Bless The Beauty - By Stacey Kennedy Page 0,25

he was now, and would always be, a better person than I could be on a good day.

Resolved to get back to the matter at hand, I picked up the phone and dialled the number. Only two rings in a soft voice answered, “Aurora Psychiatric Hospital, how may I help you?”

“This is Special Agent Hadley Sloan. I am working a case with the Milwaukee Police Department, and wondered if you at some point had a patient there by the name of Chad McKinney.” Silence filled the line. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” the woman’s voice said in a soft tone. “I suppose we should have expected this call.”

My dead heart leapt into my throat. That was just the response that I’d been hoping to hear over the past hour. Her response, though, irked me. Why wouldn’t they offer their help on the information they had on him? Damn, mortals could be so annoying. “So, he was a patient there, then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I let out a long deep sigh, relieved that we had gotten somewhere. “We need to come and speak with you immediately.”

“But it is the middle of the night. Dr. Peterson, who treated Mr. McKinney, worked the day shift today. He will be sleeping now.”

“This cannot wait until morning.” Not only because this was urgent, but also because I couldn’t go out in the daylight to talk to him. We needed to act now. As it was, we were going to lose some time going to Mistress Ellery’s.

This choice was the only one we had. Kellen had enemies that would love to expose such a secret as what I had going on with Chase. “You need to wake him up. We’ll be there in…” I looked at Kellen, who raised two fingers. “Two hours. Make sure he’s there.” Then, without another word, I hung up.

Kellen grinned. “Now then, let’s go and claim ourselves a consort.”

Chapter Seven

“I take it since you are driving in the opposite direction of the hospital, we’re not going there.”

Chase gave me a stern look from the backseat of Kellen’s car. “Mind telling me where we are going?”

I shifted in the front seat to look back at him, wondering just how I was going to put this. And furthermore, just what his reaction would be. I suspected he wasn’t going to be happy. “All right, take a deep breath and don’t throw a shit fit.”

Chase’s brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “All right.” His voice was hesitant and very guarded.

“Under vampire law…” I hesitated a moment, pondered what to say next or if I even wanted to continue at all. After a moment, I sucked back the hesitation and finished in a hurried breath, “I have to claim you as a consort for you to know about us.”

Chase’s suspicious expression shifted to one of blatant confusion. “A what?”

“A consort, it’s like a human…” I almost blurted out a word that he’d definitely not appreciate. I was only glad my mouth clamped shut before I made a terrible mistake.

“A pet,” Kellen finished for me shamelessly.

Chase’s expression returned to outrage so quickly, I was a surprise I managed to withhold my laughter. He crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. “You are not going to claim me as your pet, Hadley.”

I smiled and it was definitely forced. “It’s not really that bad.” What else could I say? I wouldn’t feed him bullshit or lie to him. What we were about to do was indeed under vampire law—acquire him for our uses. The term pet was exactly how vampires referred to it. I wasn’t about to tell him any different.

My words did nothing to ease Chase’s stern glance. “Hadley, if you think I am going to allow you to claim me as your pet, you’ve clearly lost it.”

I glanced over at Kellen who drove with a smile on his face. Jerk. Looks like I wasn’t about to get any help from him. My gaze returned to Chase. “It doesn’t mean anything to you, only to vampires.”

I hoped he’d see past this. “I don’t think of you that way.”

“Well that’s a fucking good thing.” Chase guffawed.

Kellen laughed and his grin only grew as he glanced at Chase in the rear-view mirror. “What?

You don’t like the idea of being claimed by her?”

Chase snorted and glowered. “Not in the way it’s suggested, no.”

My hands clenched together as anxiousness set in. We were doing this, on our way to do this. I needed Chase to come to terms with it without scaring him. He was not