Bad Mouth

chapter Twenty


“Alice, I’m so glad you’re still here.” Val grabbed the woman’s wrist and led the way to her office. She pushed her assistant into the wide leather chair in front of her desk.

Alice pouted, her plump lips forming a frown. “I have a ton of work to do. A ton, Val. What has gotten into you?”

“This is more important than what you’re working on.” Val sat at her desk across from Alice and rubbed her hands over her face. She hadn’t gotten more than two hours of sleep, and it was hitting her hard. “I have some things to tell you, and I want you to swear to secrecy. You have to because I really need your help. First of all, where’s Graham?”

“I thought he’s been with you.”

“Alice, I haven’t seen Graham in two days.” Suddenly, Val’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t checked up with him. Graham would have wanted to hover over her while she dealt with Kade. “Have you heard from him at least?” Maybe he’d taken the hint that he’d been too heavy-handed with her.

“No. You?”

Val shook her head. “Two nights ago I found him here in the office late. He never did explain why. I’ll call him as soon as we’re done.” Though she wanted to race to Graham’s apartment immediately, she had to speak to Alice. Maybe she was overreacting, but her instincts screamed foul play. Turning her mind to the problem at hand, Val explained everything she’d learned about the shady transformations. Alice’s jaw dropped.

“How the hell could any of this happen?”

“I don’t know. But I need you to take someone with you and interrogate Ginger, and if you have time, interrogate Jenna also. I really wanted Graham with you, but I’ll have to track him down. I wonder if he’s working on a private case.”

“He always tells us when he’s representing someone.” Alice twirled her finger around a dark lock, the hair having fallen around her face again. “This is so unlike him.”

“I know, and that worries me. I’ll call him. Maybe go by his place.”

That late night in the office had been the first in a week where she and Graham had been at ease with each other. There’d been none of the tension created by their visit with the Ancients and subsequent meetings with Kade. He hadn’t seemed anxious or stressed, nor had he mentioned any new cases. They’d actually been on good terms when they’d parted, and he hadn’t brought up the topic of taking leave. Or had he? With everything that had happened since then, she honestly couldn’t remember if he’d mentioned a leave of absence or not.

“Check the hospitals?” Alice cringed as she said those words. Not much else would keep Graham away from work.

While Alice rounded up an interrogation partner, Val called Graham, but it went to voice mail. She’d half expected that, but it tied her in knots anyway. He hadn’t left any messages for her in her e-mail or in her voice mail. She caught a cab to his apartment, but no one answered there. If only she knew how to pick locks. Instead, she found the landlord. The frail, old man put up resistance, but eventually capitulated and let her into the apartment. It was empty.

Could Kade have harmed Graham? He’d seemed angry enough with her friend, and soon after his latest bout of anger, Graham had disappeared. The possibility was remote, but she had to be sure.

The cab ride to Kade’s took too long, and she fidgeted the whole way while calling area hospitals. Nothing. Graham had disappeared with no trail to follow.

After paying the cabbie, she looked up at the sky. It was early evening, and the sun still lingered. Kade wasn’t likely to be awake at this hour.

He didn’t answer his door at first. She pounded on it for a good five minutes before it swung open. She pushed past and whirled toward him. He shut the door, but leaned back heavily against it, looking half-dead and drugged with his hair tousled and his eyes at half-mast. He wore only navy sleep pants, barefoot and shirtless.

“Val.” That was all he said before he slid to the floor, his head lolling back on the door. She’d never seen a vampire afflicted by the sun. She saw now how it could kill a brand-new vampire who wasn’t as strong as Kade.

“Kade?”

He didn’t answer. His red eyes were glassy. With a grunt, he tried to stand but ended up rolling onto all fours instead. “Are you all right?” he slurred.

“No. Are you drunk?”

“No, but I’ll pass out if I don’t get out of the sun.” He half dragged himself toward the hallway. She bent to get under his arm.

“Oh, jeez. You’re heavy.” With a heave, she lifted with all her strength. By the time they reached the hallway, which was as far as she could make it, her arms shook with the effort. He sat on the floor while his gaze grew more alert. She leaned against the wall across from him, catching her breath.

“What happened? Did someone harm you?” The red of his eyes lit the dark.

