Page 16

“That was the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you too.” She didn’t get out of the car right away, so he waited for her. “When we have our children, I want to raise them better than we were raised. I want them to know that they’re loved and cherished forever. That we’ll make sure that they’re as safe as we can make them and be happy to be around them forever. They’ll be our lives when they come to us, and we’ll make sure that we tell them daily how much we treasure and love them. I want them to know that too.”

“Of course we will.” When she started out of the car, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Be safe today. I know you will be on the lookout for anything happening, but please come home to me tonight. I can’t live without you.”

“I won’t live without you either.” As she got out of the car, he watched her walk away. She had a bounce in her step that he’d not seen before. When she turned back to him and blew him a kiss, he captured it with his hand and put it to his heart. Then he drove back home.

He decided on the way home that he needed a job to do. He didn’t know if he’d go back into investment banking, but he needed something to occupy his time while she was at work. He thought about all the things he’d been in his life, trying to figure out which one had suited him best, and all he could think about was working in the library.

He’d been a worker in the library when he’d been much younger than he was now. There were so few books on the shelves that it was easy work. But the best perk was that he got to read all of them. Rutger loved to read and would do it instead of working any time of the week.

When he got home, he looked in his expansive library and knew that he’d read nearly all of the books there. He’d been collecting books since before he’d become a vampire and had some of the first books ever written by some good authors. Pulling one down, he looked at the homemade paper and decided that he’d find a different book to read when the pages nearly fell apart in his hand. Putting it aside, Rutger knew that he was going to get himself a job at the local library even if it meant that he was only working the desk on most days. Hell, he thought, he’d even read to the kids that were there just to have something to do. He knew then that he was going to read to his children too. Every night and the classics too. They were going to be the smartest kids born. Laughing, he told himself that they’d at least be smarter than his friends.

Chapter 7

Damion watched the woman. He’d heard from others that she wasn’t anyone to mess with, that she had power that would make a person regret trying to take her. But he knew better. Being a vampire of considerable age, he knew that she was just a mate to some other vamp and that he wasn’t afraid of either of them. He wasn’t stupid, however. He’d done his research.

Rutger Smith was old. He was a great deal older than his own fifty years, but that didn’t matter to him. Old vampires were set in their ways and didn’t usually have a pot to piss in. Naming him the richest vamp alive had given him the idea that he could take his mate, demand millions of dollars, and he’d pay it. Just so he’d not be bothered by having to get involved with the king, who was said to be a fool about his own mate.

That was why, when his own mate had come around, and she was a vampire like him, a nobody, he killed her. He didn’t want to be attached to a woman that would weigh him down when he had shit to do. Having a mate for any reason was just stupid when you could get all the sex you wanted from feeding. And he knew that he was good at that. Damion was good at everything he did, including killing.

His maker had told him how to get by on the laws that seemed to come to him as soon as he’d been changed. The first one was that you couldn’t kill your maker unless he did something that would feel like you were going to lose your life. He’d gotten around that rule by picking a fight with his maker and then killing him when he’d been nothing but a baby vamp. And he’d been doing it since. Killing was fun for him.

Not to mention profitable. When he’d kill someone who was older than him, it was easier now that he was older himself; Damion would get all their money and lands that would come to him when the council came to him.

“Now there is a stupid bunch of people.” The council had been three men who were so lazy and gullible that it was easy to get what he wanted from them. Like when he killed a lesser vamp, they’d be on him about it until he told them that he’d not known that rule. He’d been using that excuse since he’d been made. And it worked with them every time. He’d even used it when he’d killed humans.

They would tell him that he couldn’t break human law. He’d been human up until he’d turned thirty-five, but claimed he didn’t know their rules either. He even made up laws that he’d tell them about that would get him out of trouble. Stupid people shouldn’t be allowed to have an administrative job if they were going to not learn the rules.

He’d been watching the woman for the past three days. She did the same thing every day she came to work. She’d get her paperwork for the day and drive with one of the other men to the site that she was to be working at. Planting trees and bushes seemed to be what she was good at. Then around four she’d go on break. It was always the same thing there too. She’d have a cheeseburger and fries at whatever local place there was nearby and then go back to work until around eight. Or whatever time it started to get dark. And that was about nine nowadays.

