although I knew why I couldn’t read him. My ability to read people came from their souls. He just didn’t have one.
That wasn’t the case here. Vampires lost their souls over time after they were bitten, losing them slowly. They didn’t just feed on blood—they fed on the psychic energy that came with it, and reveled on the punch of emotion that came with the feeding, since they lost their ability to feel with the death of their soul.
This woman wasn’t a vampire. She was…inanimate. Kind of like a doll. Damon had more presence than she did, I remember thinking that.
Then she turned to face me and the power of her gaze almost sent me crashing to the floor.
I gripped my blade, harder, harder, until the grip damn near bruised my hand and it still wasn’t enough. She moved and a breath later, so did I. It almost wasn’t fast enough but I’d had to rely on my instincts to survive the training of my grandmother and aunts.
I was still holding my sword in the seconds that followed and Damon stood between us, his hands raised in that calming, easy gesture people so often used.
“My Lady, you want to speak with the investigator. I brought her so she could talk to you about Doyle.”
She backhanded him—if I’d ever needed the evidence of shapeshifter strength, I had it now. He was over six feet and I imagined he weighed two-fifty, at the least. The Alpha? She was smaller than I was. I was five foot five, and she looked to be about three or four inches shorter. Save for the boobs, she was fluff all over.
But that single strike sent him flying across the room, crashing into one of the bubble-gum pink walls. He didn’t stay there. Even as she came for me again, he was there.
What the hell—?
“My Lady, you’ll be very angry if you harm the one who can help you find Doyle,” he said, and his voice had a soothing tone that seemed out of place. But then again, if he was trying to calm her down, the smart-ass mouth he showed with me wasn’t the ideal, I figured.
“Damon, are you standing in my way?” she asked. She had a lovely voice. It was like bells tinkling.
Poetic. I was getting poetic in my near-death state.
“I’m just following orders, My Lady,” he said, bowing his head.
“You followed orders by letting her bring a blade in here? To threaten me?”
“How am I a threat?”
Damon shot me a dirty look. His left eye was black, his mouth was busted and blood tricked down his face. He was trashed, and he was pissed, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. But I didn’t look at him. Focusing on the cat alpha, I asked again, “How am I a threat? I bring the weapons I normally carry on a job and if you weren’t prepared for that, then I’m sorry, but I don’t do my job unarmed, especially not when I’m working with shifters.”
“Are you implying I brought you here to harm you?”
Her head cocked to the side and I had the impression of a snake getting ready to strike. Not a pleasant picture. If I lied, she’d know. And if I lied right now, as pissed as she was…damn it, why didn’t anybody see fit to mention that the cat alpha was missing a few marbles? Of course, it wasn’t surprising, considering how fucking nuts all of them were. Maybe it was a pack thing and it all came from her.
The pieces clicked into places and I figured it out. She wasn’t soulless. She was just a sociopath.
I shook my head. Mustn’t enrage the antisocial monster standing five feet away. “I’m not implying anything. I’m treating this job the same as I would any other. I go into it knowing nothing—and that’s the way I’d prefer it.”
Her gaze, pale, pale blue held mine.
Then slowly, she nodded. When she looked away, I let myself breathe.
“Damon, look at your face…”
From the corner of my eye, I watched. She rose on the tips of her toes, touching his cheek, his nose, his bruised eye. “Oh, you poor thing. Does it hurt?”
I didn’t gape, but I wanted to. She’d knocked him into a wall…and she wanted to know if he hurt.
But of course, instead of saying something honest like Yes, bitch, it hurts, Damon just shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
Ten minutes later, they were seated on the couch having tea and I was trying not to stare.