He smiled. “Good. Now, how're you getting home? Do you need a ride? A taxi?”
“No, I will do that myself.”
“Wait—before you go.” He moved toward her. That lovely scent of his hit her nose and she breathed him in. “Can I kiss you good-night? Even though I don't deserve it?”
Per custom, she offered him the back of her hand.
He took it and pulled her forward. That throbbing in her blood and between her legs came back.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered.
She did as he'd said.
His lips softly brushed her forehead. Then her temple.
Her mouth opened as the sweet suffocation returned.
“You could never displease me,” he said in his gravelly voice.
And then his lips touched her cheek.
She waited for more. When nothing came, she opened her eyes. He was staring down at her remotely.
“Go,” he said. “I'll see you tomorrow.”
She nodded. And dematerialized right out of his hand.
Butch shouted and leaped back. “Shit!”
He looked at his hand. He could still feel her palm against his. Still smell her perfume.
But she was goddamned gone. Poof. One minute in front of him and then the next…
Beth came running into the room. “Are you okay?”
“No, I'm not fucking okay,” he snapped.
The suspect strode in. “Where's Marissa?”
“How should I know! She fucking disappeared! In front… She was… I held her hand and then she—” He sounded like a frantic idiot and clapped his trap shut.
But why wouldn't he be freaked out? He liked the laws of physics just as he knew them. Gravity keeping everything on the flipping planet where it should be. E = mc2 telling him how fast he could get to a bar.
People not poofing the hell out of a goddamned room.
“May I tell him?” Beth asked her man.
The suspect shrugged. “Usually I'd say no, because it's better they don't know. But considering what he saw—”
“Tell me what? That you're a bunch of—”
“Vampires,” Beth murmured.
Butch looked at her, annoyed. “Yeah, right. Try that one again, sweetheart.”
But then she started talking, telling him things he couldn't believe.
When Beth fell silent, he could only stare at her. His instincts were telling him she wasn't lying. But it was all just too hard to accept.
“I don't believe this,” he said to her.
“It was hard for me to comprehend, too.”
“I'll bet.”
He paced around the room, wishing he had a drink. The two of them just stared at him.
Finally, he stopped in front of Beth. “Open your mouth.”
He heard a low, nasty sound behind him just as a cold draft hit him in the back.
“Wrath, it's okay,” Beth said. “Calm down.”
She parted her lips, revealing two long canines that had very certainly not been there before. Butch felt his knees wobble as he reached out to touch her teeth.
A thick hand clamped on his arm, tight enough to bend the bones in his wrist.
“Don't even think about it,” Beth's man growled.
“Let him go,” she commanded gently, though she didn't offer her mouth again after the guy had released his grip. “They're real, Butch. This whole thing… it's all real.”
Butch looked up at the suspect. “So you're actually a vampire, is that it?”
“You'd better believe it, cop.” The big, dark bastard smiled, flashing a monstrous set of fangs.
Now that's some serious hardware , Butch thought.
“Did you bite her and turn her into one?”
“Doesn't work that way. You're either born our kind or you're not.”
Well, weren't all those Dracula fans going to be bummed? No two-pronged conversions.
Butch let himself fall down onto the sofa. “Did you kill those women? To drink their…”
“Blood? No. What's in human veins wouldn't keep me alive for long.”
“So you're telling me you had nothing to do with those deaths? I mean, we found throwing stars at the scenes that match the ones you were packing the night I arrested you.”
“I didn't kill them, cop.”
“How about the one in the car?”
The guy shook his head. “My prey is not human. What I fight's got nothing to do with your world. And the bomb? We lost one of ours in it.”
Beth made a quick, hard sound. “My father,” she whispered.
The man drew her into his arms. “Yeah. And we're looking for the bastard who did it.”
“Any idea who pushed the button?” Butch asked, the cop in him coming out.
The guy shrugged. “We got a bead on something. But that's our business, not yours.”
Yeah, and Butch had no reason to ask anyway. Because he wasn't on the force.