Gaslight (Crossbreed Series Book 4) Read online

  “I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands this past month. Since Viktor wants me to look over cold-case files, it doesn’t hurt to do a little research.”

  “You’re not still fiddling around with the Vampire trafficking, are you now?”

  “Define fiddling.”

  “I used to play the fiddle,” Wyatt said absently. “Wasn’t any good at it.”

  Shepherd dropped his cigarette butt into an empty soda can. “I can play the world’s tiniest violin. Want to see?”

  Wyatt gave him the finger and strode in front of his vending machine to admire the obscene display of overpriced snacks.

  Christian rose to let Shepherd take over the computer. “Does that mean you have to pay for your own sweets?”

  Wyatt patted the pocket of his jeans, which were baggy in the back. “I’ve got the master key, and the master doesn’t pay.”

  Niko cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, by the hostile flares of energy in the room, I think we’ve been isolating ourselves for too long. I propose we venture out for ale and a game of darts.”

  Shepherd turned a sharp eye toward Niko. “You playing, Mage?”

  Niko offered a wry smile. “Perhaps with enough persuasion.”

  I’d seen Niko throw darts. According to Keystone legend, he’s never once missed the bull’s-eye. That didn’t stop Shepherd from betting against him.

  “I’m in,” I said, grateful for the diversion. I didn’t own a car, and the only times I’d gone out were to go relic hunting in the pawnshops.

  This might be an insightful outing to see how devoted Christian was to the idea of exclusivity. Could he keep his hands off other women? Would I find him knocking boots with one of his old standbys in the private room? Maybe it would be better to find out sooner rather than later if he was a man of his word—before we got in too deep. I still guarded my heart, another reason I wasn’t eager to jump in the sack with my partner.

  Sex complicates things.

  Christian peeled off his shirt and rubbed a hand down his bare chest. “I’ll be in the shower. Care to join? I could use someone to loofah my arse.” He gave me a smug look.

  Same old Christian.

  He was a cocky bastard, and if he didn’t deliver a bad come-on now and again, people would suspect something was up.

  I leaned against the doorjamb. “Maybe you should bathe in holy water instead. I’ve always wondered if that was a myth among Vampires.”

  He brushed his body ever so slightly against mine as he moved past me. “Ladies first.”

  I didn’t see him do it, but I could have sworn he touched my ass.

  “I’m thinking about getting another machine for ice cream,” Wyatt said, pinching a few whiskers on his chin. His cheeks were still flushed from the hours of work that must have gone into polishing the damn machine and unpacking the food.

  Shepherd stood up and cracked his knuckles. “Nobody’s got time for that. Give me a shout when everyone’s ready to go. I’ll drive.” He ran a hand over his head and stopped in front of Niko. “By the way, where are we going?”

  Niko reclined his head as if considering. “Flavors. They have dartboards, should I feel inclined.”

  “Works for me, buddy.” Shepherd clapped him on the shoulder and then headed out.

  When Niko turned on his heel to follow, I snatched the sleeve of his thin shirt. “That’s where Gem’s going on her date. I don’t think it’s a good idea we crash her private party.”

  “Nonsense, Raven. Flavors is a large club. I’m sure we won’t even run into each other.”

  Chapter 2

  Flavors was a swank club with colorful accent lights, trendy furniture, and pillars all along the main floor. Instead of wooden tables and tiny chairs, there was upholstered seating and square coffee tables. This place was more of a lounge since people didn’t come to dance. I hadn’t been with Keystone long enough to know all their favorite spots, but Flavors seemed to be a place they frequented. The energetic bartenders tossed bottles around and put on a real show, keeping the energy level up.

  The game room toward the back of the building lacked the flashy atmosphere and felt more like a cozy bar. The dim lights were soothing, and nobody cared if you kicked up your feet and got a little rowdy. It had its own bar with one bartender, so it attracted a different kind of crowd—the type who played billiards on the other side of the partition to get away from the noise. But the good thing about a place like Flavors was it had a little something for everyone, and we were a diverse group.

