Chapter One
FINN
Sometimes, I wonder how I’m still alive. I don’t think I’m necessarily reckless, although some might say that having a partner who is a vampire and joining a vampire-only police department makes me seem like it. But I honestly feel safer now than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m surrounded by men and women who are faster and deadlier than any human, yet I feel like I’m covered by a security blanket. A blanket with fangs and grumpy personalities.
Growing up, my security came from me relying on myself—my mother did little to protect me—so I learned how to care for myself and keep myself safe. But now… now I have Marcus to watch over me and it’s oddly comforting.
“What are you contemplating over there?” Marcus asks.
I smile at the handsome vampire who is looming next to me. “How you got so lucky to end up with me.”
“I literally just asked if you wanted sprinkles on your ice cream and you got this far-off look on your face like you had to contemplate how sprinkles came into existence.”
I narrow my eyes. “Don’t get sassy with me,” I growl.
Karsyn, who’s in front of us in line at the tiny ice cream shop right next to the city’s main park, slowly turns to look at us. “Disgusting,” he growls, Russian accent coming through thicker because of his tone. The poor sweet man is just sexually frustrated because the man he spends all day ogling doesn’t seem to notice nor like him.
“So?” Marcus says.
“So?” I ask, unsure what we’re “so-ing” about since I might have gotten distracted by Karsyn’s rancid, yet kind of cute, attitude. I love it when he gets really fired up and starts spitting shit at people in Russian. It makes me feel worldly to be surrounded by such diverse people.
“Sprinkles. Do you want some motherfucking sprinkles?” Marcus asks.
“They fuck mothers?” I ask, acting aghast.
A mother who is two people ahead of us turns creepily slow to glare at us. She gets one look at Marcus and quickly turns back around. Marcus can be a bit menacing before you get to know him. And then once you know him, he’s adorable.
“I’m just going to get him a bowl,” Karsyn decides. “An empty bowl. And he can hold his empty bowl and forlornly regret being a smart-ass. He’ll be all like ‘Please, sir, I want some more’ and I’m going to laugh in his face.”
There are still three people ahead of us in line, so I have time to kill while harassing my two favorite people.
“I feel like you’re especially snarky today, Karsyn,” I say as I step forward and wrap my arms around his body. He instantly stiffens and starts barking stuff in Russian as I squeeze him tightly. I’m positive he’s saying stuff like “I love you” and “Hug me harder.”
“I think he’s liking it,” Marcus says. While Marcus, my boyfriend of six months, hates me interacting with anyone who could even remotely like me, he does love it when I harass Karsyn. We both do. It’s kind of a bonding experience. We bond over torturing Karsyn and Karsyn bonds with us because he must secretly like it.
“Get. Off. Me,” he growls, but it makes me squeeze him tighter. And then he’s spitting Russian words at me again.
“Marcus, I’ve been studying Russian and he just said he loves me!”
“Aw!” Marcus says, which sounds weird coming out of the often brooding and grumpy vampire, but again, it relates to annoying Karsyn, so everything’s game.
When I first joined the Vampire Related Crimes unit, or the VRC, after leaving homicide, a lot of the vampires really didn’t like me. Even Marcus, who now confesses his undying love to me every time he sees me, tried his hardest to get rid of me. Karsyn, on the other hand, downright hated me for a good month or so while the others tolerated me. They weren’t used to working with a human partner, since the VRC had never had a human employee before. Thankfully, with my amazing skill of suckering people into liking me, I soon had them all declaring our best friendship.
But out of it all, the thing that mattered to me the most was the way Marcus’s relationship with me changed. While I had plenty of things in my past that made me very grateful, no one has ever made me as happy as Marcus has.
“I’m going to teach you Russian someday so you can understand that I was telling you how irritating you are,” Karsyn growls.
“My one true love?” I ask Marcus.
“Huh?”
“After this… can we go to the park and have Karsyn push me on the swing?” I ask like I’m very hopeful that this will actually happen.
It’s finally spring, so children have flocked to the park, even though the air is slightly cool with the wind cutting through it. The overcast sky allows the vampires out, but they’re still wearing dark clothes and sunglasses. Since the light isn’t too bright, my sunglasses are hooked on my shirt. Anytime the sun comes out, I have to slip them on since the bright light also bothers my eyes. But no one besides Marcus really knows why.
“Next?” the cashier calls out.
Karsyn steps up to her, a scowl still on his face.
“Good afternoon, how can I help you?” the young woman says with so much cheer that it hits Karsyn’s impenetrable brooding bubble and tumbles off.
“I’d like a cup, no ice cream, nothing in it at all for the human. No sprinkles, definitely no spoon. Just a cup,” Karsyn says.
She looks confused as she stares at her notepad. “Just a… cup? Like to share?” she asks.
“Do you see him?” I ask as I press into Karsyn even closer, but my height difference makes it hard to see much of anything. Karsyn is taller than me, but Marcus has about three inches on him and can actually see past him.
“He’s in the back, right there. Jeffry Thompson, you’re under arrest!” Marcus shouts.
When the man peeks over a shelf to look at us, I finally get a good look at him. Then I get a very good look at his back as he bolts, slamming through the door of the tiny ice cream place and out into the street, but Briar has been waiting on that side and DeGray on the other for a moment just like this.
Jeffry is a vampire we’d pinpointed to this location after a string of break-ins and assaults. He’s also very well known for getting away from his pursuers, so the five of us decided to tackle it together, even though I generally work just with Marcus out in the field.
“Can your tiny little legs keep up?” Karsyn asks.
Marcus waves at him like he’s going to defend me. “Shh, Karsyn. He doesn’t like it when you make fun of his speed. You’re like a cheetah, baby,” Marcus encourages. Sadly, he doesn’t see me flipping him off as he and Karsyn zoom off, leaving the struggling human behind.
Jeffry slams into Briar who latches on to him. He socks her in the face with an elbow and she tucks her head away as we rush toward them. He yanks something out that looks like a small handheld canister, but it’s hard to see with them struggling with each other. He brings it up, and just as he goes to press down, she catches his hand and turns it before pushing it herself.
What Briar must have forgotten is that the wind is viciously whipping our way, so when she presses down on the canister, I realize exactly what the canister is.