Why she worked was beyond him. If she was indeed with the richest vampire in the world, then her mate wasn’t putting out any kind of funds for the woman. She was working for a reason, and he’d bet anything that Rutger had cut her off and made her get a job. It sounded to him like the old vamp might be happy to get rid of the mate, and he was just the person to take her from him. Tomorrow he was going to do just that.

Since kidnapping was against the law in both the vamp world and the human world, he’d been thinking up reasons for him to take the woman. His best one was that she and he had been making plans to run away together, and she’d gotten scared when she thought of her big vampire of a mate, and he’d had to kill her. It wasn’t set in stone, but he thought that of all his lies, that was the best one. She would be killed too. And he’d have all the money as well.

Details were a little fuzzy about how he was going to get the money if they were just running off together. While he thought that he could get the money he wanted from Smith, he also knew that even if there wasn’t any, he was going to kill her. It’s what he did, and he enjoyed it too much to let some stupid woman get away from him. Once he got her in the car, he was going to slit her throat and be done with her. She’d be easy pickings too because she seemed oblivious to her surroundings.

Everything she did screamed how stupid she was. First of all, she worked, and that was just stupid. If he were mated to her, he’d have kept her tied to the bed and fucking her all the time. She was a beautiful woman who was wasted on an old vamp.

Secondly, she seemed to talk to herself all the time. Even when she was having her meal, he could hear her having a conversation with herself, and that just wasn’t right. Smith would be better off without some loony who talked to herself all the time. It must have driven him nuts, and that was why she had to work. He knew that if his mate had been a talker, he would have killed her too. Of course he did, but that was beside the point. She was out of his life like this woman was going to be out of Smith’s.

“Perhaps he’ll pay me for getting her out of his hair?” That seemed like a plausible reason to get paid. No one would have to know about it, and they both would be satisfied with the results. He knew he would be.

When she was picked up, she didn’t drive herself to work; he went home as well. He’d been staying in a hotel that had been closed up for a while. He didn’t care that the bed was lumpy and that there was only cold water to bathe with. He had a roof over his head when the sun was the hottest, and he could rest there.

Tomorrow, after the sun was cooling off, he was going to kill her. He didn’t care if there might be witnesses; it would just be one more person to add to his list of kills. As soon as he got her in the car and slit her throat, he was going to bring her body back to his lair and wait for the sun to go down completely before contacting Smith. He would need to rest up on his own before talking to the man. Damion was about as prepared as he’d ever been.

“It won’t work.” He heard the voice behind him and nearly fell when he turned around. “She will not come to you easily, and you’ll be killed. You’d be better off just leaving her alone, or you’ll die. I promise you that.”

He looked around for the person and couldn’t see anyone. He knew that it wasn’t in his head; he knew the difference between someone talking to him in his link or not. And since he didn’t have that many people alive who would have formed a link, he knew it was someone hiding out in his home. When he didn’t see anyone, he decided to talk to them while he looked.

“What won’t work? You don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as someone killing me, I’ve had plenty of practice when it comes to fighting off small women. She won’t hurt me.” The voice said that she would, and when she did, he was going to be nothing but ash. “That only happens to old vamps. I’m a newbie by most standards. Come out and show yourself.”

“I don’t think so. I like it where I am.” The laughter ran along his neck, and the hair there stood up. “I hope you have all your ducklings in a row before tomorrow. Because you’re going to die.”

“I will not die. And it’s ducks in a row, not ducklings.” The person laughed again, and he could have sworn that it was right behind him. Falling on his ass, he was pissed off when he stood up again when it laughed. “Who are you? You’re going to die tonight if you don’t show yourself.”

“If I show myself to you, I would expect to die. That’s why I’m not going to do it. You see how that works?” Growling, Damion let a bit of his beast go. It wasn’t much of a beast; even he knew that, but he knew it was going to be frightening to the voice. “You’re puny, aren’t you? I mean, is that the best you have? I’ve seen better beasts than you are. Even the woman could be a beast when she’s scared.”

“And she will be scared too. I’m going to kill her and then ransom her for some money from Smith.” He’d not meant to say his name. But he figured that if the voice knew her, he’d know the man too. “How do you like those ducks in a row?”