  By the time the waitress delivered our next round of drinks, I had acquired a nice buzz. Not enough to be officially drunk, but my coordination was all off, so naturally I thought playing darts against Shepherd was a brilliant idea.

  “Ow!” a man growled, giving me a baleful look as he pulled my dart out of his shoulder. “Watch where you’re throwing, you bitch.” He looked liked he belonged in a 1970s rock band, and I was willing to bet he hadn’t washed his hair since then either.

  I waved blithely. “My bad.”

  Christian took the other dart from my hand and tapped the red plastic flight against my nose. “Have a seat before you poke the wrong person.”

  A laugh tumbled out of my mouth. “I bet you hear that all the time.”

  He held the dart between his teeth and slipped out of his jacket. Then he pushed up the sleeves of his cotton shirt like he meant business. Before I could blink, Christian tossed the dart over his shoulder with a quick jerk of his arm. Didn’t even look.

  “Motherfucker!” The man I’d struck moments ago sprang from his chair, knocking it over. Christian’s dart protruded from between his shoulder blades.

  Shepherd shoved him back in his seat. “Think again.”

  I cracked a smile at Christian. “You missed.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Did I?”

  Stumbling around a table, I abandoned Christian and Shepherd to join Niko, who was sitting alone. The waitress had cleared away our empty bottles and glasses.

  “Don’t you want another beer?” I asked, noticing Niko was still nursing his first bottle.

  He continued folding a napkin, eyes straight ahead. “I’m not thirsty.”

  I plopped down in the chair across from him so I could keep an eye on the dart game. “You don’t drink beer because you’re thirsty; you drink to have fun.”

  “Forgive my bluntness, but I think you need less fun.”

  “I’m having a good time.”

  “You were having a good time three drinks ago. People exceed their limit as a means to dull unwanted emotions, like insecurity or sadness. Sometimes they drink to forget. I’m perceptive, Raven. Your light flashes red whenever a Vampire walks by. You’ll have to get used to being around them sooner or later.”

  Niko had a gift of reading energy that was sometimes intrusive.

  “I’m not an alcoholic. I only drink when we go out.”

  He inclined his head. “That’s my point. You aren’t the type who requires a social lubricant, so one has to ponder why you’re not comfortable in a Breed place sober.”

  Niko couldn’t have known that my father was a recovering alcoholic—I wasn’t sure that I’d revealed that detail to anyone but Christian. As a child of an addict, maybe I was a little more sensitive about someone implying I had a problem. My knee-jerk reaction made it worse since all it did was support the validity of his remark. Niko was right about my comfort level around Vamps. Having my team around made me less of a target, but it still didn’t abate my fears that someone from my past might come after me.

  Seeing all these Vampires in one place made my skin crawl. So what if I enjoyed a few shots of tequila to smooth out the rough edges?

  Still. Just the fact he’d brought it up made me push away my untouched shot glass.

  Niko extended his arms across the table, his hands cupped together. When his slender fingers drifted apart, he revealed a perfectly constructed origami swan. “We all start out as ugly ducklings.”

&nbs
p; I touched the paper in amazement. “How do you do that if you’ve never seen a swan?”

  He drew his arms back and laced his fingers together. “Someone left one of those on a table. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I memorized how to assemble it by taking it apart.”

  “Good thing it wasn’t a penis.” When his cheeks flushed, I chortled. “Someone taught me that trick a long time ago, but he used a cloth napkin. Be careful what you fondle in a bar.”

  Niko reached out to where I’d moved my shot glass and touched it with his fingertips. I’d grown used to his idiosyncrasies, the ways he learned his surroundings by sound, touch, and smell. I had no idea if every blind person lived that way, but it was undeniably Niko. I couldn’t imagine how difficult life must have been a thousand years ago for a visually impaired person in a time before braille, guide dogs, and paved sidewalks. He was fortunate to perceive energy around him, but inanimate objects were his biggest obstacle.

  “Christian mentioned you were researching Vampire trafficking?” he asked.

