chapter Sixteen
Gwenna had ringing ears and a DVD on sexual positions in her possession when she went back to the casino, hoping Nate hadn't left yet. The only thing she had concluded from her meeting with Kelsey was that Ringo wasn't lacking for sexual satisfaction or creativity, both of which she could have done without knowing. For eternity, really. Kelsey was in no way afraid of her husband, despite Gwenna's attempts at hinting he was a loaded cannon. Nor did she seem to have any interest in leaving him. The only thing Gwenna could feel the least bit reassured about was that Ringo killed for money, not malice. If he was responsible for murdering the men on the slayers' loop, there was someone who had paid him to do it. That's who Gwenna wanted to uncover.
She was walking through the lobby, pulling her phone out so she could call Nate, when someone touched her arm.
"Excuse me."
"Yes?" Turning, she recognized the guy behind her. It was one of The Impalers. David Foster. The one she had sort of done a body grind behind when she'd been plastered on martinis before she'd been hauled offstage by a bouncer. An incident she'd just love to forget actually, though the follow-up sex with Nate had been lovely.
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" He had a friendly face, with a nice straight smile.
Gwenna gave a noncommittal shrug, embarrassed as hell. "I don't think so."
"Are you sure? I could have sworn…" Then he stuck out his hand. "Anyway, I'm David Foster."
"Gwenna Carrick. It's a pleasure."
His face lit up and he snapped his fingers. "That's where I know you from. You're Carrick's sister. Not that I've met him or anything, but he seems cool."
"Thanks, I like him well enough." Worried about Nate, Gwenna removed her hand from his and gave him a smile. "Well, I hate to dash off, but my boyfriend's not feeling well and I want to check on him."
"Sure, that's cool. I hope he feels better. Nice meeting you." David gave her a wave and took a step back. "And do yourself a favor, Gwenna, and stay away from Slash."
Gwenna stared at his back, heart pounding as she processed his words. "What?" she asked, but he was already gone, walking with vampire speed, brushing past mortals so quickly they would only notice a breeze and briefly wonder where it came from.
He knew about Slash. He knew she knew Slash. What the hell did that mean?
Rushing through the lobby at vamp speed herself, she headed for the pool, and just about collided with Nate coming into the hotel through the glass double doors.
The color was back in his face, but he didn't look good. He still had the look of a man about to lose his lunch at any given minute. There was a glaze of pain over his eyes that worried Gwenna. She wondered if his actually dying and returning to immortal life was somehow a bigger problem than she could have guessed. It had been her impression most mortals took to the change easily, but it was clear Nate wasn't.
"I need to talk to you," he said.
"Okay, let's go to my room." She tried to take his hand, but he pulled away. Hoping it was from his nausea and nothing more, she gestured to the pool. "I guess you were called to the murder. I can't believe there was another one already and that it's Gregor."
Nate was quickly moving toward the elevators, but he stopped and glanced at her. "It's amazing how all of you seem to know the victim's identity when that information hasn't been released. We're going upstairs and I want some answers, Gwenna."
It was certainly time for that. She nodded. "Yes, that's a good idea."
He said nothing else the whole way up, staring at the floor, holding his hand to his chest like he had a pain there. It made Gwenna feel horrific, guilty, appalled at what she had done, at how she had destroyed his life because she had been selfish enough to want his attentions, his affection, his normalcy. She didn't know where to start, how to explain.
But she thought she'd scream if the silence continued so she opened the door to her suite and said, "I want to tell you about the link I found between one of the loop members and a well-known hired assassin. Well, well-known in my circles, unfortunately. I think someone hired him to do these murders. Was Gregor killed in the same way?"
Nate nodded, looking wary, sticking his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. "Why do you know about assassins?"
"Between Ethan and Roberto, I know just about everyone that matters in our world, straight or not."
He gave a brief nod, than held up his finger. "Let's get to that in a minute. First, I want to discuss something else with you."
"What's that?" And did she really want to know? He looked downright furious.
"Come here." Nate gestured her to him, where he was standing by her console table. She kept fresh flowers and a stack of books there under a mirror that had come with the standard decor.
Not sure what he wanted, she did it automatically, eager to make whatever was going on right. Wanting Nate to be Nate again, looking at her with tenderness and respect. This attitude she didn't understand, didn't like.
He shoved the vase of flowers in her hand and spun her around. "Explain that to me."
