He opened his mouth, and she was sure he was about to scold her for luring him here—or at least pretend to—but then someone else walked up and interrupted him. Looking up, Jessica was annoyed to see some girl hovering over them. Annoyed because not only was the girl butting in, she was also one of the most beautiful people Jessica had ever seen in her life. She was almost too beautiful to be human.
Uh-oh.
“Nathan?” The girl stared at him with hard eyes. Her irises were almost as blue as his, but with a touch of gray to them. Her hair was long and honey-blonde and secured at her nape, with only a few curls left loose around her face. She looked about twenty years old, and was dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, with a cute little bomber jacket on top. Motorcycle boots, coated with road dust, completed the ensemble. Despite her slim build and delicate bone structure, there was something about her that screamed Badass; mess with me at your own peril.
“Yes?” Nathan’s tone was cautious, and Jessica noticed he sat forward in his seat, all his muscles tensing like he was ready to spring up and protect her if this strange chick tried any sudden moves or anything.
“My name is Chloe.” The stranger gave Jessica a cursory once-over before returning her attention to Nathan. “Is there someplace private we can talk? There is something important I must discuss with you.”
Nathan hesitated, and Jessica took the opportunity to chime in. “My store. It’s right across the way from here. It’s closed for renovations, but we can go in and talk there if you want. No one will bother us.”
Chloe looked at Jessica again, her eyebrows arching at her impudence. “Who is this?” she asked Nathan, and Jessica guessed the girl had scarcely stopped herself from tacking the word “mortal” onto the end of the question. Because this girl was definitely not human. Jessica was becoming more convinced of that by the second. There was just something about the way she held herself, and the strange sparkle in her eyes, not to mention the odd cadence to her voice, so reminiscent of Nathan’s. It was also becoming obvious that whatever her own background, Chloe knew exactly what Nathan was.
Nathan must have guessed this, too, because he said, “Jessica is…a special friend. She knows about me. And I would trust her with my life.”
Chloe still seemed skeptical, but she agreed to go across the courtyard to the bookstore with them. Jessica grabbed a lid for her coffee, and soon they were all sitting in Book of Love’s reading nook together, on the new furniture Jessica had ordered after Celia’s rampage.
“You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” Jessica asked Chloe, marveling at the way the girl’s skin caught and reflected the light from overhead. From certain angles, she looked like she was carved out of mother-of-pearl.
“You should not be able to discern that,” Chloe said. “I am using mesmerism to disguise myself from you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jessica smiled. “Well, it isn’t working.”
Chloe raised her eyebrows in surprise.
Nathan jumped in to explain, “For unknown reasons, Jessica is able to resist vampiric mesmerism.”
Chloe gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment. She turned back to Jessica and corrected her, “I am a quarter vampire, actually. That is what accounts for the strange cast to my complexion. Full vampires do not normally exhibit such a trait.”
“A quarter? How is that even possible?”
“My mother is half vampire, and my father was human.”
Jessica was blown away. Her mouth dropped open for a second before she said, “Whoa, that’s possible? Vampires can have babies?!”
Now Chloe’s eyes sparkled, and her mouth tugged up in a crooked smile. “It is extremely rare, particularly in more than one generation of the same family. But, yes, vampires can sometimes procreate. Only with humans, as far as I know. We hybrids are known as nosferim, and I would not be surprised to learn I am one of only a handful left alive in the world today.”
Jessica turned to Nathan, gaping. “Did you know that?”
“I did not,” he admitted, smiling too. Then, addressing Chloe, he asked, “How did you know where to find me?”
“Grant,” Chloe responded. “That is, Kiefer. He and I have been corresponding online for some time now. He said you and he had recently killed the master vampire, Celia, and that you had given him permission to tell me about you.”
“Ah,” Nathan nodded in understanding. “Yes, I remember him telling me of you now, and saying he had invited you to Houston. But he did not mention you were part vampire.”
“I did not tell him. I wanted to speak to you first. It is you in whom I am interested.”
Jessica sat up straighter, and Chloe seemed to notice. The vampire girl actually flashed a quick, reassuring smile at her. “I have something of a business proposal for you, Nathan,” she explained, turning back to him. “I would like to recruit you.”
“Recruit me? For what?”
“I come from a long line of vampire hunters, but there are very few of us left these days.” Sadness flickered in her eyes, but she quickly suppressed it. “I am on my own now, and I wondered if perhaps we might work together.”
“Hunting vampires?” Incredulity shaded Nathan’s voice.
“You will find I am quite adept at the endeavor. I have killed three masters myself over the years.”
Nathan squinted. “You look quite young to have waited at least a decade to dispatch so many masters. Did you begin tracking them as a toddler?” He held his hand a couple of feet above the floor, to indicate how small she must’ve been when she’d gotten started.
Chloe looked faintly amused. “I have gathered from Gra…from Kiefer that no one has ever told either of you, but there is no reason to bury masters and then wait for them to weaken for years before one slays them. Not when one has the appropriately enchanted implements and spells at one’s
