“Just not in the mood for anything complicated. You know what that’s like.”
“Sure.” Only she didn’t, not real y. She’d connected with Char and, to a certain extent, Elijah. Raze had only ever connected with one woman, a mortal who’d drifted through his life as quickly as al the others but somehow managed to leave an indelible impression behind. Raze had been a man whore as long as Vash had known him. But when he’d come back from Chicago not too long ago, he’d gone from barely keeping his pants on to never dropping them at al . Aside from his fangs, he kept his body parts to himself.
When she had the time, Vash intended to look up Kimberly McAdams in the Windy City and see if she could get a handle on what it was about the woman that had so drastical y altered one of her best captains.
He changed the subject. “I have to head to the airport in a couple hours to pick up the night shift and backup crews we have coming in. If you want to tag along, you stil have time to feed. Plenty of selection in the restaurant—a couple truckers, the bartender, a handful of locals. You’l feel better.”
No…she wouldn’t. Her head turned involuntarily toward Elijah’s door. He had to hear their conversation with his lycan hearing, yet he didn’t come storming out with his demand that she not feed on anyone but him. He’d real y washed his hands of her.
Stil , she couldn’t do it. Didn’t want to, even though she was now two days out from when she’d last drunk from Elijah.
“I’m good,” she said instead. “Why don’t you fil me in on what you picked up today and what you’ve got on the agenda for tomorrow?”
“Where’s your stuff?” His mouth curved. “You brought an overnight bag, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I’ve got the Explorer over there.” He handed her his keycard and she tossed him her rental keys. As embarrassed as she was that she’d been kicked to the curb, at least no one knew she’d been hoping for some after-fight, make-up monkey sex when she’d hopped on a plane a few hours ago.
A girl had to have her pride.
Then she looked over her shoulder at the worn blackout curtains that blocked Elijah’s room from her gaze and wondered if maybe she had a bit too much of it.
CHAPTER 14
Vash’s brows rose when she saw Syre exit from the private plane.
“Damn. We got the big gun,” Raze murmured before stepping forward to clasp forearms with their commander. “Syre.”
“An entire subdivision?” Syre asked without preamble. He stood on the tarmac with the wind blowing gently through his hair, his head-to-toe black attire making him nearly one with the darkness.
A beautiful and deadly dark prince, Vash thought whimsical y. Regal, powerful, and lethal.
“That’s Elijah’s take.” Raze glanced at the three lycans and four minions disembarking. “Good thing we brought two cars.”
“Where is the Alpha?”
“Snoozing. It’s damn near two in the morning. Unlike us, he needs sleep.”
Syre acknowledged that with a nod. “What’s your take, Raze?”
“Same as his. Place gave me the wil ies. It’s like a ghost town.”
Syre looked at Vash.
“I haven’t scoped it out yet, but if Elijah says it’s squirrely, then it’s squirrely. We’ve never faced a cleanup of this magnitude before,” she said grimly. “How do you keep a lid on an entire neighborhood vanishing overnight?”
“UFOs.”
They al turned their heads toward the minion who’d spoken. Vash placed him in his mid-thirties when he’d gone through the Change, and by the brightness of his smile and his twinkling eyes, he hadn’t been a vampire long enough to become world-weary. He wore his dirty-blond hair in a shaggy style, which gave him a laid-back and youthful appearance.
“Seriously,” he said. “We snag a few of the video cameras that we’re bound to find when we enter the houses and film the rest of you running around with flares in the darkness. You’l look like streaking lights. Then let the government cover it al up.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Vash said, deciding to run with the absurdity. “I’l man a camera. Syre, you’re the fastest. You can run around with the flares.”
The look on Syre’s face was worth the cost of admission. Grinning, she asked the minion, “What’s your name?”
“Chad.”
“Don’t talk around Syre, Chad,” she suggested. “He might kil you.”