  “Sort of. Just a cold-case file that everyone’s ignored.” I leaned back and propped my foot on the chair beside me.

  “You already witnessed firsthand how difficult it is to take on the black market. Our time is better spent on cases we can close. Trafficking is a complicated matter, and most of our leads hit a dead end. Why that and not another that doesn’t have so many obstacles?”

  I answered with silence since Niko’s question was rhetorical. While he didn’t know all the sordid details of my past, he sensed it. Even if those victims thought they knew what they were getting into, seeing them auctioned to Vampires compelled me to take action. Humans were naïve, and someone was taking advantage of that.

  “Once you join this world, whether by choice or by force, you’re easy prey,” I explained. “I don’t think those victims going up for auction have any idea what they’re getting into. Someone’s deceiving them, and that’s worse than a kidnapping.” I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “We exist to make a difference. It’s not just about the money. Maybe I want to do something that matters.”

  “And what we’ve already accomplished doesn’t matter?”

  “No, I meant something that’s—”

  “Personal,” he finished. “Maybe that wasn’t the word you were about to offer, but it’s certainly the correct one.” His almond-shaped eyes looked toward me, black lashes framing them. Niko had kind but dangerous eyes. They peered into your soul and saw things that the seeing world couldn’t. “Needn’t worry, Raven. There’s no right or wrong case. If you come up with enough evidence, you’ll have my support. I still have to abide by Viktor’s command, but I too have personal beliefs about slavery. The human world actually prevents us from being able to do more about it.”

  Truer words were never spoken. It was hard disguising and protecting Breed jails, so we couldn’t keep expanding them. The comparisons between the two worlds were stark, especially as I’d lived in both. Breed didn’t have nearly enough law enforcement, and slander laws were a royal bitch to work around. On the flip side, the death penalty was carried out almost immediately, freeing up jail space.

  I drummed my fingers on the table, a metal stud from my leather wrist cuff tapping against the wood.

  Niko scooted over to the chair on my right, the katanas on his waist knocking against the floor. Sometimes he wore them holstered to his back and other times concealed at his waist. He rested his right arm on the table and leaned in close, ebony hair framing his face. “What troubles you? Between the jokes and laughter, I see dim shadows in your light.”

  I swung my eyes up to the bar. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what had been bothering me lately. I had a kick-ass career, a shiny new Keystone tattoo, a roof over my head, and I’d finally buried the axe with my father. My dark mood had nothing to do with Christian traipsing off to Europe, but his absence had left me alone with my thoughts. Maybe that wasn’t always such a great place to be.

  “Remember what I said before about the past not being done with you?” I asked. “It feels like there’s a hole somewhere in the floor, and I covered it with a carpet. But now I forgot where the hole is, and I’m afraid I’m going to fall in. Does that make sense?”

  Niko smiled with his eyes. “That’s why we must tread carefully.”

  I dropped my foot to the floor and sat up straight when I spotted a familiar face entering the room. “This night is about to get interesting.”

  Gem had a jaunty swing in her step, thanks to her four-inch heels with a one-inch platform. Black ribbon crisscrossed over her foot and wrapped around her ankle. If there were any interested men in the room, they were noticing her legs and not her shoes. Gem was five four on a good day—and I was probably being generous with that estimation—but she knew how to make her legs appear longer than they actually were. For a date, I preferred jeans. Gem, on the other hand, went for romantic. Her elegant dress, embellished with tiny sequins, floated above the knees. An empire waist set off the grape-colored fabric, and the sequins sparkled like diamond dust.

  She set her glass on the bar while her date scooted onto the barstool. Then she did a slow and deliberate turn, obviously aware of our uninvited presence. Her teardrop earrings shimmered beneath the lights, as did the glitter makeup around her eyes.

  “You should see Gem,” I remarked to Niko. “I couldn’t pull off a dress like that if I tried.”

  “What is your impression of the man she’s with?”

