high”—I raised a hand several inches above my own head—“with greasy, stringy hair?”

“Got him in one.” He studied me, blue eyes shrewd. “Why is everyone suddenly interested in my brother?”

“The why doesn’t immediately matter. Where’s your brother, Mr. Cowden? I need to contact him, because he could be in great danger.”

“I doubt it. He’s dead.”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “When did this happen?”

“More than five years ago now. Drug overdose, apparently.” He paused, and shook his head. “Bit of a waste of air, my brother was. Got into drugs when he was a teen, and never came out of it.”

“Was there any particular reason he started taking drugs?” Like witnessing something he shouldn’t have? Okay, it was probably a long stretch, but it just seemed odd that Cherry Barnes, Ivan Lang, and De

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“The man who was here before—how did he react when you told him Jake was dead?”

“Well, he wasn’t very happy. Thought he was going to slug me, actually.”

He was probably lucky that he hadn’t been attacked. Young didn’t seem to be holding on to a whole lot of sense at the moment, and it was actually surprising he was restrained enough not to attack the brother of the man he was after.

“He left after that?”

“Yep.” Cowden puffed on his smoke for a moment, then added, “Security got the plate number of his van, if you’re interested.”

“He drove here?” Why on earth would a vampire who could fly want to drive anywhere?

And then I remembered that tiny room and the silver mesh that encased it. He might have been able to shift shape, but maybe he never had much of a chance to practice flying. Most shifters didn’t gain the skill to change until puberty, so if Young had been a late bloomer, his flight skills would probably be poor—especially if he was a slow learner like me. Maybe that was why he’d fallen to the ground after he’d jumped out of Ivan’s window—after being locked up in a small room for so long, he didn’t trust his flight skills to get him out of my way in time.

“I’d appreciate the number.”

He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. A burly-looking brown wolf appeared. “Yes, sir?”

“Could you get our guardian friend here a copy of the plate number?”

“Straightaway.” He took a notebook out of his pocket, wrote down a number, then tore off the sheet and handed it to me.

“Anything else?” Cowden asked.

“No, you’ve been very helpful.” I hesitated, then added, “I’d keep security close, just in case that man returns. He’s responsible for several deaths already, and we’re not sure what his motives are.”

He nodded. I turned to go, then hesitated again. “Tell me, when Jake was in tenth grade at Beechworth, did he ever mention anything unusual happening there?”

Cowden frowned. “Unusual how?”

“Well, did he say anything about disappearances or murders or anything like that?”

“No. I know the cops interviewed him, but they interviewed everyone in that grade after the disappearance of some kid. It shook him up—he was jumping at shadows for weeks.”

“But he never said anything about it to you?”

“Nope.”

“How soon after that did he start taking drugs?”

He puffed on the cigarette for several seconds. “I’m not really sure. I found him drunk a couple of times after the interview, but I couldn’t give you a definitive time as to when he started on the drugs.”

“Did he drink before then?”

“He was a teenager. We all drank. Part of the culture, isn’t it?”

Well no, but that was beside the point. If Jake wasn’t seriously drinking or taking drugs before Young’s disappearance, then something must have happened for him to start afterward.

But what? That was the million-dollar question, and one probably only the investigator at the time would be able to answer. I glanced at my watch. But not now. Though it was barely ten-thirty, a retired police officer might get a little pissed off at being rung at this hour of the evening.

“Well, thanks again for your help, Mr. Cowden. I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” he said, and got back to his smoke.

I headed back out to my car. Now what? The charity event wouldn’t be finished yet, but I doubted the bakeneko would appear back there. She wasn’t that stupid. And I certainly didn’t want to go back looking like a mess.

But I didn’t want to go home alone, either.

Decision time, I thought, but knew the reality was that there was no real decision to be made. Because there was only ever one thing I could do. Only one thing I wanted to do.

I grabbed the phone and dialed Qui

“Qui

“This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, the lilt in his voice returning twofold and his tone dropping an octave. “I wasn’t actually expecting to see or hear from you at all tonight.”

“I need to talk to you.” Need to kiss you, caress you, make love to you. God, I was making myself hot just thinking about it.

“Right away?”

“As soon as you can get away.”

“That can be done immediately. These functions are a duty, not a pleasant pastime.” He hesitated. “Would you like to meet for coffee, or shall we just go back to my hotel room?”

I hesitated. I actually hesitated. God, Kellen leaving me had done my heart more harm than I’d even imagined. “Hotel room. I need information on the Trollops.”

“I hope that’s not all you need,” he said, low voice sending shivers of delight down my spine.

“Probably not.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting at the Langham’s main entrance in ten minutes.”

“I’ll be there.”

I hung up, flung the phone into my bag, and started up the car. For the first time in ages, excitement buzzed through my veins and I couldn’t help the silly grin that stretched my lips.

Yeah, Qui

I made it to the Langham in record time and parked in the underground lot nearby. The rates were a killer, but I didn’t care.

Qui

“What happened to the pretty green ones you were wearing?”

“Stabbed a shifter with them.”

“That’s a rather nasty thing to do.” He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me close. His body pressed against mine, warm, hard, and wonderfully familiar. “What did she do?”

“It was the bakeneko, not an ordinary shifter.”

“Ah. Well, it wouldn’t have done much good, then. Wooden stiletto heels don’t affect bakenekos the way they do us vampires.”

His breath ran across my lips, his mouth so close I could almost taste it.

“I know,” I said, a little breathlessly. “But she was in the form of a rather large cat at the time, and that was the best weapon I had.”