secrets.
“How can we be sure?” Lucien asked.
“I’m sure.” She gripped my arm. “The vitamin supplements are blue and sparkly, about the size of an aspirin.”
“Holy hell.”
Vinny slammed the trunk. “All set.”
“Get in the car,” I told her.
I took a seat next to Lucien and yanked the door closed. “Sunny was giving Slimprol to Tia’s husband, Thomas.”
His expression hardened. “How can you know?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I put one on his tongue every morning.” She ended in a wail. “I thought I was helping him. I love him! Why would Sunny want him to go to sleep?”
“She wouldn’t,” Lucien said, pulling out of the drive. “But her husband, Gaston, is Thomas’s business partner, correct?”
Tia gave a sniffling nod.
“Pharmaceuticals,” Lucien added.
“What do you want to bet they’re the makers of Slimprol?” Vinny asked.
“About a hundred billion percent.” I wondered just what Sunny had gotten herself mixed up in. Tia, too.
“Is he—” Tia sobbed, “is he going to be okay?”
Vinny patted Tia on the leg, clearly uncomfortable with the grieving woman next to him. “How long has your husband been taking it?”
She gazed at him through red-rimmed eyes. “Six years.”
“Oy,” Vinny said.
“Vinny!” If I could have flicked him on the head, I would have. We all knew it was bad. She didn’t need to hear it from him.
What I wanted to know was, “What’s Sunny’s husband been doing for the last six years?”
Tia shook her head. “I don’t know, but I saw him tonight.”
“Here?” Lucien asked. “In Eternal Life Estates?”
She nodded. “While I was waiting on the porch. But he didn’t go home.”
“Where’d he go?” I asked, as we pulled up to Bliss’s house, ready to spring into action. By the expression on Tia’s face, I already knew.
“I love when a plan comes together,” Vinny said, cocking his shotguns like a Wild West cowboy.
“You call this a plan?” I asked, on Lucien’s heels.
Oh sure, we had Bliss and Gaston in one spot. “It also means we’re about to barge in on a pissed-off weretiger and a bloodsucking vampire—no offense, sweetie.”
“None taken,” he said, as we stalked to the front door, using the dense foliage as coverage. “I think our biggest consideration is that I’m still weak.”
“And I can’t shift,” I said, “not so soon after interrogating.”
Lucien gave me a long, concerned look as we waited for Vinny and Tia.
I held up my hands. “Hey, I can’t change my nature.”
He should know that by now.
“Here, babe,” Vinny said, handing Tia a shotgun.
Oh yeah. That was a good idea.
“Ready?” Lucien murmured, right before he rushed the door and kicked it in.
I sprinted after him with Vinny on my heels.
By the time I got there, Lucien was locked in combat with a white-haired vampire. In the split second it took for me to assess the situation, Bliss tackled me from behind.
My head smacked the ceramic floor and my vision swam.
Yip-yip-yip!
I turned over to see Chi-Chi launch herself at Bliss’s neck. The tiger slapped the dog away. She yelped as she slammed against the wall, but it was enough time for me to unsheathe my dagger. It sliced Bliss across the chest and she roared.
Bliss shifted, lowering her head as tiger fur raced down her back.
Vinny fired his shotgun, blowing Gaston off of Lucien. I stood, wiping blood out of my eyes.
Gaston hissed, fangs bared. Lucien was pale and bloody. He launched himself at the white-haired vampire, but Gaston dodged, tossing Vinny through the front window. His body smashed through the glass.
“Heather!” Tia screamed as Bliss readied to pounce.
I fired my pistol once. Twice. My silver bullets didn’t even slow her down. The wounded tiger kept coming. She was after blood now and there was nothing I could do.
Vinny was out. Lucien was locked in his own life-or-death battle. Tia crouched in the corner.
“Tia!” I screamed as Bliss landed on me like a two-ton brick. I pulled out my lucky boot knife, sinking it into her chest as she hit me. She kept coming. I hit the floor, rolling with her to keep her from taking out my neck, but it was just a matter of time. Only seconds.
My fingers gripped her coarse fur. It felt like time slowed as her sinewy muscles moved under my hands. She was a killing machine.
I waited for the end as blood spurted across my face. At first, I thought it was mine and I marveled at how I didn’t even feel any pain.
The tiger roared and fell backward. A large brown wolf had it by the neck.
I shot Bliss