Blood of the Innocent Read online

  “Joe, I have something I think you need to see. It’s too close to sunrise for me to go to you. Could you come over here?”

  “I’ll be right there,” he told her, and clicked off the phone.

  “Vampire calling?”

  “Stuff it, Mike. I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Have fun.”

  “Bite me,” Joe muttered, and heard Mike’s laugh as he went out the door.

  ****

  Veronica sat sipping tea and wondering if she was doing the right thing. She knew by telling anyone what she’d done, she increased the odds that she’d get in trouble for it. It seemed to her, though, that Joe deserved to know she had a lead on the killer. It seemed a long time had passed since she’d called him, and she went to the front window to look. There he was, coming up the street. Her heart did a little jig, and she smiled. Okay, maybe deep down she might have had an ulterior reason for calling Joe. Maybe her discovery gave her a reason to see him. That wasn’t so terrible, was it?

  She caught a glimpse of him as he turned onto her road. He was hurrying along, and a part of her wondered if he was anxious to see her. Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted to know what she’d found out.

  Movement to her right caught her attention a teenage boy edged along the side of the road from tree to tree. Recognition hit her. It was the kid she’d fed from in an effort to frighten him into a law-abiding lifestyle. If the look on his face was any indication, her efforts had been in vain.

  The boy moved closer to Joe, and she realized what was about to happen. She grabbed for the light blanket she kept on the couch and threw it over her as she ran for the door.

  ****

  Joe was almost to Veronica’s apartment building when he caught movement through the foliage to his left. With his mind on her, and figuring it was an animal of some sort, he barely glanced in that direction. Which meant he was caught off guard when the teenage troublemaker dove at him from a small rise above the road.

  The kid was heavy for such a skinny pain-in-the-ass, and he used coming from higher ground to his advantage. For a moment, all Joe could do was lie on his back and fight to get his breath while the kid pummeled him with punches. Then, with a gasp, air again filled Joe’s lungs, and he wasted no time throwing a punch at the boy’s ribs. It wasn’t a hard punch, but it distracted him for a second, long enough for Joe to grab the kid’s shirt with his other hand and haul him over to the side.

  It only took a heartbeat for Joe to use the advantage. Shoving one knee against the kid’s ribs, he ducked punches as he threw some of his own. Without the advantage of surprise, it didn’t take long for the kid to resort to holding his hands in front of his face.

  Joe stopped hitting, but kept his fists up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  The boy raised his chin. “Letting you know you can’t screw with the Alliance of True Humanity.”

  Joe’s breath caught as if he’d been knocked down again. Before he could question the kid, he heard someone run toward them and looked up. The sight of Veronica rushing his way, wrapped in a blanket, shot fear through him. Dawn had broken, sending long rays of light through the trees. She’d said she couldn’t tolerate the sun. He wasn’t sure what would happen, but he really didn’t want to find out. Shoving the kid aside, he pushed to his feet.

  “It’s that crazy woman!” The kid scrambled to his feet, then turned and ran toward the trees.

  Glad the kid was no longer a problem, Joe grabbed Veronica and turned her toward her apartment building.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Fine. You need to get inside.”

  He limped double-time up the steps into her building. They climbed the inside stairs with a peculiar two-step resulting from her trying to help him, and him trying hard to get her away from the windows and to safety.

  Finally they made it into her apartment, closed and locked the door, then stood for a moment staring at each other.

  “You’re bleeding,” Veronica said, touching a finger to a cut under his eye.

  “I’ll be fine. You’re burned.”

  “Just a little. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Five minutes later, they were in Veronica’s tiny bathroom, her butt up against the sink, his shoulders against the shower curtain. She cleaned his wounds, and he gently smeared cream on the reddened spots on her face and hands.

  They were so close. He could smell the strawberry scent of her hair, hear her gentle breath, feel the warmth of her body. He went hard, but his stomach twisted with guilt that he could be so turned on when he was putting cream on burned spots on her sweet face. “Why in the world did you come rushing out into the sunlight?”

  “I was scared for you.”

  “So you decided risking a serious burn to help me?”

  “That little creep jumped on you.”

  Her wide eyes and the quiver in her voice had him smiling. “Sweetheart, I’m perfectly capable of handling one scrawny teenager.”

  “But you’re…” she ducked her head.

  He didn’t need telepathy to know what she was about to say. “I may be human, but I’m far from helpless.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  She looked into his face, and her warm green eyes seemed to touch him somewhere inside, where no one else had ever been. The temperature in the little room began to climb, along with his heartbeat. His gaze dropped to her mouth. She licked her lips and he almost lost it right there.

  “Veronica,” he whispered, and took her mouth with his.

  Her lips opened to him, inviting him in, welcoming him to the soft warmth, letting him taste the sweetness that was uniquely her. He groaned as he tugged her body close. She fit against him like she’d been made for him. His hands slid down her back and cupped her rear. Perfect. He used his grip to pull her against him.

  Her hands were active too, moving under his T-shirt and up the front of his chest. “Joe,” she gasped against his lips.

