Kelsey’s nausea came back. Her heart raced in her chest, when vampires’ hearts don’t have to beat at all if they don’t want them to, but she couldn’t do anything to slow hers. She’d read that part of the contract, but assumed it was talking about the security people. She had no idea it would apply to her. Stupid.
And she’d spent every last penny, and then some, to get an American identity and make it this far. She was trapped here, but she couldn’t imagine holding a gun and using it.
2
Her terror filled the SUV, and Collosa rolled his window down. He’d specifically been told not to aggravate her anxiety levels, and now he’d scared the fuck out of her.
“I’m sorry. You’re terrified, and I’m doing a horrible job of welcoming you. I’m sure Aaron will give you some time. We’ll ease into it, okay? Paintball guns first. They shoot with compressed air. We can move up from there as you’re comfortable.
Maybe. Collosa was careful not to make promises — Aaron isn’t an unfeeling ogre, but he’s also serious about his employees’ safety, and that would mean getting her a concealed carry license as soon as possible, so she could defend herself if someone decided to kidnap her when she was off by herself.
Though, realistically, that wasn’t likely to happen often.
He struggled for something to say, another subject, something to make her not smell so terrified. He remembered her shirt — he’d recognized it when she got off the plane, though he didn’t have a clue what it meant.
“What’s that on your shirt? The Prancing Pony? One of my, well, our roommates has one just like it.”
“You don’t know what the Prancing Pony is?”
He smiled. She’d forgotten her fear and now seemed incredulous.
“Should I?”
“Well. At least one of my housemates will know.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
She eyed the clock. “We still have more than six hours. I suppose I could explain it in that much time.”
Collosa changed lanes to go around a line of slower cars, and then slid back to the right-hand lane. He enjoyed driving at night. “Is there a short version? Three sentences or less?”
“It’s from a series of books that was later made into a movie.”
“And the name of the books? Or movie?”
“The series is The Lord of the Rings.”
He frowned. “I’ve seen the movies.”
“The Prancing Pony is the Inn they go to between the Shire and Rivendell.”
He shook his head. He hadn’t paid that much attention to place names. He searched for something else to talk about. “I’m thirty-five, so you’re two years older than me, even if you look twenty. Fabio just turned thirty-three, and Eunice is thirty-two.”
“I was twenty-five when I was turned, though I’m told I look younger. You’re okay with a vampire living in your house?”
“You know it’s my house?”
“Yes.”
Not many people knew that. He’d bought it outright, and the other two men paid rent. However, the three of them made most decisions together. They’d gone in together to buy the hot tub and make the deck bigger. Collosa had bought the new appliances, cabinets, and countertops when they’d torn the kitchen out and completely remodeled it, but the other two had helped with expenses for the wall and floor tile, and they’d all put a ton of man hours into it.
“What else did your hacking skills tell you about us?”
“Fabio and Eunice are ex-military, but you aren’t. Both were special forces and it looks like they weren’t on the same teams but they were on some of the same missions, so they likely knew each other before they came to work for Drake.”
True on the surface, but there was more, if one went deeper. They’d been tortured by the enemy together, and then they’d escaped together and killed the men who’d tortured them — and everyone else in the encampment while they were at it. It was one of those cases where they were awarded medals they couldn’t keep, because it was all top secret.
Fabio is a black leopard, and Eunice is a mongoose. Not even a grizzly bear would want to go up against both of them together, and they’d been captured by humans.
“I need to amend an answer I gave you earlier,” he told her.
“Amend? You mean change?”
“Set parameters. Qualifications.” Okay, yeah, change, but only because she’d gotten so damned scared.
“When it comes to pets, I’d rather deal with an aggressive German Shepherd than one who’s normally affectionate but afraid of his own shadow. It’s possible to train the aggression out of most animals and people, but a fear response...” he sighed. “People and animals are at their most dangerous when they are terrified and feel cornered.”
“And you just realized the new pet vampire has a scary fear response?” Her Australian accent was back full force, and she sounded pissed, but that was more than okay. He could work with anger a helluva lot better than he could handle terror.
“Pet? That’s cute. You’re a baby vampire who barely pings my radar as a vampire.”
“That’s because my former Master withdrew his power before I left, and my new Master hasn’t accepted me in the flesh yet. There’s only so much he can do over a bloody video call.”
“Even when you’re mad, you need to try to speak American instead of Australian, and I hadn’t realized the problem with moving like this between Masters. How weak are you?”
“I’ll be fine. He’s supposed to be at your house when we arrive. Normally, I’d have to go to the coterie house upon arrival, but the old Master Vampire hasn’t fully given the city up yet. The new one, Marco, is taking me on as one of his because he’ll be in charge soon enough, and the old one, Kendra, is trying to make the transition as easy as possible on everyone.”
“Marco is still Master of New York, right? So he’ll be strong enough to power you?”
Baby vampires need either their maker or a new Master to help them maintain. Collosa had known this, but hadn’t realized how it worked when a baby vamp had to travel halfway around the damned planet.
“Yes. Look, I’ll be fine, and you’re right, I’m not powerful, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Right. Supposedly, you can hack brains like you do a computer, but no one’s been able to get into my mind without drinking my blood since I was a teen.”
“And only Fabio has agreed to feed me.” When he didn’t respond, she told him, “I won’t try to get into your head because it’s important you trust me, but I’ve never had trouble getting past the shield of any bear, cat, wolf... any mammal, actually. If I wanted in, I’d get in.”
And if she could, he needed to know. He sighed, cussed inwardly, and made sure his shields were strong.
“Fine, then try. If you can, we need to know. If you can get in unseen, Aaron will probably give you a raise to do it to visitors to his office, to let him know what’s going on in their heads.”
“No. I won’t.”
He sighed. “Look, you living with us isn’t a done deal. If it doesn’t work out, there are guestrooms in the basement of Drake Security. I’m not going to kick you out if you can get in, or if you can’t, but I might if you refuse to even try. You can’t promise someone you can get into their head and then refuse to do it. Not cool.”