She could see out of her peripheral vision that he was pointing to the mirror, but of course, she couldn't see his finger reflected in the glass. She couldn't see any part of either of them, just the flowers stable and steady even as they appeared to float in the air, nothing obvious maintaining them in place.
He knew.
"You have to keep an open mind as I tell you this." Carefully, she set the flowers down and turned to him, no idea how to proceed. "You know how you asked if I believe in vampires? Well, the answer is yes because I actually am a vampire."
His jaw twitched and he stared over her shoulder before locking eyes with her. "I'm one, too, aren't I? You made me a fucking vampire, didn't you? Why would you do that?"
Gwenna reached for his hand, but he didn't grip her back. "Nate, you have to understand… you were dead. That bullet went through your heart and you were dead almost instantly. And that was my fault. I was just trying to give you another chance… a choice. I'm so sorry that Roberto had you shot. I never dreamt he would do something so completely vicious."
"You should have told me you were a vampire. I thought you had some kind of eating disorder." He gave a laugh of disbelief and ran his hands through his hair. "God! This is insane. Vampires. They're not real, they're fuckin' bogeymen, made-up shit. Yet I can't see myself in the mirror and I crave blood. I drank it and it tasted so good, and now I want more. And I can feel what I think are fangs… they pop out whenever I think about blood, which has been about every second since I realized what I was drinking."
"I'm sorry." Gwenna gestured to the sofa. "Let's sit down, let's work through this. Ask me whatever you need to, and we'll get everything squared away. You'll get used to it… and I think, I hope, that being a vampire is more desirable than being dead. And there was no way I could tell you what I was initially. You would have had me committed."
Gwenna sat down but Nate made no move to. "Yeah, but why the hell did you turn me and then just leave me? I had to find out from Donatelli, your ex-husband, what exactly I am now."
Oh, no. Gwenna felt her cheeks get hot. "Roberto told you?"
"Yes. I think he totally got off on it, too. He's not happy you turned me, because you know his plan was to whack me to get me out of your life, but he did really enjoy being the one to explain to me why I was having trouble standing. Lack of blood."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to find out like that. I thought you'd sleep through the night so I wanted to come back here for some blood bags to feed you, and I needed to check on Kelsey. When I realized that her husband potentially was on the slayers' loop and could be responsible for the deaths, I wanted to see if she was okay and warn her." Gwenna paused, realizing her words were just tumbling out. She needed to get a grip on her emotions, slow down, not panic. Nate would understand. She just needed to be calm, not defensive. She was no longer timid Gwenna, and damn it, she had reasons for why she'd done what she had. There was justification there. And she had to remember and trust and believe that Roberto's actions were not her fault. He had killed Nate, not her.
"Show me your fangs," Nate demanded, still standing in front of her.
Gwenna looked up at him from the sofa. "You don't want me to do that."
"Yes, I do. I need to see."
"Nate." She tucked her hair back, miserable, wishing she had been bolder and bit him sooner, shown him her true nature during pleasure, not like this.
"Show me, Gwenna. I have to see." He looked so agitated, she realized she had to do it.
"Fine." Opening her mouth, she gave a quick flash of her fangs, not even allowing them time to fully descend.
"Have you ever bitten me?"
"No!" Gwenna was offended, until she remembered the little love bite she'd taken. "Just once. And not to feed. It was while we were… I just wanted to taste you, feel you completely."
"Who are you?" Nate asked, looking at her with such profound hurt that she wanted to weep. "I don't know anything about you at all."
"Yes, you do. You don't know details, but you know me, Nate. I'm the same Gwenna you understood me to be this afternoon. The woman you said you were falling in love with." Bringing up that little confession right at the moment might be horrific timing, but Gwenna didn't want to lose the opportunity to remind him of what he felt. She did not want to lose him, period.
"But you're a vampire, with a very long past. How long?"
"I was born in England in the eleventh century. Ethan is my half-brother, and he turned me to vampire when I almost bled to death in childbirth."
Nate stared at her, cop face on. It was disconcerting the way he could completely shutter his emotions. She didn't really have any true gauge of his feelings.
"So your daughter, the one who accidentally fell on a sword, was born hundreds of years ago?"
"Yes. And she didn't accidentally fall on a sword. She lived to the age of twenty-five, then she killed herself with a sword so Ethan or I wouldn't change her to vampire." Saying the words out loud was painful, but Gwenna wanted Nate to understand she had kept the truth from him because there had no way to be honest without him declaring her insane. It had never been from malice or plain old dishonesty, but out of necessity. "It was a different time period then. She thought Ethan and I were an aberration, that we were evil."