  “If we don’t stop soon, I may not be able to,” he managed to say.”

  “Who said anything about stopping?’

  With that, he scooped her up and carried her out of the bathroom and across the hall into the only other room in the small apartment. There he laid her gently on the bed. “Sweet, beautiful Veronica,” he whispered.

  She smiled up at him, and he grabbed the hem of her top and tugged it over her head. Her bra closure caused his lust-addled mind a bit of thought, but it was soon following the top toward the floor. His shirt went over his head, with her help, and he grabbed her pants and slid them down her long, beautiful legs. She unzipped his jeans as he smiled in happy anticipation of the things he and this beautiful woman were about to do. Her breasts were the perfect size to fit into his hands, her shoulders were beautiful, her hips widened below her belly into a perfect woman-shape. Only the small, lace panties she wore stood between him and where he wanted to be with every atom in his body.

  Her hand grasped his erection, and he gasped. “I think you need to come down here,” she said.

  He shoved his jeans and briefs to the floor, kicked off his shoes and slid into bed beside her. As their lips met, he slipped his fingers under the lace and touched her.

  Her back arched and she moaned his name. “I want you.” her voice was ragged.

  Smiling, he lowered his head to her breasts and took first one, then the other nipple in his mouth. She hung onto his shoulders with both hands.

  “More,” she gasped.

  He ripped her panties off and he stared at her with a desire so strong it was all he could do to hold off even a moment. Somehow he managed to pull away long enough to think. “Condom,” he gasped.

  “No need,” she gasped back. “Different species.”

  He was too caught up in lust to think straight, but thought she must know what she was talking about. Good thing, because he wanted this woman so much it hurt.

  She spread her legs and he slid into her. Long legs wrapped around his wais
t while soft lips worked some kind of magic on his mouth. They moved together until they reached a climax that should have set the room on fire.

  He collapsed beside her. “Whoa.”

  She gently touched his face. “That was amazing.”

  He edged her close and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, her mouth. It only took a moment for his body to react to the touch of her sweet, soft body. “Veronica.”

  “I can’t get enough of you,” she whispered.

  “We’ll take it slow this time.”

  And he set out to kiss every inch of her.

  ****

  “What the hell did you get yourself into?”

  Kevin groaned. He’d hoped she wouldn’t be home. “I had something that needed doing.”

  Shelly marched over to him and grabbed his shoulders. Damn, he hated it when she acted like she thought she was his freaking mother. “Who did you get into a fight with?”

  He shrugged her hands off him. “I showed that brother dude who was boss.”

  “What ‘brother dude’? What are you talking about?”

  Frustration soared through him. “The brother of that guy who got killed. His twin.”

  The slap caught him off guard and he stumbled back. “What was that for?”

  “For being an idiot. You should know better than to screw around in things that don’t concern you.”

  “But I thought he might know something useful.”

  “Leave the thinking to the grownups, Kevin. You just do what you’re told.”

  As he watched Shelly walk back to her seat in front of the TV, rage gripped him so hard he trembled with its power. Where did she get off acting so high and mighty? She was only a few years older, but she treated him like he was a baby. He could show her who was boss. He didn’t have to put up with her. He was a man!

  She turned and glared over her shoulder. “Don’t get any ideas, kid. You know what Vince would do to you.”

  Kevin turned and went to his room. She was right. As long as he was with the group, he had to give in to the leader’s demands, and he demanded that bitch of his be treated like she was more than she was.

  It had seemed so cool, being in a movement that was working to protect the whole human race. More and more, being here seemed like being back in the damn foster homes.

  ****

  The chirping of his cell phone pulled Joe from a warm, relaxing sleep. Reluctantly, he moved away from Veronica’s warm body and reached over the edge of the bed to pull his phone from his jeans. “What?”

  Mike’s chuckle greeted him. “Sorry to bother you. When you didn’t come back or call, I was a little concerned. But I guess you have things well in hand.”

  “Thanks for your concern. Later.” As he clicked off the phone, he heard Mike’s laugh.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine.” He turned to Veronica and his body went hard again. “Better than fine.”

  “We’re not going to be able to walk.” She ran her hands up his chest.

  His better sense managed to override his hormones and he sighed. “What exactly did you mean when you said we’re different species?”

  She shrugged. “Just that. We are different from each other.”

  He kissed his way down to one of her breasts and took the nipple in his mouth. “I don’t know,” he whispered against her. “You respond like a woman.”

  “Joe!” She gasped. “Can we talk about this later?”

  Chuckling, he proceeded with his plan to see how many ways he could test her womanhood.

  ****

  Kevin was coming back from getting himself a glass of milk when he heard Vince’s voice. “What did the kid do this time?”

  Shelly answered him. “He attacked the brother of that guy that got killed down in Bar Harbor.”

  “The guy who was trying to get dirt on us?”

  “Yep.”

  Kevin peered around the doorframe into the living room.

  “Did the kid say why he did a stupid-ass thing like that?” Vince turned and glared at Shelly. An artery in his neck pulsed so much Kevin could see it clear across the room.

