blood to vampires a lot longer than you have. I know how hard it can be when you lose as much as you lost. You may feel fine, but if you overdo it, you'll get dizzy again, and nauseous. That wouldn't be good at a crime scene, would it?"
"Dolph does not let civilians at his crime scenes."
"I'll sit in the Jeep, but I can't let you drive yourself around today."
"Call Micah, or Nathaniel, they'll come pick me up."
He shook his head. "Nathaniel passed out at the club last night."
"What!"
"Micah thinks that feeding the ardeurat least once a day for three months has taken its toil on Nathaniel."
"Is he alright?"
"He just needs a day off. Jean-Claude only takes blood from me every other day, usually."
"I switch off with Micah and Jean-Claude for the ardeur," I said.
"Yeah, but Jean-Claude only needs to feed once a day, you need to feed twice a day. Let's face it, Anita, you need a larger stable of pomme de sangs."
"What, you volunteering?"
An expression of delight crossed his face. "Oh, hell yes, I'd love to be on the receiving end of one of those spine cracking orgasms."
"Jason," I said, and the one word was warning enough.
"Fine, be that way, but who else are you going to put in Nathaniel's place while he recovers?"
I sighed. "Damn it."
"See, you don't know, do you?"
"I can feed on Asher now."
"Yes, but he's not going to wake up for hours and hours. You need some more day-walking donors, Anita. It doesn't have to be me, but it has to be somebody. Think about it. But today I am your escort, because you can't go out alone, not with the blood loss, and whatever the hell Asher did to you. You could call Micah, but by the time he drove out here, and the two of you drove out to wherever the police want to be, I think your police friends would be having fits."
"Fine, you've made your point."
"Have I? It's always so hard to tell with you. Sometimes I think I've won the argument, then you get a second wind and beat me all to hell with it."
"Just go, Jason, put some bandages on the scrapes."
"Scrapes hell, if I were human, you'd be taking me to the emergency room. Remember, Anita, you have some of the strength of both a vampire and a werewolf. We can punch our finger through someone's ribs."
"Are you really hurt?" I asked, all joking aside, I didn't want him hurt.
"Not permanently, but it'll heal almost human slow."
"I'm sorry, Jason." I remembered enough to say, "And thanks for taking care of me."
His grin faded, and something close to a serious look spilled through his eyes, then it was gone, hidden behind another smile. "All in a day's work, ma'am." He tipped an imaginary hat and started to shut the door. "I'd turn on the lamp before I close the door, it's damn dark without windows."
I reached over and switched on a small lamp beside the clock, on top of the little refrigerator. The glow seemed unnaturally bright.
"Your cell phone is on the floor on my side of the bed. I dropped it when you started convulsing."
"I was not convulsing," I said.
"Oh, sorry, I dropped it when you had your raging, overwhelming, screaming orgasm. Was that better? It sounded better didn't it?"
"Go clean up," I said, sounding grumpy when I said it.
He was laughing as he closed the door.
I was left alone with the little lamp, the big bed, and no clothes in sight. I was about to debate on whether to try and find some clothes before hunting up my phone, when it rang again. I scrambled across the bed, jerking the sheets off so they wouldn't tangle me. I half slid, half fell to the floor and found my phone by sitting on it.
It was Dolph, and he wasn't happy. While he'd been waiting for me, there had been a second call, to a second crime scene. He was pissed with Jason's antics on the phone, with both crime scenes, and especially, it seemed, with me.
16
The first crime scene was in Wildwood, that new bastion of money and social climbing. The hot addresses used to be Ladue, Clayton, Creve Coeur, but they've all become passe. Nope, the hot new place to be is Wildwood. The fact that it's in the middle of freaking nowhere doesn't seem to dissuade the nouveau riche, or wanna-be rich. Personally, the only reason I lived in the middle of nowhere, at a