“Did you do something to Graham?”

“Did I—he’s missing?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know. You threatened him.”

“Threatening and doing are two different things, and I can’t exactly blame the guy for falling in love with you. Honestly, Val, I haven’t seen the douchebag since we left Ptolomy’s house.”

“I don’t know if you have an honest bone in your body. Maybe one of your thugs took care of him for you so you could say that without lying.”

“My thugs?” The red glow brightened. “They’re not mafia hit men. They’re doing their jobs, protecting and serving. I do my own f*cking dirty work, and I wouldn’t kill someone, especially that douchebag human, over a fit of jealousy.”

That stopped Val in her tracks. Jealousy? Wouldn’t that involve love or at least caring? Then again, people got jealous over their possessions, too. With a sigh, she slumped against the wall. She had to admit Kade was the kind of man who’d face an adversary personally rather than send a minion, Wallace being the special case, and he appeared genuinely surprised and affronted by her accusations. So maybe she’d jumped the gates on his guilt, but if he had nothing to do with Graham’s disappearance, she had no other leads.

“I can’t find him. He’s been missing for two days.” She hadn’t noticed his absence. He could be dying somewhere or dead already.

Kade must have seen her anguish because he swung his large body across the hallway and settled against the wall next to her. He wrapped his arm behind her shoulders and pulled her against his side. The male scent of him wrapped her up in an envelope of warm spice and memories she did her best to overlook.

“I’ll help you find him. Did you check the hospitals?” he asked. She nodded against his shoulder. He drove the cold from her chest, and she couldn’t bring herself to pull away from him like she should. “I assume you checked his place already. Was his car there?”

She lifted her head. “I didn’t think to look.”

“That’s all right.” He pressed her head back to his shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for. I have resources and training you don’t. I’ll have Luc check Graham’s e-mails and phone calls. If there’s anything to find, he’ll get it. He’s really good at all that tech bullshit. Guns can check if that ass-ugly car’s at the apartment. If it’s not, he can put out an APB on it. Good to have a police officer on the team. It comes in handy.” He absently stroked her hair as he talked. She closed her eyes and took the comfort. Selfish, but she needed him so badly right now. Deep down, she’d known Kade hadn’t been involved in Graham’s disappearance, but it had given her a reason to come to him. “Once night falls, Ezra and I and the Trackers will take over the hunt. No one gets away from the Trackers. We’ll find him, Val. Don’t you worry about that.”

But in what condition? That tore her up the most. She couldn’t bear it if they found him dead. First Will and now…she couldn’t even continue the thought. “Could it have been those Goth Slavers?” she asked in a strangled voice.

“No. Declan took care of them night before last. They won’t be kidnapping anyone or feeding humans to anyone anymore.”

“But Graham was missing before then.”

“They would’ve had records, and he wasn’t in them. I don’t know how the douche—Graham—would have gotten on their radar in the first place.”

“He was investigating the bloodings. That’s related.”

“Trust me, Val. If he was involved in any way, we would know. We would have found him already.” He cupped her cheek and tipped her face up to his. “I know you don’t want to consider this, but is there any chance, however slight, that he wanted to become?”

She gasped. “No! Not in a million years.”

“He didn’t like vampires? I know he didn’t like me, but that was a territorial thing. In general, though, he didn’t like us?”

Graham had spouted lovey-dovey vampire sentiment since meeting the Ancients a few days ago. Before then, she would have ruled it out. Now, she wasn’t so sure. “I think he did, but not enough to transform, especially through illegal means. He knows too well what happens to illegal transformations, and he had no application submitted.”

“All right. Then we assume he was taken by force.”

“I don’t know which is worse.”

He slid his hand lazily up and down her arm. “I can’t believe you thought I’d harm the man. Do you think so little of me?”

“I didn’t know what to think. He doesn’t have enemies that I know of, except for you sort of.” When she looked up at him, his eyes had dimmed, his face still and solemn. Did how she saw him matter that much to him? “I guess I doubted you had anything to do with this, but I had to know.”

“I know you have a thing against vampires. It’s why you wrote that legislation, isn’t it?”

She stiffened. “L-legislation?”

“Yes, I know about that. What I can’t figure out is why you hate us so much that you’d try to destroy my entire race.”