  “Said the dude might know something.” Shelly licked her lips and her hands trembled.

  Vince rubbed his forehead like it was killing him. “Well, if he didn’t know something before, he’ll be looking for something now. Damn, somebody solves our problem for us, and that boy has to go and stir shit up.”

  The boy, that’s how Vince saw him, how they all saw him, and it wasn’t right. He might be younger than the other members, but he was just as smart—smarter than most of them—and just as tough. Hell, he’d like to see Luke or Arnie live on the street. He’d bet his new jeans they wouldn’t make it a day.

  “Is there anything I can do, Vince?” Shelley asked.

  Suck-up.

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” Vince was saying. “Right now, the only thing any of us can do is keep on track with the mission.”

  His gaze went to the window, as if he were looking out over a battlefield. “We have to stop those inhuman bastards before they destroy civilization as we know it.”

  Kevin turned and headed back to his room. Vince had promised him he would be part of something big, something important, something that would make a difference. So far, things were pretty much the same as ever. Except he was under Vincent’s thumb instead of a foster parent’s.

  He didn’t like being under anybody’s thumb.

  ****

  For the first time in her life, Veronica had a hard time focusing on her job. It wasn’t just because she’d spent the day in bed with Joe, something else nagged at her. A thought was tingling in her mind, just below the surface, something she couldn’t quite access. Something important.

  A timer went off, and she forced her attention back to the next phase of extracting a DNA sample to process. As soon as the critical stage was over, she found her mind wandering back to that question she couldn’t answer. When she shook that way, though, an even more unanswerable question floated into her head. What, she wondered, was pulling her so hard toward a member of a completely different species? It made no logical sense for her to be attracted to this human. No matter how similar the two species were, they were still different species. So why was she sexually attracted to this human? She should be attracted to vampire males, but none of them interested her. Not like Joe. But then, hormones didn’t have logic, they just were.

  It was almost an hour later before she realized what her heart had admitted when her logical brain refused. She wasn’t just sexually attracted to Joe. She was somehow emotionally attached to him too. Logic argued that she barely knew this member of a different species. Her heart argued none of that mattered.

  She sighed and leaned against the nearest counter. She had always prided herself on being a logical person, using her intellect to solve problems instead of making emotional choices, since those only seemed to get others, both vampire and human, into trouble. What had gone wrong this time?

  Whatever the issue was, she had to get herself together. Now was definitely not the time to allow her emotions to cloud her judgment. Not when her career, and maybe lives, depended on her ability to think and act clearly.

  ****

  Groaning, Joe dropped the journal on top of the pile of papers. “There’s something I’m not seeing.”

  Mike handed him a cup of coffee. “Or something Justin didn’t put in his journal.”

  “It’s possible, I guess. I know that he left here in a hurry, he didn’t empty his coffee grounds and clean the coffeemaker.”

  Mike’s eyes widened. “Jeez, he was in a hurry.”

  “But I have no idea where he was going, or who he was meeting. I don’t know if he went to the beach to meet his contact, or if he was talked into, or forced, to go later.”

  “Either way, the contact he went to meet could be his killer.”

  Joe nodded. “That’s entirely possible.”

  “All that paperwork and
nothing to indicate who he was meeting?”

  “Not that I can see. You looked through this stuff, did you find anything?”

  “No, but I thought maybe you did. I know that siblings, especially twins, sometimes see things nobody else does.”

  Joe looked at Mike. “How do you think I found this stuff?”

  Mike sat beside him. “I still think you should turn all this paperwork stuff over to the police?”

  “Which part do you think the cops would get a bigger laugh over, the mysterious conspiracy? Or the part about the inhuman creatures?” Joe looked at his friend’s expression, and sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Joe, what if there isn’t a conspiracy. What if this whole thing was a con out to separate Justin from his money, or to convince him to give somebody their fifteen minutes of fame?” He looked down as he said, “Maybe they killed him because he wouldn’t cooperate.”

  Heaviness settled in Joe’s gut. He leaned back against the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe that. Justin was an experienced journalist. He wouldn’t have been easy to trick.”

  Mike shrugged. “Under the right circumstances, any of us can be conned.”

  “Man, I wish the cops hadn’t taken his phone and computer.”

  “Yeah, that does suck.” Mike took a sip of coffee, then shook his head. “You know, Justin was so anal, he probably kept a record of all his meetings, but that info would have been on his laptop or maybe his phone.”

  Something clicked, and Joe slapped a hand to his forehead. “Justin never trusted electronic devices. He said it was way too easy for somebody else to get ahold of stuff.”

  “Like he did with these emails.”

  Joe looked at the printouts on the table as he nodded. “Exactly. So he wouldn’t have left his most important information where somebody could get at it. He would have kept a paper record somewhere.”

  “Maybe in an address book, and the cops took that too.”

  “No.” Joe closed his eyes for a moment, picturing his always-wary brother. Where would he keep the names of his contacts? In the safest place he could, of course. But where was that?