“How intriguing,” she cooed. “How about this, you tell me what you are, and I won’t kill your friend.” She snapped her fingers, and a vampire stepped from the shadows. His arms were wrapped around a struggling Mick. My lungs seized. Fuckfuckityfuck.
“Don’t tell her,” Mick rasped as if there was something to tell. With my heart in my throat, I stared at my partner and tried to figure a way out of this mess.
My eyes flicked to her. “I’m nothing, really. I just . . . sense things.”
“Wrong,” she said. Her fingers snapped, and I screamed as the vampire buried his fangs in the side of Mick’s neck.
“I don’t know what I am!” I shouted. “I can feel you inside my head, that’s all. Now, let him go!”
“Wrong again,” she sang, and I panicked.
“You fucking bitch!” I pointed my gun at the vamp holding Mick, aimed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. The vampire exploded into a pile of dust, Mick crumpled to the ground, and ice queen let out an unholy sounding shriek.
“Lenora, we must go,” one of the other vamps called out. That’s when I heard the sirens.
With a swish of her robes, the ice bitch and her fang-gang melted into the night.
Mick died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Bernie, of course, sang like a canary.
And a week later, I was transferred to the Paranormal Human Division.
2
Four months later . . .
Christ, I hate this place. Like every other morning since my re-assignment, I was kicked back in my cushy chair with my feet on my desk and my favorite coffee mug in my hands while gazing out my office window. I took a sip of the almond-flavored delight and sighed. I never thought I would say it, but I actually missed the coffee from my old department. It was the put-hair-on-your-chest and turn-your-teeth-permanently-brown-after-one-sip kind of coffee, not this fancy, froufrou crap. Fancy coffee from a fancy cafe in a fancy office building with cushy chairs and a great view. Fucking kill me now.
My eyes dropped to the notepad on my desk and the large, red number sixteen scrawled across the page. It had been sixteen weeks since Mick’s death. As always, when I thought of Mick, which was often, my heart ached. He was dead because of me. His wife was now a widow, and his children were without a father because of me. It should have been me who died that night.
My first month working at PHD had not gone well. My heart was shattered over losing Mick. Not only did I have zero appetite, but my sleep was plagued with nightmares, and since I couldn’t talk about it without breaking down, I didn’t. His death had left a gaping hole inside my chest. The only reason I showed up at work at all was for the paycheck. I spent a lot of time sitting in my office staring out the window—a lot of time thinking about that night and all the things I could have done differently. I missed my partner—my best friend.
Four weeks to the day after Mick’s death, my new boss paid me a visit. After staring at me for what felt like forever, he said, “Girl, I get that you’re hurting, but you’re going about it the wrong way. Vengeance requires three things: patience, ingenuity, and skill. If you want Lenora Moreau, you’re going to need those, plus a hell of a lot more.”
My spine stiffened at the mention of the ice bitch’s name. He now had my attention. From the smug expression on his face, he knew it, too. Whatever.
“What do you know about Lenora?” I asked.
“Plenty, but the only way I’m willing to share it with you, is if you get off your pretty little ass and fight for it.”
As an officer in the Paranormal Human Division, or PHD for short, our role was to act as a liaison between the human and paranormal communities. In other words, my team was called in when shit with vamps, shifters, and whatever else scary-as-hell thing creeping around out there went sideways and humans were involved. Evidently, this happened a lot. The PHD currently had six members, five of whom were men, and me. Ayden, with his sandy-blond hair, brown eyes, and overly large front teeth, was the schmoozer of the group. His specialty was weapons, preferably throwing stars, knives, and stakes. He made a practice of hitting on me pretty much every day, and I made a practice of kneeing, punching, and kicking him in the balls whenever the chance arose.
Todd was the gentle giant. He had a head full of curly, blond hair, Caribbean-blue eyes, and butt-white skin. His gig was martial arts. As I’d taken years of Karate and Taekwondo, I thought I could hold my own. I was wrong. Todd was the best fighter I’d ever experienced.
Akeno was a smallish Japanese man who specialized in poisons, chemical warfare, and various ways to blow shit up. It was Akeno who explained to me the nuances of a vampire bite—how their saliva can produce enzymes that act as an aphrodisiac. If not activated, the bite can be agonizing. Those same enzymes also act as a coagulant. The vampire who bit Mick was ashed before he had a chance to seal up the bite. This meant that Mick essentially bled to death.
Jafore was the quietest of the bunch. He was a tall, skinny, ebony-skinned man who excelled at everything. No joke, the man could do it all, but his specialty was hunting vampires. I had a feeling that Jafore and I were going to be great friends.
Last was my dark-as-night, sinfully sexy, scary-as-shit new boss, Tymon Brenner. Tymon was a badass. He was also not human, or should I say, not entirely human. Tymon had a warm glow but also something else. I