  I tipped my head to the side and gave Hooper a thorough appraisal. “Well, he’s not exactly dressed up unless you count the fact he wore a tie with his T-shirt. Why do men think they look good in those skinny jeans? I’m not a fan, especially when they have giant holes in the knee. It makes them look like an adolescent kid who outgrew their clothes over summer vacation.” I snorted and looked at my shot glass. “I’m one to talk, though.”

  “I don’t mean his style. What’s your impression of him as a man?”

  I stared at Niko, wondering if he wanted to know how cute Hooper was or about his personality, neither of which I could provide any solid feedback on.

  “Perhaps we should invite him over,” Christian suggested, appearing behind Niko’s chair.

  I looked around. “Where did Wyatt disappear to?”

  Christian chuckled and sat across from me. “If you have to ask, then you don’t know him very well. He prefers to dazzle the ladies with his tall tales over in the main room.”

  “I’ll bet they’re just lining up to hear all about his new venture in the vending machine business.”

  Shepherd flipped a chair backward and sat down to my left, his arms draped over the back, eyes locked on Niko. “Double or nothing you miss.”

  Niko gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I haven’t finished my beer.”

  When Shepherd slid the bottle across the table, Niko caught it in his hand.

  I liked hanging out with just the team. Viktor was a cool cat, but sometimes going out with the boss kept me from truly cutting loose. Lately he’d been preoccupied researching a number of items he’d confiscated from a pawnshop, though I wasn’t sure what those objects were or where he’d put them. I’d caught him scouring the books in our main library and gathering room, searching for clues to whether or not they were important pieces of Breed history that required preservation.

  Christian wolf-whistled at Gem when she leaned over the bar for her juice.

  I tossed the swan napkin at his head. “Don’t be such a fanghole. I thought you wanted her to have a good time.”

  He shrugged nonchalantly. “That was until I got a gander at her date. I’d forgotten what a prick he is.”

  “You’re only saying that because he thinks you’re a peckerhead.”

  Christian flashed his eyes up at me. “You have an intriguing vocabulary.”

  “I remember the look of death he gave you when we were at Club Nine.”

  “All men give me that look. It’s jealousy. I’m a sexua
l god who can bed any woman in this room.”

  Shepherd scratched his bristly jaw. “Bet you can’t get Raven.”

  I snorted at the idea of Christian taking that bet. “I’ll double that.”

  Christian turned in his seat to face the bar, left arm on the table. “What do you think she sees in a man like that?”

  Chairs creaked as we indiscreetly turned to stare at Gem and Hooper.

  Shepherd lifted my glass of tequila and gulped it down. “Women can see what we can’t.”

  Christian tilted his gaze toward Shepherd. “And what’s that?”

  No reply came. Shepherd had gone off to la-la land.

  Shepherd was an aloof guy, but his melancholy mood swings now came and went with more frequency. It was eerie how quickly he could switch his emotions on and off. Maybe it was a quality unique to Sensors, but it creeped me the hell out. He hadn’t been the same since killing Cristo, the man who’d murdered his woman years ago. It made me wonder if getting his revenge had been worth it.

  “Feck me. Here they come.” Christian scooted his chair closer to Niko and pulled a spare from a nearby table.

  Gem glided up next to him. “Everyone, this is Hooper. Hooper, everyone.”

  He gave an obligatory nod while Gem took a seat. Christian draped his arm behind her while Hooper dragged a chair from another table to squeeze between Shepherd and Gem.

  “Did you guys already eat?” I asked. “We can order burgers.”

  Hooper took a seat at the corner of the table, hands in his lap. “I only eat sushi.”

  Niko’s jaw set. “To honor your culture?”

  Hooper was unfazed by the sarcasm. As a bartender, I’m sure he’d heard it all. “It’s my thing. What’s your thing?”

  “Swords.”

  Hooper gestured toward Shepherd. “And he likes cigarettes. See? Everyone has their thing.”

  Christian leaned forward, fangs extended, to get a better look at Hooper. “Aren’t you going to ask what my thing is?”

  Hooper leaned forward and tossed a wadded-up napkin onto the floor beside Christian. “I already know.”