“It’s not meant to destroy a race. It’s only to protect mine.”

“To protect humans from their own choices? No one is forced into transformation, not even the illegal ones.”

“The humans are slaves. You can’t deny that. I’ve seen it myself.” Maybe he was too old and entrenched in his society to see the suffering the subjugates went through before they transformed. Then again, he had so much against humans, he probably didn’t care in the least.

“Their service isn’t slavery, Val. There’s a purpose for it. They have to follow our laws. They must learn their roles, or they won’t survive. Our society isn’t a democracy. It’s led by royalty, those with a direct bloodline to the original race. If they can’t learn our customs and our governing system, they face execution. We won’t accept someone only to have them end up with that fate.”

Put that way, it sounded reasonable, but many subjugates waited years for the transformation. Some never got there, dying in their old age before it ever happened for them. Seemed like slavery to her. “How do you explain the ones who wait their entire lives and aren’t transformed?”

“They have the right to decline transformation at any time. No one is locked in after their application is approved. Some choose to wait but never understand our culture. If they can’t fit in, they’re never scheduled. But always, they’re counseled on their shortcomings and offered a way out.”

She shifted against him. Now that he’d pointed it out, she realized the application wasn’t like a contract. But it had seemed illogical that anyone would wait for something that wouldn’t happen. “How did I never see this?”

“Maybe you didn’t want to see. Did you ever ask anyone? It’s not exactly something we keep secret from humans.”

She had never asked, only assumed. Now that Kade explained the subjugation, it made a lot of sense.

“Val, my experiences aside, most vampires love their subjugates. These are people who, barring a failure to adjust, will be our companions for centuries, the ones who stave away our loneliness. Can you imagine living so long only to watch everyone around you die? We want nothing more than for the subjugates to succeed, to be the vampires we’d spend our endless lifetime with.”

She thought of Selene, how worried she’d been over her subjugate’s fate. She thought of Ptolomy’s affectionate, though inappropriate, handling of his nymph. His servant seemed to adore him despite his womanizing ways. The woman wouldn’t have reacted that way if he’d mistreated her during her service. She thought of everything she’d seen and condemned throughout her time with the VLO, this time seeing through a lens shaped by Kade’s knowledge.

Val shook her head. “I’ve been a narrow-minded xenophobe.”

“You just had a bad experience. You know now, and you can ask about it all you want. I don’t mind, though I’m not the best person to learn from. You should talk to Ezra. He treats his subjugates like royalty, too much so. He’s going to piss off the Ancients one of these days. Hell, some of them die because of it. That’s what happens if you don’t train them right. He’s let more Legion get executed than anyone.”

She shot him a shocked glance. “Ezra?”

“Yes. He holds the record, but he loves them too much to deny them. I told you it’s deadly to schedule them too soon. Waiting for the right time is more for their benefit than ours. And you have to train them properly following the transformation, when they’re still susceptible to derangement. That’s a huge responsibility for an adjuvant, partly why we’re held in such high regard in our culture. Even Legion adjuvants are treated more like Dominorum. The general public has no problem training subjugates, but they want no part of the adjuvant’s job after transformation.”

“I can’t believe there’s so much I didn’t know.”

“You came into this with an agenda. Sometimes that makes you overlook what’s in front of you.” He tapped her nose, a smile tugging at his mouth. Lord, she didn’t want to melt like she did with him, but she was helpless. He’d done so much to absolve her. It felt too good, but she had to let herself pay the price for being insular. And that impetuous legislation. It wasn’t a solution. Hell, now she wasn’t sure there was a problem to be solved. She’d been incredibly off the mark but didn’t know how to stop the law she’d pushed for.

“We should get up.”

He groaned. “It’s daylight, damn you.”

“Sorry about that. I was too worried to wait.” She couldn’t stop herself from stroking his stubble-roughened cheek. “But you have some calls to make.”

He did as she asked, but grumbled the whole time. While he made his calls in his bedroom, she ducked into the restroom. Cold water on her face made her feel better and a bit more presentable. Her eyes were a little bloodshot. The lack of sleep was going to kill her, but she had another late night ahead of her. She couldn’t rest until she knew whether Graham was dead or alive.