thumb, wrinkling her nose slightly. “You’re such a girl,” Finn muttered, keeping his voice barely above a whisper. Even if anyone was lurking by the windows or door they wouldn’t be able to hear him, preternatural hearing included.
“Shut up.” Nix’s voice was just as quiet as his had been.
“Both of you shut up,” Caine whispered.
Finn couldn’t hold back a grin. “Hang on,” he said. “I’ll have something else for you in a few seconds here.”
He pulled the pliers from his jacket pocket and expediently removed the fangs from the dead vamp, ignoring the crunch and pop they made as they left the corpse’s gums. He looked at Nix and held out his hand. “Take these, too.” He pulled the other stake from his pocket. “Clean the fangs and this stake with bleach. Let them soak a few minutes. You can dispose of that one,” he said, pointing at the used piece of wood.
“They’ll be able to smell the bleach, right?” Her voice was as quiet as his.
“Sure they will.” He glanced over at Caine and then looked at Nix again. “But they’ll also be able to smell your husband’s blood. I can explain away the bleach,” he added with a shrug.
As Nix left to take care of the fangs and wooden stakes, Finn settled himself on the floor by the corpse and looked at Caine, who hadn’t moved a hair. “Did she tell you about where the meetings are being held?” Finn asked.
Caine gave an imperceptible nod. “She did.” His voice was so low Finn had to strain to hear. Caine went on, “When this is all over, Byron Maldonado, Nix, and I will have a nice, long chat, don’t worry.”
“Do you think he’s involved?” Finn leaned back on one elbow.
“I don’t know.” Caine sounded troubled by that. “I think if there was a big enough payout for him, he might.”
“And that bothers you.”
“It does.” Caine took a step forward. Light from outside filtered around the curtains and streamed across his face. “If he’s part of this rogue group, it means he’s sold out every bit of integrity I ever thought he had.”
Finn knew personal integrity meant a lot to Caine. “And what about Liuz?”
Caine’s face went still and hard like marble. Except a marble statue’s jaw didn’t flex like Caine’s was. His reddened eyes met Finn’s. “I want to be there, at the end. I want him to die at my hands for what he did to Nix.”
Just then Nix walked back into the room. Finn got to his feet and took the stake and teeth from her. “I need some of your blood,” he told Caine.
The vampire lifted his wrist to his mouth and raked his fangs across the veins. Blood, rich and wet in the semidarkness, streamed down his arm. Without a word Finn handed him the stake, watching while Caine rolled it around, coating it in blood.
He took the stake and stared at it, watching a drop of blood fall off the sharp tip. “Ah.” He looked at Nix. “Could I trouble you for a towel?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She walked off, soundless even in her irritation, and returned less than a minute later with a hand towel and a washcloth. She handed him the towel. “For the stake,” she said.
He slipped the terry cloth–wrapped wood into the inner pocket of his leather jacket while Caine repeated the process with the fangs. Nix gave him the washcloth, which he dropped the fangs into before folding it up and stuffing it into the back pocket of his jeans. With a slight smile, he said to Caine, “You want to flick some of that my way?”
“Good idea.”
“Wait!” Nix said in a harsh whisper as Caine lifted his arm and flung it toward Finn a couple of times, flinging splatters of blood onto his clothing.
“Just so you know,” she muttered, “I’m not cleaning this mess up.”
Finn felt a hot splash across his cheek. “Okay, okay. I think we’re good.” He reached up and swiped at the blood on his face.
“You could’ve smeared him with blood,” Nix said to her husband. “You didn’t have to fling it all over the place.” She huffed a sigh. “Men.”
Finn reached inside his jacket and swiped his fingers against the towel that held the stake. He looked down at the corpse. “Uh, you guys’ll take care of this one?”
Caine nodded. “We’ll put him in my clothes and disfigure his face so no one can tell it’s not me by looking at him. My friend