That cracked Nate's mask. "I'm sorry, Gwenna."
She gave him a brief smile. "Yeah, me, too. I've lived a lot of years wishing I could alter the past, wishing that my daughter was still with me, wishing that she hadn't shown fear of me in the end, but I've learned to deal with it. I wouldn't say I'm entirely at peace but I'm getting there. And I'm learning to be more independent, to spend less time alone."
Nate sighed. "I want to be angry with you. I want to be furious. But I look at you… I see that look in your eyes and I can't do it. I can't stay angry, even when you lied to me because I know that you only do what you think is right. You're a good woman, and you'd never hurt me intentionally."
Hope swelled in her. "No, I absolutely wouldn't. I… I love you, Nate. And I haven't told a single man those words since my divorce, which was three hundred years ago."
Nate's head was pounding, brain struggling to keep up and process all he was uncovering. While he heard Gwenna's declaration of love, it was her latter words that made him give a laugh of disbelief. "Three hundred years since your divorce? God, that's insane. And the asshole is still giving you crap. That's just not right."
It wasn't right. And Nate was a vampire. That wasn't right either. The very thought messed with his head. Though he knew it was true. He could feel the changes in himself, see the sharpness and clarity of objects around him, hear with a focus and subtlety that were new. He could smell every nuance of people and the world around him. Feel his fangs. Crave blood.
Scary as hell, that's what it was. But at the same time, he knew he wouldn't have wanted to die. He was more selfish and controlling than Kyra. His sister had accepted her fate with grace and dignity and Nate had admired her, had been in awe of her. He knew that he could never have just accepted death without wanting to fight, that he had the sense that he hadn't finished what he needed to accomplish in his life.
So he would accept his vampire fate. Eventually he would probably have to thank Gwenna for it. But at the moment he was too busy processing information and sensory input to appreciate that he should reassure her, tell her how he felt in return. Because he still cared about Gwenna, wanted to be with her. Even more now that he understood just how long she had been battling her ex-husband and her grief for her daughter.
But Gwenna just shrugged. "Roberto is Roberto. Though tonight I think he and I finally reached an understanding. He just may be sufficiently angry to stop speaking to me indefinitely." She stood up and came over to him. Her hand slipped into his. "I'm just sorry that it took me so long to stand up to him, to be honest with him. Because if I had done so sooner, you would still be mortal."
She looked so sad, so worried, that Nate touched her cheek. He couldn't stand a woman in tears, and she looked damn close to losing it. The last thing he wanted was for Gwenna to take this on and own it. "This isn't your fault. Don't ever say that. You didn't have me shot. Donatelli did."
"I got you involved."
"No, I got involved because there was a murderer running around killing people. You're not responsible for those deaths on the slayers' loop either. You haven't done anything wrong. You and I chose to be together, chose to hook up because we both wanted to. End of story."
Her blue eyes stared up at him, her long eyelashes wet with her unshed tears. "Is that the end of the story? We hooked up, and that's it?"
A tear squeezed out and slid down her cheek. A red tear. Blood. Nate felt his throat close. He loved her. He did. That had to be what this was, even as he doubted it, a nasty little fear that he was wrong, that he was wanting her to be something she wasn't, wanting what was between them to be real when it wasn't. He wasn't one hundred percent sure of her, him, or what the hell love really was, but there was one thing he'd never question. He wanted Gwenna safe and he would protect her from anything, anyone. Even himself. But right now, he just wanted to hold her, to feel her against him. "No, that's not it."
Gathering her in his arms, Nate pulled her close and kissed her forehead, her temple, her cheek. "Blood tears. Do we all do that?"
"No." She shook her head against his chest, her body still stiff and unsure. "Only a few of us. Kelsey and I can do it, but no one else in Vegas that I know of."
"So you're special."
"Not so much."
Nate tipped her chin up. "You're special to me. I want to be with you, Gwenna. I want to love you."
He kissed her tenderly, enjoying the way her soft lips parted for him. His tongue was more sensitive, more attune to her unique taste. She was delicious. His. Just as he felt the urge to bite her, she pulled back.
"Good. Because I was determined to convince you we need to be together, but the truth of the matter is I don't really have time to do that right now. We have a problem."
Nate almost laughed, but she looked so serious, he didn't. "This is about the murders, isn't it? Tell me everything you know. Absolutely everything this time."
An hour later, he had requested a pad of paper and pen from Gwenna and was trying to sort out everything they knew. "The vampire world is very small, isn't it? We have the same players turning up over and over again."
