Precious came into my office with a cup of coffee and a stainless-steel condiment caddy holding little jugs of half and half, creamer, and a sugar bowl. The smile on her face was brilliant as she pranced toward me on shiny blue pumps. I noticed the bow in her hair as well as the choker she wore were also blue today.
“Here you are, Sheriff Romeo. I didn’t know how you took your coffee so I brought out this little caddy.” She set everything down on my desk and I looked at it appreciatively, taking the coffee and holding up the mug.
“I take my coffee black but thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Precious.”
She smiled. “Of course.” She turned toward a small filing cabinet under the window and pointed. I glanced over and noticed the tin of sugar cookies Sally had shown me the other day. “I made up a fresh batch of snickerdoodles. I don’t know if you like those, but anyway, they’re fresh.” She cocked her head to the side and there was something very familiar about the way she moved. “Can I get you one?”
“Sure. That sounds great.”
She grinned happily and pranced over to the filing cabinet to grab the tin and then back to me where she opened it and held it out. I leaned over and took a long whiff before taking a snickerdoodle and then putting it to my mouth. I bit into the cookie and chewed before looking up at her.
“This is great,” I said with my mouth full. I picked up my coffee and washed it down as she smiled brilliantly.
“I’ll just leave them here, then. Enjoy, Sheriff Romeo.” She started to walk away and I stopped her with my words.
“It’s really not necessary to call me by my full name, Precious. Rome is fine.”
She spun around. “Fine. I can do that, Rome.” She offered a tentative smile before turning back and muttering something about some men not having the soul of a romantic under her breath.
I listened to her heels click back down the hallway and sighed, looking back down at my mug of coffee. After popping the last bite of cookie in my mouth, I returned my attention to Buck’s file and began reading.
Vincent
I rose at four thirty in the afternoon, slightly listless rather than energized. I stretched and then realized I really was still tired. The fact that I’d been traveling for ten days across country—since I did it only at night by car or rail—was probably the reason. I hadn’t stopped to really eat, not familiar with my surroundings in the small towns on the backroads I’d taken all the way from Wadmalaw Island, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, where I’d made my home for the last twenty-two years. Staying off highways had been important to me on this journey. Though I’d sent most belongings, like the antiques and family furnishings, ahead by moving company for Lydia Jameson to set up my home, some things had to be driven across country only by myself.
Though he was no more than a bag of bones after seven hundred years, my maker went with me in a coffin of my own design everywhere I settled. He’d be buried somewhere on my property where others of my kind would never be able to find him. These days, I gently placed him in a rented U-Haul trailer. Modern conveniences were nice. Today, it was a lot easier than it had been dragging his bones across medieval Europe by wagon. I suppose I should count myself incredibly lucky to have lived as long as I had when peril for vampires seemed to be around every corner.
I got out of bed and walked to my steam shower, turning it on and letting it heat even though heat didn’t really matter to me one way or another. I enjoyed the steam more than the heat. The shower had been part of the building plans I’d sent over to Lydia. I figured if I ever had any human guests, they’d appreciate it as well. Not like I was planning on fucking anyone while I was here in Prosper Woods. I’d gone a decade without a man after the last disastrous encounter when I’d accidentally bled a lover dry after going too long without. I had been—let’s say—a little gun-shy after that.
For the last ten years, I’d subsisted on a combination of animal blood and stolen bags from blood banks. Stealing from blood banks always came with the possibility of being caught since the technological age had arrived along with cameras in every hospital and on every street corner. I had been planning on eating the wildlife in Prosper Woods, which was one reason I’d chosen a town in the redwood forest. Unfortunately, after my arrival yesterday, I realized that eating the kind of wildlife around here might be even more dangerous than robbing a blood bank.
The kind of wildlife in these woods had my kind on the menu and I planned on staying away from it at all costs.
I had a bad feeling I’d be traveling to nearby towns to eat every now and then. I could go a month or more without eating but still, I didn’t like having to drink from humans. Though I rarely drained them enough to kill them—hadn’t since that sad incident—I still hated the practice. I wasn’t one of those vamps who enjoyed the kill. I’d miscalculated in that instance. My hunger had driven me to choose the only available food source around… a small man. Though I’d sworn to always choose large and muscular men to feed