"That's true." Gwenna was sitting next to him on the couch, her laptop computer balancing on her knees.
"So here's what I have. Ringo—hired assassin, worked in the past for Donatelli. Drug user. Ethan—your brother, president of vampires." That sort of blew Nate's mind. He had never considered that vampires could be real, let alone organized. Though truthfully, everything was blowing his mind. He was almost grateful for the murders to concentrate on. Homicide he understood.
Going down his list, he said, "Ethan is enemies with Donatelli, who is now VP because it was the only way for Ethan to win the election against Gregor Chechikov. Gregor, who is now dead and being hauled to the morgue as we speak." Nate made a notation on his paper next to Gregor's name. Dead. "How does a vampire die?"
"Decapitation. Wood stake to the heart. Complete burning. That's it. And technically a full draining of blood without replenishing it but I'm not sure how one vampire would overpower another long enough to do that without using one of these other methods first."
"Well, someone did it to Gregor, because the dead was definitely dead. I saw him. Smelled him."
Gwenna stopped clicking her mouse—she had said she was going to check the slayers' loop—and glanced at him. "The thing is that Gregor had been a vampire for a long time, but he was turned back to mortal recently. It would have been easy enough to kill him, if you knew he was mortal, which almost no one did, because he's been in hiding. As vampires we know immediately who is mortal and who is vamp, so Gregor had been staying far away from the public eye."
"Yet you knew he was mortal?" And how the hell did a vampire just become mortal again?
"Yes, because his mortality was returned to him by Corbin Atelier, Brittany's husband, against Gregor's will. It was his punishment for kidnapping Brittany when she was pregnant and plotting to steal her child. Corbin thought giving him weakness as a punishment was fitting for a man who would do such an appalling thing to a woman."
"That is appalling. And obviously someone wanted him dead." Nate glanced at Gwenna's screen. She had a message clicked and opened to read. "But how does a vampire become mortal?"
"Corbin created a vaccine. But it's a secret not meant for the vampire population at large. It could precipitate mass panic and protests."
"And your brother doesn't want that?"
"No one wants that. We're safer when we stick together and keep our population under control."
"So is a vampire killing slayers off the loop a coincidence or not?"
"I don't know." Gwenna gestured to the screen. "But I have another e-mail from Slash. He wants to meet me tonight at the Bellagio in front of the club."
That bothered Nate. A lot. He really didn't want Gwenna involved in this any more than she already was. "I don't think so."
Gwenna frowned. "But we need to know who Slash is." Then she grabbed his arm. "Oh, shit, I just remembered. I was heading to the pool to find you when I ran into David Foster, the bass player from The Impalers. He said the most cryptic thing to me as I was leaving—that I shouldn't meet Slash in person."
"Have you ever talked to him about Slash before? Is David Foster on the loop?"
"Not that I know of. I'd never even met David Foster before the concert, and I didn't really meet him that night either."
"What kind of motivation might he have for wanting slayers killed?"
"I have no idea. But he can't be the killer. That doesn't even make sense. I personally think it's Sasha, Gregor's wife."
"But you said she's mortal."
"But a gigantic bitch. Kelsey said she tried to kill Ringo tonight with absolutely no reason behind it. She stabbed him through the heart with a wooden stake, and the only thing that saved him was Kelsey's intervention. Don't you think it's odd that a woman who married a vampire would attempt to kill another vampire?"
"What did Kelsey do to Sasha?" Nate had no problem picturing Kelsey ripping Sasha's head off. Kelsey had acted like a dipshit the time he'd met her, but he had sensed that she was loyal to those she loved. Loyal enough to kill. In fact, almost everyone they had mentioned or put on Nate's list was probably capable of murder given the right reason.
"I don't know." Gwenna shrugged. "I didn't ask. But I think Sasha is FoxyKyle and I think she hired Ringo to kill those boys and kill her husband."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I have no facts to back me up on this, Nate. Just my gut instincts. There is a relationship between Ringo and Sasha of some sort, obviously, and he is an assassin. And if she's on the loop, she had access to everyone who volunteered a real name. I can't imagine what her motivation is, but it just seems like she is the odd piece to this puzzle. Why the hell is she hanging around vampires, anyway? It's rare for a vampire to marry a mortal and then involve her in the vampire world."
"Gut instinct is right more often than not and I don't have enough information here. I feel like my head is racing to keep up since I've jumped in mid-action. I don't know the players the way that you do." Nate found that frustrating as well. "I'm going to trust you on this one. But who is Slash then and why does he want to meet you?"
"God, I don't know. It just doesn't seem like Ringo's brand of behavior, and I've never thought he was the sort to hang out online. And in the last week or so, he's been in a constant heroin haze according to Kelsey. I can't believe he was ambitious enough to plot all those meetings with me."
"I don't know, babe, I just don't know. But I guess if we want answers, we're going to have to show up for that meeting with Slash at the Bellagio."
"You're going to go with me?" she asked.
"Hell, yes."
"You know that it's not easy to kill me. That's why I was willing to meet Slash before. I wasn't being quite the dumb blonde you thought I was being." She gave him a small smile. "I could overpower any mortal murderer."
He was really not convinced. "While I am grateful to know that you weren't continually walking into danger with mortal strength, no weapon, and zero self-defense skills, I don't think vampire speed and strength alone could keep you out of a tight spot with a mortal who's cunning. You may think you're a tough girl, and I would have to say emotionally, yes, you're tough as goddamn nails, but you've already admitted to me you spend the majority of your time online, reading, or playing the harp and piano. Not exactly skills that can help you take down a psychotic vampire slayer."
She glared at him. But hell, he was only telling it to her straight up. Gwenna was not badass. Sorry. And truthfully, he liked her damn fine the way she was, and didn't really think he would appreciate her getting hard and vicious on him.
"You do know I have control issues, don't you? I have spent my entire life having men—specifically two men—try to control everything I do. I will not tolerate that from you."
Whoa. Back up. Nate held up his hand. "Hey, hey. I am not trying to control you, Gwenna. I don't work like that. But you've already pointed out that I'm a black-and-white kind of guy. That's true and I can't change it." In fact, he liked that about himself. It made it easier to deal with all the crap he saw on the job. "And what I'm telling you is that you're not experienced in dealing with criminals."
"I lived with one for three hundred years," she said wryly.
Nate winced. God. Three hundred years with Donatelli. Living with him. Sleeping with him. That really, really bothered him. It was strange and overwhelming enough to accept that Gwenna was a vampire, nine centuries old, that it wasn't a myth or a ghost story, but true, and she lived, normal and healthy, in the flesh. Not evil, not a bloodsucking zombie, but as a compassionate and loving woman. Who had spent a hell of a lot of years with a guy Nate wanted to throw in jail and then eat the key. Yeah, that bothered him.
It also bothered him that his entire world had shifted on its freakin' axis in one week.
"So that makes you capable of taking down bad guys with your bare hands?"
"That's not the only thing bothering you, is it?" she asked, her hand moving over onto his thigh, thumb stroking the denim of his jeans at the kneecap.
Maybe it wasn't. Nate studied her, tried to pinpoint his anxiety. "I don't know. It's just that everything has changed. This is all so unbelievable." He felt like he was dreaming, or maybe more accurately like he was shit-faced drunk, where everything was sharp and buzzing, and the world moved fast and loud around him, and he was spinning, just spinning around and around and unable to make it stop.
Gwenna didn't say anything, just gave his leg a little squeeze.
She was so beautiful, so ethereal. Now he understood that better, her intriguing mix of fragility and strength. She had been born in a century with poor nutrition and inadequate medical care, and her physical features reflected that. She was slight and fair, with big luminous eyes that dominated her face. Yet despite her appearance, her quiet demeanor, she had an intangible and unshakable strength. Gwenna had been through a lot and she was still standing.
Nate wasn't sure that he could say what he needed to without hurting her. But he was confused as hell, and it wasn't fair not to be totally honest with her.
"No, that's not the only thing bothering me. Everything's bothering me. This is all so insane… my sister, my parents, you, vampires… I have all these feelings, but what if I can't trust them? What if it's just some kind of reaction to all the stress?" Okay, that sounded wimpy as hell, but it was the truth. Nate didn't trust himself, period. He was a fucking wreck and big enough to admit that.
"You're talking about your feelings for me, aren't you?" Her voice was quiet, expression hurt.
He nodded. "Among other things." But primarily his feelings for her. He thought he loved her. How could that be real? They had only known each other a week and she had lied to him. He had gone in with the assumption she was someone other than who she was. So how did he know if he loved the real Gwenna or not? "You have to admit this is complicated. We've both been through a lot and we should take the time to make sure that…"
Nate stopped. He didn't even know what the hell he was saying. And given the look on Gwenna's face, she didn't either.